The old, wooden door to the chapel opened with a slow, ominous creeeeaaaak and four, curious little heads poked their way inside.
"C'mon, you guy! Let's go! It's this way!" Miiko immediately took charge, charging in without a second (or first) thought.
The other three, meanwhile, hung back in the doorway. There was just something… off… about this place…
"W-w-well, you heard her!" Haruna cleared her throat nervously. "We best be on, then!" But she made no move to go inside.
"W-well? What are you standing around for?" Kurumi immediately called Haruna out, but like Haruna, she wasn't budging either.
"I- I- I- I was waiting on you two!" Haruna shot back, flustered. "Anyway, K-Kurumi, you're one to talk!" She called Kurumi out as well.
"Only c-c-cuz I was waiting on you two too!" Kurumi defended herself pathetically. "Besides, doesn't the Chairman always take the lead?!"
Miyu watched them with a weak, nervous smile. Of course, she understood their reserves, for she was frightened too. Typically, houses of God filled her with comfort, but this one made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up on edge. But they would get nowhere if none of them were brave enough to take the first step. Well, I suppose, if it is of any comfort, Miiko seems to be enjoying herself…
The pink-haired girl would never understand the little blonde's morbid fascination with the gory, grisly, graphic, and gross, but in times like this, it was almost encouraging. Trying to channel some of Miiko's energy, Miyu finally took her first step inside the darkened, abandoned chapel.
How strange, there does not appear to be any source of light anywhere! Neither switches nor candles… Fighting to keep her fearful thoughts from frightening her any further, Miyu followed Miiko down the aisle between the pews until at last they reached an altar at the very end of the chapel.
"WHAT IN THE NAME OF GOD, JESUS, ST. MARY, ST. JOSEPH, AND ST. PETER IS THAT?!" Haruna jumped back, crossing herself like a fiend, crashing into Kurumi at the same time. For once, Kurumi did not protest, also reeling backward. A large ball of light had suddenly appeared over the altar, and was quickly morphing into something far more complex than just a glowing, golden orb.
Miyu screamed as well, turning tail and dashing to safety behind Haruna and Kurumi.
"H-h-hang on a minute! D-don't make m-m-me stand in front!" Haruna panicked, dipping behind Kurumi and Miyu.
"Wh-WHAT?! Nuh-uh! No way! Uh-uh! I'm not being the human meat-shield either!" Kurumi darted behind Miyu and Haruna.
Miyu could only utter a strangled gasp as she ducked behind Haruna and Kurumi once more.
"H-hey! What did I j-j-just say?!" Haruna dove behind Kurumi and Miyu again.
"But you're the Chairman!" Kurumi whined, shoving Miyu and Haruna back in front of her.
While the trio continued their awkward backward walk, Miiko stared up at the light with wide eyes just as bright. "Awesome!"
The first… thing to emerge from the light was nigh impossible to comprehend, a set of six wings that seemed to melt together and apart with every steady beat and flap. The four girls could just barely make out a humanoid figure within the wings, two covering the face, two its feet, and the last two with which it hovered above the ground. All six wings burned, encasing the figure in tongues of fire and flame.
The second creature had only two wings, but four faces, that of a man, lion, eagle, and ox. They were fused together in a nightmarish amalgamation, growing out of one another, attached to a fleshy, veiny body that, like its head, looked like a horrible fusion of all four creatures.
The third was perhaps the most nightmarish merely because it was so incomprehensible, the likes of which had seldom been seen on Earth before. It was a set of giant brass rings, intersecting and gyrating around one another, each one covered in eyeballs of every shape, size, color, and kind. A few of them even blinked, the areas immediately around each eye fleshy rather than metallic gold as the rest of the rings were.
"Biblically accurate angels, you guys! Biblically accurate angels!" Miiko laughed and clapped and jumped up and down for joy.
"Miiko… What in the name of God and Satan is wrong with you?!" Kurumi whispered.
"Kurumi!" Haruna also whisper-snapped, an old instinct coming back in full force as she crossed herself again upon mention of the Devil's name.
The three, powerful entities hovering before the altar of God also reacted to the whisper of Satan, shuddering and straightening up. Two of them seemed to flex their wings while more of the third's eyes began to blink. The four mortal girls could've sworn they even heard the soft squelching sound of fleshy eyelids opening and closing over bulbous eyeballs.
"Oh, great, now you've done it!" Haruna whisper-moaned in fear and despair, and Kurumi shrank even further behind her. But the trio of "biblically accurate angels" did not react with righteous fury as the trio of humans feared, rather, the one with the human face at last spoke out, its mouth opening like a wide and ominous black hole in the center of its face. It was the epitome of uncanny, human, but not quite human enough.
"Be not afraid," it said, and despite themselves, three of the four members of Lyrical Lily felt their shoulders slumping and their backs relaxing.
It's just like in the Bible! Miyu thought, and she wasn't just referring to their appearances. Was not that one of the most iconic lines spoken by the angels? And having finally seen them for herself, Miyu could understand the rationale behind it. But despite their disturbing visages, Miyu felt waves of beatific peace radiating from them, tempered by Miiko's delight.
"Just cuz they're scary doesn't mean they're bad! Like they always say in Sunday School, we can't judge books by their covers, cuz even Satan will try to appear like an Angel of the Light! So the good-looking ones aren't always good, and the bad-looking ones aren't always bad! Besides, these guys are God's kids too, ya know? So that makes them like our big brothers, sisters, and siblings!"
"I… I don't think that's how that works…" Haruna chuckled weakly, looking seconds away from passing out. She could still feel Kurumi's nails digging into her arm. Miiko, however, seemed deaf to her unit-mates, reaching out a hand to pet the three animal faces of the second angel. At last, a hand slipped out from behind one of the six wings of the first angel and Miiko excitedly reached for it as well.
"Miiko! Wait! You're gonna get burned!" Kurumi cried, reaching out for her friend, but she was still too scared to get any closer.
"No I'm not! Don't worry! The angels don't want to hurt good people!" Miiko insisted, blithely taking the burning hand. "Woah!"
Once again, her three unit-mates jumped back in horror as Miiko's body suddenly started to change. She grew taller and taller and wider until she was as large and unevenly proportioned as the other angels, towering over her unit-mates.
Miiko's flesh rippled and stretched, growing thin and veiny, almost webbed in some places, and the veins were an eye-popping scarlet. The rest of Lyrical Lily flinched as they heard the sounds of twisting, breaking, cracking bone as Miiko's body contorted, but rather than noises of pain, they heard noises of excitement emanating from the-once little girl. Her skin looked like it was melting as it twisted, warped, and mutated. Four black wings like hideous growths forced their way up out of her skin, two coming from her shoulders and two from the back of her midsection, bursting through the skin as she hunched over slightly. And when she turned around, her unit-mates couldn't help but flinch again.
Miiko's face and neck were covered in eyeballs, although the place on her face where her eyeballs used to be was now completely empty and smooth, save for two, small indents, as if the eyes had been plucked out and the skin of her face forced to melt shut over the empty sockets. She had an eye on the back of each hand and a tiny mouth on each palm. There was also a mouth on her stomach and back, and the mouth on her face elongated into a thin line that, when opened, seemed to split her entire face in half horizontally, and her nose was much thinner and longer than it used to be. Resting inside her mouth was a burning, snake-like tongue. Her hair had also become wild and spiky, the tips on fire.
"Woah! Now Miiko is a biblically accurate angel too!" she cried, clapping and rejoicing as she, too, began to hover just above the ground before the altar of God, her now-bare feet just barely skimming the floor. And though it was harder to see from her unit-mate's perspectives, the final part of Miiko's transformation involved her ribs becoming more numerous and prominent, and then even poked out of her body on the back.
Miyu, Haruna, and Kurumi couldn't help but clutch their ears and gasp, legs turning to jelly. There was something eldritch about Miiko's voice now, and every clap of her hands was like thunder, even though her arms and legs were long and thin. Every great and terrible BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! made her three human companions sick to their stomachs, and their knees knocked together.
"Miiko! You gotta stop!" Kurumi pleaded.
"This is why we told you not to take us to a haunted house!" Haruna snapped.
"But this isn't a house, Haruna, it's a church!" Miiko corrected happily. Haruna would've normally been outraged by her impudence, insisting that a church was a house of God, but to again hear that eldritch voice of the ages—which sounded like many speaking as one, Miyu even noticing the toothy mouth on her stomach, and the two little ones on her hands, moving in sync with the long one on her face—scared Haruna back into silence.
"Oh also! Don't worry about these guys! They were just laughing because although they don't mean to scare you, they're kinda used to it by now, and they think it's a little funny and cute!" Miiko added cheerfully, all of her mouths beaming as she explained the angels' sporadic shuddering and shivering. It wasn't anger, but amusement.
"You… you… you… understand them?" Haruna's eye twitched.
"I'm really good at languages, remember?" Miiko nodded proudly. "Watch this!"
If the three certified humans of Lyrical Lily thought her voice was shattering to listen to before, the sound—for there truly was no other word in the human language to adequately describe it—she made next was one no one had ever heard, at least not for thousands of years. It made them feel as if their brains were literally turning to water, leaving them teetering on the brink of madness.
Haruna finally fainted, and Kurumi also collapsed, though she managed not to pass out. Only Miyu was left standing, but she was shaking violently, turning paler and paler by the second.
"Oops, sorry guys!" Miiko chuckled embarrassedly, and again, the three angels behind her shuddered and quaked. The one with four faces gestured with one of its two wings at Kurumi and Haruna and they were instantly catapulted back to their feet.
"Woah!" Haruna gasped as if she'd been jolted awake, and she began to cross herself again, muttering the name of every saint she knew.
Beside her, Kurumi wiped her sweaty forehead on the back of her hand, eyes wide and dazed. Weirdest Halloween ever!
Miyu was still shaking, still pale, but after watching the angels revive Haruna and Kurumi, she couldn't help but feel her racing heart begin to slow, even if only a little. She was again emboldened by the peace they radiated, and Miiko's pure bliss at being one of them.
Suddenly, another old Bible verse flashed in her mind. Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.
Well, at least one of them was having a happy Halloween. But maybe… so was Miyu. And perhaps… Kurumi and Haruna would come around too. If nothing else, it was certainly their most memorable Halloween ever…
AN: As a horror-lover, I fully believe that Miiko's favorite aspects of Catholicism are anything scary.
Also, I love the mental image of her unit dressing up like stereotypically beautiful angels (Petit Mix ep 20), then she rolls up in a giant sphere of golden rings covered in eyeballs, LOL!
Also also, shoutout, honorary mention, and dedicated to AimingSashimiG, the fellow D4 fanfic author with whom I discussed the biblically accurate angel idea.
(To any non-Aiming-readers who haven't already, check out Aiming's version of this prompt: "In which Lyrical Lily Dresses Up As Angels", on AO3. I wanted to post mine exactly on Halloween while Aiming posted on D4's 3rd anniversary. So happy (late) bday to D4DJ!)