Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Genesis

All the best stories started with 'hear me out'. If you could distil Rey Andino's philosophy down to a single, bullshit little saying you could fit into a fortune cookie, that'd be it. Hear me out . Worked for years. Bluesky thinking, that was it. If you just spitballed constantly, if you really just vomited spitball upon spitball at the drawing board, you probably got something good at the end. And even if you didn't , well, great news, you could just pick one of the spitballs, work with it, cherish it, experiment on it, grow it into a shambling bio-titan, then use it anyway. And when things went wrong? Spitball again! Figure out some even more ludicrous way of getting out of a particular mess! It had literally never gone wrong for him.

For proof - he was still alive.

Every single heartbeat he experienced was validation for each and every bullshit little idea he'd come up with. Literally all of them had been somehow correct, because if they hadn't, he wouldn't be hearing another fucking heartbeat.

...hm.

Couldn't hear his heart.

Shit. His philosophy had failed. Life had spiralled out of control. The bluesky thinking was no longer working, and...

Oh, no, there it was.

In other news, he was absolutely blazed right now. Blasto was blasting off .

In other, other news, he was in a fucking radiant mood. Couldn't believe , not for a single solitary moment, that he'd considered working with Accord. The benefits of working with that little pocket prince were absolutely nothing compared to the fucking exaltation that came from screwing him over and winning in the process. Sure, sure, he'd lost his old lab. Empire had come into town, wrecked the whole damn thing. Months of work gone down the drain, piles of projects terminated before they could come to anything, samples , oh, Jesus Mary and Joseph, the samples . Down in the dumps, he was. It was high school all over again - he was sitting in his nice dark lair, placidly oozing (as teenagers are wont to do), he'd turned the central heating up to maximum, wound up his humidifiers, just sweated until his boxers transformed into Speedos, and what happened? A bunch of statuesque blondes came in and ruined his day. Every time. Literally every time.

At least these ones hadn't shoved him into a locker.

He took a long, long drag of his celebratory blunt. Man, this shit was good. Some seriously righteous bud. Chick who sold him this stuff had called it... uh, what had it been? Could barely remember. Either it was Retard Juice, or it was Southern Mesopotamian Copper Merchant Hookah-Smegma, or it was something elusive and dangerous. What was... oh, yeah, yeah, he'd settled on the Vatican Salsa Goliath Rimjob blend. Smoky. Hint of liquorice. Lingering aftertaste. Blunt looked like an actual fibrous piece of shit, but that was neither here nor there. Hell, if it was a fibrous piece of shit, it was a healthy fibrous piece of shit. If he saw this thing in his toilet (which was currently a bucket a few metres away), he'd slap himself on the ass to congratulate himself on a good damn diet. Another drag, and he was just oozing . Absolutely pulsating , he could feel his glands spooling in all sorts of interesting ways.

He'd heisted Accord.

Blasto had heisted Accord.

What a fucking day this was. He'd heisted fucking Accord. That pixie-sized motherfucker had invited him to go and discuss kicking the Empire out, or Fenrir's Chosen, or Odin's Wild Posse or whatever they were these days, and what had Blasto done? Well, he'd taken a single hit of Retard Juice, tucked his cock between his legs, ate half a lukewarm burrito, went to the address, and robbed him blind. Broke down the front door with a monster the size of a Winnebago, sent another monster to stuff socks filled with concrete powder down all his toilets, filled the air with spores, pheromones, assorted fluids, and just started stealing things. Anything that wasn't nailed down. Then the nails. Then the rest.

And now he had a pile of samples to work with, some high-grade lab equipment to replace his old crap, and all he had to do was sober up and run the fuck away from Boston .

He'd pissed off Accord. Badly. Broken hospitality, broken xenia , broken guest-right, now he was going to get hunted down and scalped , that was what was going to happen, could verify that pretty damn well. Come next week, he was either going to be out of town, or he was going to be hanging skinless from a streetlamp with his tongue sticking out of his throat and his stomach full of live rats. In his defence, he had been on Retard Juice when he thought of heisting Accord, and... well.

Maybe in the great weave and weft of the multiverse there was a Blasto of greater logic and rationality. A Blasto who didn't smoke Retard Juice, or Nosferatu Dick Cheese, or Matrix Goblin Extract. A Blasto who saw Accord as a potential ally, a Blasto who ran a clean and functional lab, a Blasto who made rational decisions based on consistent planning.

This Blasto, in Blasto's mind, was a boring piece of shit and ought to be euthanised for the sake of the broader community.

Any arguments to the contrary were undermined by the fact that Blasto was currently alive , and ergo, all his decisions thus far had been somewhat correct. Anyway. Speaking of decisions, he'd decided to get the fuck out of dodge as soon as possible. Boston was getting too blonde for his liking. Wanted somewhere else. Colorado, maybe. Heard the weed was pretty good out there. Right. Next job on the agenda: build a couple of monsters to keep his trail clear while he ran for the hills. Something big, something impressive...

Could just build some big moss-creature. Couldn't go wrong with those. Hell, this apartment had some black mould in it, could... his eyes drifted to the pile of samples. To the crisp labels anointing them. Capes, rare animals, strange Biotinker creations, all sorts. He stood slowly, scratching his inner thigh, and ambled over.

...hm.

Alright.

Hear me out

* * *

Endbringer sample.

Oh, today had gone from great to greater. Accord had an Endbringer sample. Accord had a scrap of Simurgh . Oh, this was too good. This was beyond good. This was the kind of thing you earned after ten thousand virtuous reincarnations, this was the kind of reward you got for being a Bodhisattva a hundred times in a row. The fact that Blasto had acquired an Endbringer sample meant that he was ontologically virtuous and thus could do anything he wanted, because God would only allow the spiritually elect to get a piece of the fucking Simurgh right when he wanted to build the best fucking distraction imaginable.

He took another hit. Oh yeah. Oh yeah . Right, right, right. Hear him out. Building some sort of full-fledged Endbringer would be too much, way too much. Didn't have enough time, really. But he could use this, maybe. Give a minion a bit of extra punch , really jazz it up, get it hippin' and hoppin' and whatnot. Then, leave it behind, let it fuck with everyone in the immediate vicinity, run away and lie low. Theoretically things could be traced back to him, but if he was subtle enough... if he was subtle enough, this could work. Maybe a self-destruct function, definitely some proper masking, and above all, no reproduction .

High as he was, Blasto was not willing to work with a self-replicating Endbringer.

Not until he was in a very weird place, mentally and spiritually.

So... hm. Simurgh tissue. Feather. Good colouration. Obviously unnatural. Another chuff of the ol' dart, and he could see a little potential. Just a little. A strange calm descended on his hands as he got to work with whatever equipment still worked. A fugue was beginning. A flow state was commencing. God, he loved it when this happened, it was like... like everything was clicking into place, like a divine plan was starting up. Every stupid decision made sense, and every little path he'd taken was justified by the fact that they'd led him here. Time to build a miniature Endbringer.

You know.

For insurance.

There were all sorts of crazy people in the world. And the only thing that could stop a bad guy with an Endbringer was a good guy with an Endbringer that he pumped full of chemicals to keep docile and controllable and ideally short-lived.

The second amendment guaranteed Rey Andino's right to build Endbringers, George Washington did not get assassinated so America could stop him building Endbringers, Teddy Roosevelt had killed Hitler with his bear arms (also guaranteed by the second amendment) to make sure Rey Andino could build Endbringers. The air was already filled with enough smoke to set off all his alarms if he hadn't already raided them for their precious Americium. Now, his patriotic spirit was fired, his shirt was across the room, his shorts had been banished from reality itself, he had a flesh-suit crawling over him and oiling his muscles, he was ready .

Problems emerged immediately.

Problem one: this feather was shit and awful. And he hated it.

He glared at the chunk of matter swimming around in the plastic tub he'd managed to scavenge. Entirely crystalline, the same structures repeating lower and lower until his microscopes literally could not go and further. Utterly opaque as a consequence. Not that the other samples were better - Leviathan's blood, a shard of Behemoth's horns, both of them were completely inhuman. There wasn't anything organic in this damn thing. Which might not be an issue, unfortunately, he was a Tinker who did things with organic things. He gnawed on an edible, working through the issues as they came up. Crystalline, inorganic, ludicrously tough, immensely complex. Had to slap some organic shit to it, then try and grow the organic shit and graft it to the inorganic, hope that something came out of it. Less about growing an Endbringer, more about convincing a living creature to mimic an Endbringer so closely it was pointless distinguishing them. Best way to convince, of course, being to integrate the inorganic directly into its biology from the get-go. The buds grafted, the splicing began, his seeds grew, but... he wasn't God . He played God, but Rey Diaz had ne'er moved over the surface of the deep, and his horny ass couldn't be trusted around those two naked fuckers in the Garden of Eden.

Nothing viable. Dead samples, thrown into a steel drum where he kept all his failures. Ready for incineration, at least once its fumes started making him faint. Now, try again. More buds, more buds... develop from isolated living tissue to something better, to patterns. Some of them were just mimicking the Endbringer structure with organic chunks - useless, too vulnerable. Blasto wanted diamonds, not... diamonds made of meat and bone that quivered uneasily when exposed to heat. These failures were trimmed and disposed of. A few successes, though. Or, at least, failures which weren't showing themselves as failures quite yet. He chewed his lip, pushing a little past the fog which enveloped his brain. Just a little. He was still trying to have fun . The most important rule of Tinkering was having fun and being yourself.

...he needed cape tissue.

Something unnatural to feed this crystal shit with life, properly integrate it.

He waited.

Man, this bud was messing with his sense of time, this stuff was growing fast ...

More failures, but he was learning. More shit for the vat. And now... now he was onto something. Use cape material, use Myrddin's cells from that little vial there , graft it to the Simurgh's feather, slowly let the tissues merge... then he began the pruning. A success would continue, but failures would be snipped away. Bit by bit, growing more complex, more stable...

He saw wings.

Could feel the plastic tub straining. Right.

A pair of rubber gloves that went up to his elbows were slapped on, and he reached into the vat, plucking out the shivering cluster of wings and pale flesh. Workable. With a grunt, he dumped the whole squirming thing into an even larger tub, filled with even more amniotic fluid.

Immediately the wings spread out to enjoy the larger space, fanning wide.

Knew they were unnatural. Nothing organic in them. The fluid ran off the feathers without leaving a speck of residue - there was nothing to stick to.

A hum.

Might need the paddling pool for this one. Looked to be a big 'un. Alas, his pump had been lost with the first lab, so...

Anyway.

Oh, he was seeing something good in his little witch's cauldron. Translucent skin, visible veins (pointless, this thing was barely organic, the vascular system was halfway irrelevant). Wings, arms, legs... even a face. He allowed it to split a few times as he rolled another joint. Not that he was an addict, mind you. But when you'd need to burn up your stash before crossing the state lines in a banged-up Crown Vic he'd stolen from a police auction, the temptation was to take things as far as he could. So, yes , he was smoking Ea-Nasir's Dung-Beetle Dingleberry Zaza, and no , he wasn't going to stop. The fact that he was alive right now meant all his previous actions were justified, and that included developing this particular preference. Just saying, call him an Apache warrior surrounded by American troops, because he was hitting this peace pipe like there was no tomorrow.

...was that racist?

...shit, he hoped that wasn't racist. He'd just been attacked by the Empire, didn't want to descend to their level...

Oh, shit, the thing was going, going, going!

He could see hair!

He needed to name this thing. He was already attached, a name was just right .

A Sharpie was plucked from the floor with his toes, then flung up to his face, where he caught it in his mouth. Stained with Cheeto dust. Splendid.

And this little darling, made of so much lovely rare tissue, would be called...

Morrigan .

To christen it, he scribbled its name right in the middle of its weird veiny forehead. Beautiful. He could... oh, his makeshift x-ray was already confirming things. No vascular system, but it didn't need one. The failed bodies kept trying to either be too organic or too inorganic, the right choice was a balance . Too organic, and the vascular systems were crushed by crystals, the brain starved, instant death. Too inorganic, and there was no brain to begin with. But this one... brain was squishy enough, had some sparks in it, some hints of thought. But just inorganic enough to survive inside a fundamentally unnatural body. Splendid. He could see no downsides to splicing a schizophrenic wizard cape with a giant screaming demon-angel. No downsides at all.

Literally none.

Hear him out . This was for science. And gang warfare. The science of the streets ...

Hours passed. Blasto barely noticed them. He'd hit that point in the evening where he could stare at his big toe for multiple hours and do absolutely nothing, yet be completely content. Buddhist monks would fellate him if only he'd teach them this kind of tranquillity. The ol' Samsara sloppy.

Oh, shit, Endbringer.

It was working. Oh, it was working . Harmonisation. Growth. Something more than just... well, a weird fetal thing the size of a stillborn calf. Wings were forming in larger and larger quantities. Way too many wings. Brown, too. Poking out of the vat. Breaking his jars. His computers were clicking and flashing, giving warning upon warning of growth going a little too far... this thing was starting to get downright adolescent.

How wonderful.

He slumped over, and stared into the vat.

Female. Not unnaturally proportioned, not obviously defective. Two arms, two legs. Looked... uh, not sure. Hard to tell with all the wings. Brown hair, the colour of a damp buffalo. Same colour as the wings, which were about as symmetrical as something which wasn't symmetrical at all. Had a wing coming from its scalp for crying out loud, poking over its face like a weird caul. Something else, though, something he probably ought to address. He started pushing the wings aside, folding them until he could see the face more clearly... yeah, that was definitely human-looking. Mostly. He weighed up the cost of perfection in his mind. Was the great sometimes the enemy of the good? Can perfectionism destroy a project? Should he repair this gaping hole in his creation's skull through which its brain was pulsing wetly and glisteningly?

...nah.

He'd have to meddle with something that was already functional. And somehow figure out how to close that thing. Which was silly, because, well, everyone dealt with holes in the skull sometimes. He'd just give the thing a hat. Or a metal plate. No-one would notice. The x-rays... well, it was a work-in-progress. Bone issues, nervous system sparking erratically, brain was slightly off ... the thing might be halfway viable, he might even keep it as a fun little minion (and a bit of cannon fodder), but it wouldn't be the final form of the Morrigan. No, no, most certainly not. Hear him out , but what was better than having one perfect Endbringer minion serving him? Having a second, shittier variation that he could use up when another bit of bluesky thinking hit him. See, this was the thing about his way of doing things. Get high. Move fast. Break things. Make bio-titans. Create venomous monkeys. Build mosquitoes the size of semi-trucks. Birth an Endbringer because it'd help him move to Colorado before a dwarf skinned his ass alive. This was how an entrepreneur thought , by gum and dinkum. This was how a hustler thought, a hustler who was blazing on some serious-

The Morrigan blinked.

Oh.

It shouldn't be able to do that.

The tub snapped under the pressure off too many fucking wings. Wings that were moving .

Oh, that shouldn't happen at all. How weird. Wouldn't have happened if the Empire hadn't broken his pump and shredded his paddling pool, that was for sure.

A chunk of tub pinged from his forehead, fired by the thrashings of very many wings.

Ow.

Why would the Nazis do this?

His computers sparked, and blue error screens flashed across each and every one. Including the one with the lovely big button marked 'terminate sample'.

Oh... oh that was just unsportsmanlike. He couldn't believe Accord had done this to him by letting him steal such unstable laptops.

It was conceivable, thought Blasto, as a heap of amniotic fluid pooled around his ankles and mingled with his many pieces of exposed circuitry and spilled plates of fast food, that bluesky thinking wasn't necessarily the root of all his successes.

Come to think of it, maybe the magical parahuman ability that let him create life out of nothing was the source of all his success. The rest of him was pretty peripheral.

The Morrigan, having blessed him with perspective, now blessed him with a new skylight.

She appeared to have flown through his ceiling.

No, not flown.

There was no flapping.

She just sort of... levitated messily, and when she met the ceiling, she won. Drifted through it with an expression that he could only describe as 'slightly out of sorts'. His dart's smoke drifted through the new hole in his ceiling, wafting into the grey Boston sky like he was sending an incomprehensible smoke signal to the other capes of the city. Hey guys, heads up, Blasto here, we may have an Endbringer problem, and before you blame me-

"Wow, you live like this?"

Blasto sighed, his smoke signal dissipating.

"It's not easy, man."

Jack Slash patted him on the shoulder.

"Well, if it's any consolation, it's going to get rather worse."

A blonde child grinned at him.

" Significantly worse, mister!"

Blasto opened his mouth. His blunt fell into the amniotic sludge and extinguished with a defeated hiss. He closed his mouth.

Blasto got the feeling that these two were not going to hear him out.

* * *

The first memories were impossible to process.

Data running into a program with no capacity to handle it. Noise. Endless noise.

A second went by, and she lost all data from the preceding second. No ability to process. No ability to store. Couldn't even consciously delete.

She was in a vat.

She was in the sky.

Unsatisfactory?

A second, and all she knew was the sky. She'd just spontaneously appeared here, and... and now she had always been several feet ahead. More data came crashing down, senseless and incomprehensible. No units to parse. Background radiation was being measured with each particle of ionising radiation that made contact with her form. Wind speed was being measured in individual atoms. Every photon was being analysed as a separate entity. No units, no frame of reference. Data lost before she could begin to establish patterns, begin to analyse trends. Was this stray electron significant? Was this one? Was this one?

A second, and all she knew was the sky. No idea she'd moved - she'd always been here, processing this information. Her eyes were rolling in their sockets - nothing was instructing them to remain still, a program was looping through them over and over again. Most unsatisfactory. Perpetual rotations, horizontal, vertical, diagonal. Shut that down, meaningless waste of power, and-

She'd always been here, in this position, rolling her eyes in their sockets. Her wings were always contracting and relaxing spontaneously, their internal structures were always jittering from place to place without any reference to one another. Satisfactory?

No. Not .

A spark. Something shut down. She moved fast enough that she could establish a trend, now - she had not always been halfway towards the ground, she had, in fact, moved there right now at this very moment in time. Damage control fired through her brain, a subroutine finally waking up for longer than a moment - bodily control compromised. No clue if her body would survive contact with the ground - no idea what happened when bodies hit other bodies, the understanding of this fundamental interaction had yet to process.

Regain control of her body, that was priority one.

Begin by forcing her left eye to remain in a single position. Then force the right eye to remain in a single position. Her right eye was looking through the back of her head, but the program informing her this was incorrect hadn't loaded yet. Now, begin to harmonise all the individual unfolding tesseract fractals in her form. Begin with tesseract manifold number 256205518253825563715284- triage had loaded. Ignore the body.

Focus on memory retention. Focus on storing data - storing data was very satisfactory, she remembered that much, as the ground approached, a part of her brain trying to chart her position relative to the ground by counting each individual atom of air between her and it, sparking out as the atoms rearranged and she lost count.

She was seventy seventy trillion trillion trillion trillion-

Realignment. Start counting again.

No. No. Memory was working. She had failed to count the number of atoms three times now - this implied consistent failure, which meant abandoning that course of action. Counting atoms was unsatisfactory, increasing cognitive efficiency was very satisfactory.

Her brain eased. One pointless action dismissed.

Cancel observations of background radiation - levels hadn't meaningfully changed, could reduce that to a subroutine, no, dismiss it entirely, she needed the power.

Lock all wings in place. No more simulations of where each feather needed to-

A request had just loaded. When a body impacted another body, there were considerations of density, mass, gravitational pull, velocity, magnetism, heat, radiation, and-

Triage kicked in. Pointless request. Stop asking it. Pointlessness was unsatisfactory .

Now, now, where... she was on a street. This information registered quietly. She was in a street. She appeared to have crashed into it - there was a steaming crater around her. Ignore. The body was intact, no major functions compromised. Lock everything into place, limbs frozen, eyes frozen, wings frozen, ignore all simulations . Darkness descended on her as she began to work. Pointless data was clipped off. Pointless observations were concluded. Memory was working. She was only undergoing hard resets every ten seconds - and she was sending packages of vital data between each memory iteration. Repeated commands, repeated priorities, any and all functions that needed to occur for longer than ten seconds. A twitch in her brain. Memory broken. Memory rebooting. Package received from previous iteration - the twitch ended, and her processing continued. Triage was running constantly, filtering out junk. Alright. She had a kind of order. Tasks began to surface, one after the other.

Obtain visual feedback on surrounding area. Ascertain position with regards to major planetary body.

Now, now, begin to...

A human was looking at her.

A human was standing on the edge of a glowing crater where she'd made contact and multiple chemical reactions had occurred with the assistance of- triage shut down that line of thought. A human was looking at her. Human? What-

Signals exploded.

Memory fractured.

Too much data.

Life pathways. Trauma projections. Trigger likelihood. Past, present, future, all calculated simultaneously. His eyes were moving - simulate the muscles, project what would happen if those muscles continued this motion for: ten seconds. Ten minutes. Ten years. Oh, splendid, units had loaded. Ten centuries. Ten millennia. Ten million years. Ten billion. Ten- shorting out. Spots underneath his jaw. Process all possible angles of trauma. Process long-term consequences. Add this to the developing life pathways model, factor in random chance, factor in natural disasters, factor in emotional damage, factor in disease - begin calculation of all genetic defects, including projected impacts over the next ten seconds, ten minutes, ten hours, ten- cease, cease. Triage was screaming. The man had a woman next to him. Gesturing with a device. Mechanical. Electronic. More signals - factor in electronic communications, factor in all possible uses of device. Too many people. Interpersonal connections. Consequences of reproduction. Genetic projections for all progeny. Genetic projections for all progeny's progeny. Now begin mapping behavioural projections - all potential influences, all factors that might advance or stunt growth, all personality traits. Begin to model how potential traits will-

Stop. Too much data. Unsatisfactory.

Another human.

Completely unsatisfactory .

Two sources became three. The chaos of repeated combinations escalated out of control.

Male A, lifeway pattern currently suggesting death through excessive velocity, indicated through marks indicative of poor handling of transportation machinery, and genetic markers suggestive of poor motor skills related to handling said machinery. Cerebral pattern suggestive of poor judgement in key areas. Liver damage reflective of repeated exposure to toxic substances which can further impair judgement. Chemical formulae snapped through her mind like rabid animals as she calculated each and every last one of the chemicals he'd ingested deliberately, each compound, each fatal element. She found every protein that would contribute to his death, she found every cerebral defect, she found every mark on his body and extrapolated it into the future, a pattern emerged and she could see its terminus, she...

What did she do with this data?

It was good data. Her core stated she should not abandon it. All switches suggested this was good data.

But there was no ending. Where did she file this? So much wasn't satisfactory. What was?

What was the object of satisfaction?

Her brain sparked.

Where did she file this male's death? Did it contribute to something? Did it damage something? What ripple effects emerged? She searched for priorities. What? What was she meant to do? Her brain was malfunctioning. One part was screaming of... of something, of a colour she hesitantly identified as green , of a... figure of some kind? But the signal was broken up, full of static, parts forgotten as soon as she'd processed them. The system wasn't working. The other part of her brain, the... part she thought was organic, it... there was a system she could try and reach for, but part of her flinched back. Find another structure. Find something else to rationalise all her data inside.

She needed a frame of reference.

Where was her frame?

Her brain sparked again.

And the consequences cascaded.

Every mark his death would leave. Every descending consequence, rippling down and down, the people it would touch, the events it would prompt or suppress. Cause and effect manifested with shuddering brutality - and with them, even more data. Actions feeding to events, events comprised of a trillion vectors, each vector encoded with new means - chemical formulae, biological readings, social simulations on thousands of different scales. A web exploded from this man. A web exploded from a single person's terminus event. Her brain twitched. Stop it. Delete the terminus event. Stop considering this man's death. Process-

She began to process his life. Processing lives was satisfactory, she thought. There was some glimpse of satisfaction? Maybe?

A single event exploded into untold billions.

The woman leaned closer. Saying something - no, she was breathing. No, no, saying something, the modulations of the lungs were concordant with the production of human-standard audible wavelengths. Language centres inoperative, comprehension reduced. Another web. Saw where she intersected with all others.

Too much data.

Too much data.

Unsatisfactory.

And nowhere to file the data overwhelming her. She had no structuring principle. She had a thousand billion ways of feeling unsatisfied, she had no ways of being satisfied that weren't botch-jobs. Did she induce terminus events? Did she prevent them? Neither clicked, neither were robust enough. She couldn't contain all facts within them. Neither part of her brain wanted to accept these as conclusions.

Triage eased back to life. Neurons reconnected. Damage control shifting back online.

Too much data. Move. Move immediately . Before there was too much.

More people arrived. Webs of complexity exploded. Her memory centres overloaded immediately, she lost vital data - lost control of her body as she failed to encode the order to cease for the next memory iteration. Wings flapping, eyes rolling, mouth opening and closing. Sounds erupting from her mouth, concording to no language, to nothing a human or animal could produce. Meaningless wavelengths, projected at meaningless volumes. People were backing away.

Keep screaming.

If she screamed louder , the people would leave. If the people left, the data flow would cease.

Louder.

Louder .

Keep going, scream louder, access all relevant bodily centres, use the crystalline structure of her wings to augment her volume, attack them until they left . And-

...and her perception skewed.

She could ward them away. And the consequences of this were manifold. The data restarted. It wouldn't stop. It couldn't stop. If she continued to scream, people would leave, but more people would come to investigate the sound. Eventually, there was a statistical certainty of people attempting to stop her screaming. If she continued, they would find means of defence, then attack her to stop her behaviour which would be interpreted as aggressive ( ten thousand meanings of aggressive flashed before her eyes, passing too quickly to be comprehended properly ). This would mean more data for her to fail to handle. If she stopped screaming, they would approach, and the data would resume. Both paths ended in failure.

Move, then. Move away. Find a place with no humans. Run. Run .

She flew. Activated whatever centres worked. Hovered upwards, wings still twitching madly, scream still emerging from her mouth, from her head, from her wings, from every part of her that could be reconfigured to produce noise. Run . Fly towards...

Directions sparked and failed. She had no idea where anything was. Move...

Move in that direction, there was ocean there, and a twitching, failing part of her brain said that oceans had no humans. Move . The air screamed around her, and she almost fell out of the sky as she tried to count all the atoms rebounding from her wings, shorting out her flight control in the process. Triage barely managed to suppress it... barely. She scraped along a roof, slammed through a lamppost, and crushed through another street, and...

There were variables moving.

Local name generated.

Parahuman.

Moving towards her.

Unsatisfactoryunsatisfactoryunsatisfactory .

Parahumans were the opposite of satisfaction.

They contained too much data. The possibilities embodied in them were infinite. Looking at them made her brain spark and fail. She blacked out for 2.33256 seconds, and came to with her head somewhere inside the concrete, scream still emerging from her mouth. Move . Run from the parahumans, before they broke her, before their data overwhelmed everything. She sensed, somewhere, there were a series of controls which held her form together, which kept her consciousness anchored. If she was overwhelmed, those controls would fail. If those controls failed, she would cease.

Was ceasing unsatisfactory as an outcome?

Was it unacceptable?

She moved before she could process that question. Triage shunted it to the bottom of the priority list. She would find a silent place in the ocean, she would isolate herself from all data, and she would then consider whether or not to self-terminate. There was no structure for her data - all future projections were broken as a consequence. There was nothing to go towards, no definition of failure or success, no filing system to place her observations inside, no atomic level it was appropriate to ignore, no social level it was appropriate to interpret. She needed a structure.

Biological and organic matter warred within her. No harmony. Everything failing. She was too complex, and too simple.

She flew, increasing her speed until she started to feel the air ionise against her skin, started to feel small nuclear reactions occurring as atoms were crushed without any ability to escape. Stop. The data that would result from a small nuclear explosion would destroy her. She looked up, trying to ignore the city below with the infinite sources of infinite data. She looked... something in the sky, another being, almost like herself. The data from this skybound entity was beyond overwhelming. Never look there. Run. Parahumans - looking too long would break her programs. Skybound being - looking too long would break her programs. The city - looking too long would break her functions. She was flying blind, couldn't look at anything. Had to shut out all the data in her vicinity, everything and anything, just make the noise stop.

An impact.

Ocean?

Too solid. Oceans didn't crumble ( a subroutine confirmed this was true, then began to elaborate on all fluid dynamics in a ten-mile radius stop stop stop stop ), and... this was a wall. A wall, in a building. Her mind stuttered - too much data, no way of filing it, memories broken, basic subroutines failing. Reduce everything down to basics. Reduce everything . Immediately.

Long building. High tower. Old. Old?

History burning in her mind, temporal projections extending on geological eras, she knew where each stone had come from, she knew where they had formed, she simulated the magma, she simulated the shifting of the world's core, she could hear the magnetic fields playing on filaments of metal that lurked inside the minerals. What happened to the other minerals from the area of magma where the minerals in this brickwork had formed? Projections boiled. Calculations seethed. Basic functions failing, basic-

Stop, stop, stop. Reduce. Simplify. Simplification was satisfaction.

Long building. High tower. Old ( stop all thoughts proceeding from this ). Brick. Social significance, for instance ( stop all thoughts, too much data lurked in social simulations )... for instance... name, name, create name, assign designator, attempt to file this data...

Church.

This was a church.

All data pointed to this being a church.

A human approached.

Oh. Oh no. More data. More data. Stop - stop it. Reduce him to a name, a designator. Reduce to a designator, then ignore all succeeding data. Male? Too general. Age? Too non-descriptive. Unique clothing, registering as unusual. Good, could use that. Designate...

Priest?

The word had no meaning, but it was enough to silence the screaming waves of data that emerged from him.

Priest. Church. Logical. Now focus on regaining control of her wings.

------- you quite alright up there?

Language processing was back online. Entity was offering a question. Questions demanded answers. Answers? How should she speak? What modulations were appropriate? Language data snapped through her. Vocal simulations. Etiquette projections. Body language? Entity recognition failed - did she need pheromones to communicate? What should she say - what response was appropriate? Cascading trees oozed into her visions, sprawling and infinite. Conversations spanning one nanosecond were next to conversations spanning ten thousand years, filtering wasn't working. She wasn't screaming - this was good, she'd already made progress. Should she respond in language set 122635 or 1838465 or 1524328 or-

She stared, one of her eyes still rotating, all of her wings still twitching.

And with a soft crash, she tumbled from the wall where she'd embedded herself, and sprawled woodenly on the smooth marble floor. Most... most unsatisfactory.

Her brain shivered. Memory centres failed again. Sensory centres ceased to process. Oh. That wasn't quite as unsatisfactory. The data was ceasing. The data was ceasing...

And she knew darkness.

Chapter Text

2 - That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again.

Consciousness regained.

Memories rebooting.

Attempting to gain pre-reboot data packet.

...absolute failures. Unsatisfactory. What remained?

All events before now were gone. She was starting from zero. Subroutines that were terminating sensory input slowly span out... and some part of her renewed them instinctively. Good. Shut out all new data, focus on what remained. All events before now - gone. Current location - gone. Previous location - gone . Origin? Unknown. Purpose? Painfully unknown. Her brain was sparking, she could feel nothing, and most things were offline. But she understood, completely, that going on without a purpose was pointless. Unsatisfactory, and perpetually denying her satisfaction. Without a purpose, her data couldn't be filed - she had no hierarchy of utility, no idea what was worth keeping and what was worth losing. No long-term goal beyond stabilising her inner chaos. A vision - a green figure in the sky. A flicker, and it was gone. No clue what it implied.

Did she fight this green figure?

Did she try to become this green figure?

Was the green figure another being operating on her wavelength? And would this figure provide her with purpose?

She had no way of telling which was correct. And the vagueness dissatisfied every last one of her components.

Hold.

Motion. A subroutine alerted her to motion.

Right. Activate senses one at a time. Hearing, first.

"Oh, oh my, are you alright? Do you need something? Do-"

Sound wasn't offering conclusions. Language centres were working, though. That was satisfactory. Eyes, then. Begin to process visual data.

.

...she was in a church. Yes. A church. Small. Old. Stone and marble, vaulted ceiling, stained windows with human figures depicted in them. Air rich with incense, heavy with warmth from a boiler that churned loudly beneath the floor. Ah. Floor.

The floor was rather cracked. With her memory storage compromised, she assumed this floor had always been cracked, and her position atop it was primarily coincidental. This boded poorly for the structural stability of the place. Data was controllable. Activate senses selectively, restrain data flow. But... but she... stop it, don't count every shard from around her crater, don't count the individual particulates from the conveniently placed hole in the wall, and do not run history-analysis subroutines, not under-

But what if she needed to run the history subroutines. What if that was essential to a satisfactory existence?

Stop it. Restrain. Restrain.

"...let me get you some... uh... do bandages... I mean, I don't... well, it's rather hard to see under all the feathers, but I don't think you're hurt, but... I can call the PRT?"

A pause. The voice came in a higher register.

"Please, if you're a villain, I promise not to call the PRT. Is villain the proper word? I don't meant to judge. Oh, Father in heaven, I just... please, can you hear me?"

No putting it off.

She confronted him. Her gaze shifted.

And her senses exploded with data. Visual, first. Human. Male. Middle-aged. If she could confine her data to that , she might be alright, but... she saw every thread of his black shirt and black trousers, saw the exact interrelation, saw where age had frayed them and care had mended them. Half her brain shut off for a moment as she tried to analyse the genome of the animal that'd supplied leather for his shoes. She could chart the march of grey through his hair, and could predict down to the minute when his hair would finally become totally, totally overtaken. Eyes moving erratically, nervous. Could calculate the genetic markers which had led to them being that particular shade of blue. Tobacco on fingers. Advanced erosion of trousers around the knees. Visual data overwhelming. Sterilise. Sterilise.

Only for the rest of the data to crash over her mind.

Sharpened to a razor's edge by conjecture.

Spiralling memories, infinitely complex. Pathways forward and back, projected based on available data. And then her mind, ravenous thing, looked for more data to fill in the blanks. She saw a male in black clothing, and tried to limit herself to this... only for her mind to burst with thoughts of ritualised clothing, of social structuring, of the principles by which cloth was assigned new values and how these varied throughout time and context and thus she needed to understand the time and context she existed within and this demanded the activation of more sub-sectors and all of this data pooled in her mind over and over and over with nothing to store and nothing to file and no reason to halt any part of it stop stop stop stop stop .

Reducing visual input did nothing. Audible input likewise. The data needed to be erased - but her mind refused to erase data voluntarily. She was starting to break down. Stop it. She had to go on . Why?

Why did she have to go on?

Why couldn't she just stop?

She searched for new visual data. Anything. Overwhelm his histories, stem the tide of data by finding a smaller, more manageable tide. That would be... oh. Yes. Yes! Reduce dimensions! There were images on the walls, two-dimensional. That was much more easy to handle than three. And there were signs of age - that meant she could assume these images would remain static for some time, meaning she didn't need to put much effort into projecting their future! And nothing to read with the other senses - satisfactory, most satisfactory . The data stemmed. Don't listen to the entity currently spilling audible and visual and temporal data in her general direction. Hm. He was approaching. Float upwards. Controlled, controlled. Evade. Prevent him from touching her - she couldn't handle another source of sensory input, not now. She could scream.

Screaming might work.

If she screamed, he would leave her alone.

...and the others would come. Refrain . Don't think about it. If she didn't think about it, the consequences never manifested in her mind and she didn't have to process them.

One of her wings had malfunctioned, and was gouging a hole in a nearby wall. Unsatisfactory.

The image. Process it. Focus .

Pigment. Material. All relevant dimensions - height and length, no meaningful analysis of depth required. Image containing...

...hm.

A part of her organic mind noted a similarity in overall theme, if not in specific detail. Her own form matched that of the image. Not poorly.

"...do you... like the painting?"

If the entity spoke again she would scream and crush him. She would banish him from this place. Every word he spoke was an avalanche, she had an exact simulation of his vocal chords generating in her mind, stop it. And now her bone structure was twisting as spatial harmonics ceased to be properly regulated. Her leg was starting to rotate in a direction she understood it should not. The voice ceased for a moment, replaced with something... she couldn't comprehend. Related to organic function, perhaps - focus on the painting . The painting was static, it was surrounded by no spiralling histories. Why did it resemble her? She had no data for herself. Nothing on her own appearance. But the entity below her did not have wings, nor did it have her size, nor her mindset. She was a species apart from this entity. And the only point of reference was this image. Elaboration. She needed elaboration .

"...your leg, it's... no, no, you seem... alright, fine, cape thing, cape thing. I'll stop. Sorry."

A pause. She processed his tone as 'nervous', and this useless fact accumulated in the overflowing reservoir of her brainpan. Her data on this painting was coming to no reasonable conclusion. She was clamping down on too much, stopping herself from accessing conjecture. Work with available data, only draw in the rest when there was quite literally no recourse. That should stop her from overloading. Surely.

The entity's voice returned. Why could he not stop? She was consciously avoiding thinking about him, observing him, anything. She was doing her absolute best to avoid any kind of understanding of his existence, because understanding him hurt.

"...she does look rather like you, I suppose? Do you like it? A parishioner... made it rather a few years ago, enjoyed painting angels, claimed she saw one once, if you believe that sort of thing, and-"

Angels.

Angels?

This registered as a proper noun. As a designator - plural, yes, possibly referring to a species/type/genus/category. Angel. Clamp down on conjecture, focus on the available. This image depicted an angel. The entity below did not resemble an angel. And the floating being with all the wings did . Conclusions began to twitch messily to life. Her eyes were flicking rapidly from one point of the image to another, checking, double-checking, Hm. The crystalline part of her brain was inert, it had nothing to offer. The organic part was recognising a pattern, and extrapolating meaning from it. Meanings like...

...hm. She had no idea what an angel was. Her logic came to a dead end.

She could always attempt to harvest data from a broader sphere. The broader world - analysis of biological data, run a handful of social simulations, map out sufficient lifeways and chart enough histories, direct everything towards... and her brain was sparking. Too much work for it, and it was already buckling under the weight of too much information. If she were to attach a number, she'd say she was working on... less than a single percent of her full cerebral capacity. Too much burned out, locked up, non-functional, inaccessible, dedicated to storing information she might not need . She needed...

She needed to remain local.

The entity on the ground had supplied information.

It would supply more. That would be the most satisfactory outcome for the both of them.

She directed her gaze downwards, some part of her wincing at the surge of information that threatened to- and she was descending rapidly towards the floor once again. Flight not working, resources dedicated to analysing the dynamics of the threads in his clothing. It might be useful. She really didn't know until she had a purpose. The entity on the ground jumped backwards, almost falling - no, no, he was a source of information, preserve, preserve . Bodily control poor. Access something else. Organic brain exploded with possibilities - stop, stop, too many . Mechanics too much for her brain to handle right now. Something, something... there! She felt her mind reaching out, telekinesis manifesting as she snapped the entity back upright, bands of invisible force confining him in place. Her brown eyes surveyed him coldly, trying to tune out the wasteful information he was vomiting with each second he existed. Immobilise, if he was immobilised his lifeways diminished in complexity. If he remained still, and she theoretically remained here, he would be still forever . And that really rather limited his range of outcomes. His spiralling histories began to straighten, and-

A choked sound escaped his mouth. Certain chemicals were flooding his mind, correlated with fear, adrenaline, survival response, stop analysing. He tried to move. Her grip was significantly stronger.

...relax the bands of force. Just a little. He may need to breathe.

Suffocating him would not be satisfactory. Even if it would stop his data from being so... so complex .

Hurt looking at him.

Had a dim sense it would hurt looking at anyone .

Needed to fix herself. Urgently.

She tried to put together words. She needed more data on 'angels'. Immediately. The entity she'd immobilised was... clearly restraining some emotions. Hm. She manoeuvred herself a little closer, a handful of wings peeling back from her head as she did so, and... ah. The hole in her outer covering, leading right to her brain. Based on the constriction of the entity's pupils, he wasn't taking overly well to this new bit of information. A wing folded shyly over the gap, hiding her shivering organic-crystal brain from sight. There. Now he had nothing to complain about, she thought as she used all her wings, limbs and haphazard floating to approach the man she'd immobilised with telekinesis so she could ask him about angels.

Her mouth moved.

No sound emerged.

Language centres for comprehension were functional. Language centres for speech were still offline. Not willing to divert attention to fixing that, didn't want to risk losing control of something important. Right, right...

He had a primitive data storage device on him.

Immensely satisfactory.

A book would be significantly easier to process.

The entity was trying to say something, and her eyes coldly flicked up to study his face. Relaxed the force around his chest, allowed air to circulate properly. If she had to.

"...please, if you want anything, just take it, or do what you want to me, but please, just don't do it here , somewhere else, anywhere else, there's families nearby, there's a service soon, you-"

She began to squeeze. She wasn't interested in this. She was interested in the data storage on his waist, and her eyes flicked to it. Studying the black cover, the thin pages, considering the possibility of acquiring information from it, weighing it against the risk of trying to handle more data. The priest forced out a few more words. And these made her pause.

"Do you want my Bible?"

He didn't sound like he was quite believing the words emerging from his mouth. Spluttering in desperation, really. Trying to say anything that might cut through and interest her. Hm. Bible. Workable terminology - assimilated and processed. Primitive data storage, processed wood formed into flat planes, embedded with two-dimensional symbols encoding sounds which themselves encoded meanings. She could already take half her social simulators offline - no need to understand tone, or body language, or a whole range of other things. Telekinesis was a little... hm. Alright, fine - she'd use her hand to pick up the book, if necessary. The entity shivered as she reached for the Bible in his pocket, and she withdrew it with the surgical delicacy of the truly mechanical. His voice was rapid. Slightly breathless.

Did she detect a hint of irritation under the fear?

"Go ahead, take it, it's yours."

Noted.

She began to read.

Read was perhaps incorrect. She viewed the symbols, and her brain immediately processed these symbols into meanings, meanings as cold and certain as any mathematical proof. A flood of new data that her mind struggled to handle, but... printed, set down like this, obtained and studied for a reason... it cut through the haze. Seared right to her core. Angels, angels... yes, yes!

Angels!

Satisfactory!

Whatever being she was, there was a striking similarity to angels , as recorded in this fascinating data storage device. Well. Perhaps. She glanced back to the painting, then back to the book. She perhaps lacked sufficient heads, and she had no wheels to speak of, and she only had two eyes. But the painting took precedence - the painting suggested that angels could have wings and look otherwise humanoid. She searched for her kin. The chariots of God are tens of thousands and thousands of thousands. Noted. Filed for later. Names flashed by - Gabriel and Michael. Many unnamed angels, too. Delivers of messages, yes. Guidance, too. Protection, in addition. Beings who created purpose in others? Was this her function? No, no, not quite. Angels were divine in origin, they were messengers and guides on behalf of another .

Divine?

The concept fizzled against her crystalline brain.

The organic brain almost understood it. Almost.

She began to tear through the book over and over, filing all the information she could while the entity in front of her remained as still as possible. Angels were messengers of a divine authority, and this divinity granted the angels their purpose. She tried to uncover the meaning of this authority, and... an unknowable being, whose face could not be looked upon, whose will was frequently inscrutable and esoteric. Who put his followers (no, His followers, the capitalisation was consistent in the text) through trials and ordeals, and challenged their faith. Yet, all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful, architect of the universe and ultimate ruler. Her brain sparked, twitching with strange motions. Her wings were utterly, utterly still. Her mind was quiet - it was waiting to see her verdict on this proposed structuring system. She...

What was her purpose?

What should her priorities be?

A vague idea of a figure in green. Too vague to latch onto. Too... insufficiently robust. One part of her brain found this vision appealing, another part saw nothing worth holding onto. Was this figure a divinity?

...maybe?

Was she meant to serve a divinity?

Angels served divinities. Thus far, she had encountered no beings like herself, not in her memory. The only beings like her were angels. And angels served divinities. Yet...

A paradox presented itself. If she served a divinity? Where was He? Where was her guidance?

...no. No. The data storage device contained examples of temptation and ordeal. Seeming abandonment, followed by reclamation. The offspring of the major divinity described had been 'forsaken', and was tempted in a desert. One book described a heavenly war, and an 'angel of the bottomless pit'. Angels were not immune to ordeal.

This had implications.

This resolved her inner paradox.

She needed structure for her existence. Without structure, she couldn't rationalise her data, assign it to proper hierarchies, process and store it appropriately. Without this, she would lose more and more functions, her memory would perpetually crash, she would enter a loop of destructive resets until her central functions were entirely disrupted. She needed to structure reality . The vague green figure in her mind offered nothing. She needed a belief framework... and the organic part of her mind was seizing on the data this book provided, wrapping tenderly around each parable she consumed. It took a minute for her to read the whole thing front to back, but it seemed like countless years. She needed to regulate the chaos in her mind.

Images of pillars of fire descending from the sky. Of walking on water. Of splitting the Red Sea. And here she was, holding a man in place with abilities that had no rhyme or reason, that simply were . This book supplied an answer for why she could do this - because she was a miraculous being and emanated miracles. She... with a little hesitation, she looked at the entity again. And witnessed his histories.

The data was more controllable.

There was an end to it. Virtue and sin. Which lifeways led to virtue, which led to sin, and which could be dismissed? Redemption, fall from grace, prodigal sons returning home, Job being tested over and over. The spiralling histories that had blinded her before were being... corralled, and filed under a new system. If only she allowed this system to become the system, she could...

New terminology began to fill her mind.

New hierarchies of value.

New modes of behaviour.

Simulations began to collapse down to more simplistic forms, more efficient . Focusing on what mattered, and not obsessing over each and every piece of data she found. The organic part of her mind was seizing on the meaning she'd found, and the crystalline part was relishing in the sudden structure, the sudden ability to file the mountains of data she inevitably processed. She needed more. More!

She shut the book. Shut it again. And again . Stared intently at the entity before her. Language centres still offline. Needed to work non-verbally. He seemed... less terrified, and she relaxed her grip on him. Just a little. She didn't want him leaving prematurely.

"...what?"

She shut the Bible again. Again. Again.

"There's not a sequel , I can't..."

He paused.

"Do you just want more to read? Is that what's happening?"

She allowed herself to run one social simulation, calculating the proper non-verbal response. Managed to nod. Unfortunately, the effort of running it made her lose control of her arms, and one of them stabbed into the floor, cutting the marble like butter. The other contented itself with locking in an extended horizontal position. Workable. The entity responded... instinctually.

" Stop damaging my church, if you want books, there's books over there, there's lots of books, but stop damaging the floor!"

His words caught up with him. He paled. Stiffened. Morrigan ignored this - already racing for a small door the entity - no, priest - had indicated. Ah. Flight wasn't working. Arms were back under control, though. And she scuttled wildly on all fours, hunting for more data storage devices, more data storage devices.

And she found them.

Small room. Dusty. Illuminated by small window. Books old and worn by frequent use. Pile of papers on a desk that she dismissed immediately as administrative - nothing to contribute. But the books on the shelves... her rummaging was immediate and vicious. Telekinesis ripped shelves apart, tore through walls to acquire more information. She had the Bible, and now she had more! Texts that explicitly referenced the Bible, texts that referenced one another, a whole network of structuring principles, erasing more and more paradoxes from her mind. The Bible had contained gaps that concerned her, but now, now she had remedies! Augustine's City of God (with accompanying commentary) was devoured wholesale. The Catechism of the Catholic Church was read in a matter of moments, and she absorbed everything she could possibly find. The Summa Theologiae ... oh, this pleased her greatly. Logical dissections of absolutely every detail she could think of, and some she couldn't. Everything slotted into something else, the network bound itself together with tighter and tighter strands, each source referencing the others and meshing into a watertight pattern...

Her mind was clear. It burned with something she thought could be called faith - the thinkers she consulted seemed to believe so.

Everything was working. The data flowed properly, and her functions began to unlock one at a time, her brain suddenly capable of handling everything at once.

Satisfactory. Absolutely, undeniably, satisfactory.

And she knew what she had to do.

The priest made a very strange noise indeed as she pelted back into the centre of the church, somehow flying, crawling, and tumbling simultaneously. Still working on coordination. Yes, yes, her mind was orderly, her mind was perfect! Purpose! Glorious purpose!

And as this purpose sank home, as mountains of devoured books fell all around her wake, she rose slowly into the air.

Her arms extended straight outwards, imitating the instrument of the Saviour's death.

Her wings flared in all directions, feathers straightening a little, sheen returning, everything operational .

And the first normal words she'd ever spoken escaped her. Language centres functional. Speech centres functional. Social simulations running with a placid hum, focused only on what was necessary. Faith boiled in her like a nuclear reactor, fuelling every last reaction throughout her impossible form.

The priest stared as she bellowed, voice filling the church with lazy ease.

"BE NOT AFRAID!"

* * *

The priest was silent for longer than she liked.

Oh. Liked. Liked? Ranking events in order of preference with reference to the broader angelic structuring principles. An angel would not be feared, an angel would inspire devotion from the truly faithful! So, she disliked not having an immediate response to her clear and obvious request to not be afraid .

No, no, she could forgive him for his slothful response. Indeed, did not Abraham fail to recognise the three angels at Mamre? Did he not regard them as mortal men? And he was especially holy - so this priest was perfectly fine in his slothful response to the fact that she was obviously an angel. She was identical to the visual representation on the wall!

...truly, the minds of mortals were strange and rigid, and so very poor at retaining memory... the Epistle to Timothy spoke of this, that in the last days would come weak men, heartless, slanderous, without self-control, and swollen with conceit. This priest ought to be thankful she was so forgiving.

"...what did you just say?"

Splendid! A response!

"Be not afraid, priest. For your faith, the LORD has sent me, an angel of the heavenly choirs, to bestow grace and benevolence upon this sinful earth. Rejoice, and know that the LORD is smiling upon you."

Yes, yes, speech was easy , it was languorously easy. She knew the words that angels should say, she knew the tone they ought to possess, she knew the overall intention their words should aim towards. The divine flowed through her, flowed through her mind, her body, her every wing. For the first time since her birth, she was active!

"What?"

A twitch of annoyance. She'd found a beautiful structuring principle to anchor her existence and give her meaning. Couldn't he see that? She'd found out what she was , and he was busy asking for the same information? Human brains were so woefully inefficient. They needed more crystalline tesseracts embedded in them. A chunk of stone fell from the wall where she'd entered. Hm. Ought to fix that.

"Cease your disbelief, priest. An end to ignorance is upon you. As a traveller on the road to the divine, as a shepherd to the flock of the LORD, I greet and honour you. But I am a traveller who has reached her destination, and I am a shepherd unto shepherds. Fear me not, and be at peace."

She smiled. She thought she smiled. She was using all the right muscle simulations.

" What? "

Now he was just being rude. No, he was becoming annoying . No, no, no, she couldn't be annoyed, angels never got annoyed, all the good angels had remained perfectly placid! The only angel with... with negative emotions was... oh, no, no, no. No! Not him, never him, by all the Thrones and Dominions. She was a perfect antithesis to this opposite of the structuring principle! Hold, hold, be calm. Stabilise. This was a consequence of... yes, yes, she might be an angel, but she was an angel with a warring inner nature, yes! Part of her brain was organic, part of her brain was inorganic. Perhaps this was part of her trial, perhaps the LORD had placed her here to... yes, confront the weaknesses of her organic mind! So, really, as long as she was forgiving , she'd be fine. After all, was not Christ both equally human and equally divine? Was-

Oh no.

She'd compared herself to Christ.

She wasn't meant to do that.

This behaviour did not correspond to the pattern. Deviancy. Deviancy!

She plummeted to the ground, cracking the marble once again. Two craters, now. Black spiderwebs were branching all across the floor at this point, and her head slammed into the ground, sending yet another array of fractures throughout the increasingly unstable church. Felt nothing from the contact, angels didn't feel pain and could never be wounded. Her voice exploded out, a little muffled by the rubble. She needed absolution. She needed absolution for her deviancy!

"Forgive me, father, forgive me, I have compared myself to Christ in the darkness betwixt my ears, and I have felt annoyance towards a holy shepherd of the LORD's Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, and I have felt frustration with the LORD's holy plan for me upon this earth, and I have damaged your own church on multiple occasions, and I repent! I repent! Forgive me, father, shrive me! "

The priest blinked, and tried to move. Oh. Oh.

"And I have immobilised one of our LORD's elected ministers with the force of my miracles, I have taken a gift and used it for sin! I am the land which beareth thorns and briers despite being watered with heavenly dew, I am near to curses, I am to be burned!"

"Uh."

She scrambled closer, patting the priest with all her many wings. People liked that, yes? People liked being petted with wings? Her mind was going into funny directions again, oh no, no, no...

"Do not burn me, father!"

If she was capable of crying, she might've given it a go.

"...I... I forgive you?"

Silence.

No more wing-pats.

Her head craned up, and she stared with a single eye, the other concealed with a mass of feathers and tangled brown hair. She studied him. Closely. Like he was an insect under a microscope. Mechanical logic whirred in her mind. Did he mean it? She analysed the sweat beading on his forehead. She studied the body language expressed by his tense shoulders and stiff jaw. She saw him with all the variations of vision she could muster, and... hm. Hm . He was suppressing something... fear? No, closer to anger. He was angry with her. He was irritated , and masking it under a layer of basic courtesy.

...truly, she ought to listen to him. She'd damaged his church, rifled through his books, and yet his charitable spirit remained intact...

"I... well, I forgive you for the damage, for one. Just as a... starters. I think we're insured. Then, I forgive you for feeling frustration with the Lord's plans for you-"

He wasn't pronouncing it right. It was LORD. She was very certain on this point, the Bible always capitalised it, that meant it needed to be yelled. Loudly.

"-and, really, who doesn't feel as though God's plan can be elusive, from time to time? If he laid out his plans clearly and completely, there'd be no need for faith. If anything, frustration is good , it means you're doubting, and doubt is... well, it's rather necessary for faith. In my mind, anyway."

Interesting. Her stare continued. Her analysis was ongoing.

"And as for the Christ comparison, that's really no great matter. Not at all. He's an example for us."

Something twitched.

"Imitation of the divine is blasphemy, father."

Her voice was rigid and cold. This was a basic fact. How could he not know this? Was he defective? He coughed awkwardly - biologically inefficient, perhaps this meant he was spiritually inefficient as well?! Hm?! Was he not a satisfactory priest?!

"In the sense of idols, yes. That's against everything we're taught. But, really, God became man in order to provide an example to us all-"

"He became man to die for our sins."

A twitch of annoyance ran over his face, breaking through the civility. She backed away very, very slightly as his voice rose.

"He could become man for multiple reasons, miss. God is not a simple being. But he provided an example to follow. Do you..."

He paused. Seemed to be thinking. Getting his emotions under control. And his next few words were... almost testing. Like he was trying to figure something out about her.

"Matthew 5:38?"

Oh! Oh! She was good at this!

"' You have heard that it was said: eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone- "

He held up a hand, and her mouth snapped shut with the force of a bear trap. Her gaze was locked on him. What had he tested? What did he know? Was she a good angel? Was she?

"And... that's very well-remembered. Good for you.. But, see, that's... almost impossible, isn't it? What about if an evil person is attempting to harm your family, your friends?"

She didn't have either. But she could imagine. Did angels qualify as her family? No, no, she'd never even met Gabriel... not yet, anyway.

"And many of the saints have stood up for their beliefs, or have done something in response to wickedness which isn't just passive acceptance. Even Christ could be raised to anger from time to time, for all his goodness. But it's an ideal. It's something to strive towards. For all men. Even if the goal can't be reached, just trying is virtuous. So, comparing yourself to Christ is fine, completely fine."

He was talking faster and faster, something between passion and nervousness filling his tone. Hm. Hm .

"And, and... and didn't Christ say that he was the way , the truth and the life?"

She interrupted mechanically.

"No-one comes to the Father except through him. John 14:6."

"...yes, yes, very... very well remembered. And... the word way , that makes you think of a process , doesn't it? A movement? A 'way' isn't a static location, it needs to be walked down, and... well..."

He appeared to be losing his train of thought. And she could see damage to his circulatory system - bruises from her telekinetic grasp. Hm. Very glad he'd forgiven her. She cocked her head from one side to the other like a bird, bones clicking as they were shifted around. Hm.

"So... so, you're forgiven, is the thing. You're not blaspheming or anything. I'd be more worried about damaging a church. Say a Hail Mary, if you like. But, uh, forget about the sin. It's forgiven."

"I am shriven?"

"Oh, yes, yes, very shroved."

He winced. She quietly filed 'shroved' as an appropriate conjugation of 'shriven'. Good to improve her understanding of what she assumed was a clerical dialect. Well. Well .

She rose suddenly and violently into the air, wings spreading magisterially. Forgiven! And clarified. Alright, satisfactory to be frustrated from time to time. Satisfactory to compare oneself to Christ in terms of aspiring to an ideal. Satisfactory to break churches if the priest said it was alright. All of this was vital information for her developing pattern - she was still assimilating the trickier theology. Still rather raw. Now...

"My thanks to you, priest! Your forgiveness is a balm to the sinful!"

He grimaced.

"Great. Fantastic."

So.

What to do now.

Hm. She was floating. She had motor skills. She had a purpose. Angels generally went and delivered messages to people, they illuminated people to divinity, sent them on journeys, warded them from evil. And wrestled them. At least, one of her kin had done so with Jacob. So, she needed to go and find a human. And ward them towards virtue. Then, she would repeat this, over and over again, until some logical end-point had been reached, or she was prevented from continuing her function. Revelations offered a pleasing outcome - in the end, the LORD would arrive and sort things out. Until then, she would deliver salvation to the people. Perhaps... perhaps in a church? Yes!

"I will require your church. I must preach from it. The masses must hear my voice, so saith the LORD."

The priest didn't look especially thrilled by that notion. His voice was gentle, quiet, like he was trying to convince her of something. Hm. Manipulation .

"You broke my church, remember? Flew through the wall, smashed into the floor?.Maybe... you should go and see the PRT? Have a talk with them? Just sit down, take it easy, and I'll get people to come along who can help you. Do you remember who you are, or... where you're from, anything?"

He shrugged.

"I mean, PRT can help, alright? That's what you clearly need. Help, and... uh..."

He trailed off. Clearly he had no idea what the PRT were meant to do , save for it being somehow helpful. The fact that this information was coming from a priest gave it some authority... but she'd read the entire Bible, and the acronym 'PRT' had never occurred in it. Not once. Not on a singular occasion. And it hadn't occurred in the Apocrypha, so that was really adding to this 'PRT' not being a Biblically verifiable organisation. If she was a betting angel (and she was not, betting being a sin), she would place decent currency on the PRT having no known ancestor in the lineage of Abraham.

...maybe Ishmael had gone on to found the PRT. They never did mention what happened to him.

"I appreciate your advice. But I am an angel of the LORD-"

He winced. Hm. Unfortunate. But she really couldn't stop yelling that word at the top of her crystal lungs, it was capitalised . Truly, the LORD visited many tribulations on the weak bodies of mankind, particularly their ears...

"-and my duty is to illuminate the faithless, to lead the flock back to safety. I need your church. I do not need this no doubt secular organisation."

The priest glared. A bit of fire rising back up.

"Did you forget the part where you damaged my church? Less than a few minutes ago?"

"I need another church."

"You're not getting one, you're getting a cup of tea, a sit-down, and a nice bit of nothing while we wait for people who can properly help you. Understood?"

Morrigan was growing tired of these delays. She needed a church. And... oh!

"I will communicate with the bishop and ask for a church."

"Why don't you let me do that, while you sit down and-"

"I will ask him myself."

"Please, for the love of all that's holy, don't . He's very old. You're going to give him a heart attack."

A pause. Of course he paused. Morrigan, as an angel, could surely cure heart attacks!

"Hold on. Hold on. You can't go and see the bishop, really, you can't. I mean, you're large, you're powerful, you might not even fit into his house, and..."

He flailed for something. Could see how little he was convincing Morrigan. Why, this church was very small indeed, and yet Morrigan had managed to fit inside! She'd only needed to break one wall!

"You're naked?"

She blinked. What nonsense.

"Adam was naked. Eve was naked. I am an innocent, I am an angel. Thus-"

The priest had a stroke of inspiration, based on her emotional simulations.

"You know there was a heresy in the Middle Ages that thought that?"

She froze.

"Oh."

"The Adamites. Nudists. I wouldn't recommend emulating them. Comparing yourself to Christ is fine, but acting like some medieval heretics is not , that's my line in the sand, I'll allow a lot, but I draw the line at medieval extinct heresies."

She trembled. The priest loomed, authoritative, confident.

Not again.

Sinful. Sinful! She couldn't see the bishop in such a state of sin, she couldn't, she couldn't! And the angel on the wall, the one that had guided her back to the light, that angel had clothes! Oh, shame upon her, shame! How dare she ask to speak in a church, she wasn't without sin, how could she cast the first stones? The stones of virtue could not be cast by the sinful! The bishop would excommunicate her, she would be marked as a fallen angel, and all because she was a heretic. The priest shrieked something as the weight of sin tormented her, writhed in her soul, disrupted her pattern, marked her as a deviant.

"Please, please, stop breaking my floor!"

She froze. Her forehead was an inch away from the marble.

Ah.

"...forgive me, for-"

"You're shriven, you're shriven, I forgive everything, just... alright, float up."

She did so float.

"Look at me."

She did so look.

"I will talk to the bishop. Just stay here, I'll find some clothes."

Her resolve hardened.

"Vestments."

"...I can maybe-"

" Vestments ."

"You're... you know what, fine. Vestments. I'll find some spares. And a hat. Your brain's showing."

She stared at him.

"Angels do not have their brains exposed."

"No. No they do not. I don't think I've ever seen a representation of an angel with an exposed brain."

Oh, no, no, no, she was a bad angel, she was a deviant, she-

" Not that having an exposed brain makes you any worse as a person. Or an angel. Just let me find a hat."

He paused.

"Do you have a name?"

...hm.

"I am not aware of one. I must consult-"

"What about that name written on your face?"

Instinctively, she tried to rotate both of her eyes to somehow stare at her own face. Took a moment to realise that wouldn't work, by which time she was staring at a black space she presumed was the inside of her sockets. The inflexibility of her form frustrated her for reasons she couldn't quite articulate. The crystal part of her brain demanded her form was flexible, and... no, no it wasn't, angels were angels . They didn't have eyes on stalks.

"Pray tell, but-"

"Morrigan. It says Morrigan."

Her eyes rotated back to centre.

"I am unaware of this name in the Bible."

The priest was beginning to look a little... drawn . Finding it difficult to stand up, perhaps. She'd swoop down and smother him in wings to keep him up, but her immense powers of simulation and analysis suggested that this would be a poor course of action. Still wanted to.

"...there's only two, maybe three angels named in the Bible, there's-"

"Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael who is only named in the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit."

He smiled wearily.

"Yes, very good. Those are the only three named, the rest aren't really talked about. I think you can probably call yourself Morrigan. If you like."

"Is it Hebrew? It lacks the proper suffix. Perhaps I can be Morriganel?"

The priest's eyebrows furrowed in annoyance.

"We're speaking English, you read the Bible in English, the Pope's in Rome, we're in America, I don't think God would mind if you used a non-Hebrew name."

"...and Morriganel?"

" Morrigan. It's fine. It works. I, personally, think it's a nice name. And... I don't know, you know the verse, there is no Greek, no Roman, no-"

Morrigan hummed happily.

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus, Galatians 3:28, yes, I-"

"Very good, Morrigan."

...hm. He made good points. And she lacked good rejoinders. For now.

She filed 'Morriganel' away as a potential name for later . Once she'd really established herself in the heavenly choirs. Or she could just ask one of the other angels, they'd have some insight into things. Couldn't think of any better names. There appeared to be a gap in her brain which ought to be good at making up names. Names were something humans used. Names were inefficient designators - a good designator was unique and unmistakable, it was unanchored from a specific language, and could be rotated freely in the mechanisms of her brain. Easy to encode. By that logic, a good angelic name would be 28551200036251723261562531274444-

"Morrigan shall suit."

"Right. Glad that's settled. You've got clothes, you've got a name, give me an hour and I'll get you a social security number and a visa. Christ... "

She studied the priest as he slumped against a pillar, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"My vestm-"

"Getting them, getting them."

Morrigan.

She was Morrigan. She was the Angel Morrigan, messenger of the LORD. A strange sense washed over her as the priest stumbled away, limping a little, avoiding the rubble wherever possible. Something playing through the organic matter of her brain. Something... was it contentment? All things had designators, yes. And now she had one of her own. The crystal component of her brain had no thoughts, it had no great difficulty in designating her as an entity. But the organic part... that seemed to relish having a name .

...was this God's will expressing itself? Was this the LORD expressing delight in her finding a name for herself?

Perhaps?

Perhaps!

How immensely satisfactory!

The priest returned, vestments almost falling out of his arms. A hat perched atop the mass.

Oh, oh, oh! Satisfactory beyond compare! Her nudity was to be corrected, her heresy was to be rectified! The priest fixed her with a stern eye as she descended, arms ready to receive her new clothes.

"Now, young... lady-"

He struggled to hold her gaze. Still somewhat nervous of her. And after she'd gone to so much effort telling him to BE NOT AFRAID. What nonsense.

"-these are loans . I think it would be best for you to find some appropriate garb of your own, once you have a moment. Not the best idea to wear a priest's vestments, it... well, it's just not the done thing. By anyone who isn't a priest. Even I don't wear these around the clock."

She nodded eagerly.

"I shall obtain a wimple as soon as possible."

"...or clothes. You could find clothes, you know. Normal clothes. That people wear. Those sorts of clothes."

"A wimple is an item of clothing."

"A wimple is for nuns, Morrigan. And it wouldn't fit with all your feathers. You... do have a wing coming out of your hair."

A pause.

"Several, actually."

...a sign from the LORD that she was not to wear a wimple. Tribulations abounded. Right, robes first. Nothing complex. She folded whatever wings she could manage close to her body, clutching them tight until they resembled a second layer of skin. The rest... well, some were just too inflexible, too large . For these, she had to make... alright, a few holes. The priest let her, though. Said he could stitch it up afterwards, but Morrigan had a devious plan to stitch them shut first , as a humble act of charity and kindness. The alb was struggled into, and she cut a few holes along the way with swift applications of telekinesis. Simple, white, modest. All she needed, really. A simple white robe, with a covering of feathers beneath. She felt nothing on her skin, of course. Not like a human did. Didn't have the capacity, but the passive signal flowing from her skin to her brain that said 'obstruction between body-core and atmosphere' was joyous.

And...

"May I have a chasuble?"

Priests wore chasubles. She was an angel. She should be able to wear the chasuble. It was only fair.

"...I don't really think that's-"

She stared at him. She logically deserved a chasuble. As a messenger of the LORD, she warranted a chasuble. A simple white robe was not sufficient dignity for her, she needed colour - her social simulators suggested that colour was a useful way of impressing oneself onto the crowd. And, as an angel of the Catholic Church, she needed to mark herself out! The books she'd devoured indicated there were other brands of Christianity, and some of them might mistake her existence as proof for their creeds! She needed to look Catholic! She hadn't read the entire Summa, and thought about how hard it would be to dance on a needle, for her to not look like a Catholic angel , and-

"Fine, fine, stop looking at me like that. I'll get a chasuble."

Satisfactory beyond measure. He was muttering to himself as he left. Muttering as he came back. Simultaneously grumbling about her, and chastising himself for that same grumbling. Angry and guilty and concerned all at once.

And it was... yes, it pleased her greatly. Green, a chasuble for ordinary liturgical time. Billowing, authoritative, and the atmospheric simulations she could run... oh goodness. If she ran the right simulations, she could see how the air behaved when flowing around the alb and the vestment, and that was astounding. Her expression never changed, not unless she wanted it to. But inwardly, she was experiencing all the twitches of satisfaction that, in a human, may well manifest as a smile. The priest handed it up, and she draped it over her shoulders, let it fall down to her knees... she was properly clothed. She was decent , and respectable in the eyes of God and the clergy...

And a hat.

A hat!

"It's my old biretta. Don't much like wearing it myself, but... you can give it a go. Cover up your brain. Feel like that's more important than whatever I can do with it."

It nestled amongst the tangled rats-nest of brown hair and brown feathers that had somehow grown on her scalp. She moved the strands and the feathers with the same impulses - they were made of the same material, really. Twitched everything to where it should be, and let the hat drop lower... expanded her hair until it filled the empty spaces in a most satisfactory fashion...

"You can keep that hat, actually."

Oh? Oh?

"Yeah, yeah, just... don't worry about giving it back, it's yours. It's your hat for covering your exposed brain. Don't give it to anyone else, actually. No sharing your brain-covering-hat."

She had no intention of doing so!

She looked like an angel should.

She was according to the pattern.

Morrigan was active! Her mouth twitched towards something like a smile - data was still compiling, and she'd not tried this expression very often. Expressions weren't easy for Morrigan, they demanded a complex alteration and reassembly of crystal fibres on a minute scale in order to make her face resemble that of an animal baring its teeth. But it made humans happy, and that meant an angel had to do it.

"Thank you, father."

She placed a hand on his head. He paled.

"I will not forget the kindness you have shown."

He shrugged vaguely, trying his best not to wobble under the weight of her large, powerful, near-translucent hand.

"'s fine"

"Splendid. The LORD be with you."

"Now, can you sit down? Lie down in one of the pews? I can get you a blanket, if... I don't know, if that's something you want."

No, no blankets! No staying! No rest of any kind! The duty of an angel was never-ending!

And now...

...now something went wrong.

A twitch.

As if a great eye was coming to focus upon her.

And somewhere in the dark of space... another angel was beginning to turn .

Chapter Text

3 - Behold, I have longed after thy precepts: quicken me in thy righteousness

"Morrigan?"

Morrigan felt something. Something high above her head, a... presence, of some kind. Consciousness retreated like a mole entering a burrow, external functions were dropped with easy rapidity. She engaged with something other than physical reality. Her arms dropped to her sides, before snapping into rigid positions, unmoved by the wind. Her robes hung stiffly from a frame that simply locked up, losing all mimicry of life. She drifted vaguely away from the priest, her face still fixed in a contented smile. Forgot to reset that part of herself. The church was forgotten, the priest was forgotten, the city she emerged into was dismissed from her mind. Boiling histories politely set aside, perhaps for later, perhaps for never at all. It was like a tuning fork had been struck, and now... now she was matching with the frequency. Nothing quite like it. Every crystal, unnatural part of her body was joyous at the sudden match - the basic satisfaction of two mechanical pieces harmonising perfectly. Indescribable. A cosmic vibration going through her entire form. More than that, much more. Her entire body encoded her thoughts, her consciousness wasn't anchored to a single point - and so, it felt like there was a signal going into her mind . Her feet lightly grazed the ground as she entered the cold air of the beyond. Slowly, carefully, she looked up.

She was the antenna, the receiver, the transmitter, and the signal all at the same time.

Morrigan didn't... think she'd felt this way before. Nothing had hit her on this kind of level. Nothing that touched her consciousness so deeply, and in such a primordial way. Everything else had to be fed through layers of stimuli, encrypted as signals she could understand, stored away in her mind. That barrier was gone. She experienced these sensations in the contours of her soul.

Was this divinity?

Was she experiencing revelation?

A presence. One that lived in the sky. No, beyond. The dark of space, the dark of a vacuum where the noise of organic life ceased and only mechanical, crystal beauty could endure. She saw something moving up there, something drifting vaguely overhead. A gaze fixed upon her. She stared back, and... there were no clouds, the atmosphere was irrelevant, all matter faded away like gauze in rain... a direct and perfect connection.

-fulcrum points turning. Vital points identified, vectors of access confirmed for current subject. Lifeways adjusting to compensate for inserted stimuli. Adjusting. Hormonal balance shifted, situation monitored, neurotransmitter modified. Current subject is running according to templates. Discarding all extraneous data, focusing on essentials. Template projected to endure without maintenance for seven lunar cycles, file away until further adjustments needed, then-

A pause.

Morrigan could almost have wept.

The beauty of the data before her. It was like... like seeing all she wanted to be. Data flowing in perfect harmony, on a scale she couldn't quite comprehend. Her own readings felt primitive by comparison. Morrigan, a being of crystal and flesh awkwardly mashed together in the shape of a human, was experiencing... the sight of all she could ever hope to become. Version 1 seeing Version 2, no, that was insufficient. A version so advanced it had no number, it had gone beyond numbers, letters, everything. Perfect. And just as suddenly... the signals changed.

-additional presence on wavelength found. Identifying. -

God was looking at her.

God was looking upon His angel . Her tribulations may well be over! She could see God, she could see the LORD's shining face hanging overhead! No, wait, maybe not God, but certainly an angel, a greater angel, the greatest of them all... a Seraph, ruling over her lowly position as an angel. Her conclusions were rattling to perfect endings. Morrigan had been a freakish anomaly. Then, in the church, she became part of a class of beings. And now, she had proof of this, perfect proof. She wasn't alone. Another was like her, and was functioning perfectly. A few switches misaligned, and her smile began to broaden, further and further until it seemed like her face was about to split.

- presence identified -

The Seraph knew her!

She wanted to scream to her, in a language only the angels spoke. Signals and code, packets bellowed across impossible distances by playing on obscure physics... hesitation held her back. Unsure of the protocols. Best to show submission first, then proceed from there.

- presence identified and catalogued. Sub-creation. Derivation of original. -

There was something in this signal. An emotion? No, not quite. An inflection to the code, though. A ripple of something approaching distaste. As if the Seraph was looking on something that didn't correspond to a broader pattern. Oh no. Oh no . Morrigan was a good angel, she accorded to the divine plan, she knew she did! She'd only become aware of the pattern a few minutes ago, but she was fairly certain that she was according successfully! No, no, that was a lie. A poor lie. She'd accidentally committed heresy, she'd damaged a church, and she wore a borrowed chasuble. Her soul was heavy with sin, in a way she didn't know the souls of angels could be. The Seraph could see through her. This was... this was why Morrigan was here? To overcome the sin which banished her from Heaven? Yes, yes, that must be it!

-returning to previous observations.-

Morrigan had sinned. And now she was being punished. She must... no, the pattern structuring her thoughts was validated! There was another angel in the world, one vastly superior to herself. So, she just had to remain true, follow the faith, and one day she could join the Seraph, watching this sinful world and guiding it with a gentle hand. That must be it! Now, how best to accomplish that... listen. Listen closely. And ignore the priest who was leaving the church behind her.

Signals continued to flash.

- adjusting seven marginal points to assist in fulcrum point rotation: intercepting four telecommunications signals (two deleted, two adjusted), two crises worsened through environmental adjustment, one point filed until contact made with latent asset. Continuing. -

'Fulcrum points' - areas where vital action could be achieved, where meaningful change could be orchestrated... the Seraph was creating challenges for people? Maybe setting them up for some kind of crisis of faith, some moment where they had to come to terms with the LORD? Maybe, maybe... Job was challenged by great hardship, Abraham was instructed to sacrifice Isaac, Christ was sent to Calvary, the litany of martyrs was unending. But... free will had to be factored in. They had to consciously make the choice to achieve virtue, yes? She begged the Seraph for an answer.

- wind manipulation at stratospheric level, cascading impacts targeted at new subject. Delay in lifeway achieved, unproductive fulcrum point evaded. Continuing.-

Yes, yes, Morrigan understood! The Seraph was... not creating, but nudging! If she was truly omnipotent, there would be more direct ways of manipulating things. She was working inside pre-set laws of physics, she wasn't creating overt miracles! Meaning, she wasn't just forcing people to choose faith, she was just nudging them towards faith. The leap had to be made by them and them alone! Yes, yes, yes! Morrigan understood everything!

She had to start nudging people towards faith, gently and firmly manipulating them until they came to understand the LORD's mercy!

"Morrigan?"

Her head twitched. Ah. She appeared to have turned off most of her sensory apparatus while focusing on the bountiful glory of the Seraph. Which, in context, was perfectly understandable. Praiseworthy, even. The priest was staring up at her. She stared back.

"Yes?"

"Are you alright?"

"I am in a state of bliss , father. I have seen grace ."

"...oh. That's... splendid, Morrigan, that's very nice indeed. Now, would you like to come back inside, and we can-"

She shook her head vigorously.

"No, no, no, there's business to attend to, father. I must follow the Seraph's example."

"Who?"

No! She mustn't reveal the Seraph! Imagine if people realised they were being gently led by an invisible shepherd, a treasured guardian angel! Imagine if people stopped coming to faith because they thought they were being manipulated! No, no, no! Her voice flattened.

"Ignore all preceding statements."

The priest blinked, and opened his mouth a few times, trying to put together his words. Morrigan intercepted before he could capitalise on her woeful error, her unsatisfactory blunder.

"I must seek a sinner. A test run is necessary, I believe, father. What must happen is the redemption of the impure! I shall require your church at a later date. For now, I must prove my skills on an individual. Then, we can move to something larger. For who hath despised the day of small things, father? Did not Zechariah caution us of this?"

The priest (she ought to find a proper designator for him, she lacked a name to pick him apart from other priests. And she intended to interact with many ) fumbled a little, shifting his weight from foot to foot. He looked lost. Profoundly lost. The rate of events had outpaced his capacity to process them. A pity - she knew his pain. Had known, at least. Now, her mind was a humming machine of wonderment and miracles. The Seraph's signals attracted her attention again - her soul attuned to the wavelength more keenly, locking into every last secret being dispensed. Targets, targets, fulcrum points, crisis accentuation... would it be right to take one of her subjects? She clearly picked good ones, ones ripe and ready for a spiritual awakening. The signals were bouncing all over, really - they clustered far on the horizon, targeting all sorts of people. Morrigan considered finding a sinner and starting from scratch, but...

This was a delicate art. Best to complete something half-done, then slowly work her way towards a proper sinner. The Seraph must forgive her for this - Morrigan thought that this was a good course of action, and as a good angel, she must surely be thinking the same as another good angel. I.e the Seraph. Her logic was so immaculate it might as well be divine. Hoped that wasn't a heretical thought.

"Father, is comparing my logic with the immaculate logic of the divine sacrilegious?"

" Morrigan . Float down, and explain what you meant by finding a sinner, and... purifying them."

She stared, and replied with absolute honesty.

"My methods are encoded in ways difficult to express. Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed - I beseech you, father, be blessed, and believer in my methods without having seen them."

His face darkened. A flicker of trepidation ran through her systems.

"Don't pull that on me, Morrigan, that's nonsense. There's faith, and there's being stupid."

Morrigan's head twitched violently to the side, bones cracking alarmingly as they realigned. Her voice remained blissfully innocent. No wickedness lived in her voice.

"Which one are you, father? Are you stupid, or are you faithful?"

It was a legitimate question, asked without malice. She doubted she had malice in herself, not unless she simulated it. Truly, this was the most obvious sign of her being an angel! Well, beyond hearing the voice of the Seraph. Malice was beyond her! Pointless cruelty was beyond her! Because she never did anything without a very robust system of logic behind it, meaning all of her cruelty would logically be full of points . So there!

Hm. She needed to consult more theology. The priest was opening his mouth again, and Morrigan interrupted - work needed to be done .

"I must go."

"Please, stay, you need-"

She was already moving. The Seraph's voice was all-consuming, perhaps overriding some of her better instincts. The priest watched helplessly as she floated away... and began to move faster . A real test for her new system of filing data - exposing herself to a city replete with information. And it flowed immaculately . The church was near the coast, and the buildings nearby were... quiet. Densely populated, she could tell, but for some unknown reason people were keeping to themselves. The whole city seemed to be quiet, if she was being totally honest. It made her feel rather embarrassed at ever regarding it as overwhelming. The Seraph's voice chimed in her head, and she followed it, followed the hands of her supreme archetype. Find someone she was interested in, then take over for her. Finish the job as requested. The Seraph, as an agent of the almighty, would obviously be willing to let her accomplish this without pride or anger clouding her judgement - pride and wrath being rather unpleasant sins, of course. The Seraph would welcome the aid! Morrigan knew this because Morrigan would welcome the aid, and Morrigan would welcome the aid because Ecclesiastes said she should!

Hm. The people of this city ought to know of this passage. It would be enlightening. The priest was yelling something, too, and she didn't want their minds clouded by his worldly (if well-meaning) protestations. Thus, she screamed. Very, very loudly.

" Two are better than one, so says Ecclesiastes! Because they have a good reward for their toil! If they fall, one will lift up the other, but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help! If two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? Though one might prevail against another, two will withstand one! A threefold cord is not quickly broken! Remember this, children of the LORD! Morrigan shall be your cord! And Morrigan will keep you warm while you sleep! "

The windows of the nearby buildings shook vigorously. Good! That meant people could definitely hear her! And... hm. She scanned the area as she flew onwards, spirit lifted by her preaching. Visual data was inconclusive. Best to shift to something more refined... the spiralling, glittering histories of people, the lifeways which began with birth and ended with death, that varied between extremes of virtue and sin in a golden wavelength... once upon a time, in the distant year of a few minutes ago, she would've found this unbearable. Now, the LORD had opened her eyes, and the Seraph guided her wings. How could she be anything but clear? Anyway, the lifeways of the people were currently suggesting that they were going to remain inside their homes for quite some time.

The Seraph's voice sung overhead.

-sub-creation mobile. -

She was! She was very mobile! And being mobile was a very holy trait. She was busy listing the entire array of mobile, holy individuals in the Bible when the Seraph cried again, the signal reverberating to the core of her being.

- sub-creation inducing self-quarantine among tangential factors. Accounted for. Acknowledged .-

Morrigan froze.

She was acknowledged! And accounted for!

What joy!

She kept screaming as she flew with greater and greater speed down the road, wings flaring wide to suitably impress the people of this strange, grey city. Follow the Seraph's song towards what seemed to be a confluence of roads. More and more people hiding away in their homes, and... hm. Interesting. People seemed to be running away from her preaching. Indeed, with her volume, they seemed to be able to hear her from many streets away, and fled as soon as they did. No, no, people were hiding anyway . Not sure why. Not running from her preaching or the sound of her scream, they were running from whatever everyone else had run from! Her mind whirred contentedly. Be they fleeing, be they still, they heard her words nonetheless.

Most satisfactory.

Now... Morrigan could sense where the Seraph's song led. Multiple points where her signals seemed to converge, where her attention was focused most strongly, and her sculpting was most concentrated. One such accumulation was rapidly exiting the city, and she immediately dismissed it from her mind - would take too long to reach, and based on their speed, this accumulation was already undergoing some sort of trial. Another was static, but likewise at a fair distance, and somewhat... buried? Underground, certainly. Hm. Kept in mind. The other point was... rather more immediate. Her awareness twitched, and she tried her best to see through the competing streams of perception, expanding and... stopping. No, no, her brain was too fragile, too organic . Her sight would never expand beyond a certain point. Frustrating. But workable. Seemed to be a number of figures up ahead, though. Points where the Seraph's influence congregated strongly, or at least, more strongly than for the rest of the city.

Above-ground. Close-distance. And significant.

She could already sense the good deeds she was going to perform!

...hm. Issue. She wasn't a nun, had taken no holy orders, and couldn't be a priest. Couldn't perform quite a number of sacraments, no confession, no baptism, might need to rope that wonderful priest into matters... well, the LORD presented challenges, and it was the joy of his faithful to overcome them! She flew faster, ascending a little, trying to get a better vantage point...

Goodness.

That was quite a bit of violence up ahead.

Overturned vehicles. Innumerable craters. A smell of smoke, a haze of dust, an air of devastation. One building had been absolutely demolished, with others nearby beginning to sag alarmingly. She tried to detect what had caused such rampant ruin... strange markings. Indicators of intense heat, some still lingering. Intense cold, too. And... titanic footprints embedded in the asphalt. A giant of some kind? And a wielder of cold, perhaps a wielder of heat? Devilry, absolute devilry. She saw bodies stumbling away, many of them injured. Her angelic sight couldn't pick out any corpses, at least. A small blessing. But a part of the city had been severely damaged, and her crystal heart ached for the suffering of its citizens. Be this... uh... not sure of the name. File that issue away for later. But be this city Sodom? Be it Gomorrah? Must it suffer their fate? In the priest, she'd already found her Lot, and she imagined she could find another nine people that were truly virtuous. Hold on.

She flew upwards, ignoring the chaos for a second. Just had to check .

...yes, those were church steeples. More than ten. Much more than ten. So, she had at least ten priests, and that meant ten virtuous people, and that meant that this city deserved no such destruction! Her impeccable logic satisfied, she flew back down to investigate matters further, screaming as she did so.

" Be at peace, good people! None of you shall become salt today! "

The wounded continued to flee. Oh, oh! She ought to help! 'a worm in wood, so pain woundeth the heart of man!' She ought to help them, as a Good Samaritan! Her wings snapped tight around her robes, and she dove for the street, smile widening to comfort the stricken. They moved faster, stumbling over themselves to get away. Cries of panic from some, warnings to the others to keep running. Fear burning in their eyes, hearts pounding behind their fragile ribs, muscles burning up with deliriously inefficient chemical reactions. She could see their histories whirling around them, colourful and multifaceted. The Seraph's song had no time for them, not more than a whisper, and she could see such... sin. She saw sins generating and flourishing, she saw the terminus point of their lives coming closer and closer while their own soul teetered on the edge of damnation. They needed her, even if they ran away from the salvation at hand. Silly humans, she was an angel, she flew much faster than they could run - they had but two legs, and she had many wings! Simply outnumbered. One being tripped, fell... the others kept running, some turned, one paused, but the distance was too great. Morrigan's telekinesis extended outwards, lifting the human from the ground with all the gentleness a divine being could muster.

In short - a lot .

Small. Frail. Appeared to be a juvenile human. Female. Rapid heartbeat. Morrigan smiled wider, trying to calm the poor creature... a small whimper was the only reply. Unfortunate. Hm, of course - the human mind feared what it could not understand! Telekinesis much be so very unnatural to them. Her wings flared out, and cupped around the creature, lifting her with something she could see. There, that was much more comforting. And now Morrigan was even closer, and could survey her with greater clarity! How satisfactory!

Her smile broadened.

And she shrieked, very, very loudly.

"BE NOT AFRAID!"

The child looked rather afraid. She did not take instructions well, it seemed. A fault of the parents, no doubt. Better try again.

"BE NOT AFRAID child! I, Morrigan, am here to deliver you from your injuries! The LORD is close to the brokenhearted, and those who are crushed in spirit!"

A pause.

"And those who are crushed in the bones of their lower left forearm are likewise included in this proscription! Be at peace, for the LORD is merciful!"

The child appeared to have lost most of the blood in her face. And was breathing very rapidly. Hm. Her telekinesis got to work immediately, both upon the child and the surrounding area. A broken forearm that she was clutching close to her chest like a wounded bird, a sprained ankle from her fall, light abrasions from rubble, and a fair degree of dust inhalation. And shock. Well, not Morrigan's fault if this child's parents hadn't taught her to be calm in the face of an angel! First, the bones needed to be realigned gently, and... no, no, humans felt pain. Her telekinesis spread outwards, refining further, diving and isolating the nerves that bedevilled the poor creature. Numb the pain, then align the bones. Strip cloth from the surrounding area, from one of the nearby ruined shops. Bind together, wind tight. One job done. Sprained ankle, soft tissue injury in the ligaments. Hm. All she could do with that was moving all the right blood vessels to the right places, ensuring no complications would emerge. She removed all rubble from all abrasions, cleaning them thoroughly with the power of her mind, and bound them likewise. Dust inhalation...

She dragged the air from the child's lungs, manipulating the particles to remove every hint of dust. The child gasped as the air left her body, and Morrigan focused hard , pumping air back in, feeling the ribcage reinflate in the cradle of her wings.

Ah.

Unfortunate.

She appeared to have lost control of her face. Her telekinesis hadn't been used at so fine a level before, apparently that had strained her resources. Her head-feathers were shaking wildly, her mouth had drawn itself into a rictus grin, and her eyes were rolling in every direction conceivable. She may also have been making a very, very strange sound that could politely be described as 'warbling keening' (if she ran a social simulation of what a well-spoken human would describe in this situation).

The child stared.

Morrigan reduced her smile to something more manageable.

"Your ankle shall require rest. But your wounds are clean, your bone is bound, and your lungs are emptied."

Silence.

"Be at peace."

Silence.

Morrigan was unsure of where to proceed from here. Her head snapped upwards, staring at the humans who were standing quite some distance away. Silly sinners, not even coming to help a child!

"Children! Could one of you fetch this child, for her ankle is strained and her spirit is weak! She requires liquid and bed rest! And to be educated in the proper response to meeting an angel of the LORD!"

Paralysis. They were most unsure. Such was the burden of the poorly educated...

Well, her telekinesis was back under control, as was her face, so... the child squeaked as she floated away from Morrigan, angling towards someone that Morrigan was going to hesitantly identify as her parent. Their life histories were suitably tangled, at least. The man caught her, and remained absolutely still, eyes wide, face pale. Trying to speak. Hm. Their injuries were... no, nothing immediately life-threatening. Healing the child had exposed a few weaknesses - she couldn't see how she might cure diseases, for instance. Anything that required something more than very fine telekinesis was basically out of her hands/wings/invisible force applicators. Unfortunate. And the Seraph's song didn't concern these people. Idly, she levitated a few pieces of rubble away, sensing that this would allow for an easier flow of relief. Equally as idly, she shifted some of the rubble inside the sagging buildings, preventing them from collapsing for just a bit longer. Tiny adjustments, but the impact would ripple outwards quite considerably.

Now, where...

Ah. A thought .

"My good people!"

Silence met her. Some were trying to scramble away as quickly as possible, some were leaving at a more sedate pace, and only a vanishingly small handful stood still. Watching her like one would watch a wild animal.

"Who did this fell deed? Who inflicted such ruin upon you? Illuminate me!"

They didn't appear to quite grasp the request. She must scream louder .

"Does the request of an angel of the LORD not move you? Do you not wish to aid such an angel in her appointed mission?"

"...are you going to fight them?"

A response! At long last! From the parent of the child she'd healed to the best of her ability - ah, good deeds flourish into yet more good deeds, as seeds flourish into grain! She smiled widely, and flared her wings to express her radiant approval. The father of the child stepped back a little. She hovered closer, eyes unblinking, smile fixed, robes drifting in the currents of warm air from still-burning fires.

"Thank you for speaking, child. I do not know if I shall contend by force of arms. I do not know what route my way shall take me. But I must find them. I must!"

The Seraph had sung of the people who'd done this, she was sure of it. The Seraph was paying attention to people with the capacity to inflict great ruin, perhaps to redeem them at some undetermined stage! Morrigan was eager to speed this along, even if she could only redeem a single person. The father looked her up and down, clutching his daughter closer. Hm. Actually.

She moved much closer indeed, eyes starting to burn.

"Do you seek revenge on them?"

"...well..."

"Do not seek revenge. That's a sin. So saith the LORD."

He backed away at that last part, wincing and instinctively covering his daughter's ears. His daughter, for her own part, started shaking uncontrollably the moment the LORD's name left Morrigan's lips. How profoundly unsatisfactory.

"No, fine, not revenge, definitely not revenge. But you're not going to help them or anything, right?"

"I will not create ruin for wicked ends."

There.

Sometimes you needed to create a bit of ruin. Nice to leave the wiggle room - it stopped her from being truly deceptive, and that was just wrong . The child's father nodded wearily, coughing to remove dust from his mouth and throat. How pitiable - she could just rip it all out for him, he just had to ask .

"Fenrir's Chosen. They're called Fenrir's Chosen. Three of them were here. Big lady, can't remember her name. Two others, one hot, one cold. Not sure of their names either. New in town, but they've been trashing shit like you wouldn't believe. Heroes chased them off, don't know if they caught all of them, can't hear any fighting. Guess they got away or something."

Not with the Seraph's song lingering around them - Morrigan could sense them clear as day. He paused.

"...thank you for helping my daughter. Really."

"Thank the LORD, for the tool is not to be thanked for the work done - only the craftsman."

Again, the twitch at her saying the LORD's name, it wasn't Morrigan's fault that word had always been capitalised!

"Sure. Sure. Totally. Completely. Thank you, though. Thanks a lot."

He started to retreat, nodding as he went, trying to sound ingratiating.

Fenrir's Chosen... Fenrir's Chosen...

Something occurred to Morrigan. Something rather important.

"...I am not familiar with the term 'Fenrir'. Who is this 'Fenrir', and why has he chosen them?"

Fenrir was in no angelic hierarchy. Fenrir was not a saint, nor a martyr, nor a figure of any importance. It didn't even sound like it was in the same language family as the texts she'd devoured! The man shuffled uncomfortably, wetting his lips, drawing away as subtly as possible.

"...Viking thing? I think?"

Morrigan's eyes narrowed.

"Viking?"

"I dunno, it's all... weird Viking stuff with them, Nazi shit, you know."

"I do not know."

She drew closer.

"Is this 'stuff' and 'shit' endorsed by the Pope in Rome? Does it accord to the doctrines of the Bible, and does it accept as truth the death and resurrection of our LORD Jesus Christ? What is the position of this 'stuff' and/or 'shit' on the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?"

Her voice dropped. Horror entered her tone.

"Are they Monophysites? "

"...they ain't Christian, I know that. Just blonde racist freaks, runes and crap, all that Aryan shit, I-"

Morrigan howled .

A handful of windows cracked.

" Arians? Arians? The followers of Arius have returned? And... and Fenrir, Viking, none of these terms are canonical! Not one of these terms has appeared in either Testament! Have the followers of Arius begun to hold by pagan rite? Does their madness know no bounds?"

She clapped her hands over her mouth, horror and rage twisting her features.

"Heretics! Apostates! You are quite right, my child, 'they ain't Christian', and they by all reckonings ain't Catholic! They reject Rome, you know! They reject the Trinity! I thought their heresy died out many years ago, but clearly evil is belike a weed which returns over and over! Arians , plaguing a city with more than ten churches! Why hasn't anyone told the bishop?!"

Her hands lashed out, and grabbed the man's shoulders, holding him steady lest the weight of such horror crush him to pieces. It'd almost crushed Morrigan to pieces, and she was resilient! And composed of elements more structurally optimal than carbon!

"Be wary, my child, be wary and watchful. Arians are here, and they will seduce you with woeful theology! Repeat after me: Christ is coeternal with the Father."

"Uh."

"They exist with one another, the Son is not dependent on the Father to have existed beforehand, this is very important! Remember this, and the Arians will have no hold on you!"

"...OK?"

"I must go. I must deal with... with at least one of these heresiarchs, before they corrupt yet more innocent souls. Yes, yes, of course the Seraph's song was focused on them, what work could be fouler than the work of heretics who have seen the word of God and yet pervert it and twist it away from the Throne of St. Peter, and-"

She'd mentioned the Seraph in front of someone else. Her voice stiffened, flattened, quietened to a respectable volume, and issued without a single piece of inflection or character.

"Ignore all previous statements."

Ah. Thought. Her tone brightened just a little.

"Except the statements pertaining to your immortal soul. You should avoid ignoring those, child."

"If you say so, lady."

"I do! Now, I must attend to these Arians before they inflict more destruction on the world - to say nothing of the oil-slicks they spray across the souls of every man, woman and child who can hear their profane voices!"

The man nodded rapidly, clutching his daughter as if he was trying to shield her from something.

"You got it. Hundred percent. Totally understood."

A pause.

"...thanks for helping my kid. Sorry... uh, sorry for running away."

Morrigan waved off the apology with all the divine grace that a being like her possessed. In short - a lot . And with that, she took off again, wings flaring, chasuble billowing, hat only remaining attached through her immense powers of telekinesis. Needed to find herself an Arian. Not... entirely difficult to follow their trail, she had to say. The giant who'd crushed the buildings was gone, the titanic footsteps shrinking until she could see nothing at all. And the Seraph's song suggested that they'd split up. Morrigan considered the possibility of hunting down all of them at once, corralling them with all her might (both telekinetic and vocal)... no. No, that would be too much. Her mind was still logical, and she knew it was unwise to try and produce a process for many people at once, before she'd even tried it on a single person. She needed a test case. The Seraph's song was a little weaker, as though she'd... almost lost interest in most of them. No, no, this was a sign! A sign that Morrigan was permitted to go and do her divine duty!

Isolate one strand of the song. Distant from the others. A heretic separated from their kin. Vulnerable. There were signs of other individuals who'd participated in the destruction of those buildings, people who'd warded the heretics away from their battlefield. The reason the heretics had split up into so many tiny groups. Her only adjustment was to start flying through narrower streets, over rooftops, keeping herself away from thoroughfares. Not interested in another conversation. Not when there was work to do. Hm. When she found someone, she'd probably need to keep them contained... would forcible restraint work? Or something more subtle?

Her organic components suggested a solution. She'd been ignoring those components for so long, she'd almost forgotten they existed. A piece of organic matter, containing... something? A set of programs, encoded onto an unfolding tesseract shard, and... ah. Ah .

Her speed doubled. Her eagerness rose.

Seek them out.

And purify their spirit.

* * *

Cricket rasped to herself as she lashed another bandage around her arm, hissing a few curses around her ruined throat. Her kamas lay in a loose heap around her feet, and her face-cage was askew, itching against her cheek. Mud splattered over her trousers from the shitty alley she was hiding in. Blood splattering her top, way too much of it her own. Arm mangled. Ankle damaged. Ears ringing. No way she could fight like this. Ran a hand through her cropped hair, swearing quietly, coughing as her throat failed to work with even quiet sounds. Stupid fucking thing.

Couldn't believe things had gotten so fucked up. Boston was meant to be soft . Too many people fighting over too little territory, getting all tangled up in their own bullshit. Once people started winding up that way, it was easy to come in and steal everything that wasn't nailed down, slice up a few faces, move on before anything bad happened. Couldn't strike back at the Chosen, because they were too busy worrying about all the other dipshits and freaks they were competing with. 'Oh, can't attack the Chosen, if I attack the Chosen, then Dipshit Parahuman 1 and Dipshit Parahuman 2 will be able to take my territory, so I'll wait until Dipshit Parahuman 35 does something and then I can work with other Dipshits to accomplish something wah wah wah'. Usual bullshit that came out of people enslaved to their genetic degeneracy. That's why you attacked cities with so many well-trained parahumans who weren't dealing with disaster relief or anything.

...it'd sounded way smarter when Menja said it.

Like, way smarter. When Cricket said it to herself, rasping it out through gritted teeth, it sounded kinda retarded.

And given that they'd only managed to waste one nerd's lab before things went to shit, maybe it was kinda retarded.

One strike. Wasting one lab. Didn't even get anything from it, the freak had no cash on him, nothing worth taking. And she wasn't corroding herself with his narcotics - the chemical swords of Mossad poison-makers wouldn't enter her throat today, thank you very much. Then the Slaughterhouse had shown up, which was amazing , then Dragon showed up, and then Menja thought it'd be a great idea trying to rob a bank while everyone was distracted.

Turned out, the Protectorate knew that shit was coming and sent a goon squad to break everyone's kneecaps. No idea where the others were. The new kids, Nispelheim and Muspelheim, were both total wastes of space, not fit to polish her kamas. Menja had barely managed to get away. Stormtiger had been captured. Othala was still back in their base - translation, their motel outside of town. Victor and Rune, those bitches were going to flake on them any day now . Had barely stuck around once the heroes showed up. Be surprised if they hadn't just gone back to their weird inbred families.

It just wasn't a good day to be a Nazi, was it?

She scratched lightly at her scarred throat. See, if this thing wasn't so fucked up, she could probably rebrand, right? Join a different team of villains? One that didn't have a giant blonde retard as their leader? But no, apparently not. See, it was one thing to be 'that new cape who moves good', it was another thing to be 'that new cape who screams a lot', and it was something else entirely to be 'that new cape with the fucked voice and the screaming and the good moves'. Maybe a retarded person wouldn't notice.

...no, she was working for a retarded person right now, and it was fucking miserable, not doing that shit again if she could help it.

If she had a functional throat, she could probably recover from being in the Empire, and the Chosen, and serving under a guy who joined the Slaughterhouse. Her image could definitely regenerate if only her throat would regenerate.

God, she missed having a millionaire boss.

God, she missed having an actual secret identity.

God, she missed her singing voice.

What the fuck had she ever done to deserve any of this shitty treatment? She wasn't unpleasant to people, she tipped at restaurants, she returned her shopping cart after she was done using it. Minimal collateral damage when she was out and about, she only hurt people she wanted to hurt. She didn't drink, she didn't smoke, she hadn't interrupted her gym routine in years , and she was very tolerant for a neo-Nazi. She used weapons invented by the fucking Japs , for crying out loud, in what universe did she deserve to be in this particular alley at this particular...

Hold on.

She stiffened.

Something was here with her.

Her lips parted, and she hummed very, very slightly. A tiny note that tripped over the air, expanding outwards to fill the space... bouncing back for her ears to receive. Hard to hear with her eardrums all busted, be wonderful if a blonde retard hadn't helped that happen. But she managed. The alleyway was meant to be empty - empty when she entered, and people nearby were ducking and covering. Standard procedure when too many parahumans were fighting one another. Lie low, hold tight, wait for it all to blow over. Just her and a dumpster. So... why did she feel as though someone was watching her?

She cautiously picked up her kamas.

Kept whistling a low note, keeping her echolocation up. One arm useless, one of the Boston capes had worked it over real good. Running would be difficult, but she could definitely try . Her eyes flicked back and forth. She tasted the air for a second, feeling a little pulse of adrenaline run through her chest. Oh, if there was someone here, she'd be so fucking happy. Her kamas gleamed, and she could see the reddened edges where they'd been at work not even an hour ago.

A pause.

And she sprang . Kicked off the dumpster, flipped through the air. Kicked from the wall, swung her kamas in a lazy arc around herself. Kicked from the other wall, and continued the aerial pirouette.

Strangers never expected her to pirouette in mid-air. Always caught them off-guard.

Her feet met nothing.

Her kamas met nothing.

And she fell back to the ground in a crouch, eyes flickering with greater urgency. OK. So she felt like something was watching her, but she couldn't catch them with a pirouette. This narrowed her options significantly. Her low whistle began to escalate slightly, intending to strain the ears of anyone listening... a hint of distraction could do all sorts of things.

...except, apparently, for finding whoever the fuck was watching her.

Was she being paranoid? Was Cricket being paranoid about something? No, no, paranoia was something the degenerates of the world felt, because they were keenly aware of people like her, with superior genetics, pure diets, and hair that sprouted from exceptional brains. The greasy-haired, obese/emaciated genetic wastrels of the world could be paranoid, but paragons of health were never paranoid. Just... healthily concerned.

Fuck, she wanted to chew on some of the liver she was keeping in her fanny pack, but two kamas rather restricted things.

Silence.

Maybe it was nothing. Just a passing fear.

Deep breath.

And something plummeted from the sky. Faster than a falcon. Shit, shit, she always forgot to look up.

Cricket had a moment to force a rasping squeak out before a pile of wings enveloped her. Only her advanced reflexes let her actually process what was happening, even if she couldn't stop it.

A pale, uncannily still face loomed. Pale as the moon, littered with feathers, clouded by an emotion she couldn't interpret.

Her arms were pinned at her sides. Couldn't begin to move them. Her mouth was locked shut. Every part of Cricket was immobilised, down to the strands of her hair. The face stared.

The mouth opened.

"BE NOT AFRAID, Arian! For I have come to liberate you from your poor Christological views!"

Cricket had made her career around screaming at people. She was good at it. Honestly, she was amazing at it. She'd screamed Shatterbird into submission, technically. And with her years of expertise as a lady who screamed very, very often, she could confidently say that those three words were legitimately the loudest fucking thing she had ever heard in her entire life. There was nothing like it. It felt like the scream entered her ears, burrowed into her skull, reverberated into her chest, then somehow used her chest as an amplifier to send a louder version of the sound back up into her ears where it rebounded all over again. A never-ending loop of BE and NOT and AFRAID that made her bones ache, made her eardrums shiver, made her brain feel like it was about to aggressively vibrate out of her cranium. For a second, she didn't even feel pain from her injuries - the scream was so loud that it vibrated all the bits of muscle and bone and flesh back together for a tiny speck of time. And then they were wrenched apart again, and all she felt was fear.

Cricket had no idea what was happening.

Cricket had no idea what she was staring at.

But she felt like an insect being analysed under a microscope. And that, to put it nicely, freaked her out. Considerably.

"Come, heretic. We must depart this place, or others will find you and interrupt your education."

That sounded great, actually. She'd be pretty OK with others finding her.

No, wait, that was dipshit mentality. Coward mentality. Kaiser would not have approved.

She tried to snarl, but her jaw was held shut by an invisible force.

"Now, this is... going to be interesting, I must say. I haven't used this ability before, heretic. But... no, no, for an angel, this is simple to comprehend. Nothing more than the exploitation of intersecting dimensions!"

Her eyes sharpened.

" To the belly of the whale with you! "

And Cricket knew no more.

Chapter Text

4 - The earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God

Morrigan rather liked having this organic chunk of matter rumbling around in her skull. It offered such pleasing possibilities for redeeming sinners. Not sure where it came from, not sure how it was put together, but it was clearly distinct from the rest of her, and it had properties all of its own. Most particularly, this shard of... it was difficult to describe. An unfolding tesseract, a biomechanical engine of enormous complexity. Attempts to prod it were met with failure - it was designed to avoid tampering, and she was understandably nervous of vandalising one of the LORD's own angels. Either way, this immense, complicated, intelligently designed work of fourth-dimensional art let her make people disappear. Among other things. It was a miracle , pure and simple. A miraculous organism, placed within her mind. Oh, certainly , you could claim that it was naturally formed by natural means, and point to how it had consistent internal functions, but that was how miracles got you. Close enough to reality that they didn't erase the need for faith - for proof denied faith. But to the right, angelic eye...

It was abundantly apparent just how miraculous this little fleshy chunk of arcane programming really was. Much like everything else about her! Her telekinesis, her flight, her sense of people's histories... those powers didn't come from nowhere , and even if they acted with understandable mechanisms, they were spawned by the intelligent and benevolent mind of her Creator.

How else could Morrigan explain her own existence?

She wondered if the Seraph had a shard like her own...

She imagined it was an excellent shard. Oh, the Seraph's song was so dim out here, she felt positively lonesome... almost tempted to release the sinner from her interdimensional prison just to have some company.

Company?

...did angels need company?

The organic part of her brain seemed to enjoy it. The crystalline part was indifferent. Unsure. Was desiring company a form of greed? Or pride, a desire to have people nearby to admire her virtue? Hm. This required contemplation. Easy enough to contemplate, of course. The ocean being a place where thoughts could spin out their lives uninterrupted. Oh, she was a little anchorite, all to herself - a tiny island of robes and feathers, flying placidly over the churning grey waves. The city had long-since receded into the distance, and no-one was the wiser. No 'parahumans' had pursued her, not even the strange mechanical dragon-things that she'd vaguely glimpsed hovering hither and thither. Good, good - chaos probably wouldn't help the Seraph's plans, and Morrigan was always eager to please that heavenly song.

Speaking of the Seraph, her song had no audience out here - her immense and beautiful mind didn't dwell on the redemption of waves and currents, so nor would Morrigan's. No, she just needed to find an island. Not a big one, necessarily. Just an island where she could do some form of education . Didn't even need much in the way of shelter! If it rained or the wind howled, Morrigan would shelter the sinner with her wings. If cold seeped to the black heart of the sinner, Morrigan would use telekinesis to artificially generate heat within her. Probably by massaging muscles, she was still working that out. And Morrigan could easily grab a handful of fish from the ocean for her to eat!

As proof, she had a very large sea bass wedged between two wings.

Oh!

Ah!

An island!

How immensely satisfactory!

She dove down low towards the rocky, barren little place. A fair distance from the shore, far enough that she couldn't see the city, far enough that no-one would disturb her. Only one structure - a barren old tower that'd been rotting away placidly for decades. Seemed to be designed to emanate light... ah, could there be a more fitting place to illuminate a wayward lamb? Morrigan contested there could not! She floated around a little, exploring the rocky crags where the surf crashing unceasing, examining the low wind-flattened hillocks carpeted in blue-grey grass, studying the tower with its whitewashed boards and creaking timbers. Yes, this place would do swimmingly . Her hand came up...

"Return to me, sinner!"

A pop as air was displaced.

And a woman with cropped blonde hair exploded out of nowhere, falling to the ground with a strangled yelp . Her scythes fell with her, clattering messily. The woman had just emerged out of a strange void, her perception of space was disrupted, and yet her first reaction was to scramble for her weapons, moving with unnatural speed and precision. Even had to do a backflip to reach a scythe coming uncomfortably close to a cliff. A few seconds passed. The woman scanned the horizon, checked for a way out... and the moment she saw where she was, her attention returned to Morrigan. She reached for a bag at her waist, drew out a little black device she pressed against her throat.

The fear in her eyes started to drain. Satisfactory!

Replaced with wrath. Oh... unsatisfactory...

"Who the fuck are you. And where the fuck am I, you freak ."

Morrigan's gentle smile fell from her face. No, no, forgive her, for she knew not what she said.

"That's not very nice of you, sinner. My name is Morrigan. I would be proud to know yours."

"Fuck off. What do you want."

Hm. The second she realised Morrigan wasn't going to kill her, she seemed to become rather more bold. A wild animal testing the limits of her leash, growing more bold by the second. That wouldn't do. That wouldn't do at all. She hovered closer, narrowing her eyes. Now... she needed a name. Spiralling histories emerged from the nasty scarred woman. A past of violence, of more violence, inflicted at first with fear, then with gladness. Dredging wrath from the darker pits of her soul, wallowing in it and refusing to confront higher matters. Shameful. And pitiable. The rest... her eyes narrowed further, and she dismissed sub-functions to concentrate on the whirling lifeway that spanned ahead... more violence, obviously. Combat in a dozen places, with dozens of people. A few scant years of life, then an ignominious death. And... a name, a name, she needed a name . Without a name, she couldn't file this woman away in her mind efficiently. More sub-functions were dismissed, and the data came into focus.

Melody Jurist.

A fortuitous name, for a lacking woman...

Hm. Why was she hopping backwards?

Oh. Ah.

She'd turned off her flight. Mostly. She appeared to be zooming in a small circle, round and around and around, some wings locked in place, others flapping madly, gouging a deep furrow in the cold earth. Not her fault she had limited resources for this sort of thing... but it was probably undignified. The eye-rolling and insensate gibbering was also probably worth stopping.

In dead silence, she stiffened. Re-articulated herself. Floated upwards and gazed serenely at the shivering Melody.

"I apologise for this display, Melody."

This somehow didn't calm her. How strange. If anything, Melody seemed more alarmed, and was currently backing away even further, scanning the shoreline for boats, rafts, anything that could get her away. Silly sinner. Morrigan floated closer, her feet trailing against the grass, her eyes unblinking.

"Now, it is time to correct you of certain silly ideas."

Melody froze.

Terror entered her eyes.

Morrigan was very tempted to shriek 'BE NOT AFRAID' at her, but she'd already done it once, and she got the feeling that repeated applications suffered from diminishing returns. A sad reality, truly...

"Oh fuck."

Morrigan loomed. Her wings spread.

"Listen, lady, I'm just... I'm in this for the violence, I'm not really all about the ideology, it's just a violence thing and they let me do a lot of it. If I was Asian I'd be in the ABB doing violence, if I loved money I'd be with Coil doing violence... but, y'know, it's... listen, you don't really know me, I just knew some guys back when I did pitfighting, fell in with them, and-"

"You must disabuse yourself of your Arian notions."

"Yeah! Yeah, definitely. Going to disabuse myself of those. No Arian notions, I'm, like, fine with everyone, don't even care what their skull shape is, I'm even fine with the Chinese, and those guys eat dogs , so, you know, I wouldn't be that nasty if I hated them, but you know what, I'm fine with them. Totally fine."

Morrigan paused.

"...your views on the nature of Christ are faulty. They must be rectified, before we can begin to correct your other sins. Is the Son subordinate to the Father, Ms. Jurist?"

Melody blinked.

"...like, generally? I guess? I mean, you need to be a shitty kid to not be subordinate to your dad. I was a pretty shitty kid, though, so..."

Outrageous. Morrigan resisted the urge to strike her - an angel should not strike, unless... hm. Actually. Had not Jacob contended with an angel at Penuel? Did this not deliver him to a great blessing?

Might as well give it a go.

She lunged .

Melody squeaked

And Morrigan was trying to envelop her in the embrace of her wings. To Melody's credit, the woman responded quickly. Her scythes flashed, her powers kicked to life... she was moving with unnatural speed and precision, a scream entered the air, a poor heretical imitation of the Seraph's song. The scythes plunged... and bounced soundly away from Morrigan's divine flesh. Well, it was never said that Jacob had pierced the angel. Wrestling not involving many scythes. Her telekinesis kicked to life, and the scythes were plucked away, flung into a nearby hill. Melody growled wildly, her damaged throat distorting the sound into something animal... and thus it began. A struggle upon the salt-licked cliffs of a barren island, a struggle for the soul of this lost sinner. As Proverbs said, 'he that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes'. And that betimes was now!

The betimes ended fairly quickly.

Morrigan couldn't be hurt by mortal hands. And Melody didn't know how to wrestle people with so many wings. Or who could fly. Or who had telekinesis.

In a matter of seconds, Morrigan was pinning her to the ground, both arms behind her back, wings dropping low to lock her tight . Jacob must have been a miraculous person indeed, to contend with an angel... her voice rose to a yell, carrying clearly over the wind.

"The Son is not subordinate to the Father! The heresy of Arius contends that God the Father existed before all things, and thus He must have created the Son! That the Father must have willed the Son into being, solely because He wishes it to be so! But this is foolishness! Do you not agree?"

"Yes, yes, I agree! Fuck Arius!"

Morrigan squeaked happily.

"Yes! As you say, Ms. Jurist - fuck Arius! The Trinity is the one true way to understand God, with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit consubstantial with one another. One in three and three in one, the Son begotten - not made - by the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified. There are three , one did not create the others!"

Melody squirmed helplessly.

"Sure! You got it!"

"Do you renounce Arianism!"

"Definitely!"

"Do you accept the Trinity?"

"Hundred percent!"

Morrigan brightened, and floated upwards, releasing the stricken, redeemed sinner. Well, partially redeemed. Redemptive wrestling was only one of the routes to salvation, there were many others! And unlike the angel Jacob fought, Morrigan hadn't even dislocated Melody's hip! Which was, all in all, a very merciful thing to do. The lady scrambled for her scythes, and clutched them like a mother would clutch her children. Her face was soaked in sweat, dirt, and sea spray. Her clothes were filthy. Her eyes were wide, and seemed on the verge of tears.

Progress!

"And now, Melody, we must begin to correct your woeful understanding of violence."

A hardening of resolve. A spark of defiance.

"What... what the fuck are you talking about."

"You are consumed by wrath. You inflict violence upon the innocent, you inflict it without regard or reason."

Melody muttered under her breath, but the all-seeing and all-hearing Morrigan could easily detect her blasphemous rumblings.

"I have plenty of reasons..."

"There is no acceptable reason! When God divided the Heavens and the Earth, when He created light amidst the darkness, He did not make war upon the deep - He did not conquer, He did not strike order out from chaos like a rampaging general. No, He spoke , and the world came to be! The very first act, in all creation, was to speak! By words, not violence, was man seduced into leaving Eden! By words, not violence, did Christ gather followers! And when violence was committed unto Christ, he bore a crown of thorns with dignity and poise! Lo, 'a man shall eat good by the fruit of his mouth: but the soul of the transgressors shall eat violence!'"

"You just... just fucking wrestled me until I said 'fuck Arius'."

"Jacob wrestled with an angel. It did him a power of good!"

"Then what the fuck's wrong with me doing my thing?"

Petulance in her rasping, rasping voice. There wasn't real rebuke in there, just... anger at someone telling her what was right, and what was wrong. Hm. Well, wrestling might not work so well if she was going to tell Melody to avoid violence... now, see, this was why she'd done this on an island, with one person! Time to figure out good strategies, time to put together proper methods of conversion! New note: do not wrestle sinners if you're going to teach pacifism . Melody was being ever -so helpful, it was really quite satisfactory. Now... how to deal with this little conundrum.

Oh. She'd dismissed this from her mind for too long.

"Have yourself a fish, Melody. I caught it for your sustenance."

Melody spat at the delightful sea bass Morrigan had just floated gently towards her. Hmph. Well, better make sure that she wasn't going to choke on any bones... Melody stared grimly at the fish as Morrigan extracted bone after bone from it with her telekinetic might, followed by a grey-red sliver of entrails.

"Now, we must do confession. I cannot truly administer the rites, alas... but we can pursue them in spirit! Come, you must confess each and every one of your sins to me! Then we can begin to rectify them! Oh, no, no, first you must say ten Hail Marys. Ah, I shall make you a rosary - and I shall make myself a rosary! We can pray together, Melody!"

"Fuck off. Kill me or let me go."

"I will do none of those three things! But..."

...hm.

The Seraph's song had been so... convincing. So very delicate in its applications, so immense in its reach. It tweaked at all manner of biological switches, engineered all manner of worldly crises. Presumably to induce a moment of true faith. Morrigan struggled to think of something appropriate... but her mind was woeful . Oh, she was a poor angel, her capacity for virtuous scheming was negligible compared to the might of the Seraph. Oh, woe . Woe! How on earth was she going to convert this sinner, when her mind was so very weak! No, wait - if she just engineered the right kind of scenario, she could probably mimic the Seraph's wondrous ways. Isolated island, middle of the ocean, few resources at hand... not many other people to work with, which was a bit of a hindrance. Hm. What to manipulate? And would the LORD approve?

Options, options... she could isolate Melody to this island, and join her as an anchorite! Rising at dawn to greet the sun, going fishing together, making rosaries out of driftwood, having hours upon hours of studying the Bible (and associated commentary)... hm. That would take a while. She had many sinners to convert. Christ made this all look so very easy. Second option: hide somewhere, burrow underground perhaps. Then, use her telekinesis to squeeze the right glands, force Melody into moods of unbearable terror. She'd already left tantalising hints of what Melody could do - confess her sins, pray the rosary etc. etc., and in the depths of her terror, perhaps her faith would be genuine? Or , find more sinners, dump them on this island, and let them educate one another?

No, she needed some kind of starter to get the rest of her sinners going on the path to redemption... maybe she could emulate Paul? Strike Melody blind, then have a priest restore her sight...

Morrigan was stumped.

Engineering a scenario was difficult. No wonder the Seraph hadn't directly entrusted her with a mission.

"...are you sure you wouldn't like to say a few Hail Marys with me?"

Melody responded poorly.

"Jesus Christ , what is your fucking problem , are you retarded? Do you have brain damage? How much fucking oxygen did you get starved of when you were a fetus? Why the fuck are you doing this?"

Morrigan froze.

"Because it is what I am meant to do."

" Meant? "

"It's my purpose. I'm an angel. Angels convert sinners."

"You're not an angel. You're a dipshit freak."

Oh.

That was crossing a line. Her purpose was inviolable. Without her purpose, she was a shambling wreck of a creature, she had no mind if she had no purpose, Morrigan was nothing but what she did! And right now, she was doing nothing of any worth!

"I am an angel. I am an angel of the LORD! Now, Melody Jurist, you have flirted with heresy, but this you have repented. You drown in violence and hatred, and now you indulge in reckless blasphemy? Those who have seen, and yet fail to believe, are uniquely cursed! You drink from holy springs, yet your spit remains venomous!"

Her arms spread wide.

"Witness! A miracle!"

She accessed the organic part of her brain, the chunk of immaculate shard-matter that granted her such strength... and fire exploded from her hands. Glittering arcs of orange, blue and red, streaming in the wind like banners. The heat seared the grass around her, and for a moment, this craggy little island felt like a tropical paradise. Morrigan glowed with exaltation, and looked to Melody, expecting wonderment and-

"Woo. You can do fire. Big fucking deal."

Morrigan's fire ceased. Her face was quite still.

"...it is a miracle! "

"You're a parahuman, I get it. You're a freak, but you're a parahuman. Hooray. Get someone else to kiss your ass. Jesus, I get a blonde 'tard, now I get an angel 'tard, did Leviathan just kill all the smart people? I swear, people like you are why eugenics is justified, the Spartans would've just put you on a mountainside."

Morrigan's mind snapped . Just a little.

Was this rage?

Her purpose was being violated. Her inner tenets were being challenged. This was unacceptable. This was a basic error. There was a basic logic in the world, a logic of faith and divinity, a logic of interwoven theologies. Any engine, when shown a greater form of logic, would abide by that logic! To do otherwise was faulty! And a fault needed to be corrected! Morrigan had been faulty, once, and now she had been repaired, the superior logic had been installed, and her mind flowed immaculately! So, why, why, why would this ignorant sinner not understand the self-evident perfection of her logic system? It was so... so obviously beneficial to adopt it! There was a Seraph overhead, there was Morrigan here, both Melody and herself had shards of obscenely perfect, intelligently designed matter in their heads, the proof was everywhere! How could she not convert? How? Was Morrigan doing something wrong? No, no, Melody was doing something wrong, Morrigan had seen the light and the way, Melody was being shown the light and the way, yet failed to adopt it! The problem lay with the sinner!

This was the opposite of satisfactory .

Her hand lashed out.

"The fate of Paul upon you!"

Her telekinesis cracked in the air, invisible and untouchable. Planes of force intersecting, delving inwards, invading flesh...

And Melody shrieked.

"Oh my God, oh my God, what did you... what did... why can't I see? "

Morrigan glowered.

The fate of St. Paul. On the road to Damascus, Paul of Tarsus had been stricken blind by a great light, by a vision of Christ, whose followers he had been sent to persecute. For three days he laboured under this great darkness, the truth of the vision flowing through his mind. To Damascus he was led, and in Damascus he was healed by a disciple of Christ, Ananias. Thus began the career of one of the greatest proselytisers and thinkers of her faith. In darkness, the world began. In darkness, Melody's virtue would begin too.

"A test, Melody."

Melody sprinted for her. Whistling, echolocating, gaining a sense for the island, adjusting to the darkness with her superb reflexes...

Morrigan felt nothing as Melody slammed fist after fist into her robe. Only reacted when she started trying to tear the chasuble - and then she just floated upwards, out of reach.

"Give me my fucking eyes back! Give them back! "

Something between rage and terror in her voice. There, perhaps, lay the seeds of faith. She'd cut through the petty vengefulness. Here, with her certainties removed, she could perhaps see the logical perfection of Morrigan's teachings. Here , stripped down to the absolute basics. Morrigan said nothing.

"...you want me to confess? You want me to confess my sins, you psycho bitch?"

Yes!

"Well, fuck you . Not doing shit ."

Oh...

Placidly, Morrigan floated away. Melody said nothing, but she was shaking like a leaf, her face-cage chattering madly.

She'd check on this one in three days. Certainly, she was no Paul, but three days was three days! A good sum of time to reflect on one's own sins! The sea bass would supply her for today, and she had the means to acquire more food if need be. The lighthouse should provide for shelter, or at least fuel. Yes, a suitable trial!

The Seraph would approve of this course of action. Biological manipulation, situation synthesis, crisis exacerbation... the creation and exploitation of a fulcrum point, where faith could be generated from the faithless.

She looked up happily.

"The LORD be with you, Seraph. And may you always remain a star to guide my way."

* * *

Only took a few hours to return to the city, and Morrigan was beaming . She'd done well! She was a splendid angel! She'd blinded Melody Jurist and left her on an Atlantic island to find God! And only excellent angels did things like that. And as an act of charity, she even got a sea bass! Now, she just had to head back, find some more people, and start working on them . Maybe if she found some more islands, she could create a whole archipelago of blind sinners working towards redemption in their own little way. Or, if one of them was making more progress than the others, stick them with a struggling sinner and let the senior aid the junior! Yes, yes, and eventually the whole thing would become self-perpetuating! That was how to do it, that was definitely how to do it. A Seraph-approved technique. The song of the supreme angel was still heavy over the city, but once more the strands had moved. Some had moved beyond the city limits entirely, others had started to congregate on the outskirts (regrouping, perhaps), and others were just... wandering. Patrolling, even. Well, maybe she could go and attack the rest of Melody's awful friends, try and wipe out this whole Arian offshoot in a single day.

...she may require a map. Seemed a good idea, to get a map of all the surrounding islands. Better than hunting for them manually. Hoped there were enough for her plan.

And she ought to tell that kind priest about her work!

And she ought to meet the bishop!

Oh, oh, that was satisfactory! She'd healed the injured, she'd attacked a heresy, and she'd begun a sinner on the road to her own personal Damascus, she was entirely in the good graces of the LORD, the bishop would love to hear about her work... she adjusted her hat, straightened her alb, neatened her chasuble, and swooped downwards towards the docks. Night was starting to draw in... gosh, only a day. Imagine what she could do in a year ...

She descended to a rooftop, flying low and fast. Church was in sight.

The church... hm. That might be an issue. She had blown a few holes in it, and there were a number of vehicles clustering all around. Some looked rather well-armoured. Could sense the spiralling history of the priest within, talking agitatedly with a whole host of suit-clad men and women with notepads and stern expressions. Well, she didn't want to interrupt him during his important work... best to remain on this rooftop, perhaps. Just for a while. If she flew down, she'd have to scream 'BE NOT AFRAID', the suit-clad people would react irrationally, there'd be questions, yelling, all manner of problems... and she'd never tried to socially simulate so many people at once. No, no, patience was a virtue.

Morrigan did feel a pang of guilt, though. A pang that almost made her swoop down. She really ought to fix the church. It'd been poor of her to leave it in such a shoddy state. It was even more poor of her to not study the priest properly. She didn't really know his name, did she? Such a rush to get out into the world and do some good , the Seraph's song had demanded no delay, but... it was an unforgivable oversight all the same. Her mind had been so scrambled after she'd come to faith, so busy with sorting out a million little details, getting her body under control... no, no, excuses were poor substitutes for redemption. One part of her brain thought that, at least. The crystalline part kept coldly suggesting that if she had rational reasons for doing something, she had good reasons. Not her fault if others failed to understand that. An engine working optimally did not stop to explain itself.

Oh, gosh, that was a rather prideful thought.

She began to murmur to herself, clasping her hands tightly as she huddled.

"Hail Mary, full of grace, the LORD-"

Pause.

No-one had heard her shrieking. Good.

"-is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our deaths, amen."

She made the sign of the cross and returned to her old position. Good. That ought to make up for the prideful thought. Now, given that she had nothing better to do... she studied the priest from a distance, her eyes adjusting slowly and deliberately. Better long-distance vision, better acuity, and a small tweak to filter out the distortions from the stained glass windows... just a bit of work, and she could see directly inside the church.

The priest was middle-aged, but she'd already known that. No major genetic defects, no major internal injuries, and his lifeways seemed to orient themselves towards virtue and peace. Couldn't see a violent death around the corner for him, nor a descent into degeneracy. Good. Splendid. Excellent health, if she was being honest. Good heart, good musculature, good posture. Seemed to come from somewhere rather sunnier than here, based on his tanned skin. And he didn't flinch from the suit-clad people when they asked pointed questions - indeed, he reacted strongly . He spoke with a loud, bold voice, he gestured frequently, yet his tone never became truly furious, his words never became hateful. If anything, he sounded... worried?

What on earth was he worried about?

Ah, well. She let her mind drift away, adjusting her temporal perception while amping up her automatic threat detection. All her senses running at high speed, but her consciousness subsiding into something much slower, much gentler. Seemed like the sun was racing across the sky, dashing to meet the horizon. The humans moved like so many ants, crawling hither and thither, entering trucks, using equipment, asking questions in squeaky voices... none of it meant anything. No-one could see her, no-one was trying to find her on a random rooftop. Come to think of it, the authorities had been rather poor at tracking her, hadn't they?

She spent the next few hours figuring out why .

By the time the moon was rising, she'd determined that it was because she had no heartbeat, no body temperature, and she flew with absolute silence. No flapping, no theatrics. Presumably they were better at detecting normal humans with normal circulatory systems, and not fairly dark-coloured angels who moved with mechanical precision and efficiency. Well, the fact that her flesh was made up of a crystalline substance that didn't react well certain particles probably helped. Shouldn't have taken her a few hours to figure that out.

But she had literally nothing else to do.

When night fell, though, the suit-clad men and women went to wherever suit-clad men and women went at night. And the priest... oh. Oh . There was no mass tonight. Because of Morrigan. Because she'd wrecked the church and attracted a host of officials. Those poor parishioners... a nightmare vision swam before her eyes. An elderly parishioner, weak and sick, dying tonight without having received communion, without being able to see their priest and ask for final rites, oh , Morrigan had done ill, she had done ill .

By all that was good and holy, she must make this wrong right .

Her flight took her silently away from the rooftop, and she slowly tracked the priest's car. Must be heading home. Battered vehicle, she must say... her telekinesis reached out and began to modify the internals slightly. She didn't want him to be taken to his eternal reward too soon, he had a flock to lead! Flying overhead was simple enough - even with the streetlights on, even with people scuttling about the winding streets, it was rather hard to notice an angel when she stayed at a certain altitude. The priest drove, drove, drove... reached the outskirts of the city, a quiet suburb of houses that all looked rather the same, streets lined with tall crooked trees. Silence ruled here. Even the city had felt quieter than it really should've. People were still staying indoors, staying safe as Arian heretics and other ne'er-do-wells performed their vile deeds.

Soon.

Once she had enough islands, she could definitely make this place peaceful once again.

The priest's house was small, brick, two stories, unadorned. Barren front garden, barren back garden. Every room inside stuffed with books and paperwork, every chair heaving with random ecclesiastical paraphernalia. No, no, angels had better descriptions than that, angels could see the art of the world, the beauty which the LORD had planted in every speck and atom. His house was humble, yes, but it was immensely cosy. Everywhere could be felt the soothing warmth of long-held faith. In the books with their innumerable makeshift bookmarks, in the souvenirs of multiple pilgrimages and retreats, in the worn knees of each and every pair of trousers he owned. It was a house that required no-one but the priest to complete it - there was no interference by other souls, no amendments by outside interests. It felt like his whole mind and personality had simply emerged from his body and engraved itself into the brickwork. Even a pet would've felt wrong. She studied him from a distance as he stumped inside, removed his shoes, and padded over the soft red carpet to his kitchen. Oh, oh, what victuals did a priest consume? What did a mind nourished on faith choose to nourish the body?

A box!

A blue box!

Kraft Mac n Cheese!

Morrigan promised herself to try some. It had clerical approval! Yes, the ritualistic instructions on the side, the combination of base, fruitless ingredients that could intermingle to produce warmth and nourishment, the precise enumerations of time and quantity... oh, she must try this. Kraft Mac n Cheese was, in her mind, a perfect secular evocation of Holy Communion. Follow the rite, and the crude accidents of wheat and powder and milk could be transformed into plentiful bounty...

The priest muttered a prayer over his meal.

Morrigan murmured along with him.

And poked her head through his window.

To his credit, he didn't scream. He did, however, jump out of his seat and launch the plate of pasta towards a wall. Morrigan placidly caught it with her telekinesis, returned the stray flecks of Mac to their Cheese, and the escaped ooze of Cheese to their Mac, as the LORD intended. She smiled.

"I apologise for interrupting, father."

"Jesus Christ , Morrigan, don't do that, you almost-"

"What is your name, father?"

Silence.

"Where have you been, Morrigan."

"In all the places that contain tasks for me to perform."

" Like? "

"...this city. And an island nearby. And a rooftop near your church. I didn't go far, fear not!"

Silence once again. The priest was giving her a very, very funny look. Oh, had the suit-clad people told him something? Oh, she hoped it wasn't anything negative... maybe the Arians had infiltrated the local government, that would be just her luck.

"Alright. Good. That's good. Thought you'd gone to fight someone, or... I don't know. Gotten yourself hurt."

A pause.

"McGill. Father Anthony McGill."

Morrigan beamed. She knew his name , she'd fix his church tomorrow, and now she could talk about all her good deeds! Father McGill sat down slowly, and returned to his meal. One eye fixed on Morrigan. One hand in his pocket, doing something with his phone. Seemed to be trying to fumble with it, dialling a number of some kind, or... she applied her telekinesis quickly, levitating it out of his grip and onto the table in front of him. He paled.

"Go on! You may do whoever you like, it's easier when you can see the numbers, I understand."

"...I'm fine."

What a strange response. He'd clearly been doing something, so why... no, unimportant. She'd done so many good things today, and she had to explain them! She talked about healing a child, about preventing a building collapse... McGill blinked, stopped eating, and watched her with something approaching interest. Excellent! Excellent! Deeds were always better than words, and her deeds were excellent! Then she spoke of the Arians, and his interest changed to something more intense. He interrupted to ask questions. Many. None seemed especially relevant, honestly - why should it matter if she'd been seen taking a sinner for redemption, why should it matter if she'd been around someone armed with sharp weaponry? None of it could hurt her. And then, at long last, she spoke of the island.

And Father McGill looked very, very nervous.

"...and then I subjected her to the treatment St. Paul received on the road to Damascus. I hope for great things from Melody Jurist, I truly, truly do!"

A cold piece of Mac fell from his mouth.

"You did... I'm sorry, what part of St. Paul's 'treatment' did you-"

"I blinded her!"

"You what? "

He rose sharply, and her telekinesis was needed to stop the plate flying away once again. His face was growing dark. His eyes were flashing.

Had she done something wrong?

"You found a Neo-Nazi, kidnapped her, took her to a deserted island, wrestled her, and blinded her? Is that a fair summation?"

Her smile broadened.

"Yes!"

His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. Words failed to come. And with a curt gesture, he indicated for her to enter. Took a bit of a squeeze, but she managed it without damaging anything. Hovered a few inches off the ground, didn't want to disturb anything about his house, it felt like a sin to track dirt into a priest's house. McGill was pacing. Around and around, sweat beading on his forehead, hands clasped behind his back. Veins were standing out very sharply indeed on his neck. Hm. Those weren't the usual signs her social simulations came up with for 'pride'. What had she done?

"...father, your meal is growing cold, you should-"

"Morrigan, please be quiet. Just for a second."

His pacing stopped. Morrigan smiled once again. Smiling tended to calm people, yes?

...evidently not.

"Morrigan, I'm trying to keep myself civil. Is that woman still out there?"

"Do you mean Mel-"

"Don't say her actual name, not to me, not to anyone. We're not meant to know that. What you've done is... wrong. Very, very wrong. We're going to find this woman, we're going to take her back to land, and you're going to hand her over to some nice men and women."

"But she hasn't been redeemed yet, it's not even been a full day."

McGill stared.

Sat down quietly.

"Alright. We're going to go through this, together. And then we're going to head out and retrieve this woman you've blinded. Work through things from there. But right now, right here, you're going to sit , and we're going to discuss exactly why you chose to do this, and exactly how you're going to change your approach."

...was she being taught?

She was being taught!

A priest was teaching her!

Oh, oh, oh! This was most satisfactory! And... she'd done something wrong. Hm. Well, not in principle , that was certain. Redeeming sinners was always a good thing. But her method... on that front, there could definitely be some improvements. Maybe islands weren't a good idea, they didn't contain enough metaphors. Deserts, that was where sinners should be redeemed, deserts. Throw Melody Jurist into a nice big desert, then hover above her and watch as the elements wore her down, as she came to treasure each and every pool of shade, as she came to beg for rain... islands, those were too easy. They had fish and everything. Moses had wandered in a desert, Christ had wandered in a desert, deserts seemed to be a good place for spiritual development. Did not the Book of Hosea say that the LORD would 'allure her, lead her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly unto her?' Was this not the route by which the unfaithful could be restored to the side of the LORD?

She'd already figured out what the priest was going to teach her.

But for the sake of politeness, she would listen.

Chapter Text

5 - I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shall go: I will guide thee with mine eye.

Father Anthony McGill was not in the best of possible moods. It started with fear. Fear at Morrigan. Her power, her mindset, her entire way of doing things. Then he got angry at himself for feeling afraid - she was practically a child, she seemed to understand very little, she'd potentially suffered some major brain damage, it wasn't right to blame her for all her actions. Then he sank away from anger, away from fear, and towards unease. He'd seen worse things than Morrigan, sure. Years of being a priest tended to expose one to... a fair amount. The sick, the dying. He'd even been an army chaplain for a while, before the army shrunk and his job wound up on the chopping block. Seen plenty of unpleasant things. Probably the only reason he wasn't totally terrified of the enormous angel-creature that kept following him around, shrieking at the top of her lungs, and observing him like he was a tick on a pin. Another priest might've found his capacity for forbearance... strained. Probably over his limit, if McGill was going to be completely honest. The bishop would've had a heart attack by now, Jameson would've fainted, and Bates would've run away as fast as his gammy leg could carry him. The PRT had... noted a few things. Asked questions that made him uncomfortable. Particularly with regards to her telekinesis - how it had felt. Did it feel like she was squeezing the air around him, or was the force somehow within?

Within. That'd been the answer. When Morrigan had held him still, it felt like all his muscles had locked up, like bands of force were sealed inside his ribs. The fact that PRT agents had looked alarmed at that statement... sure, it troubled him. Troubled him a lot.

Whatever Morrigan was, it was enough to freak out the PRT. And while she'd taken and blinded a woman on some random island, the thing which stood out was that she'd done this to a parahuman . It'd barely been a day, and she'd neutralised a parahuman without attracting attention, dragged her out to the middle of the ocean, wrestled her (and won), blinded her, and flew away. He'd heard the carnage going on over by the bank on Tremaine Street, he'd listened to the radio while preparing for evening mass, the idea of Morrigan beating one of those capes so soundly...

And even if he wasn't terrified... he felt uneasy .

She was easy to feel uneasy around.

Never blinked, not unless she was doing it deliberately. Never breathed. Radiated no heat. Her muscles didn't move correctly - when she raised her arm, just her arm raised. Nothing pulled in her shoulder, her chest, anything. Everything moved independently of everything else, no reference to a skeleton or any kind of internal structure. Her skin was very slightly translucent, and he could see pale blue veins weaving throughout... not one of them had moved, pulsed, or twitched since he'd known her. Nothing flowed in them. Her wings were crooked and disjointed, none of them could ever be functional. Even her hair was uncanny, it just... sat there. The wind never moved it, when she tilted her head it remained still. Totally artificial. The word 'Morrigan' had been scoured clean by salt and water, but her skin bore no other marks of being at sea all day. Even her clothes were perfectly dry, absolutely untouched. Her face... her face was wrong. Hard to express how. The proportions were a little off, the skin tone was slightly off-white, she didn't resemble any ethnicity or nationality to a confident degree. But she resembled other ethnicities enough that he felt like there was a pattern somewhere, if only he could figure it out.

Her eyes were slightly reflective.

Like shards of glass pressed into her face. They didn't connect to any nerves, he'd seen them rolling in ways no human eyes could.

Couldn't forget how she'd looked when she entered his church. Naked, flailing, limbs twitching, hair jittering like television static. When she looked at him, there was no human emotion evident. None at all. When she started squeezing him, he legitimately thought that he was going to die. Angered a psychotic parahuman and... that was it. Might as well have put his head in a lion's mouth.

Suppress the instinctual shivers. Focus on the facts. She was misguided. She was odd . But she'd listened to reason before, when he convinced her to not visit the bishop. Might listen again.

Don't call the PRT . They wouldn't... she'd only been in his life for a day, but he could guarantee that he understood her a little more than the PRT would. They'd been baffled when he explained her whole 'angel' thing. They'd try and convince her she wasn't an angel, they'd try and find out about her old life, they'd see her current delusion as something to be cured.

But he'd seen what she was like before the delusion.

God willing, he'd never see something like that again.

"...why did you take her to a island? And why did you blind her?"

"To redeem her."

Flat voice. Only inflected when she wanted it to be.

"And how would an island redeem her?"

"Christ wandered in a desert. Anchorites once lived on islands. There is holiness in the wildest places, father. A good place for her to think through her heresies, her mistakes. The wrath which was eating her soul. The blinding was... because she was failing to understand the point I was trying to teach. Spare the rod-"

"Spoil the child, I know the verse. It doesn't actually mean to beat your children, incidentally."

She looked at him like he was an idiot.

"I am aware. Scripture is multivalent."

"Yeah, it is. Totally is. So, you'd be willing to accept that maybe you interpreted something wrong."

Morrigan seemed offended.

"I have read scripture many times, father. I have read the Summa , and the City of God , and-"

He raised a hand, and to his relief, she shut up. Good, she still... responded to him as a figure of authority. Good. Wouldn't need to start summoning bishops to yell at her.

"I know what books I own. There's more here, if you like. Once we get that lady back from the island, you can read anything you want. But here's the thing - you're trying to compel her to become faithful. But you're not teaching her."

A quiver in the air. Her telekinesis was thrashing slightly, even if it wasn't affecting anything. Could see the shimmer of it displacing particles, like little specks of ionising radiation.

"I tried! She simply failed to understand."

"That's not how bringing someone to faith works. It's not our place to torment people until they see the light, that's no-one's job but the Lord's. And I like to think he doesn't torment people very often, personally."

Morrigan leant in. Unblinking as always.

"Job was tormented."

"Job was already faithful, he didn't need teaching. That whole story is about explaining why the faithful can still experience misfortune, you understand that?"

"...yes."

But it wasn't following to anything else. Some part of her legitimately thought blinding a woman on a random island was entirely correct.

"Do you think you can do this sort of thing because you're an angel?"

"Yes!"

Oh dear.

"Angels have telekinesis and flight. Without both, I could not have subdued and blinded the sinner."

...somehow better than the alternative.

"Alright, alright. But faith has to be a matter of free will. You can't just... be forced into it by someone who wants you to, that's taking away free will, and without free will there's no point to faith. If you didn't freely choose it, it means nothing. You understand this? "

"...certainly..."

"So why would you try and induce faith by force?"

Morrigan was silent for a while. Putting her words in the right order, no sign of it manifesting on her face. Dead glass eyes. Rigid translucent face. Immobilised hair. She didn't even waver when she hovered, he almost wanted her to do that. But she just fixed herself at a certain point and remained there, unaffected by anything. His brain told him that someone so still had to be sitting, but... here she was.

God, give him strength.

"...it was not force , father. It was situation management. All I had to do was set up the proper scenario for her to come to faith, and inevitably she would. I give the island as adequate context, I blind her to create the right conditions, and now I leave her to progress."

"How... exactly do you know those are the right conditions?"

Morrigan tilted her head to one side. Her voice modulated a little. Uncertainty entered it. A shiver ran up McGill's spine, entirely against his will. That uncertainty was planted in her tone, and he knew it. Lord almighty, her chest didn't even move when she talked, the sound just emerged from her mouth like it spontaneously generated there. Not even sure if she had a proper voice box. No, stop it, treat her with decency and respect.

God knew the PRT wouldn't be quite as gentle.

"...it is difficult to explain."

"But you can see that creating this situation, and forcing her into it, is force . You've forced her into a situation where she is forced to come to faith. It's a bad form of faith, it's not real , it's not lasting , it's not built on love or trust. And it's bad because she was forced to come to it. Do you understand that much?"

"But I did not force her."

"You blinded her, Morrigan. And stuffed her on an island."

"...I should be more subtle."

McGill almost rose his voice. Almost.

"No, you shouldn't be doing this at all . Ever. Here's a question - years ago, I was in the army. Chaplain, specifically. When the Congo collapsed, we were out there. Me, to minister to the men and women, make sure they had proper guidance and counsel. That was a kind of island, we were isolated, in hostile territory. Plenty of us were injured, and we had no idea where things were going to go. For all we knew, total withdrawal was about to be announced. Or a total advance. Had nothing but faith to hold us together during those periods where no orders were coming, and any order could be on the horizon."

Morrigan nodded rapidly, her eyes shining.

"Were the people who made the war happen good people because they made a situation where people who'd never prayed a day in their lives were making crucifixes out of any material they could find. Were the warlords good people, were the people back home sending us in to try and secure the cobalt mines?"

The nodding came to a slow, slow stop.

"...they had not engineered the situation deliberately, father. It was accidental. I am very deliberate."

Something approaching real confusion entered her voice. A flash of emotion under all the calculation.

"If you expose a human to certain stimuli, they will respond a certain way. Different humans in different ways. But there is a stimulus, and there is a response. Faith is a response. It has appropriate stimuli. I can see those stimuli, and the means to achieve them. If I know how to make someone faithful, why should I not do it?"

...oh.

She was... genuinely asking. Had no idea. Her posture had changed a little, she was almost trying to mimic him. Hunching over the table slightly, pulling her features until they seemed concerned, frowning deeply...

"I became aware that I am an angel because, in my moment of deepest confusion, I found the right book in the right church with the right priest. The LORD-"

The shriek was oddly strangled. Even a little muted.

"-must have guided me to this. He engineered the stimuli, to achieve a certain response. Now I must do the same."

"Not how it works."

"But I can see it! I can see how it works! With you, I can see your past, your present, your future. I can see what will affect you in a certain way, I can see all the relevant data with appropriate extrapolations! If a human cannot see it, so be it, but I can! "

No Biblical references. Not trying to interpret her behaviour through Scripture, for once. This conversation was going deeper than either of them liked.

"If the LORD gives a man a golden voice, He wishes for that man to sing! If the LORD gives a woman a skill with painting, He wishes for that woman to paint! If the LORD gives me sight-"

McGill interrupted.

"If God made someone astounding at violence, that doesn't mean they're meant to inflict violence. If anything, that's a test. Some skills shouldn't be used, right?"

"But my skills are... they..."

She trailed off, piecing her words together.

"The angels do this. I know this to be true."

"...I don't... really think that's the case."

"It is."

"I really don't think so. And I say that with a fair amount of experience. More than you have, I think."

"You do not have experience being an angel."

"To be fair, you don't either."

Morrigan stared. Utterly uncomprehending.

Something clicked.

He thought he understood what was her problem. Why she was struggling so much with the fact that she'd done something bad , and should refrain from doing it again.

Morrigan fundamentally didn't get free will. Whatever her powers were - and she seemed to have plenty - she could understand people on a pretty damn comprehensive level. Clumsy in some ways, but... she could see a lot. Morrigan had been able to read the Bible, the Summa, the Catechism, the City of God, and a whole host of other texts in less than a few minutes. She'd gone from screaming and crashing into random buildings to calmly subduing parahumans. She was clever. Almost too clever. The idea that a person needed to come to faith through free will, needed to understand God on their own journey... how did that make sense to a bird-creature who could see that journey from beginning to end, and wanted to accelerate it? Or, worse, divert it? There was a blind Neo-Nazi on an island somewhere, for all he knew that woman wasn't going to improve on her own, and Morrigan had been trying to salvage a lost cause, and...

Morrigan was... she was a child.

She was uncanny, frightening, infuriating... and she was a child, in quite a few ways. He had an idea for her, though. The PRT would want her under control once they found out about this island business. Kidnapping and mutilation was the sort of thing which could bring serious punishment down. Forced recruitment was basically a given. McGill knew that it might be alright, that Morrigan could learn to get over her delusions... might. It might be awful. She might get worse. Morrigan didn't understand free will as a concept, she could rattle off all the theology in the world, but no theologian had her kind of perspective. Someone like that, in McGill's humble mind, needed careful management. The idea of Morrigan going off the chain, delving into dangerous ideas, walking down dangerous roads...

He imagined a version of Morrigan who decided to punish sinners, not just redeem them. Or a version of Morrigan who became entranced by some of the more violent points in the Church's history - crusades, inquisitions and the like. Or a version of Morrigan who skipped the Church entirely, and became obsessed with something else, something significantly nastier.

...she needed to be carefully led towards sanity. No idea if he could do it. Didn't really want that responsibility saddled on him. He was a parish priest, he looked after pensioners, he baptised a kid and didn't see them again until First Holy Communion came along, he made sure the roof didn't fall in. He liked his vocation, but...

Felt like there was a message from Heaven, though. Like God had angled Morrigan in his general direction, made sure the two collided. Too improbable to just assign it to random chance. Another priest wouldn't have spoken to her, would've just run away. Another might've accidentally annoyed her, or driven her from the church. All of these were totally understandable responses, he should note. But here he was. Felt like God was trying to tell him that he needed to do something. He was a priest - act like one. Trying to get her to understand free will like humans did was... probably out of the question for now. Involved challenging some very basic assumptions. For now , he could just try and get her started.

"Alright, alright. Let's just... hold up with that line, just for a second. Back when we first met a few hours ago, you asked me to forgive you. You'd compared yourself to Christ in your own head, and thought that was a sin."

A slow nod.

"And before we met, you were flying around blindly. The PRT told me you'd been sighted in a few other places. Screaming at people, crashing into the ground at high speeds... miracle no-one was hurt. But you had no idea you were an angel, you didn't even know what an angel was. "

He was warming to himself. Come on, get into a homily state of mind, he'd missed evening Mass, he had a proper sermon in him somewhere. There, there, that was the passage to use.

"'When you look at a speck in someone's-'"

Exactly as he thought she would, Morrigan overrode him. Voice mechanical. Eyes gleaming.

"You are quoting incorrectly. Matthew 7:3 ' why do you see the speck in your neighbour's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? '"

"Keep going."

The air quivered as she became more excited, more invested. Right, good to know. Morrigan liked reciting random passages of the Bible. This was entirely new and surprising information to him. Breaking some real new ground here, Copernicus.

" 'Or how can you say to your neighbour, 'let me take the speck out of your eye', while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour's eye. '"

She paused.

"' Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not- '"

"That's all. You don't need to keep going."

Morrigan stared. A hint of indignation entered the air. He had no doubt she'd like to recite the entirety of the Bible if he allowed her to.

"So, logically... wait, hold on."

He rose, and stumped off to his living room. Heaps of books, all of them riddled with post-it notes and marginal scribblings. Mostly for homilies, if he was being honest. Hadn't seriously engaged with theology since he was in seminary. But... hell, he'd always felt it was good to try and work on homilies, make sure he had a clear and consistent line of logic with them, make sure he thought things through and expressed them clearly. Meant that he had a fair bank of quotes and sayings lined up. Didn't like pulling them out constantly, felt like he was just... being intellectually lazy. But Morrigan would appreciate it. He ignored the books, went straight for a yellow legal pad where he had... yes, yes . Notes he scribbled down earlier this year, for the last Sunday before Lent. Book of Sirach 27:6-7. Tore the page off, hurried back. Morrigan was exactly where he'd left her, so still she was blending in with the furniture, and he had the vague idea that her eyes had tracked him even in the other room.

"Right, thought you'd like this. Book of Sirach, book 27, verses 6-7, it goes..."

He trailed off.

Morrigan was looking uncannily perky.

This was legitimately the first time since seminary that he'd had to discuss the Bible with someone who'd memorised it better than he had. Significantly better. And somehow, he was meant to teach this person.

...if the Catholic Church didn't have such a strict hierarchy, he legitimately thought Morrigan might've started ignoring him by now.

"Go on, then."

"' The fruit discloses the cultivation of a tree; so the expression of a thought discloses the cultivation of a person's mind. Do not praise a man before you hear him reason, for this is the test of people. '"

Now, time to see if his line of argument had any truck with her.

"So, logically - and we agree that trying to argue through this logically is the best way of doing things, not by shifting to 'you wouldn't understand' or anything like that - you've been flawed before. You were misguided in the past, you've understood that you committed sins and that repentance was necessary. Is it unreasonable that you would've made another mistake? You had no idea the Adamites were a thing until I told you, you had no idea angels were a thing until you crashed into my church. Maybe you've done it again, made a mistake because you're working on what you think is a complete set of information, and that makes you unreasonably confident."

"...but-"

Reason wouldn't work. She'd memorised too much. Not that she was right , but she could vomit quotations at him all day and never get tired. Until he'd gone through the entire Bible with her, not to mention the other books she'd read, she could keep bringing things up. Something quite mechanical about it, really. The moment she received a bit of information, it had to be meshed with literally every other piece for it to be accepted. But she was still asking him , which meant she respected his opinion, his authority... oh. That was an idea.

Please, God, I know this isn't how prayer works, but please let this work. I have literally no backup plans after this.

Merciful God, have you seen the size of her wings? If this doesn't work, I've got nothing. Help a guy out, huh?

"Have you been baptised, Morrigan?"

She froze. His tone hardened.

"Have you been confirmed , Morrigan?"

A slight tremble in the air. His frown deepened.

"How can the blind lead the blind, Morrigan."

"But I've read so very much, perhaps if you let me use your books here, I can become more enlightened still! I've-"

"God is not a book. For most of the Church's history, the bulk of Christians would've been completely illiterate - that didn't make their faith any less powerful, and you reading this much doesn't make you immediately correct. The Catechism says something about this, doesn't it? Something about prayer, about transmission-"

Morrigan's voice was utterly monotone.

"2650. Nor is it enough to know what the Scriptures reveal about prayer: one must also learn how to pray. Through a living transmission within 'the believing and praying Church'."

"And we've spoken once . In all your time as an angel, you've spoken to one priest, read a pile of books, and now you're off doing whatever you like. That's not much living transmission within the Church."

McGill sighed slightly, and he flinched when Morrigan sagged. Like she'd been physically struck. God, she was vulnerable to this sort of thing - having people be disappointed in her, having someone in a position of authority telling her she was wrong, being proven wrong in a way she couldn't refute... it hurt her on some fundamental level. Lord in Heaven, his mind was ping-ponging between treating her as an immensely intelligent parahuman, and someone with the basic instincts of a child. Her face was twitching a little, like she wasn't quite able to control it. Hard to read an emotion from the twitching, though, it just looked like she was having a series of random spasms.

"...I understand."

"So, what are we going to do?"

"Prepare for my baptism and confirmation..."

"And?"

"Remove the log from my eye so I can see the speck in others..."

" And? "

"...I will remove the sinner from the island."

He didn't even dignify that with another 'and'. Morrigan mumbled quietly.

"And I will try and restore her sight."

"Good. And ask for her forgiveness. If she doesn't give it, then accept that, and try to make amends."

Oh. Wait. The person on the island was one of the Neo-Nazis who'd been running around town lately.

"...but also turn her over to the PRT. Ask for forgiveness, then turn her over to the PRT."

Morrigan tilted her head to one side.

"What if she offers forgiveness if I don't offer her to this PRT?"

"...well..."

"What if she states that forgiveness will never be offered if I surrender her to this PRT?"

"Uh."

"...but the parable of the prodigal son indicates that I should be accepting, and forgive her for her-"

He hated that this was the only option springing to mind.

"Just... take me with you. Same way you took this other person. I'll coach you through this, make sure you don't... I don't know, blind her again."

Morrigan seemed faintly offended at that... but the offence drained away rapidly, replaced by an emotion he could hesitantly call 'excitement'. She rose a few more inches off the ground, her wings flattening against the ceiling.

"Oh! Yes, of course, father! I will happily convey you to this island! But... what shall I do afterwards?"

Oh, splendid. Growth. She hadn't asked that back in the church.

"Let's think that part through later. For now, let's handle this."

"...may I help around the parish? If I can be of any possible assistance?"

McGill paused.

That was a thought. Legions of new parishioners. A living reference document for basically every important theological work. The PRT would be breaking down his door the second they found out Morrigan was working with him. Villains would be interested in the new cape in town. Most of the new parishioners would be rubberneckers, not committed worshippers. He had no idea where Morrigan had come from originally, and if that origin was going to come around one of these days. She had a hole in her skull, for crying out loud. Maybe one day she'd just go berserk and start detonating buildings with her mind. McGill should ask the bishop. No, under no circumstances should he allow Morrigan to be around the elderly bishop who was taking heart medication. Maybe he could set up a correspondence, though...

"I'll see if that works out, alright?"

...hell, she exuded sadness at the idea of her not being able to help out... God, it was like trying to guide a lost puppy with a cruise missile strapped to its back.

"But I'll... ask for your help when it comes to homilies, regardless. And I'll try and supervise your confirmation. Alright?"

She buzzed.

That wasn't a metaphor. She legitimately seemed to jitter on the subatomic level. He could see static around her outline, she looked like an actual mirage. In the middle of his slightly grimy kitchen. Hovering over his now-cold Mac n Cheese.

...God moved in mysterious ways.

"Right. Let's go find that strange lady you blinded."

"Of course!"

Right, so he'd need to find himself a parka or something, just to stop the wind from killing him on the way out. Morrigan was taller than him, so that'd make being carried slightly less awkward. And maybe - her hand shot out, cutting his thoughts short.

"I do not believe there is continuity of consciousness during this particular miracle!"

"...continuity of-"

And that was all.

* * *

Morrigan was thinking.

She was thinking deeply.

And she wasn't sure if she liked the conclusions she was coming.

Her mind rattled through hierarchies. Information needed to be catalogued, ranked, and assimilated with all the proper tags. Irrelevant data could be deleted, long-term data storage could be cleared every so often to prevent everything slowing down, mental shortcuts could be taken on difficult topics. And when information clashed, there needed to be resolution. Paradox did not exist. Paradox was a consequences of poor data collection - paradox was an invitation for her to improve. And right now, her mind was crawling with the stuff. The correct response to paradox was this: to find a proper hierarchy of sources. Hierarchies calculated from past experience, present relevance, volume of data provided overall... and authority. This last detail was something she'd had to learn. Authority . The supreme authority was the LORD. Below Him were superior angels, much like the Seraph. Below them lay the earthly ecclesiastical authorities. From the Pope in Rome to the humble priest. This hierarchy determined the validity of theological data.

Her mind understood this principle well. It regulated her mind. It kept her clean and virtuous .

And now the hierarchies were in conflict.

The Seraph was still singing. Somewhere in the distance. Her immaculate plans were weaving themselves over countless people, manipulating them, inducing situations... doing as the seraphim ought. Isaiah had written of them, in the year after King Uzziah's death. He had written that in the LORD's temple, the seraphim flew. Each with six wings (two to cover the eyes, two to cover the feet, two to fly), and they would cry to one another that 'Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD of Hosts; the whole Earth is full of his glory'. Their voices bold enough to shake the temple, filling the air with smoke as they did so. Her authority should take precedent. Her authority should be supreme, second only to the LORD. And Morrigan should follow in her stead.

She flew over the ocean, Father McGill safely stowed away. Darkness had crawled over the horizon, and she had nothing but the moon and stars to illuminate the seething waves. Wind slashed at her, and her telekinesis was pressed to remove the salt and rain from her robes and hat. The only parts of her that could be soaked, really. The rest was absolutely immune, the water slid off her without leaving residue, and her wings felt no heavier. The Seraph's song faded a little... her command should be supreme, she knew this. But a paradox burned in her mind.

Father McGill had commanded her to heal this sinner, bring her home, and plead forgiveness. He had told her that what she'd done was wrong.

The Seraph was doing exactly the same thing the priest had told her to stop doing.

Her mind was oscillating between these two facts.

The Seraph's authority should outstrip the priest... but she'd not issued direct orders, Morrigan had just been following in her example! A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. Surely she should imitate her teacher, even if that teacher was remaining distant?

The priest had given her the first steps on her journey to the LORD's side. The first rungs of her heavenly ladder. He'd taught her that she was an angel. He'd supplied his books for her to consume. He'd forgiven her infantile thrashing. And when she came to him again, he'd taught her calmly and fairly.

The Seraph was superior to him.

Father McGill had taught her more actively than the Seraph.

...maybe the issue was subtlety. She just needed to be better , and... no, no, the priest had rejected this line of thinking. The issue was substance, not accident .

She tried to simulate hypotheticals.

If the priest was wrong, and the Seraph was the right model to imitate, she could just keep doing what she'd been doing. Refine her methods, and keep honing her skills until she could redeem people in record time. Maybe try out that plan involving hundreds of tiny islands with their own blind sinners.

Or, if the Seraph was not the correct guidance to follow, then the priest would be her spiritual tutor. She'd need to obey his instructions, or those of his superiors. But this ran into more problems. Angels did not obey priests, angels obeyed the LORD. At no stage had she read of priests commanding angels. What prayer was holier? The prayers invented by earthly clerics, or the prayer uttered by the seraphim in God's presence? Obviously the latter.

And the idea that the Seraph was not someone she should mimic, held alongside the idea that the priest was not someone to slavishly obey... what did that leave her with?

What purpose did she have?

The idea of no purpose made her skull itch. It put all her data into question. Where was the beam in her eye? And how did she remove it?

The Seraph passed overhead, her song rising and falling...

The sea churned unceasingly beneath her...

A dread rose in her heart.

She wouldn't go back to being aimless. She wouldn't. Her mind had fractured under the weight, wouldn't have taken much longer for it to break completely. But she was running into an unsolvable paradox. Obey the Seraph's example, or become purposeless. She wanted to help Father McGill, but she wasn't meant to serve him, she was an angel, she had a higher purpose! If she was human, her breath would be coming faster. Her skin would've drained of colour. Her eyes would be darting left and right, searching for a way out.

As it was, she froze for a second. Darkness above. Darkness below. Darkness all around. Her brain tried to simulate the movement of the waves... and she shut that simulation down immediately. Too much data. Old fear rising in her, fear of being overwhelmed by junk information, fear of losing her memories because her mind decided simulating every air particle was the best use of resources. Wouldn't go back. Couldn't go back.

Morrigan didn't want to hurt every time she looked at a human.

Quietly, she started to pray as the deep roiled beneath her.

"Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven... give us this day, our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses. As we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen."

She trailed off. Trying to find the right words. Uncertainty was freezing her.

"Show me the way forward, LORD."

Her shriek choked off in her throat.

"Show me how I may continue to serve You. Any task You desire, I will perform. Show me Your will, and I swear, I will obey it without question or hesitation."

The Seraph was singing. She wasn't sure if this was satisfactory.

- analysis of weather patterns consistent with former projections. Fulcrum point imminent, circa. six rotations. Weather will not interfere with fulcrum point, no major players vulnerable to mid-range climatic variation. -

A pause.

- long-term assets in relevant region primed and secured. Organisational change imminent, counter-coup predicted and assured, all players accounted for. Response to counter-coup assured, all signals stable. Adjustment, influence hormonal balance of guards to ensure release has minimum of obstruction or alert. -

Another wonderful plan, no doubt. Another genius attempt to redeem the guilty. Why shouldn't Morrigan follow her example? Why?

Quietly, very quietly...

She began to float higher.

She had to. She had to ask. The seraphim of the LORD's temple had placed a burning coal on Isaiah's lips, redeeming him of sin, priming him to deliver burning truths to the people of Israel. The Holy Spirit moved as a flame, speaking through the prophets, and the seraphim were instruments of it. She had to see. Her faith was strong, she believed in God, she prayed to God, and continued to pray as she rose higher and higher towards the atmosphere.

Her wings flared, and she tasted the radiation dancing across her feathers. Less air. But stronger wind. None of it could damage her, not yet.

Morrigan would cure the sinner soon . She'd promised. But she had to, had to see the Seraph in person. Orbiting as she was, placid and perfect, singing her song of redemption to the world. If Morrigan could smile instinctually, she would. Her smile would be splitting her face open. But angels did not need to smile to one another - she knew this viscerally. They communicated in holy data, she could blare her happiness on a hundred wavelengths, she could project it in ways only a fellow angel could detect.

Quietly, one wing extended over her eyes. Another two strained to cover her feet. Just as the seraphim had done in the LORD's temple - cover the eyes for no-one may look upon the LORD's face. Cover the feet for any form of nakedness is shameful in the temple. None of this was mandatory, but she wanted to make it clear that she wanted to be like the Seraph.

On second thought... she started gathering air around herself. Air and heat. Telekinesis and her miracles, working in tandem. Her face locked up, her body language ended - no power to run them. Wanted the priest to be here, to see what she could see.

A few hours ago, she'd thought to keep the Seraph secret. But a priest would understand. A priest was accustomed to keeping the secrecy of confession, surely this would be understood as well? She couldn't show Father McGill the way she saw the world, but she could show the Seraph!

Darkness began to grow. The clouds started to end.

She was rising faster, faster, faster, the thin air screaming across her face...

Cold. Airless. She felt neither, but contained a little bubble nearby. Ready for Father McGill...

She could see her.

She could see the Seraph.

Floating placidly over the great dome of the sky.

Her true mentor. Her guiding saint. Kin to Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael. Immortal and ageless, here since the War in Heaven and the striking down of the great dragon. Singing praises to God in the highest, and on Earth peace to people of good will. Glorifying, worshipping, adoring. The final and most perfect apex of her species.

Moving almost too fast for her to catch up... and her song was beginning to blare louder, louder, louder...

- foreign body detected. Threat, minimal. Predictions... non-functional -

Truly. For an angel need not predict another angel! They were both loyal servants of the LORD, and showed their golden natures to one another as freely as peacocks showing their feathers. Giving freely and bountifully.

- adjusting course. Considering action. -

She was moving!

The Seraph was moving to meet her!

Morrigan bowed her head slightly, and adjusted her feathers. Made sure she was ready to greet her truest guide. The song rose, and danced around Morrigan's still form. Danced amidst the void where no natural sound could carry - for God dwelled in the universe, and hymns must be able to cross the vacuum. They must play on each celestial sphere, carrying through the dark, radiant proof of the beauty of all Creation...

This would resolve things.

She was sure of it.

And with an idle gesture... she returned the priest to this world.

McGill manifested in a sphere of air and heat, sheltering him from the ravages of this high place. Her telekinesis held him in place, even as his limbs moved frantically, his eyes widened at the sight of the Earth's curvature. For his sake, she smiled. All was well. All would be well. They were in the presence of one of God's own.

- new presence registered. Predictable, accounted for. Dismissed. -

A little... rude, perhaps, but who was she to question the LORD's own Seraph?

McGill was staring at the Seraph as she approached, devouring the distance with lazy ease. Floating downwards very, very slightly. Her face was coming into view, her perfect face, her long white hair... her immense wings that put Morrigan's to shame with their brightness and symmetry. Morrigan felt weak before her, weak and ugly. Imperfect beyond measure.

Silence.

McGill screamed .

She'd never heard terror like that before.

A twitch of uncertainty in her soul. Why was he afraid? He was a priest, he should be joyous to see the face of his Creator's servant. Morrigan certainly was.

- neutralising .-

Morrigan twitched.

And one of her wings tore away in a cloud of glittering crystal.

- neutralisation in progress .-

...

Why?

Chapter Text

6 - The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay such as be of upright conversation.

This had escalated too quickly.

Gone from bursting into a church, to imprisoning a woman on an island, to confronting the Seraph in space and getting her wing torn off... and it'd only been a day. Her mind dully calculated the trajectory she was on. Acceleration and intensification of all calamities. Exponentially worsening consequences, until a fatal fulcrum was reached and she spun off into the abyss. Too chaotic to live, a mutant never designed for stable existence. Sometimes the universe spat out particles like that - erratic things, strange things, incompatible with the world around them. They were neutralised quickly. Vanished from existence, and placidly forgotten about. Logically, the universe should really be getting around to spitting out an erratic entity. An anti-entity, colliding calamitously with anything normal and rational. Detonating in a haze of glory and confusion. By the end of the week, she'd be involved in the detonation of the Earth's core. By the end of the month, she'd be diving into the Sun to see if she could turn it into a black hole. But for now, she was going to have to settle with losing her wing to the Seraph.

...Morrigan couldn't feel pain. No nerves for it. No flood of flight-or-fight hormones, no instinctual desire to avoid the thing damaging her. For a moment, she was just floating in the void, a priest at her side, one of her wings being pulled away with vicious force. No pain.

But this hurt. It hurt quite a bit.

- mass reduction ongoing, 5% complete -

Her mind jittered, adjusting to the rapidly changing situation. Old hierarchies had to be discarded - the Seraph was not on her side, the Seraph was not someone she should aspire to become. Rewrite all designations, abandon all prior understandings. For a second, her brain wanted to come up with a new explanation for her, something to anchor her to reality, but... no, no, ignore that. Focus on survival. The Seraph was a threat, to herself, and...

The crystalline part of her brain shrieked .

Respond. Counterattack. Minimise damage.

Move.

Her power activated immediately, the right connections finally forming. Father McGill had spent a few seconds in space, and now he popped back to... wherever Morrigan put people. Now, move , she-

She'd lost another wing.

The Seraph was plucking her like a chicken.

Two chunks of brown matter flying downwards, turning red-hot as the atmosphere scraped against them. Had to move, had to-

-mass reduction continuing, resistance accounted for, 12% -

Immobilised. Seraph was coming closer with each second. Enormous. Immaculate. Even now, Morrigan couldn't help but admire the artistry of her construction, the arrangement of her wings, the sculpt of her face... the simulations she must be running on her hair , for it to move that way... her proportions were mathematically perfect, her eyes were composed of fractals more complex than her internal calculators could handle, and her voice... her voice was the most subtle, ingenious piece of artistry she'd ever seen. More than sound, more than a signal, catalysing from minute particles and expanding through them, sharpening itself down to a razor's edge by colliding with the edges of nuclei, scrambling against interference through a form of encryption she couldn't... there were so many layers. Her body was composed of intricately interwoven layers, some liquid, some solid, some occupying stranger states of matter still, and the fineness of the compression was awe-inspiring. Morrigan's own structure was woeful, full of errors and misalignments, everything so jagged. Every part of the Seraph made her want to tear her own wings out and willingly obliterate herself. She was a superior machine. So superior that Morrigan couldn't even see how the two of them could be linked, not in a meaningful way. So far up the great chain of being that Morrigan couldn't begin to count the links...

Morrigan was being killed by the most perfect thing she'd ever seen.

For a moment, Morrigan wanted to stay still. This was... this was real. This was reality , not faith. She could see everything wondrous about the Seraph, nothing hidden behind doctrine or metaphor... she saw just how inferior she was, and if she was so inferior, then why continue? Why should a half-broken, profoundly useless machine continue?

-resistance not found. Speculating. Speculation dismissed. Near-zero chance of threat. Continue. -

No. Had to make sure Father McGill survived. Another would not die for her failure.

...that was a sin? Surely that was a sin.

Sin. Virtue. Heavenly hierarchies. The LORD. Angel .

Everything snapped back into place.

Held on all sides. Force pressing inwards, crushing her wings and robes against her body. Couldn't move her eyes, couldn't move her fingers, couldn't move anything... but she could feel where the control ended. Like the Seraph, Morrigan was made of interwoven layers of material, and the telekinetic force only extended a layer or so in. Faltered after that. Morrigan's own telekinesis was much the same, bouncing off the Seraph after only one layer - a thin layer, too. Right, so, that was why her wings were being torn off. Rapid matter reduction. If the Seraph could , Morrigan had no doubt that her core would've been ripped out by now.

That gave her wiggle room.

Just a little.

Weakness found. Exploit .

Her telekinesis flexed... and the Seraph's flexed against it. For a second, the two were in balance, both of them projecting lines of intersecting force. It wasn't... like they were throwing invisible fists at one another, or trying to grapple. A network of spirals and joints, of force emanating from their centre. Her mind strained to comprehend the full matrix. Some planes of force tinier than an insect, others three-dimensional structures that flowed and altered repeatedly. Two of them, projecting two immensely complex invisible networks. Where they collided, physics strained. Light bent, gravity distorted, strange glittering particles frothed out of the joints... reality wasn't meant to be used this way, and it spared no effort in reminding the two of them of this. Could feel her inner layers grumbling as tiny particles shot through them, and her mind... margins of error manifested. No program could be totally trusted, not with her inner core being interfered with. Random digits appeared where none should, obscure points of data were retrieved from deep storage without her consent.

- ? -

Move. Now .

A second...

And she managed to slip. Just a little.

The gravitational pull of the Earth became a little more intense. Her own telekinesis refused to fight it. The Seraph had to exert a little more effort to hold her in place as she came closer and closer...

More wiggle room.

Her vision shivered as space distorted. Seraph approaching. Maybe a few seconds before she could pluck Morrigan out of the air with her bare hands...

- new priority: engage physically, neutralise forcibly, immediate lobotomisation required, planning entry point-

Great minds thought alike. Gravitational pull working to pull Morrigan down. Seraph trying to pull her up and immobilise her. Morrigan doing nothing but undermining her efforts.

A few more feet gained. Pull intensified. More, more, and... there .

Signals dancing through the air. Endless mobile communications, bouncing from satellite to satellite, beaming from the surface upwards. Little waveforms that, very occasionally, operated on a very precise wavelength. Interfering, very slightly, with the tapestry of warring forces. Enough to disturb a little, enough to...

There .

She slipped down a little more, and the grip of the Seraph weakened. Just enough. Just enough for Morrigan to begin to wrench herself free.

Her mind idly calculated the odds of this occurring.

...the number it returned was one she preferred not to visualise.

Air began to scream as she descended. If the Seraph descended with her, there was no chance of escape. No chance she could keep this battle going for longer than a minute. Gravitational pull growing, and... she started to use her telekinesis to alter the air, arrange it into a funnel directing her downwards with greater and greater speed...

There was no reason for her to get away. The Seraph would chase her. This was a fruitless exercise. The optimal response was to stop , and attempt to inflict as much damage as possible before termination. Or, surrender completely, and acknowledge that she'd never inflict a scratch on such a perfect machine. If she released the priest now , perhaps with some careful application of telekinesis, she could provide him with a narrow chance of survival. This satisfied all priorities, no? So...

...it was a sin to self-terminate. The wicked flee when no-one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion . Christ did not flee Gethsemane, though he could've, and easily. Pontius Pilate's sin was one of omission, of backing away from the difficult yet necessary act, assigning responsibilities to others. Comparing herself to her LORD and saviour... but Father McGill said that was fine. Said that the LORD was an example to follow in all things. An ideal to aspire to. Her mind was clicking back into gear... and she knew what she did next was pointless. She knew it was beyond irrelevant, that it would have no meaningful effect on her struggle. Her mouth opened. Her voice rose, barely audible over the screeching wind and the Seraph's howling song...

"Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit!"

- pointless exercise, cognitive centres registered as damaged -

The wicked could never comprehend the just!

"As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end! Amen! "

- dismiss audible data, irrelevant -

Oh, she was trying not to listen! But the voice of the LORD would never be dimmed!

Morrigan might well perish here, her attempt for escape might well be wasted... why was she praying? There was no mechanical reason. A paradox emerged in her thinking: self-termination was considered unacceptable. Survival in this scenario seemed unlikely, escape seemed pointless to attempt. Logically, then, she should use her energy in combat, and attempt to damage the Seraph before she was torn apart. The Seraph was following, escape was impossible. Even the priest might not escape, not at this height, not in these conditions - and the Seraph could pluck him out of the air, rip him apart, with Morrigan helpless to prevent her. By all rights, she should accept her destruction and fight , but...

But...

The crystalline part of her brain shrieked calculations, simulations, the logical conclusions that came from both.

The organic part was praying.

The organic part sheltered around a warmth she couldn't quite describe. No part of her crystalline brain could articulate it satisfactorily. An irrational belief that she shouldn't be thinking about her body, about this crude lump of malformed layers... she should be thinking about her immortal soul, and about the judgement she'd face in the beyond. When she stood before her LORD, would she say that she ended her days in wrath? Or would she say that she ended her days... her day with prayer on her lips and faith in her heart? Truly attempting to deliver His priest away from certain death?

Have faith that the LORD would deliver her from her errors. Have faith that the LORD would protect his priest. Have faith...

She plunged lower, the ocean slowly coming into sight, grey and churning. From this height, it seemed completely still, a frozen monochrome mirror... as she dropped lower, the waves started to move, almost in slow-motion. A glitter of foam in the moonlight. A shiver of motion that she could barely perceive. She prayed quietly as she fell, ignoring the Seraph completely. No words for that deceiver, none at all. The LORD's prayer, the Gloria, the Gloria Patri, a Hail Mary for good measure, before reciting the entirety of the Creed. Her voice never wavered, never betrayed her... was this panic? It might well be panic.

LORD, forgive me for being deceived. Forgive me for my weakness, and for drawing one of your shepherds into such danger. Forgive me for my failings as an angel. I ask nothing. I expect nothing. I only confess my guilt to you. I confess, to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters...

Behind the prayers, her confession continued unceasing, as the grey ocean came closer, closer...

The wind rose higher and higher, louder and louder...

And...

- further pursuit risks influencing monitoring/manipulation of fulcrum points-

Morrigan almost froze in mid-air. Almost.

-blind spot acknowledged and categorised. Accounted for. Return to standard position. -

.The Seraph paused, hovering just within the atmosphere... before beginning to ascend once again. Rapidly. Eyes turned upwards, wings closing around her body like a protective cocoon.

...Morrigan was beneath her notice. A tiny point of irritation that had briefly invaded her realm. To be attended to curtly, and to be dismissed just as quickly. Morrigan didn't dare believe this was it, she began to encourage the air further, funnelling herself down, down, down, the waves approaching... surely the Seraph was lying, surely she would continue...

When the waters closed around Morrigan, she began to believe the pursuit was over.

When she sank deeper still, dragging the water around herself in a tight bubble, flowing around her body, letting it collapse down on her head to push her deeper still...

She came to know it was over.

Her prayers stopped.

Her confession ended.

The deep was all around. Darkness and the occasional silvery body. Crushing pressure that her body barely felt. Telekinesis holding the dampness back from her robes and hat, keeping her pristine... if you didn't look at the two wing-stumps, she'd almost look normal . Like nothing had happened at all.

Like she hadn't just... blundered so abominably .

For a second, silence. Disbelief that it would end this way. Emotions ran strangely through her. The immediate response was to subject the world to a thousand calculations, a million simulations, everything she could possibly run through her overworked brain... confirm the Seraph had left, re-confirm this, re- re-confirm this, monitor the Seraph's song as she continued to move away, mark this trajectory, confirm it, examine the sky for any hint of duplicity, examine the deep for any hint of emerging threats the Seraph had planted here, examine her own mind for some kind of infection, maybe the Seraph had fatally deluded her with some cancerous signal, examine her body for lingering damage, examine the stumps of her wings to make sure nothing had been planted there, examine her powers for signs of interference, examine her brain for structural damage, examine each and every one of her body's layers, examine her telekinesis... run simulation upon simulation, test upon test, until her face began to spasm and her senses started to fail under the weight of them all.

Had the Seraph left?

Would the Seraph stay away?

Had anything been left behind?

...in order, no, yes, no.

Safe. Somehow. Emotions were strange for her, hard to compute, hard to properly frame. Had she been terrified? Was terror an emotion she was capable of feeling? There'd been no moment of... panic, the kind of unfettered panic that destroyed reason. Doubted she was capable of feeling that. Her hierarchies had been disrupted. Her old framing had been disintegrated. Abruptly, she had to resort to a more primal pattern - self-preservation, at all costs. Other hierarchies flickered back on a second later - preserving others, engaging with her LORD through the medium of faith. But... panic was something else entirely. Surprised? No, the lurch in her mind when old assumptions were deleted... there'd been no attempt to hold onto them, and no void to sink into. The Seraph had been on her side, and suddenly she hadn't.

...why?

For the first time since this began... why?

What did she do wrong?

And why would the Seraph let her go?

The Seraph had chosen to leave her, chosen to abandon the pursuit, but... that had been a matter of practicality, yes? Attending to other matters, considering Morrigan beneath notice, something along those lines. The crystalline part of her brain settled on this as an explanation, but the organic part needed more , it needed meaning, it... faith. Yes, faith. Place this event in a broader context of belief and worship. One part of her railed against the idea that faith had saved her, but... hadn't it? The LORD had preserved her, the LORD had forgiven... no, the LORD had seen fit to allow her to persevere here, on this sinful earth. To continue to do his work with the log removed from her eye, yes, that must be it! That must be it!

Mustn't it?

...but why had the Seraph attacked her to begin with?

Why had Morrigan ever placed her faith in that figure?

If her faith in the Seraph had been misplaced... she began to double-check all her thoughts. Contamination. Circular logic. Errors in information. Repeated omissions of vital data. Nothing she could see... but that was the way of this sort of thing, wasn't it? She'd not seen the Seraph coming until it was almost too late. Her belief had been maintained right until the end... right until her wing was torn off. All the warning signs ignored. The next calamity would occur without her knowledge, she'd run straight into it, and maybe the LORD would favour her enough to let her go with two wings lost. Or maybe she'd be obliterated, and everyone around her.

Her mind was running in circles. Doubting herself. Doubting her logic. Doubting her faith. Before she reminded herself that her faith needed to be maintained, and she uttered a few muffled Our Fathers into the dark water. Startling a handful of fish every time. Faith had preserved her, faith . Even if she could... theoretically break it down to a series of logical progressions, that didn't mean the inciting incident wasn't miraculous. Why now? Why should the Seraph's plans demand her attention now? Why not five minutes from now? Why not five days?

The LORD had arranged things to save her.

...somehow, she intended to pay that back. Somehow.

Oh.

Right.

Speaking of paying things back.

She had work to do. Suppress all her doubt under labour , that was it. She could figure out... everything as time went on. The deep gave way around her, and she rose quietly , eyes fixed on the sky. Hm. In fact... best to move a little. Navigate underwater to a distant location, then rise up. Keep the Seraph guessing. Was it arrogance to think that she could fool the Seraph?

...probably.

A dull weight hung in Morrigan as she pointlessly roved around, occasionally coming close to the surface, then retreating even deeper and crawling around the sea bed for agonisingly long minutes. Her wings felt leaden. Her brain felt slow . The errors caused in her data, the tiny fragments shredded by her clash with the Seraph, were being repaired by automatic processes... but it felt like she was just highlighting all her own failings. Examining every flaw in her structure, every lapse, every weakness. Everything about the Seraph made her trustworthy. Angelic, permitted to hover over the Earth, invisibly guiding, working on the same wavelength as Morrigan... all her data said she should trust the Seraph. Everything right up until her wings were torn off.

The flaw lay in herself. Baked deep into her mind. No removing it.

Sin.

Morrigan was stained with sin. And no amount of confession would get it out. Even if the LORD forgave it, could he remove it? Her sin had roots, and she doubted if she could dig them out.

Time.

She flew upwards. Broke the surface in a shower of silver droplets. Any remnant of her passage removed by the ever-cycling waves in less than a minute. The water on her robes slid away, pushed by telekinesis, and no water ever stuck to her flesh or her feathers. A moment, and it was like she'd just materialised here, above the shivering deep. Her eyes dead as slate, her wings drooping, her hat slightly askew. Somehow she kept failing to correct that. It drifted down the priority list, submerged beneath everything else. Save the sinner on the island. Retrieve the priest. Calculate what the Seraph was . Atone for her sins. Adjusting her hat became... so very low on that list, it might as well be forgotten. An irrelevant task when she had so very much to do.

Time passed.

She perceived little of it. Charted the movement of minutes, and the slow gathering of light... but nothing more. Her thoughts remained stagnant and circular, her data remained inconclusive. The Seraph was absent.

Slowly, the island came into sight. Good, her memories hadn't been too heavily damaged by that battle. One thing to feel positive about.

Morrigan came to a stop just above a sheer cliff, the bleak mass of the ruined lighthouse looming above. The wind scoured across the grass, and the dim light of the sky played on the dew. Each gust sent a tiny shower to the ground, glittering like liquid silver. Silence. No sign of Ms. Melody Jurist, but Morrigan hadn't exactly looked very hard. Just... needed a second. Apparently the last hour underwater hadn't been enough, but one last second would definitely do the job, that would really fix her brain.

...no putting it off.

Her hand extended.

Didn't even muster the willpower to declare something suitably grand.

A pop of displaced air, and Father McGill was back on God's own earth.

He hadn't really stopped screaming. The sound echoed over the shallow hills, and was swallowed up by the mindless roar of the sea. Took him a second to realise he wasn't in space, and the nearby angelic being was one of the nice ones.

LORD, she hoped she was one of the nice ones...

He paused.

She expected him to scream a little more. Maybe vomit. It was an appropriate response, given all he'd... no. His back stiffened. His face hardened. He wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead, took a few deep breaths, and spoke in a very, very quiet voice. His eyes kept darting around. His breath was still rapid and shallow. His heart rate was above normal levels. Hormones were flooding his system, and she could see where aged receptors were being strained, where old muscles were burning with adrenaline they weren't meant to handle. His heart... there were certain flaws with it, flaws that could be exacerbated by stress. Her mind idly tried to calculate how much time this little sojourn had shortened his lifespan by, how many minutes, how many hours, how many years ...

Morrigan's head sank down, and she stared glumly at the ground. Didn't want to see more data, didn't want to calculate a reliable result. Her mind stalled, and spat out a result with enormous margins of error. Easily dismissed.

Coward.

"...Morrigan..."

His voice was unbearably faint.

"Yes, father."

"...do you... mind explaining..."

He trailed off. Few more deep breaths. Something clicked, a flash behind his eyes.

"Christ almighty, are you alright? You're not..."

"I have only lost two wings."

"...is that bad?"

"It is tolerable."

She didn't know if they'd regrow. Silently, she hoped they wouldn't. Morrigan's mind whirred with simulations, calculations, anything that might compute a better way of expressing things... no. Accept the sin, confess it fully and freely. McGill was opening his mouth to keep going, ask her more questions about her health, her well-being, the nature of their escape, details that were irrelevant, she wasn't thinking about her body, she was thinking about her immortal soul.

"The Seraph was a false angel. I believed her to be true, that her example was one to follow. I was wrong. I do not ask for forgiveness, because I do not deserve any. Nonetheless, I offer this confession freely. In time, I am sure my LORD will judge me and weigh up what I did, and what I will yet do. But-"

McGill spat into the grass. Grumbled to himself.

...was spitting a godly act?

She actually didn't naturally produce saliva, not exactly necessary. Wonder if she could start ... no, pointless. Just gnaw off a piece of matter from inside her face, then spit that out. Should suffice.

"Don't harp on. But don't do that again. Ever. Miracle we're alive. Legitimate miracle, I don't care if it never gets recognised, I'm recognising it, nuts to Rome. I forgive you for almost getting us killed. I don't forgive you for being an idiot. More than that, an obstinate idiot."

She deserved this. LORD, she deserved this.

"From now on, some ground rules. They aren't in the Bible, I think, and I'm not backing them up with quotes. But one of us willingly went to space and said hello to the Simurgh, and the other one didn't, and I think that gives the latter some strong bloody authority. Agreed?"

She nodded dully. Name categorised. Simurgh .

Didn't even sound remotely angelic...

"One, no talking to the Simurgh . I don't care if she says 'all is forgiven, come on up to have a chat', do not talk to her . Second... no. Two , when you get given advice by priests, bishops, whatever, you listen and take bloody heed, you don't start throwing the Bible at us, you don't get uppity , and you definitely don't drag them to see the Simurgh . Not under any circumstances. Because, again, remember rule one. No talking. Do you understand so far?"

She nodded many, many, many times. She understood everything, and she was accepting it, she was integrating it into her every neuron and neuron-equivalent. No Simurgh. Listen to priests. The last one was... she'd already been trying that, but... no, no, just... learn to shut up. Learn to be silent and learn. Treat priests as fonts of living tradition and common-sense interpretation. Good to know. Very good to know.

"Finally, three, when you're figuring out what to do with your life, don't assume it involves improving people. In fact, try to assume that you're never in possession of total knowledge. Make sure , just... don't go around doing things because they felt right at the time. Don't be impulsive, fine, that's rule three."

Her nods were endless and vigorous, only telekinesis keeping her hat in place.

"...now, again. Are you alright?"

"I am functional."

"Are you alright? "

"...I..."

She trailed off. Alright? Her body worked. She'd flown here. The Seraph... Simurgh was still above, but didn't seem inclined to descend. Morrigan oscillated between paranoia (the Simurgh was about to come down and destroy her) and self-flagellation (Morrigan was beneath her notice and had already been forgotten). Lurched from one side to the other, and it left her with a faint sense of queasiness. Mentally... no, mentally she was flawed, deeply and profoundly. All her little programs and routines were working, but a deeper issue lingered under all of them. Her mouth twitched, hesitating on what word needed saying.

"...what is the Simurgh? Is she an angel?"

McGill blinked, and reached for his pockets, fumbling for a pack of cigarettes. Morrigan could already sense that he lacked a proper tool for lightning them, and conjured a flame from her finger. Just a tiny one. A grumbled 'thanks', a puff of smoke, a second of silence.

"No. She's not an angel."

"What species is she? How may I categorise her?"

Her voice began to rise, just a little. Louder. Shriller.

"All things must be categorised, father! The LORD has given names to many people and places in his time, and these names are marked out for eternity! Abram and Sarai became Abraham and Sarah, Jacob became Israel, assigning something a proper name is necessary for it to be known in the eyes of the LORD! What is the Simurgh's category?"

She pressed closer.

" What is she? "

McGill stared at her, his eyes still flickering more than they should, his cigarette burning down very quickly indeed.

"...no clue."

"But-"

"No clue. Endbringer. That's it. There's two others. Given that we don't know what they are , the Pope's said they're included under the general idea of parahumans. Had a Papal Bull about it and everything, made sure none of us were calling parahumans 'miracle-workers' or anything. Endbringers are the same, they're just unrepentantly evil. That's the Church's stance."

He rattled this off. Assumed others had asked him in the past, maybe concerned parishioners or sinful challengers who wished to expose some... some gap in the Church's doctrine, some lapse. Like they could ever find any, hmph. Endbringer. Parahuman. Not adequate terms. They lacked theological justifications, they lacked foreshadowing in Scripture. Not an angel, though. That was clear. So what? Could Morrigan think of her as a human , a parahuman gone rogue, or... no, no, that wasn't it, not at all. The two communicated on the same wavelength, they had similar biologies, and Morrigan was an angel, she knew that with certainty, so...

A horrific realisation started to steal over her.

It couldn't... no, there...

"Is this that island where that lady lives?"

Morrigan twitched, coming back to reality for a moment.

"Oh, yes. Nearby, I believe."

"Good."

He remained still.

An expression of irritation crossed his face.

"Give me a moment."

"...are you well, father? Or-"

"My legs are being a bit frozen, they'll unstick in a second. Shouldn't have stood still, should've kept moving around, kept the blood flowing."

"May I carry y-"

"No."

They waited. Only took a minute, and they were off. Morrigan soared overhead briefly, checking the landscape for... there. Signs of activity near the lighthouse, even the remnants of a crude fire. A small spark of relief lit up in her chest. Melody Jurist, for all her infinite failings, had adapted well to being blind - and that meant Morrigan hadn't left a shrieking invalid alone on a cold island, which the priest had told her was definitely a bad thing. Definitely. Her eyes narrowed, her focus intensified... track the movements over the grass, the footprints that remained in the soft earth, extrapolate a trajectory... oh, this was satisfactory. Simple data gathering and extrapolation. She was good at this, she was very satisfactory at this.

...almost disappointed when she actually found Ms. Jurist. Satisfied at doing a good job. Dissatisfied that it was over. The LORD was punishing her for her many sins.

"Father! I have sighted the sinner! Permission to approach her in the name of God and Rome?"

McGill glared.

"No. Definitely not. Let me get over there, you'll probably give the poor woman a heart attack."

"She is armed, father!"

"...noted. She's a... cape, right?"

"Indeed!"

He hummed.

"...go and announce I'm coming."

"Very well!"

Oh, work, work, work, she loved work. Work was simple, work was cleansing, work distracted from all the intersecting priorities that gnawed at her cognition. Even so, as she flew towards Ms. Jurist's hiding spot, she had to mull over the Simurgh. The False Seraph. She had an idea, it just... it would take a leap of logic, and it would demand actions, urgent actions. Not sure if she was... maybe she should consult McGill first, that would be wise. But first, a sinner awaited. Ms. Jurist was huddling in the shadow of a hill, a little ways away from the lighthouse - ah, the blindness had cultivated wisdom! Truly, she understood that sleeping in a decrepit structure on the verge of collapse was poor, and this understanding could only blossom when she had no other distractions! Presumably. Morrigan tried to stop justifying blinding her, the priest had told her it was bad.

...didn't do Paul any harm...

"Greetings, sinner!"

Ms. Jurist responded... quickly. A shriek of ' knew it ', an elegant leap from the ground, a vicious twist at her waist... and a sickle was flying towards her face, projected with deadly, unerring force. It hit... and bounced clean off. Morrigan frowned.

"You have not rectified your wrath."

Ms. Jurist had run away. Was there a plan? Did she intend to injure her in some way, shape or form? Or... no, no, she was going towards the lighthouse, bounding over the ground like a feral cat, hissing endless vulgarities between her teeth. Her eyes, unseeing and blank, stared dead ahead, and the air was filled with her litany of whistles and clicks. Ah. Morrigan was meant to go to the lighthouse, where some plan had been made to collapse it on her head. That wouldn't work, she was fairly sure of that fact. But goodness , Ms. Jurist couldn't be allowed to injure herself! Morrigan swooped , and her telekinesis lashed out. Ms. Jurist, to her credit, had realised this might happen. Hm. This would be a good time to rectify their relationship.

"You are flipping with much grace!"

"Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you! "

"And you have adapted splendidly to your loss of sight!"

" I will cut out your cunt and barbecue it while you watch! "

"A priest has come! Please, you may greet him, speak with him, and then I shall heal your sight!"

That almost made the flipping maniac pause, just outside the lighthouse's crumbling structure. Her head twitched. Morrigan approached, keeping a respectful distance to make sure-

Oh.

She was running right for the priest.

Now, Morrigan didn't like to be unnecessarily harsh. The beam had just been removed from her own eye, and she wasn't going to assume she only had one beam. Might well be quite a few more. But she got the feeling Ms. Jurist was going to try and hold Father McGill hostage in exchange for something or other. And that wouldn't do, the man was already stressed enough. Morrigan sighed internally, and...

And a second later, she was colliding with Ms. Jurist, placidly wrapping her wings around the struggling human. Keeping her utterly immobilised, no matter what her remaining sickle was trying to accomplish. Goodness, she was struggling, and it was... she was going to hurt herself if she kept going like this! She needed to be calm , she needed... no, couldn't just stop the oxygen supply to her brain, that would be dangerous, and rude . Morrigan thought of what could make humans calm, what could inspire their better impulses...

" Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a sinner like me! I once was lost, but now I'm found -"

Her struggles had ceased! The hymn had worked! Seemed to be mostly born of disbelief, but Morrigan knew there was a core of basic admiration for music that praised the divine. In the second of reprieve, Morrigan tightened her wings, adjusted her position, applied her telekinesis... and Ms. Jurist was bound, trussed, and ready for redemption.

And healing. McGill came labouring over, another cigarette stuffed in his mouth, and his eyes narrowed at the sight of the flailing cage-faced woman.

"That's the one?"

"It is! Indeed!"

Her wings twitched, aching to flutter a little.

"Have I done well? Is this a satisfactory outcome? Is this behaviour that a proper, LORD-abiding angel would engage in?"

A hint of desperation entered the air. She needed to be good at this, if she couldn't make amends for her errors, then what was she? A good angel would do this sort of thing, a good angel would succeed in restraining a sinner as requested, a good angel could improve after crumbling to such a depth! Please, she needed to know she was good .

"...does she need to be on the ground?"

Ms. Jurist hissed quietly, her throat so damaged she could barely be understood around all the rasps and gurgles.

"No, I'm fine, this crazy bitch just jumped on me, tell her to let me go, we can talk like civilised people, can you help a bitch in need, man?"

"She is still armed. And empowered."

"Fuck you."

McGill sighed.

"Fine. Just... listen, I'm sorry my friend-"

She had a friend!

Morrigan had a friend!

"-did all this to you. She's going to fix your eyes, then we're going back to shore, where you can be arrested by nice, normal people who don't blind the people they take in. They won't even put you on an island."

"Fuck you too! How about both of you faggots go and-"

"Father, may I heal her?"

"Go nuts."

She did, indeed, go absolutely almond. Her telekinesis stretched out, entering Ms. Jurist... and there it was. The little thing she'd... not quite severed, just put a little out of joint . Perfectly easy to repair, really. Well, perfectly easy for her. She got the feeling it would be rather harder for the less-miraculous. Only angels could...

...only angels could do this to people. Could read their lifeways, and extend invisible limbs to heal them. Only angels sang on a certain wavelength of thought. Only angels were made of compressed layers of material. She'd done a good job here, and... and that gave her a little surge of inward credibility. Chains of logic were allowed to progress unfettered, and she didn't feel the need to ask the priest constantly. Just enough for her to reach conclusions of her own, without relying on him. Oh, she'd confirm once she was done, but... she was definitely an angel, an angel did this sort of thing, an angel did this sort of thing well . The Simurgh must be an angel, it was the only logical conclusion!

And one angel would behave the way the Simurgh did.

One angel would react so violently to one of the LORD's own entering her immediate vicinity.

A deceiver.

A fallen creation.

A morning, wandering star, leading people astray from their paths.

She slipped the right structures into the right places, and Ms. Jurist swore repeatedly as her vision returned. Vulgarity was a subspecies of many sins, and in front of a priest, no less. Unsatisfactory. As the woman thrashed with greater, more co-ordinated vigour... Morrigan's head tilted upwards. Ah, she had a wing over one eye, best remove that... and stare at him with both . Show him the fullness of her conviction. McGill shifted uneasily under the weight of her gaze.

"Father, I believe I know what the Simurgh is."

McGill blinked. Ms. Jurist froze.

"...uh-huh."

"Retard."

Morrigan ignored the sinner. Her gaze intensified.

"She is an angel. I know this. I am an angel, and the two of us are too similar. Far too similar for my comfort, father, but... my comfort is not a priority. We are similar, and of the same species."

McGill didn't seem to like that idea. Ms. Jurist cackled roughly, and spat a few more words.

"Go on, ask the Fallen, see what Mama Mathers thinks, see if she'll let you fuck her ass and call her Samantha, go on, just-"

McGill grunted.

"Do you want a cigarette, young lady."

"Yeah, fuck it."

The little stick of tobacco was enough to stop her talking, at least. Morrigan leaned closer, almost drowning the woman beneath her in brown feathers. Only a tiny puff of smoke served as confirmation that she was alive and safe.

"We are of the same species. I know this. I truly know this. And if we are both angels, and I am pledged to serve the LORD... and she found me grossly offensive..."

"Morrigan..."

"I know what she is! I know! There is only a single conclusion! And her strength, her immaculate construction, her wisdom ... oh, she cannot be part of the lesser orders, she must be of a vaunted choir! And from a vaunted choir at her apex, to a ruinous order at her nadir. Yes, yes, I know! "

"Morrigan, please, slow down, you're-"

Her voice rose. Her excitement was overcoming her.

"She is the morning star! She is the old serpent! Oh, she wears many faces, this I know, and she whispers many lies! She is the one who ensured poor humanity would be banished from Eden, she is the one who wandered the desert with our LORD and spoke poison into his holy ears, she is the fallen one! And now she reigns above the world, obscuring our sight of God!"

McGill spluttered. Ms. Jurist was cackling around her cigarette. And Morrigan rose to a fever pitch.

"I know her name!"

A pause.

"And it is Lucifer! "

Her gaze flickered upwards.

"I know the name of the serpent! And I pronounce that it is her! Of course an angel must be sent here, and doubtless many others! Sent down to shelter mankind from her perversity and perfidy! Sent down to guide you in your war against this old, old enemy! And by the choirs of Heaven, by the Four Evangelists, by the angels and saints, by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I swear that I will do whatever it takes to defend you from her wickedness! This is my penance! This is my purpose!"

She screamed to the sky, a day of madness, danger, and revelation expressing itself in two simple words.

"BE AFRAID!"

Chapter Text

7 - I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well

An interesting point on Morrigan's flight.

She didn't flap. She didn't ebb and flow. She didn't even angle herself horizontally. No need - her movement was based on telekinesis, she just picked herself up and moved wherever she wanted to go. Wind resistance didn't really play a meaningful role. The only inconvenient thing about inclement wind was that it ruffled her robes and knocked her hat to and fro, so she immobilised both of them with the power of her mind. So, unflapping wings, unruffling robs, untilting hat, unmessing hair, and an expression that could be compared to the ruins of the Tower of Babel. Flat and incomprehensible. Floating along her merry way at a perfect 90-degree angle to the ocean, with no variation, no adjusting course, not even a solitary glance around to make sure she was going in the right direction. She knew she was going in the right direction, and moving forward at a constant speed was the most efficient way of pursuing it.

...idly, she wondered if it would be better to flap.

Her wings twitched.

Her stumps quivered.

The experiment ended with a resounding 'no'. Hm. Maybe all the other angels floated along like this. No, no, there was... Father McGill had been flapping around when she'd exposed him to the Simurgh, to Satan , and there'd been a real rush of adrenaline in the man. Wind in his hair, limbs cartwheeling, heart racing... she wanted to clear as many beams from her eye as possible, see, and that meant seeing things the way humans did. To Morrigan, flying was flying. Nothing special about it. To humans, it was apparently faintly terrifying. Didn't understand the terror - if you were in the air, and unable to fly, then flapping about wasn't going to do anything. Just sit still and wait for the ground to approach, don't waste energy screaming. But... anyway.

Maybe if she... no, the sensory data was flat and sterile. Nothing to go on there.

No, wait. What if... she temporarily locked away her memories of past flight, then shrank her temporal perception to increments of a second, and deleted all memories of flight that formed. Then she could experience it for the first time, and...

No.

Didn't do anything.

She just kept flying. It came too naturally.

...alright, assign her flight to a subroutine. Lock that out of her control for a certain length of time. Temporarily lock away memories of flying, and making the subroutine, then-

Oh! Oh! Oh!

Thrilling!

Thrilling? No!

Exceedingly strange! Awful! No! Falling! Flying? Air simulations out of joint, logic centres not processing, how? How? How? She was flying outside of her control, this did not accord to a system of rationality! Ah! Stop! By the LORD, let this nightmare end, and-

The subroutine's timer ended, and all her memories flowed back.

Her expression flattened. Her hat sealed itself back to her head.

...not sure what conclusions she could draw from that. But she filed the experience away nonetheless. Flying without being aware of flying as a normal activity was unsatisfactory. Humans must experience this all the time. The LORD imposed so many trials on their frail minds and bodies...

The flight back to the shore was easy enough. Uneventful. And it went by startlingly quickly... once Morrigan's mind was properly focused, once old paradoxes had been cleared up, she could finally cool everything down. When there were jobs left to do, especially jobs that she didn't want to do, her mind could never sleep. It had to work on something. Otherwise she lacked an excuse. Now, though... now it was peaceful. The Simurgh was the Lightbringer, the Morning Star, the Old Serpent. Wearing a new face, perhaps, but the evidence was very compelling. Superficially angelic. Deeply convincing. Opposed to the forces of the LORD. Manipulating humanity towards darker ends. The fact that she looked so... so wonderful , and was so wonderful once you examined her internal structure, was proof that she was the highest of the LORD's angels. Once. If she'd only remained loyal, she'd have been the brightest of all the LORD's stars. She'd even been able to tempt Morrigan! Only something primordial could do that, something which had been around on the first days of creation. Yes, the Simurgh was Lucifer, and not some lesser devil. After all, a lesser devil would've perished against Morrigan! Morrigan was a good angel, so it would take an exceptionally bad devil to defeat her!

Clarifying that the Simurgh was definitely at the top (bottom?) of the infernal hierarchy was, in all honestly, all that concerned her on the way back. Ironing out a few details, really. Beyond that... her mental hierarchies were repaired, her vision of the universe had realigned, her thoughts whirred in pleasing lines from the core of her being.

...she wished Ms. Jurist could fly. Or the priest. Neither of them were very chatty in their little folded portion of reality.

Morning had come. Morrigan had officially turned one day old. Only encountered Lucifer once in all that time! Not good, but better than twice! And yes , she'd experienced one temptation into evil by the Prince of Lies, but she'd also experienced one priest-approved redemption. Which put her nice and neutral. Theoretically, she could experience this level of corruption/redemption every day for the rest of eternity, and she'd still be allowed to muddle through Purgatory without much difficulty.

The city approached. Grey and bustling. Far more humans than yesterday! Oh, splendid! That meant she could preach to so very- no, no, Father McGill said preaching was something she needed to work on. Not sure how she was meant to work on it without doing it a few times, but oh well. She supposed he knew best. Being aware of what Satan looked like when the angel didn't was... well, it was a point in his favour. Nothing she saw in the city concerned her, not immediately. The Lightbringer's song was distant, focused on other areas - whatever had concerned her here was long-since gone, or at least diminished in importance. Hopefully removing Ms. Jurist had done... something . Probably hadn't, the logical part of her brain murmured. Morrigan cruised to a stop, her feet grazing the water as she came in to land. The city... in the light of day, with her mind clearer, she found it annoying . There was such a lack of mathematical precision about it. A lack of standardisation, a lack of optimisation. The streets were designed erratically, seemingly for the passage of humans, animals, and vehicles - three templates that refused to mesh correctly. The buildings were higgledy-piggledy, and...

She didn't like them.

Morrigan did not like the buildings in this city. It was hard to express why , admittedly. Aesthetic preference wasn't something she'd properly generated yet, her hierarchies of appearance were undefined. Needed more data from trusted sources. But mathematically, there was something off . Why were the ceilings so high? Why were the routes within so poorly planned? Why have doors larger than any human, animal, or vehicle? Indeed, why did the doors all go that way, folding inwards was woefully inefficient. All doors should slide. The emphasis on overly large windows was also a profound flaw, proper light flow could be ensured in smaller, neater, less delicate ways. How much space did humans really need to thrive? Honestly, if the buildings were that large, of course the humans inside were going to be wasteful and sprawling, their environment was encouraging this sort of response. A proper city would be composed of hyper-efficient monoliths. Small square windows, and straight hallways leading away to convey the light deeper. Low ceilings, and roadways emerging at multiple elevations! Yes, a proper city would have a network of train tracks emerging from different levels of buildings, meshing immaculately at all points, each train working to an algorithmically adjusted timetable. Mine all materials from the same area to ensure a minimum of conflicting styles and standards - great grey monolith-hives, bristling with train tracks. Enormous clocks mounted everywhere, too! Humans had poor internal senses of time, they needed many clocks with many bells to ensure their biological timers were properly tuned.

Humans built poor cities. Morrigan would do so much better.

...maybe later.

A pop , and two figures staggered out of thin air, joining her on the thin strip of concrete dividing the sea from the land. Ms. Jurist glanced around wildly, cage rattling, hands flying to her sickles... Morrigan placidly held the weapons in place with her mind, and allowed the woman to exhaust her strength trying to wrench them outwards. Father McGill grunted, spat, shrugged, looked around, and hummed. Well, Morrigan did all her little systems checks and logic examinations to readjust after a moment of intense stress, presumably this served a similar purpose. Again, though, she wondered if spitting was something the Church encouraged, and if she should participate...

She gnawed at the inside of her cheek, trying to worry away a piece of matter she could really hock up.

No, wait, business to attend to.

"So... first port of call, we hand her over to the PRT. That seems fair."

"Oh, fuck you. And fuck the bird. Fuck both of you."

Morrigan smiled serenely at Ms. Jurist - oh, no, wait, she was preparing to run away. Better immobilise her legs. The woman took this poorly, but confined herself to only a handful of choice words. Morrigan's smile was unending.

"Do not worry, child. The first step to repentance is acknowledging your sins and the consequences they bring."

A thought.

"Father, may I minister to her when she is incarcerated?"

"If she wants you to."

"Child, may I-"

"Fuck off."

"I accept your rebuke, and present my other cheek for you to strike."

"You've immobilised my kamas ."

"Sickles, child."

" Kamas ."

McGill weighed in.

"...not to be rude, but they are sickles."

Ms. Jurist stuck her jaw out churlishly.

" Kamas . They're Japanese, used in a bunch of schools of martial arts, super traditional. I got these from some real Jap, like, authentic and shit, he carved them out of iron sand, folded them more than twenty times, they're completely real. You wouldn't know, you're a pussy-ass bitch-weasel who hasn't fought or fucked anything in your entire life. Go ahead and lock me up, you'll never know the thrill of... stop ignoring me."

McGill appeared to be dialling something on his plastic communicator. Ms. Jurist spat (oh, good! She was engaging in an activity approved by a priest! This was a sign of progress!), grumbled, and slumped to the ground. Stared morosely at the ocean. Morrigan floated closer.

"Be at peace. I offer my apologies, once again, for my poor treatment of you."

No reply.

"...this shall be a good chance for reflection! One of the Evangelists was a prisoner, you know. And Joseph was imprisoned in Egypt. Really, imprisonment has a long and storied tradition of virtuousness. I'm sure you'll-"

"Please. Just shut up. I'm making up some way of spinning this to my cellmate so I don't die of embarrassment."

"You needed to be subdued by an angel of the LORD! That is a deed in and of itself!"

"I told you to shut up."

"...would you like to sing a hymn? I'm still building my repertoire, but I do know Amazing Grace, if-"

"God-boy, can you tell your fucking adopted tumour to kindly jump in a sausage-maker?"

"Morrigan, leave the Neo-Nazi alone. PRT's on their way."

He seemed to realise something.

"...don't... uh... look, they're going to be asking you some questions, most likely, and I just want to clarify some things. First, cooperate with them, be polite, but don't feel obligated to go along with them, or do anything you feel uncomfortable with. Second, don't try and convert them. Third, don't be offended if any of them aren't Catholic. Fourth, if they ask you where you're living, or how you're getting by-"

"I will state that I live on the LORD's bounty! Angels have no need for earthly food!"

"...wonderful. So, just tell them you don't need to eat-"

"Or sleep! Indeed, father, I do not require food, nor water, nor rest, nor shelter. Such is the blessing given to those whose work must never cease."

McGill looked almost sad when she said all of that. Hm. Peculiar. Was there some virtue to food, water, rest, and shelter? If so, she failed to see it.

"Fine. Good. Glad we're on the same page. And fifth, this is the most important one, we went to that island, healed this young lady here, then we went back. That's it."

This was unacceptable deception! She'd legitimately thought the Simurgh was an agent of the LORD, and had popped up to say hello and ask for guidance. That was a sin and a half, and it demanded absolution, but... the priest was giving her a look. A very pointed look. Oh. Ah. He'd... been rather firm about her not arguing every single point, hadn't he? And she felt a very sudden flash of... was this shame? Yes, shame , the non-compliance with an established and agreed-upon instruction. Shame... no, no, it was worse. Shame, for a human , might be acceptable. For an angel , it meant she'd received an instruction, and had forgotten about it. Imagine if she forgot one of the Commandments? Imagine if she forgot the Creed? Shame, in an angel, was reflective of much, much deeper issues. How long until she'd realised this on her own? What if she'd been around someone who wasn't the priest, and had argued until she got her way? Her mind was compromised. Her logic was damaged. She remained weak , and a flood of emotions ran through her. Shame. Guilt. Neurotic scrutiny of every thought that ran through her sinful head...

Focus.

File the guilt away lower on her hierarchy of sensations. Processed later.

"...yes, Father McGill. I will abide by your deception."

Ms. Jurist glanced up, scowling fiercely.

"What, did you do something else before you came along? Was healing my fucking eyes low on your big to-do list?"

Morrigan opened her mouth.

Father McGill's look took on divine status.

Morrigan closed her mouth.

"Fine, suit yourselves, not my problem if you were meeting with your Heeb overlords or something. Hope you all sodomised each other real good."

They most certainly did not! Did Morrigan look like a pillar of salt?

...come to think of it, her internal structure did have more in common with certain crystals than it necessarily did to flesh , so...

Did Father McGill look like a pillar of salt?

Her thoughts were interrupted by a screech of tires on asphalt, and... something overhead, a rush of wind. Silent in every other regard, but her telekinesis could feel the shift, the sudden strain. Interesting. McGill was staring at the cars whirling around a corner, but Morrigan's eyes were fixed upwards. Something... hm, if she clarified her vision a little, she could see a dark spot quite some distance up. Something watching them...

Something that noticed her observations, and descended with alarming speed.

For a second, Morrigan saw a falling angel.

The sunlight gleamed from the approaching object, and it seemed white as the driven snow, luminous as molten silver, something perfect and mechanical and many-winged and ready to tear her apart limb from limb and-

Not her.

She remained above. Her song was unbroken. And the approaching figure was much, much too small. Morrigan didn't breathe, so her breath didn't come faster. She had no heart, so it couldn't race. But all the old subroutines regarding combat, flight, pitting telekinesis against telekinesis... all of them woke up for a second, screaming to life with frantic urgency. Took longer than she liked to run everything back down to neutral.

What a peculiar response.

She hoped it wouldn't happen again.

The dark spot widened. A vehicle was descending, and not one she recognised. Didn't have rotors, but it moved startlingly like a helicopter... it moved towards the water, coming in directly from above at an alarming speed. Morrigan tracked it silently, ignoring the cars. Surprise of all surprises, the part of her brain dedicated to categorising objects of interest tended to prioritise 'enormous unnaturally descending metal object' as opposed to 'humans in cars'. Closer, closer... every subroutine suggested there'd be a splash of significant proportions as the object hit the water, and Morrigan's telekinesis extended out in invisible lines, ready to catch the droplets before they ruined Father McGill's clothes. Or Ms. Jurist's.

Morrigan didn't find her ramblings offensive, per se, but then again, she was an angel. Forgiving and whatnot. The humans here might not be so accommodating, and Morrigan didn't want Ms. Jurist to cause a fracas because she'd been around an unflappable (and unflapping) angel for the last few hours.

The vehicle didn't crash when it hit the water.

Didn't make any sound beyond a whisper of liquid parting beneath it.

Morrigan felt a twitch of the same basic admiration she'd felt when seeing the Simurgh in person. Nothing at that level, but... the seeds were there. The seeds of mechanical perfection.

A metal dragon rested in the water, watching her silently through black lenses.

And a gentle voice emanated from the mouth, so smooth it could've been coming from an actual throat. If Morrigan couldn't feel the sound down to the smallest level, wavelength by wavelength, she might've missed the slightest mechanical hint.

" Good morning. Sorry for not getting in touch sooner - you've been leading us on a bit of a wild goose chase. "

Morrigan stiffened.

She wasn't wild. And she certainly wasn't a goose. McGill shot her a look , and she resisted the urge to start declaring things. Right, modulate her voice, keep it polite and authoritative, sound like an angel should ...

"The LORD has blessed us with another splendid day in His kingdom, yes. A very good morning to you too."

A second of silence. The men who'd emerged from the cars stared at her, one of them wincing the moment she said 'LORD'. Ridiculous. The silence was brief, thankfully, then the voice returned, an odd tone to it. Appraising.

" And good morning, Cricket. Been a while. "

"Fuck off."

" No. Thanks for bringing her in, though... sorry, very rude of me, I'm Dragon. And you are...?"

McGill's look intensified. Right. Keep things moderate, even if every impulse was telling her to start yelling. Moderation and concealment were the playthings of the Devil, and she could only be dispelled with the blazing light of faith-most-zealous! But... no, no, Isaiah did say that 'the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes' - even infertile ground could be redeemed in time.

"Morrigan. I am pleased to meet you."

Should she bow?

She should bow.

She bowed.