James stared at Valentine. He seemed to be...
Dark, all of a sudden.
Antheia embraced him. James took a deep breath.
"Valentine?"
He emerged from Antheia's arms with tears.
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for... saving me and Heather."
"Yeah, thanks," added Heather. "Y-you didn't have to do that..."
"Yeah, well, I'm not gonna just let you die like that," said Valentine. "What kind of person would I be then?"
There was an awkward silence. Valentine stared at the ground for a while, before he spoke.
"I think... I owe you an explanation?"
"That would be... nice," James replied quietly.
Antheia and Azelf looked at eachother.
"Sit down, children," Antheia murmured, looking at the two dead bodies next to them. "I think we can dispose of this."
She chanted something and the bodies disappeared.
Valentine gazed out at Angel Falls.
"So," he began. "Antheia... isn't... isn't my genetic mother.
"Remember when you asked, Heather? You asked who my mother was? Well... technically you were right. Aphrodite is my actual birth mother, and Antheia is my aunt - kind of, the other way round - so my father was Antheia's brother, Marcus..."
He stopped.
"So.. when the Devil was talking about Marcus, he was talking about..." James spoke softly.
"Yeah. And actually, there's more to it than that. Marcus was the powerful Angel who created Angel Falls in the first place. When the battle broke out, he created a healing waterfall to minimise the casualties... and became one himself. The Devil killed him. The Devil ruined my life..."
Valentine clenched his fists tightly.
"My mom is very flirtatious. She likes to be with loads of men. When she fell in love with Dad... she never expected me. Dad went away two days after I was born. Two days. He barely got to see me... but he at least loved me. Mom abandoned me after Dad left. I was put out. Just left. Unloved. Unwanted...
"Antheia took me in She is my real Mom. She cared for me, raised me, gave me the love that I never got from my real Mom. She has been my mother figure for my whole life. Thanks to her, I've been as happy as I could have possibly been. But still...
"I can't deal with adult romance anymore. Between kids, I can deal with, because kids won't usually think about sleeping together - well, not usually, anyway - but kids won't have other kids. Adults will. And when that happens, when they have a baby, they might..."
Valentine broke down, turning to Antheia and sobbing silently into her dress.
"It must have been so hard, being treated like an accident all your life," James thought. "Being unwanted must have made him so depressed. And... we never knew. We never realised. He hides it so well. How... could we have missed something massive like this?" He cast a cautious glance over to his friend, guilt twisting in his gut.
Azelf looked to the sky and said in a quiet voice, "I'm certain the Demons will return soon."
"But-" Heather protested. "They said so themselves - their general is gone!"
"But the thing is..." Azelf closed his eyes. "What do you suppose happens when an Angel or Demon dies, child?"
Heather looked to James, who shook his head.
"I don't... we don't know."
"They are reincarnated again." Azelf's face was wrinkled with concern. "However, that is not the case with the Devil. He is special, condemned to Hell forever. And thus... he cannot be reincarnated. But he is reborn."
James something drop to the pit of his stomach. "Re... reborn?"
"And I don't believe he'll be quite happy to see us again."
There was a tense silence.
"So we're going to let them take Angel Falls, like that? Isn't there, like, an army of Angels or something?" Heather said.
"Yes... but we don't have the permission to use it." Antheia's silken voice was tinged with despair.
"Who needs an army when we have Valentine?"
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