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(no subject)

WHO: Everyone!
WHERE: Jeopardy -> Heropa
WHEN: Nov. 19
WHAT: A resolution and a swear-in
WARNINGS: Please label threads

Somewhere, in a place that is and is not Jeopardy, time has passed. To some, it may have felt like mere hours; to others, days. For time doesn't truly touch this place. Only fate exists here, for imPorts to change or allow to proceed as it will.

Somewhere, the sisters look into the hearts of those with the power to decide the fate of this entire world and know their choice. A blinding light grows, forcing even the strongest to close their eyes, and as they do so, a vision of what could have happened appears in their minds. A world wreathed in flames, fire and screams echoing ceaselessly as they depart; a peaceful world, healed and whole and well—and a certainty that another world has paid a heavy price.

And then there's the sensation of three powerful forces leaving, two taking an unwilling third with them to wherever they are going. This world will be left as it is now, and its future will be whatever the people here make of it.

MEANWHILE, IN HEROPA

One week into the mysterious storm that has enveloped much of Jeopardy, citizens across the nation are losing hope. The government continues to monitor the situation at a safe distance, but cannot enter the affected part of the city, though one SEAL team did make an attempt, only to become lost in the wind for hours before emerging without ever making it through. While the storm hasn't grown, neither has it shown any sign of changing.

The heroes who bravely charged into the storm have not officially been given up for lost, but with no news coming from Jeopardy, few believe they will emerge unscathed. To honor their sacrifice (?) and offer sorrowful natives a means of coping, a candlelight vigil kicks off outside Heropa City Hall at 4:30 PM EST.

Speeches are given. Commemorative t-shirts are sold. It is at this point that a large portal of light opens up in front of the building and deposits all imPorts who entered the storm, as well as a confused but unharmed Layla and Sally Clapp. A stunned silence falls over the crowd — followed shortly by an eruption of cheers.

Organized chaos quickly reigns over the occasion. Medical personnel are quickly called in to aid any imPorts who might need it, and government officials quickly descend, one thing on their mind: what the heck happened, heroes?! ImPorts are asked to state, for the record, exactly what they experienced — which leaves a lot of room open for the more creative among them. Just what each imPorts is willing to confess to or lie about is up to them, but there are other imPorts at hand to refute or support all statements.

While imPorts are technically free to go, all are encouraged to enter the building for a debriefing with government officials. Those who care to share their story begin to paint a picture of what happened, and a flurry of transportation begins to move between City Hall and the local porter outpost, as Jeopardy will certainly require some aid now that it is fully accessible. Reports begin to filter back that while there have been some casualties and collateral damage to the city, it is far less of a disaster than the government anticipated during the storm, no doubt due to imPorts' efforts. Additionally, news from other porter cities begins to arrive; with the dissipation of the Jeopardy storm, all dimensional anomalies elsewhere have ceased.

Following the briefings, ImPorts may go home and get some rest, although they may have trouble shaking off the crowds — which are largely ecstatic that the people who apparently saved the world are in front of them.

While imPorts were occupied with the post-disaster debriefings, locals have used the time to launch an impromptu celebration of their defense of this world. Local restaurants, breweries and nanas have hustled their finest wares over, and free food and drink are flowing for the homecoming heroes. A local party & events organizing company has strung up some lights and tents in the park across the street from City Hall, lending a festive atmosphere to the area. T-shirts being sold to honor the assumed-fallen heroes have been 'edited' with permanent marker, going from 'FALLED HEROES' (there was an error in the print run, given the notice of less than a week) to 'RISEN HEROES' and are, regretfully, being given away for free.

For those who stay, an impromptu party breaks out, and the occasion quickly becomes the latest swear-in, albeit with a more casual emphasis on the actual swearing-in than usual; a card table is set up with the usual seals and documents, but it's a bit haphazard.

Along with tasty libations, local musicians start jamming on acoustic guitars in the park's gazebo, setting up some cheerful background music—or maybe you're not too tired to dance? A local physical therapy school has rolled in multiple portable massage tables, with free sessions for sore heroes!

The locals who haven't dispersed yet are also around, likely to seek autographs from the world savers, while podcasters, BlueTubers and regular nosy nellies might lean in with a recording device, asking for the real story of what happened. For imPorts who become too intoxicated or exhausted to porter home, many locals are offering couches to crash on — although the pillows they use may later show up on ePay.

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Lucifer just looks over at Gabriel for a moment. The last time they had seen each other, the archangel had been rambling and making vaguely threatening comments about humanity, and if there's one thing Lucifer won't stand for, it's threats to humanity. (When did that happen? Humanity used to be something deserving of punishment.)

"So it seems." He hasn't heard the whole story, and what he has heard contradicts itself. Just because he doesn't lie doesn't mean he can tell when others are.

"Where did you come from? You smell like you rolled in something dead."

"Jeopardy."

He breathes, one breath and then another before he rubs a hand over his hair, "...I went into the storm to fight."

And no one missed him but perhaps...perhaps he deserves that, "Sal - one of the other imPORTs - said we should do something and actually try and act like heroes. So...I did. After how I behaved when I had that power I thought I needed to do it. And it was..."

He saw heaven, he saw the trial. Others did too. He fought huge monsters and he is...

"Can you feel it? Reality is knitting itself back together. they did it. They really did it and saved this dimension."

He does sound stunned at it, but he doesn't move before staring down at the gore and shaking his head. Fuck.

"This should be your shirt then." He pulls the T-shirt off of his shoulder and holds it out to Gabriel. "It smells better than what you've got on now."

He's not going to wear it. He might as well pass it on to someone else.

"Can you feel other dimensions than this one? Back home there's Earth, Heaven, Hell. I can't get to the Silver City but I know it's there. Here I feel nothing but Earth. Which does seem to have returned to its usual state recently."

Gabriel doesn't say a word. He shucks his stained shirt without a second thought and heedless of any other humans. Staring down at it before staring back at Lucifer he considers what he said.

"I'm tied to reality. When something's wrong with creation I'm supposed to know and go there. All the archangels are. To know the names and do her will. She sends us and tells us these things. Here...here I don't know. I feel her? But she is...very far away."

He pauses, "A radio signal. So I guess since she is creation for me? I sense her and I can still hear her but it...it's a faint signal. This dimension is an earth. Just a different signal which is why I can't find or sense things here.

And I've been getting signals crossed. Can radio signals do that? Get crossed?"

"I'm not an expert in radios, but you can be driving along, listening to one radio station, when suddenly you haven't changed anything but you're listening to a different station. Which is a good way of putting how it works here." He assumes this earth has a Heaven and a Hell, but they're on a different frequency and he can't get to them.

"I don't know how it is for my archangels. Similar, I suppose. I haven't seen them since I Fell, and humanity had barely begun then." He doesn't know how most of his siblings deal with humanity, beyond the fact that none of them understand why he likes humans so much. Or at least they didn't until Amenadiel figured it out. "It's like how I can pick up on desires, and bring them out and make them more apparent."

"...Yes. I know about how...about desires." He's actually trying to be polite. Too tired to argue and too tired to fight.

Humanity. What a loaded concept. They were an experiment (he thought). A sort of weird pet to exist on earth while they prepared for the final battle (he thought) but Crowley and Aziraphale lived among them and they changed them some how and he's among them now.

And he doesn't get it but he's maybe starting to be glad they exist. Maybe. Without them he'd be dead and who knows what would have happened because...

"...They've grown. Humans. They've grown up. Or growing. Also...don't fight a battle in a foreign dimension. I actually feel tired. Have you tried a bed? With blankets?"

He learned what sleep was after falling asleep in the desert for three days while his body tried to heal from possession and hellfire burns.

And he is, a little addicted.

He even manages to smile, "...Wild stuff."

"I'm well-acquainted with beds." Sometimes for sleeping. Sometimes for things that are strangely called sleeping but are in fact much more active.

"Humans have come a long way since the garden. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I can't really say."

"Well. Their bodies, these bodies are made to rest. I don't need to,
Good never rests..."

His features fall, "...After I was possessed by that power, that fire power I paid a heavy price. Beds are preferrable to the desert! I was...out there for days trying to heal. Sleeping helped.

And then getting back and discovering blankets and pillows!" He paused, "she wouldn't have made corporations need to sleep if it was bad."

And the rest. Well. Nothing wrong with comfort right?

"Being on Earth requires sleeping." For him, anyway, because of the way time works. The rules of Hell are different, and hard to explain to those who don't live there. "I figured that one out the hard way." Maze had not helped at all.

"It's not just humans who require it. Most species do. I'm just glad humans do it in beds."

"...I was hurt." He paused, "I got hurt badly here, That's how I started." He looks at the adversary, the morningstar, " - it is not sinful." he wrapped his arms around himself with his shoulders shaking, "...It's comforting. I'm - I like comfort. I didn't think I ever would but that must be it right? How I dress and how I act and I like comfort."

"...Humans are good at that. And surviving without it. It's not so bad of them, I don't think. To want comfort."

His head shakes and he swallows, "Are you all right? You and your girl...friend? girlfriend. In the wake of that?"

"Apparently sleep is good for healing. I don't get hurt often enough to have noticed a difference." Or badly enough, when he does get hurt. "Someone told you that it's a sin?" He can guarantee that it's not.

"Girlfriend." Yes, that's the right word. "Chloe. We mostly avoided trouble from all of that, except for what couldn't be avoided." Like creatures in the streets and such. He used his wings for travel more often than he ever had before while attempting to avoid trouble in the streets. But then, most of it couldn't hurt him, so avoiding it hadn't been much of an issue in the first place.

"Comfort is ...not angelic. We provide comfort, we don't get it." He hugged his body, "I-That's what I believe. I have to set an example. I have to lead, I want to lead. She trusted me to lead and I don't want to fail her."

At the mention of them surviving he nods, "...That's good. I never intended things like those creatures during my apocalypse. That would have been-well. Possibly...the other side's deal. Even now though. Even now? I just don't know."

"I saw thing in there. The human's memories and other things."

"Who says you can't have any comfort? Just because you're an angel? Have you ever wondered why angels and humans have different sets of rules?" Probably not, if Gabriel's like the angels from his world, but if he doesn't put that thought out there, no one will ever wonder.

"The other side's deal?" He knows you mean him, Gabriel. Or someone like him, at least. "Maybe the other side doesn't want an apocalypse."

"I didn't before I came here. It doesn't matter if the rules are different, I just want to obey her. Even if I have...this choice." He grimaces, "...But I do like comfort. I mean I always have, I just - apparently never got called on it?"

He stares at his clothes and shakes his head. When Lucifer suggests Maybe the other side doesn't want an apocalypse

He laughs. It's a nasty nasty laugh.

"Try telling that to Lord Beelzebub. I've known them for 6,000 years and trust me. There's only so much they can take. We've promised we're going to stab each other first. It's been a regular date but they are always so...so..."

So What? He sounds animated, the fatigue is still there but his eyes are bright, "When the antichrist decided to stop the apocalypse they couldn't manage to tempt him and that was the first time I've ever seen them fail tempting anyone. They're surprisingly good at it for being a foul disgusting smelling-"

He pauses and hold up a hand and continues to speak - positively. Or at least as positively as he can.

"Either way. Trust me we both want to murder each other. Them because that's what they want to do- me because they are frustrating."

"An Antichrist would help with the apocalypse." So it's a good thing he's always taken care not to end up with one. That, and he doesn't want to be left having to raise one.

"Wait. The Antichrist stopped the apocalypse?" That goes against every story he's ever heard about what will happen when the end times come. (If only those prophets had had any real idea.)

"I don't suppose you'd believe me if I told you that I don't want an apocalypse."

"Yes he did."

This is disconcerting because he's talking about Adam. The brat turned curious ...creature. The brat turned child. Just a child who he did not trust to end things. The idea that children were worth more but this Lucifer -

If Adam knew him, or if he knew of Adam. He would know what Adam did. He did not.

It's a funny thing because at this moment angelic instincts stir in his breast. This is his brother - but that doesn't mean he's not dangerous. That doesn't mean the boy wouldn't be safer unknown yes? Especially by the devil?

Then he says it. I don't suppose you'd believe me if I told you I don't want an apocalypse.

"...I don't know." He looks uncomfortable, "But yes. The antichrist stopped it. I can't...give you anything more then that. I'm sorry for that, for what it's worth. Everything has to end at some point or another."

He is used to killing but this idea of things ending and people being angry. People saved him and he fought beside them and Adam is a boy.

"...I don't know if hell will try again or how in my world but things need to end. I don't know how you all think it can't."

"Why does it have to?" He doesn't want it to. His doubts his father wants it to, given how he feels about his creation. But mostly he wants to see if Gabriel can actually answer his question or if he's just repeating what he's heard others say.

"Who says it has to end? What happens if it doesn't?"

Gabriel doesn't look exhausted when Lucifer says that. He wraps his arms over his chest and thinks.

About Lilith nearly burning him alive and the tilting edge of oblivion.

About the constant, constant, constant fucking nagging over this issue (and it's 50% Beelzebub's blessed fault.)

And Lucifer just looks so ...so - secure.

"Because it's what I was told to do!" The words burst out, "I don't know why I was told to do it, I just do it. Thinking for myself scares me all right?"

It's a command so enormous he obeys and- and -

"And you don't get it. Alright? Or- or maybe you do." He gestures, a few people shying away from him in surprise, "Sure. All right in the time I've been here, you get it. But she's all I have and I can't and won't say no."

He deflates, and one can practically see him wither, "I just...then there's the anger. The absolute deep deep rage when I think about what the traitors did. It's overwhelming and I want to beat them because they shouldn't have done that. Ending the world is just...a means to that and making it go away."

He just listens with a passive look on his face. 'Just doing what I was told to do' is a familiar refrain to him, from his own family for the last six thousand years (not that he's seen most of them in that time). But by the time Gabriel's done, Lucifer has the tiniest trace of a smile on his face.

"So. You don't know why someone else wants it, why someone gave you the order to do it, but you seem to be aware of why you want it. In this case, the two things just happen to be the same."

Which is a start. At least Gabriel had come up with somewhat of an explanation.

He considers that and remembers the storm, the trial. YOU want to do it and when he speaks he sounds angry.

"Are you saying. That she's using me and using my hatred for demons - to...to test me and see if I can resist the urge to want to kill your people because I'm supposed to-"

Awe floods him. It's like a light clicks in his mind.

But he's learned. learned and he's tired

"...Is that right? Did I get it?"

"Is she testing your loyalty by telling you to do the opposite of what you want to do to see if you'll follow orders or do what you want to do deep down inside?" He pauses to let the question sink in for a moment, although he doesn't need to think about it. "Probably." Welcome to his world, Gabriel.

"Giving in to what you wanted probably would have gotten you kicked out, so you might have made the right choice there, assuming you don't want to be kicked out." Which he obviously doesn't.

This just reinforces the idea that she protected Aziraphale and Crowley because they were both giving into what they had wanted - he and Beelzebub.

What if he already had been? No, He would know. He would know and it was clear she loved him because he was still an angel he was just...here.

Still. She was testing him. He was supposed to have turned the other cheek.

He had failed.

His head visibly droops but he can get it back.

"We tried, she just protected all the parties involved. So -" he exhales, "My course is clear. I have to...curb those darker impulses and work to earn back her favor which must mean appreciating and protecting mankind."

"Weren't you already protecting mankind?" That is kind of the point of angels, although everything they do they're supposed to do from afar. "That does sound like the reason we're here. Or at least the reason we're told we're here." He's learned by now that he can't take things at face value.

"So maybe she did send you here as a test." If that's what Gabriel wants to believe. Lucifer doesn't care one way or the other.

"Yeah but...it wasn't the kind of thing...I mean they're - I always thought of them sort of like those things humans keep ants in. The glass cases? It was a means to an end. But now..."

"I like them."

This is everything wrong with his worldview . He rubs at his wrists and looks away, "I must be far too tired to function. To think like this. Am I?"

"I like humans too." If that helps, but it probably doesn't, because what angel wants to agree with the Devil on something? "There's nothing wrong with protecting them because you want to instead of because you were told to." The problem isn't choice. The problem is blindly following orders.

"Nor is there anything wrong with liking humans. There's plenty to like about them."

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