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Ever since she'd been forced back to Heaven with her tail between her legs, Lute had been itching for this. Taking advantage of Sera's paranoia to get a few exorcists to accompany her to the embassy, making sure she was one of them, and then slipping away - it had been practically child's play. None of the divine expected disobedience, certainly not from an exorcist.
It is just her and Vaggi. The Morningstar brat will never get here in time, and with the lobby ablaze none of the sinners are yet to brave the smoke and flames to come to Vaggi's aid. The two of them, just how it is supposed to be.
Vaggi’s fist takes Lute across the cheek; it snaps her head to the side; something inside her face cracks and the taste of copper fills her mouth. Vision blurring, Lute backpedals to create distance and falls into a guarded stance. Fists up. Ready. Vaggi does not press the attack and her vision stabilizes in seconds; Lute spits blood onto the carpeted floor of the hotel lobby.
“That’s all you’ve got? Fucking pathetic.”
“Only one of us is spitting up blood, bitch.” Vaggi shoots back. She is desperate and masks it with anger, Lute knows her well enough to see through the facade. Vaggi is trapped and they both know it. The only way out is through Lute. In the open Vaggi could outpace Lute, here, in the confines of the hotel lobby, Lute would be on her in a heartbeat.
"Barely a scratch," Lute scoffs. "A fledgling hits harder than you."
Vaggi whips her spear at Lute's head; hands behind her back Lute leans to the side at the last second.
Growling, Vaggi follows up with the butt of her spear, and Lute smirks as she dances around the blow. Good. Let Vaggi's frustration grow, let her become desperate. Lute has all the time in the world. She wants to savor this.
But Vaggi knows her, and knows how to twist the knife too. "You're really going to die for a dead man's ego?"
No. She is wrong. Adam was better than any of them. All of Hell will become his funeral pyre. Lute pirouettes and hammers a strike at Vaggi's head, any thoughts of patience long gone. "Fucking traitor!"
Vaggi catches the blow and the force of impact shakes Lute's arms. With a clean flick she tosses Lute's sword aside and slams her spear into Lute's thigh. Her armor holds, but the blow bruises and pain shoots through her leg.
"Look how far you've fallen. Disobeying a Seraph's orders? You'll join the traitor club soon enough."
"Not if I bring back your fucking head!" If she can just kill the traitor, everything can be made right. An eye for an eye. The world will wake up from this madness, the princess will break, and Lute can finally rest.
"You sure about that, dangertits?"
"Yes! Shut up!"
The way Vaggi's eyes narrow is not lost on Lute, but she doesn't care. Both hands on her sword Lute rains down a flurry of brutal strikes on Vaggi, her raw strength enough to counter the extra torque Vaggi's spear allows her. Lute scores her first blood, a deep gash on Vaggi's bicep.
"Enough!" Vaggi shouts, and she catches Lute's sword on her spear. Blood pours from her arm as she shoves Lute backwards; she flings her wings wide for balance but Vaggi is already rushing her, spear raised.
There is steel in Vaggi's eye. She is not waiting for deliverance, she aims to kill Lute as surely as Lute aims to kill her. For a moment Lute is back on the sparring mat, and the crackling flames are replaced by the cheers of their sisters.
…
Lute circled Corporal Vaggie. Searching for an opening. Sniffing for any minuscule tell. A tensing of muscles, a flick of the eyes. A hundred tiny gestures that might – or might not – herald an attack. Each clench of the hand, each flick of the wingtip; Lute and Vaggie knew one another’s tells like they knew their own names.
Five feet separated them. Lute bounced, light, nimble on the balls of her feet. She doesn’t watch the wings, she watches the shoulders, and – there! – a rippling tension in Vaggie’s back that a quarter second later unfurled her wings and beat them downwards in a single, beautiful fluid motion.
Just enough time for Lute to take half a step to the right – her strong side, presenting her weak to Vaggie – counterintuitive movements the only ploy the corporal might not see through. Lute flapped her own wings; only moving her pollices lest it slowed her counter. Vaggie cleared her by inches. Close enough that Lute felt the rushing air, heard her grunt of effort and frustration as her attempt to end the fight early failed.
Close enough for Lute to pivot and drive an armored boot into the back of Vaggie’s knee. She stumbled; Lute dove for her, the half dozen paces cleared in half a second.
Half a second was long enough for Vaggie to plant a foot, pivot, and round on Lute. Her right fist took Lute in the gut. Pain blossomed across her side. Sharp. Clarifying. Just enough to make Lute grit her teeth and glare at Vaggie. Nowhere near enough to stop her. Toss a punch at Vaggie’s face – telegraphed on purpose, but if she didn’t pull back it would have laid her out. Catch her right arm before she can pull back and pull Vaggie in.
Lute hammered her boot into Vaggie’s side and she staggered back, her right arm torn from Lute’s grasp. In the time dilation of combat Lute noticed the welts her nails carved into Vaggie’s wrist. She stepped forward, aiming to follow up with a knee to Vaggie’s face; the corporal was tough and delivered a hard block to Lute’s knee. It hurt more than the gut punch. For a moment Lute worried that Vaggie had found the tricky nerve beneath her kneecap, but there was nothing for it if she had and Lute can only push on.
Vaggie leapt out of the block and pivoted; Lute was not able to get clear of her massive wingspan and the point of Vaggie’s wing wrist battered through Lute’s hasty guard and drove into her chest. Something snapped inside her chest and Lute was knocked from her feet. Bundling her wings she rolled with the fall, letting muscle memory take over while her brain isolated and suppressed the pain.
…
Vaggi will come to her. Lute will have her revenge, and when the Princess returns, she will watch the demon bitch break, break as she has broken. A hollow shell, filled with too much grief to contain, so much grief that it pours out of her but Lute is stronger than any demon and she has shaped that rage, forged it into a blade and aimed it straight at the throat of Hell’s rulers.
Lute laughs as she parries Vaggi's thrust, her blade blurring into an impenetrable defense. A familiar voice laughs alongside her, and Lute feels alive, her blood sings. "Do you think she'll cry? Your demon bitch?"
She says nothing. A tightening of the eyes and a flick of her wings gives her away, and Lute keeps pushing as she turns a thrust. "When I throw your head at her feet-" riposte, a sword thrust, she falls back to a guard when Vaggi evades the strike, "do you really think she'll mourn you? A liar. A traitor. An exorcist."
Every flinch she draws from Vaggi floods her with warmth. She takes the bait and rushes Lute, wings driving her forward so fast that she blurs.
Lute sidesteps. Vaggi’s spear angles to track her, aimed at her throat, leaving her with no choice but to turn the blow on her sword. The impact rings throughout the deserted lobby, over the gunfire outside and the crackle of flames.
Pain shoots down Lute’s arm as it absorbs the force of their collision; she is spun sideways and plants her foot to halt her momentum. Behind her Vaggi turns one wing out and pivots to face her, teeth gritted as she glares at Lute. Two furious steps to close their range and Vaggi swings at Lute, high and from the left. Duck to the left under the blow. Lunge while she resets. Graze her left arm, but she is good – of course she is, Lute had trained her impeccably and years of fighting in Hell have only hardened her. Vaggi’s guard is back up in an instant and the butt of her spear takes Lute in the gut.
Armor absorbs some of the blow. Lute grunts as the air is driven from her lungs, diaphragm spasming. Vaggi presses the attack and kicks Lute in the knee. Predictable, but Lute has lost the initiative and cannot react in time. Her leg buckles, and instead of fighting it she rolls even as the tendons in her knee scream in protest, even as her lower leg ragdolls behind her.
"You're wrong, Lute. Charlie sees me. She cares about me as a person, which is more than you ever did!"
Lunge, aiming a right-handed slash at Vaggi’s head. "Of course I fucking cared about you!" She turns the blow. Lute recovers and reverses for a downward slash at her abdomen. "I fucking loved you!" Tears flow freely beneath her mask. Reach forward, but she’s retreated and thrusts her spear at Lute's chest. Lute grabs at the shaft with her taloned prosthetic but Vaggi has already pulled back. Her hand closes on empty air and Lute growls.
"You beat me into the ground every other week!" Vaggi launches into the air, diving at Lute with her spear. She sidesteps, and Vaggi arcs back up above her head. "And when it came down to it, you chose him!"
Vaggi throws her spear at Lute and follows instantly with a rapid dive. Pivoting clear of the spear, Lute can't avoid Vaggi and the collision drives the breath from Lute's lungs; her ribs snap and they both go to the ground. Her sword is knocked from her hand and clatters away, out of reach.
"I did what I had to fucking do!" Vaggi has pinned her prosthetic, one boot planted firmly on Lute's wrist. She drives her right hand, clad in an armored glove, into Vaggi's side over and over. "You fucked up! You left me no goddamn choice!"
With her free hand Vaggi grabs Lute's face and squeezes, digging her fingers into Lute's eyes. Agony explodes across her face as her vision goes dark. Writhing helplessly against Vaggi's hold, Lute fumbles for her boot, fingers skittering against her leg. For a moment she thinks she isn't going to make it, that Vaggi is going to blind her - eye for an eye, Lute's brain helpfully chimes in - but her fingers close around the handle of her dagger.
…
Vaggie wouldn’t lick her wounds, too experienced, too deadly to fall back to the circling hold a lesser fighter might default to. Before Lute was halfway through the roll her wings were out, the first wing beat pulled her out of the roll and the second launched her up into a somersault that buys her space, space to see what Vaggie is doing. While time flowed around her like a lazy river, Vaggie appeared to her in a series of snapshots.
Mid-breath, straightening. Iron in her spine and fire in her eyes, and God, was she gorgeous.
Wings out and arms up, ready to attack. The fire in her eyes still burned but it was controlled now, calculating.
Almost a blur, black and white and gray but for the red-yellow of her eyes. Her wings drove her forwards, twenty feet to build up momentum.
Time resumed its flow and Lute landed in a crouch. Coiled. Primed. Not waiting, she sprung, even as Vaggie flipped around and aimed her boots at Lute’s chest. A blow that would crush her ribs if it landed in full. Lute would have chewed her ass out if she tried something like that full force against a fledgling or even one of the younger exorcists, but as her steel rimmed boots came at her Lute only laughed.
High and clear, for by God did she feel alive.
Take a little and gain a lot. Lute bent at the ankles and wrapped her arms around Vaggie’s legs in an awkward bear hug. Another rib or two fractures and she can feel the burn in her lungs; hear the broken ends scrape against one another as the rib oscillates inside her, vibrations that run up to her skull.
She could also hear the surprised intake of breath from Vaggie as she is pivoted over Lute’s head and slammed face first into the flimsy excuse for a mat that covers the concrete of the training room.
Blood sprayed, a beautiful golden sunflower seeping into the stained rubber mat. This time, Vaggie screamed. It counted, Lute thought, among the most beautiful sounds she had ever heard. Lute hit the ground beside her, ribs screaming in pain and stars dancing across her vision as the back of her head cracked against the barely padded floor.
For but a moment Creation held her breath as the two combatants fought through the haze of pain and brain injury. Peace amidst the storm of violence.
It was still only a moment. Lute’s vision cleared, the ceiling came into focus. Gray tile, interspersed at regular intervals with frosted glass hiding fluorescent lights. Sound returned next. Panting breaths – hers and Vaggie’s both – drowned out the hum of the overheads. Cries and whistles from their sisters scarcely pierced the haze; they were distant, quiet – irrelevant.
Lute slammed her palm into the mat, levering her battered body up. Her chest screamed in protest, begging her to stop, to lie down. Pain. Irrelevant and distracting. Her breath came shallow but regular, every ounce of air carefully conserved. She rolled atop Vaggie and straddled her, wrenching her arm around.
Vaggie screamed.
Lute tapped twice, the gesture a mockery calling for Vaggie to yield.
…
Lute doesn't hesitate and drives it into Vaggi's side. Blood drenches her hand instantly; blinking her damaged eyes back to life Lute can see Vaggi's blurry figure pressing her hand to her thigh. Taking advantage of her lapse in concentration, Lute twists her hips and sends Vaggi flying. Desperately, she looks for her sword. Nothing. It must have been thrown past the flames, out of reach. No matter. Lute still has her claws, and those are enough to finish the job.
"Fucking bitch," Vaggi laughs, a manic look in her eye as she wrenches her spear out of the ground. "You can dish it out but you can't take it."
"Can't-" What the fuck is she on about? Did she forget that Lute ripped her own fucking arm off? If it comes down to it she'll simply outlast the traitor while they tear each other apart. "You didn't actually fucking think I was going to let you gouge my eyes out?"
Vaggi spits blood, gold against the red carpet, "It's the least you deserve."
"There she is!" Lute says. The exorcist in Vaggi. The trained, vicious killer - Lute's greatest creation. "A few good knocks and the exorcist comes out to play." Lute circles, waiting for an opening. That spear is deadly, but if she can get past it… "Your new sinner friends - do they know just how many you've killed? Or did they take you for a fledgling, fallen in your first extermination?"
Vaggi falters, just a hair - anyone else would never have noticed, but Lute noticed. Even now she can't get Vaggi out of her mind and it infuriates her. Lute charges, three steps covered in the blink of an eye; instead of impaling her Vaggi's spear smacks against her shoulder. Barely a sting through her armor.
Lute is inside her guard. She is winded and sore, blood still trickling from the broken teeth in her face, her vision still clouded with spots and unfocused. Vaggi is bleeding and favoring her right side. This close her spear is useless and they both know it.
Then Vaggi does something Lute doesn't expect, but she really should have. She drops her spear, grabs the collar of Lute's armor, and headbutts her. Hard. Then she does it again, and follows up with a knee between Lute's legs for good measure. Lute buckles, dazed, and Vaggi rides her to the ground again.
"Of course they fucking know," Vaggi screams in Lute's face, spit and blood spraying her. "Unlike-" Lute wraps her legs around Vaggi's hips and bucks, sending them rolling. Vaggi is good, too good, and doesn't let Lute reverse the pin; she shimmies out from under Lute like greased lightning. She retrieves her spear, but Lute is already inside her guard. Vaggi still won't shut the fuck up. "We were fucking monsters Lute! At least I can own up to it, instead of cowering behind denial!"
So Lute will make her shut up. She grabs Vaggi’s arm with the claws of her prosthetic and they bite deep. Metal scrapes against bone and Vaggi howls, her right hand falling from the spear as she tries to wrench her arm free.
Her thrashing only pulls Lute's claws through more of her flesh, severing tendons and ligaments, digging in between the radius and ulna and lodging there.
Tied together as they are, Lute has no way to evade the butt of Vaggi's spear.
The first blow breaks Lute’s nose. Blood sprays, and she snarls at Vaggi. Their faces are less than a foot apart now. Lute can see the sweat on Vaggi’s brow. The flecks of blood splattered across her face, whose, Lute is not sure. Her eyepatch is slightly askew, exposing a sliver of the old scarring on her face.
Even as she whales on Lute's face, Lute curls her lip in as cruel of a snarl as is possible and makes a mocking 'tap out' gesture, a common taunt in exorcist sparring matches. "If we're such monsters, why the fuck did you stay?"
Another blow from Vaggi's spear snaps something in Lute's jaw. Stars swim behind her eyes as Vaggi rears back for another strike.
Before it can land, Lute drives her knee into Vaggi's gut. "Why didn't you leave, huh, Vags?" Lute continues as Vaggie doubles over, held upright only by Lute's claws in her arm. Lute holds the cards now and she relishes in it - and she will not repeat the mistake that cost her an arm. Working with deadly efficiency, Lute plants her foot and pivots. Stunned and helpless to resist, Vaggi is swung in an arc until her bodyweight tears her arm free of Lute's claws in an explosion of gore.
To her credit, she keeps a hold on her spear even after being thrown into a brick wall.
Lute launches herself across the room like a shot. Vaggi will recover, she needs to get to her before she dies. Her shoulders burn as she pushes herself faster and faster, fractions of a second dragging out as Lute watches Vaggi pull her spear around and brace the butt against some rubble. Shit. That is bad. Very bad. She's got maybe half a second before Vaggi turns her into an angelic kebab, so Lute twists midair, throwing everything she has into changing her trajectory.
It is not quite enough, and a howl echoes across the hotel lobby as white hot fire lances through Lute's side. She can't breathe, bile floods her mouth as her muscles spasm erratically. Independent of conscious thought Lute is vaguely aware of her wings beating, training and instinct taking over to remove her from the immediate threat. It does little good, as Lute is pinned on Vaggi's spear through the fleshy part of her stomach.
Blood fills her mouth, and Lute spits it in Vaggi's face. The way she flinches is enough to ground Lute. It buys her time to take quick stock of her injuries. "Is that the best you can do, cunt? You'll have to fucking try harder than that." She pulls herself further onto the spear, wrapping her claws around Vaggi's throat. "If you hated it so much, why did you stay?"
Tears ran down Vaggi's cheeks as she stared death in the eyes and screamed in her face, "Because I never wanted to be anywhere but at your side!"
Lute froze.
Her first rule of fighting, never stop moving - and she broke it.
Then, she paid for it.
Vaggi wrenched the talons from around her throat, and walked Lute backwards. The pain hardly registered as Vaggi pinned her to the floor and drove her boot into her neck. Her wings beat with a mind of their own, a hindbrain reaction to being trapped, but Lute didn't care. Not when Vaggi was above her, not when her tears flowed freely.
"I fucking loved you, Lute! I would have died for you, I'd have gone through hell for you!" She laughs, brittle and broken. "Guess I did in the end, huh?"
Vaggi turned her face away from Lute. Swiped her sleeve across her eyes, and Lute looked away. She was as broken as Vaggi's laughter. Muscles, refusing to move.
She put up no resistance as Vaggi pulled her arm off. Hardly batted an eye when Lucifer and Charlie showed up and started bandaging her wounds. Lute wasn't there, not really. All she could see was the look of betrayal on Vaggi's face, that day in the alley.
How wrong she had been. Vaggi had never been the traitor - Lute was, she had been all this time. She had been so caught up in her crusade, in her need to impress Adam, to maintain discipline, all of it, that she had forgotten her duty to protect her exorcists.
Or, well, she hadn't forgotten… it had simply gotten warped and twisted, just like everything else that Lute laid her hands on. Hand. Whatever. Her entire glove, once pristine white, is stained a sickly yellow-brown. Dried angel blood. She could take it off, but the blood would never go away.
Vaggi pulls her to her feet, once the spear is extricated. Lute had barely flinched, even as they pushed the shaft through her and packed gauze into her abdomen. What right did she have to pity? None. None at all. She deserved all this and more, just like Vaggi had said. Eye for an eye, but the princess was too damn soft to give Lute what she deserved.
Too soft even to leave her to suffer while they clean up and bandage Vaggi's own wounds, depositing Lute on a slightly charred couch. Only the knife wound to Vaggi's gut requires packing, the arm they bind up as best they can. It will require surgery, or else divine healing. Emily would probably be willing.
A conversation takes place out of earshot. Everything hurts far too much for her to crane her ears, but there is a lot of gesturing. Frustrated on Charlie's part, met with placating gestures from Vaggi. Eventually they reach some kind of conclusion and Vaggi leaves Charlie with Lucifer and comes to pick Lute up off the couch.
With gentle touches Vaggi directs Lute to walk. She thinks it would be better if Vaggi was harsh, if she shoved her. That, at least, she knows what to do with. Spitting venom, clawing at each other's throats - that was how they had been in Heaven, so why should it change now?
The two angels come to a room. A bed with silk sheets, a dresser, an en suite bathroom. Red and gold everywhere. Morningstar's colors. Blood on the carpet downstairs. Vaggi helps lower her into bed. Part of Lute is thankful. Most of her wishes Vaggi had dropped her instead.
"Look, you should get some rest," Vaggi says, not looking at her. "I'll bring you water. Food in the morning."
She hesitates. Waiting, perhaps. Vaggi has changed. Somehow. Angels are slow to change, created as they are from a realm of order. Three years, and Vaggi has changed. Could Lute also change? Vaggi's hand grasps the doorknob as she makes to leave.
"Thank you," Lute rasps. Her first words since Vaggi put her on the ground. Talking is too painful to say more, but she looks at Vaggi.
Vaggi looks back, and smiles at her. There is sadness there, but somehow, there is also hope. "You're welcome." She opens the door. "I'll be back with that water. Don't get up."
The door closes, leaving Lute alone with her thoughts and a simple promise. For now, it will have to be enough.
…
What Lute did not expect was for Vaggi to take a page from her own book. Lute was known for being willing to subject herself to immense amounts of pain and even serious injury to win a fight. It was an ability that she had trained over centuries, using some… less than willing demonic volunteers. Few were willing to break their own bones, tear their own flesh, or drive themselves onto a blade - so they rarely expected Lute to do just that. Serious resistance to exterminations had not existed for centuries, so the younger exorcists - such as Vaggie - were not trained to the same degree.
Surprise froze Lute for precious seconds as Vaggie twisted, dislocating her own arm with a pop that carried over the din of cheering exorcists. Lute was impressed, and then in a lot of pain as Vaggie drove her hand into Lute's kidney, which - yeah, Lute should have expected that one. She deserved that, Lute thought, even as she doubled over.
She was far from done though. Keeping careful control over her breathing, Lute focused on the pain, coalescing the paralyzing, twitching, stinging agony in her side into a single dot and then mentally squeezing that dot from her body. When the pain started to ebb, she breathed a sigh of relief, and, while Vaggie tried to buck her off from below, reared back and slammed her elbow into Vaggie's face.
Blood splattered, and Lute grinned. Again, she slammed her elbow down, and something gave. Vaggie was blurry, a haze of red covered Lute's vision. Was that even Vaggie beneath her? It didn't matter, whoever it was, they were prey. Quarry, tracked down and ready to be dispatched. Distantly Lute registered screaming, and it sounded familiar, but she raised her elbow for a final, finishing blow. Twisting her torso, Lute put everything she had into the blow, bringing it dow-
Something slammed into her arm and deflected it, and Lute whipped around to growl at whoever had interrupted her. And then, through the haze of bloodlust and the pounding in her ears, she felt the tapping on her leg. Vaggie had yielded, and Lute hadn't even noticed. Nausea erupts in her, sudden and overpowering - she had nearly killed Vaggie. "No… fuck, no, Vags, are you alright?"
"Ughhhh… where's the train."
Laughter spills from Lute, nervous, though she'd never admit it out loud. She can't risk being too close with Vaggie, not before half the army, but she can get her to Scalpel to be checked out and then she can try and comfort her. Lute grimaced. Comfort was never something she was any good at, but Vaggie had always said she did fine - when she was able to be comforting without giving away what went on between them.
Whatever, she was getting distracted. Lute chopped a mental hand through that line of thought and focused on Vaggie, who was just now stirring.
"Wait, you are in no condition to walk. I will take you to Scalpel," Lute said, placing a hand on Vaggie's chest to keep her from trying to sit up. She turned to the assembled exorcists and searched for the nearest officer. There. "Corporal Harper, take over the sparring matches while I take Corporal Vaggie to the infirmary."
"Tracking," Harper said, her sandpaper voice carrying over the din to Lute as though she was right beside her. Combined with the hungry way Harper always stared at Lute, it was a little unsettling, but she pushed it aside. Not relevant or important right now. Gathering Vaggie in her arms, one beneath her shoulder and the other under her knees, Lute lifted the armored exorcist like she weighed less than a child.
Of course, Vaggie was actually quite heavy, but Lute would be damned if she showed even the slightest bit of struggle before her exorcists - or worse, Vaggie. Gentle arms wrapped around Lute's neck, forcing her to focus quite intently if she wanted to keep her eyes ahead and not walk into something. Or if she wanted her knees to not give out, or if she wanted to refrain from giving in and kissing Vaggie like tomorrow might never come… no, not the time or place for such thoughts. Stress relief later, once they are both healed up.
With Vaggie in her arms, Lute beelines for the infirmary, blissfully unaware of the whispers and rumors that follow in her wake. She injured one of her exorcists, she should take her to the infirmary. Training should not be compromised for anyone else simply because her and Vaggie got carried away. No, this was simply the most rational option. Surely she was seeing things in the weird, indecipherable looks the other exorcists gave her. She should probably get Scalpel to check her for a concussion as well, while she was there.
If that just so happened to mean she was still there when Vaggie woke up, well, that would be pleasant and not at all something that Lute would ever wish to happen.