"I want a group to check every room on this floor. If I read the report right, a large swathe of the Buried Council's men and munitions should be down here. Take them out," Aeron muttered as he stepped out of Satan's homemade "bridge" and into a small storage room.
"That platoon you got friendly with earlier are the ones responsible for that mission," Pereph added as she drew her weapon, "Do you want me to go give them some backup?"
Aeron frowned, "There's no need for that," he said. "We're here for the archive upstairs; we can't afford to let ourselves get spread too thin. Cull the Giants' strength as much as you can, but remember the mission."
"Sure thing, boss." Within the blink of an eye, Pereph vanished into the labyrinthian halls, the only sign of her presence being the occasional thud of Giant bodies hitting the ground as she tore deeper into the complex.
"Now then," Aeron muttered to himself as he sauntered up to one of the many large flights of stairs, "I guess I better get going." With that, he began the lengthy trek to the archive. "That map Satan gave me wasn't entirely accurate," he thought with a frown. As he waltzed down the marbled spires and rows upon rows of extravagant stonework, he couldn't help but be taken aback for a moment due to the sheer grandeur of the place. It was during this short moment of reflection that he heard a slight whistle coming from further up the stairs. On reflex, he dodged to the side just as an almost comically large arrow buried itself into the wall.
"I want that intruder bagged in a cell within the hour!" he overheard some Giant commander yell.
"One of those fools probably got caught." The vast majority of his men hadn't stepped foot outside of Hell before now; there were the regiments he brought with him during the invasion of Griswold's compound, but they were busy securing the lower levels. "Looks like I'm on damage control." As he unsheathed his sword, a massive wave of enemies came rushing down the stairs. Due to his adversaries' immense frames, it would be more accurate to say that he was getting rushed by a massive wall of flesh.
"Split up and surround him!" one of them yelped as they immediately got into a proper capture formation. Four of the Giants took up the vanguard, holding their spears and guns high to cover the air, while the commanders and the main force took up the rear in a semicircle pattern.
"These soldiers... they've been trained to fight against Angels!" He would've been furious if it wasn't for the fact that he was now swinging for the other team. That said, the Giants' arrangement wasn't the only oddity. "Hm?" he thought as he ducked under a hail of bullets; at the back of the procession, right next to what he assumed to be the platoon's commanding officer, was a strange shadow. "That's—"
Before he even had a chance to think, the floor under the Giants' feet collapsed. The officers screamed, "Inform the Buried Council!" as they plummeted to the levels below. Immediately after this structural failure, Aeron overheard a familiar war cry reverberating from the crevice.
"Pereph certainly sounds like she's enjoying herself," he muttered as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yup. I'll ignore it." It wasn't like he could tell her to stop doing her job. "She'll serve as a nice distraction while I ransack this place." A few steps later he found himself before what he could only assume was the main hall. Several paces away the path split into two main columns: one which led to the upper floors—where most of the diplomats and leaders were staying—and the other leading to his goal, the archive.
"Damn," Aeron murmured as the reverberations of the slaughter below filled his ears, "They're trying too hard. Don't those idiots know that we're supposed to be quiet on this one?" He shook his head; his subordinates were Demons, after all. "The word 'quiet' isn't in their dictionary." For the first time in his life, he momentarily found himself longing for the peace of Heaven's higher levels. It wasn't paradise for him by any means, but, compared to this, it was a bit less annoying. Perhaps it was for that reason that, as he walked by the numerous unconscious Giants that littered the ground, he did something that was a bit out of character: he ignored them. He shambled over numerous of the poor, injured bastards. In a way, their beaten forms were almost comical. And it was on one of these unfortunate sods that he noticed a frankly foreign-looking pamphlet dangling from one of the administrator's pockets.
He thought, "A training manual?" as he reached down and plucked the parchment from the man's now-weak clutches. "'Instructions for how to greet Bureau delegates,' huh." Were representatives from his old stomping grounds roaming around this place? "No," he shook his head, "Those prudes wouldn't send anybody here unless the situation demanded a skilled hand." Could Beurt have uncovered their plot? "That's impossible." If that were the case, there would be more than just this spattering of guards roaming these halls. "Hmph," he giggled, "Maybe I should give that fat fool some more credit." It seemed that people really could change.
"Is that you, boss?" he overheard one of his underlings say from the shadows.
"Who said that you could leave your post?" he hissed as he sheathed his sword.
"I'm sorry, boss. Ms. Pereph sent me here to relay a message; she'd do it herself but, in her own words, she's 'busy' at the moment." He didn't even need to ask the man to elaborate as he overheard the sound of a veritable orchestra of pain humming up from the lower floors.
He grimaced, "Ugh. I almost feel sorry for those poor bastards." She definitely subscribed to the theory that massacring the enemy counted as "stealth." For a second he prayed to whatever god that would listen that he wouldn't have to clean up her mess. "Okay," he announced as he turned back to the Devil, "What did she want to tell me? It must be damn important for her to make you hightail it up here in the middle of the operation."
"Uh... she didn't send me with a verbal message, sir," the Demon murmured as it fetched a strange metallic vial from its pockets.
"That's..." The object was covered in a complex array of gilded decorations and gemstones: a trademark of the Bureau of Judgmental Affairs. Specifically, this style was usually given to containers for official diplomat transmitters. "Why would the Giants have transmitters from Heaven? That doesn't make sense. Unless..." It would be possible if a diplomat were roaming these halls. "But what representative would Beurt trust enough to send here now?"
"Sir?"
Aeron, realizing that he'd been staring off into space, snapped out of his trance and sighed, "Thank you, friend, you can get back to whatever it is you were supposed to be doing." In the meantime, he'd figure out what other unwanted guests were roaming these halls. As his subordinate scampered off into the mazelike hallways, he unsheathed his sword and inched toward a nearby turn. "Got you!" Instantly, he raised his blade around the corner, placing it right upon the peeping Tom's neck. "It's been a while, Griswo—"
"Ugh!" a woman cursed as the blade sliced through her flesh.
"Damn," he thought as he bit his lip and placed even further pressure upon the stranger's neck. "If it was a member of the Buried Council I could've finished this within the hour. Oh well." Beggars couldn't be choosers. "Look," he started as he turned his attention to his new hostage, "Just keep quiet and lead me to—" He stopped. "Now, now," he hissed, "Where did you go?" It looked like he happened upon one slippery lass; there weren't many that could escape from him so quickly. Honestly, he was a little impressed.
"Shit!" Elina thought as she clamped her mouth shut. "Why is that Demon here?!" That outfit, sword, and gait made her attacker's identity as clear as day: that was Aeron Weber—the templar that fell from grace! "Is he the one responsible for this attack?! But why?! They shouldn't know that we're here yet! Unless..." She clenched her teeth, "No, that's not what I should be worrying about right now." At the moment, her main concern was getting away from that psychopath in one piece. Somebody had to let Zia and the Buried Council know what was going on! And so, carefully, she snuck into the shadows, quickly bouncing between large pieces of fallen rubble to avoid detection. It was embarrassing, but thanks to that raid on her hometown earlier, she was already more than used to situations like this. "Hmm... did I lose him?" A quick survey of her surroundings seemed to come up green, but she didn't believe that for a second. There was no way that she—a normal Giant—could outrun Heaven's latest monster forever.
Right on cue, she overheard a horrific whistle coming from the other end of the hall, "There you are!" It didn't even take the blink of an eye before she was torn from her hiding spot and sent careening through the sky.
She cursed, "Goddammit!" as she came crashing down to the tiled floor; the plates gave away and shattered like glass, tearing into her skin and flaying the majority of her backside.
"She's durable, I'll give her that," Aeron grimaced as he meandered up to her beaten body. "Now that I can get a better look at you, ma'am, you don't seem like you belong here." The insignia engraved upon her uniform was of a completely different province, for one, but she also didn't follow the fashion trends the other Giants guarding this complex did. She looked like a fish out of water! "They wouldn't pull some random clerk to the Buried Council at a time like this; not so soon after one of their major ambassadors got hit." Those prudes weren't sentimental types, either. "Who got you in here, ma'am?"
"What do I do?!" Elina thought in a panic as blood streamed down her face. "Should I tell him that Ms. Lombardi brought me here? No... she saved my life, I can't betray her! My pride won't allow it!" This bastard and his retinue had brought her pain before, she could afford to take a bit more. "Go ahead and do your worst, you hypocrite." He wouldn't get anything out of her if he just killed her; in the grand scheme of things, refusing to speak was her best shot at getting out of this situation alive.
"Ah, hell, what do I do now?" It was strange, but, for a moment, he, Aeron Weber, hesitated. Back when he was an Angel he wouldn't have batted an eye at torturing the information out of this mortal's mouth, but he just couldn't bring himself to do that now. Why was that? Honestly, he wasn't sure himself, but for some reason, the thought of it all brought a sour taste to his mouth. He thought, "Ugh. Why is my mind wandering back there?" Yet again, Zia's words back in Atlantis bubbled to the surface. "Tch! What a horrid memory," he hissed under his breath. He couldn't work like this, the mood was ruined! "Bah! This is beneath me!" At that moment, Aeron Weber did something that he had never done before: he stepped back.
"Huh?" Elina muttered as she watched, confused, as the corrupted Angel shambled back to a nearby pile of rubble. With every step, he let out a deluge of curses, many of which she'd never heard before, before he silently perched himself atop one of the collapsed benches. She watched him like this, as silent as the grave, for a few moments before curiosity got the better of her. "Are you always this psychotic?"
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me," she hissed. "What? Are you going to tell me that a monster like you is getting cold feet?"
"Do you want me to kill you?"
Elina sighed, "Not particularly." With that, she scraped herself off the floor and tried her best to straighten her wounded limbs.
"You're being oddly calm for someone who was on death's door just a few moments ago."
"My life's been hectic these past few days, that's for sure. Although, I can't exactly say that this experience was the worst of it."
"Hmph. You must be the sort that bounces back quickly," Aeron muttered with a shrug. He just couldn't tell what this woman was thinking. Did she fear him? Well, that much was obvious, but then why was she here?
"Confused?" Elina started, "Well, don't worry, we're in the same boat. I'm sitting here wondering why you haven't finished the job yet. So, I guess we're both a little out of sorts, huh?"
"What's even the correct response to that?" Yet again, he sighed and stared up at the ceiling. He murmured, "This is ridiculous," as his grip tightened around his sword's hilt. "Should I just kill her?" That wouldn't have been a problem for the old him; however, now, it wasn't that simple. For a moment, his mind flashed back to the conversation he had with Caius back during his assault on Griswold's mansion. "I'm a fool, am I?" he thought with a chortle. "You know I can't let you run off, right?"
"You mean you can't risk me warning the others."
"You've got it."
"So... uh... I guess that means this is it?"
Aeron scowled, "I'm not sure." In the end, all he could do was grit his teeth and follow his gut. "This shouldn't be hard," he told himself as he got up and turned to his now-worried guest. "If you make it out of here, try to stay out of this line of business. No offense, it doesn't suit you." With one quick motion, he drove the end of his fist into the woman's jaw, knocking her out. "At least now there's no chance of her alerting the rest of her kin. That should be enough, right?" Before he could even begin to question himself he'd left the Giant behind amidst the rubble. Desperate to distract himself from the storm of emotions that filled his chest, he found himself staring out a nearby window at the colorful sky above, "Hmm. It's the same." Whether it be Earth or Jupiter, that great expanse was always a sight to behold. It was during this brief moment of peace that Aeron muttered something that shocked him to his core, "I don't want to do this anymore."