Chapter 4

"Come now brother, don't be so shocked to see me." Raguel smirked, her caligae touching the floor lightly, her 12 argent wings glowing with barely suppressed light. "You would think that you'd seen a ghost."

"But you -"

"Died?" Raguel asked, tilting her head cutely. Or at least it would've been cute if he didn't think that his sister was unhinged. He'd never go against his Father's wishes, never think ill of him, but when it came to Raguel he personally thought that his Father, who was correct in all things, had screwed up when he created her. "Well I guess you could say I did. Let me tell you reincarnating as a human and living a mortal life is quite difficult. But it's something that you eventually get used to. Good job by the way."

"Wha-"

"You know the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Witch Trials, I didn't think you had it in you." Seeing his gobsmacked expression, she continued. "You know I was right there alongside you, saw your handiwork firsthand at the battle for Milvian Bridge. Good job with that whole Chi-Rho painting on the shields thing. It was really creative imbuing a ward into the paint that way when you rained down spears they would automatically swerve to avoid anyone bearing the mark."

"What are -"

"And don't even get me started on the whole Maxentius thing." Raguel grinned, a smile that would've scared children away and completely destroyed the notion of angels being friendly beings that frolicked in the clouds and sang about peace and love. "I mean I can understand knocking him off his horse to make it a fair right, but knocking him into the Tiber and than planting your foot on his head and holding him there to drown. That's something I would do." Her smile grew as the malevolence in her eyes became plain to see. "In fact it makes me proud, Brother, that you're taking after me."

"Enough Raguel." He didn't know if it was because he had finally gotten over the shock of seeing his least favorite sibling, or if it was because of the fact that she thought he was becoming more like her, but it was enough. Holy Light gathered in his hands as he prepared himself to smite her, but before anything more than the merest whisper could gather he found himself suddenly powerless.

"Ah, ah, ah." Raguel chided, condescendingly wiggling her finger back and forth as she stared at him. "Our powers don't work here."

Before the conflict between the two of them could escalate the cries of the babe reached them. Her son. Michael thought, wondering if it was because of the child that she had sought out the Seat of their Father's power.

Raguel was at the child's side in an instant, moving faster than even his enhanced vision could perceive as she picked him up and held him to her breast. "Shh, shhh, mommy's got you." Raguel cooed to her son, gently rocking him in her arms. "The wind blows low and mournful through the scrath of Dalnacreich, where once there lived a woman who would a mother be. For twelve long years a good man's wife, but ne'er the cradle filled…"

As he heard her sing he couldn't help but wonder if this was the same sister that had once kept a devil alive as she vivisected him and made him watch as she removed organs and turned them into ash in front of his eyes. Seeing her like this, with a child in her arms as she sung a song of warning and sadness, the child slowly drifting asleep in her arms, it was startling to say the least. The smile that he had learned to fear was absent and in its place was one of warmth and hope, one that he had only fleetingly caught directed at her sisters.

Gabriel, Sariel, Penemue, and Raguel.

The strongest of God's daughters.

The four of them had been closer to each other than to any of their other siblings.

"And if that mockingbird don't sing." Ah she had finished one song and immediately branched into another one. "Mama will bring you a demon's skin."

And there was the terrifying sister that he remembered.

"Raguel." He called out to her, doing his very best to hide the nervousness in his voice. After all his sister wasn't the most stable of people, and he really didn't want to set her off when there was a child present. Not that he thought she would ever put her child in harm's way, it was just that she was known for collateral damage.

She looked up at him, her eyes filled with annoyance as she stopped rocking the babe in her arms.

"Michael." She acknowledged, before turning back to her son.

"Raguel." Michael repeated.

His sister turned glaring at him through a single hooded eye, the babe in her arms as if sensing his mother's feelings stirred. He was the strongest soldier of God, the General of Heaven's armies, he most certainly did not whimper when eyes of baleful emeralds glared at him telling him to leave.

He did not retreat, but instead made a strategic withdrawal in the opposite direction, giving her some space.

He didn't know how long he stood there, watching as his sister slowly put her child, my nephew, he suddenly thought to sleep. But all he did know was that while waiting Raguel had leaned back to take a seat, a silver throne forming under her, gently guiding her to a position that she could relax in.

He had tried to do the same only to have to catch himself, materializing a seat out of Holy Light when a throne failed to catch him.

He shot her an annoyed look as she didn't even try to hide her smirk.

At last she stopped, placing the child into the crib as she stood up, the seat dissipating into motes of light.

"Come." She commanded, her serious demeanor returning as she refrained from any small talk. Together they approached the dais of their Father, both of them falling to their knees in supplication as they stared at the ground before the throne.

For a few minutes they knelt there, Michael beginning to fidget uncomfortably until finally he stood, looking around him. Too much time has passed.

"They won't come." Raguel said, still kneeling in front of the Throne. She didn't need to turn to see the confusion on his face. "The others, Uriel, Raphael, Gabriel, I have them flying endlessly, the castle and the dimension constantly shifting to put it just out of their reach."

A shiver of fear ran through him as he reevaluated his sister. If he had any doubts of her power, his silent thought was that she weakened and seeking refuge with them, they were banished with that sentence.

If she had been weakened in any form then she would not have been able to bend reality so easily.

A few minutes more, Raguel continued to kneel before the Throne as he stood by her side.

Time and time passed, the silence growing more and more oppressive, the tension between the two siblings mounted as Raguel ignored his presence to bow before the Throne.

Finally though, Raguel looked up in puzzlement, and getting up from her kneeling position approached the dais.

"I don't understand." He could hear her mutter as reached out to touch the Throne of their Father, delicate yet strong fingers tracing the tarnished silver. "Father? Where are you?"

Michael's heart sank as he remembered exactly how long Raguel had been gone for.

The Great War.

Did his Sister even know how it ended?

How their Father fell protecting them?

Protecting him?

"Michael." She asked, her voice lacking the confidence nay arrogance that he normally attributed to her. "Where is Father?" Dare he say it, it was like a child wondering where their Father was. She turned to him, her eyes misty unable to comprehend the lack of the Divine presence that she had been expecting to greet her.

"Raguel." He spoke softly, gently, still wondering how he would break the news to her. "Father is dead." There better to rip the bandage off in one go then to exacerbate the problem by delaying it.

For a moment Raguel stared at him, her face scrunched up in disbelief before all of a sudden she burst out laughing. Now this wasn't sweet laughter or full belly laughter that comes from hearing a funny joke, no this was a mocking laughter tinged with insanity.

It immediately set him on edge.

"You are a fool Michael." She chided, wiping a tear from her eye. "You actually believe that our Father, the purest, most powerful God to have ever existed died?"

The next moment all he knew was pain as he was thrown against the far wall, his sister's emerald eyes blazing with rage. "I should rip that blasphemous tongue of yours out and present it to Father." A dainty hand gripped him by the throat holding him aloft as hand motes of light began to gather in her free hand.

"Our powers don't work here." He struggled to say, her hand cutting off the circulation to his brain.

"I lied." She shrugged. "Your powers don't work here, but I as the Friend of God, the angel whose sphere is the Seventh Heaven, and who stands beside the Throne of God, what good would I be if I were powerless to protect Father.

"But you didn't!" Michael all but screamed, and while his powers may not work against his sister, there were other means of hurting her.

Namely his armored head met her unarmored forehead with a sickening crunch that send her stumbling back clutching at her head. One hand massaged his throat as his right one went for the sword on his hip. "WHERE WERE YOU WHEN FATHER FELL! WHERE WERE YOU, THE SO CALLED 'PROTECTOR OF THE THRONE', WHEN FATHER MET HIS END!"

He hesitated, for a moment remembering all the blood on his hands, all his siblings who had met their end at the edge of his sword.

The old Michael, the one that had fought during the height of the Great War wouldn't have hesitated to separate Raguel's head from her shoulders.

Peace had turned him soft...and his hesitation proved to be a mistake.

With the enhanced healing that all angels possessed but overcharged with the frankly world breaking abilities that Seraphim had she was healed in an instant, and in her hand a thorned whip.

But it was her right hand that froze him, in her hands an arming sword of purest silver, inlaid with enochian sigils and runes. Unlike the weapons that most angels crafted from either Light or Holy Light, this was a physical weapon, one whose nature lent itself towards the function of the angel. Only the original angels had them, and each blade had the angels name inscribed on it.

Raguel's sword had the ability to permanently destroy a being, shredding the very soul or essence of whatever it struck. Death was one thing, only their Father knew where an angel went when they were killed, but to have your very being repeatedly shredded and reassembled for eternity in what Raguel thought of as punishment, that was a fate he'd like to avoid.

However before the first and final blow could be struck a hand laid itself on his sister's shoulder, gently squeezing.

He let himself breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that his other sister would be able to temper Raguel's responses.

"That's enough." Gabriel said, her gentle voiced hiding a core of steel underneath it. "Please don't hurt him."

"Blasphemy." Raguel hissed threatening to shake off her sister's hand. "He dares to say that Father died."

"Raguel." Gabriel spoke, her voice tinged with sadness as she turned her sister around to face her. She didn't resist, Gabriel being one of the only angels to have ever spent time with her, many of the other originals seeing what she did as distasteful at best and downright heretical at worst. "Raguel." The hand left her shoulder, and for a moment she feared her sister would push her away, only for the hand to reach up and cup her face. "How long has it been sister?"

She smiled a genuine smile, leaning into her sister's touch reassuring her that she was in fact here. "Too long little sister." Her smile grew at the adorable pout that Gabriel wore.

"We're the same age."

"Maybe, but I'm the one that took care of you didn't I?" Raguel smirked, her expression lacking the usual cruelty and arrogance that it normally had. "I remember quite fondly the little girl who fell from a tree, and clung to my robes bawling her eyes out."

"And I remember the little girl who threatened the tree that dared to hurt her precious sister, before spending the rest of the afternoon trying to incinerate it with your gaze alone." Gabriel fired back, smiling as she held her sister.

"It never hurt you again did it?"

"It would be hard for it to hurt me when it had been reduced to ash." Gabriel deadpanned.

"Um excuse me, I'd hate to break up this reunion but there's a bit of an issue." The two sisters turned towards their brother, one with annoyance the other exasperation.

Raguel's sword which hadn't moved even with the appearance of her sister was now glowing ominously. "Oh dear oh dear." Raguel mockingly chided. "What have you been doing Michael?"

"What do you mean?" Gabriel asked, stepping beside her sister.

"Michael here has been a bad boy." Raguel sing-songed. "Ius here wouldn't be like this if it didn't want me to judge the one in front of it."

"I don't -" Michael tried to defend himself.

"Stop." Raguel commanded, her words like a divine command, the sword in her hand flaring in response as chains shot from the floor to immobilize her brother.

"Sister." Gabriel gently chided, pushing the blade away from their brother. Ius, the sword of judgment, whose chains would bind the accused as only truth flows from their lips. She had no fear of the sword besides its sharpened edge as she was confident her sister would never use it on her. "Release him."

Raguel stared at her for a moment, her eyes seeing nothing but a core of steel hidden behind the gentle and buxom form of her sister. "You've changed."

"It was time." Gabriel remarked, Raguel physically flinching at the coldness of her words. "The Great War changed us all. Whether we wanted to or not."

Never taking her eyes off her sister, her voiced laced with concern she sheathed her sword, and turned to take Gabriel in her embrace. "What happened?"

"You weren't there." Michael said sorrowfully, and negative feelings he had for his sister suppressed to tell her the truth. For a moment he felt like twisting the story, using it to jab at her as she had done so many times before to him. But he stayed his hand, the truth would cut deep enough as is. "In the final battle, Father died, protecting us. Protecting me."

For a moment he saw the rage in his sister's eyes, how her hand twitched towards her sword, and he feared that not even Gabriel would be able to protect him. When he heard the air whistle, and the hissing of steel as it slid out of its scabbard he was resigned. Maybe when I see Father, he will have forgiven me for all that I did. He thought, only to never feel the blow coming. Hesitantly he opened his eyes and saw Raphael and Uriel swords drawn and resting lightly on Raguels shoulders. Gabriel had stepped to the side, refusing to pick a side.

"Uriel." Raguel said unflinching in the face of death. "Raphael."

"Raguel." They both answered.

"Put the sword away Raguel." Raphael commanded.

"Why don't you go chase after Azazel again." Raguel snapped back. "Besides I'm not going to kill him."

"It sure looked like you were going to." Uriel snarked.

"I've just gotten sick and tired of looking at the useless meat suit that he's wearing. I want to look my Brother in the eyes, and I want him to tell me. Tell me that our Father, the most perfect, most powerful, and all knowing Lord died. I want to hear the heresy spilling from his corrupted lips, and when I do I'll tear that blasphemous tongue from his mouth and present it to our Father.

Michael nodded figuring that this would be the quickest option stepped back and spread his arms. Where before he was a handsome man of average height with golden locks and hay lie wheat, his expression fixed in an almost permanent melancholic frown, he was now divine.

The so called "meat suit" that Raguel had called his human form melted away to reveal a core of Holy Light, tendrils stretching and churning from it as pieces of golden armor slowly formed to encapsulate the energy. Golden armor grew to 10 feet tall as a white tabard trimmed in blue slowly moved over the armor. A plumed corinthian helm topped the armor, but where there was supposed to be a face there was only darkness. Golden wings polished to a luster unobtainable by any mortal had lost their feathery appearance and were now metallic and sharp. One of his massive gauntleted hands held a golden spear, whose head radiated Holy Light.

She was forced to turn away, her eyes unable to see into what was called by many, the very heart of Heaven, the source of their own powers. During the war many foolish Fallen had dared to stare into the light, only to be driven mad by what they had seen.

Looking to her right and her left she saw that Raphael and Uriel had donned their true forms as well, Uriel surrounded by flames, and Raphael surrounded by a weird dichotomy of light that was both gently and harsh at the same time. Something that she thought fit him as both the angel of healing and his stoic nature. Gabriel herself had remained in her human form and moved to her side.

"Michael." She greeted him, her tone respectful, knowing that she could never beat her brother in a fair fight. The only reason that she was able to get away with so much was the fact that she had terrified him when they were both children, and that she was among the first angels. Looking into the faceless helm was eerie, but she stared at him defiantly daring him to tell her that their Father had died.

She could feel his gaze boring into her, questioning her, wondering why she hadn't joined them. "I've quite attached to this body." She smirked, running her hands up and down her curves. "It's not as restricting as some of the others I've worn. Now Michael, tell me." She said growing serious.

"Raguel." His voice boomed, the sound seemingly coming from everywhere at once, his tone laced with sorrow. "Father died. Our Lord, the Most Holy himself fell in battle taking with him the Lucifer, Asmodeus, Leviathan, and Beelzebub."

"No." Raguel refused shaking her head. "Why do you keep saying that Michael?"

"The four of us," he gestured to himself, Raphael, Uriel, and Gabriel, "charged across the lines of the Devils to get to Father, but it was too late."

"He fell in battle, protecting us." Gabriel said sorrowfully, Raguel turning to face her.

"Uriel?" She turned to her Brother, who had refused to meet her gaze. "Raphael?" Even his stoic demeanor broke and a single tear landed on the floor. "Even you Gabriel?" Raguel muttered.

"I'm sorry, Raguel." Michael stated, reaching out his hand and laying it gently on his sister's shoulder. The two of them were like ice and fire, their relationship fluctuating between antagonistic and neutral, but in this moment they were family.

"Gabriel please, take her to her room." Michael motioned for them to leave, only to stop as an iron hand gripped his pauldron.

"Michael." The voice sent shivers down his spine, her tone as cold as cocytus. He watched as mist slowly began to rise from the floor. A moment ago she had been standing on the tips of her toes as she struggled to reach his shoulder with her hand, but slowly her form grew. The body that she wore melted away, leaving behind a core of Holy Energy so cold that it burned at the slightest touch. Tendrils of energy grazed Uriel, Raphael and his armor, forcing them to take a step back as it disintegrated all that it touched. Mottled armor of grey and black, gothic in design with two sharp upwards curving horns like a ram's jutted from the pauldron. She did not wear a helm instead a tattered hooded tabard covered her, an icy breath spewing from the blackness of that hood. Her wings once bright and cold silver, were now ethereal wisps of smoke. She now stood equal to him in height, the spear in his hands pulsating with Holy Light as it drove off the cold that her presence brought. "I told you didn't I?" Her voice was terrifying, even Gabriel who trusted her sister implicitly, took a step back at the harshness of her tone. "That I would rip that blasphemous tongue out of your skull."

She took a menacing step forward, her brothers unsheathing their swords as they readied themselves to fight.

"Enough Raguel." Gabriel commanded, grabbing the cloth of her sister's tabard and literally jerking her back. "Michael isn't lying." Her hand dropped from the garment. "Not about this." She said sorrowfully.

"It doesn't make any sense." Raguel spoke softly, anger still in her voice as she struggled to maintain an even tone. "You tell me that Father died, but he spoke to me."

Heads whipped around to face her, faces displaying a range of emotions from confusion to joy, to anger. "What?"

"Not even one day ago, Father spoke to me, he answered my prayers as my mortal form lay battered and wounded. He saved me, and saved his grandson from a being of darkness."

"Grandson?" Gabriel questioned, her eyes lighting up at the prospect of children.

"A Devil?" Michael asked, and though she couldn't see it she could feel his eyes narrowing at the idea of a devil getting so close to an infant with the intent to hurt it.

"A human, lost on the path of darkness. Barely worth a thought as I am now, but a challenge before I regained all my powers."

Her brothers stared blankly at her, questioning gazes hitting her. "When I left a severed my Grace." She saw them physically recoil at her words, the very idea of an angel separating themselves from the very thing that made them angels in the first place, was horrifying. The pain that must've come from the self-mutilation had been unimaginable, but at the time she had thought it was a price well worth paying if it meant that she could run away from all her troubles. "I've lived in a constant cycle of death and rebirth. Regaining my memories on my 11th birthday, remembering each of my previous lives but never forgetting who I was."

"Father spoke to you?" Uriel asked hesitantly.

"I thought he had rejected me, cast me aside for what I did, but when I called to him he answered. He was there to welcome me back into his embrace, and he restored me to the height of my power. I, a sinner, a worthless daughter, one who rejected her Father, was welcomed back into the fold. I fight-" Holy Light began flaring from her being, rays shooting forth from the gaps in her armor. "Not in the name of myself, or any cause."

Deep within the 7th Heaven ancient gears began to turn once more, the eldritch machines that made up the System of God resonating with the power of another one of the Seraphim.

"I fight for Father, for the dream that he had."

Prayers and miracles, blessings that had laid forgotten, weakened with the passing of the Most Holy, slowly began to awaken. Michael had done the best that he could, but he was no God, and many things had to be sacrificed to protect the core tenets. The Heavenly System, heard all prayers, governed all the spheres of Heaven and the sacred gears, found itself with a sudden excess of energy.

"For peace."

A lone exorcist, cried tears flowing down her face as she was surrounded by demons, the blade of light in her hand dimming at the darkness from which the hellspawn clawed their way out of. Death was all but inevitable, the question simply which one of them would strike the killing blow.

A mother screamed, praying for the safety of the child, as men tore at her clothes. Blows rained down on her as she shielded the babe as best she could. A rosary clutched in her hand.

All around the world, people prayed, they begged for salvation. Whether they were at a Church, out in the field praying on a makeshift cross or had simply taken a moment out of their day to offer their deepest fears to the Lord and ask for him to give them the strength to see it through.

"For the hope of a better tomorrow."

"Our Father bore a crown of thorns, and shouldered all the suffering of the world."

At each and every moment people died, hands reaching out skywards. They believed in his teachings, in the teachings that were his ideals. They lived by the cross, as the world scorned them, faith was all that they had.

Blessed be those who believe without seeing.

In an instant Holy Light exploded from the Throne, bathing the entirety of Heaven and forcing all but Raguel to their knees.

"We are his angels, his will made manifest. Faith and fire, steel and Light, we fear nothing for he is our Armor. His wrath as he is my zeal, the bane of his foes and the fear of the treacherous.

Hope surged through her breast, the blade of light, suddenly glowing with a brilliance only exceeded by a Holy Sword. She stared at the weapon on wondrous awe as the Darkness was driven back, the demons that were approaching her, depravity and sinful thoughts lurking within them, fleeing in the face of the purifying light. Where before she was filled with despair, now she felt invigorated, and with a cry on her lips she charged, sparing none of the demons that had killed her friends.

All around the world those that despaired, stood up, and in a single voice said. "No more!"

The door was thrown open as a single neighbor, one who refused to ignore the sounds of struggle rushed into the apartment and killed her assailants. She stared battered and weeping as a hand reached out towards her. Instead of flinching she reached out and was pulled into his warm embrace, falling unconscious knowing that her child was now safe.

"Even in Death our Duty does not end. You say that Father died, well then our Duty lies with him." She stared at each of her brothers. "The tip of his spear." The weapon in the Eldest's hand glowed brightly. "The mail around his fist." Raphael squeezed his hand shut, for a moment imagining himself back on the battlefield. "The flight of his arrow." A bow of scorching Holy fire materialized in his hand, the temperature skyrocketing at the presence of the Holy weapon. "It is our Duty to do what must be done."

In the Darkness of the Underworld a second sun bloomed, illuminating the entire realm and sending the entirety of the Devil population into a panic. Holy Light shot from the sun, its rays powerful enough to send demons scurrying for cover. A crimson headed Devil watched with narrowed eyes, his fellow leader raising his hand and summoning a magic circle large enough to protect the entire city.

Oaken doors parted, the slumbering God stirring once more at the return of his daughter. "My child."

The First Children of the Lord stiffened at the presence that washed over them. "Is that?" Gabriel asked, hope rising in her breast as tears threatened to pour from her eyes.

"Gabriel, the time of conservation is over. Father is out there!" Raguel declared. "Sound the horn."

She turned towards Michael, her brother numbly nodding as he processed what had just happened. Father was still out there, he was alive!

But then why did he not return?

Why did he only answer Raguel's call?

Every moment of everyday, not only he, but all his siblings prayed for his return. He prayed for Father's guidance, but was only met with silence.

A pang of jealousy jabbed his heart as his sister reached to her waist and drew a ram's horn inlaid with gold and enochian sigils.

Gabriel didn't hesitate, her lips wrapping around the opening as she blew it with all her might.

In another part, on land hallowed and consecrated by the very might of Heaven, angels borne on blacked wings watched as the Light rained down on them. What amazed them though was the fact that the Holy Light did not hurt them, even still some thought it an attack, others were unsure, but they all knew it was a sign. Among the eldest of them shock was plain on their face as they felt a call that they hadn't felt in millenia. Almost as one they turned their heads skywards, to their former home.

In Japan a man dressed as a ninja, felt the call mid flight. Distracted by the feeling he missed his step and instead of hopping from branch to branch he crashed face first into the trunk of the tree. Rather than slide down and fall like a normal person, he instead hit it hard enough the shatter the ancient tree. Landing on his feet he dusted off the pieces of pulp and bark on him as he looked skyward.

In every part of the world, across every realm, the children of Heaven, Fallen and Pure looked to the Heavens, the Grace within them resonating with the sound of the horn.

A Call to Arms.