Interlude: Ka’l The Red

Interlude: Ka'l The Red

I'm sorry for any mistakes, please. I will give it a once-over tonight at work.

Lance Xu York 

Lance gulped as he and the team entered the house. He was starting to regret his decision, but he needed to get access to his younger cousin. He knew coming out with that fact wouldn't work, especially after what he had learned in the weeks he'd been part of the team. 

'Jeremy York was The Abbott. A vigilante who had helped out throughout the city.' He still couldn't fathom how he had changed his appearance. 

"L-Lets set up here." He called out, drawing the group back to him. 

"I hope this works." A blonde teen lamented as others continued to look over their backs. 

Lance swallowed. "Definitely going to work. Jeremy York stamp of approval." 

"Yeah. He should have gotten Red Hood's help. You heard too, right?" 

Lance quirked a brow at the girl. "Heard what, exactly?" 

She looked askance at him. She thought he was some team lead as she set up the focus rod, tapping it to wait for the ring. 

"He has Red Hood in his back pocket. Some techie guys said he had him whoop The Hand that ambushed him."

Lance stood bolt upright and shouted. "What?" 

The group jumped at his voice, and he lowered it to a whisper; nobody wanted a ghost to hear after all. "He knows the Red Hood? You sure?" 

They all shrugged after glancing around for a second. "That's what we heard. Nobody's spilling the beans. Those contracts are magical, too. I've got a girlfriend who has the talent." She made the gesture of zipping her lip, and the other member played at hanging himself. 

Lance felt sweat roll down his back. 'Shit. I have the talent, too. I couldn't tell it was a magical thought.' He groaned as he straightened his back, placing the last crystal rod in position. 

Before he could ask more questions, his comms activated, and the taciturn close confidant of his cousin's gruff voice shouted. 

"Brace." 

Lance acted as they were trained, got in a circle, and began chanting. If this was to work, they needed to separate her from her plane, and then it was up to the big gun to capture her. 

Kaecillus

Greenwich Village, New York.

Many miles away from the contemplating Cole, Kaecillus, his First Lantern, was unraveling years of wards and weakening the seal on the prison of a demon that has haunted the land for countless generations. 

Something that no mystic Kamr-Taj would have attempted, breaking barriers of ancient shamans to allow a demoness more access into their plane. Foolish? Only if one lacked weakness. Hadn't Agamotto done the same? He brokered deals with outer entities and looked at his successor, using the magic of the dark dimension to prolong her life, and for what, to painstakingly pick a disciple whose future she could map with certainty? 

Kaecillus scoffed. The mountains of fools were more a zealot than he ever was and redoubled his efforts. A hidden part of him bubbled to the surface, that part that craved power. 

"It's fitting that they can wield a demon's magic.' He hadn't even questioned why his lord wanted the demonic powers

Shatter. His mystical beckoning had been answered. Ancient Wards shattered almost immediately. The cracking was almost like glass cracking in a downward spiral. 

"Brace!" He shouted into the annoying device in his ear. He hated science, but his master adored it. He revealed in many fields that his powers seemed to grow over days instead of years like most. 'The way he wielded magic was awe-inspiring. He had cast Bands of Cytorakk against the current incarnation of the phoenix. I can't forget that Rashamon spell. With such defensive capabilities.' Kaecillus hesitated to ask for the details but relented and was shocked to learn it wasn't a spell per-se but a sort of bloodline magic.

'Nature releases, it sounded almost like those Shinto practitioners.' Kaecillus needed to learn his affinity, something he hoped he had, and to learn to sense his chi, something he was familiar with as a master of the arts. 

Chaos energies exploded into the area. He shuddered, the backlash blowing through him. Sniff. Sulfur? He cast his eyes around the grounds. Autonomically, he was covered in a red force field. The attack happened almost instantly. A clawed fist slammed into his left side, shattering his construct, sending him thrashing across the grounds—his passing carving groves in the already disarrayed ground. Hellfire bombarded him like tank rounds. He was flung through the inner wall before embedding it into the outer walls. 

"Ahhhh… such nasty blood." Hissed his attacker. 

Cough. Blood splattered at the corner of his mouth. The foul substance that granted him a new lease on life burned the overgrown grass and cast toxic fumes. The old him would have perished if not been in a broken heap. Screams emanated inside the cursed townhouse. 'Useless,' he shouted in his mind. He could sense the fear emanating from the team, a bunch of green recruits who didn't understand the blessing bestowed upon them. 

Kaecillus shot from the rubble of the outer wall, being carried aloft by his ring. 

"Kukuku. This power, this anger, the rage." 

A line of hellfire drove toward him out of nowhere. Illusions? He gestured with his hands and shouted, "May the Shield of the Seraphim protect me." Green runic circles appeared before, meeting the charge of the fire. 

He raised his ring, and the beam of red energy encapsulated the townhouse. The notion was relatively easy for him, as the ring had been like a missing limb; its mechanization came quickly. 

"You seek to protect the morsels; Mistress will dine today. Such delectable souls this time—much better than the newborns." 

He grimaced at the mention of the children. "Foul demon, If the master didn't require your lady, I would banish you from this plane. 

Screams emerged from the townhouse. 'Your death is for the master; die knowing you were worthy.' 

"Kuku… I lied. Me, can be in multiple places at once. Mhmmm." 

Kaecillus growled before he weaved his hands through the air, red plasma trailing in his wake. He intoned. "Be undone.."

The land was spelled long before the natives had sealed away the demoness. 'Chthlon plots were bared to him as he recognized the Elder God of Black Magic.' 

"Show yourself, deceiver." He shouted. 

"Mortal calls upon the Mistress of Chaos. Kukukuku." Tyanon Familiar had emerged; hellfire batted against the on-red energy cloak that sustained him. 

"Demon spawn, I seek an audience with your mistress, not to dawdle with you lower orders cretins." 

The imp's head cocked to the side. "Kukuku. You're a mere familiar, not unlike me; Mistress adores me, but your master has sent you here to perish; all of you will feed her and further weaken the wards you so graciously subverted." 

'New York is a cursed place; it's by design that so much stuff occurs here. Don't be surprised if demons and other supernaturals wander around,' Kaecillus recalled his master's words. 

The imp's head cocked to the side. "Kukuku. You're a mere familiar, not unlike me; Mistress adores me, but your master has sent you here to perish; all of you will feed her and further weaken the wards you so graciously subverted." 

Kaecilluss attacked. Winds of Watoomb blasted from his hand, Chains for Cytotakk, pulses of Ashtur; the imp weathered the attack, cackling in glee. 

"Is that it, little magician? Could you show this one the power of that ring? The Mistress is interested. The ring is an anomaly—another dimension perhaps—and yes, the Mistress would like this. 

Golden Mandelas swirled around his hands as he floated above the ground. A red dot pulsated in his blue iris when he opened his eyes.

"This isn't a normal demoness." He grunted out. 

As a highly adept sorcerer, he was familiar with demonic figures. He knew some that were sealed away, unable to be banished because of their powers, but he hadn't known that a Chaos demon was right under their noses. 

Energies battered against each other as the former mystic hands weaved and eaved in intricate patterns. The imp rebounded off his forcefield, skidding back. The beast leaped away, leaving a gout of hellfire to surround him. 

Strong…

"I seek not to ensnare you demoness but to parlay." He said 

Cackle…

Out of the hellfire, the apparition of his departed wife appeared. Promises, all but lies, only the master could grant him his wish, a wish he had sold his soul for once, whole again because of the master's will. He had seen what the young master could do, and he knew inside his spoiled heart that it was possible; everything was possible. 

Madness… 

'And there it was! Yes. The man known as Kaecillus was mad. He was extremely mad. His madness had broiled inside him at the injustice of the world. His family had been taken from him. His rage spewed forth—he wanted it to burn…'

"Deceitful demoness." He growled. 

Then Burn it…. 

Free me…. 

Powers, the deepest, darkest of magics…

Yours… 

Free…

"My master…" 

Your family…

Pink demonic energy suffused him. Kaecillus found himself in his old home. His wife enraptured him with a warm hug. He wept, his tears of blood burning the very illusion, but the man didn't notice. His spoiled heart slowed, and the anger, resentment, and Hatred became naught. 

"I'm home." He wept. 

Don't leave me again, love. Stay. 

Tyanon, a demoness of the chaos dimension, emerged, leeching away at the surroundings. The howling winds grew louder as storm clouds appeared overhead. 

"How long has it been, hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of years, since she smelled the mortal plane? Trapped underneath this dreadful place, her powers tapped against the naturally forming leylines, making her escape impossible. Over the years, she created a familiar, trapped soul. She allowed it to do her bidding, be her mouth and eyes as she arrayed herself of the mortal world.

She laughed loudly as she morphed from a three-meter demoness into a tall woman of native ancestry. Her long black hair spayed against her nuder back as she stood at the precipice of her escape. 

"Foolish humans.' The world's natural borders had been weakened, allowing her to push more of herself on the plane undetected, unlike her brethren. She would rule the world and make the humans grovel for a millennium at their insolence. 

A read gleam caught her pink eyes in the hellish sphere of fire. She smiled and beckoned the object; her attention beckoned to her hand. She marveled at the instrument of potent power. 

"Fitting adornment for a ruler." She brought the ring toward her finger, unbeknownst to the little imp returning from hiding from the mystics' attacks. 

Kaecillus burned, his forcefield shattered. Tears of blood poured from his eyes, carving grooves in his face, giving him a macabre countenance. Flesh tore from his bones, and he dropped to the ground as the hellfire burned him away. 

"Kukuku… Burn with your daughter; burn with her." 

His daughter had appeared before him, and his wife's apparition hadn't made him budge. But looking upon his creation burning alongside him had brought pain he hadn't thought possible. He growled, his teeth clenched, and his heart erupted, blazing in red light. 

Nooo… Foolish creature

A lantern appeared above the inferno, its read light aglow, casting away the darkness and the pink mists as the light shown on two figures. 

"What manner of power is this? Embodiment of Rage, Hate, anger, despair…" Tyanon had not felt such energies before. It almost drew from a fundamental concept that did not exist. 

The ring flew into the inferno, and a howl of rage and madness emanated out of the conflagration. "With Blood and rage of crimson red, ripped from a corpse so freshly dead, together with our hellish Hatred, we will burn you all. That is your world fate."

Kaecilius had allowed his rage to swallow him. Damn them all. Damn this world. Damn THIS DEMON! He roared and erupted in red light. His mouth opened, and for the first time, the plasmoid blood spewed from him. The area burned, the air hissed, and the ground splintered. The imp jumped back but was too slow and was hit; he exploded into pieces. 

"Insolent man…Kneel Kaecillus." 

"Ka'l The Red demoness." 

Tyanon hissed and stepped back, but red chains shot from the blazing red fiend ensnaring her. 

Shatter…the plasmoid blood hit the portal and cracked it. 

Tyanon screeched in rage. How had this occurred? She had been cut off from her plane, she couldn't sense her realm, and all she had for power was what she vested into form.