Pixies - PT1 (JAN 2016)
Due to a newly discovered allergy to MRI spinal contrast, I am sidelined for a second day and unable to do final revisions on the chapter that was supposed to be next. Instead, I'll take you back in time 6 years...to when Brie was an RP Character and I wrote a multi part storyline because my writing partners were all busy and I was bored. Enjoy!!
I pressed “END” and stared at the phone in my hand. I’d just gotten off the phone with Eric and made sure he was at the club and would be there till it closed. We were getting ready to head out to battle a small army of demonic pixies, something that had apparently not been seen on Earth since around the time my brother was born. To give you a clue on about how long ago that was. Justinian I was a childhood friend of my brother. Yes, THAT Justinian I that was emperor of Rome. The last demonic pixie infestation is said to be one of the reasons for the Nika Riots that took place in Constantinople in 529 AD. In case you have never heard of these riots, because I certainly hadn’t before this whole thing started, let me give you a short lesson. Two things to remember about these riots that lasted over a week is that they destroyed over half of the city and there were over thirty thousand people killed.
If you were to sit down and Google Nika Riots like I did you would be confused on how a dispute over the pardoning of two members of rival chariot racing teams could lead to such chaos and devastation. According to history, sporting teams and in particular chariot racing teams were like the mob, street gangs and a political action committee all rolled into one. There were two main ones, the Blues and the Greens. The Blues were the favorite of Justinian by the way. For a reason that is never quite explained easily, supposedly the Blues and the Greens fans and members got into a riot after one particularly ugly chariot race and it resulted in over 500 team members and fans being arrested for murder. They were all convicted and sentenced to be hung. All but two of them were, those two escaped and it just so happened it was one from each team. To try and keep the peace among his people, Justinian commuted their sentences to imprisonment but the fans and team members demanded total absolution. This lead to yet another chariot race to determine their fate. Somewhere in the middle of the race, both teams and fans unified to not cheer against each other but to start ranting and challenging Justian. While this doesn’t make sense much to begin with, what came next makes no more and possibly even less.
By the time you’re done reading about the strange politics and maneuvers that my brother’s friend supposedly did to end the riot that killed so many and destroyed so much, you’ll be sitting there thinking that they must have been half mad in those times. While my brother’s behavior at times does tend to make me wonder about that, the truth is that to cover such a strange happening as the uprising of thousands of demonic pixies, you have to come up with a very strange tale to explain the devastation that ensued. So, you end up with what history has recorded. Now, so you can understand my concern for Eric and why we now had over 700 Nephilim on the grounds of the clave and even more portalling in almost every minute, I’ll tell you what really happened.
The Nephilim have been in existence since the first sin was committed and demonic forces first held sway over man. There are stories they came later, but in reality our race is as old as mankind itself. By the time of the Nika Riots, there were claves of Nephilim in all major ancient cities. In those times we didn’t have to hide our true nature, people of those times were more accepting that there were beings and beasts that were not of humanity and had not relegated them yet to the bedtime stories meant to scare and thrill. Constantinople had one of the largest claves in the area, and it also had a horrid demon problem that didn’t seem to be diminishing over the years. As the clave grew, so did the demonic presence. Some would say that this was to keep the balance of power between good and evil, others have various theories, but everyone agrees that’s just how it was.
Normally the demonic forces took their normal forms, that is until 529 when the first reported sightings of demonic pixies was recorded in Constantinople. Now, we’re not talking about just a few demonic pixies, we’re talking about thousands of them suddenly appeared in the city, and for some reason the chariot races seemed to annoy them. So at each race, a horde of demonic pixies would rise up and attack the spectators, often killing dozens through the use of their magic. Being as pixies are, at their tallest, three inches in height, they were hard to kill with the weapons that were in existence at the time because they weren’t accurate enough. The populace demanded that Justinian do something about this since his association with the Nephilim, mainly my brother, was well known. The problem at hand were the weapons the Nephilim used were no different then in most respects than they are today. Rarely does our race encounter such small demonic forces.
Race after race, people were being attacked and killed till that fateful day when the riots began. More pixies than normal swarmed into the stadium as the races commenced and began the slaughter of the mortals that were there. Outraged that Justinian had done nothing to thwart the problem, those in attendance began to riot the palace that was next door to the colosseum since it seemed to be immune from the pixie attacks and they blamed Justinian for not having this problem resolved already. Justinian sent word to the clave of what had happened and requested immediate assistance. Even in ancient times, Nephilim could portal, so the clave sent out messengers to all the major claves and soon an army of Nephilim were at the palace.
Because the rioting was even more disruptive than the chariot races, the pixies never relented on their attacks on the mortals. This was what accounted for the high death rate. Mortals, not able to combat the pixies began trying to catch them on fire. Pixie wings will burn, but they do so slowly which only caused fire to spread throughout the city, causing the devastation that history has recorded. Even with the massive army of Nephilim on hand, eradicating the pixies was a slow and tedious process since they could only be killed by iron. For each pixie, it would need to be struck by iron to knock it to the ground, where it would then be impaled by iron and killed. When you are battling thousands of pixies, killing them one at a time is not a very productive, nor speedy, process. So again a call went out among the Nephilim for the mages to be brought together to find a remedy that would allow the Nephilim army to take down the pixies in large groups.
The mages worked tirelessly around the clock as the rioting and pixie attacks continued throughout the city. Using a few pixies that the Nephilim forces had captured as test subject, the mages tried all different matter of spells, potions, poultices, and powders. None seemed to have much affect, even those that contained substantial amounts of iron. Justinian and the Nephilim Council of the time were beginning to believe that the city would fall to complete ruin and that the pixie problem would spread throughout the Roman Empire if it were not contained quickly. More mages were brought in and more test subjects captured. Any and every possible idea was to be tested until one could be found that would work.
It was during one trial when a mage realized why none of the powders were working, they fell right off of the pixies. A way needed to be found to make the powder stick to the pixie and then it would work. Since the pixies were also demonic, the mage came up with perfect plan. The powder to be used was to be a combination of blessed salt and finely shaved iron, a rather coarse grit instead of fine grit powder. While the elements of the powder were mixed together, the mage would recite blessings and incantations that gave the powder the power of the Divine. An Elemental Nephilim would be required for this to work properly, as there had to be something for the powder to stick to on the pixie. The day before the recorded end to the riots, the first trial was held in a courtyard of the palace. The Elemental Nephilim caused a fine mist to form in the air around the pixies. Other Nephilim then used bellows to blow the powder mixture onto the pixies. As the mage had predicted the pixies fell like stones to the ground and seemed unable to get up from the weight of the powder now stuck to them, they also are reported to have been slightly smoking. Large iron shields were then used to smash the pixies to death.
Word was sent out quickly through the city to gather whatever large iron objects could be brought to the colosseum to smash all pixies that could be found, since they most often congregated there because that is where the rioters who were still trying to breach the palace were creating the greatest disturbance. On that day, it was not one team’s supporters who were rushed out of the colosseum, it was all mortals that were rushed out as the army of Nephilim rushed in. The Elemental Nephilim took positions high around the colosseum and created an atmospheric disturbance that formed a light mist in the air that coated Nephilim and pixie alike. As soon as all were coated, the mist was dissepated and the Nephilim on the colosseum floor drew out dry bellows containing the blessed and enchanted powder that they filled the air of the colleseum with until all of the pixies lay writhing on it’s foor. Nephilim and mortal alike began using the gathered iron objects to smash all the pixies to death. In the records it is said that the dead pixies covered the floor of the colosseum in a two inch thick layer, which is about four pixie bodies thick. To take care of the pixies that were still elsewhere in the city, pairs of Nephilim, one of whom was an Elemental, were sent out throughout the city. Within 24 hours, all of the pixies were dead.
As time moved forward and the belief in the supernatural diminished, no longer could the story be told of the pixie invasion of Constantinople. Those who passed on the history had to come up with mortal reasons for the devastation and massive loss of life that happened during that week. How they decided in the end to make it over chariot races, I still haven’t quite determined. Personally, even to the logical mortal mind a pixie invasion would make more sense than that! But, that is what history has stuck with and no man the world over believes. Unfortunately, the pixie problem has resurfaced again in my city. It is threatening those I love and the innocents that I protect. Now it is my clave who has called on Nephilim the world over to come to our aid to wipe out an infestation that is as large as the one that Justinian faced. I am hoping the only known living Nephilim who attended that erradication of the first infestation, my brother, will make it back to the clave before we must leave to face this deadly and tiny foe. Otherwise, this is my battle to lead and honestly I’m a little nervous about that.
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