Heaven on Earth

The sequel to Broken Wings of an Angel by Tragic Lullaby (Old account.)
I do not own Gakuen Alice.
I do own a few OCs though.

Chapter three:
Into the night

You know nothing of hell.

He knew hell, he saw hell, and he breathed hell. If hell became a person, it would take the form of him, take the form of the thing he had become.

Hell was his second name.

He'd watched the world die before his eyes, he'd watched as the flames engulfed everything around, he'd watched life wither and die in front of him. When the darkness came, it consumed him. He had screamed and howled as all colour drained from his world, leaving nothing but the black, grey and white of a world driven mad by pain and fear. He clawed at his eyes, desperate for this vision to go away, caking his fingernails with blood.

It was his blood.

At the back of his mind, there was laughter, as dark and hollow as the pits of hell itself. He clutched at his throat as black hatred drowned his already smoke-filled wind pipe. He tried to scream, to beg for mercy but no sound would come out except for the choking of a young man who was on the verge of death.

I'm begging you.

The ice-cold laughter started again. "Oh no, you won't be dying today," the terrible voice said. "I won't let one of the first of my creations die just yet."

Who are you?

"I'm known by many names. Take a guess."

The Devil?

The harsh laughter was all that answered. He felt like he was going to explode from the pain building up inside of him, coursing through every muscle in his body. Like fire and ice. He glanced down at his arms; his skin was turning an awful black and red colour, like the colour of blood. His veins were bulging and glowing bright blue. They felt like ice. His eyes widened as a terrible fear forced itself down his throat, causing him to throw up.

W- What are you doing to me?

"Your so-called 'God' as fled and, assuming that all human kind will wipe itself out, the angels will come to earth to claim it for themselves. Yes, I know you know they exist and I know you've come in contact with one of them before. A certain fallen angel," there was contempt in the voice. "I've waited too long for this earth and I'm not about to hand it over to a few little flying bugs. You are going to help me and if you survive, you and you're kindred will rule it with me."

Kindred?

"Oh yes, welcome to my army, little demon."

No! Please! Kill me! I'm begging you! Kill me!

The voice just laughed again, "You are an interesting one. With your alice power, you will be of great used to me. Commander of my army."

The voice continued to laugh in ice-cold cruelty as Kai Makita went insane at the destruction of the world.

That day, people took seconds to die, minutes, hours, maybe even a day or two.

I've been dying for a hundred and fifty years and counting.

You know nothing of hell.

It was dangerous sneaking out at night.

Although most angels slept during the night, there were the demons to deal with. I'd never seen a demon but I'd heard of what they can do. Sometimes I wonder how many stories are true though. There were many accounts of demons dragging angels underground in the lower city. What they did, nobody knows. A lot of angels suspect that they torture the angel until it dies or becomes one of them.

Nobody knows where the demons come from. My father told me that they'd been there all along, from the very beginning of the earth, just like we'd been but they'd been kept in a prison by Earth's God and it was because the God fled that they'd been able to escape once human kind had destroyed itself. It was a belief that most angels shared and it was the one written the Book of Lore.

However, I knew a few who thought differently. One such one was one of the Elder Angels, Chira. She believed that the demons were the fallen angels that had been banished to earth before the destruction humankind and unable to repent their sins and unable to die, they'd fled underground and had gone mad in the dark. There were so many demons though, too many for them to all be fallen angels.

I'd heard stories of the demons, most angels don't even know what a demon looks like because they say that if you see one, it's all over for you, you get dragged under. There have been some lucky angels though, if you knew where to find them, and those few had been terrified to the core. I remember one gripping my shoulder so tightly that I had feared my bones would snap, staring at me so intently, muttering and shaking. "Why can't you see them? Why can't you seem them? Dark staring pits where eyes used to be with small bright white lights staring at you. I see them everywhere, in the dark, in my dreams, whenever I shut my eyes. The eyes of the insane, they stare into my head."

I crept quietly along the balcony. Surely the demons wouldn't be able to attack me if I was flying. I wondered about the boy though, would he be alright? Why was I even worried over the safety of a human?

You're scared the demons might hurt his pretty face, said a small voice at the back of my head. I snorted softly, trying not to make too much noise. I climbed onto the balcony railing, ready to take off when a voice shrieked at me from the door. It was Sumire. "Mikan! Get down from there now! I'll tell mum and dad!"

I gave her a look, "I'm sorry Sumire. I have to do this." I took off.

"You're helping the enemy, Mikan!" She screamed after me.

Maybe I was, but I couldn't help it. I had to help him. Maybe he'd caught me, a bird, in his cage but I felt freer than I'd ever been. The angel down in the lower city told me that she saw demon eyes in her head whenever she shut her own.

Whenever I shut my eyes I saw his red orbs staring back at me.

When I arrived at Gakuen Alice the boy was sitting there in a ring of fire, looking murderous.

I wondered what I'd done wrong before I touched down. There seemed to be no demons around. He frowned at me in surprise, "What the hell are you doing back here?"

I blinked stupidly, "Wasn't I supposed to come back with information?"

He looked as if he would smash his palm to face at any moment and he stood in anger and shouted at me, "Are you stupid? I basically let you fly free! I didn't expect you to come back you absolute moron."

"Then why are you out here?" I retorted. "Enjoying the scenery?"

"I'm on guard duty, my alice is a useful defence so they let me guard."

"How is it useful?"

"For driving off demons. Unlike you and me though, well…only you really, it's not the heat that hurts them, no, as they come from hotter places. It's the light. Demons can't stand it, that's why they only come out at night. Even then they can't bear to look at the moon, so if anytime a demon spots you, angel, just fly so you're in front of the moon."

"How do you know all this?" I asked in awe.

He smirked, "It's basic survival knowledge for humans. Not all of us live in big towers. If we hadn't found that out we'd be dead. We have to battle with the demons every night." He looked weary, I wondered if he had ever had a decent night's sleep in his life.

"So that means you've seen a demon, haven't you?" I asked eagerly.

He looked at me like I'd grown another ear, "You mean you haven't?" I shook my head slowly. "Angels," he muttered. "Alright, well whatever I say doesn't really quite explain the horror of the demons. They're kind of like humans except their skin is a mottled dark red, with holes in it and it looks kind of melted, they have pointed ears and horns growing from their skull, the size depends on what rank they have. They have claws spouting from their fingers and they have some weird bits of skin between their lips so whenever they snarl they have some skin over their pointed teeth. They have tattoos, some of them, and claw marks over their eyes, also some tear black tear marks from their eyes, dried blood I suspect. Their eyes though," he looked at me, "Are the pits of hell themselves. Black holes with a small, really bright pupil."

I shuddered, "Horrible."

He laughed bitterly, "Trust me, until you've seen one, you have no idea."

"Do you know where they come from?"

His face closed off at the question, "No."

"You know don't you?"

"I- no, I don't know," he snapped. "Anyway, you said you had information?"

"I have to blue-prints of the labs," I gave them to him, he raised his eyebrow. "I've marked the place where they'd be holding their experiments."

"And?" he looked at me.

"Well," I squirmed uncomfortably, "I don't want to go alone."

There was a moment of silence before he snickered, "You are scared of going into a lab of your own people?"

"Going into the lab in strictly forbidden, we'd be breaking and entering," I raised my chin high.

"You mean you'd be breaking and entering. There's no 'we' about this, angel." He pointed out.

I gave him my best shot at puppy-dog eyes, "Please? Please, please, please? It's for your sister."

He sighed, "Fine. Hang on." He disappeared, leaving me all alone in the ruins. I shivered, suddenly very cold. It was too silent, I wanted to run after him but I suspected that if I ran into a group of humans, they wouldn't be all the nice to their sudden guest. A twig snapped behind me and I spun around, could there really be demons here? Bush rustled to my right and I glanced over starting to freak out as they bush didn't stop rustling. Something big was moving through it, towards me. Whatever it was, it emitted a fierce growl. I started to back away from the bush. Two bright lights shone from it, right at me. Oh god, I didn't want to be snatched away by a demon. I opened my mouth and let out a scream, stumbling backwards as the growling increased. Where the hell was fire boy when you needed him?

As if he'd heard my thought, the bush suddenly caught fire and he pulled me back as a dark shape shot out of it, howling. "Just a wolf," he muttered. "Your bloody screaming made me think it was a demon."

"But its eyes," I stammered, "They were glowing."

"It was just a reflection from the moon," he pointed towards the sky behind me. "Anyway, they like to snatch in groups. Scarier for the person that way."

"Oh," I mumbled weakly, noticing another human standing not too far from us. I leapt out of the boy's grip.

"This is Hota-, sorry, another alice like me. She has the alice of inventing things though," the fire boy quickly corrected himself. "So she invented those light bombs and other stuff to ward off demons."

"There's no need to be so wary, angel," the girl said, "I saw you speaking to him the other day through my surveillance cameras and questioned him. Although I do not like this, his judgement of people is usually correct." I glanced at the boy to see a smirk cross his face and rolled me eyes. He thought he was amazingly great as well.

"Do you have a name?" I asked him, "Or I'm going to have to call your Mr. Fire Man all the time."

The humans glanced at each other, obviously trying to decide whether to tell me, an angel, or not. After a while, the boy shrugged, "Hyuuga. This girl is Imai."

"Not your first names obviously," I noted but they refused to tell me anymore, their eyes were guarded and wary. I sighed, motioning back to the gravestone that I'd come across before, "Are you related to him then?"

"Maybe."

It was like getting blood out of a stone. "Whatever then," I snapped, "Are we going to go or what?"

"Wait just a minute, angel," Imai's voice was dangerous. "We gave you our names and we're going to need your own or you won't be going anyway." I gulped, she was right, these two could capture me and hold me hostage, or even kill me within a moment's notice.

"Sakura," I said stubbornly. There was a flicker of a reaction across Hyuuga's voice as the name but I was too slow to catch what it was. The two looked at each other, eyebrows disappearing into their hair.

"Not your first name, I take it?" Imai asked.

"No," I said, still stubborn. "You refused to give me your names so I'll repaying the kindness. Now, are you going to go and save his sister or not?"

"Right come on then, angel. Do you think you're strong enough to carry the both of us, some of us don't have wings you know?" Hyuuga pointed to the wings on my back.

I pondered, "I think so." I pushed off of the ground to hover slightly above him, he gave me a startled look as I put my hands under his arms and lifted him off the ground. He wasn't kidding, this was going to be hard work, but I was determined that I could do it.

We lifted off the ground with Imai's purple eyes following us as we went up, up and up into the dark night. I could tell Hyuuga wasn't exactly comfortable with being the one carried but he knew there was no other way, unless he was willing to fight his way through the lower city of the Angel Empire all the way up. No human could do that.

"Stop shifting around," I grumbled, making sure my hold on him was firm. "Otherwise I will drop you."

"Not every human flies everyday you know," he retorted. I glanced down at him, his eyes were shining like a kids even though he was trying to hide it. Imagine, living your whole life without ever flying. How did these humans cope?

I set him down on a ledge outside a deserted walkthrough.

He was sneering around at his surroundings, "White. How did I guess it'd all be white?" I rolled my eyes. Humans. I grabbed his sleeve, dragging him along.

"We aren't here to admire the scenery," I said. "We find your sister and what they're doing to the humans and then we get out of there. I hate labs and hospitals. Disgusting."

His eyes bore through me, "I never actually thought you'd betray your own kind for a human."

I shrugged, "I'm just curious. I hate being kept in the dark." It wasn't completely a lie, I was curious, but it wasn't the only reason why I was doing this.

"Ignorance is bliss," Hyuuga muttered under his breath. I ignored him and went to start working on an emergency door into the science lab. It was so well hidden, no wonder I'd never heard of the lab before.

"Got it!" I hissed under my breath, dragging Hyuuga in behind me. The hallway we were in was dimly lit and obviously not very important, unless you lived your life as a cleaner.

"Where'd an angel learn to pick locks?" Hyuuga inquired behind me.

"You learn a heap of things in the lower city," I replied vaguely. I unrumpled the blueprints and peered at it for a moment. "This way I think."

The lab was huge, we must've been walking for about fifteen minutes until we reached a door that said; 'public access restricted'. That's how we knew we'd come to the right place. I pushed on the door, "Damn! It's locked somehow."

"You need a card," Hyuuga gestured to a swiping machine next to the door. I swore. I hadn't learnt that yet. "What do we do now?"

I fidgeted in discomfort. Here we were – so close to what we wanted and a card-swiping machine had beaten us. I had a human within one of the most secret compounds in Angel Empire. If anybody found him they'd probably kill him on the spot and I'd be grounded for life. Father would never trust me again and then mother would go on and on about how I was almost killed by a 'bad human' and Sumire…

No, I had no time to think about that.

"Uhh," I paused, uncertain, Hyuuga's red eyes never took themselves off me.

Then he frowned, "Can you hear that?"

I listened, and in the distant there were footsteps clacking down the hall. Coming for us. I panicked, "Oh no, what if they find us? What do we do?" Hyuuga grabbed my arm and I took a frightened glance at the direction in which the sound was coming from as if someone would appear right behind us.

Chapter three finite.

Author's Note:

Sorry it took so long to write and it's a pretty boring chapter even. Not sure about you, but I'd fall asleep quite fast reading it. But as I now, boring chapters also need to exist for the exciting ones to be well… exciting.

Hope everyone's 2011 is pretty good so far.

MFT~