Having been slightly bored with the proceedings and completely in his own world, Dante's head suddenly snapped up as he noticed forty-odd auras suddenly fade...then wink out. What...?!

"Fee...Feenai, are you...alright?" he asked in a bit of panic as she swept wordlessly past him.

And speaking of auras... Dante turned his head back. Where in the world did Rue go? The bright red was not where he'd last Seen it. He focused, and...there. A fading reddish gleam. Startled at first, his mind immediately clicking back to the carnage that had just taken place, he thought it through more carefully.

She'd left. The one person that he actually cared about right now. Probably on account of having to get away from him, and also to chase after her own goals.

But still. Dante had half a mind to run after her, whether to kill her for the bounty of confess in his probably awkward way, he wasn't too sure yet...but for now there were more life-threatening matters at hand. Being a nomad by nature, and having found her in Corinth, he was sure he'd be able to find her again in the future.

Na'lsa's eyes widened as he witnessed the carnage in front of him. And as his excitement rose, his hunger took over. Eyes rolling back in to his head, his body moved on instinct as he dove on top of the first corpse. Teeth and fingers tore at still warm skin, blood gushing across his hands and face as he ripped skin away, bit flesh from bone, chewed through to the marrow inside. He devoured the corpse at an alarming rate, reducing it to organs and bone in a matter of minutes. And as he fed, his aura grew ever so slightly. It began to manifest around him, overtaking what was left of the corpse. It began to break down in to pieces, bones snapping and grinding to dust. Organs pooling together in a lukewarm slush. In a horrifying display they began to snake upwards and around Lev's body, the bits of bone floating for a moment before piercing his skin. They dug further in, the holes they left behind acting as tunnels for the liquid vitals to pour in to. For a moment, Na'lsa's power fluctuated beyond all measure. Then it ceased, and there was no longer evidence that there had ever been a corpse at all.

Na'lsa panted, feeling the rush of a fresh feeding. But...but something was not right. Forty deaths. Thirty nine corpses. Forty children, fathers, mothers. Sons. Brothers. Forty who might have mattered to someone. Who might have mattered to his own Father, if he were here today. Father, who would not agree with this...this bloodshed. Was he the cause of all this? Was the Lion of God responsible for the slaughter of his Father's flock?

In rage, he pointed an accusatory finger at the creature who had commanded such slaughter.

"You had no right! A flock must be culled from time to time, but you only kill what is needed! Do not WASTE life! I ask for flesh to feed, not to see it rot!"

With that he turned to the closest corpse, leaning down beside it. His sanity fully restored, he attempted to bring the man back from death. Jamming a finger inside the entry wound, he tried to weave the man's head back together. Brain tissue began to move. Pieces of the skull came together and reformed. Blood now coagulated began to flow, seeping out the man's head. Nerves inside the skull began to twist back together, tightening again as if their separation had never occurred. He withdrew his hand from the man, searching his face for any signs of life.

"My child. Do you breathe?"

As soon as Lev begins to feed, Shealtiel turns his attention to the spirits of the other 39 souls, enacting the rituals that will banish them to Sheol. Then he senses the tug of Lev's divine power on one of them, and release his hold upon it, allowing the soul to return to the dead man's body. With a shuddering effort, he sends the rest shrieking into the underworld, nearly collapsing when he is finished.

Breathless, he mutters to no one, "Nowhere to go. There is... nowhere for their souls to go. They know it. I felt their rage, their indignation. Bah!" Shivering with a sudden fever, he forces himself to his feet, leaning heavily on his cane.

Na'lsa looked down on the man with a sad smile. As he gasped for breath, the being felt something new. A semblance of redemption, of saving grace for bringing back the man from a cheap and uncalled for death. With the tenderness of a parent, he helped the man to his feet. Patting him on the back, he spoke in the gentlest tone he had ever mustered.

"You are saved, my child. Go forth, and tell the world that the Lion of God will throw open the gates of his Father's kingdom. For when you die, there will be a Heaven for you. There will be a Heaven for all."

Turning to the rest of the group, Na'lsa threw his hands in to the air, shouting with the conviction they were now familiar with.

"I know what I must do! I must throw open the gates of Heaven for all! I must shatter them where they stand, and reclaim my Father's throne!"

"I know what I must do! I must throw open the gates of Heaven for all! I must shatter them where they stand, and reclaim my Father's throne!"
Michael stopped climbing as he heard the sound of Lev's voice. He was only a foot to the top of the chasm and scaling it would be easy. However, the press on his mind was a lot stronger than it was when he was in the water, let alone in the car on the other side of the road. Fear pressed on to his mind. "Whoever Lev is talking to, I'm sure that he's not going to be a friendly one....and he seems powerful."
So instead of climbing up, he let himself stay a foot below the cliff and started climbing sideways, keeping up his block as much as he could as he focused on getting toward the wall of Thermopylae where he could possibly climb and go around whatever force was attacking his mentality.

Jeanne stood for a moment, her arms held stiffly at her sides, but when she realized that the creature had no interest in her, she took several steps backwards and just listened.

For a while she took in information - the name of the not-man was Kezdeja - and gauged the responses of the others. Shealtiel's open hostility to the Nephilim intrigued her, as did Lev's disrespect. The theurge didn't know much about the Nephilim, but the constant push at the back of her mind made her highly suspicious. She was about to speak when the sound of gunshots filled the air and forty men fell to the ground.

With a gasp that was buried beneath Na'lsa's loud protests, Jeanne was about to rush forward when Lev beat her and began to devour one of the bodies. The Saint she had wanted to preserve, but even if these men had been slaughtered without reason, they were bandits. Her grip tightening on the sword, she looked around to see Fee walk as if in a daze to the back of the APC and Dante's head follow. As much as she wanted to go comfort her friend, it seemed as though he was about to do the same thing, so she stayed where she was.

With Lev's proclaimation, the theurge sighed. There was something inherently wrong about him, she knew it, but she couldn't make up her mind on whether or not he was an enemy.

As he stands now alone with Jeanne and Lev, Shealtiel says warily, "I do not think... that we should underestimate this creature. We've seen what it can do with its mind, but did either of you notice the way it moved? I wouldn't be surprised if it could tear all of our throats out in the span of a blink. If we can, we should try to stay in Kasdeja's good graces. I don't think he's bluffing."

He is truly shaken, his normal pithy sarcasm wholly absent. With slow steps, he makes his way back to the APC, unsure of how best to deal with the Nephilim. Not sure at all.

Na'lsa watched the abomination disappear inside the APC. Once he was out of his line of sight, his guard came down. Shoulders slack, spine curved, he let out a long sigh. Restoring life was new. Foreign. Something he wasn't quite familiar with. On the outside it had done him no harm, but he felt within himself that he had nearly burnt out his power, reaching the very limits of what he was capable of. He was still full, but his strength was spent. He would need to rest. And to do so...

"I release control over my host. I am tired. Clearly I will need every Saint I can find. Until I am needed."

With that, his eyes went wide. Na'lsa's aura faded, eyes rolling in to the back of his head as he retreated inwards. And as he retreated, Lev took control.

He stumbled a bit, trying to catch his balance. The first thing he really noticed was the smell. Or to be more accurate, his own smell. He choked a bit, being reminded of a time he hid amongst a pile of corpses that had been set on fire with him still inside. But those were memories he tried to forget.

With a quick lope, Lev easily caught up to Shealtiel. He turned his head slightly as he slowed down, striding beside the old man.

"So I am to understand that I carry something that believe he son of God?"

Dante was standing awkwardly besides Feenai, trying to figure the best way to comfort a girl, when Kazdeja ventured into the APC and all but blinded the crap out of him.

"AUGH. Out...!" He nearly staggered onto Feenai, holding a hand to his mouth to stifled a wave of nausea from the crushing aura. Somewhat feebly, he made a few half-hearted punches at the nephilim's head, then noticed the old man only a few steps behind him. Or it. Whatever it was. Not like it mattered.

Feenai felt the nephilim enter the APC even though she had closed off her mind and closed her eyes. His psychic presence was oppressively strong, especially since she was emotionally weak after seeing all those people kill themselves. All those years of keeping my parents' thoughts out of my head, when maybe I should have been trying to show them that I wasn't scary. Though I guess if creatures like this exist, how could someone with no psychic power even think that every psychic is NOT like the nephilim, or emim, or any of the creatures that now roam this world...

She opened her mind a bit and felt Dante near her. Not knowing what else to do, she reached up and clasped his hand, just to have a human to touch.

Michael was about half way up the wall of the cliff when he saw the source of the aura creep into the APC: "A nephilim..."

Physical Test: FAIL

Michael examined it for less than half a second when he realized that he should have risked the psychic being instead.... as he fell, his life flashed before him. It wasn't particularly note-worthy but at least he saved some lives and he lived a free man until the very end...
*Thump. Snap.*

"ARRGH!" Michael cried and writhed in pain as he looked at his arm. It was bent in the opposite direction that it should have been able to bend, and the end humerus was visible from where he lay. The skin on the joint was flapping with the wind along with the rest of his arm, which was hanging on the ligaments that have all but torn.
Feeling movement in his other arm, he reached over and moved his broken arm to lay on top of him, working to set into a position that he could cauterize it with the his incendiary laser. There was a risk of infection but he knew that there wasn't much choice besides bleeding out.
However, as he was working, the sound of hooves could the faintest sound of footsteps could be heard from down the mountain path...an unknown wanderer, who Michael has not noticed or heard.

Look askance over at Lev, Shealtiel replies, "Your demon has quite the imagination. I somehow doubt Typasius held aspirations (or delusions) toward a divine lineage. Na'lsa seems to have skipped the Saint's humility, but, then, humility doesn't become a messiah. Demagogues, every last one of them. Unless you count the False Prophet, I suppose..."

Realizing that he is rambling, and that Lev likely stopped listening some time ago, Shealtiel climbs aboard the APC, scowling to see Kasdeja sitting so comfortably in one of the seats near the back.

Catching the tail end of Dante's outburst, he tells the bounty hunter quietly, "Better not to agitate it, Lucifer. We'll be suffering its company for some time, I suspect. I suggest you get used to it. Who knows, maybe he's a good friend once you get to know him." Not caring if his sarcasm carried through or not, Shealtiel totters over to his seat and straps himself in, closing his eyes and making a point of ignoring the Nephilim.

Dante flinched, then turned, surprised. ...What...? His first impulse was to shake the hand off, but it was...shaking slightly? He could feel it through his gloves.

Realizing he was still poised to deliver punches to the nephilim's head, he relaxed his shoulders and arms a bit, feeling the strangeness of enveloping another much smaller hand in his own. I wish I could read minds...he thought somewhat vaguely.

The most he did at the old man's use of his name was to glare, his clouded eyes trying to pierce him. He noticed that the aura wasn't at its usual strength. Odd for him to be shaken.

He glanced back at the wavering pale aura next to him, thought for a while, then awkwardly sat down next to the girl.

"No Dante...you don't," Feenai said softly as Dante sat down. "So many people think it's a great thing to be able to do, but maybe humans weren't supposed to be able to do this ever. Everyone wants to be their own person, and reading minds breaks down the walls that people put up so they can be alone with themselves. Even I put up walls from my own family..." She started sobbing softly at this, realizing slightly how much of a hypocrite she must seem like to Dante.

She sighed softly and leaned on Dante's arm. "You don't have to talk. I know this is hard for you. Just let me stay here a few minutes...until I'm composed?"

...Oops. In his attempt to figure out Feenai's feelings, he'd forgotten her ability to do exactly what he'd thought.

It was strange, how they were both separated from their families, albeit for completely different reasons. Feenai, Michael, Rue. I suppose I'm lucky, in some ways.

And then there was Lev. The man seemed...strangely, somehow approachable. It was strange.

Almost as strange as actually someone crying next to him. A brief oh shit what do I do now flashed through his mind. He knew the feeling of seeing people die in front of him, in his arms.

The same right arm that had held Gabriel as he coughed up blood and turned pale, day by day, now twisted gently, awkwardly, out of the girl's grasp, reached behind her, turned her to face him, and stiffly hugged her to Dante's shoulder.