Angelic - Part IV [Patron-Guided]

[Due to another tie, I have decided to choose a winner between the most-voted options~]

The tower with its bright red ping is a glare to Cyth, still seated outside the border of the city. It marks the greatest concentration of cultist activity in the city, there in the heart of business. Cyth leans above the city’s rooftops as they inspect the structure, noting its substantial size and the work happening all around it. As their head hovers in the sky, they are met with panicked screams and blaring traffic immediately beneath them, as citizens react to this destructive angel overseeing their community. The worry and chaos annoys Cyth; they’re here to improve society, yet so many despise their presence.

Cyth makes their decision with little debate. After a second close look of the corporate building, they raise their hand and take it to hang just over the peak. The flat palm is too wide to destroy just the target, so two digits are selected instead to isolate the damage. Mobs of people rush away from Cyth’s choice, as though the shadow of their fingers was a spotlight meant to be avoided. It was very true, for those fingers are an unstoppable weapon, armed and aimed at Cyth’s enemy.

The fingertips crash through the roof; Cyth detects a small pop as the building gives in, but the humans below flinch from a disturbing explosion and cry out in fear. Splinters are made of the top floor and the machinery that occupied it, much of it crumbling down the walls and onto the streets. The windows of the highest floors almost immediately blow out all together as the infrastructure of the building bends under the fingers’ weight. With so little resistance to their attack, Cyth proceeds with the demolition, even as they spot employees of all levels fleeing from all exits. The fingers split the building in half as they drive through its middle, cracking open floor after floor with those familiar pops. An audience forms, both at the street level and from the neighboring buildings, to awe at the devastation the angel has conjured -- they are kept at a distance by military police, who have since abandoned any hope of keeping a sense of peace. Their weapons do not fire at Cyth as they flatten the corporate building, the dust of such demolition flooding the roads as thick clouds.

Where there had once been a proud tower in the center of the city was now a heap of smoking scrap that spilled out onto the streets encircling it. The two fingers that sentenced the structure to doom remain fiercely positioned in the wreckage, expressionless and statue-like, standing as though it was to replace the building that was originally there. Cyth swirls their fingers through the debris, collapsing any remaining composition there may have been. The fingers are then removed and rubbed together so that loose debris caught under their nails is removed, sprinkled down onto other roofs. The attack is over as suddenly as it had begun.

Cyth straightens their posture and pings the city again, this time detecting human life rather than cultist activity. The death toll of their attack reaches several hundred, but the numbers do not phase Cyth. What they look for in particular is life inside the rubble, of which rescue workers have rushed to in an effort to save any survivors. Cyth has no intention on causing additional deaths, but they are invested in locating any devils among the people. As celestials similar to angels, devils are capable of disguises and hypnotism which enables them to manipulate and infiltrate human society. Assuming the cultists were properly led by a devil, then it was unlikely this straightforward assault had killed the ringleader. This ping for life would help Cyth determine if anyone had unnaturally survived the attack, and thus revealed themselves as supernatural.

For a moment, Cyth’s eyes close, but they open again with a spark. “Ah. So I was correct.” They lean over the city again, once more gazing down at where the building once stood. According to their ping, there was reason to believe a devil was indeed amongst the stragglers, trapped deep under the debris. It was vital that the devil be apprehended, lest they escape and regroup their efforts at another time.

But filtering through the debris to find a normal-sized body would be tedious. It was impossible to pinpoint where this devil was, and any sane devil would use tricks to keep themselves hidden. A different angle would need to be taken in order to assure the devil’s defeat, and so Cyth considers altering their size to something more fitting. A smaller scale would certainly make them more vulnerable, but it would allow them to precisely get to where they wanted to be. Of course, as an angel, there was little that could pose a genuine threat, but it was worthwhile to be cautious with devils and cultists.

With time ticking, Cyth makes a choice. Before the devil can sneak away, Cyth changes size to that of…

 (REMINDER: Only votes from Hexed-tier patrons and up will be counted~)