NJ's Competition

First of all- congratulations to Skyril! Well done, I thought your story was fantastic :) 

Also- Derek's going to be in Adelaide this weekend! :D I'm going to get to the signing earlier, if I can, and wait for him to appear >:)

And hopefully, I'll buy KOTW and get him to sign it :)

I know, I know. Short post. Here, I'll put my entry for NJ's comp here, and you can read it XD

...I thought it was good, if I do say so myself ;D Even if I did accidentally forget some 
characters...sorry, Skyril ._. 

“Go, go, go!” Aquila yelled at the Light Angels. They sped down the corridor with everyone else sprinting after them. The Angels led the way, but stopped suddenly at the opening to an ante-chamber.

“This will allow us to pass through into the throne room, hidden.”

“Then let’s go!” Dragona hissed, “We’re wasting time!”
He pushed the doors open to the ante-chamber, and we came face to face with three Dark Angels, who slowly turned to look at us.

We stared at them. They stared at us.

“They’re mine!” Dragona shouted, and pulled the trigger on his gun, spraying bullets all over the room. The angels began to advance, their shadows twisting and spiralling on the ground.

Aquila ran forward to help Dragona. She was swept back straight away. “Two minutes!” Lilith called, and the Light Angels moved with incredible speed and kicked the doors to the throne room open. They motioned everyone forward and they piled into the next corridor. Someone must have heard the gunfire, because fighting erupted the moment they stepped through the doors.

One of the Light Angels went back and picked Aquila up, lugging her to the throne room’s entrance. “Dragona!” She yelled. “Come on! We can’t fight them!”

And that’s when I stepped in.

A small black object whistled through the air and struck one of the dark angels in the arm. A second later it exploded, ripping the angel’s arm clean off. He let loose an inhuman scream and another explosion claimed the life of the other angel. I walked into the scene from a small balcony from above. I had received the call from Kallista earlier, and had tracked it to the manor as soon as I could. I loaded two more giant 203mm grenades into the grenade launcher I was holding, and fired them off towards the remaining angels. They whistled and then detonated, and it was all music to my ears.

I dropped to the ground, leaving the grenade launcher up on the balcony. I pulled my shotgun out of its holster and held it vertically next to my head as I surveyed the Dark Angel’s bodies.

“You,” Dragona breathed when he saw me.

“Love you too, babe,” I told him cheekily, walking by him.

NJ watched from the prison that held her, the prison deep inside her own mind. She saw her friends burst into the throne room, saw the odd two dozen Lesser Dark Angels turn and be ordered by her Grandmother to attack.

She breathed in, out. She kicked, hard, into the prison wall, and a tiny crack appeared. She had to conserve her strength, but the wall healed itself fast, so she had to work faster.

Elivra strapped herself down on the Dark Altar…

Elivra secured one strap on her right arm as chaos began less than fifty metres away. Granny was shouting hexes and incantations at the intruders who had burst in through one of the adjoining ante-rooms. She didn’t know how- there were Dark Angels stationed all over the manor, especially in this room. Out of the corner of her eye she saw white-feathered wings spread as well as the black wings of Elivra’s angels, and she knew that they had somehow summoned reinforcements.  Dog-fights began in mid-air, right above Elivra and Granny and the intruders. There was the sound of gunfire and the screams of Angels.

Elivra secured own her legs to the altar with heavy iron manacles. When NJ’s body was sacrificed, there would be a moment that NJ would have control, in her dying moments. The power that would be harnessed to open the portal for the other Greater Dark Angels would be more than enough to let her get up and leave. That’s what the manacles were for. They were not only Bound, and heavy as hell.

“Granny!” Elivra yelled. “Secure the other shackle! We have to do this now!”

I pushed myself past Dragona and went through the doors, into the Throne room.

Krane and Callaghan cut down every Dark Angel near them with their gunfire. Augurii and Rachel launched themselves right into the battle beside them.

Kallista and Lilith were the closest, fighting back to back against a Dark Angel each. They seemed to tower above any normal man. Kallista’s blade lodged into an Angel’s throat with a snicht and as she withdrew it, she saw me.

“You got my message!” she shouted in joy, skipping underneath the blows of more Angels. Lilith cursed as another Angel joined the fight against her.

Kallista hugged me ferociously and I tried aiming with my shotgun behind her head, trying to line up a shot on Lilith’s attackers. Kallista’s hugging knocked me off aim and the shot thudded into one of the decorative masonry pieces that littered the wall, defiling some impish creature’s face.

“We’ve got to save NJ,” Adrian yelled, boosting our courage. We began to charge through the mass of Angels, gunfire or blades ripping them down.

Dragona lopped off the foot of a Dark Angel half-heartedly. He cursed when the Angel reached down and flipped one of his blades away so easily. Dragona wasn’t as good as he proclaimed himself to be.

He went to bring his other blade down, but yet another shotgun blast rang out and stole his kill. It was that dotard, Israel. Dragona couldn’t stand him. He was too well-liked. Always saved the day. Dragona had been meaning to get rid of Israel for some time now, and he realised that right now, in the midst of battle, would be the perfect chance.

Dragona cleared his throat, and put his plan into action.

I shot the head of another Angel clean off on our way to the first steps. There’s about thirty of them, I reckoned. On the top, I could see an altar with NJ strapped to it. An old woman was shooting streaks of energy at us all from the top of the stairs. I thought nothing of the magic beams, until one of them hit a white-feathered Angel, and it bursts into purplish-black flame. I decided to keep my distance from the old woman.

There was the sound of retching behind me. I turned in time to see Dragona drive his sword deep into the heart of the fallen burning Angel.

“He was on our side!” I called out angrily.

Dragona didn’t respond, not at first. He looked at me, and began to twirl his sword expertly. Behind me, I heard Aquila gasp. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, Dragona, no!”

“He’s been possessed,” I told her quietly. “Dragona’s gone. It’s a distraction, to keep us from reaching NJ. Go,” I said, unsheathing a short, flat broad sword from my back. Dragona’s head tracked my movements. The others hurried up the steps.

Dragona, or whatever possessed him, lifted his hand and dragged me through the air. I was thrown back into the ante room, and I skidded across the floor painfully, losing my broadsword. He followed me into the ante-room, shutting the doors behind him with a wave of his hand.

I leapt to my feet and charged. Hell no, I didn’t have a plan. I ducked under the first swipe of his blade and punched him in the gut with all the force of my charge. He doubled and stumbled back, swinging wildly with his katana.

We bot h straightened up and fell into fighting stances. Him, the fighting stance of what seemed to be a professional swordsman. Me, a drunken fighter.

He put all of his force into a thrust with his sword and I sidestepped it, clapping the flat edge of my blade against his back. He grunted but turned around again, ready to fight once more. I closed my eyes for a split second and when I opened them, Dragona had clicked his fingers and began the age-old trick of using his arms as flamethrowers. Flashy, but not effective.

I sprinted towards the fire and at the last moment, dropped to the ground and began to skid along it, the fiery tongues lashing out at the air above me. I reached Dragona and kicked him as hard as I could in his shin. He reacted instantly, cutting of the flame and clutching his leg, squealing in pain and hopping away.

I got to my feet and he stopped hopping around. I still had my flat broadsword. His katana lay on the ground between us.

I leapt forward and he whipped the sword towards himself with a burst of focused air. I crashed into the ground where the sword had been, my own blade clattering to his feet.

Dragona twirled his katana in his hand, and brought his heel down on my shortsword. The blade snapped at the hilt, and he walked towards my prone figure.

“Let him go, Elivra,” I ventured. He did a double take and looked down at me, laughing.

“Really? Elivra?” he said. “Please. Elivra’s busy controlling NJ, and probably going to kill her, too. I would have thought you’d worked out by now that Dark Angels couldn’t possess more than one person at a time.”

I started to sit up, but he kicked me in the side of the ribs wickedly and I stayed down. “Then… who’s possessing you? Who am I talking to right now?”

He barked with laughter. “Possessing me? No-one is! It’s just me. Dragona. And the best part is that once I kill you, and go back there, it’ll all look like another casualty, another case of friendly fire that couldn’t be avoided.”

I looked up at him and studied his eyes. He was speaking the truth. There was no-one possessing him.

“You’re sick,” I told him, and he kicked me again. He pushed his sword’s edge against my Adam’s apple and forced me to look up at him. He’s grinning. All he ever wanted was to kill me, and now he had the chance. All I had was the feeling that he was going to do it in the most painful way he could.

He flipped the blade around and clapped the flat side against the side of my skull. My sight disappeared completely and I felt the pounding pain reverberating inside my head. I was only out for a second, but when I came to I felt like I’d been asleep for years. I lie crookedly on the ground, and warm blood trickled down the side of my head.

Dragona got an idea. “Beg,” he said suddenly. “Get up, you sack of religious bullshit, and beg. Beg for your life, and maybe I’ll make this quick.”

I didn’t answer him. He grabbed me by my collar and dragged me across the ground, back the way we had come. He didn’t notice when I picked up one of the objects on the ground, hiding it in my sleeve.

We reached the closest wall and he asked me one more time. I refused. He slammed my head into the wall, and I swear I heard something crack. It didn’t sound good.

“Beg,” he spat.

“Please, Dragona,” I said finally, and through my bruised and bloodied eyes I saw a smile of triumph spread on his face. “Please, don’t realise what I took from where you were standing.”
His smile turned into a frown of confusion. “What?” He looked over to where we had fought. He saw the hilt of my shortsword, lying on the ground. The snapped blade wasn’t there. Why wasn’t it there?!

He turned, and there I stood, on shaky and tired legs. The blade was clenched tightly in my right hand, and all I had to hold on to was the sharp edge itself. My own blood ran down it, dripping to the floor.

“No,” he breathed.
Wordlessly, I kicked him with all of my strength. He stumbled back a good few metres; just enough for me to have some breathing room. I flung the broken blade and it span end over end through the air, lodging itself somewhere between his third and fourth rib, exactly like I had seen with my power. He toppled backwards and hit the ground, a gurgle of blood already working its way to his lips. He was still alive. But not for long.

Adrian’s green eyes flashed and he pulled the trigger on the gun he was holding, sending three bullets into the brain of another Dark Angel. He didn’t like guns. Death was something that shouldn’t be dealt with a weapon of such force and efficiency. Even for these corrupted Angels.

They were on the steps. NJ’s father was somewhere behind him, yelling a battlecry and releasing short volleys of gunfire at the Dark Angels screaming above. Lilith and Kallista were practically dragging Aquila up the steps, fending off Angels twice their size. Krane followed, covering their advance.

Adrian sprinted up the last few steps just in time to see NJ’s grandmother unsheathe a blade that glowed the deepest indigo. She walked towards NJ, muttering in a dead language. Every step she took, tiny sparks jumped from the floor and gathered, swirling behind her. She reached NJ and raised the blade up above her. NJ was silent, staring at the dagger being held directly overhead.

NJ, the real NJ, saw everything Elivra saw and cursed, bashing against the prison in her own mind. She had failed. The wall in front of her would not crack, would not open. She had no strength left. Her own grandmother would kill her, and then the portal would open and the Greater Dark Angels would rush through, and overwhelm her friends. Adrian would die. And it would all be her fault…

Adrian had no time to think. He swung his pistol around and fired. Once, twice, and on the third time, NJ’s grandmother finally fell back, black blood gushing from the three bullet wounds in her chest. The ceremonial dagger clattered to the ground beside her dying form.

Adrian rushed to NJ. She was crying, sobbing uncontrollably. “Help me, help me,” she asked of him, and he hurried to undo the shackles that held her.

I limped towards Dragona. He saw me coming and moaned, pushing himself on his back, as far away from me as he could. He got about a metre before I caught up with him.

“I should ask you to beg,” I told him. “I should ask you to beg for your life like you wanted of me. How long were you going to take before you killed me? Long enough for my friends out there to die as well?”

He murmured something. I crouched down to hear it. “My friends, too,” he croaked. “Mine…too.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think you ever saw it, I don’t think you ever even realised. But they were never your friends. You’re a sad man, Dragona. A sad man with delusions of grandeur.”

His face contorted in anger and pain. I saw him pull the gat too late, and before I could do anything, he shot me; point blank.

I fell backwards. I stared at the roof. What a beautiful roof. The owners of the mansion had hung impressive chandeliers all over it. They sparkled as the light filtered through their jewelled lights. How I wished that I could just lie here and do nothing, just let it all end. But I couldn’t if I had tried.

I pushed myself up. God, it hurt. The bullet had landed somewhere in my abdomen. That, and the concussion he had given me before was enough to make me want to curl up and give up. It was also enough to make me angrily get to my feet.
I was on my knees. Then my legs unsteadily took my full weight. I could barely do it. I looked down at Dragona. He was chuckling and choking at the same time. I stamped as hard as I could on the arm holding his gun, and I bent down to retrieve it. The movement sent shockwaves of pain shooting through me, but I continued, gnashing my teeth.

“You missed me, motherfucker,” I spat at him.

He shook his head, delirious with his own fatal wound. “Nope! Look at the blood, look at all the blood… You’ll die here with me, and they’ll be none the…none the wiser…”

Alright. I couldn’t hide that. I put a hand inside my jacket and squeezed the area, trying to apply pressure like everyone tells you to. It didn’t seem to be helping.

“I’m not going to die,” I told him. “You know why? ‘Cos I am just too goddamn handsome. God doesn’t let handsome men die. And I’m going to go right out there, and tell them what you did. Show them your true colours.”

His eyes widened. He started shaking his head, started rambling. I could tell he didn’t have long now. “No, no, no, no! Please… please… don’t tell them. I don’t want them to remember me like that.”

“You attacked me,” I say. “All you wanted was my death. In the end, you caused your own. Why should I tell them any different?”

Froth built up around his mouth. The pistol was heavy in my hand. There was already a bullet locked in the chamber.

“Pity?” he managed through obvious spasms of pain. “Mercy?”

I heard the gun-fire slow to a halt in the throne room. I needed to get back there.

“I pity you, Dragona,” I growled. “There’s no doubt about that.” His eyes looked hopeful. “But mercy? Mercy is the mark of a great man.”

I took aim. There was no way I could miss, at this distance. “And I’ve never been a great man.”

I fired.

I moved with painful yet determined steps through the ante chamber, and back into the throne room. White-feathered Angels were just alighting onto the steps around the altar as I entered. I limped twice as fast to get up the stairs and see what was happening.

Krane was reloading his weapon. There were blood stains on his hands and face, although whose, I could not tell. Kallista, Lilith and Rachel were working with Adrian to unfasten NJ from the large stone altar, and Callaghan and Augurii were surveying the room with icy-blue eyes.

I pushed past two Angels and stood at the Altar, watching them fiddle with the locks. Aquila rose out of no-where and stood in front of me, eyes wide and filled with madness.

“Where is he?” she said, deathly quiet. Kallista, Rachel, Adrian and Lilith all stopped to face me.

“Gone,” I said simply, and went to push past Aquila. She held her ground.

“Where?” Again, she used the venomous voice on me. It spoke volumes of danger, but I ignored it.

“I killed him,” I told her, and I saw her face crumble. “He wasn’t possessed. He attacked me of his own accord.”

“Lies!” she screeched, exploding into tears. “You spin lies and falsehoods. It was not his fault! But you-” her eyes seemed to flash the brightest orange “-you killed him! You could have saved him!”

“There was nothing to save-” I began, but she wouldn’t hear it. She launched herself at me, fists swinging. Callaghan stepped in, grabbing her arms with an iron grip. She struggled but soon gave up and moaned with pure sadness. Callaghan lightly dragged her to the side, and sat her down on the stairs, where she sat and wept.

Adrian pulled apart the last of the shackles and ducked forward to kiss NJ. She just laughed and pushed him away. Hard.

He fell backwards and frowned. “Elivra…”

“Not for long,” Elivra said, and flicked the ceremonial blade up into her hand with a tendril of darkness. And in one smooth moment, she plunged the dagger into her torso.

She screamed, and a wave of energy pulsed from her. Everyone was flung off of the altar’s platform. I landed heavily on my side, and grimaced from the excruciated feeling as the bullet lodged inside of me drove itself deeper.

Elivra was still screaming, and her back arched impossibly. The ceremonial blade, still buried inside her, shined a brilliant blue. Sparks gathered around it and lead away from the altar in a stream of energy. And that was when the portal opened.

I had heard the story of that portal at Aranmore Farm. How they had used a teleporter, the last one, to open the portal. A yellowish thing, I had been told. This was completely different.

There was barely even a portal. There might have been a sound, but at that moment, all of our ears popped. I began the age-old trick of yawning to return my hearing, and holding in a string of curses against the pain of my bullet wound. When I looked up, they were standing there. Four of them stood, silent and dangerous. Their black wings were curled at their backs, and they towered over us. They surveyed the room with cold, inhuman eyes.

NJ’s body arched even further. Her mouth shot open, and there was the sound of ominous whispers. A black vapour drew itself out of her mouth, and when it was completely gone, she collapsed back onto the altar.

I was getting up on my feet when I saw the vapour shoot around for the nearest person. It found Aquila, and she gasped as it forced itself down her throat.

We were summoned.

I looked around. No-one had said it out loud. From the looks of Kallista and Rachel, they had heard it too.

Who brought us here? Step forward.

It could only be the Dark Angels. Slowly, we stood to our feet. Augurii had landed next to me, and we supported each other. 
Aquila took a single step forward. The Dark Angel’s heads snapped to her. Her eyes were red with tears, but her face showed no emotion. “I did,” she said. But it wasn’t her voice. It was darker, and laced with dark, violent thoughts.

No-one moved. Kallista went to speak, to try and help Aquila, but the Angels silenced everyone except Aquila.

Why did you leave the host body?

Aquila blinked. “It was dying.”

You should have died with it.

She was appalled. “No way! I’ve put up with that bitch for 16 years! I sure as hell wasn’t going to die with her.”
 The Angels stared at her, and she stared back. What were you hoping to gain for yourself, from summoning us?

Elivra moved Aquilas arms until they crossed over each other. “I was expecting the host body of a Dark Angel to take over, so I may continue my work alongside you.”

The Dark Angel that stood at the front of the group tilted its head on the side. Come forward, then, and accept a gift from us.

The smile that was on Aquila’s face could have outshone the moon. But it was the intentions behind it that made it eerie as hell. She practically skipped up the steps, and approached the first Angel, ready for her long-awaited prize.

Closer, it said. It held out its massive hand towards her. She grinned and looked up at the Dark Angel as it closed its hand around half of her face.

“So, how does this happen...” Aquila began to say. A red light pulsed from the Angel’s hand, encompassing her face. She gave a little “Oooh! It tingles!” and waited for whatever was going to happen next. 
“Uh…kinda starting to hurt,” she said. The Angel just tilted its head and looked at her critically.

And so passes Elivra, the Dark Angel who sacrificed herself to summon destruction to the world, the Angel said.

“What? No-”

Aquila screamed. But it was more than that. It was Elivra inside, screeching as she was incinerated without the chance to escape the host. All of us were frozen to the spot by the Dark Angel’s magic. 
Aquila’s body burned and became ashes in a second. Then the Angels turned to us.

“Do something,” Lilith whispered. “Someone. Do something before they make the first move.”

My legs were no longer frozen to the ground. Augurii and I limped up the steps. Krane and Callaghan raised their machine guns from each side of the steps and held down the triggers as they walked straight up. The bullets hit the Dark Angels and they simply stared at their attackers. There was the click as the last bullet shot out of Callaghan and Krane’s weapons. The hurriedly began to reload.

Adrian sprinted straight up the steps to the Altar. He wasn’t even looking at the Dark Angels. He reached NJ and cradled her head in his arms. 
She wasn’t screaming anymore. But she was still breathing. “Hey,” he crooned softly. “Get up. Come on. We’ve got to get out of here.”

Her eyes flickered open. She looked at him, and her face broke into a smile. Almost instantly, her face contorted with agony. Through it, she managed to reply.
“Green eyes,” she whispered. “I’m free. She’s gone. Completely.”

“We’re not safe yet,” he said, looking over at the blade buried in her torso. “You should be dead. The portal should have never opened.”

“They’re just scouts,” NJ said. “It didn’t take much to bring them here. They only needed to mortally wound me…”

Adrian winced. Gunfire started up from Callaghan and Krane again. The Dark Angels turned and began to walk with slow, purposeful strides and the bullets failed to hinder them.

I searched my pockets and found a couple of grenades I had been saving for rainy day. Might as well use them. I pulled the pins and lobbed them to Lilith and Kallista, shouting “Hot potato!”

They panicked and threw the explosives at the Angel’s feet. The explosions shook the ground underneath us, but when the smoke cleared, the three Dark Angels still stood. The one who hadn’t made it lay sprawled on the steps, reddish-purple blood pouring from half a dozen wounds.

There were still five or so of the Praetor Angelus. They were smaller than the Dark Angels, but still formidable. They drew their swords and spread their white-feathered wings, and attacked. All at once, they went for one of the Greater Dark Angels, swarming over it and tackling it down the steps. The Dark Angel silenced two of its foes before finally; the remaining Light Angels killed it.

Krane and Callaghan started to back up, still firing. Their weapons had no effect on the last two Dark Angels. Lilith and Kallista drew their swords, and stood next to Rachel, ready to fight but not wanting to. Augurii dragged me one more step and then dropped me. She pulled out her own weapon and ran to join the fight. I tried once more to stand up, and instead, gave up. I pushed myself up onto my elbows instead, and pulled and my shotgun, beginning to load it.

“NJ,” Adrian called. He gripped her hand and squeezed it. “Stay with me, now. Listen. I have an idea.”
“Like fireflies,” NJ whispered. “All around the Dark Angel’s heads…”

Adrian scrunched up his face. “It’s ok, NJ. You’re going into shock. You’re going to be ok.”

“No, really,” she told him, holding a hand aloof. “I can see these… weird halos of red light. The Angels. We can kill them, I think…we just need…”

“Don’t try anything dangerous, NJ,” Adrian said to her. “We’ll get you out-”

A cold, black hand curled around Adrian and pulled him back. NJ screamed as the Greater Dark Angel picked him up like a rag doll and took all the time in the world to examine Adrian.

Stop.

The Dark Angel said it, and everyone listened. The Light Angels stopped attacking, Krane and Callaghan stopped firing… Lilith, Rachel and Augurii forced themselves to stop. Kallista found me and pulled me up again.

None of this has to continue. You- he looked directly at NJ- kill yourself. We will spare this one, ‘Adrian’. And every one of your associates will have a place in our new world.”

‘No,” Adrian shouted to NJ. “He’ll just kill us after. Don’t listen to him!”

“Not like this,” NJ said, tears forming in her eyes. “Please. I didn’t want to die like this.”

You have ten seconds to comply. There were two Dark Angels left. The one holding Adrian pressed his spare hand against the side of Adrian’s head, and the hand began to glow slightly…

Eight…

NJ lifted both of her hands and clasped them around the ceremonial blade lodged in her torso. She yanked it out with a scream. It clattered onto the ground.

Six. Five.

She pressed her hands to her torso and closed her eyes. When she opened them, they were pure light. Her hands burned her flesh, and her scream reached an even higher pitch.

“She’s cauterizing it,” Kallsita breathed next to me. “Go! Come on!”

We sprang into action. Krane and Callghan rushed forward to the Dark Angel that wasn’t holding Adrian. The Light Angels attacked with them, and Lilith, Augurii and Rachel ran to reach them. Once again, I was left lying on the steps. I sighed and raised my shotgun half-heartedly. “Yay. Saving the world. Teamwork.”

Four. Three.

The Dark Angel was still counting. He seemed to think that once NJ had killed herself, we might stop.

NJ sat up. The wound was cauterized, and she pushed the pain to the side of her mind. She really needed a vacation.

NJ looked up at the Dark Angel. She picked up the ceremonial blade that had been meant to kill her. She spat at the Angel.
“Catchphrase,” she said, deathly quiet, and threw the blade.

It hit the Angel and it screamed. It was worse than anything NJ had ever heard. The other Angel was killed behind it, but never let loose a sound like this. Adrian was flung back, and caught before he hit the ground by Kallista. Sheepishly, she lowered him to the ground and ran away to join Rachel’s side.

The Dark Angel stumbled, clutching at the blade in his chest. The scream went on and on, even as the Angel fell to the ground, and burned itself up. All that was left was ashes.

And there was silence, save the panting of breath. NJ struggled to her feet and ran to Adrian, tripping over the last metre and landing on top of him.

“You alright?” he said, a smile breaking out on his face.

“Never better,” NJ replied, and kissed him.

Afterwards, when we were all outside, the Light Angels bid us farewell. They did not mention where they would go, and no-one asked. In short flashes of white light, they disappeared.

Dawn was breaking. We dropped our weapons and watched the sun rise over the earth, basking everything in an orange glow.
“What was that dagger made out of?” Adrian asked, breaking the silence.
“Brimstone.” NJ said, searching the sunrise.
“Really?”
“What? Of course not. It was probably just a magic dagger. Anyway, I don’t think any Angels will be wanting to come through that portal again, after what we did.”

“Again…Really?”

“Cross that bridge when we come to it, Green Eyes...”

Beside me, Kallista frowned. “Why does it always end like this?” she asked me. “The guy always gets the girl, heroes save the world, we walk off into the sunset, or in this case, the dawn…”

“Because.” I said simply. “It is a cliché that most clichés are true, but then like most clichés, that cliché is untrue…”

Kallista looked at me with a mouth opened in slight anger. “Did you just copy that from Stephen Fry?”

“Shhhhhh… Enjoy the sunrise…”

And so it was that the large explosive device Israel had planted earlier in the manner exploded, sending shrapnel flying and making it looking like an overall badass exit for the good guys. Not a single Dark Angel survived from the manor. And NJ never went back.

And cue the ending credits…