29/XXIX. Wherever You Lead, I'll Go (Remastered)

“Was that your clones?” Johnny felt chills from back of his spine as each gust of the wind means a clone of Michael comes back to him.

“Yes.”

“What have you found out?” Johnny continued to type away researching the names on the list.

“Some painful memories.” He read Arthur’s countenance easily, it’s as if living with the Archangel didn’t rub off of him – but rather living with him helped Johnny heightened his senses.

“About Miss Rosie Drake?” He’s looking at the previous news articles on Arthur’s laptop.

His usual uncaring countenance has changed drastically as one of the clones returned with its memories.

“Yeah.” Arthur took a pained glance.

“Were you able to talk to her?” Johnny reached out his hand holding Arthur’s.

“No.” He only just looked away, hiding his wretched face in the dark.

As the two continue their investigation, memories of the other clones came flooding in.

Another memory, this time, an unknown participant in the festival – due to this, Arthur grew suspicious.

Freya King, second on the list, and present in two to three pictures that Michael secretly took at the festival – she was not in the list of guests, participants, judges, nor the crew.

Arthur got her address from searching in the MI7 databases – a studio apartment in the London suburbs. Michael phased quietly through the walls.

SFX: *Crack*

Small brushes decorated the carpeted floor that Michael accidentally stepped on one and broke it. He immediately knelt and fixed the brush.

And on the coffee table, hundreds of pencils scattered across, filling it and some even fell down on the carpet.

Make up artist, right, but why was her name not on the list of the official crewmen?

“Hey, no worries, I’ll stand in for you, my schedule is always open, you know that, I enjoy this part time sub make-up artist!” She held her phone scrunched between her shoulder and her ear as she got out of the bathroom with towels on.

With a clean clothes that hang slouching on the couch, she planned on wearing those, putting off her towel, and getting into those clean clothes naked, unaware of Michael’s presence.

There were blinds everywhere, but the angel thought he owe her respect, and quickly teleported to the spiritual realm.

Michael treaded through the room in the spiritual realm, and felt another, familiar presence.

“Demon, come out.”

An Obsession, shaking to her core, begrudgingly came out of hiding from one of the rooms.

“Who are you?”

“Samael called me, Izuel in heaven. I was the angel of balance. My demon name is Izzidon of Chaos, my lord.” Izzidon bowed her head in reverence to the Captain of the host of Heaven.

“Do not call me that. I am not the lord of the demons!” Her intention of appeasing the Captain by her reverence backfired.

Since Samael, no Lucifer, liked how he was treated as the lord of the demons, maybe Michael will as well. She simply thought.

“I’m sorry.”

“What are you doing here? No, who are you leeching off of?”

“Both of the two women here, Captain.”

“Tell me about their darkest days.” For a weird reason, Michael don’t detect any evil or ominous intent or aura from Izzidon, his spirit is neither light nor dark, it’s grey.

Izzidon went on to describe the two girl’s routine every day. The only worrying thing that they have was being perfect. Izzidon tried to whisper in their ears their biggest fears of being imperfect, somehow trying to copy what the other demons were doing, but there’s barely any negative or darkened spiritual aura in that place.

“Izuel.”

“Yes, Captain?”

“You were one of the angels that were swept in the Great Rebellion, right?”

“Swept?”

Before the start of the Great Rebellion, there were angels that maintained their neutral stance from everything, but when Samael approached them, used their weakness against themselves, and lied to them about raising their concerns to the Almighty – they didn’t know they were going to war.

Samael placed them at the rear guard of his army, but nonetheless, they were thrown out when Lucifer was thrown down to hell.

They lost the spirit of God in them, the light that covered their being, the warmth that brought them life, and the glory that gave them protection.

Only Lucifer maintained his light, no, strictly speaking, he also lost everything, but with his power of manipulation, illusions were easy to produce.

“When Samael approached me, I thought this was just going to be a simple meeting in the Throne Room. He gathered everyone and told us to stay at the back of the ‘congregation’.” She put air quotes in that last word.

“Then, why do you feel you need to do this?” Michael was actually feeling rather sympathetic.

“This is the first time that I’ve encountered a brother that has not fallen from grace.” She simply smiled and answered.

“When I woke up, we’re already in Hell, and- I… we… felt lost. We didn’t know what to do.” She continued.

“You’ve been doing good things before, can’t you just… do that again?” Michael, for the first time, apart from Lucifer, seek to change this demon.

“If so, then… is there still salvation?” She shyly asked, but raising her head and looking into Michael’s eye told her his answer.

Michael’s wide eyes, concerned and pained expression became visible clearly to the demon in question.

He hesitated to answer but only looked down.

“I don’t know.” He answered, and looked away from the demon.

“I have no reason to be here, I’m just following the other demons.”

“Following blindly brought you here in the first place.” Michael retorted. Indeed.

“I’m sorry, I just… Samael, he… I liked how friendly he was, I didn’t know any better.” She tried to make excuses for herself.

“I know.”

“For now, I’ll see with Father, what I can do about the Neutrals, but I hope you can do good from now on.” He gave an order to a demon, one to go against its very nature.

But who decides the nature of each individual – none other than that person or creature.

God gave everyone free will. Whether you do good, evil, whether you were lied to or cohorts from the beginning, what you do, how you react to your situation, and how you take the action of the people around you shows what your true nature is.

“I’ll go, find people who need help, and I’ll do my best to help.” Izuel’s determination and sincerity rocked Michael of what the demon’s true nature was.

“Go. Izuel, I’ll try to find a way.” He smiled back to the demon.

“I know what you’re saying. I know you’ll find a way, but I don’t have any guarantee, right?” She realized there’s no going back from Hell.

“I’m sorry.” Michael could only bite his lip.

“I know.” Izuel and Michael then went back to the physical realm, still in Freya’s apartment.

With Izuel out of his sight, he continued to observe Freya’s movements after being clothed.

------------------ // ------------------

Born of a British mother and a Japanese father, Freya became a unique mark in her school, and university.

She became the muse of her class at an early age, and her outward beauty truly reflected what’s inside.

Every boy wanted to court her, after first dates, potential suitors lose their interest – their issue? It was her obsession with perfectness.

Her frustrations in her dating life lead her to the crime of stalking.

As one of the university jocks flirted with her with no good intentions, played with her weaknesses, and treated her like a princess.

The two were able to get it to the next level without her knowing his true goal, but she became controlling, always calling where he was, checking up on him, even installing a tracing app on his phone.

He grew in love with her, perhaps due to her excessive love for him, but in the end, he knew the relationship was turning sour and toxic.

He broke up with her and she was adamant about the break up. Even contacting his closest friends in the football team, but only finding out the truth – the truth about why he approached her.

Freya became destitute of romantic love. She was broken.

The perfect girl dropped off of university for a year, but started stalking her ex through those next six months.

She began sending him gifts of his hair in the shower, his pictures, and his plays.

He filed a restraining order against her, and sued her for stalking.

She paid bail and resume university on another college institution and moved on from that painful and dark past of her life.

“A simple stalking case?” Johnny stroke a line on Freya King’s name on their list.

“There’s nothing simple when the MI7 is tracking you.” Arthur squinted his eyes, picked up the pen, and wrote a question mark next to her name.

“Then?”

“I’ll do further investigation about her.”

“You’ll pull up Dad’s accesses?”

“Yep.”

They talked as if there were no listening chips inside their home. As if it wasn’t bad enough that there were spies assigned to their home, but listening devices were scattered around.

Arthur knew of this, but he couldn’t just cause an electromagnetic burst to pinpoint and destroy those listening devices – even if he did, they’ll still plant another anyways.

“We still have more to go.” Johnny typed away listing everything in the notepad.

“The others are still out.” Referring to the clones he sent out. Arthur looked out their window, and glanced over the splendor of the peaceful evening, the glittering skies, and the bright moon.

Being a genius, Arthur knew that the peaceful nights would come to an end soon enough – he can predict the future of this case, but not as much, he’s only analyzing the movements and motive of the culprit.

“Art, do you think… we should let Dad know about…” Johnny stopped typing as the silence of background noise flooded the room.

“Shhhhhh…” Arthur put his finger in front of Johnny’s mouth shushing him.

“Do you even know what I’m talking about?” Johnny put his hands on his hips like a sassy grandmother.

“Whatever it is, it’s between us – plain and simple.” That stopped him from speaking more.

He raised his hands in surrender and resumed typing in Arthur’s laptop.

This is going nowhere… just like the time when…

And as Arthur waited patiently for the other clones return, his mind trailed off once more.

------------------ // ------------------

Michael, the angel of Peace and Mercy, darted his eyes back and forth to the large congregation in heaven. It’s not comparable to the gatherings of the humans down on Earth, but both bring glory to the name of the Lord, the Creator of the universe.

He smiled. The pain he’s been bearing in his heart eased a little bit with the joyous songs, and the angelic voices singing in God’s choir.

The Archangels, Raguel, the angel of Justice, Raphael, the angel of Healing, Jophiel, the angel of War, Azrael, the angel of Death, Gabriel, the angel of Order, Uriel, the angel of Patterns, stood side by side of the throne of God, whilst Michael lead the congregation in singing and giving praises to the name of the Lord.

Every day was like a blissful memory. The glory of God surrounded every one, until…

Immediately after the worship, the Great Accuser arrived at the pearly gates of Heaven.

“Give way, give way!” Samael flaunted his colorful wings in front of every fledgling and angel.

Raguel strode arrogantly from the left side of the throne of God. Michael immediately put his arms out to stop Raguel in confronting Samael.

“Mi-“ Raguel huffed as he tried to remove Michael’s hand that was stopping him from going forwards and as he turned his eyes from Samael to Michael, he noticed the change in one of his pupils.

He backed down, as the tremendous aura of Eon, the angel of Wrath, seeped out of Michael’s body.

The sudden change of the mood from joyous to fearful made Eon to come sniff things out.

Michael was still awake, at least, half of him.

“What do you need, Sa-“ He stopped in his tracks. “Lucifer?” He continued.

“Michael, come on, is that how you greet your brother?” Lucifer can also feel Eon’s wrath reverberating in the Throne Room.

Michael’s left eye has completely turned white, while the other one stayed blue. Half of Eon was already out, and half of Michael stops him from going on a rampage.

Lucifer’s annoyance, irritation and fear visually reflected on his struggling face.

“We just finished the worship. This can wait.”

“Oh… hohohoho… you’re singing joyously here, while our brothers and sisters wail in agony down there?” Everyone’s expression turned sour.

“Every one, spread out and do your orders.” Michael spoke strongly, the angels shuffled around and flew into different directions while the Archangels stayed by the throne.

“Why have you come here, Lucifer?” Jophiel’s strict and stern voice rattled him a little bit – he doesn’t want to start a battle with the angel of War.

In terms of military tactics, Jophiel was known to be the best, and Michael coming in second, and Samael, being the third with his deceitfulness and wits.

“I just wanted to talk to my brothers and sisters – especially, Michael.” He smirked, knowing it will irritate Raguel more.

Michael, breathe in deeply, as if to calm down, and his white eyes turned to blue in no time – the aura of Wrath that surrounded the room also vanished as soon as he breathe out.

“Let’s talk in my room.” Michael glared intensely at both Raguel and Lucifer on their way to the east wing of the Throne Room.

“You’re lucky, Father isn’t here.” Raguel threatened Lucifer like a child the minute Michael took his eyes off of the two.

“Shut uuuuuup.” Uriel trailed his irritation as well for the two, acting like children.

The six Archangels followed the two Seraphim to the room.

Michael sat down on his bed and tapped on to the other sides of the bed gesturing and inviting the other seven to sit with him.

“Do we really?”

“You’re in my room, right?”

“Right.”

Azrael got comfortably seated at the left side of Michael, while Lucifer sat on the right side, Jophiel and Raguel tried to scoot in, but it’s out of space, the five had to go Indian sit style on the floor.

“So…?” Uriel quickly wanted to go back to the Throne Room, where he was rightfully placed.

“It’s about Abram.” Lucifer opened his mouth, and just as he did, Michael sighed and replied, “What about him?”

“He’s… quite lost and clever.” Lucifer slouched and dive backwards to rest his back on the soft, fluffy bed.

“Lost?” Michael and the others’ eyes followed Samael as he leaned right back.

“Well, Jessiel said he will have a son, a rightful heir produced with his body, but Abram and Sarai had a different idea in mind.” He grinned, and mocked the chosen person of God.

“From beyond the spiritual world, I emerged to see how Father’s chosen person is doing, and…” Lucifer sprang right back up and trailed his eyes as he trailed his words.

“And what?” Uriel shook his head in anticipation for the rest of the sentence.

“Don’t keep us in suspense!” Raphael’s face lit in wonder as he waited earnestly.

“There she was, Hagar, Sarai’s maid in Abram’s tent, in the moonlight.” Samael described it graphically to the other Archangels, with his hands wooshing in the air describing the night sky with a lot of clouds and darkness.

Michael could only display his face of disappointment. He was there when God bestowed his blessing, and he was also there when he bestowed the curse.

He looked down, then back to Lucifer, as if doubting whatever story he was concocting right then and there, squinted his eyes, and sprang to his feet, stood up and-

“Mike, where are you going?” Lucifer stopped his tale. All the archangels’ eyes followed Michael as he treaded amidst them.

“I’m gonna check up on him and her.” He sounded worried, but the growling tenor told the Archangels that he still firmly believed on Abram.

Lucifer only nodded, knowing fully well that he was telling the truth, and that the only thing waiting for Michael was utmost disappointment.