The Youngest Cadet Primus in Three Hundred Years
When the Creator made me, He likely saw no difference between me and the other 120,000 downy-winged fledglings: docile sparks, destined to obey the divine will.
What He overlooked was the truth seething within me—a wild-fire.
From the very beginning, the envy and whispers of those mediocre angels have always followed me, like a draft through the unimaginably high, sky-piercing majestic vaults of the Angel Legion’s hall. Not my whispers. Theirs.
“… I heard he openly questioned Archangel Uriel’s doctrine of defense during the Angel Legion’s initiation assembly…”
“…that essay was his, right? ‘Aggressive Containment’? A scandal! He had to polish the Hall of Remembrance for a week for that…”
“…They say he secretly studied forbidden dark magic from the Black Codex? That’s far over the line… tactics only demons from Hell would employ. That’s… borderline.”
“…they say Seraphim Commander Raphael’s golden boy, Oriel, wept after the war games. Asbeel cornered him in the Obsidian Wastes simulation. Using tactics from forbidden texts…”
“…The Cadet Primus of our Angel Legion. The youngest in three hundred years. How did he even manage that?”
“…acts like he owns the place. Already thinks he’s Archangel material…”
“…a dangerous fire, that one. We must watch him closely……keep our eyes on Asbeel…”
Asbeel.
Asbeel. My name.
They weren’t entirely wrong. The Citadel wasn’t just a school; it was Heaven’s West Point, a forge meant to hammer celestial ore into obedient blades for Heaven’s defense.
First year: My treatise on pre-emptive strikes earned me endless shifts of star-metal polishing.
Second year: I turned a mandatory choir session into a “tactical resource allocation drill” – three hundred cadets suddenly ‘essential’ for border defense exercises.
Third year: I shattered Archangel Raphael’s prize protégé in the war games, with maneuvers whispered about in the restricted archives of the Celestial Library – shadow-slips that blurred the line between holy strategy and hellish cunning. Oriel’s crystal-clear tears of humiliation were a badge I wore in silence.
In the fourth year, months before official graduation, the whispers condensed into tangible reality: the Cadet-Primus badge on my simple tunic and a seat – the very last one – in the immense amphitheater of the Moon Bastion during a full War Council. A foot in the door. A listening post on the edge of apocalypse.
The air in Lunael didn’t hum – it throbbed with primordial dread, so thick you could choke on it. This was the Moon Sphere, Heaven’s lowest bastion, scraping against the brimstone fumes of Hell. Archangels never descended here. That they were here now, blazing like captive suns, screamed catastrophe.
The vast space was dominated by the strategy table – no simple map, but a vast, seething holographic hellscape. Villages, swallowed by greedy darkness. Fields of light, rotting. Seven million souls consumed, dissolved into Bael’s grinding emptiness. The Demon Prince’s power wasn’t growing – it was festering like a cancer, feeding on the slaughter. Worse, the scream-borne whispers hissed not just agony, but open defiance against the Silver City itself. Scrying fragments confirmed it: Demon skirmishes weren’t attacking Earth or Purgatory, but the borders of Heaven itself. They were striking upward. The rebellion wasn’t simmering – it was detonating at Heaven’s gates.
The assembled host was a microcosm of terrified creation. I let my gaze sweep over the sea of distraught faces – Elf ambassadors gripping their staves, knuckles white. Mountain gnomes rocking like disturbed boulders. A dryad trembling, her leaves hissing discordantly. Behind them, the moonlit scale-skin of a Naiad ambassador flickered wildly. Even the unicorn’s aura flickered as its hooves scraped the floor. Then the anxious murmuring rose:
“The Stygian Passes are collapsing now!”
“Holy Archangels,act! Do something! Or we are all damned!”
And in the eye of the storm, the Archangels seated around the strategy table quarreled.
Michael, Commander of the Heavenly Hosts, was a storm trapped in polished platinum plate. He hammered a gauntleted fist onto the moonstone table, scattering Bael’s image. “Enough delay! Every moment we debate is a victory for the Abyss! Strike NOW!”
Gabriel, God’s Left Hand, rose. Her robes held the soft hues of dawn breaking over still waters, yet her face was etched with deep gravity. “Michael, beloved brother,” her voice, though melodious, carried a steel edge, “your courage is our shield, your wrath a righteous flame. Yet unfettered fire consumes the innocent as surely as the guilty. Seven million souls… a wound that makes Creation itself bleed. Must we answer annihilation with annihilation? The Creator is in Deep Contemplation – the Divine Silence must not be broken lightly. Is there no path of moderation? No appeal to other powers? Must we drown the First Heaven in blood?”
Her gaze pointedly went to the distant, silent figure at the table’s center. A murmur of assent went through the elves and angels. “Moderation!” an angel whispered fervently. “Sanctuary!” the elf signed.
Uriel, the embodiment of God’s Stern Justice, was like a mountain of obsidian lit by inner fire. He leaned forward, his movement deliberate, grinding. Flames licked at the edges of his form. “Action is necessary, Michael,” his voice boomed, deep and resonant like grinding tectonic plates, silencing the elf mid-whisper. “Yet Gabriel speaks wisdom born of compassion. We face an unknown variable: the source of Bael’s alleged immortality. Is it innate? Bestowed? Would a strike against him strengthen it? Rash action only aids the enemy. We need intelligence. We need confirmation. Send scouts into the shadowed layers of the Pit. Let us know the devil we face before we unleash Heaven’s legions.”
His fiery gaze swept the room, demanding order, demanding reason. The angels and gnomes nodded eagerly. “Know the enemy!” one murmured. “Yes, recon first!”
Raphael, the Healer, the Thinker, remained seated, the picture of serene detachment. He steepled his long, elegant fingers before his face, his expression calm, almost bored. Yet his eyes, sharp as fracture-diamonds, missed nothing – not the tremor in Gabriel’s hand, not the flicker of doubt in Uriel’s flames, not the way the lesser envoys swayed with each argument. “Michael advocates decisive force, a hammer-blow. Gabriel pleads for moderation and further counsel. Uriel demands meticulous reconnaissance.” His voice was smooth, polished, a balm after the prior outbursts. He paused, let the silence grow, a master conductor. “All have merit. Yet perhaps… we consider a broader stage? A delegation bearing witness to Bael’s atrocities, to Olympus? To the Jade Courts of the East? An alliance of powers to share the burden, share the risk? Strength lies not only in our own might, but in the alliances we forge.”
His suggestion hung in the air, politically astute, impeccably safe. Raphael’s gaze flickered again to the silent center, appraising. Secure. Calculated. Devoid of the courage the moment screamed for, I thought coldly.
Raguel, the Bringer of Order, seized the pause. “Points of order! Clarity is paramount! We must establish sub-committees immediately: Primary Threat Assessment, Alliance-Forging Potential, Resource-Allocation Matrix, Contingency Planning for…”
His precise, dry voice was abruptly drowned out by a sound like an exploding volcano.
Samael, the Poison of God, erupted. He slammed both fists onto the table with terrifying force. A visible crack, jagged and dark, snaked across the moonstone surface. “ENOUGH OF THIS COWARDLY PRATTLE!” His roar was pure, undiluted fury, a physical force that made the Naiad ambassador’s water-sphere shudder violently and caused the unicorn to rear. His aura flared, searing the air, smelling of divine wrath. “Delegations? Committees? Matrices? PATHETIC! While you squabble like frightened sparrows, Bael feasts on the marrow of Creation! He spits on the Silver Gates! Give me the legions! Give me the fire of judgment! I will plunge into the Pit, I will find this vermin king, and I will scour his filth from existence! I will burn his realm to ash and salt his foundations!”
Spittle flew from his lips, his eyes burned with manic zeal. The angels looked frightened, but also, strangely, aroused. “Burn him!” someone hissed.
Azazel, standing like a dark shadow just behind Samael’s shoulder, gave a short, grim nod of agreement, his voice a cold hiss cutting through Samael’s heat. “Hesitation is the whetstone upon which the enemy sharpens his blade.”
Beelzebub (then still a grimly respected commander), shifted, his form seeming to flicker for a moment with unseen insects. “Samael’s fire is effective, but even the mightiest flyswatter fails if the fly understands its swing. How do we break Bael’s resilience? His alleged immortality? Does a headlong charge grant him strength? We need a crack. A flaw. An entry point his arrogance overlooks.”
Chessia, stunningly beautiful, radiating an aura of powerful, unsettling allure, merely smiled. It was not a warm smile; it was the glint of a honed blade. “Violence has its appeal, Samael,” she purred, her voice like poisoned honey, gliding over the assembly, making several lesser angels blink dazedly. “But is it… predictable? Does this Demon Prince wish for us to attack? Is he laying a trap woven from our own righteous wrath?”
The debate raged, fragmented, overlapping, a cacophony of fear, anger, and political maneuvering:
“—strike NOW before he fortifies in the Stygian depths!” Michael thundered, punching the hologram for emphasis, making Bael’s image distort grotesquely.
“—appeal to the Eastern Jade Emperor!His dragon fleets could blockade the Abyssal reefs!” Gabriel interjected.
“—recon confirms Mongol-demon pacts in the Purgatory steppes!They funnel souls to him!” Uriel countered, flames leaping higher.
“—our last scouting wing was slaughtered in the Obsidian Wastes!We are BLIND!” Raguel shouted, trying to regain control.
“—then SEND MORE!Or send ME!” Samael bellowed, hammering the table again, widening the crack.
“—perhaps a targeted sacrifice?A… distraction?” Chessia suggested sweetly, her eyes glittering.
Through the hurricane of divine egos and mortal fear, one figure remained an absolute, terrifying point of stillness:
Lucifer.
The Lightbringer. The Morning Star. The Son of the Dawn.
A being said to possess two-thirds of God’s power.
No – he was no longer an angel. He was a God.
