In Nomine: Legio Laesi Metus.

Legio Laesi Metus

The Legio Laesi Metus is the primary military force of Christopher, Archangel of Children, and it is widely feared throughout the forces of Hell. Is it more feared than the various warrior societies of War’s, or the military orders of the Sword’s?  Perhaps they are not more terrifying than the absolute cream of Michael’s and Laurence’s angels, but the Legio consistently fights in the War against Hell at the highest levels of skill and determination.  And, it must be said, also at the highest level of implacable violence.

This does not surprise other angels, although it can unnerve humans.  Christopher is an interesting entity. The Archangel defaults to being sweet, gentle, patient, and comforting, right up to the moment where he perceives an adult menacing a child.  At that point the switch flips, and Christopher instantly becomes a grim-blooded Cherub Archangel who might have been raised among those of Stone, but is no longer forbidden to strike first, or use missile weapons.  The Archangel has been known to personally face a sufficiently vile demon and simply shred it into a pile of loose Forces, while never once losing the smile on his face.  

This must be understood: it’s a horrifying smile, from the point of view of a demon.  It’s the relaxed, open smile of someone who knows that excising certain creatures from existence forever is a wonderful act of charity towards the universe.  Most Archangels believe this, of course. But very few get personal about it.  Christopher gets personal.

And so does the Legio.  They don’t fight wars to the knives, because sometimes you don’t have a knife handy.  They typically organize in groups of about ten or so, are used to operating independently, and are too busy intervening in horrible situations to have the luxury of deploying into merely unpleasant ones.  The only real restrictions to the Legio’s rules of engagement are their members’ various dissonance conditions, and the basic need to keep the War hidden from humanity.  Other than that, the Archangel of Children has a remarkably relaxed attitude about mayhem done in the service of either his Word, or the War.

A typical member of the Legio Laesi Metus isn’t a sociopath, mind you. Or even a sadist.  They are, after all, angels. But they are veterans of half a millenium of a brutal fight against the forces of Hell.  A lot of Demon Princes objected to the creation of an Archangel of Children.  They still do, in fact. Those Princes’ Servitors had to be viciously and sometimes tediously taught to not do anything about those objections on a tactical level, and doing that took centuries.  Even now the occasional freshly-spawned demon with more ambition than sense tries to expand operations on Christopher’s sphere of influence, in the mistaken belief that nobody’s had that bright idea before (Hell can be remarkably lax about telling new demons what killed the last demons).  It happens often enough to help keep the Legio’s skills sharp.

But it doesn’t happen enough to occupy the group full-time — at least, not any more — so these days the Legio trains and fights with other groups from the War Faction.  Servitors of Stone particularly work well with them, as the two groups have similar traditions (Christopher started in David’s service, and he taught what he learned), but (again) wildly different dissonance conditions.  Having a squad of demons suddenly discover that has led to many an amusing scenario, over the centuries.

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