gods among demons

Fallen.Abaddon.1

Theoretically, I know exactly where I came from. The basics, at least.

When we're cast down, we retain our names and mine struck fear into the hearts of everyone I met.

The mighty Abaddon, the destroyer seraphim, God's fiercest warrior, most prized friend, and trusted confidant, had been cast down. No one, myself included, knew what could be so heinous of a deed that I would become a fallen, my once pristine white wings now gigantic black bat wings and my halo now a glowing vermillion, constantly dripping crimson blood onto my silky ankle-length white hair.

I had it relatively easy.

My name was enough to make most fall to their knees, and when my hand-to-hand and weapons combative abilities combined with my new powers, the world was at my fingertips.

No one could touch me and I was something similar to the very god I used to be faithful to.

And yet it still kept me up at night. What was heaven like? Did people laugh there? All there seemed to be in hell was grotesque cackles and twisted grins. Surely, that meant heaven was filled with warm smiles and honeyed giggles? Genuine emotions, actual care for the things around you. Things I couldn't ever remember feeling.

Was that why I was cast down? Because I'd never belonged there in the first place? Because I was the same as the demons I'd worked so hard to murder all in the name of a master who threw me away like day-old garbage in the end?

No. There was something wrong. Something more.

Maybe it was denial or a coping mechanism but I was almost sure that I wasn't cast out as a punishment. It was a precaution.

I found something that no one was ever meant to.

______

"This sounds like a horrendous idea." Donghae said off-handedly.

I was less than thrilled as well. "I agree. Supplying weapons to GOT7, Devon's assassins, Net's spies, Zen's navigators, Nova's air trades. Those would drive profit through the roof, sure, but let's look at the facts here. Devon is a raving lunatic."

Irene nodded, the glass of cognac hit the table softly as one of the lower-rank employees ran to get her some more. "She's not in this business for the reasons we are. She's in this for fun. We all know the stories, we know how many enemies she has, she's way too much of a liability. GOT7. Shadow. Nova. Maybe even Net. Those are smart business ideas. The rest aren't."

Joy scoffed, looking as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Those are the safest business ideas, sure, but they're certainly not the smartest. GOT7 are the only ones you named that would have an actual need for an arms supplier on our scale. Devon's assassins. Net's intel spies. Have you even thought of the money we'd make selling to them plus weapons for Nova's aircrafts and Zen's impersonators? If we should choose anyone, it's them."

"Unfortunately, I don't think it's much of a choice." Seulgi drawled, eyes scanning the written proposal as they have been since the meeting started close to half an hour ago. "From what I'm able to read off the ink, it isn't explicitly a package deal, but it's likely to be bets off if it isn't."

"And?" Irene scoffed, her face hard and unagreeable, "With or without this partnership, we're still the top arms dealers and one of the top organizations in general. This is risk we don't need."

"You play on the safe side too much," Joy smirked, her short, but sharp midnight black nails, eerily similar to a Wytch's iron talons, creating a dull, drumming sound against the polished oak table. She almost reminded me of the Wytch Devon, if she hadn't been missing Devon's trademark sickening sweetness issues.

"The fact of the matter is, given the unbeatable track record of the leaders of all these organizations, we're unlikely to suffer any losses and the gains would be beyond our wildest imagination."

Donghae shook his head as Leeteuk, seeming to share his skepticism, replied, "Greed has overthrown all the mightiest in history."

Joy giggled. "Human history, Leeteukie. You have to stop spending so much time around the human-born."

Chungha was normally the first to voice her opinion but now she was silent, eyes misty with a far-off, pained look as she gazed without seeing out of the bullet-proof panoramic window behind my side of the table.

"What do you see, KC?"

Chungha's eyes snapped to Irene, her face blank for a moment before being overtaken by a perplexed expression. "I...I don't know. Agreeing causes a big impact on the future, but I don't know any details, not even if it's good or bad."

Every face sitting at the table, even Joy's, looked troubled now. The last time we went through with something that Chungha couldn't see...it didn't end well.

But that time Chungha had warned us against it. Now, she turned to me, still with that bizarre look on her face and said, "I think you should at least go to the meeting tomorrow. Hear them out and make the best decision. I need to be alone for a while. I might have more information for you tomorrow."

The clacking of Chungha's platform hells was the only sound as she swept gracefully out of the conference room.

None of us quite knew what to make of that.

I couldn't think of what outcome could be big enough to cloud Chungha's vision so much and make her act so strange. It couldn't be our deaths, that's not that big of a shift in the future in the grand scheme of things and only a human would think it was. Plus, she'd seen outcomes that ended in our deaths before, no problem, albeit they were never from decisions I would have actually made.

"I'll hear them out. I want all of you there with me, all guards up, all weapons hidden, no one says a word besides me, not even a whisper. I've heard shit about what they can do, we're taking all precautions, you don't think anything out of order, you don't feel anything you wouldn't announce to a room full of people, and under no circumstances are you to make physical contact with anyone there, including each other. Everyone leave Chungha and I alone for tonight and rest up. I need to think."

The board room cleared out quickly and soon, it was just me and the file folders we'd been poring over. Devon's was basically useless, more a long list describing her antics that went excessively public because that's all anyone can find. Net's file doesn't even exist, the only confirmed information being that thair nickname is Net. The only file that seemed to be of any kind of decent length was GOT7's.

It was the only file I immediately dropped in shock once I opened it and saw the face staring back at me.

Im Jaebum. The Im Jaebum I was supposed to protect with my life when I was an angel.

What...How do I remember that? Is he why I got kicked out?

And what went so wrong that he ended up here in hell doing this?