Fallen Angel, Chapter 4: Kindred Spirits

Originally Written By Jazzpha

Dmitri woke up groggily and instinctively stretched his wings out before blinking in shock three times and falling off of the couch he had been sleeping on. It took the angel a few moments to remember where he was, at which point his heart calmed down and Dmitri breathed again. The memories of the day and night before flooded into the angel's mind, determined to rob him of the sleep he desperately needed.

Realizing that there was no way he was going to get the myriad thoughts out of his head unless he sucked it up and dealt with them Dmitri sat down, closed his eyes, exhaled and began to meditate.


Once again, he found himself in a library.

'I swear to all the gods and demons above and below this planet,' he fumed inwardly, 'if I ever see another library again…' A laugh from off to his left distracted the angel, who immediately adjusted his gaze before receiving another shock.

He was looking at himself. More specifically, it was the doppelganger that had been wearing the cloak and carrying the scythe. At the moment, though, he was clothed in jeans, a plain white t-shirt and a leather bomber jacket; quite a sharp contrast to his previous attire. The nihilistic, 'I-just-don't-give-a-fuck' smirk still adorned his face, but his arsenal had changed substantially, from the scythe to two pistols holstered at his hips and an AK-47 strapped to his back. Dmitri took a second to recognize the figure, but once he did he spoke with an annoyed tone: Dmitri hated being screwed with, and obviously this guy thought he was playing some kind of game with him.

"Alright, just who the Hell are you?" The doppelganger chuckled, and the mocking sound quickly exploded into a full blown laugh. After it subsided, the figure took a deep breath and had to wipe a tear from his eye before responding.

"Who am I? Who am I? Who the fuck do I look like, kid?"

Dmitri was taken aback by the crude reply, and faltered a bit before replying.

"Uh… you look like me, but—" The doppelganger broke in with a rowdy tone, throwing Dmitri off yet again.

"Fuckin' A, right I look like you, because I am you or at least half of you anyway. The better half, if I do say so myself."

"What d'you mean half of me?" At this point, Dmitri had spiraled down into a state of severe confusion. The doppelganger elucidated, but with the tone someone takes on when they're forced to re-state what they think is blatantly obvious.

"I'm the kickass half of you, the one that puts the 'Death' into 'Angel of Death'. I don't deliberate, I don't negotiate, and I don't hesitate. Someone crosses me, it's the LAST thing they ever do. I'm the guy that got here when ol' pops decided to hand the mantle over to you, kid, and I'm here to stay."

"Charming." Dmitri's expression changed from suspicious to exasperated. He'd already gone sour on this guy's gung-ho attitude, and to have him say he was going to be here all the time was distressing, to say the least. The doppelganger noticed this change of attitude and shifted his stance slightly, along with dropping the smirk and changing his tone.

"I guess you aren't really an adrenaline jockey, then, huh?"

Dmitri was surprised by this change of personality, and it took him a few moments to reply.

"Excuse me?"

"The Angel of Death before your dad was a balls-to-the-wall, slaughter-craving adrenaline junkie, so I kind of just adopted his personality. Your dad didn't really seem to mind, so I just stayed the way I was with his predecessor. You, on the other hand," the doppelganger leaned back slightly to look up at the ceiling, arms crossed over his chest, "don't seem to be like that at all. What, you more of a Shakespeare kind of guy?"

"Not really," Dmitri responded, a bit self-conscious now that he was the center of attention, "I guess I just don't cuss like a sailor or have an addiction to violence. What exactly are you, though? I mean, it can't just be as simple as being 'my other half'."

"The young one, quite wise he is, hmmm?" The doppelganger said in an uncannily good Yoda voice, before changing back to normal. "Well, since you asked so nicely, I'll tell you.

"Basically, your mind is like a Yin-Yang. You've got the good emotions, like Love, Compassion, Kindness, Empathy, Consideration and so on," it didn't escape Dmitri's notice that the doppelganger had spat each of these words out with extreme disdain, "and then you have the other emotions. Lust, Hate, Rage, Anger, Fear, Distress, Envy, Jealousy, just to name a few."

The doppelganger's voice had gotten noticeably more enthusiastic and excited as it had recited the second list, and Dmitri was starting to get scared before his temporary teacher calmed down and continued normally.

"Your conscious side of the personality contains all of the emotions you don't want to repress, namely the 'good' ones. I, on the other hand, am the mental incarnation of all of the other emotions you keep repressed and under wraps all the time."

He fell silent at that, and Dmitri was satisfied with the more moderate explanation of who this guy was. He was still confused about the library setting, though; the last time he had gone introspective he had only seen a void.

"So what's with the library?" The doppelganger seemed enthusiastic at the prospect of showing a rookie the ropes, and he dove right in with an almost irritating amount of vigor.

"Well, this is just the way you've chosen to visualize your mind, see. You came in here with the intent of sorting through your thoughts, memories, so here they all are." With this the doppelganger expansively waved his arm, gesturing at the aisles upon aisles of books and sheet of loose-leaf that occupied the seemingly endless room. "So, where do you want to start?" When he looked over at his 'yin', Dmitri noticed that his weapons had changed to a katana/wakizashi pair with red sheaths. The angel assumed it was because his own sub-consciousness had projected this image onto his other half, in order to express his slant towards more elegant weaponry as opposed to weapons of crude destruction like guns.

But now wasn't the time for digressions, and Dmitri re-focused himself.

"Well, let's start at the beginning. What knowledge did my father leave with me, exactly? I know I didn't have this skill with a katana before then, but is there anything else I should be aware of?"

A huge, dusty tome bound with in black leather with gold trimming along the cover's border appeared in front of Dmitri with a 'poof'.

"It's all in there, kid," the 'yin' said, slightly disinterested, "I suggest you start reading now, or you'll be here until sunup."

Dmitri was about to begin looking through the mammoth text, but then he had a different idea and paused, looking over at his own personal Jiminy Cricket gone horribly wrong.

"Do you have a name?"

"Anything you want it to be, it can be, kid. I'm part of you, remember? The last guy who I was with called me Arnold, but I don't like that name very much. Why, you have any ideas?"

Dmitri smirked. "As a matter of fact, I do. What about 'Caesar'?"

The 'yin' smirked, and then his smirk grew wider and wider until it was a smile.

"Caesar, huh?" he said, stroking his chin. "I like it. Terse and effective, but still powerful. Now get reading; you have a lot to catch up on."

Not needing to be told twice, Dmitri set his eyes on the cover of the book, opened it, and began to read.


Shadow knew he had been awoken by some sort of sound, but was unaware of what it had been and that put him slightly on edge. His state of heightened alert persisted until his stomach rumbled mightily, revealing the culprit that had been the cause of disturbance. Stifling a groan of annoyance both at himself and his gastrointestinal tract the Snake Knight climbed tiredly out of bed and half-stumbled, half walked to the door of his room, rubbing his fatigued eyes as he did so. It seemed like it was the ideal time for a midnight fridge-raiding.


Dmitri kept flipping through page after page, each leaf bringing new information like a piece of jigsaw puzzle. Problem was, this was a 5000 piece puzzle and at the moment Dmitri was working with 14 pieces, none of which were corners.

Apparently, the Angel of Death wasn't as much a force that spread universal pestilence as it was an avenger; the avatar of the Great Spirit's terrible wrath. The doppelganger now known simply as 'Caesar' had been a presence in all of the former Angels of Death, but with slight differences each time. It seemed that if the Death-Bringer already had a personality suited to the job description the doppelganger was weak at, but the more peaceable the Angel, the stronger the doppelganger. The current Angel of Death chalked his doppelganger's nonchalant attitude up to the hatred and desire for revenge that burned deep within him; if Dmitri wanted to, he could be benevolent or utterly merciless, so a nudge one way or the other wasn't a necessity.

Dmitri found the pages to be moving faster and faster as he read more and more. He soaked up diagrams that illustrated fighting stances like a dehydrated sponge before devouring more advanced sword-fighting techniques and spell-casting with ravenous curiosity. After what seemed like just 10 minutes (but was really far less than that in real-time) Dmitri had burned through the rest of the book, but as a consequence of ripping through it so fast he had only grasped a basic knowledge of several of his power's many facets. That notwithstanding Dmitri was burning out his retinas and needed to rest his eyes, so the fallen angel slammed the book shut with a resounding 'thump', bid Caesar a farewell salute, and left the library of his thoughts in the dust.


As he opened his eyes and stretched his cramped wings out, though, Dmitri picked up another sound nearby. More specifically, it was the slow trudging of tired feet coming down a hallway towards the main room, where Dmitri had made his impromptu bed earlier that night. Sure enough, the door slid open to reveal a bleary-eyed and hungry Shadowcobra. The Knight, however, continued on as if he hadn't seen Dmitri and opened the door to the fridge slowly, like a zombie questing for brains. Fishing half-blindly with his arm stuck halfway into the refrigerator the Snake Knight eventually came away with two containers that had a fair amount of sushi each. When Ichijyo turned around and saw Dmitri observing him, though, he did a double-take and the sushi would have hit the ground if Dmitri hadn't raised him hand to stop them with his powers. After the sushi had floated safely over to the table near the kitchen, Dmitri relaxed and broke the somewhat awkward silence.

"Sorry about that, but I figured that if I spoke it would have given you more of a shock."

Shadow simply exhaled and waved dismissively, looking slightly embarrassed.

"Don't worry about it," he said, "it was a gut reaction, and probably would have happened however I noticed you."

The Snake Knight sat down at the table and eyeballed the sushi again, surprised at himself.

"It seems like my eye was much bigger than my stomach back there." He took one tray for himself and set the other across from him, looking over at Dmitri.

"You want some sushi?" he asked, his tone flat but sincere. "I really don't think I could finish all this myself. If Draco or the Mutt were here it would be a different story, but as it stands you're more than welcome to join me."

Dmitri was a little surprised himself by the show of generosity, as he barely knew any of these people, but the Knight seemed genuine in his intentions. The angel walked briskly over to the table and sat down across from Ichijyo, who by now was meticulously and systematically eating one piece of sushi at a time, softly hissing as the hunger in his stomach faded into nothingness. Dmitri noticed something strange about the Knight as he looked at him; it seemed as though he had coexisting demonic and angelic auras, something the fallen angel had never thought a possibility. Curious, he decided to try and open up a conversation.

"Noble Knight, sir, if I might be so bold as to ask you a question…" he was about to go right ahead with the actual inquiry, but Shadowcobra cut him off.

"Please, all of that formality is not necessary. Shadowcobra is fine, Shadow for short, or even Ichijyo, if you like." After a confused pause was all he got from Dmitri, Shadow realized the reason and clarified. "Shadowcobra is my Zodiac Knight name, Ichijyo is my birth name."

Dmitri 'ahh'ed in understanding but then fell silent, his question forgotten for the moment until a question in return from the Snake Knight jolted the fallen angel out of his trance.

"You were going to ask me something, Dmitri?"

For a second Dmitri wondered how exactly Shadow knew his name, but then Dmitri remembered that he had told Starfire his name earlier. Refocusing himself, the angel resumed his derailed train of thought.

"If you don't mind me asking," Ichijyo noticed that the angel was still a little hesitant and was puzzled as to why that could be, but soon enough he had the answer to his question. "I couldn't help but notice that your energy aura is equal parts angelic and demonic. I've never heard of anything like this happening before; how exactly is it possible?"

Dmitri immediately knew he had stepped onto forbidden ground with that question, because Ichijyo's face became troubled and distant. The angel inwardly berated himself for jeopardizing a possible friendship so early.

"If it's a sensitive issue, I apologize for prying so crassly…"

But Ichijyo swallowed and composed himself, the troubled look vanishing from his face to become one of resigned acceptance.

"Normally I wouldn't answer that question, for… personal reasons," he said, "but considering that I was going to ask you questions of a similar nature about yourself, it's only fair you would want to know about me in return." After taking another bite of sushi and composing his thoughts, the Snake Knight began his tale.

"The coexisting auras you see are legacies I inherited from my parents. My father, Ichiro, is a vampire, and at one point was an agent of the Deathtrons. My mother, Keiko, is an angel who, at the time she met my father, was unaware that she was one.

"My father had been sent to kill my mother, but instead he was so moved by her kindness that he refused to do the deed. They fell in love and he betrayed the Deathtron forces, instead joining my mother, along with the other Elemental Warriors, to battle the forces of evil. He found a way to control his vampiric urges to keep himself from going insane, and in time they were granted permission by the Order to have children, as a reward for saving the known universe."

Dmitri had heard of the Order of course, as he had lived in the Empyrean (referred to by others as Heaven) for his whole life. They were a group of humans who knew about the world beyond the horizon, the one of angels and demons, and they had wanted to do something to protect humans from being caught in the crossfire. The fallen angel had to force himself out of his mental digression to pay attention, though, because Shadow had begun to speak again.

"There are three of us; my older sister, my younger brother and myself. My older sister is an angel/human hybrid and my younger brother is a vampire/human hybrid. I, on the other hand, somehow managed to inherit equal parts angelic and vampiric genes from my mother and father, which is what causes the two separate and opposite auras to coexist as one within me."

Dmitri was surprised by this unlikely explanation, and might have thought there was no way such a thing could have come to pass if the evidence wasn't staring him right in the face.

"So, it looks like you got the best of both worlds, huh?" Dmitri, not knowing anything about Ichijyo's background aside from what he had just heard, assumed there couldn't possibly be a downside. He was about to be proven quite wrong as Ichijyo's face fell and he clenched his fist before he continued.

"You would think that would be the case, with being given so much power. But, because of the nature of my conception and birth, there are several people who view me as a sin, an… abomination."

Dmitri saw that the Snake Knight's knuckles were turning white, and he knew that he had to step in and defuse what he thought was a ticking time bomb of pent up anger and frustration.

"Believe it or not," the fallen angel said, "I know exactly what you mean."

"You do?" Shadow was confused. Surely the experience of this angel couldn't have been at all like what his had been… right?

"Yeah…" Dmitri continued, a look in his eyes like someone reminiscing about a bittersweet memory, "let's just say my life hasn't been all rainbows and butterflies either."

Shadow was curious. Was this another kindred spirit, someone who had suffered like he had and was trying to soldier through the pain himself?

"How so?" the Snake Knight asked. Dmitri took a deep breath, downed a roll of sushi, washed it down with some soda, and began a tale of his own.

"I hardly knew my mother and father. A week after I was born, I got shuttled off to the Library of the 'Empyrean', which is what we call Heaven."

Shadow had the gut feeling that this wasn't going to be pretty. Unless Dmitri had misspoken, that 'knew' in the past tense meant that his parents were… Shadow closed his eyes briefly and forced himself not to think such fatalistic thoughts before refocusing his attention on the fallen angel opposite him.

"The Library is this massive place, 100 times larger than anything down here, with books on anything you could possibly want to learn about. The librarian's name is Ezekiel, and he's probably the only angel with enough humility to let himself age. He's about the kindest soul you could ever meet, and he brought me up to be a good kid and make my parents proud of me."

Ichijyo wondered why, if this Ezekiel was such a nice person, Dmitri's tone was so forlorn. Then again, he told himself, you'd be melancholy too if you had to live apart from your parents cloistered in a library your whole young adult life. Suddenly, Shadow was overwhelmed with gratitude as he thought about all of the friends he had made since he had decided to break away from the Black Knights Guild. He shuddered inwardly when he thought about where he would be without them, if he had chosen to remain a lone wolf…or snake as the case may be.

"But why was it you had to be moved to this library? What happened to your parents?"

Dmitri's face scrunched up in consternation as he thought of a reply that wouldn't sound too blunt. But since there was no other way to say it, Dmitri just stuck with the stone cold truth.

"I happened to my parents, Ichijyo."

This was too eerie for the Snake Knight. "What do you mean?"

"I was born, that's what I mean." Shadow noticed that Dmitri had put a weird emphasis on the word 'born', and waited for him to explain.

"You see, angels are normally created from a burst of divine energy, with no-one controlling the process other than the Great Spirit, Manitou. This ensures a certain amount of 'quality control', if you will. It makes certain that one single angel isn't more powerful than it absolutely has to be, to prevent the outbreak of another rebellion like the one we had with Lucifer. And therein lay the catch.

"Since I was born from a sexual rather than an asexual union, I was unbound by those limits. It goes without saying that the Tzarion Council, the ruling body of the Empyrean, was less-than-pleased with this threat to their hegemony. But that wasn't all."

"What else could there be that they could find fault with? An angel is still an angel, right?" Ichijyo was confused. Just how much had this guy been singled out?

"Under normal circumstances, you'd be right. Unfortunately, these circumstances were anything but normal. You see, my father was none other than the Angel of Death himself."

"You're kidding." Shadow was stunned. He had heard of such a being, to be sure, but never had he seen it or heard from people who had witnessed it. Then again, if it did its job right the Angel of Death wasn't supposed to leave any witnesses.

"I wouldn't kid about this, friend," Dmitri said, tone solemn and head slumped ever so lightly. "So," he continued, the plot thickens. There appears to be a prophecy that states that, when the Angel of Death defies the balance and creates life, that his spawn would rise to overthrow the corrupt Council in a glorious revolution, bringing from this victory the beginning of a new age.

"If you ask me, though, that's about as self-fulfilling as a prophecy can be. I mean, if the Council strikes me and I strike back and wind up killing them all, the prophecy will have magically been brought to fruition, while I was merely defending myself the entire time. And because the Council is so afraid to lose power that they'll believe every crackpot, fortune-cookie bit of 'wisdom' their seer throws at them, they will not hesitate to act on it."

"So what happens then?" Shadow had a sinking feeling he already knew what the answer was going to be.

"They're going to hunt me down, like a dog." A deep hatred burned in Dmitri's voice as he said this, a stark change from his earlier, placid albeit depressed tone. "But I'll be damned if I let them take me down without a fight."

Ichijyo understood exactly where Dmitri was coming from; if some people just arbitrarily decided that he didn't deserve to live any longer he'd fight back tooth and nail to stay alive, no question. Whether or not the team would accept someone with a cosmic bounty on their head was a matter the whole team would probably discuss tomorrow, but for now there was still one dangling thread in the story that Dmitri hadn't tied up yet.

"But what happened to your parents? If you don't mind me asking, that is," he added hurriedly, fearing he might have treaded onto overly-sensitive ground.

"No, it's alright," Dmitri said, voice even again. "I never really got the chance to see them that much at all, anyway; except for one or two times. I guess either they were forbidden from visiting me, or they were ashamed, or both." Dmitri's voice had slowly gotten more melancholy as he had said this, but he soldiered on nonetheless. "My father visited me one last time before he got banished into the endless void to give me his armor and his swords," here Dmitri motioned to his armor and his matching pair of blades. "My mother… she wasn't so lucky. They cut her head clean off and left her body for the dogs, if the reports the heralds shouted out were to be trusted."

Ichijyo was shocked and outraged by such an atrocity. How could these so-called 'angels' go as far as to banish someone's father and execute their mother all because they were in love and happened to have a child that might have tied into some ridiculous prophecy? At that moment Shadow wanted to hunt all of these monsters down and rip their throats out himself. He was just so mad, but he forced himself to calm down and looked over at the dejected angel, trying to find some way to salvage the rapport they had been sharing.

"So, Dmitri…" he began, "what do you do for fun?"

"Well, other than read, um… I guess I don't mind playing the occasional board game or two. What did you have in mind?"

In a silent answer to his question, a chess-set floated slowly over to the table and opened itself out, the pieces arranging themselves expediently. The black pieces were carved out of pure onyx, the white ones of the most brilliant ivory Dmitri had ever seen. The board itself was alternating colors of marble squares lined with silver.

"You want to play a match, my friend?"

Dmitri genuinely smiled for the first time in a while.

"Sure, that sounds like a great idea. I just hope you can handle losing," he added with a smirk.

"Oh, we'll see about that." Shadow said, advancing a pawn two spaces. "Your move."

Dmitri countered with a pawn of his own, and the game was afoot.

It continued back and forth for some time, like two skilled fencers feeling out the other's defenses before striking, only to have that blow countered by an equally skilled parry. It seemed as though neither combatant had the advantage over the other and it was shaping up to be quite an explosive finish. Both of the players were at the point of resorting to running last-ditch gambits when an extremely loud noise shattered the players' concentration. It sounded to Dmitri like a powerful howl, repeated again and again, but that would have to be one damn big wolf to be heard from this far away. Frustrated, Dmitri took his finger off of his bishop, rubbing his temples in a vain effort to ward off the migraine that was rushing at him like a stampeding herd of buffalo.

"What in the nine Hells is that noise, Shadow?"

"If I had to guess," the Snake Knight ground out through his clenched jaw, "that would be our resident mutt baying at the moon."

"Your 'resident mutt'?"

"Yes, Pluto, the Zodiac Knight you saw earlier, black armor, silver chest-plate." Dmitri nodded in understanding before Shadow continued. "His Zodiac animal is the dog, and as a consequence of this he possesses not only dog-like senses, but also some of their more… rambunctious traits, such as howling at the moon every now and then and depriving us of our sleep."

"Does he do this regularly?" Dmitri wanted to know if he was going to need to invest in some soundproofing for his walls if he actually moved in with these guys.

"Not all the time," Shadow replied, "although this is actually a lot more bearable than most of the inventions he cooks up in that lab of his, believe it or not."

"Inventions? Lab? As in the brilliant-but-eccentric genius type?"

"Eccentric? Definitely. Genius? Most of the time. But brilliant? I'd say that's up for discussion."

"What's he done in the past that warrants him being just a 'part-time' genius?"

"Well, there was this one time at a science fair…" Shadow was going to continue, but he stopped himself. "You know what, forget that. Those memories are just too painful to recall. Let's just say he can be more of a fire hazard than Draco, and that's saying something."

Dmitri felt like he was on the outside looking in on a massive joke.

"Uh, who's Draco?"

"Oh, forgive me, I got ahead of myself. You remember the Knight in red, the one who offered you his room for tonight? That's Draco. He has control over fire, among other things. Just stay away from him when he has a cold at all costs, or you'll regret it."

Dmitri picked up on the not-so-subtle amount of venom in Shadowcobra's voice, but declined to pursue it any further as it seemed like a longer story for another time.

"Then again," Shadow broke in, "if you had accepted his offer, we might not have been able to get any sleep regardless of whether or not Pluto was howling."

"Why would that be the case?"

Shadow paused for a moment, thinking about the right way to phrase this.

"You remember that girl he said he would room with, Jinx, the one with pink hair?" Dmitri nodded and Shadow continued. "Let's just say they've been… 'rooming together' a lot lately, and they can raise the dead, if you get my meaning."

"Some part of me wishes I hadn't, my friend," Dmitri said, but he was chuckling all the same.

Throughout the rest of the wee hours of the night, the two kindred spirits tried, unsuccessfully, to get some sleep before the sun rose and Beast Boy let loose with one of his morning rallying cries. However, it seemed karma was determined to stop them at every turn. At one point, the rocks around the room glowed yellow, levitated and bounced around the room while Dmitri and Shadow ducked for cover.

"Looks like Terra's having a nightmare again," Shadow shouted over the hailstorm-like din. "Hopefully it'll pass soon!"

No sooner had he said that then it subsided, but the pounding headaches each of the boys had by now thoroughly prevented the sweet embrace of oblivion from taking them away to rest. Fed up beyond all endurance and looking as though they might tear the next mouse that so much as squeaked limb-from-limb, Dmitri had a sudden idea.

"Shadow, you don't happen to know how to make any potions of any kind, do you?"

"A few," the Snake Knight replied, somewhat puzzled, "why do you ask?"

"Do you think you could whip something up that would knock us both to kingdom come? At this point I think that's the only way we're going to get any rest around here."

"Hmm… you propose a good plan, but my potion skills are kind of rusty…" the Snake Knight only considered it for a second more before moans that sounded somewhat like 'Oh…Ryuki…' floated down the hallway and he made up his mind in a flash.

"As a matter of fact, I think I have just the thing we need."

After raiding the fridge one last time Shadow dug out various herbs and vegetables, mutter a few quick spells before grinding the stuff together in a mortar until it became liquid. Pouring small amounts into two glasses, he handed one to Dmitri and took one for himself.

"Bottoms up, my friend." They downed the potions and immediately hit the floor like sacks of potatoes, dumb grins on their faces and totally oblivious to the world around them.