The Battle Of The Fallen

When Richter's door cracked slightly, the only thing visible was a sliver of Richter's face, the only defining features the blue eye and a strand of white hair, "Ein Engel? Jetzt?" what followed was a heavy sigh, "Enter...Könnten das auch das hinter."

The door swung open, but he already had his back to it and the door knob hit the rubber stopper with a loud thud. He sat back down on the couch. He retrieved his hat and pulled the wide brim down over his eyes. Summer may have been allowed in, but Richter was not exactly thrilled to see her, or any angel for that matter.
 
The hounds and their master found Saelius drying the last of the dishes and putting them away, seemingly unbothered by their presence. When he had finished speaking, she finally turned and gave his disguise a good look up and down, then grinned.

"Vanity, Azazel?" Saelius shook her head and laughed good-naturedly, "I thought you would have grown out of that, by now." She wiped her damp hands on a rag then turned to face him completely, leaning against the counter. "My carpet would certainly appreciate the lapse in theatrics."

The two silently regarded each other for a while; thousands of years of warfare between them. Sometimes they were enemies. Sometimes they were allies. Both sides were the same to her, now. Except for one thing.

Azazel was a being to be feared.

"For you to come here yourself," Saelius spoke at length, a note of humor in her voice. "What's caught your attention?"

She held out to him in offering the remaining piece of cake on a porcelain plate.

"Cake?"
 
Summer followed him in, she was clueless as to what he was saying this must have been how people felt before she learned English. She stood and looked down at him on the couch "look i know you don't want me here but i have no other choice, i need your help." "Lets just start with introductions, my names Summer and you are?"
 
Richter sighed, "My name is Richter von Brandt, and I am going to help you. But..." Richter paused for a moment and lifted his hat up to he could lock eyes with Summer.

"How long has this been going down now? How many years would you say? You know what's changed? Nothing. That's my problem with this. No matter how long have you had to come to humans for help when religion puts you as so powerful. I have no issue with you personally. But the fact that you all need humans is what irks me. Some Seers come back changed but most don't come back at all from what I'm told. So before I allow myself I want you to ask yourself why the hell you all are so incapable of doing this without humans, but don't answer me. I want you to seriously think about that. Humans should have nothing to do with Angels or Fallen, so why the hell can't you figure out how to see Fallen yourself? Why do you insist on coming back to the humans when we end up either dying or being scarred?"

Richter stood up and got himself a glass of water.

"Oh and by the way, the Von Brandt family doesn't use water. We use fire, so my targets are explicitly Fallen I'm not useful in a fight. Fires a symbol of purification and light. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that it won't work on Non-Fallen."
 

Maggots were spilling from the cake even as she lifted the plate. With a small sigh, she put it down again and shook the spiders and centipedes from the back of her hand.

Azazel's stare remained on her, eyes hollow as the voice animated the corpse. "Who is she - the whore-child raised above Michael? The Seer tells or the dogs have their way."

Behind him, drool spilled from the mouths of the two hellhounds, their phalluses erect as they watched Saelius. They awaited their master's call, and in their eyes was the savage intellect that Azazel's shell had lost. There was delight and expectant zeal - the mindless sadism of the infernal.

"Not since Metatron, a Clayling turned to light. Why?"


Though nothing in all humanity could give the Fallen pause, their fear of God was absolute. When His wrath came, it was terrible and magnificent, conjuring sheerest terror in their hearts. Only a few times had God moved directly against the fallen, and the last time was during the age of Metraton, the first human turned angelic, who heralded the Flood.

The Fallen had been wiped from the earth that day, with only a few like Azazel bound beneath the ground and allowed to endure in misery and pain. And since that day the Chosen had used the powers of water - the element that reminded the Fallen of His wrath.

So it was that Saelius realised why Azazel himself had come. It was the fear of Deluge, the prospect of another Judgment prophecised in the shape of Summer.

"Why?" he asked again in ancient monotone.

 
"Hmph," Saelius flashed a small grin, looked to Azazel's expectant hounds with something akin to mild bemusement, then to the Fallen himself. "'Have their way?" She arched a single brow in the classic 'Darling. Who do you think you're fooling?' that all women have mastered in their lifetime. Saelius' was particularly skilled at this look-she had lived nearly a dozen lifetimes.

Saelius laughed once more and made her way to the kitchen table. Upon it was a simple, stone chess board, already set up to a previous game. It seemed that the previous players did not make it very far; there were still many pieces on the board, and not all of them had been moved. There was nothing remarkable about the board, or its pieces, crudely shaped from black and white stone, with only enough detail to tell each piece apart. The edges of the stone were smooth, as if shaped by water. . . or by hands, touching and caressing each piece for centuries, fingers hesitating on each one.

There was nothing remarkable about the board or its pieces, except that it was very old.

And the game was not yet finished.

"You know very well that I am no longer directly involved with the affairs of angels," She was looking at the board now, contemplating the set up. "So what is it that makes you think I know why our Creator has taken one of ours into the ranks?" Saelius reached out, her fingers lightly tracing a white, globulous knight.



"My role now is to offer guidance to those who seek it, human or angel, and keep my art alive," her attention was again upon Azazel, the humor gone. "I have not seen her future. I do not know what Fate has in store for her."

"However, Azazel," her voice had changed now, to something akin to pity. "It does not take a Seer to see what the future holds for you."

Gingerly, she slid a white pawn across the board to corner the black bishop with the white knight.
 
Summer frowned "we need humans because we are not all powerful as your religion describes, we need help. Do you think i wanted this? No personally i agree with you, i don't understand why God and Luicfer don't deal with each other directly insted of using me and the others for their dirty work. I think hes wrong but can i tell him that? No i'd be sent down to Lucifer." As she spoke those words a flash of lightning appered near the window and Ricthers apartnment shook violently but only for a minute. She rolled her eyes and thought did i offend you o' lord? im so sorry. She turned back to Richter "useless? whose side do you think your on?" she raised an eyebrow at him.
 
"I'm on your side, and the fact that you somewhat agree with me will make our working relationship all the more fruitful. I'm simply saying that if we end up having to deal with a traitor I won't be an effective tool to actually fight unless they've completed the transition to fallen given the holy nature of fire. Or maybe that's not how the transition from Holy to Fallen works works. Seeing I'm not actually all that religious myself."

Now that Richter understood that he and Summer shared similar views, he had actually become much more pleasant. Apparently his question had been giving him quite the mental itch for some time.

"Alright, let's get down to business. Something to drink? I know its a bit stereotypical for Germans and beer, but I must have something you'll drink. I have no idea if you angels are allowed to drink alcohol or not. I'm not sure what all is in the fridge. I haven't been in much for the past few days."

As he spoke he poured himself a small glass of bourbon before sitting back down on the couch.
 
Summer offered a half smile "good although i don't expect to run into to many traitors", she poured her own bourbon but a much larger one before sitting opposite him on the couch. She looked at him and wondered how she would get along with him "in response to your earlier question, some angels cannot feel the effects of alcohol." She gave him a grin "however i was a human before i became this." She said as she spread her wings, before i drowned in that cold dark lake she shook her head slightly to clear her head of these troubled thoughts. "So we need to arrange somethings" she said as she sipped her drink.
 
Saelius's hand recoiled as the bishop burst into flames, followed by the remainder of the black pieces, like a dozen candles taking light. The stone would neither stain nor melt, but it burned just as hungrily, thick crimson rushing upwards as if to storm the gates of heaven. The Seer sat back from the heat and then a ring of fire began behind her, encircling the table and joining either side of Azazel's feet.

More theatrics and condescension. But Claylings deserved nothing more. They lived on spectacle and patronage, like the confused and vermin flock they were raised to be.

He stepped through the fire, pressing hands upon the table, leaning in. And in the heat haze his frail disguise washed out. A helm of bone and metal, forged in the inferno and fused across the flesh of an angel that once was beautiful. Gone was the image of God, the image that man was blessed with, leaving nought but a beast held up on wires and made to dance. A trapped animal, lashing out.

"Nothing holds," his voice whispered. "Seer tells me where the whore-child goes. She guides."
 
Lex was hungry, he was feeling weak he needed to feed. He waited in the park across the street from the bar his hunger growing by the minute, when finally his target exited the bar and began walking down the dark street. Lex followed close behind the drunk man waiting for the right moment, he was weak and wasn't up to a struggle so when the man turned into an alley he struck. Lex grabbed him from behind and sank his teeth into his neck but he was not sucking blood, he was sucking out all the mans fear, pain, all his painful memories and feeding on them. The man was screaming as it was a painful experience both physically and mentally, Lex should have let go he knew the man was dangerously close to death he could feel it but he was so caught up in his frenzy that he couldn't stop himself. He let the dead body fall from his grip to the ground and felt his power and strength return to him, he looked up at the sky as it began to rain. Lex wondered if Summer would hear of this if she did his deal would be revoked and he wouldn't be granted forgiveness, they had an arrangement Summer knew that he had to suck the fear from others to live so she would allow it but he was to pull back before he did major damage. He growled in the back of his throat and left making his way to where his leader Asmodeus was pressuring the Seer Saelius for Summers location he could just ask me he thought to himself and had a silent chuckle before entering the Seer's apartment. "Greetings boss, Seer." He nodded his head slightly to them both and sat down enjoying the spectacle.
 
"It is not Fated that I be the one who guides you to her."



There was the sound of straining wood and metal, of cabinets straining to hold their contents, of pipes about to burst.

And then came the water.

The jugs of holy water Saelius kept in the cabinets flowed out, mixing with the tide of tap water bursting from the plumbing in the walls, under the sink, throughout the apartment. The tide of diluted holy water swept through the apartment, causing Lex to have to jump up onto the couch to avoid being scalded, the hounds leapt up onto the counters when the flood concentrated around the pair. The inferno was quenched by the swirling wall of water that now encircled the two.

Fallen and Seer regarded each other as old enemies, as old allies.

Centuries before she was called Seer, she held another title and duty. She was the Witch, the War-Maiden; her way had been paved with the countless corpses of humans and angels that fell to her spear and magic. For two thousand years, Saelius was a finely tuned machine for war, no one knew of her life before, her age, if she was even human anymore. It did not matter.

She was terrible and she was feared.

But not as terrible or as feared as Azazel.

Even she had quaked in his presence, even when they had fought side by side. He wore the shape of a beast, but Saelius knew his immortal brain held more secrets than any other of the Creator's children, save for one. He was beautiful in his cruelty and cunning, his every thought and movement permeated with lethal grace.

Saelius had always wondered what had happened to him in the pit, buried in darkness under a scorching desert. Was he awake during his transformation, hearing the drowning screams of his brethren above, or did he merely dream of it?

Saelius leaned over the table, her face drawing closer to his.

"My guidance to you is this: be wary of the company you keep, your army is filled with traitors. They have lost faith in your Master, and are now seeking the favor of the Chosen," she whispered so that only he could hear.

Finally, the water swirling around them began to subside, allowing Lex and the hounds to relax again.

"I have fulfilled my duty to you," Saelius smiled, then gestured to the chessboard.

"Now make your move. Your time is running out."
 
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