The sequel to forum/threads/helluva-president-the-whole-story-so-far-from-saint-petersburg-to-the-burkan-khaldun.551993/
Pentagram City, May 30, 1923
A lonely figure walked the steps leading up to the ramparts of Lucifer's castle.
Sparse, distant clouds dotted the blood-red sky above the city...
...resplending dimly in the glow of a dazzling moon-lit night.
...
Prince Stolas gazed into the supralunar expanse that divided, since time immemorial, the realms of Heaven and Hell...
Realms that were now at war.
Who, Stolas wondered, could gain but a glimpse of the sheer scale of cosmic movements, of the vast revolutions of the Universe, and not come to the conclusion that mortals, angels and demons alike were all inconsequential, passing, ephemeral phenomena, the mere playthings of Fate?
He should have known better than most, for he had been appointed Royal Astrologer of Hell, adviser to the King.
And yet...
...the awareness of the vanity of all things in the Universe would not be of any comfort to him on this night.
...Why does the heart has to feel so much PAIN...
...Why can't I forget- like the stars, who keep moving on in their eternal rounds, forgetful of all the little things that troubles us...
Then he beheld a lonely star...
...and could only think of the lonely creature his heart belonged to- now and forevermore...
...and he started to sing...
I'll be your Element of Kindness
My love for you is pure and bright
I know you're scared and lonely
But you're the one and only
Creature that is in my thoughts tonight
I'll be your Element of Kindness
'Till I am in the clouds above
I will be there beside you
To hold you and to guide you
Soon you'll see what it is like to love
A cold and friendless life has found you
Don't let the lonely darkness bring you down
I'll throw my wings and claws around you
In a full embrace
Despite your scarred face
I'll be your Element of Kindness
This flame inside of me has grown
You have my heart, don't break it
Here's my hand, so take it
Care for me, for you've always known
Although our love has flown
I'll never leave you alone
I'll never leave you alone
I'll never leave you alone
"Goodnight, Blitz."
watch?v=kopWWj5Dqmg
...following the [Los Angeles Incident of 1919] (classified) President Marshall ordered the formation of a top-secret division of the FBI, tasked with investigating supernatural threats to the United States...
On that day, the Department of Homeland Occult Research and Kabbalistic Security was born.
Secret DHORKS compound near Brookhaven, New York, May 30, 1923
"YOU CANNOT KEEP US IN HERE! WE ARE ANGELS OF THE AUTHORITY!"
It had been several weeks (or at least it felt like weeks- they had no way of keeping track of the passage of time) since they had been captured by DHORKS agents and taken to some sort of underground base...
Their life had been nothing but long periods of waiting in their cell (which, thankfully, was larger and comfier that your average prison cell) before the agents invariably took them to an interrogation room where they would question them for hours on end- and then they were back to just waiting, on repeat...
They had questions about everything concerning Heaven, especially about things their prisoners knew nothing about because they were all waaay above their paygrade...
Why on Earth did they keep questioning them about armed forces, heavy industry and weapons development!? They were just cherubs!
They even asked them about the lost city that humans had recently discovered in Antarctica; of course it was Angelic, but it had been abandoned for millennia before they were even born!
And they could not help the humans with reserve-engineering all the cool stuff they had recovered there either; that would require magitech specialists and, again, they were just cherubs, the very lowest ladder of the whole hierarchy of Heaven...
And now they had been locked in the interrogation room for hours- their captors nowhere to be seen...
Keenie was the one shouting at the top of her lungs, hoping there was anyone on the other side of the nondescript door, while Collin and Cletus had long given up, resigned to their fate...
At least they were no longer on the run, hiding from humans in the darkest corners of their cities, Collin would say... Their exile from Heaven had been so unspeakably horrible that just about anything looked like an improvement at this point...
But Keenie was tired and mad, and she needed something to shout at...
"Did you hear that?" Cletus suddenly asked with his baby-like voice, matching his appearance, "Someone is coming!"
The sound of approaching steps came to a halt, and Agents One and Two unlocked the door. As always, they wore their dashing black suits and matching pair of anachronistic-looking sunglasses, cool as hell!
"Someone wants to speak with ya." Agent Two said in her Jersey accent. She turned to the person she was introducing in the room.
"As you can see, Princess, these little guys are safe and sound."
"Thank you, Agent."
...
She entered the room.
An Angel.
She looked nearly human, close to a teenage girl, with strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes, gorgeously dressed and with only one pair of wings on her back.
Keenie was shocked. She couldn't be...
"G-g-granduchess!?" Collin stuttered.
"You work with Emily! WE ARE SAVED!" Cletus was flying all over the room, bursting with joy.
She giggled. "Privet, malen'kiye druz'ya! Indeed, my good friend Emily learned of you during a meeting with the Americans and sent me to check on you. You can't imagine how terribly sorry she is for your banishment-"
"W-wait, what!?" Keenie interrupted her, "A meeting!? Why would a Seraph have dealings with humans... What about the Masquerade!?"
She looked surprised, "You- you didn't know?"
"The humans aren't telling us anything, your Highness..." Keenie replied, "...and we haven't seen other Angels in months. Please, tell us what happened!"
Anastasia took a deep breath...
"Five months ago, a battle broke out in Pentagram City... We are now at war with Hell. It's only a matter of time before the Masquerade here on Earth is gone. Forever...
...We are taking steps to ensure that our existence is revealed gradually, at least to the world governments, but it's mostly to limit the damage... And there's not the shadow of a doubt that Lucifer is doing the exact same thing..."
"THE DEMON SCUM!"
Keenie had never been angrier in her life. Collin and Cletus, who had been mostly shocked and scared, now were terrified.
"Ke-Keenie, we just..." Collin said, holding Cletus like he was an actual baby "...we just want to go back to Heaven..."
"Have you FORGOT why we were stranded on this fucking planet TO BEGIN WITH!? BECAUSE OF THEM!"
"Keenie!" Cletus exclaimed "We were meant to spread love, not hate!"
"I. Don't. CARE! Not anymore..." she started to laugh, "...It's all clear to me now... We were never truly saving human souls... The only way to save humans is tokill demons... every last one of them..."
"I won't let you do that!"
Everybody turned to Anastasia in shock. "What!?"
"W-why..." Keenie couldn't believe it, "...Why would you of all humans defend them!? You and your family were murderedby demonic humans!"
"They were people... MY PEOPLE! I-" Her tears started to fall, "...I wish it never came to that... I wish my father had not lost himself to avenge us... to avenge me...
...I won't let it happen to you! To any of you..."
"But your father was redeemed!" Keenie replied, "He went to Heaven..."
"You..." In that moment, Anya knew there was no going back... "You cannot understand, but... Emily and I have decided that, after everything you suffered, after what your superiors have done to you... you deserve the truth..."
"What truth?" Collin asked, bewildered and confused...
...Anya began to tell them the story of how one morning, several months before, the Princess of Hell had arrived at the gates of Heaven to present a daring proposal before the Seraphim...
...
An almost complete, deathly silence had fallen on the room. Collin was breathing heavily...
"...Extermination... of human souls..."
"This can't be... Are we..." Cletus was shaking... "...Are we the baddies?"
"NO! Of course not! It's all LIES, Satanic LIES!"
"Adam confessed in front of everyone!" Anya continued "And it was his soldiers who covered it up- and then attacked the Hotel..."
"THEN YOU ARE LYING!"
Keenie grabbed her by the collar, her reddish-pink eyes burning with all the hatred of a scorned Angel...
"HOW DO WE KNOW YOU ARE THE REAL PRINCESS!? YOU ARE JUST HERE TO DECEIVE US! YOU ARE A DEMON! YOU WANT US DAMNED LIKE YOU ARE! YOU-"
Anya didn't flinch, didn't move.
She only glared at her...
...her blue eyes suddenly cold with icy determination...
Then she spoke...
"YA Velikaya knyaginya Anastasiya Nikolayevna Romanova Rossiyskaya, i vse, chto ya vam tol'ko chto skazala, — pravda!"
"No! N-no it can't... you..."
Keenie was terrified.
She turned to see Collin and Cletus; they were wimpering and crying in a corner...
'What have I done!?'
"Collin, Cletus, it's... It must be all a test! Yes! The Authority is testing our faith... We must believe..."
She collapsed to the floor, crying.
From the moment they had been banished, for years, she had felt like she needed to be strong for them.
And now... she wasn't. She couldn't be.
She had been nothing but an innocent Lamb...
...and now her innocence... was gone.
Shaking and crying, she started to recite a song of Heaven...
The Authority is my shepherd; I shall not want
He makes me lie down in green pastures
He leads me beside waters of rest
He restores my soul
He leads me in right paths
For the sake of His name
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I will fear no evil
For you are with me
Your rod and your staff
They comfort me
And I shall return to dwell in the house of the Authority
For lenght of days
In that moment, Anya no longer saw a little angelic sheep in front of her...
She saw herself, the way she had been in those last few days in Ekaterinburg, in the valley of the shadow of death...
And she saw little children who had been killed at her father's orders...
...The sins of the father...
She was crying, "I'm so sorry..."
She hugged Keenie, who started crying profusely on her shoulder...
"Come here..."
Collin and Cletus hugged their friend, and Anya threw her wings around the three cherubs...
She started to sing...
...a song that came to her like a lullaby...
...from faraway, long ago...
...from an ancient, snow-clad Russian land...
Dancing bears
Painted wings
Things I almost remember
And a song
Someone sings
Once upon a December
Someone holds me safe and warm
Horses prance through a silver storm
Figures dancing gracefully
Across my memory
Far away
Long ago
Glowing dim as an ember
Things my heart
Used to know
Things it yearns to remember
And a song...
...Someone sings...
...Once upon a December
watch?v=P-vi44UW_dI
After a long while, Keenie broke the silence, her voice little more than a whisper...
"Emily will still let us return to Heaven, will she?"
"Da, she can easily pull some strings and it will be like you were never banished... But only if you promise her to never talk about the Extermination with anyone... We can do nothing against the Authority unless we appear to be completely loyal..."
"How can we do that?" Keenie asked "Return to our happy lives in Heaven knowing what we know now!?"
"If we refuse to do that..." Collin added "...will we simply stay here?"
"No... Emily has something else in mind for you..."
...
They flew westward in the light of the Full Moon. To their right was the Long Island Sound, and right ahead the horizon seemed to shine with numberless white jewels; the many lights of distant New York City...
As they were slowly descending above Oyster Bay, they were headed to a forested peninsula right in the middle of the bay...
They hovered silently above the treetops, until they saw a vast clearing, where they landed.
Before them was a grand mansion built in a somewhat creepy, late Victorian style. Or at least, it looked creepy in the middle of the night...
"W-what is this place?" asked Cletus.
"I named it Sagamore Hill..." the calm voice of a man responded from the thick shadows cast by a tree in the moonlight...
"We meet again, Grim Reaper." Anya courteously said.
"YOU KNOW THE GRIM REAPER!?"
"And I have heard of you, too, little cherubs..." Theodore said.
"You... What?... How?"
Theodore smiled, "My friend Moxxie speaks highly of you..."
"What!?" Collin was dumbfounded, "Isn't he with I.M.P.? They hate us!"
"Sure, you didn't look eye to eye... but Moxxie told me that you little ones fought bravely and stood for what you believed in..."
"Well..." said Cletus "...I guess we are kind of cool..."
"Esteemed Reaper..." Keenie said, confused, "...I don't see how we could be of help to you..."
"But I surely do." Theodore explained "You see, my job is to push the most stubborn souls over to the other side... I don't really get to help souls in need, to help people... but I can give you the power to do just that, much like you once did."
The cherubs looked hesitant at first. They would live on Earth... but still help people?
Anya smiled seeing the little guys exchange knowing looks. They had decided.
...
The cherubs stepped into a magic circle, drawn with the magic of the Reaper's Scythe.
They looked determined, Collin and Cletus holding Keenie's hands.
Theodore started reciting an incantation, and the circle's arcane glyphs glowed with a sickly green aura, brighter and brighter...
...Till suddenly the cherubs were engulfed in green flames!
A pillar of otherwordly green energy briefly cast long, spindly shadows, then vanished, leaving only a distant rumbling sound, like a thunderstorm...
Anya could not see the cherubs at first, blinded by the sudden light...
They were there. Unharmed.
Changed.
Their pastel-colored clothes were gone, replaced by shining black and green armor...
The Reaper spoke with a deep, thunderous voice, holding the Scythe high above them...
"I, Death, hereby invest you with the power to guide lost souls to the Other Side of the thin veil between worlds...
You shall be my emissaries...
My Angels of Death!"
The Angels bowed, having devoted their lives to a worthy cause once again!
...
As the light of dawn approached from the East, Keenie questioned the Grim Reaper;
"Sir, what will we do if we ever have to guide souls to Hell? That would be horrible!"
Theodore smiled brightly.
"You shall tell them of a place called the Happy Hotel..."