The days were hard, long and tiresome. He couldn’t complain however. His wife was beautiful, the harvest somewhat fortuitous, and they had gone many moons without highwayman trouble. Even though his back hurt from the labour, it was all worth it when he was sitting at the pub in the evening with friends and family. They were chattering away about nothing, and eating Vothek’s delicious food. Even the horrible sound of his cousin's loud and high-pitched voice had a certain charm to it. But the one thing that topped all of that, the finest experience that Thavion allowed his followers so graciously to feel, was taking that first sip of beer after an exhausting day of honest work. And someone had ruined it.

An invisible force had pushed his mug as he took his first swig, spilling beer down his shirt. His friends had begun to laugh, as expected, but so did a small group of people on the other side of the bar. A huge woman, an even bigger bear-like man, and a twig in comparison to the first two, with a grey streak running through his hair. They quickly looked away as he glanced at them. Something fishy was definitely going on.

“Oi! Did you do that?” He yelled over at them, as he stood and tried to brush the liquid off. Aethel bit his lip. The man was positively gigantic. Bigger than Teddy. They had definitely taken it a little too far this time, but before he could speak up, Teddy got to the word first as usual.

“How could we possibly have shoved your mug when we’re all the way over here?” He said, and Aethel sighed at the idiocy of that remark.

“So you DID shove my mug!” The farmer continued, just as Aethel had predicted. Teddy seemed to realise his blunder, and failed to find a correction for it. So he turned his giant head towards Aethel. Even though the tavern was at least half full at this point, all sounds of chatter had died out over the argument.

“Aethel?” He whispered and nudged him. Aethel did not only consider himself adept at manipulating the surge, but at manipulating people as well. Especially dim-witted, inbreeding farmers like these. And so he spoke up as confidently as ever.

“My friend simply noticed the beer on your shirt and assumed—” he began, but another villager stood up and spoke over him.

“You did that to my chair as well!” The farmer pointed at them, and yet another man rose from his seat.

“Then it was you who broke the glass!” Suddenly, the entire tavern had turned on them, drowning the place in an ocean of accusations.

“I cut myself on the splintered wood when you—”

“I’ve wasted a whole jack on spilled—”

“My granny knit me these and now they’re—”

Some of them weren’t even true, Aethel thought to himself in a moment of imprudence.

“Hey!” The gargantuan villager yelled, and the tavern quieted, before he continued.

“As you can see, we don’t particularly like disorder ‘round here, do we lads?” He announced and waved his hands at the rest of the bar, who answered with a series of nods and affirmations. He had become a sort of ringleader, Aethel observed. A rowdy group of uneducated, superstitious and worst of all, tipsy, villagers. Aethel was just about to speak up and apologize for their behaviour, but the bear-soaked villager spoke up again first.

“It looks like we need to exercise some of Thavion’s justice.” He continued, matter-of-factly and Rimilda, who had been sitting silently this whole time, suddenly burst into a fit of laughter. None seemed to take that too kindly. Some had begun moving towards them, but the innkeeper stepped in between before anything could happen.

“Take it outside!” He said firmly, and pointed towards the door.

“I won’t have any blood spilled or more broken chairs in here.” He continued.

“Gladly.” Rimilda answered, and shot a cheeky smile at the fuming ringleader.

Outside of the tavern, a total of eight villagers stood lined up in front of them in the moonlit street. Aethel cursed himself for letting this happen. ‘I’m supposed to be the reasonable one.’ He thought, but he knew that with enough alcohol in his system, neither he or Teddy was very reasonable. That seemed to be the case for Rimilda as well, who stood proudly with her chin raised and her arms crossed.

“We were just having a bit of fun!” Aethel said loud enough for everyone to hear, trying to de-escalate the situation. He thought he could incapacitate some of them, but he wasn’t so sure about what his augmentor friends might do.

“That’s how it starts!” The same large farmer as before, who now stood at the front of the group, announced.

“Next thing we know, you stick us with knives and rob us while we sleep!” He continued, and mutterings of agreement sounded from the rest of the villagers. ‘Now it’s really getting out of hand.’ Aethel realised with discomfort.

“They look like highwaymen to me!” Another spoke up, and more affirmations spread across the group. It seemed that they wouldn’t be happy without a fight, but Aethel tried his best to think of a solution. He looked around for anything that might help, but to his dismay, he only noticed open windows and doors everywhere. People were watching the commotion, waiting to see what would happen.

Stolen story; please report.

“Are you fucking blind?” Teddy yelled in return. Aethel stiffened.

“Just take another look. Do we really seem like highwaymen to you?” His brazen friend continued with his arms outstretched. The men only returned hard, angry looks, before the leader of the bunch answered him.

“Yes!” He said angrily, and the mob started to move towards them. Aethel’s mind raced, trying to figure out a solution that didn’t involve eight possible deaths in the small village of Greenshire.

“Wait!” He yelled, but no one listened.

“Look!” He tried again, as he pointed to a barrel outside of the tavern that he was manipulating the surge of, making it float mysteriously in the air. Absolutely no one turned to look at it, but he could hear a woman gasp from one of the windows.

Aethel didn’t have time to register what was happening before the sound of a bell suddenly boomed a deafening chime throughout the entire village, and the ground shook with its reverberation. Every person in sight startled at the deep tone, but no words could be heard uttered when the skies suddenly split apart with a loud crack, and a blinding glow emerged. The once dark evening streets were now showered in a golden radiance. Clouds parted from the crack and a gust of wind slammed windows and doors closed, or forced them open, depending on their orientation. Some people just stood completely frozen and stared at the visual bombardment in the sky with awe, horror or a lot of both. Others screamed and ran. When a glowing white shape started to force itself out from the crack, Aethel almost joined the runners, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t move at all.

“What the fuck…” He heard Teddy mutter from beside him, as the creature started to fully emerge and take form. It looked like some sort of formation of glowing cubes. Some cubes span around others, some were larger, some smaller, but they all formed a geometrical pattern, which was very straining to look at. As if it was hard to comprehend. Aethel could almost feel his brain begging him to look away.

“Let’s get the fuck out of—” Teddy started with a shaky voice.

“Rimiiiiiiilda!” The creature strung out in a divine, womanly baritone that filled every nook and cranny with the sound. Teddy immediately froze again, much like Aethel. The creature spoke with such godlike command that Aethel felt like a child again, watching his friend get scolded.

“How DARE you show up here!?” Rimilda yelled back furiously. Aethel felt sweat start to bead on his forehead, and his eyes started to tear when she spoke back at the creature. How could she possibly think to oppose this being in any way?

“Your eeeeeescapades… are at an end now. You have obligations to fulfill.” The divine being continued, and Aethel felt as though nothing in the world could be more important right now, than Rimilda doing what she was told. Even so, he didn’t dare open his mouth to speak.

“I won’t go.” Rimilda answered matter-of-factly as she braced her feet firmly on the ground. ‘She’s preparing to fight it!’ Aethel realised. A clap of thunder sounded from the large woman in front of them, confirming his thoughts.

“Right here, Rimilda? Hurting all of these people because of your youuuuthful faaaaantasies?” The blinding entity asked, continuing to drag out the words in a very alien dialect. Rimilda didn’t respond. Instead she did something that made Aethel’s blood drain from his face in horror. Another, louder, clap of thunder sounded from her. Aethel was stunned, yet again. The augmentor technique for enhancing their physical capabilities was something he was very familiar with. Teddy could do it, and he’d seen enforcers in the city, and other augmentors in the military do the same. But doing it twice in a row was not something that had even crossed his mind in the slightest. ‘How much stronger is she now…?’ Aethel began to consider, but before he could finish his train of thought, Rimilda’s feet sunk into the ground, and another thunderous boom sounded from her. It was so loud that the earth beneath his feet shook. It completely snapped him out of his trance.

“Teddy!” He began yelling at his friend, who was staring wide-eyed at the augmentor woman in front of them. When it was obvious that he didn’t notice a word Aethel was saying, he grabbed his arm and started to run away with him. Luckily, he followed, although still staring blankly into the ground. Everyone had barred their doors at this point, so they had to aim for a small alley between two buildings. As they ran, however, Aethel could feel the air around them starting to grow heavy, and all sound began to creep away into silence. Street lights began to fade, and even the very glow from the divine being in the sky started to dim. Something big was about to happen.

“Quickly!” Aethel yelled at Teddy and pointed towards the alleyway. Teddy had a panicked look on his face. A discrete sound like that of a tearing paper sheet preceded a roaring destruction behind them. Glass shattered, wood snapped and dirt rained over the area.

“Rimilda!” The entity yelled, with more conviction than ever. They looked around the corner to see her standing in a crater several feet deep, enshrouded by dust. Her hair had been undone from the ponytail, and was now flowing aggressively in the wind. ‘No,’ Aethel thought. There wasn’t so much as a breeze out at all. ‘What is she?’. His old curiosity seemed to find a way back into his head, despite the stakes of this situation.

“Should we… run?” Teddy asked with a crack to his voice from behind him. Aethel didn’t want to answer. It was the smart course of action, obviously, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“If that is what you want.” The godly being answered Rimilda’s actions, and multiple smaller entities began to flow out from the crack in the sky behind it. They too, had a glow to them, but that was the only similarity they shared with the larger being. For they had a body with a head instead of being made up of glowing cubes. They seemed to lack any other human characteristics, however. They had no face, no genitals, no clothes, but they did don huge wings, sprawling out of their backs, which made Aethel realise just what they were looking at. Teddy spoke up first.

“Angels…” He muttered. The winged angels formed a line on each side of the greater angel.

“They’re… Thavion’s angels…” He continued. Aethel was in complete disbelief. Sure, the church had to have roots in something, but Aethel always boiled that down to people making up facts to explain the unexplainable. Rimilda let out a roar, and she bounced off the earth like a thunderbolt towards the luminescent being. Before Aethel could process her horrifying speed, the sky lit up in a blinding flash and the greater angel flew backwards into the rift with Rimilda latched on to it. Seeing her clinging to the angel like a tick made Aethel realize just how big the angel was. The smaller winged angels followed the pair back into the crack as well, moving with inhuman haste and leaving trails of light behind them. Once they were all inside the light, the rift closed suddenly, and Greenshrie was once again left with the light of the moon, and a deafening silence.