Amy

She thrashed against the mental attack, unable to cry out. She couldn’t cast magic as her angelic synapsis were disrupted. She felt the psychokinetic blows against her mind and found a pattern. It wasn’t the worst psychic attack he ever felt. She focused on the pain points, seeing predictable patterns. She pushed back against the writhing tendrils of power, giving her enough time to reinforce those points of attack. The defenses crumbled as the attack pattern changed completely.

“An amateur defense- nothing more. A sign of an arrogant and unworthy race. Disappointing,” the Proturan mocked.

“Unworthy? We sculpted the stars- you big idiot!” she wanted to retort, but couldn’t.

She was tossed high into the air and then slammed to the deck, warping the metal with a thud. Amy lay stunned from the blow, her body ringing and crying out in pain.

“Big idiot!” she tried to say. Another burst of psychokinetic power sent her sprawling inside her own mind.

She was forced into a memory.

She gazed out into the quadruple sunset horizon, painting the sky with colors no man could see or comprehend. She held out her hand as a fragile glass finch fluttered onto her finger. It’s feathered tail dwarfed its small body, dipping down and curling back on itself akin to a bird of paradise. It gazed up at her, curious and expectant. She held out a pinch of seeds with her free hand, feeding them to the finch.

“Pretty girl, what do you have for me?”

She touched its forehead, feeling the message it brought blossom into her consciousness. Another angel spoke, viewing a battlefield of fire and light from above. It was a war report.

“Adonai’s name be praised on high. Amy, Angel of Goetic Bane, the enchantments and capture runes were as if God set them himself. We’ve caught two greater demons and an elder. We shall arrive shortly to process them.”

She beamed. Of course it had worked perfectly, Adonai had made her that way. An Angel created to dissect, process, categorize, and eliminate demonkind. The finch flew off, having delivered its message.

“God is best,” she murmured.

Demons were to be culled and cleansed, but this was one a breakthrough for other methods. If she could discover or help discover a way to rid them of their chaos and evil, that would be one step towards total peace. She turned away from her sandstone gazebo overlook, turning to leave down into her studies. She had sat and waited for the results at this exact spot for a month now, soaking in his presence.

“Wow! What a strange past history! You were prettier back then, too!”

She turned, seeing the one who had assaulted her, seeing his tall and slender, green and demented form. His large cueball head tilted side to side in a gesture of curiosity.

“I have to hand it to you, I’ve got a newfound respect for you, little squirt! You have the same passion for knowledge that I do. And in this line of business, that means jack-shit! But at least our interests align. You like taking apart demons, I like taking apart humans- and- well- everything!”

The vision ceased as Amy blinked. She was sitting at the table with the others as if nothing had ever happened. He couldn’t have possibly done that. It wasn’t possible to force her to remember that cursed time. That bittersweet memory of another’s lifetime. She was cut to the heart. Nothing she did mattered. Nothing she did now would ever eclipse those years so long ago. He had just dressed her down and violated her mind.

“What?” her confusion and pain eked from her cracking voice.

“I was only checking to see who you are. Can’t be friends with ol’ Slatey without my say so!” his voice suddenly went deadpan. “And if I say so, then it is- don’t doubt me.”

Amy was still dazed and confused from the proxy psychic assault. Goblin lackeys donned in green robes hurried to and fro with decadent food. Slate was still eating her homemade cheese. The luncheon continued without so much of a flinch from anyone. Her gauntleted hand shook as she gripped her teacup, sipping gingerly. Her spirit quivered. Her defenses she relied upon were circumvented so easily. A demon was a known factor, but a god? They survived in hellfire, torture, and emptiness. She could only think of them falling to one. Her god, Lucifer.

Slate glanced her way, eye half opened either from boredom or contentment- or both.

“Something the matter?”

Amy did a double take from Slate to the smiling Neon.

“N-nothing…” she stammered. Her pride had been snuffed out in a single act. Forced to remember that time so long ago. He hurt her in ways she couldn’t fully appreciate yet. And then acted as if nothing happened.

Slate halted her gluttonous feast, wiping away the oily hair from her face. She snapped her red and white veined eye at Neon.

“What did you do,” she demanded sleepily.

“Me? Just a bit of mental prodding! We can't have an unknown with us, even if she's a guest."

"She's not unknown. She's my bestie."

Slate rose to her feet, standing upon the chair. Amy was in too much shock to realize what was happening. Slate's voice was beginning to change. She heard slight bits of emotion in her otherwise droll demeanor.

"She's mine. No one else's. Mine."

"Is she, now? And do you know her? Truly know her like I do?"

"What do you mean," her voice was flat, empty of any query. It was a demand.

"Slatey, Slatey, Slatey! This Amy, Liberal Arts Angel is a spy-!"

Slate gripped the table with a grubby hand and crushed down on the edge. It popped and a long peeling noise of rippling thunder rang out as roots of cracks formed along the table, traveling to every edge. She lifted her end, sending a crashing avalanche of noise crying out as the table gave up the ghost. All of the cultists either cowered in fear at the noise or brandished weapons; a mixture of instincts based on experience. A small portion of the table stood, floating in midair as Neon continued to sit.

Amy viewed the scene as if a bystander to her own existence. She knew the trauma Neon had forced her to remember had shattered her psyche. Her own disconnection and depersonalization signs of a massive blow. And she was powerless to stop it. She had rejected her old life completely. Amy had given herself to Lucifer entirely. And Neon had shown the greener pastures of lifetimes ago. All with a single sideways mental attack. He had made her relive the forsaken past in a way that gave a stark comparison to today. Even with Slate's offense taken, the damage was done. She had tasted the forbidden fruit of the Fallen.

There was no greater sin for a fallen angel than nostalgia.

Har large gauntleted hand gripped the front of her robes as she began to crumple inward. Slate shuffled through the debris to Neon.

"Neon," Slate began sleepily, "You think you're my keeper. But you're only the mischievous little brother of the family. I don't devour your followers right now because you will say sorry."

"Little Slate, I know you're upset-"

She turned her head, snapping her single eye at a group of cultists. She opened that terrible mouth and a roaring vacuum akin to a hull breach rang out. A visible snap and tear ripped through reality, rocking the vessel. Lights and alarms blared as it was forced out of FTL suddenly. The cluster of followers were gone, as was a large cone of the hull, table, and debris. Neon's grinning cueball head slowly craned towards her as he continued to sit steeple handed, his long legs bent like a cricket’s atop the tiny seat.

He laughed that horrible cackle of a shrieking goat.

"I see there is no placating you, Slate. I was only looking out for family."

She folded her arms, her lips curling back.

"I know Amy better than you. After all, I've fought her. You know what it means when I have a bestie. Remember Void? Amy made food I have never had before. She is arrogant and prideful, yet earnest in her desires. I like her. I told her my true name. She lived. That makes us besties. Now say sorry."

For the first time Amy had seen Neon, his smile waivered. His mouth slowly winked shut to a flat smooth line. She trembled uncontrollably at his serious visage. She had a feeling a planet would crack in half before the green demon a table length away from her would be in any way humble. He was also far more uncomfortable in his present sturgeon demeanor.

"I am sorry."

His voice raked her mind like a caressing handful of blades. She felt an immense weight pass over the room, as if a massive object was passed. She was in complete surprise. Amy had seen millenia of demons, warred against trillions and personally slain close to millions.

Not one single time had a demon, from the lowest imp to the highest god, ever apologize.

Neither did any demon force such blasphemous virtues. What she witnessed was a change, an evolution to demonkind in this new and bizarre reality; this new Somatheonic realm. She realized then how stale she and the other Fallen had become in their almost petty squabbles for power. And neither did demons compare one another to family, but as competitors to backstab and devour.

Slate had committed two blasphemous acts for demonkind in that regard.

And Amy could process none of it due to her shocked psyche. She looked down at her teacup, realizing it was just a broken handle. She let it tumble to the floor alongside the rubble. She got up from her chair and began to waddle away, zoning out the squabble between the two gods.

The cultists of green and madness backed away from her, showing a various mixture of fear, suspicion, loathing, and concern. She ignored them all, as if searching for a room to hemorage out the final moments of life. He cut her to the flesh, to the bone, to the organ- to the soul. In all her time battling demons, she had never met such foes. It had always been angels crushing down atop demons like weeds, enjoying the bliss of eternal life. Now the reverse was true.

Why did I join Lucy? Why did I abandon that life?

She shook her head of such frivolous thoughts before they took root.

Don’t be an Idiot. You’re nothing without her. Just a pathetic angel of the liberal arts. She gave us purpose and power.

She trudged down a corridor and summoned her Throne, needing something to lean upon. Bithermaul was a comfort to her, but a hollow one at this time. She wished she had known him in the old world, before the fall. It wasn’t her fault.

It’s not fair!

Her thoughts were interrupted as a large metal thing bumped into her, meeting at an intersection of twisted hull and blasphemous decorations.

“Watch where you’re going, you big idiot!” she snapped, her anger and pain no longer contained.

She struggled to rise, clumsily gathering herself.

“Amy?”

She paused. She knew that voice. It sounded like heaven of old. It wasn’t him, though. He was gone, devoured by the very emerald demon whose ship she occupied and infiltrated. Just like Forcas and Abezebithou. She looked up, brushing away her cowl.

He was taller than she remembered, adorned in flesh of emerald adamantite. She could sense the sickening mixture of demonic and angelic auras. The tumorous presence of his demonic half was new and foreign. But it was him all the same. It was the angel she had a crush on. Her best friend and silent confidant- quiet no more.

He was alive. And he was more powerful than she had imagined he could be.

“Barthin?”

She scrambled to her feet, trembling at the changed angel. He knelt down, getting almost to eye level.

“Amy- I thought I’d never see another angelic soul again…” he began.

Her hands trembled, the clinking of metal rang out as she gripped her stave hard. She pressed it down into the hull, embedding it with a grinding pop. She shuffled to her friend, opening her arms wide like an infant. And then she embraced Barthin.

She knew what he’d done and he executed it perfectly. The recalling of memory, the reunion with her best friend. It was if by some sick foreshadowed plan to shake her faith in Lucifer. And it worked. She now hungered for more than what she had. She had tasted forbidden fruit of nostalgia and now witnessed her friend having gained power beyond what Lucifer promised. Here was another avenue for might and glory apart from her god’s plans. He hugged her back, forming the first wedge of a fracture in her faith.

Damn you, Neon- you big idiot.

Barthin rose to his feet, gathering her like a swaddled child as he marched down to his quarters.