The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Forty One Up

[JointStrikeFighter]

So is that pre or post Mk41 VLS upgrade?

[Stuart]

So is that pre or post Mk41 VLS upgrade?

I think it's post-refit.

[tim31]

The Newcastle has yet to be upgraded to MK41.

That probably would have been more apparent if I'd included a photo of the array at the rear of the superstructure though.

[Stuart]

The Newcastle has yet to be upgraded to MK41. That probably would have been more apparent if I'd included a photo of the array at the rear of the superstructure though.

She came out of refit in 2008 although she isn't to return to full operational service until late this year. I think the picture shows her in post-refit condition because if you look at the bottom right-hand corner, the top of the bridge intrudes over the bottom margin. There appears to be a scanner mounted on the forward end of the bridge that is unique to post-refit ships. It's just possible that the scanner was mounted prior to her refit but it's unlikely. So the balance of probabilities is that this is a post-refit picture.

[tim31]

Your sources are better than mine, so you're probably right. Full pic:



Both of those were taken yesterday.

[bcoogler]

Jeez, pictures of pieces of ships. I'm really impressed how Stuart had it pegged.

For all I know, that could be an art project at Burning Man.

[Surlethe]

Cybele's Greek name was Rhea. And that's all the hints you are going to get.

Wow, the war between her and Yahweh/Satan that ultimately ended with that agreement must have been a titanic conflict.

[KlavoHunter]

Caesar is creating a society that takes the long-term view of things. Seeing as lifetimes last eternities in Hell, they have a chance to build their society from the ground up - how long do you suppose it would be before the Romans had aqueducts running to supply running water to all their people? Perhaps a decade. And roads! You've already shown that they're building roads all over the place, making them as fine as they can using the single most available resource in Hell - manpower.

Once they've established universal basic amenities - well, luxuries, by the standard of Hell. You don't -need- running water or even food to live. - They can then begin working on bigger and better things, rapidly advancing their society's technological capability. After all, they already have the roadmap laid out by the past thousands of years of human history.

It's quite an exciting idea that such a thing would be one's afterlife!

[LoofahBoy]

Why would they need aqueducts when modern plumbing would do just as well?

[JBG]

Your sources are better than mine, so you're probably right. Full pic:



Both of those were taken yesterday.

Nice photos Tim31. Taken in Newcastle or Hobart?

Bear in mind that this stuff is bread and butter to Stuart. As a professional military analyst concentrating now mostly on warships, he knows things far beyond finger-breaking territory! We learnt that long, long ago (even before my time there) on HPCA.

In any event, when all the bugs are ironed out, the up-graded Adelaide class are pretty potent frigates. Funny how the US FFG-7s are going the other way.

Well, tragic funny anyway.

[JBG]

Why would they need aqueducts when modern plumbing would do just as well?

An aqueduct is a cheap and efficient, at least as the Romans built them, way to shift bulk water from the water sources to the distribution points for settlements, metropolii etc. Then the "piped" plumbing takes over. OK the Romans often used lead piping with the tube sealed at the base by folding but the understanding was there to use modern types of pipes.

This is a no brainer for roman engineers.

[Crayz9000]

Why would they need aqueducts when modern plumbing would do just as well?

An aqueduct is a cheap and efficient, at least as the Romans built them, way to shift bulk water from the water sources to the distribution points for settlements, metropolii etc. Then the "piped" plumbing takes over. OK the Romans often used lead piping with the tube sealed at the base by folding but the understanding was there to use modern types of pipes.

This is a no brainer for roman engineers.

For that matter... it was a no brainer for LADWP engineers too. After all, we built two aqueducts running almost half the length of the state to provide water to the Los Angeles area.

Granted, they were quite a bit more complicated than the Roman ones -- there's a reason that we have a saying that water normally flows downhill, but in California, it flows wherever we want it to...

[Singular Quartet]

Why would they need aqueducts when modern plumbing would do just as well?

An aqueduct is a cheap and efficient, at least as the Romans built them, way to shift bulk water from the water sources to the distribution points for settlements, metropolii etc. Then the "piped" plumbing takes over. OK the Romans often used lead piping with the tube sealed at the base by folding but the understanding was there to use modern types of pipes.

The important thing about lead pipes and romans, though, is that the romans knew lead pipes were poisonous. It just didn't matter (after a while) because they had no water filtration. Piping would get a nice healthy coating of gunk, and they'd stop being poisonous. If you lived in a house with new plumbing and you did get sick, you just stayed with some friends who had a house with hold plumbing until you got better. Hopefully by then, your house's plumbing would have a nice coating of gunk by then.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah. It's not like the Romans would refuse to use mass-produced copper piping, and plumbing supplies are relatively easy to make with even semimodern technology (the kind you get when your machinists mostly died in the late 19th or early 20th century, for instance). They used lead because it was handy and very easy to work, not because they just loved their daily taste of lead.

[GrayAnderson]

An interesting thought just (as in a few minutes ago) hit me: Many ancient legends and such stipulate that it is impossible for a human to look upon, at the very least, the "higher" deities in their natural form. Much is made in the Bible when an individual "looks on God and lives" (I think the mother of Ishmael, Hagar IIRC, was one such person). I'm also familiar with a similar theme in Greek mythology regarding Zeus, though I don't think this restriction always goes all the way "down the ladder" to the lesser deities.

I raise this because of the long-running discussions on Old One-esque entities out there, the possibility of multiple species of deity-esque creatures, and so on. I think the normal inability of a mortal to look upon an almighty and survive raises interesting implications...though the connected ability of a mortal to still be rewarded by the deity in question raises the issue of second life humans being able to view them.

-------------------------------

Another issue of interest that has been in my mind over the last few days is this: The second life humans who we've seen as "hunky dory" with their new state are clearly fairly far up the social ladder in Hell. Gray Anderson is working full-time as a drill instructor, and the married couple that was mentioned are basically in the position of Roman patricians in New Rome.

The counter-thought is, of course, what of the refugee hordes (who by a conservative estimate would likely number somewhere around 30-40 million or so if I had to throw a number out, with their number currently growing at that much per year between the pit and the earthly deceased)? I know one strain in the story has been people "moving on", but in a very real sense these people both don't have anything to move onto and, being effectively stateless in Hell (Caesar does not seem to be granting citizenship to people unable to purchase land...and between the third world and those who simply lack a substantial net worth, that's a lot of people), would have a decided incentive to cling to their former state unless and until an alternative wishing to take them on arises. These governments (the big ones jumping to mind being the US, PRC, and other high-population countries) in turn would have an incentive to work with these people in order to get their own infrastructure nets built (at the very least these people are able to work as construction workers, and a non-negligible fraction will be able to work in other capacities).

I'm willing to concede "eventual integration" for these groups, but it seems like this process is going to be far less "smooth", particularly if some governments try to take advantage of and attempt to retain these loyalties in any way.

[Edward Yee]

*Amused chuckle at the screen name* Coincidence?

I think that the "inability to look upon another form" may just be due to the previously described 'out of context/4D' stuff. Also, Stas Bush's story dealt with the complications described re: the non-New Romans, in Russia's case. You have former Soviet/Russian military officers flocking to the banner of Marshal Kliment Voroshilov (although to me it read like him being essentially drafted into the role of Marshal), and in another you have quite a few people joining Peter the Great by virtue of being the closest thing to top dog nearby. The Franco-Russian officer Guillaume went rogue from Earth-Russia and aligned with Peter the Great, but eventually he was turned over to the Earth-Russia component of HEA I think and sentenced to front-line service against Heaven, while the Earth-Russian undead officer sent to catch him instead defected to Voroshilov or Peter the Great.

[Setzer]

As far as that whole "unable to look upon God" thing, I think the simplest explanation is Yahweh tele-squashes anyone who looks at him. He might condescend to let them kiss the ground he walks on while chanting his praises, but letting them look at him? Never!.

It's like the ultimate extreme of the absolute monarch on Earth, whose subjects would eagerly fight over who got the honor of buckling his shoes or handing him his shirt or wiping his ass.

[Simon_Jester]

I think that was actually a fairly clever trick of Louis XIV to pull. He managed to clear out quite a bit of the feudal medieval-vintage bullshit in France, and one way he did it was by getting the French aristocrats to waste most of their time jockeying for favor at his court, where he could keep an eye on them.

Remember, ladies and gentlemen: a baron who is competing for the privilege of tying your shoes in the morning because it gives him two minutes a day to whisper policy suggestions to you is a baron who is not sitting in his castle plotting rebellion because he is outraged at the notion that you would dare to tax his property!

Granted, Louis replaced the feudal bullshit with dictatorship bullshit, but at least he was a reasonably smart dictator, so things did improve somewhat. The system didn't really go to pot until Louis XV and XVI came along.

[Guardsman Bass]

I think that was actually a fairly clever trick of Louis XIV to pull. He managed to clear out quite a bit of the feudal medieval-vintage bullshit in France, and one way he did it was by getting the French aristocrats to waste most of their time jockeying for favor at his court, where he could keep an eye on them.

Remember, ladies and gentlemen: a baron who is competing for the privilege of tying your shoes in the morning because it gives him two minutes a day to whisper policy suggestions to you is a baron who is not sitting in his castle plotting rebellion because he is outraged at the notion that you would dare to tax his property!

Granted, Louis replaced the feudal bullshit with dictatorship bullshit, but at least he was a reasonably smart dictator, so things did improve somewhat. The system didn't really go to pot until Louis XV and XVI came along.

For a while. He pretty much squandered a lot of the games through a series of wars.

Sidenote - I think I'm starting to suffer Pantheocide withdrawal.

[GrayAnderson]

*Amused chuckle at the screen name* Coincidence?

I think that the "inability to look upon another form" may just be due to the previously described 'out of context/4D' stuff. Also, Stas Bush's story dealt with the complications described re: the non-New Romans, in Russia's case. You have former Soviet/Russian military officers flocking to the banner of Marshal Kliment Voroshilov (although to me it read like him being essentially drafted into the role of Marshal), and in another you have quite a few people joining Peter the Great by virtue of being the closest thing to top dog nearby. The Franco-Russian officer Guillaume went rogue from Earth-Russia and aligned with Peter the Great, but eventually he was turned over to the Earth-Russia component of HEA I think and sentenced to front-line service against Heaven, while the Earth-Russian undead officer sent to catch him instead defected to Voroshilov or Peter the Great.

Where can I find this story/these stories? I somehow failed to find any link...though I may have asked before, too.

[tim31]

Don't wake me while I'm quiet

[Stuart]

West of Hacienda Heights, Los Angeles, California

The location had been chosen with great care. Uriel's wings were still not fully healed and that had left his ability to fly impaired. In any case, he had come to the opinion that flying over his target, as has been his tradition, for millennia was no longer practical. Human aircraft and missiles made it far too dangerous. He had tried that tactic twice and both times it had come close to killing him.

This time, he was trying a different approach. The hills west of Hacienda Heights gave an excellent view over the city of Los Angeles. He would have line-of-sight access to some of the most populated areas of the mega-city beneath him and a huge number of people would where Uriel could bring his peace to them. He had thought long and hard about that. At El Paso he had tried to annihilate everybody and everything within his reach, only to fail and bring peace only to a small proportion of them. Based on that lesson, he had tried to concentrate his power on a small community at Eucalyptus Hills. There, he had come achingly close to bringing his peace to the entire community. If it had not been for the aircraft and the missiles. . . .

Uriel felt unfamiliar feelings running through his mind. He hated the humans and their machines for what they had done to him and mixed in with the hatred was rage that his divinely-ordered purpose should be denied. He fought the emotions, aware that they represented mortal sins, and tried to squash them. This time it would be different, this time he would stay on the ground where the missiles could not strike at him. It had taken days for the humans to corner him after Eucalyptus Hills, he would need only a fraction of that time to bring his peace to the community that would lay helpless at his feet.

To take them all or just concentrate on a few? That was the decision that Uriel faced. He had tried for all at El Paso and failed. He had tried for a few at Eucalyptus Hills – and failed. But the size of his target at El Paso meant that even failure meant that a large number of souls had found their way to perfect peace. Uriel made his decision, he would try for all. Even a small percentage of a large number was better than a large percentage of a few.

Uriel made his decision. He had locked in on his target, he had selected his strategy. He knew what to do and where. Now, he would place his faith in the All-Knowing Father of All and honor His Immaculate Name by bringing more of these recalcitrant humans to their final peace.

al Za'im, West Bank

The air-raid sirens woke a very resentful Husni al-Sohl from well-deserved and much-needed sleep. The last year and a half had been a very strange time for him. Once a dedicated member of Hamas and a key member in one of its undercover cells, now he worked in an Israeli munitions plant, helping to churn out the sub-munitions that the world needed to fight off the satans who had declared war upon it. The Israelis he worked alongside were equally confused; once these same submunitions would have gone to arm missiles and artillery rounds. Ammunition that was intended to defend Eretz Israel against the hordes of terrorists and assassins that besieged it. Only, The Message had changed everything. Mankind had a common enemy that counted for more than petty local squabbles.

At least that was what Husni al-Sohl believed and the Israelis who worked beside him had said the same. They had all noted something rather peculiar. When the command to lay down and die had come from in high, the religious fanatics, the idealogues and extremists who had shouted longest and loudest about the purity of their faith had been conspicuous by their absence from the dead. Those who had sent others out to die in suicide bombings, who had incited others to die for their beliefs, who had fired people's hearts but seemed curiously reluctant to do any other sort of firing had found many excuses for not obeying the command that formed a key part of The Message.

Oh, there had been those who had laid down and died, but they had been the quiet ones, the ones who had kept their religions in their hearts, not their mouths and their fists. The others, the ones who had made ostentatious public displays of their faiths, they'd used their alleged religion as a path to power. With The Message, some had slunk away and tried to hide, others attempted to carry on their foolishness. They hadn't lasted, their previous supporters had seen them for what they were and killed them. Now, they had all gone from both sides and things had settled down to an uneasy truce. There was too much history, too much spilled blood, for the truce to be anything but uneasy but al-Sohl and his Israeli co-workers both agreed that with the self-serving fanatics out of way, they could at least agree to differ quietly. And everybody needed the sub-munitions that the factory made.

The sirens that had blasted him awake made him think, for one brief moment, that the bad days had returned and he was back in Gaza with the Israeli helicopters closing in. So many had died, blown apart as the missiles had plowed into their targets. Was al Za'im to be a target now? There was an Israeli border guard post only a few yards away. Had one of the idiotic morons who had brought so much death down tried to attack it? The fact that he hadn't heard any explosions suggested otherwise. Then his brain woke up fully and he realized they weren't air raid sirens. They were warnings that a portal was opening and that an attack would be coming through it soon.

"What is happening?" His wife had woken as well and was staring around with frightened eyes

"It is an attack. Perhaps it is Uriel, deciding to leave the Americans alone. Or some other devil." He grabbed her arm and hustled her to their shelter room, the one whose walls were lined with extra-think layers of aluminum foil. As they went, he glanced out of the window and saw a black ellipse forming to the east of the township.

417th Flight Test Squadron, Edwards Air Force Base, California

The wailing sirens made the base look as if it had been a giant ant's nest and somebody had kicked it over. A stream of pick-up trucks was spreading out from the base buildings and heading for the aircraft that were already being prepped for flight by their ground crews. Some headed for the row of F-15Es, a few in the original lizard green camouflage paint but most in the red/gray mottled camouflage of Hell. The paint job wasn't an affection, the paint itself was designed to protect the aircraft from the abrasion caused by flying through the dust of Hell's atmosphere. Others headed for the two B-1Cs that were parked in the test area. Their paint job was white as befitted prototypes that were under test. A very accelerated test program, the B-1s were desperately needed and the Air Force couldn't wait for a leisurely pre-war test and evaluation.

Two other pick-up trucks headed for strange-looking aircraft that were parked by themselves. Boeing 747s they had been, once, but now they had the firing turret of a chemical oxygen-iodine laser in their noses. They were YAL-1s and they had first priority for the runway. Technically at least, although they had to get there before the others would make way for them. Getting the new and complex laser platforms started up was a battle in its own right. The YAL-1 was unlike anything else in the Air Force and procedures for it's operation simply didn’t exist. An accelerated test program wasn't an option for the YAL-1, there was just too much that was new. Eventually, the systems were up and running, but by that time bomb- and missile-laden F-15Es were streaking off the runways, heading south-west. Los Angeles thought Colonel Samuel Allansen grimly. Uriel is hitting Los Angeles.

"Scalpel-One ready to roll." Mickey Jennings was already on the radio to the tower.

"Scalpel-Two ready to roll." The voice on the comms system followed a bare second later.

"Scalpel aircraft, form up behind the two B-1Cs. You are sixth and seventh in line for take-off."

"Sorry about that Scalpel-One." A British voice sounded over the channel. "We're past the last taxiway turnoff, we can't turn off and let you through."

"No problem. . . ." Allansen hesitated, not certain who he was talking to.

"Winters, Group Captain Martin Winters, RAF Heavy Bomber Development Unit. I just arrived here yesterday, on exchange to get ready for our B-1s."

"Welcome to California. Tower, what the blazes is going on?" The YAL-1 edged forward as two F-15s went down the runway side-by-side. Behind them two more turned into position and started powering up, ready for their take-off runs. From the load hanging under their wings, Allansen guessed they were pushing the maximum weight limit as far as it would go and maybe just a little bit further.

"Small portal started to open over Los Angeles, Hacienda Heights area. It's Uriel, we're sure of it. Nobody's going to let him get away this time. There's aircraft converging on Los Angeles from all over. Including Navy and Marine birds so watch it. And there's two AEGIS ships running in at 30 plus knots."

The tower voice was interrupted by the scream as the next pair of F-15s streaked down the runway and staggered into the air, the aircraft obviously straining to stay flying. Yup, well over maximum take-off weight Allansen thought. The lead B-1C was turning on to the runway. "Good hunting, Group Captain."

"Thank you Scalpel-One. And good luck with that magic ray-gun of yours."

4th Street, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, California

In the street cars were swerving to a halt as the sirens blasted out their warnings. From them, people were running to the buildings where doors were being held open so they could get to cover. The lessons of Eucalyptus Hills had spread quickly, people should get together, in the largest possible groups so they could share their strength against the onslaught from Uriel. Just in case anybody failed to hear the wailing sirens, the street lights were flashing a visual warning.

"Come on, hurry up. Inside, quickly." The bouncers on the doors of Harvelles Blues Club were adapting well to their changed role. Normally their job was to prevent undesirables from getting in and throwing the unruly out. Now, it was to get as many people as possible in. They were manhandling people inside, pushing them through the doors as fast as they could. Outside, the street was blocking up rapidly with abandoned cars. The earliest refugees had put their cars between the trees lining the road, or in one case the bouncers could see, into a tree. Well, the insurance people could sort that out when the attack was over. It would have been much worse before gas rationing had taken so many vehicles off the street. "Wait, let these people through."

'These people' were a small group of teenagers probably high school students and all loaded down with cages. They were staggering under their loads and two of the bouncers moved out to help them carry their loads. They knew the teenagers by sight, they were working summer jobs at the pet store across the street and it looked like they'd brought as many of the animals with them as they could carry.

"Many more left in the store?" The bouncer barked out the question.

One of the girls was almost in tears. "Too many, we brought as many as we could carry, but the rest, and the bigger dogs, they were just too many and too heavy."

"Doors locked?" The girl shook her head. "Right, get inside. You men, yes you over there, come with me. We'll pick up the other animals and bring them over." The group of men who'd just been drafted looked at the bouncer and decided that weight and bulk gave authority to his orders. The group ran across the street and vanished into the pet store to emerge a few second later with more cages and a variety of dogs on improvised leashes.

By the time they got back to Harvelles, the street was clearing as people got under cover. They herded their livestock through the doors, then the remaining staff slammed them shut. They had a well-rehearsed drill, the doors themselves were lined with aluminum foil but they reinforced it with additional layers mounted on wooden frames. Another lesson from Eucalyptus Hills, defending against Uriel meant using multiple layers of foil. The sirens had switched from their pitched wailing to a long, steady note. The attack was imminent.

In the main body of the club, the host was already up on stage, tapping his microphone. "Good evening, ladies, gentlemen and other species." There was a quick burst of laughter as the crowded audience looked at the stacks of cages around the walls. "Welcome to Harvelles. You are all doubtless aware that Uriel is coming to visit us and I can say with confidence that the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines have prepared a welcome for him that is in the best American tradition." Another roar of laughter and a series of war whoops. "All we have to do is stay under cover and wait out the attack."

He paused slightly to take a breath. "Now, we all heard how the Diegans rode out the attack down there and is anybody here going to tell me that Angelenos can't do better than they did?" There was a roar of 'No' and the host made a 'winding up' gesture with his hands. "That's right, so the management will take it as a personal affront if any of our guests passes on. To encourage you all, the management have announced that all drinks will be on the house until either the attack is over or the first person dies, whichever comes first. So, if you all want the free drinks to keep flowing, don’t die. And make sure your neighbors don't die either."

His address was interrupted by howls overhead that easily penetrated the building. The host looked up. "There we are, the Air Force is overhead already. Uriel is going to get a truly warm welcome and to add our contribution to the festivities, I ask you to put your hands together and give a true Harvelles welcome to The Key Frances Band."

The Palatine Palace, New Rome, Hell

"Ave Caesar. Ave Kim."

"Ave Paschal." The exchange of Roman salutes interrupted breakfast. Caesar's response was almost automatic, he was deeply engaged in reading a file. Jade Kim grinned at Colonel Paschal and tilted his head in Caesar's direction. "Gaius never stops, literally. Even in the middle of the night, he'll get up, slip away and do a couple of hours more work. Titus tells me he was like that even when he was alive. Did you have a good sleep?"

"I did, thank you. It's a relief to find you have filtered air here."

"Even us Second Lifers prefer clean air if we can get it. Breakfast is fruit, bread and wine. I hope that's all right? We're working on getting honey down here."

Paschal chuckled. "That'll be fine. I'm more curious about how you get the power to run the air cleaners and so on."

"Geothermal energy." Gaius Julius Caesar looked up from his file. "We've struck a deal with a company called Calpine. They've built a pilot plant to try and exploit geothermal energy here. If it works out, they'll build a lot more. We have a pilot grid here as well, it's servicing New Rome. Apparently Hell is a lot better for geothermal than Earth. Much lower investment costs. We could end up supplying California with energy." He took a bite of wine-soaked bread and looked again at his file. "Jade, I think we'll approve this."

"The Insula? I think so." Jade Kim looked at Paschal. "An Insula is like an apartment block, the occupants own the land in common and their own unit. Pretty much like a condo. Not everybody can afford their own villa although that's the way we want people to go. The Insula make a good first step. People who live there will satisfy the conditions for becoming Citizens and get them started."

Overhead, there was a whupping noise that almost caused Kim to drop her breakfast. Paschal grinned at her reaction. "I put the request through last night. These are a gift from the U.S. Government."

Kim had recognized the sound instantly. "MH-6s? You got me an MH-6?"

"MH-6T. Three of them. They're new production, they've got all the Hell modifications built into them, not slapped on as an emergency refit. So the filters are a lot more efficient and they affect performance less. You've got all your old unit here?"

"I have. With the addition of Titus and Lucius, they're the Consular Guard now."

"Well, you'll need to be checked out on the T version, there's new kit on it you'll not have seen before. But, welcome back to the Little Bird community. Roman Chapter. Caesar, you're getting some M1117 armored cars as well. They're not new or first-line, they were ones in the factories at Detroit when the city got smeared. They were rescued from the lava but they got beat up in the process. Rather than fix them, we're passing them through to you."

"Very generous of you." Caesar's voice was suspicious.

"The feeling is that you have a well-organized state here that's keeping the peace and setting a good example. There's others around that aren't. More like warlords leading gangs of brigands and terrorists. So, we're giving you some quiet backing. There'll be more kit coming through as soon as General Petraeus can get his staff to organize it."

"Let me guess." Caesar dipped another piece of bread in the wine. "Enough to defend ourselves, not enough to go around conquering people."

Paschal smiled. "Exactly."

[Guardsman Bass]

Good chapter, Stuart. I can't wait for Uriel to get fried.

With The Message, some had slunk away and tried to hide, others attempted to carry on their foolishness. They hadn't lasted, their previous supporters had seen them for what they were and killed them. Now, they had all gone from both sides and things had settled down to an uneasy truce.

That's definitely a good development for the (formerly?) muslim world as well as the Israel-Palestine situation.

It's also something I'm curious about - the reaction of the religious who rejected dying upon command when the Message came, both Islamic, Christian, and other. We know the Catholic Church excommunicated God, but was there, for example, a series of church and/or mosque burnings?

[tim31]

GOOOOOOO TEAM AMERICA

I had the music from this scene as the backdrop for this chapter. Not comparing your work to MB, Stuart, just good times and kicking arse

[Jamesfirecat]

Oh boy, here we go again (said in a good way), please tell me that you're going to be updating Pantheocide more frequently for a bit, like every day, since I just can't stand the suspense of waiting to find out how Uriel and the Scarlet Beast's seperate attacks go, it was a very nice touch to have the students bring the pet shop animals into the club since after all that's a better way of keeping themselves and each other alive...

That said would it really work with pet shop animals? I though Uriel had a really good track record for making animals drop like flies and his powers only faultered in San Diego because the animal knew its owner really well and thus it had a strong reason to stay alive, would that work as well with off the shelf pet store animals that haven't had a chance to form truly strong bonds with the humans?

Well I guess we'll find out one way or another...