The Man Who Sold The World

After Georgie got up on the stage- more forced than voluntarily- she touched her long hair to check if it still looked okay. No matter how drunk she was, Georgina Gilmore never forgot to fix her hair first before she faced any sort of audience. The music just started playing and she needed a moment to realize that the song was Christina Aguilera's Dirty. Georgie shot a glance at the giggling Elenna who was just about to get another drink.
You chose that song for me, didn't you, you little brat! Georgie smiled back at her, letting her know that she wasn't scared of doing an 'Aguilera performance' on the stage. She saw Rome who obviously couldn't wait for her to get started.
"You go, Aurora!", Elenna shouted to her and started laughing again.

Man, that girl is SO drunk! She's going to have a bad hangover... Georgie tried to focus as the first lines of the song started. She wasn't a good singer, but she had some pretty good cheerleader moves to offer...

Morrigan had seen a lot of things happen after a hunt, but singing? She'd never seen such a wasted bunch of people, and she was used to college parties. She wasn't sure if this was good for Lenna so soon after a possession, but she knew she'd never get the girl off the stage the way she was going...and Georgie, Georgie was going strong.

She stood up, hoping to escape with her ego in tact. She hated singing, but someone caught her hand and pushed her back into her seat.

"Mor, you're not drinkin'!" Rome said, tipsy-loud but not quite drunk-slurred. This sucked, he wasn't getting drunk fast enough. He handed Morrigan a $20 and pushed her toward the bar. "Go get yourself something, double it and bring me back one. Go on, I'll save your seat for you."

As soon as she was out of sight, Rome sauntered up to the guy in charge of the karaoke machine: "Listen, I have a friend, uh, Mmmegan, who wants to get her name on the list, if that's okay?"

They guy looked at him like he was already three sheets to the wind, when in fact he was lucky if he was one. "Megan? What song?"

"Umm what song is she singing? I don't know, actually forgot to ask! Can she tell you when you call her up? Awesome, thanks, man, can I get you a drink?"

He turned toward the bar to find Morrigan glaring at him, two cocktails in hand. Smiling disarmingly, he took one glass, "Awesome, chica, thanks!" he said, and handed the glass to the karaoke man.

"Rome, did you just do what I think you just did?" Morrigan asked.

Rome grinned, a little sheepish, but not at all guilty. "Mmmaybe?" he tried, hopefully.

Morrigan wanted to kill Rome as she finished her drink and headed on stage to sing, being forced the whole way by her "friends".

"Princes of the Universe, seriously?" Morrigan groaned, not nearly drunk enough. The DJ smiled at her a little, making her feel even worse.

"Come on, stick in the mud, strike a chord!!" someone screamed at her. She stood anxiously on stage.

Morrigan sang the whole song, better than she would have thought, and stepped off stage. The DJ was checking her out again, smiling the whole time with a hugely dumb look on his face.

"If you think I'm hooking up with that guy, you're totally wrong," Morrigan told Rome, punching his shoulder. "You kids go have your fun, or whatever you do, and I'll take point."

Rome shook his head, "You're hopeless, Mor. Hopeless."

The next person had gotten up to start singing...

It was Raime. Rome hadn't pegged him as the alterna-metal kind of rocker, or stupid enough to pick a song that was like 12 minutes long, but there he was warming up to The Grudge by Tool. Maybe he was drunker than Rome had thought he was?

Or maybe he didn't choose the song.

Rome stopped, his permagrin fading slightly, and stared at the bottom of the pint he was working on.

Um. What?

Whatever it was inside his head that was asking weird-ass questions did not reply, so he knocked back the last of his beer and ordered another to silence it further. But an inexplicable uneasy feeling remained. He waited, breathing quickly, for a few seconds, for it to pass or for the pain and flash of white light that meant a vision, but nothing came.

"Rome? You okay?" Georgie nudged him.

"Uh, yeah," Rome said, recovering. He shook himself and turned to her, smiling disarmingly. "I thought my beer tasted a little skunky, is all."

She shook her head, laughing, and Rome slipped his arm around her as they returned their attention to Raime. The guy was pretty good, actually. Shockingly good. He wasn't Maynard James Keenan, but he certainly wasn't an embarrassment. This guy had to be sober. Then why was he singing such a downer song?

((Play video below for incidental music.))


That the mortals thought they had won only made this sweeter. He had business to attend to, later, but this was pleasure.

He knew he had a flair for the extravagant. The art of subtlety, of underhanded trickery, of deception, was hardly how he operated. He was obvious. He was straightforward. He was Titan.

So when he entered the mortal realm, he would do so on cue.

"Saturn ascends, choose one or ten. Hang on or be humbled again," the man sang, with his natural gifts only, although with a nudge from the Titan. He did not deal in talent--the music industry would have a much different sound if he did. He dealt in lucky breaks, in money, in fame. With human souls as repayment, he was getting the better deal. By far.

He had quite a collection amassed already, not to brag or anything.

"Clutch it like a cornerstone. Otherwise it all comes down.
Justify denials and give them to their lonesome men.
Saturn ascends, comes round again.
Saturn ascends, the one, the ten. Ignorant to the damage done."

At first in perfect synch with the crescendo of music, the lights flickered, a breeze picked up, then the power in the little building died. Silence and darkness reigned.

A few people screamed.

One light flickered on, illuminating only one figure. Saturn had come round again.

Saturn smiled, and, like he was brushing a fly off his arm, caused the earth to tremble. Now people screamed, like good little sheep, and dove under tables, staggered toward the exits.

All except one table in the center. Seven figures stood, pointed weapons at him. It was an adorable display, especially when the bartender joined in, pulling the shotgun off the wall. The hapless man fired a crack shot, but, somehow, his own bullet ricocheted off of the Titan and struck the him in the head.

No one else pulled a trigger.

"Brave," he said, pretending to be impressed. "But idiotic. A thorn in my side. By all rights I should just destroy you now. With a snap of my fingers. I--"

"Who the hell do you think you are?" One of them asked: it was the boy, his granddaughter's bastard plaything, the one who was supposed to have second sight. That was ironic.

"Someone who does not like to be interrupted, which you would do well to remember," his voice boomed, the ground cracked, bringing the mortal to his knees, perhaps harder than was strictly necessary. "I hoped I was expected. I was sure Johnson would have turned on me by now, one of my more dissatisfied employees--or--oh! You never gave him the chance to tell you! How delicious."

"You're Saturn!" the diminutive brunette female shouted, but seemed immediately to think better of it, and clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Well, it's good to see they gave you a mouth to go along with that brain," Saturn said. "Now," he added, to the room at large, "this is your first and last warning to get out of this town, and get out of my business. I am here to collect what I'm due, and won't be satisfied with less, although I've no compunction about taking more. Hardly much of a choice, so I know you'll make the right decision. Which is the only reason I haven't snapped my fingers yet."

As he departed, in a flash of sound and shadow, Saturn clicked the music machine back on, a not-so-gentle reminder:

Saturn comes back around to show you everything
Let's you choose what you will not see and then
Drags you down like a stone or lifts you up again
Spits you out like a child, light and innocent.

Saturn comes back around. Lifts you up like a child or
Drags you down like a stone to
Consume you till you choose to let this go.
Choose to let this go.

((PS: If anyone is brave/stupid enough to try anything or ask him anything, let me know and I can either put it in this post or break mine off and continue it later. Please let me know!))

((Why are seven people pointing a gun at Saturn? I just count 5 hunters that use a gun and Lenna.))


The nice lightheaded feeling Lenna had earlier was gone. It was such a nice feeling and more they for once saved someone, but somehow she felt very heavy now.

“This was… really Saturn? I can’t exorcise Saturn, he is not a demon. Oh we are in big trouble, very big trouble” Lenna now wished her last drink would have been just a coke.

“I need my books, damn I know there a couple of books and the Safehouse… damn it I told Bobby when I left I want the book about Greek mythology. Okay or a laptop, we have to figure out how to fight a god, or get away alive.”

Lenna tried to stay calm but she was close to freak out. Fighting a god was way over their heads.

((Don't forget Raime, and I specifically didn't say "guns" I said "weapons" I figured she had a knife, or pointed her magical little finger at him menacingly.))

"Jack!"

Aly had rushed to his side as he went down after the whatever it was left. He was a little dazed, but otherwise unharmed. His arms wrapped protectively around her.

"What the Hell?"

She looked to Rome for answers.

"I thought we won? Bad demon exorcized and all that jazz? What the Hell was that?"

Lenna had to smile that Aly was hoping to get answers from Rome. Mostly he wasn't the one who had answers unless you ask for the phone numbers of each girl in a bar.

"That wasn't a demon. He called himself a Titan and Saturn, that was um worse than a demon. This is a God. And I don't think a God is effected by an exorcism. And hell might be the wrong place to ask, maybe. I'm not entirely sure."

Lenna regretted every drink she had this evening. They made thinking a complicated task right now.

"That is just a thought but do you think we should check on the rock star?"

Lenna looked at her friends hoping one was sober enough to drive.

Talk about buzzkill.

Fear (definition: "Crap, my boyfriend's home early!") had a way of metabolizing alcohol when you hadn't had quite enough yet to numb everything.

"Damn."

He'd said that out loud. Oops. Um. Um, um, um, um....

Dammit, pull it together, Remington! You may not be the brains but you are the charisma. You are the leader. These people, for whatever reason, are looking to you, even if they shouldn't be, so you have to pull your sh*t together and tell them what to do now.

"Um. Yeah. Okay. Um. Okay. Okay. Here's what we do."

Rome looked around him. The civvies were freaking out, and one thing they did not have time for was crowd control--although he'd love to control that tall red-head in the corner, if you know what I mean--and they definitely did not have time for the police when--not if--they showed up.

"We need to be gone. Split up, get to the cars, whatever, meet back at the hotel. Raime, I know these are your people, but I don't think you should be found here. Let the cops put this in their 'Unsolved Mysteries' file and come with us to the hotel. So I want you driving Aly and Morrigan in the 'Rover, because Morrigan, I want you on research; Aly, you take shotgun, literally. Dan, you take shotgun in G's car. Lennie, you're with me, I want you on research, too. If we don't have a plan by the time we get to the hotel, we go in anyway, because I honestly doubt a plan will help much now that we're in the big kid pool, anyway."

He didn't add that maybe going in at all was looking more and more like a bad, bad, bad idea. These were consenting adults, enlisted men and women in the ongoing hunt against evil, they knew what the stakes were.

But still...

"Wait," he added, as the team turned to split up. "If, um: okay, this is about to get dangerous as sh*t. So if anyone's just...you know, simply not there, when we get to the hotel, no hard feelings, and definitely no shame in it. So, um, yeah. Catch you on the flip-side," he said, and strode toward the door.

((PS: I'm not sure if we drove or walked to the bar, so...in my version we drove!))

"A...god? As in fire form heaven, all powerful and other sh*t?"

Werewolves she could handle, demons she could handle, shapeshifting Indians she could handle but this...this was too far.

Raime looked to be in a mild form of shock, actually obeying orders from Rome like they were from his CO. His arm snaked around her waist and pulled her along with him out toward the car.

"I don't care what they call it, Aly. I felt that...thing and it has to be stopped. All there is to it."

Allison sighed and pushed him against the back wall of the alley, their lips sought furiously for each other, contending in a body melting kiss before Jack slowed it and ended it with a gentle nip on her bottom lip. All the danger they had faced and would face seemed to course through them, shaking them and making them desperate for each other again.

But there was work to do, and the others would be out in the alley soon.

"Jack I..."

"I know."

They both looked around before giving into their desires.

By the time the others got outside Aly was leaning on Raime holding a shotgun over her shoulder with flushed skin and a grin she couldn't hide if she tried.

Lenna looked quickly at Aly’s flushed skin, a large grin appeared on her face.

She had grabbed a bottle of water to get a clear head, she wasn’t sure it was helping. She had unlocked the Ferrari, sitting on the passenger seat she had already Rome’s laptop and started the research. She found a couple of ways killing a God, but nothing specific how to kill Saturn.

“We have a couple of options Rome. But I’m not sure what really will work. There are myths that say that fire would work, although a stick of Evergreen trees through the heart, decapitating with either iron or silver is an option, stabbing a knife in the heart dipped with various different animal blood or just any wooden stick. Not to mention the more unrealistic myths like Phoenix Ash. I’m not prepared for a God hunt, I don’t have any books on Gods.”

As if there is such a thing as a Phoenix.

“I could also offer a bath in a virgin’s blood at full moon. But I guess it is difficult to have you around and a virgin.” Lenna grinned at him.

Rome barked out a laugh. "Ha-ha," he said. He gripped the steering wheel, thought about it. "Okay, yeah, never mind, guilty as charged."

Because if you couldn't joke around when you were about to fight a god, when could you joke?

He patted Elenna's knee, making her jump. Her reflexes were still slow, though, sh*t. He wished he hadn't encouraged her to drink so much, never mind regretting how much he himself had imbibed. Taking a deep breath, Rome flicked his eyes from Elenna back to the road. "Okay, so. From that list, what do we realistically have access to?"

Lenna closed her eyes for a moment, if she would have known the hunt isn’t over yet she wouldn’t had drunk that much.

Okay closed eyes not helpful.

She opened her eyes suddenly and looked back on the laptop screen. Trying to concentrate.

“I think the most logical option we also have access to are the option of fire and the Evergreen stick. But the decapitating sounds as if it would work, too. I would vote for fire, maybe add some salt you know just in case?”

"Okay, fire. Fire is good. I'm good with fire. Salt and burn, awesome. But somehow I don't think we'll be that lucky. So, what was it, evergreen? Like a Christmas tree? Where the hell are we gonna get a Christmas tree in September?"

"It's October, Rome."

"What? Oh, okay, well, it's only, like, the first."

Lenna giggled. "Rome, it's like the third!"

Rome waved his hand. "Well, whatever. Complaint still stands. Let's just get whatever kind of wood we can find and start making stakes." Rome chuckled. "Hey, you think Sarah Michelle Geller will show up?"

Lenna rolled her eyes. “Let her show up when we are done with the job. I don’t wanna have any other surprises.”

She closed the laptop. “And evergreen are conifers, live oak, holly and "ancient" gymnosperms such as cycads or Ginkgo. But I would say holly is the one we are after. In several cultures it has special powers. So no, we are not looking for a Christmas tree.”

Lenna looked at Rome, expecting he would do his magic in finding a place to get holly, since she could write messages and call people but that pretty much it. “Rome you have to find a place from where we get holly, I have no idea how to find something normal as a tree.”

"Ha, you're such a noob," Rome teased absently, as the gears in Rome's devious little mind were already turning. If he had been back home, he had an old girlfriend who studied botany he could have hit up, hell, if they were remotely near any mountains they could just go cut down their own damn tree.

But, alas.

Rome drew his phone out of his pocket. Sure, surfing the internet on his phone while driving while slightly drunk wasn't a good way to extend his life expectancy, but, hey, he was a hunter by trade, and it wasn't like he had any kids to teach right and wrong to or anything, unless you counted Elenna, which, gross...

"Got it," Rome said.

"Got what?" she asked as he set his phone down, letting the GPS guide him to the nearest plant nursery. He only remembered them from shopping with his mom for those maple trees to line the driveway back home, but he assumed they all had to be vaguely the same, right? And they were probably the most likely place to house a Christmas tree, holly or whatever.

Hopefully.

The Ferrari stopped beneath a darkened street lamp across the street from the Lakeland Yard and Garden Center.

"Um. Rome? They look closed."

"I sure as hell hope they're closed, chica, it's three in the morning. Now put a hat and sunglasses on in case they have cameras. I'll get the bolt-cutters out of the trunk. Trees won't be inside the nursery, they'll be in a greenhouse or maybe even a tent area outside." He eyed Elenna skeptically. "Or, second thought, maybe you should stay here?"

Lenna looked at Rome, for a moment she thought it might be smarter for her to stay here but… “No way will I wait here in the dark alone. So either we are going together or not at all.”

She took out a hat and her sunglasses to put them on.

“You need me, you have no idea how a holly looks like. And I am not a noob, dick.” She said tighten her hair together and hid it under the hat, putting on her sunglasses.

“Ready to have some fun and hunt a tree?”

Rome guffawed, loudly, before he remembered they were meant to be sneaking. "You are such a noob, chica." Rummaging through the trunk, he pulled on a sweater, gloves, and Ray Ban Aviators. He grabbed bolt cutters and, though he was sure he would not need it, a shovel. He hoped Elenna had her lockpicking gear, because he was hopeless with that sort of thing, but he also hoped they would have no need of it.

"Here," he said, handing her a pair of gloves. "No need to attach breaking, entering, and armed robbery to our track record, impressive as it is already."

He flashed her a grin before ducking down in the urban shadows and running across the street, her tiny feet padding behind him. They were flush against the building in no time, paused only a moment, and then ran along the perimeter. Presently, building became chain link fence. Rome ran to the edge before he stopped, and, almost before she knew what was happening, gave Elenna a leg up and over. He followed.

"Okay, chica, we're in," he whispered, and motioned to the field of potted trees around them. They seemed to stretch on for a depressingly long way. "We need this tree, like, yesterday, so what am I looking for?"

Lenna took a moment to calm down, as usual he was overprotective and annoyingly helping. She looked over the potted trees. “We are looking for a tree, it has red berries or white flowers, the leaves are spiny. And obviously it’s green. It looks a as if it is made of rubber.”

Lenna walked slowly pass the tress. “Wearing sunglasses at night is stupid.”
She stopped suddenly and pushed her sunglass down. “Those five trees are Holly. But I think just those two would work for our purposes.”

She wasn’t going to cut the trees, he wanted to be the protector then he could do the cutting and carrying of the spiny trees.

"I see how it is," Rome grunted as he realized what he should have brought was a hack-saw, forced instead to carry the trees, pots and all, to the car. "The division of labor is okay when it means I have to do stuff, but once it comes to, like, who's allowed to boss who around, it's suddenly okay to make my life difficult."

Getting the trees to the fence wasn't the problem: he grasped one in each hand and swiftly made his way across the compound, where he plopped them down unceremoniously. Getting them over the fence was going to be tricky.

Rome sighed. "Okay, just climb over. I'll have to make two trips here, so stay back and stay on lookout." He'd remembered--years ago now, and it seemed like decades--learning a similar maneuver in the Marines, where you had to climb a ladder one-handed. God, that had sucked then: it was going to suck out loud now.

Lenna climbed over the fence, it took some time.

Okay it was nice of him to help me earlier.

She turned around and smiled at him through the fence. She took out a pen and drew two symbols on her wrist.

“So that’s how it would be if they would catch you. Let’s make sure we stay on the same side of the bars. You know I can help with the trees, if you let me do my magic?”

Lenna looked unsure at Rome.

Rome had struggled half-way up his side of the stupid fence with one of the stupid trees in tow before Elenna said, "You know I can help with the trees, if you let me do my magic?"

Rome stopped mid-climb. He wanted to take the stupid Ray Bans off so he could scrutinize her, but he couldn't without dropping the tree.

So he dropped the tree.

He took off his sunglasses and frowned at her. "You can do that?"

Elenna nodded unsteadily. She looked unsure, but she always looked unsure. Which only meant that he could be absolutely sure.

"Are you kidding me?" he smirked, the tension in the air melting immediately. "Would I say 'no' to getting these things on the other side of this fence with as little physical exertion as possible? Who did you think you were talking to? Hell, if you can do it, you should lift me over while you're at it!"

"Now you're teasing me," she pouted.

Rome grinned. "You're right, I'm totally teasing." He shrugged widely. "Sure. Go for it. Use your magic mumbo jumbo mojo and get 'er done. Sounds awesome," Rome said, but an uneasy feeling settled in the pit of his stomach, despite his claims to the contrary, as he stepped back to let Elenna work.

She looked once more at the symbol and lifted her hand. She planned to use the air in the pot to lift it. Just like a balloon.

“Luft die hier ist werde leicht und schwebe!“

The pots were heavy but the power she felt running through her was amazing. The two trees slowly got lifted up in the air. A rush adrenaline run through her, it made her smile. To lift the trees was easier than expected. They flew over the fence and were right above her which she didn’t like. She tried to push them away, but the trees didn’t do what she wanted.

“Erde die dort fliegt höre auf mein Befehl!”

But nothing happened and then she felt it the connection snapped. The trees were still flying, but the magic was gone and Lenna was unable to move she just stared at the two trees about her head falling any moment down.


Spell translation
Air that here is become light and hover!
Earth that flys listen to my command!