The two walked along the beaten path through the woods. Duo was leading Ria, as she kept watch over the forest. Her presence on Earth would lead more demons into this area which means the crime rate would go up temporarily. She could feel eyes watching her, but she knew that they wouldn't do anything. They were only curious about a Death deity being in a place like this.
"What are you staring at?" Duo asked, pulling her attention back to the present.
She shrugged, "I'm calming the beings that live in the darkness. They don't know whether they should let me pass or come into the light to fight me."
"The beings?" He stopped, turning his attention into the woods, catching sight of a pair of glowing red eyes before they disappeared again. "What the hell was that?"
"A Being. A Darkling. Something that thrives in the night. They're attracted to Death and the power of Death."
As they continued to walk, Duo kept staring into the woods catching a passing shadow shift from one tree to another. He could see the grinning face, bright green eyes, and what looked like a mist of dark green around its head. He almost stopped where he was in the path to fully stare until he felt a small hand on the small of his back.
"Keep walking. As long as you keep walking, they won't bother you." Ria kept her face forward, gently guiding the pilot down the path.
"Can they follow us into Space?"
"I would suppose so, but I personally have never seen one of these creatures in space. They're not built for a vacuum. They need the forest and darkness…both of which one doesn't find in the deep recesses of space or in a colony. It's too bright and they need nature, but I suppose if you turned off all of the light in a colony, one might be able to call forth one of the darklings."
They stopped in front of a house. Duo used a key to open an elaborate door lock: top and bottom lock, and when he opened the door, the latch chain on the inside popped as well. Using a switchblade that he pulled from the bottom of his pocket, he unlatched the inner chain, leading the Goddess inside.
"This place is really big, Duo. Why is it so big if it's just you?" Ria asked, looking around at the spacious living room and dining room along with the multiple bedrooms. She wandered around, going from room to room. The rooms may be big, she thought, but when it comes to furnishings there's hardly anything here. She went into the bedrooms; there were four. Three of the four bedrooms held one single bed. The fourth and last bedroom held three beds, being as it was the master bedroom of the house.
"There are four other people coming to the house. You will be rooming with Heero and I, if you don't mind, or I can have one of the other guys room with me and Heero and you can sleep in their room. Your choice," Duo said, going through the cabinets looking for something edible to eat.
"It doesn't matter to me. I can sleep anywhere, as long as I don't have to sleep outside while I know there is a warm bed just waiting for me."
Duo looked at Ria like she had grown not one but two extra heads. "Has Vicky ever told you about all of us?"
"No." Ria replied feeling a little left out by the fact that she didn't know anything about Duo or these mystery friends. "She's never really spoken about Earth and the people down here. And when she does, she's usually in a bad mood. If she ever has spoken about you guys, I missed the conversations by a long shot because I was either in a lesson, studying, in Angelic City, or running around yelling orders to the Maiden Angels in Heaven."
"Maiden Angels?"
"Yes, Maiden angels. They clean up, they turn down beds for visitors, and they dust. Janitorial Angels also clean up, but they do the plumbing and heating if a sector of Heaven is over the frozen wastelands or it's winter in that sector. The Electronic Angels handle the electricity in Heaven. Then, in the cafeteria, the Cafeteria Angels make the food and send it off to its respected room numbers. In Angelic City, there are jobs galore. But in Heaven, everyone is assigned a duty. For instance, just like all the other angels, the Warrior Angels have a duty. Their duty is to protect the heavenly boundaries against attacks on Heaven from Devlon. They are more amoeba-like than the other angels as they move in packs, and generally stay off of the God's Ledge because Vicky and I are normally up there in turns if not together. Usually it's me, but I guess Vicky wants her fill of luxury. Vicky and I are the only un-amoeba-like goddesses up there. I only come down to Earth when I need to harvest souls, and to encourage them on their page to Heaven, Hell, or wherever they do end up."
"Wait…," For a moment, Duo paused, "You harvest souls? What's your full title in Heaven?"
"My full title? I am the Goddess of Death."
Duo was wide-eyed and shocked. "Has my name ever come up on your paperwork?"
"Your name?" She thought for a moment, "No. Not that I can recall, but I do remember a few Maxwells from a long time ago. They were among the first souls that Darien allowed me to take care of on my own. If I remember correctly, they're somewhere in Angelic City running a church."
"Heaven has churches?"
"Yes, we have churches for all faiths. Heaven is something different for all faiths as well. Whatever one's faith is in Earth, or on their planet, we have hallway for that. We have an area in Angelic City for that. Angelic City is always growing. Also, technically, we call it The God's Ledge. Gods of all kinds find their way there, and every religion has an afterworld, but not every religion calls it Heaven."
Duo looked stumped, "Wow…I never even knew Heaven to be so complex. And you've lived up there for eight years?"
"Yup, and I still don't know the whole heavenly parameters. But, humans never really know how very complex Heaven is because they don't live up there. Plus, they think it's a place where you can get all you want. But it's not. Everyone needs to earn their stay. If you're a snob on earth, then you're more or less gonna be like a drudge in Heaven. That's if you even get to Heaven. Humans literally need to go through me to get there." She smiled to herself, "Well, I need to check my email, check my voicemail, and check a lot of things." I also need to check who's gotta go tonight; she thought, people are gonna die at my feet tonight if I do have to go out.
She sat at the table while Duo watched and waved her hand. In front of her, a laptop appeared. She pushed a button and her laptop started booting up. As her laptop was booting up, she took out her cell phone and turned that on as well. While that was turning on, she put the password into her laptop and let it continue booting up as she checked her voicemail. "Two voicemails and a text message from Vicky," she read out loud. The voicemails were from Darien and Maria. The Text said simply, "How is he treating you? Is Earth good? Get used to him, because the other four are heart stoppers…literally." I wonder what she means by that, Ria thought as she turned to her computer. There was a picture of her in her darkest hour. Spirals of darkness billowing out from the bottoms of a long black, wispy dress. The dress was low cut in the front and her blue-black hair was done up exquisitely in a Chinese bun complete with black chopsticks to hold it together. She was clearly the Goddess of Death. The scythe she held behind her gleamed with the glitter of prime Angeliquim crystal steel. Very beautiful and very, very strong. The blade itself was also made of Angeliquim, but it was a different type. Steel amethyst to be more precise. It looked clear like amethyst, but it was harder then any man-made steel. The goddess of death's weapon of choice was by far, the most lethal weapon of all.
She checked her emails. Stupid email, she thought, I hate bulk mail. She deleted everything. Nothing worthy of keeping. The same with the inbox. There was never any point to going into her inbox. But there wasn't any empty button like bulk mail. So, entering inbox was inevitable if there was mail. She turned off the computer and checked the time on her phone. It was 1:30 a.m. down on Earth, and Ria, who was ready to retire to bed, went in search of Duo. He was currently sitting on one of the few couches watching, you guessed it, the news. What else was there to watch at 1:30.…check that… 1:35 in the morning? She told him she was going to sleep in the bed in his room. He said okay and that he'd see her in the morning.
As she walked across the floor, she was walking on light feet. She would easily find the bedroom because it was the only bedroom that had three beds. All of a sudden, she stopped, pain suddenly laced through her back. She dropped to her knees, catching Duo's gaze. He rushed over and attempted to help her up. She only screamed as her back felt like it was being ripped into shreds. She fell on the floor while he yelled for Vicky to come. The Warrior Woman arrived seconds later in her night robe and rushed to Ria's side. The poor girl was sobbing and crying on the ground as the tips of her wings pushed their way through the very skin of her back.
She was starting to bleed a lot and Duo ran to get bandages and paper towels, anything to ease the pain as he watched this horrific and painful ordeal of a Goddess retrieving her wings. The wings were blue-black and almost halfway out. She screamed as she biggest section cut through her back and made the holes that were now gouged in her back large, gruesomely bloody, and by 1:55a.m. the ordeal was over, and Ria lay passed out face-down on the floor from the intense pain with her blue-black wings covering a good twenty feet in diameter of the spacious living room. Vicky shifted Ria off of her lap and into Duo's waiting arms as he lifted Ria up. Vicky was covered in gleaming red splotches, as was Duo. The floor was a no-go as Duo quickly made the assumption that it would be better for them to get a new carpet all together than to try to clean up the red spots on the floor at the moment.
Vicky then wrapped Ria's new wings in a thick coverage of bandages. Over and around the wings and around the holes in her back. The bandages would collect most of the blood, but not all. It was sad to see anybody go through this ordeal, but it paid off in the end. Sadly, Vicky would never get her wings. Warrior Women didn't get wings. She led Duo up the stairs and into the room he would share with Heero and Ria. She told him to allow Ria to sleep with him.
~*~*~*~*~*~In the early morning~*~*~*~*~*
Ria had gotten up early in the morning. Around 5:45 to be exact. She was rummaging through the cabinets trying to find food to make. All she found was vacuum dried food in little packages. She also found Rigatoni noodles, lasagna noodles, macaroni and cheese, Ragu sauce, Prego tomato sauce, tortellini, a wide arrange of knives, forks, and spoons, garlic cloves, garlic powder, pepper, salt, and sugar. A wide arrange of cooking items. Inside the fridge, she found juice, eggs, bacon, Taylor ham, cold cuts, milk, water, syrup, a cup of pancake batter mix, butter, and other things. The freezer had almost nothing in it. She then went to the snack cabinet. The snack cabinet was basically the same thing as the freezer only it had salt and pepper chips, s'mores pop tarts, and fig newtons. The rest of the space in the cabinet was given up to cob-webs.
"Well, looks like I'm going to the Angel Café today. I really don't feel like making breakfast today. Plus, Anna makes really good eggs." She said to herself. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Duo walk down the stairs. He looked like a wreck. His hair was all disheveled and she noticed that he had changed into his clothes. She, on the other hand, was still in her clothes from yesterday. The same black jeans, the same white shirt only roomier with the holes that her wings had torn. Her wings twitched with the bandages still around them. A few feathers had been dislodged, floating to the linoleum floor
"What are you doing up so early?" Duo asked as he looked at Ria.
"I was looking through the kitchen. Why are you up this early?"
"My friends should be arriving sometime to-" He didn't need to finish his sentence because the front door opened, and four boys walked in. There was a blonde, two brunettes, and a black-haired man. One of the two brunettes had a long bang that hung over half his face while the other had messy, short, dark brown hair. The latter had a scowl on his face that could and probably would scare the living daylights out of anybody had Ria not seen that scowl on Vicky's face countless times.
Duo smiled and said, "Guys! You're here! What took you so long?"
The short haired brunette replied, "Duo, we arrived at the same time that we said we would arrive."
"Aw come on, Heero, you're late by…." Duo looked at the clock that was hanging by the wall, " …10 minutes. I think this is a first. The famous Gundam Pilots are late by ten minutes." Duo started laughing.
Heero paused in his interrogation of his braided companion, "Duo, why is there a blood-stain on the floor?"
Duo raised both his hands up in the air, "I didn't kill anybody! Spontaneously, her wings came through last night. Vicky and I took care of her. Notice the blood-stained bandages…which, by the way, need to be changed again. So, have some breakfast, miss, and then we will get you some clean bandages."
Heero finally turned his attention to the winged-deity in the kitchen, "What's your name?"
"She says her name is Goddess," Duo piped up, pulling himself up to sit on the counter.
"No," She replied, "My name is Anahria. I'm surprised that Vicky never spoke about me."
Ria stared at the five boys in front of her. They all glared at her with varying states of emotions from distrust to bewilderment. It was Heero though who caught her attention.
"01?" She asked.
"Yes?" Heero replied, turning his gaze back towards the girl.
"I remember you. You were in a big…humming…whirling…beeping machine. And there was a man with a claw."
"J." The dark-haired pilot supplied.
"Yes!"
"You're the girl that was in the capsule."
"Yes…" She said, "I remember everything before I woke up here. I remember my life before the capsule 500-years ago. My first memory from this age is of you and that crazy old man, J. From that moment on, I was who I am today." She looked up, feeling the gaze of the group around her. She hadn't meant to get dramatic, but yet, she did. She hadn't thought of that day when she woke up in a long, long time. "Welp, this turned awkward real quickly," she said.
"How old are you really?" Duo asked, narrowing his eyes, lowering his chin slightly and angling his head towards the goddess.
"On the books or off the books?"
"Off the books," he replied, asking the questions the other pilots clearly had written across their faces.
"Off the books, I'm the same age as you guys. If you want to be technical, I am approximately 515 years old."
"Damn, you're old. You look good for being an old lady." Duo laughed, running is hand through his bangs, tossing his arms behind his head.
Ria raised a finger, pointing it at the braided pilot who immediately stopped laughing as he stared down the manicured cuticle. "Watch it, you. I run Heaven with God. I am the last face people see in the world before their consciousness fades. Just because your name hasn't come up in my books yet doesn't mean that I can't harvest your soul prematurely and send it straight to the bad place. Then you need to file all kinds of paperwork, an addendum, and hand in a written essay on why you feel you should be released from hell into Limbo or Heaven. Don't tempt me."
The silence was deafening as the boys all contemplated the goddess's words. They all shared a common expression of disbelief as she glared them down, daring them to counteract her words. She knew it wasn't exactly the best way to start out the week, but c'est la vie. She only lived once…sort of. As she stood going over how she could smooth out the rocky atmosphere, Darien called her. She was on vacation. Yes, it was vacation in a war zone, but it was still a vacation.
"Status?" Darien asked.
Out loud, Ria yelled, "Go away, Darien!"
"Status!"
"Did I stutter, Darien!?"
By now everyone was staring at Ria. They had no idea who this crazy person was, but whether they were awake for this or not, it was still too early for their heads to figure out. First, she had cautioned them with being able to send their souls prematurely to Hell, and now she was speaking to the ceiling.
"Ria, who are you talking to?" Duo asked, massaging his head. He just got up from a very long night and now he had a headache.
"Darien. He wants to know my status. He's a lazy son of a bitch, he is." she replied, glaring at the ceiling.
"Then tell him your status. If he wants to know, then tell him. He's your superior, isn't he?" Heero asked. The three other boys just kept quiet, not exactly knowing how to react to this sort of argument.
Ria looked at Heero, walked over to him until she was only inches from his face. When they were literally nose-to-nose she said, "My Superior? Are you crazy? Do you think I would be taking orders from him? He may be God, but he is not the person running Heaven. If it wasn't for Vicky and me, there would be no Heaven for people like yourself to dream about. So, no, he's not my superior. Plus, in Heaven in every one of the rooms numbered 1000 to 9999 there are specific walls that allow someone to watch the world down below. Right now, currently, he is in room 1020B. Now you tell me, if he is in a room that clearly allows him to watch the world below including myself, and I can clearly say this, he IS watching me…Why the hell would he need my status? Hmm? Answer me that." She stared into his face. His eyes were blue and cold as ice. Her eyes staring straight back at him were dark blue, nearly black, and looked menacing like the sky right before a horrendous heavenly storm.
"Tell him your status if he wants to know." Heero once again stated, he moved forward a step until their noses over lapped and he was only centimeters from Ria's face.
Then is came again, only this time it sounded smug, "Status."
She looked into Heero's eyes. Straight back into the very core of his mind. She smiled wickedly and moved even closer until their lips touched and said one word, the word to piss off anybody. "No." She said. She said that word right in Heero's face and she didn't care that his eyes darkened when she said the word. Then she looked up and said the same word right into Darien's head.
"No!" She said, and she looked back at Heero. He was glaring at her and his friends were slowly backing away as her hair started to slowly sway with the amount of power that was weaving its way out of her.
"Lady Mistress?" a voice called timidly. "Lady mistress?"
"Mariya! It is so very nice to hear you? How are you?"
"Are you okay, Lady Mistress? Everybody is speaking about how you faced a gundam pilot and lived."
"I don't even know what a gundam is, but I did meet a gundam pilot, whatever that is. And I'm currently having a staring contest with him." She chuckled and made Heero flinch. Out loud she said, "I win, Heero. I am the strongest person in Heaven next to Vicky; I am my own superior. You have faced death and won. But I won our staring contest." She then said to Mariya, "Mariya, I'm going to love staying here. This guy is great. He's strong, proud, fast, intelligent. It's going to be very fun here."
"Lady Mistress, the tailor has some things for you. He wants you to come up as soon as you can. So, when you have time, come up here."
"You got it, Mariya."
Out of absolutely nowhere, Darien said, "Ria, you will never cease to amaze me. I don't think that Heero has ever been stood up to by anyone. Especially a girl."
"Keep talking Darien, and you will have a black eye to match my clothes."
"Are you threatening me, Ria?"
"No! Really?" She asked sarcastically. "I would never have dreamed of threatening you."
"You're being too sweet and innocent for me to take that seriously."
"I know. Isn't it great?"
"You are one of a kind, Ria, one of a kind."
So, she smiled at the boys. It was a bit disconcerting considering the fact that the entire room was silent as she had her nonverbal conversation with Heaven. She told the other boys that introductions would need to be continued later on, and that she had some pressing matters to attend to on Heaven. She changed her clothes into black leather pants and a black wavy shirt, fixed the rats nest that was her hair so it looked…less disheveled, and made room for her wings in the back of her shirt as they were starting to hurt again. She walked out the door, waved a little at them and dematerialized, leaving the boys to stare at the spot where she was just outside the front door.