Retaliation

Chapter 4: The Older Ones Are Really Old

Chapter 4

Music Choice: Bad Moon Rising- Mourning Ritual Ft. Dreimanis

The flight had also included Asher to come along; everyone was ready to talk to the Older Ones the very next day. Heaven is the home of the Older Ones as well as home to the rest of the Rulers, which consists of the ArchAngels and the Thrones. Everyone is clothed in this immaculate white, which makes everyone seem to be gleaming. The floor is made of clouds, like wisps of white cotton candy, and feels like autumn year-round, with it briskness and varying colors. To Dani, the smell of Heaven was like firewood, and the people there were always kind and happy. The sun constantly shone, and when there was night, the stars gave the Citizens of Heaven the light they needed to survive. Heaven is a place of eternal good, of light, and therefore must always have light present. This always gave Dani a warm and fuzzy feeling in her stomach, like she had just eaten a slice of freshly-made pizza.

Every Angel was bracing themselves to face the Older Ones. Marco was definitely shaking, no matter how hard he tried to deny his fear. On the other hand, Jonathan was ready to take down a hundred-Angel Army!

The flight plus one entered the official looking building where the Older Ones conference. The building looked like a funeral home, very small and misleading. It looked like a perfectly ordinary middle-class home on Earth. Dani, honestly, didn’t have a single idea in her head. Not a single clue on how to approach this.  She figured she could just come up with something spontaneously. Dani can work surprisingly well under pressure.

“We would like to speak with the Older Ones. Now.” Jonathan demanded. He seemed so sure of himself, but Dani didn’t think he ever made contact with the Older Ones. He doesn’t know what to expect. Just like the rest of them.

A young woman ushered them into a room. Scratch that, it was like a stadium. Empty seats surrounded the flight, as if they were performing for an invisible audience. There were eight people that were each older than the whole flight combined. Six males and two females. Just like the ArchAngels.

“So,” one of the old men yawned. “What do you want?”

They all had pale white eyes, as if they were staring into you. As if they could learn everything about you, just by looking at you with those hollow, pale white eyes.

“Well, Danielle had something to ask of you.” Drew said, pushing her up in front.

“Thanks for throwing me under the bus.” She muttered. Dani’s mind had never been blanker. She simply had nothing going through her mind. She could not spin a single story.

“I wanted to inquire about the bodies we had found.” Dani asked, getting straight to the point, unsure how they would react.

“What about them?” one of the ladies snapped back.

“I-I was hoping we could take over the investigation.” Dani answered, feeling really unsure about my idea.

“But, we support this idea. We are all going to investigate alongside Dani.” Asher said, saving her ass.

“Yeah, we are all willing to work together to find the killer of these two Angels." Alex added.

“You want the case?” A thin-haired man questioned, looking directly at me.

“Ye-Yes?” Dani answered, shocked at such an abrupt question.

“Is that a question or an answer?” One of the females’ voices boomed.

“It’s-It’s an answer.” Dani replied, her body still shaking.

“Then take it. We have better things to do.” the thin-haired man responded.

“Really?” She asked incredulously.

“Yes. Now, can you leave so we can discuss something important?”

“Oh, of-of course!” Dani answered. She didn’t even mind that they didn’t consider the murder of two Angels important. They all stumbled out, in surprise and shock. Now, they have a case to work on. They actually met the Older Ones. We won them over, was all Dani could think.

The number of high-fives and the level of excitement were immense. They were all hugging and smiling like they had won a world championship. Then, Dani noticed Asher, sullen and leaning against a wall, looking down at the ground and kicking around dust in his worn out converse. She walked up to him.

“Hey.”

“Congrats, Dani. We got the case.” Asher said, looking somber. It was Asher’s usual thing, his niche. I like being the lone wolf...uh...Angel.

“Aren’t you excited?” She asked, confused.

“Of course I am.” Dani wasn’t buying his monotonous passion. All Asher could think was that he  would have to work with all these Angels he barely knew. Except Jonathan, Jo was pretty cool.A

“Well, here’s something good that comes out of it: you get to work with me!” Dani said, punching him in the arm. His arm was stiff, hard, like he must really work out.

“Yeah you’re right. I get to work with all these people, especially Alex.” He said, winking. For some reason, his sentence irritated her, as if she cared about what he had said.

“Dani, can you come over here?” Drew called. As Dani turned to leave, her fingers brushed against Asher’s, and she felt a sudden jolt of electricity. He looked down at her, his eyes appeared to be different, a blue, sapphire-like color, rather than black.

“Huh... Um, yeah, what’s up?” Dani asked, pulling herself out of the dream state.

“We have a lot of work to do. Where do we start?” Jonathan asked, stretching out his back and cracking his neck. Alex flinched at the sound of his bones shifting, while Jo smiled at the annoyed look on Alex’s face.

“Marco, did you restore the body to pre-burns?” Dani asked, looking at Marco.

“I am still working on it, but there should be at least one completed by the time we get back to the House.” Marco said, turning to go back to the House.

“OK, first thing we need is to get an image, and compare it to the Angelic Database. Alex, look for any, if not all, missing Angel’s reports filed in the last month.”

“I’ll work on it once we get the image. I’ll try cross-referencing it and see where it leads me. It shouldn’t be too difficult, not many Angels go missing.” Alex responded. She then joined Marco to go back to the House.

“Great. Jonathan, we need to keep training as a team, working to improve our weak spots.”

“Got it. Every day I’ll be training and my Training Facility is open for anyone who’s available.” Jonathan replied.

Dani smiled. We are gonna figure this out. I know it.

“All right. Let’s go to Hell.”

 AN: HEYY GUYS! So I'm really excited because we are on the fourth chapter!! How amazing! And If I could get 40 reads for everything by next week, I would love that!! I might even post three chapters next week! 

If anyone has any more music reccommendations, message me, I would love to hear what songs you guys think work with Retaliation!

As per usual, Hit that vote button, comment, share, message and follow!