The Gathering

I: The Final Demonstration

"I have an opportunity for you." Phanuel said, his frame towered over Jonah, his immaculate bronze armor shamed Jonah's soot covered robes. "Instead of serving the rest of your sentence here... you may enlist in His Father's Service, and if you succeed, your past criminal deeds will be forgiven." Jonah had found himself in the 'care' of Mitzrael, the divine forge master, after he attempted to steal from Metatron's study. The sentence was lenient but rather fair: two years of penance. Jonah was to toil in the forge, smelting bronze in the sweltering furnaces with the other angels who had been in need of penance. Long days gave way to short nights. It was arduous, grueling work made thankless by Mitzrael's sadistic expectations. He would often use corporal punishment to correct any of his wards, should they not meet his very high standards. A single air bubble in a bronze bar would earn a whipping.

"Yes!" the words were out of Jonah's mouth before his mind could even process what Phanuel had offered, he had stopped any real consideration after hearing that he could escape the grunge and the grime of his sentence any earlier than he previously would be allowed.

Over the next few weeks, Jonah began his training as a junior cadet in His Father's Service. He trained with Raphael, the oldest and most decorated Archangel in the Service, but after failing miserably several times at the physical aptitude tests required to begin Archangel training, as he had originally planned, his instructor recommended a change of course: gathering. He had also managed to reconnect with a childhood friend he hadn't seen since his sentence began, Asmodel - now also a junior cadet. As had not been forced to join the Service, his father had insisted.

After his decision to change paths, As joined him in pursuit of gathering, eager to carve a new path for himself independent of his father's legacy. In addition to a more rudimentary version of Raphael's combat drills, Jonah and As now studied under Samael, the foremost authority on gathering - having invented the practice millennia ago.

"Today is our final demonstration." Samael said plainly as he lifted a small rose bush onto a stone slab. "by the Sabbath you'll have graduated from my tutelage to a more hands-on experience with Seraphiel." Jonah wasn't shocked, he knew at the beginning of Samael's instructions that he and the other cadets only had a few weeks to prepare for their first gathering, he was excited, ready to prove himself useful at something. Jonah felt an elbow stick into his ribs. He looked to his right to see As, clearly excited at the prospect of real-world gathering experience as well. Still, Jonah wondered why Samael had instructed all of them to meet in his garden instead of the usual place, he saw the rose bush that now lie on the stone slab but couldn't seem to relate it to gathering. His lessons with Samael up until today included tales of faithful humans, flocks of them, rushing into the streets when the angels of old appeared at the gates of their cities. They would bow and kneel and beg for the angels to take their offerings - their souls - for God. It also included small infusions of knowledge by Metatron, the former scribe of God, as to how life on Earth would appear to them upon their arrival.

Jonah and As joined about a dozen other cadets in Samael's garden. The garden was immaculate, up-kept by Samael himself, a retirement hobby. Towering trellises wrapped in flowering vines bordered a large open grass area at the center and created a natural privacy wall around the cadets.

Jonah felt apprehensive but excited about his impending pilgrimage to Earth, few angels could make that journey nowadays since the firmament had been closed off. The journey was now exclusive only to those for whom the energy could be spared for a worthy cause, like gathering. They were permitted to bypass the barrier and go down to realm of humanity. Metatron had granted knowledge to the cadets by transferring the content of a few of his scrolls directly to their consciousness. The knowledge was basic: languages, nations, politics, religious beliefs, and so on. Jonah had little need for the knowledge given to him during the lessons because Metatron had previously given him much more: scrolls upon scrolls of first-hand accounts of life below and living amongst humans, their culture, their entertainment, their food (taste being only a vague concept to Jonah), and his favorite, their music.