I am well and truly getting out of Worm, save for (maybe, and I do mean maybe) further updates to Because of the War. Frankly, I don't even read in Worm much. I am thoroughly oversaturated.

That being said, this is the first in a series of snippets showing scenes that are central to the plot, turning points, or simply cool scenes that have been planned to one degree or another. At the bottom of each snippet will be some details on it's relation to the greater plot and what I was planning.

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Seraphim

An Assortment of Scenes #1: Jeqon vs Muriel

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Losing members wasn't unusual for the Slaughterhouse Nine, though it had been a (comparatively) long time since they had last had to look for replacements. But they didn't lose people without dealing heavy casualties against whomever it was that actually had the courage (or didn't have a choice otherwise). And they certainly didn't lose someone so quickly after starting their fun and games.

The shock of Shatterbird's nearly-instantaneous and brutal death, not to mention Mouse Protector turning into what looked like some kind of six-winged demon woman that radiated hate and sheer, bloodthirsty power, was sufficient to freeze them in place for a handful of seconds. More than enough time for a pureblooded devil to launch her attack.

Spots of darkness spun into being around her, hovering globes of purple-black void floating in the sun-soaked skies, growing from the size of marbles to those of beachballs in seconds before firing blasts of seething, crackling, ruinous energy down onto the staring monsters.

They reacted quickly, Crawler lumbering forward with the massive strides of his many legs, even as the majority of his compatriots retreated to shelter behind or beneath his bulk. A strategy that had been utilized to great effect time and again against blasters or other ranged attacks. After all, Crawler's power of intense adaptive regeneration and damage reduction made him damn near immortal at best, and capable of sustaining incredible amounts of damage at worst before his adaptation rendered the attacks worthless.

Jack remained separate, his body flickering into a blur pseudo-motion like a heat-born haze, vanishing to reappear on the top of a nearby building. The rest of the Nine had only an instant to realize that Crawler's protection was unequivocally Worthless before they were vaporized in their entirety, leaving not even ashes to drift on the wind.

"Well now, I had rather hoped that The Siberian would survive that, but I suppose even her nature could not protect her from your power." Jack quipped with a smirk, entirely unruffled and unbothered by deaths of his entire group of followers in a single instant, eyeing the sizable crater thoughtfully, the glass of it's bowl gleaming in the sunlight that streamed through the concrete dust that had managed to survive the sheer unbridled destruction long enough to drift across it. "But then, what else could I expect of a Belial? Making all who stand against you Worthless, a talent you seem not to have allowed to atrophy even during your years playing the sheep! I rather thought that you would have followed Azrael's example and become human after all these years, Muriel."

"Jeqon…!" Muriel Belial, traitor to God and Satan alike, seethed with fury as she glared down at him, clawed fingers flexing with rhythmic violence, and he sighed and flapped both of his hands with an air of definitive dismissiveness.

"Really, you should calm yourself! Where is that ruthless, logical attitude that you were so fond of? What happened to the Muriel that was willing to forsake all emotional bonds without hesitation for the sake of a cause? More than once, at that? Has she truly become so soft that the death of a single worthless human, one that was trying to get her killed, can really cause her to fly into such a rage as this?" he mocked theatrically, his smirk broadening as his opponent hissed like an angry cat in response. "I knew Azrael was a lost cause millennia ago, she loved Humanity far too much and spent far too much time amongst them, but you...you at least seemed to understand how much of a problem they were. That's why you were Condemned, after all."

He was forced to stop talking as another blast, one far large and bled through with crimson, obliterated the entirety of the building he was perched upon. Dust and ash filled the air, riding high atop a plume of debris that spread far and wide to shatter windows or crumble as they impacted walls and rooves. There was a moment of silence, a still before the storm, before a dozen spears of light broke through the haze with such force that the dust parted around them like a vacuum. A contemptuous swipe of her right hand, trailing onyx light in it's wake, saw them shattering against the barrier that Muriel summoned, and there was a great downdraft of air as a blur leapt out of the dust to rest in the air some hundred yards before her.

"Ah, that's so much better." Jack Slash sighed in satisfaction, rolling his neck (a series of unnaturally loud pops and cracks following the motion) as six wings, black as pitch and feathered with a plumage that would have been beautiful on any other being, lazily furled and curled behind him. "It's been such a long time since I really went to the effort to stretch, you know? Perhaps I've been playing the human for too long as well."

"Playing the monster, Jeqon, something with which you seem disgustingly talented and well-practiced. You always were a piece of shit." Muriel snarled in response, and Jeqon the Fallen Angel shrugged with a cruel grin.

"You call me a monster, but it wasn't I who followed Lucifer all the way into hell and damnation, but you? My wings might be stained, but they are the wings of an angel still. Something you seem to be lacking, sweet sister mine." He responded mockingly, and Muriel fired another sextet of energy blasts at him, which he deflected as easily as she had shattered his spears.

"Only because you watched and waited and did nothing as we all acted. Watched and waited and laughed as our brothers and sisters slaughtered each other and our human kin, seeing just how far it was possible to push without being Damned. Azrael, Azazel, the rest of them…they all Fell from their convictions. You Fell because you planned it. You wanted it!"

"Well of course I did, Muriel! No more having to obey our dear old daddy any longer, but none of those terribly inconvenient issues that your lot suffer from! All of the power, none of the weaknesses! And to think, you helped make it possible!" Jeqon confirmed, voice carrying a note of amused exasperation. "Of course, it was even more helpful of Father to leave Michael in charge of His system when He left. Made it easier to get away with it."

"Why Azrael ever had any faith in you, I will never understand. It was obvious from the moment you 'joined' us that you didn't give a damn for the cause!" Muriel remarked bitterly as she launched several dozen small bolts of energy at her, and Jeqon gave a sharp bark of laughter even as he intercepted them with an attack of his own.

"Oh yes, you always were quite unhappy about my presence, weren't you, but Azrael was always willing to have faith in others. That really was her biggest weakness, you know? Her blind faith that people -humans, angels, Fallen, and Devils alike- were inherently good with the 'proper guidance'." He acknowledged, before shrugging. "But really, as amusing as it is to catch up with you and play about like this, I have far greater goals in mind than this little tete a tete we've been having."

He summoned a cloud of light-spears around himself, Muriel tensing to defend herself in an earnest fight…only to gasp in horror and lurch forward futilely as he pirouetted in the air and unleashed them at one of the nearby, thus-far-untouched stores. They rained down on the building, detonating in a series of blinding flashes, and Muriel's supernatural hearing was more than good enough to pick up the screaming, the rattled breaths, the desperate pleas that resounded from within in response.

She flew towards him, a blur of motion against a sunlit sky, screaming his name with wrath echoing in every syllable, even as more spears were summoned and fired at other, surrounding buildings. Explosions and death marched across South Beloit, and Muriel could scarcely breath through the horror and the pain and the hate.

Hate that made her sloppy, for as she attacked him, she saw that every assault she launched was deflected or dodged, leaving her attempts to stop him from causing destruction causing nearly as much.

How had it come to this? Eons serving their Father, millennia fighting for a cause she had joined out of bitterness and childish petulance, centuries regretting it as she struggled to redeem herself, and decades of living a good and peaceful life. Decades amongst her mortal kin in a world that, despite the bleakness that cloaked it and the suffering that choked it, still had such brightness, and she had dedicated herself to preserving it. She and Azrael both.

Jeqon had left nearly the moment the passed through the Dimensional Rift, vanishing without a word, but while Muriel had been contemptuous and Azrael disappointed, neither had been surprised. This was a whole new world, a mirror of their home, and it was one that was at peace amongst those born of God's will. Leaving him to his own devices and telling themselves he would return in time, they had set about making themselves at home in this new world, covering their metaphysical tracks and learning the differences between it and the world in which they had been born.

That had been…several lifetimes ago. Neither she nor Azrael had ever imagined for a moment that Jeqon was Jack Slash, or they would have hunted him down and slaughtered him a long time ago. In hindsight, perhaps they should have hunted him down regardless, but there had always been other battles to fight, other things demanding their attention. One human serial killer, no matter how problematic, had not been deemed a sufficient use of their time and efforts.

Callous hubris, it seemed. And horribly mistaken, at that. Another mistake, another failure, another sin, atop a mountain of them.

Now here she was, trying to fight him without causing collateral damage, and it seemed his entire goal was to cause as much collateral damage as possible. But why? What was his endgame?

And how did she stop him from accomplishing it without causing just as much damage?

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So, the endgame of this particular plot thread was thus: Jeqon/Jack was either going to be Tagg (or, rather, Tagg was Jack) or would be manipulating Tagg, which he would find hilarious. Not only by turning someone on the side of 'good', for a given value of the word, into a paranoiac monster, but in the interest of seeing how far he could push the situation until people finally had enough and stepped in to stop him.

The destruction of much of South Beloit was intended to draw a connection between Jack Slash, Annette, and Taylor. Due to lack of knowledge about the Three Races, with a bit of nudging people would conclude that Taylor is actually their mutual child. Some 'Sins of the Father' would come in, along with Taylor's actions being painted in the worst possible light, leading to her being declared a villain and persona non grata, hunted for the Birdcage.

This is the prepping we have seen with the 'mysterious man' talking to Emily, Coil, the Senator, and others. The 'mysterious man' is actually Tagg setting the pieces up, whether he is Jack or just a patsy, it would be the same play either way.

This would, of course, cause badly torn loyalties for people like Miss Militia and others, resulting in quite a bit of civil conflict. Eventually it would lead to Taylor and her Peerage/allies taking refuge with Haven, revealing to them the truth about the Three Races. This causes a pretty tense standoff, once that information is released publicly.

Sensing an opportunity to cause massive conflict, the Simurgh attacks the Vatican City. That will be another snippet in and of itself.

Naturally, many threads here would be connecting elsewhere.