Chapter Text
The Syndicate members were immortal, that much was known.
They had first appeared on the pages of history in the year 1536 when Anne Boleyn was almost executed. They had laid the queen’s upper body hastily on the stone pedestal, the executioner swinging up his mighty ax. Blindfolded, unable to see anything besides the hints of sunlight filtered through the fabric, she had made one last final request.
“To Jesus Christ, I commend my soul; Lord Jesu receive my soul!” She had prayed, hearing the weapon of destruction being dragged on the stone behind her before being lifted. “O’ Lord have mercy on me, to God I commend my soul.” She finished with a bitter resolution, fate’s design being the cause of her demise. Just before the executioner could strike his final blow, thunderous flaps sounded from above, and a pained gasp cried out from behind her, followed by a wet splat thumping on the ground. The blindfold was lifted from her face, in front of her stood a servant of His Almighty.
“And the Lord shall have mercy on thee.” He commanded, great white wings stretching behind him.
An old wive’s tale goes that, after stopping Anne’s execution, he had plucked a loose feather from his left-wing, gently pressing it into her shaking hands as she wept at his feet. Hours after her supposed date with death, she had made a quill out of it, the magic coursing through it supposedly influencing her poetry. Her pieces spread like wildfire throughout the world, sorrowful sonnets and graceful soliloquies inked on parchment. But it didn’t last; four years after The Angel had saved her, she was found decapitated in her bedroom, quill clutched tightly in blood-soaked hands. And around her head, feathers were scattered in a semi-circle, just a shade darker than the feather gifted to her by The Angel.
The Poet joined almost 400 years after the Angel appeared. The famous poet, Wilfred Owen, enlisted to fight in the Great War in 1915, inspired by the patriotic attitude towards the fight against the Germans. What started as a battle of glory quickly turned into a tragic ending. On a cold November day in 1918, he was shot by an enemy soldier during a siege on the Sambre Canal. He pitifully laid dying in the mud, the cry of Lady Death and her machine guns slowly deafening. It was in his final moments when a fellow nameless soldier, a blonde man with piercing blue eyes, lay next to him, putting a hand on the hole in his chest. “Shall I help you shed the blood of the one that laid harm to you?” He gently asked, gently stroking Wilfred’s cheek with his knuckles. “Or shall I stay with you until your last breath, son?”
A week after the armistice was called, the soldier who shot Wilfred went missing just before the British army could capture him. The only remaining thing that could be found from the soldier was his helmet, bits of brain stuck to it like glue. The Angel had also made an appearance near the Sambre Canal, a strapping young man tiredly trailing behind him, wearing a British soldier uniform, hair flowing free due to his absent cap.
The AIDS epidemic took the lives of many young gay men, but its forgotten victims lay in the blood of young boys. In San Francisco’s Dolores Heights was a burly teen with Hemophilia, a rare blood disease that caused his blood to not clot. He lived his life primarily on the safe side, his parents forbidding him from playing soccer. They took the Christmas present magazine with a colorful soccer ball circled and ripped it in half in front of his face. They demanded he picks something else, uncaring to the tears that clung to his lashes.
When Factor VIII, a miracle drug for Hemophiliacs was widely available in his area for the first time, his parents practically trampled people to get their hands on it. When he first received the needle and vial, the very first thing he did was play his first game of soccer, his friends were surprised by his sudden appearance on the street. It took all but 23 minutes for him to scrape himself when diving for the ball, his knees immediately becoming a bleeding mess. The other kids had freaked out, some gearing up to run for the nearest adult when the young boy had simply stood up, walked over to his bag, and injected something into his leg. The effect was almost instantaneous, the blood trickling to a stop.
“What? Didn’t you hear? I can play Soccer now with Factor VIII!” The 14 year old celebrated, his friends nervously giggling. He couldn’t wait to see what new things he could do.
Over the next 8 years, the boy grew into a strong young man, taking lessons in martial arts and weaponry long before the Karate Kid movie had first come out. He grew stronger by the day, his muscles helping him work his way up in the MMA world. He was at the prime of his life, and the world was his oyster. Slowly, however, he became weaker, his weight dropping at shocking rates, even contracting pneumonia. He had no idea what was going on, becoming afraid and lonely when his friends and family stopped visiting him after a fateful visit to the doctor. AIDS is what it was called, and it was slowly killing him, caused by the very same drug that brought him life. And so, one hot summer’s day in 1988, when the man couldn’t get up from his bed in the morning, he wasn’t shocked. He laid there for several days, the house staying silent as he drifted between bouts of consciousness. It wasn’t until after he woke up for the 5th (maybe 10th, he couldn’t tell at this point) that his most unusual friend Phil finally made an appearance and with him a pair of black wings.
“Oh, you poor thing.” The man (bird?) cooed, grasping his pale and bony face in his hands. “You are so strong for holding out for so long, maybe even stronger than before all this.” The 22-year-old was close to crying, not being held like this in years, his diagnosis causing everyone to repel his touch, throwing him into self-isolation. It burned so, so bad, but he greedily drank up the tenderness. “It’s okay, my son.” The Angel comforted, using his thumbs to wipe off the salty tears now cascading down the dying face. “I will make sure you live forever tonight. The stars will shine bright as blood paints the streets.”
Weeks later, a massacre happened. Fifteen young men were found dead on an old neighborhood field, one that had formed scars from the years of heavy soccer game use. The men had two things in common; a diagnosis of Hemophilia, and a diagnosis of AIDS. A burly man was reported to be at the scene, blood staining the dying grass around him. “Blood for the blood god!” He cried, bringing down a sword onto some poor sap’s face. The Angel and Poet were also there, idly watching the scene in front of them, chatting away casually as if at an office water cooler. The Blood God had made the first of his very few appearances that night.
The Angel was inherently evil, an aptitude for blood lust. He had looked down at the crowd of people in front of the L’Manburg capital steps, watching the faces of fearful school children and shocked reporters. “Why can’t you all see that being evil is so much fun!” He cackled, holding up a remote controller. “Why save kittens from tall trees and rescue old women from burning buildings when you can simply drive up taxes?” He pressed a button, and the Armistice Tower in L’manburg’s financial district gave a booming explosion, the mid-levels being set ablaze. That day, when Y/N was 7 years old, 371 people had died from the tower explosion, their souls forever cursed to be restless, forced to forever wander the streets of L’Manburg, long after its eventual demise. It was that day that Y/N decided to become a hero, shortly after finding out about her new status as a Ward of the State. The fates would curse her for this, gifting her with untold abilities that would cause the Hero’s Organization to dig its claws into her skin, not letting her go until she would bleed out on a snow-covered street on Christmas Eve of 2079.
It was that day when the tower collapsed that her life ended. It was on that Christmas Eve when her life would be born anew.