The Trinity Protocol

  The darkness fell away. Golden text started burning across my vision where Remiel and Azazel had just been. The words hung in the air, following wherever I looked. I couldn't shake them.

  ??? ARCANE SYSTEM:

  System initializing…

  Mortal soul detected…

  Analyzing... error…

  Divine essence detected. Analyzing... error

  Infernal essence detected. Analyzing... error

  Recalibrating... Trinity configuration initiated.

  I stumbled backward, the blade still warm in my hand. "What the fuck?"

  The text flickered, then reformed:

  ??? ARCANE-SYSTEM:

  Welcome, Nephilim, to the Arcane-System!

  The System recognizes that you have bound together essences that were separated at the dawn of creation itself. Angelic grace and demonic fury now flow through your mortal flesh. The sundered kingdoms of Heaven and Hell exist as one within your soul.

  In the event that the Trinity Protocol was ever triggered, a predefined configuration was established to grant the user access to this infrastructure and allow them to progress and survive. The powers of creation are infinite, but the Trinity Protocol breaks them down into class trees and skills to help you develop and one day reach your full potential. This interface has been made available to guide you. Through the binding of three souls within an artifact of the Pre-Creation Forge, you have gained access to the fundamental code of existence. Both Heaven and Hell have been notified of your transformation. Neither kingdom will ignore what you represent—a bridge between realms that they want forever separated.

  My heart hammered against my ribs. The words hung there, patient and terrible, waiting for something. I waved my free hand through them, but felt nothing. They stayed perfectly centered in my vision, following wherever I looked.

  I stared at the glowing text floating in the dark. The Trinity Protocol. The Arcane System. The words burned in my vision. My pulse hammered in my ears. I held the blade up, the faint glow running along its edge. The same blade that had just absorbed an angel and a demon, and apparently made me into something called a Nephilim.

  It was like having one of those smartphones the younger guys carried around, except this one was sitting behind my eyeballs. No touch screen, just thoughts and words floating in the dark.

  "What the hell is this thing?" I asked, lifting the blade higher.

  I'd never been good with technology. Hell, I still used a flip phone. But this thing seemed to understand exactly what I was asking about.

  The text flickered again:

  ??? ARCANE-SYSTEM:

  Analyzing Arcane-Artifact… Analysis Complete.

  Trinity-Blade: What you hold was forged before the Sundering. In the time before time, when Heaven and Hell were still one kingdom, this blade was shaped by hands that knew neither sin nor virtue. It bears no mark of angel's forge or demon's anvil, because it was wrought in the fires that burned before the first rebellion divided all of creation.

  It appears as an ornate dagger in your mortal hands, but this is a weapon of bound evolution. Greater forms lie sleeping within it.

  This is a soul binding artifact. Three souls now dwell as one in eternal covenant. The first bond is your soul, sealed unto eternity and never to be severed. The second bond holds the Archangel Remiel's essence, torn from grace and bound in iron. The third bond contains the fallen Azazel's essence, ripped from shadow and chained in light.

  The laws written upon its edge are absolute. No hand but yours can grasp its hilt. No will but yours can command its path. If you cast it out, it will return to your hand. When this blade tastes the flesh of Heaven's host or Hell's legion, it drinks deeper than mortal steel. Each wound opens both body and spirit, loosening the threads that bind soul to flesh.

  Be warned. Heaven seeks what was stolen from before its founding. Hell covets what was hidden from its grasp. The blade cannot remain veiled for long. They will come for what was never theirs. As the bearer, you now stand revealed.

  I knew I should be losing my shit right now. But I'd already accepted I was dead and in Hell. Anything that kept me from reliving that loop again was fine by me.

  A familiar voice rang out, "Miss me, Mud?"

  Azazel popped into existence in front of me. He looked like some pissed-off little demon-gremlin you'd see in a cartoon. He used to be about my height, but the thing in front of me now was maybe one, one and a half feet tall at best. Bright red skin, big round eyes, tiny horns, claws, the whole package. Even his wings looked too small, like someone slapped them on as an afterthought. All squeezed down into a ridiculous little body.

  "Is this me here? This pile of ash?" Azazel said as he kicked the pile, sending ash and debris up into the air.

  "This is why you monkeys aren't allowed to have nice things."

  The little demon turned, lunged at me, wrapped himself around my leg, and started humping my shin.

  I kicked forward as hard as I could and flung the little bastard across the room.

  "What the hell is wrong with you?"

  He popped right back into existence in front of me.

  "Oh, I'm sorry. Do you find this all confusing? Does this hurt your little brain? Let me break this down for you nice and slow. You took it upon yourself to stab me with that goddamn blade and bound me to your soul. Now I'm stuck here, forever."

  "But worse than just being stuck here, you decided to cut the angel too, and now I have to share this space with that arrogant prick."

  "Whoa, are you telling me that the other guy is stuck in my head too?"

  "Not your head, Mud. Your soul."

  "So where is he then?" I asked, glancing around the darkness. Shapes started to resolve as my eyes adjusted. Shelves. Aisles. Broken glass scattered across the floor. We were in some kind of store.

  "Oh, he's all in there hiding. Crying like a little baby. Boo-hoo, I can't talk to Heaven anymore. I gotta tell you, for an archangel, that guy's kind of a bitch."

  "So what am I supposed to do now? I don't even know where I am."

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  "Well, normally I'd tell you to get—FUCKED! Especially after you stabbed me."

  The demon shivered all over like he was disgusted.

  My stomach churned. Even diminished, that face dragged up a century of torture.

  "How do I kill you again?" I snarled, hands reaching for the imp's scrawny neck.

  Azazel barked a laugh. "Trust me, Mud, even if you could, you don't want to. This bond ain't just my ticket out of this shithole. It's yours too."

  I stared at the tiny asshole and swallowed bile. Every instinct screamed to lash out, to make Azazel pay. But I needed answers. Needed direction in this nightmare.

  "Where do we start?" I said through a smile that I was fairly certain never met my eyes.

  "So let's start with the basics. Any human soul that shares an essence from either Heaven or Hell is called a Nephilim. That's you, Mud."

  He paced in a tight circle, his tiny clawed feet clicking against the floor.

  "Now, the first thing you need to realize is that Nephilim are hunted by both Heaven and Hell. Heaven thinks you're an abomination, and wants to remove you from existence. They were told that it was decreed by God."

  "Since most Nephilim are the offspring of a human and an angel, Hell wants to get a hold of you so they can squeeze out all the good stuff and use it for themselves."

  I shifted my weight, the blade still gripped in my hand. "And why should I believe any of this?"

  "At least that's what we were told," Az continued, ignoring my question. "But I saw those windows through your own eyes, Mud. That's probably why Remiel is all broken up."

  "I don't understand why that would upset an angel," I said.

  "Think, monkey. Those windows in this Arcane System predate the Sundering; they're older than Heaven and Hell. Nothing is supposed to predate Creation or Heaven and Hell for that matter except for the Creator. The G-Man himself. And anything that falls into that category would be considered divine or ascendant. As in Divine will. The will of God.

  You're still not getting this, are you?"

  The little demon scratched his head like he was pondering how to break it down for me.

  "Okay, look, let's just say that shit in your head that's popping up for all of us to read would be considered Divine. The word of God. However, why would the word of God be trying to help a Nephilim survive if God wants to kill all of the Nephilim? If God is infallible, then somebody's lying and it can't be God."

  "Wait, so you're saying that the angels were hunting people like me because they were lied to?"

  "Yup, and that's not even the part that's so goddamn funny. It means that angels were lying to other angels to hunt down and kill angels. That kind of sounds like genocide to me."

  I ran my free hand through my hair, trying to process. "How do I know you're not just full of shit? You are a demon."

  "Because I only care about myself. Right now, myself includes you."

  "All right, well that's all fucking peachy, but you still didn't answer my question. Where are we, and what are we supposed to do now?"

  Azazel stopped pacing.

  "The first thing you need to understand is that time works differently here. He wasn't lying about you being down here for hundreds of years. But a lot of that depends on where or how you enter from your realm. Minutes could have gone by, days, years, or you could even find yourself in the past, but never the future."

  I tried to wrap my head around that. Time didn't work right. Great.

  "So now we've established the when, let's talk about the where. If you think about all of creation as being one giant sphere of expansion, you can picture a layer around the sphere that surrounds it on all sides. This area around the sphere is what you would call Purgatory. And across the vastness of Purgatory, eventually you would encounter a barrier that encircles both Purgatory and all of creation. And beyond that boundary, you have the vastness of both Heaven and Hell. It used to be one realm, until it was split."

  "Neither of these realms can directly interact with each other, though. Instead, they fight here in Purgatory, and they fight within the realm of creation."

  "We're in Purgatory? So the split you're talking about, was this where the devil was cast out of Heaven and into Hell? I think I remember something like that from Sunday School."

  "You humans are so small. Listen, an archangel named Lucifer was cast out of Heaven and fell into the depths of Hell. But here's the catch: Lucifer was judged by God but was thrown out by Michael along with the rest of us. At the end of the day, none of us remember the fall, and nobody really remembers how any of it started. What I can tell you is that most of the fallen are assholes. So we probably had it coming. Honestly though, I don't think God's had anything to do with any of this for a long time."

  "I don't understand. What are you guys fighting over in the first place?"

  The demon popped out of existence and reappeared on my shoulder. He reached down and thumped his finger on my chest.

  "They fight over this, Mud."

  "What, they fight over… me?"

  "No, you idiot, they're fighting over souls. Souls are power, and whoever has the most power gets to make all the rules. You get it? Now here's the real fun part. When an angel smites a demon, the demon's soul returns to Hell and becomes a demon again. And when a demon wrecks one of those angels, it just returns to Heaven to get reborn into another angel."

  Az hopped off my shoulder and started pacing again.

  "But the souls within creation don't work like that. Every soul that's siphoned away from that reality feeds one side or the other. They can turn those souls into additional little angels and devils, or they can use the power of the soul to fuel the kingdoms themselves."

  "But there's a catch, see? Creation has some protections that keep us from just pillaging. We can't directly exist there. But that hasn't stopped us from influencing your kind. We might not be able to directly step into creation, but you can willingly give your soul to Heaven or to Hell."

  "Heaven manipulates and indoctrinates through religion and faith. Hell does things differently. We take the morally corrupt souls. We make deals. To make good on those deals, we've infiltrated through possession, manipulation, and corruption. Everything from wars to organized crime."

  "You're talking about the family."

  "Very good, Mud. Now he gets it."

  "Why are you telling me all of this? It's like you don't even care about your own side."

  "I don't have a side anymore, Nephilim. You don't get it yet, do you? You… that winged idiot… and I… are all the same person now. Have you ever seen those old cartoons with a little devil on the man's shoulder and a little angel on the other?"

  I nodded slowly, trying to process everything.

  "Well, buckle up, buttercup, because that's your new existence."

  The space around us rippled. Another familiar voice sounded as the image of Remiel appeared before me. He was roughly the same size as the demon. I could see the angel clearly now for the first time.

  He wore gleaming armor with a white cape that draped over his shoulders and nearly touched the ground behind him. A hooded cowl hid his facial features. I could only see the two glowing eyes from inside. Even without any true details of his facial expressions, something in his posture looked broken. Defeated.

  "Wait, I thought angels were supposed to have wings," I asked.

  "Ha!" Azazel said. "You only see their wings when they're really pissed off, when they're about to smite something. It's like a feathered boner for them."

  I leaned back against one of the empty shelves. The metal creaked under my weight.

  "Were you listening to everything that he told me?" I asked Remiel.

  "Yes. The little demon likes to talk and hear his own voice, doesn't he?" Remiel's voice sounded hollow. Exhausted.

  "Is it true? Are you both stuck in my soul? Because I gotta tell you, that sounds fucking crazy."

  "It is true. Although his explanation was…" He paused for a moment. "Colorful."

  "So we're stuck with each other, then."

  "It would seem so."

  "Listen, where I grew up, everyone had a nickname. Remiel, I'm gonna call you Remy."

  I looked over to the demon.

  "And I'm gonna call you Az."

  "You will not call me Az, Mud," the tiny demon screeched. "I am one of the Fallen. I'm a demon lord, and I deserve a little bit of respect."

  "Listen, you little shit. I can either call you Az or asshole. You choose."

  The little demon folded his arms in protest.

  "Az is fine."

  "Great. Look, we're all becoming real good friends now, aren't we? Why do you keep calling me Mud?"

  "It's a derogatory term that Hell calls humans. It's a mockery of the scriptures describing your creation," Remy said.

  "Okay, so I can ponder just how fucked up all of this is later. I think I got enough to work with here, but I have to ask one thing. If that would have been a regular knife, would I have been able to hurt either of you?"

  Both the tiny angel and the demon tried to mask the fact that they were laughing, but I could see their shoulders bouncing.

  "Not even a little bit," Az said, chuckling. "When that blade touched us, it absorbed our essence. You sucked up our souls. But I'm afraid that trick's all used up, Mud. That blade will still do some damage, but it's gonna be like chipping away at a big tree with a knife, you know what I mean?"

  "Okay, so we're not going to be fighting our way out of here. So what's the first thing that we need to do? Can we escape back into my world?"

  "We can try to make it back through the aperture that brought me here," Remy said.

  I followed them toward what looked like the front of the store. Broken checkout counters. Shattered windows. The place looked like it had been abandoned for years.

  We stepped outside into a parking lot. I turned around and saw the massive structure half embedded into the side of a dune.

  The sky was red and completely alien.

  The Trinity Divide,

  Tuesday and Thursday until we reach the end—and yes, the manuscript is complete, so no worries.

  Fair warning: this one goes places most LitRPG won't. I wanted to dig into the theological lore that a lot of authors shy away from—the messy, uncomfortable questions about angels, demons, and a cosmic war that's been raging since the beginning.

  Thanks again for reading!