Alien Weaponry

Prologue: Azazel. Fallen Angel, Scientist... Parent?

Azazel's notes: June 30th, 1908.

Y'know, I think dear old dad's still punishing me. I mean, I know he's always been one to hold a grudge, but this is ridiculous. I take a little vacay for myself in the middle of nowhere, no Fallen, no Angels, no Devils, no nothing, just Azazel time, and what happens? Oh, only a meteorite impact where I happen to be! A man just wants to decompress for a couple of weeks, and this is what I get.

For context, in case I forget since I have drunk a lot since this happened, I'm in Tunguska. A big expanse of nothing in the ass end of Siberia. Perfect if you wanna be alone. Unless you're me, in which case a celestial body will come outta nowhere to throw off your holiday plans.

I was doing a bit of hiking. Enjoying nature and all that, when the the morning got just a bit brighter. Strange, right? I mean, it was already morning. Sun high in the sky and plenty bright already. There were no magical shenanigans going on because I'd have sensed it if there were.

Then everything exploded. I was blasted into the dirt, flattened like the forest around me, and I was most assuredly deaf for a few minutes while I got buried by dirt and trees. Ears ringing, I dug myself out and looked towards the massive crater that had suddenly appeared. Okay, rare cosmic event that I just happened to get hit by. Stranger things have happened.

I unfurled my wings and flew towards the impact site, only to see the weirdest thing. There was a... well, a thing. Floating a few feet off the ground. It was like a ball of liquid mercury. Now, I know human science is a little lacking right now, but this was a new one for me too. Nothing just defies gravity like that, at least not without magic. And I was sensing a whole lotta nothing.

Azazel approached the sphere, watching as its surface rippled and churned as it maintained a constant elevation. His senses were keen, and magic was a field he was more than well-versed in. Yet there was an unnatural stillness about the object, like the space around it had been disturbed. He kept his distance, age and experience warning him that whatever this thing was, it wasn't safe. Like a low frequency hum, he felt a chill run up his spine. He'd felt it when he was buried by dirt and debris, but now that he was a scant few meters away, it was worse. It was like the call of an apex predator, one that prey heard and knew to run from. But what bothered him more was that magically, it felt completely inert.

The chief of the Fallen Angels knew his father's creations could be strange things. The universe was vast, and countless places had been laced with life. They had been abandoned shortly after their creation, his father's attention diverted to his newest projects until it finally settled on Earth and humanity. But that was all any of the Angels knew. Metatron had been forbidden from keeping record of anything God had created before forming the Earth. Many had wondered why, but none gave voice to the question. God's secrecy had been among many reasons Angels turned away from him. What else was out there? Why was it kept secret? Did God want to forget the things he'd made before? All pointless questions in the end, but Azazel was forever curious.

Azazel's scientific mind got the best of him. He inched forward, trying to get a better look at this strange anomaly, when suddenly, an invisible wave of force pulsed outward. It buffeted him, taking the Fallen Angel completely by surprise. What was more surprising was the sudden headache. It was piercing, like a pick driven into his skull. He had to take a moment to steady himself, blinking as his vision became blurred for just a few moments.

''What the...'' he groaned. The sensation he'd felt in the brief moment of contact with the wall of force was unlike anything he'd felt before. It was like something had peered into his mind for a millisecond before retreating and leaving a splitting headache in its place. A warm sensation trickled from his nose and onto his lips. Wiping his sleeve on his mouth, he could clearly see the crimson smear of blood on his white winter coat.

The spine-chilling sensation intensified as a sound he couldn't hear vibrated through him. Azazel watched in rapt fascination as the ball of silver fluid began to morph, shifting and stretching. Even as his unexplainable sense of dread grew, he couldn't tear his eyes away. The orb grew upward, extending and began to form a rough shape. Arms reached from its sides, the forearms bulky and arranged with thin blades, while razor-tipped fingers grasped thin air for the first time. Digitigrade legs, long and powerfully built with three similarly lethal toes fully extended, though they never touched the ground. Its entire body was made of peaks and valleys of ropey muscle, or at least an emulation of it. Its torso was almost skeletal, with an outer shell of segmented plates on its chest, while the thorax and hips narrowed. A snaking, sinewy tail sprouted from its lower back, waving lazily while the long blade at the tip glinted menacingly in the sunlight.

Finally, the head began to form. It was long and curved back as spiked studs lined the outer edges of it. The face was akin to a reptilian creature, similar enough to a crocodile, but short and snarling like the snout of a dog. Rows of silver teeth were locked together in a jagged smile. Three eyes formed in the front of its skull, first rolling wetly in their sockets, then all three locked onto Azazel with frightening quickness, their star-shaped pupils dilating as they studied the Fallen Angel. The eyes then lit up to a steady green glow. Even then, its shimmering skin remained the same shining sliver as the sphere it had once been. What was before Azazel was a beast, a creature of unknown origin or purpose, over double his height and weaponised in every sense.

It hissed. A deep reptilian rumble that sent wildlife scattering for miles around.

The creature hung in the air, its infantile mind taking in the massive amounts of information presented to it. Sights, sounds, sensations, all rushing into its brain like a tsunami. The initial pulse it emitted gathered all kinds of data on the local fauna, giving it an assortment of templates to base its form off of. It studied each and every one, tracing genetic lineages as it searched for the most lethal combinations it could find. It didn't understand them, but something programmed deep within its very being could discern what the creature needed. Arms, legs, claws, teeth, the very basics it needed to serve its purpose. Even its upright body structure had been borrowed from the thing looking at it so intently. Curiously, the thing looking at it had no genetic lineage, like it had been fashioned as a singular entity with no ancestry or evolutionary path.

It didn't matter. The base functions hardwired by its creators were clear. Where there was life, it must bring death. It must feed.

Azazel's notes: June 30th, 1908.

Hoo, boy. That was something. Crazy bastard attacked me, can you believe that? I managed to get it to calm down, and by that I mean I chucked light spears at it until it stopped moving. But I swear, with every spear I threw, I was doing less and less damage to it. So I just threw stronger and stronger spears at it. Haven't had a workout like that since the Great War. It's a good thing it was stupid and fell for all of my tricks. After I kicked its ass, it kinda just turned into a pile of goo, and against my better judgement, I cast a few sealing spells on it and took it with me. It's not an elegant solution, but for now I've got it levitating next to me at all times. Can't let it out of my sight too much.

It's time for me to put my science hat on. Ahem.

The creature's body seems to be composed of a material literally not of this world. Nothing like it in Heaven or the Underworld either. It has transformative properties beyond any shapeshifter I've ever seen. During our fight, it countered my ability to fly by growing wings of its own, and it was damn fast too. It sprouted whip-like tendrils from its back to sacrifice against my light spears. Hell, it even began shooting knock-off light spears from its mouth.

Curiously, it was a really clumsy thing, like it didn't really know how to use its body. It couldn't control its speed, so all I needed to do was dodge a little and it would trip or crash into something. Though, it should be said, dodging it wasn't easy. Thing was fast as all get-out. Watching it trying to fly was, frankly, embarrassing. But by dad, that thing can pack a punch! Physically, I don't think I could have gone head-to-head without help. Too many blades and pokey bits, and it was making craters in the ground when it missed me. But I'm more interested in the light spears it made. Those were strong, like, stupid strong. Kokabiel's level easily. I say they're light spears because they shared the same structure that mine have. However, I know for a fact those light spears were nothing like the real thing. I'd have felt it if they were. I assume that after having been hit by them, it learned how to generate an imitation using its own body. How it did this is still unclear and warrants further study.

Luckily, nothing it did seemed calculated. Everything it did was like instinct. It was faster and I assume physically stronger than me, but lacked the control or understanding to use those advantages. Every strategy I used worked great, which leads me to believe that there isn't any kind of sophisticated intelligence present.

The creature was pretty hard to put down the longer it went on. I believe this is tied to its ability to rapidly adapt to hostile conditions being enacted upon it. You see, it seems to evolve (thank you Darwin, dad never told me animals could do that) extremely quickly. As I mentioned, my light spears were doing less damage the more I used them. The first blew a clean hole through its chest, but by the time I was putting some real power behind them, I basically had to cause a meteorite impact of my own. Thus it turned into a pile of steaming goo.

I took some smaller samples that I'd blown off the thing and I'll be keeping them for further study while I figure out what to do with the rest of the goo.

July 2nd, 1908.

Okay, the goo pile got smaller. What's happening? Did I kill it? If I did, then I'm not sure how to feel about that. Sure, it could be that I just stopped an absolute cataclysm, but I really want to study a living specimen. Imagine it, an Artificial Sacred Gear that can transform and evolve to meet any need or situation you can think of. And if I can figure out what the material is and replicate it, even better. Oh well, I guess I should just be glad its not adapting to magic or trying to reform itself. I really don't need that right now.

Ever since that wave hit me, I've been feeling all kinds of weird. Like I'm not alone. You ever been stared at by, say, a duck? Looking at you with its beady little eyes, not knowing what's going on in that stupid head? Like that, but worse. Couldn't be the goo, could it?

Azazel stopped by a river to fish. Darkness was a couple of hours away, and so he built a fire and set about catching himself some dinner. Even Fallen Angels needed sustenance, though it was markedly less than a human. He pulled a fishing rod from his bag, one so long that it had no business fitting in there. Again, totally unnecessary, but the Fallen Angel enjoyed doing things the human way from time to time.

''Come on, salmon. Gimme a salmon for dinner...'' Azazel muttered as he cast his line out. He sat for a while, waiting for a bite and enjoying the chill of the oncoming night. The last couple of days had been interesting, that was for certain. He couldn't wait to get back to his workshop and begin studying the alien creature he'd subdued, as just watching it since its capture had been a fascinating spectacle. Even trapped as it was, it had begun moving again, bulging and warping as it tried to adopt a new shape. As he'd suspected, the silver blob had been getting smaller, but nothing had fallen away from the main mass. He was sure he'd have noticed a trail of silver slime during the times he'd looked behind him to orient himself in the hills and forests.

Some time passed, and as he'd wanted, he caught a large salmon. Pleased with himself, he set about preparing it on a nearby rock. He decided that he deserved a drink. Azazel had bought a bottle of vodka on his last stop before setting off that he'd kept in his bag. After all, why not? He'd earned this. He got flattened by a cosmic event, attacked by an alien, captured said alien, and caught himself quite the sizeable salmon. Everything was turning up Azazel. He returned to his bag and added some kindling to his fire, but noticed something was off.

''Where'd the goo go?'' he looked around, seeing nothing. He'd left it right by his bag, so where the hell did it disappear to? He looked up, briefly wondering if it had floated away somewhere. No, it couldn't have. He specifically engineered his sealing spells to stop anything like that from happening. So where? Where could it have gone. He heard something slap against the ground behind him and he spun in place. By the rock where his salmon had lay filleted and ready to cook was a blob of sliver, crawling like a slug toward the gutted fish. It had three big, glowing green eyes and a a jagged horizontal line dividing its body. His eyes widened when he saw the line open, showing the black chasm of the goo's mouth.

''My salmon!'' the Governor General cried out as he raced over and grabbed the fish by the tail, while the goo bit down on the head. They pulled against each other, neither willing to give up on this most grand of battles. ''That's my dinner, you little asshole!'' the goo was much stronger than he'd expected, as Azazel dug his heels in and was surprised to find it was slowly but surely pulling him forward, leaving twinned furrows in the hard, cold earth. The eyes of the goo narrowed as it gave a high-pitched growl, making it's claim over its prize very clear. Azazel unfurled his wings and beat them to add extra pulling power, but the goo shot spikes into the ground to keep it anchored.

''Clever little shit...'' he flapped his wings harder, silently wondering how the salmon hadn't come apart already, but when he found nothing was working, he devised a terrible, brilliant, awful idea. ''Hey, look over there!'' he pointed behind the goo, and to his amazement, it let go and spun to look. ''Ha! Stupid!''

His victory was short-lived as he felt a sudden pain shoot up his right leg. He looked down and saw the goo clamped on to his shin like a bear trap, growling and grinding its teeth into his leg. Azazel kept a secret that day. One that would spell death for any who learned it. The leader of the Grigori screamed in a rather unmanly fashion, a mix of shock and pain intermixed with a rush of embarrassment. He flew around his campsite, shaking his leg fiercely, but the vicious little goo just refused to let go. He waved the salmon around like a bat, smacking the goo with it over and over, eliciting a wet slap with every impact. Undeterred by the fishy assault, the goo bit harder.

This slapstick comedy routine ended when Azazel finally gave up.

''Fine! Take the damn fish!'' he threw it some distance away and the goo released its hold, wriggling its gooey way towards its hard-won prize. Azazel watched it go with a scowl on his face, but his anger was quickly replaced with curiosity.

'Was it just hungry? Hell, does it even need to eat? It kept going when I put holes where most creatures' organs would be, so would things like air and food even matter to it?' he thought as he studied it. Its glowing eyes seemed to take on a happy look, turning upward as it ate, chomping through the salmon in record time.

''Ah, what the hell. I'll just catch another,'' he said as he shook his head with a grin. If he could learn more about this goo from another world, then what was a fish compared to that. He grimaced as he felt his leg throb and the feeling of teeth marks in his leg. 'Stupid goo.'

Azazel's notes: July 05th, 1908.

Did I just become a pet owner? I think I became a pet owner. The goo has been following me of its own accord for the past three days, and honestly, it's been pretty well behaved. It's learned pretty quickly that it likes eating, and so it's taken to eating birds. Good at catching them too. It shoots out goo spikes and skewers them like a shrike, then pulls them in and eats them. I feed it fish whenever we stop by a river, and when a bear got too close, the little guy ate the bear. Big one too.

Seriously, where the hell does it all go?

The goo itself has grown. Not quite back to its original size, but at least three times what it was when I captured it. It seems somewhat at ease around me. I say 'somewhat' because I tried to touch it and it bit my fingers. Nothing major, just a warning, and consider me warned. There's still teeth marks and it's been hours since then. Other than that, it'll stick close to me and let me feed it, so I guess that's good enough.

July 08th, 1908.

We finally made it back to civilisation, and that signals the end of my bizarre adventure in the Siberian wilderness. Could have been worse as far as vacations go, I suppose. I managed to convince the goo the hide out in my bag. Don't need anyone asking any unnecessary questions.

I met a woman claiming to be a psychic on my first pass through the small village, though that's not exactly what she called herself. A medium or seer, something along those lines. Said she could commune with the dead and read people's emotions at a glance, as well as divine the future with startling accuracy if the townsfolk are to be believed.

However, coming through here again, it turned out that she'd become sick. I spoke to the town doctor and he said that she'd suffered non-stop nosebleeds and symptoms consistent with a severe concussion since the end of June. The 30th to be precise. The same day I met the goo and got hit by that wave. Now, I'm no psychic, nor am I particularly sensitive to that kind of thing, but some rare humans are. So if getting hit by that wave made me feel weird and give me a splitting headache, then I can only imagine what it must do to psychic humans.

When I visited her in the infirmary, she was asleep. That was until I got within 10 feet of her, when she snapped awake and began speaking in tongues, eyes all rolled back and everything. I was half expecting her to start levitating, if I'm honest.

''The Devourer has come! The Devourer has come! The Devourer has come!'' she repeated this more times than I cared to count on my fingers, never stopping for breath, shrieking at the top of her lungs, foaming at the mouth while her eyes and ears bled.

''The End of Empires! The Eater of Worlds! The Darkener of Stars! The End has come!''

Then her face exploded. Not like a nose bleed, oh-ho-ho no, but actually exploded. Like a cannonball hitting a melon.

It was time for me to nope my ass outta there.

Just what the hell did I find in Tunguska?

July 11th, 1908.

I've started to notice some odd... changes. The goo is bigger, but it seems to be growing arms. Should I be concerned? Probably. But never let it be said that Azazel isn't a man of science. This is fascinating. Somehow, it seems to be adopting a different shape. As stated, it's begun developing arms, with three fingers on the left and four on the right. Note how I didn't mention hands. Its general shape has elongated, forming what looks like the beginnings of a human torso, with the general 'head' area thinning where it connects to the main body.

On a more disturbing note, it's developing what I can only describe as a face, but if a sculptor was drunk and passed out face first onto the clay, then vomited on it. Its three eyes are all in the wrong places, too. In summary, my new pet is an abomination and an insult to nature, but it's my abomination and insult to nature.

July 16th, 1908.

Oh no! Oh, by the love of dad, no! What the hell is this!? As I write this, my hands are trembling. I can hear the creature hissing, whispering cosmic truths through the door as I hear its silver claws scratching at the wood, taunting me. It could break through at any time, as no mere door of human construction could hope to hold such a-

Nah, I'm just playing. But what I'm not playing about is my confusion and honest to dad-ness, super confusion. The goo, though I don't think that term really applies anymore, is... different now. Like, way different. So different that if I'd just met it, I'd never have suspected it was a ball of silver goo at all.

What's staring at me like a starving puppy is a kid. A young boy that looks... I dunno, no older than eight? But the bit that really gets to me is how he looks. He looks like me. Strikingly like me. Same hair colours, but blonde on the back instead of the front, same basic face structure, same skin tone. The only real difference is his eyes. Still the same bright green as before.

So this is what the goo was doing. It's... or I suppose, he, is a shape shifter, that much was clear when we fought, but I think he's either adopted a new tactic to survive, or has taken my appearance as some kind of imprinting. I've got no proof for either hypothesis yet, but it's the best I can come up with on the fly.

But I gotta say, the kid has excellent taste. Of all the people he could have chosen to look like, he chose the best-looking guy on Earth. Kudos to you, kid.

Now... to do something about clothing...

September 27th, 1962.

Well, well, well, look what I found. I completely forgot about this journal. Lemme tell ya, whoever might be reading this (Kokabiel, if you or anyone else are, cease reading this instant), a lot has happened.

For starters, I'm a dad! Well, sorta anyway. What started as picking up an psychic alien super weapon built for the sole purpose of consuming all life and evolving into the ultimate lifeform in the woods, has become a beautiful, life changing, revealing, stressful, chaotic, messy journey of parenthood. I named him Zeruel, but I'll explain that later. Might seem a bit sacrilegious, what with him being a creation of an experiment God wanted to forget about, but dad's not exactly in any state to complain. He likes being called 'Zel' for short.

Look, I won't lie. I never pegged myself for the nurturing type, and I'm really not, honest. But I gotta admit, it didn't take long for me to stop seeing that kid as a destroyer of worlds and an interesting subject of study, and start looking at him as, well, a kid. A genuine child. One that looks like me, and thanks to my diligent care, acts like me too. Kinda, anyway. Kid has to learn that telling people he'd like to eat them is decidedly un-Azazel-like.

Don't get me wrong, the kid's smart. Deceptively smart. Borderline genius at times. But his default mode is... not moron, but... I dunno, carefree. Like a puppy or something. I suppose that makes sense since Baraquiel described him as, and I quote, ''the world's deadliest golden retriever''. He lacks my subtlety. But just like his dear ol' dad, he's a charmer. Just doesn't know what to do with all that charisma though. He'll learn.

I'm happy to say that Grigori as a whole adores him. Took a while for some to warm up to him, and Kokabiel is still being a sandpaper dildo about the whole thing, but that's just Kokabiel being Kokabiel. A giant sandpaper dildo. Says I spend too much time playing ''happy families'' and not focusing on the important stuff. Well, fuck you, Kokabiel, because my boy is super important to me.

I'll never forget Raynare's reaction. Back in '08, I waltzed back in, kid in tow, and who greets me first? Raynare. She was all smiles when she saw me, the usual business with her, but when she saw that I had a kid with me that looked almost exactly like me, well, I don't think I've seen someone lose all colour before. Like, all of it. Hair and wings, hell, even her clothes, all turned white as she stared in utter horror. Then came the questions. ''Who is she!? What human bitch stole your heart!? Why is he staring at me like I'm a three course meal!?''

Ah, priceless.

But it's fine, it's all good. She warmed up to Zel a lot quicker than I thought she would. She's loyal and a good soldier, but she's abrasive as they come. Maybe it's cos he looks like me. Never would have imagined she was good with kids. Been thick as thieves ever since.

Kalawarner was all over him, spoiling him whenever she was off-duty. She'd read him books on the rare occasions he tried sleeping, and yes, I had to physically train him to sleep. He's a machine. Literally. As much as he mimics all of the functions of a living body, he doesn't really need to do anything that we do besides eat. He's still subject to entropy after all, so energy still needs to go in so work can come out. Wouldn't put it past him to evolve some kind of energy source of his own one day, though. But I'm getting off topic. In short, Kalawarner had baby rabies for ages after she met my boy.

Mittelt still does the whole 'annoyed older sister' thing, but she loves Zel. She thinks nobody noticed, but she was always the first to play with him when he was smaller. In fact, it's thanks to her that the kid learned proper manners, and Dohnaseek helped with that, too.

Dohnaseek was like that distant uncle that disappears for long stretches of time, but always comes back with gifts. Educational gifts, so not the fun kind. Unless it's Dohnaseek, in which case he thought that things like spell books and weapons were the perfect learning aides, which they absolutely are. Too bad my boy doesn't have any capacity for magic at all. Could be cos he's an artificial alien, so the rules of this world don't apply, but it could be a psychic thing. In the decades I've been learning about Zel, I still haven't figured that one out.

Shemhazai and Baraquiel were like Dohnaseek, except they're the uncles who never moved out and are there to, quote, ''make sure he doesn't grow up to be a degenerate like his dad, and be a responsible member of society,'' end quote. To which I say; good fucking luck.

And then there's Kokabiel. I'll just say this; he's lucky he's useful.

Zeruel's gone through some interesting developments, and I've made some fascinating discoveries. Back in 1947, there was a little incident in America. Little place called Roswell. Turns out, Zel ain't the only one visiting Earth. He sensed it coming days in advance, while I didn't sense a damn thing. It's kinda like how myself and others can sense magic, but he can't sense it at all. He's tried, but he said it himself. He can't comprehend magic at all. He can see it and feel it in the case of attacks, but it's completely beyond his capability to interact with himself. He said he could sense the alien from so far away because it was a powerful psychic too. Somehow, the kid is really good at hiding himself, but I'm sure he was just designed that way.

Anyway, he insisted we head to America to meet with this new alien. Of course, he just wanted to kill and eat it. And that's what he did. It wasn't an alien weapon like my boy, but a genuine flesh and blood E.T. All grey skin and big black eyes. Crashed its ship in the desert because Zel hit it with a different psychic shockwave than he hit me with and knocked it outta the sky. Then he transformed, taking on the very same form I saw back in Tunguska. Easily over 10 feet tall and covered in spikes and blades. He was making that same hissing noise that still gives me the heebie-jeebies. I remember writing in an earlier entry that Zel was pretty clumsy when I fought him the first time. He was anything but this time. He moved like a predatory cat, way too big to move that fast and that quietly. It was pretty spooky, not gonna lie. The alien didn't even stand a chance as Zel pounced on it, pinned it down, ripped it apart and ate it.

Pretty gnarly, right? I don't know what kinda protein is in these space people, but Zel grew from being an eight-year-old to a young teenager after he'd finished eating. Maybe thirteen-ish. At first I thought this was some weird part of how Zel functioned. A one-off. However, it happened again later on.

Just last year when we went on vacation to Kyoto, Japan, I kinda lost him in a crowd. I searched as far and as fast as I could, but that kid is like a damn bloodhound when he gets the smell of E.T meat in his nose. I suppose that's my fault since I told him he absolutely cannot eat humans or any other sapient life while I'm around. Luckily, he eats normal stuff but he always complains that it's just not the same.

I thought he'd gotten distracted and ran off to try and eat a cat or something, but lo and behold, there was another alien he'd caught wind of. I only found him because I saw smoke coming up from a shrine about a mile away, and he was brawling with some massive brute of a creature. Taller than Zel when transformed, but easily twice as broad with the lower body of a snake and six multi-jointed arms. It had Zel wrapped in its coils, while three dragon-like heads were trying to take chunks out of him. But my boy's a fighter, and one hungry son of a bitch at the best of times, and while he was clawing and slicing the big snake thing, he was happily chewing on one of the thing's severed arms like a dog with a beef bone.

Meanwhile, there's a bunch of minor Yokai running away in a panic. This was a political incident waiting to happen, and I was not about to take the blame for it. I knew it could get really bad because Kyoto was where the Western Yokai Faction had set up shop, meaning that there was a better than good chance that Yasaka, the great Kyuubi of Kyoto, would show up.

In the end, Yasaka did show up. I was already concocting the mother of all 'this isn't what it looks like's', but by that time, Zel had already finished chowing down on the big slithery bastard. When he went back to normal, he looked like a college kid, slightly shorter than me and his usual happy-go-lucky expression. It occurred to me then that he seemed to mature faster depending on what he ate. For several decades, he'd been an eight-year-old kid, but after eating two aliens, he was now college-aged. He's eaten more since then, but it appears his maturation phase has plateaued for now.

Now, I was expecting to get chewed out something fierce, but instead, Yasaka threw all kinds of praises onto my boy. Apparently, the giant snake alien had been causing all sorts of trouble in Kyoto, and had attacked Yasaka's shrine on six different occasions. She said something about it being able to hide its presence, even from mystical wards. No one would see or hear it until it was already attacking. Then she asked what I, Govenor General Azazel, was doing there, and I explained that I was doing some sight-seeing with my son.

Something unexpected happened, though. She said that she would reward him, he only had to ask. Zel being Zel just said her thighs looked tasty. A compliment to anyone else, but my mind was on red alert. And by the look on her face with those flushed cheeks, she wasn't expecting that but was lapping up the perceived flattery. Before I could explain that he meant they literally looked tasty to him, she'd already taken him by the hand and led him deeper into the shrine.

I was both immensely proud and profoundly worried. Yasaka could be getting eaten, in either the best or worst way possible, and it was only a matter of time until I found out which. Whatever happened next was on him. He was a big boy now. And while I may be many things, a cock-block I am not. About half an hour later, they came back. Zel looked as happy as ever, while Yasaka looked... well, like a cougar that just found her mark. As we left, she called out saying that he should come alone some day, and my perpetually oblivious son agreed. On that day, my boy learned that thighs are pillows, not food.

I also resolved that I would teach my boy about women. If he was anything like his old man, he was gonna need to learn fast. But absolutely first of all, I'll follow Shemhazai and Baraquiel's advice.

I need to teach him not to be so... alien.

Back with DxD again. Honestly, I don't know what keeps making me write for it, but I wanted to try something new. I see a lot of fics here that follow certain patterns, and going through the reviews, a lot of people think the DxD fic space is out of ideas. I am guilty of making the same mistakes that people complain about in DxD fics that I've made and then taken down, so I wanted to try something that was a bit out there and maybe put a fresh idea out. It should go without saying that this fic is an AU.

I'll give some info on Zeruel. Calm down, Eva fans. When I had the idea for him, I wanted to make something that was unusual without being edgy or the incarnation of flippant sarcasm with the power of friendship and anime on his side. So I did some digging. What if I take Shin Godzilla, Tyranids, Alien and Guyver and pack them all into some goober? Zeruel was the result. I want him to be an entertaining character, not some sentient sass machine and have to actually work for the relationships he wants. No Dragon aura cheat codes. Dude doesn't even have a Sacred Gear, because, duh, not human.

This story is for fun and to maybe get some laughs, while trying to be somewhat original.

So, things this won't include:

1) Joining Rias' Peerage. Not even a romance. Or any Peerage romance for that matter. They're all too young for Zeruel and my man has more refined tastes.

2) Following canon too closely. This story will feature aliens, government agencies, weird new side characters, and generally zany shit. Thing's will spin off on their own here and there.

3) Quick Romance. Zeruel is, as will be made clear in future chapters, a bit of a dunce when it comes to Earthling emotions and romance. And, hold on to your seats, there will be some girls who just straight up don't like him. Shock horror. He's not stupid, just not quick on the uptake. The bit with Yasaka may seem contradictory to this point, but trust me, I'm going somewhere with that. Also, Azazel is an unreliable narrator in his notes, since they're just his observations, so take what he says with a grain of salt. As stated above, none of those Dragon aura pheromone hacks.

4) Dark/tragic backstory for Zeruel. The dude's a psychic alien super weapon from outer space. He's got no baggage. He just has to try not eat everything and everyone.

5) Replacing Issei. Nope. Not happening.

6) Becoming a Devil or whatever else. Refer to point 1 and the rest should solve itself.

7) Being overly horny. The next chapter is already written, and Zeruel says something that is quite horny. This is not a precedent for the rest of the story.

8) Being cringe. I can't really control that, since one reader's cringe is another reader's comedy.

9) Being OP waaaaay too quickly. Hoo boy, power levels. Zeruel is strong. He's had close to a century to get stronger by the start of the story proper. But, and it's a BIG but, he won't be OP for the most part. After all, I've tried to make it clear that magic is a bit of a problem for him, and I'll go into more detail about that later in the story.

Well, that's about it for the cardinal sin list that I can think of. I hope you enjoyed the start of this story, and if you did, by all means feel free to follow, fav and especially review. I'd love to hear what you have to say about this. Until next time