First Demonic Dragon

"Bahahahahahaha!!! That's hysterical! I mean by the stars is that rich!"

Abaddon's jaw set in place. Unamused and greatly irritated.

"Wait, wait, wait…"

Raphael suddenly stood up and posed like the Statue of Liberty.

"Am I stronger than you now? Go on, you can feel free to worship me at any time now and I promise I won't let the power go to my head or anyth- AAH"

Raphael only barely hit the ground in time to avoid a large spear crashing into his head.

He slowly looked up at the weapon buried in the wall and felt his spirit leave his body.

"S-Seriously?! All that for one little joke??"

"I was joking too." Abaddon replied as he sat back down.

"You weren't joking..!" Raphael slowly turned his head toward Azrael. "…Was he?"

Azrael shrugged. "He would have brought you back at least."

Abaddon nodded innocently.

Raphael wanted to say something in return, but he didn't want to risk Abaddon actually killing him.

And then refusing to bring him back…

"I don't understand." Uriel completely ignored her brother while he picked himself up off the ground. "I thought our father created you to be his ultimate masterpiece."

"Your father created me to be his shadow, Uriel. That's not the same thing." Abaddon rolled his eyes as he rested his chin in his palm.

"Then the Ophanim are..?"

"His last defense. Mine and Ayaana's only Nuclear Deterrent. You can take your pick of either." Abaddon shrugged.

The archangels couldn't take their gazes off of the statues sitting across the room. Neither could Abaddon's soldiers.

"So is it all of them or only when they're together..?" Gabriel asked curiously.

"If I were ever in a position to figure that out, do you think that I would still be here talking to any of you?" Abaddon asked with an annoyed look.

Eris rubbed his hand thoughtfully and he felt just the faintest bit better. Though not by much.

"I only ask because this could be the tipping point for us. If we can find a way to activate the old piles of rock, then-"

"We can't, and you know that." Eris said gently. "The Ophanim do not obey the calls of anyone aside from Yesh. And what's more, they do not leave heaven for any reason no matter the circumstances."

"The only way they will wake up is if the throne room is under siege." Abaddon reminded.

The archangels stared at him awkwardly for a moment while shuffling amongst themselves.

"...What?"

"It's...Well, I don't know if it would be offensive." Gabriel muttered.

"And somehow I'm already offended." Abaddon folded his arms.

Uriel: "But I mean... can't you just... scare them awake?"

Raphael: "Do your whole 'Big bad dragon' thing and knock a couple of buildings over. Maybe even smear a little blood on the wall?"

Azrael: "You know I've never voiced it out loud, but I have often wondered the exact same thing."

Zadkiel: "Do the roar."

Abaddon just stared at the six of them blankly while Izanami sat beside him and snickered.

Suddenly, the room became much more difficult to breathe in.

The world was suddenly framed through red-tinted glasses.

The entire building rumbled. Every nerve ending and bone cried out within the bodies of everyone inside.

The angels fell out of their chairs, clutching their chests. Abaddon's soldiers fell to one knee.

Entire tears opened up in the very fabric of the room. The cracks in reality were growing larger and larger as the seconds went by.

Abaddon nonchalantly sipped his tea as he stared at the statues. Not only were they fine, but the throne they were guarding, as well as the area where they currently stood, were both in immaculate condition.

Abaddon suddenly had his left ear pulled.

When he looked to his side, he found Eris glaring at him with her cheeks puffed out.

"You're going to hurt them."

The throne room immediately returned to normal.

Abaddon's demeanor did an immediate 180. "S-Sorry.."

"Why are you apologizing to me? I'm not the ones you hurt." Eris nodded.

Abaddon nodded. "...I am sorry to everyone except Raphael."

The archangel of protection was resisting the urge to say his first swear word.

"So it really doesn't work then...duly noted." Uriel said as she crawled off of the floor.

'Shocking.' Abaddon thought to himself.

"So then we need to find another way to track down our enemy without using the super angels back there... Any ideas?" Raphael asked.

Eris sighed as she furrowed her brow.

"My husband has been spanning his consciousness through as much of space as he can for a while now.

Seras is also concentrating on every drop of blood spilled or violence enacted... Audrina is monitoring the shadows, and Tati concentrates on the seas just as I do on the wilds...

But no matter how often we look, our efforts yield no fruit. It almost seems as if they aren't even in our realm. The only remaining possibility is..."

"Is what?"

"That they've created their own isolated dimension and are not only hiding inside of it but also moving it as time goes by." Eris revealed.

Needless to say, no one seemed particularly fond of that theory. They even looked like they were about to start praying for it to be incorrect.

"So... We have to keep waiting for them to pop their heads up and then hope that we're in the right place so that we can play the world's oldest game of whack-a-mole?" Raphael whined.

"...Essentially." Abaddon said strangely.

Azrael noticed that the edge on his tone indicated that he may have had more to say. "But..?"

Abaddon looked around for a bit and before he pointed towards the ceiling.

Right before everyone's eyes, a familiar rip opened up in the air.

Through this opening, one could see a strange cave filled with colorful gems embedded in the wall and a strange underground lake that seemed to be glowing blue.

The dragons in the room were immediately revitalized from the welcoming luster of home.

"I'm sorry. I needed there to be complete privacy." Abaddon said.

All of the archangels stared at him in confusion except for Azrael.

"What do you mean 'complete'?" Raphael asked.

"Chaos is much more... invasive than you can imagine. I'm not even sure that this place is fully insulated from her schemes, but blurring the barrier between our realms should do the trick."

"You mean she could have been listening to us this whole time??" Uriel stood up.

""Yes."" Eris and Abaddon responded in unison.

"W-Well, why didn't you say anything, that's just..!" Uriel was so frustrated she couldn't even begin to get her words out.

"You said that this tear will help keep our conversation private." Azrael suddenly said as he investigated the rip. "Is it the fact that two worlds are partially melded, or is there something about your realm in particular that is keeping the conversation private?"

Abaddon and Eris glanced at each other, the back at him.

Azrael was developing a migraine.

"...How long is the answer to my question?"

"Long."

"Can you simplify it?"

"Not without leaving you with more questions than what you originally began with."

"Please, feel free to try anyway." Azrael beckoned.

Abaddon sighed.

"... I am of two consciousnesses. Two minds. My other, more powerful self, far beyond the boundaries of everything that you have ever seen or will ever know. He knows more than me and is greater than me. He gave me the runes to protect my realm from Chaos because he is of the same ilk as her."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"...You know, if you didn't want to tell us, you should've just said that. You didn't have to be a big jerk and make such a blatantly crazy lie to keep your little secret." Raphael folded his arms.

At the moment, Abaddon was feeling a strong blend of emotions that most definitely were not very family-friendly.

Although after taking a moment to think about it, he didn't really know if he would've just believed him either.

The only ones who believed him totally were his soldiers. Further fueling his belief that dragons, specifically Nevi'im, were fundamentally better than every other species in creation.

"However you're doing it, can't you do the same here???" Uriel questioned. "We all need the element of surprise on our side if we're going to even begin to launch any sort of successful countermeasure."

Abaddon looked fine on the outside, but on the inside, his mind was racing.

This was the part of the meeting he had been dreading ever since it had begun. Because he knew exactly where this was going, and he knew how it would be taken coming from him.

But at the end of the day, he didn't have any other real choices here.

"...I can't. Placing the runes in any other domain could come with disastrous consequences. They simply aren't strong enough to hold them without burning through the fabric of the land."

"Then-"

"What I can do..." Abaddon took a deep breath. "...Is merge the godly and mortal realms into my own."

The silence was so loud you could have heard a pin drop in the middle of Texas.

No one could think to speak. Even Raphael was having a hard time finding a joke of any kind to make at this moment.

They were staring at Abaddon like what he had proposed was... monstrous.

Abaddon hated this look of theirs. It took everything that he could muster not to take offense.

"...I'm going to pretend that was a bad joke." Jophiel had been relatively quiet during this entire meeting, but she suddenly stood up and began walking away.

Zadkiel called out for her, but she didn't turn back and threw open the doors to the hall abruptly.

"Abaddon..!" Eris began.

"I'm fine... I figured that something like that might happen." He sighed.

However, Eris shook her head. "That's not it. We need to go."

His brow was raised. "What? Why?"

Eris was already standing up and helping Izanami get to her feet too.

"I-It's Aubrey... She's about to give birth."