Julian - and the Enemy - were, for all their internal logic, quite angry at the angel. Julian being part of the collective, with concepts such as anger, revenge and domination in his mind - She made me her bitch! - transferred those things to the Enemy itself, who had their own experiences with Lucas - She mocked us!. Whether or not they noticed, this, too, helped form the consensus.
Invisible, as of yet, not yet acting on the physical realm, the Enemy-Julian watched Lucas in the middle of the desert. She seemed to be expecting a frontal attack.
However... - Said Julian - Were we to infiltrate her mind, we could make sure she served us. We could make her kill her dear sweet goddess and watch as her own hands disobey her and chop Selene to bits...
There was agreement.
The Enemy-Julian entered the mind of the angel. There should be at least some uncertainty there...
...and then they felt another presence.
An interface, for ease to Julian to interact with it and for the enemy to process the information through Julian, was created. They were now in a room, a formless black mass. On the other side of that room, stood a man in a simple Roman toga, smirking.
Who the hell are you? - "Said" Julian - And what are you doing here?
Why, I'm Liber. I can go wherever I please. It is... An immutable fact... of mine. - "Said" the man, smirking.
The Enemy felt unease at it.
Calm down. - "Thought" Julian - He cannot be so strong. He is not even mentioned in the myths...
Liber smirked, as if guessing what Julian was thinking.
"Oh, please, do relax." - He outright said it this time - "I cannot fight you directly. No, it wouldn't be prudent. The question I have to ask, though, is one you should pay some heed to."
And that is? - "Said" Julian.
"What are beings that fear definition..." - Liber began. Dramatically, as if he were preparing a scene. Julian felt his resolve falter at such a display.
"...doing in the mind of a translator?" - He finished.
The interface became painful. Everything did. Every definition for every word Lucas knew in Portuguese and English, their equivalents in other languages, context. A gigantic and detailed mosaic of definition, certainty, nuance and context, in Portuguese, English and even some in other languages.
On pure instinct and pain, the Enemy-Julian left Lucas's mind, appearing outside as an amorphous black mass with some oddly out-of-place lupine features.
Liber smirked and examined the wards he had put on the whole of Lucas.
Free from undue influence. I grant you this, Lucas. - He thought.
Lucas watched as the Enemy appeared in front of her.
"Yes. Attacking me from the inside. Because I didn't see you do this very same thing today and obviously wouldn't think to be prepared for it. My turn."
Her sword became an axe. Lucas began swinging it at the Enemy-Julian. She was dead silent, twisting and turning as the Enemy tried to make some retort. The Enemy was big and amorphous, but the strokes of the axe caused it to flinch on instinct - a fact Lucas seemed keenly aware of, even as she kept attacking it, her demeanor unchanging.
This isn't working. Spread.
The Enemy-julian split itself into eight werewolves. Lucas' response was to change the axe back into a sword and to keep moving. Now more coordinated, the Enemy began making some headway in actually hitting Lucas. One of the wolves managed to bite her left arm.
They expected Lucas to flinch or break stride, they really did. A yelp of pain would have been nice, too. But no.
What they got was Lucas pulling the wolf that bit her arm towards herself, piercing it with the sword and tearing open a gash.
The Enemy-Julian collective screamed in pain, the other seven wolves flinching as well.
"Shared pain." - Said Lucas, simply.
Lucas, her left arm bloodied, cut through two more of the wolves, one at a time, using their own shared pain to keep them too distracted to react.
The other five were, by now, fighting to "survive" more than to kill the angel or even take her power.
Dammit... What is going on??? I am a GOD! - Thought Julian. He remembered the previous events with Lucas. This time she seemed so focused... Maybe if he could make her lose her focus...
"You are just someone's doggie, angel..." - Said one of the Enemy-Julian, trying to use itself as a lure to Lucas - "Selene says jump, you say how high... I'll be actually doing you a favor when I kill her..."
"Julian." - Said Lucas, calmly, as she opened a gash on one of the two other wolves - "I think you may be making a mistake, here. I'm not focused on this fight because I'm calm." - She cut another one - "I'm not focused on this fight because I am detached, you see. Trying to make me angry so as to throw me off my game isn't exactly the wisest course of action right now." - She cut another one, leaving only the talking one behind and another one.
"Because, Julian, I AM angry." - She said, cutting the left arm off the other and making Julian flinch - "More to the point, Julian, I am angry enough that ALL of my focus is on doing you and your new friends all harm I can." - She cut the left leg off of the other one. He fell down. "I'll have plenty of time to have a decent meltdown, Julian, once I've taken out some of this anger on you."
Lucas finally beheaded the next-to-last one, leaving only the last one.
"And that task can be done in the most creatively depraved ways possible OR just killing you." - Said Lucas, as she changed her sword into a lance and buried it deep in the wolf's stomach.
Retreat. NOW. - Thought Julian in a split-second, some of the amorphous parts reforming into a dark ball the size of a ping-pong ball - all that had been left of that one section of the Enemy. It would have to regenerate itself for a long while.
THE EYE CANNOT BE ACCESSED!!! - Enemy-Julian screamed this information to himself. Audibly.
"And you have Lilly to thank for that." - Said Lucas - "A nine-year-old made you her bitch twice and you have me angry at you, Julian. Not a good day."
Lucas made a perfect strike with her spear, but the Enemy had already retreated to the Dark Moon.
Lucas, now much calmer and healed, appeared in front of Johanna bearing a bottle of... something.
"Hey, sorry about the sudden leaving thing. Got called off." - She said - "Here. As an apology and as thanks. And so I can ask you for a minor bit of info..." - She handed Johanna the bottle.
Johanna, a bit surprised at Lucas for her appearance on the street, but still calm, looked at Lucas.
"Er, hello, Lucas... Is that... From your country, it seems?" - She read the label in Portuguese.
"Yup. It's called pinga. You're the only one besides me of the four element holders that I'm sure is old enough to drink. So, Jon got a can of doce de leite, a nice sweet milk treat, Adam got a Minas Gerais cheese, think Mozzarella, only more delicate. Both were fairly okay with me teleporting. The drow kid that followed Jon didn't even seem surprised. And, well, this pinga is a strong liquor. Some lemons, some ice, some sugar and some of this, und du machst dir eine schönen Caipi!" - She said, smiling.
Johanna smirked.
"Very thoughtful. What is it you needed, Lucas?"
"The best store you know for something..."
Lilly and her father were still at the hospital, in a room, talking to Doctor Jacob. There was a knock on the door.
"Come in..." - said the centauress.
Lucas walked in carrying a fairly well-made - and big - tin-tie bag.
She looked at Leslie Gordon.
"Ah, you're the scientist guy that's trying to find a way to change back those who want it, right? Nice to meetcha. Lucas, translator. English-Portuguese, Portuguese-English. Sorry to interrupt, Doctor Wolowitz, but I needed to drop by..." - Said the angel.
Lilly could smell something in that bag that seemed delicious. Lucas seemed to take notice. She smiled.
"These, Lilly, are for you." - She handed the bag to Lilly, smiling. Before Leslie could say something, she went on - "Don't worry. I'm not a stranger with candy. This is my card. I brought Haru here. And you can try calling my cell phone if need be."
Leslie looked at Jacob. Jacob nodded.
"Continue, er, Lucas..."
"These are Mandeln. They are almonds, chestnuts and other nuts candied and toasted. Lilly deserves it. Because she did a number on several problems I had and helped me solved them."
At the mention of the word number, Lilly understood what the strange angel woman seemingly meant.
She looked up to her father.
"Er... Go ahead, Lilly." - He said, Lilly, Jacob and him looking at the bag of candies that would prove positively delicious for a squirrel girl.
"Er... Thank y..." - Said Lilly, looking up. Leslie looked up a moment later.
The angel woman was nowhere to be seen.
Lunar surface
"YES!" - Said Lucas, smiling - "I made a Batman-style exit! Hahaha!"
Neruite smiled.
Her protegé had returned to form.
