It had been one hell of a day. Literally.
The not too tall figure was making his way through the gloomy, stony environment before sitting down on a large piece of rock. He was a little bit lost, he'd be the first to admit that. But he held no doubt that the one looking for him would find him eventually.
Blue-golden light spilled over the uneven walls, revealing several other smaller caves. Sighing very deeply the small figure on the rock didn't notice that he was being watched. Not before he heard a smooth voice.
"What arre you?"
Startled, he looked up, big green eyes blinking. "Me? I'm a little devil. What are you?" His gaze landed on a blond creature perched upon a shelf in the cave wall. Greenish eyes with oval pupils watched him curiously.
"A little devil? But you don't have any horrns. Little devils have horrns." The blond who had been laying flat on his stomach, hands supporting his chin, rolled over. Now he was looking at the other upside-down. The movement produced further movement next to him as a similar, yet darkhaired creature sat up, stretching a little. He too studied the smaller figure awaitingly.
"I do have horns!" the little devil protested. Smoothing down the auburn coloured hair, he revealed, in fact, two small horns.
"See? Horns." He pointed to emphasize his point.
He still hadn't convinced the green-eyed blond, or his darker friend.
"They'rre small horrns," the brunet offered, draped over the blond. "Wherre's yourr tail then? Hmm?"
The little devil turned around, showing them the aforementioned tail. Turning back around again, he crossed his arms over his chest and glared at them.
"Horns and tail, see?"
The brunet yawned, showing off plenty of white, sharp teeth. "Alrright, you arre a little devil. What's yourr name?"
The little devil sat down and stared at them. "Ezra."
The name was followed by a deep giggle. "Ezrra? You arre a little devil and your name is Ezrra?"
"Hey!" Green eyes were scowling now. "Some of us are called Ezra, some of us are called Xlighjrhd and some are called Tipper Gore. What's the big deal?"
"No big deal," the blond, still upside-down, replied. The brunet was studying his nails, then he glanced down his own back.
"My tail's longerr than yourrs." A long, thick and black tail, complete with a flat, heartshaped tip slid slowly over his thigh. "And I think I'll call you Ez. I like Ez," he added thoughtfully. The blond agreed.
"What are you?" Ezra asked, rather mesmerized by his newfound friends. And their tails.
"We?" The blond had sat up, legs dangling over the side. Leaning back into the brunet, he smiled prettily. "We'rre catdemons. We live herre." He cocked his head. "You know, you'rre a cute little devil. What arre you doing herre?"
Another deep sigh. "I...uhm...kinda got kicked out of hell. They said I was..." The rest got lost in inaudible murmurs.
"You werre..?" the blonde catdemon offered, quirking an eyebrow.
"You never told me your names," Ezra quickly asked in return.
"I'm Chrris, he's Buck, and don't change the subject."
"They said I was too nice," the little devil sighed, hanging his head in shame.
Before the two demons could reply, there was a light coming hurriedly towards them. Someone was approaching them, fast. Ezra saw the glimmer in the darker catdemon's eyes a little too late. The demon leaped, and the light went down in a flurry of white feathers and shrieks.
"Buck!" Ezra yelled, running after the blue-eyed demon, Chris in tow. "Don't flatten Nathan!" Stopping at the scene in front of him he covered his face with his hands, peering out between his fingers. "Oi."
"Nathan?" Buck asked, looking down on his prey. "Oh."
A second later a very angry angel glared at them. Dusting off his immaculate white suit, dark brown eyes were burning in righteous outrage.
"You nearly ruined my outfit! Really..."
"Sorrry," Buck mumbled.
Nathan turned to Ezra. "And what are you doing down here, Ezra? It's time for another one of your lessons. Ezra?" He looked around. "Ezra, I can see you. Quit hiding behind the demon."
The demon in question, Chris, gave Ezra a slight slap on his butt using his tail. "I like Ez. Can I keep him?"
"No, you can't!" the angel declared, looking shocked. "Ezra is being relocated. For some reason, someone," he looked heavenwards, "thinks he'll make a good angel."
"I don't wanna be an angel!" Ezra pouted, still hiding behind Chris. "I'm not angel material, I am a little devil!"
Chris looked at Nathan. "He's not an angel, he's a little devil," he helped.
Nathan pinched the brigde of his nose. "Ok, now I am getting a headache. I can see what Mary was talking about..."
Turning, Chris looked down on Ezra. "Marry?"
"My former guardian," Ezra whispered. "She...well, she had kind of...I made her have a sorta... Nervous breakdown."
The catdemon laughed, which earned him another glare from the angel. Ezra hid again.
"Sorrry. But I like Ez, he's a nice little devil, even if he has no horrns..."
"I do have horns," Ezra shrieked.
"He's too kind for a devil," Nathan patiently explained. "That's why his horns are so small. Whenever a little devil do something devilish, they grow." Nathan was just about to continue when a new figure slammed into him, nearly knocking him off his feet.
"Vin, must you..." He was interrupted as yet another newcomer ran into the newly arrived angel and sent the two of them to the ground.
Buck studied them. "I always thought angels was somewhat more grraceful than that."
Taking a moment to compose himself, Nathan shook his head. "We are. Graceful, I mean. Well, all expect for those two." He pointed to the pile of limbs on the floor. "But they're not quite angels yet, they're apprentices like Ezra." He reached down and put the two back on their feet. The first one was about the little devil's size, with big and bright blue eyes and long, goldenbrown curls. Almost tripping on the floorlength robe, he supressed a few not so nice words and scowled at Nathan, pushing his halo back into place on top of his curls... "Tell me again why I have to wear this stupid dress?"
The taller angel gave him a critical look, then yanked the halo that was precariously tilting to the right, back into place. "When you're a proper angel, you get to choose your clothes." Not paying any notice to the grumbling, he moved on to the smallest one. The stocky built, darkhaired angel in training got to his feet and looked around.
Immediately Chris and Buck stepped back. Ezra who was watching the longhaired angel had to jump out of the way to not get stepped on.
"Sorrry, shorrty," Buck apologized. "What arre you starring at that angel for?"
Green eyes blinked. "He's a very pretty angel."
"Surre, shorrty."
"Don't call me shorty, you big oaf. And why are you hissing at the darkhaired one? He seems to be nice enough."
Blue and green eyes gave him an overbearing look in stereo. "He's a firre demon, shorrty. They don't like catdemons. And catdemons don't like them."
Nathan had taken the opportunity to haul Ezra away from his hiding place behind Chris. "Now," he started, keeping a safe hold on the struggling little devil's arm. "We'll start with getting you into proper training gear..."
"You're not touching my horns," Ezra's voice rose several octaves in sheer fright. "Or my tail. You leave my tail alone!" He lashed out, kicking the dark angel on his shin. Grunting in pain, Nathan had to release Ezra who hid behind Vin this time. The blue-eyed angel stared at Nathan.
"He's right. You can't take his horns. And I like his tail. It's a very nice tail. I think he should keep it."
"Thank you," Ezra shyly answered, looking up at the taller angel.
"No problem," the angel smiled. "I'm Vin. I used to be an elf, but then I got suckered into this angel business..." He shrugged. "You know."
Ezra nodded. "Yeah."
"Alright!" Nathan was losing what was left of his poor, battered patience. "He can keep the horns, and the tail. It's not like they're so big anyway..."
Ezra sighed, curling his insulted tail around his leg.
"But! He has to wear a robe, and a halo..." Nathan realised that he'd lost sight of the little devil again. "Ezra, where are you? Come back here."
"No!"
"You get back here, before I..." Nathan took a deep breath and counted to ten. "Alright, no robe. But I ain't changing my mind about the halo."
"Well..."
"If he doesn't have to wear the robe, than I am not going to either."
"Me neither," the fire demon chimed in.
"Hush, you two."
"But I want to wear something else! Like they do, for instance..."
"Vin, they're demons."
"So?"
"Who has heard of an angel wearing black leather?"
"Well... I could be the first?"
"I want to wear that too!"
"JD, you're staying in that robe."
A omnious silence fell over the cave. Huge, brown eyes flickered over into red. Everybody stepped away from the fire demon.
"I...am...NOT!"
"Ok, ok, ok!" Nathan held up his hands, eyeing the other carefully. "Just quit...steaming, ok? You can both wear what I wear."
Vin was pouting. "But I really wanted a black leather outfit!"
"Vin?" Nathan set his eyes on the other angel. "It's not going to happen. Deal with it." Leaving him to continue pouting, he went about to fix the clothes.
A few seconds later the two in question was looking down on their own white suits, where Vin immediately got rid of the jacket. "Neat!" he decided. JD shared his opinion, getting rid of his own jacket.
"Oh why do I even bother?" Nathan sighed. "Ezra!" he called, turning around to look for the missing charge. Finding himself chin to hair with the little devil, green eyes looked up at him.
"Yes?"
"Nevermind." Nathan reached inside his pocket, retrieving a shining, golden halo. Placing it on top of the auburn hair, he watched in amazement as the halo turned raven black.
"What...? It's never done that before?" the puzzled angel stated.
"Neat!" Vin declared. "Nathan, I..."
"Must be because of the horns," Nathan pondered, looking mighty thoughtful. "Oh well. No, not a chance, Vin, your halo stays like it is." He reached out to pull the tilted halo back into place. "Good grief, why won't this thing stay in place?"
Vin grabbed his halo and retreated out of reach to escape Nathan's fussing. "It's fine, Nate."
Nathan gave him a doubting look. "Right. Don't come to me if you lose it." He took another look at the black-clad, black-haloed Ezra and sighed yet again. "Why did I ever sign up for this? Must have had a momentarily lapse of sanity or something.... JD, quit glaring at the catdemons!"
"They started it!"
"Yes, I am sure they did."
"They did!"
Again, everyone took a step away from the irritated fire demon.
"Why are they doing that?" Vin asked Ezra, standing very close to the little devil/angel in spe.
"You ever see a fire demon lose his temper? It's not pretty. In fact, it's usually...pretty explosive." Ezra looked up at him. "They're even not very fond of it downstairs. Makes an awful mess."
"I see," Vin still looked a little curious. "Wanna try and see what happens?"
"Won't Nathan be angry?"
"Nah, he's always like that." Very blue eyes smiled down at him. "I'm glad you're to become an angel like me. I was afraid it was going to be so boring up there. And," he continued. "I really like your tail."
"Thanks," the little devil replied, blushing.
"People, we do have an assignement!" Nathan nearly shouted to be heard past the clutter. "Hey, shut up!" At last they fell silent around him. "Thank you. As I said, we have an assignent."
"Which is?" JD asked as Nathan didn't continue.
"What? Oh. Oh yes. We are to help a man called Josiah Sanchez set up a church in a town called Four Corners in Denver, USA. Apparentely they need some heavenly guidance and restoring of faith over there."
Buck and Chris looked at each other and nodded. "Sounds fun. We'll come along."
"Of course you will." Nathan had more or less resigned to his fate. "We'll show up with two catdemons with an attitude, a little devil, a reluctant aspirant angel and a fire demon with mood swings. We'll probably give the poor man a heart attack. Alright, off we go."
~~<>~~
Drawing a deep breath, Nathan let himself be materialized in the middle of the church. The tall man who was working on fixing the windows, stopped at the sudden appearance. Blue-grey eyes gave Nathan a curious look. "And you are?"
"Josiah Sanchez," Nathan begun, "I am an angel, sent to help you..." He didn't get further as the heavens seemingly opened, pouring five new figures on top of him.
Watching him, Josiah shook his head. "I think you need more help than I do, brother."
Chris had gotten to his feet and looked around. "Buck, wherre arre we?"
"We'rre in a churrch," his companion replied.
"Do we like churrches?"
"I don't know, rreally."
"Well, arre they comfy and warrm, and have nice places to sleep?"
"They arre," Buck nodded.
"Then we like churrches."
"Okay."
With that said, the two catdemons found themselves a suitable place and curled up tightly together. Looking at the impossible knot of napping, purring catdemons, JD was impressed. Maybe the catdemons weren't so bad as he'd first thought. Looking around he spotted Nathan in conversation with the man Josiah. The latter seemed like he was doing his very best to keep from laughing. Nathan on the other hand looked like he was about three seconds from turning in his wings and become a parking attendant outside the pearly gates.
Completing his search JD found Vin and Ezra sitting together on the front pews. Rolling his eyes, he watched them hold hands and gaze into each other's eyes. Easily bored and detesting to sit still, the fire demon snuck over to the door, for a peek out at the new world they were finding themselves in. Nobody would notice if he slipped out for just a little while...
Five minutes later the small church was rocked by a loud bang that sent peculiar reddish, flickering light in through the windows. Nathan didn't even bother to look up. "I give up!" he wailed. "There's no reforming them, they're... They're... They're incorrigible!"
Patting the angel's back, Josiah had given up trying to fight the laughter. "Oh it's not that bad, brother Nathan. You should see some of the ones I am trying to keep a rein on. I swear, if my hair wasn't already grey..." Leaning back he smiled. "I'll let you meet them later. Something tells me that we'll get along just perfectly."
The End
