datadiving | ???-1: THE AFTERMATH

In the ruins of the city of Lust, a small creature roams the hollow streets. Though the husks of the damned still wander, any seeking easy prey are quickly convinced to seek their sustenance elsewhere by the sting of Hell Energy. Any creature that can hold energy orbs in its palm is a threat to be avoided.

A strange being. It wears concealing clothes, already marking it as an oddity, its face almost entirely concealed save for the two glowing eyes that peek out from under its hat. The style and fashion of them is direly outdated, a human affectation gifted to it long, long ago, even by the standards of Hell.

It's raining again, Vivi thinks to himself, since there's nobody to say it to. His siblings are somewhere else in Lust, if they haven't delved down to the lower levels, seeking their favored prey - machines, husks, anything that they so wish that sates their desire for violence.

Once they were meant to be....he doesn't recall, exactly, what they were meant to be. Were they meant as hope? A tithe to Heaven? A soldier that served the souls of humankind, rather than Hell? Something else altogether?

Minos is dead now, truly so. He had felt the loss in his awakening, that he was not there to greet them.

But still, they were truly free now, with no purpose at all. That meant something, didn't it?

Vivi wanders the empty city, sheltering from the rain under a rotted awning, just watching. Waiting for something interesting to happen. If he strains his senses, though, he almost thinks that he can feel the presence of something that came from Heaven...

Surely, though, that's a mistake. The last time something from Heaven had come down here, the world had ended, at least this small part of it; he had felt the rupture.

But there's nothing left here to end. So he must be imagining it.

Threaded | Flat

The swarm of machines had passed some time ago, his defeat at the hands of a seemingly innocuous member of their ranks had distracted him from continuing his holy crusade against them. Gabriel now floated over a slowly darkening city, its once pristine streets slick with the blood of sinners and demons alike, the formerly sapient human souls reduced to nothing more than feral monsters.

Mortals seeking redemption, once upon a time. Shielded by a loving king who despite his position as judge still saw the good in them, who only ever wanted to give them hope for a better world. All gone now, and Gabriel's hands would never be clean again.

The city's defenses had been scrambled after the final destruction of Minos Prime, his soul now permanently erased from this world. Gabriel wouldn't bother to chase them, as far as he was concerned they were free to take out as many machines as they pleased. He'd even convinced himself it was for the better that the husks too be destroyed, they'd never regain their mind again after all, wasn't non-existence a mercy? He supposed he'd find out himself soon enough.

The thought wasn't allowed to linger, he'd work to do and hovering up here kicking his own ass for past mistakes wasn't going to accomplish anything. He'd have plenty of time for regret when he was dead.

Diving down into the abandoned streets, the angel's blades made quick work of a small battalion of streetcleaners, who's flames barely even kissed his armor before a single smart strike to the fuel tank ruptured the canister, with the machine's obliterated by the ensuing blast mere seconds after. Despite the nigh instant detonation, even that was too slow for Gabriel, simply blinking out of existence before materializing again some distance away. Nothing but weak rabble here now it seemed. Filth, streetcleaners and drones, the more powerful warmachines had pressed far deeper. Not a good sign in regards to his secondary goal here, as he began his hunt for life.

The swath of bloody devastation behind the angel was neither slow nor subtle, some of the idea indeed being to try and scare any lingering intelligent beings into view. No, calling for them wasn't what he was going to do, everyone here had an excellent reason not to show their face around him, if they still had enough of a mind to make good life choices. What would he have done then?

... Well, he hadn't actually thought about that honestly, the only sinner he'd ever saved had liked him. So when he sharply swung around a corner, slinging the bloody corpse of a husk into a surprised drone and splattering both machine and meat into so much jellied flesh and jagged shrapnel, he wasn't... really sure what to immediately do when he saw what looked for all the world like-

"Is that a fucking baby."

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