Falling, falling, and still, he fell.
He was plundered ever deeper in the void of the abyss as his wings had been clipped for the false punishment amongst a tribunal of many. His time was up, and a crystal acceptance to it had been made. At the last second, the celestial might of his authority had been stripped away, when the tainted blood of humanity's greatest weapon had been sealed away in his blades to act as a statement against the machinations of war—a statement of gore unfitting for a "pure" being such as himself.
Such purity had faded ages ago, he would wish to say, but not even a hitch could escape his lips with the decrepit state he had been left in. Splashes of blood had covered his vision and coagulated his brows, wires of machines had wrapped against his body and restricted his movements, and the energy of Hell had once more stricken his skin and left it as rotten as his decayed armor.
He was once the greatest. An ethereal radiance so dressed with blood that it would make even the greatest of war angels green with envy. A luster in the boundless expanse of Hell had lost its sheen, the only signal of repentance for those sinners dredged in their own vices had faded. For once, the realm built by God and graced by His breath of life had found itself fading into the obscurity of nonexistence. Or, it would soon be, as the testament of the apocalypse had already been spoken, by the crackles and whirr of machines.
A final dance he had. A final dance he enjoyed.
From the bright glitters of aureate flashing down as pillars showcasing the might of an angel freed from his fetters, and the blue flashes of humanity's electrical elegance for destruction, he had felt what it had been like to cross blades with Lucifer in times of old. An experience as so eons ago had become nothing but yore even amongst the residents of Heaven, but he would be damned if the experiences had ever faded from the lobes of his mind.
'My brother, dressed in the garbs of Devil's skin.'
In his mind, only a single phrase was spoken as he continuously fell in his broken avatar. It was an elegy of an armor filled with blood, further fixing the conclusion that he was naught of any higher status than a fragile human being. Once more, his ichor continued to seep through cracks of a form-fitted bastion as his final thoughts came to him in a mental prophecy.
'Was this what you had foretold?'
'When the die had been cast?'
'When the 'righteous' verdict was passed upon you?'
'Truly, we were blind.'
In spite of the despair that had consumed him, a renewed vigor blessed by the clamors of war had lit his flame to burn bright for another century. Even if it would be snuffed at the very moment his back touched the ground, the Righteous Hand of God—now a Nameless Soul—was sure his embers would spark continuously and light a flame anew. It mattered not if this reality had faded, because his mission had been complete, and that was all that really mattered.
Split mountains.
Split seas.
Split cities.
All were once a divine right granted to him by an authority higher than himself, all of which were once missions to be completed under His majestic commands. Ever since creation yawned awake, he had been the first to be called upon by the voice of the Universe, a now gone almighty tune no longer reverberating its song.
Split Earth.
Split Heaven.
Split Hell.
By the vestiges of his own right, granted by the burning will and passion unpresent in an ignorant Angel, he had split them all. They were the greatest journey of them all, and by virtue, he had come to enjoy every single lasting moment of them. No matter how agonizing it was and no matter how much wrath was spilt in some fleeting moments; an infinite joy amongst them all rang out the loudest, like the tune of a Saint's bell.
With a final heave...
...Gabriel breathed his last—in the form of rambunctious laughter.
***
The stars glittered that night. An empyreal congregation of the unbreathing beings above shone with an unbidden captivating light to the eye of a horned child. For such a sight to be granted to the world they lived in—one fraught with the discrimination of the outside—it was a complete and utter blessing. He found himself drawn to the sights as he stepped outside of the torn wood of his residence, as silent as the shadows crept in the billows of night.
Plasters of metal clung to the aching buildings afflicted with green and gray mold, producing a scent that would have even the most eccentric of people clutching their noses shut. For the child, it was already a commonality that had become a permeating part of their life. Stretching from the moment of birth to where they were at now, a resilience built for disgust had been stacked upon one another as time had passed. The only revolting sense of danger that afflicted them were the dwellers cloaked in the shadows, holding their blades primed to take a life or to capture a soul.
However, that same song and dance was one he was personally familiar with. Moving across while keeping their eyes out for any twists of the blackened fabric draped over the ruined city of Kazdel, he found that the scenery had continuously changed with each step. Every single breath taken hollered out a cold and yet rancid air of mist, and yet—it blew away the clutches of the cold from his face.
There was something above, streaking like a scar in the ebony sky. It was a beautiful blue, a stark contrast to the darkness which encompassed it. For that, the child found himself further tantalized by the kiss of beauty that had caressed his cheek, and found himself possessed by a force out of the vestiges of his control. It felt like the warmth of a mother, a fleeting one which he could hardly recall back in his life.
The gravel, sand, and dirt beneath his feet dusted itself in the air as his traversal was made. A path was paved further through the labyrinthe alleyways hiding his figure. His eyes continued to track the streak of the shooting star dressed in particles of celestiality, shining the brightest out of all the other astral phenomena stricken up above. It moved with velocity, breaking through the gloom of a typical night in its crusade to light the entire world of Terra.
Furthermore the child found his pace increasing as the scenery around him blurred. There was no need to watch his footing or the structures around him, as the instincts carried him to the location ever more.
The street finally became visible to the child as they took a left turn with their eyes glued to the skies. There were some other shabby buildings with faint light in them, a story of life present inside, but that wasn't what they wished to pay attention to at the current moment. All sense of danger had faded away like motes in the wind, never to be seen at the current moment while his mind was stricken with awe.
It twisted and turned, falling down from the sky. The star which had shot across the vast expanse up above was converging on a location elsewhere, one of which the child could only vaguely tell was close to his city. To add on, there were no buildings piercing up toward the sky with inconceivable height, so everything was much clearer for the child.
For once, his steps stopped as he raised his fingers toward the sky. The other constellations did not matter when he placed them in a picture frame formed from the formations of his delicate and pale fingers. It was all too enthralling to tear his attention away from, especially with the dream-like litters plastered up above in shimmering radiance. For others, they would not care for such a sight and could only bear to look elsewhere—to the next day of survival.
For the boy, he continued to figure out the path of the falling celestial body. Even if his life were burnt up by the falling mysterious object, he wouldn't cry out in shame or regret; because even a passing moment of beauty in this dark land would be enough to cure his plague. With a drop of his hands, the boy increased his speed and ignored everything around him, letting his arms flow freely in the wind once again.
Victory was for those who ran, and so he ran without hesitance, so he ran without any worldly worries bogging him down as weights would to the body. As light as a feather, his prances brought him through the wind as if he were flying. A bird in the wind, as free as one could be, to go wherever they wished to be.
Eventually they came to a clearing. No buildings were seen in the area as they had long since been torn away by the thundering clashes of blades that would produce sparks bright enough to illuminate entire valleys. At the edge of it, he found himself grabbing onto a rusted steel pole as the thin line of light above continued to holler its burning stardust. A hand stretched upwards, as if to grasp the object ladened far above his reach—
"Gotcha!"
At that moment, something had grabbed him from the back of the neck, sending a jolting shock throughout his nervous system. His legs flailed as he kicked them and attempted to grab behind him, to claw at the hand which had captured him. A stream of fear was struck into his veins from a syringe, filling him with a wave of despair that pulsated to his very heart.
"A young kid out a time like this? Seriously?" A chuckle escaped the lips of the man behind him. His voice was gruff and echoed through a helmet, a present commonality in most Sarkaz mercenaries. "I wonder how much of a price you'd fetch. I've been running low on slaves to sell..." a mumble left his lips as the mercenary watched the child continue to struggle in his grasp.
"U-ugh! Ah!" The child could feel a dosage of adrenaline spike through, but it continuously proved useless. "G-guhk!" His breathing eventually stagnated as a second hand had grasped at their neck, choking him and letting no breath of air enter their lungs. The vital life force which was necessary for their consciousness was fading under the pressure of cruelty.
"You're more silent than the rest, that's good..." the mercenary continued speaking as he bent his knees. He applied more weight through this maneuver in order to increase the effectiveness of his tactic. "So just keep your mouth shut and move on with your life. Don't blame me for being unlucky, you should've known something like this would've happened when you stepped outside, huh?" Scorn was prominent in his voice as he seethed out.
The child could feel his vision fading as he could barely make out the luminescence of the darkened heights. There was a flicker which he saw, one which had brought his eyes to widen and bear the burden of consciousness once more—to face the pain afflicting him at that very moment. It didn't matter. For some reason, the pain proved naught a deterrent to him or a source of rage against the unfairness of the world, because everything had just become... so... bright...
"Huh?" The Sarkaz mercenary could see the environment around him briefly light up with a spectacle of golden and azure light. While he was pushing down on the child and choking him, something up above was shining, and so he looked upwards to gauge what it was. "What the...?" Soon enough, his eyes widened as saucers would from underneath his steel helmet at a certain karmic retribution.
He wished to speak more on the strange orb of light crashing down, but it was far too fast for him to even perceive. In the one moment he saw it such a large distance away amongst the black skies, and the next it was already directly in the middle of the clearing. An explosion-like occurrence happened, sending off a shockwave which sent the Sarkaz mercenary flying off of the boy, while said recipient of his previous actions clung to the ground desperately—as to not be blown away by the force crashing down on them.
A rain of white came across like snow in the midst of winter. They were motes of pure ivory inflorescence, bathed in only in an immaterial light which could not be touched. Only the eyes could perceive them in its entirety. At the forefront of the entire event, something was crouched with the body of a humanoid, dressed in an attire that glowed as the most radiant light under the domain of Heaven.
The child looked upwards after the passing shockwave, and found his breath completely stopping. Whatever was in front of him had left him more breathless than what the Sarkaz mercenary had done, as he bore as the first witness to an unnatural existence that should have never touched the soils of Terra.
A being was dressed in an unpigmented plated armor glittering with aureate linings. It was one forged for war, to battle against enemies that bore their fangs against the higher powers which governed the world. With such certainty in fortitude, no Devil nor Demon could have ever pierced through such a finely crafted piece of armor—in his mind. With each polymer that aligned every single inch of the humanoid body, it wholly completed the visage of a crusader made to represent holiness.
"I-it's beautiful..." The child gaped with a slack jaw. He had momentarily forgotten the past experience which had afflicted him at the sight of sheer splendor. "How...?"
Underneath the bathing iridescence was the holographic flap of a wing written with ancient scriptures at the edges. It swayed in the air as the wearer of such an ornately dressed "accessory" stood upwards from their bent knee posture. They became much clearer to the eyes as they possessed a masculine figure, with a helmet holding the same design as their other plated armor pieces. There was a cross upon their face, of a symbolic significance that escaped the observing boy.
Two sheathed blades with their blades hidden from view of the outside world were also attached to the hip without any band or fabric to attach it. By all means, it was a gravity-defying act that would have left him befuddled at the mere notion, but it was occurring in the ocular vision of his eyes right now. Acceptance was the only thing he could give, because the thing in front of him had fallen from the skies like a descending star.
It was an Angel, the enemies of the Sarkaz that had been told to him by passersby and individuals who bore hatred for them. There was no doubt about it, with such radiant wings and bright armor, that was an Angel. Said Angel was also locking his sights upon the downed figure of the boy.
Despite no eyes being present, he could feel on command that it was one which bore firmness greater than any steel alloy.
His breath hitched as the now straight-postured being was just ever so faintly floating in the air with his wings remaining stationary behind. There was no emotion that the boy could sense from underneath the cold steel of the helmet, despite the heated light which seemed to pour out of the figure's body.
Something that he had missed was the horn-like halos holding the same resemblance as the Angel's wings floating behind him, following the direction of his gaze.
That was all he could register before the angelic being spoke.
***
Gabriel was confused, for lack of a better term.
Yes, he had been falling through whatever was beneath Hell itself after he had fallen from grace and was struck down by the Machine which he once so despised. He still bore a rivalry against it, but not to the point where he would be seething with enough rage that would turn the entirety of the Hersey Layer red with how much of an influence it held. So, with the death of his body and spirit, he should have been eviscerated from existence.
Either that, or he would be a nameless Husk that would hold no mental connection to any modicum of consciousness. A suffering being which would be able to do nothing but lament their existence and the sins which had wrought such an unfortunate circumstance upon them. He had seen enough of the Husk's experiences in Hell as their newly appointed judge before to understand what it was like—but to fully experience it himself—was something he hadn't ever conceived until he had been stripped of status.
'Enough of these thoughts,' he chided in his mind. Despite the disorientating thoughts and sudden reprieve from the lust of battle, the Supreme Angel shook his head in order to clear his head.
Nothing around him was familiar. Although the air was stale, it hardly matched the decadence of Earth's ravaged atmosphere that had been lit aflame by the inferno of war. Based on his assumptions, it should be breathable to the human lungs, whereas the one back on Earth would corrupt such a vital organ the moment it made contact with its innards. How strange. How utterly confounding.
His sights turned upwards as he exited his kneeling position. The Light of God... somehow, someway, was pulsating through every single orifice of his body. That was the most confusing part for him, even more so than the foreign environment that he had been whisked to. The Council governed who bore the Light of God in Heaven, and who didn't. They possessed the full authority with their "prayers" and their "devotion" to strip it even from the greatest generals that once reigned during the time of the Old Testament. He was a clear example of that.
His mind almost felt like short circuiting.
Just as he was about to ruminate more on those thoughts, his eyes which saw further than any hawk had found itself locking onto the figure of a child. The child was a boy, laying stomach first on the ground as they propped themselves up with their arms. He wore scraggly clothes befitting that of a person living in a poor environment not suited for satisfaction, and the pale look on their face made it look like they had been lacking oxygen for a good deal of time.
'Surprised? That's expected. So am I.' His musings rang out inside the solitude of his mind as Gabirel once more assessed his current situation. Once the fervor of battle had run its course, the clarity of sobriety was certainly an experience to behold once more. 'I need answers, perhaps this child could grant me a few.' Although his exterior didn't show it, he was confounded with the current situation.
It was a miracle that he hadn't burst into a frenzy the moment he found that he was alive and breathing.
Moving as gently as he could by balling his right fist and bringing it up to his mouth, Gabriel cleared his voice and let the unnatural reverb of his voice clear out a stupor that had inflicted the boy who stood not too far away.
"Child," Gabriel said, his voice echoing through the air of this unknown town—or city—that he had found himself in. 'Horns... like that of a typical Devil or Demon, how could the child possess such a feature? Is this a facet of Hell I am unfamiliar with?'
The boy looked as if a wave of electricity had passed through his body as he scrambled to his feet and dusted himself off, "Y-you... you were the star in the sky...?" A frantic voice left them as they spoke in both fear of the unknown and amazement at the being in front of him.
The Supreme Angel tilted his head, keeping his gentle flow. "Why yes? I would say I was." Although he wasn't sure if the falling star was actually him, with how exorbitant Angels could be with their entrances—he knew because he would do the same—it wouldn't be too surprising that his body had instinctually made itself as much as a spectacle as it could when descending upon the world.
Sky... Unless he was in some section of Hell that possessed an artificial sky, then he must be on some not too dissimilar to Earth.
Despite the strange awe in the child's eyes, he was at least glad that he hadn't run away in fear. However, just as he watched the boy open his mouth for more words to escape his throat, Gabriel felt a presence looming from behind. It was approaching the child, and it held malice, something which he could detect well enough after spending most of his existence sustaining order in Hell.
There was nothing else that he needed to think over or say, before his body blinked into multiple afterimages of cyan. Nobody could detect it, not the aberration behind the boy, or the boy himself. With a flick of his wrist, Gabriel had found his hand grasping at the other wrist of the subject he had discerned the malice from. Whatever motion they were in the process in, had been halted dead in its tracks like a car slamming against the brakes.
"G-gah!"
Gabriel tilted his head. "What a peculiar outfit." He might have not been one to talk, but he hadn't ever seen the design of armor the disrespectful hooligan was wearing.
The Supreme Angel had also felt the child behind him take a step back in surprise, with a sputter of incoherent words escaping from the boy's mouth.
"S-Sankta?! What the fuck is your kind doing here!" The horned man grabbed with his free hand against the other person's own, attempting to pry it off. "Bastard, do you know what your presence means?!"
"Oh, hush, there's no need for such frivolous language." A reverb was heard from his voice as a signal that he was going to speak, one that was present in all Supreme Angels. "There is also no need to question the intention of your previous action, it was as clear as day," Gabriel scoffed.
With a flick of his hand, the horned man was thrown off of his feet and sent skidding against the ground, along with dust flying upwards from the barreling body. It eventually came to a halt as more curses in their native language could be registered by the ear.
'Strange. Their language matches some parts of Earth.' The Supreme Angel was just about to turn around and converse with the child once more to discover the environment he had ended up in, but merely sighed as he halted his motion. "Goodness, you have no tact, now do you?" His eyes rolled underneath his helmet as he saw the man he had just thrown away brandish a large greatsword.
The child behind squeaked and stepped back in terror at the fearsome blade that had been brought out. "T-the Sarkaz mercenary brought out his weapon...!" The boy turned toward Gabriel who had turned his head behind to listen to his words. "A-any mercenary half their salt can split a boulder in half, b-be careful!"
"Hm, thank you for your thoughtfulness, child." Gabriel nodded his head. "I'll take your warning to heed." His posture still remained relaxed as his left hand lazily rested one of the sheathes of his prized weapons.
"You...!" The Sarkaz mercenary—as Gabriel had learned—pointed the hefty item in the form of a large cleaver toward him. "What do you think you're doing here, huh? Do you have any idea the shit you're getting into?" he spat out as one would to a distasteful meal.
Gabriel crossed his arms and impatiently tapped his index finger. "Frankly, I do not." If he were still high on his pride as a Supreme Angel and the "Righteous Hand of God," he would have already shot forward and ripped open the throat of the human resembling a Demon. Patience was not one he gave to such beings in the past.
"Hah—damn! Look at this idiot...!" The Sarkaz mercenary taunted. "We don't like your kind here, if you even walk an inch into a populated part of this shitty place, they'll have your wings cut and your head displayed at the center!"
"Surely, they would not," Gabriel boredly responded. "Seeing how insignificant you are, then I say you must be a bottom-feeder amongst them?" He gave a taunt of his own, which seemed to have worked with the next action taken.
"TCH!" The Sarkaz mercenary charged forward with an overhead strike, ready to cleave the "Sankta" as he had called him in two.
Wordlessly, the Supreme Angel stepped to the side, his body fueled by the vigor of God's chosen creations. The blade passed by his side and left an indentation into the ground in the shape of the weapon. He had also made sure to push the child out of the way while making the side step in order to keep them safe.
Next, he had reached his left hand up to his side as the large blade was lifted from the ground and directed into a horizontal sweep. With a loud clang which echoed across the still air around them, the weapon had been paused in its path of making the Supreme Angel bleed—if it could have even scratched his armor.
"A-ah...!" The Sarkaz exuded far more pressure in an attempt to break through the defense of Gabriel, but it proved to be useless despite the amount of strength they had inputted into their attack. "T-this...!" A sense of fear and worry crossed his features, but he swallowed it all back down to the bottom of his heart—such weakness was not needed!
"Your form is volatile." Gabriel released the weapon clashing against his left arm with a push, sending the enemy in front of him staggering back from the action. "If you desire a blood-stained battle so needily, then should I..." His thoughts briefly came back to the child behind him, and reconsidered his choices. "...Well, it doesn't matter. I'll make quick work of you." A decapitation was what he had intended to go for, but it could possibly leave the boy behind in shock, and thus he wouldn't receive any answers to his current plight.
When the Sarkaz recovered from the pushback from the Supreme Angel, he pointed his weapon once more in a position primed for a thrust. However, a brief sight of their weapon had crossed their eyes and made them freeze in shock, because it no longer resembled a blade. That was right, the greatsword he held in his hands had its metal bent in a way that made it look more like scrap metal than anything else meant for killing.
That was all that was needed, because a fist met their helmet right after, caving it in and sending the Sarkaz mercenary back with a recoiling force. Before their consciousness had completely faded, his blurred vision caught sight of Gabriel at where his previous position was, with the same afterimages lingering behind him. His speed was undetectable, no matter what he did to foresee his it, and he had come to the conclusion in his fading mind that he should have made the decision to run ages ago.
"Puah!" A delayed vomit of blood occurred while his body flew through the air and crashed into a wall, collapsing it into debris which brought up a smokescreen.
"Even in a new environment, not much changes." A disappointed breath left Gabriel as he flicked his wrist on instinct. It was a habit he had made from flicking Justice or Splendor in order to clear them of their blood whenever he went on a crusade to "cleanse" Hell, or when he had dealt with Sisyphus' Insurrection. "Now, where were we?" He turned around to the boy who was behind him.
...The boy was flat on his butt, but he stared wide-eyed with a distinct shine in them, as if they had seen something he really liked.
"Child?" Gabriel tilted his head. He eventually found his expression underneath his helmet morphing into one of chagrin when a squeal akin to that of a fanboying Virtue back in Heaven was heard.
"T-thank you for saving me!"
...Well, he should have expected some sort of thankfulness for his actions, but to this extent?
It was a strange new world, as if the "Sarkaz" before wasn't enough.