Sidestory:
Gathering Forces
by Chris, Greg and Proto
Autumn leaves skittered across the ground as two of Ian's lacrosse teammates `kidnapped' him from his apartment to go out and do some male teammate bonding. He was too much of a shut-in, they said. He needed to go out and do something with them. So, abandoning his weasel and dog, they shoved him into one of their cars, and drove him back towards campus. "Where are you taking me?" he asked.
"We're gonna shoot some pool," answered Jim as he swerved the car to miss a cat on the side of the road, then swerved the car back into the proper lane, to keep from hitting the oncoming car. Ian merely nodded in reply, and gripped the edge of his seat tighter.
"Fun times to be had by all," added Ed with a grin.
"I'm not really good at pool," Ian said.
"Then we'll teach you," Ed answered.
Ian accepted his fate, and went along with them. So, it was a pool hall. There was nothing wrong with a pool hall. There would just be guys playing pool, a little smoke, libertine men and scarlet women and Ragtime, shameless music that will drive your son, your daughter to the arms of the jungle, animal instinct, mass hysteria. Ian really wished that he hadn't gone to see the Music Man last week.
After arriving, they paid their dues, and went to go shoot some pool. Ian tried his best, and did manage to make a few good shots. Of course, he was thoroughly thwomped by Ed and Jim. After five games, he said hat he'd sit the next round out, and went over to the bar to get himself a drink.
Casper Sloane gulped down a soda without taking a breath. He thought that maybe some caffiene in his system would help to wake him up. Focus a bit more on what was going on around him. Lately, it seemed he couldn't keep his mind on anything. He looked back at the table where his friend Jonell stood. Next to him was Casper's latest "project". She was a senior in high school, and she had a nice ass. Poor girl thought that he gave a shit about anything else she could offer. He shook his head. He just wished he could devote his full attention to her.
A deep flood of pressure suddenly churned in his head, and he cautiously looked around. There was only one thing that made him feel like that. He usually felt it at least once a week; but not this intensely. It was something ... close. His eyes flashed to the young man that had walked over to the bar. His eyes were two different colors. That was fucked up.
And then something inside decided it wanted to talk. Pushing aside Casper, it spoke softly, but with an edge as sharp as a dagger.
"It's been awhile ... Gabriel."
Ian had felt something nibbling at the back of his mind for the past several minutes, but he'd just put it off as nervousness. Now, though, the feeling seemed to be front and center, and suddenly, there was this guy in hip-hop clothes calling him Gabriel. Ian froze, fumbled with his drink, stammered a bit, and felt his eyes start switching their colors before he found his tongue again. "What did you..." he started, and then he looked again at the boy before him. He seemed oddly familiar. "Whoa, déjà vu..." he mumbled. Ian shook his head firmly, and then looked the brown-haired boy directly in the eyes. "I think we need to have a talk, whoever you are."
The younger boy smirked at him, and his eyes rolled back into his skull sharply. He blinked, as if waking up from a daydream, to find Ian staring intently at him.
"Fuck you lookin' at, son?" he spat aggressively, his eyes narrowing somewhat menacingly.
Ian was dumbstruck for a moment. What was wrong with whoever this was? Ten seconds ago he'd been calling him Gabriel, and now nothing, no recognition. "You just called me Gabriel, that's why," Ian hissed in response, trying not to draw attention to himself. "What just happened to you? You seriously don't remember saying that? Where's Clare when I really need her..."
Casper's brow furrowed in disgust. "Listen son ... I ain't say shit to you. I don't even know you." But something in the young man's eyes told of something else. They shone with a hint of fear; as if he knew that something strange had happened, but couldn't bring himself to face it.
That name that he had supposedly said ... Gabriel. It struck a chord deep within. Something had stirred.
The boy's demeanor gave him away; there was something about his eyes that just seemed wrong, he knew something. Then again, Ian was hardly the one to be judging whose eyes were wrong and whose weren't. Ian sighed, put his hand to his forehead, and looked down for a moment. Taking a drink from his glass, he set it down on the bar, and looked over again at the younger boy. "Alright, seeing as how I have no idea what else to do currently, we're going to play a little game." He turned his gaze directly into the other boy's eyes, hoping that, one, the words would mean almost nothing to a non-Angelus, and two, if he was Angelus, he wasn't Grigori, and tried to gauge his reaction. "Word association," he said with a touch of hardness in his voice, "here's the words – Wings. Possession. Divine justice. Swords."
Casper opened his mouth to reply, then paused, regarding the older boy with a look of begrudged understanding.
"So you know about me?" he asked, sounding more timid than he had wanted to. Before Ian could respond, the curly-haired youth placed his hand on the bar, where the silver, winged band on his finger glinted softly in the dim light.
"You must be one too. Leo told me about that weird feeling I'd get when one of ya'll is around. Didn't click until you started runnin' yo' mouth."
Ian almost turned into a puddle of relief when he heard the boy mention Leo's name. "Thank God," Ian sighed. "I was afraid that you would have been Grigori, but you mentioned Leo. Still, you called me Gabriel, and I don't know why..." Ian murmured. "Anyway, my name is Ian, and I'm Gabriel Knight. Yourself?"
"Whuttup. I'm Casper. Seraphiel, too I guess," the boy said casually. His characteristic cool exterior seemed to be returning. "So you chill with Ariel and Leo? I haven't seen them in a minute. Been tryin' to leave all that senshi business alone since ..." he trailed off. The events at the end of school year were still fresh in his mind.
He had taken a life, and while it was nothing to his other half, it had wrecked havoc on the psyche of the eighteen-year old.
"Casper," Ian said, reaching back into his memory. "That's right, Amir and Leah mentioned you. Good to meet you. Wow, another one."
There was some movement behind Ian's back, and suddenly Jim's head popped up beside Ian's. "Whatcha' doin'? We were gonna leave, gettin' bored."
"Oh, I, uh, met an old friend of mine, and we were just talking. I'd kinda like to catch up with him," answered Ian. "You two can leave, I'll find my way back home."
"Whatever floats your boat, man," shrugged Jim. He waved and he and Ed left the pool hall, leaving Ian with Casper and his entourage.
"So... Where were we?" Ian asked, taking another drink from his glass.
"I was fittin' to go back to my game. Look, stay up, homey. I'm not down with all that senshi shit no more. Peace," Casper said, getting up and patting Ian on the shoulder.
Ian looked at Casper with disbelief in his eyes. "Wha, but, you..." he started. Ian was –really- wishing that Clare was there. He could have used her advice. "At least tell me why, Casper. I deserve that much, don't I? I meet you, then you tell me you aren't doing this anymore?"
"You don't want to know what he did ..." Casper said, turning back to Ian, his eyes flashing with anger and fear. He paused, jaw clenched. His cool exterior suddenly melted away, revealing what could only be described as a scared little boy.
He ran his hands through his curly mass of brown hair, and reclaimed his seat at the bar. He didn't say anything for a minute, and then began.
"Does your ... I mean ... does Gabriel Knight or whatever ..." Casper searched for the words carefully. "Do you have control over him?"
Ian stared at Casper for the second time in as many minutes, and tried to say something, but didn't know how to express it. "There have been times that, I don't know how to say it... I wasn't myself. I could feel something different when I went out on patrol. Like I wasn't really in control, like I was just watching." Here Ian looked down at his feet and mumbled, "and I felt vengeful, bloodthirsty." The boy looked back at Casper, tried to force a smile onto his face and said, "Just sometimes, though. That happen to you?" he asked, furrowing his brow.
Casper's eyes fell, and he absently ran his silver tongue ring between his lips.
"Yeah. But it's gotten worse. When I first got awakened, I was in full control. Now, it's like ... shit, it's like Seraphiel is just usin' my body," the boy explained carefully.
Ian hardly knew what to say. Here was a boy, filled with an awesome power, and deathly afraid of it and what it might do. "Well, hey, I..." he started unsuccessfully, and then moved to put his hand on Casper's shoulder. "I don't patrol with a partner that often, so if you wanted, I could patrol with you, or something, to keep an eye on you, if you wanted. If you still want to patrol anymore. I don't know... I suck at this, I know."
Casper gave him a half-hearted smile, and shrugged his shoulders. "I don' know, man. I haven't ... let him out all summer." He looked around absently, a decision slowly forming in his head.
"Well ... what the fuck, right?" he said finally, grabbing his coat off the bar stool.
"Right now? Well," Ian paused. "It's not like I'm doing anything else at the moment. Shall we?" he said with a grin, and standing up. "I'll tell you about a new team member I found a few weeks ago. Come on."
The two made their way onto a nearby roof, with Casper making a passing comment on how he was getting a little sick of the whole senshi-jumping-around-and-fighting-on-rooftops thing. When they made it to the top of one of Roanoke's taller buildings, the younger boy walked over to the edge, arms crossed apprehensively.
"I can feel 'im now, yo," Casper said after a few moments. "He wants to come out real bad." He absently fingered the ring on his finger. It glimmered with orange light, reflected off the street lamps below.
On a nearby rooftop sat Leliel Knight, the strands of his cape flapping gently in the breeze, taking a moment to collect his thoughts. He had already patrolled once or twice and always come up dry, yet Giles insisted that he go out anyway. As he looked at the street below, he tried to understand his place in the grand scheme of things. A quick look upward, however, interrupted his thoughts as he saw two figures on the roof of another building.
"That's weird..." Leliel muttered to himself. Perhaps they were only some kind of maintenance people, but in that case why would they be out at night? Besides, these particular people gave him a strange feeling, almost like he knew them from somewhere. Giles' advice echoed in his head: "If you see anything strange, investigate!" Well, if that was what he was supposed to do, then that was what he would do. Stealing one last glance to make sure the people were still on the other roof, Leliel turned and headed for the stairs.
Ian slipped the cross from underneath his shirt, and into the palm of his hand, and joined Casper at the edge of the rooftop, looked out at the city spread out before him, and said, "Well, you did say that you haven't been transforming and going out on patrol for a few months. That must be it. And remember, if anything happens, I'm here. As far as rooftops go, I'm at a loss, though. Most of the things that happen to me happen while I'm on the ground."
He turned his face towards Casper and reassured, "I'll go first." A few whispered words, the creation of a sword from his cross, flashes scarlet and yellow light, and Ian had been placed aside; in his stead stood Gabriel Knight, kneeling on the ground, hands clasped on his blade's handle. He turned his gaze once more to Casper, the blue in his eye startlingly clear, and the hazel in the other eye a crisper brown. "Will the Archangel of Battle follow suit?" he said with a smile.
Casper's brow furrowed darkly, a shiver running through his body. Ian transforming had stirred something within the boy's heart. Seraphiel wanted to come out.
With a quick swallow of air, Casper raised his finger to the sky, and closed his eyes.
"Seraphiel Archangelus Power ... Ascension," he whispered, before being enveloped in bright white flashes of energy. Tendrils of light twisted and spun around his form before he burst forth with a victorious roar. The change was done, and the Battle Archangel had once again been freed.
"Gabriel," he muttered with a mix of mild distaste and surprise. He flipped a stray brown curl out of his face, and glared at his "brother".
Leliel, on his own respective rooftop, had not quite made it to the stairs before he saw the "fireworks" of transformation going on as he watched the others.
"Now I know something's up..." he thought to himself. Opting against the stairs, he decided to try his luck out in the open. Goodness knew that his dark fuku and his shadow aura made him practically impossible to spot at a distance anyway.
Though he still had not completely adjusted to the benefits of senshidom, the enhanced physical abilities that came along in the package were more than welcome, and he took the opportunity to practice his rooftop-leaping ability, drawing closer to the other two senshi in an attempt to perhaps eavesdrop on them.
Gabriel looked at Seraphiel intently. There did seem to be something different about him, something more than he'd expected. "Seraphiel," Gabriel retorted. "It's good to meet you," he said, trying to keep his voice warm and friendly under his teammate’s cold glare.
"Meet me?" the Angelus scoffed. "We have known each-other since the beginning. You've let that meat sack you live in warp your perceptions." Seraphiel shook his head, obviously disgusted, and perched lightly onto the edge of the roof, scanning the world below.
Gabriel was taken aback, to say the least. He could see now why Casper had not patrolled for so long. Well, he was the one that pulled Casper out and had him do this. Now he'd have to deal with it. Yet a tiny part inside of Gabriel was, it couldn't be jealous, no, not that. Part of him wanted to know what it was like – he squelched it down. "Whatever the past was, Seraphiel, this is the present," he finally said.
"How astute," Seraphiel said flatly, whipping around to face Gabriel. "Time will never hold sway on US, brother. We are eternal, as is our mission. Slay the Fallen Ones. When I first... melded with this man-child, I let him believe that he was in full control of my powers, as a test. I wanted to see how far these humans had come since last I walked among them."
A siren wailed in the night, followed by a woman's scream in the distance. Seraphiel cocked his head slightly, then narrowed his gaze at Gabriel once again.
"Not far."
"You know as well as I do, perhaps better, that men are fallen too," Gabriel answered him. "Apples and snakes, remember? A dirty rag is still a rag, no matter how many times you wash it."
The last thing he'd expected was theosophy when he first met Casper, but here it was. Tonight was just full of surprises. He looked his `brother' back in the eyes, "Sin stains everything."
"Too true. Except us," Seraphiel surmised with a small chuckle. "We do His work. And you are procrastinating."
"Yes, sir... Seraphiel... whatever," Gabriel said. It was discombobulating, to say the least, having to deal with such a radical change in personalities. He wondered for a moment if he'd ever get used to it, then pushed the thought aside. Focus on what you're doing right now, think later. He nodded to Seraphiel, and the two leapt from the rooftop to the city below, speeding through the night to whatever fate awaited them.
Minutes later Leliel stood on the very same roof, puzzling over the whereabouts of the two he had observed and looking about for any trace of their passing. No evidence remained save for a bit of stirred gravel on the roof. Cursing himself for waiting too long to make his entrance he retired into the night, disappearing -- as he was wont to do -- into the shadows.