King Zacchias and Elias entered the limousine while the foreboding crimson rain laid siege to the paved roads. They paid the driver and the doors automatically closed, and the limousine sped down the street, past a paparazzi horde that threw tomatoes and iceberg lettuce at the limousine, and away from a road filled with protestors–some of whom their hair was drenched by the pouring red rain showers–and into the parking lot of the casino. Elias kept his head down the entire ride–shielding his face with his arm from the side windows so that nobody could recognize him–but King Zacchias looked the protestors and paparazzi right in the eyes.
The limousine finally found a parking spot, and King Zacchias and his brother entered the casino. Elias tipped the limousine driver and walked up to the bouncer as their ride departed, King Zacchias drawing a cloak over his face and disappearing into the darkness as Elias was let in. Elias shaked the bouncer's hands and entered the casino, and his eyes were immediately bedazzled by the glorious sparkling chandeliers and the golden furniture and the golden walls and the golden rooftops, and Elias' earpiece rang as Zacchias quickly confirmed that he too had entered the casino, and he had eyes on the big boss-the man running this casino–seated at a bar table and making small talk with the bartender.
Elias looked up at the ceiling–at the paintings that adorned it, the paintings depicting warriors clashing their swords together, at the stunning image of Saint Makael charging into battle against a horde of mighty dragons, at the mosaics of Arkangheim (the domain Saint Makael ruled) and how the mosaics and portraits were juxtaposed against the founder of the casino–and noticed King Zacchias scampering across a support pillar on the rooftop, nodding at him. He nodded back, then proceeded towards the boss as planned.
King Zacchias watched from afar as Elias waltzed over to the boss, chatted him up and shook his hand, the warm luminescence of neon blue shrouding their conversation in sharp, fluorescent and cerulean tones. He scampered across the rooftops–monitoring another group of guards that were closing in on Elias' location–but luckily Elias and the boss got away before the patrol could recognize him and stop him. Then he noticed the police–disguised as rather classy looking gentlemen entering from the West Wing and headed towards the East Wing–and he spoke into his earpiece, warning Elias that the police had arrived earlier than expected, and they might not be able to retrieve the folders (located in the East Wing); Elias had to cause a distraction.
Silently, Elias surveyed the area, his eyes moving from a group of gamblers surrounding a poker table to a horde of drunken men throwing away all of their money on a row of slot machines in the opposite corner. Then, he dropped the glass (which he ordered from the bartender earlier) and made a bunch of noise, drawing the police's attention towards him. Stunned, they chased him–he hurried the mob boss down into the West Wing–and Zacchias (taking advantage of the commotion–transformed into a furrian and flew into the East Wing, then turning back into a human as he wandered the halls, searching room to room until he found the boss' office, where two security guards waited. King Zacchias punched one security guard, knocked the other out with his knee, burst into the office and retrieved the files, transformed back into a furrian and belt out of there, rejoining Elias and shattering the casino skylight as their wings broke out into the midnight sky.
-
A few blocks over, Queen Hekezel, Damara and their troop hustled down the neon-lit streets, the streets overshadowed by skylines and where skyscrapers seemed like they could topple at any moment, the streets that were split into cubes by small stowaways, the neon streets that laid over the burial grounds of the dead, the neon streets filled with corruption. Queen Hekezel ordered her troops to stay outside while she entered an elevator with a group of shady women wearing black trench coats and black fedoras.
One of the women pressed the button reading, "SKYLIGHT" and crossed her left hand over her right, stepping back into the queen and blurting out, "Excuse me." Then for a still minute, everyone in the elevator stood in awkward silence–maybe waiting for Hekezel to move first and for a brawl to break out, but nothing happened–until they reached the skylight and the boss of the office.
Meanwhile, outside, the troop scaled the skyscraper–a troop of females dressed in obsidian black military gear that reflected the moonlight of the crimson sky, not even flinching as the king and his brother zipped away. Damara scaled up the rope and past the rest of the troop, peeking her head up the skylight window as Hekezel entered the boss' office, shocked at the boss' appearance.
"You're a werewolf," Queen Hekezel noted, unfazed.
"Does that make you angry?" asked the boss, his chair slowly pivoting so that his big, husky snout was right in Queen Hekezel's face, and his big, fuzzy gray muscles were pointed at her face as well, and that his softly flickering white eyes looked at him.
Suddenly, Queen Hekezel transformed in front of the boss, purple fur visibly growing from her neck and her arms and legs, her human ears metamorphosing into a pair of bulky wolf ears, her nose transmogrifying into a snout that out-snouted the werewolf boss'. Claws grew from her hands; her hands were now paws. She adjusted her purple puffer jacket and reached for the pistol at her waist, grabbing it as the boss charged at her and shooting him down in cold blood.
Then the female soldiers–who waited patiently at the elevator's entrance–charged at her with infuriated, passionate barks and howls, their tails swooshing and knocking over pottery and fine china as they swiped at her.
Queen Hekezel squeezed the trigger, dropped her mag and loaded in a new one, dropping a werewolf like a fly.
She unloaded the next mag as her troop burst in, Damara shouting, "Help has arrived!"
Queen Hekezel tackled Damara below the desk, the rest of the troop panting heavily as they joined the two. Queen Hekezel furiously unloaded her magazine, then dropped it, loaded up again and blew a werewolf's brain onto the wall behind them, questioning Damara, "What on Earth are you doing? I thought I told you to stay behind."
"We thought we'd help out anyway," replied Damara, poking her head out and drawing an assault rifle, mowing through the hordes of werewolves as they approached. Bullets sprang out of the barrel–tiny ones–and nested themselves in rib cages. Damara ducked back down and cried, "What's wrong with that?"
"Everything!" Hekezel cried, getting on her feet and unloading an entire magazine into one werewolf alone–a tall, brawny one that could easily body the entire group in a minute–using her magazine like a cookie cutter to turn the werewolf into Swiss cheese, body after body piling up in front of her as she seamlessly blurred the time between dropping mags and reloading. She ducked down, jumped back up, ducked down and said to Damara, "I didn't need your help, and if the government found out that me and the king are helping a fugitive take down his enemies before his enemies take down him, we're done for!"
"You're not helping!" Damara said angrily, jumping into the line of sight of every werewolf in the room and pressing the trigger multiple times, the trigger audibly activating the mechanism inside of the assault rifle as she held it down in random spurs of time, bullets flying out at unpredictable moments. "Admit it, Hekezel! This is a personal vendetta, and you're using Elias as an excuse for you to get revenge!"
Enraged, the queen shot back at Damara, "Well, maybe you should learn to put up with it!" She shook her pistol, shot a magazine into the handle and cocked it again, bullets spitting out of her gun like wads of spit as she swiveled in a circle, taking out werewolves that sprung at the fancy metal desk with painted, smoothened wood supports and drawers. Gray blood smeared her face as she bellowed, "Listen, I'm sorry for getting mad at you; but, we have a job to do here and we need to get it done!" Queen Hekezel shook her head as she used her last magazine, then gasped as Saint Makael–gold dribbling from his body and myrrh dripping from his essence–burst in through the ceiling, chopping through werewolves like vegetables on a cutting board, his wings splattering with blood.
Saint Makael slashed one of the werewolves right down the vertical axis, gray blood spilling onto the floor and its bony skeleton-in-twain remaining in a standing position for a moment, crumbling into pieces as Saint Makael back-leg kicked it as his rapier met another werewolf's talon. His golden fur blew as a storm entered the building and ripped off the rooftop of the skylight office; he sheathed his rapier as one of the soldiers handed him an assault rifle. "Thank you," said the archangel to the soldier, then hovering back into the air and (with focused visage) shooting down the werewolves like a sprinkler wildly spraying.
Queen Hekezel hovered up to Saint Makael's level and planted a kiss on his fuzzy cheek, her wings spreading out as she emptied her pistol onto another round of werewolves. Gunshots rang as bullets sprayed the room, the seams between shattered, protruding were-bones filling with slick gray blood, the gas on which the werewolves ran snaking through the tiled floor and towards the two furrians. Queen Hekezel discharged her last magazine onto the final werewolf; and there she and the archangel stood, alone and in total silence.
-
Elias clipped on a pair of golden cuffs and slipped his feet into the soles of his black leather shoes. He adjusted his button-up black suit and buttoned up a few buttons below his chest, leaving the top and bottom halves of the white tee shirt underneath exposed. He took a comb and ran it through his pearl white hair, fluffs of his luscious hair puffing out and flopping back down until he set the comb down, picked up a bottle of hair gel, applied it to his hair and roughed it up. Hastily moving as he spotted the chauffeur pulling up outside of the castle, the king applied moisturizing cream to his face and sprayed perfume against the back of his neck.
The chauffeur entered, and he escorted Elias through the spacious white hallways lined with golden decorations and ornaments, down the corridors filled with doors, and behind those doors scandalous behaviors happened between the maids and the guards, and parties happened behind some of these doors that caused repulsion even to the most disreputable of residents. Elias cringed as he saw what his castle had become, disgusted as some doors swung open and guards stepped out with maids in their lap, carelessly laughing and giggling and teasing each other as the guards rushed the maids down the hall, brushing past Elias and recounting to each other about what just transpired behind those doors, laughing silently amongst themselves and whispering to each other dishonorable, carnal words. The chauffeur gave them a dirty look, all of them as they passed him and Elias by.
The chauffeur escorted Elias down into the limousine–which sat right outside the palace, patiently waiting Elias' arrival in that long, crimson, thunder-slammed night. The rain still poured, but the sound was muted inside the palace. The chauffeur let Elias in–holding an umbrella over the king's head to mask his identity and to protect him from the brittle rain–and entered the driver's seat, closed the door and sped off.
As they drove, the surroundings seemed to dissipate into a series of blurry, colorful lines, and the crimson skies–painted with maroon clouds–seemed to dissolve into a series of muddy dark reds. Indeed, this story (from where we started and where we are going) transpired in the passing of a 6 hour night. The flashes of lightning do foretell future events in a strange order–an archangel, covered in blood, charging at a dragon; the white fuzz Furrian with the most shiny, obsidian black hair descending upon a blood-paved city, a prince cradling his fallen older brother as the rain pours down, weeping; the queen fighting her troop, tears filling her face as she is faced with the grim reality–and the stars–though he ignored their warnings–did whisper this to Elias.
Finally, though, the limousine pulled up to the restaurant; the chauffeur stepped out of the vehicle and approached the back seat to let Elias out. He stepped out of the limousine in a prepared fashion, placing his left leg in front of his right, placing his right hand in the driver's right hand and letting the man help him out. Destiny waited for him; it waited for him impatiently.
Elias entered the restaurant–the facade was nice, smoothened wooden exterior in a pleasant dark brown, and the interior was lit in soft yellows, and the floorboards were a rougher, unrefined wood. The tables were all round and seated two; and seated at one of the tables, Elias knew that the love of his life awaited. Destiny–his little pearl angel, his smoochie poo, his elegant little furrian babe, his knight in fuzzy armor–awaited.
But when he got to the table, a different knight waited there with Destiny–Saint Makael the archangel, reunited with his former lover. It was a tragic love story, made no better when Hekezel–Elias' former lover and Destiny's lover, as well as the archangel's current lover–arrived at the restaurant, wearing a sleeveless dark purple dress and fluffing her black hair with confidence and poise. Furthermore, the scene was made even more scandalous when King Zacchias–Elias' brother, who had a crush on all of Elias' lovers and Saint Makael–entered from the opposite side of the building, his jaw dropping as he saw his brother and all of his friends at the same restaurant.
A tragic tale of betrayal unfolded, and suddenly an argument erupted inside of the restaurant, and suddenly the five main characters of our story pounced at each other–King Zacchias at Saint Makael, Queen Hekezel at Elias and Destiny–her hair as luscious and a shimmering coal black as ever-throwing down with all of them, her talons angrily swiping as she tried to extinguish the fight as the authorities pulled up to the front of the restaurant.
The fight moved out by the dumpster as the police entered the restaurant, met by an empty–albeit cluttered–restaurant and medleys of classical violin pieces playing through the speakers.
Elias slammed into King Zacchias' side.
Saint Makael drew his rapier and slashed against Queen Hekezel's blade.
Destiny ripped open a hole in Saint Makael's golden robes–he elected to not wear armor to his date, and to present himself in human form–taken aback by the archangel's jacked-up bodybuilder build. She began to pant heavily, dropping to her knees as sweat dripped from her hair, down her brow and trickled down her cheek. She couldn't handle it.
The archangel's muscular form flashed Queen Hekezel, causing her to palpitate and tremble nervously. Her smile twitched as the archangel's bod caught her off-guard, causing her to dance around frantically in her fluttery, murky violet dress and laugh as the crimson storm started back up, raindrops falling down dumpster bins and clicking as they impacted. She dropped before the archangel as the rain continued.
King Zacchias caught a whiff of the archangel's build, his muscular form driving the king mad. The king–much like Destiny and Queen Hekezel–was intrigued by the archangel's salacious build and immediately started hyperventilating. He dropped to his knees and admired the archangel's scandalous form alongside the others.
And not even the hero Elias was immune to his charm. "Dammit," he cried, dropping to his knees. The archangel twirled his braids flirtatiously in front of the former king–Elias was no longer a minor, after all; he bent–the gilded robes beneath his golden pauldron parting and creasing as he lowered himself to meet Elias' eyes, barely teasing what could be below those dim, dark caverns of faint gold hues–and he gave Elias a warm, inviting smile. Saint Makael's skin was so dark, and his hair was in braids, and he was so handsome–just the way Elias liked it. "Under all that holier-than-thou attitude, you're just a hot black dude."
"'Just'?"
Elias fainted.