Gabri'El hurried up the stairs of the city of angels' prison and spread out his wings when cold air of a starry night welcomed him. With his newfound freedom, he did not tarry even for a second and lifted off the ground with a single decisive flap. It was time to leave the backwards city that was not a place where he would be able to gain power nor influence. He was too different from its inhabitants who would have never considered mass murder to gain power.

"That is good, I will let your morals hold you back while I become supreme again, leaving this state of my body as an unpleasant memory." Gabri'El smiled and flew low to where the nearest city wall was. The sparkling city of light was passing under him, its brightness even more pronounced under the cover of night. He looked at the magnificent edifices of the city with derision, to him these structures were only temples of folly, soon to be razed by his renewed strength. However, he suddenly felt a presence and a blow from behind knocked him out of the sky, leaving him falling like a bird with a broken wing, desperately trying to decrease its velocity before it hit the ground.

  After a dull sound of his fall, he racked his brain for any kind of solution, but a strong hand grabbed him by the neck before he had managed to come up with anything and yanked him up like he weighted less than a feather. He was still not far from the prison and knew his situation was not very good.

"I have never imagined a day when I would see what you've just done." A familiar voice spoke and a proud image of an angel looked into his eyes while holding him in the air with his outstretched hand. Gabri'El realized that he knew him.

"You are the instructor! Have you followed me? What business do you have with me? Let me go!" It was the angel he had trained under during his basic training, he had always considered him patronizing and nosy. Gabri'El tried to free himself, but the angel was clearly much more powerful than him, it irritated him to no end. He knew his captor, but had never remembered his name, because he considered all other angels around him fakes, not worthy of his attention. Only temporary illusions before he would be able to reclaim his powers.

"Business? You have just murdered one of your brothers in cold blood! You are irredeemable!" The angel moved his hand and thick steel wires appeared out of thin air and began winding around Gabri'El, restricting all his movement.

"Let me go idiot! What do you want in return? I can grant you anything when I restore my original form! Just. .. agh!" Gabri'El suffered a surge of pain when the wire tightened around his body and deformed his wings, the angel looking at him with disgust.

"Not a hint of remorse, your original form should be that of a demon." The angel did not know how close his simple figure of speech was to the truth. He picked up the cocoon that Garbi'El had become and carried him back in the direction of the prison.

"I will use magic to cast you into iron with only your head left to see the world you have abandoned by your sin. Of course, your deceitful tongue will have to be torn out to prevent any more schemes. The first fallen angel of our city, what a saddening evening this clear night has become."

"You are going to do what?!" Gabri'El panicked, but he had only his mouth left to fight with.

"Who are you to decide that?! I want a proper judgement you stupid vigilante!" The bound champion of the Divine Universe raged, but he could do nothing to stop his fate.

"I have no doubts that after what you have done, eternal imprisonment will be deemed the only proper punishment." His former instructor said as if it was a matter of course. "I will report it later, not many must know of this incident, we need to keep believers from panicking. We do not need any kind of doubt to poison the hearts of humans and stop them fighting on the side of good."

* * * *

  A tender white hand that clearly belonged to a female held a more robust one that was stained by blood. The view of the tender hand was then obstructed by an abundance of white hair and an occasional patch of fur and when the feminine head lifted, the blood stain was no more. Then the woman pulled up the man's hand and inserted his finger into her mouth, sucking on it provocatively.

  Sammael watched the screen in front of him and tapped his finger against his desk. He was sick of what he saw and anger rose in him with every tap until he could not take it anymore and threw a book he was holding in his left hand against the wall that kept projecting the scene and shouted.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

"Blow him already bitch, like you always do!" He was absolutely disgusted by how the events had unfolded in the Fabled Universe. He had set up a grand duel, a spectacular showdown that was supposed to reveal who his new Gabri'El would be. However, the actors of his show had a mind of their own and the worst of all, one of them, the original Gabri'El, proved to be so incompetent that he disqualified himself at the start.

  Sammael waved his hand to see what he was doing and saw a sorry excuse of an angel, in fact only eyes and the top of a head sticking out of a block of steel, a desperate expression of a tortured puppy inside them.

It was clear that Gabri'El was stuck and would not be doing any moves in the foreseeable future, more likely never.

  The other player should be able to prevail with ease with the absence of his competitor turning the whole competition into a boring farce, but even that was not the case! The second failure called Frei Galgani seemed to be deeply sunk into a madness filled with consumption of blood and sexual experimentation along with his female lover who was the main cause of this distraction. They have turned the slums of a dwarven city into their backyard and when he tried to blackmail them, they just ignored him.

Ignored him!

"You will regret not playing by my rules." Sammael decided to leave Gabri'El as he was, because his current state was the best punishment he could think of, but he had to show the arrogant vampires who was the boss.

"Fortunately, your dear lover is from the Divine Universe and is still a part of my system. Now watch what I can do to disobedient children!" Sammael tapped a few buttons on the holographic screen in front of him and the person who had been up and fine until that moment playing lovingly with a male finger fell to the ground.

"Enjoy your love with her brain fried!" Sammael laughed after he had used the connection of the now mindless person with the Divine Universe and fried a part of her brain along with her whole rationality.

"She is not dead and she will not die, because you will surely keep her alive. Do you not want to talk to me, pretending to be a mindless beast? Look! I have turned her into one!" Sammael continued to laugh and watched the male on the screen frantically running around his female companion that now behaved more like a plant than a person.

"I will leave you two suffer for some time and kill you only when you beg me for death." He gloated and walked to pick up a book he had thrown away just a moment ago, his mood much better.

This existence was his game and his alone, he would not tolerate anyone ignoring his rules.

* * * *

  In the dark tunnels under a mountain where those who abandoned all hope lived, Frei knelt to a person sitting on the ground that kept trying to reach her ear with her fangs, but was unable to. After a while of trying, she began pulling on her ear hard, clearly convinced that she would be able to reach it that way. It looked painful, but the person did not seem to mind.

"No, do not pull on your ears. If you've got an itch, you can use your hand to scratch yourself like this." Frei quickly reached out and gently scratched the ear that was being stretched with his hand and the sitting person stopped with her action, amazed by what he had done.

"Hand!" She giggled silly and proceeded with what she usually did, which was nothing.

Just sitting there on the ground and staring to the front.

"Yes, a hand." Frei repeated and smiled, he knew that Nitarja would not remember anything they talked about, nor she would learn from her mistakes. She was like a baby who never learned anything. He needed to feed her, prevent her from attacking strangers on impulse, cut her hair and clean her clothes when she soiled herself. How long would they live like this before he finally found a cure?

Deep down he knew there was not any medicine that would be able to heal her.

She suddenly looked up in his direction as if she was about to ask something, but then just continued to stare with empty eyes at the wall.

Frei's muscles tensed immediately. For a moment, a spark of hope he had thought had died long ago ignited only to die off again.

"I would give anything for being able to exchange with you just a single sentence." He sighed, staring at Nitarja that was looking normal only because he cared for her clothes, fur and hair. That was the reason why she looked fine from the outside, but Frei knew there was really no one in there.

  He did not know how long they had lived here, how many times he had tried to improve her condition, but nothing worked. He would have cried, but he had run out of tears a long time ago. His life was a torture, watching the person he loved turned into an empty husk.

"If only we have been caught by vampire hunters and killed when you were still in there." He looked at her with longing.

Suddenly, she fell to the ground like never before without any sings of motion.

"Nitarja!" He shouted, ignoring his surroundings and jumped to the side of her body.

"Don't leave me here alone, we were meant to be together for eternity!" He shook her body lightly multiple times until an elongated object fell out of the folds of her clothes. It was the flute he had given her many years ago, the instrument looked shabby due to being touched often, almost like an antique.

[Do not worry, you will follow her shortly.]

  A vile voice sounded in his head that laughed at him at times and which he had managed to ignore, because it would only serve to feed the demon's ego and lead to further blackmail.

He ignored it again, all was meaningless anyway now that she was dead.

No, her mind had been destroyed a long time ago, he had just not the strength to get rid of her empty husk.