"Who are you and what do you want?" Came the lazy voice of an older teenager slouching in a rather uncomfortable looking patio chair.
A man with half black, half blond hair fell into the chair across from him with a cheeky grin upon his face. He scratched his goatee and said, "Is this seat taken?"
The teen raised an eyebrow at the man. "If I said yes would you leave?"
The man's grin only grew wider.
"Thought not." the teen said in an exasperated tone. He ran a hand through his own black hair and threw his head back to stare at the sky, clearly not enjoying the unexpected visitor. "Just say whatever you want to say and get it over with. I don't get to eat out very often."
Now it was the man's turn to raise an eyebrow. He gave an exaggerated look around the restaurant he'd found the kid in. While they were seated outside, he could still view the interior through a gaping hole in the side of the building that he assumed was supposed to have a sliding glass door. The brick exterior of the building was crumbling in places, and the paint on the inside was coming off the walls.
"Dude, if this is your idea of eating out, you've got issues." he said with a trace of disgust in his voice.
The teen shot him a blank stare. "When you make as little as I do, this may as well be a five star, seven course dinner. Are you done yet? Because I really just want to eat and forget you exist."
The man's grin was back. "Funny you should mention shitty pay. If I were to offer you a-"
"Pass." the teen said immediately. "I don't know who you're with, and frankly I don't give a rat's ass. Joining up with any of you clowns is a recipe for disaster."
"Number 27!" a new voice called from inside the restaurant.
The teen stood from his chair and said, "I'm sorry to cut this short, but I've got a crappy burrito to devour. See ya never." He turned his back on the table and walked up to the counter to retrieve his food.
Rather than return to his table, the teen headed straight for the door. He had no interest in conversing with the weirdo again. This was the third recruitment attempt this month and he was getting kind of fed up with all the attention. Was it really too much to ask for everyone to care as little about him as he did about them?
"Ground beef, huh? I'm more of a chicken lover myself."
The teen sighed in exasperation as he turned away from the restaurant, walking down the sparsely populated sidewalk. The sun was slowly disappearing down behind the small buildings littered around the area. Few people were out at this time of the evening.
"Didn't I rudely leave you behind to stew angrily about my casual dismissal of you?" the teen asked as he turned his brown eyes on the trench coat wearing pain in the ass that had decided to follow him out the door.
"Is that what happened?" the man said with a look of confusion. "I thought we were just postponing everything until you ate your heartburn wrap there." he quipped as he shifted his gaze to the burrito in the teen's hand.
The teen's eyes narrowed at the nuisance who was still following him down the sidewalk. "If you ruin this place for me I'm going to be extremely pissed. This is my last bastion of edible food after the last place got caught with leaky sewage pipes."
"That doesn't sound too horrible."
"The pipes ran over the kitchen and leaked into the food."
The man actually stopped to process that. "Oh. What idiot designed that place?"
"The stupid kind." the teen said over his shoulder, having not stopped when the man took a moment to process.
The man chuckled and jogged to catch up. "No kidding. So! Are we going back to your place?"
"No. I have a few more brain cells than the idiot we were just discussing. I'm not taking you and whatever team you have set to ambush me back to my only safe haven."
The man barked out a laugh. "Kid, you clearly have no idea who you're talking to. Any team would just get in my way. No, I'm really just here to talk."
The teen turned onto a dirt path leading into a small park. There were a few trees spotted around the area, but the majority of the space was taken up by a large grass field and a playground with no one on it. The sun had finally retreated out of sight, but the sky still held an orange glow, heralding the ever approaching night.
"Last time someone talked to me I ended up fighting a minotaur. Forgive me if I don't believe a word out of your mouth."
The man let out a long whistle, turning an appraising eye to the teen at his side as he reevaluated the kid. "No kidding? Those bastards are feisty."
"They've also got an impalement fetish." the teen said dryly as he dropped his burrito wrapper in a trash can on the side of the path. "Can you drop whatever act this is and just get to the part where you try to eat my soul, devour my essence, drink my blood, or whatever the fuck else it is you do? I've had a pretty shitty day."
The man nodded in sympathy. "Yeah, I heard you got canned. Hence why I showed up today. I've got a job for-"
"Not. Interested. Now would you kindly attack me or leave me alone?" The teen ground out as he came to a stop on the path and turned to stare the man down.
The man raised an eyebrow at the display. "You haven't got laid in a while, have you?"
The teen's demeanor fell from hostile and confrontational to plain disbelieving. "Whoever your boss is needs to find literally anyone else. You suck at this whole recruitment thing."
The man snorted. "Most kids your age would fall over each other for a decent lay. I can set you up if-"
"Just stop talking." the teen held up a hand and took a deep breath. "I'll give you this much, you did a good job of destroying my focus. It won't happen again though." His eyes narrowed and his hands clenched into fists.
If the man cared about the threatening stance, he didn't show it. He just shoved his hands in his pockets and said, "Don't be too sure, kid. I've got a few tricks up my sleeve yet."
The corner of the teen's lip pulled up. "Funny. I was going to say the same thing." He raised his hand and a pulse of magic emanated out from it.
The ground beneath the man collapsed in on itself, bringing the man with it.
As he lay on the ground staring up at the sky, the man just blinked. "Is that really all you've got? Maybe I don't have a job for you after-" he was cut short as a dozen rotting arms emerged from the soil around him to latch onto his form. Each limb pulled in a different direction, keeping him pinned as the soil above him began to fill in.
The man smiled. "Now that is more like it." Showing off strength that was by no means human, the man casually stood up out of the grasp of the undead arms holding him in place and walked out of the pit just as the ground closed beneath him. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a competent necromancer that isn't batshit insane? I swear they're all…. Wait." The man inspected the teen across from him, and noticed a faint magical shimmer around the kid's form. "You cheeky little-"
A sphere of arcane energy slammed into the man's back as the illusion in front of him faded into nothing. While the impact didn't seem to affect him at all, it did cause a look of pure shock to appear on his face. "Did you seriously just manage to hit me?" there was no trace of anger in his voice, only confusion. He turned around and found himself faced with seven of the same teenager he'd been talking to a moment before.
"You can leave at any time, asshole." they said in unison. All seven of the kids raised their arms. In response to the call of magic, a tide of apparitions charged towards the man in the trench coat.
"Ghosts?" He said with a tilted head. "How the hell did you manage to-" Whatever else he was going to say was drowned out by a chorus of unholy screams as the specters fell upon their prey.
The teen didn't give the man any room to breathe. As he was swallowed by the tide of specters, all seven of the teen summoned a mandala into being before them, channeling an absurd amount of power into it.
A single corporeal hand raised above the tide of specters and a white energy exploded out from it. Every specter in the area let out a pained screech as they were ripped apart by the holy magic.
"Alright. Consider me impressed. You're hired!" the man said with a wide smile.
All seven of the teen seethed. "Fuck you." they thrust their arms forward, unleashing the spell they were preparing, all but one of the copies fading as the real teen used the magic sustaining them to power his spell. A beam of pure blackness shot forth from the teen, moving to envelop the man.
Rather than move to stop or avoid the attack, the man yawned.
The attack connected, creating an echoing explosion that devastated the surrounding area. The grass all around was blown apart, leaving a crater behind. The nearmost tree was uprooted. And the playground was melted to slag.
Heaving in a deep breath, the teen allowed a victorious smile to grow on his face. "That bastard was tough."
"Yup." a voice called from the still clearing smoke, popping the 'p' as he did. "I am pretty amazing aren't I?" the man said with a smirk on his face as he walked out of the crater left by the spell completely unharmed.
The teen's jaw fell open. "H-How?" he breathed in disbelief.
"I didn't introduce myself. How rude." The man dusted himself off and took an exaggerated bow. "It's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Azazel, Governor of the Fallen, King of Crows, Slayer of inordinate amounts of p-" the man cut off as he looked up toward the teen. "Huh. That's rude." There were forty different versions of the teen all running away in different directions as fast as humanly possible.
Azazel ignored all of the teens and, finally tapping into his true speed, appeared two hundred feet away in front of two very suspicious indentations in the grass. "I get that I'm terrifying and all that, but I really do just want to talk to you."
The fleeing illusory versions of the teen faded as the original shimmered into being not three feet away from Azazel. His mind was running at a hundred miles a minute trying to figure a way out of this.
In the end, he decided there was very little he could do but talk and hope things went his way. "What do you want?"
"Haven't I already said that? I want to give you a job. You're recently unemployed, so I figured we could help each other out. I, by giving you a job, and you, by working for me. Sounds good, right?"
Despite the extensive discipline training the teen had been through, he couldn't help as his hands began to shake. "What's the 'or else'?"
Azazel stared at the teen with a blank expression. "Kid, I have hundreds of subordinates who worship the ground I walk on. If you don't want the job then just say so. A pissed off asset is just a traitor in the making. While I would love to have you on my side, I am by no means hurting for manpower. If you want to walk, walk." The fallen stepped to the side and held his arm out towards the street, motioning that the teen's way was not barred.
The teen's mind shot into overdrive to run through every possible scenario. In the end, he said, "Hypothetically, what would I be doing for you?"
Azazel smiled warmly. "That would largely depend on the current situation. But what I can think of off the top of my head would be raising corpses for me to use as research assistants and/or guinea pigs, showing me how you made that trinket you sold to that werewolf," the teen involuntarily tensed. He didn't know anyone knew about that. "And doing the odd job here or there. Nothing outside of your capabilities. In exchange I obviously pay you, but I'll also teach you some of my tricks. Not a bad gig if I do say so myself. So what do you say?"
The teen regarded Azazel cautiously, before slowly relaxing. "If I have issues after a week, we're done."
"Deal." Azazel easily allowed, offering his hand. "Glad to have you aboard, Xarion."
Not surprised the Fallen knew his name, Xarion shook Azazel's hand. He had a feeling things were about to get very interesting.
A.N
Hi, thanks for giving this a chance. I've been lurking on various cites as a guest for a while and finally decided to try something. This won't be a typical dxd fic for a lot of reasons that I can't get into without spoiling stuff, but if you're looking for the harem aspect, look elsewhere.
As for why I finally decided to try this, I was inspired by The Dark Wolf Shiro and AgelessReaper's forays into DXD and saw some ways I could use the setting to set up a story I'd been wanting to write for a while. Go check those two out if you haven't. The Drak Wolf Shiro is here, and AgelessReaper is on AO3.