Real quick, I just want to tell you all to look up a video entitled "Azazel - It's Raining Men". I almost died laughing watching it. No, I didn't make it, and it's not mine, but it's funny. Here is your next installment, you wonderful people. Thank you for waiting. Lots of Azazel in here, deity be praised! Please enjoy.

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One second. Two. Three. Four.

"SHIT!" Lowen screeched, her pervious inner musings all forgotten, her mind now turned to survival mode.

Think, think, think! No time to think! A demon! No…what? No, a mutant? Oh god, what's going on?

She jerked her pack up off the ground and spun to make a getaway without another thought. She froze, her mind now aware of the screams. They needed her help… was she even capable of helping them? What about…? NO. Why was she even having these doubts? She was going to help them. They were people, just like her. With this decision of brash resolve, she turned to help.

There was a sudden pop and a near silent hissing sound that lasted for only a split second. Lowen looked out toward the scene of chaos, only to realize that its instigator had disappeared. What she did notice was an odd red and black mist that evaporated quickly. She stopped in her tracks and blinked.

"What the-?"

She screamed, pure terror echoing through the station as a pair of arms wrapped roughly around her chest. She smelled oil and the slight stench of sulfur as her vision blurred into a jumble of darkness and flashes of light. The sudden rush of emotions sent a paralyzing shock through her system-her mutation seemed to go into overdrive at the touch of this intruder.

Hatred, violence, anger, an intent to kill, yet so much calm…

KILL.

Lowen screwed her eyes shut and screamed. The fear raked through her body, ripping through every fiber of her being. The scenery had changed, causing her mind further disorientation. Her foot lifted and kicked out to her attacker who still held her. She connected with flesh, causing a grunt and another flash. The scent assaulted her nostrils and she was once again plunged into darkness, only to emerge to yet another change of scenery-a forest, now.

"STOP IT!" she screamed. She felt as if her brain was being prodded with electric shocks, her emotions scrambled and discombobulated, jumbled around. She struggled to regain control of her psyche. With all those feelings swirling around, she felt as if she might implode upon herself at any moment.

Suddenly, she felt the jolts in her mind seemingly jump to the surface of her skin. Her assailant yelped a word she deemed unintelligible and let her go as he jumped back quickly in sudden recoil. This was the opening she had been waiting for. She whirled around, still a bit dizzy from the instinctive use of her mutation. She took the chance to take in the features of this… demon (what was this man?) now that her recovering brain could comprehend reality once more.

Neither of them moved as they now faced each other; the calm, unfazed red man, and the panting, ragged girl with wild eyes. Lowen wanted to wait for him to make the first move, but he seemed to be only studying her like she was just a girl he saw on a street that he had simply found interesting instead of a girl he had just attacked. The silence unnerved Lowen, whose heavy, breathless panting was the only thing vibrating in her ears.

"What… What's going on?" she gasped. "Who are you? And what do you want?" Naturally, she was angry. People just don't go around attacking random strangers unless they're a psychopath. The man's expression didn't change. The only movement Lowen could see was his long, forked tail curling and twitching gently behind him. He exhaled a quick breath through his nose.

"Introductions are a useless thing," he spoke.

Lowen's mouth opened slightly, taken aback at finally being able to hear him speak. His voice was gruff but smooth, which surprised her, to say the least. She had honestly expected an echo-y, demonic, growly voice, but his was pleasant to listen to. He had an accent. Transylvanian? No, that's not it… It kind of sounded like the baddie in an old cartoon about a moose and a squirrel she used to watch as a kid. Russian, maybe?

"Yeah? And why's that?" She didn't really know why she was trying to engage him in a conversation. Maybe she was trying to calm her nerves, maybe to buy her some time to figure out what she planned to do next. Before she could collect her thoughts, he spoke again.

"You do not usually introduce yourself to a person you are going to kill."

Lowen nearly choked. Her eyes became even wider than they already were (she didn't think it was possible) and her pupils dilated as beads of sweat formed slowly on her hairline. Still, neither of them moved.

"You…you want to… why?" she sputtered. Not breaking eye contact, he began taking steps toward her.

"I know who you are. What you are. We have been long time at war with another. You play dumb to live only seconds more?" He shook his head slowly, his eyes still fixed on her. "No no. It is of no use."

Poor Lowen couldn't move. Her voice strangled in her throat as he moved forward. What in the world was he talking about? SHFF. FLASH. That red and black smoke again, and he was in front of her now. She tried to cry out, but his hands cupped either side of her neck. What caused her pure terror was the fact that he was barely touching her skin; the malice in his emotions barely brushed past the physical, reflecting in neither his touch nor his eyes. His eyes… blue as the sky after a storm. Lowen had only seen such a color in photos of pure arctic ice roaming the oceans of the North. His left brow was flanked with a faded scar, a healed gash that stretched from his forehead to his cheek. He tilted his head ever so slightly and leaned forward past the right side of her head. Her first thought was, "Oh shit, the accent was Transylvanian! He's going to fuckin' suck my blood!" before she instantly regretted it, wishing she had thought something better for her last earthly musing.

"I will make you reveal to me exactly what you are," he breathed in her ear, his husky voice edged with a growl. She yelped, stumbling back as she felt her heel strike against something hard. The man lunged forward at her sudden movement. There was no way she could fight this guy. It wasn't even as if she didn't want to, shit, she could deck a guy in the face without a second thought, but she could tell that this man was trained. There was no way she could defend herself even if she wanted to. The closest thing to a "real" fight she had ever been in had been a wrestling match with her brothers, which hardly counted as any experience, considering that she had been pinned in less than ten seconds. She turned to her last and only defense.

She gasped and cried out in pain and shock as pure white wings ripped from her shoulder blades. Her skull and spine burned as her ears and tail announced their appearance with a flash of golden fur. She felt her nails grow and harden; her hands and upper body meeting the ground after retaliating against her backward motion. She knelt, panting, her body struggling to recover. She never got used to the manifestation of her powers and was always left tired afterwards.

She glanced upward, thinking that the demon would have taken his chance to attack in her moment of vulnerability, but found him only staring down at her, his expression a cross between confusion and annoyance. Lowen found herself snorting, sick of these riddles and games.

"WELL?" she snapped. He only stood there. Lowen glowered at him, reaching her mind out to his, trying to find out was he was feeling, trying to find out what was going on.

…

Nothing? She blinked dumbly, caught off-guard at this new development. She kept her eyes fixed firmly on him. He was gazing at her with…was that curiosity she sensed? What? Why? What was going on here? He tilted his head and made the corners of his lips dip lower than even his natural scowl, his eyebrows furrowing further, causing the scar on his eye to scrunch up a bit.

"You are strange one," he grunted. "Angel with a tail? I have never seen such thing."

She snarled unexpectedly, her energy gathered. She couldn't miss this chance while he off-guard. She jumped up and made a sudden connection. The two were now interlocked, both of them struggling and rolling, straining for the upper hand. White feathers fluttered through the air and mixed with the dark smoke the man emanated when he teleported them both. It finally dawned on her that the darkness he carried them through was his mutant power of teleportation. He thrashed about in attempt to shake her off, but she brutally dug her claws into his crimson skin and attempted to latch her teeth onto flesh to inflict some kind of damage. Maybe it was a futile effort, but if she was going to die, she at least wanted to make sure to cause him some trouble in his mission.

The two tumbled through unseen portals, jumping from place to place in a whirlwind of speed that Lowen could only claim to have previously experienced in dreams and nightmares. Her head started to hurt, and the smell clawed at her nose and overtook her senses. She was losing this battle. The constant, frenzied teleportation began to take its toll. Rolling, twisting, burning scenery caused Lowen's head to spin once more, waves on nausea bubbling up in her body accompanied by a crescendo of shivers and aches that threatened to throw her off her foe and cause the loss of the fight- if you could call it a fight at this point. Really, it now looked like a grizzly trying to violent shake a bunny off of its back. Lowen found herself fighting less and focusing more of holding onto for dear life as her stomach churned and whirled on this mad death ride. A sudden jerk of an arm resulted in a gasp and a slip on her clawed fingers from his clothes. Her opposing hand now grasped around his wrist, she felt her entire body dangling and flailing wildly one last time before everything stopped. Still she hung, terrified as she stared down into the large forest beneath her unsupported feet. She gave a strangled cry and wiggled uselessly. Somewhere along the way, she now noticed, she had lost her shoes.

She looked up into the face of the red man, who held his arm out the way one might if they were waiting for a large bird to land on their waiting limb. His other hand grasped both of her wings in an iron fist, not only hurting her them, but rendering her powers of flight useless. Her captor stood perched a bit precariously on a branch of the tallest tree for miles, seeming to not fear anything. The intensity of his stare mixed with her anxious terror as she trembled in pure, unabashed fear. His eyes still betrayed no emotion.

"P-please…" she squeaked. It was useless to continue. She had just attacked him. This was the final straw; the part where her shook her off like a bug and let her fall to her certain doom. Her face contorted his tortured pain, the bones in her wings screaming in protest against his strong fingers. She crushed her eyes shut and gave a shuttering sigh. This was the end.

Her body lifted slowly… so very slowly… she felt the pressure on her wings release in much the same way; slowly. She started to shiver, so ashamed at her cowardice. The brush of material against skin. She flinched.

What?

Warm, gentle, yet firm… was she being pushed to his chest? Yes, yes, her shocked brain registered. Warning bells screeched through her system, alerting her to run, fight, to do something to get away. Oh, but she was tired. So tired… at this moment, she didn't care if he was the devil himself. Just stop the aches, the sickness, the pain. Make it all go away… she wanting him to just end her suffering, whether it be by death or comfort.

His large, muscled arms encircled her shoulders gently, his tail brushing against her calves. She could do nothing more than lean into him, grabbing fistfuls of his clothes and trembling violently against his body, both entwined in a jumble of confusion and shock. She was gasping and panting quietly, while he seemed to be measuring his every breath, a scowl plastered on his chiseled face, perplexed.

"You…" he spoke softly, causing her to flinch in surprise at his tone. He grunted. "This is not what I thought." She felt his large hand gently pat… pat? her middle back. She dared to look up at his face, trails of shocked tears leaving paths over her cheeks, her green eyes transfixed on his. He wouldn't be surprised if her chin started quivering.

"You will wait." That was not a request. That was an order. Lowen could hear it in his voice, but after the ordeal, she was exhausted, in pain, and borderline hysterical.

"I, I won't! I want to go! I want to just get out of here!" she blurted. Tears of exhaustion pooled in the corners of her weary eyes. The man only shook his head.

"Azazel will not harm you… not now. I need to go. You will wait," he ordered again. She cried out once more and buried her face in his chest. So much pain… so much pain… had he broken her wings? They hurt so bad… Azazel… was that his name? This demon? Did demons have names?

Confusion.

"What is your name?" he asked. She didn't answer, her face still pulled tightly into his chest. He asked again. "What is your name?"

She stirred slightly, her breath slowing and evening out to a normal rate.

"Lowen," she all but whispered. He nodded, satisfied at getting an answer from her.

"Lowen, I will leave you here now. You will not leave. I will be back, and you will be here." His voice left no room for argument, but Lowen figured that she was too tired to go anywhere even if she wanted to. She gave a small nod, not moving her head away from his chest. She inhaled. He smelled so odd, a bit like metal and running water, but it seemed calming in a way.

"Good. We will go, and I will be back."

She felt her vision go dark again as they teleported for the last time. Lowen let her consciousness slip away and gave in to the exhaustion.

He would be back.

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Oooh boy! I worked hard to crank this one out. I hope to get more of Azazel's point of view in the next chapter. Oh MAN, I do hope you guys liked it. It's going to get real fun from here on out now that a lot of the intros are out of the way.

How soon do you want that next chapter? This is gonna be fun. I have a lot of ideas for what will go down. Yaaay. Any input of what you might like to see like to see later on? I can't promise anything, but I'd like to hear what the people have to say. Thank you for all the previous reviews. I read them and try to answer questions through the story as best I can. (does that make sense?)

Oh, and I hope you liked that Azazel video, if you watched it. Peheh. Please review.