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Current Location: the grounds

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Date: April 23rd
Place: The Manor grounds
Status: Public - Aziraphale and Michael (anyone is welcome, though)
Summary: Michael is skilled at avoidance. Operation: Avoid Gabriel has now commenced.

All right, so maybe Michael had overreacted. Evicting Gabriel from his room and then Binding him out might have been considered... over-the-top. But it was his room... and anyway, the gasped "NO" following the "I love you" declaration was enough to throw anyone off! So really, Gabriel brought this on himself. Yeah. Let him grieve the loss of someone he didn't like. Woo. You go, Michael. Way to make a stand.

But Michael's room was boring, and there was only so long you could spend pacing. So, where was Gabriel not likely to go?

Well obviously the Library was out of the question; not that it would be Michael's first choice of location anyway. But Gabriel was such an inside creature - the lack of tan gave that away! - that his best bet was to go outside.

And so he did so, going outside, sitting on a bench and spreading his wings. They needed the sun to keep bring out their highlights, anyway.

He pondered what to do. What was there to do?

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"Some call me troublemaker," Loki admitted. "I'm not sure how well that would do for a title, though."

"Actually it's a pretty cool title, if it's capitalized," Michael replied, thoughtfully rubbing his chin. "You know, the Trickster, the Troublemaker. I like Trickster more. It's not my thing, but I kinda like the sound of it."

"Trickster," Loki repeated. "That sounds like "Nah, no need to take him serious, he's just playing pranks."

He considered for a moment. "So what are you actually doing here when you're not hanging around moping?"

"Not if you put 'the' in front of it," Michael pointed out. "'Trickster' sounds lame, but if you're 'the Trickster,' then you sound kind of awesome."

"And I don't hang around and mope," he protested lamely. "I do lots of stuff. Well, I will do lots of stuff, like end the world. That's why I'm here. Just have to talk to Adam first. He's avoiding me, though."

Aziraphale's jaw dropped.

"Now look," Loki said, grinning in a way that could be taken by the angel any way he wanted to take it. "Ending the world, I must sadly say, is my job, not yours. But, you know, we can always talk about it. Why don't you tell me which parts, specifically, you would like to end, and we'll talk about it and make a deal?"

Michael raised an eyebrow at him. "The whole thing," he replied. "That's sort of the point of the Apocalypse. Lakes of fire, Horsepersons, humans die, the world ends, the devil goes FWOOSH. Why, were you only thinking of destroying part of it?"

Aziraphale felt nauseated as he stood up. "Excuse me, gentlemen," he said, hoping he looked better than he felt. "I ought to be... back at the Manor."

Before waiting for a response, he quickly fled from them.

He loved this world! Why did... why did everyone else want it gone?

"I think we scared him," Loki said as he looked after the other man. He climbed over the backrest of the bench and slid in the place Aziraphale had vacated.

To Michael, he added: "We can't both destroy it all. That's why I suggested splitting things up. See, I don't have the devil on my list, so you can have that, for example."

"He's gone native," Michael said, dismissing Aziraphale with a shrug. "As for the world, maybe we can... well I don't see how to destroy just half of it. But maybe if our plans go off at the same time, the world will just be really really dead? That way we don't know who got what." He paused. "Our Plan is called Armageddon or the Apocalypse. What's yours?"

"Mine's called Ragnarök," Loki explained. "It's more about getting rid of those so-called gods. The rest of the world is more like collateral damage, you know? So if you led me a few troops for my bit, I'll help out with yours afterwards."

He winked at him, letting him take it as seriously or jokingly as he wished.

"Ohhhh," said Michael. "Well, ours is more focused towards wiping out the Sins of Humanity, and the devil. The devil's all mine, but we also focus on taking out the humans too, or at least the evil ones. It's kind of complicated and the plan keeps changing, but if to you the humans are just collateral damage, then the plans shouldn't interfere with each other too much."

"I don't much care about sins or evil people or anything," Loki said, wondering if they were actually joking or talking in earnest. This was going so much better than he had expected!

"I have a couple of fire spirits though who desperately want to put some parts of Midgard - you call that Earth, I think - on fire. I think they would be very put off if they couldn't."

Michael thought about it. "Pretty sure that's part of the Plan anyway. Maybe they can be contracted?"

"They'll follow my lead, so I think we'll be able to work something out. My assorted sons will want to taste some blood, too, but they'll be mainly concentrating on Asgard with me I would assume."

A true and perfectly unfaked smile stole onto his face. "Say, you don't happen to know a few swords that would maybe like to come with me to Asgard, do you? Swords with persons attached that can wield them, that is. I was thinking, maybe if we could train a few of the half-birds here..."

He had, up to that point, never thought "we" but it definitely sounded better that way.

Michael blinked. "Half-birds? And you have kids? You didn't strike me as very fatherly. Where are they now? How many do you have? Who's the mom?"

"You know," Loki said, gesturing. "Guys with wings on their backs. That Aziraphale fellow who just left us handles a paint gun well enough by the way. So does Gabriel. So does Baraq for that matter. I was nearly as colorful as they were when we were done."

He wiggled his fingers as if he had to actually count his children.
"I had two sons by my wife, who were murdered by my fellow gods. I have three children by my mistress, who were banished by my fellow gods. Hel made a home for herself in the realm of the dead that died dishonorably, basically meaning not in battle. Jormundangr is living in the seas and Fenrir was bound and hidden from me. My last son I bore myself. He takes on a horse's shape and serves Odin."

More and more bitterness had crept into his voice as he had talked, and he had permitted it. "Fenrir has three sons, but they are... busy."

Michael raised an eyebrow. "You get around," he said lamely, wondering how he'd managed to impregnate himself.

"I try to keep things interesting," Loki said. Then, remembering something heh ad snatched up about these Christians and their ideas of strict monogamy, he added: "Will this change anything about our cooperation?"

"Are you a hermaphrodite?" Michael asked, practically writhing in curiousity.

"Erm," Loki said, "as far as I know, a hermaphrodite is both at the same time, and usual incabale of functioning either way. I'm just incredibly flexible."

To prove his point, he morphed into a female shape for a moment and back again. "Actually," he said, "I bore Sleipnir in the shape of a mare. Since the father is a stallion."

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I get it now," Michael said with a little laugh. "For a minute there I thought you had your own kid and that was freaking weird! We can change gender too," he did so, "although usually with a lot of paperwork involved. I don't need to do paperwork because I'm in charge. It's sort of my thing. Although I don't think I can have my own kid, and frankly I don't want to try."

"I never did any paperwork - just changed when it seemed the fitting or prudent thing to be. Being stuck in horse-shape for almost a year can be quite annoying, though."

He gave a hit of a shudder at the memory. Actually, there were quite a lot of memories that made him shudder these days.

"Anyway, I have three children that are alive and that I am reasonably sure are loyal to me. Five, if Hel lets go the two dead ones, which I should hope very much will go with loyalty towards her father."

Michael changed back into his regular self. "Oh man, a horse? Of all the animals to pick, why a horse?"

He wasn't sure what animal he'd pick. He'd have to think on it.

"The horse," Loki said, "is a symbol for harmony and trust, speed, strength and vitality. I can think of animals less worthy. This particular horse, however..."

He grinned at the memory. "He was the horse of another jötunn and played an important part in a bet that we had gotten ourselves into. If he had been able to finish the walls around Asgard within a certain time, we would've lost it. The bet, that is. So someone had to distract that stallion. It seemed as good a plan as any."