Two thousand years. Two thousand years of peace; two thousand years of watching from afar, only allowing rare excursions among humans; two thousand years without any open conflict. All ruined in the span of ten days... Once again, the Heavens showed a cruel lack of respect for what he had been striving to build, and notwithstanding the millennia since his Fall, they still regarded him as The Great Enemy. Despite his efforts to ensure that none of them had to mourn any loss in these past twenty centuries, they still treated him as if he had just risen against God. No forgiveness for him; only hatred and resentment would be granted to him by the Grand Watchmaker and his servants.

In a final effort, he tried to reason with the angel but quickly understood that only a confrontation would get him out of this situation. Resigning himself to it, he convinced himself that by fighting, he would manage to hurt his opponent enough for him to give up.

Then, the angel's words shattered his restraint. By calling him an error, his enemy not only denigrated his work, but his choices, his life... From the depths of his soul, nestled between his ego and his desires, his anger awakened. If this angel wished to confront the Devil, Staan would give it to him. With a gesture, he summoned his trident and suddenly turned away. His blow only traced a golden line on the throat of the celestial being, where his head had been a moment earlier. As a primordial angel, his opponent's physical abilities saved him at the last second but were not enough to ward off the next attack. Staan struck the armor with such force that its wearer was thrown across the square, only stopping against a wall, into which he carved life-size hole. Before the angel had time to move, Staan approached him and threw him back with a powerful knee strike. Behind him, the unlucky wall, bearing a staircase, collapsed onto the soldier of the Heavens.

If Staan prepared to pull him out of the rubble, he suddenly perceived a glimmer shining under the debris and had only a moment to dodge the blade of light. His opponent freed himself from the stones and stood guard before him, swaying on his feet. The angel quickly regained composure and executed a perfect lunge, a testament to centuries of rigorous and relentless training. The blow would have been lethal for a fallen angel; a demon would never have seen it coming. Staan simply dodged to the side at the fateful moment when the attack was too committed but before it reached him. As the angel passed him, Staan swept him with a kick and watched the soldier fly and scrape the ground before stopping, leaving behind a chaotic trail in the snow. Alas, the noise of their confrontation gradually lit up the windows of nearby houses; it was time to leave. Staan's slight rotation combined with the airflow caused by his takeoff created a spiral of snow in his wake, a fleeting work of art, an ice sculpture clashing with the desolation of the scene. His ascent only slowed when the urban streetlights were mere dots beneath his feet and he was certain he was out of reach of human eyes.

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As expected, the angel joined him in the air, the gleam of his sword easily discernible in the night sky. His fury outweighing any other concern such as discretion, Staan was only more assured by his enemy's cry upon his approach. The sharp sound succeeded the deep one of his charge when he dodged it, but soon reversed again with the reckless charge of the celestial soldier. The grace of his angelic condition lost in the fervor of battle, all that remained in the being was the desire to kill him.

Alas, as strong as he could be, Staan surpassed him: he had risen to the highest celestial rank and no opponent rivaled, except for his successor at the right hand of God. However, the constant pressure of the angel's blows prevented him from counterattacking, and his patience ran out before his opponent's. He ended up plunging one of the spikes of his trident into the arabesque of the hilt of his opponent's weapon, impaling his hand in the same gesture. Under the pain, the angel roared as he tried to break free from the trap, but Staan did not give him the opportunity and struck him with a punch to his stomach, tearing the soldier away from his weapon and propelling him into the air. Despite his anger, Staan still restrained himself: he did not wish for the death of the envoy of the Heavens.