Annoyed and angry (3)

They stayed silent for a while, Lucifer pondering about his reason while inspecting her sister's form.

"Weren't you supposed to cherish them? To take care of them?" Lucifer huffed. "But now the only thing you do is to look at them as if they were beneath you."

"Are you scolding me for my lack─"

"I wasn't the one who knelt," he said hastily. "I wasn't the one who followed orders that didn't want to obey. Humans accuse me of lying." He laughed bitterly. "I was one of the few that remained true to themselves─who didn't lie."

"Then what are you doing here?" she snarled. "Why the Apocalypse has not started?"

Raphael pushed him away forcibly. "I have Free Will, didn't you know?" Lucifer used his stumble to back away and spread his arms out. "I can do whatever I want."

She frowned, scrutinizing his easy smile and posture.

"What has that human done to you?" She shook her head. "If he were dead--"

He unconsciously reached with his grace to feel the flicker of Aaron's soul on the other side of the world. "If you ever try to do anything to him," his voice was deadly and cold. "I swear that─" He stopped and in one fluid, deadly movement, he had Raphael, who had managed to stand up, pinned against the floor once again, her own blade pressed forcibly against her chest. "Where is he?"

Raphael growled. Her wings beat once, throwing him off balance, but he unfolded his own to regain it.

Lucifer stomped his foot against the floor, making it tremble. "Where is he?" he repeated, anger seeping in his tone, his true voice a step away from leaking out.

Heavy storm clouds hung overhead; the sky was again hazy and dark as he himself felt. The trees shifted away from them, wind attempting to knock them over, as they kept glaring at each other.

The clouds cracked, Lucifer realized, a lot more than they should be. The cracks on the floor that he created with his stomp started pouring lava, the claps of thunder were louder and closer, a step away from touching the red liquid. Raphael's own anger was making the heat that hid below push up. She noticed and sparing no moment, send the substance straight after his wings, but Lucifer moved at the side, but Raphael used that moment to throw herself towards him, sweeping a wing forward in an attempt to knock him away, trying to shove him against the hot lava.

If Lucifer wasn't so angry he would have scoffed as he flew past where she was. Even if his sister had faced battle before, her movements didn't possess the deadly precision and subtlety of Michael's.

Raphael roared as she electrified everything around her, burning it. Lucifer felt his own vessel's skin peeling as he shook his feathers, turning everything into ice. Sneering as he was close to his sister, he slammed a force into her back, between her shoulder blades, almost knocking her to the ground. She tried to fly away but the cold power he sent made her appendages move slower.

He grabbed her by the hair with his free hand. "Where is he?" he demanded, digging the blade into her right-wing. She roared and the earth trembled with the sound. Trees fell but Lucifer didn't relent. "Tell me!"

He took the blade out and held it high again, ready to make another strike; one that would hurt even more.

"Stop," a voice rang from the skies. Lucifer felt a hand grabbing the blade on his hand and he flew into safety. He turned around, a couple of steps away, and saw Michael standing behind him, wings just slightly bigger than his own, spread wide, glowing in the darkness of the night. But the stars that always lingered on Michael's feathers were dim and unnoticeable. He was going to ask 'what's wrong' but stopped himself, choosing to bare his teeth instead. Michael unsheathed his Flaming Sword. Red turning gold gleamed on his palm, vibrating as it engulfed all the light around them.

Lucifer wanted to shed the vessel he wore, to fight, remembering the last time he had seen that particular weapon, but he darted his eyes towards the destruction around them and a voice, a small voice that sounded suspiciously like his own, said, 'Aaron is going to be so mad at me'. It was a fluttering thought, but it was enough to make him realize the small differences between this encounter and the previous one. Enough to make him stop.

Michael's sword didn't hold the rage of all his brothers and sisters, it wasn't held by an archangel in armor with his true face flickering because of his rage, shredded grace from their siblings covering its plate. He wasn't in that war. Lucifer breathed─ He could think.

Michael walked towards him. The light of the Sword flickered. No, it was the reality the one that flickered around the sword, confused about how to take it all, how to control that power. How to make this plane work around it. Pieces of earth started to float around it, wanting to be closer, pulled by the center of gravity the weapon had. Lucifer knew that it was the same as a dying star; he knew that if it wasn't in Michael's grip, it would take no time for the earth to start gravitating around it.