Mourning of an Angel

In a future where angels aren't prayed to, but instead are the salvation of galaxies against the likes the gods and men, what would one have to be sorrowful for?

 An object went blazing through the vast emptiness of space, illuminating an entire solar system with its radiance as it flew. As it followed the gravitational curve around a planet in its pathway, it was clear it was not a mere loose object hurtling through the abyss. Looking closer, it was a being. With a pair of brilliantly iridescent metallic wings that were causing the luminous glow and despite the lack of air resistance, pressure or friction, they occasionally flapped the wings as if needed for maintaining speed or course correction. 

 They had tanned skin with their long midnight black hair tied back in a tight bun. Their eyes were of the same color as their wings, and at the moment, burned with the same intensity. He was built rather lean, despite his muscles, with a sharp jawline, and rounded ears on his narrow head. The attire chosen by them was a three well tailored three piece suit, sans the jacket, made to fit him exactly in all the right places. The pants and suit vest a matching black with gold trims along the edges and pockets, with a dress shirt of an appropriate dark grey color. 

 The sleeves of which were rolled up just above the elbow which showed off the dark ink covering his arms. Characters that seemingly formed words and sentences as they traveled along her person. From the cradle between his thumb and forefinger, to his wrist and up his arm to where it became concealed by his shirt. When properly read, it told the story of his life, a story that covered nearly his entire body. However, even when read, there was a rather large gap in the tale. An inexplicable chain of events missing that he had neglected putting to ink because he did his best to avoid. Until now.

 This was Maven. A Lord of the Council of Elix. Master of Trade and Resources. �" Class Angel.

 Anyone who knew him, respected him. He kept himself to exceedingly high standards as a person. He wanted to be a benefit to those around him. Doing anything he could to help anyone in need when they needed it, even if they couldn’t bring themselves to ask for it. While he was sarcastic, mischievous and considered by some (Verena) to be an a*s, he was more. He was a mentor, a confidant, an ally, a friend and even at one point a father. To some he was still considered this. Maven was one who went to the literal ends of the universe for anyone in need and he didn’t do it for gratitude, appreciation or respect. He just wanted to be good.

 He wanted to have a positive impact on the lives of those with whom his life seemed to intertwine with. Whether they be his fellow brethren in the Angel Corp, the unknowing citizens on planets he helped save or even the younglings he sponsored. He had to atone for his past sins somehow. His hands had wrought so much pain and violence and death, they would never be clean. He’d given up on trying to wash away the blood. Instead, he chose to do better. To be better. Or atleast try. Why else would Archangel have chosen him, if he didn’t believe it was possible for a man like him. Maven didn’t have the faith in himself, but he had to believe that atleast his leader did.

 As he passed into an asteroid field,  he knew he was close to his destination and began to think about why he was here. Having not been back here since he was actually still a mortal man, it had been so long since he’d seen it. More than centuries even. Yet even despite this fact, his memory of it had not faded even a bit. It was seared into his brain like his own name and he would sooner forget the latter than the former. But it felt like he had run away from this place for long enough. So having asked Azzi to send him back to his universe and to a set of coordinates that would give him some flight time to gather his thoughts, here he was.

 The Kypernaum Belt. Thinking back on how this place had originally gotten its name, made Maven smile to himself. It was a rather happy memory from his previous life. One that allowed him to envision the laughing faces of his friends from that day. A starmap being thrown at him and the resulting black eye that he’d gotten because of it. The look on Jeremy’s face when it happened. Then he remember /her/ face when he’d gone back and shown her. The concern and worry etched into her features. The softness of her hand when it caressed his cheek and then the hurt of his chest when she’d punched him for making an offhand comment. Just like that, the smile fell from his face and it was back to hardened stoicness.

 Breaking through a floating rock, rather than going around it, he was finally clear of the belt and arrived. A massive field of debris stretching out for kilometers and kilometers before him. Maven’s eyes scanned over the drifting hunks of durasteel, aluminum, and so many other things that lay scattered. He identified the wreckages of the Endeavor, the Javelin and several Idris class ships. The broken and cracked mess that used to be the Eureka Research Station. The place he had called home for so many years. And it was as his eyes passed over the innumerous bodies lifeless in the cold waste that he remembered this is also where Maevus Quinta Selaron had died. 

 Something moved in the expansive darkness amongst the stillness and it caught Maven’s eye. He knew exactly what it was and was neither surprised nor alarmed by its presence. In fact, it was actually what he had come here for. The flickering form of a figure suddenly appeared directly in front of him. She was a slender woman with pale, almost perfect skin. Her long, thick and curly brown hair matched perfectly with her kind hazel eyes and soft smile. She was even more beautiful than he remembered being and it brought back so many happy memories but also so much pain. He began to doubt if coming back here was what he thought it would be.

 The woman swept her gaze over Maven, taking in his form. She noted several discrepancies from what she remembered, but when her eyes met his own, she knew without a doubt it was actually him. Her smile broadened even further before she closed the distance between them. Bringing a hand up to his cheek and gently caressing it. To her, she felt the smoothness of his skin and the heat radiating off of him. Or rather, her brain interrupted the analytical data she was reading from him into sensory stimuli. But to Maven, he felt nothing. She wasn’t a physical being, just a holographic construct. An AI he’d built so long ago and preserved here. To protect her memory.

 “Hello my love…” she said beaming widely at him, just as she always had.

 “Hello Natalie.”

 Maven just simply could not keep the sadness from his tone or expression. It just was no longer the same as it had been. After her death, this had been enough. He clung to the construct that had been made to replace what he’d lost. In those dark times, he could still see her in it. It still felt like her. Because he wanted so desperately for it to actually be her. But now, after so many years of coming to terms with her death and making peace with it. All he saw now was a mere shade of the woman he’d loved. It might have her personality and memories but that was basically all she was now. A reflection of a glance into the past.

 The thought of it made his heart ache. Had he really come so far and done so much just to feel empty when he saw again. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but it was more than this. He had hoped that he would feel her touch. Hear her say his name again. The way she used to. That just hearing her voice would illicit something in him that would make him feel more alive than he ever had before. She used to do that every time he spoke to her. But now it was like he’d already accepted that there was no going back to the way things were. What they had, was broken and even with all the power at his disposal, he’d never be happy again.

 It was that look of haunted longing that made her frown as she realized something was wrong with Maven. Her smile mellowed and became a sad but understanding expression. Natalie wasn’t unaware of what she was, she simply wasn’t designed to care. Even though Maven had designed her to replace what he’d lost, he did not make her with the intention to be the original. A self aware instance of not being the person she was copied from. It made her acutely capable of replicating all of the mannerisms and details of the deceased Natalie without the potential conflict of realizing she was an artificial intelligence and having a meltdown. She was always aware.

 “Your eyes. I can tell it has been a long time since you have seen me Maevus. It has been only a couple of years since I last saw you. But the way you’re looking at me? How long has it been? A decade? More? What have you become in all those years?”

 He was taken slightly aback by hearing his true name. It simply was no longer him. It belonged to a man he’d buried a long time ago. Both metaphorically and literally. Maevus had been a brilliant young man with the potential and drive to change the entirety of the human race. The work he had worked on and done in this very place had made him infamous. But then it all changed. He’s begun abusing his intellect not for the benefit of mankind. Instead he’d dedicated it to a group that’s entire intent was to commit the genocide of millions and millions of innocent people. Allegedly innocent atleast. Even now he felt conflicted. 

 His thoughts on the subject were interrupted when she idly brushed strands of her hair over her shoulder and tucked it behind her ear. It was such a Natalie thing. Watching it made him remember she’d just asked him about the last time he’d seen her. Truth be told, even he with his near perfect recall did not remember. He’d spent so long burying his past and trying to forget, that it seemed it did the job. Atleast partially.

 “It has been eons, Natalia. Not for you because time is different elsewhere. Different universes at different points. I ascended. Shed my flesh as a mortal man to become something more. You always spoke of angels looking out for us. Never was the case for me and you. But I became one so that others could have one watching and protecting them when they needed it most. I did it to make amends for everything I did after...after this. Someone had to make up for the villain that Maevus was” he said quietly, his eyes on the drifting debris all around them.

 Just the thought of it made him grow angry, as he fought back the bitter memories. Not just of the man he once was, before the Corp had found him, but the events that had led him down the path. It had all started here. When he’d decided to join Se-. His mind went numb there, as he felt something grab his hand. Maven looked down to see she had hers wrapped around his left. But had felt something there. Even if for a second. Had he imagined it or was there more to it? The sensation left his head spiraling at the very implication.

 “You are not a villain Maevus. You never were. You have always been a good and kind man, who’s done nothing but his best to protect the ones you love. I know you think you failed at that, all those years ago. But you did not. There was nothing you could do then. No choice to redo that would change anything. You were only one man, what could you do against the power of gods…” she asked her and suddenly he was no longer there.

Many years ago...

 The alarms were blaring over the PA system onboard the Eureka research station. A signal of an impending attack. It was also the first time it had ever been used. The extremely remote location of the station was a passive defense to ensure it would never be found. Deep out of the territorial control of the Olympian Empire, there should have been no way they even knew it existed. Let alone its location to mount an attack against them. Even still, nobody thought that the forces of demigods would attack civilian research outposts. It was a war crime, but of course they had two very different rules of engagement it seemed.

 Maevus 'Aurelius’ Verricks thought, or rather hoped, the alarms were simply a false warning. Or even more so, a drill the station commander was running. It made sense since they’d literally never been used before nor had anyone practiced what to do in this situation. Regardless of it was real or fake though, he was headed up to the bridge to meet with the other leadership. As the Head of Research and Development, he would be expected to be up there rather than with his family getting ready to evacuate like most others.

 Luckily for his sanity though, he spotted someone waiting outside of the entrance to the command level elevator. He saw the concern written all over Natalie’s face and put on an easy smile to try and abate some of her worry. Walking up to her, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the forehead before embracing her tightly. Maevus could feel the tension slowly leak out of her rigid form as he held her. Soothing her worries, atleast to a small degree. Then he let her go and looked down at her.

 “My dear, I am sure it is nothing major. Jaiden is simply running a drill or there’s some spider crawling around the windows of the bridge. Either way, its an overreaction and I’ll clear it up as fast as I can. Just go back home and I’ll be back there as soon as i’m done dealing with them up top. Alright?” His confident and soft tone did much more to help put her at ease that this was something serious, and so she nodded to him. Hugging him again, she spoke into his chest, “okay my love. But please hurry back. Godric and Allison were restless and so worried when the alarms started to ring. You coming home will help all of us feel better. Go and give Jaiden a good smack upside the head for waking the kids.” 

 When she let go, he leaned down and captured her lips in a swift kiss. Then he bit her bottom lip and pulled a bit as he separated from her. A mischievous grin on his face. Backing up to the elevator, it opened, detecting his access badge. Natalie was looking a bit flustered as he abruptly had ended their kiss. It quickly turned to a glare when she saw him shooting finger guns at her while he entered the lift. Flipping him off and turning around, she ran off back towards the residence. And with a single command, Meavus shut the doors and shot upwards to the bridge, where the door beeped quietly before opening.

 Stepping out into the bridge, he knew immediately that this was no drill. The normally quiet and steady state of the command deck was in a state of complete disarray. Directly in front of him was the very station commander he had come to speak to. Dead. A bloody wound directly in the center of his sternum. Scattered around were more corpses. Before he could even gasp, something hit him. Meavus was thrown backwards hard and found himself pinned to the inside of the lift by the shaft of a spear. The point of which was currently shoved through him.

 He gripped the bright golden metal holding him in place as he hacked and coughed up blood violently all over its majesty. His already blurring gaze shifted up to the figure now standing over the corpse of his friend. She was beautiful and elegant, yet terrifying at the same time. Long ashen gray chiton with battle armor that matched the spear itself, was what she wore. The look in her stormy gray eyes was one of indifference, as if she’d just swatted a fly instead of slaughtering a room full of people. And he was next.

 Or rather he was, if he hadn’t been given a saving grace. The sound of sliding doors opening could be heard as well as someone shouting freeze. Tactical officers. They were the security forces aboard the station, usually stationed near all important intersections and access points. But Athena was a goddess. She summoned her spear back into her hand and her fearsome shield Aegis. No longer pinned to the wall, Maevus hit the ground right as the agents started to open fire on the foreign invader. Barely able to think, he muttered a command through a mouth full of blood and the doors to the lift slid closed. All he could hear was guns blazing the screams of her new victims.

 As soon as it hit the main level and the doors opened, he forced himself to stand. Adrenaline raged through his system as he leaned against the walls and rushed down the hall. His hands clamped to the hole in his stomach as blood leaked from it, staining the floors and his clothes crimson. Meavus didn’t make it very far before he got lightheaded from the loss. One moment he was walking and the next he found himself on the floor. His voice failed him as he tried to call for help, but only more blood answering his throat’s call to action.

 He heard footsteps but couldn’t bring his head to turn towards the sound of them. Then he felt hands on him, checking him. Someone was calling his name but he couldn’t understand them. Everything was too hazy. He had lost so much blood and with the adrenaline running out, the pain of his wound hit him like a freight train. A face entered his field of vision. He thought he recognized them but he couldn’t produce a name to match the blurry image. Even as they packed his wound full of clotting foam. The blurriness began to take a stretch towards the white light, when he felt a sharp prick.

 Suddenly, it all went away and he felt everything in his mind focus abruptly. Opening his mouth, he involuntarily took a deep breath. Cold air rushing to fill his lungs as his surroundings grew more clear. Maevus locked eyes with the person in his face. It was Kiara, she was one of the emergency medical techs. Thank...well not the gods, that she was here right now. She opened her mouth to ask him something and an explosion rocked the entire station. It sounded so close that his ears began to ring loudly. Several more followed close behind the first. 

 Maevus grabbed her by the arms, and told her to run. To evacuate. To hide. Anything. He wasn’t even sure what he said, truth be told. He couldn’t hear himself speak and his thoughts were on his family. They were alone and there was a goddess aboard currently tearing through his friends and comrades. He hoped he communicated that to her, so she could run but he was already up and walking away. His feet slowly waking back up after going numb from the lack of blood and oxygen getting to them. When he felt he wasn’t going to fall on his face, his walking turned into a sprint.

 He fled through the halls of the station, moving as fast as his feet could carry him. Every person he passed he told them to run. He told them to hide. To escape. Death was coming and he tried to convey this in the brief moment that he was passing by each of them. Every time an explosion rocked the station, he was thrown against the wall. Spending barely a second or two to steady himself, before going back into the same sprint to make it to the residency. However, something made him pause and hesitate.

 His lab. If this was really a full on attack, their escape pods would either be captured or destroyed when they launched from the station. But he had an alternative escape route. One that could spare his family. A selfish thought but he knew there was simply no way he could save everyone on the station. He could only do such much, after all, he was just one man. What could he truly do against a goddess? With his mind made up, he rushed into his lab and up to the object on the main table. He wasted no time in strapping it onto his wrist and hurrying back out the door.

 When he arrived at the residency, he saw the crowd of people trying to push their way to the escape pod bay. Maevus’ eyes flitted at the faces he could see and even at the back of people’s heads trying to identify them. He had to find them. He just had to. His ears twitched when he heard a voice, arguing loudly with another person. A voice he knew all too well and he plunged into the crowd. Pushing through the people, they complained and some even tried to grab him but he shook off their grasps. 

 It quickly began a commotion as he waded through those trying to evacuate with their families and they grew upset at his disregard to skipping them. Some started shouting at him and when someone grabbed his arm firmly, he spun around and punched them squarely in the face. It was a woman. A researcher he worked with fairly often. A hint of regret creeped into his heart as he watched her go down in the mass of people. But others around them immediately grew agitated and people started to push and shove each other, to get through the crowd faster. 

 As the crowd began to get violent, the sound of a gun firing made them all flinch and cower down towards the ground. Maevus looked up at the owner of the weapon and recognized them as well. It was Sergeant Hector Valasquez. He spotted Maevus and called him to come up front. Either it was the privilege of being a station leader or it was because he could hear his wife berating and arguing with another officer in the actual escape pod bay. He stepped over the others still ducked down onto the ground in fear and as he headed towards the door, the sound of something pounding against metal was heard. 

 Just as he reached the front of the group and was stepping towards the Sergeant, there was a loud bang. Then Maevus and everyone else was suddenly sucked forward by the drop in air flow. Emergency shutters immediately went into effect, slamming the door between them and the escape pod bay shut. His face slammed into the cold metal frame, causing his nose to explode with a rush of blood. Quickly, he got to feet and shoved his face against the glass window looking into the room. What he saw made him scream in both anger and anguish.

 A man stood in the center of the room. He stood atleast 6 and a half feet tall, muscles bigger than any of the security officers Maevus had ever seen. He wore gleaming golden armor: breastplate, grieves and vambraces. A helmet was attacked to his hip, next to a brilliant blade freely dangling. On her knees, where the airflow had thrown her, was Natalie. She was clutching their daughter tightly in her arms as she cried out pleadingly for the man to drop the boy he had firmly in his grasp. But the man was paying no attention to her. His glowing red orbs were locked onto Maevus who was pounding on the sealed door frame.

 Ares smiled in dark satisfaction as he held the struggling figure of their son, Godric, in his large hand. He turned the boy so he could see his father on the other side of the door. When Godric called out to his father, the god squeezed his neck. The sound of the bones being crushed and snapping didn’t pass through the metal, but when he saw his son go limp, he swore he heard it anyway. A sharp pain shot through his heart as he watched the god discard his son like waste paper onto the ground.

 Maevus could only spectate as Ares snapped his fingers, and the emergency shutters that had sealed the smashed airlock were thrown open. Natalie. Allison. Everyone else in the room was ejected out into the dark abyss of open space. Left to choke on their last breaths before they died. His wife. His daughter. Both joining his murdered son and everyone else that had been killed in the attack so far. The realization of what just happened, made his legs give out and he sank to his knees. His head still pressed against the frame of the door. Left feeling empty and hollow.

 Athena. Ares. Gods and goddesses. The Olympian Empire had just taken away his home. His family. His entire life. If he hadn’t stopped to grab the damn device, then he could’ve been there sooner. He could have been there with them. Holding them. They could have been in an escape pod already before Ares arrived. Though he immediately called doubt on if it would have mattered. The god had probably been destroying them as they ejected. Anyone who could squeeze the life from a child wouldn’t show mercy to fleeing pods. They surely had no concept of what the word even meant.

 Even if he had not stopped. Even if he had been there sooner. Maevus knew that it would have made no difference in saving them. He simply would have just been killed with them. Though it was not like it mattered. Why would he want to survive with everything he had to live for was taken from him by literal gods? How was it fair that beings like that existed? All the power they wielded and the immortality that came with it, used to butcher women and children. Civilians. And they could keep doing it with no consequences.

 No...they couldn’t.

 His hand clenched tightly into a fist as that thought focused in his head. There had to be consequences for these actions. He refused to believe this was the extent of divine justice. That anyone could simply commit acts like this and just get away with it without punishment. If no god that would hold them accountable existed, then he would take matters into his own hands. He didn’t know how exactly he would accomplish this. But he knew where to begin. Sector Seven and an old friend. 

 Opening his eyes, he realized that most of the crowd was gone. Likely they’d ran away to try and hide or find another escape pod bay to try and get off the station. Those who were still there were huddled together and whispering words of reassurance to each other. Trying to make peace with the end before it brutally came for them. His eyes left them and went to the device attached to his wrist. Punching in the access codes and locking in the coordinates, he took one last look at the place he’d called home before he was sucked into bluespace. A new home on the dark path that was ahead of him…

Back to the Present...

 As his memory of that day ended, he grew bitter. Her words echoing in his head like a harsh reminder of exactly how wrong she was. There was so much he would’ve done differently if he could go back to that day. Knowing all the things he’d gone on to do after, there was one thing Maven would change. To do differently. He would have never stopped and been there to hold his family when they all died. Because he would rather that outcome, than become what he had again.

 “You are wrong. I would choose to die. You say that I was a good man. That I was never a villain. I am sorry to tell you Natalie that, that good man died the day of that attack. You don’t know what I did in all that time before I made you. You don’t know the things I orchestrated and set in motion. The atrocities I committed in the name of justice or revenge. I was so damn angry afterwards. I let it consume me completely. It drove me to Sector Seven. It drove me to become the thing I hated with every fiber of my being. I became like them…” he said as his voice raised until he was inadvertently shouting. 

 “I innovated so much with Fischer, in my own war against the Olympians. I armed Sector Seven with weapons that would actually do something. I pointed them at targets I knew would hurt those f*****g gods just as much as they hurt me. I wanted them to feel what I had. I ordered colony ships raided and destroyed. I executed prisoners, even if they weren’t soldiers. I designed Project Ares and Project ATHENA. I scooped the brains of a goddess into a machine to serve me. I wanted her to be a slave to the very people she hated and spit on. I ordered the attack on Olympia Prime and watched with glee as billions burned. 

 Soldiers. Men. Women. Children. Babies. I didn’t care. I wanted them to watch and I hoped that they were feeling even an ounce of what they had done to me. I would’ve done the same to every single planet in their territory. I experimented on gods and demigods alike to find what hurt them so that I could kill them all. The man I became that day, would have committed genocide after genocide just to get back at them. To show them that they could not just do whatever they wanted to whoever they wanted. There was no one and nothing off limits for me. 

 And thats when I realized I had become exactly the same man who squeezed the life from a 6 year old boy. The same as the man he jettisoned a four year old girl and her mother into the vacuum of space. For his amusement and the pain that it caused another. I had become Ares. So much power at my fingertips and I was using it on whoever I wanted to satisfy my bloodlust. I hated myself. I had thought I was avenging you and our children, but I realized that I was only spilling blood on your memory. And that was worse than anything Ares had done to you.”

 His voice cracked and his eyes pricked as tears began to fall from them. Or rather catch on his eyelids, since there was no gravity to make them fall. He wiped them away and looked up at the projection of Natalie who was simply smiling at him. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed his cheek. Even without feeling either, it made him feel more whole inside. He had been holding on to this for so long. He’d come here not for absolution but to confess his sins to the woman he’d loved in life. Yet here she was, looking at him with the same love and adoration she always had.

 She didn’t need to speak. He understood what she was trying to convey. It was a huge burden lifted from his shoulders. One that he had been carrying with him for thousands of years. Since he’d joined the Angel Corp as a recruit. Even as he rose through the ranks. For all the millennia he’d served on the Council of Elix. There was always a dark shadow lurking within from his past. The imprint of a man he’d tried to bury and forget about. But he never could put him to rest fully. Until now.

 “Thank you Natalie. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but you’ve freed me. I’ve been fighting for so long to atone for the life I lived as a man. Even all those years after I left Sector Seven, trying to fix what I had broken. Trying to save lives. Help those I’d once considered just collateral damage. When I became an angel, I thought I would finally be able to truly make up for all the harm I’d done. But I’m done with that now. From here on, the good I do, is not to ease my guilty conscience. It’s because I believe some of us are here to change lives. Even if its with just a smile.”

 Maven smiled softly at her, before he closed his eyes. He felt her core and told it to execute a self-deletion command. The last fragments of his old life, the memories and personality matrix of his wife, slowly unwound themselves. Opening his eyes again, Maven watched as she digitized and began to disintegrate. With a final smile and a wake, he said goodbye for one last time. Not just to Natalie but to his mortal life. For good. The Angel of Wisdom took a deep breath and dove into the Realm of Conscience, signaling for Azri to bring him back home. Never to come back to his home universe again...