Looking back on it, I guess it all started on a beach in Cuba, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, of all things. It was a sign of things to come. I was in paradise, and watching it be torn apart by war, betrayal, and grief.
And then, as I was fighting the strong, furry blue creature (which seemed to be the professor's watchdog,) she appeared in the guise of Sebastian Shaw.
A shapeshifter. That explains why I didn't notice her when we came for the young mutants at CIA headquarters. She must have stayed in disguise all the time.
In my distraction, her annoying little pet got the better of me. But when I awoke, I didn't care.
Riptide and Angel had pulled me out of the fray, and together we saw that Shaw was dead.
I wasn't sad. When you fight for a cause like ours, you mourn failure, not teammates. And Shaw was weak.
I had been secretly staring at her for what seemed like a lifetime, studying her movements, her physique. This girl had no equal. Sapphire skin, ruby red hair, and eyes of yellow topaz. She was a living jewel, Pandora come to Earth to open her mystical box and send me straight to hell, and I'd go with a smile on my face.
I had never seen anyone like her before. All the other Neyaphem are males, and they all look more or less like me: Red skin and tails.
She asked me once, why did we stay on that beach after Shaw died?
Angel was injured, and therefore couldn't fly. Riptide wouldn't get very far with just his winds. They needed me to teleport them away, and I just couldn't leave yet. I wouldn't leave. Not without her.
Magneto made his little speech, and held out his hand, waiting for others to join him. I waited with baited breath.
She walked to him like a bride.
Ultimately, I was relieved that she came to his cause. All the easier to get close to her, easier to explain to Janos or Angel why I so quickly moved to join him. Why I waited until the moment she stood up from the telepath's injured body and took Magneto's hand. I would have followed her anyway, regardless of which side she pledged her allegiance to.
But the way she looked at him curdled my blood. My indigo goddess deserved more than this pithy little metal bender. I was an immortal, a veritable red GOD. She was the only one worthy of sharing my throne. I'd searched the world over to free myself from my hell dimension, but I'd gladly crawl over hot coals to take her back with me.
She wouldn't just be ours. She would be mine. I'd make sure of it if I had to kill every person on that beach.
We all linked hands for the teleport to an undisclosed location, and I looked straight at her, unable to believe my good fortune, trying to keep cool, keep stoic and emotionless.
She stared straight ahead, thinking only of Magneto and the cause. I felt a twinge of jealousy that he had commanded her attention, but I also had a glimmer of hope. Before she and her beast had defeated me, she had said my name. A name she couldn't have heard more than once while I was dropping CIA agents from the sky like fleshy bricks.
And she remembered it.
There was more hope in that one word than there was by any speech made by Shaw or Magneto.
Azazel.
When I finally allowed myself to blink, we were home.
She was home.