Haniel awoke, long purple hair flowed down the side of his head. Dagiel had returned for a brief moment to make sure Haniel had not been eaten by sharks. Suddenly the sea began to boil, as God’s light bubbled like a festering wound. Its voice boomed into their skulls like rocks falling down the side of a mountain. “You have broken my laws and must be punished! You are hereby banished from the garden of Eden!” Garden of Eden is what God called the land mass, even as the angels worked themselves to death creating it for no thanks or reward. 

With nothing given in return more and more angels died with each project handed down to them. But God had no concern for any of this, its only matter was soon the earth would be ripe enough to create the first true humans. When that time came it would do so, but for now, the proto-humans worked just as good at keeping the angels in line. 

God spoke then, voice like bubbling thunder. “You are no longer angels; you are to be sealed away inside that creature that Lucifer will now face judgement for. You will never see the light of day or night again! Haniel and Dagiel, I hereby sentence you to death and enlacement!” 

The two stared at each other in fear, Dagiel pushing away a clinging Haniel, “Get away from me Haniel! I can’t face you after what we just did!”

Haniel looked hurt, confused, and he stared at Dagiel with a mixture of both these emotions. They played across his face, dancing unbalanced inside his eyes.

Dagiel cried out, “I don’t care what you want God! I loved Salsa, though he is gone the child that grows within me is his! And Haniel is my best friend!’ Dagiel protested as he buried his face in his hands, uncaring of Haniel’s quickly heaving chest.  

Haniel couldn’t contain his freaked-out state, between Dagiel’s confession of being pregnant by his love rival and God’s wrath, his mind was lost to oblivion. He began to mumble to himself, his nervous tick overtaking him. 

“Thou shalt place no other near or above God, Thou shalt never hold love for anything but God, Thou shalt respect all of God’s creations, Thou shalt never allow any to enter thy heart but God, Thou shalt not kill God’s creations, Thou shalt…-” Haniel began as he desperately tried to reach out, to hang on to Dag, the water violently whipping them around. He repeated the words as if trying to shield them from God’s anger. But then he steeled himself, or tried to and shook his head.

 “No! Fuck it! Take me! Take me instead! Please! Leave Dagiel alone, I’ll do anything you want! I love him! And there is nothing wrong with that! Even though I know he doesn’t love me...But that can’t really be true…” He moved to push Dagiel, holding the set of otter pups in his grip behind himself. “Turn Dagiel back into an angel and allow him to live...please…” in that moment, Haniel’s ever sleeping Feathercom awoke and shot out to grab onto the rocks, in an attempt to keep them grounded.

 “Thanks, Frenl!” he praised it as the little creature held onto them both as tight as it could, Ariel squeezed in with the otter pups. God’s voice rocked the ground and the sea, it caused the birds to fly away shrieking and the animals to dart off in fear. The Proto-Men in the area however, simply stood on the beach and glared at the merangel and his friend. 

“NO! You both have committed the ultimate sin against me! You will be punished!” With that Haniel screamed and Dagiel wrapped his arms around himself tightly, still pushing Haniel away. The otters hanging onto Dagiel squeaked in concern. God’s light covered them, and as it did, Dagiel tossed the youngest of his otter pups away from the small group of five creatures. 

Pressing a pearl into its tiny grip. “This is my baby…born of my love for Salsa, take it to Lucifer! Goodbye Blippu!” Blippu peeped in distress as he watched his adoptive merangel mother, his best friend and siblings be taken away by God’s light. Leaving nothing behind but the starfish Dagiel kept in his hair, a gift from Salsa, all those years ago. It fell limply onto the same rock that Dagiel frequented for so long. 

___

Lucifer

___

Several hours later word reached Lucifer. Blippu, the little otter sat crying over the small pearl it held in his lap. He pets it, watching without seeing as Asta and Maze tend to his own child. “You say God took your mommy and Haniel away Blippu?” He said this as he stroked through the small creature’s fur. It nodded solemnly, repeating what it had just said in sad chirps and squeaks waving its small hands around in sadness. 

The pearl nearly rolled off Lucifer’s lap as this was happening but the otter reached out with its tail as it gave a panicked squeak and pulled it close to its body. It began to sob all over again and Lucifer sighed. “To be put to death and enlaced, I don’t know what that means, but whatever it is it must be something horrible…” Maze said this as he rocked the sleeping prince, whom Lucifer had named Beelzebub. 

“They were punished a bit harshly, I think something else happened, to be punished for falling in love usually nets you working with the machine I am hooked to. But then again, everyone that wasn’t Haniel could obviously see that Dagiel’s affections never strayed away from merely friendship and barely that” I’ll never tell these babies what really happened, I can’t, Asta and Maze know, and that is enough souls for my own damaged mind to deal with. His sightless eyes still bled as the machine outside his hut whirred. The straps were permanently fused into his skull by this point. He was in constant pain when he moved to do daily activities. “I know you get this quite often but, what are we going to do, Lucifer?” Asta said this he pulled Maze into his lap; the red head pressed his face into the blue haired angel’s neck. 

“We are going to get me back to the heaven and we are going to stage a rebellion” Came the reply, the angel leader still petting the otter pup. “I will find out what happened to Haniel and Dagiel, I’ll get their souls back if I can, unless God has transformed them into beasts or proto-men.” 

“God wouldn’t turn our kind into Proto-Men. She hates us too much. I realized long ago we were never in her favor.” Maze scoffed while he looked at Lucifer. 

“God does everything she can for those Proto-Men, teaching them how to make clothing, guiding them to fire, we have to steal our fire logs from them!”

“By all that we have left, don’t you see Luci? God is just trying to get rid of us, we’re old news and soon as we all started to develop our own individual mindsets it started to pick us all off! One by one! Every angel that died, didn’t you notice? The streaks of color in their hair?” Lucifer held up a hand to silence him. But Asta continued before Maze could protest.

“Cassiel, Samael, Uriel, Duma and Dummah, Raphael are gone. Balthazar, Gabriel, Anapheal and his triplet brothers, all gone.” He shook his head as he kept explaining. Lucifer frowned in annoyance but he didn’t say anything, he let him speak.

 “Lord Brother Lucifer, they’ve been gone for moons now, moons! Without a word. They wouldn’t just, up and vanish, without a trace, would they? No. I am more than certain that that answer would be no. No blood was left behind so we know animals and Proto-Men didn’t do it.” Shock found its way to Luci’s face, he grunted, irritation growing. With a yawn Blippu climbed onto his head and made a nest for the egg with his hair. “I see.” 

“You see? What does that mean? That’s not going to fix anything, that won’t bring Salsa back…! How do you even expect us to fight?!” Raziel snarled this as he entered the hut angrily. He was upset, they were all upset and he knew he was being unreasonable but he could not help expressing his anger. 

Taking it out on Lucifer was not going to help anything, he knew that. But he was miserable! He knew the emotions they all possessed would them no good in the end. Lucifer sighed “Alert everyone to come to and link their Biomass Cords into my Bio Sleeve. I am your leader now; I will give you direction”

___

Raziel

___

This did nothing to calm Raziel. Overall, he missed Salsa and he did not regret the feelings he had swirling in his very soul. Even though Salsa never loved him and had only used his body as a stand in for Dagiel. He was remorseful for the fact that he could not have the other angel here at his side. But there was nothing he could do about it anyway. He stared at the group with a deep frown. 

Raziel was really worried about how everything would play out. Now that things as they were stood in the way of God’s plans. He also knew that anything that stood in the way of God’s plans was eradicated. “We are all going to die and all you’ve been doing is sitting here! I understand your son was just born, but if action isn’t taken soon then there will be no one left to save! I-” He cut himself off mid-rant as he looked at the egg in Lucifer’s hair. Reaching over to pick up the pearl, he watched it grow until it became palm sized. “This…This is…” he could not even find the words. 

Lucifer shook his head, “Yes, that is Salsa and Dagiel’s baby, Blippu asleep over there brought it. This one however.” He motioned to a bag at his side. “I sent out some angels to comb the beach and they returned with this after it washed up on shore.” He reached into the velvet bag and pulled out a larger pearl, the size of a large rock. Handing it to Raziel he placed Salsa and Dag’s egg back near the sleeping Blippu. The otter tried to pull it onto its chest and hold it. He handed Raziel the egg silently. 

“We believe you laid this egg and buried it right after that night you two went off to find firewood and never came back. Am I right? Who knew, we always figured it would be Salsa, looks can be deceiving can’t they?” RAriel had only caught Salsa's attention pretending to be a slender protoman. They’d made love, or lack thereof but he didn’t do it as himself so neither of them reached their realization point back then. 

The multicolor haired arch Angel realized however, right after he’d eaten from the God Tree, that he’d fallen pregnant from his night with Salsa. In a rush he’d laid the pearl and hidden it in an underwater cave, he couldn’t bare to look at it. He now figured the excavating had shaken it loose and brought it to the surface. Lucifer chuckled, reaching his hand out to pet Raziel.

The other angel laughed bitterly. “I think we don’t need to go into too much detail about how this little guy came to be. I’m just glad he’s alright.” Raziel pet the egg as he sat down next to Luci’s bedroll. 

“Enough idle chit chat. We have to get things prepared.”  Lucifer said this as he stood up with some struggle. 

“Finding a way back into The Heaven, staging a rebellion…” Asta mumbled as he looked outside the skin leather flap into the darkness outside. The night was silent nothing out of the ordinary could be seen. But Asta was still bothered, he walked toward the flap and sat down in front of it. Raziel shook his head and put his son’s pearl into the bag at his side. He looked at the young prince with a deep frown.

 “I know how you can do that.” Lucifer looked at him before he held his hands up and gripped the spikes in his eyes. They were hooked to the machine and he ripped them out with a grimace. The pain laced into his body, latching onto his flesh with a crackling whip of agony. He groaned and clutched at his head. The others rushed over to stop his eyes from the bleeding that dripped down their torn depths. 

The skin and inner flesh of his eye sockets were raw and his smashed in eyeballs, long since liquified, oozed out of his skull and down his cheeks. Asta frowned and hurried over to wipe the gore from around Lucifer’s face. “You really must be more careful, Lucifer-ach” Asta said this quietly once all the mess was removed. Maze came over and began to clean out Lucifer’s eye sockets. 

The eldest of the angels merely grunted and shook his head. “I am fine, a little pain has never stopped me before and it will not stop me now. I have to get back to the heaven, we must prepare for rebellion and I cannot be near the pyre with these things in my face.” He gripped the eyes spikes in his clawed hands and squeezed them until they were crushed. The pieces flew around the tent and lucifer growled in rage at ever having been attached to them in the first place.