The End Of All Known Land
Also heads up: decided to just get all the tags posted here to save myself some time formatting. Any additional warnings for the remaining chapters will be posted here as well.
Chapter 5: The Building Of Forests
Gabriel takes ten paces forward, swivels on his heels, and then another ten paces back. Each step is methodical and carefully measured, keeping him right at his designated post. To his left, a rocky expanse of desert, stretching far out into the distance until it was broken by the curves of barren mountains. To his right, green, untamed and wild. Nothing like the verdant, carefully maintained gardens in Heaven.
Eight, nine, ten, pivot. The differing landscapes switch places. Again, and again. The sun continues its languid journey across the stretch of the sky. Its warmth beats upon his back, hotter than it normally would, but it's a far more comfortable temperature to an angel than it would be to these... frighteningly fragile and mortal creatures.
Not for the first time, his attention drifts towards the enclosed paradise below. From his vantage point here upon its high stone wall, he can see the fauna frolic within, the trees that all but burst with ripe fruit, the small fields of flowers that carpet the fertile grounds.
Sometimes, he catches glimpses of The Father's new pets.
The two humans they are not allowed to interact with walk together, hand in hand, naming the beasts that dwell in the garden with them. One day, they will leave this tiny paradise, and until then, Gabriel is to stick to his post, and watch the brilliant sun cross the sky, and the radiant moon follow. The light shifts with its journey, saturating the expanse of blue above with all manner of colors, until the light fades and gives way to the fixed stars above.
It's definitely a change from the war, the one that had half of them falling down, down, down from the Heavenly Spheres, and scurrying beneath the cracked, dry ground of the Earth, away from the reach of The Father's Light. Gabriel had fought hard and long against those who dissented against The Father, and he had been recently reassigned to guard this place should they come to harm the first humans.
Gabriel does not ask questions about why he was picked for this task. Nor about this experiment that The Father's full attention has been on for some time now, because that would be dissension. And he's already lost so many brothers and sisters to that.
So, he does not wonder why these mortal creatures have The Father's attentiveness so wholly and undivided, when their very creation is why the war started in the first place. He does not wonder about The Plan that The Father spoke of in length. And he definitely does not wonder about what the point of all this is.
And if he ever did, well, it's not like anybody ever asks him about it. If such ponderings ever made their way to forethought, they would be pushed away and buried, alongside whatever misgivings he may have had about cutting down his brethren.
(He would get quite good at that in the coming days.)
So Gabriel does what is asked of him: ten paces forward, and then back. He does not call out to the humans when he spots them, wandering, picking fruit to eat from the low-hanging branches laden with them. But he listens to Adam name each plant, ones he's never seen before; many of them are ones not found in Heaven's gardens.
It would be a safe question, one that is only answered with yes or no, to ask if he could drop in once they've left this place, and maybe bring back some of the flora, unique only to this new world, to grow in the eternally-fertile soil of Paradise.
Plexiglass is much, much more difficult to break through than stone is, but Gabriel is not deterred. At first, his campaign of destruction had to be controlled, driving a long piece of rebar into the plastic coating the ground. Working only by the light of his wings, Gabriel chips away at the cloudy, synthetic material, well aware of the fragile beacon of life right behind him.
As he gradually peels away Mankind's attempts to snuff out the natural earth, his blows grow more unrestrained, sending spiderwebs of cracks across the polymer road. It feels good, unleashing his strength like this, working outwards in methodical circles. The deafening sounds of shattering plastic, echoing hollowly across the overhead cement, drives all thought from his head.
When he stops to catch his breath, the light of dawn is spilling into the artificial cavern through the concrete gap, and Gabriel looks up to see he's cut away a good five or so meters of plexiglass. Beneath is an expanse of sandy soil and stone, exposed to the light of day at last.
Gabriel finally takes pause, rolling his shoulders to dispel the ache that had been slowly building over countless powerful, repetitive motions. He looks over his work with a critical eye, brushing thick dust and powdered plastic off his gauntlets and gloves. This garage would not get much in the way of the sun, but there was plenty of flora on the moon that thrived in places where the light was indirect. Hardier things that had roots that could find purchase anywhere if done correctly.
By the time Gabriel's thrown the last broken pieces of polymer into the darker areas of the garage, places he doesn't plan on touching quite yet, the sun is shining between the high rises outside. The temperature is mild, but judging by the lack of clouds, it will only get warmer.
The seasons had been out of rhythm when Gabriel was last upon the Earth, hot where before it was cold. Toxins clogged the sky, unseen but heavy upon his senses, and the rain began to grow acidic.
Not for the first time, he laments humanity's lack of care for the Earth, gifted to them by God. He knows it's even worse now following the destruction when the machines turned on their creators. If they hadn't been extinct now, few would've survived in these conditions.
Some flora, on the other hand, could adapt to harsh climates, thrived in poor soil conditions, and needed much less water than others.
Determination renewed, Gabriel leaves the planet, reality bending beneath the power that still somehow persists within him. Its sound shatters the silence of the morning, and leaves behind faint scorch marks upon the concrete.
The plastic bottle they hold up into the ray of sunlight, pouring in from the collapsed wall of this ransacked corner store, glints appealingly in the midday glow. It still contains some form of human drink, one they can't identify due to the label having long worn off. They swirl the violet liquid inside curiously. Whatever's in it possesses an iridescent sheen, almost sparkling.
After a second of thinking about it, V1 slips that in their bag, setting it next to a vehicle-related magazine that somehow escaped torching, and wanders further down the wrecked aisles. They step over dirted, plastic bags of food, half-rotted boxes filled with who-knew-what inside, and several carcasses, long drained of fuel. None of the holographics work here, compared to the signs outside advertising the twenty-four hours of service.
Their explorations have brought them to a downtown area that overlooks a canal, one overflowing with debris and corpses. A multitude of hypnotic, neon holograms glitching against the relentless glare of the sun had swiftly coaxed them down its brightly-lit streets. They find places they've only seen in holo-films before; things like food venders that once served all manner of human culinary items, curiosity shops with outdated technology, and clothing outlets with dusty human ensembles, their colors long faded with exposure from the sun and other elements.
Aside from a door on the furthermost wall, there isn't much else of interest here. Anything else worth looking at is clearly buried under the concrete rubble that takes up a good chunk of the floorspace. They pull out their flashlight from their wing and pry open the way into the back.
The first thing the beam of light hits are empty crates with near-illegible labels of food, drink and drugs slapped on their sides. Someone had raided this place in a hurry, perhaps a group of desperate humans when it became clear the culling was not slowing down. Farther inside, a cluttered desk with a flickering projection above it.
V1 draws close, reaching to try and interface with it. Backing out of the still open webpage just causes the browser to crash, but once they're on the desktop, none of the apps run when prompted. In fact, it just makes the operating system start to bug out even worse.
Their internal fans whirr sharply with mild irritation. Sure, they hadn't expected to be able to access the internet (they distinctly remember the day global wifi went down for good), but it was a poor design choice to not give these access points the same durability they gave the flashy advertisement projections outside.
V1 shuts off the device with a button press, and promptly begins searching through the remainder of the desk. Mostly garbage, now that they're really looking, mainly empty food wrappers and bottles. They're about to give up and depart when they brush away a chip bag, revealing a dusty, metal cube.
Something that they immediately recognize.
Oftentimes these sorts of things were found in the offices of the technicians that had put them together. They'd sit on the desks, and project static images. Snapshots of memory, of smiling humans embracing, partaking in meals, animals, even landscapes of places they'd never seen before.
They swiftly pick it up, examining it. No damage on the outside, and carefully popping open the underside of the casing reveals a small but intact glass sphere. The circuitry looks untouched as well. V1 wiggles it back on, not daring to hope as they push the button to turn it on.
Light erupts from it, forming swiftly into a static image of a woman embracing another, a smiling child in between them. There's a lake in the background. After approximately ten seconds, the picture changes to a dog looking up at whatever apparatus had snapped this moment.
It works, even after all this time sitting here in the dark.
Swiftly, V1 turns it off to preserve whatever power might remain. They turn it back over, checking for a catch on the back, and find it easily. Beneath is a socket for a cable, obviously to recharge the internal battery, and connect to a personal computer for uploading photos. If they could find something with an adapter for their manual data port, they might be able to do the same. It would be a place to put all their favorite images, and watch the slideshow whenever they felt like it. Maybe they'd even show Gabriel-
...
They could show Gabriel their memories of their journey through Hell; everything they discovered. They could tell him what had occurred after they'd left him behind in Treachery.
This is something, quite suddenly, within the realm of possibility, but should they? There was a steadying equilibrium between them now that they did not want to see disrupted. Fuel given freely, sex allowed within reason, sparring just for the sake of it.
How would he react? Anger? Relief? Despair? The limitless potential of emotion that organics possessed was something that could not be easily predicted by numbers or equations.
... another deliberation for later. They wave the growing list of possible outcomes away, deleting it from their internal process for now. After, V1 pulls up their directives with a thought, scrolling down swiftly to the secondary list. Finally, they mark the first one they'd put in upon returning to the surface as complete. In its place, they put "Search for a compatible cable".
V1 carefully places the device into their bag, zips it up, and begins to pick their way out of the ruined store. An internal sound pings when they step back into the sunlight. A priority directive scrolls onto their HUD: "Refuel from Gabriel by 1400 hours."
They can identify one of the centermost structures on the horizon easily from here; the one that housed the mouth of Hell. If they go north from here, they'll find the derelict business district. Gabriel seems to have claimed it as his own stomping grounds, for reasons yet unknown.
V1's internal compass keeps them on track as they leap over roads and skyways, duck into slides and maneuver around the destroyed cars, and long jump between the buildings into wall kicks. Finally, they come into view on a slanted high rise with most of its shattered windows, an easily recognizable landmark. Once they pass this, they'll be within range of where he usually could be found. Granted, more data is required for a conclusive pattern of where his wanderings might have taken him since their last refuel.
But they were starting to get a rough idea of where to go first.
It's all exactly where he left it.
In a small shed just outside one of the long empty, yet still pristine temples, Gabriel's eyes meet a sight almost comfortingly familiar. Tools hang neatly on their hooks, pots line the back wall, and long forgotten, ornate jar for compost sits in the corner. He hasn't touched them in a century, not since this place had become a sanctuary; one away from long meetings, frequent in-person reports, and excessively lavish parties.
No other angel has had any need to come here, not since God died, and the upper echelons of Heaven were at last free to express their disdain of His mortal experiments. It is a place he can still be truly alone, no longer under the watch of Heaven nor occupied with the demands of judging, enforcing, and protecting Hell.
He plucks an ornate shovel from its rack, picks up an empty pot, and strides out to the treeline to begin gathering plants.
Gabriel stops first by another fern, snug beneath an olive tree heavy with fruit, and begins digging just beyond the roots. The motions are familiar, the steps slowly unfurling before him. It's like he'd never stopped. He finds an old sense of clarity in the repetitive movements, and a small hope that this might work.
Gabriel digs up ferns, sedums, and a deep blue, perennial salvia. They all go into relatively small containers; with just enough soil and water to keep them lively.
It takes half an hour of back and forth teleportation, but at last, the needed tools, a small container full of compost, a satchel of grass seed, and his chosen flora sit in a neat row at the edges of the polymer. He tills the surface of the earth first, and then begins to carve deeper holes. Under his strength, the dirt gives easily.
The afternoon light tilts slowly into the garage and over the little fern in the center. Gabriel's gotten a good dozen or so holes scoured out of the earth when he gives pause. More specifically, at the distinct sound of metal feet against plexiglass, growing closer with each rhythmic clatter.
"Hello, Machine." He greets, not giving them his full attention quite yet. He first finishes carving out the hole. But when he finally looks up, he affirms that yes, they look the same as they always do; the bag he's spotted on them occasionally is slung over their shoulder.
It's only after his initial observation that he realizes where they're crouched: right over the fledgling fern in the center, staring motionlessly at it. A sudden, anxious spike wracks him. Another breed of machine had methodically torched the forests and fields of Earth with a terrible eagerness. He's yet to see V1 exhibit similar traits of destructive impulse, but...
Before he can even begin to think of anything to say, the tips of their fingers carefully touch the edges of the fronds in a light caress, and then pull away slowly. Something in him relaxes, but only a little.
"I assume you're here for fuel." He guesses, the tip of the tool digging into the earth between his boots. They glance up, nod, and follow him as he heads over to grab Splendor, sitting closest to the rim of the barren stretch of sand. Gabriel cuts into the flesh with a growing casualty, allowing the machine refuel for... however long that would last them. He's yet to see a discernible pattern emerge from the rate of their visits.
When V1 finishes, they step back, and immediately stroll over to the closet pot. Their optic examines the flora he's brought from the first sphere closely. Not touching, just looking.
Gabriel keeps an eye on the machine, but returns to his work. They move slowly around the perimeter of roughly broken acrylic, gaze trailing over each bit of greenery he brought down here. When he looks at them again, a few tentative minutes later, they've stopped by the stonecrop, the light of their optic bathing the thick leaves in yellow.
Gabriel turns his gaze away, attention returning to the final shallow. When it's finished, he sneaks a look back up out of the corner of his eyes. They're watching him now, gaze rapt upon him as he moves to return the shovel to the rows of tools. He does his best to ignore the sudden prickle across his skin.
And just as he starts sprinkling rich compost into the nearest hole, three hollow, rhythmic knocks against plastic nearly causes him to jump out of his own skin.
Gabriel whirls around to face them. Nonplussed by his sudden, unexplainable moment of skittishness, V1 waves their hand at him.
"What is it, Machine?" He inquires, attempting to steady his breath and calm himself. They're not here to fight. They would have asked him by now rather than taken the time to look at flora.
Their metal fingers then point at the plump, waxy leaves of the succulent. Confused, Gabriel steps over to where they'd lingered by the three he had pulled from the edges of the first sphere. V1 glances back at him with a look that he swears borders on curiosity.
"You...wish to know about them?" He ventures uncertainty.
They nod once in immediate answer. Gabriel is, admittedly, a little caught off guard by their sudden interest in something other than blood, fighting, or sex. After a moment of deliberation, Gabriel grants them their silent request.
"This is called stonecrop. It grows beneath the shade and in the sand." A plant like this, once rooted, would thrive in such poor soil conditions. "They were once found in the central parts of the western continents. I had gotten the fortune of obtaining seeds of the human-bred varieties."
V1 stares at him, either processing this information or judging the validity of his answer. But then perhaps they deem his words as acceptable, for their attention returns to examining the remainder of the plants. Gabriel takes two careful steps backwards, and then turns away to resume his self-appointed task.
When he looks over at them again, one hole to go before he'll have all these spots ready for each plant, the machine has seemingly lost interest. They adjust the bag higher onto their shoulder, and turn away, leaping suddenly towards the edge of the underground structure. They clear the entire dug-out section in one bound. Before Gabriel has a chance to react, they fly right between the gap of the cement walls.
And just like that, they're off again, disappearing quickly over the lip of the opposite building. Gabriel is left to work in a contemplative silence. Perhaps they've never seen a real plant before. The fake greenery in Limbo had been burnt into melted plastic rather than cinders.
He spends the remainder of the late afternoon with his hands buried in fresh soil. By the time the light of day begins to fade, he stands at the edge of the plexiglass, surrounded by empty pots. Before him sprawls a tilled, sandy expanse dotted with green, each pockmark of verdant surrounded at their base by rich, brown earth.
Only time would tell if they would survive in this empty world.
They had seen that plant somewhere before, after all.
It's an old memory. One of the engineers kept plants in his office, and they spent five minutes plucking the waxy leaves off of one until he roamed back in with a fresh mug of coffee. They were scolded, but not harshly. That day, they had learned about the fragility of plant life, about how valuable they were.
V1 has scattered memories of flora, mostly ones around the lab brought in for enrichment. But they still hold memories of a rolling, verdant landscape outside the hover car soaked in the early morning light, flowers spilling from the balconies of high rises surrounding a busy street, and once, a lush garden at a huge company function.
The recovering greenery of the world did not last forever; the Streetcleaners eventually set fire to everything outside the lab, burning the world to ash.
V1 dismisses the image, turning their processing power to the remainder of the day's memories. Flashes of the lush color stand out to them as the images roll by. They haven't seen it since Limbo.
Where Gabriel had gotten such lively plants, and fresh soil, to boot? Some hidden place on this scorched earth? Somewhere in Heaven? Impossible. They don't know the details of what had happened there, but it did not take long for them to conclude that he cannot return, for reasons yet unknown to them.
V1 skims further through the day's memories, sorting through the ones they wanted to keep, and the ones they could delete to spare a bit of room. When they catch up with the current date, they minimize the folder window, and follow a file path to a different, dated set.
They're still sorting through the Hell backlog. So much had happened on that harrowing journey. And it certainly doesn't help that a good chunk of the data at the end of their descent was still corrupted.
V1 opens that particular folder first, and is immediately greeted by an alert. They reel with momentary surprise. One of the files has been marked as repaired. It's compatible with their playback program at last.
They pull it swiftly from the folder, moving to another that thus far has only been composed of static, broken images, and their recording of the moment they had touched down at the end of the shaft.
As soon as it's finished transferring, V1 opens the newly restored file.
They are at the edges of death, between a demise by way of crushing and demise by way of falling. They don't know how such a massive hand, glowing with an almost blinding light, had managed to hide in the surrounding darkness without their visuals catching sight of it.
But it had missed them, barely.
When it pulls away, palm beginning to turn upward as if checking whether they had flattened some bothersome insect at long last, V1 sees the crushed metal. The main terminal server once safely hidden beyond the impending destruction of Hell, now flattened into scraps. The hand lifts higher, and their razor-sharp survival instincts finally shake free of their momentary, fear-induced paralysis.
They try to look up, but the moment their gaze reaches higher than the hand, the incomprehensible amounts of light almost knocks their optic offline. Settings open with a thought, and they lower their rendering and brightness to the lowest possible option. It's a risky move, but better than a total loss of vision.
There, the full shape of him, analyzed in a few seconds. They could track his movements well enough, highlighting where a neck, arms, and a head might be, all potential weak points.
Battle data scrambles to load out: Gabriel's patterns, the calculated speed of the Prime Souls, and the playback on The Corpse of King Minos that they have yet to delete. It's a start; they just have to survive long enough to find the pattern, the weak point, and the right moment to parry.
They throw the Whiplash with all their might. It latches onto his wrist, and they fly in.
Four coins soar into the void above, and a blast of electric red bounds across the spinning projectiles. It hones in on the center of the topmost shape, and explodes, sending massive droplets of blood in all directions. The form flinches as they draw their nailgun next, peppering sharp tack into the radiant flesh.
At the apex of their leap, they jump on a rocket. They let it carry them as far as they can go before throwing the Whiplash to pull them sharply to the right, out of range of the pillars of light forming behind them. If they can get onto his shoulders, they have a chance of dodging anything that could kill them instantly.
On the way up, they punch shotgun bullets into the glitching torso. He doesn't say anything in answer to his pain, like Gabriel would have. He just screams, the angered sound is too much for the delicate circuitry of their hearing-
The playback program crashes, and their shutter snaps open to a blurring world.
By the time their memories catch up to them, they're sitting upright on the mattress, a hand at the wing where their pistol is stored. The surrounding night is deathly silent, and they find themselves straining their audials for any sort of noise out of momentary terror.
Slowly, by inches, V1 eases their hand away from their spread wings, and tuck them against their back once more. They have to remind themselves that they're safe here; that's it's just then, and the archangel that saved their life. Any likelihood of Gabriel tracking them down for an attack in the dead of night is rapidly shrinking in numerical possibility.
At last, V1 slumps back into the mattress, the metal frame bouncing slightly with the impact. Their fans whirr sharply, and then die down, hoping to expel the last of their needless panic. After they've reset all their hard-ingrained triggers, they stare up at the ceiling of their bedroom.
And how strange, still, to think of it like that. A place they've claimed as their own. This was likely where they were to reside for quite some time. It has become something like a home, if only in the way their old quarters in the lab used to be, before the other machines suddenly turned upon Mankind.
A place they feasibly know will be one where they spend the rest of their days.
V1 had forgotten how close to death they had come. Their optimality programming may have aided them in surviving encounters with the deadly denizens of Hell, but in reality, it is through sheer luck they are still functional. Gabriel was likely the reason they even survived that final battle, a fresh source of fuel after the bitter scarcity of Treachery.
The archangel had been as much of a pawn as they had been. And he is now the reason they are still alive, well beyond what should have been the end of machinekind. Here, upon a ruined, long-abandoned world, perhaps never having to worry about fuel again.
As they switch back into sleep-mode, V1 opens their internal search engine and enters a file path they know by heart. A new window, aptly titled ‘ angel' appears.
The first images that greet them are of the fleshy reds and purples of the heart of Gluttony, the piercing pillar of light that had heralded their opponent's entrance. Just the first of thousands, now. V1 scrolls down to the ones from earlier that day, seeing images of plants alongside a video of Gabriel looking down at them; the recording of his answer to their inquiry.
How different he is now; a far cry from the archangel who had proclaimed himself God's Will. Once a weapon for a creator who needed him no more, now their replenishable fuel source, a body to take pleasure from, and a formidable sparring partner.
Doesn't he deserve to know what happened to the one he reverently referred to as ‘Father'?
... what would they even say?
The massive ball of stone just barely misses his left leg and hits the street below, creating a network of cracks with a shattering sound. Gabriel dives out of the sky, swings the flat of his blade, and a thrill jolts through him as it collides with the machine's side, just a bit too slow to recover from their missed attack. The force of his blow sends them skidding across the street. They right themselves instantly, the blazing light of their optic a narrowed slit between their shutters.
"You'll have to do better than that!" He sneers, rending the air around him to appear right beside V1, taking another swipe at them. Their red arm collides with it, a split second of silence follows the hollow ring of clashing metal before a shockwave follows, blasting them apart.
Gabriel doesn't give them any quarter, throwing himself back across the distance they'd gained. He winds up another swing of his sword, only to immediately be met by an overcharged shotgun blast, and the concussion of which rattles directly into his helmet. His vision swims for a brief moment as he's blasted high into the air.
Then he catches himself with his wings, pumping them harder to take him higher. The gambit pulls off; with an echoing blast, the machine is suddenly coming at him fast, riding a rocket.
They leap off with several meters to spare as it careens through the air towards Gabriel. He sees his chance, and seizes it, dodging the projectile with a graceful swirl. He twists into a dive, chasing after their falling form.
"Is that the best you got?!" He laughs, adrenaline washing everything away in its heady throes.
Apparently not. Two golden streaks fly right by his helm. Gabriel pumps his wings, tearing through the sky faster than their free fall. He's closing in when they fire off a revolver shot.
The bullet, bouncing off the two coins, tears through his side. His wings nearly crumple, but he's not done yet. He's gained just enough speed to catch up.
He rears back, swiping Splendor with a deliberate, yet controlled motion.
And the tip of his blades scratches along their plating, marring its surface, and then deftly slicing the tube just beyond it. Blood sprays in a glistening arc, bright red against the clear blue sky. Gabriel thrills in seeing them bleed.
He spins around them with a manic laugh, bypassing the machine's falling form and racing them to the ground.
But then, from right above him, he hears the tell-tale whistling of air. It's all the warning he gets before a foot slams into his back, hastening his descent drastically. With a belated jolt of panic, Gabriel realizes he is no longer in control of his fall.
The sound of his body crashing into the sidewalk deafens him, and knocks his sense of orientation askew. As silence falls, he can distantly hear the dimming echo of his collision with the ground, bouncing across the urban canyons between the high rises. His ears ring, the world jerking repeatedly beneath him.
V1's foot lifts off his back, and Gabriel groans with the sudden onset of pain he's been too winded to fully notice. His head spins wildly as he's flipped over onto his back, the outline of the machine above split into three. They lean in close, optic far too bright as their knuckles rap gently against his helmet. He bats at their hand, and even as his own gesture misses by a country mile, they cease their curious motions.
"S-stop that," He half-growls, half slurs. But it does the job; his head is starting to clear. "S'loud..."
Defeated again, but he feels good in spite of that. He'd landed more blows than their last spar, even as his eyes struggle to lock onto the severed tube on their arm, and the long scratch mark he'd left on their plating, scuffing the paint, even. Every clash pushes him further past his limits, allows him to further sharpen his skills. That feels good, too.
When Gabriel makes no effort to lift himself from the crater his fall had made, the claws of their red arm score across his exposed skin, and eager fingers dig into his flayed open flesh. The sharp sting of their digits dipping into his fresh wound, coupled with the blunt ache of his collision with the sidewalk, is all the more delicious with the surge of adrenaline still coursing through his system.
Their fingers flex within his body, sending new arcs of pain through his senses as their touch keeps the blood from clotting, and then heat begins to pool between his legs.
Was this always going to happen? Would every time they pushed him to the brink and fed upon him after always be accompanied by this burning desire?
The way V1 looks at him, as their hands lift from his wounds and drag streaks of blood along his stomach, makes him think that the answer might be yes.
When they finally part, sticky with sweat and patches of dried blood, Gabriel goes right back to his little botany project without bothering to put the shed pieces of his armor back on. They watch him spend a good remainder of the late afternoon light watering the budding grass beneath his bare feet.
Droplets of water catch the fading, brilliantly golden light as they cascade through the air from the graceful curve of an ivory spout. It vanishes into the thin, scattered patches of tiny green stalks, vibrantly colored against the backdrop of concrete. In the week since he had brought them here, most of the plants are all still lively under his attention.
V1, meanwhile, sits on the lip of the concrete window, their back to the sun and observing the proceedings in a curious silence. They eye him as he leans down, knees bending slowly and gracefully, to check one of the plants. His skirt hugs his hips and ass, body soaked in the warm golds of the early evening glow. The markings roving up and down his back flash when they catch waning light. Healing wounds litter his shoulder blades, long, raised marks dark red with dried blood.
Their hands flex with the memory of his thigh gripped tight in their palm. They'd love to grope him a little more, but right now they're more than a little satisfied with themselves: a good, long spar, a full tank of fuel, another video memory of Gabriel writhing beneath them. Right now, they're content to just enjoy the scenery, so to speak.
Eventually, the archangel straightens with a satisfied hum, turning towards where he's got a container full of water sitting at the edges of the carved grove. As his gaze reaches V1, it lingers over them for the fourth time in an hour.
Instead of staring back evenly until he looks away, this time V1 tilts their optic to the side in response. They hear him let out a near-silent sigh, arms crossing over his chest.
"I thought you would've left by now." There's a strange sort of apprehension in his voice. "Don't you have anything else to do?"
A rhetorical question, one they answer anyways with a shrug. They'd tried to tackle the mess that was the growing piles of odds and ends in the townhouse earlier that day. V1 had gotten as far as pulling out the books they'd uncovered from the heaps and getting them on the counter in a careful stack before growing bored. A spar had sounded like a much better idea.
Gabriel lets out a huffy sound, like he's not entirely pleased with their noncommittal answer. But he doesn't try to shoo them away. He heads over to the edge of the burgeoning garden, dipping the ornate watering can into the container. Liquid splashes around inside, half-full compared to when they'd first spotted this particular addition to the garage not a week ago.
Why didn't he just dump it all onto the ground? It would be much more efficient.
As he tilts the slender head of the tool over the fern near in the center, V1 watches the tips of his wings, folded neatly behind him, drag along the sandy ground. They trail in the sand, leaving little swirls behind in their wake.
V1 amps up their rendering again, for just a moment. The last time they had seen them so clearly was that first spar. Now there are bits of dust and soil at the edges, especially along the primaries.
Has he even noticed?
Gabriel crouches into the dirt again, but this time their attention is on his hands, and how he carefully tucks his fingers under the smaller fronds from where they'd been plastered to the ground by the deluge of liquid. They bounce back up after he pulls them out of the sand, and large droplets roll off of the tiny leaves. He does the same with another, repeating until the fern looks refreshed under the evening sun.
Their optic strays back to his wings. They wonder why he pours so much attention into the maintenance of a plant, and leaves so little for himself.
One of the salvia didn't make it.
Gabriel sighs quietly as he examines the shriveled stems. No signs of disease, mold, nor some Earth insect chewing at the leaves. When he checks the other two, they're doing just fine. This third one simply wilted, refused to take root, clearly not happy about being transplanted.
It happens sometimes, he knows this well. But it still stings more than it should.
Gabriel is in the middle of digging it up when he hears the telltale sound of metal sliding along plexiglass. It rapidly grows closer. Gabriel doesn't look up, not yet.
"Machine." He greets, stabbing the shovel deep into the ground to keep it upright. It vents a bit of his simmering frustration. Gabriel doesn't particularly feel like entertaining their whims today. He'll refuel them and hopefully they'll be on their way.
But against his meager hopes, they drop down into the garden and block his way, holding up a finger at him, a universal gesture to wait. Gabriel stops mid-step towards his swords, crossing his arms with a heavy sigh.
"Yes?" He inquires, curtly. If the machine has caught onto his mood, they don't acknowledge it.
Their hands immediately go digging around in their bag, the sound of clattering plastic and clinking glass resounding from within. Then their hands withdraw something small and square. It rattles with a sound too distinct to be mistaken for anything else.
His own shock is palpable when they proudly present it to him, effectively dispersing his disgruntled mood.
Seeds.
A packet of seeds. He takes it swiftly, hardly daring to believe. The print is far too worn and faded to discern, but the picture is clear: that of a mix of colorful chrysanthemums.
"V1, where--where did you find this?"
They point with their thumb back towards the east, the direction they usually come from whenever they need blood. The gesture is far too vague to interpret properly, but suddenly, Gabriel wonders about this new facet of this ruthless warmachine, brought about by a lack of nonstop threats to their very survival. He sees them with this satchel so frequently, and clearly there's other things within, things they've found, things they like enough to want to keep.
And things they thought he might like.
"I see." He deliberately turns his gaze to their bag, full of who-knows-what-else. "And where did you acquire the rest?"
Instead of pointing, he watches their hands rest on their hips, and their optic tilt, as if they were asking him something in return. Gabriel examines their body, the way they hold themselves. He wonders if they're annoyed, but decides instead to take a risk.
"I see you with that satchel, often." He explains. "I was just wondering what you might be doing with all that."
They still, almost like they hadn't expected him to say that. Had he unwittingly answered whatever it is they silently asked? Their optic darts from him, to the satchel. And then back to him, but he watches their wings flutter subtly, and then they turn away.
But before they take off at top speed, they gesture with one hand, beckoning him after them.
... well, he can dispose of the dead flower later.
Gabriel takes to air swiftly, and follows their leap out of the shade of oppressive concrete, tucking his wings in to glide through the narrow opening. They're easy enough to follow, a bright thing amidst the faded concrete and wash-out neons.
He keeps pace with all of V1's sharp turns and sudden changes in altitude. They clear entire gaps between buildings, bouncing off of skywalks into slides. They leap, run, fly across the city, passing its heart, and the dead end tunnels below, within mere minutes. Gabriel watches their movements, calculated and precise. They've done this quite a few times in the past month.
It does not take long to reach their destination, just a bit further east of their emergence point. V1 abruptly rolls out of their slide into a leisurely walk. They glance back as he lands, as if making sure he had kept pace with them, and then they take a sharp left.
V1 has brought him right by a concrete townhouse, nestled neatly between a destroyed shop and an apartment complex. V1 leads him inside, slipping through the doorless entrance. He has to duck in order to keep his head from smacking on the frame.
Gabriel's pace slows to a stop as he takes the quaint home in. There's no sign of the humans who once inhabited this place, and any furniture has long since been tossed out. More specifically, to make room for the many heaps of junk and human-made nicknacks that litter the floor.
Drink bottles still half full, a broken stoplight projector, several handheld devices with cracked screens. He spots a pristine shoe lying atop a hunk of metal which, upon closer examination, appears to be part of a car.
He quickly turns his gaze over to the machine, who is carefully emptying their satchel onto the dusty kitchen island. Compared to the communal room, this part of the house is kept much cleaner. Objects cover the counters, but these look to be in much better condition than the rest of their collection.
"You found all this?" He asks, incredulous.
They nod once, and then their attention turns back to their newly acquired items, carefully turning over each in their hands as it's pulled from the depths of the bag, before setting it down in an unoccupied spot. Things like a tiny figurine of an earth feline, locked in a languid stretch, a piece of drinkware with a single chip in the rim, deceptively strong despite its fragile shape, and a blinking device, still operational somehow despite its age.
And right after, sitting beneath all of this, three books with vastly different covers and titles. Gabriel instantly recognizes two of them. One was from a time of a forgotten war, another a retold myth from the time of the Hellenes. The third Gabriel does not know.
It's then that he registers the pile of books sitting on the upper part counter in a carefully straightened stack.
V1 pushes these aside for the moment, clearly more fixated on the other objects than the paperbacks full of text. Gabriel is of the opposite opinion, drawn to them immediately.
By the time of Lust's Renaissance, humanity had greatly reduced the use of parchment, moving a great deal of their information to devices and networks. Perhaps someone had preserved these; despite their age, they seem to be in good condition overall. Gabriel picks up the newer, merely dusty book, rather than dogeared epics.
Thoughts on the Rain Season, its title reads, the text easily legible despite the abstract images upon the cover. Flipping it open near the middle, he's immediately bombarded with flowery prose.
"And I would see
Just a scant glimpse of the sun.
Among the clouds and vapor
Beating upon my back.
The warmth of it's radiance
Eludes me still.
As I lean closer to the ground
Hoping to hear the spring flowers.
From fallow and rain-"
V1 pops into his view suddenly. Their hand grips the other edge of the paperback, looking at him with a quizzical lilt of their head, then back to the page. They gently start to pry the book from his grip. Gabriel releases it without argument; they had found it, after all. As soon as it's fully in their hands, V1 quickly thumbs through the pages, seemingly at random.
After half a minute of this, their hand snaps it shut with a dull slap, setting it right back in front of him with a flourish that almost seems to suggest disinterest. Cautiously, Gabriel picks up the book again. The machine does not try to stop him this time, clearly preoccupied with skimming the next one.
Still, it would not hurt to ask.
"May I borrow this?"
V1 waves at him absently, but given they haven't tried to take it back yet, he assumes that's a yes. This next book they flip through three pages, steadily, and then set it atop the pile on the upper counter.
"I hadn't taken you for the sort who enjoyed reading." Gabriel comments, examining the pile. When he looks back at V1, they're glaring at him over the rim of the third book. Some part of him wants to suddenly flatten to the ground. "Er, that is-"
V1's optic moves in an arc, and they look back to the page. This sort of movement doesn't require much thought to interpret. But they give him another wave, as if dismissing him. Right after, they shut the last book with a muted thud.
The machine places it carefully on the pile, before turning their attention away to the remainder of their discoveries. Gabriel wisely decides to keep his silence for the next several minutes. They're extending a lot more trust towards him than he ever thought they would.
He roams the townhouse at his own pace, taking in this corner of the world that they had claimed as their own. He had never imagined that they would discern enjoyment of hoarding human possessions, of reading, even. Gabriel treats the place much like they treat the budding garden below the concrete, keeping his hands to himself. Even if some old part of him scoffs at the blatant display of materialism.
There's a collection of glass shards sitting on one of the windowsills, facing the afternoon light and fully displaying their array of colors. The nearest pile to that is dedicated entirely to technological devices, most with their screens darkened, but some flicker and glitch. There's three stunning paintings leaning against the wall of the upstairs hall when he makes his way to the second floor.
A single room resides up here, with its mechanical door jimmied open. He spots another couple of piles of various objects, much smaller in size, and a desk with a scattering of tools and scrap metal. Opposite that, a single bedframe in the corner. There's a divet in the mattress, stripped of its sheets, and two more books upon the unbalanced nightstand at its side.
Did they require sleep? Or would they wait out the nights with the aid of books, passing the time until sunrise? He does not know, and despite this display of trust they've extended to him, they're unlikely to answer that even if he asked.
So, Gabriel only looks, and dares not step into this particular room.
After that particular discovery, he decides to conclude his explorations, mind racing with all the information he's discerned from the only other occupant of this emptied planet. The machine is wandering about downstairs when he spots them over the plaster railing of second floor landing. They walk with purpose, either placing their findings atop the piles, or displaying them elsewhere according to some unknown cataloging system.
"Machine," They turn their attention to him, as he floats down from the upper floor. Their head tilts in that wordless, recognizable "yes?" gesture. "When you've finished, would you care to spar?"
Their wings snap up, and they nod rapidly. Gabriel struggles to keep the smile out of his voice at their enthusiasm. When had he begun to recognize a positive gesture?
"Very well. When you're ready, I'll meet you outside."
V1 waits until they've pushed inside of him to begin refueling.
Gabriel's gauntlets scrape wildly against the concrete wall he's pinned against, just from the first firm thrust. He makes for quite the sight: skirt bunched up his hips, thighs trembling, and moaning so needily. The Whiplash grasps the collar of his cuirass, keeping him where they'd slammed him into the stone, and their Feedbacker snakes around to his stomach. Two gunshot wounds weep with blood, still.
The agonized groan he makes as they dig their fingers into the nearest one is borderline heavenly. More fuel oozes from them as they wiggle their digits deep as they can into the viscera. It drips onto their palm, and their fuel gauge starts ticking back up. They have no means to taste it, but something about the sensation could almost make them picture it.
Human senses, narrated fluidly in some of the books they've read, would describe it as having a metallic flavor, similar to its scent. Gabriel had once spoken of having never tasted it before their railcannon simultaneously tore through and then cauterized his gut. They feel it; the hot liquid coating their fingers as they curl them in his wound like they would his pussy. It satisfies their deep-seated need for fuel, and the sheer heat squeezing their cock feels dizzyingly good.
V1 times their thrusts with each dip back into the gore. They listen to Gabriel try to bite back whimpers, only to fail miserably. They eye his exposed lower back, unmarked despite the intensity of their spar. The talons of the Knuckleblaster flex once before it scores thin scratches across the length of his exposed skin. He cries out, the sound sharp and sudden, echoing through the desolate city.
The walls of his cunt massage them hungrily as they press their other hand to his bleeding back, seeping up the life-giving fuel he offers them so readily until they're full again. The archangel pushes back into them with fervor, hips dancing against their own.
V1 can't absorb anymore, but all of him feels so good like this. Supple flesh and viscera, bloodfuel hot on their plating, and burrowing themselves in molten heat deep as they can go. Their Whiplash presses him harshly to the wall as they throw their strength into each brutish trust.
Gabriel comes unexpectedly and untouched, and the sudden pressure around them plunges their sensors into glitching ecstasy. Their fans whine, melding with his unabashed moaning, splintering into a half-sob, half-groan as their fingers tug sharply at the edges of his wound.
The pair of them slowly crumple to the ground. Gabriel's knees hit the sidewalk with a loud clang, helmet scraping against the stone until he comes to a stop. V1 clings to his back, slowly recovering, and retaining just enough sense to remove their digits from his still-bleeding injuries. A faint groan escapes Gabriel as they pull out a moment later.
"You're insatiable... " They catch him muttering under his breath. V1 glances down to the mess of slick and cum, the thin streams of blood that have trickled down his back and soaked into his skirt, and mentally play back all the begging he'd done when they'd pinned him to the wall.
They reach down to pinch his ass, and their shoulders shake silently when his answering yelp carries far into the distance.
It's the craters they leave behind in the sidewalks and roads during their sparring sessions that give him the idea.
The space he'd dug out beneath the garage affords no more barren dirt to till, and what small patches where the grass did not come up have been filled with more hardy plants. All it needs now is careful watering.
In the long-run, this will likely bear decent results; it's time to turn his attention elsewhere for the next attempt.
Gabriel spends a day clearing an area just outside the garage. Between pushing away debris, shoving the broken down human vehicles into the narrow gaps between the buildings, and breaking open the thick acrylic covering the earth, V1 visits him twice. Once for fuel early in the morning, and then again in the afternoon to perch up on the nearby rooftop of the opposite building and simply watch him work.
For another two days there's no sign of them. But as always, they return, just as he's kneeling in the newly-churned earth with a trowel in hand and a small jar of rich soil in hand. Gabriel doesn't become aware of their presence until they're standing at the jagged edges, hands settled on their hips and their gaze fixed on the opened packet laying on the ground next to him.
Even after he refuels them, they stick around to watch him plant the seeds, going as far as to drop into the dust with him.
"Before I was Judge of Hell, or even a messenger to Mankind, my duties to The Father were to tend to Heaven's gardens." Gabriel says, quietly so, as he carefully sprinkles the seeds into several tiny shallows. "It wasn't the most glorious of duties, but I came to enjoy it."
He hesitates just a moment before deciding to continue.
"Even when my purposes grew to act as a liaison to humanity, and... then as an overseer of Hell, I was always relieved to return to them." His thumb carefully pushes a thin covering of soil over the kernels. "But I never had much time for it, after I was named the Will of God."
All the while, V1 watches him with an unwavering gaze, kneeling opposite him in the sandy soil. Even after he gets up to retrieve a full watering can sitting beside his swords, they remain. Gabriel tries not to let himself be too proud with keeping their attention for this long.
"It will take time." He says to V1, pouring the clear liquid across the overturned earth. "A season, but they may yet bloom."
Their wings flutter; something in him rises with humbled satisfaction. Not a twitch, but repeated movements. Eager anticipation. When had he come to recognize an excited motion?
Gabriel rises once more to his feet when he's done, dusting the bits of compost and sand off of his poleyns and greaves. By the time he's picked his shovel back up from where he'd left it, right by the pots full of golden marigolds and colorful sedums, V1 stands upright as well. They're starting to turn away to leave.
He manages to speak before his courage fails him, this time.
"I uh, have something for you."
They stop, and whirl right back around in a hurry. It used to be unnerving, the way they sometimes stared at them intently. But he's grown used to their silent observations, come to even anticipate the rapt gaze of their undivided interest.
Gabriel's find sits next to the trough in the cooler reaches of the underground area. V1's wings flare out with what he hopes is surprise when he presents it to them in the palm of his hand. They snatch the tiny keychain in a hurry, examining it thoroughly and closely.
"I believe it fell out of one of the cars while I was clearing the street," He explains, sheepishness creeping into his tone despite his efforts. "I spotted it on the ground, and I thought you might like it."
The plastic shape is similar enough to their revolver, paint just a little faded but many details remain. V1 stares at it, and then at him, in an unmoving silence. Gabriel forces himself to release the breath he's holding.
Then their hand snatches his arm up, and squeezes it once before releasing it. He understands, suddenly, the meaning behind the gentle pressure, the subtle lilt of their optic, and how their lower shutter lifts ever-so slightly.
"You're welcome." He replies, strangely shaky with relief, and brimming with silent elation.
V1 departs not long after, when he begins work on transplanting the flora he brought from his latest trip to the First Sphere. By the time the sun begins to set, he's halfway done. Gabriel deems that enough work for the time being, and slips back into the garage for one final thing.
The light of his wings, and the surrounding neons, allow him to continue reading the book of human poetry as the moon crosses the sky. He's nearing the end already. Perhaps he could resume his explorations of the ruins, specifically to search for more books.
Or perhaps he could try to somehow ask V1 to borrow another. Maybe find something else they might like and propose a trade. It would aid in the passage of the night, when he would look for the stars and see so few of them.
Gabriel turns his attention away from the last few passages, searching for them now. He can see Venus, stark on the horizon, and Jupiter is passing overheard. But very little of the glimmering celestial bodies that make up most of the Eighth Sphere are at all visible.
He wonders how his people fare. He thinks of the gardens and the endless canopy of the fixed stars from the heart of the city there, the grand libraries where he would lose hours in a corner on rare days to himself, the sound of hymns rising into the air alongside trumpets and lyres. He's tried singing as he works, but his voice is lacking, hollow by itself.
A full month here, on the Earth, away from Heaven's embrace and bereft of his duties in Hell; it's still no closer to anything he feels he could call a home.
The townhouse feels almost too quiet when they inevitably return to it; dark, silent, their salvaged possessions scattered across the kitchen island and living space floor. V1 lingers at the doorframe, Gabriel's gift still held snugly in their hand. They slip it to their fingers and examine it in the light of the optic.
The day had been a good one. They had uncovered another museum, one entirely dedicated to Old World technology, gotten a refuel after, and watched him plant the seeds they had uncovered a week ago.
If not for having seen him dedicate so much time to it, they would never have believed he possessed a wealth of knowledge about cultivation. The earth had been completely scorched, but still greenery takes to the barren soil under his care.
And another stark reminder to the fact that they barely knew anything about Gabriel at all. His history spanned all of mankind, even a time before that. Theirs had begun in its final years.
Did he wonder the same things, about them? Where they'd come from, the people they knew and the things they learned before civilization had fallen, taking so much precious knowledge and fuel with it?
A possible solution to all this sits innocently on the kitchen counter, where they'd left it barely two weeks ago now. It holds their attention as they set the keychain next to it with a barely audible clink of metal upon marble. They have some ideas of how to utilize it to ask such things, and how to construct answers. V1 was, if nothing else, adaptable to any situation.
But unbidden, that little folder of text, video clips, and half-remember pictures opens up on their HUD. Just the sight of the first few thumbnails suddenly makes them want to pick up the cube and chuck it against the wall until it breaks; until it cracks into pieces, and they utterly destroy this potential bridge in communication.
For a full five seconds, they are deeply tempted to do just that.
But ultimately, they dismiss the folder with a whirring huff of irritation. V1 leaves the device untouched, unused, and takes a daring but graceful leap to the railing of the second floor, ducking into the bedroom.
V1 tucks their wings against their back, curls up on the mattress, and swiftly switches to sleep mode. Information from the day floods them in chronological order, and as they sift through them, they find that their attention keeps centering on the ones with Gabriel.
Gabriel, fueling them, sparring with them, writhing under them. The times they find him staring listlessly into the distance from atop a building, or crouched over the tainted earth with greenery in hand. That he had thought about them, at all, beyond his desire to fight or his desire to be fucked.
V1 finds themselves idling in their own head when they finish sorting their memories. Its only for a minute, for they then follow a file path to a different subfolder, one they had been placing more recent information and findings into. Things like snapshot of plants, an unseen visage fixed upon the page of a book, and now, pattern recognition of their own interests. All these things they hadn't seen from him before. New facets of Gabriel for them to puzzle over.
Something shudders to life from its dormancy inside them, like an abacus shifting abruptly in favor of something unknown; something that almost feels like a physical weight within their chassis.
They need some time to think.
