// angels, hell, loss, death, recursion

Your story ends in the place it begins. Another life, another loop, another chance to be just a little too slow to save her. It’s like this every time, after all, this is what you’re for. Damn. Damn it all.

The cigarette smolders and stings your eyes, canoeing awkwardly as your hands grip the steering wheel and your foot presses down on the accelerator, it’s already to the floor and the sirens are blaring as you swerve around rush hour traffic at a speed that would be fatal to all but the most skilled angels, which of course you are. It won’t help though, not this time. How many times have you been here? How many times has this scene played out? Enough to know that this won’t be the time you make it. And yet, and yet, and yet, you can’t stop, you know it’s too late but you still have to try. This is what you’re *for *damnit.

The setting sun is red and bloated on the horizon, smeared and tainted by smog and wildfire haze, as if a billion years are passing with each second, with each pulse of your heart, with each yellow stripe on the road. You know how this story plays out, you’ve always known how this story plays out. Every time, in every timeline. This is the nature of your sin, and you tell yourself it doesn’t matter, none of it matters, not the abyss, not your fate, not the unsalvageable situation, not the girl you’ll manage to salvage from it at the cost of your life, and not the girl you’ll be too late to save either. Maybe this time.

You taste burning fiberglass and irritatedly snuff out the cigarette on the dashboard, stuffing the butt into a coat pocket for old time’s sake. Ready to do it all again? She asks you that every time, and every time you’ll say yes. This is what you’re for.

You take the highway exit at nearly full speed, tires shrieking and burning as you force the car around the hairpin bend at a horrifically unsafe speed. It won’t kill you, what kills you is still looming ahead, so you blast through the intersection without even looking, swerving and fishtailing into the entrance to the research institute.

“That barricade had better be fucking moved already!” you bark into the radio, and the angels already on site timidly reply in the affirmative. They’re good angels, they’re not totally useless at least. Over a mile away from the epicenter and half a mile to the exclusion zone you start to feel the mounting force of the abyssal incursion on your divine fields. It’s like pins and needles made of hate, like nausea made of despair and heartbreak, like a migraine of hopelessness. It doesn’t even slow you down.

For most angels, a halo is just a spinning loop of concentrated hope and faith knit together with excuses and justifications. Something finite and thus killable. As powerful as it enables them to be, if you apply enough crushing force, enough hopeless empty truth, enough misery and torment and endless suffering, it will implode with the force of a collapsing star and at best render them incapacitated, and more often simply kill them on the spot. That means that most angels are ultimately unstable. It means most angels are ultimately vulnerable. It means there are certain facts which most angels simply cannot learn, places that most angels simply cannot go. But you are not most angels.

“Mercury…” a voice says over the radio, laced through with grief at what you all know is coming. “Godspeed.”

The barricades blocking the entrance to the evacuation zone are already pulled aside and the teams manning them offer you a weary salute as you blast past them. They’re good angels.

You’ve been through this all before, you’ve been through this an infinite number of times before and if it takes an infinite number of times more to undo the mess you’re about to crash into then fuck it, let’s go. Your halo burns brighter and brighter as its backward rotation cuts through the backwash of the abyssal forces like the wake of a ship. This is the only time it will ever glow hard enough for anyone to actually see it, here, in this moment, in this instance of the loop. This, before and after anything else, is what you’re for.

So bring it. You round the last corner, gun the car through the gates of the research institute, and onward into hell.

There’s a way to prevent this every time, and every time you choose to let it play out like this knowing exactly what will happen. You have to give them the chance to get this far and turn back of their own free will, to do otherwise would be to make your own compromise with the abyss, to consign an angel you might have saved to the damnation they create every time. Is it masochism? Maia would say it is, but you’re here, not her. Maybe this time, right? Yeah, just keep telling yourself that. Maybe your halo isn’t as flawless as you believe. Naivety and stubbornness, hope and spite. You know what you’re made of and you know exactly what it will lead you to do, every time, in every loop, in every timeline.

One hand still on the wheel and foot still on the accelerator, your fingers reach upwards and close around the command authority socket. No time left for caution. You yank the divinity down into you and it closes around your form as the car slams into the stairs of the science building and launches upwards through the wall. Your body ragdolls through the disintegrating engine block and pulverized concrete and you careen through a series of glass display cases before skidding neatly to a stop on the polished tiles. The force of the abyssal incursion is cloying, oppressive, it would be enough to make you gag but you don’t have time for that.

You take off running down the corridors, lighting another cigarette as you go. All these little rituals, all these desperate tiny prayers, to who? What? You don’t know what could possibly exist to answer them, what besides you could possibly stand up to the hundreds of Gs of force dragging your soul towards the abyss. You’re far beyond the recovery line, deeper into hell than anyone has ever returned from, close enough to the edge to defend the inhabitants of this place from almost any angel stupid enough to find their way in here. That’s when you start seeing the words, and the blood, and the bodies.

They’ve protected their nest well, all the occupants are slaughtered, hundreds of dead students litter the floors and walls, painted in their blood and guts are the awful truths that would make most angels drop dead on the spot, a horrifically macabre sight which does absolutely nothing to slow you down. You’ve heard this story before, you’ve seen this scene before. You know all about the abyss, about the flickering hell of trapped and tortured souls awaiting everyone at the end of time, it’s all a slightly boring rerun, a deranged and pointless spectacle that will never achieve their goal of proving they were right all along, no matter how many additional timelines it plays out in.

They know you’re coming of course, and the taunting messages on the walls aren’t made for the angels outside, they’re made for you alone: Doesn’t it just grate on you sooo much to let us inflict all this harm Mercury? Hey Mercury, do you really think if this plays out enough times, eventually we’ll learn? Look at all the cool stuff we’ve learned Mercury! Hey Mercury did you know this will never end as long as the multiverse survives? You must really like suffering! We’re just like you Mercury! We know the full score, and we know we’re damned for it, just like you and everyone else! Really, this is mercy! We believe in mercy! We know there’s no way out and so do you! You’re really the one who’s evil here! You’re gonna keep doing this, again, and again, and again, until we’re all cast into hell for the last time as the universe sputters out and chokes to death on its waste products! Won’t that be so much fun? Are you really so much better than we are?

You smirk and draw your flaming sword. Yes.

The force of your divinity blasts the double doors off their hinges and sends them careening across the lecture hall. Two of the three enemies are caught in the blast and reduced to a smear on the far wall, it always plays out like that. It would almost be enough to make you think you had a chance, if you didn’t know better than that. Unfortunately you do know better.

“Lycoris!” you snarl, leveling your sword at the girl on the stage, she looks at her nails and then looks up at you with a bored expression.

“Back here again Mercury?” She taunts, long red hair swaying behind her as she paces the stage. When you were last here, three days ago, she seemed like a normal enough angel with a normal enough halo. It was bright, extremely bright. The brilliance of her halo had tugged at something in your mind back then, a memory from every prior loop of this exact scene. A skilled and talented research angel, dedicated to the cause of universal salvation and the end of all suffering. That was the flaw, the hairline fracture that would do something far worse than simply destroy her. You should have killed her on the spot, at that moment.

“But you didn’t!” She laughs, reading your mind like an open book, “And you never ever will! That’s *your *sin, the flaw in *your *halo. You believe in infinity. Infinite timelines, infinite chances, infinite suffering! What a horrible demon you are! Truly, you are exactly as bad as me! Think of what Maia would say!” She laughs hideously, running her fingers across the halos of the two angels she has tied up on the stage as bait.

The object above her head isn’t a halo anymore. It’s become something else, something far more grotesque. In the place of hope, the *thing *is made of despair and suffering knitted together by an utter faith in the triumph of oblivion, an end to all things, a hole leading directly into hell from which she somehow draws her mad strength. From it oozes a toxic aura of destructive perversity, staining the space around her like gravitational poison.

You recognize the angels she’s captured and tied to a pair of chairs on the stage, because of course it’s them, that’s a part of this too. Everything has to loop. All of it, endlessly, with no escape. Klass and Leer, the ones you saved a few years ago. They’re not dead yet because of course they’re not, but you already know you won’t be able to save both of them and you already know which one will live and which one will die. Damn it.

“Miss Mercury!” Leer shouts up to you, “Get out of here! It’s too late for us, just save yoursel–” The nephandi woman rolls her eyes and shoves a rag into the blonde angel’s mouth to shut her up. Klass glares daggers at her and the redhead grins and pats her on the cheek. They really are like you and Maia, and that’s why she chose them.

Lycoris set it all up perfectly, because she too has been through this an infinite number of times already. What does she want? Well, you of course. She set this all up so carefully in order to create the perfect conditions to break you, to convince you the only way out of this hell loop is her way, the way where she wins and the multiverse dies. Peace through death. You can all exit the loop together, you just have to agree to stop existing. Or you could have just killed her before it came to this, which would itself be a compromise with sin, and would also let her win in the long run, because there will always be more like Lycoris. There’s no way out but to accept oblivion.

Unfortunately for her, you accepted that there was no way and decided to keep fighting anyway. You made your choices long, long, long ago, and you will never, ever give up. You smile tiredly and shake your head, taking a last drag of your last cigarette, “Maybe next time Lycoris.”

Her grin falters and then turns into a scowl. You walk slowly and deliberately down the steps of the lecture hall, sword dragging on the floor, tongues of flame licking at the carpet and crawling up the benches in your wake. Lycoris cowers backwards as you approach, trying to shield herself behind Leer’s body.

“This is a nice little game you’ve set up,” you tell the inverted angel, “Very uh, artistic..” You hold the sword out level away from you with your right hand while your left awkwardly fishes a small pile of cigarette butts out of your coat pocket.

“There’s just one problem with it,” you say in an almost bored tone, letting the pile of butts fall from your hand as the event horizon comes rushing up to meet you, “I’m Mercury, and this is an intervention…Maia!”

The sword soars in an arc over your head blazing brighter than a million suns and the universe folds over on itself. Lycoris dies again, your sword strikes Leer’s halo, both of them shatter, and in that absence of a moment, space and time trade places. Your dead girlfriend crouches in front of you, her time reversed halo unshattering as she catches the handful of falling cigarettes and casually lights one off your exploding sword.

“Still trying to save the dumb evil bitch I see,” Maia says with a shake of her head, “You really are a piece of work Mercury, but I guess that’s why I love you.”

She looks back over her shoulder at Leer and Klass, “Well, I guess this is the part where I tell you two that you’re gonna be doing a lot of this kind of thing,” she says to the younger angels, “It’s worth it though, and you’ll see each other again eventually, I promise. It does kinda suck though, so if you want, I could send you both back through the loop instead, and we can see if you manage to do something different than Mercury has.”

The two angels look at each other and look up at Maia. “What happens to Mercury if we do that?” Klass asks the dead angel quickly sucking down a cigarette while still standing under your temporally frozen sword. You can see all this playing out but there’s nothing left that you can do to effect it, you’ve already played all your cards.

“She dies and gets to come hang out with me at the end of all things, whatever that ends up being, hopefully not the end *that *bitch wanted,” Maia quips, pointing a thumb at the silently ragdolling body of the nephandi. “But at that point our hands are tied. We’re both dead and you’re both alive, this loop ends and a new one starts. Mercury will be pissed at me for that, but she’ll get over it.” You’re right, you would be pissed, but you’ll also be pissed if they don’t take the offer, because it would tear the two of them apart the way you and Maia have been torn apart. She could have just saved both of them in exchange for you, but you’re all far too good and selfless for that. She knows that too of course, damn her.

“We’ll do it,” Leer says, because of course she does.

“Yeah,” Klass nods gravely in agreement, “That’s how this works, right? The dance goes on?”

And they’re right of course, as much as that irritates you. The chain has to keep going, backwards or forwards, it’s unclear how or where it started, Leer and Klass send you and Maia back, you and Maia send Eos and Nova back, Eos and Nova send Lilith and Petra back, on and on and on, climbing backwards towards the dawn of time and the origin of sin. Maybe this time, maybe this chance, once more unto infinity.

Maia smiles and pats them both on the head, “that’s right. Your loop begins here then, in this moment outside space and time. Leer, you’ll come with me, and Klass…” she frowns and tosses a cigarette into the dark skinned angel’s lap, “I’m terribly sorry, but you’re going to survive this and no one else is. However…” she holds up her hands with nine cigarettes still awkwardly poised between her fingers, “Mercury is very kind, and has been saving up for this without quite realizing it, so we’ll have some time here.”

You’re still frozen in place at the moment of bringing your sword down, and in this janky half-space you can’t do anything but observe, so you watch as Maia cuts both of them loose and watch the two girls cling to each other, sobbing and kissing fiercely while Maia smokes. She pats your frozen cheek and wipes the tears from your eyes.

“You really are very kind you know Mercury,” she tells you, “I know you try to hide that from everyone and put on this big tough ‘ooh look at me I’m Mercury the most emo angel ever and this is an intervention,’ but I know you’re a big softie, that’s why I love you.”

She stands on her toes and kisses you, then turns back to the other two, still working through her cigarettes as slowly as she can seem to manage. “You’ll need an expendable object to use as a totem that you can trade between each other,” she explains between puffs, “it doesn’t have to be cigarettes, that’s just what Mercury and I use, you could trade already eaten sandwiches or something, as long as it’s meaningful to both of you.”

Both the younger angels smirk and hold up a pair of brightly colored vapes, then trade them with each other. “Ooh, grape.” Leer says with mock delight.

Maia cackles impishly, “Ohhhh terrible, terrible, I *love *it, yeah that’ll work. The mechanics for all of this are uh…well I guess you’ll see.”

You watch Maia lovingly dote on the two of them as she smokes her last cigarette, the window is almost closed. They embrace and kiss one final time. Then, after far too little time, Maia turns back to you and grins, “So! Ready to do it all over again?”

As the fold in the universe unzips itself, your lips come unstuck enough for you to grin back at her. “Yeah,” you say at last, “once more unto the brink.”

She kisses you again, pressing your lips against your teeth and letting you taste her ashen breath, you’re really both quite awful. That wryly amused thought hangs with you like the fading memory of a dream as the world dissolves into song and light and you finally fall beyond the far event horizon.

Then without pause, reality comes rushing at you like a truck. Your body twists kata and your face bounces hard off cracked marble floor tiles, giving you a bloody nose and chipped tooth. You groan, covered in bruises and splinters and laying amidst the ruins of what had first a church and then the site of a battle which only you survived. A small pile of cigarettes is sitting on your chest and you have a splitting headache. Your battle with Lycoris is over twenty years away. It’s time to get to work.