A/N I was asked to post a link to the original source of the cover art, so here it is (replace the word 'dot' with an actual '.' and remove spaces, since ff apparently needs to have all sorts of unnecessary complications when it comes to posting links): brilcrist dot deviantart dot com(slash)art(slash)Avenging-angel-Tony-326910828

X

As soon as the beast made of Ezekiel's demented spirit had been restrained, Ramiel set off again, half on his feet and half lifted by his wings, dashing swiftly around the sharp corridors of the ship in search of where his brother was imprisoned. There was no doubt whatsoever in his flaming mind that Lucifer was the source of all this; the angels had no other enemies nearly as formidable, and certainly none who were capable of such a thing as destroying the entire vessel that had taken so many ages and so much power to fully forge. Even as he ran, each foot pounding sharply into the boards below him, Ramiel knew that there wasn't much time left—built on such a strange and delicate plane as it was, the craft that they were currently inside of was fragile in some ways: for instance, it was, regrettably, entirely dependent on the power of the angels themselves, while needing no other fuel. This was his reason now for moving with his physical strength rather than launching into full flight and the teleportation that came with it—he needed to conserve as much supernatural energy as he could possibly manage. Otherwise, the scarred walls, which were already beginning to crumble around him, would only weaken further, and thereby diminish the fading life force of the only thing that was keeping them away from earthly threats.

Fire raged around every corner, causing Ramiel to be delayed by an unwilling hesitation whenever he encountered a turn. He skidded, his wings flaring behind him, as orange lightning clasped the air, and was achingly aware of the time passing, each second roaring against the inside of his skull, reminding him how close he was to losing, to being too late. He knew beyond a doubt that he was the only one who could properly stop Lucifer, if there was a chance now. Despite himself, despite his best intentions and all his constant strains at morality, he still cared for his elder brother, and he harbored the faintest trace of hope that those affections were returned. Lucifer may have no problem hating Michael and Gabriel, perhaps along with the rest of them, but, just perhaps, there might be the most miniscule of soft spots left inside of him for the one brother who had remained loyal, remained careful for so long after his fall.

Ramiel could hope, in any case. Hope had kept him aloft for centuries. There was no reason for it to fail now.

It was after several achingly long minutes that he finally found himself up against the door that led to the ring of holy fire. He wasted no time in forcing it open, his chapped lips already parted in half a plea—a plea to nothing, for he had stopped praying to his father long ago, back when the cutting decision was made to expel the creature who had now taken it upon himself once more to destroy the Earth and eradicate humanity in whatever demented way he saw fit.

The door resisted only for the briefest fragment of a second before lurching open, its wood straining and partially peeling away from the frame in damp splinters. What had been a polished, fine-working mechanism mere minutes ago now lagged and sank at the slightest provocation, but Ramiel couldn't let himself think about what that meant for the rest of the ship, not when he had to focus on the contents of the room he was now barging into.

It was, at first, almost impossible to see beyond the smoke—for the smoke was massive, stifling and constraining his throat as it wove between his lips, poisoned the underside of his tongue. It was richer than that of the weak mortal fire elsewhere, and he knew without thinking that these were the fumes of the holy prison that Lucifer had been shielded within, one that was now surely disintegrating, its tongues of flame weaving with those that had been set to the ship in the initial explosion, merging together until the whole room was nothing but a pulsating death trap for angels and humans alike, a crude vat of destruction rather than the finely crafted prison that it had been before.

Forcing out gasp after choke after heave, Ramiel raised one heavy warm to wave the thick gray gas away from his mouth and nose. His head swam regardless, pricked throughout by sharp points of golden light that he refused to give his attention to. Lucifer was still here, surely—if he squinted, he could make out shapes beyond the endless twirl of orange and silver; there was something moving, there, just feet away... a form—was it only one of the beams falling loose? But, no, a distinct head, the strong shape of familiar, thin shoulders, and, there, glinting in the golden glow, the coolest of smiles—

Lucifer.

Ramiel couldn't restrain the wordless roar of defiance that devoured his lips and throat as he thrust out his wings, ignoring the vicious sting of the holy sparks as they propelled him forwards and into the part of the flames that Lucifer had been emerging from. One hand still clasped his hammer, which he swung around in a mighty heave, the leather grip slipping below the sweat-stained skin of his palm—the huge silver head of the weapon, however, collided only with empty air, and then his own free hand had to lift to stop it, thick fingers pausing the path of the deadly missile. He stumbled forwards a pace and a half, his own spirits racing at three times the speed of his vessel's straining heart as he turned—he was sure he had seen Lucifer, but any trace of the gold-eyed menace was gone now, vanished from his grasp like the smoke that rose in such thick abundance around his lone form...

A laugh. A laugh to match the smile that he'd thought he'd seen, but coming now from behind him... Ramiel felt his muscles twist almost before he was aware that he was turning, but, upon having spun fully on his heels, he found himself confronted with a solid blaze of heat and light, this the pure gold of the holy fire rather than flickering flat and chromatic yellow-orange like the rest. He nearly tripped over himself in his haste to move backwards, well aware that he would be reduced to dust if so much as a single bit of still-warm pure ash managed to land on him; his wings, before expanded in powerful defiance, quickly folded and shrunk back into his back. He couldn't risk the stretch of the extra appendages, not when they only landed him closer to the open flame.

The laugh repeated itself, a low, gentle bubble that stung his ears, and the fire thinned out just enough for him to make out the eyes behind it, shining of an identical hue now that Lucifer had no reason to disguise himself for so much as modesty. Pale fingers came together in a long, slow clap, and dark eyebrows lifted in mock-pity.

"Oh, dear, my brother. It appears that you've fallen for one of the very crudest of my little illusions."

Of course. Of course—and Ramiel could remember now, remember all too clearly how one of Lucifer's most favorite antics as a young angel had been to create flimsy duplicates of himself, populate the gilded roads of Heaven with such entities and make a fool of all those who attempted to engage or converse with them, for they would only ever flash a smile and twist into smoke. A smile exactly like the one that Ramiel had just been confronted with, as he realizes now, sickened by his own stupidity. Hope, in this case, had misled him; he had gone so far as to believe that he had arrived just in time, that he could at least wrestle Lucifer back into the cage, but now his brother was free, and he himself imprisoned.

Himself imprisoned. He realized this now, something invisible swelling in his throat. Though he still retained some desperate ideal that Lucifer would not kill him—at least not at first, before he got the chance to talk and presumably save himself with that—there was no doubt that he was in far more danger now than he had been while fighting with Ezekiel, or at any other point in the strange, seemingly one-sided battle thus far. It was only now that he truly felt the volume of his vessel's heart and the pump of its lungs, both raging together to try and chain the body into life. It was adrenaline, he supposed, that scratched him up and down with the overpowering urge to run, but he was wiser than that, as well. He couldn't move. Lucifer had him trapped.

The perfect prison.

"You do not need to do this, Lucifer." It was a pathetic idea, but it was his only one—if he could talk enough, each word shot through with all the desperate emotion he could possibly muster, there was some extent of a bare chance that Lucifer might change his mind. Not flit instantly to the good side, of course, but perhaps spare Ramiel's life. The golden-haired angel had never come face-to-face with such an utter threat of mortality, and, for a creature raised on the notion that he alone was indestructible, he imagined there must be fewer things more terrifying than the concept of the famed void of nothingness being close enough to breathe upon. He knew as well as anyone what the end for angels would be, if they were cursed with one—not Heaven, not Hell, not Purgatory, but nothing. The flatness of nonexistence, unawareness. If Lucifer continued, he would no longer be. No longer know. No longer feel.

"I don't particularly need to, that's true. My father didn't need to cast me down, either. You didn't need to turn traitor in your defiance of such an action."

The two incidents, when juxtaposed, fired something bitter in Ramiel's stomach, and he was near defending himself with rampant fervor when Lucifer continued, slender shoulders moving in the most casual of shrugs.

"Few of us ever need to do anything. For instance, you don't need to stop me, just like I don't need to kill you."

"Just like you don't need to kill billions of innocent humans," Ramiel contradicted, his throat shifting. "They never did a thing to harm you, brother. They fear you, yet some through a twisted respect. You have nothing to gain by destroying them."

"Oh, I don't want to destroy them," Lucifer sniffed, as if the very idea was unbelievable, even petty. "As you say, there's nothing to gain that way. No, quite the contrary... I intend for them to assume their rightful place: below me. Below us. I believed, for a time, that you may be one wise enough to join me in this journey... for it is right, you do know. Whatever labels of evil have been slapped upon me in my absence are only hurtful. I want nothing but to enslave the people that were meant to serve as sheep. They've grown into something too big, too wild, too dangerous for us to allow to continue while we still exist. The humans treat me like a demon, brother. I am not a demon. I am greater than a demon. More powerful. I am an angel, and I believe it is high time they realize quite precisely what that means."

"You are fallen," Ramiel contradicted, hating the burn of the words in his mouth—for they were those which had been scorched across his skin so many times, by so many thorny tongues. He is fallen. You have nothing to gain in defending him. You only make yourself look like as much of a traitor as he ever was. Yet, now, when faced with Lucifer's crazed fixation upon his own race, there was nothing to do but acknowledge that, quite plainly, the fact of him being fallen was the truth.

"Perhaps. But at least I am still alive. I am still able to twist things towards the way they should be. Whereas you, brother... why, you don't have all that much longer at all. I'd rather say that the only act you have left to perform is your final goodbye. Shall we see just how much fire it takes to burn an angel?"

"Brother, wait!" Ramiel bellowed, the words ripping forth with all the strength he could muster, until their sonic thunder trembled against the flaming cage locked around him. It was no use, though. He could already feel the fierce grip of his brother's telekinesis fixated upon him, a thousand times stronger than he ever imagined it could be. His feet slipped against the floor, his wings twisting in a desperate effort to rip free, but there was nothing—nothing he could do as the flames inched closer to his back, as he bent towards throwing himself into them, being consumed in their raging jaws, knowing that his last sensation would be one of pure, blazing pain...

"Stop!"

A voice, cutting through the chaos. A human voice, weak, trembling with fear even as it rang out as proudly as it could surely muster...

Pastor Coulson.

Ramiel's jaws parted, attempting to forge a warning, but it was too late—though the flames were still rampant, Lucifer's silhouette shown sharp through them, and was now joined by another, one that took a step closer, its jagged breaths seeping through the smoke as it lifted something that looked like it could be a gun. A gun. Such a simple, pathetic weapon for a human to have... not one that would pose any challenge whatsoever to the Devil itself.

No. He knew what was coming, yet he could not accept it. The memory of Coulson as he spoke to him, claiming that he wasn't brave... thinking without words that he wasn't worthy of his position on the ship—

You are the most courageous of any of them. Ramiel's lungs ached with these words now, but they could not emerge, and the space that they might have fallen into was instead filled with only the brief crackle of Lucifer's laugh, before a stream of light more vivid than any of the flames erupted from the shadow's palm—there was a cry of pain from Coulson, and then his shivering form fell to its knees before dropping down entirely, agonized wail dimming and wetting to a faint, gasping gurgle.

"No." Ramiel's tongue was heavy. "No—no!"

But there was nothing he could do, nothing at all, and now Lucifer was whirling around again, and his eyes, twin shards of pure, pure gold, were the only part of him properly visible, burning deep into Ramiel's chest, singeing through every fiber of his being as viciously as any fire possibly could as he was thrust backwards, and there was nothing left between him and the flames.

The fire suddenly seemed very quiet, Coulson thought.

It was still there, certainly, but the previous snarl was reduced to a gentle hum, pulsing against his eardrums, which practically bent into it. It was very gentle. Almost soothing, though the rage of the orange and red around him was far from such. He was simultaneously far too hot and pierced through with a cold that sunk deep within his bones, and he felt his mouth twisting, a bitter grimace beginning to take shape as the flavor of rusted iron rose under his tongue and at the back of his throat, so suffocating that he could barely form words.

"I..."

Strange. It was quite a challenge to form the simple syllables, even in contrast to the lack of ease with which they'd flowed before this strange impairment settled over him.

"I don't... think... you'll make it."

His chest was moving quickly, rising and falling at the corner of his vision. He felt no pain but the throbbing ache from his awkwardly positioned neck, which hung tilted against his shoulder, forced into limpness, like the rest of him, by how numb every cell of his being had suddenly become.

He was watching Lucifer. The gold-eyed devil who had so easily extinguished his own brother, who now stood with his head high and his pale throat rough with silent laughter. There was no regret in his gleeful expression. No mercy, either, as he turned towards Coulson, his lips and nose drawn into such utter distaste that it was almost painful, sickening to regard. Despite the fact that Coulson had been taught again and again that this was the lowliest, most gruesome and undeserving being on the planet, he felt only petty for being scorned by it. Like a fly that could so easily be crushed beneath Lucifer's boot.

"Don't think I'll make it where, petty human? There is all matter of hope for me. You are a child. There is nothing for you... nothing at all. In fact, I'd say you have only seconds left in your meager span. A pity, really."

"Not... not hope." He found himself coughing, and the noise was much more amplified than anything that had issues from either of their mouths, causing him to quake as if struck by a vermillion tempest. "You have no hope. The Devil does not."

"Vermin. I will show you—well, perhaps not you, unless you care to look down from Heaven." The burning floor took, ash and embers sifting along it, as Lucifer traipsed closer, his chin held high, a maniacal grin glowing orange in the light of the flames that arched around him, striking out his dark and pale figure as the only spot of colorlessness in the room that was being rapidly devoured. Everything was disintegrating save Lucifer—Coulson wondered, for a brief instant, whether he himself was melting into ash as well, but the thought soon seemed irrelevant in the light of what he was regarding.

The Devil. Dying nose-to-nose with Satan. It was never an end he would have wished upon himself, yet now he knew that it could never have been any other way. He had never had another enemy so despised, who blackened such a secluded and empty chamber of his own heart. He hated Lucifer, hated him with all of the sick emotion that he could never properly bring himself to direct towards any other creature on, above, or below Earth. Lucifer was evil. And, for a man as good as Coulson, evil was the only thing that could truly destroy him.

"You won't," Coulson swore, the words laden with as much truth as he could possibly pull onto them. "Not if I can... not if I..." And then even that was too much, for the trace of energy remaining inside of him was curled at his center, barely allowing for even the faintest trace of breath, let alone any other external movement. His voice lost itself somewhere, sinking into the folds of his blood-slicked throat, and Lucifer laughed again at his silence, the sounds pouring forth like acid from his pale lips.

"Not if you can what, human? Grovel? True enough, there is no time left for you to submit for me. You went down a martyr, as they put it. But the rest... the rest will see. Fury and Hill will be on their knees... pity you won't be able to join them, wouldn't you say?"

The gun. The gun, somehow, was still in his hand, clasped loosely, heavy with its holy oil-slicked bullets. Of course, as Fury had told him earlier, there was no guarantee that they would ignite upon firing... it could be a waste. Or perhaps not a waste, not entirely—if he could only scar some aspect of Lucifer's being, as the bullets doubtless would, that would be enough. Not kill him, but get close. Close enough to know that his life wasn't entirely wasted.

He could form no more words. But his fingers found the trigger, tracing the metal curve, and Lucifer's laugh boiled in his ears as he focused every last element of energy he possessed on tilting the muzzle, directing it towards the horrifically delighted face swimming above him.

I will not die in vain, you cruel creature.

It seemed that he had only just depressed the trigger when the wound appeared, a large gash along the side of Lucifer's shoulder, nearly a miss—a yelp flew from the lips as they twisted into the darkest of scowls, and he twisted with the impact, nearly falling to his knees as a slow stream of deep bronze ichor licked the edge of his dark sleeve.

"You damned beast!" Lucifer shouted, the words bruising his throat, but Coulson could no longer hear him. The bullet had not ignited, he recognized faintly—he had not killed the Devil, but perhaps that was for the best. He had no desire to go to Heaven with any death on his shoulders, even that of the most dreaded being in the universe. It was a job for Fury, or perhaps Hill, or any of the angels. Maybe he had weakened him, he noted as the shadows began to leap out of the walls, stretching over his eyes and struggling to obscure the rage and light of everything else. Lucifer was gone, though he didn't know whether that was due to his teetering awareness or the Devil's actual disappearance. Perhaps he had distracted him for now. It was only a nick, he knew, something that the creature would easily recover from... yet he had done it. He had dashed oil across the skin of the despicable being, and that was something. That was something for him to hold on to as the darkness began to tilt in.

The next thing he was aware of was heavy boots on the half-eaten floorboards before him, and he was briefly confused, upset in some vague element of his being that he wasn't at the pearlescent gates already, but instead still stranded here, among the flames. Even the traces of pain that had before run through his muscles were entirely extinguished, and he felt everything as if from a great distance, heard Fury's coarse tones like they were shouted towards him from deep underwater. He was already detached, yet there was something still chaining him down, not yet allowing him to escape his body.

He hoped that he would die. It would be ever so much a shame if he were to be forced to remain here, after everything, after the best end that he could have asked for... he didn't dislike life, of course, had no sort of death wish before now, but he knew, somehow, that dragging him back at this point would be wrong. He'd had enough. Any more would be too much, and he would never want to live with that sort of burden.

Fury's hands were on his own limp, pale ones, he thought. Or perhaps—perhaps not... it was ever so hard to tell, and maybe all that he thought to be touches of the other man were only licks of flame, and perhaps he was already cinder, clinging to his usual form and waiting only to fall apart, to release his spirit properly into the cool breeze that he felt behind and around him.

A cool breeze. Out of place in this furnace of flame, yet he knew it was there, lingering around the edges of reality. Perhaps it had arrived to carry him away.

Fury was talking. Or at least his mouth was moving, his single eye glaring down in an expression that was far from anger. Coulson hoped that he wasn't disappointed in him, that he hadn't done anything stupid, that it hadn't been wrong of him to let Ramiel go... surely there was nothing more he could have done. Surely, even if the job wasn't executed perfectly, they would forgive him. The angels would forgive him. God would forgive him.

If not... well, at least there was no suffering left to be had. He was free, now.

Pastor Phillip Coulson didn't feel his eyes close.