I stare at the map blankly for a good few seconds. Riser is here. Or well, a Phenex is here, but since Lucifer hired me for this exact eventuality, I have to assume he had a reason for thinking that Riser would show up at some point.

Like right now.

While I'm standing here doing nothing.

Shit!

"Mia!" I shout as I scramble to find Sclamhaire and my athame. I don't have time to struggle into my armor, and it's still... healing anyway.

"What?" She yells back.

"Grab a phone and call me, I need you to guide me to Riser with the map." I grab my athame off my workshop desk and Sclamhaire on my way to the door.

Mia blinks as I rush past her, "Why do we care about Riser?"

I pause to stare at her for a moment. After a moment it's clear that my disbelieving gaze isn't a sufficient answer, "Lucifer!?" I prompt.

She doesn't react for a moment, then her eyes go wide, "Oh shit. What are you still doing here? Go go go!"

I roll my eyes as I bolt out the door. It's early afternoon, sun still bright in the sky. Which means I can't really fly. My wings are awesome, but subtle they are not, and with my luck the one time anybody would look up would be when I'm overhead.

Instead I have to take to the roofs. Sure, somebody might still look up and see me, but parkour is much easier to explain away, no matter how extreme, than a woman with giant functional wings. And sure, flying is awesome, but parkour is great fun too and I haven't done too much of that in a while.

Possibly not something I should be considering since if Riser reaches Rias I'll have broken my word to Lucifer. Something I should probably avoid. Doesn't make my logic any less valid though.

I'm not here.

I launch myself onto the roof tops and let the invisibility go. Parkour is explicable, a woman jumping a story upward from a nearly standing start somewhat less so.

I fling myself onto the next rooftop flickering my illusion to keep my landing silent. On landing, my cell phone rings. I stick my athame awkwardly into the back of my pants, holding Sclamhaire in my left hand and answer the phone.

"All right." Mia's voice comes immediately through the phone, "He's still making his way towards the high school. He's moving along Sixth towards Main."

I grunt an affirmative and with a better idea of where to go I speed up.

I have a burnt chicken to talk to.

###

I finally catch up with Riser on a rooftop a few blocks away from Kuoh Academy. He's leaning against an air conditioning unit and muttering to himself when I land on the roof. By now muting my landings with my glamor is reflex, so he doesn't appear to notice my arrival. I approach cautiously, halting well out of reach before deliberately scuffing the floor with my shoe to attract attention.

Riser whirls around and nearly falls over sideways in the process. I frown as I get my first good look at him since he invaded the ORC room. Then he was proud, immaculately dressed in fine clothes, everything in its place. Now though, he's a mess. His shirt is half untucked, his hair is a legitimate mess, as opposed to the artful mess that takes hours to achieve. His eyes are bloodshot, and have dark circles under them. His balance is... okay, as long as he's not moving.

All in all... "Are you drunk?"

"Riser Phenex is not drunk!" He declared pulling himself up straight and regaining some of the imperious attitude he'd had previously, "Riser Phenex is a Phenex! He would never be so crass as to appear in public drunk." Really. "Riser might not have slept since his..." He grimaced, his mouth twisting like he'd just bit into a lemon, "Since the rating game..." Too busy drinking to sleep? "Riser knows you. You are one of that bitch Rias' peerage!"

I know that sleep dep can affect the brain similarly to being drunk, but this is just...

"I'm not a member of Rias' peerage Riser. I had nothing to do with the rating game. I'm not even a devil..." That's something I probably shouldn't have said.

"Not a devil?" Riser looks like he's struggling with the concept, but as he wraps his mind around the idea he gets increasingly angry. Not that he wasn't already, but heat begins to roll off of him as he glares at me, "Worthless mortal!" This is going down hill a lot faster than I'd hoped, I haven't even had the chance to say anything to piss him off yet, "BURN!" He shouts, and thrusts a hand forward and I'm engulfed in a sea of fire.

It's pleasantly warm, though a little hard to see through.

After a few moments the flood of fire ends, and I'm left standing unmoved. I make sure to have my best unimpressed face on, "Are you done? Because..."

"Not totally worthless then." What? "Riser has decided you are attractive enough for Riser to have a use for you." Where the hell is this coming from. I know he's a self centered misogynist... The feeling of cool air caressing my skin draws my gaze downwards.

Fun fact, even if my armor and I are fireproof, my normal clothes are not.

I had left the house in a tank top and jeans. These items are now smears of ash on my skin.

"So Riser will spare you if you drop to your knees and demonstrate what use you may have."

What?

My head is filled with the sound of a heart monitor flat-lining.

"What?!"

"Riser will let you live if you do a good enough job sucking his..." Negotiations cease with my fist impacting his face hard enough to make something crack. The devil is knocked off his feet and several feet away where he crashes to the ground.

Fire erupts around him and moments later he's back on his feet with no sign that I'd broken something in his face only moments ago, "You disgusting animal! I give you the honor of my attention and you dare..."

"You know," My voice has taken on the multi tone effect and for once I feel no urge to suppress it, "I was actually going to try and do this in a way that would leave you alive." I draw Sclamhaire from her sheath. As if in response to my mood the symbols along her flats are flaring brightly and the faint fog that drifts from her blade is a dense waterfall, "Instead I think I'm going to save the next girl you try this on right now."

Without another word I spread my wings and lunge for him.

###

Riser manages to evade my first slash, side stepping it with wide eyes. Apparently he didn't expect me to be as fast as I am. He responds to my attack with another sea of fire. I turn and follow him, tracking where he is as he tries to evade me by where the fire is coming from, my other senses rendered useless.

I erupt out of the fire getting an up close look at his increasingly shocked expression, just before Sclamhaire finishes her arc claiming one of Riser's arms. The newly freed limb goes spinning through the air, though neither of us bother to track it, keeping our eyes on each other.

Which doesn't mean I'm not keeping track of it. I can hear the limb burn away in mid air, which happens at the same time fire erupts from his stump leaving a new arm, complete with clothing, behind.

How the fuck does that work? And where can I learn it? 'Cause right now I really want some pants.

And a bra.

Riser tries to get clever and closes with me, swinging his newly regenerated arm at me in a punch. It's not a bad punch, but it's not a good one either. I widen my stance and duck my head just under his blow leaving him open as my return swing neatly bisects him through the middle. An injury that doesn't even last for two seconds as fire erupts from the cut, ringing him in a belt made of fire. Moments later the fire fades and once again all sign of the injury is gone.

This is working, but not nearly quick enough for my tastes. The man has no defense at all. Not that his defense is bad, or full of holes, it's entirely absent. Aside from when I first lunged at him he's made no move to block or evade anything. Though after seeing him recover in moments from being cut in half and losing a limb, I guess I can see why he doesn't feel like he needs one.

It offends my... professionalism, I guess, as a fighter though. Just because you can take a hit doesn't mean you should. Still what he's doing is working well enough that this is going to take forever.

Both of his fists ignite in flame as he enters a basic boxing stance, and starts throwing punches. The heat doesn't bother me, and his form is sloppy enough that, as an experiment, I let go of Sclamhaire with my left hand and punch him in the face as hard as I can. Just to see if he heals any differently from that.

Unfortunately he's covered in fire again, and any damage I might have done vanishes. I growl at the sight, and lean back to avoid another wild swing from Riser. He's effectively immortal as long as he still has power to burn, which means my best bet for killing him is to use Sclamhaire to do as much damage as possible. Sclamhaire consumes a huge amount of power every time it touches him, and regrowing limbs, or curing bifurcation, has to consume more power than healing bruises.

I kick him once, and step back to give myself a little room to resettle. Both hands back on my sword, I charge him again. Riser again tries to hose me down with flame. A twitch of one wing lets me shoot to one side evading the fire. He tracks me quickly though, and I catch the edge of the flame, which fortunately continues to do nothing. Quickly I get close enough for Sclamhaire to snake out and carve a chunk off of him.

We rapidly trade blows back and forth as I riddle him with cuts that cause him to be almost continuously covered in flame from healing. Each slice allows my sword to swallow down more of his power. After a few moments he starts trying to defend himself more actively. I guess feeling his power drop is starting to make him consider that getting cut up isn't a good thing, even for him. Unfortunately for him, even the few times he does manage to get an arm in position to contact the flat of Sclamhaire's blade, that rips power and heat from him as well.

As far as I'm concerned the fight is going... I'll go with well. I'm practically naked, but nobody can see me except Riser, and while progress is slow, it is progress. Something Riser seems to have noticed as well.

Burning wings emerge from the devil's back and spread wide, surrounding him in an aura of heat that visibly distorts the air and leaves burning footprints where he walks. His wings carry him up and backwards into the air. My own wings flap once, but mostly I use the physics-breaking abilities of flight that come with angel wings to lift me from the ground. I need a way to burn the mana that Sclamhaire has been continually stealing from Riser throughout the fight, and this will work fine.

As I chase him into the air though, Riser raises both of his hands over his head and a ball of fire collects between them. The ball starts the size of a soft ball, but quickly grows to beach ball size and keeps going, and as it grows it changes color. Starting red and yellow, the fire quickly turns a bright blue, flickering through violet for just a moment before turning white. Even if it doesn't bother me, I can feel the heat from where I'm chasing after him yards away.

Riser is yelling something but I'm not listening. So far our fight has been pretty contained. The rooftop we had been fighting on is scorched and would probably need some repairs, but by and large no real damage has been done. What he's gathering now is no simple jet of flame, this will...

Riser throws the car sized ball of white fire at me. I'm not sure exactly what's behind me, except that it's an inhabited part of Kuoh town in the middle of the day. With this in mind I don't try to dodge.

I can only hope that hitting me will keep it from affecting anything else, and that this white hot fire isn't hotter than my resistance can withstand.

Which isn't to say I just hover there and take it. As the giant fireball flies at me I pull my mental bow string back and let it go, trying to launch the fireball upwards away from anything important.

I accomplish nothing.

The kinetic energy passes through the magic fire like there's nothing to it but magical heat intense enough to ignite the air. Which I really should have expected. I have just enough time to swing Sclamhaire through the fireball before it hits me. Shrinking the ball of fire and cooling its color just before it hits me, also overloading my mana network. I've gotten too used to my armor, and haven't been keeping as good track of how much energy I've taken in as I should have been. Energy breaks free from my network, flooding by body and pressing against the inside of my skin, riddling my exposed flesh with glowing cracks.

Then the fire ball explodes, and while the heat feels like a nice breeze, the displaced air from the detonation slaps me from the air like the hand of an angry god. I crash through the roof of the building and find myself embedded into the floor. My wings are in agony, though it doesn't feel like anything is broken.

As significant as that explosion was, Áillen hit much harder, and faerie stone walls are a lot tougher than mortal concrete and rebar. I pull myself out of the floor with a groan, my regeneration already fixing bruises with the over abundance of energy in my body.

Still in the air, Riser is screaming, "I will not be defeated by you... you mongrel! I will kill you no matter what it takes! Even if I have to burn this entire disgusting town to the ground to do it!

###

Everything burns.

Around me is what looks like the back room of a shop of some sort. A couple of desks, filing cabinets and old cheap carpeting. All of it is on fire. Above me Riser is still hovering in the air in full view of everybody, ranting at the top of his lungs about how pathetic I am, and how I'll soon learn my place beneath him. His follow up comment about how I'll eventually even learn to enjoy it makes it clear that he's not speaking metaphorically.

I pull back my lips in a snarl even as my mental bow string is drawn back as well. A beat of my wings launches me out the same hole I punched through the roof in the first place and I let go of the string. Riser is ripped from the air and sent flying at me even as I rise to meet him. Only seconds later, before he can adjust to his unexpected movement I impale him through the chest in mid air.

I have every intention of using Sclamhaire to pin him to the ground where I can deal with him at my leisure. Instead before I can get him to the ground he explodes. Once again the fire does nothing to me. The blast though, even being weaker than he probably wants it to be thanks to the voracious rate Sclamhaire is consuming his mana while in him, is enough to knock me away. My grip on Sclamhaire means that she comes with me.

I stabilize myself thanks to Mia's teaching just in time for a bar of white hot fire to appear in the air trying to spear through me with an audible snapping sound. Instead the fire splashes off my stomach, bits of flame fall to the rooftop beneath me like a liquid, igniting another building.

I look back at where Riser had just been, only to find him missing. It takes me a moment to find him, mostly because I didn't really expect him to land on another building, this one with a wide flat concrete roof.

I dive after the devil, trying to reach him before he can set any more of the town on fire. Just as I get close to him, he does something to the roof which fills the air with dust. For a moment I think he's trying to use it to obscure himself, or interfere with my breathing.

Then in the dust I can make out the faintest spark of light.

The next thing I know I'm waking up on the street. My entire body hurts. What the hell just happened? Did Riser of all people use concrete dust to make a fuel/air explosive?

...

I am reluctantly impressed.

The heat did nothing to me, but the blast has left my body feeling like one giant bruise. Around me is a scene out of hell. All around me the buildings are fully involved, people screaming and running, others trapped in buildings jump from windows trying to escape the blazes. The buildings were only three or four stories tall, so the jumpers had a decent chance of surviving, if they could get help and continue escaping.

"SEE? SEE!" Riser crowed from somewhere above, "This is what it should be like, you monkeys fleeing before us like the dirty apes you are! If she loves you mammals so much, then I will take this away from her as well. I'll get you eventually, mortal whore. No one rejects Riser! Not you, not that Gremory bitch..."

I launch myself upwards as soon as I can pinpoint where Riser is in all the smoke. My eyes could barely see my hand in front of my face, but with the amount of noise he's making my ears have no such trouble.

Going straight at him isn't going to work though. I haven't managed to get close to him more than once since the first couple of swings. He's got more than enough explosive effects to keep knocking me away long enough to burn the whole town to the ground.

So I have to try something else.

I can move, walk, even run while invisible. I've never tried flying though. I'm more than a little doubtful of my ability to pull it off if I try any actual flying. But maybe I can keep the glamor up for a single wing beat to get above him, and then just fall on him?

It's worth a try.

As I approach the edge of the smoke, the point where I think Riser might be able to see me, I take a deep breath and I'm not here.

Riser is floating in the air on his burning wings. But he doesn't turn to look at me, and the smoke doesn't move at my passing. The smoke is the only reason I'm sure that the glamor is working. Riser is completely distracted, so busy throwing fire into the smoke that he might not notice me if I was carrying a sign. Strangely he's not aiming at groups of people or buildings. He seems to be just throwing fire at random.

He's trying to hit me isn't he?

Fucking hell, he's going to set the entire town on fire trying to get me.

I really do need to kill him quickly.

Like right now.

With a pluck of my mental bow string my athame comes flying out of the smoke from where it had fallen when my pants were incinerated. At the same time I fold my wings and drop on the arrogant devil. The flying shiny object catches Riser's attention. He's halfway turned around when the hilt of my knife slaps into my hand. The moment I have a grip on it I drive it forward, point first into Riser's skull.

His entire body erupts into flames as his regeneration tries to save him. He can't recover though while my knife is still in the way. So instead, Riser and I become a fiery comet plunging back into the smoke. With the hand I still have wrapped around my sword I lay her flat across Riser's chest in an effort to keep this bit of fire from spreading. The blaze diminishes slightly, but only slightly by the time we hit something.

When we do it's the roof of yet another building, and we crash straight through it into the uppermost floor. I ache all over again, my body covered in soot, bruises and glowing cracks and unfortunately nothing else. And I'm sprawled across Riser's body in a manner he'd probably enjoy far too much for my comfort if not for my knife lodged in his cranium.

Slowly the fire around Riser began to fade, and as it finally gives up the athame's ritual triggers-

To regenerate in fire

-and my new trait flows into my soul. I can feel the trait settle then shift, and with an odd twinge of pain, snap together with something I already have like puzzle pieces fitting together. Light glows under my skin under every bruise, and I'm suffused with a pleasant heat, moments later the bruises are gone. Along with a decent chunk of mana, which lets the glowing rents in my skin close as well as the eerie light turns to fire and they vanish. The Phenex regeneration clearly works much faster than the trollish version. More expensive in terms of mana as well. Though I haven't spent nearly the mana that Riser had, or generated nearly as much fire. Sure, part of that would be the difference in injuries being regenerated. But even then.

Clearly I have another date with an analysis Script.

I go through so much paper with those things...

With a sigh I climb to my feet and look down at myself. Naked, covered in ash, and now bruise free. I'm not exactly a prude, you can't live with a female kahuna without reassessing your nudity taboos. Their traditional garb is topless after all. But I'm still not interested in parading through the streets like this.

So with a sigh I wrap my wings around myself, and start trying to plan out how to get home without being seen.

And what to tell people when I am.

Somehow, this time, I don't think cosplay is going to cut it.