Chapter 12

(AN: Okay, from now on no more showing of accent pronunciation unless its cockney like the Randy thing "be'er bein' the 'ost o' the trials fer givin' out life." But not Fred's 'ah' instead of 'I' cos, you know, I've been told that that's annoying. But when Fred appears right here she has no accent she had more of an 'Illyria' voice.)

Russ woke up on a cold, hard concrete slab. He groaned and tried to get up but then realised slowly, due to headache, he had chains on his hands and feet that tied him down to the slab. He tested the chains by tugging them but they held fast.

"That won't work." A voice said from out of the shadows as Russ gave up.

"I figured." He muttered under his breath. Then he recognised the voice and forgot everything else, "Fred?" Fred stepped into the dim light that surrounded Russ. He couldn't help but smile widely and never once did the thought enter his mind that it was impossible for Fred to be there and that it might be one of the tests. But I'm not telling, mouth is zipped and soldered shut. Ouch painful, okay over it.

"Hello Russ." She said coldly and then ripped his shirt open in one movement. Then she turned her attention to something that was just out of Russ' view point but he didn't care about that. I mean, it's Fred! Even though the whole ripping thing was a bit out of character...

"You have no idea how happy I am to see you here." Russ almost gushed but Fred just ignored him and kept busy with whatever she was keeping busy with. With this a little of the happiness drained away and some of the reality came back.

"So are you going to get me out? Or just mess around with-" Russ stopped suddenly when he lifted up his head to look at what she was messing around with and he saw it. She was 'messing around' with a table with many painful looking torture devices including many a scalpel and screwdrivers and implements that I don't even think have names but look extremely 'owie'.

"Fred?" Russ asked, worried that the love of his life was extremely interested in the array of sharp, blunt and clamping things in front of her. Fred held up one of the sharper scalpels to the light and examined it. Then, satisfied, she looked down at Russ.

"This might hurt a bit." She said, voice so completely emotionless that Russ knew it was going to hurt a lot. Then she started to slowly, and shallowly, cut from the top of his ribcage down his chest...

Now unless you are a very sadistic and twisted person you probably won't want a description of the following hours so I will go with you unsadistic and untwisted people because I, of course, am not sadistic nor twisted. Alright I'll just vaguely describe what happened besides the cutting and the poking and the twisting and all those other sadistic things.

"Why?" Russ asked hoarsely while Fred examined the tray of mostly blood stained instruments, looking for her next. Then she found it. And believe me if you saw it, it would give you nightmares for years. Fred glanced down at Russ.

"Because I don't love you Russ. How could I love you?" Then she got to work and as she did, this time not all of the wounds healed up completely. And Russ cries were even louder than usual.

"No... You told me. You told me you-" He protested weakly as she put away that instrument, for now.

"I lied." She said and then picked up her all time favourite, the flame thrower. She loved to watch the skin curl back from it, it seemed. That or she really liked the colour black. He howled as she put the flame onto his skin and this time the burns didn't heal at all. Russ started quivering as he felt the beginning stages of his body starting to shut down automatically from the heavy damage.

"Why?" He asked, barely a whisper as Fred picked up another torture device.

"Because you're so pitiful and weak. Like a little puppy trying to get a home by latching onto the nearest thing it can. Well, Russ, I think it's about time I extract you from me. Don't you think?" Fred asked and then held the instrument in front of Russ' eyes. It definitely was an extractor. Then, before the 'extractor' even touched his skin, wounds started to appear on his face that had been from previous times. They kept coming until he was pretty much covered in them.

"So Russ, still want to save me?" Fred looked at him with an evil expression on her face that had never been on her face before and Russ was scared of what she had become. But then he came through.

"Yes."

Everything was white. Okay that's slightly overrated. It looked like the white room except there was a lack of walls and ceilings. A storm loomed overhead and Russ looked up at the black sky. It looked like it would rain any minute but it also looked like it had never rained before. Lovely, clouds threatening, that wasn't too ominous about the last trial. Russ' trials seemed so much more complex than Angel's, especially the settings. Compare the Black Void to the medieval scenes he went through. But then the complexness was probably because of the fact that it was in his mind and his mind could fabricate these complex settings. Well, unused potential goes a long way. (Cough, cough, I just couldn't help but make a little bit of fun at Russ there. Hehe, unused potential.)

Russ realised all of his wounds from the previous test was gone but he could still feel the pain. He knew now that even though he knew it had been a test that was it. His powers were back to the way that they were before. He could no longer regenerate. Sure he could still morph (explanation later) but that was about it. Luckily he wasn't left with all of the wounds from before because otherwise he wouldn't have been able to lift a speck of dust without hurting himself fatally.

"Hello Russ." A booming voice echoed in the white room and Russ spun around, trying to locate it.

"Hiya big boomy voice. Nice weather isn't it? Am I going to be tortured again?" Russ said, not too keen about the torturing, and the voice chuckled.

"Don't worry Russ, this one is different." The voice replied and Russ looked around.

"Well then." He muttered to himself and turned to see a single white feather float down from the sky. He looked up at the approximate spot that it had fallen from and saw another float down. And then another. And then another. And they got faster and faster until it was raining feathers. Russ just looked around in disbelief. I mean, feathers! Seriously.

Russ picked up one of the feathers and studied it carefully. It kinda reminded him of this other feather that he'd seen a while back. He struggled to remember and got the faintest memory and then... He remembered and his eyes widened.

"Oh shit." He said and looked up before starting to sprint off in a direction away from the origin of the feathers and the main place where it was raining. He continued to run for his life when the feathers started to get heavier and heavier. They were up to his calves now and he slugged it out, trying desperately to get away. He glanced behind him and saw the pile getting bigger and bigger. It looked a little like when a tsunami threatened and you were just standing on the beach with your mouth open. Except with feathers and Russ was sprinting.

Then it stopped all of a sudden. But Russ didn't stop running. He pumped his legs hard as he could which resulted in him almost wading through the feathers which were up to his knees. He felt wind on the back of his neck and ducked quickly, narrowly missing getting his head taken off his shoulders by a flying projectile'.

The 'projectile' stopped in front of him and he could only stare. The words 'arch angel' came to mind because if there were such things then this is certainly what they would look like. Standing, okay hovering, at 6'6" he had long brown hair that reached just past his shoulders and piercing green eyes. A long scar ran down his cheek and had a hybrid smirk-sneer on his face. The only clothing he had was clean, simple, linen cream pants. His chest was left bare and all muscly and wings came out of his back. The wings reached down to the back of his knees and were thick with long white feathers like the ones that had rained down earlier.

Russ had only heard of this 'arch angel' and that was the reason that he had ran when he saw the feathers coming down, it always rained feathers just before he came down from the sky. And Russ had also heard that he wasn't the sort of 'angel' you would want to be meeting in combat, he was extremely powerful. Like Russ, he possessed the energy to regenerate and, also like Russ, the energy to transform into anything that he chose to be. (Yes Russ can do this, person, animal, just about any living thing and it takes less energy than regenerating wounds because he doesn't regenerate when he morphs so...) But Russ wasn't too concerned about this, he was more concerned about the 3 foot long sword that the 'arch angel' was holding at his side.

"Hullo Gabriel." Russ said wearily. True, the name was cliché but, as Russ had learned, it was cliché because Gabriel was the 'arch angel' described in all the historical texts that mentioned 'arch angels'. And arch angel is in quotation marks because he isn't really any type of angel, just because of the wings that his favourite body had they thought he was but the un-angelic manner that he had made them rethink that. Therefore, the term arch angel was born.

"Russet." Gabriel inclined his head at the half demon respectfully.

"So you're the last test." Russ said.

"I'm the last test." Gabriel said, opening his arms slightly.

"I was wondering when the 'mystical' part of my heroism would bite me on the ass." Russ said, his voice showing his tiredness. He was tired ahead of the battle, anticipating what would happen.

"Well I'm ready," Gabriel said and floated down to the ground and then morphed into a huge silver wolf, the sword morphing with him, "And I'm about to bite." He said, a growl in the back of his throat. Russ sighed heavily and turned into a brown wolf of roughly the same size at the same time. Okay, if you could've seen the morphs it would've been really cool. Gabriel's sword basically melted into his hand and then the silveriness of the sword coats his whole body and he starts to grow fur and a snout and his arms and legs change. With Russ his brown jacket flapped up and hung in mid air over his head for a second and when he sighed it suddenly fell on his head and the whole package shrinks to the ground and then hair sprouts and form is made and in a second he was a wolf, the transformation being much quicker than Gabriel's.

"Let's do this." Russ said, the growl in the back of his throat similar to Gabriel's only less 'growly' and more 'woofy'. At the same time they both leaped at each other and crashed into each other at the same time as a bolt of lightning flashed in the distance.

The two wolves fell to the ground and rolled around, fighting for dominance, clawing and biting each other. Gabriel was on top and it was a battle of the wills as he tried to reach Russ's neck with his teeth. Russ won and kicked him off to the side and he slid for a few metres before Russ pounced on him. They continued to struggle with each other for a few minutes, blood specking their fur and matting it down.

Russ had Gabriel pinned beneath him for a few seconds but then Gabriel threw him up into the air and he spiralled into the sky. After one whole spiral he morphed in mid air into a griffin and flapped his big wings strongly, making feathers go flying everywhere beneath him.

Gabriel looked up and saw this so he quickly launched himself into the air and morphed into a griffin too. They kept their distance, sizing each other up. Gabriel kept his silver colour and Russ his brown only Russ was now a golden brown that would've shone brilliantly if there was a sun and Gabriel was now a bluish grey that was similar to an eye colour.

Gabriel made the first move and charged forward, his wings flapping hard, and Russ started to charge towards Gabriel with similar passion and they clashed in mid air. Their claws tore at each other and their beaks did much the same work. Within seconds their feathers were stained with blood and one of Russ' eyes was closed because it had been so damaged and one of Gabriel's wings was broken. Russ pushed him towards the ground and flew backwards and upwards away from him.

As Gabriel fell he felt his second wing break beneath his body and he couldn't help but howl. Russ hovered for a few seconds and then charged at the form of the injured griffin. Before Russ hit him he morphed back into his original 'arch angel' form and just before Russ hit the ground he pulled up and morphed back into his own form and fell onto the ground, knees bent and hand on the ground.

He walked over to Gabriel who lay on the ground bleeding and moaning softly. Russ looked down at him with blood getting in the way of his view plus his eyes was so swollen he couldn't open it. His face had a big gash across it and blood stained his shirt visibly. Russ looked down at Gabriel who looked up at him in return, green eyes showing his pain.

Gabriel coughed harshly and then spit up some blood. He sneered up at Russ.

"You going to," He coughed, "Finish the job?" Russ looked down at him, fire in his eyes. Probably the after affects of the massive fight they just had. And although he knew he would regret it later on, he broke every rule that was ever established regarding fights between 'morphing' demons. He held out his hand to Gabriel.

"It's not what Fred would've done." Russ said as Gabriel grabbed Russ' hand and Russ lifted him up.

"What Fred would've done... You're doing this for Fred." Gabriel said and winced slightly as Russ put Gabriel's arm around his shoulders to help him to stand in the feathers.

"I do everything for Fred. Gabe, my whole world revolves around her." Russ said and steadied Gabriel against him.

"And it's going to continue to do just that." Gabriel said and Russ looked at him, confused. Gabriel continued, "Mercy isn't overrated Russ. It's part of being a hero."

"And I just passed the third test?" Russ asked and Gabriel nodded.

"Well it wasn't exactly stakes flying at me..." Russ said with a grin on his face.

"Russ." Gabriel said seriously and Russ turned to look at him.

"What is it Gabe?"

"Don't take this lightly, you are a hero. You just proved it. Heroism isn't all about killing demons and beating the bad guy. It's about seeing things in people and being compassionate as well. And that's what you are Russet. And nowadays we don't have enough of those heroes."

"Thanks Gabriel." Russ said, really meaning it and Gabriel allowed himself a smile.

"In case we never see each other again... Thankyou and, you're the real deal." Gabriel said and Russ smiled at him widely.

"You're welcome Gabriel. And thanks." Russ grinned and then everything faded out...