Fantasy Heaven Has Had Enough

[leafyx8]

Evangeline had never claimed to be a good person. Certainly not a saint, but she would never have dubbed herself as bad either. She believed she existed in that common middle ground that most people would find themselves in. Her vices and past decisions aside, she had never put much thought into what would have made her a ‘better person.’ She could remember sitting in uncomfortable church pews when she was younger, listening to some old man preach about the need for salvation and being absolved of sins she was already deemed guilty of. Back then, she couldn't help but think- what was the point of trying?

Hindsight was always twenty-twenty, though. Maybe if she had bowed her head deeper those days, or said her prayers at night, or took her mother seriously when she’d scold her about misbehaving, quoting she’d only make it to heaven if she acted right. Evangeline had a feeling that even if she had followed her mother’s advice, her life would have always turned out the same. Even with the rapture happening before her eyes, she still had that seed of doubt that any of this was right, judged by an unknown scale humanity was subjected to the day the world turned over. Nothing made quite enough sense to her even still- the information that the small group her brother and her had formed was mostly assumptions. The only thing they knew for sure was that they could not get caught.

The first encounter of angels that Evangeline remembered was when Landon and herself were hightailing it out of Portland on Day One. Stuck in an endless line of traffic as the city behind them lit up in flames, they only decided to ditch the car when they saw swooping figures attached to the cars behind them, screams echoing and growing closer and closer. The pair grabbed their packs and descended down the grassy hill of the highway, only turning around briefly to watch as a couple were pulled out of their car, one person gutted while the other swept away. They later pieced the little information they had with another traveling group, ultimately coming to the very basic understanding that they were being hunted, and to get caught would have meant probable, if not certain, death. The group had remained fairly hidden, avoiding major cities as they traveled down, no set destination other than to stay clear of highly populated areas. They had eventually made it to barren lands of Arizona, the group almost half the size from what it was once. Casualties and close calls had happened along the way, but they never had much time to stop and grieve before they had to move on. Now, their group was a measly seven, with herself and her brother included. A family of three and a younger couple made up the rest of the group, all strangers that now relied on each other for safety.

They had been running off of little water and hardly any food for days, too afraid to spend much time in the open to scavenge and far too weary of actually entering a town. Their desperation had reached an all time peak, though, and eventually they had rationalized that a quick trip into the smallest town they could come across would be worth the risk.

That was how her and Landon had ended up approaching the little town of Williams- they assumed that the more that went, the more likely for trouble. Landon had wanted Evangeline to stay behind, but knew her stubbornness was never going to let him go alone. She was the older sister, after all. They went at night, hoping for the cover of darkness to aid them in their quick run. A mess of a convenience store was where they had managed to fill their backpacks with whatever they could find, their raid going almost too well. That very feeling should have been the indication that it certainly was too good to be true.

Just as the duo was going to make their break out, Evangeline reached out her arm in front of Landon, stopping him in his tracks as they heard the eerie sound of the bell of the front door open. Without much time to think, Evangeline and Landon made a run for the back of the store, the dark figure that loomed in the aisle, one that radiated bad intentions. A terrible laugh that brought the hair up on her neck, the two didn’t dare to look back twice as they rushed to the door. Evangeline felt her feet become swept out from under her, her right leg embedded with three deep scratches as she stumbled to the floor. Call it stupid, or selfless, or simply giving up, but as Landon burst through the back door of the store, Evangeline shoved her backpack to him, using her non-injured leg to kick the door closed behind her- thankfully the door locked automatically from the inside. The look of horror etched onto her younger brother’s face was one the last thing she’d ever see, she assumed. She scrambled back as the figure approached until she was against the wall, the twisted face of something only somewhat human in appearance showing in the brief moments the lights of the store would flash. Evangeline would have never thought she’d stoop so low, but in the face of death, she found herself squeezing her eyes shut, sending a chastise prayer up to whatever being might be above- a hail Mary at the end of her life. Before the relief of death could save her from this nightmare, the two were interrupted by a rumbling from outside, the doors to the store flung open. Evangeline might have thought she was saved- if it hadn't been the shadow of wings attached to the group that had made their entrance.

 

[Ryees]

Nitani awoke in the morning in another sweat, images of a feminine face fading into the back of his mind as he blinked the sleep out of his eyes. The dawn had broken just a few minutes before, and it was a tour day for him and his Cohort. Dawn to dusk, they would ride out into the human world, hunting for human stragglers and demon invaders and capturing or killing as deemed practical and necessary. In Nitani's experience, it had often been more of the latter.

The morning passed and he had been served breakfast from the camp pages to whom only he was ever courteous; donned the armor he would spend the next twelve hours in; and reviewed the maps of the area, noting major landmarks and buildings and, in particular, stores and shops where food would have been left when humanity scattered. It was those hotspots that they most often found their human prey, and where there were humans, there would inevitably be demons.

With a final gear check, he and his five wingmates walked through the tall gate erected at the camp's edge, the chain-link barrier once a human prison wall that they had repurposed as their base of operations in this sector. Every soul within had been damned the moment the skies had opened; it was empty by the time they had been dispatched.

The skies were, as always, a respite. As the clouds came close and the ground fell away, even as he scouted, even as he remained diligent and alert, a peace settled about him. The wind under his wings and in his hair, even through the helmet, lifted away some of the weight of his duty, a task that still sat sour in his belly. The fervor with which is men, even from his own Cohort, sought and slaughtered mankind unsettled him. God had created them in His image, and while it was true that they had squandered that honor, he was not so certain that this was the recompense deserved. Not that he had a choice in the matter—his station would require action, and he had not spent his life catering to these high-brow winglets to let it fall apart now.

The scent was what always came first. That sour, rotten, acrid odor of burning hair and moldering flesh that only came along with Hellspawn and their ilk. There was a small town ahead, barely big enough to be on any of the modern maps, but a noted potential hotspot for their search. With their intelligence once again proving accurate, the squadron began their descent.

"For You have girded me with strength for battle; You have subdued under me those who rose up against me." Light wove around them in swaths, forming gleaming steel armor out of motes of light, bent and forged in the heat of heaven and cladding them from toes to wingtips, only their flight feathers left unburdened by holy steel. "Behold, you have given me authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure me!" They all tucked their swords close to their bodies. The high arches of their wings bent together and their long, gleaming feathers closed around them. Their armor shone brightly, and like a six-shooter firing all its chambers at once, they began their bullet drop. The aerodynamic pod that their wings formed cut through the air, propelled downward by a jet of holy light. Six sonic booms rent from them in unison as sound lost track of their position, and like a Wild West meteor, they impacted the ground just outside the doors to the store.

The humans inside would one see the one figure that had broken rank from the cluster of black-swathed forms crowding around the door. The shop had been surrounded, nearly a hundred demonkin by their rough estimate—thirty of which were evaporated in a heaven-fall of holy heat as six ballistic angels blasted into the pavement, sending a rippling shockwave of force and holy fire in six concentric rings that tossed ground and bodies with equal ease.

Nitani exhaled slowly and let his wings unfurl, standing from within the crater his drop had made and letting his senses return. As the dust settled, he firmed up his grip on his sword.

Six figures emerged simultaneously from within the cloud in six directions, launching into the crowd swords-first. These low-circle demons were nothing to them, chaff and rabble for the slaughter. But it was clear that they were fighting through the crowd, making their way towards the shop.