The Balance of the Angel Brothers

Lyude rushed forward, eyes wide with alarm as Caleb (or was he Gabriel, because only half the colors on him were gold and blue) dropped to his knees with a sharp gasp, palms pressed to the mirror before the group. A struggling expression, strained and exhausted, painted his face, his teeth clenched tightly as the shimmer of light that formed the magic of his transformation flickered wildly. His clothes were half green and cut like a servant's tailcoat and half blue, scattered in splotches over his body while fading in and out in alternating forms. His hair was still mostly bright red, shot through with strands and locks of shimmering golden blonde.

To Lyude and the rest of his companions, it was as if the identities of Caleb, The Angel of World Creation, and Gabriel, The Angel of World's Ending, were fighting over a single body.

"Wh-what's... happening... to me?!" Gabriel cried, terror lacing his voice as his hands suddenly clawed at the smooth surface of the mirror, reflecting his flickering disguise.

"Get out of that disguise! Change into your real self!" Caroline called out worriedly, "You can't keep pretending to be your brother anymore; it's affecting you!"

The struggle and strain seemed to take hours to ebb, but finally the gold and the blue overcame red and green, and Gabriel collapsed against the mirror, panting heavily from the effort to shift out of the disguise. Lyude knelt by him, frowning while he watched the Angel shiver slightly. "Don't be Caleb anymore." the swordsman told him quietly, "Every time you've taken his place with us, it's like you don't even recognize yourself. You've been losing memories of what you've been doing each time you change. Now it's getting to be a fight just to get you back!"

"Bollocks...." Gabriel breathed out in faint irritation, glaring at him through heavily lidded eyes, "How long have I been out?"

"A month this time."

The Angel winced, weakly lifting a hand to study his own palm, covered in the dark blue gloves he wore so often. "I don't remember what we did for that month. My last memory is being in the inn at Wassernocht." he murmured, "Feels like I'd been... in a coma."

"Wassernocht was about a month ago, yeah." Lyude agreed and sighed harshly, "I mean it, Gabriel! We've already lost one Angel; we can't afford to lose you too!"

"Sorry. This... this never happened before." Gabriel muttered, curling in on himself as the rest of the group drew close and began setting up camp to let him rest, "Ten thousand years I've posed as Caleb; why is it only in the last year or so that my identity is being corroded by the disguise?" Lyude gave him a blank look and the blonde just rolled his eyes. "Never mind. ...Just let me have a little rest." he sighed, pushing himself away from the mirror to lie down on a makeshift bed Caroline provided for him. He sighed again, this time in contentment as Meribelle draped a blanket over him and petted his hair a little. He was asleep almost the moment he closed his eyes.

"I don't like this." Lyude muttered in frustration as he stood up beside Zarr, the elder swordsman nodding slowly in agreement, "The Reworld Army still has control of the real Caleb and now Gabriel's losing his memories. What's gonna happen to this world if we lose both the Angel of World Creation and the Angel of World's Ending?"

"Eventually, the balance of the world will spiral out of control without Creation and Destruction in harmony, and the land will die. We humans and other living creatures won't be far behind." Hunter replied from his place at the campfire. He stirred a pot of stew before looking over at the sleeping Angel. "The Life Goddess may even wither from the loss of her beloved brothers. That is what I believe will happen."

"But Symphonia's lasted ten thousand years with just one Angel in control!" Meribelle protested in confusion, "Isn't that proof that Gabriel's more powerful than Caleb and we'll be okay if he takes up the power of World Creation too?" She gestured towards Lyude. "We have our own Eternal Swordsman, yeah? Lyude can just reforge the Eternal Sword Pin and give all of its power to Gabriel; then the Reworld Army won't have any threat since Caleb will be nullified!"

"What the hell kind of thinking is that?!" Lyude exclaimed in alarm, staring at the little mage as though she suddenly became a stranger to him, "Have you been talking to those Eyes of Derris preachers?" The girl flinched, fiddling with her fingers as she hunched her shoulders.

"W-well, I just listened to a couple of their sermons, and with the way our quest has been going, it kind of makes sense." she mumbled, "Do we really need Caleb? Symphonia did fine with just Gabriel looking after the world."

"No, the world needs both together." Oura told her firmly, her eyes hard and bright and strange for a little girl to have, "The scriptures say that when both Angels are together and at the peak of their power, the gifts of the land will surpass anything we've seen so far. We have droughts and crops are weak, the winters are harsh and food and medicine don't deliver the miraculous healing powers they once did. The Angel of World Creation is the one who controls the bounty of the world and protects and guides us; the Angel of World's Ending destroys what doesn't belong and what could harm us."

"Trying to do both... that's probably what's destroying his identity right now." Caroline added gently, sitting by the sleeping Angel and watching over him, "That may be why his disguise keeps trying to dominate; the world needs Caleb free as soon as possible, and if we can't get the real one, it'll force Gabriel to die to replace him."

"Then... then how about letting that happen?" Meribelle suggested weakly, "We don't need more destruction, the world doesn't need to end. Why not let Gabriel become the new Caleb and take all the power then?"

"Because it's not who he is." Hunter replied, sprinkling some herbs into the stew, "We have seen how Gabriel is when he pretends to be his brother so we can get an idea of what the true Caleb is like. And if that's the case then, based on how 'well' the world has been with Gabriel alone, imagine how much more the real Angel of World Creation can do in the name of protecting and guiding. The Angel of World's Ending is meant to end the world when nothing more can be created in a cycle of regeneration that could have taken place a hundred times over, thousands of times over. If there is no Angel to end the world, then when the time comes for Symphonia to be regenerated, it will simply remain a withered husk of a world."

"Ugh! This is soooo hard!" Meribelle wailed, falling back onto her rump on the ground, "We've been chasing the Reworld Army for over a year trying to get Caleb back, and the one time we were close enough to actually see the real Angel of World's Creation...!"

"It was in time to watch him kill Treyze in divine retribution for attempting to ascend to Angel status and usurp Gabriel's position." Zarr finished for her, his voice flat and tainted with concern, "Caroline, you were closest to him at the end of that battle. What did he say before leaving with the Reworld Army?" The archer looked up at him, brows furrowed lightly in confusion.

"He said, 'The world must see my brother as my equal. Anyone who gets in the way of that will be struck down by the Avenger. When Gabriel has the power to stand on his own, only then can I be freed by his hands and his voice.'" Caroline recited and shivered, "He sounded so cold and cruel, too. How can the Angel meant to be the kindest and gentlest of the Brothers be so cold? What did he even mean by that? It sounded like Caleb is willing to remain a prisoner to force the whole world into seeing Gabriel as more than just a shadow of himself!"

"Could be that's what the point is." Lyude muttered, frowning as he thought it over, "The Church of Kharlan and the Eyes of Derris both think of him as just 'Kharlan's Little Brother'. Caleb gets the fame, the recognition, the worship and praise and tributes and prayers... all of it is for Caleb. The Eyes of Derris see him as a potential figurehead, someone they can use to overthrow Caleb and then rule the world using Gabriel as their puppet, and just because he's the 'little brother', like he's too young and stupid to know better."

"But he's not!" Meribelle protested, "We've seen Gabriel in action lots of times! His songs can heal and strengthen us, can open any lock and seal we come across, and can destroy whole cities if he put his mind to it! Dancing is fighting for him and he's untouchable once he's got his rhythm! He's definitely Caleb's equal, so why won't Caleb get free on his own?!"

"Because we're not the whole world." Lyude pointed out, hands on his hips as he scowled at the fire, "We know what the deal is, and Caleb knows it too. But the rest of the world and even Gabriel don't seem to get the idea that they're equal, they balance each other, and that's why we need both together!"

"Let's get some rest." Zarr suggested, sitting down to take a bowl of stew from the dinner pot, "We still need to get the Eternal Ring from the center of the Mirrors of Daedread to reforge the Eternal Sword and restore power to Gabriel's Pin. If we're lucky, it'll restore Caleb's Pin as well, and he'll use it to reseal himself so the Reworld Army can't do anything else to him." The group muttered in varying degrees of agreement on that and joined him in the meal, glancing over worriedly at Gabriel now and then as the blonde Angel slept on.