Chapter 1

A/N: Hello everyone... Battle Damage with another fanfic here. This one is actually about my OC Martukus from the story Dream Machine and its sequel Reborn... Enjoy!

Wake up, go to work, work, come back, go to sleep, repeat, and generally pretend to be human. This is how my life has been like for the last four thousand years. Of course I've lived longer, two and a half million to be specific, but I've been on Earth for four thousand. My name is Martukus, also known as Mark to any human who asks. For those of you who are wandering what I am, no I am not a space alien, nor am I a spy, as a specific rainbow maned pegasus has come to believe during my travels. I am what is referred to as a Fallen Angel. A powerful and immortal being that hunts down and kills demons. Most human religions hate Angels like me mostly because we use the same powers as demons and shadow-mancers. Now before I continue my story I have to tell you something. For me, humans fall into four basic categories. They are:

1) Boring

2) Insane

3) Crazy

4) Not worth my time

There is one exception to these four categories though. His name is Crimson Blast, or Alex Wesson, depends on who you talk to. But I'm getting several hundred thousand years ahead of myself. Before I start the story, let me tell you what I look like. I'm about 6'5", well tanned, long black hair that reached just past my shoulders, and silver eyes. I do have an old set of black and gold armor, but I usually keep that hidden, just like my obsidian and gold sword and my white wings that nearly touched the ground. Now let's get to the story.

I was a 'government contractor' which was pretty much a fancy way of saying mercenary... don't judge me, I have to pay the bills somehow and I may be an angel but that doesn't mean I can pull money out of my ass. As I was saying I was a government contractor stationed in Antarctica to babysit a bunch of scientist eggheads.

"Wake up." a muffled voice said. In response I just groaned and covered my head with the pillow.

"Hey wake up Mark." the voice said again. I ignored it and tried to go back to sleep. I was vaguely aware of my mattress being lifted up. Several seconds later I felt a sudden feeling of weightlessness and then sudden extreme cold.

"Son of a bitch!" I yelled, trying to get up and run back to the housing unit. It was pretty hard considering the only thing I was wearing was a pair of boxers. "Holy fuckin shit! Jesus H. Christ!"

"Fuck you guys." I panted as I finally made it in. There was currently ten people in the housing unit out of its possible twenty. Standing in front of me were three of the four other angels I was in charge of. Everyone else was a human. These kind of things happened a lot, mostly because we were bored half the time.

"You know you love us." Coeselus said. Coeselus was known as Corey among the humans. Cory was about a foot shorter than me, black, had a shaved head, and brown eyes.

"I don't know how much longer that's gonna last." I whispered under my breath as I got dressed. After I was done, me and Coeselus headed out towards the armory.

"You know what proves my point that humans are all idiots?" I asked Coesulus.

"Here we go again."

"The fact that they want armed guards to protect a bunch of scientists... in fucking Antarctica. I mean seriously, what's the worst that can happen? The fucking penguins decide to rise up in a bloody rebellion and give us heart attacks from adorableness?" I complained. We checked out our gear from the armory and headed towards the main gate. There was only one other place on this shitty continent that they could go to and that was another research facility about a hundred miles away.

"I bet you can't hold your breath underwater for an hour." Coesulus said.

"I'm not falling for that."

"Why not? It's not like you can die or something."

"Okay, you're like what, twenty years old as an angel?"

"Twenty three."

"Close enough. Look the whole point of us being on Earth is for three reasons. To make sure the humans don't fuck up other dimensions, to make sure other dimensions don't screw up this one, and to make sure demons and shadow-mancers don't kill everyone. We can only do these things if humans don't know we exist."

"But isn't there an trans-dimensional portal in Antarctica?"

"Yeah, but it's under a mile of ice and three hundred miles inland. There's no way they could possibly-" I was interrupted as a human ran up to us.

"Corey, Mark... the scientists say they've found a temple. A temple that may change everything."

"You had to open your mouth." Coesulus mumbled.

"Shut the hell up."

"You curse a lot."

"Where in the bloody bible does it say thou shall not curse?"

"Good point."

TWENTY MINUTES LATER

We all stood in front of a tunnel that had been cut into the ice. It was big enough to drive a tank through with room to spare. There were ten of us, seven humans and three angels. Out of the ten of us four were scientists. The guards were outfitted with pistols.

"You know what I don't get?" one of the human guards said.

"What Mike?" another replied as we all started down.

"Why the hell are they sending armed guards to a temple that's been here for God knows how long?"

"Ever see the Alien Versus Predator series?"

"Hardy har, there's no such thing as aliens and you know it."

After that we all lapsed into silence. Me, Coesulus, and a female angel known as Vervada, followed from behind them.

"So what do we do if they find the portal?" Vervada asked. Vervada was tall, slender, had tanned skin, blond hair, and had green eyes. I probably would have gone after her if I hadn't been older than her by several million years and she was already with another angel named Mace.

"We can kill them all. Or we can go through it and destroy the one on the other side."

"I vote for the second one." Coesulus said.

"To bad you don't get one."

It didn't take us long to reach the entrance to the temple. It was huge. The temple itself was probably about half a mile tall, and probably four times that in length. The temple itself was made of stone and had an large door that was made of iron. Approaching the large door I saw that it was engraved with intricate markings that served no purpose other than to decorate it. Walking up I pushed the heavy door open. As I did one of the scientists gave me a dirty look.

"Seems quiet enough." I said.

"Famous last words." one of the humans said.

"Shut it." I replied. The room was dark. So dark that the humans probably couldn't see. But I could. There were spires that ran up to he ceiling and were spaced about one every ten feet. At the back of the temple was the portal. It stood on a flight of stairs that was probably about fifty feet high. The portal itself was a glowing black and at each corner was a gold pyramid. Flipping on my flashlight I stepped into the temple and the same scientist from earlier gave me another dirty look. I just rolled my eyes and walked in. We had probably walked about halfway into the temple when I got a weird feeling.

"Wait for it..." I said. "Wait for it..."

"Dude, what are you talki-" the human scientist was interrupted by a loud banging as the iron doors swung shut.

"There it is." I said. "How much do you want to bet that you're all going to die," I said as I pointed at the humans. "How much do you want to bet, that me, Cory, and Beatrice are going to be the only survivors, and we're going to have to fight off either a demon or a shadow mancer. It's one of the two and I'm not really sure yet which one it is, and they're going to make a Hollywood movie out of it in ten years... and several video games."

"How 'bout no." one of the human guards said. Another human was about to say something but there was a deep resonating laughter.

"Hmhmhmhm... you amuse me." said a deep rasping voice.

"Shadow mancer, I was half right." I said.

"How can you tell the difference? You haven't even seen me yet." the voice said. The humans at this point were pretty much scared out of their minds.

"Well mainly because shadow-mancers like to play with their food, and demons usually just go for the kill. So if you are a demon you're an idiot"

"Well then good thing I'm not a demon then." the voice said. I took away the magic spell that had been hiding my armor, sword, and wings. Using my magic I placed the armor on my body. The armor was a lot like the armor a knight would wear from the mid-evil era. There were some differences though. The armor was thinner, only about two centimeters thick, a lot lighter, and was a lot more ornate. Instead of being a solid silver color, mine was black with engravings that were colored gold. Contrary to popular belief my wings, weren't technically there. When I wanted to, I could make then translucent and able to phase through walls and stuff. This ability was extremely useful when it came to fighting.

My sword was a little different. It was about four and a half feet long, had a double sided blade, the blade was made out of obsidian, and the hilt was made out of gold. The pommel of the hilt ended with two dragons that were entwined with each other. The hand guards were the dragons wings.

Looking to my left and to my right I saw Vervada and Coesulus doing the same. Vervada wore a set or armor that was a lot less bulky than mine and it showed off her curves. The armor was as white as her wings. In her hands were two swords. Actually they were to short to be swords, but they were also too long to be knives. Coesulus wore armor that was probably the biggest out of all of us. His armor, like mine, was black, but instead of gold engravings, his were red. He held a giant war ax.

"What are you guys?" one of the humans asked.

"If you survive I'll tell you."

"W-what?" I didn't have time to answer because there was a spray of blood and I saw three humans fall. I closed my eyes for a minute and when I opened them the room was filled with pitch darkness.

"What did you do? I can't see! I can't see!" the shadow-mancer cried.

"Absolute darkness. Shadows that absorb all light and energy." I said. This tactic was commonly used against shadow-mancers, since they weren't true demons they didn't have their raw ability, for example, they, unlike demons and Fallen Angels, can't see in absolute darkness. Now before I go on, let me tell you what a shadow mancer is. A shadow mancer is a person, it technically can be anything... I've seen a pet goldfish turned into a shadow-mancer., that has had their soul combined with that of a demon's soul. They have the same basic powers of a demon but aren't usually as powerful.

"I'll kill you, you angel fuck!" the shadow-mancer screamed. It didn't take long for me to spot him. He was crouching down at the base of the stare case. He used to be human but now he was a monstrosity. His skin was an extremely pale white, and his hands ended in long black claws. Sprouting from his back, was a pair of bat-like wings. I could see his canines sprouting from his mouth. I quickly and silently made my way over to him. I was being followed by Vervada and Coesulus.

"This isn't possible! I feast on the shadows!"

"You feast on the shadows? Well I live in them." I replied. By this time I was right in front of him. He tried to jump up and fly away, but I first hacked off one of his wings, and then broke his legs. His screams filled the temple.

"Please have mercy." he begged. I just looked at him and cast a spell that restored the room to its original state.

"Why should I?"

I didn't give him time to respond. I quickly stabbed him through the chest in one quick motion. A shadow mancer, unlike a demon, didn't need its soul to be destroyed to truly kill it.

"What now?" Vervada asked. Turning around I saw that all the humans were dead.

"We leave." I replied as I picked up the shadow mancers body and headed for the portal.

"One thing first though." I said as I stood at the foot of the portal.

"When we go through... we can show up anywhere and at anytime." Vervada just tilted her head in confusion.

"Both of you are extremely young for angels so I'll explain this. Trans-dimensional portals like the one we're about to go through are incredibly unstable."

"There are different kinds?" Coesulus asked.

"Yes there is, but I'll tell you later. This one is highly unstable so it will send us to a fixed point in the multi-verse, but the problem is time."

"What?" both of the younger angels asked at the same time.

"It can send us to any point in time in the dimenion we're going to. Whether it be ten days in the future, or a thousand years in the past. So when we go through, we have to make sure we are connected." i told them as I held out my hand. Vervada hesitated but Coesulus grabbed it in a firm grip.

"I don't know if I can do this." Vervada said.

"I'm sorry Vervada but we have to do this. Mace would want you to do this." I told her. After a moment she looked up at me with sad eyes and then nodded.

"I'm ready." she said as she grabbed Coesulus' outstretched hand.

"Then let's go, and may Father watch over us."