Chapter
2 – Fire, Faith, and Fury
Polina, along with Penelope, has
become the primary focus of the people of Ferdinand ever since we saved the
debate between Fribus and Nanpa from becoming the start of a civil war. As they
take questions and talk to people from both sides of the country in a market
square where both sides do business, Zahara and I keep an eye on them, the
crowds, and the surrounding area. Given the demonic threat we experienced two
days ago, I feel that I should be more on my guard than usual, especially since
they prevented me from getting to Polina. I know she’s strong and can handle
most things on her own, but after what happened to her…I can’t let anything
happen to her. We have a child back home in Meridian to raise, and we’re
considering a second child after the situation in Ferdinand stabilizes.
“Do not allow them to worry you, my
friend. It is the way they make you sin and blind you from what is in front of
you,” my fiery angel says.
I’m trying not to. Intercede for me
so that I may never sin or allow them a way to infect my soul with evil.
Zahara bumps me with her shoulder
and asks, “Raziel, do you think we’ll ever get a break from guard duty?
Besides, the couple of Sundays that have passed, we’ve been doing nothing but
standing around, except for that one exception two days ago.”
“No. It’s the whole reason why
we’re here, after all. Why? Would you rather be in Polina's or Penelope’s
position, talking to people?”
“Hell no. That’s more mentally
exhausting and annoying than anything. I don’t know how they do it. Seeing what
they have to go through almost makes all this standing around feel nostalgic
for the guard duty I did as an officer.”
“It reminds me of my time as an
officer, too. Don’t you have a rosary or prayers to say to pass the time? I
have an extra one with me.”
“No, I’m fine. I’ve said plenty of
prayers and am just trying not to be bored.”
“Would you rather there be fighting
than talking? Fribus and Nanpa may have reached an agreement, but the wider
government of Ferdinand still has to codify it into law, and some in both
Fribus and Nanpa hate the other side.”
“No, not at all. Don’t mind what
I’m saying. I’m just bored.”
“Heh, to be honest, I am as well.
Praying and talking to my guardian angel are what keep me awake.”
Once the talks are done, the
influencers from both Fribus and Nanpa argue about who takes the Compassionate
to dinner to show us their appreciation, and both Polina and Penelope convince
them to both take us out, with the three groups splitting the bill. They agree
to it, and they take us to an expensive and gorgeous restaurant that
specializes in food from both regions, and is decorated as such. Our dinner
becomes a taste test of all foods, and we judge whether or not one was better
than the other. Things get heated for a bit, but then Penelope and Polina calm
things down by telling them the food from Fribus and Nanpa is equally
delicious.
“Fribus has the best desserts and
has the most savory meals,” Penelope says.
“Nanpa has amazing spicy food,
that’s filling, and has dishes that are easy on the stomach,” Polina says.
They go back and forth trying to
balance the scales so that both sides appear equal, another thing that Zahara
and I whisper to one another that we’re grateful we don’t have to do. Per
Polina and Penelope’s agreement to come here, others from Fribus and Nanpa who
were in the marketplace were invited to this dinner with their meals paid for
by us. Everyone gets to know each other more personally, while still expressing
the uniqueness of each other’s cultures. It was a genius idea by them to
further strengthen the bond between the two sides of the country and to create
a group of people who see value in each other’s side. Everything seems to be
going well. That is, until I see my angel pull me away from the table just as
an explosion rocks the building and collapses the floor beneath me, sending me
down from the fourth floor to the third.
People are screaming all around me,
fire is spreading, and I can hear muffled gunshots all around me. I look around
and don’t see Polina, Zahara, or Penelope.
In a panic, I say out loud, “Polina!
Zahara! Penelope!”
My angel points up to the hole
above me, where I see the three people I was looking for looking down at me.
“Raziel! Are you okay?” Polina
asks.
Thanks be to God they’re all alive,
I think as I cross myself.
“I’m fine. I hear gunshots around
here. Get yourselves and the civilians to safety. I’ll handle the perpetrators
of this horrendous attack!”
Before they can respond, I speed
off toward the gunfire, all the while transforming into a form reminiscent of
my angel with fiery wings, two large arms with scythes on them, and three
flaming eyes on my face that guide me to my targets. Flying into the action, I
use my scythes to decapitate and cut the attackers in two, saving the
civilians, and then rushing them to get to safety. The attackers are mostly
masked superhumans with a few masked gunmen here and there, with some
superhumans using guns, before switching to using their superstrength or
projectile powers on me, none of which have any effect on my flaming armor.
Parts of the building start collapsing, so I use my enhanced strength by
allowing debris to fall on me so that the civilians can be saved and are
protected as they escape. One family is surrounded by flames and feels forced
to jump out of the third-story window, but I catch them and gently put them on
the ground before going back in to save more people.
Following the sounds of action, I
come across a room full of attackers fighting the superhuman law enforcement
that has just arrived. I aid them by spewing flames from my scythes, which burn
only the attackers and are harmless to law enforcement and the building itself.
Among those who are burned, few are kept alive, so I take them and bring them
outside to the ambulances. Looking back at the building, I see the fourth floor
collapse onto the third floor, which then falls onto the second floor, before the
entire thing collapses. In the chaos, I search the area for Polina and my
friends, and thankfully find them as they’re just exiting the building with
more injured people with them.
I transform into my normal
appearance and say, “Are you okay? Thanks be to God you’re all alive.”
“We’re fine. I wish we had saved
more people, but many were already dead because of the attackers, burned alive,
or crushed because of the debris,” Polina says.
“The bastards who did this are
going to pay,” Zahara says.
“My flames spared a few from death.
They’re being driven to the nearest hospital right now.”
“We should interrogate them right
now so we can see if there are any more of them and why they did this,”
Penelope says.
“Agreed,” Polina says.
Going to the hospital where the
attackers are taken, we go to the section where criminals are kept and locked
in rooms where guards stand watch. We talk to the guards, who say that the
attackers are surprisingly talkative compared to past criminals that they’ve
had here.
“It’s a result of my supernatural
flames that burn souls as well as the body,” I say to them, which frightens
them a bit.
When we question the attackers, one
of them says, “We’re from Fribus. We attacked the meeting because we don’t want
to deepen our ties with people from Nanpa. They did horrible things to us
before and during the world war! How could we associate ourselves with such
people?”
Another says they’re a veteran from
the world war, and says, “My other fellow veterans participated in the attack.
We know the horrors that the people of Nanpa are capable of. The wall
separating us and the laws that kept them down should’ve never been removed.”
One of the attackers is an old man,
who says, “What rights do the people of Nanpa deserve? None. They’re less than
animals for what they did eighty years ago. People say that it was their
leaders’ fault for the atrocities committed by them before and during the world
war, but we all know that none of those people would’ve gotten the power they
had without the support of the common folk.”
“As you said, the war was eighty
years ago. Much has changed since then. The people believe different things.
The leaders and people guilty of the atrocities committed against you and
others across the world have been punished, and many of them have repented and
are still in jail,” Polina says.
“So what? The people of Nanpa are
always backwards-thinking. Nothing that Fribus has done in its entire history
is as bad as what Nanpa did in a single century across two world wars.”
The old man in front of us suddenly
combusts into flames. He screams as guards rush in to put him out with water,
but the flames consume him until he is nothing but ash. They ask us if we did
anything to me, to which we say, we’ve done nothing. Given what the man said, I
assume that my flames consumed him since he went back on his repentance and to
his sins, and because of what he said, the guards let what happened go.
Another attacker is more repentant
and says, “I don’t know why I didn’t care for the civilians who were caught in
the attack. I thought we were just killing those who would strengthen the ties
between the two regions. I’m such an idiot for everything that I’ve done!”
I want to hate this woman for her
evil actions and idiocy, but a touch from my angel calms me down, and I
reassure her that she has the chance to make up for what she’s done, and that,
“You can help us by telling us if there are others like you out there.”
“No. It was just us, but others
think like us in Fribus and people who think oppositely in Nanpa.”
With nothing else gained from our
questioning the other attackers, Polina says that, “This is going to shatter
the agreement we’ve created between the regions. Penelope and I will smooth
things over as much as we can. Raziel and Zahara, find out as much as you can
about these other groups and prevent them from causing any more damage by any
means necessary, and call backup for you two.”
Zahara and I go our separate ways
from Penelope and Polina, and do as we’re told. These people who attacked us
weren’t possessed by demons like many people we’ve faced. Instead, they were on
the opposite side of evil, one that’s unprompted by demons to do unspeakable
things. Their souls are so impoverished of virtue that they don’t need the
forces of Hell to tempt them to do anything, since committing sins is second
nature to them, making threats like them sometimes more dangerous and evil than
the ones who are possessed, an evil that must be cleansed from Ferdinand if we
are to unify Fribus and Nanpa and keep the peace.
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