The Angel with the broken power

The deafening boom of a grenade.

The screams of civilians.

The frightened face of the comrade next to him. This had been his first mission and what a disaster it turned out to be.

“Lowell! this was an ambush” Someone screamed in the distance “you know where to take Gabe”

“Roger that Sir!” came a nearby reply.  

The last thing Gabe remembered was the monogram of Angel Academy’s junior Cherubim force in the sky before a needle pricked his neck and everything went black.

In a world where everyone was born with a degree of power over an element, Angel Academy was the epitome of higher education and service one could hope to have. If a person’s power reached higher than a predetermined level after they passed their majority of age, they received an invitation to enroll.

The academy specialized in training three types of special agents for the service and betterment of humanity, Archangels, considered the warrior force, Cherubims, the miraculous healers, and Seraphims, the defenders. Students who graduated earned the right to wear the gossamer mechanical wings that enhanced their natural powers and acquired abilities.

As a first-year Cherubim, Gabe mistakenly thought he was ready for his first mission. But after sixteen hours of traveling across various cities to the nondescript house in the commoner suburb that Commander Pym Lowell called the end of the journey, he knew he was not.

The person who opened the door had the look of the usual soccer mom who lived in places like those “Pym my sweetheart! It’s so good to see you” the woman cried pulling the Commander for a hug “I’ve missed you so” she exclaimed with genuine friendship shining in her eyes. Upon closer inspection she looked to be about Commander Pym’s age but in her flannel sweater and jeans Gabe had mistaken her for a middle-aged lady.

It was hard to accept that this average brown-haired, brown-eyed civilian was the person they had come to find, but one look at his superior and Gabe knew that this was the right place.

“Missed you too Lia” Commander Pym mumbled into her friend’s shoulder, tightening the hug, momentarily losing the cheerful smile that was characteristic of her in the commander position “but this isn’t a social visit,” she said ending the hug and turning to Gabe “I’ve brought someone you need to meet.”

The woman named 'Lia' turned her sharp gaze on him, cataloguing everything; from his uniform to the untidy way his sneakers were tied, lingering momentarily on his Cherubim badge.

“Pym, who is this?” she whispered, arms dropping away from her friend and taking a step away from them, her eyes darting behind them and surveying the porch for hidden agents.

“This is the chosen one” Commander Pym answered in a light tone, the nervous tic in her mouth contradicting the carefree way she said the words “The chosen one who was called to replace” she paused, gently pulling Gabe forward and breaking eye contact with Lia “You.”

The other woman’s smile dropped even more and without another comment, she stepped aside to let them into her home, closing the door properly and turning on her electric kettle.

 “The situation changed, didn’t it?” she finally sighed putting on her glasses to read the instructions on the box of tea better. It was evident that she rarely received visitors. 

Up to this point in the mission, Gabe had only been told that the person Commander Pym was to contact was a highly classified civilian ex-agent who could change the direction of the war, but the actual identity of said person had always been classified. 

If this woman was the chosen one that came before him then that only meant “you are Raphaelia Santos” he exclaimed involuntarily “the Arsonist of Archangel Hall”

 “And you must be Gabriel Meng the seventh” she replied without taking her eyes off the kettle “Son of Gabriel Meng the sixth, descended from Gabriel Meng the first, founder of Angel Meng Hospitals” She took out three mugs from the cupboard and set them before Gabe and Pym “I know kids who still keep newspaper clippings of your father,” she said matter-of-factly, almost as if she expected him to know that already, which he did.

Gabe’s privilege wasn’t lost on him, he knew he was a legacy boy, his family’s enrolment in the academy was guaranteed, but that had never made him feel ashamed. The Mengs were good people, the Angels in his family served the needy and protected the weak. He was proud of being the seventh generation to follow in their footsteps.

“I apologize for calling you names Ma'am” Gabriel replied instead, giving her a respectful nod of difference.

“Relax trainee, you are not in front of the Angelic Council; I know the academy drilled formal manners into all of us, but please call me Lia,” Raphaelia Santos wrinkled her nose jokingly pouring them each a mug of ginger tea, “I earned that nickname, why should I consider it offensive?”

Regaining her usual humor Commander Pym snorted “People did give you incredibly creative monikers in your days as a student.”

“And you defended me, as a good roommate should” Lia shot back mischievously raising her mug to her lips “Headmaster Cahill still claims our shenanigans turned his hair prematurely grey.”

Gabe was silent as the two friends continued their banter. He wished he knew more about Raphaelia Santos to feel more at ease in her kitchen, but to his shame, outside of all the rumors, he did not. And being called ‘the arsonist of Archangel Hall’ by a person she had just met, probably hadn’t endeared her much to Gabe.

Archangel Hall was one of the three main buildings of Angel Academy, followed by Cherubim Lodge and Seraphim Fort. It was the main base for all Archangel trainees and the name of Raphaelia Santos was still a ghost story burned into the walls of their high-class training rooms. 

Most people said that she’d just gone mad one day, burning a wing of the building down in what she classified as the defeat of her “designated big evil”, then she’d proceeded to topple the whole hierarchy of leadership in the academy, got almost half of the academy expelled and forced the new headmaster to reassigned her to Cherubim Lodge after abdicating the chosen one position, only to spend the remaining of her time there planning how to leave the world of Angels once she graduated. And that was only the nicer part of the rumors Gabe heard.

But unlike what Gabe expected, the former chosen one didn’t look like a madwoman, to him she seemed quite sane... If a little bit sad.

“Professor refuses to choose a trainer for Gabe” Commander Pym said finally, bringing Gabe out of his contemplation “And the council is getting impatient” she gave Lia back her empty mug and delivered the final blow, “Bartholomew thinks you are the only one he would accept for the position.”

“What?! Did becoming Seraphim Captain damage Bart’s head?” Lia exclaimed frantically before managing to properly glare at the Commander “There has never been a precedent in the academy for a female agent training a male.”

“There has also never been a precedent for a chosen one abdicating the title” Commander Pym pointed out with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, you know why I stepped down” Lia defended herself increasing in agitation, her hands began shaking and Gabe could see the beginnings of a panic attack building up in her body “furthermore you know exactly why I wasn’t allowed to take a trainee in my final year! The council said I was malfunctioning.”

“That’s not true, they just said you were too mentally fragile.”

“Because that’s not the same thing as calling me insane” Lia’s resentful tone told Gabe that her student years had not been easy “you were supposed to be on my side Pym.”

“I am! and not just me, everybody else, we all love you” Commander Pym replied trying to calm her down “But I wouldn’t be dragging you back there if it weren’t an emergency, and Headmaster Cahill was attacked!” Commander Pym took a deep breath finally letting out the news she had been keeping back. 

Lia froze “Our Professor?” she mumbled in shock, one hand covering her mouth as complete sorrow overtook her features “I need a moment,” she said before running out of the kitchen. Through the window Gabe could see her gasping for breath in the yard, her lips counting to ten repeatedly.

When Lia was out of sight, Gabe finally plucked up the courage to ask the question that had been in his mind since he met the woman “What happened to her powers? I can feel them, but they fade” Gabe furrowed his brow, fearing the worst “having affinity for two opposing elements is a medical impossibility, the conflict between fire and water should have killed her ages ago.”

“That’s because her desires to do good and her desires to do evil are equally balanced, so her powers nullify themselves” Commander Pym looked to the ground “Lia has endured a lot.”

“Can you tell me what Angel Academy did to her?” 

“It's a long story” Commander Pym sighed “But I brought you here and you deserve to know.”

So, commander Pym told him a story about a sweet, enthusiastic young woman named Lia, with an affinity for water, who expected to be assigned to Cherubim Lodge with her friends after the entrance ceremony but saw her dream derailed when the Holy orb named her as that generation’s chosen one, prompting Headmaster Brooke to assign her to Archangel Hall instead.

It was the honor of the headmaster to personally assign everyone their designated vocation, as well as who their mentor trainer would be when each student entered the academy, but only the Holy orb was outside his jurisdiction. And since it only activated once every combat cycle to name a chosen one. Lia was seen as a symbol of peace and an omen of war.

The second-year assigned as her trainer was a charismatic scholarship student called Lys Merchant, and while Lia often told Pym that Lys was a bully, nobody outside of Archangel Hall knew if Lia was telling the truth. Since the only occasions that all three vocations had mixed classes was during Public Relations training.

Lys was older and came from a poor family, Lia was a middle-class girl arbitrarily named the chosen one. Who would believe her over the scholarship student who got to be a trainer with her own merits? 

Lia wasn’t even good at expressing herself, whenever she spoke up about the terrible things Lys said to her, it always seemed like a fit of jealousy. Many times, Lia tried to report her trainer’s verbal abuse to Headmaster Brooke, or really to any of the teachers in Archangel Hall but they didn’t do anything. Even her friends rarely believed half of what she said.

Lys would tell Lia that she was worthless and stupid every day while making her go through rigorous physical exercises she had no stamina to endure. As a trainer and trainee, they were supposed to remain together sixty percent of the time, which meant Lys knew Lia’s behaviour the best and she used that knowledge to spread rumours before Lia even tried to get help for herself.

Only Professor Cahill and his wife heard her, at the time he had been the Public Relations instructor, and he was willing to believe every troubled student when they told their version of events, but he couldn’t protect Lia from her trainer, it wasn’t his jurisdiction. Short of telling her to endure it with patience and hope, Professor Cahill’s hands were tied.

It seemed hard to believe for Gabe that everybody in Archangel Hall knew that the chosen one was being bullied by her trainer and nobody did anything, but Commander Pym explained that Archangels were raised to fight and that most of them probably thought it was a training technique to make the chosen one stronger and the others simply looked the other way for fear of being ostracized too.

“Did you ever read the official press release about the fire of Archangel Hall?” Commander Pym asked

Gabe’s eyes dropped “The chosen one found out that Blackened Angels infiltrated Angel Academy, she sent the records of their numbers to Professor Cahill, fought their leader, and trapped herself and the traitors in the training rooms where the fire started” Blackened Angels was a name for people with Angel training who used what they learned for evil purposes.

In some angelic circles, they were considered worse than demons because they knew what the right thing was and simply chose to go against it. While demons were simply born with an affinity for evil.  

“Nobody ever mentions that said leader, was her boyfriend” Commander Pym revealed “Someone she loved and would have died for, turned out to be a liar in league with Lys working to bring down Angel Academy from the inside” When she spoke like that Gabe could see why Pym Lowell had been made Commander so young. It was evident that a lot of her field experience came from healing Lia’s wounds in their academy days “catching them was only possible because they all gathered together to kill Lia since she refused to join them”.

“It was a fight of twenty versus one, among them, my trainer, who knew all my weaknesses,” A cold voice interrupted them from the doorway before she could continue the story “And I was about to die when I felt the affinity for fire ignite in my hands” Lia said, sounding every inch like a retired soldier.

“How did you survive?” Gabe whispered in awe.

“I sent one last message to the only Professor I trusted before setting everything on fire hoping to kill them all with me” there was a dark chuckle in her voice “Professor Cahill saved my life, I was lucky” Lia walked back into the room, completely stoic and sad.

“He and his wife took all the Angels they could gather and stormed Archangel Hall” Commander Pym nodded remembering the day in question “it was messy.”

“People still blame me for the significant number of students and staff expelled that year” Lia snorted “but it had to be done, you would be surprised at the number of Blackened Angels that were found within our ranks when Professor was put in charge of the investigation” She added as an explanation. 

“I suppose this is where the whole destruction of the academy’s leadership rumour came from” Gabe gulped “They must have been high on the hierarchy.”

“They were” Commander Pym agreed “And after that, you know the rest of the story, Professor Cahill was made headmaster, he reorganized the teaching system of The Academy and Lia was sent to Cherubim Lodge for recovery.” 

There was still something Gabe didn’t understand, however, “But why did you abdicate?”

“Gabe, the Holy Orb won't keep a chosen one against their will” Lia’s face was compassionate “ Angel Academy was the Alma Matter of all the heroes I admired, I thought that it would teach me how to make a difference, how to help save lives with my power” When she glowed with conviction Gabe could see how impressive she could have been as a chosen one “And instead I found the same hypocrisy I saw in the civilian world, Angels who lied and backstabbed for fun, leaders who betrayed everyone for power…and once I saw that I couldn’t pretend I hadn't” her eyes filled with tears “my heart couldn't take it”

“So, you abdicated before the internal conflict turned your powers into an elemental time bomb” Gabe exclaimed in realization, and he couldn’t imagine how painful it must have been for her “Is that why Headmaster Cahill won't assign me a trainer?”

“Yes” Lia replied sadly “But you need one and while I never had a choice with my trainer” she extended her palm to him, “I think that you deserved one when it comes to yours because I believe that you can end this war” her eyes connected with his “So do you want me to train you, Gabriel Meng?”

“I do!” The words were out of his mouth without hesitation, to him there was nobody better than her.

“Even with my past?” Lia asked, genuinely surprised “You know what they call me in Academy circles.”

“I also know that your morals clash with what I believe in” Gabriel agreed “But I still want to be your trainee.”

“Why?”

“Because you know something more about this war” Gabriel turned serious “I can feel it, you needed the orb to choose someone stronger, but they are still one step ahead of us, so here I am” he stood up and opened his arms wide “hoping you can train me to stop them.” 

“Then let us begin with this” Lia said, raising her index finger “Tell me why you think Headmaster Brooke abdicated his position the same day I did?” And her smile turned almost violent.

“I assumed he was pressured by all the slander against him.”

“Oh no, he had to step down because he knew that even with me discredited as insane, the chosen one that came after me would have the way clear to recognize the real big bad of the war” Lia didn’t hesitate “Himself.”

“That means that the man currently campaigning for the empty seat as leader of the Angelic Council” Gabe’s eyes widened “Is the head of the biggest criminal organization in the world.”

Lia and Pym nodded.

Gabe sighed; he hadn’t been prepared for his first mission. But maybe, with Lia as his trainer, he had a chance at becoming the kind of man a chosen one should be. He only hoped he could still save the world now that he knew the truth.