The thing about the Angels is that they never really speak, merely chant their verses with increasing vigor, often in the ancient tongue — Halidom speech from before the second collapse. Rivin only knows the basics. Only cared enough to learn what was in the pamphlets and to do the opposite of the graffiti.

  The Angels had sold their meat to the skyfat but they’d sold their souls to something older. Something that craved destruction and marred flesh. Something that beckoned children into prayer but never let them back out. Those that survived their birth were easy to snatch up.

  Children were becoming a rarity in the dungeon — long before Rivin and his motley crew. Long before his mother and her mother still. If the dark didn’t get you, whatever spoke to the Angels did.

  He’d learned to keep far enough way. That was the easiest part. Their sanctum existed deep down beneath the Marina were the earth had been clipped and bridged into a fissure of sulfuric walls. They’d gouged their temples from the rocks and ruins, and the entrance opened up like a ghastly, webbed maw, tears in the earth so similar to tears in the flesh. Hungry.

  Winding towards the terrible towers is what’s left of a cathedral trellis skirting a long and winding path, held up by sulking marble statues wrenched from sometime else. The most notable of which had long ago struck quiet melancholy in his heart:

  A man with one hand outstretched, the other wielding a trident that’s aged into a patina, two prongs replaced by poorly forged titanium steel.

  A fearful woman crying out, bottom lips pulled downward while the top of her head has been slashed clean off.

  A laughing matron with several chipped and fishy legs curled up beneath her, face warped beyond humanity.

  He’d only ever gone there once. When he’d been young enough not to know any better. Desperate enough. He could remember his mother’s face more clearly back then, he wished he got to see her living one more often in his dreams. Usually she is gaunt, mouth agape like it had been when she’d died. Her hair the longest blanket, soft black shadows. Once she’d smelled of flowers — the ones that grew between the cracks in the Upper Stacks, but in the end she’d only smelled of death.

  No one had helped. No one had saved her. Not once the disease took root. No one but the Angels.

  They’d worn garbs he didn’t recognize back then — black leather on their hands to hide the titanium claws bolted into knuckle. Nothing could be done, of course. Once the black took there was no way out. Not even for strong mothers with gentle hands and tender words.

  It was him that they had wanted, voices sticky and sweet, luring him towards the door with scripture that hummed hard in his brain. Mercy would save him. He didn’t understand what that meant. He hadn’t gone with them. Something had caught his eye; her weak fingers twitching and reaching from the bed, beckoning him back, pleading without strength. He’d stayed, brushed her curls for days, stopped only when they fell away in big clumps. Held her hands instead.

  When he pleaded, when he beckoned. She did not stay.

  He’d heard that they’d come looking again, had spied their preachers on the Strip; but they’d stop pestering as soon as he stopped looking like something worth saving; the moment he ceased being a boy and started being something else. Not quite a man. Not an innocent. Not anymore.

  ‘A ghost.’ She doesn’t have to say it for him to hear her. Roach’s voice tumbles into his skull like she tumbles in through his window. Not tonight however. Tonight, she’s seated across from them all, grinning in that strange way that makes the light catch her teeth instead of her eyes.

  Rivin can’t look away. There’s something about her that’s growing more magnetic — something that begs him to spare a thousands quick glances lest he miss a detail too important. He’s learning her tells, he thinks. Wants to understand what it means when she strokes the bone in her hair. He’s not sure he trusts that smile.

  The others are clustered around her, bent over the slate grey table where a map looms silent but heavy, edges curled up ever slightly. “It’s really a terrible idea,” Chip is the first to say it out loud. “It's might be suicidal actually.”

  “Are you kidding, it's a cinch,” counters Roach. “I have a good feeling.”

  “That's never a good sign,” Slink sighs, but he's looking at the map thoughtfully. Curious. “It's not.. a terrible idea.”

  “Yes it is! We barely have time to scope it out. 72 hours, is that a joke?”

  Rivin checks his watch. “Much less now...”

  Slink slams his fist atop the table, the sound echoing throughout the platform. Ricket startles and clutches his heart before the older teen seethes, “I'm not sure if you've noticed kids, but we’re starving — Lav, that shithead, has fucked us sideways, we need this.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Chip furrows his brows.

  “We just ate—” Ricket pipes up.

  “Ah yes, the last-supper,” Chip mutters.

  “It will be whether we take the job or not!” Slink’s voice is rising, his face pinched and red. “Wouldn’t you rather risk death on a full stomach?”

  “W-We can figure this out, we can buy our way—”

  “You fucken dense? All that coin — for what? To starve on it. I can’t take it anymore! One more day of eating rats and I’ll blow my brains out.”

  “Not much of a loss.”

  “Fuck you, Chip. Get your head out of your ass.” The bags beneath his eyes look like bruises when he scowls. “You think losing Mouse was a bum deal? Nah boy, welcome to reality.”

  “That’s out of line—” Rivin starts.

  “What the hell—?”

  “He’s been sulking for fucking months!”

  “Slink, enough!”

  “Little Chip-in-the-tooth might be happy to just buck up and starve. That’s exactly what she’d want, huh?”

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  Chip’s eyes are filling with tears, his hands pale and balled up. “What the heck would you know about what she wanted?”

  “Survival! Living!” He slams his fist again, this time on the map. “This is what it looks like, kids— you want to play with mommy and daddy or did you forget that you're all orphans? Aint no reminder like a fucking famine. Don’t want to risk it? Fine. But don’t make room in your tiny grave for me.”

  The room is quiet, stifling in its wretched silence. Even Rivin glances away. The tension is tar-thick. It might drown them all.

  Suddenly, a slow applause erupts from the end of the table. Roach claps. “Wow. Good pep talk, Slink.”

  “Whatever bug girl, lets do this.”

  “Tut. Tut. Tut. You guys think this whole shtick with Lav is a bad thing,” she continues.

  “What else is it?” Chip voice falls away at the end, small and bitter.

  Her eyes flash, “An opportunity. You think they're punishing you because you're weak,” she gestures at the crew with the handle-end of a blade she'd been playing with. Rivin hadn’t noticed where it came from. “But they're punishing you because they're scared.” When she stands, she looks a little taller than Rivin remembers. “Lav sent you out there to die.”

  She raps her knuckles along the table, her hair spilling over the map like oil — a shadow that can't be scraped off. “He sacrificed you then because he thought you were weak. He threw a rattrap in the dark and caught five devils. Now he's gotta starve them out.” Her fingers drum like she's already fiddling with the locks, her smirk spells something familiar. Something that flares a fire in Rivin's chest. “Unless?” She presses back. Waits.

  “Unless..” Ricket's eyes are wide with anticipation. Energy simmering through his spine.

  She gestures towards the map like she's offering them something. “You stop pretending you're not a threat to them..” two fingers walk across the paper before she places her palm over the X. “—and start reminding them why you are.”

  Copper stares hard into glassy brown — metal meeting earth as Chip sucks in a breath. The question settles but not for any longer than it should. “Fine!”

  Slink slaps his hand against the table, hooting and hollering into the chamber, filling blood with fire. Courage is contagious.

  “Yes!” Ricket pumps the air.

  Rivin is still looking at her when he swallows thickly and snaps his fingers. All look to him. Copper bolts most of all. “Okay— everyone with two working ears give me your full attention,” Rivin starts. “We're not taking any chances this time. It's a quick in and out. Chip is right to be nervous, this is unfamiliar territory. Deep into Gutter Saint lands.”

  “Culty freaks..” Slink mutters.

  “We know where everything should, more or less, be located. Roach will lead us as far as she knows, after that—” he taps the map, “we follow this. The chamber is heavily guarded but we’ve timed it well—”

  Chip scoffs. “We have not timed this well. There’s barely any time at all..”

  Roach tosses a pamphlet onto the table before resting her palms against the edge. “Angel’s should be in prayer until the tide returns.”

  The crew stare at the piece, each leaning towards the center to get a better look. The pamphlet is damp and muddied but red and glossy beneath the grime. A face with peeling stone layers peers out at them, skin carved with old runes and dripping gold blood. It’s eyes are carved out and beyond the torn paper is the smallest glimpse of prayer from within. Rivin’s seen plenty such pieces scattered all across the Lowrealm, often nailed or jimmied into cracks.

  He snags it up and reads the words printed across the front:

  “Mercy Trickles Down

  To they who seeks absolution, we sing His holy penance at the tides lowest drink.

  When the water is low, seek forgiveness.”

  The boy pauses, holding the sheet closer now, eyes squinted as he strains to read the finer print at the bottom. The sentence unnerves him. “He did not mean to create you.”

  “The water is low, they’ll be singing soon.” Roach follows.

  “What the fuck does that mean?” Slink sounds amused but his face is blanch, leftover fingers twitching against his forearm.

  Roach tuts her tongue, “tsk, so much to teach you. You haven’t noticed a pattern?”

  “I don’t read that shit—”

  She leans forward, stealing the pamphlet from Rivin’ slack grasp and wielding it between them, the page scrunching between her fingers. “Not with this. With them. The water. The song. The collection.”

  Slink chuckles, tossing back his head, “Riv, I did tell you she was nuts—”

  “Roach is right.” Rivin counters, watching as the girl swells with pride at his defense, a bashful hue scattering over her cheeks despite her emboldened grin. It doesn’t make sense for her to look bold and shy all at once and yet she does. She is. Rivin regards them all when he speaks, “there’s a pattern. Always has been. When the water is high you wont see them for weeks. Not even a preacher. When it starts draining — that’s when they send them out. They start reappearing in the Spine, not to preach, but to replace their prayer boxes—”

  “That’s only what it looks like.” Roach mutters beneath her breath. Rivin hears her. He files it away for later. With all the other things he has yet to confront her about.

  “Anyway— all we need to know is that when the water is low, they go to prayer.”

  “The way you’re telling it makes it sound like that’s the worst time to mess with them,” Chip still sounds unconvinced.

  “You’d think that but they’re only sending out a handful of preachers at best during mid-tide, the rest stay at the sanctum. It’s always lit up —”

  “You’ve heard the noises,” Roach provides, scraping her fingers against the table for emphasis. “That’s when they build.”

  “B-Build?” Ricket tries hard to swallow the lump in his throat.

  “It doesn’t matter!” Rivin snaps his fingers again and attention returns. “What matters is that when they pray, they lock up. No guards. No building. No nothing.”

  “What do you mean they lock up?”

  “Well, I mean they’re distracted.”

  “Distracted?”

  “There will be no movement in the towers for the next four hours—”

  “The next four hours?! We’re doing this now? Rivin this isn’t what I meant—!”

  “If we wait, we miss the deadline.”

  “What?! We’re really just going to sneak past them? Steal a bunch of weapons and a ledger and hope their God doesn’t forgive them before we let up?!”

  “They’re not going to see us. It’s our only chance—”

  “Chance?! What chance?!”

  “Chip you asked me for a solution—”

  “Not this! Fuck this! This is suicide!”

  “We can do this.” Rivin reaches for his friend, surprised when the blonde doesn’t immediately pull away. He’d expected as much, but Chip seems starving for touch. For tenderness. “I know it’s scary, I’m fucking scared.” He squeezes his shoulders, “but we can do this. We’ve got to do this.”

  “Why?” Chip’s voice wavers. Tears reappearing in the brown of his eyes.

  Rivin furrows his brow. Why? It’s the titular question. Why fight? Why risk? Why try? Softly, he says, “I don’t want to be a ghost.”

  Chip swallows sharply, sniffing back a sob. “This will kill us—”

  “Let’s do it anyway.”

  “I don’t want to die—”

  “Chip—” Rivin squeezes him again, tries to smile. The boy looks at him once more, vulnerable. “Be afraid. But.. let’s do it anyway.”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  “The roach-effect,” Slink snickers.

  Both of them crack a grin then, despite themselves. Despite the circumstances and the dread in their bellies beside all the food stretching them painfully wide.

  “We can do this,” Rivin persists once Chip meets his eyes again.

  The blonde draws a breath through his nose, nostrils pinching in tight. When he releases it, it’s shaky and forced out fast, alongside quick jolts of his head. He’s nodding. Trying too. “Okay. Okay.”

  Rivin’s next grin is broad and he slaps Chip’s shoulder before turning to regard the room again.

  “Great! Now that that’s settled—” He returns to the map, pressing his fingers into the paper. “The Swill don't want this coming back to them but that’s the least of our worries. If we’re not quick and we’re not quiet, we’re done for. Got that Slink?”

  “Yes’sir.”

  Ricket pipes up, still sat obediently upon his chair, hands folded across his lap. “You sure it will all be where they say?”

  “It's there,” Roach says, too quickly.

  Rivin sends her a curious look through narrowed eyes. He feels the itch behind his teeth as he watches her — that low, electric dread she somehow plants like weeds in flowerbeds.

  She fiddles with the bone in her hair before following up with, “I’ve been staking the place for weeks. They take everything to the same tower. They’ll be stocked up from collection. Trust me. It’s all there.”

  “Right…” Rivin crosses his arms over his chest, “for now, we know where we’re headed, we know what we’re getting and we know that we’re doing it — what?”

  “Quietly..” The room says in unison.

  Rivin nods, pleased. “Exactly. Any questions?”

  Fast as bullets, four hands shoot up.

  When prophecy collides with madness, destiny ignites.

  The Heroes of Avangard isn’t just a story — it’s a cosmic odyssey where chaos and insanity intertwine. Across the sprawling realms of Avangard, pre-teens and teens are chosen by fate to fulfill three ancient prophecies — each one a key to preserving existence itself.

  all three are connected. And at the center of it lies a force older, greater, and far more treacherous than anything Avangard has ever known.

  ?? VOLUME ONE – War of the Celestianites

  Lens Don, a clumsy yet spirited 12-year-old Celestianite, dreams of being a hero at Insane Middle School. But when an ancient prophecy names him the chosen one to fulfill the “Celestial’s Fight” and end the war between the Celestianites and the Lunaranites, his life spirals into chaos.

  Olsen, Prince, Demaurion, and Archie, he sets out to prove that even the most underestimated soul can become a legend.

  Can Don claim his destiny and save Avangard before it’s too late?

  The fate of three prophecies — and the entire universe — rests in his hands.