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So, per Haley357's request, I have decided to start posting my story chapters here.
Caked in dark, black blood, the General stumbled slightly over the corpse of one of her men. Smoke filled the courtyard, pouring out of the small fires that dotted the walls, buildings, and corpses at a steady rate. The General gripped her staff tighter. Hanging from the crooked end, an hourglass full of silver sand swung. She steadied it with her other hand, and Heaven’s third of the sands of time vibrated against the glass hourglass in her hand.
“General.” A voice panted. His wings folded, as exhausted as the rest of him, Michael gave her a sorrowful look. “We cannot survive another wave like the last one.”
“How men have we left?” Came the strangely calm response.
“Only two thousand.” Michael answered.
The General nodded slowly. “Michael, call back the Guardians.”
“All?”
“All that are ours, yes.” She turned, as to face him. “And tell them not to worry about their wards. Not a second will pass down on Earth.”
“Of course.” Michael’s wings spread, and he seemed to vanish.
The General reached out, and touched the hourglass again. ‘Do you hear me, sand of the universe?’ She spoke through her mind. The felt her arm tingle as the message ran through her veins, and into the hourglass.
‘Yes.’
‘Freeze time. Let nothing move that is not of our kind.’
‘Yes.’
The silver sand swirled throughout the hourglass, before compacting, and seeming to dissolve. The empty hourglass throbbed with the power left behind. The General removed her hand. Inside of the hourglass, she could see people on Earth literally freeze, mid jump, mid swim, mid fall.
She looked up at the pearly gates. They image that the human beings so revered for meeting on their death was destroyed. The gate doors had been turned into shrapnel, slaughtering many an unsuspecting angel. The ground itself was blackened from the explosion, which had released so many demons into their land. As the General look, angels began to appear on the burned ground, walking forward with speed that no human could match. Michael flew down to land in front of them. He moved to her side, and they saluted the guardians in greeting.
“You see what happened.” The General’s voice rang clearly across the clearing. “Your brothers and sisters are dying or dead. This is all we have left. When those demons send their next wave in, you will fight. And you will die, because I cannot protect all of you.”
“What about G.O.D.?” A female angel asked.
“G.O.D. cannot help us. Will not help us.” The General raised her staff. “Go get weapons. Prepare your powers. We must be ready.” She hesitated, looked at some of the younger angels, and yelled out, “For Heaven!”
“FOR HEAVEN!” The thundering reply rang throughout the clearing, as the angels flew off for weapons.
The General tugged the hourglass off of her staff, and turned to Michael.
“You aren’t my second in command because of nothing, Michael.” She said softly. “I want you to take this, and go guard G.O.D. If there is any chance of them getting close to it, I command you to unfreeze time, and put G.O.D. into the safest place. Refreeze time afterwards, and come back to join us. Because if I fall…” She shook her head. “When I fall, you must be there to take my staff and take command.”
Michael pressed his lips together, and nodded. Touching her eyepatch, - black with a white ring and a black dot in the ring, look like a disturbing eye, - he took the hourglass from her.
“I will do as you command.” He informed her. “But you will not fall.”
“Do not doubt their power.” The General answered.
He touched his lips to hers briefly, before taking flight. The General did not watch him go. Her gaze went to the gates, and she listened as the howls and screams inched closer. She raised her staff high into the air. The other angels grew still.
Figures appeared at the gate. They paused, before rushing forward with inhuman speed. The General snarled at the approaching demons, but did not move. A hellhound rushed at her, the others inches away.
“ATTACK!” She screamed, and slammed her staff into the ground. The ground burst, a huge bubble of light forming around her. The demons screamed and writhed as the bubble touched them, others far behind wailed as they were impaled upon the shards flying from the huge crater she had made.
The Angels backed up her cry with a wordless scream, and rushed forward into battle. A strange black creature, seemingly made of spikes and tentacles rushed at the General. She ducked under it, twisted, and stabbed it with the blade on the end of her staff. It screeched, writhed, and sprayed her with inky blood. Growling, she removed the dying demon from her staff. A laugh captured her attention.
Standing at the very end of the wave of demons was her. Her large, alien like black eyes looked over at the General. Black and red hair tangled around her with the wind. The whip in her hand lay limp against the ground, and she smiled with all the carelessness of a playful child.
The Warlord had come to lead the assault herself. The General bent down, as if to jump at the woman, but when she looked again, the Warlord was gone. The General snarled, but burst into the battle once more. Her wings spread, and knocked back the enemies who had circled around behind her. Unlike most angel wings, hers were white, and blue, and styled after a butterfly’s, instead of a bird’s. She roared, and smacked the demons back with her wings, twirling her staff into the body of an approaching demon.
“General!” A female screamed. Whipping around, she saw that demons had rushed by them, and were approaching the tower.
The General cursed. “Stay still! Hold the rest off!” She roared back.
The demons answered her scream with a wordless challenge. She raised her staff to answer it.
Michael ignored the banging against the tower door. He ignored the screams of the demons that had doubtlessly slaughtered all of his allies inside of the other parts of the tower. The hourglass in his hand squirmed against his orders, before it was suddenly filled with sand. Earth restarted its business below him.
He set the hourglass down, and reached forward. His hands wrapped around G.O.D. carefully, and he focused his mind on it fully. There was a twitch, before G.O.D. lit up in his hands. He cried out, and closed his eyes. It shuddered, and then the light was gone, and his hands were empty. The hourglass did not need touching. Below him, Earth froze once more.
The demons paused abruptly, and the door stopped shaking. There was a disturbing shriek of a creature in the final death throes, and then silence. The door creaked open. Standing there was the Warlord.
Her whip was shining from the blood of her warriors, and she prowled forward. Michael met her gaze fearlessly. She smiled.
“It’s gone.” She pressed her lips together for a moment, before adding, “Where has G.O.D. gone?”
“You will never get it.” His lips curved up in a bitter smile. “I will never let you.”
“So, in other words, you aren’t gonna tell me.” She groaned. “Must I torture you? Must I kill you? You could just say, ‘it is right here,’ and let me go.”
He growled in response. They were both silent. The sound of footsteps up the stairs was the loudest thing. Finally, the Warlord sighed, and crossed her arms. Flames crept out of the ground, and began wrapping around her body. Within moments, all but her wide, black eyes were covered. The flames crept across them, and she vanished with a resounding shockwave.
The General stepped in, and rushed at Michael. “Where is she?”
“Gone.” He answered. “She ran.”
“Damn it!” The General collapsed onto the ground, and crossed her arms. “What about G.O.D.?”
“On Earth.” Michael informed her.
The General pressed her lips together. She nodded slowly. “Right.” The other angels backed away, obviously seeing her short fuse catch fire and shrink.
The walls of the tower seemed to shudder, and Michael immediately dropped to the ground, wrapping his wings around himself like a strange, feathered cocoon. There was a rumble, and a loud unearthly groan, before something exploded, and the cold air rushed around them, no longer kept away by the tower roof and walls. Michael felt pieces of stone rattle against his wings. He waited for a few more seconds, and then stood, his wings relaxing back against his back. The roof and the walls had been blown all the way to the Pearly Gates. The General was gripping her staff tightly, her knuckles turned whiter than usual, and her showing eye was narrowed into a slit.
“We must watch the person you put it in.” She murmured to Michael. “We must protect him or her until either G.O.D. awakens, or they die.”
Michael silently nodded, and places his hands on her shoulders. They were tensed, the muscles shaking under his hands. She did not relax. Instead, she dropped her staff, and placed her hands over his.
“Who did you put it in?”
“A young boy. His mother is in labor with him now.”
They looked down. The sands had either been recalled by the master of time, or they had tired and come up themselves. A woman was crying out with the contractions of labor, her hands gripping tightly onto the handles and her eyes squeezed shut.
The doctor said something, and the woman cried out once more, before she gasped. The doctor held a child, - male, - who was, surprisingly, not crying. The doctor’s eyes flashed, but he seemed to relax when the child began breathing deeply.
‘A boy’ the doctor clearly said, handing the child to its mother. The woman panted, and a breathtaking smile covered her face.
‘Jasper.’ She answered, and the child let out a soft cry as his name was spoken. ‘His name is Jasper.’
The General looked up at Michael again. “Send out Jacqueline.” She smiled slightly. “Let her finally have that guardian job she’s wanted for so long.”
Michael couldn’t help but smile back. “Of course.”
The General looked down at Jasper and his mother. She bit her lips, tugging at the soft skin before picking up her staff, and opening her wings.
“Clean this up.” She barked in her best intimidating voice, before taking to the skies. Michael flew off as well, but she just hovered.
Life had gotten a lot more complicated for all of Heaven.
MADLYALICE · Wed Feb 03, 2010 @ 10:02pm · 0 Comments |
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