You know how they say if something's too good to be true, it usually is? Well, I wish I put more stock into what "they" said. I'm not saying that I wouldn't still do what I did but I might have done it a bit later. Anyway, I'm rambling, my name is, Ren, well, now it is, I honestly can't remember what it once was. I am, or was once, a human. I lived in a small town in Colorado and had a few good friends, I can no longer remember their names, but their faces will always remain with me.

One of my friends, a woman with jet black hair, asked if I'd accompany her to a convention that would be coming. I was rather curious about conventions but never went, I was never good with crowds. After some rather intense pleading and the use of some of her "assets," I had agreed and even said I'd go as a character from Diablo.

The days up to that went rather quickly and I found the orange robe and loose brown shorts rather easily; the robe I made, however, to save some money and make sure the measurements were right; I even got prayed beads to go along with it, might as well go with the pantheon of the game in mind, and we were on our way to the convention. She was, unsurprisingly, a Demon Hunter and pulled the look off rather well. We didn't have to get any of our other friends, I guess I was the only one she could convince, so we went right to the center where the convention was.

It wasn't that big of a convention, truth be told, so my nerves weren't as bad as they could be. The entry price was easy, fifteen dollars. Most of the people weren't in anything over the top but there were a few, including a Resident Evil merchant. My friend was trying to get me to go with her there but I declined, though she drooped a bit at that. As we kept going, the crowd got thinner and thinner, I should have felt that that was strange but I was happy for the break.

"Where are we even going?" I aske, interest piqued.

She wouldn't answer, so I let it drop.

After a few more minutes of walking, there was no crowd at all. The hair on the back of my neck began to stand as I just realized how far we were from all the other attendees.

"Is this him?" came a deep voice.

She looked to the ground, sullenly, before giving a slow nod to which a sinister cackling filled the halls.

I couldn't move as the light seemed to completely leave except for a slightly dim red light surrounding shards of a black stone. My mouth refused to work and I was too scared to move aside from the little tremors of fear running through my body. I could swear I heard a distant, voice coming from where we came from but my fear forced me to stare at the scene in front of me.

"Yes," the voice from the stone came, "your fear is delicious. Now, die before me Nephalem!"

my eyes widened with fear as a a claw came towards me from the stone's circle but before I could do anything, something appeared and blocked the claw with a staff, the merchant.

"Nephalem, to me!" shouted the voice I heard earlier.

Before, I could register it, my feet ran to the voice and found something that shouldn't have been there, an angel straight from Diablo 3. The figure was hidden by the shadow of a cloak and armor and its wings held a light that cut through the darkness like a hot knife through butter. As I was about so tay something, I felt a searing pain in my abdomen. I looked down as my legs began to lose their strength and saw a glowing sword deeply embedded into me, small red streams beginning to spill out around where it and my flesh met. I looked at the angel with terror in my eyes and a question etched in my mind: "why?"

With one motion, the blade was ripped out of my chest, causing me to collapse and my mortal essence to begin to freely flow.

"I am sorry, my friend," the figure said looking down to me, "This had to be done."

It was then that the merchant wandered to the angel's side, his eyes, cold as steel, only lingering on me for one second before he looked at the angel.

"You owe me, Tyrael." he said as he vanished, only leaving me to look at the angel as my vision slowly turned to black.

I felt as if I was floating through warm water as light, once more came into my vision. I felt warmth return to my body, along with my strength. I stood up and my ears rang, blood once again flowing to them. I took a steady breath and felt pain in my chest, but I could breathe!

"Nephalem," came a sweet female voice before six figures appeared before me.

Two of the figures were female, judging by the chest plates of the armor, the other four, male. It was then that I saw what they were, angels! My body tensed a bit and my abdomen burned at the revelation.

"Do not fear, Nephalem." came a male voice that flowed with the coolness of the river's water.

"We are not here to hurt you." finished the calming female voice from earlier.

We all stood a moment as I slowly relaxed, their very presence seeming to instill a calm humility within me. I looked closer at the beings and they seemed to have auras rising off of them.

"Nephalem, we have called you here to purify the demons' presence from another realm." a male angel with a gold aura stated.

"You must be our hands and our eyes." continued another male angel with red and green aura intertwining.

"To strike with strength capable to shatter the mightiest boulder." came one with a brown aura.
"Your movements as fluid as spring water." added one with a blue aura.

"You will be as a breath of life to the populace." came one of the female angels with a wispy green aura.

"They must not lose hope. Please, Nephalem," spoke the calming female angel, "give them that hope."

The beings were then quiet, allowing me to think about it. My emotions were storming inside me like the perfect storm. I feared for my friends, I was angry about my fate and I was uncertain about my future. This was then trounced by another thought, who were these angelic beings? Their energy, their very presence, radiated energy and their words held power. Their likeness to the beings in Diablo was quite interesting. Then, I remembered, one of the pantheons and looked to them.

If my guess was right, then they were a part of the larger pantheon. The golden one, with his righteous attitude that radiated warmth, was Ytar, God of the sun that blessed the monks with a holy aura. The blue one, with the smoothness of water itself, Ymil, the God of rivers. The brown, whose powerful aura seemed like it could carve the earth itself, was, Zaim, the god of mountains. The one with the entwining energies, whose voice resounded with a finality and knowing what will happen, was, Itherael, the god of fate. The wispy aura, that gave the same caress as a breeze on a sunny day, belonged the the goddess of the sky, Inna. The last, whose very presence could soothe any man and stomp out all sorrow, was the goddess of hope, Auriel. uIt truly was as the monk from the third game suspected, the angels were the gods that they worshipped.

"The pantheon..." I muttered.

"So, you truly do know of us." barked Ytar with a laugh. "I thought no one would with how we were portrayed in those games."

"I told you, they would." muttered Itherael, while he took out, what looked like, a ledger.

"You really shouldn't argue with the one that records fate, Ytar." Inna said with a giggle.

The apparent deities laughed a bit before Auriel spoke to me.

"Will you accept what we have called you for?"

"Doesn't Itherael already know?" I asked, quirking my eyebrow.

"Fate has nothing written for you, Nephalem." Itherael answered.

I looked at the angels for a bit. My mind flooding with questions and different responses. On one hand, I was being asked for help. On another han, one of the angels killed me. I looked among them and didn't see the one that I saw at the convention.

"Tyrael, is not here, Nephalem." said Zaim.

"He has not returned since he got you." Inna said without any of her cheer.

"He is fighting for your people while you fight for us, Nephalem." finished Itherael, looking into his ledger once more.

My eyes grew at that statement. He was fighting? Why was he fighting for your race when he killed one of your race, a lesser being? All the conflict inside me melted, however, as I felt arms embrace me and a calming wave crash into my inner turmoil. Auriel, held onto me and ran her hand soothingly down my back. I was slowly feeling any trepidation against helping them vanish as the affection she was showing. Ytar, approached and held out brass knuckles as, Auriel, pulled away. I reached for the dusters, hesitating a moment to see the faint, golden glow of them.

"I give you these so that you may show the demons my wrath." he stated with a dead, serious expression.

I swallowed a bit and grasped the knuckles, putting them on and doing a test punch into my palm, feeling the weight on my hand that was almost nonexistent but the power that it brought with it.

"Now go, Nephalem. I christen you Ren, vassal of the gods." Auriel's voice rang out, causing the knuckles to glow bright.

The light around me began fading once more and the beings vanished from my sight. Before long, I was in dark woods that, for some reason, seemed vaguely familiar. A scream came from the other side of a bush, however, cutting off my thoughts. I dashed to the brush and saw a horrible abomination stepping over dead bodies towards a cloaked woman. Without hesitating, I leapt into action, striking the creature in its back with a sickening crack, it turned around and looked to me with its glowing eyes. The creature looked like a rotting cross between a man and a horse, the mane and skin on part of its head removed, showing its dirt stained skull beneath it. It gave a nightmarish wail before swinging at me. I backflipped out of the way jumped to it again, bringing my heel onto it with a golden aura.

"Feel the wrath of Ytar!" I shouted as the creature was cut in half from the kick.

I stood there, waiting for any sign of the walking corpse to still be alive...well, as alive as it could be, but was instead tackled by the cloaked woman, her hood falling off to reveal deep green hair and a light green horn along with a face with the mix of human and equine. She gripped me tightly, showing she had some pretty good strength and cried into my chest.

"Oh, thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" she sobbed, hugging me tighter, squishing her a-cup breasts into me causing my face to heat up quite a bit. "I know! I know, I shouldn't have come here without more guards, but I thought two would be enough. I couldn't leave the city with any fewer guards, not with more and more of these, things, coming!"

She kept like that, crying into me and holding me tighter if I tried moving so, I stayed there with her until she started calming down a bit and looked up as me with her purple eyes.

"I'm clover, who are..." she trailed off a bit and hugged a bit tighter looking to me in shock and, a tinge of red?

"I am ren. Where the gods wish to see, I am their eyes. where they wish to strike, I am their fists." I replied, remembering the intro of the monk from Diablo 3.

Author's Note

Well, here we go, please enjoy.