Crash
Max finished recording his thoughts, and set the tape recorder aside. He could feel every year of his age as he drove, and he pinched the bridge of his nose to try and keep awake. He would stop and sleep if could, but he could feel something in his gut, a hunch if you will, that they were being followed. The feeling began when he picked up the kid, and he could still feel it now. He couldn't shake it, so he drove to put as much between them and their would-be pursuer. He knew that if they were found with the child, all of them would be in danger. Call him paranoid, but a healthy nurturing of one's paranoia never hurt anyone. It had kept Max alive for as long as he had been a Plumber, and it hadn't failed him yet.
Suddenly, a loud crash came from the top of the camper. Behind him, he could hear Gwen and Roger's angel wake up with a start. Ben woke up beside him, instantly alert.
Good, Max needed him alert.
He hit the brakes, but whatever had landed on the Rustbucket had a strong grip.
"Grandpa, what was that?" asked Ben.
Max pressed a button, and out from the dashboard popped a large rifle, small ports running down its sides pulsing with a soft blue light.
"Ben, get the Omnitrix ready. Go Ghostfreak, and see what our friend up there is up to."
Ben gave a firm nod, and went hero. The bright flash of light was nothing new to Max and Gwen, but Roger's angel had just come from sleep, and the light utterly shocked him. He gave out a loud cry, and a hand shot through the Rustbucket's roof, and grabbed the angel by his white hair. It gave a pull, and pulled the angel right through the roof.
Max gave Ben a look, but he already knew what to do.
Ben phased through the roof, and saw the angel, and his captor. He was wearing a white sleeveless hooded trenchcoat, baring rather muscular arms. He had the angel in his right hand, and somehow, Ben knew that he could see him.
"Tearing a hole through the roof of someone's car isn't very nice. Taking their friends…is even worse. Prepare to know fear." Said Ben, speaking as Ghostfreak.
"You've been had, mortal. Your efforts are valiant, but you've been protecting the enemy."
Then, the figure rammed his left hand right through the angel's chest.
"NOOOO!"
Ben bum-rushed the figure in the trenchcoat, and knocked him off the roof of the Rustbucket, taking the angel's bloodied corpse with him.
They both crashed hard onto the asphalt. Max and Gwen rushed outside, gun and spells at the ready. An orb of blue energy surrounded her clenched fists, while Max rocked his large energy rifle. They both took aim at the rising figure, waiting to see if it would be hostile to them as well.
"Stand down, that is all I ask you." said the figure, holding up hands that seemed to be covered in green, insectile armor.
"Give us three good reasons not to blow you away, and the other two don't matter." threatened Gwen.
"The being you saved and protected is not the angel your grandpa's psychic friend. It is understandable, as he hid his demonic taint pretty well."
But Max was unconvinced.
"And how do we know that you're telling the truth?" he asked.
"Because I believe him."
Max and Gwen looked beyond the figure, and a green flash heralded the return of Ben to human form.
"Check out the new kid."
Max and Gwen went over to what was once the child's corpse.
But it was a child no more.
A black the shade of charcoal had replaced the "angel's" once pale white skin. Knobby black horns jutted out from the demon's matted black hair. Its cherubic face had lengthened and had now resembled some dark parody of a goat.
Max couldn't see how he had been taken by the ruse. He had put both Ben and Gwen's lives in danger by taking that…abomination, that mockery of all things holy into the Rustbucket.
"And you, how do we know you're no demon in disguise as well?" asked Max, his features clouded by guilt.
The figure knelt, and jabbed his thumb into the demon's skull. The flesh around the figure's thumb began to burn. Soon, cracks began to appear in the demon's skull, a low flame burning under them. Fire shot out from the demon's eye sockets, and then it began to spout flames from every open orifice. The fire ceased, and the demon crumbled to ash.
"Demons cannot stand anything holy, much less our blessed essence."
Ben gave him a quizzical look.
"What do you mean by…'our'?"
It was the figure's turn to give him a quizzical look, which he pulled off with surprising ease, despite having no visible eyes.
"By 'our', I mean we angels. The angel your friend Roger was talking about, is me."