dryskies_btb - Dead End 2: Deathly Di-Di-Doo Ch.13

[A Thousand Years Between]

— Gabriel —

“Even I don’t say this lightly, Sean, but God damn!” Lucifer exclaimed, his amusement palpable.

Michael could only sigh, “Lucifer…”

Gabriel frowned slightly at her ‘Other’ brother taking Father’s name in vain-… Then stopped herself.

Well, she considered, perhaps it wasn’t so in vain when the subject matter was her Lucifer getting beaten half to MURDER by the Stone of Cain.

She smiled to herself — yes, if there was ever a time to use Father’s name so, Other Lucifer had picked it… perfectly.

“How did you not kill him there?” Jason asked.

Cain shrugged. “Lucifer always was a slippery one. I made him flee Rome at stone-point, of course, but he’d already accomplished what he was after. He’d set the city into chaos and ruined the work of decades for me. And to make matters more complicated, Olympus was very much aware of our presence after that. I didn’t get the chance to stick around and try to clean up our mess. I don’t even know if I would have, if I could. With Agrippina dead by our son’s hand…”

Cain shook his head sadly at the memory of his Roman lover. Gabriel had never met Agrippina the Younger, but from the sliver of Cain’s life that she’d just experienced through memory, magic, and mirror, the mortal woman seemed to have carved a place in Cain’s heart, as so many had. That was worth something; it deserved respect, no matter how many times it must’ve happened over Cain’s lives.

Gabriel didn’t hold those past relationships against him, just as she didn’t hold his ‘future’ relationship with Didi against him now. When they were together in that life, Cain was loyal. And even before, he paid her more attention than she could’ve ever asked for.

She really should be thinking of him differently in this life of his. He was still the Cain she knew, of course, but he was also ‘Sean Caine’. By the sounds of it, he’d been ‘Sean Caine’ longer than he’d ever been just ‘Cain’. Gabriel took a short moment to consider her internal nomenclature.

She had no issue calling him ‘Sean’ — he’d used it in the modern era of his life as Cain, and now she knew why — but… It was petty and selfish; she still wanted to call him ‘Cain’ in some way, for as Cain, he was hers.

‘Caine’, she decided, nodding to herself. Now, he would be Caine to her.

“I can see how that would put a damper on your determination.” Savage nodded. “For all that we try, sometimes we cannot help our sons and our daughters. They have their own lives to live; we can hardly live for them.”

“The true solution is to raise them right from the start,” Ra’s said with a bit of flat arrogance.

“While I agree, it’s a bit hard to do that when circumstances resist one’s efforts there,” Didi pointed out. “Nero had the literal Devil whispering in his ear and all the power of the near-peak Roman Empire at his fingertips. It’s hardly a surprise he fell so far.”

Caine sighed, “I still failed him. I failed many of my descendants, sometimes directly and much more often not. It was my curse, more than any God could lay upon me.”

“Mew,” Mew said consolingly, flitting over to delicately and adorably pat Caine on the shoulder.

“Thanks, buddy. It was rough.” Caine nodded in agreement.

Gabriel shook her head. “I still can’t help but feel that your failure of Nero was my fault, Cain.”

“You did get a bit distracted by that lap pillow for more than a few years.” Klarion chuckled.

“Can’t blame him,” Becca proclaimed. “Won’t, choom. That’s just good culture.”

David joked along with her, “Yeah, how many chances do you get to give an Archangel a place to rest her head? You’ve really gotta take those, ya know?”

“Mew, mew,” Mew nodded sagely.

“You really, really do.” Laughing, Caine agreed.

“ヾ(。>﹏<。)ﾉﾞ” Cass waved and waved. ‘Wait, wait, can we get back to how Sean practically made himself a Roman Empress Tomboy Baddie?! Did you see those tan lines?! C’mon, people: priorities!’

“Cass, your ‘priorities’ shouldn’t be taken as the standard by anyone,” Barbara deadpanned.

“I mean, it is kinda fascinating to see Sean’s — Cain’s — modern influence on the ancient world,” Jason said, playing partial devil’s advocate. “I could recognize the Agrippina he knew as the one from the history books — intelligent, ambitious, and fiery — but the… ahem, details there are somewhat new. Did you start a trend of tomboys throughout history?”

“Oh, I tried,” Caine lamented. “Sadly, it wouldn’t catch on in any significant measure until much, much later.” 

“That is the greatest crime that Lucifer committed,” Damian deadpanned. “Cutting short Agrippina’s life before she could spread tomboy greatness.”

“Hear, hear, Boy-Murder!” Harley cheered in agreement.

Gabriel frowned slightly; she hesitated to say it, but… “I understand the joke — I do — but Lucifer’s crimes were far greater than any humor can downplay.”

“Oh, but I don’t mean to be a bummer-!” She quickly, apologetically continued.

“No, you’re right,” Didi said, soothing her worries. “We tend to be mostly removed from Sean’s stories. It’s easy to see them as nightly entertainment. But you lived through this one, Gabriel. You knew this Lucifer; you fought him, lost people to him, and witnessed just how low he wanted to bring the whole of Creation for his Pride. We shouldn’t make too much light of that.”

“No-! I mean… Yes.”

With a sigh, Gabriel closed her eyes against old regrets and grudges. “… The past shouldn’t ruin the present, especially when that past is not yours. Here and now, we can joke about it all.

“Just please… don’t forget that it was real for me, for Cain, and for an entire world. A thousand years of tense build-up between Heaven and Hell, and a thousand more years of war; Lucifer’s true crimes really were more terrible than I can put into words.”

Damian bowed his head to her. “My apologies, Archangel Gabriel; I did not think before I spoke.”

Gabriel smiled back at him. “Don’t worry, I forgive you. I forgive all of you. And I really didn’t mean to ruin the mood. As I said, it is in the past. Besides, there were plenty of things to joke about during the Great War, just as there were plenty of things to mourn.”

Caine smirked. “Like Michael’s ‘Chi-Rho’ blunder with Constantine the First?”

Remembering that incident, Gabriel began to giggle. Then, she began to laugh outright. Her fit of laughter wasn’t at all helped by Other Michael’s wary expression at the mention of his counterpart’s blunder.

Lucifer laughed as well. “Oh, I can already imagine! Your Michael flubbed the divine message, didn’t he?”

“H-His finger slipped!” Gabriel gasped out between giggles. “He went ‘Yes, just Father’s cross here over the sun, and-… Oh, bugger.’ Then-! Then Father turned to him, all-knowing and amused, and asked, ‘Did the cross really make my head look so big, Michael?’”

“Ha!” Lucifer barked a laugh.

“Oh, that is good!” Elaine exclaimed, giggling. “I like this God more than… Grandfather. I still haven’t even met him…”

At that, Lucifer’s laughter quickly turned into a sour expression on his face and in his soul. “… The more I hear about your incarnation of Father, the more I yearn for what could have been.”

It was sad, Gabriel thought, that Michael just nodded along in agreement. “It is a strange thing to hear of Father acting so… casual and personable.”

“It really shouldn’t be.” On their behalf — disliking this Creation’s ‘Presence’ more and more — Gabriel frowned.

“God was good,” She continued. “He was personable, and funny, and so very supportive of His children. I’m sorry you never knew Him as I did.”

She knew for certain now that she wouldn’t find a Father she would recognize here. That was… Gabriel shook her head. That wasn’t just fine; it was ideal. By the sounds of Him, this ‘Presence’ would never have replaced the Father she’d lost.

The familiar faces and unfamiliar souls she’d found here were preferable to a lackluster Father, anyway. They weren’t hers, but Gabriel liked Other Michael and even Other Lucifer.

Then, there was Caine — still hers — and Didi — who’d welcomed her back to Caine’s side so kindly and openly — and Destruction — the gentle but Endless giant — and Elaine — an Other niece she was dying to get to know more — and boisterously immortal Savage and sweet, curious Simmy and familiar Ophis and adorable Mew and deadpan Damian and academically excitable Jason and fascinatingly flustering Cass and sweet, hopeful Kara and-…

Well, everyone at the Dead End, really; everyone Caine surrounded himself with. Gabriel found that all of them more than made up for a Father she didn’t wish to meet.

“The Chi-Rho was a blunder? But it’s so much cooler than just the cross…!” Jason whined.

“A ‘happy little accident’, as one saint in the realm of creation would say,” Destruction chuckled.

Lucifer smiled. “Even the Devil loves Bob Ross.”

“Considering all it did for Christianity in Europe, ‘happy little accident’ is apt,” Caine added with a smirk. “Michael was just lucky Constantine interpreted his slip of the finger as Christ’s Crucifixion anyway. I’m sure many of you know the story. As exaggerated as some historians think it is, it really did happen that way.”

Gabriel nodded. “Mm! Father knew Constantine would be the one to accept Christianity into the Empire at large. He was already in the process of converting himself. He just needed that final push and a victory to show everyone else. Thus, Michael was tasked with sending His-snrk~! Message, yes.”

“I remember that battle!” Savage laughed from his belly. “Oh, Humanity, the Tetrarchy was certainly an eventful era for Rome! All the Emperors, why not?!

“I thought the symbol the boy ordered us to paint upon our shields was an interesting one at the time. Then, when the battle started, and we SMASHED Maxentius’ forces over the Tiber, I knew there was something to this whole ‘Christianity’ thing, HAH!”

“Constantine made significant progress for Heaven in the Great War,” Caine said. “For he spread faith to combat Lucifer’s intended fear.”

“There would already have been faith, would there not? In the Olympians of Rome? I am not the most familiar with those incarnations of my gods, but surely, they must have resisted the Devil’s efforts of fear,” Diana argued.

“They did, but I’m sorry to say, Diana: the Olympians were rather out of their depth on that field of battle,” Caine explained. “The Great War wasn’t like the divine wars the Olympians were used to from their golden age. It only resembled the Titanomachy, for example, in chaos and scale, not strategy.

“Again, the true battle was in the hearts and minds of men and mortals, even more than it was a battle between supernatural forces. The faith the Olympians cultivated was more… disparate and honestly, disorganized. And when all Lucifer needed was fear, that made for an ineffective strategy.”

Diana continued to insist. “Yet, I cannot imagine my gods — whatever mantles they wielded at the time — were helpless.”

“Almost certainly not,” Hecate joined in with her own two cents. “But I know those fools better than you, Diana. They have never been suited for subtlety. I would expect them to stand just fine on an open field of battle, but it sounds like those were rather rare during the Great War.”

“We saw for ourselves how blind they were to insidious influence underneath their noses,” Destruction pointed out. “In Rome, where Cain and Lucifer were given free rein for decades.”

Caine nodded. “And that was where the forces of Hell held an insurmountable advantage over any but Heaven.

“They had this way of… just worming their way into the cracks of a pantheon’s belief, into the darkest corners of mortal minds, and exacerbating those flaws until it all came crumbling down towards fear — towards Hell.”

“By pure strength alone,” Gabriel added. “Almost every god could handle all but the Four Satans, and even then, the chief gods of a pantheon were usually enough to match three of them.

“Lucifer, however… Well, firstly, he almost never fought fairly. It wasn’t in his nature. And secondly, when he did, the chief gods of various pantheons quickly discovered the overwhelming power the former Light of God could bring to bear.”

“(๑º﹏º๑)” Cass made a face. ‘Bro really was all that?’

“And then some.” Caine nodded.

“We also have to remember that this is an entirely different Creation than, ya know, ours,” Barbara added when Diana frowned.

“Aye,” Talia agreed with her adopted daughter. “The Olympians you know, Wonder Woman, are not the same Olympians that fought to maintain themselves against Lucifer’s widespread corruption of the world.”

“By the sounds of it,” Didi said. “‘Widespread’ barely begins to cover Lucifer’s ambitions. I would call them… holistic — it really was a Great War, a Terrible one.”

Destruction nodded. “If he was aiming to usurp his Father’s Creation and ruin all others so his vision could reign supreme, it really can’t be called anything else.”

“Personally, I think my counterpart was biting off more than he could chew,” Lucifer drawled.

Gabriel sighed. “One would have hoped. But it wasn’t as if the rest of Creation was united against him. Heaven saw resistance from other divine canons, even when we tried to help. As Caine said, the real threat was Lucifer’s insidious influence — his corruption spread far and wide.”

“That seems as good a place as any to resume the Great War’s timeline, though I will have to skip over a thousand years or so,” Caine interjected.

“Wait-wait-wait-!” Jason waved his hands in something that was almost panic. “Let’s not be so hasty! We have time, right, people? We can’t just leave all of the Early Middle Ages in the dust! So much must’ve happened-!”

“Jason.” Barbara gave a huff of exasperation. “It’s a thousand years of history. If we went purely chronological, we’d be here for four years, four more, and then a PhD, too.”

“The results of that history should be mostly familiar to you, anyway,” Caine added.

“But not the details-! Details straight from the mouths of two people who lived them!” Jason insisted.

“Another time,” Didi soothingly assured him. “I’m sure Sean has enough stories from this life to entertain us for years to come. But we are here for his and Gabriel’s love story; I think we can live with just hearing about the times they crossed paths throughout the war.”

“Grandson, you do know I also lived some of that history, yes?” Ra’s said, his tone just a bit petulant.

“And I more!” Savage declared competitively.

“You lived our history, though…” Jason almost but not quite pouted. “This is history defined by a supernatural war between Heaven and Hell. The details…”

He trailed off with an open-mouthed, awed expression. Gabriel noted that Caine’s daughter was looking at him with both amusement and fondness.

“(-◎ω◎-)━━━━ﾝ!!!!” Cass pointed and shouted. ‘NEEEERRRRRRRDDDDD~!’

Jason snapped at her. “Cass-! I will shoot you!”

“Keep it friendly enough, and the Dead End won’t stop you,” Caine said, smirking.

“… Choom, how do you shoot someone all friendly like?” David asked, sounding genuinely baffled by the idea.

Lucy rolled her eyes at him. “As if you and Becks don’t end up doing that every time you go to the range.”

“Wha-? Those are misfires!” David defended himself before pausing and looking skeptically at the gremlin in question. “They… are, aren’t they?”

Becca shrugged. “It’s just how I bond, choomba.”

“My friends are violent and insane,” Ciri deadpanned to herself.

Caine laughed. “Would you have them any other way?”

“Anyways.” He shook his head, and the mirror behind the bar lit up with life again.

“Lucifer waged his half of the Great War through corruption and devastation,” Caine continued. “Nothing, no one, and nowhere was off-limits to him and Hell.”

As he spoke, the mirror reflected the faint forests of Russia, the sprawling steppes of Hungary, the shifting sands of North Africa, and the craggy cliffs of far north Pictland — domains of pagan gods.

Gabriel remembered how those gods had fallen into nothingness — namelessness — over the years, forgotten due to Devilish ideas placed in the minds of their followers and even the faithful efforts of Christians.

It reflected the thriving metropolitan spaces of Greece, the hard cliffs and valleys of the Alps, the fertile farmlands of Gaul, the castles and fortresses of Germania, the ancient monuments of Egypt and Mesopotamia, the lowland coasts of Frisia, the druid and fae-touched tribes of Eire and Albion, the golden fields of Kiev, the tumultuous holy land of the Levant, and more — as far east as China where a different Heaven reigned, as far north as Scandinavia where the sun was all but a myth for half the year, and as far south as Ethiopia where His teachings reached before even Rome.

In the cities of Greece, men turned to Devilish degeneracy. In the Alps, monsters stalked the mountain passes. In Gaul and Germania, feudal lords and knights went to war for next to nothing. In the Middle East and Egypt, ancient gods waned. In the Isles, legends were redefined by both faithful and fearful hands.

All throughout the ancient known world, Lucifer reached for his vision of Creation and tore the rest of the world down to meet it.

They witnessed gods and heroes, myths and legends from various canons, on the defensive, unaware of the rising enemy to all of Creation. For a time, the leading divines didn’t even realize the world was at war. By the time the struggle between Heaven and Hell was recognized and its scale was truly understood, Lucifer and his Devils had long since been at work within the cracks of every canon they could reach.

Gabriel shook her head at the memories. It’d been a terrible time, the first half of the Great War.

There’d been so much momentum to the world initially — from Rome to Parthia to Han, it was an era of empires. But bit by bit, that momentum was eroded away.

Rome fell in the West, even as Father’s faith tried to hold together the pieces, and the ever-fragmented feudal system emerged in its wake. Han shattered into Three Kingdoms — Gabriel could not say for certain, but she had to imagine Lucifer had a hand there, too. Partia stood strong for a time with Zoroastrianism as the bulwark against Lucifer’s corruption, but Gabriel knew personally how that ended…

Through all the reflections, all the visions of a past life, a single thread emerged in the mirror: Cain walked the world.

“There really was nothing for a Man to do but try to live as best he could, looking out for his descendants of every color and creed,” Caine said, referring to the cursed wanderings of a past life.

“Advocating for the potential of man, our place in the world, was always my chief concern, but-…”

He trailed off, and Savage took up the statement with an understanding nod. “But man can never be truly united under one flag. Quarrels are in our nature as much as cooperation is! In fact, it is our differences, our competition, that make us strong! It does not, however, make looking out for the good of man an easy task, though…”

“Of course, it also didn’t help that you were cursed to wander, did it, Sean?” Didi gently prompted.

Caine nodded somewhat awkwardly, clearly remembering his curse. “If I stuck around in one place too long — longer than a reasonable lifetime — things began to get… uncomfortable for me and those around me.”

“After ruling for a while, the Mandate of Heaven began to bite back?” Jason guessed.

“To disastrous effect.”

Ra’s grunted. “That would be frustrating, to say the least.”

“(-_-メ)” Cass grumbled. ‘Can’t have shit under the curse of God. Can’t even settle down and play immortal Civ…’

“You must have been lonely, Sean,” Didi empathized, her tone gentle and compassionate.

She leaned on Caine, and with a fond chuckle, he put his arm around her. Gabriel definitely didn’t pout at the sight, and Caine definitely didn’t see her pout and extend his other arm around her.

… Leaning against his side was nice, though.

“I wouldn’t say I was too lonely. There was always someone new to meet and something new to see,” Caine said. “And even in my cursed wanderings, there were a few constants. Why, I even liked some of them!”

Gabriel preened against him at that.

“Oh, like, immortal friends or something? Who?” Kara asked.

“Well, Azazel was always good company, even if I never joined his faction. Hestia — every Hestia — will always have a place for travelers at her Hearth. Odin was usually a riot — can’t beat a Valhalla party. Sun Wukong, whenever I was in his corner of the world, tended to have some damned monkey business for me to get involved in… The Egyptians were freaks, but always in a fun way. And I suppose some of the ‘Extra Demon’ Devils like Mephisto weren’t so-” Caine listed.

Gabriel, not hearing her name in that list before a Devil, poked Caine in the side insistently and definitely didn’t pout-!

He just chuckled. “I’m getting to you, love; don’t worry.”

“Anyway, during the first few centuries of the Great War, I met every canon of the known world, and I saw how Lucifer aimed to corrupt every one of them,” Caine recounted. “I also saw how Christianity, in attempting to unite faith against fear, was as much a tool of Hell as it was the following of Heaven, for even the most faithful is fallible — mortal as any other man.

“Where it spread, the local canons waned. The Olympians of Rome and Greece began to fade — not in power, but certainly in prominence. The Norse fared slightly better in their homelands — Odin always was a canny one — but Christianity had the momentum on the mainland. The Celtic canon saw their heroes turned to histories and their legends lessened.

“That waning wasn’t helped by… well, an act of God that marked the turning point of the war,” Caine sighed, and Gabriel knew where this was going.

“Father’s Sacred Gear system.” She nodded. “Your feelings for it are still mixed?”

“It’s a well-intentioned, widely beneficial idea that gave man a fighting chance against his enemies, and it was well-executed when He was still doing the work of it,” Caine admitted.

“It also cut out significant myths and legends from every canon in the world and made them ‘Christian first; original canon second’. Even if those myths and legends were bestowed upon humanity, the distinct and diverse beliefs of man were also… flattened in the process.”

Harley excitedly snapped her fingers. “Right, Sacred Gears! I ‘member ‘em!”

Hecate nodded as well. “They were a fascinating concept. And that is a fascinating perspective on them.”

“Ah, yes,” Lucifer hummed. “These.”

“A bit of context for those of us who weren’t here the first time around this life of yours, Sean?” Destruction asked with interest in his voice.

“Sacred Gears were blessed magical power sets integrated into Heaven’s cycle of life and death,” Caine explained. “Think of a myth, almost any myth, so long as it opposed man at some point in its telling. There was a Sacred Gear for it. God took those myths in their original form and shaped them to humanity’s benefit. But then, that’s part of my problem with the system.”

Gabriel nodded. “I cannot deny that Father’s system was built on the right of conquest and His dominance. A good portion of the Gears were of His own making, but just as many were… reappropriated.”

“I am torn!” Savage declared. “On one hand, any weapon and defense for humanity is for the noblest of causes! On the other, those myths had just as much right to exist in their original forms, for they too sprang from the minds of man!”

“And that’s not even mentioning how the system went… off the rails after His death,” Lucifer commented.

“You…” Gabriel winced. “Know about that…?”

Lucifer smirked. “Sean might have mentioned the issues down the line the first time he told this story.”

“And they were issues.” Caine nodded. “Just not initially. Initially, the Sacred Gear system started as the greatest victory for Heaven during the Great War. Even if it lessened the collective beliefs of humanity, it also gave man a fighting chance against all who sought to prey upon him.”

“The turning point, as you said,” Michael observed.

“That would be rather significant,” Destruction hummed in agreement. “Depending on the myth in question, I could potentially imagine a ‘mere’ man rising to stand toe to toe with demons and divines.”

Didi smiled slightly. “I like how it was implemented in Heaven’s cycle of life and death. Were the Gears grafted onto a soul before birth?”

“More… bestowed,” Caine corrected. “But the effect was the same. For the life a Sacred Gear touched, it was all but eternal under His eyes. God made sure his system was incorruptible.”

“And oh, how Lucifer raged…” Gabriel smiled to herself at the memory.

“(✧≖‿ゝ≖)ﾌｯ” Cass grinned. ‘Oho~? Petty and vindictive Archangel? How… based.’

“During a time like the Great War, magical superpowers for everyone does seem like a good idea,” Barbara said.

“Not for all, unfortunately,” Caine replied. “But those lucky enough to wield a Sacred Gear were chosen for the role by God, and they did good work defending their fellow man that way.”

“Of course,” Caine continued. “This isn’t a story about the Sacred Gears. I mostly mentioned them to set the stage for the turning of the war. By around 600 AD, things were starting to look up.”

“And then, everything went wrong?” Damian guessed.

“In a way,” Caine sighed. “Christianity had grown… truly massive. And its new scale opened more and more cracks for Hell to slip influence into. I’m sure many of you know just how historically tense the debates surrounding early Christianity were.”

Jason winced. “That’s not an encouraging segue. With how many grand councils of the Church I can name just off the top of my head… Yeah.”

Alice giggled and nudged him. “To be fair, you do set a pretty high bar there.”

“Let it be said that few, if any, creeds within the Church were outright turned to follow Hell,” Gabriel insisted. “But even if they did not, the division of the faithful was entirely to Lucifer’s plan.”

“Don’t look at me,” Lucifer said, defending himself. “Here, all of that division was purely the result of man bickering with man.”

Gabriel regretfully shook her head. “Unfortunately, during the Great War, that was not solely the case. Faithful debated faithful over every topic under His sun until lines were drawn in the sand. Then, Schism was the only possible outcome.”

“That must’ve given Lucifer just… so much new material to work with.” Kara frowned.

Gabriel nodded. “Even that’s putting it lightly. Every dispute was to the benefit of Lucifer and his Hellish cause. Every distraction stretched the forces of Heaven so thin.”

“And when Heaven was stretched thin, man alone was forced to pick up the pieces,” Caine added. “We had Sacred Gears, at least, but even then — as I’ve implied — man could never put up a fully united front. The Great War, on the side of man, was a Sisyphean struggle; progress here under the might of a significant Sacred Gear or a worthy ruler, only for collapse to spring up somewhere else. The Devils never lacked places to put their corruption to work.”

A moment later, Ra’s spoke up on a related tangent. “I feel I must ask, for personal reasons: what of Islam?”

“Another example of division amongst the faithful,” Gabriel answered. “One I had a significant hand in; I am not ashamed of that. I went to the prophet Muhammad with God’s teachings, and he turned to follow His word. But while the divine teachings there were of the same canon, the mortals quickly turned their interpretations against each other. Christian and Muslim and Jew; Lucifer would never have let there be peace between all of His faithful.”

“That actually leads us pretty well up to where I wished to resume mine and Gabriel’s story during the Great War,” Caine said.

As his audience perked up in interest, he continued. “We crossed paths several times over the years, but the climax of our story together, it could be said, came over the course of the Crusades.”

Behind them, the mirror spun up in new reflections again. Gabriel blushed as she recognized herself as the focus of them. Like Cain’s experience in Rome, everyone found themselves sucked right into-…

IIIII

— Gabriel, Might of God —

The Great War; it raged and raged. Even after centuries, it seemed without end. Many had fallen over the years. Just as many had Fallen. Even Gabriel was made to question her faith in Father as she witnessed her lesser brothers and sisters being used as fodder for the Siege Upon Heaven — where she was most commonly needed in His plan of war.

She bore no shame for those moments of weakness. As a surprisingly wise soul had once told her, ‘He doesn’t create anything as perfect. Perfect is not true Creation; it’s a single, frozen moment, and Creation is always in motion.’

She’d met that soul again and again over the course of years, decades, and centuries; not always on the best of terms, but not always on the worst, either.

She still… She still held that ‘perfect’ moment they’d shared close to her heart.

Once, some 300 years after the birth of Christ, in a small Bavarian village, Gabriel met Cain on the darkest of nights.

She’d been passing through, on a mission of import farther North. Father had informed her that Beowulf was in full swing, whatever that meant. It was not Gabriel’s place to know all of His wisdom, nor all of His future knowledge. Her place was to act as His Might, and when a dragon threatened to ravage the countryside with only one hero to slay it, she was sent as insurance.

Just insurance, for Father claimed it wouldn’t do for Heaven to intrude upon the developing legends of another pantheon as Hell would so eagerly do.

Regardless, before her mission even began, she met Cain. He, too, was just passing through. The Bavarian village was utterly silent in the dark of night. Yet from the woods all around, the terrible hunting calls of beasts could be heard.

“Some fool made a contract with a Devil, not one of note,” Cain claimed when she asked about the situation.

She was glad they could talk without hostility, Might of God and First Murderer.

“And you have this well in hand, I assume?” Gabriel asked in return.

“Not a doubt in my mind.” Cain nodded. “Though I won’t say no to a Guardian Angel watching me work.”

A strange feeling arose in Gabriel at those words — in her belly, heart, and cheeks. She did not refuse the invitation.

Late that same night, when the moon hung high, high, high in the sky, the corrupted fool rallied forth from the forests to terrorize the village. Even simply observing from afar, Gabriel could sense the Gluttony and Lust in his heart — fertile soil for a Devilish contract to take root within.

The man had grasped the slightest hint of power, and he used it for only ill.

Beasts — the terror of any civilization — answered his call. His own form had been twisted and mutated along the same lines as the beasts he commanded.

He bore the howling head and rending claws of a wolf, the scaled body of a snake, and the bat-like wings of a Devil half-formed. Against that twisted chimera, Cain stood — just a Man.

Gabriel watched, unable to take her eyes off Cain, as the chimera fool sent his beasts to rape the town. She knew the evil in his heart — men would be dragged from their homes and held down as their women and children were set upon by Gluttonous and Lustful beasts.

Light burned in her heart to stop it — was she not the Might of God? Was this not exactly what she was meant to protect against? Was this not the moment she should descend from the heavens to smite the wicked?

Thankfully, she was not needed. Cain… Cain had dedicated his whole cursed existence to defending his descendants, all the races of man.

Gabriel realized, much to her surprise, that the First Murderer was a hero in every sense of the word — biblical, legendary, and tragic. He did not shine with Light in the dark night, but nevertheless, he stood against darkness blacker than black.

The first wave of beasts met the thrown Stones of Cain. He MURDERED them as he’d once murdered his kin. Then, he turned his attention from beast to chimera, and with Stone of Cain in hand, he gave the contracting fool no peace.

Eventually, the sun rose over that darkest of nights. The people of the village emerged, wary and traumatized. They found Cain sitting upon the corpse of the Devilish chimera and watching the sunrise.

Gabriel waited another day and night for the village’s celebrations around Cain to cease. When he moved on, she moved to join him.

“You are well, Cain,” She stated, not needing to ask.

“As well as I can be during times like these,” Cain replied. “And you, Gabriel?”

“I am-…” Gabriel hesitated. “The siege has not waned, Cain; only waxed further and further. I watch my brothers and sisters fall in droves. I watch them Fall, as they give up hope and grace. I watch the Devils set upon them just as those beasts tried to, even mid-battle. Still, I fight, but it is no easy feat.”

“Good.” Cain nodded. “It shouldn’t be easy. You are at war with Hell, Gabriel, with all the weight that carries.”

Then, it was his turn to hesitate. “… Know that if you ever again need a lap to lay upon, I’ll be willing to offer mine.”

“I think I would like-!” The strange feeling sprang up again — in fluttering belly, skipping heart, and flushed cheeks.

“I-I really must be going, Cain; there are others I need to guard, and-! And I’m unsure if I’ll be able to find the tim-!”

Gabriel panicked. She didn’t know why. Something about Cain’s offer — so earnest…

She made her excuses and flew off before she could consider giving him the agreement that had almost risen so easily to her lips. A weary sigh echoed behind her, and Gabriel panicked all over again for another reason.

So, onto the wind, she whispered something to tell him he had not be ignored. “… Thank you.”

Even when they next met, Gabriel would not be able to give him the answer she-… she wished she could.

IIIII

“Gabriel, hold the giant down, will you?” Father requested.

“As you command!” Gabriel replied and complied with enthusiasm.

“He’s not yours-!” A voice from behind, above, and all around echoed in rage.

“Michael, please keep Lugh busy for a few moments. He’s already gotten to fulfill his legend, and I have need of Balor now.”

“King Lugh, please, let’s be reasonable; He is only removing a problem and using it for the good of man-…” Michael tried to reason with the Tuatha Dé Danann god of sun and storms.

“Cain, what am I paying you for?! Stand, Son of Man; stand!” Lugh demanded, ignoring Michael’s efforts entirely.

That name, here…?

Gabriel instantly perked up in interest, despite her best efforts at focus. Father looked at her with an amused and knowing look that Gabriel couldn’t comprehend. No, she had a task-…

She shook her head vigorously, helped by the strike of giant strength that rocked across her face.

Balor, of the Scorching Sun, rampaged in resistance to God’s plan for him. He dwarfed Gabriel, towering high enough to look down upon all… All but Him.

God — in an exceedingly rare blessing of Himself upon the mortal world — worked without hurry, even as the pagan giant raged. He captured Balor’s essence, siphoning power bit by bit into his new system for humanity.

Gabriel’s job was to hold the giant in check, terrible eye and all. She struck Balor with spears of Light that pinned him in place. She pierced his terrible eye whenever he tried to open it. She was the Might of God, focused only upon His plan-…

“Yeah, not enough to get involved here,” A familiar voice said. “When He Himself shows up on the battlefield, I know when to stay my hand.”

Father chuckled. “There is no need for that, Cain. I swear, you will experience no hostility from me and mine now.”

“… Sometimes, you’ve just gotta accept that you’re outclassed, Lugh; I’m sorry,” Cain said, acting as if he couldn’t possibly have heard His voice.

“He-He-!” Lugh sputtered. “He revived my loathsome grandfather, just to lay him so low, and you expect me to accept it?!”

Gabriel could practically hear Cain shrug in response. “I mean, you already killed Balor once. His part in your legend is complete. What are you really losing here?”

“That’s what I said!” Father laughed.

The sound made Gabriel pause mid-impaling, sticking another spear of light through Balor’s terrible eye. It was strangely, oh-so-strangely… chummy. Not at all what one would expect from He who’d cursed Cain.

She’d spoken to Father about Cain after her… perfect… meeting with him outside of Rome. He told her that He bore the Son of Man, the First Murderer, no ill will, despite the curse. If anything, He seemed shockingly accepting of Humanity’s First Evil and the role he’d taken up all across the world of man.

Still, it was one thing to hear of Father speak with fondness, and another entirely to experience it. Even Cain seemed to think so, for he kept on as if he could not hear His voice at all.

“I’m sure there’s something more going on here. Has Heaven been hostile to you and yours before?” Cain asked.

“… We have had very little contact with their canon before now,” Lugh admitted.

“I asked nicely,” Father said with the sound of a shrug that could part the clouds.

Again, Cain ignored Him. “How about this, Lugh? Why don’t we take a day off from all the divine bullshit and just go drinking? Whatever happens while we’re gone, happens, ya know? I hear there’s a king with great mead, a beautiful daughter, and plans for a hunt up in Ulster. Care to play host during a snowstorm?”

“… That is strangely specific, Cain,” Lugh said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Cain deflected. “I’m definitely not pushing you to have a son who’ll be great of deed and short of life so I’ll have an in with Scáthach.”

“… Even more strangely specific.”

“Ha!”

Who was Scáthach, and why was Cain so interested in her? Gabriel didn’t at all understand her sudden urge to frown. She took it out on Balor, anyway; the terrible-eyed giant was riddled with so many Light spears that he ended up looking like a porcupine before Father finished His work.

By the time Gabriel looked up again, Cain and Lugh were gone — off to… Gabriel frowned.

“Father? Who is Scáthach, and why do I instinctively dislike her?”

“Don’t worry; that ship won’t be the final one to sail in my plan.”

“… Scáthach is a sailor, then?” Gabriel nodded to herself. “I understand, Father.”

“You don’t — it’s adorable.”

“Father-!”

“Apologies, my Might — it’s… fierce and noble. Unfortunately, I must ask you to put that noble ferocity to another use. There is always more work to be done. I think, though… Hmm, yes, I’ll let you break the news of the system to Cain; he should appreciate that. Ganbatte, Gabriel: I’m rooting for you.”

“Hmm, rooting for-?”

IIIII

Other times Cain and Gabriel crossed paths, relations between them ended in violence. Usually, when Cain was keeping the company of Azazel and his Grigori.

Gabriel… disapproved, to put her feelings lightly.

“I just think he’s a bad influence on you!” She shouted, half-heartedly throwing a spear of Light at Cain.

He brushed it to the side with ease and without contempt. “Oh, he certainly is. But Gabriel…? I am the First Murderer, Humanity’s First Evil. I’m as bad an influence on him as he is on me.”

“Preach~!” Azazel shouted from the background of Gabriel’s attention; even then, she could hear his infuriating smirk.

“Quiet, Azazel!” She snapped at him, absently throwing a much more serious spear of Light his way.

“A-oop~! Careful, Gabriel, you could take my eye out with that!”

“Cain, I don’t believe that to be true.” Gabriel returned her attention to the conversation partner and… foe that mattered.

“You-… You-… You are the Son of Man just as much as you are the First Murderer, with all of Father’s invested potential that that entails!”

Sadly shaking his head — Gabriel’s heart ached at his denial and disbelief, as if he couldn’t see within himself what she saw — Cain crossed the distance between them in a blink. He slid inside her guard. Before Gabriel could backpedal, an open palm landed upon the peak of her breast — a push more than a strike that removed Gabriel’s feet from under her.

It didn’t hurt; the physical feedback there was something… else, entirely.

She caught herself with her wings a moment later, and when she looked back at Cain, he was staring strangely at his open palm — a look of bemusement, wonder, and… something more that Gabriel couldn’t describe; the last sent the same confusing and thrilling tingles down her spine that his touch had.

“Cain, you lucky bastard-!” Azazel shouted.

Cain cut him off. “Not the time, Az. In fact, why don’t I catch up with you later? Gabriel will actually kill you here.”

Azazel scoffed, “If only! I love a woman like her who would actually just fucking kill me-”

“Azazel.” Cain’s voice came out as hard as his Stone. “Make yourself scarce. I’m no longer asking.”

Grumbling, Azazel spread his black wings and took off, and immediately, almost all of Gabriel’s reason for fighting Cain left with him, much to her relief.

He’d even… Gabriel didn’t know; defended her…? Something about the way Cain had cut Azazel short so abruptly and absolutely made her heart flutter.

She started to smile. “Cain-…”

“I’m sorry, Gabriel; I really don’t feel like talking right now. I-… You-… Us… There’s no way we would work, right…?”

Cain shook his head. “I think I need to work through something — I think I need to move.”

“Very well! A spar, then!” Gabriel beamed a smile, undeterred. “I have leaned upon you, Cain, and now, you may lean upon me! It will be a different kind of moment for us to call ‘perfect’, no~?”

“… Your wholesomeness really isn’t helping, dammit-”

The curse was muttered under his breath. Gabriel wasn’t given a chance to respond. Even as he muttered it, he was taking her up on her offer — from a half-heartedly hostile fight to a friendly spar. Cain, Son of Man, raced toward her; Gabriel met him fist to fist with a smile.

He was troubled; Gabriel saw it in his eyes, full of unreadable emotion and conflicted focus. Somehow, Gabriel knew she was the only thing on his mind. She hoped she did help, despite what he had muttered.

What Cain was working through here, Gabriel didn’t know, but she didn’t need to. Cain had been there for her — a lap pillow when she was so, so tired — and now, she would be there for him — a moving partner to work through internal turmoil.

Whatever was on his mind (‘I-… You-… Us-…’ the words flashed through hers), Gabriel would ensure this moment between them was exactly what he needed to find peace — ‘perfect’, just as the moment he’d given her.

IIIII

A hundred years past the turn of the millennium, the latest moment Cain and Gabriel met was far from ‘perfect’.

“Deus Vult! Deus Vult! DEUS VULT! DEUS VULT!”

Hovering invisibly in the rafters, Gabriel watched with a fierce frown as the church filled with cries for crusade. Cain lay upside down on the arched ceiling beside her, suspended by magic and the will of Man.

“Hmm. Wasn’t Urban just calling for a renewal of the Truce of God?”

“… Yes. Apparently, he thinks it only applies to Frankish nobles.”

“Hmm. So, Might of God, did He intend for war to be waged in His name?”

“… No. I can practically smell Lucifer’s foul fingers all over this.”

“Hmm. This is going to be a complete and utter mess, isn’t it?”

“… It absolutely will. Father Above, I can only hope this is still according to your plan.”

A moment later, His whisper reached only her ear. “The hull is strong — the oars and sails are set; prepare a bottle of champagne to christen this ship, for it is about to sail. Ganbatte, Ganbatte, Gabriel-chan~…”

That mention of ‘ships’ again — if only Gabriel understood what it was supposed to mean…

Truly, He worked in most mysterious ways.

IIIII

[AN: I’m having way too much fun with this Great War story lol. I keep finding myself wanting to include more and more detail/POV sections like the Christian missions in Ireland, or the Reconquista in Iberia, or, like, the whole Norse resurgence that must’ve happened during the Viking Age, or… well, you get the idea. We just don’t have time or really the right format to include it in the wider picture of the Dead End. If I want to do the whole ‘Cain in the Great War’ idea justice, it’ll have to be its own story (at least I have a good idea for what I can write after the Dead End lol).

That said, though, we’re still in DIDI for the long run, folks. Since its revival, I’ve only touched on 3 out of the ~20 potential past-life story ideas I have scribbled down in my notes and plans, and that’s not even getting into all of the potential DC ‘verse plotlines.

The Great War story should be wrapped up next chapter, with Gabriel’s past POV continuing through the Crusades and a switch back to the bar to end the night. Then, I had the idea for a secret society/cult convention hosted at the Dead End (with plenty of chaos close to home in Gotham, too) that leads into a Mythos-type story. Still workshopping the DC ‘verse half of that arc, but it should be fun.

Oh, and Gabriel is DEFINITELY sticking around after this DxD story is over. Enjoy :]