The Fallen Prince

Forks of lightning like the angered blades of raging gods bathed London in a ferocious aura of ephemeral light, the savage and primal onset of the titanic storm-front suffusing the sky with a no-fly zone for even the hardiest of aeroplanes, and forcing the most weathered of the city's industrious denizens to seek shelter beneath the comforting enclosure of brick and mortar. A frenetic energy had claimed the sky, an otherworldly force of eternity that ominously heralded a coming of things both dark and insidious. No light from the mother moon was to be seen gracing the rooftops of England's capital, the only illumination stemming from the hardy street lamps and various lit homes that protected the terrified inhabitants of one of the world's greatest hubs of life. Vicious, striking chords of blazing light struck and assailed the concrete and grassy fields in and around the city; sending bitumen and flash-hardened dirt flying like the angry tantrums of some colossal deity.

Had this been Greece, it could be feared that the gods of Olympus were in a rage; that mighty Zeus was stampeding across the sky hurling his bolts of thunder, and the very world shuddered under the rage of his divine fury. However, as it was not Greece, meteorologists instead scrambled to find an answer for the localised event; struggled to understand the sudden and unexpected onset of cumulonimbus clouds that threatened to release an irrevocably devastating volley of destructive energy upon the innocent souls of London. Stranger still was the utter lack of rain that touched the earth; the absence of so much as a whisper of moisture, and the feeling of heat that only grew with each passing moment. Where in usual fashion rain preceded such events, now there was only hate and fury: and that damnable heat, as if the world itself was slowly boiling towards a lethal crescendo.

From orbit, the formation of clouds was a perfect circle, situated directly over the great city of history. A smattering of brave stormchasers stood recording the event, barely protected from the hungry wrath of the storm, and gaining the footage of a lifetime for their zeal and courage. Another blinding rumble split the sky, and a sound like a scream followed, sending the entire city into sudden darkness as power failed. To simple humanity, it was like the divines had scraped gargantuan nails upon a board; rending the air with the force of the sound, as if reality herself had been ripped open with a brutal lack of consideration. From the eye of the storm, the black clouds vomited forth a flaming ball, its body punching through their obsidian mass and drawing eddies of stormy vapour after it, like the jagged remnants of a torn blanket.

Downwards the star fell, its form a bright blaze in the blackness of the night, illuminating the city as it sailed over it: hurtling towards the London downtown at terminal velocity, slamming into the ground somewhere near the centre of the metropolis' central district. An eruption of light followed the impact, a wave of blue fire discharging like the exhale of a dying god, incinerating nearby buildings and those mortal souls unlucky to be lurking the streets at that straight hour; snuffing out lives within a one hundred metre radius of the impact life, and destabilising mighty buildings. The city held its collective breath as the fallen star diminished in light, and from the molten crater rose a figure of inhuman mortal beauty.

Blazing carmine eyes surveyed the square around them with cold, analytical precision; observing the threads of reality as they intersected and conjoined to form the existence of all things before them. People started running; storm crews and witnesses; late night travellers and even the blazing sirens of police vehicles. A mobilisation of curiosity and dread, to witness what had caused them such sudden and jarring destruction. The figure in the centre, garbed in a simple white chest-revealing loose-fitting cloth, a thick rope of lavender material binding around his waist, and a pair of dark leggings flowing into old-style sandals observed the approaching crowd with the invested curiosity of a snake observing intrigued mice.

His right hand rose, and his body followed, lifting into the air of seemingly its own volition. He turned towards his hand in curiosity the moment he raised it, staring with those strange eyes, before turning back to the assembling crowd. Above, the storm had already begun to ebb, waning towards the point where the bolts of lightning were rapidly becoming barely visible, and people within the city--namely those in the centre--were beginning to realise that they were witnessing far more than some fluke or stunt. The being they had come to see thrust forth his hands, and light exploded into being in the air around him, forging three blazing spears of pure golden illumination. He rotated these weapons downwards absent perceived exertion, and prepared to strike...

...and instead they vanished, shattering into formless dust as he doubled over in the air, eyes bulging as his eyes grasped his stomach. Without another word, the figure hissed in pain and with an echo of flapping wings, exploded away; surging, soaring through the city to abruptly crash bodily near a local cafe, still open despite the late hour. He was weak, terribly weak, and his eyes--now their usual dark colour--fixed haggardly on what his instincts told him h craved: the sweet nourishment of human cuisine. He started walking towards the cafe, and all but collapsed, groaning despite himself as hunger pains ravaged him in debilitating ruthlessness. He needed to eat; before his new body self-destructed.

Asmodeus staggered against the wall upon which he was leaning, his black eyes locked hungrily on the cafe. He could scarcely comprehend the reason for his absurd obsession, save that his stomach--yes, it was called a stomach, he realised--was churning as if it were ready to devour itself. He could only quantify the feeling by a single phrase that popped, nigh unbidden, into his mind: hunger. The Fallen Angel was hungry, barely moments after emerging upon the mortal plane. He knew instinctively that this was not a common thing; it was a hunger beyond the norm for a Human, yet he was not precisely constrained by the same realities and laws of constant that others of Humanity were. His body housed an Eternal, and due to it, likely demanded for more energy to function.

A troublesome prospect.

As the Fallen attempted to stand, he felt as much as heard and saw another presence arrive, a female Human garbed in some strange assortment of black material, bearing two massive white wings that looked--per Asmodeus' Human mind's interpretation--like those of an Angel. He very nearly had an explosive eruption of rage at the notion, and then found himself stunned at the upwelling. Rage? That was new. He didn't quite comprehend rage, either. The entire reality of mortal existence was baffling. He could feel a strange attraction to the female human, in her strange clothing and elegant manner, yet he had no comprehension of what that meant. Was he supposed to be infatuated? Was that what it was? Another moment of consideration, and he dismissed the possibility. His body was reacting on its own, responding to instinctive urges the Fallen himself had no desire nor reason to heed.

Instead, as she spoke, he opened his mouth--another instinctive motion--and spoke, surprised at his own ability for speech, and yet entirely unconcerned by it. He suddenly knew that he would be able to speak each and every language on the planet with a perfect accent, and tonal inflection per categorical sub-zone. A handy talent; he could fit in anywhere, with anyone. "I need food," he said simply, voice matching Tyuki's accent with unnatural precision. "I believe this body is degrading due to a lack of appropriate sustenance." He realised belatedly that speaking in such a manner might very well confuse the Human, but he filed it away as information to be accessed at a later date. He could not afford to be distracted by the minor details of mortal existence. His hunger was too great.

Asmodeus' mortal coil was far too fragile. That, amongst other things, would need to be accounted for.

Asmodeus stared at Tyuki as she spoke, processing her words and yet at the same time not quite comprehending them. The term 'prissy' was clear in his mind, yet he nonetheless found it rather confounding, namely the manner in which it was implied. Prissy, as he understood it, conveyed an idea of bratty or entitled behaviour, namely in individuals Humans considered 'upper class'. Yet the cafe that housed the delicious scents seemed comprised of, as he saw them, relatively boring individuals. Asmodeus' gaze, after all, saw the very threads of creation--and to him, none of the beings within were any different or intriguing than eachother or others he'd already witnessed.

Instead of taking her hand, he doubled over again with a groan, coughing and wheezing as he retched--looking back towards the cafe. He had no time to wait, no energy; he needed food immediately, yet he also had the comprehension that smashing through the cafe, while efficient, would not yield acceptable results in terms of understanding mortals. Thus, he turned to Tyuki, speaking through clenched teeth. "Food. Fast."

This done, and satisfied his imperative tone had been translated, he grasped her hand obligingly and felt his wings flex, prepared as they were to raise him into the air--a feat he did immediately after. He could fly well enough, he just had to desperately ignore the feeling that his belly was being consumed by itself. The only hope he retained was that this girl, this woman to whom fate had beckoned, and in whom the threads of creation seemed so uniquely woven, would comprehend the dire circumstance facing him. He knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if he did not eat in a very near future, he would collapse--or worse, make his current apparition the shortest-lived presence on Earth in divine history.

Asmodeus endured the flight over London in silent consternation, focusing hard on not being consumed by the pain wracking his body.  He had possessed a disconnected understanding of what it meant to be in agony, but the actual experience was vastly different to the perceived reality.  He had not expected the feeling as if his molecules were being repeatedly torn, nor the strange non-realistic experience of his human belly turning in and attempting to consume itself for nourishment.  It was a sickening feeling, mixed with a pressure on his consciousness, that very nearly made him lose awareness multiple times during their flight.  He found that he started relying on the girl's strength and flight, unable to muster the presence of mind to force his own wings to function.

On his back, tucked into his belt, Perdition's Edge screamed for blood--hungered to be sated, to offer him sustenance with the souls of mortals he could fell.  The Fallen ignored it, or rather, brushed the bellowing demand to the back of his subconscious mind; focused instead on what he could detect in the air as they moved forwards.  The delicious scents and the drool-inducing smells that were wafting from the establishment upon which his would-be ally was descending.  As they landed, he leaned on her despite the railing of discontentment that followed from his pride.  One of the Nine, relying on a mortal for aid!  Unthinkable.  He crushed that thought even as it surfaced, focused entirely on the words the girl was spouting.

Something about a selfie?  His brain loosely translated that, but he seemed to understand that lingo and slang were not comprehensible to his in-built lexicon.  He would need to learn the meaning by trial and error, through experience in the mortal plane, instead of simply having the base level intrinsic knowledge.  As she handled matters, he gripped his stomach and simply attempted not to retch or succumb to the blackness edging upon his vision, and when 'Eclipse'--as that was what some mortal had evidently identified her to be--received the food, Asmodeus reacted absent rational thought or logical process.  

He grabbed for the back, tore a hole in it, and grabbed the first thing he could; a burger, his brain identified it as.  Tearing the wrapping paper from it, he shoved it into his mouth and bit down.  The moment it touched his tongue, and his teeth pierced the bun and layers, he felt an explosion of energy race through his body.  She said to go, he didn't move.  Instead, Asmodeus began shovelling the food into his mouth, heedless of the fact that the mortals were staring in shock and bewilderment, he ate ravenously--and felt his energy slowly beginning to return.  

Looking up at Tyuki, he felt a flush of what he identified as embarrassment, before crushing it rapidly, flowing instead into greed.  "I need more of this."  He pointed at the rapidly discarded burger wrappers, saying nothing more.

Asmodeus stared at his would-be companion in open suspicion as she reached for him, but aside from silently preparing to attack if needed, the Fallen didn't react negatively to the intrusive touch of her finger's. Instead, he allowed her the strange experiment, filing away the power and effect it seemed to have in silent notation. Unfortunately, Asmodeus was not suffering from any of the perceived issues that the winged woman had thought to identify, and when the creature he knew as 'Eclipse' drew away her hands, he merely looked at her with the same blank lack of comprehension.

"That was an exercise in futility," he commented simply, before rising to his feet and flexing his invisible wings, turning to the observing humans. "More food." He said commandingly, right hand resting on the binding rope around his waist and form. "I still hunger." The need for sustenance wasn't nearly as pronounced nor as crippling as it had been, but the Fallen nonetheless wished to ensure that he was not caught off-guard by the hunger pangs again. Besides, it wasn't as if he had any reason to be so cooperative. He could have slaughtered the lot of them and taken the food had he desired. It was an option he was still considering.

As he waited for them to fulfill his request--reinforced by the cold stare of his strange, patterned eyes--the Fallen turned back to Eclipse, and looked down at her in silent appraisal. "You aided me," he said simply, as if measuring her. "For that, I will choose to count you as a subordinate at the end of days." To Asmodeus, this was quite the compliment; offering his patronage to a mortal was a rare thing. For the Nine Princes, it was equivalent to a place of guaranteed comfort in an otherwise incomprehensibly torturous existence within the eternal inferno.

Speaking again, he chose to introduce himself, following the rules of cordiality decreed by the mortal demesnes. "I am Asmodeus, of the Firstborn, Lord of Pandaemonium and Arch-Commander of the Legions of the Damned."

Asmodeus flexed his invisible wings as Eclipse stepped out of the eatery and rose into the air.  He'd flown instinctively since arriving in the mortal plane, and the use of the massive pinions was no different as he worked them again.  Launching after 'Eclipse', the Fallen soared through the London skies--black eyes surveying the rooftops myriad street lamps as the pair soared overhead, his arms folded over his chest--expression neutral, contemplative.

Guardian of Earth, she had said.  Had he encountered some messenger or minion of the Host?  It would make sense, given her stereotypical appearance, and the way she seemed orientated towards the alleviation of maladies.  A moment of consternation overcame the Prince, as he considered the notion that an Angelic Warrior had duped him--and then he dismissed the notion barely a heartbeat later.  No, he had seen her threads through his Gaze; she was mortal, albeit a gifted mortal.

After what seemed like a brief moment, his would-be aide descended towards a rooftop, and Asmodeus accompanied her--feeling his invisible wings fold as he touched down lightly upon the top of the building, identifying it mentally as 'concrete' that he was stepping onto.  His arms remained folded, though he looked hungrily at the bag she carried, eyes locked on the promise of sustenance contained within.

At her question, he hesitated--only momentarily, to ensure a lack of compromising himself--before deciding that no matter what she knew, it would be wholly irrelevant.  "I am Asmodeus.  I am one of the Nine Princes of the realm your mortal religions name Hell."  He moved towards her non-threateningly, eyes still locked on the bag.  "The storm was little more than a dissolution of a fraction of my power.  My descent here was pure chance, not choice--it is simply where the veil between this plane and Pandaemonium was thinnest."

Fighting the strange urge to lick his lips, the Fallen gestured around them.  "Where I landed, after all, was wholly irrelevant.  My purpose is to understand Humanity.  To comprehend what it is about your species that made my brothers Michael and Gabriel so intent on defying the wishes of our brother Lucifer, whom you call the Devil."  He stopped in front of her, and looked from the bag to her face.  "I am, as your mortal scriptures would name me, a Prime Demon.  A... Great Evil.  I am not sure what the correct phrasing is."

He spread his hands in a mannerism his mind told him was appropriate.  "My purpose here is to learn, and depending on what it is I learn, I will either protect this realm from the Apocalypse, or bring it to realisation with my own hands."