Angels and Demons

{(set: $head to (font: "Bebas Neue")+(size: 1.25)) (size: 3)+(font: "Bebas Neue")[Angels and Demons] (set: $yel to (css: "color: #c0af00; font-style: italic;"))} (size: 1)[ ] (size: 2)+(font: "Bebas Neue")[Featuring XXX] (size: 2)+(font: "Bebas Neue")[] by B.J. Best for //Combat Master// by Alfa Bravo Inc. October 17. 2024 [[Introduction]] [[Map]]

(append: ?SideBar)[\ [[Home]] [[Introduction]] [[Good Morning]] [[Bad Coffee]] [[Executive Decision]] [[Hell on Earth]] [[Zookeeper]] [[Swarm]] [[The Kitchen Is Closed]] [[Leapfrog]] [[Pest Control]] [[Nice Things]] [[Hellfire]] [[Gaining Followers]] [[Naturally Disastrous]] [[Apres Moi]] [[Irrigation]] [[Heaven on Earth]] [[Ceasefire]] [[Smooth Talker]] [[Miss Communication]] [[Steady Aim]] [[Lessons Learned]] [[Like Louis Pasteur]] [[Neverending Story]] [[Famished]] [[Aphrodite]] [[Many-Splendored Thing]] [[Lost Gods]] [[Map]] ]

(size: 2)+(font: "Bebas Neue")[Operation Name] (size: 1.25)[Angels and Demons] $head[Tagline] [There's a fine line between good and evil. But I'm not the one who draws it.] [[Good Morning]]

<img src="https://bjbest60.neocities.org/cm/angels/map.png" style="max-width: 100%; max-height: 100%;"> [[Home]] [[Good Morning]]

$head[Mission] **Good Morning** $head[Intro] Well, I'm awake again. What's it been, maybe a hundred years? And now the temple is a smoldering heap. But at least I've got a job that lets me sleep in. $head[Resolution] In school, I had studied geometry, chemistry, a little French. I didn't learn anything about how when you put the amulet inside the sacred stone, the temple explodes. That's the problem with education these days. [[Bad Coffee]] [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Bad Coffee** $head[Intro] The supplicants' bodies were strewn around the rubble. The Boss was still groggy. You know how some people drink coffee to wake up? The Boss drinks blood. No cream or sugar, even. $head[Resolution] Sure, I put "assistant to a deity" on my job application after I died. I thought maybe I'd get a retirement plan for eternity. Instead I got a Boss likes to order me around. Not much different than Earth, really. [[Executive Decision]] [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Hell on Earth** $head[Intro] His eyes turned red. It was kind of a cool trick. I once asked him if he had bought some special contacts or something. He answered by burning down a tree with laser vision. $head[Resolution] The Boss was the kind of guy who made agendas. There was a whole section for destroying crops, another for punishing sinners, another for natural disasters. I guess even Hell needs to be organized. [[Zookeeper]] [[Nice Things]] [[Naturally Disastrous]] [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Executive Decision** $head[Intro] The Boss was eager to get started, knowing we'd only have a year at most. He started talking like I was supposed to be taking dictation. All I heard was blah, blah, blah. $head[Resolution] "How are we feeling about the world today?" he asked. What he meant was if we were going to save the world or destroy it. I didn't care as long as I got a lunch break. One hundred years of sleep made me hungry. [[Heaven on Earth]] [[Hell on Earth]] [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Zookeeper** $head[Intro] The Boss fancied himself a farmer, the kind that uses a very sharp scythe. His crop was a whole continent of humans. I suggested maybe instead he could just grow tomatoes or something. $head[Resolution] He decided on an entire plague. But of what? Blight? No, too slow. The Boss liked releasing his pets. He had a universe of locusts. Frogs, too. It was the worse zoo I'd ever been to. [[Swarm]] [[Leapfrog]] [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Heaven on Earth** $head[Intro] And suddenly I grew wings. White, lovely, feathery things. My unbreathable leather oufit was replaced my something much thinner. I felt like a bad underwear model, but it meant we'd be doing some good. $head[Resolution] The prayers and supplications started booming around us. An end to war. A cure for disease. Love and fertility. The same things I might have asked for when I was alive. Instead I've got wings and slightly pervy Boss. [[Ceasefire]] [[Like Louis Pasteur]] [[Aphrodite]] [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Swarm** $head[Intro] The Boss couldn't resist going with a classic. A billion locusts and gales of dust. It was like being at a really bad outdoor concert, the amplifiers all buzzing. $head[Resolution] In human time, a famine can last for decades. For the Boss, it was like thirty minutes, including paperwork. He even had time for a cigarette, which he made from half of a coniferous forest. [[The Kitchen Is Closed]] [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Leapfrog** $head[Intro] The Boss likes to mix it up, and soon enough thousands of slimy, croaking frogs rained from the sky. Most exploded into ichor upon landing. I have to admit, it made the humans a little jumpy. $head[Resolution] Plenty survived, of course, leaping into into people's hair, into their rivers, into their fields. It was like a t-shirt cannon, if it was frogs instead of t-shirts, and an angry god instead of a cannon. [[Pest Control]] [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **The Kitchen is Closed** $head[Intro] The fields were bare, the rivers were dry, and the starving were dead in the streets. There was a whole ledger I had to fill out, accounting for everything. It makes sense that Hell is mostly paperwork. $head[Resolution] The Boss seemed pleased, even though we'd be sucked into another amulet soon. He even offered to take me out to dinner. "I'll have a side order of death," I said. Then we both laughed until we were gone. Congratulations! You taught the world the power of insects! You've unlocked the XXXX! [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Pest Control** $head[Intro] But just because the Boss is evil doesn't mean he was smart. He didn't know herepetology. That means the study of amphibians. I like to think my intelligence is wasted when I'm busy rustling up frogs. $head[Resolution] Some sort of weevils had already been infesting the humans' crops. And it turns out these hellish frogs liked eating weevils. Somehow we managed saving the farms, not ruining them. We'd failed, and there'd be hell to pay. Turns out you're not a herpetologist, either. Choose a different path to successfully complete your mission. [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Nice Things** $head[Intro] The nice thing about the world is that there are always sinners, thieves, liars, traitors, murderers, arsonists, and jaywalkers. Or at least it's a nice thing when you're a vengeful god. $head[Resolution] Really, the only thing that bothers me is this leather outfit I'm supposed to wear. It's tight and doesn't breathe. Like, c'mon. Let's focus on the true problem here. [[Hellfire]] [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Connoiseur** $head[Intro] The Boss keeps a shelf of bottles in his office where others might keep wine. He popped the cork off of one that read Hellfire. It tastes like champagne. Boiling, blistering champagne. $head[Resolution] And like champagne, you can become a connoiseur. As the hellfire rained down, sheets of flame and brimstone from the sky, you can really savor the screams. Delicious, delicious screams. [[Gaining Followers]] [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Gaining Followers** $head[Intro] The humans burned until they didn't. Sure, sometimes you have to give in to their pleas for mercy. Because then they'll build the temples in your honor. They'll be damned if they don't. I mean that literally. $head[Resolution] The Boss was pleased. He had created hundreds of cults, sects, and acolytes that only would ever him. He opened a different bottle, and we did a celebratory shot of Fireball. We thought that was hilarious. Congratulations! You're finally getting a hang of this religion thing! You've unlocked the XXXX! [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Naturally Disastrous** $head[Intro] The Boss sometimes--okay, often--had a flair for the extreme. He asked me if I had any favorite natural disasters. I began telling him about this relationship I had in my twenties. Apparently that's not what he had in mind. $head[Resolution] When you're alive, you don't often appreciate how much the planet Earth just wants to kill you. Forest fires. Earthquakes. Tornadoes. It doesn't need an evil god's help, but that doesn't mean we weren't going to help anyway. [[Apres Moi]] [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Apres Moi** $head[Intro] The Boss had a soft spot--he really loved waterparks. So of course that meant he was going to flood every river in the world at the same time. I packed my swimsuit and beach towel. It was going to get wet and likely wild. $head[Resolution] There's something satisfying about watching a river wipe out a house or a farm or a city as if it were made of sand. I brought a shovel and bucket along so I could play, too. [[Irrigation]] [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Irrigation** $head[Intro] Sure, the short-term devastation was entertaining. It felt good to wipe everything into the sea. But the greenery that sprouted after shows you can still be a god and not know much about agriculture. $head[Resolution] The people saw the floods as a blessing. They rejoiced that their lands were fertile again. They even began praising us. The Boss started moping. "Cry me a river," I said, knowing he'd have an enternity to fire me if he wanted to. By making all those people happy, you feel like you've sunk to new lows. Choose a different path to successfully complete your mission. [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Ceasefire** $head[Intro] War is an old story, and the problem is humans seem to like it so much they think it's a good one. It doesn't matter if it's written with a bayonet or a bullet. But the Boss thought he could maybe change the ending. $head[Resolution] We chose one war from a literal catalog of them. The Boss thought that maybe I could walk in, without wings but still sexy, and work a little diplomacy. But an assassination felt like a quicker path to peace. [[Smooth Talker]] [[Steady Aim]] [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Smooth Talker** $head[Intro] It's easy for a god to set up a meeting when he can literally pick up anything in the universe and place it anywhere else. So there we were: the two rival leaders and me in some boardroom. I had to serve the coffee, of course. $head[Resolution] How do you get two men to stop staring down each other? You get them to look at something else, of course. I'll let you fill in the details. [[Miss Communication]] [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Miss Communication** $head[Intro] I had hoped that body language would do enough talking. It turns out enemy warlords are entirely illiterate when it comes to that sort of thing. $head[Resolution] My tongue-tied attempts to get the enemies to speak with each other backfired. It was a spectacle the Boss says only happens once every thousand years. So even though I'm now ancient as time, my new nickname is now Millenial. Your diplomatic efforts failed and now you're also the target of dumb generational humor. Choose a different path to successfully complete your mission. [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Steady Aim** $head[Intro] Sometimes even peace must be written in blood. That's what the Boss says, and I don't know if he truly believes it or if he's trying to make me feel better about the pistol in my clammy hands. $head[Resolution] One bullet and one of the generals was dead. It was easy enough to sneak in and out of the warzone. Nobody can see an angel in the middle of all that hell. [[Lessons Learned]] [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Lessons Learned** $head[Intro] And soon enough the war was over. You've read about it in books. Birds singing. The smoke dissipating. It sounds cliche. But it's a good feeling. It really is. $head[Resolution] The people on both sides began rebuilding their lives. Even the Boss, for whom humans are usually just playthings, was impressed. He said maybe I should kill more people. I said he was missing the point here. Congratulations! You ended bloodshed that wasn't caused by you! You've unlocked the XXXX! [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Like Louis Pasteur** $head[Intro] Ending all human disease seemed easy enough to the Boss. I wasn't so sure. I said back when I was alive I couldn't even stop my computer from getting viruses. $head[Resolution] Things can happen pretty quickly when you literally have all the resources in the universe. Clean drinking water, healthy food, and instant inoculations. A real shot in the arm, if you will. [[Neverending Story]] [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Neverending Story** $head[Intro] We were pleased. The humans were healthy and happy. They started living longer. Then longer. Then longer still. Then ... maybe we realized why all stories eventually do have endings. $head[Resolution] We had created immortal beings. The Boss said he didn't care for competition, and it was my job to fix it. I said I didn't have the heart to kill them. He said--correctly, I guess--I technically didn't have a heart at all. [[Famished]] [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Famished** $head[Intro] The situation sorted itself, sort of. Sure, we had created people who couldn't die. But they still needed to eat. And when no one dies, the number of people who need to eat only gets bigger. $head[Resolution] So, yeah, together we made all of humankind weak, malnourished, unkillable, and miserable. On the bright side, that made people turn to us even more fervently. Task failed successfully, I guess. Unfortunately you've made the human race a giant mass of misery. Choose a different path to successfully complete your mission. [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Aphrodite** $head[Intro] Love and fertility were things I felt confident about. When I was alive, I loved trying to set my various friends up. Then the Boss asked how my personal relationships ever went. I told him to shut it. $head[Resolution] We invested in roses, valentines, feathery beds. We had machinery for rainbows and the moon. All we needed were the actors, which were easy, because everyone is willing to be a fool for love. [[Many-Splendored Thing]] [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Many-Splendored Thing** $head[Intro] Maybe the Boss and I really did miss our true calling as matchmakers. We had humans writing sonnets to each other, drinking wine together, making love. It was truly lovely. $head[Resolution] Perhaps it was a little too lovely. The humans spent all their time being in love. All of it. In love with each other. And forgetting about us. [[Lost Gods]] [[Map]]

$head[Mission] **Lost Gods** $head[Intro] By the time the Boss and I had realized our mistake, it was too late. The humans were so smitten with themselves and each other that we were no longer needed. It was like my junior prom all over again. Stupid Kevin and Tracy. $head[Resolution] I asked the Boss if he thought it was worth it, seeing everyone else so happy except the two of us. He didn't seem to know what to say to that. He opened a bottle of wine, sure, but he certainly wasn't sharing any with me. You've managed to make your lovely little self irrelevant. Choose a different path to successfully complete your mission. [[Map]]