Author's notes: this fic contains my own take on the exorcists' origin. I wanted an explanation for where exactly they come from but the show is vague about that so I had to come up with one.
—-
Sera and Emily were in their home when a pillar of golden light erupted near them. The pillar of light faded and standing in its place was Carmilla Carmine in her new, angelic form.
Carmilla looked around in an attempt to understand what was going on. One moment, she was trying to protect her daughters from an exorcist that, much to her own surprise, she was able to kill. Then, she felt a stabbing pain that she knew must've been from an ally of the exorcist she decapitated. There was a bright light after that and now she was in a room. She saw that there were two angels in the room with her. Her mouth opened in shock but no sound came out.
"There's nothing to be afraid of," the smaller angel said in almost tangible innocence that made Carmilla tempted to believe her as she got up from her seat. "You're in heaven now."
"Heaven?" Carmilla said reflexively, even though she'd piece that together from standing in front of two angels.
"That reaction is common among nonbelievers when they wind up here," Emily said reassuringly. "The new arrivals are supposed to appear outside the gate before being let in by Saint Peter. I have no idea why you appeared in front of me and Sera."
Probably because, Carmilla began thinking, I came here from hell so the same rules don't apply to me.
"Your unorthodox arrival is quite the mystery," Sera said as she walked towards Carmella. "I must look into your mind to make sense of it."
"No don't," Carmilla futilely protested as golden light and many eyes appeared on Sera's body.
The light and eyes faded and Sera had a shocked expression gazing into Carmilla's mind and learning that she arrived from hell. The golden light and eyes appeared on Sera again and Carmilla found that it felt like her body was tied with invisible rope.
"How did you get here?" Sera asked sternly.
"I don't know," Carmilla answered. "You read my mind so you know that my arrival is as much a mystery to me as it is to you."
"What's going on Sera?" Emily asked, unsettled by the sudden shift in mood.
"Our guest's name is Carmilla Carmine," Sera began to explain. "She's a sinner from hell who has managed to enter heaven through unknown means."
"I suppose we now come to the part where you kill me," Carmilla said with resigned acceptance. "After all, it's what you angels do."
"What are you talking about?" Emily asked.
"Don't listen to her," Sera ordered her younger sister. "She's attempting to sow discord between us. It must be her mission."
"How could she have been sent on a mission," Emily began to ask frantically, "when she doesn't know how she was sent? And if that was her mission, why are you theorizing about that when you should've been able to confirm that by gazing into her mind?"
"You really don't know, do you?" Carmilla asked Emily with astonished curiosity.
"Know what?" Emily asked.
"About the…"
"Enough!" Sera yelled as she altered the paralysis magic on Carmella to force her mouth shut.
Nothing here adds up, Emily began thinking. Sera is acting like she's trying to keep a secret and Carmilla's going to expose it. Time for me to learn the truth for myself.
Golden light and many eyes appeared on Emily's body as she tapped into her power to use the same mind gazing spell that Sera did.
"Emily, don't," Sera frantically ordered the younger Seraphim. The light and eyes faded away from Emily and judging by her shocked expression, it was not because she was heading Sera's order.
"You know, don't you?" Emily asked the taller Seraphim with a combination of sadness and shock. "About the exterminations. Or rather, you've known before Carmilla came here."
"Emily," Sera began awkwardly. She tried to think of her next words and then took on a stern expression as she found them. "I've done what I've had to in order to ensure heaven's protection."
"Done?" Emily repeated in puzzlement and her eyes widened in shock as she realized what Sera meant. "You ordered the exterminations?"
Carmilla began internally cursing in Spanish at this sick twist of fate. She miraculously survived finding herself at the end of an exorcist spear only to somehow wind up in front of what appeared to essentially be their general. She resigned herself to how her death was now a foregone conclusion.
I only hope Odette and Clara are still alive, Carmilla thought. Wait, they were close by enough that they might have seen me kill the first exorcist. If that's the case…
Carmilla attempted to laugh, which was proven difficult with her mouth forced shut. This got the angels' attention.
"What's so funny?" Sera demanded as she altered her magic to allow her to talk again.
"Both of you looked into my mind," Carmilla began. "You know about how I stumbled onto the discovery that angels can be killed with their own weapons. My daughters were nearby when that happened. I didn't see them notice my accidental victory but if they did, I'm sure they're going to make plans to avenge me by destroying heaven."
"I'm sure that my daughters," Carmilla continued, "will not have a hard time convincing the overlords to launch a campaign of retaliation for the exterminations. And since your exorcists have been carelessly leaving their weapons behind for centuries, hell will be very well armed. Whatever happens next Sera, know that you brought it on to heaven. So kill me now: it's not gonna change anything."
Carmilla started laughing uproariously, apparently finding it hilarious how heaven's attempt at preemptive threat management had sealed their doom.
"That's enough of that," Sera said as she reapplied the magic to force Carmilla's mouth shot.
"You're going to kill her now, aren't you?" Emily said in a way that made it clear that she was resigned to what was going to happen but was still disappointed with Sera.
"No," Sera replied. "If she's right about her daughters bringing war to heaven, she's going to be more useful to us as a political prisoner."
"I'll be checking in on her regularly," Emily began, "to make sure you follow through on that or don't otherwise mistreat her."
"Very well," Sera agreed. She was very tempted to try throwing around her authority as both high Seraphim and Emily's older sister to squash any dissent but she knew that Emily had trust issues with her due to now knowing about the exterminations and those issues couldn't be solved by ordering Emily to trust her.
—-
Sometime later, Emily was in front of Sera.
"You have to call off the exterminations," Emily pleaded.
"I cannot," Sera sternly replied. "You heard Carmilla: her daughters are planning to bring war to heaven."
"Because," Emily began to interject, "ordering the exterminations and your refusal to back down has pushed them into a corner and they have nothing to lose trying to push their way out of it."
"Regardless of their reasons," Sera said dismissively, "the best way to keep hell out of heaven is to keep the pressure on them. You are in no position to critique due to being unfamiliar with war."
"If you define war," Emily began to disagree, "as a conflict where each side has a chance of winning, then I am as familiar with war as your exorcists."
Sera grimaced at how that was an uncomfortably good point. The next extermination would be the first time the exorcists fought with their own deaths being a possibility. While Sera believed there was no alternative to war, the fact remained that heaven was now in the disadvantageous position of their casualties being greater than zero.
"Please understand Emily," Sera began pleadingly. "Sinners only permanently die when killed by angelic weaponry. If their population were allowed to balloon, they would bring war to heaven when they could write off dozens of millions as acceptable losses. We'd be overwhelmed."
"There has to be another way Sera," Emily pleaded.
"There is no other way," Sera replied. "I've already told the exorcists that they will be facing resistance for the first time ever and they've bumped up the exterminations to be happening twice yearly. We'll just have to hope that that plus whatever preparations they're making will be enough."
"Of course," Emily began sarcastically. "Because the only thing wrong with the exterminations is hell's refusal to lay down and die for no reason greater than that's what we want."
"Please do not question me on this," Sera pleaded as she placed a hand on Emily's shoulder. "If you continue to question this, you could end up falling like Lucifer."
Emily said nothing and she turned to walk away.
—-
Carmilla had been taken to a secure, one-room apartment that was inside a larger building to ensure she couldn't simply escape by going out a window. Camilla had been moved with a bag over her head so she had absolutely no idea where she was now: not that it mattered much since she knew nothing about heaven's layout.
This could certainly be much worse for a prison cell, Carmilla thought. It did not take her long to decide that she would not try to escape. Right now, the likely outcomes were that she would be handed back to hell as a bargaining chip to prevent war or her daughters would bring war to heaven and she'd have an easier time escaping during the chaos. Either way, trying to escape now would only serve to give the guards that she knew were outside the apartment's only entrance an excuse to kill her so for now, the best course of action was to be patient.
Two days into her confinement, Carmilla had moved the couch aside in the main living area so she would have some open space to practice her dancing. She found that it helped keep her both physically and mentally active. The door to the apartment opened and in walked Emily.
"Hello," Emily greeted. "First off, I just want to say that I'm sorry about… so many things."
"It's all right," Carmilla replied. She then went over to the kitchen area, sat down on the table and motioned for Emily to join her, which she did. "I could tell from your reactions last time that you did not know about the exterminations. I'm curious: how is that possible?"
"The exterminations are kind of like Sera's secret project," Emily answered. "I assure you, only a few in heaven would go along with this if they knew."
"Forgive me if I remain skeptical," Carmilla snapped back. "What exactly is Sera to you?"
"She's my boss and older sister," Emily explained and then had a sad look. "And until recently, the person I most admired. But enough about me: have the guards been mistreating you?"
"No," Carmilla answered. "I actually got one of them to get a chess set and play with me. Of course that was after I explained that I might lose my mind from solitary confinement, which would negatively affect my value as a hostage and if they didn't want to be blamed for that, they should take some preventative measures. Do you play?"
"Chess? No," Emily answered. "I'm more of a go fish girl."
There was an awkward silence in the room as Carmilla had no idea how to respond to that except a very unamused look.
"Did the guards tell you about this place's history?" Emily asked.
"No," Carmilla answered. "Anything I should know?"
"This was set up as a safe house to protect any controversial arrivals into heaven. They needed a safe place to be while everyone else warmed up to the idea that they got in. It doesn't happen all that often though. Pretty sure the last time this place was used was about 80 years ago with Glip-Glorp. He's a space alien. He got into heaven after dying when his ship crashed near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947."
"I find that less surprising than I should," Carmilla said. She briefly considered if the young Seraphim was lying to her but dismissed the possibility on the grounds that Emily had nothing to gain and her claim about there being an alien in heaven was too ridiculous to be a lie.
"You should know," Emily said, "that I am trying to talk Sera into stopping the exterminations. So far, it has gone very poorly."
"What a surprise," Carmilla replied dryly, "the woman who condones systemic genocide as a measure to ensure heaven's protection is not easily swayed from her position."
"Yeah," Emily said. "I'm going to keep trying but it may be necessary to do something drastic."
"And what exactly is your idea of drastic?" Carmilla asked in a scoffing manner.
"I could break you out of here if I wanted to," Emily answered.
Carmilla's eyes widened in surprise as to say, 'whatever I thought you were going to say, it wasn't that'. Carmilla could tell that Emily meant well but that she was also very optimistic and naïve, therefore hesitant to take extreme measures to help Carmilla: especially since Emily had no reason to stick her neck out for the sinner turned winner.
On the other hand, Carmilla began to mentally disagree with herself, Emily's optimism and naïveté mean that she's willing to do something for no reason other than that she thinks it's the right thing to do. And with how disillusioned she seems to have become with Sera, the right thing in this case means trying to atone for the injustices she's committed. Emily can't do anything about the exterminations by herself but she can free me from my imprisonment.
"But," Emily resumed, "that would likely lead to me burning my bridges with heaven. Especially if this is the thing that pushes me into falling. I'd be willing to do that if I knew someone in hell who would be on my side."
"Get me back to my daughters," Carmilla began with her usual sternness, "and I would be honored to have you as my permanent houseguest. But are you prepared to follow through on this: turning your back on heaven to live in hell as a refugee?"
"If Sera thinks," Emily resolutely began, "that the exterminations are what heaven stands for, then I don't wanna stand with heaven. But I'm really hoping it doesn't come to that. I'm gonna keep trying to wear Sera down. This is going to be our last resort contingency."
"Of course," Carmilla replied in disappointed acceptance. While she was not happy that Emily kind of dangled the hope of getting back to Odette and Clara in front of her and then pulled it away, she understood that Emily felt like her options hadn't been exhausted yet.
I can be patient a while longer, Carmillla thought. Sera truly believes ordering the exterminations is what's best for heaven. At some point, that belief is going to outlast Emily's patience and then Emily will pull the trigger on this contingency plan.
—
It had been two months since Carmilla's arrival. Sera was now checking in on the exorcists to see what measures they were taking to prepare for the next extermination. Adam and Lute were walking her around the exorcist's outdoor training area, which was far from the populated areas of heaven.
"We've changed our tactics," Lute began to explain to the high Seraphim, taking the lead on this briefing since she was likely to be more serious and less crude than Adam. "We've divided the exorcists into two subcategories: spear maidens and the rifle corp. Spear maidens are the traditional exorcists but they'll be given heavier armor and shields for added protection. The rifle corps is exactly what it sounds like."
Lute wanted to call them sharpshooters at first, Adam began thinking, but so far, none of them have lived up to that name.
—-
(Begin flashback)
It had been a week since Adam and Lute had started training some of the exorcists to use rifles and so far, the results had not been encouraging.
"With how badly," Adam began, "they're adapting to use guns, why don't we switch from rifles to something more like a machine gun? Make up for the lack of precision by just spraying the general area with bullets."
Adam then motioned shooting a machine gun while sputtering what were supposed to be gunshot sounds.
"Because more shots fired," Lute began to counter in her usual no nonsense manner, "means more angelic bullets for the sinners to scavenge, reforge into new bullets and then use against us later. We need to take steps to ensure they no longer benefit from our carelessness."
"Fuck, that's a good point," Adam groaned in dissatisfaction.
"Having said that," Lute resumed, "we'll save that as a Plan B in case their accuracy doesn't improve when we get close to the extermination."
(End flashback)
"Why have two groups?" Sera asked. "You would likely catch the sinners of guard by having all your troops start using firearms."
"The sinners will no doubt," Lute began to retort, "be making plans to attack us as we approach from the air. We can split their attention with a two-pronged assault. Either the sinners go after the rifle corps and give an opening for the spear maidens to get in close or they focus on the spear maidens and give the rifle corps time to squeeze off more rounds."
"Excellent," Sera said as she realized the merits to this approach.
"As we're getting the spear maidens accustomed to using heavier armor," Lute continued, "we made a discovery. If the armor remains intact, then our angelic resilience means that an exorcist won't take any kind of impact damage. This is extremely fortuitous because it means that in order for an exorcists to be vulnerable, their protective gear would have to be destroyed first. In addition to the obvious benefits this gives to our troops survivability, this will likely cause the sinners to use up quite a bit of their own weapons first which I'm hoping will result in a net loss of scavenged angelic metal per killed exorcist."
"Excellent," Sera complemented and faced Adam. "How's recruitment going?"
"Slowly and painfully," Adam answered in an almost petulant manner, "emphasis on the painfully."
The exorcists were specifically created to serve as heaven's vanguard. Adam would use one of his light beams to carve out a piece of his flesh and then spawn a new being from that in a process similar to how Eve was created from one of his ribs. Adam had tried using a sample from an exorcist to spawn a new one but it didn't work: likely because it was similar to making a copy of a copy.
"Oh please," Sera replied dismissively to Adams' displeasure. "Like you won't enjoy gorging yourself so that you have more flesh to extract."
"Not nearly enough," Adam began to retort, "to make up for the massive amounts of ass that the extraction process sucks. Seeing as how you have some skin in the game, why don't we make that literal?"
"The process won't work with me," Sera answered.
"We don't know that for sure," Adam disagreed. Sera's only response was to glare at him sternly. "I mean, we do know for sure that it won't work. I'll continue to solely handle recruitment. Which I will get to as soon as Fiona gets back with my lunch order."
"She still hasn't returned," Lute remarked. "I'll be sure to punish her for her tardiness when she gets back."
"Actually, she's on schedule," Adam clarified. "I sent her to pick up pizza, burgers and donuts from some of my favorite places which aren't near here or each other."
"Sir" Lute began, "I know that our recruitment process brings new meaning to the phrase 'an army marches on its stomach', but the more time one of our troops spends procuring food for you, the less time they spend preparing for the next extermination."
"I'll start sending multiple girls," Adam started to answer, "on smaller food runs rather than sending one girl on a large food run. That way, it'll make sure no one's falling behind too much and I get to chow down on the first part of my order while the rest is en route. This is why you and I make a great team, Lute: I'm the big picture guy and you iron out the details."
"Thank you, sir," Lute replied enthusiastically as she saluted.
Just then, a small orb of golden light appeared in front of Sera. Orbs like these were how angels communicated with each other. She grabbed the orb, pinching off a small part of it and placed it next to her ear so that only she would hear what the caller wanted to say.
"This better be important," Sera said into the orb after bringing it up to her mouth. Due to the clandestine nature of the exterminations, she was not happy about being interrupted while attending to that.
"It's Emily," the caller began. "She paralyzed me and Darren and then opened up a portal and left with Carmilla."
Sera bit her lower lip to make sure she didn't say anything that would let the exorcists know that something was bothering her.
"She left a note with me before leaving," the caller continued. "She and Carmilla have fled to Carmilla's home in hell, where they'll be waiting for you."
"Thank you for telling me of this," Sera said and then dispelled the orb. She turned to face Lute. "Lute, is the item I commissioned from the armory ready?"
"Yes, high Seraphim," Lute answered and saluted.
"Perfect," Sera said. "I'll be taking it with me."
—-
Author's notes: for what it's worth, I came up with the idea of the exorcists' creation before the plays on words regarding 'skin in the game' and 'an army marches on its stomach'. I would like to point out that in the show, Adam claiming he named Vaggie and Lute implies he might have created them and there's nothing that definitively says otherwise.