[Video] [Locked to New Hires only] [TW for Punishment in the linked log.]

[bringinghopewithme]

Stacia, Armstrong, I need to see both of you in person. On the double. Five minutes ago. Anyone else with a real good sense of smell, you come see me too.

[On the camera, underneath his oak tree in the garden, Bunny has a little bit of that dead-eyed stare that comes from being reminded how thoroughly shackled they all are to the most banal form of evil. Mostly, this is just businesslike, direct. Calmly urgent, after his furious meltdown in the Executive wing got him nowhere good.]

Everyone else: Sam and Dan and I tracked what attacked Tenten and Setsuna into the Executive wing. I smelled it there recently before the suits caught us and kicked us out.

[There's no real reason to bring up their Punishment. It happened, it hurt, he hates that he dragged Dan and Sam into it, but they all knew it was likely to happen. And if anything they learned can help prevent any further damage to the kids, it'll have absolutely been worth it.]

I couldn't identify the species, but it's supernatural, and old. Older than me. Some variety of predator. Given we tracked it into areas we're not allowed to go, and it spent a lot of time wandering around there all leisurely, it either looks enough like a suit that they gave it a pass, or it can walk through walls. If I had money, I'd put it on walking through walls. I'm not ruling out both, though.

But don't worry. Jorgmund's bringing in - [he scoffs, and rolls his eyes hugely] dogs to finish tracking it.

I'm still racking my brains to see if any memory of what it could be falls out, but if any of that rings any bells for all you, I'm all ears.

Comments

[fromfryingpantofire]

[Sam listens to this, nodding slowly. It doesn't entirely fit with what he knows of his own world. But, then, he's never asked Castiel if it was a single angel who carried out the deaths of the first-born in Egypt or if it had been more of a group thing.]

Angel is...less of a stretch than I'd like it to be. Being able to manipulate reality would certainly explain it walking through walls. Of course, it being able to do short distance teleportation would allow for that as well.

[He sits back from the communicator, considering.]

Of course, it might not be something supernatural at all. Not straight up, at least. It could be magical. Or something else, even. Or, as you said. It could be somebody altered by the stuff.

[A pause, then a sigh.]

Fuck, this is annoying.

[bringinghopewithme]

What I smelled was old.

I wish I could tell you why I know that, but it's basically just . . . I've smelled a lot of old things. Goddesses and gods, monsters, spirits, immortals of one kind or another -

If it was human, it was human a long time before the Stuff. But I think you should tell me more of what you know about angels.

[fromfryingpantofire]

Old actually does help cut things down a bit. Not a lot, but some.

Pagan gods were a thing back home. Not the way that you would normally think of them in other places. They got their power from belief and people sacrificing to them. And if they couldn't get sacrifices, they'd go ahead and make a few of their own. They're definitely not anything to mess around with and really not nice to be around if you have any sort of sensitivity to the supernatural.

[One of the various abilities that Sam had sometimes that didn't translate over. The telekinesis was more powerful and arguably more useful. But in a situation like this, he'd almost rather have had that sensitivity.]

Angels...they're a lot more like the Old Testament versions than anything you'd see in the windows of churches or in Renaissance paintings. They're...power and celestial wavelengths compacted down into a human body. A vessel that consents to letting them use it. And they have to have consent. It's demons that take a body and the person never knows about it.

Of course, demons are a lot easier to track. They're a corruption and the world will bend around that to point people toward it, an attempt to get rid of the infection. Angels are... [He's pretty obviously grasping for the right words.] Angels are part of the Plan, as it were. The fabric of the world accepts them. You don't really know they're there unless they're doing something flashy.

[credit_not_blame]

Angels aren't part of the 'Plan' in my world. They have to work through intermediaries, or else they'll break things, and they only showed up in the first place because reality broke and wasn't fixed properly. They're a pain in the ass to track, but that's because we don't usually have them around -- if you know what you're looking for, you can figure it out.

Werewolves can spot demons pretty easily as it turns out, because we really want them dead.