CHAPTER THREE
2210 Words
⋆༺ Amoral Academy Rule III ༻⋆
⸸ The scariest monsters are the ones who smile first.
⸸ Never mistake kindness for innocence.
⸸ Trust is easier to break than bone.
⸸ Home is not always the safest place to run.
Vivienne had never run home so fast.
Michaelangelo's parting words chased her every step of the way, echoing in time with the frantic pounding of her sneakers against the pavement.
Go home, Vivienne.
Your father already knows I've found you.
It didn't make sense. Her father didn't know angels. Luciano spent his evenings reading leather-bound books older than civilization, listening to vinyl records, and pretending not to notice when she stole extra bacon off the frying pan. He was quiet. He was patient. He was a father.
He wasn't dangerous. He couldn't be.
By the time she turned onto Ashwood Lane, her chest heaved from panic more than exhaustion.
She slowed her pace, her heart dropping into her stomach. Something was violently wrong.
The street was dead silent. Not the peaceful quiet of a suburban afternoon, but a hollow, suffocating vacuum. The birds that usually nested in the giant maple tree outside their driveway were gone. The neighbor’s dog wasn't barking. Even the stray cat that greeted her every afternoon was nowhere to be found.
Vivienne climbed the front porch steps, her hands shaking as she pushed the heavy oak door open.
"Dad?" she called out, her voice echoing in the hallway. "I'm home!"
The familiar scent greeted her first: roasted coffee, old parchment, and a lingering trace of sweet maple syrup.
Normal. Everything looked normal.
Luciano sat in the living room, illuminated by the soft afternoon light filtering through the lace curtains. A thick book rested comfortably in one hand, a steaming mug on the side table beside him.
He looked up over the pages, his expression warm. "You're home early, my star."
A massive wave of relief crashed over Vivienne. See? Everything is fine. It was just a weird coincidence.
She let out a breathless, nervous laugh, dropping her backpack onto the rug before collapsing into the armchair opposite him. "You... you won't believe the day I've had."
"I imagine I won't," he murmured pleasantly, setting his bookmark into place.
"There was..." She exhaled, pressing her cold palms to her flushed cheeks. "There was an angel, Dad."
Luciano didn't react. Not a blink. Not a startle.
Vivienne frowned, leaning forward. "I know how ridiculous that sounds."
"I am listening."
"He had wings," she said, her voice dropping to an anxious whisper. "Huge, white wings. He crashed right through our history classroom ceiling."
Luciano calmly turned a page.
"Dad, I'm serious! He knew my name."
This time, the paper stopped turning halfway.
The room seemed to drop three degrees in an instant. The faint ticking of the grandfather clock in the foyer sounded suddenly, unnaturally loud.
Luciano slowly closed the book with a heavy thud. "What did he look like?"
Vivienne blinked, taken aback. "You... believe me?"
"I asked what he looked like, Vivienne." His voice was still calm, but the warmth had vanished from it. It was smooth, flat, and unnaturally cold.
Vivienne searched for the right words, her pulse quickening again. "Tall. Celestial armor. White wings."
Luciano nodded once, his fingers tightening around the leather spine of his book until the binding groaned. "And?"
"He looked at me," she whispered, a shudder running down her spine. "Like he knew me. He said my name... and then he told me to come home."
Silence settled between them, heavy and suffocating.
Vivienne shifted uneasily, her hands trembling in her lap. "...Dad? Did... do you know him?"
Luciano didn't look at her. He stared out the window at the motionless maple tree. "Did he touch you?"
The question caught her off guard. "What?"
"The angel," Luciano repeated, turning his head slowly to look at her. His brown eyes were vast, unreadable, and devoid of the warmth she had known her entire life. "Did he touch you?"
"No."
"Did he see your eyes?"
Vivienne frowned, backing slightly deeper into her chair. "My... eyes?"
"Answer me, Vivienne."
The tone made her flinch. It wasn't raised, but it carried an authority so heavy it felt like a physical hand pressing against her chest.
"No," she swallowed hard. "I don't think so. I was terrified, Dad. Who was he? Why did he know who I was?"
Luciano leaned back into his chair. He closed his eyes for a single, quiet second, exhaling a long, slow breath. Almost... relieved.
"Dad, please talk to me," she begged, tears of frustration stinging her eyes. "Why did he tell me to come home?"
"He shouldn't have found you yet," Luciano murmured to the empty room.
Her heart skipped a violent beat. "...What?"
"I said," Luciano stood up slowly, setting the book on the coffee table, "he shouldn't have found you. You were not supposed to awaken this early."
A bone-chilling cold crept down Vivienne's spine. She stood up too, taking an instinctive step backward. "Dad... you're scaring me."
"No," his voice stopped her like an iron wall. "Not this time." He sighed—a sound carrying a weight so immense it felt ancient. "For seventeen years, I have answered every question you’ve ever asked. I suppose it is only fair I answer this one."
"I don't understand," she whispered.
"I know." He offered her a faint, sad smile. "I was hoping... I’d have another year."
The ceiling light flickered. Once. Twice. Then the glass shade cracked down the middle.
Outside, the wind didn't just blow—it screamed, hitting the house with the force of a physical fist.
"You've always wondered why your parents abandoned you," Luciano said quietly, stepping around the table. "You've always wondered why your hair was white as snow. Why animals never feared you. Why you were faster, stronger, different."
The floorboards trembled beneath Vivienne’s sneakers. A framed photograph of the two of them on a trip to the mountains slipped off the wall, shattering against the hardwood floor.
"You kept asking who you were," Luciano continued. The temperature in the room plummeted so fast her breath bloomed into a white cloud before her face.
He looked at her with an expression she had never seen on his face before. It wasn't love. It wasn't protection. It was a cold, tragic regret.
"I think..."
His voice echoed strangely now—layered, resonant, as though another, deeper entity spoke beneath his words.
"...it is time you asked who I am."
"No..." Vivienne choked out, tears finally spilling over her eyelashes. "No, Dad, stop—"
Luciano’s smile vanished completely.
CRACK.
His skin began to split—not bleeding, but fracturing like delicate porcelain under immense pressure. Strands of dark, violet hellfire seeped through the cracks in his flesh. His shoulders broadened, his spine popping as his form expanded.
prostrating two massive, jagged horns that forced their way through his silver hair. And his eyes—the warm, comforting brown eyes that had tucked her into bed for seventeen years—melted into two burning pools of liquid crimson.
RIP.
Six towering, raven-black wings erupted from his back, tearing his charcoal sweater to shreds. They were woven from living shadow and bleeding wisps of dark, suffocating fire that scorched the rug and bookshelves to black ash.
The shockwave blew out every window in the living room, showering the area in glittering, deadly glass.
Vivienne stumbled backward, her spine hitting the wall. She collapsed to her knees, clutching her chest, unable to breathe under the crushing weight of his aura.
The creature towering before her looked almost like her father. Almost. But whatever man had smiled over wild berry pancakes this morning was dead.
"I've loved you my whole life," the words escaped her in a terrified, weeping sob before she could stop them.
Something subtle flickered across his terrifying, demonic face—a shadow of profound sorrow—before vanishing behind a wall of cold, unyielding ambition.
"You loved the man I pretended to be," he said softly.
"Dad..."
"Do not." His voice thundered through the collapsing house, vibrating in her teeth. "Call. Me. That."
Vivienne buried her face in her hands, weeping helplessly. "Please... please..."
Luciano stepped closer, his shadow stretching across the ceiling like a giant beast. "I did raise you well," he murmured, his voice layered with ancient authority. "I taught you discipline. I taught you strength. And I taught you the one lesson you never quite understood."
He reached out, his long, dark claws gleaming in the dim light.
"The only thing that matters... is what you can control."
Her heart stopped dead in her chest. His own words. The fatherly advice he had given her at the kitchen island six hours ago... twisted into something monstrous.
"I adopted you for one reason, Vivienne," Luciano whispered, dropping to one knee so he was eye-level with her. "Your eyes."
She froze, staring into his glowing crimson gaze. "My... eyes?"
"They are the final catalyst," he explained gently, almost lovingly. "The divine key required to complete Level 4 Ascension. To create a realm where no one—neither God nor angel—will ever rule over me again."
His cold, terrifying smile returned.
"I only need to take them."
Vivienne screamed, pressing herself frantically against the wall.
He moved with impossible speed. Before she could even raise her hands, his cold, clawed hand clamped around her throat, pinning her against the wallpaper.
She kicked, scratched at his iron grip, and sobbed, but it was like fighting a mountain.
"I am sorry, my star," Luciano murmured softly, his thumb hovering inches from her left crystal-blue eye, his claw glowing with a dark, terrifying aura. "You truly were an extraordinary daughter."
"Dad, please!"
His claw drifted downward toward her eye—
BOOM!
The roof of the house was violently torn away.
A blinding pillar of white celestial fire slammed down into the living room, obliterating the floorboards between them and throwing Luciano backward.
A voice rang out like thunder through the burning ruins:
"You will not touch her, Fallen!"
Vivienne tumbled to the floor, coughing through thick white smoke, looking up through her tears.
Descending through the hole in the ceiling was Michaelangelo. His silver armor burned with divine radiance, his broadsword drawn and flaming with white heat. His massive, fifteen-foot wings flared wide, shielding Vivienne from the roaring black flames.
Luciano recovered instantly, landing on his feet among the burning debris. His six dark wings flared, hellfire curling around his hands as he glared at the angel with absolute, ancient hatred.
"You are too late, Michaelangelo!" Luciano snarled, his voice echoing like thunder. "She belongs to me!"
"She belongs to no one!"
Michaelangelo lunged forward, his flaming blade slicing through the air. Luciano met the strike with a wave of black fire, and the collision of Heaven and Hell blew out the remaining structure of the house.
Bricks collapsed, wood shattered, and the quiet home Vivienne had loved for seventeen years dissolved into a raging inferno of black and white fire.
Before the smoke could clear, Michaelangelo parried a lethal strike from Luciano, shifted his weight, and slammed a burst of blinding light into Luciano's chest, throwing the Fallen Lord backward through the burning garden.
Michaelangelo turned, sweeping down toward Vivienne. He stooped, scooping her into his arms.
"Hold on," he commanded tightly.
"My dad—!" Vivienne choked out, reaching uselessly toward the burning ruins. "Dad!"
"He is not your father, Vivienne!"
With a single, colossal stroke of his white wings, Michaelangelo launched them into the sky.
The ground dropped away instantly. The cold night air whipped against Vivienne's skin as they rocketed through the dark clouds, far above the world. Down below, embedded in the dark landscape, her childhood home was nothing more than a crater of burning fire.
Vivienne buried her face against Michaelangelo’s cold silver armor, her body shaking as uncontrollable, agonizing sobs tore through her chest.
The pancakes. The books. The gentle taps on her forehead. The quiet mornings.
All of it had been a lie.
Michaelangelo held her firmly against his chest, his golden eyes fixed on the horizon as he carried her into the vast, dark unknown.
"Where..." she gasped out through her tears, her voice barely a whisper in the roaring wind. "Where are you taking me?"
Michaelangelo looked down at her, his expression grim and resolute.
"To the only place left that can protect you from him," he said quietly into the night air. "Amoral Academy.”
- Writer
