See this previous post for a communication to any who would join me in writing.  For a thought on David Lynch, see this article.  And see this article to read the story from the beginning.  Meanwhile…

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The angel believed it was real – believed that it was holy.  It believed that it had watched over the world for ten thousand years, as it had believed of itself for hundreds of years by that time – yet the figure of ten thousand was never recalculated in its mind.  It believed the entity corresponding to the star of Dio was truly the creator of the Universe, and it believed in the infallibility of the pontiff.

But something had become different for it, and this was intolerable.  The Mandate of Heaven was shaken as it had never been before.  The Celestial Hierarchy was in peril.  For the first time in what it supposed was ten thousand years, the angel moved.  The astrocielo around Dio 6 burned with sudden disruption of ectonic energy on an unprecedented scale, rippling through the electromagnetic spectrum as well, terrifying all the creatures of the physical and spiritual realms at once.  The great astral cathedral of Usael was brushed by a wing and flames raced through it, killing nearly everything within and without, knocking the structure adrift.  Millions of spirits burned in holy flames, but were not destroyed.  Some became angels, some angels changed forms and ranks, some fell and became devils – all with the gentle sway of Michael’s vast corpus.

He did not truly understand any of that, seeing only the iconoclasts – the adversary – and their unimaginable moment of triumph over the Will of God.  He reached down, but his hand was too vast to touch a thing.  He reached, smaller still, but his hand yet larger than a continent.  He reached and reached, the concept of what he was changing, and with it the vast web of particles and energy that constituted his being.  Already every parasite and commensal organism that had dwelled in the surface of his body had been annihilated.  But the vacuum created by his descent dragged everything unfortunate enough to dwell in the astrocielo around Dio 6 together, into an impromptu asteroid field of chaos and destruction.  Thousands of astronaves were destroyed, many more were badly damaged and sent spinning, potentially still to crash and burn.  Hundreds of thousands more angels and spirits died in the celestial void he created.

And then he was a duende, mewling and scraping in his cosmic afterbirth, the chaos of his descent still burning in the skies above.  This was no ordinary elf or putti.  Michael’s incarnate form was of a man of great stature, with vast wings and white fire crowning his glossy black hair.  But the real difference between him and the swarms of angelflies lay inside his head.  Burning behind his eyes was the most energy that had ever been concentrated into single incarnate soul – a power that held unknowable potential for creation and destruction.

As he slipped his iridescent caul, he choked and lost the fluid content of his new lungs, taking in terrible burning air.  What a wretched thing, to depend upon breath of molecules and atoms.  In his pain he struck the ground, cracking the foundation of the basilica, and roared like a lion.  The flesh of every putti rippled in the wash of energy, every angelfly within a kilometer was banished to a burning spirit world, and every mortal that heard the sound was driven to the ground, mind reeling.

Michael jerked his new body upright with lurching motions, and burned the amniotic fluid from his eyes with internal flames.  His mind required some touchstone, something to ground it, or his imagination would destroy the city.  Then he saw it.

The Mandate of Heaven was a crown that existed in both the physical and spiritual realm simultaneously, but more fantastic than most of the artifacts that held that property.  Violence upon it had brought a solar angel down to Dio 6, and now it was within that creature’s grasp.  Michael stepped over the bloody x-marked corpse, took it in hand, and held it aloft.  The pontiff’s great hat.

The pope’s body had not yet completely cooled, had not been properly sequestered in the wake of the great crime, but a date was already being discussed for the convocation to replace him.  Those plans would have to change.  Michael placed the great hat upon his own head, and rested his great body upon the pontiff’s throne.

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