Work Text:
If you were to ask Eric Fisher what he was thinking the morning he watched an angel fall from the sky over Lake Superior, he would have told you that the only thing going through his head was how tedious it was to polish lighthouse lenses.
It was dark that morning, with the last echoes of an overnight thunderstorm rolling over the water and off the cliffs of Ester’s Point Lighthouse as bolts of lightning flickered on the edge of the cloud line. A deep grey had soaked into everything, making the line between the sky and the water indistinguishable.
Eric thought the storms were beautiful. Even when the wind hammered against the lighthouse and his layers of blankets failed to protect him from the chill. He knew what he was signing up for when he decided to be an operator and refused to admit that it was in any way a mistake. Even if he had to face wind, cold, isolation, and ugh, maintenance.
Eric huffed. It was 7:44 am and he was two years, four months, and twenty-seven days overdue to polish the Fresnel lens that made the lighthouse functional. The coast guard had radioed in just an hour earlier to let him know that “the Laurentien made a call on their way into Superior, said they had trouble finding the light in the storm”, in the kind of tone he interpreted as: clean the damn lens or we’ll get you fired. So he was in some hot water.
He was also pretty embarrassed. More than embarrassed, actually, he was downright ashamed of himself for not noticing how bad it got. It was kinda his entire job to make sure the light was visible whenever it needed to be.
And maybe there was a slightly more excitable part of him that wanted the ship crews to like him. Having a dull beacon definitely lost him some points with the coast guard, if not the Laurentien and the hundreds of other ships that had slowly watched Ester’s go dull over the years of neglect.
Eric really wanted those “good lighthouse keeper” points, so he crawled up into the lantern room with his cleaning kit, skipped over his usual lake-admiring routine and went right to unlocking the massive lens that made all the magic happen. Three tons of glass and bronze encircled him as he pushed his cleaning supplies through the tiny access hatch. He winced as the sound of the latch echoed around the chamber and resonated in the prisms, but the beauty of the complex structure more than made up for it. The lens was like a separate room itself. A separate, much cooler room, that was in desperate need of cleaning.
Later down the line, after everything had settled, he would recall that he had a warning before the sky split open.
It was in the violent vibrations that rippled beneath his fingertips when he ran the first polishing cloth over the lens prisms. But at the time he hadn't had the mind to notice them, because it was suddenly much much harder to breathe.
Eric choked around nothing as the air around him inexplicably gained weight. Like the immeasurable force of the lake had diffused itself into the atmosphere, closing his throat and settling forcefully in his chest. He sputtered, coughed, and threw his hands out to grab something, anything to ground himself. The air outside crackled. It snapped louder than any thunder, and it shook the lighthouse.
It scared Eric so badly that he managed a single startled gasp. The fresh oxygen gave him just enough sense to grab on to the prisms as they shuddered and cracked so he could peer beyond them over the lake. Just as he did the crackling rose to a grand crescendo and a cloud of violet lightning burst to life in the sky over the water.
In a mere instant a figure lunged forth from the cloud, a giant man with rigid wings and claws outstretched as if it were attacking an invisible enemy, as the lightning coiled in on itself with a deafening snap. He watched, completely stunned, as the beast flailed in the air, twisted itself around, and clawed at the sky like the clouds themselves would stop it from falling. From his position inside the lens he couldn’t see it when it hit the water, but he heard it. A crisp whack floated up from the waves and echoed for what felt like an eternity.
Eric didn’t move for a long time. The clouds cleared just enough that rays of sunlight illuminated the space where the…thing had fallen. It looked like heaven's light following an angel down to the earth. He waited some more. Nothing happened. The waves were still grey. The thunderstorm down the shore was still rolling away.
Slowly, Eric peeled his fingers from the prism and examined the lens in full. Some of the glass was damaged. It would be expensive to replace.
He took a deep breath. Then he picked up his cloth and resumed cleaning.
Even when a little voice in his head demanded he abandon the work and investigate the cliffside, he didn't stop. Even when it told him he really needed to see if the thing had actually hit the water or crumpled on the shallow rocks below, he didn't stop. He was already listening to a much louder voice, the one called Common Sense, which told him to keep moving as if nothing had happened.
People died when they went searching for answers to the unexplained. They died when they saw things they weren’t supposed to see. Eric did not want to die.
It took him five hours to dust and polish every prism. It shouldn't have taken so long, but his hands kept shaking and dropping all his equipment. Out of the two-hundred and fifty-two prisms, twelve contained hairline cracks, and one was near shattered. He lost every single one of his hypothetical points when he called in to ANT to tell them about the damage, but he was really too numb to care about any of the scolding.
“How’d it happen?” they asked. He might’ve made a comment about the storm. He didn’t remember.
He spent the rest of the day staring out a window overlooking the cliffside until it was time to flip the beacon back on. The generators hummed to life as light began slowly blinking over the water, brighter than it had been in years. With his only legally-obligated-duty complete, Eric crawled into his bed and willed his fingers to stop trembling long enough to fall into an uneasy rest.
Which was interrupted only a few hours later by the most heart-stopping noise to ever grace his ears. Metal slamming into stone. Repeatedly. Like a person trying to break down his door only it was louder and weighted and something huge was outside.
Eric shot from his bed with a speed he didn’t know he was capable of and forced his feet into his boots as fast as he possibly could. He winced when the metallic slamming turned into a horrific screech, followed by what could only be described as a pained yelp. Only it was loud enough to be heard through the reinforced walls.
Common Sense was left behind in the bed as Eric raced out the door into the dark night, the world only illuminated by the occasional passing of the beacon. He didn’t know if he wanted to escape or see what was happening, but something in his half-asleep and wholly terrified mind told him he needed to check out the situation in case someone needed help. There was nothing in the lawn, but the slamming continued, echoing up from over the rocky edge.
Adrenaline fueled him as he raced towards the edge, praying that he was just going insane. All his previous energy dropped out of his body completely when he peered down towards the black lake.
There was someone there. Dear lord it was real, it was real, there was someone actually there. Or maybe it was something because the giant metal creature that stared back up at him wasn't human. It couldn’t be. Hysterically, he thought it might have been some kind of mecha like the one’s anime were always being made about. Piloted robots that defended humankind. Maybe it was safe.
And then its scarlet eyes focused on him and its uncanny human-like face twisted into a snarl and all thoughts of safety fled the scene with the rest of his brain. The thing turned its gaze away and forcefully pulled one of its clawed hands towards its chest. Eric realized with a jolt that the sound had been the thing forcing its claws into the stone in order to pull itself up.
Great hydraulics and machinery hissed and whirred as it brought its claws down again and again and again, slowly pulling itself up by tiny increments. He only snapped out of his daze when one of those claws–talons, really–slammed itself down right next to him.
Eric nearly screamed when he realized they were as long as his body. He stumbled into the dewy grass and scrambled back as far as he could as the thing attempted to pull itself up and over the edge. It slipped with a shriek of metal on stone, digging deep furrows into the lawn. Some kind of sound burst from its throat, like a swear being shouted in panic, but Eric didn’t recognize the language.
Finally, it heaved itself up, collapsing into a heap of steaming metal and groaning hydraulics only a few feet from the terrified lighthouse keeper. Its feet hung limply over the edge it had been desperately clawing up only moments before. Its body expanded and contracted like a human fighting for oxygen, but its mouth was closed and it had no nose to breathe from.
Eric stared. He hyperventilated a little. He stared some more. Something glowing a bright blue was leaking out from under the giant. It had a consistency like blood.
“Are you an angel?” he breathed. He didn’t know why he said it, but something whispered in his head that it was the right kind of question to ask.
He wasn’t expecting an answer, he didn’t even know if the thing could understand him, but evidently it did because its “breathing” paused. Then it grinned, the low light only making it possible to see its sharp grey teeth contrasting with the darker metals that made up its face. The grin went wider and it opened its maw to emit some kind of repeated warbling that shook its whole body.
It took Eric longer than he would have liked to realize that the sound was laughter. The thing was laughing at him and it didn’t seem like it was going to stop anytime soon. It was a harsh sound, echoing around the metallic chest, coming out exactly as he imagined a robot(?) laughing might sound like.
It only got more and more severe, until the creature’s whole body was convulsing in hysterics on the ground, glowing blue liquid smearing under its plating and further into the dirt. It was horrific. He was certain he was watching some kind of living creature roll around in its own blood, going nuts over a stupid question.
It cut off suddenly. He shuddered as something in the thing’s throat caught and it choked. With surprising efficiency that betrayed its earlier hysterics, the creature forced itself to its hands and knees, retching something awful as more of that blue liquid spilled past its lips and onto the ground by Eric’s feet, splattering on his boots and anything nearby. The smell was awful. Too chemical to be human but too natural to be normal fuel.
“Nah,” it said a deep electronic voice. “I’m not an angel.” Its glowing red eyes locked onto him in the dark as he watched its manic grin morph into a rueful grimace. “People’d probably like me a lot more if I was though.”
Eric’s jaw dropped as the thing gave one last pathetic cough, before it settled back down on the ground, seemingly uncaring of the fluids it just expelled getting all over its plating.
They sat there for a while. The only way to tell the time was by how many times the lighthouse beacon flashed over them, but Eric wasn’t counting. Instead, he was cataloging whatever the hell he’d just discovered.
When the light came back around he took in the wide planes of metal painted black and purple, wings sticking up from its back, and the occasional sparking wire from where it seemed like it might be injured.
He was so caught up in just staring, that he nearly shit his pants when it spoke.
“What time is it?” It asked. He didn’t have anything on him to tell the time but by the position of the moon it was–
“About ten.” he whispered. He didn’t know what was happening or if he was even going to survive. Later on, he’d regret not asking more questions, but at the time he just wanted to live to see the next morning. If the not-angel wanted to know the time, he’d give them the time.
It groaned. The sound was a little too human and his heart started thumping in barely restrained panic as the thing pushed itself up again to sit back on its heels, staring up at the sky. The light passed over them again. There was a hole in its chest that seemed to be the source of most of the fluid now coating his grass. Eric didn’t want to know what could have possibly caused that kind of damage.
“You were under the water for about twelve hours,” he told the thing. He doesn't know why, but he hoped it might help. The robot only groaned again.
“Yeah ‘cuz I couldn’t figure out where the pit I was going,” it spat, looking at Eric like it was his fault he got stuck under water for so long. “Murky as all scrap down there, you can’t see anything!”
He nodded. Yeah, yeah, sure whatever the thing needed to say to make it happy. Sure, yes, it was Eric’s fault it was trapped for so long.
“Ugh, stop panicking,” it grunted. “You organics get so gross when you’re panicking.”
They lapsed into silence again, both of them heaving deep breaths for entirely different reasons. The longer they waited the more pained the robot looked. Occasionally it twitched, each one accompanied by a wince. On the last twitch it’s teeth clenched together and it gasped.
“Where are we?” It bit out.
“Es-Ester’s Point. Lake Superior.”
It glanced out across the water, huffing through vents on its chest. “Big lake? North America?”
“Yeah. That one.” There were multiple, but he wasn’t going to mention that.
“Cool.” It rocked up onto its feet with a bitten off cry, stumbling a little and grabbing the side of the lighthouse to stabilize itself. Something in its body clicked and whirred and all the plates shifted a little. The robot seemed satisfied with this, and turned to give him a grin that was all teeth and no joy. “Thanks for the beacon, squishy.”
Then it turned around and jumped off the cliff. Eric’s heart leapt to his throat. He waited to hear it hit the water again.
Just as the thought crossed his mind that he might have just watched a suicide, a deafening roar rang out in the night as a massive fighter jet shot up from the water. The sound followed it up, up, and up further out of his sightline before Eric was suddenly choking on nothing again. The air filled with static, violet lightning crackled around the jet, coiled in on itself, and snapped.
When he finally pulled himself out of the protective huddle he went into, Eric stared up at the dark sky. The jet was gone.
“Holy shit,” he breathed.
Slowly, the lighthouse keeper got to his feet, legs shaking, and took a single step towards the tower. He collapsed before he could take another.
)()(
When a small army of military personnel showed up the next morning Eric Fisher had no idea what to say to them. He signed a near-endless amount of NDAs, suffered a medical check, an interrogation, swore himself into silence, and numbly watched teams of troops clean his land of evidence there was ever anything there.