The War on Earth (Kadrin and Maya)

There was no better time than now - hell with that, now was possibly the last chance they had. The Heretics had been holding on to Sydney by the skin of their teeth, but that was over now... some scouts said the Archangel Michael had led the offensive through the Harbour Tunnel, and the Heretic resistance had been shattered. America - all three of them - and Africa were long since lost, and no one cared about Antarctica. So here were the Heretics, reduced to Eastern Europe, with demons to the west and angels to the east, a small and particularly squishy object between a hammer and an anvil. The ritual had to be performed.

Charles (never Charlie, as his fellow Heretics had learned on multiple occasions) stepped into the prepared chamber with only a moment's trepidation - the gnawing, "can I do this right?" of a long-awaited event. He pulled the brown hood over his handsome, sun-roughened face a little further, looking around the room; a perfectly calibrated mix of the sacred and the profane. Mantra scripts were burning in the torch sockets, a circle of holy water and salt over a pattern of iron marked the centre of the room, and holy icons - some standing, some upside down - lined the walls. The holiness would draw the angel, the profanity bind her. If the ritual went rightly.

He spread his arms wide, fingers splayed in all directions, breathing in the smoke of incence and mantras. Only some of this magic was stolen; most had lain in the heart of humanity ever since the beginning. Charles threw his head back, and his hood fell free, revealing his square-jawed face and tousled brown hair. He let out a string of incomprehensible syllables, speaking the equivalent of the universe's machine language - the building blocks of Creation. It was a song of the holy in need of aid, a rich prize to be acquired, a helping hand to be taken. It was a song of sainthood, of truth, of innocence. If he'd sung it properly, it should call an angel down from Heaven, where she would be bound in the ring of iron.

If.

Charles folded his arms, and waited.

The angel by the name of Teknolaiz heard the song, and she came to earth, and she looked around and saw Charles, and she looked at him. "So you are the one who sing that song I'm the angel Teknolaiz." Teknolaiz said. Teknolaiz was wondering how much he knows about the song, and she is always used to fight in the heretics wars, but she doesn't care. The only reason she could do that is because she had to fight to save humankind.

She could be able to do anything that the person who sings it could command her.

"We are in need," Charles said, his voice curt, all but emotionless. "Humanity is losing the War on Earth. We have the weapons to fight the demons, we have the magic, and we have the understanding. But when we battle the angels... we lose. Always. We are beaten back and crushed."

He opens his robe, and slips it off his shoulders, leaving him standing in a pair of torn jeans and boots. His muscular chest is mapped with scars, a wide line burned by holy fire into his belly that should have killed him, a circular slash of demon claws around his heart, a pock marked bullet wound in his shoulder. Magician or not, this Heretic has plainly not avoided the front lines in the War on Earth. He is marked in brown ochre, with a dozen different runes, of protection and of command.

"Our intent is to use you to gain a greater understanding of angelic power and angelic tactics," he says. "Thus this ritual."

"All right I'll teach you in the ways of angelic tactics and angelic power." Teknolaiz said. Teknolaiz she is trying to do something new here and she had to be here because of the ritual, and she looked at at Charles. Teknolaiz looked at him carefully. Anything you want to be come to me and I'll be your guardian angel.. Teknolaiz thought.

"Okay I'll teach you everything I know." Teknolaiz said.

Charles raised his eyebrow, carefully examining the angel. "You are bound by the ring of iron not to leave the ring, not to raise your powers in anger, and not to lie," he said, tracing one of the runes that had been painted onto his torso... for a moment, it glowed with remnant power, adding its red light to the yellow flame-light of the room. "By the words of the ritual, we had been told you would be... unco-operative. That we would have to summon, capture, and debase you before we could learn a thing. Now you say you will co-operate freely. I charge you - without a lie - what is your purpose, in so doing?"

"Well I was bored to death that same old ritual day in and day out people always summon me and I was always had to be debased so now I want to be a little more cooperative when it comes to these rituals I'm still the same old me, but with a little more clicks into me." Teknolaiz said.

"Hmm," Charles said, his voice completely neutral, completely deadpan. He made no indication what he felt about this change to the ritual. Calling to the sky, he made the flames flare up brighter, and then die down, as he stepped forward. "Then tell me," he said, shifting slowly to his knees. "Tell me what I need to know, and how I can win this war for the humans of Earth."

"Well each one is a master of each element, fire, water, wind, and earth you would have to use their weakness against them. The fire angel is weak against water, water is weak is against fire, and earth and wind are complete opposites." Teknolaiz said.

"We are aware of this much," Charles said, almost curtly. "When it became apparent that the force we've codenamed Gabriel used fire magic near exclusively, to retaliate using water was an instant response. On the few occasions when we get close enough - when her legions don't hold us back - she repels our tsunamis, our torrents, our geysers and water cannon with shields that boil the water away before it can touch her."

He shook his head.

"Generalities will not help us. What we need is more precise. Ways to defeat the legions. Psychological profiles of the commanders. Notes on troop movements. How to create weapons. That sort of thing."