iCarly: iMeet the Relatives

by Nitebreaker

So Carly and Grif's relationship has survived his revelation. But now comes the true test. After all, there's more than one angel on Earth. What will their reaction be? Not to mention that the Darkness still waits...and hungers. Sequel to iMake a Decision. NOW COMPLETE

7. Chapter 7: The Wings of War

iCarly: iMeet the Relatives: Chapter 7: The Wings of War

…

I don't own iCarly.

…..

Chapter 7: The Wings of War

Carly glanced worriedly out the window of the high-rise condo. The storm was getting closer, and it looked to be a bad one. Although thunder and lightning no longer bothered her like they used to, she was still concerned about the sheer physical aspects of the storm. Would there be high winds? Flash flood warnings?

And over and above all that, something was nagging her….something beyond the physical. Something she knew only she could sense.

For the fourth time, she tried to ring Grif's number, only to have the call go straight to voice mail. Either he wasn't back yet, or the storm was interfering with telecommunications in some way.

At least, she hoped that was all it was.

…..

{{Jemiah? Maggie has been hurt.}} My thoughts are barely recognizable even to myself. I have taken Maggie back to my apartment, and placed her on the couch in the living room. The rats look on from the shadows, and Songer moves in closer, to inspect her, moving slowly due to his age.

I have never felt this way before. Someone I care for has been struck down by an unseen, uncaring force. There is something seething within me, something hotter that the interior of stars I have flown through, because it comes from within.

Suddenly Uncle Jemiah is there, appearing out of the usual electrical-seeming flash. He ignores me and my animal entourage and kneels beside Maggie, touching her face. I know his touch is more than just a mere physical contact; something of him goes into her, helps her. {{Margaret? Margaret, can you hear me?}} I have never seen Uncle Jemiah act so… meticulous and controlled. Then I realize: he, too, is restraining his own anger. Something has struck down one of our own. That something must pay. And knowing Jemiah as I do, I cannot believe but that it will pay dearly indeed.

Family is family.

I finally notice my cell phone ringing. Such was my distress earlier that I hadn't even noticed the chiming. Whatever happened to the calm, carefree angel, aware of everything, prepared for anything, that I used to be?

Simply put, and to use the human phrase, I "totally lost it."

{{Answer it, Angel Gryphon. It is your love calling you. Right now, you both need to hear the sound of each other's voices.}} Uncle Jemiah is wise, as always. I switch on the cell. "Hello, Carly."

"Grif! What's wrong? And don't say nothing! I can tell from the sound of your voice something's wrong!"

I take a deep, calming breath. "Yes, Carly, you are right. I-*"

"Are you alright?"

Another breath. Perhaps she'll let me finish this time. "Yes, Carly, I'm fine. But Aunt Maggie is not. She has suffered an…attack. She's hurt." I glance over at Uncle Jemiah, hoping to see some sign from him that Maggie will be okay, but he is still focusing his attention on the still form of my aunt.

I hear Carly's gasp over the phone. "Griffin! Is…is…she alright?"

"I don't know yet. Uncle Jemiah is here. Uncle Jemiah?" I ask in spoken English so Carly can hear, "Is Aunt Maggie going to be alright?"

He nods, but his expression is sober. "What she was hit with was far more than any ordinarily powerful blow. Quite… unexpected, indeed. Gryphon," he turns to me. "This is an occasion when you, as Earth's guardian, must summon the Host of the Dominion. This beast must be found and judged. But first, it must be stopped. Stopped before it harms anyone else."

I know Carly can hear us over the line. "Carly? I'm going to have to call you back." I take a deep breath. "It looks like I'm about to get into a fight."

Miles away: Drs. Phillips and Weston were sitting in front of a monitor. "There. No doubt about it: the girl is Carly Shay. She's been all over the internet, has that webcast. My niece worships her; my nephew also worships her for, er, a different reason."

"So all we have to do is…what? Bring her in? Can we do that?"

"Oh, we probably could. But there's other factors to consider. One, she might be actually unaware of any strange goings on. Remember, she was trying to get him away from there. If he did anything, it didn't look like she knew anything about it.

"And two, should we bring her in? I mean, on what grounds? 'Excuse us, Ms. Shay, but we have reason to believe your friend stopped time in a localized area, thereby preventing the deaths of hundreds of people?'" He shook his head. "How do you suppose that would go over?"

"So what are you recommending?"

"For now-*" But he was interrupted by a loud claxon sounding down the hallway. "Damn. Now what's that?"

"That" turned out to be an EM surge warning. "I thought you said this system was stormproof!" Phillips scolded the tech on duty. To the southeast, the thunderstorm continued to build.

"It is, sir! We've got all the safeguards in place, everything hardened, even. You know we upgraded during that last crisis. This is…something else…."

"What?"

The tech fiddled with his screen, triangulating on and isolating the EM spikes. "These readings can't be right…"

"Screw right. Tell me what it's saying."

"It seems to be saying there are six small nodes of high electromagnetic emissions, circling about Mount Adams. I can't pin 'em down…maybe they're reflections or sundogs or something like that…"

Phillips and Weston glanced at each other. Yeah. Sundogs. Reflections of normal phenomena off the clouds. Well, it could be. "Can you do anything towards pinpointing those sources?"

"They…they seem to be coming from high in the atmosphere, but circling around Mt. Adams. It's not part of the storm, sir; I don't know what it is."

Phillips straightened up. "Keep recording, and also scan the ground area. Anything out of the ordinary."

…..

"Carly, you're not even trying to have a good time! What's wrong? You can tell me." The two were in the suite designated for the women in their group, at the condo. Carly was sitting over by the window, actually on the windowsill, looking off towards the southeast. "You can't understand, Sam. Grif's in trouble, or about to be. And Aunt Maggie has been hurt."

"Hurt? How?"

"I don't know, and I don't think Grif really knows how, either. But, but…."

"Does this have something to do with what you told me about, the other day, about Grif being an angel?" She put her hands on her hips and scowled.

"Yes, yes it does. Something hurt his aunt, and now he's going full throttle on it. And here I am, hundreds of miles away. I feel so helpless, Sam!"

Sam came over and knelt beside her. "Look. Carls. I don't know anything about this 'angel' business, but, but even if you were right there, no matter what, what could you do?"

Carly sniffled and wiped her eyes with a crumpled up Kleenex. "You don't believe he's an angel, do you?"

"Whether I do or don't, that's pending proof, for me. But no matter what, if he's out there…" Sam gestured towards the southeast. "What really could you do? In fact, it might be a good idea that you're here; you're out of any line of fire, so to speak. He probably doesn't need any distraction.

"So for right now, just try to take it easy. It'll all keep. Now c'mon. That hot tube awaits."

…

From the southwest, Samael, fresh from the beach. From the northeast Remial, a bit perturbed because he happened to be enjoying a very good Chinese buffet. Adriel, from the southeast, where she'd been attending a baseball game in Florida; the northwest brings us Seraphiel. He and Adriel often argue the merits of their favorite teams. The direct north brings us the loner Zophiel. And I complete our six.

The six of us stand in the air over Mt. Adams, our attention focused on the cave where Aunt Maggie was hurt. The creature, or whatever you wished to call it, has not moved; it is still there at the entrance way.

None of us can truly make out what it is. Even with our Sight, there is little to see. Perhaps, I speculate, it is an actual piece of the Darkness itself? Is that possible?

If it is, all worlds are in danger. Everywhere.

{{Angel Gryphon. We await your commands.}} Adriel, as always, stands ready. I have never seen her in a relaxed mode. She is the epitome of the words "battle ready." I'm glad she's on my side.

{{We must seal off the area, prevent the creature, thing, whatever it is, from leaving. Adriel! Establish a barrier about this creature, extending into the caverns!}}

{{I hear and obey.}} All at once, a wall of light comes into being, encircling the mountain top in a kind of collar. The barrier extends into the rock itself; there'll be no slithering back the way it came for this monster.

{{Now,}} I command, {{Samael. Backtrack the creature, see if you can tell how it got here, and what, precisely, it is.}}

Samael complies. Even though I suffered a reduction in rank when I became Earth's guardian angel, I am recognized as being the one responsible for the safety of this world, and for being the one in charge when it comes to extranormal invasions. And, to paraphrase the Earthly comic book saying, "With great responsibility comes great Power."

He shakes his head. "Nothing. I can't tell anything about how it got here…only the first sign of its arrival. Nobody was performing any tests, no teenagers trying to raise the devil or anything. All of sudden, it was just there."

{{Then if there's nothing to be learned, it is time}}, I tell them. {{Adriel, stand firm. The rest of you, be on guard for other manifestations.}} And I suddenly fly down to the very cave mouth in which the monster sits.

{{Angel Gryphon! What are you doing?}} Adriel sounds aghast.

I fly right up to the creature, a formless, ever shifting mass of something, see that it notices me, and prepares to strike….

….and I Speak.

Without warning, the entire mountain top erupts in fire, as though the volcano Mt. Adams used to be suddenly became active. There is no lava flow or pyroclastic gases, as would normally be the case in an eruption. But the blast alone can be felt as far away as….

The laboratory: Every single light in the place went out. "What the hell!" Weston fumbled around for something, anything, to lean against, searching his pockets for mini-flashlight he had on his keychain. It didn't work half the time, but maybe it'd work this time.

The emergency generators kicked in, and power was restored. "Okay. What in holy hell was that?"

The tech on duty fiddled with his controls. "Sir, it appears that the entire top of Mt. Adams just blew sky-high. I'm not reading any ongoing seismic or electromagnetic influences; it appears to be stable. I-I can't understand it, sir. There was no indication of any volcanism. Just blooey."

Weston and Phillips looked at each other. "Just blooey, huh? Okay. What about those EM nodes?"

"No reading, sir. But that may be due to the sheer force of the blast….I can't understand it."

….

I rejoin the other angels high overhead as we oversee what has transpired. I am somewhat spent, emotionally. Adriel comes up to me, concern etched upon her countenance. She and I are old comrades. {{Gryphon? Are you alright?}}

{{Yes, Adriel. I am fine.}} I see the question in her eyes and mind. {{This thing, whatever it was, hurt my aunt. And regardless of all else, it had to be destroyed. I felt it was my responsibility as protector of the Earth.}}

{{It was more than that,}} she tells me, even as the others prepare to return to their lives amidst the mortals. She knows me too well for any obfuscation. {{Why did you fly down, practically in the thing's face? What did you hope to learn by so doing?}}

I cannot, of course, lie to her. Even were we completely human, she just simply knows me too well. I turn to her. {{I was not interested in seeing the beast's face, Adriel.}} I pause. There is no help for it; I must confess the whole truth to her. I look her in the eyes. {{I wanted it to see mine.}}

Upon hearing my words, she starts, recoiling away from me, her hand going to her mouth in an expression of complete surprise. This puzzles me, until I notice: another line of potential, a tendril, has sprung from the crown of my head….

…..and curved downward, into Darkness.

…..

Nearly a hundred miles away, Carly was watching the news, and chewing on her lip. "And this just in. Apparently, the dormant volcano Mt. Adams wasn't as dormant as everyone thought." The report showed cell phone footage of the aftereffects of the blast. It had happened too quickly to get any footage of the actual explosion, but the expanding mushroom cloud was terrifying enough. "Our reporter on the scene, Deborah Hankins, has more. Deborah?"

"Yes, John. Everyone here, just a few miles from the mountain itself, was completely taken by surprise. I've spoken with several volcanologists, and they all agree this was no normal eruption. For one thing, there was no forewarning. None. Always, when a volcano becomes active, there's some indication of seismic activity prior to the actual eruption. This came completely out of the blue. As you can see, behind me," here, she turned and gestured towards the shattered peak, now barely visible in the gathering darkness. The clouds overhead exchanged lightning, electrical charges meeting and neutralizing each other, "whatever happened appears to be over with. We've got satellite photos that indicate no further activity. It's almost as though someone set off a huge bomb. It went off, now it's over with. There's no sign of radioactivity. It's fortunate that that area of the mountain was uninhabited. The experts disagree as to what actually happened…."

Sam joined her, slamming the door behind her. "I'm sorry, Carly. I never would'a thought Socko's cousin would make a pass at you like that. I mean, that's like, so juvenile…." She noticed Carly's riveted attention to the TV. "What's going on?"

Carly spoke as if in a dream. "He said he was about to get into a fight."

"Whoa. Wait a minute. What're we talking about again?" Wordlessly, Carly gestured to the TV, still running the late-breaking news about the events on Mt. Adams. "Wait. What is this? What are you talking-*"

But Carly had crumpled to the floor in a dead faint.

To be continued…