Chapter 1: The End is a System Update

The rain hammered Boston like bullets against concrete, each drop exploding into a thousand fragments that caught the neon glow of the city's underbelly. Dean Robinson pressed his back against the grimy brick wall of the alley, the tactical vest beneath his jacket feeling heavier with each labored breath. Blood—his blood—dripped steadily from a gash across his forehead, mixing with the rain that cascaded down his face.

"Just another Tuesday night in paradise," he muttered, checking his magazine. Three rounds left. Not exactly the kind of odds that made a former Army Ranger feel confident, but Dean had worked with worse.

The mission brief had been simple: neutralize a high-value target in the Back Bay district. Some rich asshole trafficking kids, the kind of scum that made Dean's trigger finger itch. What the brief hadn't mentioned was that the target could move faster than humanly possible, or that his eyes glowed like blue flames, or that he'd just thrown a grown man through a brick wall with his bare hands.

"Control, this is Ghost Six," Dean whispered into his comm, pressing deeper into the shadows. "Target is not what we expected. Repeat, target is—"

Static answered him. Of course.

A laugh echoed through the alley, rich and cultured, the kind of voice that belonged in a boardroom or an opera house. "Still clinging to your little toys, Sergeant Robinson? How... quaint."

Dean's blood went cold. The bastard knew his name.

"Come now," the voice continued, closer this time. "Surely a soldier of your caliber recognizes when he's outmatched. I could make this quick. Painless, even."

"Yeah, well," Dean called out, chambering a round with deliberate loudness, "my momma always said I was too stubborn for my own good. 'Course, she also said I'd die young and stupid, so maybe she was onto something."

He rolled out from cover, assault rifle raised, and got his first clear look at his target.

The man—if you could call him that—stood at the mouth of the alley like he owned it. Tall, lean, wearing a suit that probably cost more than Dean's annual salary. His dark hair was slicked back without a single strand out of place despite the downpour, and when he smiled, Dean caught a glimpse of teeth that seemed just a little too sharp.

But it was the eyes that really sold it. Blue fire, literally. Flames that danced in the darkness like twin stars.

"Well, shit," Dean breathed. "Mom was right about the stupid part."

He opened fire.

The first two rounds should have taken the target center mass. Instead, they seemed to slow in midair, hanging suspended for a heartbeat before dissolving into wisps of shadow. The third round never even made it that far—the man raised one hand, and Dean's rifle simply... stopped working. The trigger wouldn't pull, the bolt wouldn't move. It was like the gun had forgotten how to be a gun.

"Azrael," the man said, as if introducing himself at a cocktail party. "Though I suspect your intelligence files have me listed under something far more mundane."

Dean dropped the useless rifle and drew his sidearm in one smooth motion. "Let me guess. Fallen angel, right? The whole glowing eyes, impossible movement, general air of being a complete dick kind of gave it away."

Azrael's smile widened. "Perspective, Sergeant. I prefer 'liberated.'"

The Glock jammed after the first shot—another impossibility that Dean filed under 'supernatural bullshit' and moved on. He had a combat knife, his fists, and about thirty years of accumulated anger at the world's injustices. It would have to be enough.

It wasn't.

Dean lasted maybe ten seconds in hand-to-hand combat. Ten seconds of throwing everything he had at an opponent who moved like liquid death, who caught his knife thrust bare-handed and snapped the blade like a pretzel. Ten seconds before Azrael's hand closed around his throat and lifted him off the ground like he weighed nothing.

"You know what I find fascinating about your species?" Azrael mused, his grip tightening. "Your capacity for hope in the face of absolute futility. Even now, I can see it in your eyes. You still think you might find a way out of this."

Dean's vision was starting to tunnel, but he managed to wheeze out, "Hope's got nothing to do with it, asshole. I'm just too pissed off to die."

"Admirable. Futile, but admirable."

The grip tightened further, and Dean felt something fundamental begin to crack inside his chest. Not his ribs—something deeper. Something that felt like the very core of who he was starting to splinter.

"Any last words, Sergeant?"

Dean's world had shrunk to pinpoints of light dancing at the edges of his vision. But somehow, he found the breath for one final act of defiance.

"Yeah. Go to hell."

Azrael laughed. "Been there. Didn't care for the management."

The crack became a break, and Dean Robinson died in a dirty Boston alley, held three feet off the ground by something that had once been an angel.

But death, as it turned out, was just the beginning.

The first thing Dean noticed was that he wasn't in pain anymore. The second thing he noticed was that he wasn't anywhere at all—just floating in a space that was simultaneously empty and infinite, like the inside of a computer screen.

The third thing he noticed was the blue text hanging in the air in front of him.

[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE]

[SOUL INTEGRITY: CRITICAL]

[EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS ACTIVATED]

[SEARCHING FOR COMPATIBLE HOST...]

[MATCH FOUND]

[DEAN ROBINSON - COMPATIBILITY RATING: 87%]

[INITIATING ECHO KNIGHT PROTOCOL]

"What the hell..." Dean's voice echoed strangely in the void, like he was speaking underwater.

[HELLO, DEAN ROBINSON]

[YOU HAVE DIED]

"Yeah, I fucking noticed," Dean snapped at the floating text. "Thanks for the update."

[SARCASM DETECTED. PERSONALITY MATRIX CONFIRMED.]

[YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED FOR THE ECHO KNIGHT PROGRAM]

[DO YOU WISH TO:]

[A) ACCEPT RESURRECTION AND SERVE AS HEAVEN'S CHAMPION]

[B) PROCEED TO STANDARD AFTERLIFE PROCESSING]

Dean stared at the options. This was either the weirdest near-death experience in human history, or someone upstairs had a seriously twisted sense of humor.

"Let me get this straight," he said slowly. "I die fighting some supernatural asshole, and now Heaven wants to hire me? What's the catch?"

[PROCESSING QUERY...]

[THE CATCH: EARTH IS AT WAR]

[FORCES OF DARKNESS SEEK TO CORRUPT OR DESTROY ALL MORTAL LIFE]

[HEAVEN'S DIRECT INTERVENTION IS... RESTRICTED]

[ECHO KNIGHTS SERVE AS PROXIES IN THE CONFLICT]

[WARNING: THIS POSITION CARRIES SIGNIFICANT RISK OF PERMANENT SOUL DAMAGE]

Dean laughed, the sound bitter and raw. "Buddy, I just got murdered by a fallen angel in an alley. My soul's probably already damaged goods. And you're telling me there's a war going on that nobody knows about?"

[AFFIRMATIVE]

"And Heaven needs soldiers."

[AFFIRMATIVE]

"Soldiers who are already dead, so they don't have to worry about the whole 'risk assessment' thing."

[...AFFIRMATIVE]

Dean was quiet for a long moment, floating in the digital void. He thought about his squad in Afghanistan—good men who'd died for a cause they believed in. He thought about the kids that bastard Azrael had probably been trafficking, and all the other innocent people caught in a war they didn't even know existed.

"What kind of power are we talking about here?" he asked finally.

[INITIALIZING PREVIEW MODE...]

Suddenly, Dean could see himself—or a version of himself. Same scars, same build, but wearing armor that seemed to be made of crystallized starlight. In his hands was a weapon that looked like it had been forged from the heart of a star, and around him, shadows fled like living things afraid of the light.

[ARCHANGEL'S AEGIS SYSTEM ACTIVATED]

[SKILLS, ABILITIES, AND EQUIPMENT SCALE WITH EXPERIENCE]

[QUEST COMPLETION GRANTS ADVANCEMENT]

"Holy shit," Dean breathed. "It's like a video game."

[CRUDE ANALOGY, BUT FUNCTIONALLY ACCURATE]

[DO YOU ACCEPT?]

Dean looked at the two options floating in front of him. Option B probably led to some kind of peaceful afterlife. No more fighting, no more pain, no more watching good people get hurt by monsters.

Option A led back into the war. Back to a world where things like Azrael walked around in thousand-dollar suits and crushed human lives for sport.

It really wasn't a choice at all.

"I accept," Dean said. "But I've got one condition."

[PROCESSING...]

[CONDITIONS ARE NOT TYPICALLY—]

"When I find that son of a bitch Azrael again," Dean interrupted, "I want him to know exactly who's putting him down. I want him to remember the name of the guy he left to die in that alley."

[...UNDERSTOOD]

[INITIALIZING RESURRECTION PROTOCOL]

[WELCOME TO THE WAR, ECHO KNIGHT]

The void exploded into light, and Dean Robinson opened his eyes in a world where angels were real, demons walked among mortals, and he was apparently Heaven's newest recruit.

His first thought was that he really needed to update his resume.

His second thought was that Azrael had made a very serious mistake by not making sure he stayed dead.

[SYSTEM ACTIVE]

[FIRST QUEST AVAILABLE]

[OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE YOUR HANDLER]

Dean blinked at the last message. "My what now?"

A shadow fell across him, and Dean looked up to see a figure descending from the sky on wings that could have been carved from marble and starlight.

"Oh," he said, watching the most beautiful and terrifying being he'd ever seen land gracefully in front of him. "This is going to be interesting."

[GOOD LUCK, KNIGHT]