Lead, and You'll Be Followed

Standing at a mere four foot nothing, Melissa looks on in silent terror (with her now too large clothing puddled around her) at the figures who walk through the door. One is a man with a slightly mischievous smirk, decked out in leather jacket, chains (looking very much like a biker she once dated....only with a LOT more menace to him). The other is.....what Melissa can only call a DEMON! It looks to be the classical demon she's seen in various artist renditions, but a million times....uglier! As for the last, it's a humanoid figure that's as tall as a man, but is what Melissa would call reed thin! From the looks of his ears and the delicate build of his face (with it's silvery eyebrows and hair), Melissa's mind insists that.....this is some type of male elf! 

That's ridiculous....but that's what it looks like.

 At the moment the "elf" is being dragged bodily by the "biker"....and is silently crying and saying something over and over again. He's being dragged, because apparently either due to obvious injuries and/or gut wrenching fright....the guy's knees are as week as water! Melissa's still scared stiff by the OTHER beings in front of her, hears the elf say something.

 "I'll be good....I'll be good....I'll be good," the elf keeps whispering over and over again, weeping.

 "It's too late," the demon says with obvious relish, reaching for the elf....who screams in terror. 

The biker sighs and suddenly the "demon" finds himself slammed up into a row of tools (the room that Melissa is in is a mechanics garage). The dazed demonic beings looks up at the glowering figure who had "thrown" him their, looking almost silly as wrenches and other mechanic tools rain down upon his head.

 "We had this discussion already," the biker says in a cold voice. "This Kuriel's fate is to be different than those of his already departed bretheren in the Palace. In fact, you should NOT have even awoken him at the time when your....friends took those time shard twins down to the bowels of the Infernal region!"
 
 

The biker waves a hand at the shivering elf, who's backed himself into a corner and is whimpering.
 
 

"You scared the living piss out of him....you can still smell the urine!" the biker continues, looking sadly at the shivering elf.
 
 

"But you're an Agent of Chaos, Agent 4!" the demon protests. "That makes us...."
 
 

"Nothing," Agent 4 interrupts. "Evil and chaos are NOT the same. Same for Order and Good! They may meet in some cases.....or may not.

 "Now, as for your argument that says that this Kuriel's case is like your boy Thoabath," the biker pauses, and gives off a deep...hollow laugh. "Now, while I care nothing for rules laid out in a universe .....the rules covering his case are different ....the rules of the soul and such. He had.... and always HAD ....one last chance at redemption. RF did NOT make him sign the usual contract in his own blood, since our little demon wanted the profits of that little venture all to his lonesome. That meant that once that Frederigo D'Honaire - who RF called Thaobath - could have redeemed his own soul, could have gone on to gain a positive place in the Here After."
 
 

"Ancient history," the demon hisses, picking himself off the floor. "He didn't....and his brother's fate back in his home universe....."
 
 

"Is very much in question....even with the question as to whether or not he has the same chance at being something more than a charcoal briquette when he dies again.....unlike that stupidity with the Brazen Man......" the biker finishes.
 
 

"But the elf went and tried to murder his own kind!" the demon protests, seeing an opportunity slip through it's claws. "He had his bird mount grab that elfin child and smash it and a human child unto the rocks below. He laughed in delight and......"
 
 

"Turned and went to do it again....." Agent 4 said. "Just like in the Elfquest comics by Warp Graphics (characters and such trademarked) that his universe mirrored.....before Rayek went and....killed his universe by combining his Palace with that other Palace."

 The demon tries one last time to make a grab at the elf, and is again slammed up against the wall.

 What the Agent says next isn't clear to Melissa. It seems to sound like "Go to Hell" or something to that effect (Melissa isn't sure just what infernal region is mentioned.....the word was to......alien.....to understand).

 The demon disappears in a flash of flame and brimstone, and with his disappearance goes ninety percent of the fear.

 "Kuriel.....you've seen and heard much....that will effect you even after what happens next," Agent 4 says gently to the shivering elf, who is beginning to have a look of hope in his haunted eyes. "If I know my mortals.....this will make a total 180 with your personality as far as behavior.....even without your memories for eight years. Learn and make up for what you almost did."

 Kuriel suddenly shrinks down to a fraction of his normal size, and a reedy crying sound can be heard from where he had been. Then the now infantized Kuriel disappears in a flash of light (to whereabouts unknown to Melissa). 

"What?" Melissa finally gasps. Nine tenths of what had just been said made no sense to her!
 
 

"Nothing you....oh shit," Agent 4 begins and stops as two rather real looking globes of the Earth (with a realistic Moon) appears between Melissa and the Agent.
 
 

Everything stops for Melissa and the two mirror Earths and Moons (who'd followed the trail that had been....er....blazed by Melissa).

 Later....
 
 

1. "So....what now?" Rule 4 asked his Chaos counterpart. "They fall under your jurisdiction since they showed up here." 

 Go Back