[u][b]Julian[/b][/u]

Julian eyed the situation carefully. Too much was happening that he didn't really understand. Mairyell's mum or some other nonsense that was rather touching. And maybe he could have shed a happy tear or two if his forehead wasn't caked with sweat. His eyes hollow and his cheeks surprisingly gaunt. His hand was gripped around the sword handle tightly, and steam was beginning to roll off it. As if he heard something that for once, actually frightened him.

His shadow begins to flicker and attempt to morph into something else. But a flinch of Julian's shoulder keeps it at bay. His mind and that sword a portal to something truly horrible. A violent mental intrusion rams into his skull which causes him to gasp out and go down to the ground on one knee. His hand still grasping the sheathed sword.

He looks up at Poe and Mary, he knew something they didn't. For his eyes had a wildness and confusion in them that hadn't been seen in a very long time.

“W-we have to leave, right now.”

A red, volatile essence slowly seeped out of the sheathe. Before Julian's knuckles tightened and it retreated back into the blade. [i]No[/i] If it wanted to play that way, it would have to take the traditional route. 

[u][b]Mary[/b][/u]

Death. Death everywhere. She could feel it happening. Feel people dying all around her, Demons, and Angels. She could feel them at the exact moment of their deaths, and she could feel them being drawn to her. To the Abyss. There was one moment of sheer panic from each of them, and then they were gone. Silenced. Consumed. She didn't notice Poe's return, or the reunion around her. Her eyes were tightly shut, her hands clapsed around her knees, pressing them against her chest as if making herself a smaller target would stop them from coming to her. It didn't, of course, and they seemed to be never ending. She would have been rocking back and forth if she wasn't shaking so hard. Upon hearing Poe's voice, however, she opened her eyes to look at him through a sheen of tears. Before she could muster the will to speak, Julian spoke first. If she hadn't been already on the edge and slowly going over it, she would have been worried by his tone and the light seeping out of the sheathe. As it was, she only gave a small whimper and curled tighter against herself. "Yes. Please, get us away from here." She begged Poe in a miserable, pained voice. She could still hear them, feel them as they died and then were consumed. Their panic and their last words, or sounds in some cases, echoed in her head. She just wanted to be gone. Away. Free from this hell.

She squeezed her eyes shut once more and tried to block them out. 

[u][b]Poe[/b][/u]

Poe listened carefully as Julian spoke, noting the strange twist of essence from his scabbard. [i]Curious.[/i] But he had a mission to do from his lord and was not about to be distracted by ominous foreshadowing. Be that as it may, he focused on their emotions instead, espeically Mary. [i]Poor lass.[/i] Sweatdrops beaded his forehead as he heard her pitiful cry, his heart rippling in place. He sighed, donning his hat.

"That is why I am here, my dear," he replied solemnly, "you see, my lord Ioi has returned just now, and he is quite a bit rattled by the chaos taking place here. He's done what he can to prevent certain demon lords from taking the Essence of the World..."

He trailed off... realizing he shouldn't be wasting time like that. "Apologies, let us go," he stated, bowing as he then turned to walk down the stairs.

At the end, however, he stopped and politely waited for Layna and Mairyell Kasio to finish their reunion. As hasty as things were going, he was still one to not interrupt a lady's business, especially [i]hers.[/i]

[u][b]Mairyell[/b][/u]

The kiss landing safely, Mairyell's body twitched slightly at the contact, but he didn't react beyond a frown that had screwed itself on his face. How could so much happen in so little time? Shaking his head and glancing down at his mother, realizing just how much he had grown since he had last seen her, he hugged her, warmly and fully, letting for once his barriers fall. His eyes closed as he squeezed her gently, unsure if his strength might crush her if he wasn't careful. Finally after several seconds he withdrew, stepping away and glancing up the stairs as Poe appeared at the bottom. "So, you two are allied it seems..." he said, the seriousness in his tone filtering to his expression as the barriers quickly erected themselves once more around his hardened heart.

"Oh, yes mate. We serve the same lord. I'll say, funny how that turned out," Poe began, taking another step and getting out of Julian and Mary's way if they had followed him.

"Of course, I am not as pr--" he continued, then catching Layna's embarrassed gaze, and then her telepathic prompt to shush.

"Mr. Kasteny likes to remark on how things are," Layna said, squeezing her son's hand, but not trying to hide the flush in her cheeks.

Nodding in response he glanced at her, his eyes a calm violet, he exhaled slowly and spoke. "So he can take us anywhere then? Hmmm, if only I knew where was safest," a small frown crossed his face as he glanced back at Poe. He was sure the other two wished to be rid of this place as well, and he did too, if only for the moment. After all, his only leads on Aeris were in this city, as far as he was concerned, so he'd have to come back sometime.

"Yes, dear, anywhere that... has a door, correct?" Layna answered, then looking at Poe for confirmation.

"Spot on, madam," Poe replied, then turned his gaze to Mairyell, "Indeed, any structure in all the three worlds... Heaven, Hell, ... and all in between, yes. As long as it has a door, I will find it."

"It's just a matter of [i]where[/i] we would like to find safety. Therein lies the gritty rub, now doesn't it?" Poe asked rhetorically, looking thoughtful as he stroked his chin.

Layna shifted her weight, thinking as well, but still held onto her son's hand. She then looked up at him, smiling faintly, but wondering if she should mention it... would he even remember that place? She was so keen on her emotions and memories, she could barely contain herself. But as excited as she was inside, she was not about to accidentally upset her son with sadness from his past.

"Any place with a door..." Mairyell's eyes closed as he pondered that statement deeply, even with the battle that clearly raged outside of the apartment's walls. "Doors," his eyes opened slowly and he looked down and to the side, meeting his mother's eyes and returning her smile. The warmth of her hand reminding him of somewhere, "I think I have a place...but its name eludes me. Mother do you remember where we used to go together? You'd take me there..." his eyes closed again as if he were trying to remember. He half expected her to finish his sentence.

Layna nodded, feeling the image of the place in her mind. "I do, sweetie... I'd take you there and help you build sand castles... and it's [i]elude[/i], not allude..." she corrected him, looking half scared that she had just done so.

"By Jove. Mothers, eh?" Poe quipped to Mairyell, to which Layna gave him another bemused glance to shush him up.

"Just take it, please, Mr. Kasteny, we need to hurry," she then asked him, holding out her hand.

"I'm on it, will just be a moment," the tophatter replied, briefly touching her hand by which an exchange of information from Mairyell's mind was transferred.

Poe then went over to a closet door and grasped the handle, turning it left and right slowly as though figuring something out. He hummed a little bit as he mumbled about length and depth, and other sorts of nonsense. Layna turned to Mairyell, but then also Julian and Mary if they had come down already. She gestured with a finger, her eyebrows high.

"Do you all have your things?" she asked the three of them gently, feeling a deep pain in her heart as she looked at Mary and was reminded of her daughter.

She suddenly gasped as something clattered through the window, smashing glass harmlessly onto the carpet. A half-dead demon, impaled on shards of glass, looked at Mairyell and Julian, the only two who looked dangerous, with an evil glare... but made no effort to get out of its predicament. Layna immediately rushed over to Mary and hugged her, attempting to shelter the poor girl's vacant gaze from the carnage. Not that it would probably do much good anyway, given what Mary had already gone through, but all mothers mother poor dears in deep need of mothering. 

Such was Layna's logic.

Watching Poe for a moment and letting mom brief the other two, he noticed the sound of something flying through the air only a moment before the demon crashed through the window and slid slightly across the carpet. As Layna moved to Mary, Maiyell's head turned and his arm thrust out, blood exiting from the center of his palm and lengthening into a blade that stopped right before the creature's throat. Eyes narrowed as he glared down at the half defeated creature, the vampire briefly forgot his mother's presence and let his hardene blood push slowly into the hide of the demon's neck. "Cursed thing," he uttered with a growl before he realized what he was doing. Immediately changing tactics, Mairyell's blood liquified and writhed until it formed a cage around the beast, which was then forced upright into a rather tight and uncomfortable position and push against a wall where the blood hardened.

Shivering lightly he disconnected the blood, absorbing the small amount that he did not require for the blood prison. He had lost some of his stores so he felt a slight hunger tug at him as he glanced over to Julian, who appeared as if straining against something, and to Mary who was likely wrapped tightly in his mother's arms. Smiling sheepishly he turned away and then promptly walked over to the beast, picking it up with one arm at which point he flung it out the window, his blood piercing it as it exited their sight, and draining it of its life before flowing back to Mairyell and into him through the pores of his hand.

"Pesky creatures," he said a bit less aggressively than normal, after which point he turned to Poe, "nearly ready? It's getting more dangerous 'round here by the second."

Julian staggers forward to Poe. His sword had been clenched tightly around hilt and now small droplets of blood appeared off the tip of his index finger. Yet there was no cut. And his eyes were wild and crazed, with his right eye only being incredibly bloodshot, to the point that it looked like an infection. But Julian knew better. He felt what was about to happen to the City of Loom and the people in this room if they didn't leave right now. He ignored the Demon crashing through the Window. He just needed to get out of here.

And then he heard its voice enter his mind, but not through the sword as normal. But throughout the City. Spreading and lingering like an infestation

[b][i]“A Heretic shall bring forth Salvation on a Mountain of the purged” [/b][/i] 

Julian backs away with fright. His own shadow looking less and less like his figure and the sheathed blade radiating with murder and hate. He turns to Poe.

“We are leaving right now, we aren't safe!” He said exasperatingly.

“Take me to Aberrose, Scotland!” He demanded. Much to his own surprise. It had been his childhood Summer home, and return home was quite honestly the last place he wanted to be. But in his moment of panic and desperation, it was the first safe place he could think of. For his summer home had been abandoned years ago.

“Mary will be safe there, for a while.”

Poe nodded at Mairyell, but then turned to the demanding Julian. "You two first then," the tophatter decided, pointing at Julian and Mary. Opening the door, a brilliant flash of white light illuminated the room before fading to a glow around the doorframe. Even though this was a closet door in this appartment somewhere in Loom, it looked as though an ocean and beach, with a wooden deck was inside. 

"We'll keep in touch, so take this," Poe said, handing Julian a sophisicated cellphone, "and best of luck to you lot. Truly."

Layna guided Mary to the door, whispering that she will be alright. The former king and his girly subject then exited, and Poe closed the door, causing the white glow to fade. Layna then turned to Mairyell and smiling softly, took his hand as Poe opened the closet door again. Beyond the doorway, this time it showed a beach as well, but with more rocks and trees. The ocean could be heard in the distance.

"Let's go, my son," Layna whispered, gently guiding him through the door, after which Poe closed the door.

He sighed. "I'm ready, dear," he whispered, and an instance of the Reclaimer appeared and took him away.