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The Devil May Care

Part 25

For DuskCypher

By Draconicon

It wasn't until God disappeared that Michaela managed to let out the breath that she'd been holding. Discorporation had never been so close or so dangerous, and she didn't know if she was lucky or if she had built up too much use to be gotten rid of right then and there, and right at that moment, the puma didn't care.

The warrior angel slumped forward, taking one deep breath after another, her eyes closing tightly as she shut out the noise of Heaven around her. The whole world seemed to be on the verge of disappearing for a moment, then she managed to get her feet under her again. Her balance returned, her tail twitched, and she was able to stand up straight again.

"He's gone..."

And he could be back soon, if things went badly down in the eldritch courts. If luck was on her side for once, then perhaps this case involving Mercy would go badly for the king of Heaven and he would be kept busy. Maybe. Maybe. There were too many maybes for her tastes, but that was the way of things when you were planning subterfuge instead of war.

I don't have much time, she thought, reaching back and grabbing the hilt of her sword. If I'm ever going to do it, now is the time.

She squeezed the hilt of the blade for a moment, then forced herself to let go. No. Not in the palace. Not yet. She might be able to fight through the loyalists among the angels, but it would take too long. She needed to do this in one overwhelming strike. If she got slowed down on the way to Jesus, then there would be no second chance. God would be called back, and he would take steps.

Dangerous steps.

She left the palace, following the grand steps down to the courtyard, and then through it to the clouds where the angels were ordered to keep up their hymns to God. The tiger listened to them sporadically, probably his way of telling whether they were following orders or not rather than just listening to how great he was. She wasn't sure that he needed it for that any longer; it was just his way of knowing whether they were obedient or not.

Today, that would end.

She took to the sky, looking down at the core of the kingdom of Heaven. The realm was small at the center, but it was the entrance from the mortal realm to this realm of all that was supposedly good. The great pearly gates stood out against the clouds, casting rainbows from the bars that reflected the light of sun and star. From there, the cloud paths led to different outcroppings, places where the cloud had been formed as stages and podiums for the singers. From there, still, it led to the Crossroads.

That was where all the different points of Heaven met. Moving north from there took one to God's palace, and east and west led to the different dwells of the angels. There were no points where an angel might go for entertainment. For them, entertainment was meant to be the service of Lord God, and nothing more.

When we take him, we'll have to run, and fast. If we don't get through the pearly gates before they close, then we'll be trapped, caught between a rock and a hard place. No way out, no way through.

Which meant that they would need to move faster than they ever had before, hold the Crossroads against any reinforcements from the loyalists, and push as far and as fast as they could. The skies would be filled with the old traps that Gabriel had conceived of at God's command, while the ground would be littered with enemies that would try and stop their escape.

Even Jesus wouldn't be able to make them stand down. He was said to be sick, someone that needed the aid of his father's touch to keep from being dangerous to those around him. Some believed, some didn't, but it meant that the command of God to keep him in the palace would hold firm.

Michaela took a deep breath, flying over the various stages that were filled with singing angels. Most of them looked like they were on the verge of total exhaustion, barely able to keep singing for their lord and master. They had been singing for decades, their voices worn down despite their perfection in creation. She could see them ready to drop, looking at the world below wonderingly, desperately.

They needed to be rescued, too.

It's time, she thought, and as she flew to the greatest of heights, she pulled her sword free. God had given it to her to fight the demons of Hell, but today? Today, she would put it to another use.

As she held it aloft, the blade glowed with holy fire. The clouds were bathed in it, creating a warmth that was almost like sunset. The clouds turned pink and orange, and there were places where it even went as dark as purple. It spread throughout Heaven, a strange light to most.

To others, it was a signal.

Several voices dropped out of the chorus, and then a few more. One whole section went silent, and then all of one voice. The various tenors were gone, and the basses started to go next. One by one, the angels went silent, no longer singing the songs of worship that they no longer felt.

The light filled the clouds for nearly a minute, silence hanging over Heaven for half that time as the voices of the heavenly hosts went quiet. Michaela lowered the sword, hoping against hope that there would be those that remembered what they were, what they had once been. She had spoken to so many angels, seen that many were dissatisfied with the power of God, wishing for the return of the days of old when there were seven Archangels instead of six, when there was happiness and glowing brightness in Heaven rather than the austere light that it had taken on.

They missed Jesus, and they wanted him back. The question was, would they fight for him? Would they do as she had planned?

The sudden roar that shook the heavenly realms was her answer.

Michaela smiled, dropping down to the nearest platform. Four great wolves, directors of their choirs, joined her. They pulled up the stands that held their sheet music, wielding them like clubs. Beams of light filled the stands, making them into greater weapons than they otherwise would be.

The oldest of them, a great gray wolf named Maltis, met her with a nod.

"We're ready," he said.

"Good. Take the Crossroads and hold it at all costs."

"You got it."

"I'll gather the others."

She took to the skies again, feeling the tingles that meant Gabriel's traps were slowly waking up. They weren't active yet, but soon, her wings would be useless. Anyone that took to the skies would risk being caught in the strings of his invisible harps, trapped and left for other angels to find when the rebellion was over.

She couldn't afford that.

Flitting from platform to platform, she gave her orders. Half of the choirs would take the Crossroads, holding it so that the other angels could pass through. Of the remaining half, half of them would head to the pearly gates and get them open, while the other half would come with her to storm the palace.

Gabriel's powers would give the other angels the chance to move through the air to an extent, though even they would be forced to follow specific pathways. She and the others would have to move on the ground, and hope that it was enough.

It would have to be.

The Crossroads were taken with ease. There were only a dozen loyalists there, and they were coming down from the palace to see what had happened with the music. They were seized, bound, gagged, and left half-buried in the clouds to ensure that they wouldn't report back. The angels on her side surged forward, shifting the clouds around, making defensive positions on the west and east roads. Curled clouds were pulled up to defend against anything that came from above, with slits for the fighting that would come from the roads themselves.

There was no holding back. Even though her supporters were the singers instead of the soldiers, she knew that they would fight with everything they had. They would call forth fire and more with their voices now that they were free of the hymnals that they had been forced to sing forever. They would remember what they were.

They already did, to a great extent. As she looked around the great circle that formed the Crossroads, she could see that most of the angels were starting to bulk up, their wings resting under broader shoulders and thicker muscles. Their white robes lifted, carried upwards by stronger frames to expose more of their legs. Improvised weapons began to turn to blades, and blades to something worse.

It was a rebellion, alright, and to her shame, she found herself wondering what Lucifer would have done with this.

He was Fallen. We are just righting a wrong.

Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that that was probably exactly what Lucifer had felt when he did what he did.

As soon as Maltis reported that the roads were secure, she dispatched another angel - a meerkat named Sallis - down to the pearly gates. He took a hundred angels, leaving her two hundred to cover the Crossroads, and another hundred that would come with her to the palace.

Ordinarily, she wouldn't consider that enough. There were still at least that many within the palace that were loyal to God and his commands, and she doubted heavily that they would just lay down their arms and surrender. However...

Michaela looked around her. The angels had been rendered nothing more than glorified music boxes for far too long. They carried that anger with them, a righteous anger that their will had been ignored, sullied, cast down for too long. They were more than just the creatures and servants, more than drones and automatons. They were angels, and more, they were...they were...

There was a word there, something that came to her as if from nowhere. Valkyries. They were a warrior people, a myth of the world below, but maybe there was some truth to them. True, the Valkyries of the mortal world were all female, and there were male angels around, but that meant little. They were of the same spirit.

Michaela looked at the walls of the palace before her. Slowly, she raised her blade again. The holy fire burned hot and bright, and the eyes of all the angels around her settled upon it. She clenched her hand, hoping against hope that it would stay that way when she was done. For all that she would rescue Jesus, she didn't want to turn away from the holies completely.

"Attack."

Her whispered word betrayed her own fears, but it didn't matter. It was heard and taken up by those around her. With a roar, white-robed warriors charged forward, and she led the charge with a roar of her own, mostly to drown out the fears that came with it.

They charged up the steps to the palace gate, meeting a squad of loyalists that were likely coming to see what had happened to the Crossroads. For the first time, Michaela turned her blade against her fellow angels, and celestial blood began to flow.

#

The fight through the tunnels and corridors of the palace was long and arduous, and the various traps and barricades that God and Mercy had put up over the years slowed them down more than she liked. What she'd seen thousands of years ago had been expanded on, shifting water to acid and acid to something worse. Fear of betrayal had obviously sunk deep into the king of Heaven, and he had guarded his son with the worst things that he could think of.

Nevertheless, Michaela and her Valkyries pushed forward. The winged warriors fought with all that they had, kicking loyalists out of windows, forcing them down and beating them to death when they had to. The power of their convictions would keep them from reappearing too soon, and that was all for the best, even as guilt began to settle in among the various members of her army.

Finally, they reached the final stone wall between them and God's quarters. The puma jabbed her blade into the rock, feeling the fire slowly melting through the stone. Bit by bit, the white surface started to bubble with red flames, and she shook her head against her own guilt, her own culpability in this.

This is rebellion, she thought, grinding her blade further into the hole the more that the stone melted. God will have us all discorporated for this.

That didn't stop her. If anything, that pushed her to succeed all the more. She leaned into the hilt of the blade, grinding it deeper into the slowly-melting stone. The puma could feel the heat scorching part of her robe and didn't care.

We are standing against the king of Heaven. For a good reason, but...are we any different from Lucifer, now?

She wanted to say that they were, that they were keeping a crime from getting worse rather than just breaking things because they felt like it. They were not doing it out of pride, but out of duty. That was the case...she hoped.

But she remembered the crime that had Lucifer cast down to Hell, that of being intimate and loving with Jesus himself. The once-Archangel had been cast from Heaven, banished forever, for the simple crime of love.

And here they were, trying to free Jesus, out of love more than any other reason. God had lied to them, and they were setting the case straight, making sure that the right thing was done. Lucifer had doubtlessly thought the same when he had gone to the world below, convincing mortals that it was right to have knowledge of good and evil despite God's words. He had done that for Jesus, she'd known.

He had committed a full rebellion for love of Jesus. And now they were doing the same damn thing.

He's going to banish all of us. Even if we get away, he'll banish all of us.

And yet, for all that, she felt better about her decision now, knowing that she was carrying out this rebellion for love of someone that deserved it, for someone that was compassionate enough to stand with them. Someone that she owed, someone that she cared for...

Someone that she needed to apologize to.

Finally, the blade cut through, and she had to stop thinking. The hallway was secured, but who knew for how long? They needed to get Jesus and get out.

They pushed through into the lush, richly-appointed rooms that God kept for himself. The walls blazed with light, and the floors glowed with images of the great churches that the lord of Heaven had 'inspired' in the world below. He took credit for things for all different religions, yet gave none of them the chance to come to Heaven without converting to his religion, first. The religion of lies, that was.

She stomped through it, not caring of the mess that she brought with her. Molten rock smeared over the artistic images, leaving them damaged and streaked, and she looked around the various chambers. She battered through stone walls, kicked down doors, until -

Jesus. There he was, sitting in a cell at the very back of the royal quarters. The same metal door that she'd locked all those years ago was still there, still holding the tiger inside back from rejoining the rest of Heaven. She reached out and grabbed the bars, leaning forward to look inside.

Jesus was curled up in the corner of the cell, his arms around his knees, his head down. There were mutters coming from him, but she couldn't hear them. Gesturing behind her, she hushed the angels that followed her, listening.

"He would let them all die...oh, father..."

He must see something that we don't...or he knows what's going on down in the world...

Either way, she knew that she couldn't leave Jesus to his melancholy. They had to get out before whatever Mercy's case happened to be was done, and before the loyalists cut them off from the pearly gates. She brought her sword back and slashed through the bolts and bars, melting them with one blow.

The crash of the door falling echoed through the chamber, and Jesus slowly looked up at her.

"Michaela?" he whispered.

"Yes."

"You're here to free me," he said, just as quietly.

"Yes. It's time."

"My father doesn't know, does he?"

"...No."

"Then let's move quickly."

She was surprised that he was so willing to join in what was clearly a rebellion, but she wasn't going to argue. She gestured at one of the Valkyries behind her, and the angel tossed a sword to the tiger. The emaciated Jesus caught it with ease, and spun it around for a moment.

"You know how to use it?" she asked.

"I know."

"Well, here's hoping you can use it well."

"I've learned many things in isolation..."

She imagined that he had. If the floors worked in his room the way that they did everywhere else, she imagined that Jesus had watched the world the way that most of the other angels snuck glimpses of it from time to time. If he had, then he would have seen the art of swordplay at some point.

Perhaps he had picked up a few tips and tricks from that.

Either way, they needed to move. She pointed to the way out, and the angels started moving. Jesus joined her, the tiger's striped tail twitching as he walked at her side.

"How long?" he asked.

"Just over two thousand years," she said.

"Two millennia. My father hated me very much."

"I don't know if I'd call it hate."

"It's close enough. Nobody loves someone and chains them away from the world like that. Nobody..."

He grasped at his chest, as if reaching for something that wasn't there, and then sighed.

"Let's keep moving."

She could agree with that.

They returned to the Crossroads to find it under attack from either side. The spells in the air that Gabriel had left behind, powerful harps that sang one into bondage and tied them up, kept her people from taking to the skies and getting better positions, and while they kept the loyalists from flying freely, they still had the disadvantage of the enemy being able to fly and them being stuck to the ground.

However, they still held the Crossroads, even though angelic bodies were starting to pile up on either side. She could see that some had died and come back so many times that they had already lost their ability to do so, discorporating from pure exhaustion.

Others, however, kept up the fight. Maltis fell, dying and returning, and he met her with a shaky hand as she came down the steps.

"You have him. Good."

"Does Sallis still hold the gates?" she asked.

"Yes, but not for much longer."

"Alright. Sound the retreat."

"Negative, Archangel."

"...What?" she blinked.

"The minute we pull back, they'll push through. We'll be pursued right down to the gates, and you need as much time as you can get to push through. They'll close it if they get close enough, or call Gabriel. If anyone gets through..."

She didn't need him to finish that. It wasn't just getting through the gates, it was also getting down to the world below. If they were too close to the gates, then they might be called back, or tracked, if God or Gabriel came back too soon.

But if Maltis and the others didn't retreat...

She glanced at Jesus and saw that he was likewise warring with himself. To leave others behind felt wrong, like they were turning their backs on those that supported them. At the same time...

But Michaela had been brought forth as the Archangel of war, the one that had to make the tough decisions, and she did that then.

"Fight well," she said, taking Jesus by the hand.

They ran through the Crossroads, leaving the bodies behind them as well as the fires and flames that were summoned by the angels among the loyalists. All orders of beings were given power in Heaven, and some were far more destructive than others. The clouds burned and burst before them, some heated until they exploded with steam before they formed again, and others turned dark and sinking, wet and stormy. Still others exploded with lightning, savaging those that took cover behind them.

Her angels fought back, using their voices to scream war cries that stiffened the body and left those flying falling, or summoned them down to arm's reach so that a fight could be done fairly. Others called fire of their own, burning wings and leaving them useless, or calling to the storms in the distance.

For the first time in all of the memory of Heaven, the sky was darkened with the thunderclouds of angelic fury, and she wondered if the realm would ever recover.

They were partway down the road to the gates when more angels came sweeping over the clouds ahead of them. Their billowing wings told her that they were part of the war-trained Heavenly Host, and were better prepared for fighting than most that she had been dealing with. She gritted her teeth, starting to push forward, only for Jesus to hold out a hand.

"Let me."

The tiger knelt down, pushing his hand through the cloud. As he touched it, she could feel Jesus's aura spreading through the clouds beneath them, and as it did, she felt them swell, growing, churning, puffing up. Several large chunks billowed up in front of them, taking the weapons being thrown at them and blocking them.

"Little things, be diligent. As you cover the earth, cover those that need it most..."

Jesus's words coaxed the clouds to grow bigger and bigger until they were more than a shield. They floated free of the path, covering them from above, and they rose higher still with a gentle nudge from the tiger.

The new clouds grew around the sides of the Heavenly Host soldiers, pushing them in, keeping them from swerving around and striking Michaela and her people. But she knew that it wouldn't be enough. Not on its own. His gentleness was good, but this was not the time for that.

She reared back, the flames dancing down her sword as she stabbed it into the tight, hard cloud.

The hissing sound of sudden steam left most of her angels falling to their knees, covering their ears at the splitting noise. She gritted her teeth, shutting out the sound of the angels within cooking in the steam, burning and dying. It didn't take long, either. The clouds were too wet, too full of moisture for them to be anything but a bomb waiting to happen.

As she pulled the blade free, Jesus stared at her, his eyes wide. Was he judging her? Perhaps. Did she deserve it? Probably. Shaking her head, she gave Jesus a push, and they were back on the move.

Much as she appreciated the lightning trap clearing the way, it didn't take long for the other angels to notice where they were after that. The attack on the Crossroads got much more vicious, and she could hear the screams as Jesus's supporters started to die. They were falling, one by one, and they were slowly losing ground as more and more completely discorporated into oblivion.

The pearly gates stood ahead, and Sallis still held them, though not by much. The meerkat was leading his people with as much gusto as he could, but against the armed forces of the Heavenly Host, he was slowly losing ground. He had lost half his people already, and the angels were pushing him further, almost pushing him right out from between the pearly gates and into the fall.

Jesus and Michaela fell on them from behind, and she got the chance to see how the son of God could handle a sword. Surprisingly well, as she found, though without the full strength that she had to bring to bear. He would sometimes be forced back, made to rely on trickery to be able to get himself out of danger.

And it was clear that the compassion of Jesus was still there. He refused to strike to kill when he was using the blade, bringing the flat around instead to beat them back and force them away. The only thing that he cut was their wings, keeping them from flying off, forcing them to stay on the ground.

Of course, that made for more work for Michaela and her Valkyries, but that was fine. It meant that there was still a sense of love from Jesus, and that was a miracle considering how long that he'd been locked up.

They fought their way through to Sallis, the meerkat angel hanging on the gate from exhaustion. The light of the pearly rainbows had faded, but was not yet extinguished by the storm that had gathered behind them.

"You have to...you have to get out," Sallis panted. "There's not much time left."

"My father?" Jesus asked.

"No...no, not that. Look...look behind you."

They did, and both of them went wide-eyed at the destruction that had been wrought.

The palace of God stood strong, yes, but the rest of Heaven was a rain of thunderbolts and worse. The clouds had been shattered and reformed, and popped again and again from steam and power as they were attacked and reformed by the power of the angels around them. The Crossroads had been all but shattered, leaving only a few vague pathways that ran through to the connecting channel.

Heaven had been obliterated as it had once been. The serene place that had raised them all had been destroyed.

She looked at Jesus, momentarily wondering if this chaos was worth it, but one glance at the tiger told her that it was. God, a being that was supposed to stand for truth, for goodness, for the right way of things, had imprisoned Jesus and built a world on a lie. There was nothing that could be redeemed of that, no matter how much she had tried to convince herself otherwise.

Whether they escaped to the world below or stayed here to be obliterated, they faced a similar fate. It was just a question of where they might wait a bit longer before meeting it.

Still, they had been made in Heaven, and they had lived in Heaven for all their lives. Well, she had, and Jesus for all but thirty years of it. She knew that they both felt something similar seeing the storm ravaging the world that they had been told was perfection, that they were raised to see as the best place in the universe. Michaela knew that this was down to her, that she had raised this rebellion, and all the dead and all the destruction would not have happened if she'd just bowed her head the way that the loyalists had. None of the other angels would have risen up without an Archangel at their head.

And that...

That was something that she was going to have to live with. The duty of a soldier meant doing hard things, and if that meant living with guilt, then she could do that. She'd lived with the guilt of a lie for several millennia already.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

"To turn my back on my father?"

"...To leave Heaven."

"In this case, it's the same thing," Jesus said, shaking his head.

"It's necessary. Do you know how much he's lied?"

"Yes."

That simple, short answer was so sad and so grim that she knew that he had been watching even more than she thought. How much, she wondered, had he seen that the other angels hadn't? How much did Jesus know that had slipped past even her knowledge and understanding of the world?

How much betrayal from their lord was there to find in the world?

She looked down, shaking her head. The storm had spread, and rain was falling in the world below. She imagined that it was a thunderstorm that most mortals had never imagined. But for now, that was good. It would mean that their fall was that much harder to see, and that much harder to stop.

Their fall.

Michaela took a deep breath, reminding herself that they weren't banished to Hell, merely to earth. That was the difference between this and Lucifer, and if they were only banished to earth, then they could eventually come back. A full fall hadn't yet happened.

The puma looked down at the world, and then at Jesus.

"You go first. I'll be right behind you."

"You're a loyal friend, Michaela."

"I've made too many mistakes to be called that. I'm going to be making up for them for the rest of my life."

"Then you better get started. Come on."

The tiger smiled, then leaped over the edge of the cloud. She watched him fall for a few seconds, then turned to Sallis. The meerkat shook his head.

"Someone has to hold the gate. The next wave's coming...you better go."

He was fading, she realized. She didn't know how many times he had been killed by the Heavenly Host, but it had been too many for him to come back much more than this. Maltis was probably gone by now, too, permanently discorporated and obliterated.

So many had died. She would have to make sure that it was worth it.

Michaela herded her Valkyries with her, almost throwing some of them off the edge of the cloud as they fell towards the earth. The rest of the Host were rapidly approaching, charging down the same torn pathway of cloud that she'd fled upon. They roared at the top of their lungs, calling out for the glory of God, and for their heads.

She turned to Sallis. The meerkat slumped over the gate, holding it with one arm, and nodded at her.

"Godspeed," he muttered.

"To your rest, soldier."

She saluted him, and Sallis swung the gates closed. He rode them shut, using his own body as the lock to keep them shut. It wouldn't last long, but it would last long enough.

The puma Archangel held the salute for as long as she dared, then threw herself from the clouds. She could see the fiery trails of Jesus and the others heading for the mortal world, and she knew that her life of peace had come to an end. From now on, they were at risk of all-out war.

Whatever Mercy had done, she had a feeling that the tigress would get off easy compared to what she had just done.

The End

Summary: Back in Heaven, during the events of the trial, a jailbreak begins. It is time for Jesus to be free again, but at what cost?

Tags: No sex, puma, tiger, various species, fighting, fight, magic, angels, archangel, trap, death,