Battle Angel

[skonen_blades]

The metal angel was hard at work sharpening his tools. The war was coming. The angels of love and inspiration were huddled in heaven, listening to the sounds of war outside. The floor of heaven vibrated with the concussive bass of battle.

Wings made of long saw blades, fingernails of scalpel tips, and eyes aflame with the brilliant blue of a welding torch. The angel perched near the sharpening stone, if something that weighed eight tons could be said to perch, and leaned the blade against the spinning rock. A fantail of sparks showered up and out into the holy foundry.

He was the last battle angel to head out. The newer angels had the ‘radar’ and the ‘infra-red’ and the ‘heat-seekers’. Their weapons merely needed to be turned on before they jumped out of heaven’s bomb-bay doors without so much as a battle cry. Kids. All about stealth and being cool under fire.

Give me a good war scream any day, thought the lone battle angel. Let the enemy know you’re coming. Scare the crap out of those red-skinned, black-leather bastards. Go in with the sword a-swingin’ and lay waste like the reaper himself.

He leaned forward with a creak of hydraulics and the scrape of massive hinges. The sparks roostered up higher with the finishing touch. The sword was now sharp enough to slice a soul’s tether. It could split a demon in half with hope. It forgave with each mighty swing.

Big as a building with a chest plate the size of a Cadillac, the angel stood, knees and shoulders screeching. He had no long-range weapons. He was the biggest fighter and he brought up the rear.

A quick, body-wide shudder was the only weapons check he needed. Like a dog shaking itself dry, the battle angel felt his internals speed up. Steam bays emptied in a shroud around him as his engines kicked up to a higher pitch. He was a living golem made from chainsaws and righteous anger.

He twisted his enormous mitt and the sword caught fire with a thunderous rush of light.

The bomb-bay doors lay open and the battle raged below. The last battle angel stood at the lip, looking down into the volcano theater of war.

With an amplified scream that made the entire battle pause and look up, he spread a thousand scissoring feathers and dropped like a stone towards the fray.




tags

Comments

[jeff2001.livejournal.com]

This is a thing.

[skonen-blades.livejournal.com]

Awesome. I'm glad you think so. I think the imagery is pretty rich.

[jeff2001.livejournal.com]

Rich enough to be a Thing. Could be a movie, graphic novel, video game...I've been playing a lot of video games lately so I'm imagining how it would play that way.

[skonen-blades.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I think there's been a Heaven Versus Hell video game already, a while ago. And there are a lot of movies and books based on that. But I see what you're saying. Always room for one more. : )

[drcuriosity]

"Even now in Heaven, there were angels carrying savage weapons..."

[skonen-blades.livejournal.com]

I did a little look-see on the internets there and that seems to be a quote from the movie The Prophecy starring Christopher Walken and a then-unknown Viggo Mortensen as Satan. He was awesome. I still remember him snarling "I'll love you more than Jesus." to Elias Koteas or whoever. Doesn't seem to actually be in the bible, though.

I remember being horrendously disappointed in the film when I first saw it. The trailer made it looks different or maybe my big, fat imagination just ran away with it and the movie turned out to be merely Hollywood.

What did you think?

[drcuriosity]

That's the one, yes. We talking monkeys must have cut it out of the Bible at the Council of Nicea, or something.

As to what I thought... I enjoyed it both aesthetically and conceptually. It's a scene you can paint a world from - a great example of establishing character in a short span of writing. Reflecting on it now (having read it several hours ago) there are details I can recall from my imagination that I was surprised to find weren't actually in the text. The beauty is that they didn't need to be. Also, "made from chainsaws and righteous anger" is a great turn of phrase.

I only showed it to one of the guys I flat with immediately, because the other one's still away visiting his family up in Nelson. He'll be seeing it when he gets back :-)

In my brain the scene is mostly precipitating into game design ideas at the moment, but given I've just spent much of my afternoon talking with a visiting Canadian game designer, that's not especially surprising.

[skonen-blades.livejournal.com]

Dude, that's so crazy. I'm in Nelson right now visiting my family. Oh, wait, there's a Nelson in NZ as well, isn't there? Well, it's still a little bit of a coincidence.

Wow, James looks like he's up to a lot of stuff. Good to see. I'm also happy to hear that you had details in your head that weren't actually in the text when you re-read it. That's always a great compliment to me.

[drcuriosity]

Ah, the joys of colonial settlement-naming!

And now Lance is home as well, and the general consensus of the household is "that's very cool" :-)

[skonen-blades.livejournal.com]

Fantastic. Thanks Lance! A whole house of approval. I'm about to take a long ten-hour car ride home through the snowy mountains back to Vancouver so that'll keep me warm on the way. : ) Happy nearly 2009.

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

very good stuff, man :)

also, a happy christmas and new year to you!

[skonen-blades.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much, man. Good to hear. Happy New Year and Merry Chrimbo to you too, sir. And congratulations on all of your good stuff this year. Here's hoping 2009 is even better.