The scene changed instantly. The black void shattered into a blinding, oppressive whiteness. Zac couldn't see anything, but the air was thick with the sounds of celestial warfare, screams of absolute terror, the deafening roar of explosions, and the clash of unimaginable forces.
Suddenly, a winged figure plummeted from the white haze and slammed onto the invisible ground just in front of Zac. It was an angel, its pristine feathers scorched and broken, weeping uncontrollably and pleading for mercy.
Then, Zac saw him. He could tell the Angel was March instantly, despite being a human, the angel had the captain's eyes.
Angelic Marchosias slowly levitated down from the blinding light. He was a Dominion, a high-ranking celestial warrior clad in gleaming, unmarred armor that radiated pure authority. He held a flaming sword that crackled with divine judgment.
Angel-March landed silently, his face a mask of absolute, terrifying resolve. He pulled the flaming sword back, ready to deliver a killing blow to the weeping angel at his feet.
But he hesitated.
"Why did you disobey?!" Angel-March yelled, his voice echoing with the thunder of a breaking storm.
The crying figure looked up, its face streaked with golden tears. "Brother... it was a mistake. A moment of weakness! Forgive me!"
Angel-March's face contorted with fury and grief. He pulled his sword back again and struck, burying the flaming blade deep into the ground just inches from the crying angel's head. "That is no excuse! What have you done, you fool?!"
The angel on the ground scrambled onto all fours and slammed his face into the dirt in total submission. "He told us to! The Morning Star gave a command! I thought... I thought it came from on high!"
Angel-March stood over his fallen brother, his expression tearing itself apart with conflict. His duty demanded execution; his heart demanded mercy.
"Do you understand now?" the real Marchosias growled softly from beside Zac.
A fiery, jagged hole suddenly tore open beneath the two angels. The pristine white ground gave way to the roaring, sulfurous flames of Hell.
"Why I was rejected from the Seventh Throne," Marchosias's voice was weak, stripped of all its usual command.
Zac watched in horror as the crying angel and Angel-March tumbled backward, swallowed by the roaring fire and plunging into the abyss. The vision snapped shut, plunging them back into the silent, black void.
Zac looked up at the wolf demon, his eyes wide and burning. "For having fucking compassion?!"
"NO!" Marchosias barked, the sudden volume making Zac flinch. "For not following orders! I was given a command by He to slay the betrayers, and I couldn't even do that! Everything I did was weak. Everything I did was for my own petty feelings. How could I ever expect to enjoy the blessings of Heaven when all I did was what I wanted to do?!"
The Wolf Captain's shoulders slumped, the fire in his amber eyes dying down to a dull, self-loathing ember. "I was pathetic."
Zac's jaw hung open, completely unable to process the sheer, suffocating weight of the demon's misplaced guilt.
"I know," Marchosias said solemnly, misinterpreting Zac's silence. "I am bad."
Zac felt his blood boiling. He was too angry to speak.
"I see it in your face," Marchosias said, his voice flat. "You're disgusted with me. Now you know my shame, my softness, my inability to follow orders. That is why, for the past thousand years, I have steeled myself. I will never shirk my duties again, and God will see me, even down in this filthy Pit. He will see I have learned my lesson, and He will let me back into-"
"YOU RETARD!" Zac yelled. "YOU WANT TO GO BACK TO THAT?!"
Marchosias looked completely stunned, his amber eyes wide.
"You're hurting yourself so your scumbag, toxic ex will take you back?!" Zac raged, spittle flying from his lips. "Not even your ex… your fucking abusive parent! No, that's the most weak-ass bitch bullshit I've ever heard!"
Zac scrambled to his feet. He lunged forward, grabbing handfuls of the Wolf Captain's linen shirt, and began to shake the massive demon with every ounce of strength his scrawny human body possessed.
"You're too good for God!" Zac screamed, tears streaming down his face again. "You're too fucking good to ever lower yourself for His approval ever again! If I have to see one more example of you having a bigger heart than the fucking Holy Creator, I'm going to lose my mind!"
He shook the frozen wolf again, his voice breaking into a desperate, furious sob. "Because I love you! And I already knew that you were way too good for me, and even trying to make a passing joke that you might be into me would be hilarious because it would mean I'm really so deluded that I thought there was even some cosmic chance in the infinite multiverses that there was one single version of me that might be even close enough to being worthy of washing your dirty underwear! And now it's so obvious that it's not even funny!"
Zac shoved himself away, pacing frantically in the black void. "Holy shit, March! Have you been torturing yourself because of your daddy issues?! God is a beta bitch if He sent you to Hell! He is a total pussy! He probably takes testosterone and thinks it will make him buff without working out! God is a major moron who-"
"Don't you take His name in vain like that," Marchosias growled, a warning rumble starting deep in his chest.
Zac screamed, spinning around and marching right back up to get inches from March's muzzle. "STOP THIS PITY PORN RIGHT NOW! It's pathetic, and you are so much better than that!"
Marchosias tried to turn away, the embers of his amber eyes darkening with shame. "It was silly of me to try and make you understand."
"I'm not done with you!" Zac shouted, grabbing the wolf by his shirt and yanking him back.
Marchosias looked genuinely surprised that the weak human could even move him. He grabbed Zac's arms, attempting to easily dislodge the frantic grip, but Zac dug his heels in and refused to let go.
"I know it hurts!" Zac screamed directly into March's face, his voice echoing in the infinite dark. "I know it hurts so bad to disappoint your parents! But that's not your fault! It's not your fault you're different than them! That's just how it goes! Even if God made you piece by piece exactly like He wanted you to be, it's no one's fault that you're different! You're not just nature! Everything you experienced made you who you are!"
Tears streamed hot and fast down Zac's cheeks, dripping onto his hands where they clenched the demon's shirt.
"God was an only child or some shit!" Zac sobbed. "But you weren't! You had a bunch of angel brothers!"
Marchosias shifted uncomfortably, his grip loosening on Zac's wrists. "We did not have genders."
"Fine! You had a bunch of angel they/thems, that's not the fucking point!" Zac yelled, shaking him again. "How the fuck would God know what it feels like to spend your entire existence with others?! Living together, following orders, just vibing, laughing! Knowing that some are better at singing and others are better at fighting! Some are better at math and some like reading more! It doesn't matter if you were all perfect… you were all different, or else what was the point of naming you?!"
Marchosias's grip failed completely. His massive hands fell slowly to his sides. He stared down at Zac, the fight draining out of him, replaced by a profound, trembling silence.
"He gave us names," Marchosias whispered into the void, his voice hollow, "to tell us apart."
"Why would God want to tell you apart if you were all copy-paste clones?!" Zac let go of March's greatcoat and threw his arms around the wolf's waist, burying his face in his chest. "You aren't bad, March! You aren't evil! And trying to prove that to someone who even thought that for one second is a waste of your time and effort!"
Marchosias's breaths grew heavy, his massive chest rising and falling against Zac's cheek in a rapid, unsteady rhythm. "You know nothing, Zachary Torres."
"I know that I wish someone told me this when I was alive," Zac sobbed, his voice muffled by the demon's shirt. He tilted his head back, looking up at March with tear-filled eyes. "Please don't tell me I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, then I really am a broken freak who deserves to be in Hell because I am different. And now you're telling me, even if i saved a thousand babies from drowning, I should be getting tortured, and set on fire, and eaten by rats right now if not for the fact that I was such a massive loser that I couldn't even get some random old dude to give me a pity fuck!"
The amber light in Marchosias's eyes wavered. Thick tears began spilling out of his tired smoldering eyes, tracking down his scarred muzzle.
"If I'm wrong, then my family was right!" Zac wailed, his voice raw and echoing in the darkness. "Being different is blasphemy and sinners deserve eternal damnation! I should have been a carbon copy of Jesus! I should have just been a saint! I should have been a pope, because anything less would mean that I'm worthless!"
"That's not what I-" Marchosias choked out. His massive, clawed hands came up, hesitantly at first, before wrapping securely around Zac's back and pulling the smaller man tight against his body.
"If I was wrong," Zac cried, his fingers digging desperately into the wolf's back, "that means that humanity was a mistake. It doesn't matter that you saved all those people, because they are all going to Hell anyways."
Zac buried his face in March's shirt, his voice a muffled wail. "And if everyone is going to Hell anyways, God is just creating a fucking torture world where it doesn't matter what you do! If there is anything unique about you, then you're punished! What's the fucking point of free will if it's just there for you to suppress?!"
Marchosias pulled Zac flush against him, his arms a vice-like grip of desperate need. The towering wolf buried his face in Zac's messy, leopard-print hood. "I… I don't want to be in Hell. I tried so hard to do the right things but it was never good enough." Marchosias cried, his voice shattering, the stoic commander completely broken. "I miss the rest of my family in Heaven."
"I miss my family too," Zac sobbed into the linen shirt, his tears soaking the fabric. "I miss everyone I used to know... even if they were huge asshats. But... but I'm..." Zac took a ragged breath. "I'm glad I met you."
He tilted his head back, looking up into the wolf's tear-streaked face. "I'm glad I met the others. I'm even glad that asshole Ose plucked me out of infinity and sent me to get blue-balled until I lost my fucking mind."
Marchosias looked down at him, his amber eyes red and brimming with a millennia of suppressed sorrow, but for the first time, the heavy, crushing weight of his guilt seemed to have lifted just a fraction. He let out a wet, snotty chuckle.
"I'm glad I met you too," Marchosias whispered.
He rested his chin gently on top of Zac's head, the coarse fur of his bearded muzzle brushing against the fleece cat ears. "You are an insane human."
...
Zac blinked against the harsh, glowing light of the white crystals.
He wasn't in the void anymore. The sharp smell of antiseptic and ozone filled his nose. He was lying on one of the stiff, leather examination beds in the keep's infirmary.
He slowly turned his head, his neck stiff and sore.
On the bed next to him, stripped of his ruined angelic plate mail, lay Marchosias. The Wolf Captain's broad chest and shoulders were wrapped heavily in thick white bandages, stark against his dark fur.
He was breathing deeply and evenly, his scarred features relaxed in a peaceful, dreamless sleep.