My entire Garrison was thoroughly questioned, especially me, because I was so close to her. But no one knew where Anael was, since as a fallen angel she would be reborn and virtually unrecognizable from any other human. All of the archangels were deeply suspicious of us, still, and until now it didn't occur to me that it must have been because something big was happening down below.

There were only rumors of this, of course, that a demon by the name of Azazel had found the door to Lucifer's Cage, and was on the move to fulfill his master's plans. We didn't know what Lucifer was plotting, or where he intended to strike. Many of us wanted to hunt down and interrogate some demons for information, as their numbers had been steadily increasing over the last decade. Preparing for war. I agreed with this suggestion, but our voices were drowned out by the Arches' command: We were to stay silent, and only watch and listen and report everything back to them. I held my tongue and didn't dispute their decision, being the good soldier I was. Thinking back to it now, I realized that so many disasters could have been averted, so many lives saved from needless slaughter, if we had made ourselves known on Earth then.

I succeeded Anael as the head of our Garrison, with Uriel as second in command. I would have preferred Balthazar, or perhaps Ezekiel instead, but it was not my place to decide. Years passed, and we could only watch on as demons ran loose and the existence of angels slowly turned into a myth among humans.

During this time, Azazel operated in complete secrecy. He burned what evidence there was of his work, leaving behind the crumbled ashes of a house for us to find. It was always a house, always a mother that he took. I couldn't find the link between them. Why would he kill the mother and leave the rest of the family unharmed? What was it that he was looking for- and found?

Fate always seemed to toss me in the way of things, often by chance. Nevertheless, I was still caught by surprise when I found Azazel one day, completely on accident. He was in a neighborhood park, just…watching, his attention completely focused on a group of pregnant mothers off to the side. It made me sick, seeing this filth walking about without restraint, like a wolf among sheep, while we angels could do nothing about it. I thought he couldn't sense me behind him, but he still did. Azazel's head suddenly tilted, and a smile spread from the corner of his mouth.

"Come on out now, little birdy. Let's have a nice little chat here, you and me."

I didn't reply.

"Oh, what's wrong? …Ah, you're not allowed to, is that it? Archangel got your tongue?"

I held my silence.

"Well, then, allow me to let you in on a little secret…" When I didn't leave, the smile spread even wider across his hideous face, "Your bosses from up high, the ones you put so much faith in, don't want you to stop us. It's all gonna be part of the big picture here; you'll see soon enough. So go fly on along, and as a tip I would advise you not to tell anyone of this."

Obviously, I knew the rule: Never take advice from a demon. No good would ever come from it. But I also knew, and had broken the rule even before that: Never listen to a demon. I had convinced myself that the information could be used against him, but it was a lie. Azazel was too smart for that. If I told the Archangels, they would no doubt suspect me of siding with Lucifer, and interrogate me or even worse. So I could do nothing else but take his advice and leave.

Little did I know, that was when the first seed of doubt had been planted within me.

Some time afterwards, word also began spreading of a very special family that Azazel had turned his attention to, whose name would forever change the course of fate.

Winchester.

Approximately 35 years later in Calvary Cemetery, Wyoming, two of them were there at the opening of a Hell Gate. I didn't witness what took place, but I felt it- we all felt it. There was a sort of shudder that passed through all of us; a deep, creeping dread that made us aware that something truly evil had crawled out from the Pit. From what I heard, the sky had turned black for miles in every direction, a writhing cloud of abominations. For days and weeks after, there were mass murders and atrocities of every kind. Other than demons and malicious spirits, the Seven Deadly Sins had been unleashed into the world as well. They wrecked havoc on the human population, until they were all said to have been taken down by the Winchesters in a single blow. It was a deed to be respected for, and I never had the chance to ask Dean how they had done it.

But something even worse than the Seven had escaped, straight from the deepest part of Hell. Something so twisted that they were nearly unrecognizable from millennia ago, when they had rebelled against God by Lucifer's side.

Lilith was free once again.

And still, the archangels told us to hold back, yet their orders were less confident this time. They knew we were restless, and that they would not be able to hold thousands of angels back in a full-scale rebellion.

So when the Seals began breaking under Lilith's command and our impatience to do something finally began to boil over the top, we were once again allowed to take possession of vessels, free to walk among humans for the first time in over two thousand years.

I was assigned apart from my Garrison to a group of angels tasked to lay siege to Hell and raise a single man from perdition; a man who would soon teach me how to write my own story and show me the meaning of free will.

His name was Dean Winchester.

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