Two weapons of unmatched power rang out across the landscape of Raphael's dominion, his world one of the first to experience the new Holy War across Paradioso-Chutz that tainted so many. Two Virtues did battle against one another while the rest of their armies charged headlong for one another. The two armies did battle amongst the air and sky, painting the silver edges of the clouds moist and red with blood and skin.
"Your movements are sloppy, Raphael. Move as if you intend to kill me, or I will not be satisfied in the sense of victory that I know is already mine for the taking!" Gabriel barked, dashing across the sky with a spear in hand at speeds unattainable by other angels.
Raphael responded, flashing a greatsword in one hand, "Calm yourself, Gabriel. Our bout has just begun!"
The two Virtues of the war danced amidst the air while their armies fought below. Each side held divine weapons in hand, tearing each other to pieces in the name of what their Gods had commanded. Raphael wielded a greatsword known as Nakir with a pungent light pouring from his other hand known as Zadkiel. Gabriel wielded a great spear and shield, both known as Shurugal.
Each of the Virtues received the same message from the Gods that Lucifer had received that fateful day. They gained their own weapons of divine chaos, like himself, but they did not have the ability to give a name to them. Each Virtue was to receive two divine weapons, while all other angels gained only one.
"You still move too slowly; your movements are predictable!" Gabriel roared, bashing his shield into Nakir's edge. He threw Raphael out of sync with the song they fought in rhythm to. "If you keep fighting like this, your death will come before the climax of our cotillion!"
Ethereal, somber music with guitars—heavy and low in riffs like roars of a dragon, but high-pitched—played in the back of their fighting. The two moved so fast and in sharp degrees they fought in sync with the rhythm and beat. It created a dance of splendor and chaos that enhanced the strength of each attack they made. They acted out a performance only a playwright infatuated with pain could describe.
Gabriel continued his lust for Raphael's demise, ramming his blade spear into Raphael's gut with a Splunk! just as the sinister and boisterous tone of the song had arrived.
Gabriel pulled in his former friend, bashing him again in the face with his shield. He left an indent on Raphael's face whilst throwing him off his spear's edge. He then pirouetted in the air and spun his spear in a vertical circle overhead.
Raphael was then gashed across the chest. Blood escaped from his torso, gathering in the wind like water spray from a hose. The blood, akin to rain, precipitated from Raphael's chest onto the clouds that stayed underneath them.
War after war tore through the landscapes outside Eden, creating battlefields of death that were littered with atrocities so vile that many would doubt that angels could create them. Beings of peace with tidings of love and care were twisted with malice, rage, and revenge. The Fallen would be mourned after the fighting had quelled, stoking the despair and pain that sat rife in the world.
The duty in this realm was to kill those who opposed you. The expectancy was that you would kill for those who were slain under your legion.
"ha'adon hu mekor hakoch shli, Pardigmat Hashalmot!" Gabriel called, his body and his spear brimming with gold energy, with his shield lowered to the side.
Gabriel then darted back from the canvas he was creating, rising above Raphael with his holy spear to the sky. He created three javelins of pure gold-energy to smite his prior friend out of the air to the clouds below. Each javelin punctured devastating holes in Raphael, but Gabriel wasn't done with his domination or theatrics.
Gabriel wanted to end his display in style and glory, one that would sweeten his highest spectators above. The music around heralded his victory, speeding up in tempo and spectacle-worthy flair.
His six wings grew ever larger along with the size and scale of his spear. Gabriel slowly fell out of the sky with grace and a small twirl before racing for his adversary at speeds bordering on a race against light. The sky flashed from blue to an otherworldly grey, white, and gold just as Gabriel neared his friend. He resolved to give him a swift end, one he may not get at the hands of other Virtues.
But Raphael wouldn't take this gesture of war lying down.
"I told you, Gabriel, our bout has just begun!" Raphael bellowed. "I will not let you subjugate my people to your will, even if that is what my Gods want. You shan't be the one to do so, nor anyone else for that matter!"
As Gabriel neared Raphael, a blinding white shot out from his fallen adversary's form, blinding Gabriel and causing a slight hesitation in his attack. His attack was flush when it hit its target, but was stopped in its movement forward.
Gabriel tried his best to see through the blinding white that was enrapturing the world. The light had caused even the other warring angels to stop in admiration and confusion at what was taking place. He saw Raphael standing upright with Nakir being used to block his attack; his friend was dressed like a bridegroom in all white with a halo mimicking a crown.
Raphael was fully healed of all his wounds.
This is his True Angelic Incarnation that our Lords spoke about. A state only a Virtue can attain. You are really worthy to be my greatest foe, Raphael; let our dance set the precedent for what the world will know as War, Gabriel thought, with a dastardly smile.
Raphael had parried his attack and diced him across the chest so quickly that the wounds had yet to seep into Gabriel's flesh. Gabriel's mind was slow in processing what happened; Only after being blasted back with a wave of blood jetting out in the opposite direction did he realize the jeopardy he was in.
Raphael followed his prey with relentless determination, lighting the world in Zadkiel's glow as Nakir danced with light so bright that it overshadowed the brightness of the sun.
Gabriel did everything in his power to defend against such a force of nature. But each time, in rhythmic succession with the scale and tone of the melodies, Raphael hacked and cleaved some part of Gabriel into chunks with a flash.
First was Gabriel's ear that flew off into the ether of the atmosphere, burned away into ash by the intensity of the light that came from the edge of Nakir. Next was his arm that he used to hold his shield, blasting him back with force capable of shaking the universe. Second by second, the tides of the fight were turning in Raphael's Favour. His cries of war were mixed with the sorrow of the malice he was forced to commit against a friend he thought would be his forever.
The music of this battle paints the display of two lovers forced to kill each other.
Gabriel's body was mangled, mangy, and misshapen. He began to fall out of the sky from one of the many concussive blows that Raphael had given him. He thought about what had brought him to this point and what the point of all this was to begin with.
If I die here, I would rather be that I went out on my own terms, taking my foe down with me! I am Gabriel, the favorite of the Gods! I know who I am. I will show them my undying servitude, so that they know I am the truly rightful heir to the perfection of Paradioso! Gabriel thought, snapping himself from his spiral to defeat, just as Raphael had been about to put the finishing touches on his masterpiece of death.
"You aren't the only one with that form, you recusant! I will show you why I am the one that deserves all of creation at my footstool! Why I am the rightful heir to everything that is perfect!" Gabriel clambered, just as Nakir neared his torso to cut him in twain.
Sigils of protection boxed his form, stretching out and pushing Raphael away, disrupting the synchronicity of his movements and his part of the song. Gabriel had given himself over to the power that Raphael wielded as well, his form bare-chested with insignias scrawled on his torso.
A wreath around his head of soul ivory could be seen with garments flowing out ever longer, his six wings even longer than those of Raphael. His jewelry glistened in the day's radiance, completing his elegance with a new arm made of light magic that re-summoned his shield with its creation.
"This ends here and now, no matter what! You are no longer a friend of mine, Raphael. You are simply another enemy for me to slay in their name!" Gabriel yowled, his words meshing with the divination song strung behind them.
"Then try if you wish!" Raphael cried in return.
The two raced across the sky, distorting the world around them with shockwaves of disaster that tore color from their world. A fight between the two strongest Virtues to ever exist in Paradioso's history was sure to make an entertaining sight to the Gods that sat overhead.
The Son watched with excitement and giddiness, like a schoolboy discovering his passion, while the Spirit watched like an intrigued spectator with much knowledge of a sport. The Father, however, watched on in disgrace, horrified by what was taking place in front of him. Unfortunately, unable to do anything about the matter, he sat there in disgust, wishing for it to be over with.
As the ending drew near, the battle had yet to choose its victor. When the smoke and mirrors of the angelic might were over, both the combatants' bodies were stripped of any remembrance of their former beauty. Each had bones protruding from every orifice; blood leaking from them like multiple pipes had broken in the homes that were bodies.
Raphael charged forward. Gabriel reciprocated the gesture. Death called both their names—but unfortunately for Raphael, his time of fighting was expedited in its ending. Nakir slipped free of his hand, his body giving out on him. Zadkiel's glow waned in the palm of his hand as Gabriel slipped his spear into his gut once more with a sickening level of force.
Gabriel unearthed the last amounts of oxygen, blood, and resilience left within Raphael's lungs. Gabriel, not finished yet in his efforts, ripped his spear out of his gut. He held Raphael by the collar of his bloodied suit, making him look like a pallbearer of blood.
Gabriel waited for the music to reach a somber peak. He was about to commit the worst act in this entire feud.
"You—even if you were valiant—are unfit to be an angel," Gabriel muttered with what little breath he had himself.
Using his spear, Gabriel sawed at Raphael's wings, clipping him of his angelhood with a rasp! for each wing.
It was the final act of disrespect for ever opposing the favorite of the Gods in his mind.
This was the final thought Raphael would get to think:
Veronica, I am so sorry for my weakness…Please, raise Michael and Michaela well, in the way they should grow and be able to live in this world. I am so sorry I won't be there to protect them—and you—from the monsters that have been created.
"Now, fall, my forgotten friend," he said, before cutting Raphael's head from his mangled body.
He released it from his grasp to drift down to the cloud and possibly the earth hidden beneath them.
Gabriel stood there in silence, running back over the atrocity and acts of disrespect he had committed. He thought nothing of what he had done was wrong—it was something that needed to be done. Everyone was the same under the covenant of blood that was signed into existence. Friend or not, all that was the former.
He didn't show reverence to the fallen honorable warrior, only a sickening smile of pride that denoted a lack of care for those who would be affected by the actions he had committed. His goal was to get back what he believed he had lost—all others in his way, friend or not, could be damned.
His victory had an ever-sweeter taste in his mouth that sang praises for the victory blessed upon him by his lords. He would never forget this day—the day when he finally knew his purpose, and he loved it just like Lucifer.
*********
Before Lucifer had left Eden's borders, he wouldn't let his lingering curiosity over certain things of Eden continue to evade him. One such thing was the true power that was hidden behind the fruits that the Tree that Bears Truth produced.
On the day he and the other angels of his faction were to be cast out, he took from the tree one of its many fruits. Pandemonium's power was used to conceal his thievery from his Gods. When he got to the place where his dominion was—at a time when the Gods were least likely to care or expect something to be amiss—he took a bite from the fruit.
"Yes…I can see it! I can—," Lucifer shouted, before keeling over and vomiting his guts out.
From the moment he had taken the bite, his body contorted with pain. His wails echoed across the landscape that was destined to be his home to rule, shaking every angel to their core. Dominions and Powers alike of his clan rushed to their virtue within his gothic fortress of a castle, seeking to understand the source of his pain.
Those who arrived were greeted by the sight of Lucifer trying to claw his own eyes out of his skull.
His ichor seeped onto his rings and fingers. He was on his hands and knees, crying blood. He vomited all kinds of substances, some blacker than tar and some redder than the coloring of the fruit he had eaten. One set of his wings–the lower wings–became darkened in cooler beyond darkness. An additional two that were smaller in length and width emerged on his ears—it was as if he was the dark incarnate of the Spirit.
"I can see it all, all the truth of this world, all the truth of their existence. I can see it so clearly what it is I need to become, what it is I am to become. The Gods want Chaos…," Lucifer said, his eyes falling out of his head with a squish! disintegrating and leaving puddles of blood in their disappearance.
The eye sockets then became lit ablaze with white and dark light. He gained new eyes with crosses and irises of black and white.
"I'll show them something better."
The other angels looked on at him with fear gripping their hearts, dark and thick smoke evaporating and rising from his form.