Chapter 17: Stitched Angel

Some protector I am, Prudence thought to herself as she performed the hastiest, most ill-advised landing of her life.

Gospels were sturdy little vehicles and could take a ton of punishment and right now she would need to push the thing to its limit. She couldn't just let Ophelia fight on her own. Even just the scraps of three celestials were dangerous for the girl to handle. Ophelia was probably able to hold the thing off at least for a little while but Prudence couldn't let her fight her own. The physical advantage the vampire had over normal humans had gradually been shrinking as they'd all started to gain in strength and unlike most of her party Ophelia hadn't spent much time training herself in hand to hand combat.

Even that wouldn't be too much of an issue for something as fast as a vampire but Prudence knew from experience that the maneuverability afforded to a celestial by their wings was hard to keep up with. Never mind that if those were true angel wings then nothing short of heavy ordnance could break through them. Celestial wings were notoriously difficult to so much as scratch so long as they weren't hit by Darklight, which obviously neither Prudence nor Ophelia had access to.

With a loud crashing sound Prudence deposited the Gospel into a cluster of trees. It couldn't be called landing, it was far too unrefined for that, but it got the job done, stilling the vehicle so she could go out and help Ophelia fight.

**

Ophelia knew Prudence was smart enough to land the Gospel and come to her aid rather than just letting her fight alone and so all she needed to do was fend this abomination off until help arrived. In truth she was a little excited to finally test her new skills out properly.

There was just one problem and that was her knives. The knives became significantly stronger after tasting blood. Normally she would just poke the backs of her hands with them and that would be all but doing so would compromise the integrity of her suit. Not only did she not want to find out what horrible diseases she might catch from this stitched-together atrocity but she also didn't know if that giant eye in the sky counted as sunlight to the beast inside her.

According to Evelyn the eye in the sky had only been a projection, which meant that behind all of it was still a sun glaring down at them. Or had night already fallen? She couldn't tell anymore. What she did know was that she didn't want to risk poking holes into her suit and so instead she pulled out a little vial of blood from her utility belt. She's brought that with her in case she needed a snack, not entirely trusting her new ability's promise to keep her bloodlust at bay, but now it would serve a much more useful purpose. She popped the top off and then smeared some of the blood onto her blood daggers and instantly the blood expanded, covering the blades of her daggers and making them blossom into wicked curved swords.

“Come and get some,” Ophelia growled at the monster, brandishing her new blades.

“Eeeeeeeennnnnnnnndddddddd mmmeeeeeeeeeee...”

A shudder ran down Ophelia's spine. She hadn't expected the thing to speak. And she most certainly hadn't expected it to beg for death. But she would do her utmost to oblige the thing, putting whatever scraps of sentience were trapped in this husk out of their misery.

The thing raised its warhammer and charged at her. It wasn't too fast, Ophelia had seen Jeanne moving at twice that speed and more before, and she knew she could dodge the strike easily. She leaned to the side, intending to sidestep the blow and jab her blades into the creature's back, but then something weird happened.

The creature charged at her, Ophelia stepped to the side and then there was a lurching sensation and a flicker across her vision and suddenly the warhammer took Ophelia right in the chest, shattering her bones and making her tumble through the air to hit a tree.

Honed by her training the shattered Ophelia immediately reached for shadow magic and cloaked herself in darkness, the inky blackness speeding up her recovery by an order of magnitude, drawing her bones back together as fast as her powers could handle. As she focused on fixing herself she watched the angel creature take lumbering step after lumbering step towards her and she estimated that she would be hale and healthy again before the thing reached her.

“Run,” the creature spat and then there was that flickering sensation again and the creature suddenly stood in front of her, grabbing her throat and dragging her up, the protective layer of her armor hardening under the creature's grasp. It was all that was keeping the angel thing from crushing her throat in its grasp.

She had never let go of her blades though and so when the creature was holding her up she used the angle to stab the thing with both blades, the bodysuit not even slowing the blades down. But the creature didn't react much to her attacks. Her stabs had been carefully angled to skewer both its lung and its heart but while it did jerk in pain it didn't collapse the way it should have. The attacks clearly bothered the creature, though, because in response it flung Ophelia away to hit another tree.

This time she knew her vertebrae had been shattered but even that only took seconds. She needed something. This thing barely cared if she hit it and that weird jumping trick... what even was that? Could that be some sort of magic? She decided to try something.

The thing stalked towards her, dragging its warhammer along behind it. There was that lurching sensation again but this time Ophelia was ready for it. She used Sorcerous Domination to rip and tear whatever spell this thing was using to move that way and, with an awful screeching noise that reverberated in her toes and made her taste purple, the spell shattered and the beast stumbled, unsure of what had happened.

It tried that same spell again and Ophelia once again shattered it.

“Gooooooddd jooooooobb,” the creature growled, the utter fury of its tone at odds with the praise of the consciousness saying the words.

“I have no idea what this shit is but I don't need to,” she said as she got up, her spine already whole again. “I just need to break it.” Then she sent a lance of shadow magic at the thing.

Once again there was the lurching sensation. Ophelia tried to counter it but throwing the shadow lance and casting the anti-magic at once was too taxing. She already expected to go flying again but that didn't happen. Instead the shadow lance simply stopped on impact, floating in the air without so much as piercing the thing's skin before dissipating.

“What the fuck is this magic?” Ophelia asked, not expecting an answer.

Next thing she knew Prudence appeared behind the creature and rammed her sword into its back, twisting the blade once before ripping it out.

In reflex the creature swung its hammer backward, intending to crush Prudence, but the angel danced out of the way until she was at Ophelia's side.

“Null magic,” she explained.

“Pardon?”

“This thing is using null magic,” Prudence clarified. “Weird branch of magic that allows you to nullify things. It's super weird to use because it applies an abstract concept to the physical world. It lets you nullify the temperature of water to freeze it, nullify the momentum of an attack about to strike you or, as this thing does, nullify the time it takes to charge and swing its weapon, letting it build up momentum without costing it time.”

“You sound like you have experience with it,” Ophelia said as she tried to feel for the telltale sign of the thing using that magic again.

“There's only one angel I know who wields a warhammer and uses null magic and I haven't seen him in quite a while,” Prudence said, glaring in utter hatred at the abomination in front of her. “His name was Desmond and I fear he's part of this atrocity. This is personal.”

“I'mmmmmm ssssoooorrrryyyyyy Prrrrrrruuuuuuu.....” the beast groaned, once again lifting its weapon.

“I'll set you free, Des,” Prudence said, raising her blade in a two-handed grip. “Promise.”

**

Knowing Caulder was stitching people into horrific monsters was already horrible. Knowing that he'd been doing the same to angels and demons and other supernatural beings was worse. But knowing that someone she knew had ended up as part of those abominations was the last straw.

Desmond and her hadn't been tight or anything, hadn't been best friends or lovers, but they had gotten drunk and commiserated on more than one occasion, back when Prudence had still been trying to work her way up under Angel Lord Michael. Just for this she was going to flay Caulder alive if she ever got her hands on him.

The fact that it was Desmond of all people she had to face was worse for more than just his personality. Desmond was one of the more aggravating opponents one could face. Add a lack of weakspots one could stab and he became a nightmare. And despite the obvious entry wounds at its side, despite the hole she'd gouged into the creature's back, it showed no sign of dropping even though a creature with a natural anatomy would have ground meat in place of a heart right now.

Thankfully knowing it was, in some way, Desmond she was up against made it easier in some ways. Yes, he was aggravating to face but she'd beaten him in sparring matches before. She knew how to deal with his magic: Get in close and don't let up. Ironically, despite how scary his melee attacks were, the only way to keep him from decimating you with them was to get in close and keep the pressure up, never leaving him any openings. Two against one this would me much easier than normal, especially with Ophelia's anti-magic.

“All out assault,” Prudence said, her voice all business, “and focus on breaking his spells.”

“Got it,” Ophelia said and charged forward.

Apparently the creature wasn't as headstrong as Desmond had been because when faced with someone trying to close the gap the thing's first instinct was to take to the air and back off. But Prudence didn't let it. She called up her own wings, her Yesod pattern suit opening momentarily to create holes for her wings, and took to the skies, intending to skewer the creature wearing her friend's skin.

As her blade touched the creature's bodysuit she felt the familiar twisting sensation and her body lost all momentum, hanging in the air before her wings caught on and started flapping to keep her from plummeting. The creature used the opening not to strike but to get back down to the ground where it could anchor itself. What it hadn't been expecting was Ophelia's keen instincts.

The moment the creature's foot touched the ground a puddle of shadows exploded underneath it and sharpened spines of shadow magic coalesced out of the darkness, their tips gleaming like metal, and skewered the creature in two different places.

The twisting sensation came again, multiple times in rapid succession, the sensation growing so strong it made Prudence taste magenta instead of purple, but even when stretching its power to the limit these were more strikes than its magic could block at once. Half a dozen spines hung in the air, unable to go any further, but the rest found their mark, turning the creature into a vaguely angelic pincushion.

For good measure Prudence charged the creature, still held immobile by the shadow spines, and lobbed its head clean off.

Rest in peace, Des, she thought.

But in all the excitement both her and Ophelia had forgotten something. The being they were facing wasn't just a mangled version of Desmond. The creature consisted of bits and pieces from two, possibly three celestials.

And so a moment after the creature's head went flying a translucent barrier snapped into existence around the creature, shielding it from harm as its body rapidly wound back, the head reattaching itself and the spines retracting out of its flesh until it was whole again.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Prudence spat, swiping her finger over a series of characters on her blade to summon forth a ritual spell to carve through the barrier.

“Time to pull out the big guns I guess,” Ophelia said, then reached deep into herself and summoned forth her Sanctified Umbral Dominion, a technique she'd been curious about but hadn't had occasion to use yet.

Instantly a sphere of shadow exploded into existence around her. Despite it darkening everything around her it didn't impede Prudence's visibility at all but she knew for a fact that this was because Ophelia didn't let it affect her. Her enemies wouldn't have the same courtesy. And so, despite being cradled in shadows she could see perfectly, could see the way the creature was fixing itself at a rapid pace, the inside of its bubble the only thing not shrouded in darkness.

“Charge something destructive,” Ophelia said and Prudence didn't bother arguing. She aborted the shield breaker and switched to something that would inflict catastrophic damage to an unarmored target.

When she was done she told Ophelia: “Ready.”

Ophelia nodded and then did something with her sphere of shadow, something that set Prudence's teeth on edge. It caused a horrible sensation of over-pressure but it didn't seem to have any effect on Prudence herself except that it made her ears pop, as if she'd been underwater and dove too deep.

The creature was clearly on the receiving end of the spell and after only a few breaths its barrier acquired dozens of cracks. It used its null magic to keep the barrier from breaking but after a moment of the pressure letting up it redoubled and the barrier caved in.

“Now,” Ophelia hissed and Prudence let loose a swathe of white-hot fire.

**

The Sanctified Umbral Dominion was a bizarre sensation, acting at once as a giant ball of Ophelia's power that she could manipulate at will and as an additional limb that she could flex and feel. Anything inside its perimeter was hers to influence and the beast trapped inside it felt like a stain on her mind, like a tick crawling up her forearm in plain sight.

Shattering its barrier had been effortless but she knew what came next would be an order of magnitude more difficult. Even if the consciousness inside the thing desperately wanted to die, the creature itself clearly had a sense of self-preservation.

And so when Prudence let loose a fire spell so destructive it could reduce even an angel into a pile of ash of course the creature tried everything in its power to counter it. It tried to stop time to escape but Ophelia cracked that spell like a walnut. It tried to nullify the oxygen around the flames to snuff them out but Ophelia in turn snuffed that spell out. It tried to null the temperature of the air around it to create a safe spot but Ophelia tore that spell to pieces. Without her Dominion breaking spells had been difficult. With it breaking them was easier. Inside the Dominion only spells Ophelia wanted to succeed did and breaking them took but a thought.

The creature attempted dozens and dozens of spells to escape its doom but Ophelia broke each and every one, never taking her eyes off the creature trapped inside Prudence's inferno and Prudence didn't let up until the creature was nothing more than a pile of ash. Only when there was absolutely no way the creature would be able to come back did Ophelia dismiss her Dominion.

She really hoped that whatever Caulder had done to those poor fools at least their souls were safe.

“I'm sorry,” she said quietly as she saw Prudence's mournful expression.

“No, thank you,” the angel said. “They're free now.”

ChrisLensman

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