Chapter ninety two

     Change in POV - Barabiel otherwise known as pigeon boy

      I led my team of cherubim against the giant abomination. It was all hairy limbs and grotesquely twisted flesh joined together in a completely chaotic manner, there was no beauty or grace in its design. It was a complete mockery of God's creation and as such needed to be erased.

       I heard the trumpet signalling a retreat but I was too busy fighting the creatures many limbs to heed Gabriel's orders. I ducked beneath the creature's grasping clawed hand and cut at it with my holy sword , my team followed my lead and also cut at the monster with their holy swords. The hair on the limbs of the monster caught fire when it came into contact with the cleansing flames upon our swords and the whole thing went up in flames, I flew back a few meters and rushed the monster which was now making a high pitched noise as it burnt. I was able to deliver a finishing blow to the monster , sending it flying into the sky with my mighty blow.

      The creature flew a great distance through the air but when it neared the horizon it crashed into a metal contraption that humans had devised in recent times so that they could fly. The metal contraption must not have been very sturdy because it fell apart even though the flaming carcass of the monsters only clipped it in the back.

         All five of us quickly rushed to the wreckage to see if there were any survivors and to our surprise we found that a demoness had taken five people hostage. Later I found out that one of the humans was actually a witch and an accomplice of the demoness, when I tried to smite them and rescue the four innocent humans I found myself trapped by the witch's sorcery.

        After a few frustrating moments of trying to escape the sparkling blue bubble that was keeping me prisoner the bubble disappeared setting me free. I immediately tried to strike the witch down before she could trap me again but even as I flew towards her with my holy sword drawn I noticed the stony expression on her face and the fire that was burning in the depth of her emerald green eyes. Something in the way she was looking at me made me ,a seraphim of the angelic host, flinch in fear. My instincts were screaming at me to run away but it was too late, the witch seemed to blur and the strange blue fan she was holding went through my holy sword like it was naught but butter, leaving me holding nothing but a hilt. She never stopped moving as she stepped forward and kicked my chest, the kick had more force than her dainty feet should have been able to deliver. I fell back on my wings which broke under my weight making immense pain run through my entire back. I opened my mouth to scream but the witch was already upon me delivering a sharp kick to my stomach and robbing me of breath that i needed to scream. Then she started to systematically take me apart physically but much worse than that she told me things that I never wanted to know. She showed me how everything I believed in was a lie, in the beginning I thought she was just using her poisonous tongue to trick me but she demonstrated how my cherubim brothers were nothing but puppets she could destroy at a whim. Slowly her argument seeped into my mind reminding me of things I had noticed but dismissed as unimportant. Her words weren't a lie, no they were something many times worse, they were the truth, the terrible painful truth.

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      At first I was angry at the witch but I knew deep inside that it wasn't her fault that my entire life has been a lie, my only consolation was the fact that the witch said that I had some semblance of a soul, 'a ball of energy she called it'. At least I myself wasn't a lie.

     After she finished beating me she went away to talk to the demoness. I was left on the ground, broken in more ways than one. I cried thinking of everything I had lost which was everything I had been. As I lay there crying in the dirt I felt a warmth envelop me and the pain of my injuries vanished but I didn't care. I didn't care for anything anymore.

       Well at least I thought I didn't, the witch coerced me into helping her by offering to save my brothers if I showed her the way to the gate. We traveled through the devastated lands and I saw what true power looked like for the first time, the witch was wielding power like she lived and breathed it. She defeated enemies as if they were nothing but insects she was grinding beneath her heels. It was a freighting and awe inspiring display of might that revealed to me that she had been very lenient when she had dealt with me.

       She even defeated the encirclement of monsters that threatened the Arch angel Gabriel and his throng with a single wave of her hand. When Gabriel came to question her I quickly interceded for his own safety. I told him that she was a messenger from God sent to tell us that the apocalypse has been postponed another thousand years. After the way she had destroyed all the demons he was only too willing to believe me. He rounded up the angels and went back through the portal to heaven but I didn't follow, that place was no longer heaven to me, it was just another reminder of the fact that everything that I have known had been a lie.

      I felt a tear fall down my cheek as I watched my former brethren go back home when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to see the witch looking at me with sympathy in her eyes then surprisingly she apologized sincerely for what she said to me before she flew over to the portal to close it.

       A few minutes later she had half of the hole closed but she was no longer making any progress.

       I knew that if she didn't close that portal it would spell the doom of the entire human race but she didn't seem to have the energy to finish the job. Then I remembered what she said about my soul being a giant ball of energy, I might not believe that I was an angel anymore but I still believed in God and I still believed in providence and destiny. I believed that God had put me here for a reason, this reason.

       I flew over to her and offered my soul to her, she warned me that if she did this that I would cease to exist, true death she called it but I didn't care. I had found my true purpose, I had rediscovered my faith.

       As I felt my soul get consumed I was finally as happy and content as I was before I knew the truth, for the first time I felt that I had earned the name Barabiel , seraphim of the angelic host.