"Who do you want me to be, then?" I asked TC the moment she stopped reading. It seemed sudden, but I knew that whatever conversation she had been planning to start would have eventually come to the same question. "Why do you want me to know these things?"
"Knowledge is power." She offered with a shrug. "And you'd be good to have some power in your life."
"My power is-"
"Michael's. Yeah. I've figured that much out. Your soul is Michael's. Your body is Michael's. And the rest, and the rest. Jesus Christ, I get it. But when will you?"
"Get what?" I asked, nerves on edge. I had not enjoyed listening to the file TC had read. She still had two more in her lap. Was I going to be forced to learn them too?
"That you belong to Michael."
"I don't have to realize that. I know it. I welcome it, actually. Michael is our supreme leader. He raised us, and he loves us. This is not a matter that is up for debate."
"No, but- Aug, look. You belong to Michael. I can't make that any more clear."
"Yes, true."
"You're not understanding what I mean though! You're not independent from him in the slightest, are you? Your thoughts are what he wants them to be. And your actions too. Your whole everything. I came too late for you, didn't I? I came too late."
I was starting to feel just a little more than incredibly angry with TC. Her and her terrible everything, always trying to do vague things for vague but likely malicious reasons. "The fact that I am who Michael wants me to be is not an insult. Michael wants me to be pure, loyal, restrained and better. And I am. And thus, I am perfect."
"Is your head honestly stuck so far up your ass that you think you're perfect? I swear-"
"Oh, shut up. You're the one who dragged me here in the first place- this library and this city. Quit bossing me around."
"Don't interrupt me! I-" TC started.
"I'm just-" I interrupted.
"Hey-"
"Interjecting my commentary-"
"Stop-"
"When there's natural pauses in the conversation."
"Aug!" TC crossed her arms and fell back on the mattress. "You're absolutely abhorrent!"
"I don't know what that means." I said. The maze of bookshelves was no place to angrily storm out of though, so I again had to climb a book shelf and jump my way across.
So TC thought I wasn't my own person, all because I had decent respect for my superiors? Clearly, there was something wrong with her, not me. She was the one trying to mislead me. First she took me from Heaven, then she tried to make me hate it- she was a classic demon. I had yet to see her horns. But I'd see them when she was dead.
Not like I was going to kill her. I still needed somewhere to live and someone to buy food for me. But I'd only need those things on the chance that something went wrong tonight, as I made my escape with the two halfbreed children. I had to do it right now, in fact. I was too pumped up with adrenaline not to.
There was nothing outstandingly different or rebellious about obeying Michael's orders to take the kids, actually, so I probably wasn't proving much of a point to TC. But I didn't need her approval.
I was so worked up about everything that I just kept walking right up to Pride without much thought to anything. I was only vaguely aware of surroundings.
So what if Michael was some test subject? So what if the all the Brothers were? The whole world could be fucking test subjects. It didn't matter to me. I was born from Michael's hands, needle-holding or not. And Michael was so much more than a man to begin with. He always had been.
I recalled the address- the Richter building, south-south western block, street two- and set out. I was starting to learn the way this city was organized. Each street was a large circle, with never-touching lines radiating from the central square. Each street name was thusly a number, and certain parts of the city were easily divisible into blocks. The only difficulty was figuring which block was which, and how the numbers were arranged.
I had to head to the central square to align myself properly. The three buildings- Melchior, Caspar, and Balthazar- stood imposingly overhead. Large, far too large, monitors were broadcasting newsreels and advertisements on the two side buildings. But Caspar, the building of The Few sat blank. Its steps were wide and empty.
This square wasn't that far from the church. I felt like I needed to do something there instead of doing whatever I thought I was doing-
Or, no. No need to worry about a couple of demons guarding a couple of disgusting children. I put my ring on. Even in my half-Grace, its power was reassuring.
I found the Richter building, tall, white, and blank like the rest of its street, and entered. The door to the residential apartments about the first floor was locked, so I kicked it in and drew my blade. In such narrow halls, I formed my Grace into a spiked club. Better for unexpected close combat. It flickered weakly in my hands, but hopefully the spikes would still cause enough damage.
I came to the door of the apartment, and again had to bash it in. It was made of weak wood. The combination of my foot and club was plenty to break in a hole.
There were people, it turned out, behind the door. Three of them. As I unlocked the door by reaching through the hole, I could hear them speak in hushed voices and the clicks of their guns.
I opened the door, and was immediately shot in the shoulder. Bullets don't harm angels too much. But this was Hell- Raphael was a long way off, and I was going to have to deal with this wound until then. The less damage, the better.
The three demons- I was too much in a combat state of mind to look too close at them- were about ten feet off, at the other end of the room.
I swung my blade, freely letting it expand into from a club mace into an unwieldy blade of several feet that crashed into the wall. Two of the demons had ducked- it was a slow and difficult to swing weapon, after all- but one had failed too. His head had been cut smoothly off, and the blood was starting to soak the carpet.
I had pulled my blade back to me, taking it from its guillotine shape back into a much more manageable sword. The two remaining demons readied their guns, but only one of them was any good of a shot. I was hit again, this time in the leg. As I fell to the floor, I extended my sword into a spear and stabbed one of the demon's legs.
Grace burns demons. It's simply too pure for them. And thus, the demon I stabbed fell to the ground screaming in agony. It wasn't going to harm him for more than a few seconds, but it did give me a chance to stab him in the eye and slice his face apart from the inside.
The last demon shot me on the back. She was holding back a bit. I think her small gun didn't have many bullets in it. I was not in much pain. I couldn't be when I was fighting. It would be no good to have weakness when it came to spilling blood.
When I leapt at the last demon, she dropped her gun and pulled out a little knife. I pinned her to the ground, but in doing so fell right on her knife- it pierced dangerously close to my neck. Maybe it had hit my neck? I was not thinking of such things right now.
Blood was falling on the demon's face, and I could register she seemed to be quite scared. She was speaking, too. I held my blade to her neck and forced her hands and legs down, rendering her unable to move.
"Nichael!"
She had been saying so many things so many times, it had taken me a long time to realize I recognized what she was saying.
"Nichael?" I asked.
"Nichael. Stop! Please! Fucking fuck. Please." She was crying too, being at the end of her life and all. I kept her pinned down, but I withdrew my blade. I recognized her.
Marie Newman. Right. What was she doing here? Betraying me, probably. Setting me up to die. Being a demon. Made sense. No surprise.
"Where's the children?"
"In the other room."
I did not get off of her. I just looked into her eyes. She really did seem scared. "What were you doing, shooting at me? What were you doing?"
"Doing my fucking job, I swear to God. Please don't kill me. Please. I didn't mean to get this wrapped up in this."
"Was it a trap?"
"Yes, obviously. Can't have an angel wandering- please don't kill me. Please let me live. If you had come by just twenty minutes later I'd have been out of here. Please let me live."
I got off of her and stood up. She did so as well, nervously. I kicked her gun away from her feet, and she made no move to pick it up.
"You're bleeding..." Marie said.
"Yes, true."
"Not nearly enough as you should be." She came to my side, and I felt her hot fingers trace the spot below my neck where she had stabbed me. She then proceeded to examine one of my bullet wounds. "You should be dying. Or dead."
"Angels are stronger than demons." That was something I had always known. But it was also something TC had taught me. Angels were of Grace. But demons were only of luck and faith and hope. Nothing concrete and nothing real.
"And demons are stronger than humans. Funny, isn't it?" I followed as she walked across the room to a black bag behind a chair. Inside were bandages and various things I took to be of the medical nature. "You angels. So over powered. So unfair!"
"Nothing is really unfair. Some things are simply better than other things. And some people are better than other people."
"I hate that way of thinking." She had a finger on one of my wounds, I realized, and it barely stung. "I have to wonder, are your pain sensors really dull? Or are you actually just taking less damage?" She dug out a bullet from my shoulder and held up to my eyes. "Look at this. Disgusting. But you're not even going to get an infection, are you?" She then covered the stab wound on my neck, the one expelling the most blood, with a bandage.
"Thank you for your basic medical care." I said once she had finished extracting the various bullets from my body and covering their wounds. I was still pissed off, of course, but I still had my manners.
As I walked to the door of the other room, I saw Marie shifting her weight from leg to leg uncomfortably.
"What do I do now?" She asked.
"Follow me." I said. "Actually, come closer." When she started walking towards me far too slow for my liking, I grabbed her hand and harshly drew her near. She was shorter than me, but not by much, and I held her against me with an arm. She'd make a good enough shield.
I opened the door carefully and kicked it fully open. As I expected, there were more demons waiting, guns ready. I called my blade to my free hand and proceeded inside, Marie carefully keeping me safe. The kids were actually in here, surprisingly. They sat in the corner, a weird little infant and a quite small child. The child seemed terrified. Things were not going to get better for her from here on out.
I elongated my blade towards one of the demons, and pierced his chest, pinning him dead to the wall. I called my blade back to my hands. The demons started to carefully fire, aiming for the mostly exposed areas of my head and my legs. They had guns with many bullets, I knew, and it would be a bad move to get shot too many times. I held Marie close. Her heart was moving exceedingly fast, and her body smelled of sweat.
I tried to elongate my blade again, but the demon I aimed for just stepped aside.
Despite being a shape shifting weapon, I didn't have much control to begin with. It was stuck at a certain size and texture, and any sort of expansion or throwing had to be in a straight line. It was all good to shift it around from weapon to weapon, but truthfully it was best used as a single type. That was how you built up skill. Otherwise, a smart opponent would be able to work around the erratic nature of the blade and slice off your hand.
But my usual choice of a simple straight blade was no use in a confined space against gunmen. So I was stuck trying to determine how close I could get before they just lost their respect for their superior's life and shot my shield into a state of uselessness.
The hardest sorts of weapons to form out of Grace were the sort you were meant to throw- you were, after all, essentially hurling part of yourself at the enemy. And you desperately needed it back. I had once been quite good at throwing spears at deer, but I feared I would be left weak if I tried that now in my half-Grace state. With this in mind, I made a spear and simply tried to thrust it through one of the demons.
It succeeded in hitting her, and on reflex she shot her gun. The bullet landed on Marie's shoulder, and she gave a sobbing scream of pain. But the demon who had been hit with my spear didn't seem very hurt- in fact, all that had happened was her getting pushed towards the wall a few inches. My blade flickered. I was losing energy, even if I couldn't feel it.
All well. If it came down to it, I didn't need my blade. There are many, many ways to kill. And I knew enough of them.
I withdrew my blade and tossed Marie to the side in one fast motion. And then I sprinted towards the demons, relying on jerky movements to ensure any bullets that hit me would cause minimum damage. I was shot six times. I was not yet feeling the damage- what kind of angel would I be if I did? But I was starting to think that I was going to feel it shortly, as my head was a bit less clear then it should have been.
At close range, it wasn't much to create a thin razor of a blade to slice necks. I took out two demons in this way, and the others seemed much to alarmed at the blood on the floor to stop me.
There were two left. One of them drew a knife like Marie had, and I cautiously circled him. A knife had the potential to do more damage to me than a bullet, especially if a wound was deep or long enough.
I leapt towards the demon with the knife, and held him against the wall. He dropped his knife at this time, and I took dutiful pleasure at impaling him in the head with a sort of icepick blade.
Before I could turn to the other demon, I had a sort of moment of clarity: there was another demon. And my back was to her. It was at this moment that I felt a knife in my side. Considering I wasn't moving around much, the demon had made a very deliberate attempt to harm but not kill me.
I fell to the floor in fake agony to reassure her. The soldier demon rolled me over. She was speaking to me, but I had no interest in her thoughts and phrases. I was fake yelling and screaming this whole time. It was only when Marie stood up and limped over did I begin to listen.
"Don't kill him." She said, gazing down on me and holding her bleeding shoulder. It sure was bleeding a lot. I wondered how much blood I had in me- I sure wasn't able to bleed like she was.
"Don't kill him? Ma'am?" The solder-demon confirmed. Her gun was at my head. It would have likely been death if she pulled the trigger. But there was a chance I would survive. It had happened before in Heaven, often with dire results to the victims, who usually were then promptly felled if their recovery did not go well. Michael needed strong men, able men, and men without damage.
"Let him live. Yes."
"Ma'am- Ms. Newman- he has already killed six of us. He's an angel. He used you as a shield."
"Let him live. Leave us be."
"Ma'am?" Her voice seemed very hesitant, and she eyed Marie with suspicion. At this point, I was pretending to be unconscious. But I could still see vaguely through my squinted eyes.
"Those are orders."
"Why, Ma'am? All angels must die. He has already proved that."
"Those are orders, soldier. Wait in the other room." Marie carefully got on her knees. I felt her grab my shoulder- she was looking for new wounds. Her hands ran across my skin.
The soldier-demon had not left. "Newman." She said. Her voice trailed and shook like a mountain in profile. "Newman, Ma'am, I can't let you do that."
I wanted to spring up and kill the girl, or at least explain the nature of Marie's wandering hands was entirely medical, but figured this was Marie's problem to sort out. If time came, I needed to be presumed unconscious. It was better than being known alive, and getting bound.
"...Soldier?" There has been a very odd pause there, as Marie had contemplated if she knew the demon-soldier's name. She appropriately resorted to using a title instead. I approved.
The gun was being lifted, and I twitched my fingers. Fights among demons were best fought between demons. But it was a real pain to have to sit through them.
Just then, there was a gunshot, and Marie's body slumped onto mine, perfectly dead. The blood from her head was already soaking the floor, and the side of my body where it had landed. Oh well. My clothes already were finely coated from my kills.
The demon-soldier seemed very, very nervous. She lightly kicked Marie's body, and I could see her foot shake. Even if Marie had been breaking rules by not killing me, she was still part of The Few, and the repercussions were likely to be terrible.
She moved the body off me, roughly grabbed my hand and pulled off my blade, and sort of stepped on me until I pretended to regain consciousness. Groggily, I yawned and made a sharp and fake yelp to emphasize my apparent suffering.
"Angel." She said, holding her gun to my eyes. Her foot was on my chest, and her face seemed to have calmed down. Likely she was trying to put Marie's death off her mind until I was dead. I had already forgotten about Marie.
"Demon." I said. She had taken my blade, but whatever. I didn't have to use much sudden force to force her unsteady leg off my stomach, and from there I just stood up.
I saw fear ignite her eyes, and she literally jumped me- ramming her body right into mine and sincerely causing me to fall on my face. She sat on my back and started stabbing it viciously- all those marks were starting to add up. I was bleeding out.
My mind was as clear as anyone's, however. I brought out my wing- it wasn't really able to maneuver and hit her in the face or anything, as wings don't work like that, but it did throw her off guard.
Then she clenched my wing in her grasp and whispered in my ear "Angel" before taking her knife and letting it's point draw on my skin. I legitimately screamed. She was not stabbing, not now. She was carving.
I shook my body as much as I could. But each tremor only brought her point closer and closer to my eye- but I couldn't lose my eye. I needed to see. And Raphael didn't heal eyes.
Her knife was dancing on my skin, leaving a trail of slow red that beaded from underneath. I cried. She didn't seem out to get my eye, and she didn't seem out to get anything really. She just seemed scared and uncertain. She wasn't a sadist. She didn't want to do this in the slightest, in fact.
But her knife kept moving and curling across my face. At one point, the pin pointed tip grazed my eyelid- so gently that I didn't think there'd be a mark. But I shuttered all the same.
Once this demon got herself together, I'd be dead. With this in mind, I tried to focus on my prayers to Michael. I had done his will best I could, and I had to thank him for the long life I had lived, and thank him for the future life he would give me, when I will be reborn again.
Instead, however, I found my thoughts interrupted by a sharp sob that wasn't my own, and I soon recognized it to have been going on most of the fight. It was the sound of the children. Crying. Screaming. They did not like the blood.
Blissfully, they'd forget all this. It's always proper to have some respect for children, even if they are half breeds- they are pure. They are innocent. And most of all, they forget- the greatest virtue of all.
I tried again to think of Michael, but in my last moments all I could think about was TC. And that really ticked me off. But I started to figure it was a sign- if I truly was to die now, Michael would inform me. Maybe with a vision or something. But since I wasn't seeing him, I obviously wasn't dying.
And something TC had said- or rather, read- was replaying itself in my mind. Michael, the Michael before he became himself, had wings of Grace. And like our blades, he could shift them into any form he desired.
All of our wings were made of Grace. And even though I knew Michael was special- it was a pure given- it made a great deal of sense that I could probably achieve the same wing-shifting results as he had.
I thought of my body as a weapon, and it became one. I called my wing back to me, and grew spikes like a demon's on my back. They were black and full of malice, and they pierced the soldier-demon in a hundred different ways. Her knife fell to the floor. Her blood coated my skin.
I screamed as I did it, I honestly did- I was revolted at what I let myself become. This was sinful. This was wrong.
But it killed the demon. And when it came to ending inferior lives, all was fair and all was allowed.