Remnant Angels (Chapter 4)

Chapter 4

Lucifer and Emily landed metres away from one another on cold stone. Lucifer, on his knees, looked to his right and saw Emily already on her feet and giggling slightly.

“You must have hurt yourself when you fell from heaven” She said tauntingly.

Lucifer, standing up, decided to poke a little fun back at her.

“Looks like I’m not the only one” He said, “Your face clearly hit the floor”

Emily had already punched him on the cheek, kicked him in the back of the legs was behind him and had a sword blade across his throat.

“Care to repeat that” She said coldly, the last word emphasized as she brought the blade closer.

“No it’s nothing,” Lucifer said.

“Good…” Emily said, pulling the blade from his neck but gave him a kick in the back of the head for good measure.

Picking himself up off the ground Lucifer saw blood become a puddle in front of him. His blood. Cursing, Lucifer brought himself up faster and tried covering the wound with his hand. The warm crimson kept running down his face and onto the floor covering his hand in the process. He collapsed, landing on his front, hearing Emily scream behind him. The dreams he feared every night came. Showing sapphire eyes, red robes, and a single bat-like wing. They only belonged to one person, and Lucifer knew it. Arailius. Arailius’s spirit had returned, haunting his dreams, preying on the Arailius gene, using it as a taunt, racking Lucifer's body with pain, making him scream in agony. Arailius was inside of him. Arailius would continue to live as long as Lucifer lived. The darkness, hidden amongst the light. Always there. Inescapable. Lucifer was going to be needed dead for Arailius’s revival. Not even death was the way out.

Lucifer woke with a start, his body still burning. Looking up, his vision blurred by tears if pain, he saw the outline of a familiar figure. As Lucifer readjusted to everything he saw who it was. Emily was holding his head up, looking down at him concerned. She smiled as Lucifer looked up at her. She knew he was all right. She lay Lucifer down and let him recuperate from the nightmare.

Later that day they left town. When they were about a mile out, Lucifer did something he had wanted to do for a while. His back erupted into pain; blood trickling down his back and white wings with red tips broke though his shirt. Sighing from relief of the pain of holding his wings in for two years and from breaking through his skin, which had grown over them. Emily just looked at him before smiling, suddenly black wings protruded from her back, some of the ebony feathers falling onto the beaten and well-taken path. Lucifer muttered something about showing off but a cold hard stare from Emily shut him up.

He stood still as Emily quickly got from a walking pace, to running and one jump later her wings unfolded completely and she took off; her black wings contrasting against the bright afternoon sun, a shadow of her seventeen year old body on the floor mimicked her aerial movements. Lucifer took a similar approach and after a few seconds was flying next to her, formulating a plan about what to do. They knew Arailius would inevitably return, be it in this life or the next, and when he did Lucifer was in trouble. Two years was a long time. Without using any if your skills it was worse. The ex angel of death would soon be on this plane of existence again. Lucifer saw a few droplets of blood fly off of his face but carried on. His will forced him forwards. If Lucifer just gave in and died then Arailius would win, and his return to full strength, which was nothing compared to what Lucifer had already seen, would be complete. Lucifer was so deep in thought that he didn’t notice the tall tree in front of him, and crashed into it leaving Emily stopped in midair laughing her head off.

“Some demigod killer!” She yelled at him as he recovered

“Yeah, you’re just jealous!” He shouted back. “You killed a god and a fallen arch-angel, no demigod though!”

Emily just laughed at Lucifer's feeble attempt at a comeback, before she herself flew into a tree.

As Lucifer fell to the ground laughing Emily just fell to the ground. They both landed on their right knee and both ended up laughing on their backs. After the laughter had subsided Lucifer stood up and looked around, suddenly realising where they had landed. The middle of a heavily wooded area scars of battle surrounding it. This is where Arailius had absorbed the power of God, Satan and Demogel. The place where he and Lucifer fought as Emily looked on helpless. Blood stained the arena where Lucifer had been repeatedly struck. The Angelesis blade… The weapon that killed Arailius… had been stolen from its resting place. A brutal wasteland of a battlefield is all that remained. Arailius’s Zweihander ‘Deliverance’; the sword, which had sent many to the afterlife, the blade that was laid to rest with the Angelesis blade had also vanished. If a non-angel attempted to take it they would be incinerated instantly. But even after a couple of hours with the blade, would drive the most stable minded angels to realms of insanity one could only dream of. All except two. Xison and Arailius. But Xison had been killed in an attempt to fuse himself with Arailius, as Arailius had swung ‘Deliverance’ and struck him fatally in the stomach. Ironic how a person could kill their ‘best friend’ and never even bat an eyelid as they lay dying at the sideline. It was this act, which had brought on Lucifer's bloodlust. The desire to kill Arailius. To avenge Xison, the person who awoke him truly as an angel. To ensure Xison didn’t die in vain. Emily looked at Lucifer scared, someone was approaching him from behind and he hadn’t noticed. A zweihander, wielded remarkably, in one hand. Clothed in black armour, darker than the midnight sky. Lucifer heard the rattle as this knight’s foot hit the ground and rolled forwards and faced him. Stood next to Emily, who passed him a long sword, Lucifer looked up at the new challenger in front of him. A sinister smirk ran across his face.

“Who are you?” He shouted loudly

“The remnant” Was all that the knight said.

“What the Hell is that supposed to mean?” Lucifer said, he had faced someone similar before when he was weaker and still a mortal.

“Just another voice in your head. Just another memory. You!” the knight shouted, “Are just another notch on my blade!”

At this both the enigmatic knight and Lucifer leapt at one another, their blades crashing against each other, sending sparks flying onto the grass.