Angel Monarch

Her heart cracked from the sight of a shining figure falling towards the ground, her right wing cut in two and bleeding...

Lucy never saw Sera\'s wing bleed, it only got bloody for a second or two before repairing and cleaning itself. Now the whole thing was red and the droplets of blood fell towards the ground, like the rain from the clouds above her head.

The angel of death didn\'t even wait for her to hit the ground and started his descent immediately.

She fell for a few seconds, constantly screaming from pain... It only stopped when she finally hit the ground.

The fear steadily crept back, she tried to suffocate it, but all her efforts were worthless.

Inside she was cursing her uselessness, she had no clue if the others were in the same situation as her or if they even seen Sera plummet to the ground and her thoughts were no help either.

\'You are nothing... Why are you even here?... You\'re only here because others took pity on you... Look down there Sera will die, just everyone you ever cared about, and they will be dead because you are weak...\'

The voice wasn\'t hers she knew that, since her brother\'s death it taunted her every time she made a mistake. It was driving her crazy sometimes, but that was its purpose...

It was the voice of Madness, the godlike being that\'s corrupting everything and everyone.

She figured it out a long time ago, that her brother and all those other people in Havel somehow got under the spell of Madness. Their killing, rape, murder and enslavement wasn\'t for their own pleasure, they were already too far gone by then.

When she realized it the pain and anger she felt was unimaginable. Her brother had to die because of some stupid insanity. What she didn\'t understand is how did it happen? It started with headaches, but after a while he just snapped.

It didn\'t matter now. There was only one thing left for her to do in this life... Find and kill everyone who hurt or try to hurt the people she cares about, and conveniently...

There was one right below her...

Using the rest of her willpower she stopped beating her wings and began to fall towards the broken building with enormous speed.

\'Oh, what is it?... Another useless action?... Do you have this much of a death wish, to just hit the ground with terminal velocity?... There\'s an easier way out you know, you just have to let go of your mind and it will free your spirit... Like your brother did!...\'

"Shut... The... Fuck... Up!"

Every word took a lot of effort to say out loud, but for some reason the voice actually stopped talking when she did this.

The ground was approaching quickly, she aimed at the hole where Sera had fallen through or more accurately she made it.

Lucy tried to give the command for her wings to spread, but it didn\'t work. Her body was still frozen, when she was about to accept her death though suddenly the fear entirely disappeared and got replaced with determination and hope.

\'That insane queen!... She is actually still alive and fighting?... Just how many beatings can she take?...\'

The feeling was very familiar to Lucy, and she knew instantly it came from Sera\'s crown.

Before the ground could flatten her bird body she slowed down the fall and went into a gradual but still fast descent. She was about to fall inside the building when two distinct sounds came from within.

One of them a woman\'s painful scream which quickly turned into mad laughter, the other a man\'s scream of pain. It didn\'t take a genius to figure out whom the voices belonged to.

She glided down to ground, on one of the piles of concrete laid Sera, the crown still on her head, her eyes were closed and her face was split into a painful grimace. Lucy quickly understood where the pain and scream came from... Both her wings were mutilated, and from the broken parts a river of blood trickled onto the dusty floor.

Quickly she turned back into human and looked at Sera more carefully. When she saw her chest rise and fall weakly, she breathed a sigh of relief.

\'Thank God, she is still alive!... But where is Azriel?\'

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The realization hit her at the same time as the black sword was headed towards her heart. With swift reflexes Lucy dodged, then began summoning her daggers. It only took a fraction of a second and when the next attack came she was prepared.

The sword movement was redirected by one of the daggers and with the other she made a quick slash towards his side. She knew he could evade it easily, but she needed to buy time until the others arrived. The one thing she didn\'t expect was for Azriel to not be able to dodge it.

The dagger sunk into his armor and reached the blackened flesh beneath, with her weapon having death aspect the armor separated like butter. The death angel didn\'t even flinch, he just continued his attacks with a stab towards her neck.

She defended and attacked for about half a minute before she noticed that something was up. But Lucy only figure it out when with a quickstep she appeared behind the fallen angel.

\'His wings!... They are gone!... How?!\'

From the corner of her eyes Lucy saw Sera lying on the ground, in less than a minute she became deathly pale and her breathing weakened even more.

\'She did this!... She cut off his wings, while sacrificing her own!... And he is very clumsy without them...\'

Indeed, Azriel had no idea how to fight without the wings on his back. Since he was born they were his constant companions. They made him more agile, gave his swings more momentum and increased his velocity by a large margin... Now he fought like a toddler with too much power.

His slashes and stabs were still very dangerous and accurate, but after Sera removing his wings there was a chance at victory... If the others arrived fast enough...

They didn\'t...

Lucy only saw the change in Azriel\'s movement when it was too late. A clean slash was coming her way and she blocked it with ease and used her other dagger to cut the sword arm deep that something like a bone showed in the wound.

He immediately dropped his sword and as it clattered on the ground a small smile appeared on Lucy\'s face, but soon it turned into a grimace of pain. There was a large amount of pain coming from her chest.

Slowly her head moved and the realization hit her... She was baited into the last attack.

She forgot to pay attention to his other arm, which now resided right between her breasts, where her heart lied.

Her vision was getting foggy and her arms weak. There was two distinct clattering sounds, like two small metallic items hitting the concrete floor... Her daggers.

Steadily her heart beat slower and slower, the time between each breath also decreased and only that small spark of anger kept her alive.

She couldn\'t die... Not yet! If she died now Sera would be killed before the others reached them... With a last parts of her consciousness remaining she held out her right hand and summoned an item she never used before.

In her hand a small ring appeared with a leaf symbol on it. There was a green energy glowing around it and her hand slowly eroded under its power. The item contained a lot of life energy thanks to Bea.

It was supposed to be a healing ring, but with her ability related to death it only damaged her... Which also meant it would damage the death angel!

Lucy screamed as she closed her right hand and punched it into Azriel\'s chest. While doing so he crushed her heart in his palm and the scream was cut short from the overwhelming pain.

Powerlessly her body fell onto the ground, her right hand came out of his chest cavity empty.

Furiously he began scratching the hole trying to fish out the ring, but it lay in his dark heart. With screams and shouts of pain the monster was finally defeated.

Lucy\'s breathing slowly stopped and her eyes turned dark. Near was a loud bang right next to her, like something heavy falling onto the ground. Out of curiosity she reached out her left hand and felt something metallic.

She held out as long as she could, but without a heart there was no chance of survival. Soon she took her last breath and as she died there was only one thought inside her mind...

\'...Yes...\'