Sorry, know its short, but more to come soon! My fave demons have to meet!

Don't own the Chrono Crew, but Taj-mere is mine.

Chap 2: sounds?

The demon hunter snarled in frustration. This was the fourth mountain chain he had scouted out that had any previous reports of the renegade, with no results. It had been almost four months, as the humans reckoned time, and this amusing little 'challenge' had become a huge chore. This Rizel had successfully given him the slip twice, substituting puppets in her place to fool him. In truth, he hadn't actually laid eyes on her real form yet.

He climbed up the steep valley walls to a rocky spire, talons digging into the granite to give him purchase. He unfurled his wings, readying himself to fly to the next sighting location when he heard something.

The sheer strangeness of it made him pause. It was some kind of sound. Sounds, really, pleasant sounding ones, and in some kind of odd synchrony. He tilted his head, listening. They were faint, coming from very far away, and they sounded almost hypnotic. At the thought, he instantly raised his shields, warding off any sort of magic or energies that might come for him. Yet the sounds still came, now different in pitch.

Jenai felt uneasy for some reason. He tried to puzzle it out, not understanding what was happening. He began to analyse the noises. They seemed to put him in mind of when someone plucked metal wires to check for tenseness. They had no power behind them, as he couldn't pick up any sort of astral coming from them. He glanced up, focusing on his horns to try to sense the astral flows around him more closely. He frowned. The astral was actually going toward the source of the noise.

'Not exactly the most subtle way to gather astral,' he thought to himself. 'Is it some demon that lost their horns? Way to advertise where you are, dumbass.'

Suddenly the sounds began to change. They grew—he wasn't sure how to describe it. Softer almost, but no lesser in their intensity. He cocked his head to the side, trying to focus on it more. A voice was talking along with the sounds. But the voice was making itself sound like the noises. What was going on?

Those sounds were causing something to happen to him. They sounded so different from anything he'd ever heard before. He touched his chest, feeling something shift, something grow that he could not name.

Spreading his wings out, he decided to find the source of this. If nothing else, he'd kill whoever was doing it. Nothing was supposed to shake him, nothing could faze him. This was going to stop, and right now!

)(&

He crept closer to the cavern, careful to not trigger the wires that littered the ground. A faint glow was coming from the cave, the gathering astral coming to a point here. He allowed himself to smirk. He was finally going to find his mystery noise-maker.

It had been three days since he'd set out to find the source of the sounds. The detour wouldn't hurt his mission. He didn't have any trails or leads to follow at the moment, so a little distraction would probably be good for him.

Whoever it was had been clever, covering their tracks and leaving several false trails the moment they had sensed him coming. It bothered him a bit that they had been able to sense him in the first place. He was one of the stealthiest assassins in Pandemonium. All it proved was that he was up against a very worthy opponent.

They had fled to the Rothmak caverns, a labyrinth of catacombs and caverns gouged deep into the ancient rock. He admired their choice. That place was notorious for its confusing, maze-like structure. Anyone who went in there had better not want to come out again. But this demon had been smart, leaving subtle trails of tiny signals to guide their way. They had also set up tripwires all over the place. It had taken more skill than even he knew he possessed to slip through the net and get this far in.

He froze as he sensed movement in the cave ahead.

Dun, dun, dun! Please review!