For the first time in millennia, Lucifer almost smiled.  Just the thought that maybe, just maybe, there was something he could do to actually give his little slice of damnation a purpose…well, it was thrilling.  For so long now, ever since he lost the First War (which really was kind of crap, if he did say so himself) he’d had nothing and no one.  Everybody who flocked to his side, well the survivors anyway, were in the same state of absolute ennui that he had been in.  And it was over something so stupid!  Father wanted to make humans and Lucifer knew, he knew, that they wouldn’t measure up.  They were flawed from the get go.  And even though Father had told him “That’s what makes them perfect” (what did that even mean?  Father may have been all knowing and all powerful, but he was absolute crap at explaining things) Lucifer hadn’t wanted to see Him hurt and let down by those cretins.

THAT was what had started this whole mess.  Well, that was what led to Lucifer repeatedly trying to make his point, which led to Father cutting him off and not speaking to him, which led to Lucifer getting super pissed and Michael telling him to get lost, which led to Lucifer punching Michael in the face, raising an army, and trying to fight his way to the White Throne.  Losing the resultant war, and Michael (with that stupid smirk on his face – even with a slightly crooked nose) kicking him (literally)  into Hell, is what started this particular aspect of this whole mess.  And what’s worse, he’d been right!  Seriously, look up there and it was plain as day.  Hardly anyone goes to church anymore, helps their neighbor, or even remotely thinks about doing good in their own world.

Now-a-days, people only care about what’s in it for them.  They want more money, or power, or whatever they can get.  Wars all over the place!  Ones that make that little tiff in Heaven he’d started (again, under protest) look like a friendly cricket match.  And the life styles these people chose!  These folks will poke, pierce, and perforate themselves in ways that are just gross.  There are people up there who make themselves look like cats, or tattoo their eyeballs (it’s gross enough when someone puts in contact lenses, for Father’s Sake!) and Lucifer had even heard about a guy who sexually identified as an attack helicopter.  And they ALL made fun of Father, practically.  Or of just believing in something in general.  C’mon…Pastafarianism?  ‘Nuff said.

But…if there was even a chance that Lucifer could get back up there…or even half-way up there and MAKE Father listen to him, he might be able to get back in.  Father was not a big fan of “I-told-you-so’s” but still, maybe he wasn’t even watching them anymore, or he’d surely have put a stop to all this.  Yeah…yeah!  He’d just say, “Look!  Look at them down there!  They don’t care, like I said they wouldn’t, and you kicked me out for being right!”  Well, he kicked him out for cutting down a few legions of angels…but they were in the way, and now wasn’t the time to quibble over semantics!  If he could just figure out a way to do it. 

Lucifer was really starting to work himself into an exited state, and began to thing furiously over how he could get out of Hell.  He began to pace back and forth over the dishwater grey stones of his palace, the shaft of light just off to his side all but forgotten.  All he’d need to do, really, was get those that had fought with him the first time to see that they had nothing to lose.  Then to get out of Hell and pick a fight.  That last part was actually fairly easy, since Heaven, Hell, and Earth were really sort of layered on top of one another, and as with anything that had layers, some places were…thinner…than others.  After all, when he’d still been interested in trying to irk Father by messing around with the humans, that’s how he’d reach out to them.  And since Hell didn’t really have a geography that was a slave to what the humans called physics, he could just will himself to those spots.  But how to get all the way through?  Lucifer was going to need help.  He’d have to find Belial and see what he thought.

Belial was off to the west of Hell, if Hell could be said to have a west…Lucifer was in the center-ish so maybe it was more accurate to say that Belial was too the, what, right of Hell? Eh, whatever, Lucifer knew that Belial was…over there…somewhere…and could get to him if he wanted to, and suddenly he very much wanted to.  As he passed around the beam of light, Lucifer could see into the cell of one of Hell’s particularly revolting tenants and discovered the man stretched out on the floor, eyes glassed over with a total lack of hope.  Just because he was feeling excited, and because this one was a real piece of crap even by Hell’s standards, Lucifer conjured an anvil out of Hell’s aether and dropped it square on his unmentionables.   There was a brief bought of cursing in German before the tenant went back to not caring , and Lucifer smiled to himself as he thought of Belial and the possibilities before him, and blinked out of the palace and out into the blighted landscape of Hell.

*******

Belial was half sitting, half reclining against the foot of one of Hell’s dishwater grey mountains when Lucifer appeared before him.

“Ugh…the Hell do you want?” He asked, snickering a little at the pun he’d just made.

“You.  Though looking at you laying there like a slug, I’m questioning why.”

“Funny.  Well here I am, so if you just wanted to give me a ration of crap, you’ve done what you came here for, so now you can piss off…My Lord.” Belial had no desire to see his former master, and really wanted to get back to quietly hating his existence.

Lucifer could understand the sentiment.  When they all got slingshot down here and Heaven’s light had been reduced to that infuriating little pin prick, every ounce of hope and fire that any of them had got torn right out of them.  Just like their wings had.  But today was different, or at least Lucifer hoped it’d be.  He needed a fresh perspective on this, and Belial was almost as old as he was. He had been high enough in Heaven’s roster before the Fall that now he was Prince of Hell, which unfortunately made him Prince of Dishwater Grey Dirt And Jack Crap Else.  Lucifer almost felt bad that he hadn’t even visited his oldest friend and general since they got here.  Almost.  If he wasn’t being such an ass anyway.

“Listen…what if I said that I was thinking about getting the band back together again?  Finding a way out of this dump and making Father see what a colossal mistake he’d made by creating those people up there and putting us down here?” he leaned toward Belial conspiratorially.

Belial looked up at him and started to fiddle with the dirt with one finger, “I’d say being down here has finally driven you nuts.  How would we even get back up there?  And even if we could, that’s exactly what got us here in the first place!”

“Exactly!”, Lucifer almost shouted, his eyes lighting up, “don’t you see?  What do we have to lose?  Even if we lost, what do we have to lose?  What’s Father going to do?  What CAN he do?  We’re already here, there’s nowhere else to go but up!”

“Well…maybe”, for the briefest of moments, Belial’s face betrayed the fact that, in the pain of his exile, he clearly hadn’t thought of things that way, “but still.  How?  This is Hell, Lucifer, not the Holiday Inn, we can’t just…just…check out!”

“Well…true…but that’s what I wanted to talk to you for.  There’s got to be something I’m missing.  Some way for us to…I don’t know, tear a hole at one of the thin parts of the Separation.  You’ve been around almost as long as I have!  There’s got to be something!” Lucifer almost shouted at him, clearly not wanting his only hope to be snuffed out so cruelly.

“Like what?! A door?  A key?  What the crap do you want me to say?!  We got sent to Hell, man!  We’d need a damn miracle to get out of here!  Father himself would have to forgive us, or we’d have to get Him to tear a hole for us!  Do you know a way to get Father to do that? Or a way to get Him to do it without knowing He’s doing it?” he yelled back.

The two fallen angels locked their eyes on each other, teeth bared, angry that they were both being so stubborn.  It was true that only Father could really get them out, and no, Lucifer didn’t know a way to make him do it.  They’d need something from Heaven, or from Him directly, and Lucifer didn’t think He was just going to take His finger and poke a hole through Hell to let them out.

Wait…

Poke a hole?  Like a knife…like a divine knife…

No.  Not a knife…a Spear.  A Spear, not from Him, but with something from Him on it.

The thought seemed to hit both angels at the same time, and their lower jaws dropped in unison.

“The Spear of Destiny.” They said together.