Occult Encounters: Wings of Rebellion

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the author created characters and concepts. Thanks to Ranger Red 2.3, Mistycharming and SA June for their OC's used in this fic.

Stray rays of sunlight crept in through the gap in the fine curtains that hung over the window within Nyssa's room, though it was only early November, the air was becoming chilly and the early morning light was beginning to reflect the temperature outside. It had only been a day since their latest encounter with Nikolai and the atrocities he had committed that day, even so, the question on each of the ranger's minds was just what exactly happened to the Nightspawn when it was absorbed by Ellie's ring. A question which had been burning in the Fallen Angel's mind all night and persisted now as she rose from her bed and rubbed the tiredness from her eyes.

Fortunately for the Fallen Angel, like several of her other friends, she didn't require as much rest as a human would. Despite that, the fatigue it could bring would be problematic if she needed to fight off yet another attack by the cult. Deciding to freshen up, Nyssa outstretched her blackened wings from her back and stretched out as much as she could before making her way into the shower.

Emerging some time after, she returned wrapped in a towel to find a peculiar sight resting upon her bed while the window that had been closed prior to her leaving to shower now gave way to a small opening. Looking down at the objects resting on her bed, she found two items. One was a letter, oddly enough addressed to her. While the second was a black feather that shared likeness to her own. It raised suspicion that a Fallen Angel would contact her out of the blue, but for now, there was only one way to find out just why.

Opening the letter, she scanned the text quickly, her face soon turning grim as she processed what she was reading. "If what I'm reading is true, then we have a serious problem on our hands. I have to tell the others about this, if I don't, then who knows what might happen."

[Occult Circle]

Several hours had passed since Nyssa had received the letter entailing whatever had worried her so much as to bring it up as soon as she had made contact with the others. Though they had decided to bring it up in the Club's evening meeting that day alongside asking both Michael and Gabriel to be present to explain why the Nightspawn was absorbed by Ellie's ring, it still left them all on edge.

Ray was no exception to that as he walked beside the red ranger in the first break of the day. Though he wasn't directly involved with the threat, whatever had Nyssa so worked up was more than enough to unsettle him. Ray could see that Joe seemed to be worried about it too from what he could tell as they walked down the hall. "Hey Joe, you alright? You look like whatever Nyssa's found is really bad for us."

"Yeah, I guess I've just got a bad feeling about this. Last time we received a letter this way, well… You know what happened. It's got me on edge, thinking what if this is just another ploy for someone to kill one of us. I don't want to go blindly into this and let what happened to Sera happen again."

Before the red ranger could get another word in, he felt a hand on his shoulder as the two came to an abrupt half in the hallway. Turning toward his human friend, Joe could see Ray's expression had shifted from worry to a more serious and supportive one as he looked at the ranger, his hand clasped on Joe's shoulder. "Don't worry about what might happen Joe, even if you're right and it's a trap, I know you'll not let that happen again. You thought about telling Sera about what happened to her yet?"

Joe gave a short appreciative smile for his friend's reassurance before returning to the worried look he had been carrying since the news of this latest letter reached him. "I don't want to, she's a lot freer without knowing about her old life but given our situation, it's bound to come up eventually. When it does, I'm gonna tell her. When I do I need you to keep Michael busy, he doesn't want her to know but I don't get why he wouldn't."

"Anything to help my pal out. Maybe there's a reason Michael doesn't want her to know" Ray gave a reassuring nod as the bell to end the break rang and movement in the hallway began to increase.

"Alright, after the meeting, let's do this. If Michael is hiding something about why he's keeping her from the truth, we'll find out what too." Joe finished as the two headed their separate ways and toward their classrooms.

As they departed and the halls slowly emptied, from around the corner near where Joe and Ray had been stood emerged Lelina Phoenix, who twirled her long blonde hair around in her fingers. "An Archangel hiding things from them? Sounds like it's worth meddling with." She said with a short laugh before turning and skipping down the hallway to cause more mischief around the School.

[Occult Circle]

Brisk winds blew at the trees outside the windows of the clubroom as the shorter days of November quickly gave way to the darkness of the early evening. School had ended mere minutes ago and now the six rangers alongside Ray, Gabriel and Michael sat around the room as the meeting began.

Gabriel cleared his throat, wasting no time to get into one of the most important topics of the meeting. "Okay, now we're all here, I'm going to go over what exactly happened a few days ago with Ellie's ring and the Nightspawn. Since then I've been researching the rings as much as I could to understand their nature. All of the texts I have don't really paint much of a picture but while you were in the Underworld, your rings absorbed those chess pieces in a similar fashion from what you told me."

"Yeah, after that, we were stronger in different ways depending on what piece we had." Max confirmed before Gabriel continued.

"Exactly my point. The rings you possess seem to absorb items of power that it can incorporate to make the user stronger. Here's an example. Sera could you help me demonstrate?" Gabriel asked as he held up a white chess piece, in the shape of a Bishop.

"Okay, what is it you want me to do?" She asked as she rose and walked over to the man.

"All I need you to do is have your Celestial ring make physical contact with the Bishop, it's as simple as that." He said with a warm tone, reassuring her that no harm would come from it.

Taking the Bishop piece, the young Angel placed it against the Celestial ring upon her finger and watched with wide eyes as a white light covered the object and it was quickly absorbed into the ring.

"Thanks for helping Sera, you can sit back down now." Gabriel said as the white ranger returned to her seat. "Now there was one more thing that I did discover, the ring only absorbs objects and apparently living creatures with traits that suit its user. You see the chess piece absorbed into Sera's ring, and most likely the rest of the pieces in your rings aren't ordinary. They're magical objects, created to give the holder certain traits. The Bishop for example grants the holder the ability to cast supportive magic without any training required. With that in mind, it's safe to say that the Nightspawn is part of your ring now to serve some greater use one day." Gabriel finished explaining his findings before taking a seat.

"So we'll just have to see exactly why my ring absorbed the Nightspawn then, doesn't exactly fill me with confidence." Ellie added as opposite her, Saya gave an agreeing nod.

"It isn't exactly reassuring to not know when we might need it but so far the rings haven't let us down in our fight against the cult, hopefully that fact will remain true going forward."

As Saya finished commenting on the reliability of their supernatural artifacts, Joe rose from his seat with the open letter Nyssa had found in hand. "Speaking of going forward, we've got big trouble on our hands. Or at least we might have. Nyssa got this letter from a Fallen Angel this morning. It's a warning about the Cult and their plans for an all out attack against the demons in the Underworld. Whoever sent this wants to talk to us and sent us a location not too far from Numin but after what happened last time… I don't think it's such a good idea." Joe lowered his head as the other rangers excluding Sera exchanged uncomfortable glances, knowing what exactly what he was referring to.

"What happened last time?" Sera interrupted the few moments of uncomfortable silence, oblivious to just how touchy of a subject it was. "Did someone get hurt?"

"I'll… I'll tell you when we're done here." Joe answered, unwilling to make eye contact with her as he was reminded of that day yet again. "So, should we risk it? If we do chances are it's a trap, if we don't we might miss our only chance to get ahead of the Cult."

"What about this spy though?" Max chimed in. "If there's actually someone we know here that's working with the Cult, they'll know that their plans are out there and they'll change it so we can't prepare for them."

"I don't think you have to worry about that." Michael spoke up from where he sat. "As you know, we Angels have the ability to see into the hearts of others. As an Archangel, this power is greatly amplified to the point where no being has the ability to shield their real feelings and loyalties from me and yet I sense no malice in the room. I believe we're safe as long as only those of us in this room know." The Archangel reassured them as he scratched his chin. "Though I haven't been able to detect anyone like that in the School either, perhaps this spy isn't even aware of it. I'll keep looking but for now it's getting late."

As Michael finished up voicing his observations on their current spy problem, Joe rose from his seat. "We should be safe to meet up with this Fallen Angel then. Saya, you take the others and head to meet them but be careful, I'll catch Sera up on things in the meantime and we'll catch up as soon as we can." He adjourned the meeting, prompting the four rangers to leave quickly, followed shortly by Gabriel.

Michael however remained behind, his face was tense as he stood looking at the red ranger as the latter came close enough to speak so they couldn't be heard. "Joe, you can't tell Sera about her old life. I've told you before it won't accomplish anything, you'll expose her to a past I've kept hidden from her for good reason. Knowing that she's been lied to, it could be the thing that starts her on a dark path, her not knowing the truth saves her from that."

"It's not right though, she can't be lied to like that, it doesn't matter what you think is best any more Michael. I'm telling her the truth." Joe dismissed the Archangels argument as Ray cut between them.

"Michael, Sera's waiting to know about it, there's no hiding it now. I need help with a history report so I thought you could help me and take your mind off this for now." He offered an alternative to the Celestial overseeing the discussion, pointing to the young Angel sitting patiently on one of the couches.

Finally Michael conceded with a light sigh. "It's out of my hands now then. Sera likes to try and understand the world and its events as much as she can given how she knows so little, I can't keep her from wanting to know why you're so weary of potential defectors but if there are consequences, they're on you Joe." Michael warned before finally leaving with Ray.

Thankful that the confrontation was finally over, Joe took a seat opposite Sera. "Okay Sera, I'm going to tell you what happened the last time we got a letter like the one today but I just want to say I'm sorry first. We've all been keeping secrets from you because Michael wouldn't let us tell you."

A look of confusion came across the young Angel's face as she placed her hand on her chin. "Secrets? What's going on Joe?"

"You see, back when you first showed your face, how I reacted and everything that happened after on that day probably seemed weird and confusing right?" He asked, pausing as she gave a slight nod. "Well it's because back before you became an Angel, we knew you. We knew who you were before you…" He trailed off, still uncomfortable with saying it in case it brought up those feelings of despair again.

"Before I died? Is that what you're trying to tell me? You've been keeping the truth from me about who I was before then?" Sera asked as her voice became slightly elevated and Joe could hear the distress in her voice.

"I'm sorry Sera, Michael made you leave whenever we discussed it, he didn't this time because you wanted to hear this."

"What's this got to do with the last defector you dealt with? Why'd you have to go and tell me that I've been pretty much lied to for as long as I can remember!?" She exclaimed in a burst of emotion.

A feeling of dread crept around inside Joe for telling her this, but he knew it had to be said. "I'm sorry, that's all I can say. I wanted to tell you, but I was still mourning your death when you found me."

As Sera began putting the pieces together, she appeared to calm. "Wait, you mean back when I met you for the first time… You were mourning for your friend who was killed, that's why I was sent to help you, why Michael sent me… Because I was her." She deduced, surprised by the truth and the deceit of the Archangel who had orchestrated this from the beginning.

"I told you back then didn't I, if you didn't start questioning things, the truth would just make you even angrier when it came out. Back then I didn't know it was you Sera. I would've told you everything right there if I did."

"I believe you." She responded with an appreciative smile. "But you didn't answer why you're telling me this."

"Because back when we received a letter like this, it was from someone who was supposed to be your friend." Joe began as his fists clenched. "He lured us out and then, when our guards were down he k-killed you in cold blood. You died in my arms and I couldn't save you. That's why I was a wreck when you came back, it's why I'm weary of this new one and if it's the same. I don't want someone else to die. Even if there's some way to bring them back, what if they end up like you, having your memories taken away to make you 'better?'" He asked, alluding to something the Angel had been suspecting for some time now the truth was out.

"You mean I can't remember you or anything before being an Angel because of Michael? He did that to me?"

"I wish I could tell you different but he said it was the only way you'd be able to become an Angel to begin with. He said your memories were completely gone and you'd never get them back." Joe finished explaining her situation as a short but familiar and unnerving laugh came from the doorway.

"So that's what the Archangel's been hiding from you is it?" The voice asked as the two rangers turned their heads to find Lelina Phoenix walking into the room with a wide grin on her face. "I bet it's heartbreaking to hear all this about one of your greatest role models, but from what my Dad's always said about him, if the Archangel wasn't so pure in his beliefs, he'd make the worst of demons look like kittens." Lelina lorded the revelations of just how many morally questionable actions he had taken in the name of his Lord over the young Angel, even if these were only the ones that applied to Sera.

"Lelina, I know Michael's done a lot that he shouldn't have but Sera's still trying to come to grips with this, please don't make things any worse." Joe asked the High demon nicely.

Lelina gave a light shrug. "Why would I do that, after all I know a way to fix things. You see, while snooping through my dad's stuff my servant was reading a book to me about the Celestial realms, there were some boring passages about a place called the Sanctum that holds a gate that can end the world, nothing important really but then he read something to me about one of the smallest but one of the most protected Celestial realms, it's a place called the Memory Wellspring. Turns out any memories they remove are stored there for some reason. I wanted to go and see what dirty little secrets they might be hiding there but the place's locked up tighter than Pandora's Box. Again not really important but you get the idea, maybe you guys can try go there, get Sera's memories back and stick it to the Archangel. I don't know just an idea." She relayed the information to them before swivelling around on her foot and departing, all the while humming to herself.

The two were left in brief silence, taking in the surprisingly helpful information before Joe finally decided to speak. "So, we've finally got some hope of getting your memories back, where do you want to go from here?"

[Occult Circle]

Having made their way through the dark and chilly streets, the remaining Occult rangers soon came to the meeting point where the Cult defector would make contact with them. Near to the suburban areas of the City, the location they had chosen was an old football field that the local teens commonly passed the time at. Scoping the area, the rangers could find no sign of the Fallen Angel they were looking for.

A few more moments of searching passed as Max tapped into his beastial senses to sharpen his eyesight, looking around, he soon spotted a figure stood atop the crossbar of one of the goal posts and pointed. "Over there, pretty sure that's who we're looking for."

"Well how many strangers do you usually see standing on top of a goal post in the middle of the night? Of course that's them." Saya remarked as they headed toward the figure.

As they neared, two dark wings extended from the figure's back and the suspected defector descended to the ground in front of the rangers. Coming into view, the being was in fact a Fallen Angel. Sporting shoulder length brown hair, a light tan, blackened wings and blackened plate armour, a dark metallic short sword resting at her side within its scabbard. She bore a small smile as she shifted her eyes to focus on Nyssa.

"Nyssa I'm glad you've come. I was afraid you'd ignore me, given who I have to serve." The Fallen Angel greeted.

To the surprise of the others, Nyssa exchanged a warm smile, acknowledging the other. "Atreal, it's been so long. I should've known it was you, your handwriting always was crude." She told the other known as Atreal in a playful manner.

The Fallen Angel gave a quick laugh. "You know me Nyss, I like to practice with a sword more than I do a pen. I'd love to chat some more but you know why I'm here so let's cut straight to it. I guess you know by now that the rest of our people are with the Cult because Skuros forced them, but our Armies just stood behind our Generals when they went to his side and so I followed too. Recently though, an ambitious Commander attacked Eligor after he was wounded going after you and your team. Eligor won of course, but then he scoured through our ranks for someone like him, someone he thinks he can trust, and he found me."

Nyssa quickly understood and nodded. "So you're one of his Commanders now, should've known by the fancy looking armour. That why you're here?"

"Yeah. He invited me and the other Commanders to unveil Skuros' grand plan to wipe the demons out and claim the Underworld while we're at it, a conquest to take several realms at once. I couldn't commit to a war like that, just imagining how many innocents would suffer. So I stole the plans and here I am. We need to get these to the Underworld before the Cult can track me down."

As she finished her sentence, five ear piercing shrieks erupted throughout the area, causing the group to cover their ears for a moment until it subsided. However, when it did, five birdlike figures swooped over them, forcing the rangers and Atreal to dive for cover. Rising up from the ground, the five of them looked skyward to see the figures that attacked them in full view. Circling overhead was what initially appeared to be humans with wings for arms, feathers covering their entire bodies and talon feet.

"Harpies!" Atreal identified them with a panicked look. "Damn, the Cult's sent out their bloodhounds after me, guess they want those plans back real bad."

"Couldn't they just come up with different plans instead of going to all this trouble?" Ellie made a reasonable argument as they watched and anticipated the next attack from the Harpies.

"Not possible." Saya spoke up. "The Underworld is the domain of the Infernals, the demon armies know of every plan of attack that could be used against them from several millennia of infighting, the only real way to fight the demon forces now is to fight head on, so they won't change their plans but those plans Atreal carries will likely contain important details that will be costly to the Cult if they get out." She explained to them before returning her attention to the Harpies flying overhead. "We should deal with them and send you to the Underworld and my father as quickly as possible, he can help you from there, now everyone?" She informed the defecting Commander before finally prompting the others to action.

Waving their hands over the Occult rings, the mystical objects flared to life with energy. "Occult Breakout!" The four called as they morphed into their respective ranger forms.

Each ranger drew their weapons not a moment too soon as the Harpies came screeching down at them. Swiping with their Talons, the Harpies wrestled to take the weapons from the rangers hands in a vicious tug of war.

As the rangers fought back in a stalemate, Atreal also fought off one Harpy with the black shortsword. The beastly creature hissed as it opened its mouth to reveal a set of sharp jagged teeth. "Lord Skuros is going to reward us with lots of shiny things once we kill you."

"You sound pretty certain that you're gonna kill me. I guess the Dark Angel doesn't really understand who he's trying to get rid of. Allow me to show you." The Fallen Angel replied as she spun her sword around in her hand. Charging at the Harpy, Atreal extended her black wings from her back and took a wing assisted leap, flying toward the creature.

In quick succession, the Fallen Angel, kicked the Harpy as soon as it was in range, taking it by surprise as she beat her wings once more and flew over the creature's head. Spinning around in mid-air as she descended behind the Harpy, Atreal drove her shortsword down the Harpy's back. As she touched back on the ground, the Harpy let out a loud and pained shriek, stumbling around in it's flight.

"Still not dead? I admire your endurance but that won't last for long." Atreal said to to Harpy as she readied her blade to finish a deathblow.

As she started her run up however, the Fallen Angel skidded to a halt and watched with wide eyes as the Harpy was struck with a Lightspear, decimating it in an explosion of light. Looking in the direction that the Celestial weapon was thrown from, Atreal watched with surprise as the red and white rangers entered the battle.

Watching the two as they cut down the remaining Harpies and swiftly ending the deadlock their teammates had been in. Atreal was surprised and quite amazed by the efficiency of the team at full strength as the seven worked together to finish off Skuros' hunters. As the last of the Harpies was destroyed in a fiery explosion, it let out a terrified shriek, and with that a calm settled in, signifying the end of the battle.

Atreal watched as the rangers regrouped and demorphed before heading toward her with Joe in the centre of them. He was the first to extend out a hand to her. "Hey, Nyssa says you're the one who's turning against the Cult. I saw your moves back there pretty impressive, thanks for helping out my friends till we came."

"It was no problem." She replied by shaking his hand. "Your teamwork was pretty impressive too."

"Nyssa told me you guys are old friends, didn't expect another Fallen Angel to be on our side though." Joe added as Atreal looked at the weapon in her hand.

"Most of us don't agree with Skuros' rule, but he kills or breaks anyone who opposes him. Everyone's too afraid to do anything, but I'm done staying quiet. I was part of an order of Fallen Angels at one time, the Ebonguard. Though our wings are black, we believed we should still protect our people from tyranny. When Skuros began to rule though, he hunted us, so I hid and I've been hiding since. But now there might be a chance. If the demons can defeat Skuros and the Axis, the Fallen Angels can be free." She explained her motives before looking back up and shifting her gaze toward Nyssa.

"Okay, if you believe Skuros can be beaten, and our people can be free, then I'll believe it too." Nyssa said with a confident smile. "Now let's get you and those plans to the Underworld, they're gonna need all the help they can get."

|Occult Circle|

Occult Ally - Atreal - A now former Commander of the Fallen Angel Army, Atreal is one of Nyssa's few remaining long time friends, spanning back to childhood in this case. She was also part of the Ebonguard, an elite order sworn to protect the people, their swords are distinctly black and emblazoned with the order's logo, however any surviving Ebonguard have since removed this to keep hidden. Atreal is one of the first Fallen Angels to openly rebel against Skuros and live, this is due to the expert combat skills she has displayed countless times and has earned her a great deal of renown with Eligor's forces. As a result, her defection has stirred up more talk of rebellion against the oppressive Tyrant within not just the Axis forces but all castes of Fallen Angels.

That's chapter 23 finished and a lot of stuff happened here. First off I'm just going to say that I've been really busy with life and Uni and if you want to know more, go read the big excuse paragraph on my profile, if nothing it's probably going to be something to have a laugh at. So this chapter went a bit differently from what I was going for originally. Primarily because I've been working at this chapter for a while now but I think it worked out for the best and being more interesting than what I first planned. It was a way to introduce what I'd say is a pretty badass new ally, but I'd only originally planned to give this character a single appearance. That's not the case now though, you'll be seeing some arcs now and again with Atreal in them. Now the other big development was Sera learning about everything with some callbacks to link up certain things in earlier chapters, I thought of Lelina messing around with Ray and Michael but I thought her causing a little chaos in the future by directing them to this newly mentioned Celestial realm seemed to be more productive.

Now that I've got that out of the way, it's time for a shameless self plug. For several months now I've slowly been working away at a new story in a new fandom, now this probably isn't for everyone but for those who are fans of the Persona series, which Occult Circle takes some thematic inspiration from in case you couldn't tell, once this chapter is published, the first two chapters of that will be up already, so go check it out if you want. It's something new and I'm going in without knowing how it'll be received so feedback would be appreciated. As a little bonus for anyone who likes making OCs, good news for you, there's an OC contest at the end of the second chapter. Hopefully that's enough to entice people to check it out but I'll leave it at that and see how it goes, that's all from me, until the next chapter, which hopefully won't take over a month to come out.

Next Chapter: Occult Beasts: Yatagarasu

Synopsys: Now aware of the pending attack on the Underworld, the Occult rangers debate how to proceed with their own fight against the Cult. However, they soon receive word that the third member of the Fallen Axis, Amon, has set foot in Numin accompanied by a giant crow like creature from an ancient realm shrouded in mystery. What is Amon plotting to involve such a great and mysterious beast? Find out next time on Power Rangers: Occult Circle.