The Nexus Academy

The dark clouds rolled over the sky. If this was Britain, Chester wouldn't have blinked. Standard. He would have thought. The weather could change momentarily. But it was summer in Kansas. Therefore, Chester blinked at the way in which the clouds rolled past each other, almost like they were marching. Chester squinted. No. They actually were marching. And it wasn't clouds.

"Oh for the love of-" Chester exclaimed before zipping off towards the entrance to The Nexus. There was but one person who could stop the hoardes that he had just seen and no doubt there were other creatures about the place, stirring up from the ground, snatching passersby. No doubt the boats happily sailing now rocked under the weight of treacherous seas and tyrannous sirens. No doubt, demons hurled themselves up from the darkest depths of hell.

Whatever had caused this, someone had certainly done something to annoy the maker. An Apocalpyse on this scale was unimaginable.

Chester zipped past cheery Jane who opened her mouth to talk to Chester.
"Not now, Jane!" Chester exclaimed and continued to run. He'd send an apology later on. The last person he wanted to annoy was Jane, who always put up with him no matter which of his terrible moods he was in.

He slammed open the door, spotting the couple in the room.
"Right, we need to sort this shit and now!" He said gruffly.

It was five in the morning when Ray jolted up in bed. Even though it was not necessary for her to sleep, she had found that it was good to do it on occasion all the same. Aside from it providing some time by Omar’s side, it also helped to build breaks into her work time and hunting time. There had been times when she practically had not stopped and that had taken its’ toll eventually.
But now her sleep was disrupted by a feeling. An undefined feeling of dread and alarm, so sudden, intense and dark that adrenaline coursed through her body and she was panting as if awoken from a nightmare.

Something was incredibly, incredibly wrong. Not just at the Nexus, this felt enormous. At least the entirety of America. But fifteen years had definitely still not been enough to properly understand and control the primordial powers or understand exactly what was wrong. Instinctively, the hunter grabbed her phone from the bedside table. There were some messages across social media about earthquakes, near the border of Canada. A tornado near Chile. Heading from Mexico towards Kansas was news of “weird black thunder clouds”. In China people were choking on sudden smog. And there were reports of magma pouring out of the ground in southern Europe.

With her free hand, Ray shook Omar’s arm. “Doc, we need a plan,” she said firmly but also with a hint of hope in her voice. Whatever this mess was, she needed his help to sort out what was happening - and what to do about it.

Within half an hour, Ray was dressed for war and sat at the small table in their room, staring at tablets, laptops and phones with live feeds, socials, newspapers, blogs and other updates. And that’s when their door burst open to reveal the old dhampir that never failed to cause the most unexpected emotions. In this case a certain relief for Ray, as he seemed to understand a lot more than she did in this moment. For once, he could help.

His world had shocked him awake in, what he deemed, the middle of the night. Grunting, he opened his eyes blearily to his wife, in his eyes, slapping his arm.
"Huh?" He asked, wearily but recognizing the urgent tone to her voice.
"What do you mean, plan?" He asked again.

The cause for the plan was immediately obvious with one look out the window to see the black clouds rolling in. Not your typical rain clouds one might get in the state but disastrous, supernatural style clouds and Omar immediately got a tingle that something really was not right.
"Holy Father ..." he gasped, staring skyward briefly before rushing back towards his clothes pile.

Usually, it would be a sharp suit for him and idealistically, at the end of the world, he'd want to go out in a suit too but he didn't have the time. It was Ray that would be able to stop this, hopefully, and she'd need her literary compendium of a husband to help her out.

So he threw open his wardrobe and threw on the nearest items or clothing he could find; a pair of beige chinos and a dark green turtle neck jumper. Socks and brown shoes stepped into and he turned to Ray. Even he was turning his nose up at his outfit whilst Ray looked damn good and like she was readying for war. He jabbed a couple of pens and a blank notebook into his pocket, alongside a multiuse pocket knife into the other.
"Ready," he said.

He turned to their table and grabbed book after book, scanning through bookmarked pages before discarding them. It was some time of doing this, Omar scribbling one thing down or the other.
"This sort of thing has happened before on a small scale, never worldwide as the reports are telling us," he uttered, running a frantic hand through his already ragged hair.

He had just started rifling through another book when their door slammed open. No knock no nothing, just as what was to be expected of the man who stepped forth. Omar's lip curled just slightly at the sight of the beanie-clad man and all he had put Ray through over the years. With one look over to Ray, however, he was surprised that she had a look of relief to her.

Omar slammed a book shut and circled the table, stress exasperating his actions.
"Just how do you expect to 'sort this out', Almonte?" He asked, staring down at the man from his outrageous height. He wasn't happy the man was here, he was just here to cause chaos. Or heck, maybe he even caused this, somehow. He knew he wasn't thinking straight and antagonizing the man wasn't the way forward, but he couldn't quite help it.

One look at the table and the Mess that had been created told him that the two of them hadn't the faintest idea what they were up against or how on earth to stop it. Quite frankly, Chester didn't know the full answer to those questions either. He knew that one look from Ray and she should be able to tell what the clouds were if they are entities. There were other parts to think about too; this wasn't isolated to Kansas or even America. This was worldwide

It was then that Ray's, quite frankly, weakling of a husband had squared up to him, using his height to his advantage. Damn he looked bad and baffled. To any normal man, he was dressed actually pretty well. Chester knew Omar's standards however. Unlike him, Omar would never want to be seen in public with jeans on. So for Omar's standards, Omar did look pretty haggard and not well put together at all. Still. Chester wouldn't bring up that. He would however ...
"You're married to Ray and you still can't bring yourself to swear when quoting what someone else has said? Sad." He uttered and held up a hand to stop any rebuke that may come forth from Omar's lips. A cheap shot but Chester was never one to refrain from taking the mick, even in a global crisis.

"Unlike you, I'm not here to start a pissing contest, for once. I meant what I said. We need to sort this shit out. To do that, we need to understand exactly what it is we are dealing with," he said strongly and looked towards Omar.
"Have your books provided you with any such answers yet? He asked.

He paced the room.
"It is quite clear to me that we are dealing with someone on a much bigger scale of power. It is either, another primordial seeking revenge on the world for whatever reason, or some other being who has been able to command an army of other beings into causing such worldwide chaos," he mused, staring off into the distance for just a moment.

"Either way," he started, blinking back into reality and turning his full attention to Ray.
"This will be your show, not anyone else's. Our world's reality is falling apart. Either ... you fix it, or we need a new one," he stated, knowing just how crazy he would sound but in all honesty, if this went on for much longer, they'd be facing extinction level crisis before long. Deep down, he was sure that Ray knew that.

"Boys!" Ray admonished as she looked from one to the other. How could they possibly entangle themselves in childish pestering like this when everything around them was about to collapse? "Doc, let's try and see what help he can offer without shooting him down first, okay?" she pleaded, hoping a rational approach would help here. "And you, Almonte, leave the condescension and bullshit outside and get your ass on a chair. Start talking." The hunter pointed at a free seat with a look on her face that allowed no arguments.

"So far we have established the scope is insane, the whole world is a goddamn mess. It's not just monsters, seemingly we're dealing with supernatural viruses and demons and stuff too. All at the same time. I agree this can't just be some silly little deity being upset - it's too massive," Ray affirmed. When Chester mentioned that only Ray could resolve whatever was happening, she blinked a few times. "Ah no pressure," she heaved after a few moments of silence. "So could you elaborate exactly what the fuck you mean by that?" the woman then added, staring at her nemesis. "I get that an apocalypse is serious and big and stuff - but there's got to be help like artefacts or spells or powerful witches that can support us? You can't seriously expect me as a 15-year old primordial to fix everything with hardly any experience? You realize that's basically underage in primordial years?" Ray bursted, with a lack of better words for the palpatations she was suddenly experiencing. Then she shot a pleading look at Omar for support.

Immediately Omar felt shame for his actions. At the end of world, seemingly anyway, the last thing they needed was to fight amongst themselves. Omar knew that, of course he did, Chester was just that infuriating to him that of all the times to lose all sense of logic and rationality, Omar had chosen that time. How poor of him!

His wife had pleaded with him and Omar shot her an apologetic look.
"I'm sorry, my love," he apologized warmly, looking down at her.

He held his hands up to Chester in surrender, leaving the floor open to him, as he so wanted. Omar turned around his laptops, each having a split screen with multiple tabs open on each, all displaying news channels, each international and local channel featuring their own disaster and rapid-speaking reporters, arms flailing.

"This isn't just Kansas, it's worldwide," Omar said grimly, affirming what his screens told him.
"I have trawled the internet searching for a safe spot, it seems that every continent has been hit in some way or other. Every. Single. One," he said, his face set as a stone.

Omar blinked too. What was the old crone talking about? He found himself nodding, entirely agreeing with what Ray was saying.

"I've been trying to look up spells, but you know what some of the witches are like. Many have their own spellbooks, I guess we could ask around, The Nexus is full of Mega Coven witches. Artefacts... short of good luck talismans, there's nothing in my books to suggest anything that can help with this level of nightmare," Omar replied, rattling off what he knew, which in all honesty, was not much.

He had to admit, Chester did have a point with the whole primordial voodoo but there was no way Ray could do any of that.

"I happen to agree with Ray here, Chester," he said carefully to avoid another argument with the man.

"Do you have any idea how to actually do what you're asking Ray to do?!" He asked, blinking at the man. The amount of pressure is beyond insane. The world was dying and Chester was talking as if this was an easy fix.

He only huffed in reply. Her weak reply to her husband to placate him only got on Chester's nerves more but now was not the time. He'd always appreciated being spoken to straight and in fairness, Ray had never had any trouble with that. He had to give her credit there.

It was with that thought that Chester took the open seat available to him.
"The 'clouds'" he uttered, pointing upwards "Are not clouds. I wouldn't have come running here if it were simply clouds. You have a supernatural army from hell on the loose up there. Every demon, every soul that's pissed off they're in hell, is currently wrecking havoc in Kansas." He said, tugging at his beanie.

"And you know what the worst thing about that is?" He asked rhetorically but pausing nevertheless, it was a nice effect.
"The dead outweigh the living," he said dramatically.

He looked towards Omar's laptops and split screens, leaning forward to view some if the videos and then nodded.

"Okay, so the world has gone to shit. What I would like to know is why has some high deity is that pissed off with earth to cause this much bother and harm," he mused. They may never know the answer.

Chester simply raised a brow at her.
"Surely you know I was only Primordial for 40 or so years. Still pretty young in comparison also. Stop boohooing over it. I never mince my words with you, Ray. I never hedge to make you feel better because you're worth more than that," he said staring hard at her.

"Part of being Primordial is making sure you're testing your powers out frequently, making sure you don't overload," he told her sternly, hoping to high hell that she had been doing just that.

"It is difficult to explain exactly how to do it. You need a thorough understanding of the world currently. Not a utopian world, not what you would want it to be, but currently. With all the crap and potholes. Then you need to look deep inside yourself and the world, pull the threads of our current world, to the reality of the world it was before it all went to the dogs today. Pull them together and tie tight. With any luck, the reality will start afresh without it going to hell and we all are back to normal. It's basically the same thing you do with opening and closing portals or travelling to and from in time. Anchor yourself and give it a go," he told her.