Page 62 of Metatron
“Where is everyone?” Eoch whispered, his divinii blade held out in front of him as if expecting an attack.
“It’s like they just vanished,” an equally haunted-looking Munna replied.
“Let’s get to the palace.” Metatron led the way to a place as equally bereft, the soldiers by the pearly gates missing, the portals themselves ajar. Their boots echoed loudly, a warning to all they approached. No one challenged their right to enter, and having been called before Elyon many times, his feet knew the path.
They found Lucifer/Elyon in his throne room, splayed on his throne, arms spread wide, his wings torn from him and thrown at random. They didn’t need to see the empty eye sockets, gouged clean, the guts ripped from his body, or the blood that soaked the formerly fluffy throne to know he was dead.
“Do you think the angels revolted?” Elija asked, circling the body.
“Seems awfully violent,” Aziel noted.
“Does it matter who did it?” Metatron didn’t state his theory, that Gaaya got her revenge, but at what cost? He couldn’t help but think of all the angels now missing. Had they fed the abused goddess?
“The more important thing is, how do we steer?” Munna, ever practical, asked.
It turned out they couldn’t. According to Shard, “Heaven is no longer alive.” It made sense, though. After all, Heaven had always provided, and in its death, it would now take, since its body, set in motion, couldn’t be diverted from its crash course with Earth.
“Guess we have no choice.” It was with heavy hearts they set the explosives. This had been their home, and while they’d come prepared to do what it took to stop Heaven’s final voyage, a part of them had hoped to avert tragedy and disaster.
At least no one remained aboard. Gathering some mementos of the once wondrous place, they left, triggering the blasts once they’d gone a safe distance. Alas, they’d gravely miscalculated. While a few pieces did separate—the creche where they’d been raised being one building that spun off—the bulk of Heaven remained.
They’d failed, and Earth had less than three days before impact. Three days of governments vainly firing off missiles as they suddenly realized their folly. Missiles that failed. Despite being dead, some protections lingered. The explosions caused sparkling fireworks in the sky, as the shield around Heaven held.
By the time the choir made it back to Earth, there was only a day left before impact. Not much time to evacuate.
The moment he beamed aboard Zilla, Francesca threw herself into his arms, kissing him then haranguing. “Don’t you ever run off to be a hero again.”
“Hardly a hero. We failed.” His lips turned down.
“Don’t be so sure. You weren’t the only one working to stop the apocalypse.” She appeared smug.
“What did you do?” he asked.
“Used my brain. Ready, Zilla?”
“Ready.”
Zilla put herself in Heaven’s path and shot a beam of holy light. Stronger than anything he’d ever seen. Potent enough they couldn’t watch for more than a few seconds. It took longer than that before the intense laser bored a hole deep enough into Heaven to destabilize its structure. Unlike Hell, it didn’t explode but turned to dust. A dust that drifted on galactic winds. Motes that might even make it to some of the flocks on the colony planets, only they wouldn’t realize what it meant. They’d have to convey a message that Heaven and Hell had been destroyed, especially to the choirs stationed off Heaven when everything happened.
But that could wait a moment while he hugged the woman he loved. He buried his face in her hair. Breathed in. Breathed out.
They were alive, together, and had a bright future, and a universe to enjoy.
With all kinds of possibilities now spread before him, Metatron started his new life making love to his mate.
Epilogue
It had been several years since the destruction of Heaven and Hell. Years during which I’d chosen to travel with Metatron to nearby galaxies, sending out beacons to let others know what happened in our far-away, tucked pocket of space. We didn’t say anything about Gaaya in those open messages, but we did keep a lookout for her. Metatron had told me what happened on Heaven, and a part of me worried that she might turn her sights on Earth next. How did you stop an angry goddess?
Years of nothing happening led to that fear lessening, mostly because we had other problems to occupy us. It would seem Earth had drawn attention, first with Lilith’s space-faring drones and then the whole Heaven/Hell fiasco. With other cultures—and some alien pirates—showing some interest in our no-longer-hidden galaxy, humanity had to quickly mount a space defense system, to ensure those thinking we’d be easy marks knew to take Earth’s Republic seriously.
But having a standing galactic defense force didn’t stop a set of really nasty pirates from being very public with their raping and pillaging of a small town in Newfoundland. It backfired on them because it turned out Canadians weren’t always very nice. They hunted those pirates down and hung them. It didn’t end there. Humanity decided the movies had it mostly right and aliens were bad. As such, an alien ban came into effect that forbade them from setting foot—or tentacle or claw—on Earth. That prohibition included not only all refugees from Hell but the babies we’d rescued and the angels, too. After all that had happened, people were determined to expunge everything they considered alien from the planet.
A good thing we had a friend named Zilla, who, along with her mentee, Shard, took the choir along with as many as could be fit on board—only if they wanted to go, of course. There was a large number, as it turned out, who wanted to take a chance on aliens and a life post-Earth. Aboard Zilla, we travelled not only in safety, but in comfort too as we explored strange new worlds. We saw so many wonders. Planets of water with actual merpeople. Worlds of sand and lizards. Others of bugs. But also places with folks that looked just like me.
Elyon’s seeds. Or were they Gaaya’s? Didn’t matter in the end because we were all free.
Free to live. Free to laugh. Free to love.