CH 14: Alphonse Elric from Full Metal Alchemist

Terrible Beauty

He couldn't believe that the girls had talked him into this.

They'd made him read the books, which no one would ever know he'd enjoyed. Talked everything they could over with him and now, he was going as a character.

At least it wasn't one of the idiots. The one he was going as was actually pretty cool.

One last run down the contacts aisle and he was good to go.

"Xander!"

"Pardon?"

Blue-purple eyes watched the ghost curiously. She was herself, yet not. A moment of self-searching said he was the same.

"What has happened, why am I in this body?"

"You know you're not in your own!"

"It doesn't… fit." And that was true enough.

His luck was bad.

Or it had turned bad.

He'd had a good life, by demon standards anyway. Ruled a particular hell for ten thousand years with a good bit of his lifespan left before he had to really start worrying about insurgents.

Then he'd had the thought to go after a Slayer.

She was just a little thing, frail and slight looking regardless of her Slayer blood. A bit of magic and she was right out and nobody the wiser. He could make a fortune and secure his place for millennia longer with that one girl's blood and bones in his stores.

But he'd forgotten something.

There was a tale, not even a tale a rumor, about a great beast that protected the Slayers now that there were many.

It started back on the old Hellmouth and spread from there at its destruction. Rumors of a great beast flying over the chasm and roaring to the sky as if it had vanquished it.

Impossible.

Then demons started to disappear, and humans. Any that hunter the Slayers would suddenly find themselves with a bout of bad luck. If that persisted it went from bad to worse and the party at fault just vanished.

He'd written it off as a story to scare little demonlings into behaving for their parents.

Now though, he wasn't so sure.

A great roar behind him and rush of wind had him tumbling end over end. When he looked up and saw his attacker her froze.

Above him was a beast that was thought gone from this world, layered in colors of midnight indigo and pale lavender and all the shades between crowned with onyx spikes and purple-blue eyes that shone like lit gems. It was taller than most houses and whipcord lithe, wings spreading out like dark sails from its back. It was terrible and beautiful and it almost hurt to look at. The dragon stood above him and roared again.

And all the demon could do was watch as the terrible beauty ended his life in a gout of fire.