Chapter Text
Phil was a creature of violence and bloodshed.
He had lived as a soldier, he had died fighting to protect his beloved, and he was reborn into a living personification of death.
He became the spirit of a battlefield, the flickering energy of fear and bravery, his invisible wingbeats the rhythm of a marching song. He became the force that would change the outcome of a battle, the thing that armies prayed for. He struck down the cruel soldiers that sought mindless bloodshed, gave merciful deaths to those suffering without hope of recovery, watched over the boys that shook in their boots at the sight of the viscera that they were faced with.
The angel hurt, and helped, watching over who he could, but he was a rare breed of angel. Warriors had never been common, and Phil quickly grew accustomed to the injuries that came with the life he led, learning why there never seemed to be more than half a dozen like him out in the world at one time.
And yet there was something that he could never ignore. The constant pull, the call, the need to protect. To use his sharp-feathered wings not only as weapons, but as shields to cover.
Guardian, the other angels had whispered.
Warrior guardian.
And yet, it took centuries before he felt the proper pull. Even then, he understood too late, and by the time that he stepped through the doorway, a portal to the human world, there was a little girl at his feet, a pool of blood spreading from her chest.
He had slaughtered the ones who took her life, and led her soul away himself, waving off the guide that had appeared.
That was the first time he had felt the consuming grief of losing a charge, and Phil swore that it would be the last.
The next time he was called, his response was immediate, leaving the crafts that he had picked up in his spare time. The portal to his charge opened, and his body worked on its own, soul-bound sword appearing in his hand at his call to catch the axe in its deadly arc.
With a step and a simple thrust, he dispatched the man threatening his precious charge and stepped through.
Most guardian angels would never be allowed to interfere so directly. But not Phil, not a warrior, who spilt blood enough for it to stain his wings until no amount of scrubbing could wash it out of his feathers. By now, only the bottom third of his feathers were still white, the rest being taken up by the dark red of old blood.
So he fought, and running on pure, simple instinct, he pulled his charge out of that disgusting, dingy, gore-stained place, only to have the boy demand that he put him back. Threatening to hurt and kill him with so much force that Phil almost shuddered at how used to it the boy seemed. But at the mention of someone else, someone that he assumed was a friend to the boy, he acquiesced.
Which led him back into that bloody cage of a fighting ring. The fighters that had gotten a moment to calm down were thrown into confusion at his reappearance.
This time he didn't bother to stop as he carved a bloody path forward, towards where the gate entrance of the ring stood open to admit more fighters. There was something, an ever-present thread, a marker in his mind that told him exactly where his charge stood behind him. It warned him of the danger that Phil surely wouldn't have been expecting himself, covering the boy with one red-doused wing and feeling a bullet shatter across his feathers.
He was a storm, a whirlwind, a blazing terror that would forever cut through his enemies in the name of the boy he had been given to watch over.
Step by step, he forced the crowd back. At some point, they started realizing that they couldn't win against him, and all at once the ring was thrown into a different sort of chaos as people started running. The leader of this place was nowhere in sight, nor were his guards - a cowardly man who bailed at the first sign of trouble.
Phil felt the boy push forward, and quickly he was led along through the maze of hallways. He was pretty sure this place was entirely underground, and with how pale his charge was, he had to wonder whether or not the boy had ever seen proper sunlight.
Both of them fought - if Phil wasn't quick enough in dispatching an enemy, the boy would step in and finish the kill. It was another thing that made the angel shudder, seeing such young hands so calloused and worked. Little more than a child, not even truly a teen yet, and the boy was more experienced than some soldiers that he had fought for.
Eventually they found a small office room, and the boy stepped into it, almost hesitant.
It seemed like the little fighter had been paying quite a lot of attention to what the men in the fighting ring had been doing, as he made his way over to the wall of shelves separated into cubes at the back wall. In each one, it looked like there was a small collection of items - a keycard, a remote of some sort, and a metal key with a name tag.
He could see the struggle as the kid started looking through each cube, staring at the name tags attached to the keys, eyebrows furrowing in annoyance.
"What are you looking for, mate?" Phil watched him, while trying to keep an eye out of the door to make sure they wouldn't get ambushed in the room.
"Our key."
He let out a small sigh, watching the boy struggle to read the tags. "Here- watch the door, let me know if there's anyone coming. Do you know the name on the key?"
The boy gave him a glance, but eventually nodded and backed off. "Blood God."
That's what the ringleader had called him, wasn't it? It made Phil frown, not liking such a dark name for a child. "Alright. What's your actual name?"
All he received was an unimpressed huff from the boy, as red eyes moved to scan over the hallway outside, standing vigil. Taking the small defeat, Phil started working through each of the storage cubbies, looking for the appropriate tag and its key. When he did, he took all of the items in it. Strangely enough, he found two remotes instead of the singular one that was customary for the others.
Each one had a red button, a switch below it, and a slider on the side. Phil didn't know what it was for, glancing over to the boy.
"Do you know what these are for?"
The boy's eyes flickered over to it, narrowing slightly before he growled. "... punishments. And our powers."
"Your powers?"
"To control them. They don't want us using powers in the ring."
Phil softened slightly - again, that simmering rage he had felt upon first stepping into the ring rose in him. He carefully hid it from the boy, but he wouldn't be surprised if the boy could feel the difference anyways. "Alright, well. I'm going to... I'm going to turn it off, and then destroy this thing, alright? I’m not going to punish you, and powers are your own."
The boy looked up at him, some amount of surprise showing up on his face. "I... I haven't ever..."
"You haven't had your powers, ever?"
A mute shake of the head, and Phil gave an aggravated sigh.
"Alright, well..." He didn't know what the boy's powers would be, but it looked like they were going to be learning together. He clicked the switch to the 'off' position.
The angel didn't expect the boy to start screaming.
His eyes went wide, watching the little fighter suddenly fall to his knees, clutching his head. The scream was awful, split with fear and pain, face buried in knees that did so very little to muffle the boy's cries. They were barely shaped around words, attempts to speak garbled, until he gasped and had to cough.
But all of a sudden there was mist, or something like it, pouring away from the boy, swirling around him. Burning red eyes peered out at him as Phil watched, frozen in place, until the boy choked on another sob.
Then the mist, like creatures moving under the cover of thick fog, swarmed towards him. The angel let out a startled noise, stumbling back as he felt something not quite physical tear at his skin. At first it was just red lines scratching across his skin, but then another of the creatures lunged and latched onto his arm, puncturing through.
Then he heard it, the whispers, making his eyes grow wide as his feathers shook.
You left her- killed her-
How weak-
You should've been there-
Left her alone-
Alone, alone,
alone alone alone-
Phil was thrust back into a life he thought he had forgiven himself for, head spinning as phantom teeth dug into his skin, barely enough to do damage and yet swamping his mind with fear and disgust. It immobilized him just as thoroughly as ropes around his wrists, dragging him down into his memories.
He remembered fighting for his love, defending the home that they had built and earned together. Standing over the body of the last footsoldier that had attempted to take what was theirs.
Collapsing with a sob, resting in the arms of his beloved.
"Shh," she had hushed him, cradling his head close to her chest so that he could hear her heart beating, quick and unsteady with fear. It didn't reflect in her voice as she comforted him, though they both had known that he was dying. "It's alright- it'll be alright, Phil."
It wasn't. It hadn't been. Phil had died, and by the time that he could return, nothing of his wife had survived - he didn't even know if she had been able to live the rest of her life happily. The best that he got was a couple of distant relatives, a generation removed, with the vaguest recollections of the name Kristin.
But they had remembered the name, at least - the kids hadn't been alive when he had died in his first life. So she must have survived, she must have lived, and he hoped to god that she had been happy, even if he had missed it all.
The memories of laying flowers at her grave was the thing that pulled him out of the panic-induced haze. The memories of her whispers reassuring him in his ear, the faded, imagined feeling of her hand in his hair.
Hauling himself away from the swirling, tearing mist - it had lessened up, or at least it seemed that way. This time he stumbled forward and the red eyes seemed to make way for him.
But the boy was still hunched over, his breathing too quick, too frantic.
Phil sat in front of him, checking to see that there wasn't anyone immediately coming for them before turning his full attention to the boy.
"Hey- hey, I need you to breathe, okay? Big, deep breath in, try to do that for me, alright? In, and then hold it, and out." Phil kept up his rambling as he sat there, not touching, just praying that it would help.
It seemed like it did, eventually, the red eyes of the creatures around him settling from their frantic swirling as his breathing settled incrementally.
"There you go," Phil murmured as the little fighter successfully took a deep breath, and then two, over and over until a face cautiously peeked out of the boy's arms again. "There- do you feel better now? Think that you can keep going?"
It took a second, but he got a shaky nod, and he smiled in return.
"Alright. Then let's go."