Chapter Text
Chains rattled in the darkness, clinging desperately to the creature that they kept constricted. Their purpose, long rusted away across the years, was waning and every demon knew it.
The fallen one took a breath. He exhaled pure corruption, energised flecks of malice that brightened the dungeon with magenta. The spikes lodged in hands would have been enough to make him howl in agony if not for the fact he had been rotting in his crypt for far too long. After millennia of endless suspension in limbo, it was going to take more than that to affect him. A twisted grin unknowingly curled his lips as he then yanked his hands forward.
The demons surrounding him shrieked in joy as he slowly began to free himself. One in particular, wrapped in red and gold armour, laughed the loudest.
“Yes, come forth, Adagium,” he said in a deep voice, drunk on the pollution in the air.
The being before him gave one final heave before toppling to the floor, his chains now shattered. He collapsed gracelessly in a heap of pale skin and miasma.
He coughed. His lungs were thick with black fluid, the very physical incarnation of the contamination within him. It had been awful at first. It still was, in a way, but time had eased the discomfort. After several gruelling moments of hacking it all out, Adagium peered up. Tens of the fallen ones circled him. Some were beyond ghastly, a mangled mess of creature parts and gods knew what else. Others were comely in appearance, the one just having spoken being a good example. The one that seemed the most interested in him. Adagium held eye contact for a long time. Gold eyes met blue, curiosity clashing with pure awe.
“How wonderful that you’ve returned to us,” the armoured demon muttered.
“...What?” the Adagium rasped. He had been in a dormant state for too long. He had not seen another living being in eons .
“Adagium,” the demon knelt down to his level, “you have awoken on this day for a reason. Regain your power. Take back what is ours by reaching beyond the heavens and crushing those that cast us out.”
What… what was he talking about? The words floated around his mind like the tail ends of dying embers, not present for long enough to grasp at. He considered the fact he could be hallucinating, but the touch of the demon’s hand on his knee was all too real. Adagium had to think for a minute. His memories were hazy, filled with flashes of raging fire and the feeling of feathers burning away. He squeezed his eyes shut as he recalled the pain, hot and merciless , mauling the wings on his back—
Then it hit him. He cried out as he felt his shoulder blades, only to find stumps of what were once everything that made him him . Some feathers clung on to the bone, yet what remained was drenched in the thick liquid of demonification. It dripped down his back like acid.
“What have I become?” he wailed to the gods above. He received no reply except from the cackling devil that had encouraged him to break free.
“Our saviour!” he hissed, gripping on to Adagium’s shoulders and jostling him. “You are the one to lead our kind to salvation !”
Salvation, was it? He hung his head as he mulled over the word. Had he not given that to those who needed it, only to be cast out? To be trapped in limbo for a crime he did not commit? Adagium began to chuckle to himself. The chuckle grew until it dominated the room, morphing into a maniacal screeching that made everyone present cower. Yes, salvation .
He raised his tattered wings. They were so large that they touched the ceiling, dark feathers rotting and regenerating over and over again. He then gripped the armoured demon’s throat, ignoring his delighted laughter as he indulged in his memory.
He took all of the demons’ knowledge and made it his own.
And instantly regretted it.
Howling, Adagium stumbled backwards into the back end of his crypt, trying to scratch out the burning in his eyes with his fingernails. He saw and felt the falling of every demon in the room. Every single one, tossed over the edge of the Holy Land and landing like comets into pools of magma. Wings, once made of the most gorgeous of colours, now stained with greys and blacks. Halos were snuffed out and replaced with a constant tingling of pain over the skin. Screams of agony echoed together to form a demented chorus—one that refused to quiet in Adagium’s mind.
It burned, it burned IT BURNED —
“Get a hold of yourself.”
It was the armoured demon again. Adagium peered up to take in the sights of his golden hair and sharp features. Pretty, for a fallen one. He must have once been a magnificent angel. Adagium bit back a sob at the thought of such creatures, his memories flooding him in violent pulses. It was still so incomprehensible, though he remembered lying under the trees in Heaven, feeling nothing but bliss. How he had absorbed the pain and suffering of others, and how such feelings made him who he was. He was a healer, a saviour. What had happened ? Why was he here, now?
It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts—
“Wake up, Adagium. You are no longer in Heaven. You are here, with us.”
Had he been speaking out loud? Adagium hadn’t realised. His eyelashes fluttered as he adjusted his lenses. The voices had dimmed, and he was now finally beginning to regain his vision. He saw the blond demon, and then the ground below him. It reeked of dried blood.
“How… how long has it been?” he whispered.
“Who can say? A million years? Ten million? Time runs a little differently in Hell, after all.”
Hell . Adagium shuddered at the word. Despite his mind trying to repel such a thought, he could believe he was truly there. It looked like Hell, smelled like it, felt like it. He really had fallen all those years ago. Not a hallucination, then. A shame.
“And who are you?” he said in a low sneer.
The demon placed a hand to his chest proudly. “I am Verstael. I once reigned as a virtue, but that was a long time ago.”
He let out a crazed laugh. Adagium turned to see that the other demons had retreated to a safer distance, though many remained to silently watch on. Let them. See if he cared. May everyone in the universe gawk at the beast he was now. Still… Verstael sounded familiar. Had they known each other in their heavenly days? Adagium’s memories remained obscure. Surely, he must have had some friends, but who, exactly? It hurt to recall. He groaned.
“Well, I suppose it isn’t a shock you’re so disorientated. You would be, after what the gods did to you,” said Verstael.
Ah, yes. If Adagium concentrated, he vaguely saw six—no, five enormous figures. One had been cast out. Their names and purpose remained a mystery, yet it was so familiar. Was it only the gods that had done this? Had he displeased them? From what little he could salvage from his decaying mind, he didn’t remember committing treason. He… he knew he had been a healer, but surely that couldn’t be the reason the gods threw him down here. There had to be something he was missing. A piece of the puzzle, stored away in the folds of his soul. If only he could just reach out and grasp it.
He found himself walking before too long. Verstael was beside him, but around them laid an empty stretch of nothing. Nothing besides darkness and flames of the damned. Maybe, if he squinted, he could make out a city, yet no lights illuminated it. Had Hell always been this depressing?
He supposed that was a silly question.
“Still can’t remember?”
Verstael was smiling, and it made Adagium angry. “Not particularly.”
“In due time, you will. I do have to ask, however… why do your wings remain?”
Agadium peered behind him. His wings were bloody and mangled. He would have tucked them away, except it hurt too much, so he left them alone. He frowned at Verstael’s odd question.
“What do you mean? Do you not have yours?”
The demon shook his head. “We lose our wings upon falling. Perhaps… you are a rare case, dear Adagium.”
In all honestly, Adagium couldn’t care less. Wings or no wings, he was doomed either way. Oh, Somnus would probably laugh—
Somnus. Somnus ? Adagium shuddered and slowed to a halt. His head spun at the mere thought of the name, a name so familiar as well as so distant at the same time. He fell to his knees. Tearing at his hair, Adagium almost vomited at the memory. Dark hair, dark eyes, a malicious smile— Somnus .
“He was the one!” he suddenly yelled. Verstael flinched. Adagium bent over and dug his fingers into the blood-soaked earth, clawing up clumps of old flesh in his fit of rage. “It was him! He cursed me! He blamed me! HE was the one who cast me down here!”
He couldn’t quite remember everything about this Somnus, although he knew for certain that whoever he was, he was the culprit. The villain. The bane of his existence, a jealous ‘brother’ that had blamed whatever sin on him. Adagium didn’t care as Verstael looked on in horror as his teeth gnashed together, spitting out a mixture of blood and dark liquid. He ended up throwing up again, but it felt good. Getting this awful corruption out of his body felt good. Somnus had planted it there.
Not to mention there was the matter of his name. Adagium was not a name! It was an ugly title, a title that meant ‘the ignored one’. Well, it might have been suitable for the situation he was in, but why should he adorn it? Why should he strut around arrogantly with such a derogatory name? He had a name! A proper name that everyone else might have abandoned, yet he hadn’t.
Yes, his name…
Ardyn.
He smiled wickedly. He leapt for Verstael, the fallen virtue, and ignored his screams as he drank the very essence of his demonic aura. It tasted of death. His tongue protested, and the texture made his teeth ache as if one was chewing bones, but the power. The power it gave. No feeling compared.
Curse the angels, curse the demons and curse the gods. Ardyn was going to find his brother and rip Heaven to shreds at the same time, and he would use every pathetic being down here to help him do so.
“Be careful they do not attack the dominion!”
"I can watch out for myself, Iggy!"
Two demons, snarling and snapping at anything that came anywhere near their vicinity, were encircled by four figures. They were already in pain from the light emitted from the weapons lodged in their flesh, but it wasn’t enough to banish them back to where they had been sentenced. Their scales burned and their horns had been torn off, but they ploughed on. Vile beings.
Four angels, each more impressive than the last, struck the corrupted creatures until they were too weak to move. They writhed like flies despite having their energy sapped by the holy light. The first angel, the one to have just spoken, raised his twin daggers and unleashed a string of their divine language to send the demons back to Hell. He did not even flinch as they screamed in his face, hissing obscenities as they were dragged below the earth.
“Damn you, seedy fucking angel!” one snarled as its body disappeared in a portal of death. “May you burn in Ifrit’s fire!”
Empty threats, all of them. It would be laughable if not for the disturbing echo of their voices. It sounded out like church bells over a dead town, haunting and loud yet somehow hollow.
The group exhaled in relief as the fight was over. “Nice one, Ignis.”
The one that had banished the demons, folding his beige wings behind him neatly, nodded in response. Prim and proper as always. “I thank you, Gladiolus.”
“I swear, these demons are getting stronger!” a blond angel piped up.
“Told you we shouldn’t have brought him with us,” Gladiolus said.
Ignis tutted the larger built angel, making his daggers vanish within his hands. They faded in a tracing of blue light. “Now, now, I'm sure Prompto is just as capable as the rest of us. Otherwise, the dominion would not have invited him.”
They turned to the fourth member. The dominion was wiping demon blood from his glowing sword. He turned, his wings contrasting his fair skin.
“Course he is. Prom’s a good fighter.”
The blond punched the air enthusiastically. The other two sighed, but didn’t argue. They had to abide by the dominion’s rules while they were out of Heaven lest they experience the wrath of the higher ones.
Noctis allowed his weapon to be flashed away for safekeeping. Prompto was right. The demons were indeed getting more difficult to deal with. In the past year alone they had encountered almost a thousand of the wretched things. They were all of the lower rank, far too weak to deal any real damage to angels of their standing, though it was still a worry. The demons had not been this riled in centuries. What was causing this mass outbreak that had forced them to fight them off themselves? He supposed he wouldn’t know unless he dug around for information. One could hardly interpret the demons’ behaviour as anything logical without deeper knowledge. The dominion turned to his aides. They had fought well despite the demons’ savagery.
“Suppose we should head back now?” said Noctis. They had hardly been out a day, but the fighting was taking their toll. Especially seeing as three of them were designed for other matters.
The aides agreed. Spreading their wings, the angels raised themselves from the ground and made for the sky. A flurry of multi-coloured feathers were left in their wake.
Heaven was always a delight to return to. They burst through the clouds to gates of silver. It was already open for them, of course. Always ready to serve the revered dominion, rumoured to be a personal favourite of the Astrals’ themselves. Noctis nonchalantly made his way through in a much more casual state than the ones behind him. Despite the grand title he held, he couldn’t care less.
Upon arriving to Lucis, a region made entirely of crystal, they headed for the palace. A building more glorious than the structures that surrounded it, it sparkled in the permanent sunlight, scattering thousands of colours across the land.
“I think you should tell your guardian, Your Highness,” said Ignis.
Noctis only waved a hand. “I’m sure he already knows.”
“Well, he is a throne , after all. I’m sure he would like to be informed by you regardless.”
Ranks, ranks, ranks. Was that all anyone cared about? Noctis didn’t reply, wanting to get to the citadel as soon as possible. He loved Ignis to pieces, but gods, his dutiful personality was beginning to get grating with the day of Noctis’ ascendance looming upon them.
He was no ordinary angel. Born at the top of the second sphere, Noctis was a rare dominion, one of few glorious beings that commanded fleets with grace and beauty. With their glowing swords and crowns, they brought the angels beneath them to great levels of power. Noctis was created for this very purpose, yet he spent too much time not adhering to his duties. He scoffed at every rule, dismissed each commandment and kicked his feet up at the mere mention of work. Ignis would find him many a day spent in the garden with Prompto or gazing upon the world’s seas.
Ignis himself was a virtue. Ranked directly below him, it was his life’s purpose to serve and help him ascend to where he should be. He knew he bothered the young angel, yet he couldn’t stop his concern from showing. If Noctis did not start showing responsibility soon, then the higher ups would become involved. Nobody wanted that.
“Want to hang out in the garden after you tell your guardian?” Prompto suggested as he bounded alongside Noctis. To Ignis’ dismay, he agreed.
He almost didn’t notice Gladio grumbling besides him.
“They’re spending too much time together. Don’t get me wrong, I like the kid, but these days Noct really doesn’t have the time.”
“If things do not change then I will inform his guardian myself,” replied Ignis.
As Gladio nodded, his armour caught the light of the crystal citadel. It would have blinded a mere mortal, but to angels, it was a radiant sight to behold. He was a power. An angel built for strength and energy, designed to crush his opponents like glass. Gladio was the perfect rendition of that, with wings like razor blades, deep brown tinged in red. He often did the lion’s share of demon banishing thanks to his unlimited abilities.
Poor Prompto did not even come close with his ranking. Hanging at the bottom of the third sphere, he was just a regular angel, tasked with guarding humankind. He’d somehow made friends with Noctis, and while that was fine, bringing him along on their hunts was becoming a concern. He wasn’t designed for war. A mere child in angels’ standings, what one would imagine when they are told of soft ones playing harps upon clouds. Not that Prompto actually played a harp. Though Ignis didn’t doubt he would try if given the offer.
They watched the two converse as they entered the grand entrance of the citadel. The city around it was dubbed Insomnia, the capital of Lucis. Perhaps it got its name from the never-ending sunlight? Or the light of the geode walls?
Heaven consisted of many rulers, though in Lucis, Noctis’ guardian was in charge.
It seemed he had been waiting for them. Regis sat patiently for their arrival.
They all bowed except for Noctis, who nodded casually. Regis nodded back, the golden wheels spinning around him gleaming. There were even wheels propping up his grand chair.
“Welcome back, my son,” greeted the throne.
“We banished some demons,” said Noctis.
Ignis took the moment to step forward, bowing again on one knee. One could never be too formal in the presence of an angel of the first sphere, closest the Astrals. “We have a concern, Your Majesty. The demons are rapidly growing in strength. In the past month alone we have encountered 100 at least.”
Regis hummed and pressed his knuckles to the side of his face as he leant on his chair. His wheels of light never ceased to turn around him, decorated with a thousand eyes each. Could he see through them? Probably. They even blinked.
“I have heard the rumours. The seraphim have apparently had a discussion about it.”
“The seraphim are getting involved?” Noctis almost yelled.
Regis stood as he approached his ‘son’. He placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’m afraid so. They believe a more dangerous force is behind the demons’ hostility… a being that we have long forgotten.”
They looked nervously at each other. Gladio, Prompto and Noctis just seemed confused more than anything, but Ignis was already pondering ideas in his head. Was the wall of Heaven breaking? Was Hell becoming more unstable? The possibilities became more worrying than the last, swirling around his righteous mind like a tornado. Noctis had always told him he worried too much.
Suddenly, before any of them could speak, horns sounded.
“The seminar!” Prompto squeaked.
“Hurry, get to the garden.” Regis raised an arm as he encouraged the four to get going. They bowed quickly and complied. No angel could ignore the trumpets of the seraphim.
The garden was Heaven’s centre, sometimes called Eden. Encased by a wall of rainbow, the trees were made of spun gold and the flowers had been crystalised to preserve their unending beauty. The waters could turn any human immortal if they ever got a taste, and it was undoubtedly the most sacred place in their universe. No wonder it was Prompto’s favourite hang out spot. If he wasn’t trailing after Noctis, then he was there.
Even though Heaven was endless, it did not take long for them to arrive thanks to their wings. They were not merely for decoration. Noctis arrived first, slamming down on the grass in a midst of a crowd. They yelped in surprise and moved out of the way for him. His wings, black as night while holding the stars, stood out in the horde of white and gold. That made him easy to find, at least.
He ignored the shouts of his aides as he hurried for the gates. The cherubim gave him a once over before opening them for him. Noctis was already long used to their intimidating glares.
Standing before them all was an open temple. Words could not describe its artistry, with its pillars wrapped in gold and the neverending fine artwork. Jewels of every kind encrusted the foundation and the podiums the speaker would stand at. Already waiting for the masses to arrive, the lower class angels blew on their trumpets to signal the presence of the highest of them all. Most of the crowd had arranged according to rank, lining up from the lowest to the highest. Noctis and his aides simply stood in the middle of them, uncaring.
The seraphim flew in like magnificent birds, six wings each. Just one was enough to wipe out everyone present. One seraph in particular arrived at the centre of the temple. Noctis gasped when he set his eyes on him. He touched his feet to the tile and the stones lining the hem of his robe jingled softly.
“Brothers and sisters,” the seraph began, voice ringing like a deep bell, “I am Somnus, eternal servant of the Astrals. I gather you here for the announcement of grave news.”
The crowd murmured amongst themselves. Noctis was too busy staring at Somnus to take in what he was saying. The seraph had wings as black as he did, four raised high above his head and two tucked behind his legs. A robe of starlight adorned his body and diamonds hung from his wrists. His hair was a lovely raven and his eyes as clear as Heaven’s oceans. Not even Regis had that kind of aura. It was glorious, wondrous, magnificent . What Noctis felt when he gazed upon that angel was a mixture of amazement, and absolute terror .
“While we are still investigating, we fear that the Devil himself has made a return. I am speaking, of course, of Adagium.”
Horrified gasps erupted from the masses.
“The what?” Prompto whispered in Noctis’ ear. The dominion shrugged. He’d never heard of such a thing.
Somnus ignored the crowd’s murmuring and turned to pace. He moved with such grace, such poise. If only the seraphim could bless them with their presence more often! He looked so much like Noctis, too.
“The respecting rulers of each legion will inform you with more information.”
With that, he was gone.
Noctis blinked. Somnus vanished, leaving glittering trails of smoke to linger in the air. As most of the crowds left to wherever they had been residing before the meeting, Noctis turned to see Regis standing not too far away. Well, he was the respected ruler of Lucis, and just so happened to be his guardian.
He had a lot of explaining to do.