Chapter Text
“Are you okay?”
Spear-bearer #382 of Legion MMXVIII was immediately confused.
It did not know where it was. It could not remember how it had gotten here. It did not recognize the delicate, feminine voice asking the question. Furthermore, it was not used to being asked such questions. Those who stood above it in The Hierarchy would regularly ask it how many souls it had erased, about the sufficiency of its supplies, or inquire about its position in the battle formation. Those who stood beside it in The Hierarchy would sometimes ask if it had the strength to continue fighting, or if it could cover a flank or a bottleneck by itself. The few who stood below it would occasionally ask if it required maintenance. It knew the correct answers to such questions, the ones that would cause it the least amount of pain and maximize its chances of surviving another deployment. It did not know if it was ‘okay’. No one ever asked it that. It wasn’t the sort of thing an angel was asked after it had donned the war mask.
It focused its fogged-up mind, searching for the correct answer.
It did not feel ‘okay’. Its head ached. Its arms felt leaden. Its wings were in agony. All over, it felt weak and faint. None of these things were particularly unusual for it to feel, especially in the closing hours of such a taxing event as the annual cleansing of Hell. In this particular instance, however, it felt everything with an especially harsh clarity. It did not know if it should admit that; revealing weakness might prompt whoever was querying it to abandon it.
What had happened to it?
It tried to reach through the blackness occupying most of its head to recover something, anything, to explain the present situation, but it was interrupted.
“CHARLIE! GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM IT!”
A second voice, feminine like the first, called out in furious panic. The first replied with the same softness it had spoken with before.
“It’s unarmed. It can’t hurt us.”
“Ehh I don’t know about that. I can thinka plenty of ways to put someone down that don’t call for anything more than two hands and a can-do attitude.”
A third voice, this one masculine and with an accent it didn’t recognize, joined in as well, just as the second voice cried out again.
“IT’S AN EXTERMINATOR FOR FUCK’S SAKE.”
“LOOK at it. It can hardly move.”
Both of the statements were true, though it failed to properly understand the relevance of either.
The haze still draining from its mind, drop by drop, it forced itself to open its eyes, but saw only a watery blur. It realized it had been weeping this entire time. Like the pain and exhaustion, this was not terribly unusual either. It had seen and partaken in so much violence that tears often flowed unbidden and unnoticed. Something was different this time though. It could feel the lightest of breezes drying them as they rolled over its face.
The realization hit it like a lightning bolt.
Its mask.
Its mask was gone.
It could remember now.
There had been too many of them. All around. The line of battle had been stretched thinner and thinner until it finally snapped. They had scattered and engaged or disengaged at random, each struggling merely to keep themselves from being totally engulfed. It had been separated from the rest of its unit in the bloody, panicked frenzy. It had fled before an implacable tide of demons, flying when it could without risk, running when it had to. It had drawn too close to a terrifyingly large infernal edifice. A demon, one of the largest it had ever seen, had gotten the drop on it, looming up out of the darkness. It had been wielding a seraphic weapon, for all #382 knew, one of its own, left behind in the supreme madness of the previous year’s cleanse.
The monstrosity had stabbed out, viciously and with incredible speed, right at its face. Then, there had been darkness.
It must have been erased then.
Even if the demon’s attack hadn’t killed it, with a broken mask, Hell’s corrosive atmosphere would surely have finished the job in short order. The sickening, soul-rendering miasma that sustained the shapeless horrors that dwelled Down Below was poison of the worst sort to an angel. It would have succumbed in an instant without protection. After all this time, it was finally dead.
But then…why was it still conscious?
Why could it still think?
Why could it still feel?
The exterminator stirred in confusion, in spite of the ache permeating its body.
“Sshhh…”
“It’s alright, it’s alright.”
It felt a hand gently press a cloth to its face. It stopped its aimless shifting and closed its eyes, allowing whoever it was to wipe away its tears. It began to think, to try to make sense of its situation.
Was this some sort of an afterlife?
Had it been lied to?
No. That couldn’t be. They wouldn’t lie to it. Perhaps they’d simply been mistaken. After all, no one really knew for sure what happened to an angel’s soul when they were struck down. Maybe there was something more on the other side than the empty void that underlay Creation.
The hand finished dabbing at #382’s face. It opened its eyes again and beheld a warm, red sky. It shifted its gaze over to get a look at the one who had been so kindly attending to it. In spite of the ill-understood and seemingly grave circumstances it found itself in, it smiled. Whatever it was looking at, she was…cute. Very cute. She did not appear to be an angel, like it was, but she didn’t seem to be a mortal soul either.
She most certainly couldn’t be a demon, one of those vague terrors that plagued its dreams even when the next cleanse was months away.
Not with those great, welcoming eyes, framed by an apple-shaped row of lashes. Or those infinitely rosy cheeks, as if she’d just laughed herself hoarse. Or that waterfall of golden hair cascading down from her head. And that little black dot at the tip of her nose, giving her an almost puppy-like appeal. Or that bow-tie! How charmingly old fashioned.
Maybe this really was some sort of an afterlife, to be home to such a lovely creature. Maybe giving itself to the legions had won it some sort of reward now that it was finally dead?
#382 managed to summon its strength and reached up to caress the ivory-skinned woman’s cheek. It attempted to draw enough breath through its ragged throat to utter some thanks to her, but suddenly felt the cold touch of metal against its neck.
“Make another move and I promise you it’ll be your last.”
The other feminine voice spoke again, terse and threatening.
Though it was difficult to pull its gaze away from the strange but beautiful being that had been kneeling over it until now, the blade demanded attention. The one holding it at spear-point was startlingly familiar yet alien in appearance. Soft-grey of skin and hair, much like it was, but her garb had flashes of pink here and there that better matched their warmly-hued surroundings. Despite her somewhat angelic appearance, she too lacked a mask, though she still bore a cross over one of her eyes, like so many of its compatriots did. A fellow exterminator perhaps? It did not recognize her; she must have arrived here long before it.
“Guys…I really don’t think its trying to hurt me…”
“Well I really don’t think dis gamble has a payout worth the risk, toots.”
#382 looked away from the strange pseudo-angel glaring at it from behind her weapon toward the source of the third voice as it spoke again. It was pleasantly surprised. The voice belonged to an exceptionally tall androgyne. Slender in shape, pink and white in countenance, and swathed in striped clothing of the same colors. Replete with warm-looking fluff that promised to envelope anything that touched it with its softness. Possessed of a second set of arms, and as it focused it sensed yet another set hidden away. He(?) would be quite lovely indeed to behold if not for the grim, frightened look on his face, and the hefty firearm held in his second set of hands.
The exterminator forced itself to take a deep breath.
The act was painful.
Terribly painful, but necessary. It had to speak. It had to say something. Anything. Anything at all to let whoever these beings were know that it was still functional. If it did nothing, it knew from ages of experience that it would be dismissed as a lost cause and abandoned. It parted its lips and forced out a word.
“Hello.”
All three of those who surrounded it were plainly startled by the sound of its voice. The rosy-cheeked woman gasped, and nearly jumped upright. She jostled it rather badly in doing so, and pain shot through its entire body, originating in its back. Something was very wrong with its wings.
The pink bow-festooned possible exterminator spat out an unknown word. A curse. It did not know which of the mortal languages she was speaking, one it hadn’t yet had occasion to learn, but her tone of voice made it clear that she was NOT pleased to hear it speak. The tip of the spear dug deeper into its neck, an errant twitch away from drawing blood.
The androgyne likewise shouted an invective. One that it did recognize, and was not particularly fond of, being among the most vulgar of such terms his particular language had managed to produce. The muzzle of the firearm quickly came level with its head. It reeked; the tang of well-tended metal blended with the heavy aroma of smoke.
Perhaps it should have kept its mouth shut after all. It was not sure precisely what sort of infraction it had committed, its memory of the time between the demon striking it and the present moment being mostly empty, but the situation was a familiar enough one. It was facing a reprimand for what it had done, or perhaps failed to do. Its heart sunk. It hurt so badly already, it didn’t know how it would overcome whatever punishment it had managed to earn.
“CALM DOWN!”
The rosy cheeked woman spoke again, with a chastising tone. She waved the other two off. They hesitated, but obeyed after a moment of tension. #382 felt a touch of relief as the blade left its throat and the barrel of the firearm again pointed down toward the ground. Its savior looked back down at it.
“Hello.”
The fear melted away as it again looked into her eyes. There was mercy there, and patience. It wasn’t sure what to say to her, it still didn’t know the answer to her question. Fortunately she seemed to have lost interest in the subject of if it was ‘okay’ or not.
“Can…”
She looked it over again.
“Can you get up?”
This was a question to which it knew the correct answer. The answer was yes. Always, ALWAYS, yes. If one were ever asked such a question and did not answer in the affirmative, or failed to answer at all, they would be left behind, fodder to line the stomachs of Hell’s rapacious inhabitants. Therefore, it nodded, ignoring the unpleasant sensation of dried blood crackling off of its neck as it did so. The rosy-cheeked woman hesitated for a moment, biting down on her lip as she continued to scrutinize it and cast glances at the other two beings present.
“O…kay then.”
She reached down and rested her hand on its side.
“L-let me help you.”
She took one of its hands in hers, and slid the other from its side underneath its back. The jolt of pain that shot through its wings at her touch made it want to cry out, but it restrained itself. It was crucial not to show weakness now. Once it had been righted, she guided one of its arms over her shoulder.
“Well then…”
#382 looked down at the woman supporting it. She looked terribly uncomfortable. It tried to take as much of its weight as it could off of her. She was a bit on the small side, she really shouldn’t have to bear such a burden, and it was humbled by her willingness to do so.
“...would you like to come in?”
The woman drew its attention to a large structure off to the side. A sign of suitably grand proportions rendered in characters it couldn’t read capped it. It looked around, as far as it could without hurting itself. The crimson and maroon-hued structure, with golden light falling from its many windows, looked at least as inviting as anything else in the jumbled metropolis that surrounded it. It nodded in acquiescence.
“Aw fer fuck’s sake! We’re just gonna invite it in?!”
The androgyne spoke again. Horror and incredulity mixed with anger.
“Yaknow if I wanted my throat slit, I’d just do it myself!”
He was upset, and it knew that it was the reason, though it wasn’t sure what it had done. Whatever trespass it had committed, it would have to apologize and make amends when it had recovered enough to do so. The thought of having angered such a pretty creature was very unappealing.
“Do you expect me to just leave them here?”
There was a pause, then the pseudo-exterminator spoke again, meekly.
“Charlie, this thing is dangerous…”
Another pause, and it felt tension grow within ‘Charlie’, as she seemed to be called.
“You know I can’t do that.”
She again moved to guide it toward the structure, while the others again raised their voices in protest.
“Wait.”
#382 coaxed another word from its throat, and the trio quieted. It pried itself away from the rosy-cheeked woman and turned around.
There.
The spot where it had previously been lying wasn’t difficult to pick out. The pool of blood staining the ground marked it clearly. Near the pool’s edge, only a few steps away, it saw the shards of its shattered mask. It wasn’t sure where it was, or where its comrades were, or what its objective, if it even had one anymore, was. But ages and ages of drilling and conditioning had cemented in its mind the thought that such a crucial piece of equipment should never be abandoned, broken or not. If it were still bound to The Hierarchy, such laxity would undoubtedly earn it a terrible punishment.
Managing, just barely, to act under its own strength, it trudged back toward the blood-stained spot it had lain in a moment ago. Slowly, carefully, it gathered up the pieces of its ruined mask. They were many, but if it hooked its arm just so, it could hold them all with one hand, leaving the other free to once again drape over Charlie. Not a moment too soon either, its efforts had left it feeling light-headed and sick, and the small woman’s merciful support was more welcome than ever.
“We can go now.”
She nodded and helped it toward the doors of the building. The lovely androgyne and the fierce exterminator-like woman flanked them. They pushed the doors aside and led it in.
“Well then…”
“...welcome to the Happy Hotel…”
“...I suppose…”