LotS/The Story/Between Heaven and Hell/If Angels Fight (1)
If Angels Fight (1)
"When asked for comment, the senator grabbed the flag, fired his gun in the air, and jumped through the nearest window. He remains at large." The newscaster smiled from the holographic screen, displaying teeth so dazzling they appeared to glow. "And in interstellar news, tension continues to mount between the angels."
A garish graphic consumed the screen, while an invisible choir sang what sounded like a catchy jingle version of a medieval hymn. Three cartoon angels glared at each other for a second. Then they started scrapping, until their solid-color bodies disappeared in a turbulent ball of smoke, flashing stars, and streams of nonsensical text symbols. The words "Trouble in Paradise" flashed over the cartoon carnage.
The image disappeared, revealing the anchor once more. The radioactive smile still lingered on his face.
"Let's go over to Mindy Mazmarth on Jerusalem Maior for more on the story."
The screen spilt in two, shunting the anchor over to the left while a new window opened on the right. It showed a woman with a perky smile and a turquoise blouse.
"I'm Mindy Mazmarth, reporting from Jerusalem Maior."
"The viewers already know that, Mindy. I just told them."
"Go to hell, Roy. And while you're there, tell your mother she raised a douchebag." Her smile remained unbroken save for a slight twitch at the corner, and her voice maintained the same tone as she continued. "This world has been the focal point of several theological and political disputes over the years. But analysts believe matters are coming to a head, and if not handled carefully could spill out into widespread armed conflict. The Archangels, who control Jerusalem Maior, are under pressure from the Fallen Angels and the Electric Angels, religious offshoot groups who each demand full access to the planet and its Grand Temple."
"I understand that talks are scheduled to begin tomorrow, in the hope of resolving the situation."
"That's right. Prime Minister Wu Tenchu of the Sian Empire arrived here this morning. Wu, one of human space's most respected political figures, has been chosen to act as an arbitrator during the summit. Meanwhile, dignitaries from several other UHW members are also on-world -- meeting with the different angel factions."
"And I hear a number of celebrities are lending their dubious support to the cause."
"Yes, in the proud tradition of celebrity attention whoring, singers, actors, athletes, and socialites have flocked to Jerusalem Maior to promote peace through concerts, film festivals, and other events that nobody asked for and, by and large, nobody wants. The one that's garnered the most attention is the upcoming thugby match pitting the Sian Dragons-"
The screen went blank, banishing the anchor and reporter. The woman in the spaceship's stateroom had heard enough. She rose from her chair and crossed the chamber, to where a full-length mirror adorned the wall. Hard eyes stared back at her from a middle-aged face, beneath a bob of dark, close-cropped hair. There was a tattoo on the reflected woman's right cheek. A hand rose, and two fingers traced the mark's outline.
She held the reflection's gaze for several long moments. Then the face shifted, its features flowing and rippling like water. When the ripples had settled, a young, pretty woman gazed at her from bright, warm eyes. The tattoo was gone.
Her fingers brushed the bare skin where it had been.
"Soon..." she whispered.
"Here come the Dragons, Bob!"
Jesse Shark's voice rang out over the stadium, projected from the commentary booth nestled high among the boxes. Emerald green figures were emerging from the tunnel onto the field below.
"There's Talia Ryx," his partner, Bob 'Blam' Boser said, "leading her team out. You know, Jesse, if I was a Sian Dragon, I'd have a few words with my captain right about now. A friendly match? What's that all about?"
"And there we have our first indecent gesture of the day. I don't think Talia appreciated that comment, Bob. But for anyone out there who's just joining us, this match between the Dragons and the Angels has indeed been declared a 'friendly'. That means the players won't try to maim or kill each other."
"Is it thugby or hopscotch? I can't believe they made us come out here for this!"
"Fans of thugby-related fatalities like my broadcast colleague may be disappointed, but this match is being heralded as a wonderful diplomatic event. Look -- there are the Angels! This brand new team includes members from the Archangels, Electric Angels, and Fallen Angels. They've all set aside their differences, come together, and put on the same armor for this special charity match. Come on, Bob! Isn't that what sport's all about? Bringing people together?"
"Not thugby! It's about tearing them apart and eating their organs! Blood and guts, Jesse! Blood and guts!"
"Ha! Okay, Bob! But still, in the middle of all this religious and political turmoil..."
"Save the speech! The teams are getting into position, and we're about to get started."
"The referee's tossed the ball in, and there's the scrum. This may be a friendly, but those punches they're throwing sure aren't! That Snuuth Angel knocked Kai Wung spinning!"
"But look at Virgil Jackson, Jesse! He's swinging at Angels left and right. It's like a scene from Paradise Lost!"
"Nice literary reference, Bob! You liked Milton's poem?"
"Poem? I watched the movie! Poetry's for losers, Jesse!"
"Oh! 'Great Wall' Guan just broke through, and he has the ball! He's running down the pitch! And one of the Angels' defenders is heading over to intercept him... The number on her armor is 'Rom 12.1'... According to my display, that's Mary Ronara, one of the Fallen Angels."
"Rom 12.1? What kind of number's that?"
"It's a Bible verse, Bob! All of the Angels are wearing their favorite Bible verses as numbers. Ronara's fast... She's cutting across the field and moving in for a front tackle. This could be a mistake! Oh... Did you see that?"
"Guan smashed through her like she was the queue at an 'all you can eat' buffet! He launched her straight into the crowd! Where's her God now?"
"Bob! You can't say things like that on Jerusalem Maior! The local fans will lynch us... Or crucify us!"
"They've got other things to worry about right now, Jesse. That's a touchdown! One-nil to the Dragons!"
"Mary Ronara's staggering back onto the field, and her teammates are going over to help her. They... Wow!"
"Ha! He shoved her on her ass! And now he's yelling at her!"
"That's '2 Sam 23.12', Tarzark Krun of the Electric Angels."
"He's blaming her for the touchdown!"
"That's not really fair, Bob! I'd like to see Krun try to stop 'Great Wall' Guan when he's charging at full speed!"
"Another Angel's getting in his face now! And... I knew it! The punches are flying, Jesse!"
"Look at that! Talia Ryx and Leif Gunderson are pulling the fighting Angels apart!"
"Spoilsports! Ha! But they're too late! The rest of the Angels are getting in on the action! They're all beating the hell out of their own teammates!"
"The entire Sian Dragons team is trying to separate them, Bob -- but they aren't having much luck. What a disaster for this well-intentioned diplomatic effort..."
"You know what they say about the road to hell, Jesse."
"What?"
"No idea... But in a couple of minutes you'll be able to pick up a Ouija board and ask some of those Angels down there!"
Wrath of Heaven
"Remember, kids," Talia said, "stay in school!"
She signed the glossy photograph, a picture of herself in full thugby armor save for her helmet, and passed it to the little girl in the pink dress.
"Why?" the girl asked. "School sucks!"
"Because..." Talia, who'd never cared much for education either, at least until she'd entered the military, groped for a suitable reply. "Because you'll learn stuff!"
"Is that where you learned how to knee Gut-Phager in the face?" asked the boy in the yellow shirt.
"Yes. Yes, it is."
An expression of dubiousness creased the girl's face. It imbued her with an adorable seriousness. She looked to Telemachus, who was standing beside the thugby-playing gunslinger.
"Do you go to school?"
"Me? I-"
"Of course he does," Talia said. She clamped a hand on her companion's shoulder, and gave it just enough of a painful squeeze to dissuade him from revealing that he spent his time playing videogames and chainsaw-massacring people instead. "If you want to be a prince, you have to get a good education."
The boy in the yellow shirt stared first at the prince and then at Talia, his jaw gaping.
"You mean if I get good grades, I can be a prince?"
"No-" Telemachus began. "Ow!"
He rubbed his shoulder and glared.
"No kidding!" Talia said. "So be good to your teachers!"
The boy and girl ran off, clutching their signed photographs.
"That hurt!" the prince said.
"Sorry, Tel. I was just being responsible."
"How're good grades going to make him a prince?"
"Maybe they'll impress a princess, and she'll marry him."
The two of them sauntered down the plaza, as they'd been doing when the children accosted Talia for autographs. Shoppers milled around them in streaming crowds, hunting for bargains amongst the stalls and stores. Other inhabitants of Jerusalem Maior merely seemed to be enjoying the evening air -- made fragrant by the food vendors' scented delicacies and refreshing by the spray from ornate fountains.
Talia and Telemachus observed them as they passed by. If these people believed they stood on the brink of war, they gave no sign.
"Maybe Wu was wrong," the prince said.
"How often does that happen?"
"Yeah..."
But everything she'd seen and heard, at least after the unfortunate thugby match, had helped quell the gunslinger's concerns. After watching the news, she'd expected the streets of the capital city to be flowing with blood. Stupid journalists...
If it had been anyone other than Wu Tenchu who'd given her this assignment, she'd have shrugged her shoulders and hit the bars. Or left the planet with her teammates. But it was hard to refuse the mandarin. The fact that she was captain of the Sian Dragons in the first place was testament to that. So when he'd told the four companions to gauge the mood on the capital's streets, Talia, Telemachus, Ragnar, and Lu Bu had acquiesced. The prime minister had even suggested that they might use their status as war heroes to insinuate themselves into groups of the winged warriors. After all, hadn't members of the three angel factions joined the fight against the Centurian Collective?
"Maybe I'll call the others," Talia said, "and we'll grab dinner."
If she was going to mill around the streets, she mused, she might as well do it on a full stomach. She pulled her communicator out of her pocket. The sub-vocal device implanted in her throat could have sent her words straight to Ragnar's ear or Lu Bu's computerized brain. However, after she'd been woken up by raucous Niflung drunk talk on more than one occasion, and following a few awkward conversations in which voices had sounded in ears whilst biological or romantic matters were being tended to, the friends had agreed by mutual consent to only use those devices for emergencies.
"Talia..."
"Hang on, Tel..." She reached for the button.
"Talia!"
"What?" She looked up. "Oh..."
The captain of the Sian Dragons broke into a run. Telemachus wasn't far behind.
Further down the plaza, two winged forms were yelling and gesticulating while a crowd looked on. One was a man, dressed in the blue and white of the Electric Angels. The other was a woman, wearing the black garb, wings, and halo of the Fallen Angels. Even from this distance, Talia recognized them from when the Angels and Dragons had met prior to taking the field.
"Useless cow!" the man shouted. "I'd have stopped the fat twerp!"
"Yeah?" the woman retorted. "Then stop this!"
Her fist crashed against his jaw.
Blessed Are The Peacemakers
"Bitch!"
"Bastard!"
"Heretic!"
"Techno-tosser!"
"Jezebel!"
"Circuit-screwer!"
"Emo brat!"
The insults were flying as thick and fast as the punches. Each angel had grabbed the other with one hand, and was bombarding them with punches from the other. Talia had seen drunken hockey players fighting with more skill and finesse.
Some of the crowd stared in silence. But others were yelling cheers or taunts at the belligerents. Comments on sporting prowess and theology mingled in the air.
"Yeah! Learn to play thugby, you harpy!"
"Technotheists are going to hell!"
"What would Jesus say?"
"Jesus would have done a better tackle, that's for damn sure!"
"Ha! The Fallen's crying!"
"Those are painted on, douchebag!"
"Destroy the puny human!"
"They're both human, you bubble-headed prat!"
"Then destroy them both!"
More than a few onlookers were aiming electronic devices at the spectacle, recording footage which was no doubt already being scattered across cyberspace. And to make matters worse, a handful of the spectators were jostling and shoving.
Talia was a thugby player. She knew just how quickly a crowd could become a rioting mob.
"Out of the way!" The gunslinger shouldered a path through the thinnest part of the pack. "Move!"
"Oi!"
One of the men she barged past reached out to grab her. But the woman he was with grasped his arm.
"That's Talia Ryx!" she hissed. "The thugby player! She'll rip your guts out and slap you silly with them!"
The gunslinger filed that one away for future use. Then she was at the front of the crowd, and it was time to act.
"Hey! Quit it!" she exclaimed.
Both angels continued beating away at each other. Talia hadn't really expected that to work, but it had been worth a try... She wondered whether she should draw her pistols and inflict a few non-lethal wounds to separate them. A blasted-off kneecap was sure to take the fight out of someone. Yet in a rare moment of wise contemplation, it occurred to her that this might be one of the very few situations in life which wouldn't be improved by gunfire. In fact, that might even make things worse.
So instead she wrapped her arm around the Electric Angel's neck, pulled him into a headlock, and dragged him away.
"Get off me!"
He thrashed and struggled. She tightened her hold and spun him around to wreck his balance.
"Hold that jerk, so I can rip his face off!"
The Fallen Angel lunged at the grapplers.
"Stay back!" Talia put her body between the two angels. "I'll-"
Telemachus darted in front of the black-winged woman.
"Move it, kid!"
He kicked her in the shin.
"Argh!" She hopped on one leg, her hands clamped around her injured bone. "You little brat!"
She put her leg down, glared at the prince, and clenched her fists. But some semblance of propriety restrained her. Being recorded beating up children? Having such footage spread across human space? For a religious order, the optics weren't good.
So she moved to go around him instead. And was rewarded with a second kick.
"Get lost!" the boy said.
"You show her, Tel!" Talia grinned.
But it faltered on her face as the crowd fell back around her. They were making room for the group of Electric Angels running over from one side of the plaza, and for the Fallen Angels who approached from the other.
Behemoth
"So I said, 'Transubstantiate this!' and hit him in the face!"
The other Archangels around the table roared with laughter. Ragnar didn't see what was so funny. Perhaps you had to have been there... But he had a few pitchers of beer inside him, and inebriation was as good as humor. So he chuckled along.
Quaffing continued in silence for some moments. The rest of the Niflung's angelic drinking partners may have been wondering how they could possibly follow a story involving the punching of a pope. But at last one of them, a young man with a cherubic face and golden curls, turned to Ragnar and spoke.
"Joel said you know Jian [Player Name]."
Glasses were lowered. Every eye looked from the youth to the omnicidal mercenary.
"Yeah," Ragnar replied.
"Is it true? Did he really murder all those-"
The Niflung held up his finger, forestalling the rest. A voice rang out in his ear.
"Ragnar! Get to the main plaza! Electrics and Fallens are fighting!"
"On my way!" The words were sub-vocal. So when he rose from the table amidst the Archangels' stares, he said, "I need to smash someone."
"Wait!" the young man exclaimed. He raised soft hands to shield his face. "I was only asking a question! I-"
"Not you."
"Oh..."
Joel, the commander whose pope-bashing story had evoked such laughter, caught Ragnar's arm.
"Is this something I should know about?"
The Niflung paused. He was brash. And by the standards of humanity at large, possibly a raging psychopath. But he wasn't stupid. Dragging another faction into the battle would be like throwing beer and axes over the wall of a young offender institution: amusing, but not necessarily helpful.
"You should keep drinking," Ragnar said.
The angel shrugged and followed his advice.
People swarmed across the plaza, running towards, away from, or around the commotion in the manner of disarrayed masses of humanity everywhere. This might have proven an impediment to most individuals. But when a hefty mass of muscle and cybernetic augmentation charges, everyone else has a choice between getting out of the way or ending up splattered across a brawny chest like a bug on a windshield. As one might expect, the bystanders elected for the former.
So Ragnar thundered through a widening channel. And he came upon the pack of Fallen Angels who were rushing to join the battle.
"Ragnar!" The gunslinger's voice sounded in his ear once more. "Stop them!"
"Done."
"Don't kill them!"
The Niflung grunted. He stepped in front of the black-clad angels. As it happened, the one at the front of the pack was a Snuuth -- a massive alien who cut a ridiculous figure in his tight outfit, painted tears, and a halo which nestled atop his egg-shaped head like a ring that was in the process of landing on a peg to score victory at a carnival game. He didn't slow down, trusting to his mass and momentum as Ragnar had done. The Snuuth trusted in vain.
Ragnar grabbed him by neck and groin in mid-charge, hoisted him high overhead, and tossed him into a nearby fountain. A torrent of displaced water splashed over the bystanders.
Three other Fallen Angels halted. They looked from the Niflung to the flopping, foundering Snuuth, and back again. But to their credit, they weren't cowed for long. The three of them hurled themselves at Ragnar. One wrapped herself around his brawny arm and tried to apply a flying armbar. She ended up hanging from the powerful limb like an oversized barnacle. Another shot in for a single-leg takedown. He may as well have tried to tackle a tree trunk. The third leapt on the Niflung's back and threw a rear naked choke around his neck.
"Remember what I said about not killing them!"
Ragnar grunted once more. But he conducted himself with laudable restraint, and broke very few bones.
No Respecter of Angels
"You don't have a soul," the priest said. "Ergo, you aren't alive."
"An interesting hypothesis," Lu Bu replied. "So by this logic your status as a living being is defined by the notion that you do indeed possess a soul?"
"Yes. My soul confers-"
"May I see it?"
"...the gift of..." The priest frowned. "Excuse me?"
"Your soul... I would like to examine it, and establish to what extent it proves or disproves your theory."
"I can't show you my soul, godless machine! It's incorporeal! Intangible!"
"Unverifiable? Though perhaps one might argue that psionic abilities or the use of what certain friends of mine refer to as 'chi' constitutes evidence. Are you psychic, by any chance?"
"No!"
"Or a kung fu expert capable of causing grievous wounds with his bare fists?"
"I..." The priest appeared to consider this, before opting for veracity. "No."
"Then it would appear that... Ah, forgive me. I have an incoming transmission."
"Lu Bu!" Talia's voice spoke within his mechanical mind. "We need help in the main plaza!"
"Understood." The robot bowed to the priest. "I'm afraid I must go. But I do hope we can continue this discussion at a later time. Perhaps you will have located your soul by then."
The priest frowned.
"That was intended to be a joke," Lu Bu said.
"I'll find my soul when you've found your sense of humor, robot."
"Lu Bu!"
This time Talia's voice reached him via his auditory sensors. She was on the ground, holding an Electric Angel in a headlock and pinning him down beneath her. A second adversary, this one a Fallen Angel, was entangled by the gunslinger's legs. Both angels were struggling, but neither seemed able to break her holds.
Telemachus had his latest gizmo in his hand -- a pocket-sized, flip-out version of his laser-edged chainsaw. He was waving the whirring weapon from side to side. A group of angels advanced on him, but scattered away in terror whenever he lunged in their direction.
Ragnar blundered around some yards away from the others. Perhaps half a dozen Fallen Angels clung to him like cats, struggling to immobilize his limbs and bring him down. As the robot watched, one of the angels went flying, launched by the Niflung's arm. Another hurtled over the crowd when he kicked out with his right leg.
But there were more angels, both Electric and Fallen, who had made it past Lu Bu's companions. Now they brawled in the middle of the plaza. It was to this fracas that Talia's cry directed him.
He strode into the fray, his amplified voice blaring.
"Cease this violent action, or as a concerned bystander I shall feel obliged to put a stop to it through physical force. And though I will make a concerted effort not to inflict irreparable damage-"
A Fallen Angel woman turned around and punched him in the face. As she was barehanded, and he made of metal, the ensuing cry of pain was her own. Lu Bu capitalized on her folly by throwing her over with an aikido wristlock takedown. She hit the ground hard. Air rushed out of her lungs, taking her belligerence with it.
"Wretched robot! I shall destroy you with my superior theology!"
The Rylattu angel leapt at Lu Bu. A metal fist struck the middle of the alien's blue face just hard enough to cause serious soft tissue damage without fracturing the skull beneath. It proved more than adequate.
"Your mechanical body is a tribute to God," a Snuuth Electric Angel informed him. "Don't make me break it!"
"I wouldn't advise you to try."
The Snuuth refused to heed his advice, so Lu Bu shattered the angel's collarbone with a swift, sharp chop of his hand.
He hoped the city's hospitals would prove accommodating.
Sky Commander Bethany
"Sky commander." Wu Tenchu bowed.
"Prime minister." Bethany returned the gesture.
She stood in the middle of the training chamber, outlined against the colorful magnificence of the stained glass windows behind her. Each of them depicted an angel brandishing a sword. They flanked her on either side, a battalion of illustrated warriors standing as though ready to do her bidding.
The sky commander was dressed in a suit of wingless training armor that covered her from the neck downwards in sleek, tight-fitting brown material decorated with strips of glowing blue light. She wore no helmet, disclosing short chestnut hair that had been disheveled by her exertions, and an attractive face that might have belonged to a woman decades younger. A pair of bright, intelligent eyes held Master Wu's gaze. They seemed to him both more radiant than the stained glass and more piercing than the weapons which lined one of the walls.
She held a broad-bladed knife in reverse grip -- tip pointing downwards from the bottom of her hand. It was a practice blade. A faint light blue shimmer danced around the metal, promising to coalesce into a protective sheath when the weapon was wielded.
Her sparring partner, a woman both taller and broader across the shoulders than the mandarin, bowed to him as well before leaving the chamber.
"I apologize for my lateness," Wu Tenchu said when the two of them were alone. "Vanessa and Arianus each named their spaceships as the locations for our preliminary discussions. I've only just returned from orbit."
"Should I be worried that you visited both my counterparts before you came to see me?"
"A leader should always worry. But I merely wished to acquaint myself with them in person."
"And your opinion?"
"They seemed... displeased by my involvement in the matter. But they were willing to converse."
"The UHW endorsed your presence here. They can't afford to alienate the rest of human space, and risk making my faction look like the reasonable party."
"Their convictions are powerful. Yet neither is blind to reality. I believe the three of you can reach a compromise."
Bethany's mouth twitched, but the sentence went unformed and unspoken.
"Unless there are things of which I'm unaware." His words were almost, but not quite, intoned as a question. There was a second or two of silence. He broke it himself, before it could evolve into something uncomfortable. "May I?"
He gestured at another training dagger, the twin of the weapon the sky commander held.
"Please," she said.
Wu Tenchu took the dagger from its wall mount and inspected it.
"I've heard you have some skill with blades," Bethany added.
"A modicum, perhaps."
"Will you indulge me?"
"It would be impolite to refuse one's hostess."
"Touché."
Bethany spoke the word out of instinct, but it was unnecessary. The strike was indisputable. Master Wu had deflected her arm and slipped behind her with the swiftness of a cobra. His training blade was still pressed against her back. Its blue energy field throbbed, tickling her flesh even through her outfit.
She took a step forward and turned to face him. They both bowed.
"An assassin's blow," she said. "How very interesting."
"Perhaps politicians and assassins are simply kindred spirits?"
"Or-"
Twin bleeps came from their communicators.
They each answered, listened, and met one another's gaze.
"The plaza," Bethany said.