A/N: So here is my new fanfic! I've been planning this for months now so it's about time I finally started it.

Note: The rating will rise to M later in the story, so please bear this in mind if you do not like to read anything higher than T.

I hope you enjoy the first chapter!

Afterlife's Council

Chapter One - The Fate of Souls

Pale, elegant fingers pressed down onto the desk in front of them. Striking blue eyes met with other pairs in the room silently. Never did he feel as though he completely trusted those red eyes belonging to creatures the opposite of his own, but this was business, and they knew that too. Neither could allow their own personal feelings to get in the way of what had to be done.

The blonde boy was small in height, but the white feathered wings spread out either side of him were one of the greatest pairs in the room. He sat down slowly next to the others besides him, not once shifting his unblinking gaze away from those in front of him.

This was the Afterlife's Council. All matters had to be taken seriously.

"As you know, the soul recently belonging to a boy named Christophe Larue is one which angels and demons alike have been struggling to decide the fate of," the boy started. "This soul has been in purgatory for days now, though thankfully has been in the presence of an angel of death."

"You should have just left him on his own," said a demon on the other side of the rounded table, resting his chin on his hand with a provoking grin. "Maybe that way we could've seen what his actions would be like. That would have helped us to decide."

The blonde angel gritted his teeth. A hand was placed on his arm.

"Don't let him provoke you, Philip," the speaker, a kind angel named Token, murmured. "He has always been childish. We have to deal with this quickly – hundreds of souls have already moved on since we started and our expertise might be needed for another soon enough."

Philip breathed in and nodded. He knew that all too well – he was at a very high level among the angels, after all.

The Afterlife's Council was not just made up of those in this room – it was made up of any angel and demon capable of deciding the fate of souls, which after a while, the majority of them were able to do. In most cases, the deciding of the fate of souls was a quick and easy process, usually taking seconds. There were three possibilities: they were either sent to heaven, hell or given another chance on earth, the latter usually resulting after debate and questioning the soul. In both heaven and hell, they had the chance to either stay for the rest of its existence, or live another life. In heaven, it is the choice of the soul to live another life, whilst in hell, if they prove themselves to have good in them after all, then they may have another chance at life. There was also the possibility of becoming an angel or a demon, depending on the characteristics of the soul. Both creatures were vital in keeping the balance of good and evil, requiring them to work together to decide the fate of souls.

There were times when the situation with a soul was so complicated that it had to be decided during a meeting of both angels and demons. In this times, the souls had to remain in purgatory – the dimension between life and death. Angels of death, which are neither good nor evil, must accompany souls during their death and time in purgatory so they do not become frightened of their fate, or grow insane over being left alone in the lonely, black and white dimension.

Souls which were particularly difficult to settle the fate of usually required more experienced angels and demons, hence why Philip – one of heaven's purest angels – was now taking charge of this meeting.

"I suggest that you stop your childish comments, Eric," said Philip. "This is a very serious issue to deal with."

"He's right, Cartman, so shut your mouth," Craig said next to him, rolling his red eyes as he hit Cartman's arm with a black feathered wing to emphasise his words.

Philip nodded at Craig with approval, before straightening out the sheets in his hands.

"Allow me to go over the basics of this soul. Christophe was a complicated boy who often expressed his hatred for God. However, we are forgiving, and can see past this hatred. Christophe has had a very difficult life; dealing with the loss of his father, growing up in a poor and violent neighbourhood, as well as getting into the wrong crowd and being pulled into fights he did not want to be a part of."

"So wouldn't giving this soul another chance at life be a good idea?" questioned Bebe, a female angel with long and curly blonde hair. "I mean, we can't blame him for being born into a life with very little opportunity."

"But if we look over the past of this soul," said Craig, flicking through his own pages. "We can see that this soul has been given other opportunities to prove himself – he has only ever lived one life where he has done so, where he saved the life of another person. Can we really give this guy another chance?"

"But his recent life ended with being murdered!" Bebe argued. "We can never say for certain if this soul would redeem himself or not, because his life was ended before it was supposed to!"

"The end was fate, this soul has had plenty of opportunity to prove itself..."

"I agree with Craig," said Token.

"As do I," Philip said, shocking most of the demons, but not the angels – they never judged his opinion, even if it went against their own, and it wasn't always a shock to hear that the purest angel among them agreed with a demon. After all, he was fair, one of the reasons why he was so pure. "As an angel, I am of course a very forgiving creature. However, this soul has harmed many other humans in multiple lifetimes. I do not want other humans to continue to be hurt because of our pitiful decisions. We cannot be soft over this soul. Sometimes, harsh choices have to be made, and I believe this is one of them."

Philip's word was always very wise – hundreds of years of experience made it so. But this didn't mean that his word was always final. Or at least, his first opinion didn't always end their meetings. They could only end when everyone was in agreement or came to a compromise.

"I can see reasoning behind your opinion," said Bebe. "But what if we were to make sure that he was born into a better life, with more opportunity?"

"If it's in the soul's nature, then that would make no difference," Token retorted. "It is also unfair to give a soul much better treatment than others. It was agreed long ago that they are all judged the same way, with no special compromises for any of them."

The debating lasted much longer than the previous discussions on the soul, before the meeting had taken place. Though experienced angels and demons allowed for a fairer and much more reasonable conclusion regarding souls, it also resulted in much longer meetings due to the high amount of different opinions coming from both sides of the argument.

However, like every meeting eventually did, they had finished an hour later.

"The soul of Christophe Larue shall reside in hell, until he may prove himself to deserve another chance," Philip summarised, reaching his hand across the table. "Thank you to everyone for your input."

The angels and demons all shook hands, before each of them bowed and took their leave. To avoid conflict, the meetings themselves were held in a room located in purgatory, also allowing time to pass somewhat slower than the time in heaven and hell. Purgatory was able to be accessed by both angels and demons, unlike their homes, which could not be entered by the other unless they had permission to do so. This helped their focus to be purely on deciding fates. Centuries ago, it had mainly been to stop demons murdering angels in heaven, or even the opposite way around, but for many years now, what had seemed to be a constant hatred between the creatures had turned into an understanding that they needed each other.

It was all a balance which they had grown accustomed to, living through it in a perfected routine.

"So you settled on sending the soul to hell?" questioned Philip's superior. His name was Gregory, and was alike to Philip in some ways, but was also a lot different in others. They were both British and had blond hair reaching just past their chins, but Gregory's was slicked back off his forehead and was a little brighter. His eyes were also brown rather than blue and he spoke in a slightly posher voice, not to mention that he was much taller, with his wings even larger than Philip's. Gregory was at the highest level of all the angels. Rather than the humans' belief of a single God living for a lifetime, the role of a God was played by an angel, acting like a president would in the human world. A voting for either the God to remain or for a new God to take the role occurred every four centuries. Gregory held this current role. Of course, there had once been the God humans believed to be the creator of the universe, but the angels didn't know if they still existed as an immortal entity or if they died, like every angel does after a very long lifetime. The system of voting in a new God had existed for as long as they could remember – the same system was also used to determine the role of Satan in hell.

"Yes, we did," Philip answered with a nod. "We had decided that the soul had lived through many opportunities and was putting the fates of other souls at risk."

"Will he be observed to see if his behaviour improves and so deserves one more chance?"

"Yes."

Gregory nodded with approval. "Good. I do not want that soul to be subjected to live in hell for the rest of its existence."

"It was definitely a tough case though," said Philip. "It took a lot of debating before we settled on our choice."

"He was a very complicated one indeed. Luckily, the rest of the souls recently were much easier to deal with. I just hope that this soul can redeem itself."

The angel cleared his throat before changing the subject.

"I thought I should inform you that we have had a soul pass on very recently which we immediately wished to be an angel. They have agreed to become one."

"You decided on a human being an angel that quickly?" questioned Philip, his eyes widening. "Isn't that too soon?"

"They have a very pure soul. It's one of the purest I've seen since yours, Philip. They will make a perfect angel. Do not worry – they have already been told that if they realise that they want to live again as a human, we can allow it. We have their full consent."

Philip nodded, "I can accept the decision now."

"Thank you for your understanding," Gregory smiled. "I must ask though, is it possible if you could explain the life of an angel in a bit more detail? I feel like you'd be the best one to do this and obviously as souls usually aren't turned into angels so quickly, he's a bit overwhelmed with information and only knows the very basics."

"Of course I will," Phillip answered, returning the smile. "It'll be a pleasure to."

"I appreciate that," Gregory said, giving Philip his farewells before leaving. Just as he did so, Bebe was walking over, a red-headed boy by her side.

"Hey Philip, here's the new one!" she said, gesturing to the boy next to her. She turned to him with a friendly grin. "Don't worry sweet, he'll take care of you. He's the kindest angel around here, I can assure you! Have fun!"

With a wave of her hand, she was gone. The redhead was looking around him with both nervousness and awe. He was taller than Philip – though that wasn't difficult, and his wings were also smaller. His red hair was sticking out from his head in curls as though it didn't want to behave, and when he made eye contact with Philip, he saw that the new angel had beautiful green eyes.

"Hey there!" Philip smiled. He had the kind of smile which was contagious for everyone, and so the other angel also smiled. "What's your name?"

"I'm Kyle, Kyle Broflovski," replied the redhead, reaching out a hand to Philip, who took it.

"It's nice to meet you, Kyle. My name is Philip."

"It's nice to meet you, too," Kyle replied. He looked around him in awe once again, his eyes taking in the brightness and purity of heaven. "This place is, well, not really how I would have imagined Heaven to look like."

"I'm guessing you thought it would all be clouds and not much else, huh?"

"Yeah, I suppose so."

They both laughed, before Philip gestured for Kyle to follow him. They walked down the paving, Philip explaining Kyle's new home as they did so. The sight of heaven had obvious differences to earth, yet also had similarities. It was just like a basic city – not filled with clouds, like most humans imagined. But the city was made up of pure white buildings lined with gold, the brightness of which was more of a pleasure to look at than being blinding. Several angels walked around, each of their wings spread out into the warm breeze blowing past them.

"So the souls live separate from the angels?" Kyle ask, managing to tear his gaze away from the city around him to look at Philip besides him.

"That's right," Philip replied. "We've always believed that humans deserve to have free will and independence, including their souls in the afterlife. So we allow them to live separate from us, though they still live in heaven in bliss, until their souls expire."

"Expire?"

"Were you not told about that?"

Kyle shook his head. "I was told that angels die, but I didn't know about souls."

"It takes a very long time, but eventually, all souls are reborn again. It's a continuous cycle. The essence of a soul never dies completely – it just changes into something new. It's like the cycle of a star, in a way. We angels do not see death as an end, just as a new beginning. Even so, we want souls to have the best life possible here until they die. So we let them live in harmony with other souls, with the opportunity to see angels and God whenever they wish."

"It sounds lovely," Kyle said. For a moment, Philip thought that Kyle would have rather moved on to live in heaven, but then his smile grew. "I want to assist in every way possible to give souls the life that they deserve."

Philip grinned, reaching up to place a hand on Kyle's shoulder. "You're going to settle in wonderfully here, I can see it coming."

They spent the next twenty minutes going through the basic duties of an angel – to watch over souls living in heaven, study those on earth to learn more about the behaviour of humans, decide the fate of souls when experienced enough and, of course, fulfil the duties commanded by God. Philip thought it might have been too much to take in, especially as he had to hurry a little due to work he had to get done, but Kyle listened to it all very carefully and seemed to understand every word. Philip could definitely see why he had been chosen – not only was he pure, he was also very intelligent.

'Hopefully he can assist me in some of this work once he's been here long enough,' Philip sighed as he looked over at the piles of paper which were being conjured onto his desk almost constantly. 'Sometimes it's hard to believe that I actually get breaks from this.'

His skills were definitely taken advantage of – but he knew it was his duty, and this is what he had been warned about when he agreed to be an angel. With another sigh, he sat down at the desk and at the pace of lightning, wrote one of three words on each of the pieces of paper: 'heaven', 'hell' or 'reincarnated'.

He was very tired after the work, but at least there hadn't been any needing to be debated. He could finally rest.

'A continuous routine they call perfect,' he thought to himself as he laid down onto his bed, his wings covering him as he closed his eyes. 'It sure is tiring.'

A/N: So there is the first chapter! I apologise if there was a lot of information to take in. You can ask me any questions, but I can assure you that things will be covered naturally as the story progresses.

Feedback, as always, is very much appreciated as I love to hear people's opinions! Thank you for reading!