Chapter Text
The Hall of Heavenly Council was not built for awkward silences.
Charlie stopped to sing about redemption.
She had been mid-note. They had all been mid-note. The song had been going so well, then Adam and Lute ruined it.
The silence that replaced it had weight.
The Commander of Heaven, Lelouch, set down his pen with a sound like a judge's gavel as he said, "Silence."
"What," he said, "did you just say?"
His voice was quiet.
In this case, quiet was not reassuring. Quiet meant he was already three steps ahead of wherever the conversation thought it was going, and he was deciding which of those steps to let you see.
Charlie blinked. The echo of the song still hung faintly in the air. "I—I said that angels come to kill sinners. Innocent souls who haven't done anything to deserve—"
"We know that angels kill in Hell." He rose from his seat at the council arc, and the violet glow of his eyes sharpened. "Once a year, the Exterminator force descends to deal with the Overlord problem. Souls in hell have accumulated enough power to threaten a breach of Earth, once again. That is the sanctioned purpose." He tilted his head, precise as a blade finding its angle. "Sinners, I would not classify as innocent souls. There is, after all, a reason they are in Hell."
From across the room, Adam — who had been lounging with the practiced ease of someone who had attended enough of these meetings to know when to look bored — went very still.
Beside him, Lute's hand found his wrist. Don't, her grip said.
Charlie, who had not noticed this exchange, pressed on with the particular bravery of someone who believed the truth was on their side. "But they don't kill the Overlords. That's my point. Barely any overlords have ever actually died in an extermination. They kill regular sinners. The ones on the streets. The ones who can't hide are in public."
The silence this time was a different species entirely.
Lelouch's violet eyes moved slowly, deliberately, across the room until they found Adam.
Adam, the first Man, who survived the primordial Earth, had the distinct experience of wanting to be somewhere else.
"Adam." The name landed like a door closing. "Explain. Now."
"Lelouch, my boss." Adam's voice carried its usual performance of confidence, the grin already assembling itself like armor on his mask. "Buddy. Pal. You know how it is down there — it's chaos, right? You can't always tell who's an Overlord and who's just—"
"*Explain, now.*"
The grin flickered.
High Seraphim Sera had not spoken yet. Her patience running out, and when she moved—straightening, both hands flat on the table—the temperature of the room changed.
"Then explain it." Her voice didn't raise. It didn't need to. "Why are your exterminators hunting sinners? The order given to you was specific. Overlords. Their allies and bodyguards. Souls with enough power to destabilize the barrier." She let that sit. "When did 'souls who cannot run fast enough' enter that mandate?"
A third angel, one of the silent council members who had been taking notes with the expression of someone watching a slow carriage accident, looked up from his parchment. "Why didn't Lucifer report any of this? He rules Pride Ring. He would have seen the casualties."
Charlie frowned. "My father? What does he have to do with—"
Emily, who had sung with Charlie and finally understood something did go terribly wrong, spoke up softly. "The agreement Heaven made was that the Exterminators would hunt Overlords specifically. Powerful souls who accumulate enough to threaten movement to Earth. The arrangement was never—" She stopped. Swallowed. "It was never supposed to be this."
Nunnally, beside her, leaned forward, the leader of the CHERUB with Emily, the one Charlie enjoyed talking to.
Her voice was gentle and was trying to manage the trajectory. "Charlie." She smiled, and it was real warmth even now. "Perhaps it would be best if you returned to Hell for the moment. We'll open a channel to your father shortly, and we can revisit this conversation with full information and—"
"But my hotel." Charlie's voice had gone small. "The whole reason I came was—"
Sera looked at her. "You can have it," she said, and it didn't sound like a joke. "The sanctioned purpose of the Exterminator force was never to touch ordinary sinners. That much is clear."
She glanced at Adam with an expression that promised a very long and very unpleasant conversation. "Speak to your father. Let us determine the appropriate... response to what we've learned here."
A portal shimmered open behind Charlie—she moved toward it, still processing, still turning over the shape of what had just happened.
The hotel was safe. That was — that was good. That was what she'd come for.
But the room felt like it was only just beginning to fill with something.
She was nearly through when Adam's voice came from behind her, with the particular timing of a man throwing a torch as he backed out of a burning building.
"Hey, Vagatha." He said the name with a smile in it. "You were an exterminator. You know the real job description better than anyone. You want to fill Charlie in on the details? Since we're all being so honest today."
Charlie stopped.
The portal held her half-in, half-out, the warm haze of it blurring the edges of the room behind her.
She turned back to her girlfriend.
And Vaggie — who had gone white somewhere around the moment Charlie said they don't kill Overlords — was looking at her with an expression Charlie had never seen on her face before.
Not the fierce protectiveness, not the barely leashed impatience with nonsense, and not the soft edges she kept for when it was just the two of them.
This was the face of someone standing at the edge of a confession they'd been carrying for a long time.
The last thing Charlie saw before the gold closed around her was Adam, already being turned on by the full weight of Sera's gaze and Lelouch's cold, methodical attention—and not looking nearly as satisfied with his gambit as he'd planned to.
As his commander and his boss were glaring at him for his stupidity.
Chapter 2: Chapter 2
Chapter Text
The air in the ruined theater was thick with the smell of gunpowder, crushed velvet, and the distinct, coppery tang of freshly squashed billionaires. Lyle Lipton’s body lay spectacularly flattened beneath the remnants of a grand piano, officially marking the end of the line for the old man.
Standing triumphantly that the mission worked, Blitzo, Moxxie, and Millie dusted off their hands. Blitzo wore a grin so wide it threatened to split his face, leaning casually against his flintlock. Moxxie adjusted his bowtie with a smug little huff, while Millie giggled, twirling her battle axe before holstering it.
They had won.
The target was dead, and the overly cheerful, sickeningly sweet agents of C.H.E.R.U.B. had failed miserably.
Across the debris-littered stage, Keenie, Cletus, and Collin were in a state of absolute panic.
"Quickly! Before anyone sees the mess!" Keenie squeaked, her voice bordering on hysterical.
Her small hands came together, a silent prayer. Then, a brilliant portal of pure gold flared to life, a radiant swirl of light. A distant echo of a celestial chorus filled the air.
The three cherubs were off like a shot. Eager to avoid the colossal mess, they soared upwards, plunging toward the inviting, ethereal radiance of the heavenly gates.
BZZZZT!
A jarring, electric crackle completely drowned out the angelic choir. Instead of soaring through the clouds, the three cherubs slammed face-first into an invisible, impenetrable barrier. They peeled off the barrier like cartoon bugs on a windshield, tumbling backward in a pathetic pile of ruffled feathers and bruised egos onto the splintered floorboards.
Blitzo barked out a harsh laugh, pointing a finger at them. "Oh, that is rich! Looks like Daddy Upstairs changed the locks!"
Cletus sat up, rubbing his rapidly swelling snout. "What the?!" he yelled, his voice cracking. "The portal! It rejected us! " Before any of them could attempt another dive, the golden light of the portal shifted, morphing into a sterile, bureaucratic white. Floating down were a group of cherubs. Flanking the front were two buzzing, uniformed bees and two perfectly groomed sheep, their expressions utterly devoid of sympathy.
Leading the pack was Deerie.
The deer-like cherub trotted down the ethereal steps with an infuriatingly bouncy gait. With a flick of her hoof, a pair of sharp reading glasses and a pristine clipboard materialized out of thin air. She settled the glasses on her nose, looking down at the crumpled trio on the floor with a mix of pity and absolute disdain.
"Sorry, Cletus," Deerie began, her voice dripping with that sickening, singsong tone of a retail manager delivering terrible news. "But your actions resulted in the death of a human. You can't re-enter Heaven. Yeah, no..."
Cletus, Collin, and Keenie froze. The color drained from their already pastel faces. "What?!" the three of them shrieked in unison, their voices echoing off the ruined theater walls. Deerie offered a tight, unsympathetic smile, tilting her head. "Yeah, sorry! Yeah, no." Collin, trembling from head to hoof, took a hesitant step forward, his large, tear-filled eyes looking up at the head cherub. "Deerie, please... is there anything we can do?"
Deerie didn't even look up from her clipboard. With a casual flick of her wrist, she conjured a glittery nail file and began to meticulously file her perfectly manicured hoof.
"Yeah, no!" she said brightly, letting out a soft, condescending chuckle. "No, no, no." To drive the point home, Deerie pointed her freshly filed hooves directly at Collin, Cletus, and Keenie in sequence with every no, as if explaining the concept to toddlers.
Keenie's temper finally snapped. She stomped her foot, pointing an accusatory finger across the stage. "But we didn't mean to! We'd never intentionally harm a human! It was all the demons! They interfered!"
Deerie stopped filing.
The infuriating smile vanished from her face, replaced by a sharp, calculating glare that seemed entirely out of place on the Cherub. She lowered her clipboard and locked her eyes on Keenie.
"Demons?" Deerie repeated, her valley-girl accent suddenly edged with pure ice. "Why didn't you call for an exorcist then?"
Keenie spun around, furiously pointing toward the spot where the I.M.P. crew had been standing. "They're right—"
She cut herself off. Across the stage, Blitzo was already waving a heavy, leather-bound grimoire in the air. A portal of swirling red and black hellfire tore open behind him.
"Alright, this HR meeting is getting way too boring for my taste," Blitzo called out, flashing a mock salute. "Have fun with your performance review, sky rats! Smell ya later." Moxxie and Millie stepped through the fiery rift, and with a final, obscene gesture, Blitzo vanished, the portal snapping shut behind him, leaving nothing but the smell of ozone and brimstone.
Deerie’s glare shifted from the empty space where the demons had just stood, back to the trembling trio. The sheer incompetence of the C.H.E.R.U.B. agents seemed to genuinely baffle her.
"You didn't call for an exorcist?" Deerie demanded, stepping closer, her tone dropping its artificial sweetness entirely. "Didn't you even think to call for me, or hell, for our boss Nunnally or Emily? We have protocols for a reason. You are agents of Heaven, not street brawlers."
Cletus wilted under her gaze, his usual bravado completely evaporated. He looked down at his boots, twisting his hands together. "We know... we are sorry."
Collin sniffled, wiping a tear from his cheek. "...so?"
Deerie sighed, tapping her clipboard against her chin as she recalculated the situation.
The presence of demons changed the paperwork significantly.
"We are all returning to Heaven," Deerie announced. "You three will tell Commander Lelouch everything you saw here today."
Keenie blinked, her anger momentarily replaced by utter confusion. "Why Commander Lelouch? Isn't he in charge of the Vanguard? He only attacks when there are high demons. These are hellborn; a 2-class exorcist would be enough!"
Deerie’s expression grew grave, her eyes darting to the scorch mark left by Blitzo's portal. "That magic they used to escape... that was a grimoire. It's not a standard Asmodean Crystal. That means a Goetia must be helping them; that means it's a full crime. The Commander will want to know that Hell's aristocracy is interfering with mortal affairs. He will take care of it himself."
Cletus’s eyes lit up with a sudden, desperate spark of hope. "So... everything is okay? We aren't banished? And not getting punished?"
"You aren't banished." Deerie let out a sharp, incredulous laugh. "But! You're restarting the CHERUB school from the ground up for even considering fighting a demon hand-to-hand while on a mission."
She leaned in, her voice leaving absolutely no room for argument. "We help humans. We bestow blessings. And if demons interfere, we summon an exorcist who kills and hunts the demon while we work, most of all when it's more than we are on Earth. We do not engage. Do you understand? That is what you learn in the first hour. You were 3 cherubs, and there were 3 demons; you made that error.
The three cherubs looked at each other, their shoulders slumping in defeat. The prospect of going back to basic training was humiliating, but it was far better than being exiled to Earth forever.
Cletus, Collin, and Keenie sighed in unison. "Fair."