Fowlhunter [GL]

All this while, Capri, trembled as she watched from the far end of the tunnel. She watched what was once her quiet, awkward but diligent coworker; what she had thought to be a naive angel with a saviour complex. Brave, kind of heart, if a little dense.

Now, she saw the same woman marred with blood, splattered across her work vest, dripping down her gold armbraces. Some unidentifiable viscera clung to the barbed prongs of the blazing spear in her hand. But none of that was the most horrifying thing about the scene. It was how utterly detached the angel looked. How dark those molten-gold, slit eyes were. Sure, the angels wouldn’t die… but she just looked so tranquil with mutilating them. So used to the violence. Despite how warm it was, Capri hugged herself, trying to still the chills that wouldn’t stop shaking her body. The metallic stench of blood invaded through her ventilator.

Maybe all angels were like this? But when she saw the look on the last white-clothed angel’s face, she knew that they were being struck by the same horror. The angel had a gun, firing and firing, but Ennanis simply took it all in her stride.

…Escape. Capri had to escape now while she could. She had already gotten her payment, after all. A part of her still felt guilty about tricking Ennanis, but it was too late for her now to face piddling emotions like guilt. More than that, her guilt drowned in the fear of whatever stood in front of her at this moment. She kept the memory of her brother, her father in her mind, and resolutely jabbed the elevator button. This was for them and them alone.

But it was then that she felt a rush of air at her back.

“...!”

Capri whipped around. What happened next was too quick for her to register.

When Capri looked down, she saw blood spreading from her abdomen. She saw the smoking barrel of the angel’s musket pointed at her. Dizziness overtook her, and she fell backwards.

Capri fell on her back, laying flat as her ears buzzed. Through her spotting vision, she saw the base of the elevator descending down towards her.

Ah. So this was how it ended. It was all for nothing.

But then-

-Ennanis was there. Blood-smeared, shoulders heaving, she stood above her fallen figure. She seemed so very tall. Her spear was gone; Capri vaguely made out the shape of a glowing fiery ring on the angel’s finger.

The elevator came crushing down on them. But Ennanis pushed it up with one hand, preventing it from descending further. With her other hand, she reached out in Capri’s direction. Capri felt a warmth coursing through her. Her vision cleared, as if the fire of the Agni itself burned away the debris over her eyes; she found that she had the energy to sit up. When Capri glanced down at herself, she saw that the bullet wound was closing up in a powerful burst of Mending. With the renewed energy, she activated her own Soleki skills, speeding up the process.

Then she glanced up at Ennanis again. The angel was quivering; from the onslaught of the elevator, her wounds from the white-clothed angels, and healing Capri at the same time—how was she still standing?

And more importantly—why? After what Capri had done—

Ennanis sensed Capri’s eyes on her.

“Go!” she heard her hiss.

Capri had no time to think. She rolled her newly-mended body out of the way. She heard the angel croak out, again:

“Don’t wait for the next life,” the angel wheezed. “Live… this one… to the fullest.”

Then, she watched as the angel’s shoulders finally relaxed. As her bullet-pocked tattered wings drooped, her knees buckled.

The bell chimed.

And the elevator collapsed on top of Ennanis.

~~~

…

………

…………..

Through a crevice, someone had been watching all along.

With a pair of dark violet eyes, under an obsidian bird-mask.

“...” she sighed irritably, pinching her nose. “What an utter fool.”

She waved her hand. The cavebat perched on her shoulder flittered off. Then, reaching out, she curled gloved fingers around either side of the crevice. Silver glow rushed through them, and she heaved the rock apart.

Musket was still firing away at the elevator, like a dumb machine that didn’t know when to stop. Over the noise, he didn’t even hear her approach. She took the time to smooth the feathers of her tail, letting them spring back into place, proud and lively.

“Yo,” she called.

The angel turned to her. Whatever those slitted eyes saw in the darkness, they evidently didn’t like it at all. He aimed the musket at her. And then blinked, when he felt the weapon being wrenched out of their grasp.

A burst of sparkling, silver sparkles floated in the dark air, like dustmotes in light.

“Hmm? Why are you, an angel, relying on human weapons?” the Cockatrice said gently, crooking her eyebrow. The angel’s weapon now lay in her shimmering hands, and it too was enveloped in silver light. Leisurely, she bent the weapon like a boomerang. Then, she snapped it—and let both halves clatter to the ground. Her gaze hardened. “Grow a goddamn spine.”

Shingshingshing! Something long, tall, silver crystallised from the tunnel ceiling, like a stalactite.

Poor Musket was apparently too frozen in fear to move. And then, he was too dead to move. Meticulously, the Cockatrice stripped all three maimed angels of their armbraces. She drew out two little daggers, the ones Jemi had used. Three angels, six stabs. She wiped the blood off the blades on their white uniforms.

She made for the elevator next. The elevator had fully descended. The doors were opened, a button lit red, still expecting their next passenger. There was no trace, nothing to suggest that anyone had ever been here.

The Cockatrice walked inside, pressed a button for an upper floor, and jumped out before it started to move.

The bell chimed. With a squeaking of pulley cords, the elevator base lifted off the ground, ascending to the next floor.

Fssh-fshhhh-fshhhhh—a gentle pattering, like spring rain.

Squelching blood and matter showered down from the elevator base. The Cockatrice stared at it with dark eyes. She looked down at the rest of it on the ground. Blood had turned the dirt into a slush beneath flattened bundles of long rose hair and shrivelled feathers, mixed with the unrecognisable, pulped flesh of the angel commander, and her fractured bones.

The gold armbraces, and the commander’s prized Lienna, were the only things intact. Lienna still glowed faintly on the dismembered finger.

A tremulous whimper. The Cockatrice glanced up, and saw the black-haired, sapphire-eyed girl cowering in the back of the elevator shaft.

She glared at her, and gestured at the mess. “Well? Help her, sunblood.”

“H-h-,h-,” the girl was choking on her words, her face green. She looked up at the woman in the armoured gown, then looked down at the bloody mess of angel pooling in front of her. She clamped her hand over her ventilator-covered mouth. “Aaah, nghh, agh—?”

“Oh. Trauma. How inconvenient,” the Cockatrice muttered. “Whatever. We’ll just wait, then.” Lifting her skirts, she settled to the ground.

The girl at the back of the elevator watched, pale-faced, as the blood moved. Bones lifted themselves, did a little twitchy sort of dance, and fastened together. Clickclickclickclick. Blobs of flesh moved towards each other and merged like clay, slowly building volume. The body reassembled itself, bone, blood, viscera, flesh, skin, feathers. It was a tedious, frankensteinian process, but it was a matter of time until the angel was fully whole once again, clothes and skin clean, as if nothing had ever touched her. Her eyes were closed, but her chest rose and fell slowly, long pink lashes fluttering her cheeks with her breaths, like she was in a deep sleep. She would be like this for another few hours.

The Cockatrice looked at the girl again. Impulse itched within her, but she pushed it down.

“Go,” she said very quietly. “If I see you again, I’ll kill you.”

The girl gulped, managed a nod, and bolted off into a side tunnel.

Just them alone now, the Cockatrice heaved the unconscious angel upright and dragged her out of the shaft. She propped Ennanis Zoleil up against a wall, and stared at her.

She sighed in pity, poking the sleeping angel’s forehead. “This is why you shouldn’t hang out with girls that aren’t me.”

She lit a fire. Then she curled herself up in the corner. She watched the angel's slumbering form, limned by the orange embers, and waited for her to wake.