Prologue

Nijubu kicked aimlessly at some underbrush as he strode through the twilight woods alongside Jeremy. A warm spring day, NetWeather had said it would be a hot spring evening. The warehouse had little insulation either way, leaving the six boys at the mercy of the elements. It was bound to be a restless night. Birds twittered somewhere in the distance and the sounds of the city were non-existent in the copse behind the abandoned warehouse district. Though silent, Nij could feel Jeremy staring at him.

"What?"

The ponytailed young man stared through Nij, lost in thought.

"What's your story?"

The question was sudden, and caught the angel off-guard.

"Hm?" Nij chuckled. "Are you turning philosophical, too?"

"Huh? Pfft, me? Hell no." Jeremy linked his hands behind his head as they walked on. "Just wondering about you. You're just...I dunno."

"Different?"

"No, no, I mean—uh. Yeah, different, but not in a bad way or nothing," Jeremy quickly corrected himself.

"Huh, yeah, different..."

The two walked on in silence once more, both daydreaming.

"We've been friends since I started stalking you at the arcade last year, and I still know almost nothing about you."

"You never asked."

"Touché. So tell me."

Nij gazed sidelong at Jeremy.

"Tell you what?"

"Everything."

"Hah. That's a lot."

"I don't care. I want to know. I want to know all about you."

Nijubu sighed wearily.

"Okay. I'll give you the short version, so listen up."

______________________________


It's been said that I was born in turmoil. I remember nothing of it. There's this feeling, this great sense of loss and longing. It's like an unimaginable happiness that's just out of reach. I guess that comes with the action. Falling. Hah, not falling. Being hurled out of a cannon is more like it. Shoot, you fall in love with the wrong being, and they kick you out of Heaven. So I fell. I fell because of love. The Morningstar fell because of a single doubt. I guess he got the short end of the stick.

I wasn't sent to Hell, thankfully. That whole Second Chance thing, I guess. I was locked in Purgatory. That Italian poet compared it to a beautiful but sad garden. In reality, it's nothing. Nothing at all. No being, no feeling, no thought, nothing. Just waiting. The dead wait for Heaven or Hell. The eternal wait for the Universe. My chance came, after...however long I was there. A voice spoke to me in the darkness. Found me and called out to me. It gave me my second chance. I didn't care what that chance was, I was going to take it. So. I was to become a guardian. I was to be a guardian angel for the prince of a world in darkness. A prince. Not the prince. He was created, frankly. He was a guardian, himself. His name was Chameos, of Aeos. He was a robotic man, a cyborg, built by the king to protect his only true child, Soleos, from a crazed lost soul seeking power. In a perfect world, through time, the cyborg would have become like a second son. A twin brother to the prince, another member of the royal family. He would have liked to think he became that, this cyborg. But it wasn't a perfect world. There was still this distance. This coldness. Chameos was still just a cyborg built to fulfill his job. He was still alone. Outwardly, he'd never let you see that, of course. His kamikaze smile showed off his family, his mother and father and brother. In his mind, he was a prince. In reality he was just another servant.

And then the crazed lost soul that had threatened the true prince from birth finally attacked. Soleos crept away to fight, and Chameos followed. My colleagues and I were too busy fighting a war to protect the planet itself to notice. The twin boys left on their own. Only Cam returned. As a servant, his life was a failure. Any fantasy he may have set up for himself concerning a family and whatnot was gone. Though little changed outwardly concerning Cam, emotionally he was an utter outcast. Soleos was gone, the king and queen were traumatized, and the kingdom was never the same. He had failed, and through him, so had I. I tried my best then, but the boy was inconsolable. He resigned to leave, citing the faint hope that Soleos was still alive, somewhere, and that he would raise his own army to combat the beast that had taken the true prince. It was insanity, but what else was I to do to rescue the boy from himself? I followed unnoticed, keeping an eye on him and assisting every so often. A season passed. Chameos amassed his own small group of friends throughout his travels. True friends. Those that loved him and understood him for who he really was, if only because they only had each other. But six souls teetering on the edge of spiritual twilight are hardly enough to combat an unworldly evil. So the friends eventually divided and returned to their corners of the globe. Chameos returned to his home, hopeless and depressed once more. But that wasn't the end of it. Not nearly..

One night we slept, and in the morning Cam was gone. Just gone. No one but my two colleagues and myself was the least worried. Those that had shunned him assured us he would return within a day or two, but I really don't think they cared either way. On the third day I made up my mind to search for him myself. I used what little Heavenly energies I had left to locate him, and I was nearly floored when...well. When I found him here. On Earth. Long story short, I tracked Cam down, spoke with him, and realized he refused to return. He had been pulled away when the group of hackers called Viral Infection experimented with travel between worlds, and his own subconscious kept him from returning. I was at a loss. I wandered this world for some time, but I was continually drawn back to this city, to Chameos. Before, when Soleos was lost, I still had Cam. I still had a duty to perform, if only for myself. I suppose I still have a duty, really. But this time it's for him.

______________________________


"But this time it's for him."

Nijubu stared through the trees in the distance, lost in another world. Jeremy continued to stare at him, and Nij eventually turned to meet his gaze.

"What?" the angel asked.

"Where do you come up with this shit? Harry Potter?"

Nij narrowed his eyes at him.

"Hey, don't start that again."

Jeremy laughed, and Nij soon joined. They leaned on a tree, side-by-side, staring up silently at the deep purple sky.

"You're really an angel?"

Jeremy, in as short a time as he had known Nijubu, had never known him to be a liar. He didn't truly doubt him then, either. He figured he'd go with the flow, anyway.

"Ex-angel."

"Oh."

A long time passed in silence.

"Do you think...do you think that lost soul could follow Cam here?"

Nijubu thought about this.

"Frankly, I don't know. Maybe. But if that happens...if the lost soul does find a way here, Cam will fight. If there's one redeeming quality about the boy, it's that he almost never gives up hope. And if he goes to fight it, I have no choice but to follow. But..."

Nij trailed off.

"...But?"

"But, if this soul is more powerful than I've estimated," the angel continued, slowly, "then this whole world could be in turmoil."

There was a dramatic pause before Jeremy responded.

"You know, this would make a good Final Fantasy game."

"Do you always have to ruin the moment?"

Jeremy simply grinned in reply.

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