Pious

LOL. You know what I mean!

The armoured priest, still without his power would most likely have fallen to his death following ejection from the dragon's bowels, had it not been for his holy and blessed blade, the Sword of Leviticus. Pious hung there, clutching the floating sword tightly for his dear life but tried to show little other evidence to suggest he himself could not yet fly again, lest his weaknesses be made obvious for all to see. Casually, he lifted himself up and then sat atop the flat of his blade, legs crossed, eyes fixed upon the figure before him. He took a moment to study him, and soon arrived at the simple conclusion that this man, this thing, had come only to fight him. A deep sadness washed over him, the sorrow clear to read in his deep brown eyes. When would it ever end, he wondered.

Probably due to his innately naive predisposition, Priest could never truly understand why he had so many enemies and why they all seemed so dedicated to see him dead; whether that be through years-long assassination attempts, power depletion, or a challenge to 'come out and fight'. It wasn't just demon either, but people too, whom he was duty-bound as a minister and a hero to protect and serve. First was his sister-in-Law Alicia Barzini-Hunter aka Pistol, then the supersoldier Übermensch Kahn, his own brother Captain Harlem, then of course Ray Hammerfall, tricked by the utterly evil Lord Memphis, who took the Priest's power and nearly his life, and now there was this guy calling himself The Shadow. It occurred to Pious that possibly, his only true friends were the Nighthunters.

The Priest was a pacifist by nature and through religion. It was difficult for him to comprehend why the world of Man was so fixated on violence and bloodsport. Sure the former was a part of his job as a hunter of demons but that was an excusable necessity and always as a last resort. Even then it was only a small fraction of his power used. By definition, he was merely an empath -- extremely sensitive to, and burdened by other people's pain and suffering. He chose a life of helping people reach spiritual comfort and the atonement of sins, while using his God-given powers to save the world and rescue people from natural disasters. He tackled demons using biblical magic. Only once, and never again would he abandon his virtues and cause harm onto another. It just wasn't in him.

"I don't know who you are Shadow," Priest began, climbing to his feet and balancing on his sword, "but I appreciate all that you've done here this day, for Dark Astoria and for my church. However, I simply cannot do for you what you want me to do. Too often, I get called out for a fight like this and even then I must turn the other cheek. Forgetting the fact that you just foiled my plan to slay the beast from within itself, is it not enough that we have fought with dragons and demons, side-by-side this day? Must we beat each other near death too? I am sorry Shadow, but I am a man at peace -- a monk who's life has been devoted to the work of God. Look around you. I live in a monastery with other monks. I dare not forsake my sacred oaths, neither shall I be corrupted into fighting with you. Not here, not today, not ever." With that, Priest collected his sword and bowed respectively to the figure. "Now, there are yet more dragons below us, friend."

And another and another. The demon's body had gone limp as nerve endings in it's human brain had shut down from physical trauma. As it slowly lost all consciousness, the demon's full weight rested against the woman. It shifted back into it true goat-like form, twice the size of a human male, then collapsed with it's skull in the dirt and it's rear-end pointed disturbingly skywards, tail hung loosely to one side.

Ray's cross-to-the-face attack had repelled the second demon so violently that the force shattered it's human skull. The impact of crashing into the gravestones broke several other bones, including it's right arm. It tried to stand and shapeshift but the muscled brawler was too fast. The demon watched on half-paralysed as the man pulled apart it's bony jaws, partially shifted into it's goat-like form. The pain was excruciating and it howled in woeful agony as his face was torn asunder. The shock alone rendered the hellspawn unconscious. It laid there, bleeding a corrosive black blood that burnt the very earth.

Some of the soldiers could not help but stand and watch as the two demons fell one after the other. The remaining hell hound were still quite literally at each other's throats, but up above, the two enraged dragons prepared for a diving attack that would probably see another man loose his head. Together, they poised their weapons and fired skywards. "Bring 'em down, bring 'em down!" yelled the Commander, brandishing a grenade launcher.

Back inside the church the priest was still praying, muttering strings of sentences in a hurried mixture of Latin, Hebrew and Old English. Stood before him was what appeared to be an angel, pointing upwards at one of the glass paintings on the tall windows. Priest felt her presence, looked up in awe and promptly followed the direction of her human fingers. He saw a painting of Levite priests. Then it occurred to him. The Sword of Leviticus. Did this angel want him to fight using the holy sword? Quite likely, he thought, and down into the armoury he went. There, Priest found an entire section of wardrobe he'd never seen before.

"Everything happens for a reason Michael," came the soft angelic voice, "What you see before you are suits of armour made holy in the bloodied names of fallen saints. They once belonged to the Knights of the Crusade. Now they are yours. You will need them most in your current weakened state. Use them wisely."

"I prayed for this Evea, I know what I have to do" said Priest, overwhelmed by the weight of history carried within the suits before him. Cautiously, he proceeded.

Harlem stared blankly at the dragon holding him. The soldier's dark skin made his features hard to read in the heavy weather and dense blackness of the fog. He figured the talking dragon had mistaken him for someone else, but one thing was for sure. This dragon was no spawn of hell. "Sentry!" he called out, talking into the radio communications mounted behind his ear. "Power up and fly down, you have to catch the falling, quickly!" he commanded, watching the action below from his captive perch. He saw as the empowered soldier shot through the air and caught his falling comrades. "Redirect fire at the other two dragons, this one appears to be non-hostile!" He reported, staring at the dragon once again. "You are non-hostile, right? I mean, sorry about trying to kill you and all... sort of mistook you for someone else. Namely one of those hell beasts over there. Come on big guy, let's work together here. Truce?" he asked, offering a hand.

Meanwhile down below, the Priest gave thanks to the Centurion as he distracted the man calling himself Shadow, just long enough to implement his escape. He hurried into his church, which fortunately was empty that time of day. He clambered around for a while, fidgeting nervously at the thought of being so helplessly unarmed. Being captured and temporarily stripped of power, for the second time in his life, it was all starting to feel like some horrible fit of deja vu. Then there was the unfortunate case of Ray Hammerfall, who had come to him for help and was now caught up in a Hell that was for once, not his making.

Reaching the sacred alter, the holyman fell to his knees and prayed fervently. "Dominus regit me, et nihil mihi deerit: in loco pascuæ, ibi me collocavit. Super aquam refectionis educavit me; animam meam convertit. Deduxit me super semitas justitiæ, propter nomen suum. Nam etsi ambulavero in medio umbræ mortis, non timebo mala, quoniam tu mecum es. Virga tua, et baculus tuus, ipsa me consolata sunt." Louder and louder, he prayed, sweating heavily with every spoken word. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me..."

Back outside the fight was raging on. The white-haired brawler had been downed and the demon towered over her, roaring triumphantly. He was unprepared as the woman's heavy boots came from nowhere and connected with his pelvic area. But the look on his face was of stark indifference. He'd felt absolutely no pain in the region as there were no male genitals present. The demon responded immediately with a series of heavy blows, aimed square into the woman's face. He pounded away relentlessly as he knelt over her, his fists burning red hot with fire, blow after blow, hot enough to melt skin tissue, should they land.

The priest slowly step away and turned to face the winged and fiery armoured figure. "Who's asking?" he responded, closely eyeing the remaining hell hounds who had healed from their injuries and clambered back to their feet, circling the holyman as he spoke on. "I'm in no fit state for battle right now I'm afraid, so if you could use that arm of yours to help out here, that'd be great. I will retreat into the church and pray for you all. May God have mercy on our souls."

With that, he made to escape the hounds and headed towards the Cathedral steps, where even the soaking rain would not reach him.

"Let's walk and talk" said Priest, peacefully making his way off church grounds to meet the waiting police cars. "I don't know what the rules are like where you're from Ray but Paragon City's under a high alert state of emergency, what with all the extradimensional wars we're engaged in. You can't just break the Law and hop over our borders, just to 'see someone'. You need legal permission and/or authorized escort. Did you not consider just making a phonecall to this person?"

The two girls, who had followed the shapeshifter to the teleporter rooms stood there for a while contemplating whether to follow or return to the melodic allure of this dimension's MTV music channel. Their night had been interrupted by social chatter and lengthy conversations of the new tenants and now that they were all finally gone, it was too tempting not to take advantage of the moment. So they headed back towards the lounge.

Meanwhile, an alarm clock was buzzing in the living quarters. It had been set to activate pre-dawn and continue endlessly until the sleeping man finally wakes. A great big fist rose from the covers and landed with a mighty blow onto the ringing clock, which shattered into a hundred pieces across the bedroom floor.

The hallways shook and trembled as the man made his way out of his quarters and towards the lounge wearing a white vest and boxer shorts. He grabbed some cereal from the kitchen areas and crashed into the sofas, tuning the television to the news channel. Out of his long bushy dreadlocks propped the faces of the two girls who had snuck in, in search of the music channel but were now too scarred of the huge muscled black guy now in charge of the remote control.

"Erm, mister?" asked one of them. But there was no response. The man had suddenly leapt to his feet, cereal spilling everywhere, startled to see reports of a dimensional invasion underway in Atlas Park and King's Row. Without much ado, he ripped off his vest and jogged as though in slow motion back towards his apartment. Dumbfounded, the two girls merely looked on. They just about managed to see him enter and then re-emerge from his quarters wearing what was unmistakably full-on badass superhero spandex before promptly disappearing into thin air. "Woah... forget Batman, that guy looked dashit."

"For sure" the other girl replied.

"Hey yo! You know we best go grab that damn remote, right?"

"Oh snap, for sure!"

Atlas Park

The green and black spandex-clad refugee hero arrived on the scene and analysed the situation. He saw that the invasion was quickly wearing down, the invading army was without direction, the man who seemed to have been a leading figure had been knocked unconscious and another was busy fighting a religious warrior like himself. Atlas Park was a city of heroes and they were winning this battle very quickly. A robotic foe ran close by, heading towards him. Big mistake. Our hero needed only hold out his fist and the invader slammed into it, instantly powered down. Now energized, he traced the runner's path back to a mob of other robots and swiftly made his way to challenge them. His green-gloved fists and steel-black boots flashed here and there with the rhythmic sounds of cracked metal and broken tech clanking along to the swishing of his full-length cape. Steel and wiring sprung all over the place as the refugee hero made short work of his enemies. "I am Zachariah!" he bellowed, as he fought on. "Avenger of the oppressed and warrior of the Lord our God. By the powers of my might, I shall uphold his holy Law and cleanse this land of your filth! Now begone you maniacal machines! Begone! Else I be forced to use my magick on thee!"