"No more putting it off, I guess." Ares mumbled to himself as he Voidwalked off the sect master's property and headed towards sect HQ. He'd been busy as of late but he'd be lying if he said he wasn't somewhat reserved about visiting the HQ given the rumours he'd heard about a rak'ne, a spider kin, living there pretty much twenty-four seven. Visiting was an inevitability but the longer he went without meeting the resident spider queen of Heaven's Path the better. Simply put, he was worried he would reflexively Grand Annihilation, or worse, her on site. Though, according to Slick and Rud, the four main pillars of the HQ were incredibly strong in their own right and wouldn't die to such a thing. It was rumoured the four leaders of the HQ were nearing, or in some cases maybe oven stronger than, Slick who was currently considered the strongest elder. They were some real crouching tigers and hidden dragons, so to speak, but they were holed away out of sight and out of mind. Or, rather, unlike Tai, who was forced to be locked away because of his problematic nature, these four chose to remain behind the scenes and not get too deeply involved with the sect's day to day. Maybe they just didn't want to deal with noisy disciples and elders, or maybe they just found the sect HQ to be like a quiet, well paying abode they could live peacefully in. Regardless, they weren't to be underestimated and Ares theorised he would be dealing with strict, logical, and calm thinkers. People like old Enyo who were no-nonsense, rational, and normal beyond what most of the people in this sect could manage.
Yes, that was what Ares was expecting. Upon arriving at the HQ, however, he immediately realised no such development would occur because the scene before him was quite nostalgic. Not in the sense that he could pinpoint what exactly was happening, he couldn't for the life of him figure it out, but precisely because he couldn't it was so familiar. How many times had he been at the centre of situations that would be completely unexplainable to a passerby? He knew this type of chaos, he was born in it, moulded by it. Seeing others partake in the same level of wackiness clued him in pretty much instantaneously that these people were just as crazy as he was! As for what he was seeing... Well the HQ was on fire, that was a bad start, but thankfully the fire did seem to be somewhat contained at least and wasn't burning any of the employees inside who were treating this mess very casually. Some were removing excess articles of clothing or opening windows but none were running away or screaming or anything, as if this was a completely normal Friday for them. That aside, a window near the top of the building had just shattered and a man in a slovenly, unkempt shirt and tie was knee-tackling a large brute through the scattered glass. The tackler in question had a bizarre, flaring, sharp black and white aura around him as though he were empowered by an incomprehensible force as he whipped out a suit in mid air, spun with fast and efficient movements, and slotted his arm through the sleeves. As he landed, he surfed the brute and his suit fluttered in the wind before settling down. Upon coming to a halt, he took out an ID of some description and flashed it across a nearby post, clocking out of work for the day.
That was but one of four events Ares was processing. Another such eye catching happening was the sight of nearly ten gangster types all covered in slimy green goop, stuck to walls and the floor. They were strewn about and a giant green hand, rising up from out of the floor in the middle of them all, was treating them like target practice. The green goopy hand was throwing slime balls at the gangster heads and giving a thumbs up every time it hit a dome successfully. The gangsters were groaning in misery, doubly so for those who got goop in their mouth. Elsewhere.... Pure horror. At least it was for Ares as he spied the giant body of a spider, with the head of a normal woman, wrapping up robed cultivators in webs and cocoons. She was skittering out a large web and correcting the angle at which her victims were tied up, singing a bedtime lullaby as she went and patting the cultivators on the head. Ares chose not to look that way anymore lest he unleashed an art on reflex. Though what he saw next, and last, was even more baffling than everything that came before it. Two old men were on the floor. One was on his back, confused, burnt, and trying to shove the other old man away. The old man on top of the other had a monstrous beard, glazed over eyes, and made no effort to remove the palm on his face as he incoherently babbled blatantly false prophecies at the other old man trapped underneath him. 'You shall trip on mouldy butter and be trampled by seven pink ponies!' 'Beware the crusty talking cabbages, they will steal all of your teddy bears!' And so on, so forth. For some inexplicable reason, the more the demented old man muttered his crock of shit extravaganza, the fiercer the fire in the background grew and the weaker the old man he was pinning down became.
Ares knew how to spot an 'important person' entrance and there were four very unique individuals lined up nearly in front of him. If these weren't the four leaders of the HQ then nobody was but, more importantly... "What the hell is going on?!" It was rare for Ares to have to be the one to ask this but, then again, this was his sect now. If the HQ, of all places, was on fire then that did not bode well for the running of the sect! Better yet, all four leaders actively clocking out while he asked so they were planning on leaving things as they were! The HQ was on fire! Granted, the grunts still in the office seemed pretty dedicated to their work, and weren't fussed by any of the hubbub their leaders had caused, so maybe this was one of those cases? The sort of scenario wherein the leaders are all useless layabouts and the hard workers under them, who get no recognition, do all the meaningful jobs? Ares didn't know but he could have sworn Slick said these four were all hard workers themselves! Didn't look like it one bit! Unless Ares' eyes were deceiving him, they were beating up strangers and playing truant! They were more like a back alley gang than sect leaders... Not to mention their crooked personalities...
"Tsk..." The man in the suit spotted Ares, understood who he was, and sighed to himself. "Just when I thought I was off the clock, cursed overtimecomes for us all..." The irreverence with which he muttered the word overtime made his dispassion for it self evident. Not that he could be blamed, he wasn't exactly treading new ground with the belief that overtime sucked, but he seemed particularly abhorred by the mere mention of it. Rather, the aura around him had disappeared already and his energy levels seemed quite low. He wasn't slow but he was grouchy. He wasn't drawling his words but he didn't sound happy. He wasn't tired but he did seem to be fed up. Ares wasn't convinced overtime alone had done this to him but he didn't know any better, that this was the suited man's natural state and it was his hobby that gave him life. "Let's walk and talk." Having resigned himself to his fate, of having to entertain the sect master, he offered to give Ares a sort of mini tour through the HQ while explaining what happened here today. He'd been hoping to sneak out and let some other grunt take care of welcoming Ares but he was caught at the entrance so it was overtime for him and there was no way out of it. Ares did have questions about why the suited man's overtime was so early in the morning but apparently he'd been working all throughout yesterday night on financial management and he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep in days. It seemed that these four were working after all but that still didn't explain why the HQ was on fire. Thankfully that was cleared up rather quickly.
About ten minutes ago, before Ares arrived.
The suited man was resting in an open lounge. Well, it was open in the sense that any of the four leaders could use this place freely, but nobody else was allowed in here. Even then, it was mostly a den of vice for the suited man as this was the one place he could relax and indulge himself so even the other three HQ leaders tended to avoid this place and give him free reign over it. The suited man had only just finally sorted out a couple of ledgers that had been giving him grief since the early dawn of the day, he was reaching for something tucked away in one of his pockets, but a knock on the door caused him to throw his head back on the couch and stare languidly at the ceiling.
"Scotch?" A crooked voice, one that came from a dry throat, rang out from the other side of the door.
Scotch, unwilling to respond because he knew it would only ever be something troublesome, few ever dared to disturb him in the lounge unless it was important, gave up on the vice hidden in his pocket. "Come in, Merlin." With a kiss of his teeth, and a light groan as he stretched his back and rolled his neck, Scotch leant forward and readied himself for whatever work was going to be thrown at him.
Merlin, the manic old man who was proficient in spouting gibberish, opened the door and seemed to be lucid... For now, anyway. "Scotch, the 'Chens' are here and want to meet with you. Also, you have a meeting with the fairy king in two hours and your five-o-clock massage will be cancelled due to the end of the world as we know it."
"Yes yes, thank you very much madman Merlin. Your wisdom is impeccable as ever." Scotch shooed the old man with a blank gaze out of the lounge and stood up from his seat. Dealing with the Chen clan remnants was going to be an insufferable task and he knew it. The main branch was destroyed by the new sect master a while back and some other petty clans attached to them at the hip were demanding compensation for his actions. Naturally, they could all go die in a ditch. There was no way in hell they were getting anything out of Scotch. Even if he felt like giving them something, which he didn't but for the sake of argument if he did, there wasn't a snowballs' chance in hell he was going to stay up all night adjusting the ledgers again right after he'd just done it! The 'meeting' with the Chen stragglers, and affiliated clans, was only ever going to end violently, Scotch knew that, they wouldn't be willing to let this matter go and fighting for it was better than rolling over and dying for good. Without monetary aid those who relied on the main branch were going to perish and fade away into the wind, forcing them to sell off all their valuables and release their hired help. One of Ares' childhood friends would gain their freedom if such a thing happened but that was neither here nor there.
Scotch waded through the crowded office but stopped before reaching the meeting room and kissed his teeth when he saw a worker facing a bit of a conundrum. It wasn't their fault, they weren't to blame, but it was still a hassle for Scotch to deal with. The worker in question was wrapped up in a cocoon with only his head and one arm poking out. Credit where credit was due, the worker was using his free hand to reach over to the parchment on his desk and continue writing his signature to sign off on it. He really didn't seem to phased by his predicament but it was undeniably affecting the workflow. Nobody else here had the spare time or strength to free him so they all just ignored it and hoped the problem would solve itself. Lilly had a habit of mothering people and getting upset whenever she saw anyone overworking themselves to the point of exhaustion. in such cases she'd wrap them up, pat them on the head, and try to sing them to sleep. The workers had gotten used to this behaviour and simply pretended to fall asleep until she was gone and then got back to work in whatever manner they could afterwards. It was almost scary how robotic these interns were and it was safe to say Heaven's Path HQ was the place in Sheryashka filled with some of the most prolific workers of all time. Scotch was about to release the poor worker from their webbing when a green flash severed the cocoon and dropped the worker to the ground. They would have fallen on a hard surface were it not for the green slime ball acting like a cushion underneath. A green thumbs up sprouted out from a nearby wall before throwing a ball of goo at the workers face and blinding him. Lily had a habit of tying people up and mothering them, even if nobody wanted to be treated that way, Merlin had a habit of dragging people away to get their fortune read, even if he couldn't read a fortune to save his life, and Jello, the slime, had a habit of stalking people and throwing goo at their heads. Regarding the latter, Jello was actually rather shy, and rarely showed up in front of people in person, but he was lonely and thought that playing catch was the best way to get people's attention and show he cared about them as friends. Unfortunately, this mean that the workers were always either bound by their bodies by Lilly or had their heads stuck in goop, blinding them, by Jello. Either they couldn't write because everything below their neck was restrained or because everything above it was gooped. Doomed one way or another. And those that could work had to fear the wrath of the mumbling madman Merlin so this was actually quite the 'dangerous' work space.
Then there was Scotch... For what it was worth, his habit didn't affect others. Maybe that was why he was seen as the central figure in the HQ? If anything, his withdrawal made him more annoying to deal with because he got all moody about it. He was already glaring at a 'no smoking' sign on the wall nearby and it was anyone's guess how long it took before he got mad and went on a rampage. The first person to cross him and make him mad was gonna get it. Working overtime was one thing but the real kicker was that it meant he spent longer here in the offices, unable to light a cigarette at his own discretion. It was acceptable in the lounge, a place he could take off his suit, untuck his shirt, and loosen his tie, but he was a stickler for maintaining a strict work environment and even made zero concessions for himself.
"Who the hell do you think you are to keep us waiting like this!?" In a fit of rage, an old man swung open the door to the meeting room nearby and stormed out of it. He was tailed by a large brute and some hired muscle presumably either because he wanted to look tough or because he knew a brawl might actually take place. Either way, he wasn't here to be polite and so making a scene like this was hardly something to be concerned about. Terrible timing, though, meant he was aggravating an already agitated Scotch who hadn't taken a fag break to calm his taut nerves in what felt like aeons.
Scotch's right eye twitched and he glanced at the no-smoking sign mere inches away from him. Still, he kept his patience in check and responded 'amicably'. "You Chen cheapskates are just here to beg for stardust and yet you have the gall to be so rude? You weren't getting any money anyway but the only thing you're going to get if you keep riling us up like this is a beating. Your main branch picked a fight and lost, all is fair is love and war. Better yet, if you really have a problem with the result, why not go pick a fight with our sect master? You can take your anger out on him instead of us." Scotch knew damn well no sane person was going to pick a fight with their monster of a sect master, the Chens were here in the HQ because they figured easier prey would be residing here and they could sneak a deal through the backdoor where Ares wasn't paying attention. If the main branch was destroyed so easily, and that was before Ares reached his Sheryashka prime, what chance did they have against that lunatic now?!
The old man leading the Chens realised there wasn't going to be much talking from this point onwards so he nodded towards the brute who sought to overwhelm the tinier Scotch with his presence. Scotch, however, merely took a deep sign and growled as his eyes darted to the damnable 'no-smoking' sign again. The workers in the office took the hint and evacuated all their papers to the far side of the office where none of it would get in the way of what came next. They didn't stop toiling away, mind you, this wasn't as uncommon a scene as one might hope it would be inside the most prominent location of a major sect. Fights broke out here somewhat regularly as the four leaders were all combative in their own way and were frequently tightly wound up with stress due to an inability to indulge in their respective hobbies for whatever reason. Scotch, in this case, was fed up. He pulled out a cigarette, put it in his mouth, and tore down the no smoking sign with a vicious light in his eyes. His most stubborn of foe, the sign, was going to be put right back up by the time he next visited this hallway but, for now at least, before it regenerated out of thin air, AKA one of the workers printed out a new copy, he was free to go all out. As soon as Scotch lit his cigarette a visible aura of pure black and white power surged forth from his body and he became superhuman, breaking all constraints and achieving unparalleled power. The brute's fist heading towards him seemed petty and insignificant so he threw out his own, warping the world around him and gathering all the energy in the building into a single blow. The brute didn't know what hit him but the blacked out for a moment and, when he came to again a little while later, his hand was crooked and he was slumped against a wall in the corner of the room. Some other hired thugs took his place while he got back on his feet but Scotch suit had burst off during his earlier transformation and now he resembled a boxer in pinnacle form as he ducked under messy swings and delivered jabs that could knock out an elephant cold. A swarm of thugs tried approaching from his right but he simply threw a stack of papers at them and then tossed his lit cigarette into the mix, burning them all and setting part of the office alight as he put a new cigarette into his mouth. Scotch dashed up to the brute, appearing before him in the blink of an eye, and kicked him nit the chin, sending the brute flying headfirst into the air.
While Scotch leapt after his foe, and used his tie to dangle the brute from a nearby ceiling fan while using him as a punching bag, the other three leaders also gathered and took care of the rest of the problem children. Lilly was skittering on the ceiling like a shadow, dragging unsuspecting victims up into the darkness where they would be strung up like corpses amongst the beams holding up the roof. Jello was spreading his gunk about and causing the cultivators that stepped in him accidentally to get stuck and, eventually, swallowed by the ever multiplying slime. Merlin had begun wrestling with the old man leader of the Chens using his patented unique magic that empowered his spells the more confused he and his opponent were. One magic raging away int he background was a fire magic that had, alongside Scotch's cigarette carelessness, had set the entire building on fire. The other magic was a weakening magic that affected the targeted whose future he prophesised. "Never trust mermaids, they're colour blind after all!"
"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" The Chen leader was perplexed and flummoxed as his power drained at a rate that was frankly unbelievable. His weakening spiralled out of control because he couldn't fathom what on earth Merlin was talking about which then made him weaker and proceeded to baffle him even further. He didn't understand what 'looking both ways before you cross the milky way' meant, he didn't understand why he was unable to wrestle with this weak old man, he didn't understand anything!
The fight was going pretty poorly for the Chen lot and it pretty much ended one-sidedly when Scotch dive kicked the strung up brute through a nearby window, rode him down to the ground while putting his suit and tie back on and snuffing out his cigarette, and surfed the big guy to a halt at the check out location in front of the HQ. All the other leaders had dragged out their respective enemies and were making a scene but at least they weren't bothering the workers anymore. This was the scene Ares happened across and, from there, the rest is history.
...
"I see..." Ares claimed to understand but he didn't dare question anything he didn't. For some reason, Merlin kept asking him what the 'square root of red divided by two bananas' was and Ares didn't have an answer. Also, Jello seemed to want to come over and say 'hi' but he was too embarrassed so Ares had to dodge a stream of goo bullets instead as he navigated the burning offices. Some workers were trying to haul buckets of water, and contact water affiliated cultivators, to put out the fire but Lilly didn't like how hard everyone was working so she was stringing them up and preventing them from fixing the mess... Ares was tempted to blow her up but he figured he would only be giving the already drowning-in-work interns a fifth nightmare to deal with if he acted up now. It was bad enough they had to put with the four leaders of HQ so he acknowledged his own propensity for being a nuisance and didn't act... Though being this close to a spider wasn't making it easy! Thankfully things were sorting themselves out. Namely, the cocoons were burning in the fire so the workers were naturally freed from their webbed incarceration and could go back to putting out the fire and saving documents from turning to ash. By the time Ares made it to the lounge with the four leaders the HQ was back to normal operating... Or what could be considered normal in this topsy turvy place. it was really only normal when the leaders were clocking out and sleeping as far away as humanly possible. The workers here would probably be grateful if these lot took a vacation...