Angels, Demons and the Worlds Ending

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Action violence, occasional fluff, ooc main characters, liberties taken with cannon timelines.

Authors Note: I'm fairly happy with the reception the prologue got, I'll get to the main action in Diablo 3 as soon as possible, but the back story does need to be told. If you're wondering what the picture of Gabrielle I'm trying to picture is, picture a taller Hammer (from Fable two) with a fairly similar face to the Diablo 2 sorceress.

Chapter 1: Stars Fall as Evil's Shadow Lengthens

Gabrielle Justitia felt her heart pound as she stole through the silent halls of the Ashani sanctum, for she hoped that tonight was going to be the night where the questions she had long held were finally going to be answered. Weeks of careful observation and planning had gone into observing the paranoid old Vizjerei mage who ran the library so that she could finally gain access to the tomes she had long sought, ever since she had learned of their contents which could finally be the key to the mysteries that had plagued her for most of her life which had finally gained even more significance only a month prior. Gabrielle sighed as her feet slowly carried her towards the vast domed hall which by day would be swarming with mages and apprentices from all across Sanctuary.

Twenty years had passed from that turbulent evening when she had been born in Caldeum and Gabrielle had grown up fairly happily with her mother and sometimes her grandfather and cousin when they came to visit. But as happy as she had been, she always felt different to the other merchant's children who she had played with in the streets and market squares of that city. It hadn't helped that she had always been so different to them in so many ways, her appearance being one of the main things which had always made her feel different. While most of the inhabitants of the Kehjistan interior were quite thin and of only average height compared to some of the foreign travellers and merchants passing through. Gabrielle had dwarfed her mother by the time she was ten and had always been unnervingly strong in many of the Caldeum resident's eyes. Now at twenty she stood at almost seven feet tall and was as powerfully built and strong as a barbarian with coal black hair that just touched her waist, her mother's classic Kehjestani features and bright blue eyes. While she had always known of the magic in her blood from the lessons her mother had given her, mere magic could never explain some of the inexplicable things that had seemed to happen around her as she grew…

Gabrielle had been about seven when a foreign merchant had come into the market and had begun to haggle with a few of the merchants. He came to her mother's stall and began trying to negotiate on a bulk order of potions. Gabrielle noticed a strange smell hanging about the man and found something mistrustful in his eyes. Nobody believed her at the time, but later that same evening, it was found that the goods he had been trading with the other market stallholders were fakes, and the promissory note he had given to her mother wasn't even worth the paper it had been written on. The man was later arrested and was discovered to be a well-known confidence trickster who was notorious in his home city of Kingsport…

Gabrielle had been about eleven years old when Aschif, one of the well to do carpet and silk merchants had asked for her and a few of her friends to help him move some of his stock from his warehouse to his market stall promising to pay them all quite a considerable sum of gold. Her friends all agreed eagerly, the money proving an irresistible lure to them and while Gabrielle had followed her friends, but something had seemed odd to the young girl from the beginning. When she entered the warehouse, her instincts were proven right, when there were no silk or carpets to move, but instead a coven of sinister looking robed and hooded figures preparing ritual circles and candles. The scent of freshly spilled blood assaulting her nose and the sight of two of her close friend's broken bodies lying in the circles proved more than she could take as Gabrielle's power snapped. Before she knew it, and before the hooded men and Aschif could react Gabrielle felt the surge of magic within here and soon the men were all lying dead with terrible wounds all over them. Her friends later telling the watch that she had changed into a hooded being and that she had seemed to fly into the air before crashing to the ground and emitting some kind of strange white light which killed the men.

It had later been discovered that the man's silk and carpet business was a front and that he was actually a member of a cult that worshipped demons as gods. Gabrielle still remembered her mother's reaction when she had gotten home, it was one of only a few times that she had ever seen real fear cross her mother's face as the room seemed thick with it. It was only a few months later, just after her twelfth birthday when Gabrielle had overheard her mother talking to a strange woman when she returned home early from running an errand.

'Her powers are growing quickly now, it shall not be long before the demons take notice. She's already ran afoul of these cultists once and it was only lucky that they underestimated her strength.'

'You are sure that you cannot train her yourself?'

'I've been teaching her as much as I can Isendra, and I feel that there is little more she can learn from me. Gabrielle will surpass my abilities as an instructor a long time before she could complete an apprenticeship, it is inevitable that her powers will be far greater than mine. Besides that, I think it best if she were to spend some time away from the city, throw these cultists off her trail. That's not even considering what's been happening here lately, I've been hearing dreadful rumours lately about some of the goings on in the palace of late and if half of them are true….'

Gabrielle pushed open the door and saw both her mother and the stranger jump a little.

The stranger smiled, 'hello, you must be Gabrielle, your mother has been telling me all about you and your gifts. My name is Isendra and I am a sorceress of the Zaan Esu clan and I would be honoured to help you to learn to utilise the gifts that you have been blessed with, if you have the desire to learn.'

A few days later saw Gabrielle and her new mistress begin their journey into the far east of Kehjistan where she began over eight years of training with the Zaan Esu. Gabrielle rarely hearing from her mother, grandfather or her cousin Leah except for the occasional letter or parcel. The Zaan Esu always called her a prodigy, gifted, talented, but somehow Gabrielle could always sense the unease many of the elders felt whenever she was near. Isendra was a kind mistress and taught Gabrielle much but even she had occasionally accused her apprentice of arrogance on occasion as Gabrielle found the spells almost too easy and absorbed her mistress's teachings like a sponge. Gabrielle's powers grew steadily, but strangely, none of the Zaan Esu ever seemed to be able to teach her to control some of her powers completely. By the time she was twenty, there was little else that Isendra and the other Zaan Esu sorceresses could teach her and she had been told to seek out the Ashani sanctum of the Vizjerei mage clan. Gabrielle had been thrilled at the opportunity to study there and her mother had been proud when she had sent her a message not long after Isendra had declared that she had finished her noviciate. So Gabrielle had arrived at the stately building where centuries of mages had studied the ways of magic and had been awed by its beauty as she arrived and got settled in, eager to expand her knowledge beyond the teachings of the Zaan Esu.

But once she was there, she was disappointed as most of the mages seemed too scared to teach her anything, always making some pathetic excuses as they seemingly did their utmost to stop her progress. The tomes in the library taught Gabrielle far more than any of the wizards did and taught her magic that was very different to the elemental magic she had long studied with the Zaan Esu. But even the tomes seemed to lack the full picture she sought as she spent the next several months pouring over them, searching for the answers that she felt were being kept from her. Thus her routine was established and continued until she had first had the dream.

An angel draws a sword and in time slashes at a sinister looking stone and shattering it before an entire mountain explodes as two figures ride away from the devastation on horseback…

Two angels, arguing in the centre of an ornate room soon begin to fight each other, the larger stripping the wings and some of the armour from the smaller, revealing the vaguely familiar dark face beneath….

A falling star streaks across the night sky and lands on a ruined cathedral, her cousin Leah is thrown back by the blast before she recovers and looks down into a gaping abyss with flames licking the sides as bodies of the dead begin to climb up towards her.

Gabrielle had discussed what she had seen with the librarian only for the old man to dismiss it as nonsense, even if the look in his eyes told her otherwise. After looking few a few of the tomes and finding references to others she soon learned that the tomes she sought were forbidden. The masters had refused to even consider her request to access them, even after she had seen the same dream several more times and had received a letter from her cousin which told her that she and Grandpa Deckard had arrived in Tristram and that they were doing research in the old cathedral. It was all too much of a coincidence to Gabrielle and so she knew she needed those books no matter what the masters thought. Which brought Gabrielle back to the present as she crept through the silent bookshelves and stopped before the locked door which blocked access to the tomes the masters had considered too dangerous for most to even see. Sneering in disgust at them, Gabrielle searched for evidence of any wards that might have been placed on the door and after failing to find any, she took one of her hairpins and began to try and pick the lock, praying that she didn't snap it. Finally after a few moments she heard the soft click and opened the door before she shut it behind her and began to search the shelves for the tome she sought. It had once belonged to the great Vizjerei summoner Hozaron and according to a few of the tomes she had read which made reference to it, it contained several accounts of prophecies which had been made that he had spent time studying.

Lighting a lamp, Gabrielle searched the shelves before finally locating the tome she sought and carrying it to a lectern. The man's insanity was clear from some of his writings and his theories on how the demonic powers could be used by mortals.

'Fool, those powers are little more than bait, that far too many have taken. One can only thank the heavens that the assassins were founded to deal with those mages who drew to close to the demonic influence.'

Finally about an hour later, towards the back of the book, she found it at last.

At the end of days, the first sign shall appear in the heavens. The armies of the high heavens and the burning hells shall once again be unleashed and clash upon the world of Sanctuary. But when justice falls, one born with power beyond man shall come from the east to meet the rising darkness.

Gabrielle was silent as she contemplated the prophecy in the book, a growing sense of inevitability coming over her as she thought of all that had happened to her and the stories her mother had told.

'Mother knew something, the one in the prophecy must be me. It all fits too well, the dreams, my powers. But there must be more to it, the prophecy is incomplete.'

Further musings were cut off when a figure stepped around a bookcase and came into view, Gabrielle's fear rose when she recognised the garb warn by the cultists from that day in Caldeum.

'Well, well, what have we here? Justitia, so you finally learned of the prophecy? Too bad you won't be leaving here to do anything about it.'

'Traitor!'

The old librarian laughed, 'hardly, I merely serve the true masters of this world, and you and your mother have been a thorn in their sides for far too long. One that will soon be removed at last. I knew you would show up here sooner or later, then all I needed was to lure you in here and that book was the perfect bait. Do you really think I'd just keep it under lock and key? But then again, you always were an arrogant little girl…'

His speech was cut off as Gabrielle brought her wand up and flash froze him before she hefted another nearby lectern and smashing what was left of the late librarian into small shards of ice. Gabrielle dropped the lectern, walked up and whispered.

'And you talk too much.'

Gabrielle knew she couldn't stay at the sanctum, the masters would accuse her of murdering the librarian and for all she knew, they could also be demon worshippers and would seek revenge. Gabrielle searched the shelves and took several other books as well as Horazon's tome. Making her way upstairs to her rooms, she changed into her travelling garb and took her belongings before she slipped out of the sanctuary unnoticed, soon setting out along the road to Caldeum.

'If I can reach Caldeum I can find a caravan travelling west, if I join the Westmarch route I can separate at the monastery after I pass through Lut Gohlein and cross the pass, New Tristram isn't all that far from there. I just hope mother and Isendra are safe, I should probably let them know what's happened.'

Gabrielle followed the road to the west, hoping to get as far away from the sanctuary as she could before dawn. But as she looked up a streak of fire seemed to cross the sky above her heading towards the west and a short while later, she felt the faint ripples of magic pass above her head.

'Justice has fallen, so then it has begun, I can only hope I make it there in time.'

A week's travel brought her to a small village where she had resided with Isendra while she was training under her. Most of the villagers nodded politely to her as she walked towards the cottage she had shared with Isendra during her training and Gabrielle smiled at the familiar faces she remembered. But as she drew closer to Isendra's cottage, the sickly sweet smell of death assaulted her nose along with a lingering burning scent of scorched flesh. The door fell inside the cottage with barely a touch and a small crest had been carved into it, one was recognizable to any mage or sorceress.

'The mage slayers have been here, why? Isendra would never consort with demons. I distinctly remember her telling me of the dangers of consorting with them being one of the first things she ever taught me.'

Stepping inside the cottage, the evidence of a struggle was everywhere. Much of the furniture had been broken and there were scorch marks and large cuts in the walls and floor which looked to have been made with claws.

'Katars, definitely assassins then, but it looks like Isendra put up a fight.'

Gabrielle finally found what she had been dreading from the moment she saw the cottage inside the bedroom where she found her mistress lying slumped on the floor alongside the body of an assassin. The corpses did not look old, perhaps only a few days which probably explained why the villagers had yet to find them. Gabrielle finally noticed a letter lying under the bed and so she crouched down and grabbed it. It was addressed to her and looked to have been written in a hurry as the handwriting was barely legible and was badly blotted in places.

Gabri[Blot]

The cultists have [blot] the assass[blots] after me. I don't [blot] what [blot]ery they used to convince them I have been [blot]sorting with the demons, but you must hurry. [blot] have [blot] your mother and told her to [blot], you must travel to the west [blot]. It is now yo[blot] time to take up the fight, much as your [blot]er did long ago. It is your [blot]iny and birth[blot] to fight the demons as without [blot] then the [blot] will fall and humanity [blot] become little more than [blot]ves or food. You need not av[blot]ge me, your triumphs shall [blot] the fools what happens to those who [blot] with demons.

Isendra.

Gabrielle put down the letter, a few tears in her eyes as she looked at the body of her mentor. She gently picked her up and laid her on the bed with her arms crossed over her chest, hiding the wounds before she went downstairs and piled the broken furniture before pouring lamp oil over it and spreading more around the house.

'Rest in peace my friend, your fight is done and those cultist will pay, I swear it.'

With a casual flick of her wand, Gabrielle sent a bolt of flame onto the pile of broken furniture which roared into flame as she left the house and headed back to the village where she told the elder what had happened.

'A terrible tragedy,' he commented after Gabrielle had finished her tale, 'it was a noble act you performed for her as the mark of respect of a grateful student.'

Gabrielle shook her head, 'she always thought I was arrogant, I never had the chance to tell her how grateful I was for her training me.'

The elder smiled, 'this wasn't your fault, and Isendra knew it and the best thing you can do to honour her memory is to carry out her last wish. Tonight we shall feast to honour her memory and tomorrow you can carry out her request, a caravan is travelling on to the west tomorrow and you are more than welcome to travel with it.'

'Thank you elder.'

The elder was as good as his word, having a feast prepared as a mark of respect for Isendra and leading a prayer for the departed sorceress. Gabrielle felt sad as he spoke of the kindly woman who had been a well-respected member of the village who had trained or recognised several of the girls who showed the talent of magic.

After a good feast and a refreshing nights rest at the elder's house, Gabrielle set off with the caravan heading west. As they drew closer to Caldeum, a strange smell assaulted her and Gabrielle was grateful that they did not linger there but passed through after only a day before continuing to the west. Rumours of demons and undead seemed to get worse the further they travelled and by the time Gabrielle reached the coast she began to see adventurers making the journey into the west.

Lut Gohlein was thick with them, so much so that when she stepped into the tavern, she could barely move for the crowds of men, all quaffing ale, singing disgusting songs and telling stories which only seemed to get more unbelievable the more they drank. Gabrielle tried to ignore them despite their leers and found a table in the corner before the landlady came along holding a tray of mugs.

'It's been like this ever since that star came down three weeks ago, I haven't seen so many of them in my tavern at once since the dark wanderer passed through here twenty years ago.'

Gabrielle asked, 'you were here then? Did you see the company of heroes who fought against the prime evils?'

The landlady smiled, 'Oh yes, in fact I remember a young sorceress who I will say you bear an astonishing likeness to. Unlike most of the so called "heroes" who passed through at the time, she and a handful of others actually fought the demons rather than just boasting about it. Her name was Kestrel I think and I heard later that she defeated Diablo, and then Baal at mount Arreat.'

Gabrielle was stunned, 'that's my mother, I knew she fought against the demons and was one of the company, but….'

A customer called out to the landlady who smiled at Gabrielle and put a tankard in front of her before disappearing into the crowd.

Gabrielle drank the ale in silence, lost in thought over what the kindly landlady had told her.

'Mother actually destroyed the prime evils themselves?'

Gabrielle wasn't alone for long, a shifty looking man with black hair and a moustache sat down at her table a short while later, his thick Kingsport accent giving his country of origin away in an instant.

'Evening honey, off to join the hunt are we? Want some company? I once killed a thousand demons single handed.'

Gabrielle asked, 'who are you?'

'The names Lyndon, but for you I could be anyone.'

'Could you be a target? Or perhaps a pig? I could turn you into one you know.'

Gabrielle had her wand in her hands and twirled it, a predatory smile on her face as she looked at the scared looking man.

'A bloody wizard? I hate bloody wizards.'

He ran off and Gabrielle sniggered into her tankard as the landlady came past.

'Nice work, he's probably one of the more obnoxious out of this lot, he came a week ago and he's tried it on with just about every other woman about your age in this city. Worst thing about it is she's actually got some skills unlike most of these wannabes.'

'Hopefully that might teach him a lesson.'

'I doubt it, I know his kind, seen lots like him before over the years including one or two of the company. He'll move on to somewhere he isn't known and then try it on with the women there until the husbands and fathers work out what's going on and run him out of town.'

Gabrielle grimaced at the thought as she finished her drink, thankfully none of the other "heroes" tried to flirt with her and kept their distance even when a noisy fist fight broke out between a few of them which ended when the local watch came into the tavern and arrested most of the crowd.

Gabrielle left with one of the caravans the next day and began the long trek over the desert pass. No demons molested them on the way but the further west they travelled the stronger the sense of awakening evil seemed to make itself known. None of Gabrielle's fellow travellers seemed to be affected, but she could somehow feel it all around them. After passing the monastery of the sisters of the sightless eye which looked to be increasing its guard on the surroundings Gabrielle moved on alone for several days. Her wariness began to increase as she began to cross the last few hills and the smell of death and burning told her of the rising of evil long before she saw it. But nothing she had heard prepared her for when she finally caught sight of the town under siege below her.