Uh... [Insert Standard Disclaimer (ISD) here]

Dodging the Insidious Hook

Alphonse Darcozzi, a third year student at the internationally acclaimed Kuoh Academy, strolled through the sparse halls of the school with a book-laden sling bag strapped to his shoulder. It has been almost two hours since classes ended for the day, and he would have been home by now if it were not for President Shitori roping him into helping her for some last minute preparation for some kind of scholastic event. How that happened and why she insisted he help her was anyone's guess.

In all honesty, he was a loner. Alphonse didn't kid himself of that, which put him in a place where everybody is a stranger and he is a stranger to everybody else; except perhaps for the ever-serious Student Council President and her cadre of underlings at her beck and call. He was fine with his insignificant status to begin with as he is more at home with his nose glued to the pages of his books than interacting with people. And, people, especially teenagers, are such frightening creatures.

He passed by a trio of girls animatedly discussing some kind of subject which he knew not. However, with a prestigious school such as this and only becoming Co-ed after a number of years as being a posh private school for well-mannered girls, the gossip tends to occupy the subject's social status or the lack thereof, their ranging personalities, and more importantly, for the lack of a more appropriate term, their beauty/handsomeness.

If one of his inadvertent eavesdropping is to be believed, there was some kind of pageantry ranking involving the Student Council President and members of some kind of esoteric club.

He dodge a gaggle of girls as he hurriedly took the stairs down, leaping the last five steps with ease. Alphonse glanced at his wristwatch, he is way behind on his afterschool schedule and jogged out of the wide open gates. A few people glanced towards his direction before going back to their daily lives. As he entered the empty park. He heard a distant scream which stopped him dead on his tracks.

What was that? Alphonse slowly looked around, trying to spot something out of the ordinary. An out-of-the-ordinary did he find, or found him. A woman in an unknown school uniform with a pair of flapping black wings situated behind her flew overhead, her shadow casting against him as she slowed to hover above him; a glowing spear on one hand.

"A human." Alphonse noted the even statement, his hands going for the insides of his sling bag. "Unfortunately for you, I can't have any witnesses." She motioned her arm into a throwing position and let loose her glowing weapon.

To her mild surprise, the boy dodged it by the skin of his teeth and, to her annoyance, ran towards the trees. Raynare summoned another light spear and threw it. The spear missed its target and went through a trunk of a tree, spraying wooden splinters all over the human boy.

Alphonse panted lightly as he reached the safety of the trees, obscuring the winged woman's view of him. One of the rules regarding a fight is to never let the opposition dictate the term of engagement for you. He wasn't quite certain if that was Sun Tzu or somebody else, but thanking him or her all the same.

Okay, Okay; controlling his panic state from spiraling out of control any further. He pulled out a rather thick book out of his sling bag, unclasped its heavy buckle and opened it. The pages within were not made of regular paper and it had the feel of parchment to it. Alphonse slid his fingers across the surface, feeling the etched writing. The unknown script glowed a dull sunny yellow and the young man whispered a short three-syllable word.

In an instant, a perfect image of his likeness appeared standing in front of him. In a wordless command, his double ran to his right, disturbing not the blade of grass or fallen leaf on its path. As for him, he ran as silently as he could towards the opposite direction, clasping the book tightly.

"There you are cockroach. Now DIE!"

Alphonse winced as he nearly saw is doppelganger 'die' by impalement. Luckily, as the image contained no mass, it can move significantly faster than him. He saw it leapt behind an old gnarly tree as it dodge another one of those 'glowing' spears she seemed to have an unlimited number of. He pushed his thick glasses up the nose of his bridge as he observed her.

His eyes wandered all over her body, unable to resist the allure of the winged woman. He shook his head of such thoughts out of his head and focused his gaze on her wings noting that crippling one would greatly hinder her movement and her ability to chase him down should he decide to retreat if he engage the spear-flinging woman.

Other than that, her human-like form for should have the same vulnerabilities of an average human. But, it wasn't a guarantee given the improbability of having wings much less using it to lift a human body with how disproportionate it was to the body it was lifting. And he's not even going to go on about the size of the muscles she needs for practical flight.

Other than her improbable way of flight, what he was more curious about is the glowing spears she kept creating. Or, was it summoning? It was more in line to that of the Ghost Blades spell than the standard weapon summon in the likes of Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff or Citzal's Spirit Lance. Which gave him a rather absurd idea to try and modify the spell in question later if the winged witch doesn't notice him.

With his observations as complete as it can be without resorting to a scuffle he may or may not live through, Alphonse opened his Grimoire again; intending to trick the winged witch into absolving him into becoming a prey to be hunted for the rest of his natural life.

Raynare softly landed on the grassy knoll, twirling her spear in an impatient annoyance. The boy's fast, almost inhumanly so. Maybe he has some supernatural blood in him. She didn't care though, one way or another, he's going to die.

She swayed her hips seductively, fingers playfully running down the side of her face "~Oh boyyy. You can't just leave a poor innocent girl like me all alone in this." Her hand ran down the curves of her body before placing it gently on the side of her hips, "Dark and lonely forest could you." All she receive as a reply is the gentle rustling of the leaves swaying on the unseen winds and an odd creak. Raynare rolled her eyes and breathed "Tch. Men, so—"

In an instant something heavy tackled her from the side and into the ground. Which knocked her breath right out. Blow after blow of cold, heavy and rough fists rained down against her face before she pushed him off with her incredible strength. She scrambled to get up, but once she did and leveled her head, he was nowhere to be seen.

"COWARD!" Raynare screamed in rage, livid at being caught off guard, and by a lowly human no less. "I'm going to gut you alive and hang your still living body with your entrails! And you will beg for mercy!" No response. Her body shook indignantly, she was being played for a fool. And, she is nobody's fool. Raynare stomped deeper into the slowly darkening forest, intent in killing the human with extreme prejudice.

Minutes flew by and she strained her darkening vision in search for her prey. She found it bizarre that the night was closing in faster than she thought. She was about to rub her rapidly swelling eyes when she spotted a silhouette in front coming right for her. She extended her spear and felt it buried into the blurry boy's chest. She continued to run him through until he hit a trunk of a tree. Raynare twisted her spear gleefully, filling her ears with her own demented laughter.

"Hahaha! Finally got you, you damn cockroach! Now die!" She stabbed him again with another spear.

After a few minutes of mindlessly stabbing the unmoving corpse with multiple spears for the fun of it, Raynare turned around and haughtily sniffed her nose up in the air. "Stupid human. Why did you just not accept your fate as an insignificant insect? Nobody messes with the Fallen Angels leave unscathed!" With one powerful flap of her wings, she left the unmoving corpse for the Devils at Kuoh to clean up for her.

Minutes passed by before the so called 'corpse' changed to reveal a blue ghostly specter. Seconds later, said specter winked out of existence; leaving only the multiple holes the light spears made. Alphonse peeked out from behind his obscure hiding spot, waiting to see if the winged witch will return out of spite. Deciding that it was a no, he gingerly left his hiding spot, his steps heavy and with a metallic creak to it. He winced, or tried to as it was physically impossible for him with his face frozen in an iron mask, at the number of deep holes buried into the trunk. The iron man tried not to think if it was his actual body and not a disguised clone that took the beating.

He shook his head of such thoughts and made his way out of the fast darkening forest, with only small rays of orange sunset lighting the way. His skin rapidly returning to its normal squishy self, much to his relief. Using Ironskin is too stifling and sluggish to the point of being almost impossible to move, making Fleetfoot an all-around godsend of a spell. Good for running away.

With the Fallen Angel creature tricked into thinking she killed him, Alphonse decided a little celebration is in order. He locked his grimoire and carefully placed it back into the bag. Then, he fished his wallet out of his back pocket and smiled. He's going to buy himself some delicious Teriyaki takeout for dinner. Convinced that surviving the deadly encounter is a really valid excuse to celebrate and splurge.

Now, if Alphonse went into the opposite direction towards the school, he would have seen a red-haired female Kuoh student and her Queen presenting her eight pawns at a dead, but unfortunately perverted Second Year student.

But alas poor Alphonse,

He knew not what shenanigans

He'd just escaped.

Seriously, he dodged a bullet on that one. His smarts is no match for the nonsense, highly perverted nature of such world. When it is all about raw power. Making Raynare right at him being an insignificant insect.

You rightly deserved that takeout, Brother!

AN: I really should work on continuing Shifting Shadows or posting the shorts stories I wrote for OZ... *shrugs* Oh well.

If you're all wondering, the spells mentioned here is from Pillars of Eternity with my own twists. So, go try it out because the second one will be release on May 8th. A perfect time for it, eh? As to actually having an idea of his flexibility to any encounter, he's a max level wizard with all in-game spells learned. Yes even Llengrath's numerous defensive spells. I don't really think he's Overpowered in context to the world he's unfortunately in.

Oh, I just had an idea.

Instead of Issei being reincarnated as a devil with all eight pawns, how about a Wizard's grimoire from Pillars of Eternity instead? Absorbing it all due to being a soul capacitor and because having gathered fragments of ambient souls to fuel the spells.

One could even have Issei or an OC as a non-reincarnated owner and them being part of a Peerage due to technicality at being its owner/wielder. Just thought of that before posting this. I doubt I could do justice to such a concept because I can't stand to watch the show or read the LN due to the Protagonist go on about his perverted nature. Sorry.

But, if you wrote such a thing. Please tell me. I'll read it, I swear. I'll even ignore tags I usually dodge.