A Leap Of Belief?

Around midnight 26th to the 27th of January, 2024 – Friday / Saturday

Garrick stood amongst the other Mavericks in an alien cloning factory! Those Mavericks that had just helped to stop an autonomous armored truck from being stolen by two thugs. Carl, aka: the Beast, or now Trip (apparently each change has a different personality), had called Metronome. He had been the one that had controlled the clockwork robots. Then there was Machinma.

Garrick winced a little inside every time he thought of his name. Garrick felt guilty about misjudging to strength of Machinma’s body armor when he changed his trajectory to knock him off of the autonomous armored truck. In less than a second he was trying to pull his speed back but he had miscalculated in the moment and Ashmadiel’s wicked, barbed tipped head went right through: the armor, chest, sternum, heart, lungs, spinal column, and finally out the back as Garrick’s 200lbs form, with armor crushed him off the side, into the asphalt, then the concrete below that, and finally two additional feet into the earth! Garrick had never killed anyone up close before and watching someone burst as though the edges of a chocolate covered ice cream bar explode outward as the flat, larger sides were crushed together! Well, let’s just say he was thrilled he was not dating and didn’t have to kiss anyone at that moment.

Garrick was no stranger to death, he had a body count in Gramercy that made double digits in one attempt. The fact that guards were included earned him the nickname Professor Gack. However, he did not kill these people in a direct fight, it was poison. This, however, was visceral and he could never unsee it.

With all those feelings he was processing, and now to be standing in a factory filled to the brim with alien technology. The same type of technology he had been trying to steal from the truck his group had hijacked on Route 273. This was everything he went to jail for and now he could reach out and touch it if he wanted! His head was spinning and he reached out to Miss Amazing putting his hand on her shoulder, “Are you doing okay?”

“Yeah, I am not dazed at all anymore.”

Garrick nodded, “Great, that makes me feel better. I need to sit down.”

Garrick headed over to the wall he’d been indicating, and Miss Amazing realized that was the first time he had been distant with her. As he sat down he summoned his sword and rested the eagle shaped pommel against his brow. In a low whisper as he closed his eyes, “I’ve not even been in a church since I was eight years old. I suck at prayer, so how do we do this?”

“Hmm, I have not tried this in centuries but open your eyes.”

Garrick did but started to whip his head back and forth in wonder and awe! He was not inside the Alien cloning factory, but a rocky desert like landscape in the eye of some kind of grand, swirling dust storm! He could see a light coming out of the storm and with wings of hammered silver that reflected a fire across them as though some weird window into another world. In his hands was the sword, fully aflame with holy vengeance. Did he see his first angel, Ashmadiel!

To say when Garrick dropped to his knees ignoring the shock of the hard rock, that he was humbled would be an understatement. “My GOD! Oh my God! I… Umm…
You’re real?! Angels are REAL!? I… I’m… so… sorry… then… Magic… is… real?!?

“Garrick Faulkner, we don’t have much time and you are troubled,” as Ashmadiel looks off into the distance, then back at him.

“I didn’t mean to kill him! But he was shrugging off every attack leveled at him! Mz. F had just taken out the actual target, so I had to course correct and math at that speed…
By the time I realized I might have to slow down it was to late…”

Ashmadiel’s eyes flared with fire trailing off in whisps of potential holy fury, “Were you fighting evil?”

“I… well they made it clear they intended to kill us, and… if Korashi had dangerous technology on that truck how many innocents might have lost their lives? We didn’t know if they had killed anyone to get the vehicle either. Stopping them HAD to happen.”

“Then you stood up to evil.”

“I’ve never killed anyone face to face like that. His helmet cracked breaking through the street into the ground and one eye was visible. I watched it stare at me and then go motionless.”

“Stare at us you mean. You are not alone in this, WE ARE PARTNERS! It is a welcome feeling to have again.”

The 7 foot tall angel shifted its stance and there was a sublime grace to such a simple movement, lithe, nimble, cat-like even. Garrick wondered if the angel was remembering something as it glanced once more into the distance, “So, you were an angel? You’re a sword now. Does that mean this is some kind of analogue to my needing to stop being a scientist?”

“No. I knew another Celestial once, whom was a scholar, although you might have called him a scientist, Aaziakel.”

The scene shifted and shadowy figures appeared in the sandstorm whirlwind. Ashmadiel and a larger figure, though to hazy to get details about were back to back with blades drawn as the shadow demons drew forth. Ashmadiel was a flaming fury to behold, a divine instrument of judgement! The other, less distinct, partner that Garrick was certain was a memory of Aaziakel was more physically imposing. However, that angel seemed to be casting spells not unlike the mages on his Worlds Online server. While Ashmadiel was all about the burning vengeance, Aaziakel appeared to be about lightning, strategic strikes, and tactics. Despite radically opposite styles they were a perfect paring having each others back throughout the battle.

“Perhaps, Garrick, you will find a way to be a Swordsman and a Scientist.”

Then Garrick realized something Ashmadiel had said when he first picked him up. The angel does not know how it was turned into a sword, it is a prisoner and being used is the closest to freedom the angel will ever get.

“I can see our time is up, be well…”

“Wait, if I can find a way to free you from the sword would you want that?”

“… Yes.”

Darkness and Gryphon begins to open his eyes.

 

 

 

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Art by: AZ_Artisan