When Darkness Takes Over It Will be Like One Big Nine Inch Nails Concert (Madeline)

A little good news and a little bad news always came from any information Madeline gave out. "Why do you always have to remind me you have some ulterior motives just waiting to come out?" Ripping the heart out of a complex ritual did not follow the same set of complexities as creating it. Or, at least the ritual probably should have taken a little more time to put in place if Heather planned on it succeeding.

The glyphs fell apart and everything warding the dark energy let their guard down. An unstable influx of energy began to swell around the room, conjuring up the myriad of lamented souls with it. A spectral force shoved Bliss against the wall, knocking down a degree of cleaning supplies on her. "You wanna tell your friends to take it down a notch?"

The blackened oblivion beckons.

“You know….its almost like these aren’t sticking out of the top of my head or something!” Madeleine replied, as she pointed to her horns. The summoning circle seemed like it didn’t want to be closed, with the force that knocked Bliss back, and the few shadowy wraiths that were trying to claw their way out. She gave a slight chuckle to Bliss’ comment, assuming that Madeline hailed from the same dimension the circle was linked to was just silly. While enveloped in her own thoughts, a wraith reached out and took a swipe at the demon queen, its claw like fingers scraping against her unique metal arm.

The impromptu attack was met by a response that one could expect from the short tempered queen, as she raised her palm to the circle and began firing bolts of dark energy into the opening of it, knocking back the wraiths that were all fighting to escape. The violent outburst from Madeline was met by a sudden pulse of energy that shot out from the mouth of the circle, followed by a low rumbling.

The demon queen shot the woman a glance and shrugged “oops?” judging by her tone, she was unsure exactly what kind of reaction her attack had caused, but the rumbling and pulse of energy couldn’t have been a good thing. “Not a good sign right?” she said jokingly.

A form began to take in the shadows. No longer did the wraiths flail about wildly at the denizens of the room, but now began to form a broad body. Massive chest muscles held up broad shoulders, while an imposing face of fire appeared at the top. "Congratulations, you have freed me from my prison in this accursed place of Toronto."

Bliss pushed a lid off of herself and got to her feet. "I'm taking a note of the horns, but at least your face isn't on fire." The glyphs rested scattered on the ground all around the room thanks to Bliss' quick work with her telekinesis. "I'm going to take a stab in the dark that this guy isn't your best friend. Then I'm going to take a stab in the dark at his face."

A piece of rebar shot out of the concrete wall and began sailing towards the demonic entities head. The intense heat of the creature caused the bar to melt in its swell. The once straight line of metal fractured before burning away in front of the grimace snarl melting across the demon's face.

"Well. My next plan is to throw you at him, so you better have something better."

Madeline wasn’t quite sure what to make of the unholy monstrosity that had forced its way out of the portal. If anything she didn’t see it as a threat to her wellbeing, surly nothing was stronger than the demon goddess of war right? No she didn’t see this being as a threat to her life but rather a threat to her overall goal of making the people of earth believe in her once again, and fear her like they did in the days of old.

The piece of rebar that Bliss had thrown melted before it could even make contact, the heat being emitted by the beast could be felt throughout the room, which didn’t bother Madeline one bit. Madeline let out a small chuckle, this was twice now that Bliss commented about the beings from the other dimension being ‘friends’ of Madeline’s. “Is this a race thing? I totally feel like it’s a race thing.” she said to the woman before turning to face the burly, fire faced demon. “Look here buddy, this world is mine not yours. Turn around and head back to whatever ill begotten shit hole you crawled out of.”

The beast snarled before unleashing a thunderous roar in Madeline’s direction. The demon queen did not take kindly to insubordination, so she did the only thing you’d expect from a queen, she tried to get someone else to do the fighting for her, or at least that was the plan. Madeline snapped her fingers, expecting one of her caretaker demons to appear before her, but the demon was a no show. Just after Madeline had attempted to summon one of her demons, the crowed that had been too busy beating the crap out of one another, all broke out into cries of terror and panic, all in unison as an all too familiar sound to Madeline’s ears rang out. The demon she had summoned, did get pulled into this world, but it appeared in the wrong place. The demon queen attributed this slight lapse in her powers to the glyphs that lay scattered about the room, she then turned to Bliss and shrugged.

It looked like the queen would have to do her own dirty work today, and so with a reluctant sigh, she managed to properly summon a gleaming golden sword to her hand, before leaping into battle with the beast. Madeline brilliantly danced around the beast with elegance and precision as she cut the beast repeatedly, though it appeared to just be angering the fire faced fiend more than anything. “I hate to be the one to admit it, since you don’t seem like the kind to do so, but maybe we should see if tweetle dee, and tweetle dumb know how to send this guy packing! I’ll keep him busy.”

Madeline wasn’t sure if Bliss would agree or not, but in the mean time, she continued to distract the other demon with her impressive swordsmanship and relatively quick movement.

"Wait- hold on!" The rise of the demonlords threw Bliss off. " This world isn't either of yours. I still get a say in all of this and I say you both deserve each other, and once I find a way to banish both of you back to Hot Topic, it's going down."

The whirling display of swordsmanship from the demon caught the massive titan off guard. His size and strength accounted for nothing against his smaller more nimble foe. He needed to bring that to a stop. Shadowy chains would manifest to try and wrap Madeline up. If he could stop her attacks, he could focus on the blows being delivered by Bliss as well.

"Yeah, getting those two down here might just-" Before Bliss could turn around, chains latched around her ankles, binding her to the ground. "HEY!" Bliss shouted out from her fixed position. "Girl who's name I can't remember! Down here!"

"There will be no one to hear your tired screams for help anymore." The flaming hands of brimstone touched against the side of the portal as the demon lifted himself into this world. "You two will be the first to experience the greatest calamity across all chaos! You should consider it a great honor."

"Hey! Elena Marie wannabe! Get down here!" The shadow of the titan overshadowed Bliss and her yells for help while she tried to fight him with every inch of her telekinesis.

The dance floor broke out into madness. Heather pulled a girl's head out of the punch bowl long enough to begin to get some bearing over what was happening. "Oh my god! This is so cool!" Disgusted by the wet hair in her hand, she tossed the unconscious girl to the ground and turned around to see a shadow demon standing menacingly over Xander. "Magic time!"

Xander flipped the hair from his eyes as he tried to push himself off the ground. "This is such a lame thing to happen at one of these parties. I'm so over this scene."

A sudden burst of energy surrounded the demon, binding it in a box of red energy. "But, it's just getting good!"

Madeline shot a rather unconvincing sad look at Bliss “Awe and I thought we really hit things off.” she said with a pouty look, before turning all bright and cheery once more and winking at the woman. The fire faced demon had grown irritated with Madeline’s blade waltz, and finally gathered enough strength to pull himself free of the portal that connected his world to earth. Upon the formation of the shadowy chains, Madeline couldn’t help passing up a moment to get some sass in. She let out a surprised gasp before taunting the large beast “ooh, sticks and stones may break my bones….but chains and whips excite me!” no sooner did she finish speaking, the demon’s chains lashed around both Bliss and Madeline.

The demon queen was enjoying herself far too much. Battle was where she thrived, it was pretty much her natural state of being, so actually being able to have a brawl with a decently strong opponent definitely got her blood flowing. She couldn’t help but let out a chuckle when the brimstone demon seemed to think he had the upper hand. A dim light began to emanate from beneath Bliss and Madeline, before it zipped around on the ground below them, drawing up a sinister looking sigil. A burst of wind rushed outwards from both sigils vaporizing the shadowy chains than had once bound them.

“I hate to break it to you doll, but you’re far too inferior to even be considered a challenge.” Madeline’s words infuriated the demon, which was something she was hoping for. The fiery fiend turned his full attention to her and as he did so, Madeline motioned for Bliss to leave to find Heather and Xander. With the demon’s eyes on her, Madeline felt it was time to prove why she was worshiped as a goddess and finally kick things into high gear. With a mighty swing of her sword, the demon goddess cloaked herself in a pitch black fire, and then forced her shadow to life. Before the brimstone demon could comprehend what was happening, both Madeline and her shadow began waltzing around him, slashing at him repeatedly, much like she had done earlier. With each cut, the flaming monstrosity could feel its movements began to get slower and more sluggish.

More chains began to wrap around Bliss' lower legs as they began their march towards Bliss' body. A feeling of suppressed rage began to come over Bliss as she felt her arms no longer able to move, but her partner did not feel the same situation at hand. Madeline kept a sly smile on her face as the chains wrapped around her legs and arms. "Is this somehow a part of some weird plan you've come up with?" Before Bliss could get her answer, a dim light and a gust of wind moved through the room, shattering the chains.

The fight did not need anymore Bliss- or at least Madeline felt it did not, but with her handling of the situation, Bliss would take her advice. Bliss grabbed the hand rail and pulled herself up the stairs with gusto. "Hey! Wednesday Addams!" All exhaustion from her voice failed to touch upon her calling for Heather. "We got a problem in the basement. Your dumb little circle couldn't hold back a massive demon you summoned and now it's going crazy on Madeline!"

While Madeline gained some connection with Bliss, Heather did not hold the same admiration. "Well, that can only mean one thing." Heather looked over to the stairs and then to Xander.

"God, do we have to do everything. I though summoning demons was supposed to make life easier." All the ruckus from the night began to wear on Xander, but his attitude barely changed at all.

"It will get a lot easier, trust me. I've got this all under control." Heather started to move towards the door after cracking her fingers.

Holding off a demon would definitely need a little more help, so Bliss got back to moving towards the stairs. "You say that, but I highly doubt, with what you've done-"

Bliss never noticed the metal bar Heather swung at the back of her head. "I thought you were done with the angry spell or whatever hit everyone?"

"I am. I just don't like Bliss hanging around." Heather looked over to the stairs. "Let's go help that awesome demon chick out."

"Whatever."

Xander and Heather would eventually make their way down the stairs into the heated melee between the unbound flame demon and Madeline. Any immediate assistance would be halted by Heather locking her hands together in admiration to everything happening before her. The awesome demon chick fighting the demon she summoned. "This is the greatest day of my life!"

With the brimstone demon feeling overly fatigued and sluggish, Madeline eased up on her assault just in time to see Heather and Xander reach the bottom of the stairs, minus one Bliss. The demon goddess slid in between the two and wrapped her arms around their shoulders all the while smiling deviously. “Bet you guys didn’t know the real party was happening down here. That guy over there looks lonely, why don’t you ask him to dance!” She gave the two a hard pat on the back while also pushing them both in the direction of the fire demon.

She wasn’t entirely worried as to why Bliss hadn’t come back down the stairs with the other two, no doubt the cause was Heather getting even with her for being thrown into a wall earlier. Madeline slowly backed away from Heather and Xander and crossed her arms, the fact that she had to fight this thing was all their fault to begin with, so it was their responsibility to send it back to whatever god forsaken dimension it came from.

As the two were pushed forward, they turned to face the demon queen, she simply waved them on and gave them a thumbs up. While they kept it busy or tried to banish the demon, Madeline began to think of what else she could do to the beast, in the likely event that the not so dynamic duo failed. Though this wasn’t really her fight, and the fact that she was preventing any further catastrophe totally went against her whole ‘Being evil’ thing, she couldn’t let this demon take all the glory for himself. Madeline had a point to prove, and with a very loud reluctant sigh, the demon goddess pushed past Heather and Xander, and cloaked herself in the pitch black fire once more.

Instead of using her shadow or any weapon in her vast arsenal, Madeline chose to do things the old fashioned way, a good ole ass whooping. She cracked her knuckles as she approached the demon, before unleashing a thunderous punch to the demons face, knocking him off his feet. “Huh, would you look at that. Can’t quite take a punch can you?” Her words were an attempt at goading the demon into locking horns with her, while the others found out how to send the brimstone demon back home, otherwise, Madeline would just kill it, or more than likely subjugate the beast and force it into serving her for the rest of eternity, either option was fine to her.

"Okay mom!" Xander moved forward under the duress of Madeline's push with Heather in step. "Should we do our homework and wash the family station wagon too?"

"I can't believe I have this power in me!" Heather looked over her hands with amazement, wondering what else she could pull out of her magical arsenal. "I can do anything!"

"Oh my god, calm down. Ten minutes ago we were thinking of ways to stiff the pizza guy. You didn't suddenly become Xanadu because a demon lady talked to you." The ensuing fight between Madeline and the brimstone beast locked in step behind them, but the duo remained oblivious to fires of war.

"They put the stones out of place!" It only took the astute witch a matter of seconds to notice the disruption Bliss bestowed to the arrangement. "Xander, put those stones back in place while I get these two!"

"Uh, can I use this portal to go somewhere where people don't ask me to do things every five seconds." Xander's hair flipped as quickly as his attitude in assisting his best witch. "Fine."

One stone fell back into place, drawing energy to the fixture. A dim light flickered on their faces as Heather pushed the last of the stones back into place. The demon felt his legs pull out from under him. With all his might he struggled to remain in this bright world full of hope to be shattered and dreams to be corrupted, but his demon strength faltered as the warding stones rebuked him.

"You have to teach me more!" Both of Heather's hand embraced her chest as she looked over to Madeline. "I will be your willing apprentice. Your acolyte to this world. And, Xander can be the biggest bitch to all who stand before us."

"Nuh, biggest- no, you're right."

"Teach me how to be like you. You're so amazing!"

Madeline’s metal clad fist collided once more with the demon’s face, forcefully sending him crashing down into the ground. The demon goddess back away from the beast and began to wind up her arm, as she readied to deliver the final blow, but she would not get her chance. No sooner did she begin her approach, the stones were realigned and the demon was pulled back into his domain. The demon was sent packing and left Madeline technically the victor, though she had to reluctantly admit to herself that she had some assistance.

After watching the brimstone demon get banished, she turned to face the others, immediately taking a step back as the annoying red head was invading her personal space. She let out a humph of disapproval at the girls words before rendering a harsh verbal lashing. “Why would anyone want you as an apprentice, you can’t even make a proper summoning circle.” she circled around the two, giving them a dirty glance as she continued her rant. “Not only that, but you can’t even cause proper pandemonium. This place was a living graveyard till I turned up the heat.”

There was a sudden pause in her movement as she came to a slight realization, if she truly wanted to make the world believe in her again, then she was going to have to cause a lot of trouble. If Madeline could enlist or enthrall others like she had with Heather, it could make her work a heck of a lot easier, and with that she stopped belittling the two humans, and instead decided to play on their fantasies. “If you are to be my apprentice, then you are going to have to do everything I say, word for word, with no hesitation. Not only that but you must agree to continue to serve me even in death. Do you understand?” Madeline gave a raised brow as she waited for Heather’s response.

A grand debacle turned into a fizzled spectacle. It still smelled of brimstone.

"But, but- I have so much power in my veins! It's not my fault those lesser witches on the Internet misled me. I just need guidance!" Heather threw herself at Madeline's feet to grovel.

"Oh my god; this is so sad. Senpai noticed you just in time to tell you how bad you are." Another flip of hair threw shade on Heather. "Can't we just turn people into frogs and make light shows like we wanted."

"I can do it!" Heather looked up. "I can do anything you tell me, even if-"

The door flew off the hinges. "I'm not even mad about the hit to the head. I'm not even mad I had to knock the door of a closet." Bliss re emerged on the scene with an axe to grind. Literally. "I'm more mad you thought you could do that and not have to pay the price." With a fire emergency axe wielded in her hand, Bliss stepped past the shards of what used to be a door.

Xander looked up and down Bliss' outfit as she stepped past him. "Oh no, it's Blissy Mary."

"Okay, you're really bitchy, I get it. Go cut yourself and pretend you don't know all the words to Call Me Maybe." The axe spoke for Bliss. "I don't really know what the situation is right now, but I don't think it's very good, so how about everyone leave before I get ever more angry."

Everything seemed to be calming down, in the depths of the concert hall, most if not all of the people upstairs were either knocked unconscious or most likely dead from all the blunt force trauma, but amidst all the chaos and the battle with the other demon, it wasn’t until Heather was groveling at her feet, that she realized that Bliss had never come back. The demon goddess looked down to her new disciple and grinned wickedly, she had the young redhead wrapped around her metal clad fingers. Madeline knelt down to meet the girl face to face before placing her index finger under the redhead’s chin and slowly guided her back to her feet.

Before Madeline could fully soak in this minor victory, the wonder of where Bliss had disappeared to came back, just in time for the door to the basement to fly off its hinges. Down the steps came a deranged looking woman, her face obscured by the dim lighting. The woman finally came into view, and the demon goddess’ eyes began to twinkle with delight. “Easy there kitten. Put the claws away.” she said to the angered Bliss, while motioning with her metal arm, for the woman to lower the axe she wielded.

Madeline was indeed happy to see her resourceful and downright mysterious partner in crime. She back to pace back and forth slowly between Bliss and Heather and Xander. She had already acquired two pawns for her rise back to fame, but one more couldn’t hurt right? Bliss would make an exceptionally powerful champion or even avatar, but the demon queen knew all to well from what she had seen of the woman, that coercing her into a contract or servitude would most likely never happen, even under the right or best of circumstances. That being said, she could still be a powerful ally, or Madeline could at least stay on her good side and continue her conquest from the confines of Bliss’ shadow.  

Madeline’s pacing came to a sudden halt as a decent solution to her current predicament came to mind. She raised a finger to the air as if suddenly struck by the very bolt of creativity itself. Her gaze shifted to Heather “First order of business is to apologize, understood?” Heather having already agreed to do anything Madeline said, just to even have a chance at learning from the demon queen, she would be compelled to at least abide by this simple request.

"The claws-" Bliss tightened her grip on the axe. "Stay."

"Apologize? But, I wanted to turn Bliss into a cat!" An axe flew by her with enough force to cut a lock of hair. "I'm sorry, Bliss. About hitting you in the head and wanting to turn you into a cat."

Bliss smiled as she surveyed the room. Her eyes locked on a roll of duct tape and a small bit of force pull a strip loose. The roll flew through the air with just enough control to wrap Heather up after she forced out her apology. "Apology accepted." Dry wall coughed up Bliss' axe as it returned to her hand. "I don't typically deal with demons. I have some dealings with cults, so I'm not quite sure what the next step in this dance is, but I'm pretty sure you are going to tell me every reason you're here, and then I'm going to let you know whether or not I'm sending you back to Hell or not."

"This is dumb." A cracking of knuckles rang out from the side of the room. "I think I'm just going to show my power so you can all know how lame you all are." Purple flames began to form around Xander as his eyes grew pitch black.

Madeline let out a shrug, Bliss was obviously upset, so asking her to calm down was probably not a great idea, though on the plus side, her anger wasn’t totally focused on the demon queen, which Madeline saw as a small win. The demon goddess’ eyes shot wide open as the axe rushed by her head, and just narrowly avoided cleaving Heathers head off. Madeline’s eyes went from the axe now embedded into the wall, to Heather’s horrified face, to the locket of hair on the ground before turning back to Bliss.

“whoa there Carrie!” before she could finish, the woman wrapped Heather up in tape using her impressive telekinesis. Once Heather was all wrapped up, Bliss addressed Madeline, and asked her to spill the beans about her motives, something that was only met by the most obvious of responses, and one Bliss should have been expecting. Madeline let out a loud sigh “Why do you have to spoil all the fun. What really makes you think I’d tell you anything anyway? You gonna treat me to dinner first? Are we going to have a romantic evening of Netflix and chill afterwards? Like what good is it for me to tell you my plans?”

Madeline placed her hand on her chin before smiling “Let’s just agree that the mystery is good for our relationship ok?” no sooner did the demon queen stop talking, Xander decided it was time to chime in, to which Madeline could only face palm. There was no way Madeline was going to intervene here, instead she grabbed Heather by a loose piece of tape and dragged her off to the side out of harm’s way. “I know you think you’re strong but I would like to walk out of this with two possible pawns, not one and a half.” Madeline shouted, not knowing what to expect out of this altercation.

Bliss let her eyes do all the judging she needed. Some kid with an attitude stepping up to challenge her? In skinny jeans? Puhlease. "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" Bliss pointed the axe at Madeline. "It's not racist to assume a demon is evil. It's not profiling either. Because. It. Is. Always. True!" Most of the things going through Bliss mind were things she wanted to go through Madeline's head, but first, the lesser of two evils for more than two reasons. "Okay AFI, let me get over beating you down then I can work over your new boss."

Purple flames turned into a holy display of fire. Whatever being Xander gained his power from installed a catalog of surprises within him. His left eye turned a deep purple while his right eye turned pitch white. "I guess I'll go ahead and do this. If it will shut everyone in the room up."

The fight between Xander and Bliss could hardly even be quantified as a fight. Bliss hit the ground in a matter of seconds while Xander took as much joy in her defeat as he did in most things he showed joy for. "Well that was stupid. But at least Bliss isn't getting up anytime soon."

Bliss tried to roll over to her front, but could not muster any strength for the flip. "That's what you think..." None of her movements or floundering movement came as controlled or moved by choice.

"Okay, 'boss'. What do you want me to do with her? She looks like a witch. Maybe we should burn her at the stake or throw her in a river and she if she floats." The impressive display of force Xander showed subsided, giving Bliss a chance to escape, but Bliss could only lift one of her legs before it fell back down. "Just watching her try to move is annoying. Why is everything so lame all the time?"

What a turn of events, Madeline had pretty much expected the woman to mop the floor with Xander, but then a serious role reversal occurred. The demon queen stood in silence for a moment, though that was most likely the extend of the man’s power, which paled in comparison to hers, it was still impressive to see, especially when she had seen what Bliss was capable up to this point. Madeline crouched down beside Bliss, with a slight look of confusion. “I had something extremely witty to say for when you whooped his ass, but then he went all Miley Cyrus and came in like a wrecking ball and now here you are, on the floor and I’m pretty much at a loss for words”

Madeline stared at the floundering woman, with a hand on her chin, just what was she going to do with her now. She gave a shrug as she couldn’t possibly think of how to address the situation in its current state, and Xander’s voice was beginning to tick her off just a bit. “For someone who hasn’t talked much all night, you’re awfully chatty all of a sudden.” Madeline moved away from Bliss’ body and began to undo the tape that had been wound around Heather.

“Did you know about that?” she asked Heather, while pointing at the angsty man with her metal hand. She continued to undo the tape around Heather’s body, while the woman struggled to get to her feet, whatever she got hit with, definitely did a number on her, but if she recovered any time soon, she’d more than likely leap up from the floor and tear out Xander’s throat and for that Madeline deemed it necessary for the dysfunctional duo to not be around when Bliss regained her composure. “you two get out of here, I’m not done with our friend.”

Her words were met with simultaneous sighs from both Heather and Xander, prompting her to instantly turn around and seize them both in chains formed out of a shadowy flame, the look on her face made it clear that if she got any more lip from the two she would turn them inside out. To that end, the two rushed out of the basement, leaving just Madeline and Bliss.

The look on the woman’s face showed she was no stranger to being in situations such as this, but Madeline couldn’t help herself “This happen to you often?” She couldn’t help but laugh at the situation. “Need a hand?”

Assuming that Xander had hit the woman with a spell of some kind, Madeline pointed her finger at Bliss, causing the debuffing sigil to appear below her. Hopefully that would do the trick, and it would rid Bliss of her pathetic writhing.