| Ⱥʂcɛɳʂɨoɳ |

Joan stumbled forward as soon as the hand made contact with the ground, her arms stretching forward as she tried to regain her balance. She slowly stood up straight as she began to scan the area they were now in. This is...? The young woman followed after Elias, tapping her feet against the ground. Everything had changed. She was never expecting to see Earth like this, let alone even imagined it. Her lips parted as she lowered the cloth away from her mouth, taking several steps forward as she continued to look in every direction she could.

"Don't be afraid."

Joan jumped slightly as she turned, her Guardian Angel now standing right behind her. Her lips pressed tightly together as she nodded at Gabriel, turning her attention back ahead of her. She wasn't sure how she should react to any of this. True, she was feeling slightly afraid, but at most, she felt a bit angry as well; she couldn't believe that the Fallen had caused Earth to become like this. She was now beginning to feel that she should kill them, but when the time would come, she knew she would not be able to do it. She figured she'd have to leave that kind of "dirty" work to the others. I can't avoid it. Sighing lowly, Joan momentarily closed her eyes and clenched her hands into fists. "How did they do this?"

 

The giant hand crashed down onto the ground with a strong quake, shaking the foundation underneath Boris. The Viking fell onto one knee, struggling to maintain stability. Slowly, he got up and stumbled forward before regaining his balance and shaking himself. He gripped the sword's hilt tightly and looked up to gaze upon the horizon. This was...nothing like the Earth he had left behind. Surely this is just new snowfall? The warrior attempted to tell himself. Boris followed the lead set forth and eased off the hand, sitting on the edge first and tenderly lowering himself down.

He landed on the ground with a solid Clop!...which confused him. He stomped his foot a few more times and noticed that the ground was akin to solid stone. Boris studied his surroundings and saw little more than sand scattered on the ground. This planet had truly been twisted into something perverse. The purity, the life of Earth had vanished and was replaced by stoneworks. The lush greens and trees Boris was used to were nonexistant. It was terrible...it was maddening. "No...no, this is impossible! This isn't Earth! Who could do this..." The large man boomed as he stomped around angrily, causing loud Clunk! noises to bounce off the stone ground. "I'm going to rip out each of their skulls and beat them with it." He muttered to himself, turning away from the group and leaning upon the stone hand.

 

Sapphira gasped as soon as she felt the strength of the crash against the ground, it making her almost fall off the hand had Raguel not been there to swiftly fly down and catch her with his bill, pulling her back up to her feet. She she felt herself become weak as she fell to her knees and took in deep breaths, placing her hand to her heart and trembling.. It took her a moment to calm down and stand but eventually she did, cleaning off the dust from her dress that had covered her. Once finished, she looked up instantly with a smile and eyes closed, lifting her hands up in a cheer. "It's great to finally be back! Hello, Ear-" Her words trailed off, having her first glimpse at the world she once lived in. Her head tilting to the side before her eyes turned small and bead-like, her jaw dropping just a bit as the smile stayed where it was.

Raguel stared down at her, wondering as to what was wrong. Sometimes, her randomness came as a surprise, even to him. But he decided it was best not to point it out, figuring she was probably taking in all the horror the others felt around this new earth. He wouldn't want to make her look as the weak link of the group, something he knew she didn't want.

Sapphira stayed in the same position for a few seconds, looking around the area surrounding them. She soon collected herself enough to move forward in a slow and robotic manner. She leaped off the hand with her sword in hand, making a small plop on the solid ground with her feet. Her expression remained as she moved her head downward, staring at the floor below her. Blinking a few times, she took her weapon and used it to poke at the ground. Solid. Her head then tilted the other way, suddenly stabbing the floor multiply times after. Eventually she bent down, using one of her small fingers to feel it for herself. Looks like sand yet feels like rock. She stared at it for a while until she came back and stood up straight, the seriousness finally appearing on her face. "This... can't be earth..."

She looked around again before glancing back to her fingers once more, a shuddered sigh escaping her lips. However, a few seconds had passed when suddenly small amount giggles began to come from her followed by a loud laugh that she released into the odd air. "This is weird! No way is this earth! Solid sand ground? It's just plain silly! I think we may be on the wrong planet. Or I could still be in my dream world... That's got to be it! Now were are those muffins?" Sapphira grinned happily like a fool, stabbing her sword deep into the ground and placing her foot upon the hilt, putting her hand to her forehead and searching around with determination on her face.

Raguel sighed, shaking his head in disbelief. 'And she is the one who said she wants to be taken seriously... Good job with that.' He couldn't help grin himself, not being help how much he really loved her slightly delusional yet childlike mind she had at times.

 

As the giant hand that served as their plaform descended from the sky, the long purple haired soldier attempted his best to keep his balance while the hand crashed into the ground. With a big crash Rath held his balance and glanced down at the white ground that they landed upon. Had they landed in the artic? No, Rath threw away those thoughts instantly upon realizing the ground was not snow. He raised an eyebrow as he stared at the ground and then merely jumped off the stone handed platform.

Calmly Rath landed on the ground and took a few steps forward, his guardian angel Ariel landing beside him. A stone white ground and a surge of colors swirling around him above in the sky, Rath narrowed his eyes as he stared at the strange area.

“I know what you are thinking, where are we and what must you do here. Well believe it or not this is the place you left, the world of the living, this is Earth.†Ariel stated to her human.

At this news Rath's eyes slightly widened as he stared around the area. This place he once called home, the place he departed in an attempt to protect those that dwelled there. No sign of life anywhere, everything was inanimate, lifeless, cold. It was then that Rath realized the true importance of him mission and how dangerous his enemy could be. He crossed his arms and closed his eyes, waiting for the others to take in the sight and prepare to move out.

 

Elyssa didn't fall as the hand hit the ground, instead only shut her eyes as she bent smoothly to absorb the impact. She wore a small smile on her face, it had been too long since she'd been home. When she opened her eyes to see her wonderful Earth for the first time in thousands of years, she gasped and took a step back, momentarily losing her balance. "No..." She knew she was one of the oldest out of the group and she was expecting the world to have changed but not like this. Not like this at all. The place seemed almost devoid of life, the lush beauty of the land gone.

Her eyes clouded as she stumbled off of the giant hand, there was none of her usual finesse in her movements. She felt something on her shoulder and looked up to see Camael. Her guardian angel didn't say anything, she didn't need to, more was conveyed by that look and movement than any words could say. Elyssa took a deep breath, calmer but still shaken, "What happened here? What could have reduced it to this? It's just so wrong." She shook her head, "Is it all like this? Or did we just hit a bad area?" She suspected the answer to her question before she asked it but still she could hope.

 

Crystal slipped off and landed on her butt when the hand smacked down into the Earth. Her eyes were closed due to the pain she just received. After attempting to recover from her bruise, she stood up, brushed herself off and prepared to view the new world that would be thrown in front of her. She turned to look and her eyes opened as wide as they possibly could. Her spirit was sucked away in her astonishment. It was as if the prophesies had come true. It resembled an apocalyptic world; lifeless and barren with not even a breeze to welcome the dead that returned to what they had once called home. Things needed to change. The world needed to be returned to its previous state of happiness.

 

June waited patiently as the last girl studied her ring before activating it. It didn't really occur to her that maybe the rings were worth taking a look at before being struck. Then again, she wasn't much of a historian when she was alive. Sure, it would've been great to know all sorts of facts from past histories of places, people, and things, but her memory just didn't have the space. When the girl finally struck the ring, Lucifel disappeared and their journey continued. Throughout the whole event with the rings and swords, they had continued to plummet through the clouds. Now either there was some sort of a looping mechanic going on until all the rings were activated as would be common in a video game(everlasting conversation pauses until continue button pressed), or the descent from heaven was just really freaking long. Regardless, their arrival was obvious as unlike an elevator, the hand was unforgiving in its crashlanding, the shock causing June to jump before collapsing onto her knees and hands. Frankly, she was rather surprised that she and everyone else had survived that, if it wasn't for the fact that she and everyone else had died once before. That and all of them had most likely broken several laws of physics already.

Standing up slowly, the first thing June noticed after the dust cleared was the sky. She had been expecting a fantastic beautiful blue sky with white clouds. Or, at least, she had been wishing and hoping that she would see a fantastic blue sky with white clouds. What met her eyes was a relatively shocking rainbow like assortment of colors. Immediately, it reminded her of oil. The way light diffracts and gets reflected by it at the same time. It was both ugly and slightly pretty concurrently. The second thing that she noticed as she looked down beyond the stone hand, was the ground. It was one of the purest white she had seen besides all the buildings and clothes in heaven. The difference between this ground and heaven's architecture, was that this ground's white seemed like a sort of offwhite in comparison to heaven. Like an eggshell. As June shifted her gaze to the horizon around her, it became readily apparent that the landscape they were in was bizarrely barren. Not even a treestump or even a tumbleweed. "Looks like that salt lake place in Utah," mumbled June under her breath. She finally slid off the side of the hand and landed on the ground with a soft thud. Looking around her at the expressions that everyone else had, June was a little confused. Well, sure it is a bit shocking to see just how bad it is down here, but...we were already pretty bad off before. It doesn't surprise me too much. A lot can happen in a couple years.

"Well June, you have to remember that-"

That most of these people went centuries before I did, and possibly they're not aware of the extreme point of "development" that humanity was at when I went.

"Precisely."

Nodding in agreement that she still had to be respectful of everyone, June twisted the point of her shoe in the ground. It did feel pretty rock solid, but she refused to believe that it really was solid bedrock without a reasonable explanation. "Well, where to now, fearless leader? Pick a direction. Any direction," asked June to Elias with a smile.