Chapter Text
Lup leans back in her chair, feet up on the oversized ebony desk, flipping through the Official Reaper Writings, which is an employee handbook with more e’s than necessary. She’s already read it twice, then gone through a third time and made notes on updating the spelling and grammar, and still the phrase “thou shalt not suffyre a lyche to live’ is making her giggle once she added an extra ‘e’ to ‘lyche’.
Slamming it shut, she looks across the desk at Barry, who seems much more engrossed in his book than she is. “Baaaaaabe, I’m boooooooorred...”
"Hi bored, I'm Barry," he says, after double-checking to confirm that the desk's wide enough that he's outside easy smacking range. "Dunno what you want me to do about it, honey. You could get different reading material."
Barry only gave the employee handbook a cursory skim. It would be silly for both him and Lup to read it when he can just ask her or Kravitz any questions. The Raven Queen's laws seem pretty straightforward: don't screw with souls, and especially don’t bar their entry to her realm when they’re due. No problem. Instead of the handbook, he's reading some old case notes on a necromancy circle that Kravitz busted last century. Ostensibly to learn about field protocol. Half the margin's taken up by Barry’s attempts to piece together what the goal of their ritual probably was from Kravitz's disjointed account and creative spelling.
Lup snaps a finger, conjuring a red mage hand to flick at Barry’s ear. “Krav won’t let me look at the interesting stuff right now, just the beginner shit.” Huffing, she sprawls across the desk, poking at a folder with black, gothic writing across it. “I’m pretty sure I can’t get any more corrupted, so why not let me look at some cool-ass demon summons or whatever.”
"There’s no way Kravitz remembers what the hell he's put in all these files," Barry says absently, grinning and ducking away from further ear-flicks. "Just look through the crap piled in the unlabeled cabinets until something jumps out at you." He hasn't managed to find any demon summonings yet; seems like the necromancers in this report were trying for a True Resurrection of their long-dead leader cult leader when they didn't have her corpse. They were murdering women who resembled her to stitch together some kind of homunculus-surrogate and channeling magic from artifacts she'd imbued to imprint the body with enough of a signature to attract her soul. Fascinating stuff. Barry wonders if it would've worked, had the Grim Reaper not turned up to destroy their ritual circles. Kravitz didn't even have the courtesy to document their key runes for posterity.
Lup’s ears flick up in interest and she dismisses the mage hand, since Barry made up for his terrible dad joke (gods she loves him, the ass). Slinging her feet off the desk, she glances towards the giant spooky door that matches the whole aesthetic of the Eternal Stockade, but is super hard to open if you don’t want to swing it wide for a dramatic entrance. “Think I can find one before Skeletor comes back with that assignment he keeps promising?”
Barry shrugs. "If he catches you, you could just say you're organizing them? Except, uh, then he might actually make us do that." He doubts Kravitz will be back anytime soon, so he toes off his shoes and kicks his socked feet up on the desk. Lup grins at him fondly and hops off her chair to saunter towards the wall of filing cabinets.
Like everything they truly interact with in the Stockade, the cabinets have a sense of being more Real than the room they are standing in. Lup drags a finger along the drawers as she walks past them, eyeing the dates and looking for one that speaks to her. Halfway down the wall, she hooks her finger through a handle and yanks it open. The drawer slides easily, unfolding several feet out until friction slows it to a halt.
Ears up in interest, Lup shuffles through the files, glancing at the front of each, decoding some of the truly terrible writing that doesn’t seem to all be Kravitz’s for one that seems interesting. She grabs a few, then is struck by a thought and pulls the drawer again.
It keeps unfolding out of the wall, now about five solid feet of files. Curious, Lup keeps pulling and the drawer keeps coming.
Well, now it’s just a matter of science to see when it ends...
The door to the room suddenly swings open and Kravitz steps through, looking down at a scroll in his hands. "My meeting with the Raven Queen just concluded, and I believe we found something for you. Thank you for your—"
And then he finally looks up at the scene before him: Barry with his shoes off and his feet on Kravitz's desk, Lup holding one end of a filing cabinet pulled to the opposite end of the room, and neither one of them even looking in the direction of the very important handbooks he left for them to read.
"—patience," Kravitz finishes with a sigh. "Could you two at least pretend to care about the rules?"
"We're here, aren't we?" Barry quips, wiggling his toes before swinging his feet off the desk. He crosses his ankles and makes no move to put his shoes back on. If they're in for a boring briefing then he's at least going to be comfy. There's no way the Raven Queen's ready to assign them to something interesting. He'd almost rather organize the filing cabinets after all, now that Lup's discovered they've got some kind of complex spatial extension. "Didn't think we’d see you for another couple of hours, boss."
Kravitz should have known better than to expect the two of them to fall in line when he walked in, but a small hope had been there that was now thoroughly dashed. "It's a good thing I’m early, then. You two probably would have dismantled this place by the time I was back."
“Hey Ghost Rider!” Lup calls from the wall, where she’s making a mark and conjuring a piece of string to tape down on it, “so your handwriting isn’t the worst in here and I was wrong!”
She starts running, shoving the drawer ahead of her and letting her string play out behind her. It does not rattle with as much noise as she expects, but it’s not ghostly silent either; more of a metallic humming in protest.
Kravitz looks on in bewilderment. "What are you even trying to- You know what? Never mind. We have actual business to attend to."
He lays the scroll onto the desk, revealing a map with notes scrawled around the edges in his perfectly legible handwriting, thank you. "Our Queen’s granted me a mission for you. Well, for us, but I'm mostly being sent to show you how it's done." There is unmistakable pride in his voice. "There's a new necromantic cult that popped up near the edge of the Felicity Wilds. Spell circles, living sacrifices, the usual. They're incredibly sloppy though; they've done nothing to cover their tracks and are clearly inexperienced. It shouldn't take us more than an hour to take them down and get it all cleaned up."
Barry swivels from Lup's efforts with the filing cabinets to glance at Kravitz's map. Maybe Kravitz's ability to sound cheerful about what must be his eleven millionth takedown of a fledgling necromancy cult was also granted by their Queen. Barry's bored on his behalf. "Is this a scared-straight deal, or are we taking all these kids to Ghost Jail?"
"What we do with them will depend on what we see when we get there. If it's all small-scale stuff and they're sufficiently apologetic we can let them off with a very stern warning, but if there's anything especially abhorrent, such as murdering unwilling sacrifices, then it's straight to the Stockade with them."
Lup slams the drawer shut and leans down to make a mark on her string. When she’s satisfied it’s dark enough she walks to the desk while rolling it up. “Follow-up question; are accents required? Because I’ve been working on one and she has a whole backstory to go with it.”
Kravitz can't help but feel Lup is making fun of him but he still smiles at her. "Not required, but encouraged. Sometimes the job can be rough, and it can help to separate your work-self from who you are in private. Also, it's fun."
"Alright, so—check out their lair, figure out what they've been up to, bust 'em up, and do all that with uh, accents?" Barry says. This feels like a small-time community theatre production: Rout of the Necromancers, weekends only, tickets $8 at the door. He affects his best rendition of a Fantasy Southern accent, copied inexpertly from Taako's right-hand woman. "How's this, y'all?"
Kravitz manages to awkwardly disguise his laugh with a cough. "It's... a start. I'm sure as time goes on you'll settle into something that works for you."
Lup pats Barry’s cheek, grinning, “We’ll workshop it, babe, don’t worry.” Her gaze zeroes on Kravitz and she smiles, sharp and dangerous. “So how do we start, boss man?”
"Given our foe's inexperience, we shouldn't need an elaborate plan. Make a suitably dramatic entrance, subdue anyone who turns violent, then assess the extent of the damage. We'll need to keep an eye out for runners. We don't want any of them escaping until we've decided what their punishment will be."
Barry starts shuffling his shoes back on. "So this'll take—uh, half an hour? And then what's the rest of our day look like? More orientation reading?"
“And what’s the aesthetic for ‘dramatic entrance’? Because I can do a mean flash-bang-of-smoke appearance.” Lup claps her hands, practically jumping up and down with excitement.
Kravitz taps his fingers on the desk as he thinks. "I usually go for a creepier effect, things like billowing black smoke and cawing ravens to match the aesthetic. Something flashier could work though, startle them into inaction. I'd be willing to try it out."
"Sure, we can do creepy," Barry says, agreeable and maybe a little ominous. Frankly Kravitz could do with some pointers, from what Barry's seen of his act. He closes the folder he was reading before standing to link his elbow with Lup's. "Lead the way, honey."
Lup dips down to kiss Barry's head before raising her fingers to snap them. A wave of red light ripples over her, changing her cutoffs and tank top to a long flowing red cloak trimmed with raven feathers. The red and black corset and black fishnets are maybe not quite dress code, but she's sure the knee high leather boots make up for it. Kravitz’s raised eyebrows belie that, but when he opens his mouth to say something he changes his mind at the last moment. Her outfit choice, while extraordinarily unconventional, isn’t technically against any rules.
Reaching out with her scythe, she tugs her arm free. "Gonna need both my hands for this spell, babe."
Barry steps back and sizes up her outfit appreciatively. Lup's a gorgeous force of nature and the necromancers won't know what hit them. He snaps his fingers too, copying the motion and her cloak. He turns his jeans black as an afterthought. "Yes ma'am. You're gonna knock 'em dead."
Lup blows Barry a kiss, winks at Kravitz, and spins her scythe dramatically as she cuts a hole through the fabric of reality.
It happens fast—Lup knows how to do that well enough. A combo of fireball, dancing lights, and prestidigitation for noise makes a great flashy entrance. She steps through the dissipating flames in the middle of the scrambling cultists and laughs, high and shrill:
"How your backyard ritual go, the Smiths? Pretty good, it doesn't seem."
Kravitz is already changing into his usual skeletal form with a ragged black cloak—he has a brand to uphold, after all—as he steps through the portal after Lup, his scythe in one hand and his tome of bounties in the other. Barry slips through after and lurks behind him. He thinks they do a pretty admirable job of not showing how blinded they are by Lup’s fireworks show. Kravitz steps up beside her, opening the tome in front of him with one hand and letting it magically flip to the proper page. He casts a glance at Barry, checking to make sure he’s in position before reading the official declaration of crimes.
Barry had planned to trail in Lup's wake; she's inspiring under a spotlight, while he just gets sweaty and nervous, but Kravitz is watching him. So he casts Arcane Eye in an arc overhead, sending it to float behind the crowd. The invisible eye gives him an excellent view of both Lup and the necromancers. In a fit of inspiration, he sends a flurry of dark shadows scuttling across the ground like creeping rats, weaving among the necromancers before scattering to the perimeter of their group. The illusory shapes resolve into the image of ravens as they settle, cawing soundlessly—but as their throats expand with false breath their feathers part. Fragile ribs and glossy black feathers cradle blood-red eyes in each bird's chest. The eyes open wide, rimmed by weeping pink flesh, and sweep the crowd with riveting gazes.
The necromancers flinch back from Barry’s illusions. He stifles a grin and Lup laughs, sending a pulse of heatless firelight rippling across the ground to flare up under his ravens. The necromancers break into small groups as they back away from the perimeter. Leaning on her scythe, she meets the eyes of those who are gawping at her and smiles with all her teeth. “Hello, where is leader? We have citizens’ complaints to make about rules breakeeng.”
Kravitz doesn’t have a chance to express his pleased surprise at Barry's performance and dedication to the aesthetic before a few cultists point to a man wearing a black cloak with silver trim. They drag him to the front of their pack. How quickly they turn on each other, Kravitz thinks with grim amusement.
A phantom wind sends his cloak billowing out behind him dramatically as he raises his book higher and magically projects his voice for all to hear. "Vile cultists, you have knowingly and flagrantly violated the Raven Queen's sacred laws. Do you have anything to say for yourselves?"
“You serve a weakling,” the man in the silver-trimmed robe spits. “She will fall before the dark lord, and he will reward us!” Behind him, one of his underlings steps back from an embarrassing puddle dripping down his leg.
Between Lup's magnificent accent, the walking cliché the necromancers present, and the guy who just pissed himself, Barry's deeply amused. He wonders which 'dark lord' these cultists purport to serve, and whether their supposed master would so much as deign to pick his teeth with their bones. Their leader's stuck his hand in a fold of draping robes behind his back like he’s concealing a weapon. Barry focuses the Arcane Eye to catch a glimpse of a darkened edge that could be a wand or a gothed-out dagger. Not that he stands a chance either way. Most of his underlings look like a stiff breeze would knock them over.
Barry sends his Arcane Eye rotating around the group. There's something niggling in the back of his mind about this scene. Lines of white chalk and rusty, blood-dyed rope cut across the ground around them. The cultists were obviously in the middle of setting up a ritual, but he can't see enough of the shape through their robed legs to guess at its purpose.
Lup tore her portal into the middle of the pack of cultists and sent them scattering. But it looks like none of them put a toe over the outer circle of rope. Not even where there are gaps in Barry's perimeter of illusory ravens. He can think of a few reasons why the entire cult would make sure to stand inside the ritual they were building and he doesn't like any of them. "Uh, guys?" he says in undertone, leaning close to Kravitz's shoulder. "I think we need to move."
Lup's ear twitches back at Barry's voice, rising again to her full height instead of draping on her scythe. "SO GOOD, your joke! I think we say GOODBYE NOW!!" Kravitz might not have done the whole reading of their crimes and shit, due process, blah de blah, but if Barry said standing where they were was a Bad Thing she would take that over anything else. Spinning her scythe, she catches the purported leader across the stomach.
Her cut slides cleanly not through his flesh, but through his spirit, yanking his soul out and grabbing it to toss into her portal. It’s a beautiful move, and she takes a moment to admire her own work before swirling her cloak and casting Gust of Wind to push a path outside the ritual circle.
Kravitz surges forward, miffed about not being able to read off their crimes—he has a system, dammit!—but the moment has passed. He snaps the book shut and lets it poof out of existence as he expertly cuts down another cultist and positions himself between his companions and the bulk of their enemies. "Get moving, I'll cover you!"
Barry sprints after Lup, elbowing cultists out of the way as they try to recover their footing. He figures he's bound to trip if he summons his scythe while running. So instead, when he reaches the outer circle, he hooks the toe of his shoe beneath the rope and drags it with him. A few tiny stakes pop out. The ritual's still mostly intact; he switches to the view from his arcane eye, skimming the few runes visible through the melee. "This kind of looks like a summoning, guys!" he shouts. "Lup, can you do fire to this rope? And brace for backlash!"
Lup swings her scythe and catches another cultist by the soul and yanks, almost not quite catching Barry's instruction in her theatrical cackling. "Oh shit, sure thing, babe." Reaching down, she grabs the rope and summons a tongue of flame to run along it; the magic that lashes out at her is nasty, feeling like dripping acid trying to race up her arm. "Holy Shit—!"
With an expert swing of his scythe three more cultists are felled, and Kravitz uses the resulting break in their ranks to bolt backwards after the others. He curses as he sees Lup's failed attempt to break the rope, crying out "Watch yourself!" and intentionally colliding with her as he moves, pushing her back and away from the circle. She stumbles and sticks the butt of her scythe out to catch herself as she retches. Her arms burn and not in the super fun way. She feels like she’d need to wash them for hours to get this sense of rot and spoiled meat off her hands.
This isn't right. These cultists are as weak and easily felled as expected, but they shouldn't have the ability to create such a powerful circle. Kravitz catches the end of his scythe on the rope and tugs, but it doesn't break even against a blade blessed by the Goddess herself. He spits another curse. "Be on your guard, something isn't right!"
Barry finally pushes his panic aside and summons his scythe. Its weight settles in his sweat-slick palms and he hefts it inexpertly. Faced with an actual fight, the realization that he's not prepared for this crashes down on him. The powerful necromantic spells he's relied on are off-limits now that he's in the Raven Queen's employ. Melee combat's never been his strength; it took years of lessons from Magnus before he approached competence with a sword and he's only had weeks to practice with a scythe. He swings at the nearest cultist and barely grazes her shoulder. The Arcane Eye gives him a nauseating tandem image. He sees an aerial view of her drawing a dagger from the sheath at her back as she shrieks in his face. She casts something that pops and fizzes up his arms and bites into his lungs with the metallic abrasion of inhaled gunpowder.
He screws his eyes shut and coughs explosively and his aerial vantage of the cultists resolves. They're not all rushing the reapers. A small knot of them scramble in the center of the circle, bent towards the ground. He steels himself and pulses out a powerful version of Dispel Magic. It sweeps around him, clearing his lungs. The Arcane Eye—and hopefully any bolstering magic the cultists laid—fades out of existence. The cultist stabs at him him and he manages to sweep his scythe through her chest. The blade comes free with her soul balanced on its curve like an egg yolk on a spoon. Barry tosses it through a portal. By the time her limp body falls another cultist has already rushed forward to take her place.
The wave of Barry’s magic is a familiar comfort, running up Lup’s arms and pushing back at the badbadbadbad feeling worming its way into her bones, enough so all that’s left is a lingering sense of ooze. So that’s a later problem. Gripping her scythe, she glances around for the next attacker and spots the knotted up group of cultists in the center. Ugh, going after them would mean crossing the ropes, and there’s nothing she wants to do less, also? Probably a bad plan.
As she steps forward to help with the crowd going after Kravitz and Barry, the huddled knot pulls back and turns outward. The one closest to her catches her stare and smiles the utterly certain smile of a fanatic. She licks dry, brittle lips and screams: “ALL HAIL THE PRINCE OF CORRUPTION!”
So saying, she and her fellows pull their robes aside and drag a daggeracrosstheirbellyholyfuckwhattheshit—
As they fall, twitching and screaming, Lup’s eyes are dragged down with them and see the rope circle has connecting lines running to the center, and this motherfucker is spilling their- is spilling all over it. “Hey Kravitz, check this shit out—”
Kravitz watches with mounting horror as the blood from the fallen cultist spreads throughout the circle with unnatural speed and direction. "No no no shit!" He gathers energy from his bond with the Raven Queen into his hand and sends a blast of magical force into the cultists huddled in the circle, but it's too little too late. They collapse lifeless onto the ground with twisted grins on their faces, dying with the knowledge that they succeeded. "Get further back! Something's comin' outta that circle and I don't know what!"
"Gods damn it, they were trying to die!" Barry shouts, far too late. He can't see, can't be sure, but it's entirely possible that the ritual was prepared to accept any death within the circle. He wants to check on the woman he felled and see whether her soul-shorn corpse is leaking power. Instead he stumbles back to watch the ropes wick bile and blood away from the disemboweled cultist. The fibers look like they're melting into the ground, smeared red and brown and then impossible greens, violets, pinks; a coruscation of unnatural colors that sear afterimages across his vision and blur into streaks, overlaying dirt and sky on some intangible axis.
The circle pulses, a red-green-black heartbeat that sheds waves of moist heat impregnated with the stench of bile. Underneath, the ground smears to mud. Forks of arcane power burst upwards, bristling into innumerable tiny fractals like lightning. They hang in the air, stretch soft and round, and Barry thinks capillaries instead.
White as paper, a hand extends from the forest and taps one slim finger on a fragile branch of power. The lightning bursts into shimmering droplets. A smell like cooked blood and a tang of meat wafts outwards, disturbingly mouth-watering, as the droplets fall in a curtain of mist and reveal the creature standing at the center of the ritual. Barry’s eyes lock on a gracious smile. The figure wades forward, ankle-deep in the gore that remains of the cultists. His face is startlingly human—beautiful, even. A strong jawbone over slim shoulders, lines of muscled belly exposed by draping fabric. But his skin is unnaturally pale, as if carved from alabaster, and glistens with a damp sheen.
There's nothing remaining of the ritual to scrutinize. Barry assumes demon anyway, thinking of Lup's earlier comment. This figure doesn't match any of his expectations, but he's seen a hundred worlds' worth of strangeness. The demon-because while this figure has no horns or teeth or wings as would be expected, there’s no better word for them—takes in the ritual-turned-abattoir, rotating slowly in place. "I'm afraid my master's not available to answer your call," he says, addressing empty air with a quirked smile. Then he turns to the reapers.
“Ten out of ten entrance, my man.” Lup leans against her scythe in pretend nonchalance—mostly her arms just hurt. “Wasn’t too thrilled with the whole...bile...sitch...but you brought it around nicely, and really stuck the landing on that one.”
Her eyes flick to the circle, where the remains of what used to be corpses lay, and back to their de-souled bounties, considering. She can’t smell or feel any other magical subtleties under the demon rot, but considering the cultists went for belly cuts, she suspects the manner of death was as important as the death itself. “Hey, So we’re super sorry about this, I know I always hate wrong numbers, but I don’t suppose you could just turn around and go back to, uh, whatever it is demons do on their own plane?”
Kravitz winces, wishing she would have let him get the first word in so he could draw the demon’s attention. His cool and collected facade holds fast, but internally he’s fighting a rapidly building panic. He has no idea who this new enemy is or what their capabilities are. They’ve implied they’re only a subject of whoever the cultists tried to summon though, so hopefully their power will be less than what the complexity of the circle suggests.
Nothing to do for it now but back Lup up, so...fuck. He takes a step forward, scythe held at the ready. "Really now, your followers are all dead anyhow. Might as well make this easier for all of us and go on home."
The demon approaches at a saunter. He visibly considers Kravitz's words, casting his gaze to his feet. For a long moment, pearlescent slime trickles down his body to the pooled gore, still stubbornly refusing to sink into the ground. When he takes his next step the slime eddies and swirls atop congealing blood, casting a sheen like slick oil but with the reflectiveness of a mirror. Barry catches the image of the sun high overhead. The angle of Kravitz's scythe cuts it through with shadow. He covertly adjusts his grip on his scythe to match Kravitz's, steadying himself.
"Though you've divined my origin, I don't believe we're acquainted," the demon says, nodding cordially at Lup. "Agents of the Raven Queen, I presume? Three of you here to handle such refuse as these would-be followers? Well, we all love easy days at work." He smiles genially, taking in the feathers of Kravitz's cloak and the faint tremor in Barry's hands. Then he extends a bare arm, slowly rolling the elbow back. Slime dribbles down into the meaty pool of gore and a perfect, circular ripple spreads. Fat gobs of red spring into the air and fall again, like a wet drumskin vibrating after a strike. Barry and Lup's ears pop.
"My name is Verin," the demon says, "and these 'followers' are most useful to me dead." He sweeps his arm forward and a wave of filth rises to drown the reapers, smoking and hissing with the sharp bite of acid.
Lup had been pretty much expecting an attack of some kind. Poncey demons walking slowly and monologuing always got around to attacking as soon as they thought they'd scared you enough. So as Verin sweeps his arm, Lup's nerves twang and she steps forward and channels a pyroburst to break the wave in front of the three of them.
It's....well, they don't get caked in acid gore, and that's the important part. Barry chokes when the steam from the boiled muck hits him. Flecks pepper his glasses as they fog over. A taste like the inside of his tannery coats his tongue. The air is thick with the acrid stench of charred gore. Kravitz is immensely thankful his senses are dulled in his skeletal form. He charges forward and takes a swing at Verin before quickly leaping back, a defensive blow meant to test the demon without the expectation of damage. His strike does land, but it leaves hardly a scratch. Verin looks at him like he's a mildly annoying fly buzzing around his head. It's humiliating, and Kravitz is not a fan.
Barry casts a silent rush of power towards Verin, meant to sink into his eyes and blind him. The magic skitters over his face like water across a hot pan. He shoots Barry a sardonic, heavy-lidded look and then a bolt of fizzing slime. Barry manages to dodge only by falling to one knee. Verin's still fixated on him and Lup when he rolls back to his feet, brushing off Kravitz thoughtlessly. "I'm honestly pleased to meet you both. I quite enjoyed your Story. It's a shame that the Raven Queen seems to have hooked her claws into you."
So that was two attacks with no effect. Lup isn’t feeling terrific about her chances, but it’s always a great sign when they’re chatty. Chatty can be distracted. “Aw, a fan! Always nice to meet you guys—and well, you know how it is...” she channels a fireball and sends it curving towards him, “...Our resumé’s a MESS after a century, gotta pick up the gigs with good bennies where we can!”
The fireball hits, there’s the smell of burning compost, and Verin is standing there, unhurt and annoyed. So that’s three for three, now...
Kravitz really shouldn't be offended that this demon trying to kill them is more interested in talking to Lup and Barry than the literal Grim Reaper, but, well, here he is. There's no time for petty jealousy though: they need to stay on their guard. Verin is laughing now, mouth twisted up into a grin. "From everything I heard, I expected...more."
Kravitz launches himself at Verin again, wanting to distract him if nothing else, but the blade of his scythe slides harmlessly off his slimy exterior.
This is bad. This is bad.
Verin turns a disgusted look at Kravitz and a slow smile spread across his face. “Well, if you’re all going to waste my time like this...“ He turns and points a finger at Lup. “About that resumé, dear—I think you could have a future with my employer.”
Lup opens her mouth to reply and falters, her mind spinning- no, buzzing. It feels like there’s a vice against her temples as her vision goes fuzzy she stumbles...
...and straightens, turning to Barry and swinging the butt of her scythe at him, aiming a hard strike to his kidneys. It only catches in the baggy folds of Barry's cloak, but he wastes a moment gaping before he springs forward, scrambling to grab the butt of her scythe. It slides free of his grip. He doesn't have to think about why she'd ever attack him, there's only one possible explanation: "Kravitz! She's charmed!"
Kravitz curses as he glances back at them. They can't win this fight, not like this. He lets his scythe disappear before dashing over and grappling Lup from behind, pinning her arms to her sides. He's not happy about having to use the supernatural strength his Goddess blessed him with against his allies, but the alternatives are worse. "Barry, cut us a portal out of here!"
"You got it, boss!" Barry raises his scythe, hands steadied by urgency for the first time since the fight started. The blade slides downward through empty space and leaves a dim gash in its wake. It sucks in air and opens like a tearing wound. Barry makes another slice at the top, enlarging the portal into a rough triangle for Kravitz to haul Lup through.
He doesn't work fast enough. Verin lobs a bolt of green light and catches him across the back. The magic soaks into Barry's robe and burns clear through to his shoulders, hissing dangerously. He grits his teeth against the pain. There's nothing in this world or any other that could stop him from helping Lup. Lup, who’s struggling against Kravitz’s grip, scythe dissolving at her feet. She tries to butt her head back and stomps down with her bespoke boots, but can’t get the leverage necessary to throw him off.
Kravitz winces at the hit Barry took, guilt clawing at his heart. He doesn't want to pass into the portal before making sure Barry gets through, but he can't risk letting go of Lup and he doubts Barry would want him to delay. So he makes a silent prayer to his Goddess and drags Lup through the tear in reality, relieved to see the familiar sight of shimmering souls in a beautiful lake. Verin would have to be a fool to follow them into the Astral Plane and Kravitz is almost certain he's dangerously intelligent.
Verin waves goodbye, the bastard. There's no telling what he'll get up to on the prime material plane, but Lup is Barry's first concern. He runs after Kravitz and tugs the edges of the portal shut behind them.