Chapter 8: Shadows Of Heaven

As the guild goes on a mission, they are met with the unexpected presence of fallen angels.

We all gather around Azura as she gets ready to present the mission to us. But as we wait for her, I look out the window. It's dark for this time of day. It's cloudy, but the clouds are darker than normal. It's hard to see out in the horizon, and I can't see the sun though the clouds. Something bad is coming, and the weather has seen it. I look back at Azura as she begins to debrief us.

"Our mission today involves a rogue demon spotted in the west side of the city." She explained.  "He is a rather small demon than normal. Looks like demons you'd see in a cartoon. He's responsible for six deaths so far, and it's about time we put a stop to this. The plan is simple: we surround him in the alleyway between the barber shop and the Green Rise Apartment Complex. Got it?" We all nod in agreement. "Alright then, let's go."

We head for the rooftops and head towards our demon. As I run alongside my uncle, I can't help but feel an odd feeling about all this. Everything has been nice in the short few hours we've been together. But someone told me "Life is like a roller coaster: you have your ups and downs". If that's true, then something bad is about to happen. And that's what's making me nervous about Him. Whatever this low will be, it will bring about His return. What's making me anxious is thinking about when this will happen. In an hour? A day? A week? Who knows. I just hope it's not soon.

We arrive in the alleyway the expected demon is supposed to be. Azura splits us into two groups: Rel, Joan, Vaughn, and Gilda take one side, and her, Aaron, and I take the other side. We get down on the street, and as we climb down, I see the lump of him lying down. He looks to be asleep. But is this planned, or is this a surprise for him? We get down and begin to sneak up on him. When we get close to him, Azura signals to me that I can take him. So I go ahead, grab my blade, and stab him.

"He's dead." I say. I turn him over to be sure, and to my surprise, it was not a dummy, but something worse. He had slashes all across his face that seemed to have been beaten beforehand. And, mind you, I only stabbed him in his chest. He was long dead before we got here, but now the question is who did it.

"Correction: he's BEEN dead." I state to everyone. They all gasp in confusion.

"If he's been dead, then who killed him?" Joan said for the rest of us.

"That would be us." A voice said. And as we turned around we saw a man dressed in dark clothes and armed with a blade. He then summoned wings that matched his dark attire.

"A fallen angel." Azura said, and we all looked surprised. But before anyone could say anything, something attacked us from behind, knocking down Rel. It landed in front of us and it showed that she was also a fallen angel.

"Balthazar, go on ahead back to our master. I'll take care of these heathens." She said. Balthazar nodded and flew off. She drew up daggers and go in a attack formation.

"Azura and Gilda, I need you to come with me to come with me. We can't lose Balthazar." Aaron ordered. "The rest of you, kill her." And with that, he, Azura, and Gilda headed off. That left the rest of us with this fallen angel.

I tried taking the short way out (or as I liked to call it, the Harrison way) by just shooting it, but she flew above the bullets and down towards us. We all jumped back as she came down. She then tried to attack Joan, but he held her arms back as she tried to stab him. Vaughn intervened by grabbing her from behind and body dropping her as Joan delivered a sucker punch.

She got up, dizzy. But as she slowly recovered, Rel created a summoning circle underneath the fallen angel and created a lightning storm on her. At this point, she was pissed, and she threw a dagger at Rel, pinning her to a wall. The fallen angel approached her, but the Alistars grabbed her arms, holding her back. She struggled for a while, but then she moved her arms out in front of her so hard that the brothers collided and were out cold. She then reached Rel and held a dagger up to her throat.

"I could kill you now.." she threatened, holding the dagger against her throat. "But I'm afraid Azrael would like your presence at the nest. However, accidents do happen.." But before she could do anything, I shot her legs, causing her to fall and drop the dagger. I come up to her limp body as she looks up in pain. I pull out my sword.

"Oopsy" I say right as I stab her, killing her. I head for Rel and remove the dagger in her and I grab some supplies on me to help her back.

"Really?" She asked. "You really went for the one-liner?"

"Can you blame me?" I say, putting the bandages on her. The Alistars soon get up and once they regain consciousness, he head out. It took awhile, but later found them standing on a hill. The only thing we see is an old observatory.

"Ok. What is this?" Vaughn asks.

"This," Aaron said. "Is where Balthazar and the other fallen angels are. This is the nest."