Halo Squad

Chapter 9

As they approached the facility, Dominic could see 8 other giant doves flying through the air, and knew that they were all carrying his friends. Faye flew downwards, and Dominic knew they had arrived. Faye dropped Dominic onto the ground, then landed in front of him. Faye turned around to face him, then spoke softly "It was nice meeting you, Dominic" "Yeah it was nice meeting you too" "Maybe, we'll meet again sometime" "Definitely, I'll come visit you if I can. You seem nice" "Well, goodbye then" "Bye Faye". Dominic walked over to where his friends were gathering as Faye flew off. "Oh my lord, that was crazy" he exclaimed, as they all started chatting and sharing their experiences, quickly realising that the journey had been different for each of them.

Meanwhile, inside the building, there was a very different conversation occurring. "Gabriel, you idiot. Those kids out there just almost died before they could even begin training! I told you we should have given them their wings" "Uriel. I told you not to question me. I had it all under control, they're fine, aren't they?" "That's only because of my quick thinking. Whenever we bring angels up from earth missions, they come out of the Vortex ready to fly down to safely. If I hadn't sent the doves, those kids would've crashed and died. Don't forget that they're not immortal outside of this centre or the Citadel" "Uriel. How many times do I have to tell you, I know what I'm doing" "Just don't try to blame me if something else goes wrong and I'm not there to save them". Gabriel watched Uriel fly off angrily, and shook his head.

Outside, Remiel had approached the team. "Hey there lil dudes, ready to become a team of badass angels?" which was met with a shout of excitement from the teenagers in front of him. "I'll take that as a yes, let's go inside". The ten of them walked into the building, past Gabriel "Hey there Gabe!", and into a pristine white dojo style room. "This is the combat room, where we'll be training you in martial arts and weapon assisted fighting" a simultaneous "Cool" came from Dominic, Gava, Anna and Tamsin. Remiel led them out of the combat room and into a massive hall, which was split into two parts, one of which Dominic recognised instantly "Nice. This is some next state-of-the-art gym".

The other part of the room, however, was a lot more familiar to Lavinia, Anna and Emilia. "We're gonna do gymnastics?" queried Emilia, somewhat surprised. "Yes, of course, there are many gymnastics aspects that will be helpful to you. Also, we're gonna do tumbling, so that you guys can do stuff like this" Remiel proceeded to do a quintuple backflip, using his wings to give him extra height. "That was dope" said Gava, in awe. Dominic realised something that confused him, but decided to keep it to himself. They then walked to the final room in the training sector of the facility, a room with a curved roof that reminded Dominic of an observatory.

"And this is the Air Dome. Where we learn and practice flying. However, you guys won't be using this room yet, for obvious reasons". Japeth, who had been keeping quiet, then spoke "Yeah, um, Remi. The contract said we'd transform into angels. We have the haloes, but not the wings. Why not?" "Well, um-" Remiel was cut off by Dominic, "It's Gabriel, isn't it. He doesn't want us to have wings" "Yeah. How did you-" "We're clearly supposed to have wings, and I doubt you'd want to take our wings away. Where is he?" "He's in the office, probably" "I'm going to talk some sense into him".

Two minutes later, Dominic had found the office and knocked on the door. Gabriel's voice came from inside "Come in", Dominic opened the door and walked in. "Hello there, Dominic, what brings you to my office?" "I think you know" Dominic replied angrily. Gabriel's smile immediately left and was replaced by a slightly concerned but mostly bored look "Oh dear. We're gonna have to discuss this properly. Take a seat". Dominic narrowed his eyes but sat down, then Gabriel spoke again "You're here to talk about your wings, or at least the lack of them" "Yes" "No doubt to question me and convince me to give me your wings" Dominic said nothing "Well, let me save you the hassle. You and your team, at the end of the day, are only teenagers. Untrained ones, at that. Do you think it would be wise to entrust you with wings, when you're all so inexperienced and undisciplined. There's no knowing what kinds of foolish things you could do to yourself, or others. You could get hurt, or end up hurting someone else".

"Are you okay in the head? We're all angels now. We made a serious commitment for you, and if we were irresponsible and foolish we wouldn't make very good angels anyway. So make a choice, either we're proper angels who can look after ourselves, or we're not, and you send us home and find people who are". Dominic said that last word, then looked directly at Gabriel, who did the same. The two of them stared each other down for a good minute, then Gabriel replied "I could let you win with that, or I could just point out that I'm in charge and you don't actually get a say. You get wings when I decide you get wings and that's that. Now get out of my office, I have work to do". Dominic stormed out of the office with a dark look on his face, even angrier at Gabriel than before.

He needed something to calm himself down, and decided to turn to the only thing that helped when he was this angry. He first went back to the others, and spoke directly to Remiel "Remi. Is there a library here?" "Yes, in the domestic sector, where you guys will live, but-" "Thanks. Bye". His friends watched him walk off concernedly, they had only ever seen him this angry maybe once or twice. For the most part, Dominic was a calm person, but he had always had problems with authority. He didn't like adults telling him what to do, especially when he was convinced he was in the right. Lavinia and Baby looked at each other, then followed Dominic together.

10 minutes later, Dominic had found the library and entered. He had always loved reading, despite his appearance convincing outsiders of the opposite. There was a library catalogue on a computer near the entrance, which he looked through. Quickly realising that the library had every book ever written, and more, Dominic decided to catch up on a series he had meant to start but forgot about in the chaos of GCSEs. He went the teen fiction section and picked up Trials of Apollo: The Hidden Oracle. He opened the book, turned to the first chapter, and began to read. However, about three pages in, he was disturbed by two people entering the library. He looked up to see Baby and Lavinia walk in and look around, presumably for him. They hadn't seen him yet, and he didn't really want them to either. He slowly and quietly made his way towards the back of the aisle he was in, and suddenly his back hit a wall. Or so he thought.

A robotic voice spoke "Halo identified. Dominic Thornbush, captain angel of monster hunting squadron. Access granted". Dominic quickly figured that the voice was in his head, so the others wouldn't have heard it. A door opened behind him, and Dominic slipped through, curious. The door slid shut behind him, leaving Dominic hopeful that he could open it again when he wanted to leave. He looked around, and saw something unusual. It was the library. It looked exactly like the place he had just left. Except for one difference, the signs above the aisles. Instead of words he could read, they had strange symbols he had never seen the likes of. He picked an aisle at random, and walked down. As he walked past the multitudes of books, one particularly large book jumped out at him.

Being quite heavy, the book had knocked him down onto his back. "What the hell?!" Dominic shouted, surprised to be tackled by a flying book. He sat up, to see the book lying on the ground, open to a page with nothing but a single symbol that resembled an eye. He looked at the symbol for a few seconds, then reached down to turn the page. However, he pulled back his hand as the symbol began to glow. He found himself staring at the symbol, unaware that his eyes had started glowing in the same way.

After what seemed like forever, Dominic was suddenly able to blink again. He blinked a few times, rubbed his eyes, then looked at the book again. The eye symbol had disappeared, and in its place the words 'Blessed Sight'. Still slightly disorientated, Dominic closed the book and looked up, finding that the sign above the aisle now said 'Knowledge'. He looked down again, to see that the book had flown back into the shelf, looking like it had never left. Dominic knew what had happened. Somehow, this book had decided that he deserved to be able to read this strange language, and given him the ability. He looked at a few of the other aisles; 'Crafting' 'Summoning' 'Runes' 'Bending'. He had a feeling he was gonna enjoy reading these a lot more than the book he had dropped in the main library.