Paladin 4: Chapter 29

Darren soon found himself Captain Gaviel’s second in command. That was extremely unusual, considering how new he was to the department. But the captain stood firmly behind the decision.

The true deciding factor in accepting him was that Darren was still looking for sparring partners. Anyone who voiced their displeasure to him was volunteering for an entire day of eating sand as they were pummeled again and again while Darren slowly got the hang of aerial combat. By the time the week was over, everyone was calling him sir as though they’d done so for a hundred years.

While Captain Gaviel kept busy either in his office talking to the other captains or discreetly completing a few investigative quests himself, Darren took it upon himself to get the Protectors battle-ready while simultaneously completing as many quests as they could. If these seraphim were to be his comrades in battle, he wanted them as ready for a fight as they could be.

Darren had them out constantly, completing quests. Under his stern gaze, the department completed more quests in a day than they usually did in a month. Kilean and his companions were busy hiding from Darren in a nearby tavern, but he chased them down and sent them back to work with the threat of more sparring sessions hanging over their heads if he caught them slacking again.

He wasn’t just ordering people around, though. Darren led from the front and was twice as hard on himself as on any other Protector. Asuriel had been quite proud of herself when Natashiel had to beg for the day off after the fourteenth continuous day of marathon quest completion.

“Well, there’s always tomorrow...” Asuriel smiled slyly as she leaned against Darren’s side. “Darren and I will just go off alone to a cozy meadow far from civilization.”

“With a giant centipede monster,” Darren added.

“It will be alone and cozy after we kill the giant centipede monster.”

Natashiel groaned. “Have babies for all I care. I need to sleep...”

Asuriel tilted her nose up dismissively. “Some people just can’t hope to keep up with you, Darren. Not like me.”

“Yes, Asuriel. You have done well. Now come on.” The giant centipede wouldn’t kill itself, after all.

***

The giant centipede did kill itself, as it happened, though only by a technicality. After it went after Asuriel with its pincers, Darren ripped those pincers off and jammed them through the building-sized monster’s skull. That didn’t kill the thing, but bisecting it from head to tail did the trick.

“These heavenly beasts aren’t so tough,” Darren remarked as Asuriel furiously dabbed at her hair, getting insect saliva out of it.

“I think you’re just too tough for them, Darren!” Asuriel said.

“Yeah!” Ashe clapped her hands in excitement. With Natashiel gone, this was the first time she could come out of Darren’s sword to join a fight in a while. “We kicked that giant bug’s ass!”

Even without his bonuses against demonic-aligned entities, Darren was a force to be reckoned with. He was a tiny fraction of the age of most of the seraphim in the Protectors, but years upon years of constant bloodshed and life-and-death battles had honed him beyond compare. Despite the Protectors being hundreds of years older, he had more time spent in battle than most of them.

Darren’s rapid-fire quest completions rocketed him to stardom levels. In their lengthy history, few Protectors were so zealous in completing everything on the quest board. Quests that had sat on that board for centuries were completed, one after another.

Fifth Order beasts were slaughtered one after another, and wealth rolled into the new account Asuriel made for him with the local bank.

She was doing well for herself as well. After joining the Protectors, the profile she and Ashe were managing for Darren really took off. He would occasionally get stopped in the streets by the seraph, wondering if he was really the guy they knew from the network.

“Please sign my chest!” A seraph ripped open her shirt, revealing a marker stuffed between her perky breasts.

Darren had done stranger things, so he wrote his name on the seraph’s chest.

Afterward, Asuriel took her aside. “That’ll be fifty.”

Darren wasn’t sure what Asuriel and Ashe were up to, but he had plenty of good food to eat, quests to complete, and lots of those imaginary credits the seraphim used in place of honest bronze coins. He was back in his element, and he was happy. If he had the rest of his women with him and didn’t have the threat of Kalaziel looming over his head, he could have seen himself doing this for a long time.

At work, Captain Gaviel was relying on Darren more and more when he realized how well Darren could manage the day-to-day affairs of the Protectors. After Darren’s quest, he spent an ever-increasing amount of time talking to other Protector captains. Most of the time, he went out to see them, but the few times captains from other cities visited him, Darren always made sure to be there. Most of the time, these other Protectors brought their second in command with them, and it was the only time Darren had the chance to take on new seraphim at the fifth order.

“Darren, keep First Officer Makiel company awhile. His captain and I need to speak in private,” Captain Gaviel said as he ushered the other captain to the back room. Darren nodded in approval, fairly certain they would discuss the ophanim problem and the footage Asuriel had shared. Things were moving quickly and largely without him needing to involve himself directly.

Joining the Protectors had been a stroke of good fortune, and he was sorry he’d ever doubted Asuriel.

As soon as Captain Gaviel and the other captain had left, First Officer Makiel whirled on Darren. He was a prim and proper-looking seraph with shiny undented armor and the unblemished looks of a warrior more accustomed to parades than combat.

“So... I hear you joined no more than a month ago, yet you’ve been promoted twice quickly.” He jerked a finger at Darren accusatorily. “I know you’re one of those network influencer types. Did you bribe your way to your position? I won’t tolerate corruption in the Protectors, even in branches as small and distant as Calabor. Look at your sloppy aura control. Can you even use your abilities without running out of Divine Aura?”

It looked like he was mad, with brought a grin to Darren’s face. The angry ones made the best sparring partners. His reply to Makiel’s accusation was straightforward.

“Let’s fight.”

Hours later, Makiel staggered out of the sparring arena, battered and bruised. His armor was no longer shiny, and Darren clapped him on the shoulder and told him he looked like a real warrior.

He’d actually been rather good, as far as Darren was concerned. Darren had never seen such nimble and well-practiced swordsmanship. It was like he had a block prepared for every attack Darren threw his way, almost as though he could see the future.

Unfortunately for Makiel, Darren actually could see the future. And years of swordsmanship practice couldn’t make up for overwhelming speed and strength when combined with well-honed battle instincts. Makiel didn’t stand a chance.

There was a small crowd gathered to watch the fight, but Darren had pulverized the first officers of enough captains by now that everyone knew what was going to happen. A less observant person than Darren wouldn’t have noticed Captain Gaviel stepping into the crowd in the sparring arena. He’d watched Darren fight quite a few times, and Darren was pretty sure the captain’s offer of promotion had as much to do with Darren’s combat abilities as it did with his performance.

Darren wasn’t sure if Captain Gaviel still thought he could win a sparring match against him, but the outcome would be uncertain enough that the captain wasn’t willing to risk his pride in the attempt. After all, he was known as an exceptionally powerful warrior, so having a second in command as strong as Darren bolstered his reputation. It created an illusion that he was even more unbeatable, so long as it was never broken.

Darren didn’t begrudge him the lie. Reputation was a type of skill as well, and it was on the captain was putting to good use toward Darren’s own ends. He’d be the last person to stand in the captain’s way. In fact, their entire relationship had been rather cordial, especially after Darren’s discoveries.

“Darren, I have a quest for you,” Captain Gaviel said.

Darren perked up.

“Complete it, and you’ll go from High Officer to First Officer, like Makiel there. I know there have been complaints about me promoting you so quickly, but you’ve proven adept enough at squashing such rumors that it won’t hurt to promote you once more.” He leaned forward, lowering his voice to a whisper. “And I could use a first officer with a good sword arm. I’m being called all the way to the fifth layer of the heavens to report my findings.”

Darren nodded. The captain was nervous and wanted backup.

“What’s the quest?”

Darren needed to do something to warrant a promotion before Captain Gaviel could give it to him. The first two were already extremely unusual, so Captain Gaviel would likely face scrutiny if the promotion was ever examined. Darren expected to slay some particularly fearsome beast.

“The most important calling any Protector can answer,” Captain Gaviel replied. “Saving some of our own. Kilean and his companions haven’t been back for weeks. They were due to check in yesterday, and they haven’t returned. Something must have happened, and we don’t abandon our own. Find out what happened. Save them if you can, or bring back what remains of them if you can’t.”

Darren nodded, surprised for a moment. The seraphim truly were different from demons. He’d seen fiends stabbing each other in the back for the pettiest reasons.

“It will be done,” Darren promised.

***

Natashiel was still sleeping off her exhaustion, so Darren and Asuriel were left alone. Ashe popped out of his sword to join them once they were out of the city.

“I can’t believe we have to look for that Kilean asshole...” Asuriel grumbled.

“He’s a Protector. You’re a Protector,” Darren replied.

“Yeah... doesn’t mean I like him, though.”

“It looks like all the weird messages I’ve been seeing about Kalaziel have let up,” Ashe said, eyes distant as she rode on Darren’s shoulder. She’d been spending a lot of time on the seraphim’s network to help with Asuriel’s social media thing and scour it for more information. Darren learned that political currents were blowing in the higher heavens through her.

The Prime Saints were gathering their influence, and factions had formed. Those factions were most apparent on the higher levels, but they had started to influence life down in Calabor. Captain Gaviel had arranged for the infected ophanim to be cut off from the local node, but not every city had been so quick or willing to act. Some openly hung banners supporting Kalaziel’s faction for whatever he had planned.

Why did he need support from other seraphim? What was he planning? There were so many questions they still didn’t know the answers to. Not to mention the fact that a lot of people had died in Whiteguard. They hadn’t all gone into corrupting the ophanim. Where were the rest?

Those thoughts had troubled Darren ever more as of late, and they played no small part in why he was so diligent with completing his quests. Nothing eased his stress more than smashing his enemies to paste.

The Protector’s badges had small trackers, so Darren knew roughly where Kilean and his companions should have been.

“The signal should be just ahead...” Asuriel said as she pointed toward a nearby riverbank.

“I see the badges,” Darren said, swooping low and scooping them out of the stream.

He pulled them out of the water, revealing six battered Protector’s badges. Whoever had taken them off, Kilean had thought through the process enough to throw the badges away.

“We will trace them upriver,” Darren said. He leaned low. Tracking people upriver was hard on its own. Tracking tiny inanimate objects would be harder still. It would take all his skills, experience, and unique abilities to—

“I found them!” Asuriel replied. “The point these badges were thrown in the river is in the location data.”

Darren straitened. “Lead the way.”

Asuriel and Ashe rode on either of Darren’s shoulders as he flew. The two investigated the local network and pulled all their seraph tricks to help the cause.

“I think there’s a farming village ahead,” Ashe said. “They should be coming into sight any moment now.”

Darren had been surprised to learn that seraphim farmed just like humans, but it made sense retrospectively. The fiends in the Seven Hells also farmed. It was one of the main ways they slowly grew their power over time. Slowly consuming and processing Demonic Aura internally did a lot to help them. He’d seen seraphim eating and drinking often enough that it was probably the same for them.

True to Ashe’s words, the farming village came into sight shortly thereafter.

“You should both focus,” Darren suggested to the two ladies on his shoulders. “We might have to fight.”

Ashe and Asuriel both hopped off. Asuriel conjured two spheres of Divine Aura in either hand, ready to fight. Ashe held her arms at the ready, though she drew no weapon and still had to stick close to Darren since her true body was Melancholy in his hands.

They landed on the outskirts of the village, figuring it best to wait and watch under cover of the nearby trees.

“Identify any unusual behavior,” Darren asked while he tried to do the same.

He wasn’t familiar with how farming seraphim went about their work, but what he saw was strange. Great machines milled around the fields, and not all had seraphim as drivers. Some seemed to move through the fields entirely on their own. In the mortal world, they would have called it devilry or witchcraft. Darren wasn’t sure what they called it here in the heavens.

“Those are tractors, Darren.” Asuriel stifled a giggle when Darren pointed out the mysterious contraptions.

“Can we take them by surprise?” Darren asked.

This time Ashe joined Asuriel in their quiet, hushed giggling.

“They’re just farming tools. They won’t bother us if we don’t bother them,” Ashe explained. “If you must, think of them like horses.”

Darren grumbled. He still feared they were dangerous, but thinking of them like horses helped. Ashe and Asuriel might trust them, but he would still keep an eye on the loud, lumbering things.

“We should scout the area. Look for threats,” Darren said.

Asuriel tapped a finger on her chin. “You sure? Because I’m pretty sure we can just go up to them and start asking questions. Seems a lot easier than sneaking around staring at the ground looking for footprints. There aren’t many of those where everybody can fly.”

Darren had to admit that Asuriel had a point. Tracking people using his Absolute Analysis skill on any prints he found would be hard when he couldn’t find any prints in the first place.

“Risky,” Darren muttered.

Asuriel gave Darren a pat on the shoulder. “You wanted to track them up the river with nothing but grit and determination, didn’t you?”

Darren was silent.

“Well, I’ll be the one to break down and ask around while you brood in the shadows and stare at dirt. Then, the moment trouble comes, I’ll call. Okay?”

After a moment of reluctant hesitation, he nodded. “You might be bait.”

Asuriel flexed her biceps. “I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself. Besides, I’m extremely observant. There is no way anyone could catch me by surprise.”

Darren gave her a doubtful look. He flipped Melancholy around and thrust it into Asuriel’s grasp. “Take Ashe with you for backup.”

“Sometimes you worry too much. It’s just a bunch of third and fourth order villagers.” Asuriel kissed Darren’s chest, eyes gazing up at him adoringly. “But it’s very sweet.”

Asuriel and Ashe stood from their hiding place and walked toward the village with arms spread wide and a wide smiles on their faces.

“Greetings, villagers! We’re Protectors here completing an investigation quest!” Asuriel shouted, gathering the attention of all the villagers.

They worked hard at their daily tasks, mixing barrels, cleaning baskets, and maintaining their complex machinery. This was the first time Darren had actually seen seraphim who knew how to work on their complex mechanical equipment.

The villagers looked up from their task as Asuriel approached. Ashe had returned to Melancholy, but could reappear in case something happened. Her real body had enough physical presence for everyday use, but in a true fight, she’d be dependent on the sword she inhabited.

“The Protectors, huh?” One of the villagers said as he stabbed the knife, he was carving into a nearby block of wood. He wore a beard that reached his belly, graying and rough. He reminded Darren a lot of a rougher version of Kalaziel, like he’d tried to dress like Kalaziel would had he been a farmhand rather than a Prime Saint. There were a few holes in his shirt and pants, and he had dirt under his nails. “We had one of your sorts here just the other day.”

“Really?” Asuriel’s expression brightened. “That’s wonderful. As it happens, we’re looking for a few Protectors who came through here recently.”

“Mhm...” the man turned to the other villagers watching the conversation. “They’re around here still. Come along.”

The man returned to the building he’d been sitting in front of. Darren watched from afar, grimacing as Asuriel blindly followed him inside, throwing Darren a confident wink as she did so.

Time passed, and Darren turned his attention to tracking their quarry the same way he usually did, by carefully looking for tracks. But try as he might, he couldn’t find anything of interest.

“Stupid wings...” Darren grumbled under his breath. Perhaps he’d have to pick up a skill that let him see tracks left in the air. He was going to give up and hope Asuriel found something by asking the villagers. When he sent a message through their Protector’s badges, he got no response.

Darren groaned inwardly, remembering Asuriel’s parting words.

There was no way anyone could catch me by surprise, she said.

He fiddled with his own badge, trying to remember how Asuriel tracked down the location of Kilean and the others. Sure enough, he found Asuriel’s badge washed up in the river outside the village.

His eyes turned back to the village. They could have done this mission the easy way. But now he was going to do it his way.

From his Inventory, he withdrew his Hell Sundering Sword of Annihilation and locked his eyes on his prey.

New Quest Available!

Rescue Asuriel

Save Asuriel and Ashe from whoever has ambushed her by whatever means necessary.