They had done it.
After aeons, the wyrms tyranny had wrenched it free even if slightly, breaking but one calcifying web strand of the weavers Web and felt across all being attuned to the ether, to the greater umbra, to the very base of Stygia itself it was felt.
Vampires of Tremere foetid brood frenzied en masse.
Elohim felt the decay of ages as the God-machine, miscalculated for the first time.
Changelings felt the shift, the banality crushing hundreds of their plot in one fell swoop.
Across the world, supernatural and mundane alike felt the shift, the draining hopelessness of the Wyrms jailbreak and ancient bonds of hate and mistrust were sidelined after the first wave of destruction the partially trapped Wrym could muster.
On that day the san andreas fault split, ripping and rending into the familiar shape of the triadic Wyrm as it crashed and broke.
hundreds of thousands of mortals died, yet that was not the main worry of the supernaturals, almost unbelievingly, every magical being with even the slightest connection to the secret worlds had died, in ways unnatural for the circumstances. Kindred burned by sunlight in night time, Garou choked by clouds of silver dust on windless nights. Mages consumed by their own paradox.
It had to be stopped.
And so begrudgingly they came up with a plan, five years after, when the second strand broke and the wyrms great roar was on the horizon. Certainly the death knell of sentience in totality. They drew the greatest theurges of the Garou nations. The ones alive and willing to help at least. Pettiness overcoming many.
They drew the wisest and oldest of kolduns of the Tzimisce and regents of the chantry, both weary of the other. Both with knives ready at all times.
some called upon ancient favours from hermetics and technocrats alike, their knowledge so ancient and so very useful for this endeavour they sought.
Meeting in a set up building, location unavailable to all but those invited, there sat hundreds of mystic persuasion, each forming their circles and practice areas symbols and signs illegible and meaningless to the common man, all going good until the arguments started.
"NO! NO! NO! What are you doing, you hocus pocus prick, forming a circle developed for the forwarding of forces? We need to alternate the intelligence through mind, not energy." one of the technocrats yelled. The floodgates of tension being broken forth as arguments both petty and reasonable started louder and louder.
Kindred at each other's throats over their ancient grudges, something about giving bathory to the Erzsebet against promises.
Garou having their pissing contests over their methods for the ritual.
Each and every old conflict rose to a fever pitch until a shouting voice drowned out the world around them.
"WILL YOU LOT OF NERD FUCKS SHUT UP!" a booming voice silenced the room, the only sound from the crowd being the whimper of a Garou too close for comfort. The voice originated from the half man in the centre of the room sitting in a meditative position.
The burns on his too tight discoloured flesh eerily clear as he told the groups off, markings painted obviously in chalk and paint and otherwise used pigments to form the magical runes on his body, energy seemingly burning a lambent light from within his heart
Yet this proved something to the groups, their plan could not work as it was, they could not figure the way to blend the magics together to make the whole ritual. For this promethean, a pugilist in the midst of scholars, was on the cusp of new dawn, a shaper of reality for a split moment, to draw in the very essence of the Wyrm and send it elsewhere, to another world.
The ritual was incomplete, the wyrms wrath would be unleashed soon, their world would be over.
Only for a knock to be wrought upon the door to the building, confusing all within, this place shouldnt be able to be found and yet someone had. The garou went on edge as the door was opened fearing for the dancers of the black spiral, only for the opened door to reveal a plain and fairly thin woman, said woman walking in, two buckets sloshing in her hands as she moved past the doorman, a second man following behind her, a tall middle eastern man.
At the sight of the woman in question, only a few shirked back, those of demonic persuasion who knew on instinct of this angel's danger, of the Taxiarch.
"Mind telling us who you are and how you got here?" One of the tremere spoke, vicious yellow eyes peeking out from behind his small circular glasses.
Lady walked by and paid no mind as they set the buckets on the ground, blood filling it to the brim, the middle eastern man looked aghast at the question.
"Who am I? I'd assumed my progeny would be smart enough to recognise me" he spoke, while not in the same language as they, he was understood perfectly well, only one could recognise this language, a koldun noddist, knowing the language of Nod.
The language of the antediluvians, the language of ancients.
The language of Caine.
Frozen in spot the man just walked past then, only the muterance of his name being heard across the groups.
"The bloody man?" One garou said, his eyes seeing his spirit as a bleeding rent in reality, all staring incredulously as he placed his own buckets down.
"Well Mikey, what will you have us do, because last I checked you'll owe me big time for this and I get paid by the hour" Caine spoke, his hand dipping into the red bucket, the thick gloopy blood sticking to his hand.
"The god machine dictates the circle must be thus, as we have but a half turn of the hour before the serpent awakens truly" pointing to each and every one to do a certain thing, modify their plans and alter their circles.
Caine worked diligently, drawing around the Promethean and upon his flesh, its irradiated light giving a clean backdrop to witness the drawings activate and hum with their iridescent gleam.
"So what's your name lad" the man now named Caine asked, as he drew over the flesh of the Zeka.
"Why does that matter now, if what the needs were saying I'm gonna get trek-wars or gate-star'd to butt-fuck nowhere without a ticket home" the man spoke, his calm voice being betrayed by the constant fiddling with a locket gripped in his hand.
"Because you're the sacrificial lamb on this altar, might as well know the name of our saviour" he spoke with what seemed to be genuine cheer.
"...Hudson, my name's Hudson." the zeka said.
"Wait, you lot of half men name yourself off of nuclear thingos right? What does the Hudson have to do with that?" Caine asked incredulously.
"They accidentaly dropped a nuke in the fucker back when, they never found it, apparently my ass did, ended me up as I am now…thanks me" he spoke with sarcasm.
"Eh If my life taught me anything, trying to argue with your past self only ends badly, same with blindly changing forward in the hopes you don't have to face it ends even worse, live in the now kid, whatever now you have left" Caine spoke, his voice low and eyes downturned, before sniffing his hand strangely woofing as he pulled it away, "liliths blood, her broods of course, finding her is harder than a std in a nunnery, so we had to settle for her childrens"
As he finished, so did the others, the circuit complete, the circle drawn and redrawn to perfection, the technology set up, the gate to another world ready to be formed, with only five minutes to spare, the shielding being placed up for what's next.
"Ok then. Now the dangerous part, Hudson we need you to power the machines while focusing on your final advancement, you need to do this exactly on our command ok?" one of the technocrats said, others around him agreeing, their technology he was hoping was going to be enough to stop the bale fire of radiation.
And so they waited, minutes passed with nothing, kindred and garou and akashik mage searching as deep into the umbra as they could. reaching to hear the sound of calamity, the gnawing of corruption, the song of consumption.
And they did, five dying instantly to the hell roar, the signal called out in response, all mages and monsters doing their best pulling and coaxing the Wyrm's destruction into the vessel, Into Hudson.
As this happened Hudson felt as he released everything, sixty years of pent up radiation, sixty years of anger at his creation, sixty years of destruction. And so he did.
—-
Anastasia corbeau, a Baali, invited to the ritual, chanted and summoned, calling on the powers of every demon and creature she could, calling on every grace given ounce of power her sixth generation vitae held, witnessed something far grander then any ritual or the greatest plan could bestow.
She saw as the sacrifice, at the tail end of the ritual as the Wyrms scream died down, she saw through her auspex that the ungodly infinite size of the Wyrm entered his soul, and at that very moment, she saw the golden light of dawn, a thing she thought she would never see again.
She saw this being swathed in gold, a effervescent light, burning through the shadow magics of the lasombra, the room unbearably bright as she yet saw this being, not a human and not a beast, yet something greater, something that religious books could be written, something great.
And in that very moment, this fleeting godhood, this soon to be not God, walked through the portal, and it forever closed behind him.
And thus the Wyrm was removed forever from reality, and as such, with no longer a common enemy, the petty bickering began again,