The Angel and the Dragon.

The former donned a matching set of dazzling white clothes while the latter was clad in an emerald green hooded cloak, which was similar to that of a monk's, save that it was slightly more intimidating.

The colour of the cloak was different too, for the green tones of the cloak would glimmer and glow every now and then, giving it the look that it was alive.

In a way, it was.

They strode down the bloodstained corridors of the Citadel, both of them not saying anything. Their footsteps echoed around them as their feet trod against the hard marble floor, and a word of complaint came from the thin hooded figure:

"Tell me little one, why am I even here?"

The young man beside him laughed.

"You must have grown senile, dude. The situation is very simple: this guy who calls himself Duke Terribilis is going to build a modern-day version of the Infernal Machine, and basically try and annihilate the planet itself."

The pair came to a fork in the corridor, and the green-robed man waved his hand once in the air before motioning for his companion to walk through the right corridor.

"With the destruction of the planet, there will be no Laws that can be upheld. With no Laws to uphold, your existence on this Earth is meaningless, and thus your decision to come along."

Sniffing, the bespectacled Azeari shook his head imperceptibly. There were times when the things he did made no sense at all, even to him. As they walked, he became aware of voices in the distance.

Looking in front of him, he saw that the corridor ended at a huge door, probably fifteen feet tall and two feet thick. His eyes suddenly glowed once, and they took on a yellowish reptilian sheen for a split moment, before returning to normal.

"Keep still. The door is made of pure iron and it's triple-locked, with iron bars laid behind it. There are at least fifty defensive and offensive spells each laid across and around it that could make the three Unforgivable Curses in Harry Potter look like second-grade laser pointers, not to mention the various ghost guardians around it."

The Angel pursed his lips, though he knew exactly what was going to happen.

"What shall we do then?"

The Dragon stepped forward.

"This."

He stretched out his hand once, and the door shattered.

There was no remaining trace of the spells at all, and save for a shriek that was cut-off midway, there was nothing to show that there were even ghosts guarding the door once. A bright orange light shone through the doorway, and they stepped through, expecting to find the Duke Terribilis ("What a boring name," said the Dragon) sitting there on his throne.

But all they found was a sea of black.

Then the Angel realised it was just that the giant hall was filled with hundreds of the Duke's warriors, all of them with pasty skin, long and mussed up hair, a lot of eye liner, angry or indifferent expressions and in mostly black-toned clothes.

"Oh no..." the Angel muttered under his breath.

"It can't be..."

"It's an army of emo-kids!" the white-clad man exclaimed.

"God help us both." The Dragon sighed.

With a single roar, they charged at the two friends; some glowing with red energy, some wielding huge melee weapons, and some even holding machine guns and rifles.

The Dragon was about to wave his hand again, when the Angel stopped him and shook his head. No way was he going let him wreak havoc and carnage again. The bloodstained corridor outside was the Dragon's doing, and while he had no qualms about ending the existence of unnatural creatures like demons on the earth, he did not want to see a whole horde of humans lose their lives no matter how misguided they were.

Besides, it was about time he did something.

Raising his right hand up to the ceiling, he began to concentrate the power that he had been bestowed with into a blazing sphere of white energy that floated slightly above his right hand.

However, just as he was about to release it as a powerful nova of holy energy that would knock everybody off their feet, he was stopped by the sight of every single one of them frozen to the spot, staring at something above him.

It was then that he felt a powerful presence of another Alternatist. One that was very familiar to him. He looked up, and the graceful shape of a phoenix greeted his eyes.

Looking a little closer, he saw that it was a girl floating in mid-air and she was completely covered in flames. The conflagration that surrounded her was the colour of snow, and she bent down to grin at him cheekily as he scowled good-naturedly at her for stealing his chance to show off.

There was a sudden urge in him to yell out to her and say: "Hey! Birds of a feather really flock together here eh? Even you came!", but he stopped himself just in time after he remembered what had happened the last time he had called her an emo-kid.

It wasn't pretty.

"The Snow Phoenix..." the green-robed figure whispered thoughtfully at the sight.

"I'll take care of these emo-kids, okay?" The Snow Phoenix said, emphasizing on the word "emo" as she slowly floated downwards, and while the flames that covered her from head to toe obscured what she was wearing, her beauty was still undeniable. There was no heat coming off her though, and true to her name, it felt as if he was standing in an avalanche.

"You go on with your friend. That robot-looking thing seems ready to move anytime." She motioned to the Angel, who knew she was talking about the Infernal Machine, and quickly moved through the crowd with the Dragon towards the end of the hall.

Again there was another door, and this time, it had six hundred and sixty-six spells on the door, combined with even more demonic guardians around the entrance. But this time, there was no mistake. It had to be the door to the throne room of the Duke.

Again, all the Dragon had to do was to stretch his hand out his hand, albeit with a little more effort this time, and the door simply dissolved.

When they walked in, they found themselves in a circular room with regal designs and patterns all over the place. A red carpet lead from where the door had been, and it ended at the feet of a harsh-looking throne that was empty.

The next thing they knew was that the throne room was filled with a smooth and slick voice.

"Oh hello. What do we have here? A lizard and a church kid? Is that all that this world can do to protect itself?" The voice cleared its throat loudly once, before continuing. "Please make yourselves at home, while I end the existence of everything in this world in this masterpiece of mine."

After saying thus, the patterns on the wall warped and distorted to form magical wards which caused a barrier around the room, not allowing them to leave.

"In case, the two of you get bored, I have provided female entertainment for you."

Again, after the words faded away, the throne suddenly shifted and turned into a pedestal, where something encased in a block of ice slowly materialised above it.

No. It was someone in that block of ice, and the Angel knew exactly who she was.

An indescribable anger rose in his heart, a flame that burned fiercer than the core of the sun, a fury that threatened to overwhelm his good sense came over him, and he could almost feel the berserker in him rise up.

But this was not the time for him to unleash one of his baresark rages, and he quelled it.

Instead he filled himself with the peace of Truth, and he tapped the Dragon on his shoulder.

"You find and finish the Duke. I'll handle her."

After looking at him for a few seconds, the Dragon simply nodded, and walked through the wall as if it wasn't even there at all, leaving a man-shaped hole in the wall.

A split second later, a terrifying, draconic roar that shook the very foundations of the Citadel and the deep recesses of the Angel's heart sounded, and immediately Joshua felt pity for the Duke.

But what he was more concerned about at the moment was the block of ice that was now cracking and breaking apart. Spider-web patterns appeared all over the formerly pristine surface of the ice block, and with a loud crack, the block exploded.

Shielding his eyes with his arm, Joshua waited for the ice bits to stop flying about before taking a look again. What he saw then however, broke his heart.

It was Tiara, but it was a different Tiara from the one he knew. The previous one was living the average unbelieving life, but she had some measure of happiness. The Tiara that floated before him now...was the very epitome of cold, unfeeling ice.

Her long hair fell in straight frozen threads behind her shoulder-blades, and her once stunning visage was now etched in a frozen stare of hate, her eyes orbs of black with gleaming cyan pupils. While the azure body-hugging outfit she wore complemented and brought out her figure perfectly, there was nothing but the desire to hurt and kill in her body language.

Worse; in her hands lay one of the most powerful cursed artefacts of the spiritual realm: the dreaded Sceptre of Malygos. Within its black and gold shaft and the huge sapphire gem affixed on it, the awesome power of ice and snow was bound, but with power came a terrible price: the user of the staff would sacrifice a little of his or her mind every time it was used, until he or she went completely insane.

Upon seeing it the Angel tensed, remembering how he was frozen in a block of ice by that very sceptre some time ago. He wanted to say something, to tell Tiara that it didn't have to end like this, but before he could even speak, a huge spike of ice formed in front of her, and shot towards Joshua.

It cut through the air smoothly and just as it was one foot away from his chest, it slammed into a huge, white, powerful feathered wing; Joshua's wing. The ice javelin cracked once, and then shattered into a million pieces.

The reason for his Alternatist name was now clear, the enormous pair of white feathered wings that could appear and disappear at any time which sprouted from his back. They were almost indestructible, able to grow larger or smaller at his command and they didn't seem to have limitations as to how they could stretch at all.

Tiara however, was not impressed. Howling her rage to the empty air, she unleashed one of the most powerful ice attacks he ever seen: the temperature of the room suddenly dropped to minus fifteen degrees Celsius, and as the whole room froze over, hundreds of icy explosions, caused by the moisture in the air freezing and shattering with great force, occurred all over the room, destroying close to everything in it.

The sheer power of the attack caused even the magical wards of the room to fail, and immediately the walls succumbed around them, leaving them on top of a plateau, which was all that remained of the throne room, for the throne room was in the highest tower, and now it resembled a cliff, albeit one with ice all over it.

When the dust finally settled, the Angel was completely frozen inside an ice block, and there was no sign that he was alive at all. Seeing thus, Tiara began to laugh maniacally, and the sceptre became slack in her hands.

Inside the block of ice though, the feathers of his wings slowly but surely began to curl up and turn black, and soon the ice began to melt bit by bit.

Without any warning at all, the ice that held the Angel captive suddenly turned into steam, and all she saw was a burst of flame, the rustling of sizzling wings, before the sceptre was knocked out of her hands.

A pair of hands now gripped her shoulders lightly, and with a shock, she saw that it was the Angel who was holding her, his dark sepia eyes glowing with a golden light. She was then aware of the light and warmth of an inferno around her, but when she realised what it was, she got a terrible shock.

The Angel now had wings of Fire, and no ice, no water, not anything in this world or this universe could ever hope to put it out. Those wings were now wrapped around her, but as she screamed in fear, a new feeling came into her heart, a new emotion that she had not felt for a long time:

The warmth of Love, not human but Divine, not destroying but Consuming.

The both of them stood like this for a long time, one speaking to the Source of the Fire for the first time in her life, the other simply keeping her warm and safe as his eyes caught the sight of a mega-sized green chromatic dragon fighting tooth, claw, and every weapon it had at its disposal against an equally large machine of mass destruction that could break the planet apart in a single day.

The Angel, his wings still blazing with His Fire, considered telling them to keep it down so as not to distract Tiara, but in the end, for obvious reasons, he decided not to.

*******

I have no idea why I wrote that.

It's completely OOC for David, and I'm no winged protector, nor does Tiara even know that I exist.

*grin* There's always hope though.

Just kidding.

In other news, I have run out of inspiration and the discipline to write more often. Please encourage this poor writer to write more! ROFL.

Kay. Maybe not.

P.S I can't get my comments to work. Anyone can teach me how to set up comments? I need to know how to use it. Tagboards are out man. Comments are the new Hotness.

josh fatesealer turned back time on 12/17/2005 04:59:00 am.