I’m being chased by a police officer, who is shooting after
me rather haphazardly. He’s trying to kill me, though I hold no weapon and
there are innocents bystanding about. I flee into the police station, trying to
get some help from the psycho cop. I burst in with my arms up and empty to the
front desk yelling “I’m being attacked by a maniac!” The lady behind the desk
looks startled for the moment before the cop follows me inside. I turn to him
as he speaks, deep and echoing, “He’s a demon.”
The female cop’s eyes change as her face otherwise goes
slack. Becoming sunken, they take on a yellow, almost-gold, color. I sigh as
her face changes and she starts to stand. The pursuing police officer starts to
raise his gun as I take a solemn pose. I take a similar stance as a manservant
might, with my feet together. My right hand clasps lightly as if to grip
something and is placed upon my stomach. The slightly bent fingers of my left
hand rest on my back, palm out. I bend at the waist in a bow, and hear the click
of the pistol crying its emptiness. The woman has just reached the weapon at
her side as a white flame covers my body.
In a white flash I return, to an outside viewer, covered in
armor, carrying a sword and shield. Still in the bowed position, the sword
extends out of my right hand while the shield is grasped in my left behind my
back. I stand quickly and immediately sheath the blade. I spin to backhand the
being in the woman’s body before she finishes leveling her gun. I knock it out
of her hand and her to the ground as my shield is brought up between the first
officer and I as I complete the turn.
I turn to face him just as a glowing blade swings at me. I
swear as I move the shield out of the way before contact can be made and
sidestep just barely in time. The blade cuts deeply into the floor as the
officer misses me. I quickly bash the man in the head with my shield sending
him staggering away. He has not dropped the weapon. I keep my ears open and
hope that the filter keeps normal police from observing the fight. I close on
the man and slam him into the notice board on the wall so his weapon arm is
pinned.
“A holy weapon, huh? Those’ll cut through pretty much
anything. ‘Course, if you’re the one wielding it and I’m winning, I’m guessing
this region wasn’t issued any others than that one. If you didn’t just find it
in the street. Can you guess why its holy light didn’t frighten me?”
I slam his head against the cork, shaking papers and
thumbtacks loose. I whisper into his ear, “I. Am. Not. A demon.”
(Holy light will frighten lesser demons and some of the
bigger ones. Creatures of evil tend to be wary as well. Spells they use tend to
be less effective in the light of a holy weapon.)
And with one more smashing of his head he crumples,
unconscious. I turn and walk to the just recovering second cop.
“You must still be in training if you took that hit that
hard. Got a pen?” I take the one from her shirt before knocking her out with
the shield face. Taking one of the fallen papers from the notice board I
scribble a quick message on it. I lift the sheet over my head, looking directly
into the camera pointed at me. Then I take it into the small public restroom
near me and after hiding it, I change back into street clothes, mimicking the
position I held earlier.
I walk out, leaving the unconscious police to be found after
I’m gone.
“I hate immortals.”
So angels come in a hierarchy, with four levels. Cherubs are
the weakest, and don’t fight at all. They’re manipulators. Cupid is a Cherub,
he manipulates relationships. Generally though, he won’t do it unless the
outcome helps things on a bigger scale. Because of the scarcity of the need for
them, Cherubs are the fewest in number. And since manipulation is often seen as
a sort of nasty thing to do, the only people who ascend to become Cherubs are
those who do it with purity and benevolence in their hearts.
Then there are Guardian Angels. They take positions in
society as regular people, but often in places that they can protect the
average person. You’ll find a lot of Guardians in police work. Some in
military, some as teachers, or guides for social services. They protect people
and are decent fighters. Taking up police work allows them mortal weapons,
which allow them to blend in and fight on mortal terms, though a few do have holy weapons. Guardians are not
terribly bright once they’ve made a decision on if something is a threat. If
they deem it as a supernatural threat, they may not stop until it’s dead or
destroyed, which was my problem in the above conflict.
Angels are next. This is the standard angel, though they are
stronger than the previous two. I myself would never think of fighting more
than two, at maximum. They’re fast, powerful, and regenerate quickly. They can
be killed, but only with certain types of weapons, nothing I carry on me. I
would never use my blade on a Guardian, but with Angels, it’s rather necessary
to defend myself. Injuring them is the only way to slow them down. Their rate
of regeneration is so great, I don’t feel too bad about lopping off a wing or a
leg. They’ll be back to good within a minute.
I don’t like fighting angels, of any kind. Ultimately, they
fight for good, and I’m also a strong supporter of Good. But every now and then
angels will be convinced I am or harbor evil, and attack me. As in the story
above, I put my sword away when fighting Guardians, because they take up normal
positions in society, and I actually have a chance of killing them. I’m just a
better fighter than the majority at their level. I don’t want to leave the corpses
of cops behind which will turn on the manhunt for me, and as I said before,
they really do fight for good, and I’m not going to oppose that by killing
them. Capital A Angels are much better fighters, don’t take up positions in
society, and are trained to hunt and kill demons. I can match some one-on-one
and fight to a standstill. Two is pushing my limits, and I have to fight at the
top of my game in order to survive. If more than two appeared to oppose me, I’d
immediately give up. I’m just not that good.
Now, for the last tier of angels, I don’t know a whole lot
about them. You don’t run into them often, usually only as a last words kind of
meeting. Archangels are death. Very few can stand up to even one of them, and
those few are usually other Archangels dueling, or powerful Demonlords.
Archangels are reality warpers. If they want to decide your lungs are pudding,
there’s not much you can do about that. They supposedly almost never pull out
actually weapons, relying on their warping abilities. But even if that were a
reliable bit of information, I would never assume an Archangel couldn’t fight
like they had eight arms with infinite reach. Fearsome would be an
understatement. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting only one Archangel so far in
my life, and the experience left me terrified of them. I knew that if one was
legitimately coming after me, I would be dead. I would have no hope of
fighting, at all.
I’m still not sure if there is a god or not at the top of
the tier. I wouldn’t even know if that’d be capital g ‘God,’ or just a god or
if it’s just the sense of good in the universe. It doesn’t really matter. We
mortals just do our best to live our lives. That’s all that’s important.
What’s that? You want to hear about how I met an Archangel?
All right. It’s not very long, and I never got the name of the Archangel…which
to be honest probably would have burned my soul if she had told it to me.
Anyway…
Apparently two Angels had been chasing after a fairly
powerful demon. They briefly lost track of it and came across me, sans armor.
They must have assumed because of my magical aura, that any significantly
strong being can detect if I’m not hiding it, the demon had entered and
possessed me.
With hardly a warning they attacked me, my senses blurring
into high alert. I barely manage to pull my armor, weapon and shield up while
dodging their attacks. A significant weakness in the transformation process, I
know. You try pulling off a pose
while dodging attacks! After trying to counterattack, I quickly come to the
realization these are Angels, and I am in a world of trouble. They don’t tire
easily, and if they were truly after me, two was more than enough. I’m
defending myself to the best of my ability, which is difficult because their
weapons are holy blades. I have to dodge instead of block or parry because
these holy weapons are designed to cut through pretty much anything, and that
list would include whatever my armaments are made out of. I’m cutting off limbs
and bashing them in the face with my shield, just trying to get some room to
breathe.
The problem is that the Angels would expect a demon to fight
back, but if I had just let them attack me without defending myself, they
probably wouldn’t have thought to check until after I was dead. Collateral
damage is not exactly their primary concern. I would still be dead. So it’s
hard to convince two Angels, who are in the middle of combat with you, that
you’re not evil. Not that I knew the reason I was being assaulted, but my
actions did not help my case.
I’ve just slashed through the wing of one of the Angels and
can feel the blade of the other diving toward my now exposed back. I’m suddenly
aware of another presence near me and I realize my body is immobile. I can feel
the power radiating off this new being. It terrifies me so quickly I don’t
realize the Angels have been frozen as well. Against my will my head turns and
I look upon the face of a practically dressed woman. Her face is stern as she
leans in toward my own. Inches away she asks for my name. I’m so scared of this
woman, of the power she gives off that I panic and give her my birth name. Her
eyes narrow at me, and if my entire body weren’t Time Locked, I would have
emptied my bowels right then.
“Do not play games with me. Your true name. Now.” I’m
panicking right now, so my voice squeaks as I give it to her.
She stares, without hyperbole, into my soul for a long time.
Then my view changes and I can move my body. I’m standing in a neutral
position, as are the Angels on the other side of the clearing we had been
fighting in. The woman stands near them, and I can still feel the strength of
her aura. The angels look confused for a moment before noticing her. They
salute and it dawns on me that she is an Archangel. She speaks to the Angels.
“This one is not your quarry. His true name is still yet his
own.”
Some background for this. If a Demon possesses a person,
their true name can determine the case. If a person was taken over against
their will, the Demon will not know their true name, and an Angel, and clearly
an Archangel, can see through any deception. If a person willfully gave the
Demon safe harbor, the true name may be known by the Demon, but it will sound
false, tainted. In my case, I knew my true name, and though spoken as an
adolescent, it rang with truth. I had no Demon inside of me.
To my horror, one of the Angels tried arguing with the
Archangel. I’m not always a smart man, but you don’t argue with any being with
that much obvious power and authority. It’s all ‘yes ma’am’s and ‘no ma’am’s
with them. Respect. He got one word out, and I would have sworn I’d been time
locked again if I hadn’t seen the motion that put him on his back in an
instant. There was no argument after that.
The Angels disappeared, presumably to continue their chase
of whatever quarry they had been after. She turns to me and with a slight smirk
manages to terrify me all over again.
“You fight well. Perhaps one day you will join us.” And for
some reason, I let my voice speak its idiotic mind.
“With all due respect, ma’am, that was an exceedingly creepy
thing to say!” Honestly, I shouldn’t still be standing here to tell this story,
but she gave a short bark of amusement. A great big, “Hah!” before turning and
disappearing. I fell to my ass, and squatted there exhausted, pondering the
luck my continued existence.
