XI

Ramiel was devastatingly aware of the flames as they surged up to envelop him, orange and golden tongues twisting with hunger, with the need for their cruel consumption of angel flesh—they were ready to rip him apart, to reduce him to quavering ash, render him pathetic in the eyes of even the weakest human—something capable of being crushed beneath their boot. Seconds remained for him as the false wind of Lucifer's telekinetic shove buffeted his cheeks and jaw—less than seconds, less than instants or fragments of instants—it was there—it was here—around him—

He twisted, and then was elsewhere.

His hammer was heavy in his hand, the only definite object that he could cling to as a dark vortex of metaphysical wind encompassed him, tangling what it could of his hair, flipping his stomach and churning against the ichor in his veins. He had never before teleported himself so rapidly, or with such a surge of power, and, for a too-long moment, he was entirely lost, tumbling through the hurricane cloud of nothingness, before the weight of the hammer he held was enough to solidify him, bring him back into pressing awareness. Flexing his forearm, he was able to muster up his last traces of energy, push himself against the boundaries of his colorless prison. Full seconds surged by, and a denser black rose behind his aching eyes, threatening to consume him if he didn't quick escape the pressing reality of the energy vacuum that last-minute teleportation had thrust him into.

Yet then the nothingness was peeling back—in its place, he caught a glimpse of a grey cloud-strewn sky, a stretching curve of light green that rippled in the tired sun, and then he was plowing into the dirt, bits of sod and fragments of roots smashing against the face of his vessel, breaking the nose and nearly snapping the neck. His wrist bent beneath him, and the muscles of his legs screamed in agony as they hit the ground in a broken heap. All at once, the net of movement spanned out into flat steadiness, and he felt only a heavy, constant stabbing in his chest, right around where his vessel's heart was located, pounding against the inside of his ribcage until he could practically feel scar tissue forming around the assaulted area.

His ears were ringing. Escape—he had escaped, somehow, in an instinctive burst of energy that may not have been worth it—for, in allowing himself to survive like this, he damned the rest of them, robbed the ship of his vital energy and left it a fraction as strong as its already trembling hull had been before. Lucifer was still there, and the body of Coulson, who surely couldn't still be alive by now, and the rest of them—Gabriel, Raziel, Michael, Ezekiel... Ezekiel, and he must be an absolute mess by now, self-destroyed as he had been, and then below the pin of Ramiel's hammer... he couldn't even remember when it returned to his hand, yet it must have, at some point on the ship; without its help, he well knew now, there would have been no way for him to escape the trap alive.

Alive. He was alive. Or as alive as angels ever were, considering that they were nothing but souls, a grander elaboration on the weak shades that humans called ghosts. Ghosts were grey; angels were golden, yet it could hardly be said that strength gave them a greater claim to mortality. On the contrary, it was a good deal harder to destroy them, due not only to their virtual invincibility but also the ferocity of their own instincts—the latter being, of course, what had saved Ramiel this time.

He didn't know where he was, though. Stranded in the middle of somewhere that smelled of grass, unable to so much as lift his chin and process his surroundings beyond a rasping inhalation that further richened the earthy smell. Every cell in his body ached, and he knew that the damaged vessel would be vaporized if he weren't within it, holding its fragile form together. As it was, with the last of his energy expended to deliver him from the flames in the first place, there was nothing to do now but keep breathing, and wait for something else to come, something else to save him.

In. Out. In. Out. It hurt so badly—

Lucifer. Lucifer had done this. The brother who he had cared about so much, for so long, and he had done this, near-killed Ramiel entirely—if he'd had it his way, the younger angel would be dead. Ramiel had been loyal to him for years, decades, centuries after his fall, retained some amount of that even now, and his reward was this: the cold attempt at murder. The Devil never could have made an ally. He was pure evil, and Ramiel saw that now, perhaps more so than ever, for some extent of him had certainly been blinded before, even when he thought that he knew the truth.

He wanted to be able to tell the rest, tell his siblings that he had finally seen the right way. Tell his father... tell Fury... tell Coulson...

But Coulson, for one, had never known. The associate pastor had paid for Ramiel's mistakes with his own blood—for the angel knew all too well that, if only he had stayed clear of Lucifer's prison and the trap awaiting inside of it, the human would not be dead or dying now. Surely the former; he couldn't have made it that long after the cruel stab that Ramiel's own eyes were now scarred with.

It was his fault that Pastor Phillip Coulson was dead. There was no denying that.

Yet he was buzzing with numbness, and could, at present, feel no grief. Instead, there was the lingering haze, the gnawing urge of his vessel to let him rest, recuperate and salvage whatever it could. He hoped, vaguely, that he would be able to keep this body; it had been his for centuries, and would cause a great internal upheaval to switch around now, one that he truly couldn't afford.

Couldn't afford. There were lots of things that he couldn't afford. Couldn't afford to be separated from his siblings, yet he was here now, perhaps leagues away, realities away, infinities away... and so, so tired...

As Ramiel's eyes closed, Ezekiel's opened.

They were no longer the blazing acid green of before, and, in accordance, some of the starchy whiteness had drained from his face, leaving him blanched but still with some health alive within him. His dark hair was in tangles across a sweat-streaked forehead, and his chest heaving as he gasped in breath after relieved conscious breath, trying to pull himself together. For a long series of instants, his mind was nothing but alive with verdant fire, something that he had grown used to occurring after a transformation. It burned against him, yet he managed to breathe to counter the ferocity, and his hands, curled into painful fists at his side, gave him something more material to cling onto as the lightning surged through him, each wave accompanied by a low moan or whimper of desperate agony.

It didn't matter. He deserved every last pinprick.

He couldn't remember, yet, couldn't think about anything beyond the fact that it had happened. He may have hurt someone, hurt many—sometimes, awareness from his awful phase would come back, patchily or all at once, yet there was no way to depend on that. It was all too likely that he might never know, especially seeing as there didn't appear to be any way for him to access a way back to the rest now. He couldn't even remember falling, yet his back screamed, and so he knew that he must have hit something—from a great height; perhaps whatever pushed him was even enough to transcend realities, for the plane that he found himself lodged in now seemed far from metaphysical. On the contrary, the glorious agony that hummed around him now was all too material—he was back on Earth, then. Had to be Earth, from the distinctive smoggy sky that arched above him, the only thing he could perfectly make out without moving his head.

His body, at least, was healed from whatever had broken it. He became aware of this as the last traces of his unwilling sleep fell away, leaving him with a body that felt exhausted but healthy enough. His other side, as always, had run him through something extreme, something merciless—but something, nonetheless, which stretched him in every manner imaginable, resulting in an overall fitter manner. It strengthened him in a way that he could never manage, himself, and something about that was rather terrifying—it made it seem more powerful than him, and though he knew that it was, it still hurt to contemplate the fact with any sort of depth. It was better to think that his resistance was mastery, that he was mighty enough to keep this crude beast at bay... yet he knew it wasn't true—

No, he wouldn't go there. Wouldn't waste his thoughts. He had to figure out where he was, how to get back to the ship. What could he remember? Raziel. All of them, even Fury, in a room with a thousand machines, but Raziel most distinctly, with glimmers of Ramiel, the thunder angel, lurking around the edges. No definite images, only a sense... perhaps that was it, then. Maybe they had taken care of him. Pushed him off of the ship, even... he certainly wouldn't blame them if that had been their course of action. In fact, he would have done the same, if he'd had even the slightest bit of control over himself.

They must have fought him, to force him down here. And if they had fought him, that meant that he had fought them, a concept infinitely more terrifying. He hoped, in a cold, gnawing way, that none of them were hurt, that he hadn't damaged anyone save, perhaps, Lucifer—for if they were hurt, if a single one of his still-pure siblings had been damaged or even extinguished by his own sick hand...

No. No, he was doing that again, and he couldn't, he wasn't allowed to. It was a rule he'd made a long time ago, and there was no sense to breaking it now. Focus. He had to focus.

Something had triggered his transformation. Anger? It used to be anger... yet there was something else, something physical, a great flaming shift that had surged across him in a blast of air and fire...

His head rewarded his prying with a ferocious stabbing agony that pushed forth a cry of pain from his lips. Such was the way when he tried too hard to find the memories meant to be locked off to him; there was no point, now, for his too-intent searching would now have sealed it all off permanently, set off some emergency system of blockage that his absurd mind had devised against him.

He had nothing, then. He was blank. Entirely blank. There was surely something he was meant to be doing, yet he had no way of knowing what that something was—the result, of course, being that he was here, stranded on his back in what seemed to be an abandoned human building, knowing only that the others were elsewhere, and that they most likely needed his help, if he was capable of offering any.

Most likely. Or perhaps they wanted him here. Wanted him gone, out of their way so that they could go about with what they needed to... the thought was almost more devastating, yet also provided a cold, sneering reassurance. There's no point to your finding them. Perhaps they'd rather you didn't...

And he couldn't if he tried, for they were not here, but somewhere else, a different plane, on a burning ship that he couldn't track down unless he held all the power of God Himself...

There was no point. No hope. There was nothing to try and hold on to, and so Ezekiel could do little but close his eyes again and try to suppress the vicious ache of all-too-human tears.

Raziel.

He knew her name before anything else, and his hands instinctively clenched against nothing but themselves, nails cutting into his palms and raising forth a sheen of sweat that was invisible from behind his squeezed-shut eyes. The word—the name, framed through such strong syllables—coursed through his head again and again, each time like a strike of lightning, trembling through his core and dragging a long gasp to his lips.

"Shh... just rest, for now..."

His head hurt. More than anything. More than he knew it was capable of hurting—he barely heard her voice behind it all, yet it was there, and something caught in his the throat of his weak vessel, so that he was struggling forth once more, against the strain and throb of his skull, against the desperation somewhere deeper down that begged him to remain quiet and unknowing, not to become aware, not to know all that had happened to him... for something had happened. He knew not what, but something had... something had happened, and now he was here, and everything was aching, and—

"Calm down. You're making it worse."

His eyes were open, suddenly, and he didn't remember what action must have forced them into that position, but they were there now, lids pressing up against his skull and resulting in even more throbbing pangs. Everything he did was too extreme, too severe—he just wanted to be able to lie still, as Raziel seemed to be encouraging him to, but he also had to see her... everything was bright, far too bright, and his eyes strained to find her dark red hair amidst all the blinding whiteness.

There. A slim figure, bent down over him, emerald-hued eyes intently fixated on his own... something inside his chest twisted, and he felt his cheeks ache in a weak, unconscious attempt to form a smile.

"You mustn't strain yourself, brother."

"You saved me?" he questioned in response, trying at the same time to draw forth his own memories and let them do the answering for him. There was little to be had, however... past the pain, he could only pull forth an overwhelming blank, and felt a slow wave of nausea run through him at the realization that something had happened, something to induce such a bizarre amnesia. Something bad, undoubtedly, very bad—his mouth twisted away from the loose half-smile from before, into a fierce grimace, and his flimsy human lungs strained as he fought to force himself past the blockage—it was as if he were throwing himself repeatedly against an iron wall, however, for nothing resulted but farther archs of agony.

"I saved you," Raziel promised, reaching out a hand and securing his wrist between her softer fingers. Her intent squeeze drew out a swift breath from him, and helped him to slowly regain his focus, drifting away from thoughts of the past to instead focus on her reassurance. She must be telling the truth, and that meant that it was okay—it had to be.

"...What from?"

Her previously stone-intent gaze softened slightly, and her lips grew looser, brows drifting upwards in sweet sorrow. "Uriel, you—you don't remember?"

"What is there to remember? It doesn't help when you say that... please, Raze, you're scaring me... just tell me? I can worry about the pain later."

"...Lucifer," she sighed, the syllables slipping past her tongue like water too strong for its dam. Uriel's insides clenched at the name of his fallen brother, and he felt a ripple of anger course through him, somehow managing to both dull and intensify the pain that snarled at the back of his neck and brainstem.

"Lucifer?"

"He possessed you—you and Erik Selvig, and we haven't gotten Selvig back yet, but you attacked the ship, Uriel, the ship we were on... so much has happened, and you don't know any of it, do you? You really don't..."

He possessed you. The word ran like a stream of acid through his mind, burning past everything in their past, until there was nothing else to think of, nothing else to care about. He possessed you. And now the reason for the pain is all too clear; of course, of course it had to be Lucifer, and of course it had to be him, Uriel, turned against his brothers, turned against Raziel, turned against Holy Shield. And he hurt them—he must have hurt them, and could only hope it wasn't too many, wasn't overwhelming, for he knew not what he would turn to if he had killed one of those who he once called friend, or, worse, family...

"Is anyone dead?" He asked the question without fear of what the response may be, for he knew that there was nothing she could say that wouldn't hurt him—if they were all alive, then it meant only that he had more left to lose. He wanted to know. That was what mattered, nothing more. Get the facts, process the facts, move on.

"Barely, we—we came out victorious, just by a miniscule amount. We're on the ship, Michael and Gabriel are managing to keep it afloat though they're both worn... Lucifer has vanished, as have Ramiel and Ezekiel—we've all come together, you see... I suppose you weren't even there for that."

Ezekiel. He was more than a little surprised by the news that they had recruited the rogue angel of Purgatory, but chose not to question it. He had heard little from Michael or Gabriel in the past few decades, but he trusted them—the former especially—to make the best decisions that they could. Though it had, apparently, led them to this. Whatever this truly was.

No need to dwell on the details, though. He needed to concentrate on her answer to his question, her slippery words. "Barely. Who was it, Raziel? Who was killed?"

Her eyes fell. "Pastor Coulson. Lucifer killed him, we think... Fury came in just in time to find him bleeding to death."

Coulson, dead. He absorbed the shock wave without comment. He couldn't afford to care, not right now. "Anyone else?"

"Not yet. I fear for Ramiel and Ezekiel, yet Michael believes we would feel it if either of them were to be extinguished, and my spirit is intact, if turbulent. I trust it's the same for you."

"Something close to that." He was far from turbulent; after the initial surge of pain, he found himself to be almost frighteningly collected. He couldn't afford anything else. He had to remain strong, especially when the rest of them were scared—for it was obvious, far too obvious that Raziel was afraid, despite her cool words and steady jaw. And if Raziel, the most resilient being he knew, was frightened, then he didn't dare to think about the condition that the rest of his siblings might be in, let alone the humans.

He would have to keep fighting against his own weakness, then. It couldn't be too much of a challenge. He was used to it, and the world needed him.

Coulson was dead.

Gabriel didn't know what to think. Whether to care. Whether it was wrong that he couldn't feel whether he did care, or if that was only numbness, numbness from caring too much—all he knew was that he could not quite smile, as he and Michael stood before Fury, a strong silence radiating between the triad of two angels and one human.

None of them had words. None of them had so much as shame, even a trace of anger. There was only the quiet, and, in a strong current underneath it, the pounding of their three hearts, barely audible but still present and definite to Gabriel's sensitive ears. All going too fast, despite the fact that they weren't moving so much as a hair's breadth, even to tremble, even to breathe.

Coulson was dead, and their ship was still afloat, just barely suspended upon the combined energy of Michael's grace and Gabriel's fire, though it drew upon him in sharp bursts, singeing his veins, not allowing his mouth to be anything but dry. It didn't hurt, per se, yet he knew that he couldn't go on like this for long, that neither of them could. They needed somewhere to touch down. Somewhere where Lucifer would be.

Yet he didn't know where. He was lost, inside and out of himself, and it was the single most horrific feeling imaginable. For him, for a leader who only knew his place at the head of all that mattered, it was strange, unnerving to have his own confidence ripped out from beneath him. And only due to a tiny error. Because something had allowed fault with Coulson, and now he was dead, and, despite the fact that there were so many others with a hand in it, Gabriel, at his root, could find no one to blame but himself.

Perhaps what the sensation was. Defeat. Even in victory. Pathetic, truly, how these things sometimes turned out.

"Damn it," he finally spat out, shattering the stillness as he turned on his heel, heat flashing across his face and down his spine, congealing around his invisible wings. "Damn it all. There's no point."

"There's a point," Fury was trying, apparently unaware of how weak, how desperate his words sounded. "Coulson was... Coulson was a strong loss... we will all mourn him, but—but you are angels. Surely you—"

Of course, of course the accursed human wouldn't understand. Gabriel, utterly unable to contain his contempt, stepped away, ignoring even Michael's sharp snap of psychic insistence that he stay behind, that he at least talked it out, formed a plan—he didn't care. He didn't see any use to a plan. They had already lost.

And perhaps it was unfair of him to be doing this, to be valuing Coulson's life so highly—yet, in a way, it was so much more than Coulson's life. It was the loss of an innocent, of perhaps the only innocent who remained onboard. With him gone, they were nothing but brute power. Nothing but soldiers, and Gabriel could imagine fewer things more pathetic than that, or more evil.

Lucifer himself was stronger than that, even. And it was like a crack to Gabriel's ribcage even to consider it, so that he was grateful that he was out of the room by the time the thought hit him, down one of the many hallways snaking through the ship—they weren't safe, now, with the unstable condition that the ship's framework was in, and none were supposed to enter, but Gabriel didn't care. Despite himself, despite their purpose, despite it all, he just couldn't care.

He was mindless. Devoid of passion. But Lucifer—

Lucifer had a drive. Lucifer cared, and he wanted everyone to know. Wanted to show it off, even, make himself the one worthy of a monument in New York City, some wretched Diabolical Monument that would dwarf Gabriel's own—

Gabriel's monument.

And then, cued only by the few brief words wandering through his mind, there was lightning in his chest again, and he wasn't just breathing because he needed to as he turned back, dashed back towards the room that contained Fury and Michael, the floor seeming to fly out from beneath him as a surge of energy, drawn through his body, flared up throughout the ship, momentarily summoning a soft shine back onto the floorboards and a hint of metallic gleam upon the fresco-splattered walls.

Lucifer had the Hell Key, undoubtedly, and Gabriel knew just where he planned to use it.