Chapter Text
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Sera found herself once again seated in the pristine golden chambers. But she was not the one on trial in the room of the Speaker. The many angelic eyes looked to her to make them see to a verdict on the matter at hand.
“What are we to do now?”
“Hell blew the very gates open!”
“Should we retaliate?”
“Was the Morningstar involved yet again?”
Questions buzzed, all awaiting answers. Fortunately, this felt much more cut and dry than when the snake manifested before them as a newly redeemed oddity.
Peter, who sat beside Abel, was still shaken and recovering from the angelic might that blasted Heaven’s Gate open just over a week ago.
Emily fluttered alongside Sera--albeit a little lopsidedly–wearing a look of worry.
“No! We shouldn’t fight them! Charlie was able to stop it.” She pleaded.
“But Hell did fire upon us first?” An angel with a hood and curvature halo asked. “They may still be vengeful; demanding blood for these exterminations.”
“It isn’t like that, not anymore.” Emily attempted to make them see reason.
Another pointed, “It cannot be ignored that they ripped the gates open. The very remnants cascaded down into their realm.”
Sera brought the room to order. “It will not be ignored. But Emily is right. We will not exact a war on Hell. The conflict has subsided and there is no imminent danger.”
“How do we know this to be true?” An angel oval in shape and covered in purple eyes questioned. “We saw the broadcast that the demon made! A direct infiltration! How do we know this will not happen again?”
“The Sinner in question was defeated by Charlie Morningstar,.” Sera answered.
“But was he destroyed by the Morningstar? Who’s to say this sinner or those that follow him will not one day return? They know angels can be killed, Emily was even caught within the blast’s range.”
Sera couldn’t help but rest her sad glance on Emily’s bald wing. Thankfully, she was not fully consumed by the beam, but her wing would not heal on its own. She would need to be administered a prosthetic in order to fly again.
“This mortal soul was able to procure a weapon that could reach us without setting foot into Heaven. It’s too dangerous to leave him be!” Another angel called. “Judgement must be made!”
The room grew louder, many of which agreed with this course of action. The demon that had exacted this call to war should be brought to divine justice.
“Seraphim, we implore you to destroy him. This Sinner cannot incite another war if he is brought to justice!” The cloaked and crooked halo angel demanded.
A roar of approval boomed throughout the room of the Speaker. The angels wanted someone to pay for this.
Sera was considering retribution, given what she had seen upon their arrival in Hell days before the first shot was fired.
But then Emily interjected once again.
“We can’t do that!” She protested. “It’s not right to fix problems with violence! That makes us no better.”
“Emily…” Sera began to chide her. “This attack had the potential to be extremely dangerous to all in Heaven. We cannot simply ignore this.”
“I know that,” Emily nodded. “But the killing must stop, both from Hell and Heaven.”
“I will oblige our elders that punishment must be enacted for what this soul has done. If he will not be smited, then what do you suggest?” She asked.
Certainly not a simple apology. Emily was not so naïve this time around. She remembered how her strong belief in Charlie’s message brought Sir Pentious to them.
Wait!
That’s it!
“Charlie!” Emily gleamed and faced the entire council. “We have seen that her hotel works! Seen first hand that redemption IS possible! This Sinner’s punishment should push towards redemption and not destruction. If Charlie’s hotel is able to redeem him, then there’ll be no need for another attack or any more harm!”
While this hadn’t calmed the entire crowd–some still thirsted for retribution–discussion had begun among them the implications of such an idea. To some, it wasn’t completely outlandish.
Emily smiled, already eager to go down and speak to Charlie. Sera however, remained hesitant.
“We will come to a decision by end of day. I must pray on this.” She stated, dismissing herself and the court.
Emily followed after her. It was an annoying struggle to keep up with her damaged wing, but she would not make anyone worry.
“You really feel this is the right course of action?” Sera asked her, the two having flown down to the adjoining chapel. The elder seraphim looked up at the enormous eye above., Lately she had felt nothing but uncertainty for every new decision she makes.
Her younger counterpart nodded, her sweet innocent smile resonating. “Mmhmm!”
“Emily, I… I was worried we lost you that night.” Sera confessed, her hand outstretched to hover just above Emily’s bald and battered wing.
“I know,” Emily’s smile slipped slightly.
“And yet, you still believe a Sinner so monstrous is capable of redemption?” Seras asked in all seriousness.
“If Pentious can be redeemed, then why not?”
“With all due respect, not every Sinner is a Sir Pentious.” Sera frowned. “How can we guarantee Charlie will get the Sinner admitted? That he won’t try to hurt anyone else?”
Emily put a finger to her lip,asking the same question.
“What if we make it so he isn’t able to?”
“It’s not a simple matter to will away a Sinner's powers and abilities Emily, even for angels.” Sera sighed. “They carry their sins from life with them into death. With that sin ingrained in their souls, it provides them with wicked power.”
Emily also looked up at the stained glass eye in reflection.
Sinners became powerful when they became just that. Inhuman.
Her eyes widened with yet another epiphany.
“Sera,” She urged her, giving a gentle tug on her sleeve. “We should go to Earth’s archives.”
She asked the younger angel. “Wait a moment, why?”
“It’s the only section Heaven carries on Sinners' souls. I think I have an idea, if we can just find the right information.”
Sera casted a look down at the younger seraphim. One that was hesitant. She seemed to clue in to just why Emily wanted access to the sinners files.
“There’s thousands upon thousands of records. Do you even know what you’re looking for?”
Emily smiled. “Nope. Not yet at least, but I will.”
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Sera wasn’t mistaken. The archives containing just the records of Sinners was seemingly endless. Hundreds of thousands, with these being just the ones of sinners that were still alive–as alive as sinners could be in Hell. What Emily was looking for was a needle in a haystack. At the snail's pace she was going, it felt more akin to a piece of hay within a stack of needles.
Looking up a Sinner's Hell name meant nothing here. These were the records of their human names starting from their first and ending with their last day on Earth.
What did Emily know of Vox that she could go off of? Nothing really.
“These are really really long and boring.” Abel frowned, flipping through the digital archive of past sinners. Sera had left the rest of this matter in Emily’s hands, having much more pressing charges she had to attend to. Emily knew this would be an endless scavenger hunt by herself, and recruited Abel to assist her in rooting through records, though he lost interest and optimism only minutes in. By now, he was ready to fall asleep.
Emily sighed, but was determined not to give up on this.
“Oh, what about this guy? He had a boxy head.” The blond asked, pointing at the current record he had opened. “Maybe that’s that Vox guy?”
She shook her head. “We need to read and assess their past lives. This one doesn’t sound anything like him.”
Abel groaned, wishing he’d brought some taffy to snack on while they worked.
“Okay uh, other than box head what else do we know?” He asked, continuing to swipe through records. Heaven creating a digital database made it so much easier than the much older, written out transcripts they used to keep.
“Charlie said he has all these networks in Hell, like TV stations and shows.”
Abel had a hand under his chin looking bored. “Guess he likes to talk a lot. Like when he was saying all those mean things down there to us…”
This gave him a moment of pause.
“Can we use this thing to look up voices?” Abel asked.
Emily shrugged. “We can try to.”
“There was that big, scary broadcast he made when the gate was ripped apart. Could we use that to find his voice in the Earth files? Maybe he liked to talk a lot when he was alive too.”
Putting two and two together, she spun around, grabbing Abel’s cheeks.
“That’s an amazing idea Abel!” She grinned.
He gave a goofy grin at the affirmation of doing something right before Emily fluttered lopsidedly back to her panel.
It didn’t take long to pop up the recorded broadcast up..
“…As you can see we’ve been a bit busy down here since your last visit.” Vox’s voice repeated from the broadcast. It was unnerving to playback the recording from that day. Everyone including Emily was rightfully spooked by what could’ve happened.
On their respective screens, Abel and Emily scoured through records, swiping in search of a thread they could follow that matched.
“…we’ve been hearing for so long about how the grass is greener on your side of the fence…” The media overlord continued.
The speech Vox made was only about a minute in length, so the two angels hoped they would find what they were looking for without needing to hit replay.
“…nrhhhggh…. followed by thundershowers later this evening…”
Emily blinked, the voice wasn’t from the recording. A match had been found!
“Rewind! Rewind!” She mumbled, toggling back to that thread. Not willing to let it get away.
“…there appears to be some development in this particular region. Heh, looks like old man winter will be letting up come tomorrow morning with some much needed sunshine being forecasted folks!”
Abel stopped scrolling, flying over to Emily’s screen to hear. That was definitely Vox’s voice, albeit less sinister. On the surface sounding more optimistic, bubbly even. She pressed a finger to the audio clip, intent to follow it to the record it connected to. No wonder it was taking them forever. His name was at the very end with all the Ws.
“That’s it for today. And remember, trust us with your weather!”
Whayne….Whells…White…
Emily smiled with glee, clapping her hands. “Found yooooou!”
Whittman. Vincent Whittman.
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