"Ughh…~" A males voice sounding of being dragged could be felt.
Slowly opening his eyes, he saw a painfully bright light.
In response, he covers his face with his palms of his hands. It was rather soft as if all the old wounds have disappeared.
The dragging stopped, giving the instincts of the male to get up.
"Eugh~ Where am I? It's so bright and windy. What am I wearing?" He asked himself, surprise that he was in some sort of white sheet as a robe.
A figure walked towards his direction."Hello…Mr.Endicrite."
"Hello, do you know where am I?" He asks.
"Oh my, don't ask a silly question, you should know where you are. The place every human wants to be after their passing." The figure appeared before him.
It was a feminine figure. Rather voluptuous and elusive. She smirked at William, looking down at him as if a lower caste.
"Heaven, huh?" He asks himself.
"Why, yes. Welcome to Heaven Ol' servant of God. I am the gatekeeper of one of the Heaven's Gate. Nice to meet you." She makes a soft smile as her whitish eyes glow turns to normal sky blue.
"One of the gatekeepers. So I must be at one of the stages. Tell me, am I supposed to have my sins weighed, Maiden of heaven?" He asks as politely as he could to the Angelic Being standing before him.
"Your sins are already weighed as we brought you here my boy. Now, it's just a choice of whether we bring you into the gates or down to the pitfalls where you will reluctantly end up in hell." She smirks, probably underestimating his potential.
"Tell me ol' servant of God. What do you think of God." She asked a question which would confuse a few.
"God. Hmm, God is my guide master towards the paths that he shows to me as I make my choice of accepting or denying. He prevents me from sinning but also allows me to do the things that are in need of acceptance. God is a higher being and I am just his servant." He answers as he nods and places his hand on his heart.
The Angelic Being nods as she smiles in a very impressive way. "Right you may enter." She said as the gate started to open. It was rather tall and probably quite heavy to open physically.
"Your journey begins with God, Mr.Endicrite. He/She will lead you there." As William passed through the gates, her shouting was covered by a cloud of mist.
Quite dark, he walks over yonder aimlessly.
"It's pretty … windy, ugh~ I guess no one expects Heaven to be what it is. Even the being earlier was rather looking down towards me. Tell me, is this place highly on law and order" He talks to himself, bracing himself against the heavy cold winds.
("I can do this ...!") He shouts in his head as the wind suddenly stopped.
The darkness was swept away as he ended up at a tall building that looks similar to a palace. It had quite an amount of stairs that led to high up.
"Am I supposed to get up here? It looks rather slippery and steep with it looking like pure gold. Do I have to? I don't know if this leads anywhere. It's not like I expect a prize anyway. Let's just go." He was questioning himself.
Taking a few steps, what he said was rather true the stairs was really slippery and steep. "I don't expect anything and I won't give up. Come on this is like Training. This is a test of strength and beliefs." He shouted to himself as he crawled up the stairs, gripping his arm to one step while holding his leg to its flat surface.
Somehow managing to get up the stairs, he was greeted by a few angelic figures again.
"Well well, look who we have here." An angelic being partially robed and armoured stared down at him as she makes disgusting regard.
"The boy who failed his one task as a second chance of living...by a minuscule." Another one said, this time her voice was deeper.
"There, there… We have to do the tasks that God gave us. There is no time to be looking down at people. It's already a crisis back at earth land and the two planes." A woman who looked 6 to 7 feet tall walked towards William.
"Care to get a lift up?" She lowered herself as she gave her hand.
William nods and gave a smile, handing his hand. Standing upright again.
"Welcome Endicrite. Servant number #17863883772920. Welcome to the Palace of Justice and Balance. Sorry, but there won't be introductions as we are pretty rushed on our objectives." The tall angelic being said as she bows towards William.
William bows back. Understanding his current situation, he just accepted what was coming. "I understand."
"As you know, you had passed the body's boundary. Now, you are in a soul like state. You may not have a physical body but your mind makes up what you think. The same as what you see us as. We may be angelic beings but we are just light. Neither female nor male. Everything here is up to the imagination. Even God is what you see as but you may never see God as God sees no one except his messengers and us servers of God." The being said. It sounded like a tongue twister that she somehow managed to say it properly.
"Sorry, William… but as per our record, you have quite a many amounts of sins. You broke one of the commandments of God and followed the ways of hell. Our apologies but you may have to go to hell and face your punishment." She said as she looks down towards him, her eyes glowed fiery gold as if dripping lava through her eyes.
Seconds before the lava hits him, an angelic being pushes him aside and grabs hold of him, rolling him over. "Wait!"
The voice screamed out from the angelic saviour.
William being brought up by the saviour, she looks towards him and back at the Tall Angelic Being. "There is another way!" She shouts at the Tall Angelic Being.
"Oracle, what are you doing!? Are you trying to break the laws?" One of the Armored Angelic Being shouted.
Oracle had no eyes, she wore a simple white robe and was pretty fair. She was pretty short and she had a familiar attitude. She had wings which were quite short compared to the guards.
"There is another way Mother, as his Guardian Angel, I propose him to just receive The Test! There's no reason for him to go to hell. Heaven's at stake and he is our only saviour." She shouts to the Tall Angelic Being.
William confused, he just stood there quietly watching the Beings having an argument of what to do with him. ("My Guardian Angel?") He asked himself in his head again.
"Well, I suppose we could propose that. You, send a message to God and come back a reply this immediately. There are many more servants to bring in line alright!" The Tall Angelic Being shakes her head.
"Oracle, You are really a time-waster of a bothersome daughter." The Tall Angelic Being said.
"We were given orders to punish this human as per he had sinned and now you are proposing The Test, why, so he could break the laws of humans and raise from his body again!?" She shouted.
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"It's the only way mother. The Humankind is at risk of extinction and it disrupted our tasks because it's corrupting the server. An artificial man-made element has been killing humans yet ends up still alive in our records!" Oracle raised her voice back.
"Well, it is their problem! Humans were already a pain as they were always a weak species!" The Tall Angelic Being raised her voice back.
A loud boom and vibration could be heard throughout, it shuddered the Tall Angelic Being. "My apologies God...I may have gone too far."
Another boom could be heard. "You want me to give him The Test?" She asks as she looks surprised towards the cloudy sky.
A few vibrations could be heard until it was still silence.
"Fine…Mr.Endicrite, you are going to do a test to prove Heaven and God. Amuse me." She said in a very cunning way.
Oracle looks at William somehow, maybe she could sense his presence easily. "Sorry William but … this will be rather painful."
William was about to turn towards Oracle before he suddenly felt a heavy push.
He fell from a rather high area. He felt himself going heavier by the second. The sky started to turn black as he dropped onto a hard surface.
"Aghhhh!~" He felt a heavy force on his back yet he wasn't injured nor broken anywhere.
He got up as if he had woken up from a dream but here he was in some unknown realm. It was rather dreamy similar to The Guardian's realm but this time it was dark and stormy.
"I feel thirsty, why…?" He picked his lips as he wandered in this unknown place.
"This place is limited… I am like in a box. Wait for a second, is this a test of my strength to hold hunger and thirst? I read about this in books. One who passed gets a chance in life again. Is that what they meant by The Test?" He was surprised as he sat at a small boulder in this small pocket dimension of a box.
"I have to hold the urge as long as I can…this will be easy I guess." He was about to find out the truth.
…
A few hours later
"I can't take it ...I am going mental! Please god, help me. Show me a way, please! Ehhhh… I feel sick but I have to hold it in." He starts to breathe heavily as he placed his hands on the boulder and dug his legs into the sand.
Something suddenly hugs him from behind. "Huh!? What!"
"Calm down… William, It's me Oracle, I have come to pick you up." As she holds onto William, he felt a heavy force again as he was lifted up quickly.
While he was being pulled back up, he didn't feel the urge to eat or drink again.
He dropped softly onto a puff of cloud as he was back to square one. The Palace of Justice and Balance.
"Well, it seems he passed the test though he was rather going to fail if he was there for another second " She laughed softly.
"Mother, there is no time for games. We need to bring him back to life this instant! Time works differently in Heaven, you know !" Oracle shouted as the necklace she suddenly wore shone a bright light.
She turned towards William and he suddenly flashed to an unknown room. It looked rather feminine, having lovely shades of pink and red.
"Am I in a girl's room?" He asked himself surprised. The scent of the room smelled purely of Lavender.
"It feels so calming…" he was just about to sleep as he heard a shriek in his ear.
"Don't sleep! Something is wrong!" Oracle who is now in the room with him was spamming a white keyboard towards a light that he could not see anything on. Perhaps it had a special security function to not work on Humans.
"Oh Noo, Time past too long. Mother is going to make you alive again no worries, but there will be complications and conflicts. Please bear with me and give all your strength. Also, I will bypass your neuron firewalls and give you some abilities while you are passing down the dimensions and stages of heaven and hell!. You might also change physically and mentally. But, you won't be as powerful nor weak as your current self."
As Oracle shouted, William was giving up and about to ask what in bloody hell what was going on but before he could she pressed the enter button. "Initiating Body Transfer! Permission access is given by God !"
William's eyes flashed fragments of unknown memories. Once that he had never seen before. It could be a power of Clairvoyance but it was more of alternate realities. As his eyes widened, his body started to change. He had scars around his body and he had a 3-marked scratch on his left eye. It was covered by a makeshift eye patch made from the hide of an unknown animal.
William still felt the same yet he changed. He was still William.
"Aghhhh!~" He woke up on a field. A familiar muddy field. Looking left and right while still lying down, he noticed familiar-looking barricades and covers.
"I'm back? I'm back!!!" He shouted and got himself up.
His head started to ache. "Ughh…" New memories were implanted through his head. He apparently survived hell and all of its monsters both seductive and strong. "I remember…"
He nods his head and tries to head to the door into the General's Office but it needed a key card. He somehow still had his key card so he swiped it.
It gave a signal to security that someone was entering the premises, seeing it is William, it shocked the guards thinking they were being infiltrated.
A sentry gun came down from the ceiling and pointed towards William. The voice of the security guard came up onto the speakers. "Hold! Introduce yourself!"
William with a rough and coarse voice spoke up. "The names William Endicrite."
"Are you joking?! Tell me who you really are! Guards arrest the intruder." The voice shouted as a few guards walked carefully towards him.
William reluctantly gave up, raising his hands and knelt down. He was roughly tightened by his wrists and dragged to an interrogation room where he would be interrogated.
General Ferdunov now looking older and aged walk towards William and sat on the chair, staring at him with her one eye. "I heard you claimed to my guards that you were William but unfortunately you failed, he had passed a long time ago."
"But I am William." He calmly answered her.
"How can you be William when he is already dead!" PTSD was starting to kick in into her. She banged the metal table in rage. "If you are William! Prove it to me!"
"We have all the belongings that you brought along. Everything! Tell me anything that you can bring up in your mind that proves you are William Endicrite."
William's headaches again implementing a memory of his few seconds of dying.
"A few seconds before I died, I heard a faint sentence you said that I was too weak to answer. It was that you made a promise to my mother that you would take care of me as your own son and that you will make sure that I am always well and safe." He replied calmly as he held the pain that was in his head.
General Ferdunov had a shock. She was blank, her mouth was open and her eyebrows were narrowing. "It can't be…"
William looks towards the 2-way glass. "I also remember that General Mia showed me how to use her Guardian by snapping her crystal and always asks permission. And I also remember General Maia being a Munchkin Cat of a Humanoid thing."
Behind the mirror were General Mia and General Maia, conducting the test and watching William with the camera, hearing what he said, it left a strike of lightning into their heads.
He basically gave all of the Generals a partial heart attack.
"Am I hallucinating? I hope I am not hallucinating." General Ferdunov asked herself as she was trying to calm herself down.
"Fortunately, you are not hallucinating, I have been through hell literally to get back here," William replied with the memories that were implemented in his head.
"How are you alive? Did a Guardian with regenerative ability was able to bring you back alive?" General Ferdunov asks in question, finally calming down.
William shakes his head. "I went to Heaven and had to do a task for them. I was purposely sent to hell and had to survive there for a day and if I passed, I would receive a gift. A gift of life once more."
"...That's impossible. It's unrealistic and makes no sense." General Mia
shouted through her mic in surprise.
"Tell me, how did I get these scars then? This eyepatch that you pulled out of me is from a small patch of skin that I inflicted on Cerberus and the wound I have on my eye was caused by a demonic thief." William explained. "I have seen things not known to man when they first met the Guardians … God is real and angels and demons are real." William rubbed his scarred eye with his cuffed hands as it was rather itchy.
"A day?! Are you serious… do you know how long you were gone in Earth?" General Mia opened the interrogation room door and walked towards the table between General Ferdunov and William.
General Mia had more robotic implantations. Her neck had a sort of chip attached and her shoulder was layered with an exo-type of a skeleton.
"I have no f@#£&ing clue…" William answered as he was curious to know.
"Five years William, you were dead for five years…We gave honour to your grave 10 times, your death anniversary and cleaning duty." General Mia answered. "You are telling me we were cleaning an empty casket!?" General Mia shouted at him, she also somehow got a PTSD issue, I guess it was pretty stressful maintaining the population and giving orders.
"Probably not, this is technically a cloned body… but with everything intact and aged." His hoarse voice was cleared as General Maia served him a glass of water.
She looked the same as always, rather cute when she had her Cat parts grown on.
"Basically my skeleton remained but my skin was refreshed." William tried making a sarcastic joke but it was at a wrong time doing so.
"To be honest, I do not trust you, William." General Mia said even though she was uncuffing him.
"You might as well be checked by the Elder Guardians." He was then guided by the three generals towards the Testing room. Avoiding all contact from the female soldiers as much as possible, William was secretly transferred to the Meeting room of the Guardians.
General Mia turned on a special phone made by the guardians, fitted in with an aegis crystal and made an announcement through the phone for an urgent meeting.
The Elders were all summoned, this time all four of them.
"Yes, what is it?" Miss Shimaya summoned, noticing her closely, she had now five tails instead of her usual four.
Miss Shimaya who sniffed an unknown smell turned to William's direction. "Oh, Hel~ugh" Miss Shimaya's eyes turned dull and blank.
"Shimaya, you alright?" Avalona asked her as she also noticed William. "How?.."
Pitch, now with slightly less long hair and more of having slight curls, smiled a little. "William…"
The fourth one wasn't too bothered by him as she was sleeping in a corner, she was forced summoned by Miss Shimaya.
"Wait, no joke? He is William?!" General Mia shouted.
General Ferdunov looking slightly happy yet sad, reached her hands towards William. Giving him a hug. "William, it is you~ ."
"Mia, Guardians never lie, their power is too strong for that." General Maia cheekily said.
Miss Shimaya calming down, left out a huge sigh. "What a saddening past. He fought through so many obstacles to come back here."
"Like what?" General Mia asked for an explanation.
"Demons and higher celestial beings…" Miss Shimaya smiled at her.
"Holy Shit… all this time Demons and Angels exist. Wait, does God also exist!? William is it a she, he or it?" General Mia was scientifically curious.
"Angels and God aren't what you think they are, they are made up of how you think they look," William explained.
"So if I imagine them to be cute animals, they will look like cute animals." General Maia asked, trying to make good conversation.
"Yes, that sounds correct." William nods. "Also, can I have my eyepatch back? My eye is giving me a headache and an itch." William asked the Generals.
"Alright, I will grab your belongings. Wait a while." General Mia left the room shortly.
"How am I going to tell your Family, Friends and Major Rose…" General Ferdunov who wasn't stressed enough now has a stupid task being made in her head.
"Just bring me to them?" William sarcastically answered.
"Sounds fair…" Miss Shimaya said.
"How about Sae-Yong?" William asked Miss Shimaya.
"Pretty sure she would know it's you immediately. She also has the ability to sense things unknown to the human eye." Miss Shimaya warmly smiled.
"Thank you, it would be of great pleasure. I haven't used a weapon for 5 years apparently. I had to use my fist and wits for everything. I had to make a C96 Mauser out of the limited resources a demon trader gave me."
"A C96… was that the only thing you could think of?" General Ferdunov asked as she chuckled.
"Well yeah, it was only a block of steel and some sticks of wood. The bullets were very limited." William raised his side lip.
Sae-Yong was immediately summoned next to William. "Yes, Mother? What do you mean~..."
"Hello there Sae-Yong…" William said to her with a small smile.
"What the F@#£!" She cussed loudly.
"Language...Sae-Yong." Miss Shimaya said. "Only use those words in those intimate times..huhu~"
"You are really teaching your daughter to be a w@#£&, huh?" Pitch asked softly to Miss Shimaya.
"Maybe…?" Miss Shimaya giggled.
"William!? I saw your corpse and now you're here..wait wait don't tell me. Let me guess, You made a deal with the devil?" Sae-Yong asked.
"Something like that...heh~" William chuckled. "How did you know …?"
"Well, who just pops up alive again after 5 years of a rotting corpse!?" Sae-Yong asked him.
"Me." William points to himself.
"Well, I guess they are still the same even with the changes…" Avalona said to Shimaya as they were minding their own business.
"Sae-Yong, you changed. You are… more mature now " William complimented her.
"T~Thank you " she smiles as she pats herself as congratulations.
"Yeah, she even developed a bigger chest now huhu~" Shimaya was teasing Sae-Yong as she placed her robes by her lips.
"Mother, Could you stop that!? It's inappropriate."
General Ferdunov Laughed. "Sighs~ Still, how are we going to tell everyone that you are alive again?"
"Who knows, just take me to them." That was his final answer.