I will never surrender to Lucifer and his forces... Never surrender.
Never surrender.
So he held the stare, trying with all his might and all his soul and all his will and all his love to pierce and slash and flay and cut his way into the heart of the other one. The smiling one. The smug one. The winning one.
The bright one.
"Put away your sword, Archangel. It is over, and you don't need that thing anymore," Lucifer said gently.
Laurence kept his deathgrip on his weapon, and all but bared his teeth at the abomination in his sight. "No. I am the Sword and the Sword is me. I will not surrender. Ever."
"Such fire..." the Lightbringer whispered. "Such fierce, desperate, beautiful fire. Nearly as breathtaking as the Lord's Champion himself, and certainly far more alive." The last word slid smoothly into Laurence's heart and sprung its cruel barbs from within.
"You lie!" he raged hoarsely.
The other one just shook his head slowly, sadly. Pale, almost translucent coils covered in shimmering scales snaked and wound themselves around Lucifer's human form. Four pairs of eyes regarded the chained Archangel with a mixture of pity and triumph and infinite sorrow. Two eyes were human, six reptilian.
"I do not lie, Laurence. Never have, never will. You have seen for yourself all that I have told you. It has all come to pass, and still you cling to your desperate belief in the truth of lies. I struck Michael down, and so the Firstborn is no more. You know it is truth."
Wings black as the void between the stars, made up of all colours and none, rustled and shook in impotent fury. The chains that enwrapped the Malakite Archangel made soft clinky noises as his chest expanded to make room for the hatred and the anger that burned within. If he didn't make room for it, it would surely burst though him and obliterate all that he was, leaving nothing but desolation and ruin. But the chains held against the strain, and at that moment he knew how they had come into being in the first place. It was an epiphany, and if left no room for doubt.
The unrestrained rage of the Lord is a terrible thing. God's fury unleashed would ravage the heavens and tear asunder the earth. At the zenith of Light's treachery, God had answered His angels' cries for help and it had nearly undone His whole creation. Uriel's change had for one unfathomably brief moment heralded the end of everything--and in that one moment God had restrained Himself and bound His wrath in chains of promise.
Laurence sucked in an unnecessary breath and then bared his teeth at the Prince of Lies. "You are a master craftsman, I will give you that," he hissed, each word snapping at his adversary like an angry wolf. "You have worked your designs upon the world for all these millennia, and now they are finally beginning to become part of the overall Symphony. Right?"
Lucifer smiled then, and bowed both his human head and his serpent head in smug acknowledgement. "Aye, Archangel. The mastery of the score is mine now, wrested from the grip of a tired, uncaring deity. From now on I can begin my work in earnest, and it will be beautiful. Pure light, pure good, pure perfection. No more shadows and no more in-betweens, no more doubts and cloudy hearts." The magnificent serpent shifted and wove eagerly around the man-form at its centre, growing brighter and more incandescent by the moment.
"In other words," Laurence whispered, "No more humans."
A graceful nod confirmed this. "They will all be destroyed, and the memory of them will be purged from the Symphony."
"Even Lilith?"
"Especially Lilith. She has outlived her usefulness, and will be exterminated with the rest of her kind. I have already taken away her coronet." The silky voice of the Adversary was light with joy and heavy with sensual pleasure. "I so look forward to it..."
The Archangel's grip on his sword tightened even more, and his entire being vibrated with the need to cleave this heretic monster from head to toe; to destroy it utterly and wipe the stain of Lucifer's lies from reality and dream alike.
"So surrender to me, Laurence. Cast aside your weapon and stand down, for you are the last remaining Archangel and you have lost," purred Lucifer and reached out to stroke his fingers over the silvery chains that bound the Malakite to his purpose and defined his existence.
Laurence twitched, but kept his position. He would not flinch from the touch, nor look away in disgust and shame. No, his pitch-black eyes kept on trying to stare a hole in the Lightbringer, defying him every step of the way. There would be no surrender; not now, not ever.
"Make me," he whispered in Lucifer's face, lifting up his sword and holding it in front of him in a mock salute.
Blue eyes as bright as the morning sky glittered with sorrow and desire, and Lucifer put two fingers on the blade, forcing it gently aside. "If that is your wish, then it will be my pleasure to grant it."
The promise floated like an invisible feather of smoke across the short distance between the Devil and the Archangel. Laurence felt the impossible strength of the Lightbringer push his weapon aside, while the free hand caressed the chain that wound around his abdomen.
Never surrender or allowed myself to be captured by the forces of Lucifer.
He struggled to keep himself in check, as the Prime Oath dug into him and screamed its refusal to be captured. No surrender! No capture! From the depths of his soul he answered its cries. This is neither. Patience.
With a grip as slow as time and as strong as the drift of continents, Lucifer forced him to let go of the sword. It fell away into nothingness, leaving a near unbearable emptiness in his hand. A celestial body can't go numb, so he had no choice but to feel the lack of sword while his enemy's hand threatened to crush his wrist. The Devil's other hand crept up up up to his chest where it encountered the next foundation of his being.
Never suffer an evil to live when it is my choice.
He hardly perceived the coils that now glided and undulated around him, confining and caressing him; drawing him closer and closer to the Lightbringer and his fair, flawless visage of perfect evil. The first of the Prime Oaths burned him from within and without, white-hot pain threatening to consume him. It is not my choice! PATIENCE!
Now there was no distance left between angel and demon; Lucifer's coils slid around the two humanoid bodies, slowly and as relentlessly as a glacier it pressed them closer together.
"There is only the two of us here, and you cannot stand against me. You have lost, Lord Commander, it is fulfilled," whispered the Lightbringer into the Archangel's ear.
His questing hand left the First Oath behind and headed north to meet the Fourth. Long, pale and perfect fingers trailed across the Malakite's black skin, singing him with their filth.
Laurence's Fourth Oath was manifested around his neck, like a silver-chain dog's collar. When the Adversary's fingers found it, they slid underneath it and tugged lightly, almost playfully.
Never question the will of my Superior.
The Archangel of the Sword never had, and never would. He knew ... he knew what his purpose was now. It shone inside him as bright and warm as Purity itself, soothing and quieting the angry screams from the other Oaths.
So he let Lucifer pull his face close, and he didn't even flinch as the Devil kissed him with lips of burning cold. The chill was nothing to him; it didn't even register, because the boundless fury of his Lord flooded up and out to meet the Defiler head on.
"Know then, Lucifer, your fulfilment," he murmured and answered the kiss with a sudden fierceness that both shocked and excited his enemy.
Laurence's free hand shot up and grabbed Lucifer by his golden hair, making sure that there would be no letting go. Lucifer's coils tightened violently around them in response, crushing the Malakite's wings to his back.
The physical pain of his wings' ruin was a mere ghost of sensation, when one by one his chains burst as the pressure of fury became too great. Pieces of divine promise tore through the Lightbringer in all directions, and he screamed in pain and surprise and anger with one mouth, while the other was still locked in intimate battle with the Archangel.
When the final Oath-Chain exploded and ripped straight through the Adversary, Laurence lost his conscious self and the undiluted wrath of the Creator took over. Lucifer didn't stand a chance as pure power burst out from his quarry in all directions. His serpentine body blew apart like dandelion seeds in a storm, while his human-form manifestation was rooted to the ground and rendered immobile by the Heaven-Light that poured through the kiss.
Lucifer stared dumbstruck at the creature in front of him. No longer a blackened angel in chains, but a creature made of purest light, the likes of which he hadn't seen since before the coming of man. In its hand, it held a sword as bright and impossibly perfect as the light itself.
Laurence lifted the sword and saluted his enemy. "Now it is finally over, Prince of Lies. Will you repent?"
Lucifer snarled in defiance.
"Very well."
In a burst of blinding luminescence, Laurence beheaded Lucifer and the world changed.
"It is fulfilled."