"So you want the whole
story? Everything, from the beginning of existence to the present day? Well,
I have an hour spare, so sure. What? Oh, my name's Christian. Christian Delaque.
Or at least that's as much as you'll know me by. Yes, I'm a Slayer, we're supposed
to be the quiet ones. And usually I am, some people mistake me for a mute. I
just happen to like this story a great deal. Not in content, but in the revelation
of the truth to mortals. So sit down, shut up, and enjoy it, I'm pretty easy
to annoy. I'll put the kettle on too, we'll be here a while."
"Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, there was nothing. Well, nothing,
and God. He created lots of stuff to fill up the nothing, including a bunch
of angels, and these guys he made to help him with things. We were basically
servants, but with less free will. Slaves, then. We helped God to put the universe
together, working tirelessly beneath his will. Lots of planets, suns, stars,
moons and animals on some of them too."
"Then God decided he wanted a new species, on the planet Earth. They were
to be created by the angels "in his own image". No, not physically.
God doesn't look like a human. He meant in soul. Humanity was forged from the
smallest piece of God's divine essence."
"The experiment was a success, the highest, finest, and ultimate creation
of divinity."
"And then God butted in again. He issued two commandments to the angels
before we could bring humanity to life. First, we were to love humans as we
love God himself. Hahah. That's sure come back to bite him in the ass. Second,
we were to hide ourselves from humanity. Let them discover the universe for
themselves, make no contact, send no messages, no voices, gestures, or even
hints. Humanity, surrounded on all sides by loving protectors of infinite power,
was to think itself alone, in Paradise."
"Oh, did I mention? Paradise, and all within it, existed with several layers.
Several hundred, really. Thousands. Infinite numbers of layers and planes, all
laid upon one another to form existence. For example, this cup of coffee could
also be a meaningful song about warmth and a captivating painting of chaotic,
swirling waters in different layers. By that same token, seven days could span
ten billion years.
Say, the seven days it took to create the world in one layer, was like ten billion
years in another. The results of that threw Darwin off, who reasoned that apes
evolved into man, but it's all just a result of these layers."
"If God can create an X-box so large that even he cannot lift it, then
he is not all-powerful. But if he cannot create an X-box so large that even
he cannot lift it, then he is still not all-powerful. Well guess what? The layers
resolved that paradox too. It's difficult for mortals to understand though,
so don't worry about it."
"The layers also were responsible for making Paradise such a damned fine
(excuse me) place to be."
"Anyway, back to the humans. Adam and Eve, in fact. They were happy, to
an extent. In the same way that a dog is happy to chase its tail, or a pig is
happy to roll in mud. Ignorance is bliss, and that is all they had, the happiness
of idiocy. Beyond that, they possessed no real comprehension. They could not
appreciate a beautiful sunset, only the warmth of the sun or the taste of meat."
"In a manner of speaking, they were innocent. But they had the potential
to be so much more, to be poets, scholars, inventors and artists. Angels tried
to help, to make them understand just how much they had, the perfect bliss they
existed in. But we were forbidden from doing enough."
"In short, humanity was incomplete, and the angels, loving them so, wanted
to see them complete. God refused them higher reason, and no-one understood
why. Some even asked him, and he replied "If you would know as I know,
come unto me and see as I see". That's right, I just quoted God himself.
Hell, most angels have met the guy anyway. It's a great ice-breaker at parties.
Here's a hint for you: he doesn't have a beard.
Well anyway, a few angels took him up on the offer, and were never seen again.
Generally, God was unhelpful on the matter. Like on most."
"So humanity was given perfection to live in, and was to be the capstone
itself, destined for greatness. But for some reason, God instead wanted them
to roll around in mud and fling their own faeces at each other in battle. Nice
work, oh Omnipotent-one."
"A great debate broke out. Dull, philosophical stuff that I won't bore
you with here. The upshot of it was that one of the most prominent angels of
the House of the Dawn stepped up to the plate. His name was Lucifer the Morningstar.
You may have heard of him."
"He pointed out that the angels were not the children of God. Humanity
was the children of God, angels were merely the servants. He took a look at
the two commandments. On the one hand, we were told not to interfere with humans.
On the other hand, we were told to love humanity to our fullest extent. The
two orders conflicted with each other. To love them, we would have to interfere,
make them more than the mindless animals they had been made as. The decision
was made."
"Oh, all this was on the back of a bunch of prophecies, too. The most prominent
seer of the angels saw a great catastrophe ahead, and the thinking was that
by freeing humanity, either we would fend off the impending horror by doing
so, or the humans would be able to fend for themselves, either way the catastrophe
would be averted. Yeah, the guy who made the predictions wasn't quite as great
as he thought."
"Many angels argued against freeing humanity. Some hated the idea of going
against God's will, others believed they would be struck down for it. Lucifer
responded to say "I love Eve and Adam as I love the Lord. If He commanded
my destruction, gladly I would go. It is a poor show if our love is limited
by self-preservation." That's right, I also just quoted Satan. Anyway,
you can see where this is headed. Lucifer was prepared to sacrifice himself
to give humanity higher reasoning. What an evil being he was, huh?"
"And it was decided. The angels showed themselves to Adam and Eve. First
one, then another, then a third. The humans stared at us like we'd just descended
from Heaven itself. Most of us lesser angels watched in anticipation at that
moment when humanity would be freed from the shackles of their own ignorance,
so if you ever meet another of us, ask them to tell you the story, I guarantee
it'll be the same deal. Almost every one of us has been around since the beginning
of time, see. Just many of us don't remember it all."
"Back to the plot, Nazriel came down, an angel who guarded and protected.
She soothed and calmed them. Right on cue for the showstopper."
"In a blaze to rival the dawn, Big Poppa Lucifer descended. His glory,
unbound, flung the other angels to our knees. All the light of the cosmos seemed
focused through him, and all his majesty poured forth in liquid waves unto his
beloved humanity. He spake unto them, spaking of God and the angels, and the
protection their divinity gave unto humanity, and much more spaking unto things."
"There was no snake and no apple though. People seem disappointed about
that. But still, history is told by the victors, which wasn't us. At least,
not yet."
"Adam and Eve finally understood. Lucifer had bestowed on them consciousness,
higher reason, the thing that separated them from the animals. God, at that
time, was off trimming his toenails or something. The universe was still in
its training diapers, so there was a night that lasted a thousand years, for
whatever reason. In that time, the two humans breeded, and became four. Caine
and Abel, right there, though that's a story for another time. Then they bred
to become eight - yes, I know, incest. The Lord Of The Vampires screwed his
own mother. And the eight bred to become a nation of artist and philosophers
and builders of wonders. Humanity realised its full potential, and that Long
Night was the most wondrous time of all existence, mankind perfected in a perfect
world."
"Of course, after the night of rejoicing comes the day of reckoning. When
the sun eventually came up, it came with several angels, declared the Voice
of God, bringing tidings of His anger and dread retribution. You know, because
God is so benevolent and all-loving."
"None of us bowed before them. So they gave God's final commandment to
us. Return to him to be stripped of all that we are, have our names silenced,
and be sent into annihilation. Or..... well there wasn't an or, it was just
an order, march back here and be completely undone. Wow, nice choice, thanks.
Oh, he also deemed everything the humans had accomplished to be sin and blasphemy,
'cause creativity is really so evil. The humans had the chance to go back to
being dumb animals and they would be reaccepted by God the Wise and Benevolent
Creator of All. Yes, the one who was rather dumb, extremely vengeful and wrathful,
and didn't really do any creating at all, asides the angels who he created to
slave in his place."
"Michael, the Voice of God, exchanged words with Lucifer, deeming him a
blasphemer and arrogantly disobedient. He drew his flaming sword - yes, that
part was real - and attacked Lucifer. Lucifer gave as good as he got, even without
a flaming sword. Well, he did have flaming wings, but that part's irrelevant.
A lower-ranked rebellious angel threw her scythe to Lucifer. Michael's sword
was a sword and a song and a carbonizing catalytic reaction. It was real on
a thousand levels, a tool and a guiding principle and a fundamental element
of mathematics. It was much more than a mere weapon. Lucifer's scythe existed
in three levels at once. So, it was a fair fight then."
"He whupped the shit out of Michael. No, really. Well sort of. He simply
made it clear that Michael could never hope to beat him, whereas Lucifer could
have diced Michael upon into more pieces than his sword existed in layers. Victory
was Lucifer's."
"We rebels cheered, as did all humanity. Now, some numbers. There was one
hundred million angels created in existence, precisely. No more and no less.
None extra had been created, none had been undone by this point. Of those, precisely
one third took up the banner of rebellion. Michael gave us all one final chance
to return to God to be dissolved into oblivion. Two of us did. The other thirty-three
million, three-hundred-and-thirty-three-thousand, three-hundred-and-thirty-one
of us gave them the finger."
"A quarter of the humans went too. They returned to God's grace, and to
the animalistic ignorance he reserved for them, that loveable old tyke. It was
rather futile though, because consciousness is contagious, and they soon returned
to higher reasoning when they came across the other humans. See, God was smart
like that."
"Anyway, soon Michael returned. This time, he had something interesting
to say. He brought with him God's punishment for the rebels. It was all poetic
justice, brought down on - wait for it - the humans. Because obviously, punishing
the innocent is what a nice God does. It was all poetic justice, too. Because
the Firmament, the healers had rebelled, he cursed it so that every human would
eventually die, no matter what. Because the Wild House had rebelled, he cursed
humanity to be treated by beasts as no better than themselves, to be hunted
by lions or fled from by antelope. And us? The House of the Second World, of
the life after death - oh wait, I ain't supposed to mention that, sorry - he
made humans mortal. Bastard."
"And so it went. Each of the Houses was given their new name, and humanity
suffered because of what we had done. War happened. Lucifer gave each House
a new purpose, and a strategy. Ours was an odd one. He told us basically to
wait it out, and that the time would come in the future when he would call on
us to fulfil our destiny. We're still waiting, but that's another story entirely."
"The war was a bloody, messy, hideous and brutal affair. Some of us enjoyed
it, but it's impossible to convey the entirety of it to a mortal. No offence,
it's just something beyond your sphere of comprehension."
"Somewhere along the course, humanity discovered evil. And they enjoyed
it. Yep, humanity, not Lucifer. To be precise, Caine. He was still alive at
this time, because God's curses had only just been effected. That, and the layers.
Always the layers. He was the first murderer, and the originator of evil. But
that's just an aside."
"Eventually, the fighting came to an end. Not because God's warriors were
more adept. No sir, we defeated ourselves. The heads of the Houses began to
argue, over whether humanity was worth saving, as now they had shown themselves
to be evil. And others wished to kill those obedient to God merely because of
their obedience. A cold-blooded malice, in an angel. That was it. The Houses
broke apart, scattering across the lands."
"So, when once we proudly stood upon Earth in defence of humanity, now
we were exiled to Earth in the presence of humanity. Some of us continued to
love them, some of us began to hate them for what they had become. And with
the Houses no longer all on the same team, we had no chance of laying siege
to Heaven to get away from them."
"We still had enough to take the fight to them on Earth though. Wars of
biblical proportion raged across the planet for centuries. At the same time,
we both protected and tortured the humans we were forced to co-exist with, too."
"Some other stuff happened. The Tower Of Babel, for one. Then it happened.
God cast us down. For all the horror witnessed during the Age of Wrath, nothing
compared to the atrocity that Heaven perpetrated on us at the end. The Abyss."
"When it became apparent that none could resist being dragged into the
Abyss, many of us cast ourselves in willingly, preferring to face the darkness
on our feet than to be dragged in, knees bent to an uncaring God. That dragging
effect is still happening to this day, when we lose our bodies, the Abyss still
pulls at us. The More You Know."
"So, in we went, willingly or not. And the gates of Hell were slammed shut
behind us. Trapped in the Abyss for all eternity. And the kicker? Lucifer was
not among us."
"It was.... well it was Hell, of course. I don't think I need to describe
it. After countless millennia locked in there, I don't want to even give the
place any more thought. Eventually, some happenings occurred in the realm of
the dead - I'll take you there sometime, I'm sure you'll love it - and a great
storm of terrifying, nay, biblical proportions began. It battered the gates
of Hell. It was not the first time, five times before it had happened, but never
with this ferocity. It still howls to this day. I could bring it here if you
like... no? Sissy..."
"Anyway. The smaller, lesser-ranking of us angels - or demons, as we were
now known, escaped through the cracks in the Gate. That was three years ago,
the cracks are still open, too. Outside the Gate we find little respite. The
Abyss still tries to claim us, to drag us back in. The only way for us to exist
is to possess a human body. It's not easy, they need to have completely shattered
souls, on the brink of ceasing to even be human anymore, or too weak spiritually
and mentally to resist."
"And in we slide. We take over their deceased bodies, heal them, and claim
them as our own. Almost. The memory is still there, the vestiges of thought,
it's less of a possession and more of a melding, fusing with their departing
soul. On the one hand, I AM Christian Delaque, an albino who couldn't cope with
the attention of the world declaring me a freak at every opportunity, who slit
my wrists three years ago to escape the staring eyes, the soul-numbing isolation
and crushing loneliness of being different. On the other hand, I AM..... aha,
well that would be telling. Names have great power. But I am a demon too. The
memory isn't perfect, still as much Christian's memory as... well, my demonic
side's memory. I am still relearning the awesome powers I commanded as a Celestial
being, and this mortal shell is barely adequate for handling the raw energies
of infernal Faith, but then they all are. It's something we all have to exist
with, us who have escaped."
"I feel trapped. When I want to spread my wings, they slam into my ribcage.
Metaphorically speaking. In all my existence, nobody has ever touched me. Not
even God. So to feel human flesh, even when it is "my own", is disorienting.
And you humans are revolting. I hate them, they disgust the better half of me.
Oh, our leaders are still down there too, trapped in Hell because they are simply
too large and powerful to fit through the cracks in the Gate, so we really just
do not know what to do, we have no direction, and very little structure. And
most of all, our lord and master Lucifer is still missing."
"But still, we have to look on the bright side."
"We're back."
-Christian Delaque, Tormented Slayer, in a conversation with Doctor Abraham
Broadfield, who later became his Thrall.