Sera the Seraphim Gets Spanked

 

Trouble in Paradise: Sera the Seraphim Gets Spanked

By Yu May and Anonymous

The lower Court of Heaven bustled as the assembled cherubim and younger seraphim vied for the best view. Sera the Seraphim stood proud before the seat of judgment, her hands shackled in gold.

A hush fell over the courtroom as the pearly gates above the courtroom rumbled, and opened to reveal a blinding light. Michael the Archangel descended as steps formed from the clouds at his footsteps. Gabriel the Herald stood from his bailiff seat at the side of the judge’s bench, and sounded a fanfare on his trumpet. Then, Michael the Archangel, General of the Heavenly Hosts, the guy who kicked Lucifer’s ass straight to hell, sneezed.

The assembled angels blinked, and as the light dimmed, they were able to make out his face: he was just as beautiful as he appeared in all the classical paintings, except, for some reason, the character designer chose to draw him like a Tumblr sexyman.

Michael the Archangel straightened his tie. “Sera, Beloved Sister of the Seraphim, you stand accused of High Treason Against the Law of Heaven. How do you plead?”

“Not guilty! I only sought to purge Hell of those who would–” 

With a flick of his thumb, Michael pushed his sword out of its scabbard by a hair’s breadth. Immediately, Sera’s eyes began to glow, and she screamed. Although it certainly was hurting Sera, it was not a form torture. Michael had simply to grip the handle of the weapon on his belt, the Sword of Truth, and the truth that was written on Sera’s heart was made known. A film reel bagan to unwind out of her throat, and as it flew into the air, it was as if a movie of everything she had ever said or done was played for all the assembled hosts to see.

Coincidentally, it’s almost impossible to write a good courtroom drama set in Heaven, since they always know whether you’re guilty or innocent with absolute reliability.

In the “movie,” Sera stood before Adam, handing him her own holy spear. “Go forth, Adam, and decimate the citizens of Hell.”

Adam pumped his fists. “Oh, fuck, yes, some action! So you finally managed to convince that stuffed shirt Michael to let me commit some genocide?”

The court gasped as they heard the f-bomb. Eve, the mother of all humanity, watched Adam on the screen with a resting bitch face, then took a crunch from an apple. “Typical Adam.”

In the movie memory, Sera cleared her throat, “...Um, actually, you’re going to have to be discreet about this. The Archangels have not declared a state of total war against Hell. This is strictly an infiltration mission…as the first man, you are permitted entry into the domain of Hell, with an honor-guard of Exorcists to act as your escort, so that you may…minister to the lost souls of Hell.”

Adam pulled at his hair. “Minister? I’m not going to Hell to volunteer at a soup kitchen! I want to fuck shit up! I thought we agreed that…

Adam’s eyes popped open, and he flashed a shit-eating grin. “...Wait, this is you doing a sneaky rules lawyer thing, isn’t it? You found a loophole, you skanky little sneak of a seraph?”

As she watched the movie of her own memory, Sera took a deep breath, rolled her eyes and sighed. On the movie screen above, Sera make exactly the same expression at exactly the same time. “Please don’t make me spell it out, Adam.”

Adam made finger guns. “Oh, no, I need you to spell it out. You want me to wipe out those disgusting sinners, don’t ya babe? Tell me I’m right!”

“...If you are attacked, then the law would permit you to use lethal force to defend yourself.”

“C’mon, you hypocrite, just say it!”

“Oh, by Saint Peter’s key! Fine, have it your way!”

In the audience, Saint Peter blushed as he heard his name used as a substitute for an expletive.

In the movie, Sera mugged straight at the camera. “I, Sera the Seraphim, in full soundness of mind, am knowingly asking you to commit genocide. This is completely illegal, and contrary to all laws of God and man. There, are you happy?”

Adam shrugged and took the spear. “Eh, I’m sure God will forgive me. He loves to forgive, and I love to sin!”

The assembled audience gasped as they heard Adam express…heresy?!? 

Saint Paul the Apostle stamped his foot. “Argh! That’s not how it works! Doesn’t anyone read my Epistles?” 

Saint Tomas the doubter rubbed his eyes. “I don’t believe it! Who let that guy in?”

Slowly, Saint Paul and Saint Thomas glanced at Saint Peter at their side. Saint Peter pulled on his collar, whistling.

Michael returned his sword to its scabbard, and the movie playing Sera’s memories evaporated. “Sera, the words written upon your own heart have condemned you. But the Truth shall set you free…You knew that, once. Please, Sister, do not lie to yourself. How do you plea?”

The chains on Sera’s restraints clinked as she hung her head, her breath shaky. “I…I know I am guilty under the law…but you must understand! The Gates of Hell cannot long hold if we do not–”

Michael drew his sword fully from its sheath, the exposed blade bathing the court with the light of 1000 suns. By the time Michael sheathed the blade, Sera had collapsed onto her hands and knees. “We angels are not like humanity. We have never tasted the Forbidden Fruit. Our sole purpose is to serve the law of Mercy and Justice, and if an angel ever departs from that path…then they are truly fallen. You knew this Sera. Your error is all the more grave, for while many stumble into sin in darkness, your transgression was committed in the full light of knowledge of your higher calling. There can only be one just punishment for your error…”

Sera held her breath as Michael pointed gravely to the Gates that led to the precipice from which Lucifer Morningstar himself had been cast into hell. Tears filled Sera’s eyes as she turned to plead for mercy, only to see Michael making a wacky face as he pointed to a very strange machine. It looked like it had been designed by Rube Goldberg himself. “A spanking on the spanking machine! …It’s a machine, that spanks people!”

Every single person gathered in the courtroom looked at Michael with disbelief. “...What?” said Sera.

Michael somersaulted off the Judgment seat and started patting the spanking machine like a used car salesman. “See, Sera, since you’re a soldier under my command, I’m responsible for determining a suitable punishment. Since I haven’t really had to deal with this problem since I drop-kicked Lucifer out of here, I got to thinking…justice…and mercy! You get a good spanking as punishment for your war crimes–that’s the justice part–and then, once I know you’re sorry and want to do better, you get a chance to make things right–that’s the mercy part!” 

Sera blinked as she examined the machine more closely. It had a soft cushion at the top, with leather straps. Behind the cushion was a contraption that vaguely resembled a windmill, but in place of blades it had a variety of robotic hands complete with white cartoon gloves, with a rack of various spanking implements along the base. Hand-painted golden letters declared it to be: The Purgator 777. Sera felt her head spinning “But...but–”

Michael started getting more animated. “Exactly! On your butt! Of course, genocide is a serious breach of conduct, so I’m also going to have to strip you of all your honors–”

As Michael snapped his fingers, Sera’s radiant crown disappeared. “–Bust you down to the rank of private–” with another snap, Sera’s radiant, flowing dress was replaced by a simple army recruit outfit.

As Sera examined her humble outfit in horror, Michael snapped his fingers, and a giant television screen appeared in the sky. “–Oh, yeah, and since what you did was technically an act of war, I’m going to have to broadcast this to Hell. We have to assure them that justice is…blind? Huh, though in this case, it’s more like justice is everyone in the entire universe getting to see you get spanked, so is that really justice being blind?”

Sera hugged herself, blushing furiously. “You can’t be serious! Please, Michael! Surely there must be another way?”

Michael froze, then pulled out a pair of bifocal spectacles to examine an index card with his cheat sheet notes. “Uh…let’s see, minimum sentencing requirements…looks like it’s this, or…Hell?”

Tears appeared in Sera’s eyes. “I…I really am sorry, Michael. I knew it was wrong when I did it…I just thought…”

Michael rushed to hug Sera so quickly, it was as if he teleported, which was probably something he could easily do, given that he was an all-powerful badass. “There, there, little sister. I know you’re sorry. I’m so happy that you want to repent of your sin! You’ve taken the first step on a long journey…toward redemption!”

As Michael snapped his fingers, Sera found herself floating towards the spanking machine. Suddenly she was wondering if Hell might have been the more merciful option.

She flopped down on her stomach, lying bottoms-up across the cushion before the straps hooked her securely in place.

The giant TV flickered, and Lucifer’s face appeared on screen, giggling as he threw popcorn at his daughter Charlie. “Princess! Cut it out! Daddy’s working…Oh, hey, Michael.”

Michael started shadow boxing, looking like a kid on Christmas. “Lulu, you old snake! How’s the old war wound treating you? You know, from Creation Week? When I crushed your skull under my heel?”

Lucifer looked exhausted. “...I still have the scar.”

“Man, you put up a great fight! Oh, where’s my head? Legal stuff! Ahem, I, General Michael the Archangel, Supreme Commander of the Heavenly Hosts, do hereby formally apologize for the unauthorized breach past the Gates of Hell. We are conducting a thorough internal investigation, and I will personally hold all offending members of the Angelic Army Corp responsible for their misconduct! To that end, we have invited you to bear witness to the chastisement of the chief architect of this disgraceful, unprovoked attack!”

Princess Charlie Morningstar took a bite of popcorn. “Wow, thank you, sir! He’s so nice, Dad! You think he’d be willing to listen to my idea for the Hazbin Ho–”

Michael accidentally muted the television as he fumbled with the controller. “Let’s see…output…input? Oh, I gotta switch input…to output…there we go!”

The image on the screen was replaced by live footage of Sera, periodically cutting back and forth to different cameras to show her face and bottom from every possible angle. A QR code at the bottom announced that all courtroom footage would be archived and made publicly available on the Heavenly Cloud and the Hellanet for the purposes of transparency.

Sera balked as she saw herself on the broadcast, before a giant cartoon gloved hand tugged down her army cargo pants. “Oh no, oh no, oh–”

The cartoon hand pulled back, as if winding up, and the wheel on the spanking machine began to spin at its first gear pace, landing spanks to a steady beat of one spank a second. The first wallop caught Sera by surprise. “Ho! I changed my mind! I changed my mind!”

Michael wiped a tear from his eye with a hanky. “Courage, Sera! I know you can endure this trial!”

But despite Michael's attempts to offer solace to her poor, bruised ego, Sera was already howling, convinced that the spanking machine was already bruising her poor bottom. “It’s way too hard! Turn it off!”

Michael examined the controls of the machine. “Too hard? Oh dear, I was sure I had it on the lowest setting. After all, you’ve never been spanked once, in all eternity, so it seemed unfair to start you out with the machine at a higher level. Maybe I put the numbers on backwards?”

Michael fumbled with the dial, and the second he switched it to two, the machine shuddered to a halt and the wheel spun on its axis. Then two of the cartoon hands tugged down Sera’s underpants with a clean tug. Sara’s eyes widened as she saw it return to its original position, before the spanking began again, but with the wheel spinning in the reverse direction. Before, the hands had spiraled downward, but now they delivered upward spanks to Sera’s lower bottom, twice as fast as they had before: two spanks a second. 

As Sera squealed, Michael scrambled to lower the dial back down to one. “Thank goodness, I got it right! See everyone, if you follow the instruction manual, everything will always work out!”

The spanking machine slowed its pace, returning to its original setting, but it didn’t bother to pull Sera’s underpants back up. “Michael, please! I’m sorry!”

Michael nodded, as he fumbled with the remote. “I know you are Sera, but I’m not the person you need to say that to. Have a look at the TV.”

Above them, the screen flipped to reveal the devastation left by Adam’s last assault on hell, as well as a line of gravestones with upside down crosses. The footage of Sera was shrunk to a corner of the screen, to avoid interrupting the broadcast. “Your orders were to stand guard at the Gates of Hell, not persecute those poor souls trapped within. This was your responsibility Sera.”

Fresh tears spilled down Sera’s cheeks as she saw the devastation. “But…They’re sinners! I was only trying to help!”

Michael shook his head as he reached for the dial. “No Sera, you’re still making excuses.”

Sera writhed as she realized what was about to happen, but the straps held her bottom perfectly in place. “No more! Not again!”

Michael flipped the dial back to two, and the spanking hands clicked to a halt and returned to the faster “sit-spot spanking setting,” cutting off Sera’s protests. The pace of two spanks a second was rough, but not quite so frantic that Sera couldn’t manage to gasp and yelp between each swat. 

Panicking, Sera looked into the audience, and saw her star pupil, Emily, staring up at her. If Emily felt any sympathy for her former mentor, she didn’t show a hint of it on her face.

Finally, Sera caught her breath and screamed, “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have disobeyed orders!”

Michael waited until Sera’s cries became more plaintive, and turned the dial back down to one. “That’s a start, but what do you have to say to the poor souls in Hell?”

Sera strained her wrists and ankles against the straps, gritting her teeth between the slower spanks. “What do you want me to say to them?”

“What do you want to say to them? I want you to tell them the truth.”

Sera’s eyes flashed to the screen, and saw footage of an entire crowd of Hellions gathered in the streets to watch her punishment on the television billboards of Pentagram City. “I don’t care what they think of me! I know I sinned against Heaven, but I’m not a sinner like them!”

Michael twisted the dial to three. The direction was the same as setting one, landing downward strokes across the center of Sera’s bottom, but the pace jumped to three spanks per second. “Are you sorry, Sera, or are you just sorry you got caught?”

Sera screeched, no longer able to catch her breath between each spank at this faster pace. After a long, moaning wail, she finally forced herself to take a gulp of air. “I am sorry! For breaking our law! But not for fighting those demons! That’s the truth!”

Michael’s hand hovered over the dial, his face hurt. “...I see…Thank you for telling the truth.”

Sera’s heart clenched as she saw him twist the dial past four, to five. She braced herself, expecting the speed to double or triple, but instead, the spanking paused. She twisted to look over her shoulder, and saw the hands reaching back to retrieve the entire rack of spanking implements: a hairbrush, a slipper, a wooden spoon, and a belt, a paddle, a thick leather strap, a cane, a martinet, and several more she didn’t even recognize. The wheel disconnected and rearranged itself, so that the hands holding the hairbrush, slipper, wooden spoon, and belt stood at either side of Sera. Instantly, she understood the intention. At this angle, the arms would be able to aim proper horizontal strokes, imitating the full swing of a human arm. 

“WHHOP!”

The hairbrush struck first. As she felt how it compared to the earlier hand-spanking, Sera was too surprised to scream, at first. She took a shaky breath, bracing herself for the machine to begin whipping her furiously, only to find it had paused. 

As the seconds dragged on, she felt a throbbing welt rise at the precise point the hairbrush had made its impact. The lingering sting tricked her brain, making her wonder if the spanking really was carrying on, and she was just too stunned to feel it. 

Just as she was sure that the machine hadn’t stopped, and must still be spanking her, the machine aimed a stroke of the slipper, directly over the same spot where the hairbrush had landed. 

“SHWAPP!”

As her eyes widened, Sera felt a scream jump out of her throat, and she became rationally aware of what was happening. By slowing down, she now had time to savor every moment of pain between each spank. Worse than that, each spank felt slightly different than the one that came before. It was maddening! 

The hairbrush felt heavy, while the slipper felt bouncy… 

“SPLAAT!”

The wooden spoon stung most at a small, precise spot… 

“THWIPP!”

…While the belt left a more even sting across a wider surface area. 

After she had felt each of the implements a few times, Sera roared. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Michael walked around the machine to look Sera in the eye. “...Because you’ve forgotten what you once knew, Sera. You’ve forgotten who you are.”

“You want me to apologize to those who would seek our destruction? Well, I’m not sorry! I’m–”

The hairbrush cut Sera off. Michael waited as the machine delivered the next set of four spanks, then brushed a strand of Sera’s hair away from her tear-stained face. “But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you…” The hairbrush spanked Sera. 

“...bless them that curse you…” The slipper spanked Sera.

“...and pray for them which despitefully use you…” The wooden spoon spanked Sera. 

“...And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek…” The belt spanked Sera.

Michael didn’t look away from Sera for an instant. “...offer also the other!”

Sera’s eyes watered, flinching as the hairbrush struck again, then hung her head. “Oooww! ...I’m sorry… Ow, Ouch! …I’m so sorry…Oh! Ohoh!...Aaahaa!”

As Sera began to melt into incoherent sobbing, Michael flipped a red switch to pause the machine. “Now, say that to the people you sinned against.”

Sera looked up. The TV now showed live news footage from Hell as Lucifer Morningstar and Princess Charlie watched the broadcast of Sera’s punishment on his crummy old CRTV. The chiron read, “Live! #SpankingSera the New Sensation on Sinstagram! Interview with Lucifer Morningstar and Charlie Morningstar to Follow! News at 6:00 pm!” 

Suddenly, the feed on Lucifer’s TV cut off. He chuckled as he fumbled with the antenna. “Hold on, just need to hold these in the right spot!”

Princess Charlie crossed her arms. “Dad! What you need is a new TV!”

Lucifer daintily held the antenna at the perfect angle, and Sera’s face reappeared on the TV screen in the Morningstar family living room.

Sera saw her own face on the heavenly TV above her, and teared up. “Princess Charlie? …I’m sorry…to all the people I hurt…”

Princess Charlie turned to look at the news crew in their room. “Wait, can they hear us? I hear us on the TV…So that means they can hear us!”

Charlie accidentally bumped the camera man as she rushed up to the news camera, filling the TV screen in Heaven. “Sera? Look, I just want to say, what you did was wrong, and a spanking isn’t going to undo all the harm you did…but…I hope you do better. I can’t speak for everyone here. A lot of people may not be ready to forgive you, for…hurting them. I’m not sure if I’m ready to forgive you yet…but, I’m going to try my best to forgive you, even if I have to make myself do it!”

Sera blinked back tears.

Lucifer strained his neck, trying to get a glimpse at his TV while standing at an absurd angle to hold the antenna in place. “I dunno, I’d say she’s getting off pretty easy.”

Michael crept up to whisper in Sera’s ear, the camera easily picking up his voice for the broadcast. “Uh, Sera, I think we’ve met the absolute minimum legal requirements for insubordination. Would you say you’ve been punished enough?”

Sera shook her head. “No, Michael. I haven’t even begun to make amends for what I’ve done…please, don’t go easy on me.”

Michael nodded, and fumbled for his index card. “In that case….it looks like it’s community service…you’re going to be volunteering at the soup kitchen in the ring of Gluttony…you’re going to be going door-to-door on an apology tour, to politely offer each and every one of your victims an opportunity to spank you…and I’ll have to give you maintenance spankings every day for 10,000 years, starting today…Oh dear, that escalated quickly. Maybe I could put in an appeal for clemency to the High–”

As Michael caught Sera’s stern look, he threw away his index card and rushed to the control panel of the spanking machine. “Of course! Justice is blind! I’m not proud of what you did, Sera, but I’m very proud that you’re taking responsibility for what you did. Let’s see, we were at setting 4…”

Sera’s eyes popped open. “Wait, right now? Aren’t we gonna’ take a break? Hold some sort of ceremony to symbolize my contrition?”

Michael twisted the dial to 5, and the wheels spun to bring the hands holding the paddle, strap, cane, and martinet into place beside Sera.

Sera squeaked like a mouse as she saw what was about to happen, before the wooden paddle flattened both her buttocks with such force, the puppy fat of her bottom pressed through the little holes which had been drilled into the paddle to cut down on wind resistance. The leather strap lashed across the exact same spot from the other side, landing with a snap like the belt, but with a denser whop, like the wooden paddle. The cane followed, leaving a perfectly straight stripe across the center of Sera’s bottom, nearly an inch in width. Finally the martinet covered her entire bottom with a series of snicks, the 9 soft deer-skin tongs each leaving a soft red weal in a fiery pattern. 

With a stutter, the machine paused the punishment, and a spring popped loose from a panel at the base. Michael glanced at it, pulled a wrench out of thin air, then stooped to examine the interior of the machine, muttering to himself. At the front of the machine, two additional cartoon hands emerged from the sides, placed a table in front of the machine, and began to write words on a paper sign in a dainty hand: “Volunteer Registration: Help Sera Turn over a New Leaf. No spanking experience required. You’ll learn on the job!”

Sara’s pupils shrunk to pinpricks as she read the words on the sign, and the moment the registration table had been set up, Emily was first in line. Sera’s lip trembled. “...Em? You too?”

Emily didn’t look up as she wrote her name and reserved the very first slot. “You have a lot to answer for, Sera.”

The machine delivered another stroke of the paddle, before stalling again. As she felt the blow flatten her buttocks, Sera winced, then looked at Emily with puppy dog eyes. “I’m so sorry! I let you down!”

Emily nodded, and tapped the registration form with her pen. By now, the entire crowd had started to queue up. “Don’t worry…”

Emily walked around the spanking machine to stand at Sera’s side, then reached up on her tip toes to slap Sera’s upturned behind. “...We’ll talk about it tonight!” 

Sera tried to hold her scream, not wanting to look like a weakling in front of her former student, but as she felt Emily’s palm, Sera knew that by tonight, she would be bawling and blubbering like a bratty bare-bottomed baby across Emily’s knee.

Blinking back tears of shame, Sera spotted Lute, the Exorcist’s second-in-command under Adam, signing the volunteer registration. Since the last invasion to Hell had ended in spectacular failure, Lute had lost an arm, along with her Exorcist's mask and armor. She now wore a sackcloth robe as a mark of her state of penance. 

Sera was indignant. “Lute? What are you doing? You were key to the Extermination!”

Lute glowered at Sera, rubbing her own bottom. “I don’t care about the legalities…”

As Lute circled around the spanking machine, Sera noticed that Lute’s sackcloth dress had been pinned up in the back, revealing her slender, toned bottom, covered in pink handprints. Michael had left a sticky note on Lute’s back that read: “Case under review. Report for weekly maintenance spanking in interim. –Love, Michael!”

Sera swallowed, as she remembered the rumors she had heard. Lute, along with the surviving members of the Exorcists, had been given an initial spanking to symbolize their fall from grace, pending the completion of Michael’s internal investigation. Lute noticed Sera glancing at her bottom, and finally realized she had been unconsciously massaging her bare, bright-pink booty. With a snarl, Lute struck Sera’s exposed buttocks with such force, it was more like a killing sword stroke than a spank. “…Because of you, we lost Adam.”

Sera hissed for air, still trying to hang tough. Sure, everyone had seen her cry, but if only she could avoid breaking down, at least she could tell herself she had endured her trial, bravely. It wasn’t much comfort, but it was all she had at the moment.

Sera was concentrating so hard on not crying, she didn’t notice the next woman in line, until she set down the pen. Sera trembled as she recognized Lillith marching to the side of the machine, the first wife of Adam. “Lill? I’m sorry about what happened to Adam, I didn’t think–”

Lilith landed a spank that silenced Sera. “You think I care about Adam? …Charlie might be determined to forgive you. But I’m determined to teach you a lesson first: to never mess with my family.” Lilith landed a second reverberating spank, eliciting a banshee screech from Sera. 

Michael bumped his head as he crawled out from the interior of the machine, waving a hand. “No more spanking the prisoner! Machine is back up…I think? Wouldn’t want anyone getting hurt. Oh, hi Lillith!”

Lilith stood at eye-level with the most powerful Archangel in heaven, then smiled. “Mikey. Love the engineering work. I imagine it requires quite a bit of…daily maintenance?” 

Michael grinned sheepishly as he fiddled with the dial. “Why thank you! You know, lots of moving parts…I always tried to tell Adam, you have to treat a woman like you treat a car…”

All the female saints and angelic beings turned to look at Michael, wondering where this was going.

Michael held up a finger, grinning from ear to year. “With love, respect, and focused, attentive care!” 

The machine rattled and belched a puff of black smoke, which engulfed Michael’s face. Wheezing for air, Michael threw down his wrench and kicked the machine. “Work, why don’t you?”

Instantly, the machine whirred back to life, the dial set to setting 6. It unstrapped Sera’s ankles, tugged her cargo pants off entirely, and threw them away. Then a free hand pinched the waistband of Sera’s panties and lifted gently to give her a slight wedgie, exposing the undercurves of her backside, which was already flaming red. After it finished, the gloved hand gave her three little love pats across her behind, and all 12 hands holding the variety of implements clicked back in place, before the hand holding the wooden paddle wound up its mechanical arm to deliver a blow with full force.

Sera howled with genuine despair as her punishment began again. Finally, no one could doubt that she was really, truly sorry. After the first 8 implements landed, Sera was introduced to the 4 implements she hadn’t been able to recognize: these were a riding crop, a tawse, a deer-skin leather paddle with a circular hole in the middle called a “flapper,” and finally a empty hand, which popped into its mechanical arm to be replaced by a massive hand 4 times the size of the others. 

The riding crop left a fresh, glistening red welt at the precise point of impact. The tawse left two marks in parallel lines that stang worse at the tail end where the leather tips landed like Lucifer’s forked snake’s tongue. The flapper covered a wide square surface area similar to a paddle, but left a raised circular mark where the hole landed. It flushed white, then red as a watery blister slowly rose on the spot. Sera panicked, not knowing the names or physical properties of these implements, but painfully aware of their effects. Then the mighty palm came down, easily covering her entire bottom. Sera’s resolve to stay stoic crumbled.

Michael clicked his tongue, but spoke without a hint of cruelty in his voice. “Almost there, Sera. Setting 7 is the last trial you have you have to endure for today…well, except for the volunteers for your daily maintenance spankings. I didn’t expect to get so many. A lot people must really want to help you stay accountable!”

Sera shook her head, sobbing incoherently, before the machine activated the final setting. The straps disconnected, and it bucked Sera up into the air like a bouncy ball, before the cushion tucked down inside of the machine. With a cheerful ring, a flat table popped out of the slot in the spanking machine like toast, taking the place of the cushion. The moment Sera slapped down on the table, face-first, one of the cartoon hands seized her ankles, spun her around, and lifted her up gently by her ankles to hold her upside-down. Instinctively, she covered her front as her army shirt flopped around her face and her infantry hat flew away. The hand delivered a sharp swat to her rump, like an old-time doctor slapping a newborn babe, and Sera mewled plaintively, rather like a baby. 

The table below her unfolded, to reveal itself to be a Koala Kare baby changing station. Sera flailed her arms, then spluttered as the baggy army shirt flopped the rest of the way off her head, leaving her naked as the day she was born. As Sera was laid to rest on her back, she saw one of the cartoon gloves waving, then felt a second hoist her ankles up to hold her like a baby in diaper position. Sera tugged uselessly against the hand that had her by the ankles, when the machine vibrated, and its hands reemerged, holding a baby bottle, a bag of extra large diapers, a pacifier, a bonnet, a bib, and a pair of pink socks and mittens. In horror, Sera realized what was about to happen next, and twisted in a futile effort to crawl off the changing table. But the machine only waved a finger in her face with one of its gloved hands, secured its grip on her ankles with a second hand, and delivered crisp spanks to her upside-down bottom with a third hand. Sera yelped and bounced up and down on the changing table in despair, and as she looked on the screen above, she saw a crowd of the residents in hell, pointing and laughing as they watched the live footage of Sera’s public chastisement.

And in that moment, Sera, the once proud seraphim, the Guardian of the Gates of Hell, lost all remaining pride. When she had volunteered for this punishment, a small part of her had hoped that even in her disgrace, she would retain a quiet sense of dignity; that whatever trials she faced, she would be able to hold her head high. As Sera felt the fresh sting of the spanking, and heard the laughter and approval of the spectators, she knew just how wrong she had been. She had nothing to be proud of any more.

Sera rubbed her fists against her tear-stained cheeks as she melted into racking sobs. She cried the whole time the machine diapered her and dressed her in her new outfit, until the moment it popped a baby binky in her mouth. As Sera sucked on the pacifier with confusion, an extra-large hand picked her up and balanced her gently on its palm, holding her plump diapered bottom up, before the rest of the hands began to spank her with such ferocity, with the entire collection of implements, that not even the padded diaper could do much to protect her.

As this all carried on in the background, Gabriel the Archangel tapped Michael on the shoulder. “Michael, isn’t this sentence a little…unorthodox?”

Michael shrugged. “Eh, we can’t always be Biblically Accurate Angels.”

Gabriel played a wah-wah-wah on his trumpet, as a black circle closed around them to end the cartoon.

Just as it closed, Michael knocked Gabriel aside to grab the edge of the circle and hold it open. “Hold on! Since I’m breaking the fourth wall anyway…While I have your attention, I’d like to take a moment to tell you about the Good News of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and how he came to Earth, born incarnate of the Virgin Mary, to save the sinners of the world, through his death on the cross, and his resurrection on the third day, as foretold by the prophecies of the Messiah! It’s the Greatest Story Ever Told! Oooh, I’m so excited, I don’t know where to begin! Where should I begin? Oh, duh, I’ll begin at the beginning! The Book of Genesis, Chapter 1: In the beginning–”

The End