The Sword of Heaven - 155: Versus

The Sword of Heaven - 155: Versus

the Archangel Gabriel

[	userinfo	~	i'm an angel	]
[	archive	~	a long story	]
[	t_m	~	prompts	]

155: Versus

[Dec. 15th, 2006 ~ 08:38 pm]

[	Tags	\|	prompts	]
[	mood	\|	infuriated	]

Gabriel versus Lucifer

______

Contrary to popular belief, Hell isn't really much in the way of endless flames and lakes of burning oil. Oh, sure, there's that section too, for those who get off on it. But fire holds no terror for you, and Hell, like Heaven, is a masterpiece of custom tailoring.

For you, Hell is this room, the four walls, the clock on the wall, the chains, and the Enemy's attempts to break you.

You remember his fingers inside your chest, snapping through the ribs and meat of the body you wore on the earth. His nails sinking into your heart. Pain as he wrenched it out, pain beyond any you had known up until that point, tangible pain that went beyond physical. Dying, you were dying, the life ripped from you by the Enemy, and before that even registered, you were dead.

Not destroyed, no. You are arkángelos, among the highest and most terrible of those in service of the Name, you are of the seraphim who stand in the presence of the Lord, and save for your murderer you are the oldest of the created beings. You are not unshaped, unmade, as easily as this. Only killed.

You were taken down below.

The Enemy, once your brother, bade you wake, and you did. To four walls, to the clock, to the chains. To his face and voice and smile.

Welcome to my home, brother, he said. It's been so long since I had the company of family. Shall we begin?

That was the start of it.

The clock on the wall, right at eye-level, is Lucifer's idea of a joke. In Hell as in Heaven, things are shaped by the dominant will; Time operates here only as Lucifer wishes it to. The second hand crawls when it moves at all. The first time he rips the wings from your back--

one

feather

at

a

time--

--the clock shows that two seconds have passed. A two-second Eternity.

(Your wings grow back, of course. That’s the beauty of it, you know, says Lucifer, during the eighth or ninth time he's peeling the skin from your hands, because he's bored. You're like a toy with Energizer batteries, brother. You'll just keep going and going... Have I broken any bones yet? No? Then let's try that for a while, shall we? Spice things up a bit.)

So yes, the clock's a joke. Lucifer's humor is the subtle sort, manifested best in the finishing little touches, the artful flourish. The clock is there for you when he is not, when he leaves you alone in the room with the tick-tick-tick for company. Aside from it the walls are bare. Neutral hospital green. There's a flickering fluorescent light overhead, its light reflecting dully on the links of the taut chains that hold you bound in the center of the room.

There are a number of these chains, heavy dark iron lines running from you to the walls, set into the massive rings there. When you first woke there were less of them, but he's had to add more as this has gone on. You pull against the chains constantly, bringing the strength that has effortlessly toppled mountains, that has wrested stars from the sky, to bear against your bonds. The conflict is not truly physical; the chains are manifestations, just like the walls of the room, of the dominant reality here, which is Lucifer's. It is a struggle of wills, sinew versus metal serving only as metaphor.

So you strain against them, when he is not with you, when you have healed enough to attempt it. You summon your will and you ignore the pain and you pull against the chains. The iron links groan. The walls tremble, shiver to transparency, smoky and insubstantial. Not enough, not enough, so you reach down further, finding your wrath, the fire that burns in you yet, and you make it tangible as well, filling the room with the raging flames one expects to find in Hell. More. Harder. Pull.

The links grinding against each other, little flakes of metal falling to the floor. Pull.

And a fine tremor runs through the fabric of Hell.

Your scream of rage echoes over the wastelands of desert, the fields of ice, the burning lakes. Throughout Lucifer's kingdom, the damned stop shrieking, momentarily aware of another prisoner besides themselves. The fallen pause uneasily, heads turning towards the heart of Dis, towards the distortion in reality, the challenge to Lucifer's authority.

In the fire-filled room the hands of the clock are spinning wildly, mad accelerated circles of hours.

The chains shriek in protest, links distorting with the heat. You draw breath to scream again-- and he backhands you, his fist exploding across your face, his nails leaving lines of blood.

Tch tch, Gabriel. I can't leave you alone for five minutes, can I?

And the clock slows down and it starts all over again...

***

He wants you to bow. He murmurs it as such a reasonable request, gently and kindly, his fingers stroking lovingly over your wings, grown back now for the fortieth time, the fiftieth. It doesn't have to be like this, brother. Why fight me? Don't you realize we're on the same side, Gabriel? We ARE the same. Both forsaken by Him. It took you longer to see how capricious He is, how foolish to live as a slave to His whims, but you know now. You see now. He's forsaken you. He's given you to me, brother. There's your reward.

But it doesn't have to be like this.

Just admit I'm right.

Serve Me. Forsake him, Gabriel, and serve Me. And together we can be done with him. We can make a new universe, clean and new, free of his mistakes. No flaws. No "sin." No mad King on a tottering throne to bow before, no Authority that can never be questioned. No God who destroys all who will not be his slaves.

All the decisions will be ours, brother. And we will be just and fair, we will extend mercy to our brethren and there will no longer be war and division between us all. You and I will lead them into our new universe. This can all stop, Gabriel.

Just admit that I was right.

You are not tempted.

***

He doesn't hate you back. You know this from the look in his eyes when he regards you. Oh, he dislikes you, certainly, and your refusal to break irritates him, but it is not hatred that motivates him to methodically crush each of your bones in order from smallest to largest, or vice-versa if it's a Wednesday. It is not hatred that prompts him to idly gouge out your eyes and innards, pull out your tongue and nails, violate your body, strip the skin from you with such thorough precision. It's merely boredom.

It's always there in his eyes. Mostly he doesn't bother to hide it. Sometimes he makes his words honey-sweet, matches them with gentle touches and idle kisses, but his eyes always show the truth of it, how this is all amusement for him.

Boredom. And spite. And dark satisfaction; he thinks he is not the only one to fall from grace, now. You know better-- you have not fallen, you are nothing like him-- but when you hiss this at him he is only amused.

Your self-delusions are very sweet, brother. Come, tell me another.

Sometimes he comes in wearing the face of one of the host who is still loyal to you, as though your brethren had arrived to rescue you. You only fall for it the first time, and only for a few seconds; but he loves it just the same and taunts you with it for ages afterwards.

Sometimes he comes in and just laughs at you, laughs as though he will never stop, laughs until tears are running down his cheeks and his laughter seems mad and hopeless.

Sometimes he comes in and simply stares at you, his dark thoughts unknowable, and this worries you the most.

***

It's only a matter of time, Gabriel, he says, irritation creeping into his tone, bloody black feathers in his hands. He pauses to lick at his fingers. How long do you really think you can go on like this? Do you intend to remain defiant until the stars die?

Your throat is feeling rather raw today from screaming, so you let your narrowed gaze answer for you. If necessary.

Lucifer shrugs, his own wings brushing against the walls with the gesture. The second hand is moving normally right now, but though it's going around and around, the minute hand is stirring not an inch. He laughed when you noticed that, pleased with his own cleverness. You're boring me, Gabriel. And yet you've taught me I can't quite just leave you here to rot. You're problematic. Tch.

He absently shreds the feathers in his fingers, his expression thoughtful. When he runs out he reaches to your shoulders, takes another handful, rips them out. (The four hundredth time, the five hundredth-- does it matter?) Burning tears down your cheeks, Lucifer licking them away carefully, savoring the taste.

I'm really going to have to think of something to do with you.

He finishes with your wings before he leaves, and leans in to hiss, This is Hell. This is MY kingdom. You WILL bow to me.

***

When he comes in pretending to be Simon, you pull so hard on the chains binding you that throughout Hell the fallen seek to hide, sure that the hour of judgment is at hand.

The clock shatters on the wall.

***

He's speaking.

The words make your head jerk up, the sound strange and alien after so long. You're hearing them not as you ought, but with your ears, with physical ears such as you had on earth. This makes no sense. And he is not in the room, his words come from above you, from the ceiling with the flickering fluorescent light.

"It's time for you to go, Gabriel. This is not my war. And Hell isn't big enough for the both of us."

And then the light is gone, the room is gone, the hospital green of the walls is gone, the broken clock gone, everything plunged into darkness. The chains are gone; what holds you in place is now earth and molten rock. You claw through it, through the fire and magma, seeking surface, freedom, anything.

Your fingers reach air first, the startlingly cool air, and then the rest of you, one labored inch at a time. You suppose the going could be labeled 'torturous.' The adjective has ceased to hold any meaning for you.

But the air, ah, the air is sweet, it rushes into your lungs and you breathe deep, knowing for the first time in ages what it is to breathe without bands of iron links around your chest. You breathe and you come back to yourself, waiting for sense and thought and purpose to return to you.

Where?

Earth. You are on earth. The body alone is proof of that. Slowly you make it move, cooperate with you. Push yourself up. Open your eyes. Look around.

Yes, earth. Parking lot. Human city. Los Angeles, from the smells on the night air. Ah. Yes. You are back. You may pick up your mission again where you left off-- punish the monkeys responsible, especially that pest Thomas-- and continue to serve the Name, correct the mistakes that have been made.

Another sniff of the night air... there are things happening requiring your attention, says the wind. There is trouble coming. Michael.... Michael is moving at last. Took advantage of your absence (and just how long were you out?)... playing his hand in the game. Sending out his soldiers in a desperate gambit.... oh yes, you can taste it.

It occurs to you as you get to your feet, as you dress yourself with a snap of your fingers, that the Enemy gave you up.

He forfeited.

You win.

______

OOC: Takes place between the first and second Prophecy movies
gabriel * the prophecy series (movie) * word count: 2040

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