Elysium

Meeting room in the main hall

Team arc-angel were all sitting around a round table. There was an uncomfortable silence as they were waiting. Gabriel, the youngest, was starting to fidget about.

“Why did Damaris call all of us to this meeting? Shouldn’t one of us try and find a retainer?” Gabriel restlessly shook his right leg.

“Stop moving around, Gabe, if the judges need to speak with all of us then we have to be here,” said Uriel, the sister of their group.

“It’s probably about us being in the Tryfing. Maybe they're going to tell us that Father changed his mind and we aren’t entered anymore!” Raphael, ever the depressed worrywart exclaimed; he was muttering under his breath and couldn’t stop complaining. All three of the angels looked at him and spoke at the same time, as if this was a comedy routine they practiced many times.

“Raphaellllll, relax.”

Raphael sighed and sunk in his chair. Of Team Arc-angel, he was the most pessimistic of the bunch. Gabriel was the more childish and naive and Uriel was the more confident and vocal member who did most of the talking for the group when they were together.

And Michael? He was the stoic and cool leader that the others confided and trusted in. He would usually have the final say in all matters the Arc-angels discussed, mostly because he was the leader of all angels and considered to be the strongest. He was on par with the other deities skill-wise.

“She’s here, stop slouching everyone,” Michael said. He was also slouching a bit, but you’ve got to lead by example was one of Michael's sayings.

Damaris entered the room with a big smile and waved at the four. Just behind her another deity walked in. His long hair with tips of flames was the first thing the Arc-angels saw. His gray skin, the sign that he was a death deity and warden of hell, was the next thing they focused on. The four each got up and bowed with immense respect. “Hello Damaris, and hello Warden Hades.”

Hades placed his briefcase on the table, pushed up his glasses and laughed a bit. “Come on guys, we are all siblings here. You know how I feel with all this bowing stuff and ‘Warden Hades’ talk.” Hades much like Achilles was an easy going deity and hated all the formalities that came with his position… but he would be a liar if he said he didn’t like the attention he got.

Once they all sat down, the four arc-angels exchanged a look of “well… what are we here for.” Damaris spoke up first. “So, you guys know how our ex-big brother Lucifer is sealed in the Earth’s core? Wellllll, the seal has been weakening the last few centuries.”

Many Deities had questioned why Lucifer wasn’t just sentenced to death for the Great Rebellion. God had wanted to punish him; that was the first reason. The second was because he had obtained Godhood by killing and devouring five deities' souls. It took everything God’s faction had to bring him down, and God refused to kill Lucifer himself for unknown reasons.

The four arc-angels looked deadly serious at this revelation. “I suspected for a while, I mean how else was Lucifer able to show up in front of Father during the Son of God project?” Raphael muttered biting his thumb nail.

The Son of God project was something that both God and the Angels came up with after the Great Rebellion. At this point, God had recreated the humans after Lucifer committed genocide, closed Eden off, and had Selaphiel the arc-angel act as his liaison between Eden and Elysium. Much like Damrais' role right now, for the Tryfing.

The recreated humans weren’t progressing as a civilization like they had before the rebellion, so God created a human vessel and sent a part of his soul down to them. Jesus Christ, the son of God, had arrived to teach, heal, and push the humans in the right direction to advance themselves.

Had God and the angels not done this, the humans wouldn’t have moved forward, and some angels theorize they would have regressed as a civilization, eventually. This project was kept a secret from the deities with only the wardens of hell being a part of it. To the other deities Jesus Christ was just a special prophet who claimed to be the Son of God.

Hades was the one who placed God's soul into the vessel. See, Hades was special among the deities; God had created him to be the main warden of Hell and had based all death deities after him. The gray skin and the knowledge of death speak all came from Hades but the one thing that set him aside from the other wardens was that he was “the unseen one”. No deity or angel could sense him. He would act as God’s spy in a sense, able to hide himself and do the tasks God needed done.

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He wasn’t the strongest deity but that ability of his made him respected and feared. Not even Lucifer, in all his newly obtained Godhood, could sense him. That is why Hades was placed to guard Lucifer’s seal and relay any changes to Selaphiel, or one of the other Arc-angels.

When the Son of God project was underway, Hades felt a change in the seal after placing the soul of his Father in the human vessel. During the process of transferring the soul, there was a split nano-second where the seal had weakened. In that nano-second, s small crack formed that anyone would have miss… Everyone except Hades.

Only Michael had known this and wasn’t shocked at this information which was new to the other three angels. “We all know how Lucifer appeared as his alter ego Satan in front of Father’s vessel to tempt him,” Hades said.

“That’s in the book of Matthew chapter four, verse one through eleven of the angel handbook!” Damrais proudly stated. She cut the flow of the conversation with her outburst but it was nice to be reminded of important moments that occurred in the angel handbook.

“Yes, exactly little sister, he appeared as an apparition in front of Father and was unable to do anything other than speak to Father at the time. But that started to change over the years.” Hades took off his glasses and looked at the four arc-angels in a deadly serious tone.

“Slowly he has been breaking the seal and influencing Earth and the humans… He started to copy the Son of God project and created a human vessel to use." This time Michael was just as shocked as the other three arc-angels.

“What, how? Why wasn’t I informed about this?” Michael said with a face of worry and anger.

“Michael, please. When I sensed his dark aura I went to the woman he cursed with his vessel and quickly placed a soul into. It gave us time to come up with a plan but I was ordered by Father to tell no one and allow the vessel to live. We can’t kill the vessel anyways, he’s protected by Lucifer chains and would just reincarnate outside our system.” Hades leaned back in his chair with his arms folded. “And I feel that he is catching on to me; he knows I’m the only deity that could have taken his vessel from him that way. He’s getting better at concealing himself and his aura.”

The more he explained the more angry and filled with sorrow Hades’ expression was. This was difficult for him, he felt like he failed once again in stopping Lucifer. “I… I thought I was on top of everything but he’s been systematically breaking the psyche of the soul in his vessel…”

“What does that mean, Hades?” Uriel asked.

“For the vessel’s lifetime he has been able to speak to him, break him, torment him, and affect his choices. I was given the order to standby but his life was miserable, this was a soul! Damn it, a newly born soul that… that is broken because of me.” Hades placeed his head in his hand in shame. “I just couldn’t see it anymore and I helped hide his soul from Lucifer, to give him a small happiness. He got a wife and two beautiful daughters. I thought I was helping him. I thought I had Lucifer under my watch. But I was wrong.”

Hades put his glasses back on and opened his briefcase, taking out human paper work. Paperclipped to the top left of the paper was a picture of a thirty-two year old Caucasian man with a semi-receding hairline. Luther Satenly was written in the name box section of the paperwork. Hades pointed to the photo. “Because of me and my actions, Lucifer was able set in motion the events that would nearly break Luther's soul.”

“Luther Satenly?” Gabriel was confused at the name. Uriel grabbed a pen and on a separate piece of paper wrote Luther's full name. Then underneath it wrote Lucifer Satan. “Come on, Gabe, it is not that hard to see.” Uriel shook her head at the young angel who felt embarrassed.

“Lucifer named his vessel close to his two names on purpose. He’s probably laughing at us angels and the other wardens that missed that in the paperwork,” Michael said pissed off. He knew how his big brother acted. He named his vessel that to taunt them to see if they would catch it. He was the original Trickster for a reason.

Raphael picked up Luther’s paperwork and skimmed through it. “Not good, not good, not good at all. He was able to orchestrate the events that killed his wife and kids. Then, he influenced Luther to get revenge and kill the drunk driver that hit them. He also caused the fire that killed the drunk driver's two children and burned Luther’s body. Not. Good.” Raphael placed the paper back and started to bite his thumb nail, again rocking in place on his chair.

“Wait, so you're saying… his vessel soul is so broken now that… he could enter it ? AT ANY TIME?” Gabriel stood up from his chair with fear in his eyes.

“We’ve got to calm down guys, it's not going to help if we act like this!” Uriel, the most confident of angels, spoke with a tremble in her voice. The shaking of her hands was uncontrollable. Michael, the leader himself, was too afraid to say anything. The Arc-angels had all started to panic in their own ways.

Lucifer was returning.

///

Luther sat on the ground of his jail cell. His one good eye was pitch black, almost soulless. In the corner of his cell all the food they had given him had piled up; he hadn’t eaten since he killed the family of three. He didn’t feel hunger, he didn’t feel pain, he just didn’t feel.

He had not moved since he was placed in the cell. He also didn’t hear or see the guards that would periodically check on him. All he heard were the whispers, the whispers he heard ever since he was a child. At first they would tell him to do naughty things to classmates or family, little pranks, nothing too serious at first. Then it escalated… he started to abuse animals, eventually murdering them for the whispers’ sick fulfillment.

His family thought he had Schizophrenia and had him tested. But every time he was being watched or tested the whispers took over and made him seem normal. He was tested for split personalities, bipolar disorder, and many other things over the course of his life. But every single time, he was able to fool them all. The whispers were able to fool them all.

The whispers were making him go crazy and mad. Luther was stuck in a prisoner of his own mind screaming for days, weeks, and years for someone to help end his misery. And one day it stopped and on that day he met her. The woman that he loved, that he’d had two daughters with. And those years where the whispers had stopped were the greatest years of his life. And in one second it was gone, and the whispers came back stronger than ever.

“Never utter the names of your dead wife and dead children again. Or I’ll make you suffer more than I already have.”

The whisper spoke to him after he killed the drunk driver that took his wife away… No it wasn’t him that took his wife away. It was the whispers, and since the whispers could only be heard by Luther, he took it as if he himself had killed his wife and daughters. He was no hero like his daughters used to call him. He was a monster, a devil as if he was Satan incarnate. He heard the whispers laugh.

“Yeah.. like Satan incarnate. That sounds just about right.” Luther closed his eyes and placed both his hands on his ears. He could feel an intense pressure in his chest; this was where his soul was. Luther was just a normal human so he couldn’t see his soul, he couldn’t see the black spiritual chains wrapping around his soul.

“Stop talking, stop talking! Please… no more...” Luther cried. To anyone outside his mind, he was having a mental outburst. To him, he was suffering, as he always did. The black chains tightened around his soul, cracking it ever so slowly.

3rd Tryfing

Official judge: Heroic Greek deity, Achilles.

Support judge: Angel, Damaris.

Chosen deities:

Ra: Demi-God: Darren Donaldson

Lugh: Knight: Ariel Morales

Zhong Kui: Exorcist

Inari: Polymath: Kento Sanosuke

Freya: Assassin: Charlie Wilson

Nuada: Conqueror

Minerva: Tactician

Team Arc-Angel: Hero

Fantasia world: underdevelopment.

Starting year: not yet decided.

37:36:66