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The lake was still and shiny as glass, as if Gabriel could step on it and walk all the way across. It was one of those days when anything seems possible, and stood, breathing deep and thinking about how he has truly fallen so far. He imagined how his life could have been if he had never met the distinctively destructive war machine, known now, after scrutinizing their mechanical form, to be called “V-1.” That machine single(or quadri)-handedly changed Gabriel’s life, and now he stood in the deepest layer of Hell, waiting on a frigidly icy lake for the machine to find them, for humanity’s last advancement for war to clash against heaven’s divine-forged steel, for a third and final time.
Gabriel was certain that his time was running short, his last 24 hours finally wearing thin. But, as he stood on the glass-like ice, all he could think about was how much adrenaline he felt when he fought V-1, how he finally felt as if he could breathe, unshackled by his heavenly expectations. He held no hate for V-1. He may have held contempt after their first clash, driven mad by the realization that his status as an angel did not make him invincible against their unstoppable desire to keep going, to defy their own makers’ expectations and beating the strongest souls until they’re nothing but a pile of blood, all just with that show of flipping coins and the steady aim of a railcannon. Such a simple act, and it led to unrestrained carnage.
For all Gabriel knew, V-1 could take down an Earthmover with just their sheer array of artillery and ridiculously efficient ways of battle. Truly, Gabriel had to admit that he envies the machine. He knows that, fundamentally, their purpose and his own were the same, at the very core. V-1 was designed to take orders. So was Gabriel, as an angel. He just wasn’t meant to take humanity’s orders. He supposes, now, that he was the largest hypocrite to ever exist if he cast judgment on V-1 for being a machine, a mere thing that took orders, when he fell in line with that definition just as much as they did. And yet, V-1 has no master, with humanity having died out. They governed themself, and Gabriel couldn’t even fathom that. He couldn’t parse the idea of freedom until they knocked him onto his ass after their second fight.
They became his idol, his symbol of freedom. So what better way to celebrate that fact than by slaughtering the entire Heavenly Council, who lied through their teeth and kept Gabriel shackled. He chose to free himself, alongside his brothers and sisters, but that didn’t unset his execution date. And it was rapidly approaching. He knew that he was still going to die soon. But, as Gabriel let out a sigh, the air fogging up into a visible puff as it escaped the holes in his helm, he wished to die doing something worthwhile. He refused to be a coward and hide until he died. Gabriel would rather fight one last time with V-1; showing them how their actions freed him, allowing his wings to spread at least one time in his life. Gabriel fully intended to give all of his blood to the ever-hungry machine, feed them their fuel, and allow them to complete their undefinable mission of bedding Hell to their whims and instinctual needs.
A sound catches Gabriel’s attention, the telltale sound of steel scraping and sliding across the ice at a feverish speed. It was already time, then. He readies his swords, and spreads his wings out, lighting up the icy lake further, just as V-1 broke through the fog, coins held at the ready in one of their hands.
“Ah, there you are, machine. May I say a few words first?”