In Lux – battle still in progress
Lucifer struggled out of Amenadiel's arms, wiping the blood from his face with the back of his hand. "Oh come ON, Mickey" he sneered. "You can do better than this. Or is it not so easy without our brothers backing you up?"
Michael stopped in his tracks, the Library's pronouncements of his brother's deaths ringing in his ears. "You do not speak of them – you are not fit to even speak their names" he hissed.
"Oh yeah – really great bunch there" Lucifer snarled. "Baby brother Uriel was so wrapped around his student he didn't even notice Dad's favorite hit squad tearing itself apart. And of course – there is Gabriel. Your twin locked his kid up in a monastery to keep him out of the way of this stupid war you both were determined to wage with one another - and then when everything went belly up he left the kid to his own devices while he followed you around like a whipped puppy trying to make up for your fight. On top of that he was having it on with your student, right under your nose, and the girl had to burn along with her brothers to clean up the mess your jealousy caused. Lovely family we had there – wasn't it?"
"Enough!" Michael snarled through gritted teeth. "Your serpents tongue will not sway me from retrieving our young ones..."
"Yes - by all means. Retrieving them so you can feed them into the meat grinder against Azazel's minions while you prance off and try to put our ruined sibling back in his cage. Really not getting that loving feeling from you on that, bro. I'll give Azazel this much – he's a mean, vindictive son of a bitch but at least you can see the darkness coming when you're with him. You? You hide it behind duty and honor and obedience to Father's Great Plan. I'm betting the kids figured you out the moment they set eyes on you. They always were brighter than you gave them credit for. What grates on you more, little brother? That in this incarnation they have slipped their leashes and are not your personal cannon fodder? Or that maybe, just maybe, that the pretty little hellcat you've been pinning after all this time might have finally found herself willing to be bound to someone, ANYONE, else but you!" Lucifer snatched up a chair and launched it in his brother's direction.
"What is he doing?" Cassandra asked in a worried tone. "Why is Lucifer trying to push all of Michael's buttons like that?"
"Especially if you consider" Ezekiel commented, snaking over the bar and fishing out a bowl of nuts. "That if the Triad's fates were changed then it's quite possible that none of the events they are going on about might actually have ever happened quite the way we've been told. Remember – neither Arthur nor Rowan had ever even SEEN an angel before flyboy over there dropped in on us. So how could any of them have screwed the Triad over if they never actually met them in the first place?" He popped a handful of cashews in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully as he watched the battle continue.
Baird looked at Flynn with surprise. "Wait – he's right. Nothing they are fighting about, nothing Michael's being held responsible for actually HAPPENED to Arthur and his sister they way they remember it. The only memory of any of those events is in the minds of both Lucifer and Michael."
"And evidently in that other angel – what was his name again? Amenadiel?" Ezekiel added, pulling out a jar of olives from the bar fridge and starting to snack on them. "He seemed pretty surprised to hear that their students weren't their students anymore."
Baird glared back at the young thief for interrupting. "Right. So why is this, any of this, staying so personal? Lucifer isn't stupid – at least I don't think he is. He's got to have figured out he's talking about things that their kids didn't experience yet he's pushing it like…"
"Like he's trying to keep Michael from realizing something else is behind his return here – without the others." Stone conjectured, watching the fight closely. "Michael's injuries when he dropped into the library probably kept him from looking too closely at the ramifications of the Triad's changed history. And having to deal with his brother, with all the baggage that comes with, is keeping him from seeing beyond the here and now of him needing Arthur and Rowan to go fight his battle with him. He's reacting like he believes that their memories are still in there – just buried – and that at some point Arthur and Rowan will remember what Lucifer is blaming him for and react accordingly."
"Arthur and Rowan didn't seem to care about it much either way" Flynn added, inching back towards Baird as the combatants widened their battlefield.
"They don't REALLY remember this alternate time line. The only reason I remembered when it happened to me at the Loom of Fate was that I'd already experienced seeing multiple realities at once during Christmas when we saved Santa. But the Triad, despite being magical beings, didn't have that advantage. Their reality got folded over and smoothed out without any way for them to remember what it had been to begin with. I think Arthur just dismissed it all as being not important but Rowan latched onto the idea of what all else might have changed and what has stayed the same." Baird cut a quick look at the door herself, a plan forming in her head. "God may have changed her timeline but I'm betting ever since she learned what must have happened she's been trying to work out what they were supposed to do within this new environment."
"And Lucifer probably has been itching to have a reason to slap his brother around a bit" Stone suggested, watching the door carefully. "And all this has given him exactly the opening he needed to make his brother pay for throwing him out of Heaven. And a chance to pull the kids into his web without interference from above."
"Why hasn't Jenkins closed that door?" Cassandra whispered, crouching behind Stone to make herself a smaller target. "And what is that light that is covering it? Usually we can't see the Library because the door is closed but..."
"But the door is wide open. Which makes this even stranger" Baird whispered thoughtfully. "Because looking through it at this angle I'm seeing something that looks like a war zone – not the library. Los Angeles may have some bad neighborhoods but what I can see looks more like Sarajevo after the siege."
Ezekiel laughed suddenly. "Guys – remember when we had to go to talk to the Fates and to the Ladies of the Lake? Khan had to re-program the door to allow us to travel into those other realities. I'm betting that light is him opening a door to that "other" reality - the one Michael came from - using the Library's portal as his starting point. Makes sense if you think about it."
"Yes it does" Flynn's eyes lit up at the idea. "Which would also explain Lucifer's actions. He's trying to get his brother through the door and back to the alternate reality before Michael realizes what's happening, all the while getting a little of his own back for Michael's actions during the war against Heaven." He waved frantically at the only other combatant in the room not actively trying to kill the Archangel – Amenadiel. "Hey, over here! We need to talk!"
Notes: For anyone still reading - this story is coming to something of an end soon. I may end up giving a synopsis of what happened after everyone went where they were supposed to go as soon as I get everyone through their respective doors.
