After the monstrous Umbra busted down the church door, every last armored paladin charged at her. They slashed the malice surrounding her, they hit her with several maces, and overall they were just giving her a beating.
Thomas was just getting off of the ground, and saw Umbra being jumped by the paladins. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING! GET AWAY FROM HERE!” He yells, only to find himself ignored.
Then the beast flung every last paladin off of herself. She began swatting them away with ease, quicker and quicker. After getting all the paladins off of her, the shadow monstrosity deployed a swarm of tendrils from outside of its body, and wrapped them around any paladin within her proximity. The others managed to back away, but those who were trapped, began to have the malice drained out of them. Any hostility those paladins might’ve had before turned into complete and utter fear with nothing to hide behind. The beast drops the drained paladins and tries to grab more, but Thomas puts her in a headlock. “URASSSAAAHHHHH!!!”
As Thomas was trying to restrain the monstrous Umbra, Adam arrives on the scene with Zel and Victor, shocked by this entity. “What is that?” Adam asks, getting a familiar energy from the creature.
“The witch we left alone…” Victor replies, soon seeing the shocked look upon Adam’s face turn into an angered one. “I think you understand what needs to be done.”
Adam then walks away from the older man. “BROTHERS!” He yells, catching the attention of the fearful paladins, scattering all over the place. “EVACUATE THE CHURCH! MOVE OUT!” Despite hoe panicked they are, they hear that retreat is an option and take it immediately, and Zel helped escort some out.
Fortunately for the paladins, the beast was too distracted with trying to get the electric vampire off her, so she was occupied. Then, within a matter of seconds, Adam’s stand, Ave Maria, decked her in the face and knocked Thomas off her. The feral, malice hungry Umbra recognizes Adam, but is too overcome by the instinct to feed to even care. She lunges at Adam without a secont thought, before being bombarded with more of Ave Maria’s attacks, moving her deeper into the church, away from the entrance. She attacks with savage strikes, while he uses precision and pure faith to help his stand win.
Victor is watching the brutal fight with only glee going through his head, and then notices Thomas is there. So, as the fight contines, Victor walks over to him. “I wasn’t expecting dad number 2 to be-” He is then immediately decked in the face by Thomas, who starts running over to the fight, but is stopped when he feel’s something pierce his brain faster than he expected.
“W-Wha?” Thomas gets on his knees, as he feels blood run down his skull. He had been shot in the head, but he was still alive. Damaged, but not dead. “H-How?” He tries to get back up, but his healing factor is stunted and he isn’t focused enough to use his stand in a way that won’t fry the entire church. Then he is grabbed by his head by Victor.
“Relax. I have experience with your kind, so resistance if futile.” The ‘man’ grins, before looking back at the battle. “Two birds get to be killed with one stone tonight.”
Adam continues laying down the smackdown upon the monstrous Umbra, only for the malice around her to peel back, revealing her face. Still, he continues attacking, as light surrounded his stand. “Return to the depths where you belong.” Its punches were now burning the malice around Umbra, her monstrous shape was shedding, and shedding, and shedding, until… she was powerless, drained. Any form of animalistic nature she had gained before had vanished, but her mind was no longer lucid enough to function properly, so she just collapsed. Adam stands before the defeated redhead, pondering upon what to do next, before hearing Victor chuckle.
Victor’s mask was cracking due to the utter joy he was feeling at this moment, but he was trying to keep it together to keep the facade up. “Good job, my boy… now finish the job.”
Adam looks over at Umbra, seeing how defenseless she is, how beaten she is, how… harmless she is. Something about this seemed wrong. Sure she’s a witch, but from the looks ot it she wasn’t herself. He can’t put his finger on what about this moment felt wrong, but he was feeling hesitant. “I… I-I-”
“Dew it!” Victor goads. “DEW IT FOR THE FUTURE OUR LORD ASKED YOU TO SECURE!!”
Adams continues to contemplate upon finishing off Umbra, before making his decision. “No.”
Victor hears that and stops grinning. “What?”
“I said no. She is beaten, and the evil is purged from her.” Adam explains, looking away from his father. “If we’re truly men of god, then it would be better for us to leave her be. In fact… maybe it’s for the best we leave everyone else in this town be. It has its problems, but they need community, not us. I suppose I misunderstood gods message.”
Adam didn’t notice it, but ‘Victor’ was seething. That damned morality. Even then he controls purity, the one person he made to specifically BE a pure messiah is the one pure thing out of his control. Still, he can drop this decade long plan, and start a new scheme. “Well, it’s time to drop the act.”
“What are you talking-?” When he finally looks back at Victor, Adam is welcomed to the sight of a green furred Angel with a mask, claws, and black wings right behind his ‘father,’ before a white robed spirit with green hair exits Victor’s body as ir drops onto the floor. Adam is confused, and a little bit scared. What was this THING and what happened to his father? Then before he has time to even ask a question, this spirits stand grabs him by the face.
For Adam, this must feel like the equivalent of finding out that your dad is actually an evil spirit that possessed an old man, but for Steppenwolf, it was friday. “Adam… my boy.” THAT caught the young cult leader’s attention. The way the spirit said that, sounded exactly like how Victor would say it, and confirmed the worst. “I’m afraid that you are no longer of use to me my little scapegoat.” Before Adam could utter a word, Steppenwolf punches the boy in the chest, and spins around with him in his arm before throwing out of the church, and into the wilderness. The spirit felt relieved to FINALLY drop the good guy act, but the downside of that was that it was after a jackhammer got thrown in his plans. He then finally hears Thomas’s groans and mumbles again, and decides to lend him that old corpse he used as a vessel, before leaving. Would that bite him in the ass later? Yes, but he almost had Umbra dead in a perfect string of good fortune, only for it to be ruined, so just leaving the two to rot now would be pointless, especially since Thomas possibly has a phone.
