[h1][center]Walk In Darkness[/center][/h1]
[center]Academy, Loom[/center]
[center]Evening[/center]
[@Themerlinhawk][@yoshua171][@Wind Wild]



Lazarus swore as he stormed down the hallway outside his office. Students scattered like leaves in a winter squall. What the hell was wrong with Hazumi? The world needed her outside of her damn office, and out in the world doing something.

He didn’t bother with the door. 

Lazarus’s eyes flared with a grey light and the structure of the wall simply rearranged itself to give him access to his office. Foolish woman. Dracul leapt from his side and onto the hooks on the wall where it rested normally. With a flick of his wrist Lazarus sent the folder flying through the air. Instead of scattering everywhere it was suspended in mid toss. The photos and reports in a mid flight. Kicking off his shoes Lazarus slid over his desk and into his chair, propping his feet up on the desk and giving the file a sour look as it rearranged itself for him to look at it. 

Power and emotions rolled off him in waves causing the objects in his office to twitch or shake. The pictures began to smoke. What the hell was wrong with him? So she wasn’t what you thought. Why are you so damn bent? He considered thumbing Esperacchius and then dismissed it. As the pictures began to slowly burn with black fire he kicked at his desk in annoyance. It’s not that big of a deal. 

With that he picked up the phone on his desk and called to cancel his classes for tomorrow and begin the process of filing a mission plan with the academy’s bureaucracy. With an aggressive growl Lazarus slammed the phone back onto the desk as the ash from the photo’s hung in the air. Not like you need her you fool. With that he stood from the desk and Dracul leapt to his side again. He wanted to go hunting NOW. With that he started towards the door with a mantle of ash around him. 

The door slammed open and sent a group of female students squealing and running for cover. Lazarus grumbled something about women as he stormed past. The ash trailing in the air behind him he all but stomped down the hallway and out the front of the academy. The ash dispersed in an agitated puff as Lazarus turned out onto the street headed for the bar where he planned on being until later this evening at which point he’d move onto finding the people in the file. Lazarus was fairly certain he could find them simply by reversing timeline for one of their kidnapping sites. 

By the time he’d made it to the bar a fair bit of his anger was spent but it still seethed beneath the surface. What was the point of all that power if you were just going to lock yourself away from the world and not actually make a difference. Maybe he’d been wrong about her. The bar keeper nodded to him and gave the sword on his hip a look. Instead of Lazarus normal beer the barkeeper produced a bottle of Irish whiskey and asked a few of the other patrons to move so Lazarus could sit by himself at the bar. 

As he approached a tumbler grew from the wood of the bar and became glass as he sat down. It was a similar trick he’d used with Hazumi and for some reason it pissed him off more, it was one of his favorite uses for alchemy. Now it had been ruined by his irritation at her. He sat and he drank.

She was haunting him. And the drinks didn't make things any better. In fact, they made them worse as a vision of Hazumi literally manifested on the seat next to him. Her walk was graceful and nonchalant as usual, her dress slightly less formal than usual but still slightly out of place for a pub. The bartender gave her a look, warning her about Lazarus' mood but she disregarded him and ordered a drink instead. Receiving a glass of white wine she took a sip and glanced at Lazarus with the corner of her eye, not saying anything the entire time.  

He wrinkled his nose at the glass in front of him “Can I help you? Since I’m clearly not hallucinating you, as he...” Pointing at the barkeep “...can see you.”

Hazumi looked at him and lowered her glass. “Question is, can I help you. You seem to be in a bad mood?”

Lazarus gave her a long look. “You know, just because you fucked up two hundred years ago doesn’t mean you get to hide from the world and pretend it didn’t happen.” It was clearly at least some of the alcohol talking as his accent was showing through. It was a strange blend to have his typically accent devoid english with an irish slant to it. “The world needs you, even if people like Lily have their heads buried so far in the sand they can’t see a damn thing” He took another drink. 

He carefully set the glass down and turned to face her “You’re being a coward and you know it. Just because we’ve made mistakes doesn’t mean we get to bury our heads in the sand like the rest of the world. We have power and we’re obligated to use it for better things than we started out using it for.” He pointed a finger at her “You have a choice Hazumi, hide and let others die doing the things you won’t do. Or stand up for something and take responsibility.” Grumbling he turned back to the glass. Which was empty. He scowled at that.

Meanwhile Hazumi was scowling at him. [i]She[/i] was the reason he was in that mood right now? Ridiculous. She disagreed with him on the matter of Lily, who, in her opinion, was a very wise woman showing a lot of self-restraint while focusing on educating young people over trying to fix the whole world's problems, but she didn't think it would get her anywhere to argue with him. There was hardly any point in arguing on whether she should be proactive or not, as her presence here was sign enough.

“It's impossible for me to track them down.” She cut to the chase after taking a sip of her wine. “Too much time has passed for me to collect essence samples and the people who escaped were only able to provide physical descriptions of the culprits. As I can only see the essence from afar and that has no physical characteristics, I can't link the essence with the face. They must know my weakness as they didn't actually kill anyone – if they had, I would have remembered their essence and submitted it to the hunting squad. It's possible that they obtained such information from one of our pupils they captured. Alternatively, we might be dealing with someone from the Academy turned dark.” She took another sip. “We have been trying to catch them, I'm just pointing out why it's been fruitless so far.”

Lazarus looked at her “Don’t be obtuse.” He waved his hand and a web of essence extended from it. It wove through the air, and to those who could see it, reconstructed the movements of the people in the room from the last hour. With a flick he began rolling back the movements. “I can do it for up to 48 hours and the last kidnapping was 20 hours ago”

He went back to the drink


Hazumi’s eyebrows rose at the spectacle, her jaw almost dropping. She’d never seen such abilities before and the lax manner in which he demonstrated them bugged her ever so slightly. 

“Well then, what are we waiting for?” She asked, getting to her feet and grabbing his arm. “Let’s go.”

“We’re waiting on my buzz to..” he trailed off. “oh hold on” With an effort of will he forced alcohol out of his system. He blinked as it rolled down his face via his tear ducts. “Damn that stings really badly. Hate doing that. Wastes a perfectly good buzz.” Lazarus forced his liver into overdrive and directed a higher blood flow to it as well as bolstering it with essence. “Okay, that should do it” Lazarus stood. “Okay lets go.”

***

Hazumi's nerves were on end. They had successfully managed to get the essence samples and tracked down two of the culprits – an angel and a human. The bad news was, they were currently on the 20th floor of an apartment building.

“We shouldn't kill them. No matter who they are, they deserve a fair trial.” She quoted Lily's words as if they were her own conviction. She'd told herself that time and time again for decades – much like an enchantment that could extinguish the thrill of a hunt. Still, butterflies were dancing in her stomach as the elevator counted down the floors.  

Lazarus drew Dracul calmly. “Of course.” He didn’t sound convinced but he’d follow her lead regardless. It felt strange. Flicking his hand again he checked the web making note of the form and direction of the two individuals. “Pity it seems they don’t have anyone with them that they’ve taken”. 
 
“But you can make them talk, right?” She looked at him without turning her head, unease obvious right beside the hope for a positive answer. 

“I don’t need to” His eyes flashed with the silver light for a moment. “I can take the answers directly from their mind.” 

“True.” A small sigh of relief escaped her. “I always forget that.” 

The elevator reached its destination and the doors slid open. Hazumi licked her lips nervously as they stepped out and threw a look around for anyone spying on them. As if it was even necessary. She could sense at least 10 people around, all going about their lives, living peaceful lives right next to the sick bastards who had kidnapped children and tortured them for ransom. And surely for some fun too. She looked at Lazarus again, her steps slowing to let him lead. 

Lazarus checked his web again and lead them down the hallway. Lazarus pulled on the energy in Dracul and wrapped both of them in an entropy shield in preparation. “Last door on the left. How do you want to play this?” He gave her a look from the corner of his eye.

“Just try to overwhelm them as quick as possible. And try not to get the neighbours involved.”

“Sounds good to me” He readied Dracul. 

With a quick twist of the sword he leveled a burst of x-rays at the wall rendering it transparent to his vision for a split second. “Just the two of them, shall I do the honors?” 

Hazumi nodded, squeezing her dress. "Please."

Lazarus was not in a mood to use doors. He just molecularized the wall and leveled a wave of force at the individuals in the room. It was way more showy than he would have prefered, but it was dead silent.

The angel and the human were hurled to the floor and most of the furniture was slammed against the far wall. “You have been found to have committed high crimes against the people of Loom and the students of the Academy. Come quietly and you will not be harmed.”

Needless to say that wasn’t taken nicely. The two of them were surprised but they weren’t unprepared for such an eventuality. The human who had ended up behind a couch used it as a cover and made a run for the other room. Meanwhile the angel pulled out a gun and shot. Hazumi cried out and, probably in vain, shoved Lazarus from behind. Unfortunately this gave the angel opportunity for a cleaner aim. Another shot rang out. 

Lazarus cursed as the first shot was deflected by one of his spectres with a ghost copy of Dracul. Slapping the bullet out of the air with the flat of the blade. Hazumi’s shove put him right in the line of the second bullet which caught him in the stomach. Gaelic expletive exploded from his mouth as he dropped to his knee. With a roar of pain and rage Lazarus leveled a cone of necrotic energy at the angel. It clipped it causing the angel’s shoulder to go gangrenous in a matter of seconds. Its second effect was to cause the far wall to collapse in a mass of dust, splinters and rot as the necrotic energy ate it away. 

“Well fuck…” Lazarus looked at the roof waiting to see if it would collapse. In preparation he started to draw essence from Dracul fueling an entropy shield. Hopefully the roof didn’t come down on his head. He’d only survived the one building falling on him. 

Hazumi herself cursed at the damage her shove had done but then her words dried out as Lazarus used his hand to literally pulverise the angel’s shoulder and the wall behind it. The angel then jumped to the side and ran after his accomplice. Hazumi made a step over Lazarus to chase after them but then froze, hesitating as she turned to the teacher. “Are you okay?” She asked, torn between the urge to chase after the targets and stay behind to help. Too impatient to wait for an answer she made a circling motion with her hands and then placed them on his stomach. To Lazarus it felt like a bus slammed against his stomach.. and penetrate it. A bizarre warmth began spreading out from the [i]thing[/i] and his tissues started itching as they bound again over the bullet. “Angel essence, it’ll only take a minute. Wait a minute.” She instructed, then got up and ran after the culprits, grabbing a kitchen knife on the go. 

Lazarus ignored her, he wrapped death energy around the anchor points, and began to force his flesh to knit. Standing he grabbed Dracul and moved like a wraith after her, running with its power flowing through his veins. Forcing his legs to move faster than any humans’, his form blurred as though he was moving faster than his spectres who trailed just behind them. A thought crossed his mind and he dove through a window and ran along the edges of the window sills paralleling the way they were fleeing. Leading Hazumi by just a few feet. The wound throbbed but he didn’t care. Opening his essence sight he tagged the angel’s essence, it was still being attacked by the necrosis. With a hiss he sent more power to the disease causing the shoulder to swell painfully. 

The angel cried out and then did something drastic. He dug into his own flesh and with a burst of inhuman strength ripped his arm out. The decaying flesh was strategically calculated and not all of it could be removed so easily but the angel has a trick up his sleeve. He was a Battle angel and every moment his heart pumped blood up his arm, new cells grew in place of the damaged ones, not entirely negating it, but stopping it in its track. As Lazarus and Hazumi reached the next room what they saw was gut-wrenching.

The angel was standing in front of her, his wings flaring protectively, gun in one hand, but it was obvious to both of them. The human was holding a hostage, a young girl, no older than 10, beaten beyond recognition, her arm twisted at an abnormal angle. She wasn't squirming to get free even though a knife was at her throat, she didn't whimper, even though the woman was holding her by the hair. Her essence itself was so weak that they hadn't even realised she was there at the start.

“Let us go and you can have her back.” The angel mocked, a twisted smirk tainting his features.

Hazumi frowned but the next second she was running towards the angel, knife firmly gripped in her hand. The angel was faster, rushing at her... twisting his body in the last second to surpass her, and slam straight into Lazarus.

Chaos ensued, glass breaking, knives slicing throats open, Hazumi gasping, Lazarus falling... 

Lazarus grappled for the knife in mid fall. This was going hurt. He poured on the necrotic grip wasting the angel’s muscles to nothing, decaying flesh flaking away in the seconds of the fall towards the hard pavement. Lazarus’s face had been slashed open so his teeth were showing on the right side of his mouth. The Angel tried to bring the gun to bear but Lazarus snapped it’s fingers like dry kindling as the bone was beginning to deteriorate from his plague. Grabbing the knife by the blade and forcing it back Lazarus twisted and rode the angel into the unforgiving pavement. It’s ribs shattering like glass. 

The Necromancer rolled off of the Angel, he coughed up blood. Chest heaving as he lay in the street, the angel twitched and then lay still. Hopefully Hazumi had saved the girl. Lazarus had his own battle to fight. Dracul lay a few feet away but he didn’t need contact with the sword. With an effort of will he drew the essence from it. Using it to hold his soul in place within his body. This battle wasn’t over yet and Hazumi had need of him yet. Lazarus’s hands were slick with his own blood as he crawled to his knees. With a heave he stood. Holding his side as blood seeped from it. With more will he drew an entropy shield around himself, snapping his fingers a staff of pure black obsidian grew from the ground. He leaned heavily on it, Dracul hanging loosely from his right hand. 

Where the hell was Hazumi. 

Dracul greedily ate the Angel’s soul as Lazarus swayed on his feet. Note to self. Avoid falls.

Back in the apartment Hazumi's eyes widened as she realised Lazarus had just been pushed out of the window. He wasn't the Academy's only teacher, of course, but he was a talented one and this was a fate he did not deserve. A sudden anger crashed into her as if it was a wave washing over a rock, as if it was something foreign that came out of nowhere but left itself embedded in her pores.

Her head snapped back to face the human who was now holding an absolutely lifeless body instead of a dying one. Blood was slowly trickling down her knife and Hazumi saw with painful clarity how it was pooling under the woman's hand, thick and wasted.

Hazumi bared her teeth, suddenly sharp and animalistic and snarled her frustration out. The woman dropped the body and lunged at Hazumi, her knife bared – her only weapon. Even though the space between them was only a few meters, Hazumi didn't wait for the woman to reach her. The impact was inevitable and instant. The knife ran smoothly into Hazumi's shoulder, her bones welcoming it and locking it in place, her other hand slamming into the side of the woman's head and crush it hard against the wall. The human whimpered painfully as Hazumi's face hovered close over hers. Her teeth were sharp enough to cut the air and steam was coming out of her mouth, hot enough to cause skin to itch painfully before melting. It was no longer blood that cruised Hazumi's veins, it was magma and liquid rage and her eyes were a merciless reflection of it.

“You were smart to cut the vein, creates much less of a mess. Murderers care a lot about their liars, do we not? Some like it clean, and some....” A rumble rose from her throat, a sharp chuckle. Her lips curled back in a grin that promised to be the last thing anyone would see. The human thrashed instinctively but Hazumi held her firmly as her nose caressed the other woman's neck.

Jaws clenched.

Flavours exploded in her mouth, salty and bitter, unpleasant yet so thrilling, as the blood gushed out of the artery. The pressure was so high that blood splashed all over Hazumi's face and halfway across the room. It was flowing too fast, drenching her clothes and the carpet underneath. And it was too much to drink. Hazumi's voice roared out halfway between choking and.. laughing. As the human started drowning in her own blood, her legs slowly buckling the laugh rose even higher.

It took a few long minutes before she felt sated - not because there was no blood left, but because she simply didn’t [i]feel[/i] like taking any more in. She hadn’t even consumed the human’s essence - she didn’t want that bitch to be a part of the legacy her body and soul were. She didn’t even need the blood, though her demonic part appreciated it. Like a petulant child she had ruined the human’s integrity for the sake of it, on a whim driven in equal measures by amusement and fury. Hazumi stood and wiped her lips with the back of her arm. 

Then she threw a look down at her clothes and popped in the shower. Only after she was finished did she scout the place for a clean set of clothes, threw on an oversized t-shirt and some leggings and jumped out of the window, the wind curling around her to lower her gently to the ground far below. 

Lazarus had slid down the wall of the alleyway, he’d found the knife buried in his side. Blood continued to seep onto the ground. His breathing was shallow, but pain didn’t register on his face. Perhaps it was time to make sure he could still do it. After all, this body was beginning to wear a bit. Fucking angel, how in the world had he managed to land just so on the knife. 

With a heave he slid the blade out of his side and let it fall to the ground. His left hand pressed to the wound as blood flowed from between his fingers. It had gone much deeper than he’d thought. It certainly explained why he’d been coughing up blood. Twitching his fingers he stimulated the growth of skin cells to close the wound a bit. He didn’t want to start bleeding internally so he left the wound open enough to keep blood from pooling inside. 

At a sound Lazarus looked up to see Hazumi descending from the window. What great timing. Annoyance flashed across his thoughts but he pushed it away. There was no point now. 

Hazumi was surprised at what she found at the foot of the building. There was a blood-splatter but there were no bodies, and once she scanned the perimeter she realised Lazarus is very much alive and pretty well. Bad news was that the blood was his own.

“You handle the other one?” His voice was breathy but it didn’t sound like he was in pain from the wound as he reclined against the wall of the building. Blood still seeping from the wound. Dracul’s amber glow gave his face a haunted deathly pallor. The loss of blood was also probably not helping. His breathing was shallow but his eyes were alert and took her in. “The leggings suit you, but I don’t think the T-shirt befits your status. He cracked a wry grin, it was clearly to hide the beginning of pain.

Hazumi blinked at him, perplexed of how he started with the actual problem to then question her looks. “I got her. My clothes were ruined in the process.” She ran her tongue along her gums. She could still taste the blood. “What happened to you? Are you okay?” She asked with an eerie calm. There was something different in the person who was now standing in front of him. 

Lazarus laughed and blood flecked his lips. “Fine for now. I can’t decide If I want to ditch this shell and start over or see if it’s worth salvaging.” He tested the depth of the wound with his finger “It’s sort of right on the edge. It might be worth the effort to salvage it or it might be a waste of my time.” He sighed in exasperation. “We’re still missing number three, and we have no leads on the whereabouts of the missing students.” He grimaced as he withdrew his finger from the wound. It was read to just about the second knuckle. 

“You mean your body?” She asked, eyebrows rising. She hadn’t realised he’s so bad. He didn’t show it much anyway. “Why would you ditch it? You’ve had it for so long. If you do, won’t you become a baby again?” She questioned, uncertain about the specifics of his rebirths. 

Lazarus cackled a little at that “Hardly, it isn’t exactly a rebirth. It’s more of a...transference.” He looked at her for a long moment. “While I do become rather attached to them, I was hoping this one would last a bit longer than 60 years…” He frowned “Why am I telling you this? Its way too dangerous for people to know how this works, in any way shape or form.” He scowled. “You want to know how it works don’t you?” 

She smiled. “I am rather curious. However it hardly seems like the right place or time to discuss a thing such as this. An angel is fast approaching, possibly the last one.” She glanced him over quickly and stepped in without hesitation. Her lips met with his in a far-from-gentle, almost forceful manner. She didn’t seem to recognize the gesture as a sign of affection and it hardly constituted a kiss as what it did to his body was light it on fire.. quite literally. 

As some of her essence poured into him it jolted his body into healing at a rate that shouldn’t have been possible, forcing cells to divide and tissues to form. The feeling was almost excruciating as it incinerated everything in its wake, yet at the same time it was also peculiarly… intoxicating. As the sudden rush of pain receded what was left in its wake was the feeling of insane power cruising his veins and the confidence, the [i]knowledge[/i] of being invincible. 

Hazumi pulled away and ran a hand through her ruffled hair. “Sorry for getting you hurt. Hope this makes up for it.”

Lazarus sat stunned at what had just happened, the magic was incredible but the kiss...It lingered. And she didn’t seem to have even noticed what she’d done. The hardness of his heart began to crack. What was going on? With that he heaved himself to his feet seizing Dracul and removing the layer of dried blood on his skin with an exertion of will. 

[h2]“Shall we show this angel a good time?”[/h2]

Having been on her way back to their current place, [url=http://i58.tinypic.com/1qlgck.jpg]Mattea[/url] witnessed her comrade fall with enemy in tow. She was airborne after all, affording her a bird’s eye view. A certain hatred was in her heart as she landed a block or so away from where her friend’s killed had stumbled. She even saw Hazumi enter the alley, informing her that she was outnumbered, but she didn’t care. Having thought it out a little more, she sprinted and then leapt up and into the air once more. She cast her essence about, and surrounded herself with illusions before swooping down, folding her wings against her back and flinging essence towards the duo.

Looking through the screen would cause hallucinations in addition to distortions in whatever was on the other side. This would make it difficult to immediately pinpoint her location in the alley. She had drawn her gun even before hitting the ground, where she rolled back to her feet and fired at the downed man, and curled her wings about herself somewhat. She was a miracle angel, rather ironic considering her criminal nature, but there was something else to her essence as well.

Hazumi felt the angel approaching. In fact, there was hardly a way for her not to feel it, given how much her essence expanded all of a sudden. Instinctively, Hazumi looked in her direction and the sight blinded her momentarily. That was a clever approach, she thought as she brought her arm up at the angel, slowly sapping the essence away from her. She still couldn’t look at her but she could resolve that problem quite effortlessly. Problem was when she realised the angel had a gun, which made Hazumi drop her hand and dive for cover in one of the narrow alleys nearby. 

Lazarus watched as Hazumi dived out of the way. “Oh crap” His spectres slapped away several of the bullets as he opened a hole in the wall of the building next to him and wrenched his body into it as the fusillade of bullets bit into the sides of the walls and the street. “I absolutely hate guns” Lazarus swore as he began to wrap an Entropy Shield around him. A ripple like heat began to appear around Dracul.

Lazarus was officially. Done. With. This. Shit. He made sure he was preparing Low wave radiation so that the buildings should shield civilians from the directed blast. Unfortunately for the angel it should cook her quite nicely. “Last chance to surrender before I turn you into goo like your partner in crime!”Lazarus yelled from his position behind cover. 


Having no way of knowing what was coming for her the angel first noted that she was fighting what appeared to be at least one experienced mage. Following this she  shrouded her wings in a light coating of essence and then leapt into the air, landing on the building opposite of Lazarus’ location. Her feet silent, something she’d learned to do with much practice, Mattea sprinted away, across the roof, and then turned towards the side-alley that Hazumi had dodged into. Her wings swept down, pushing her into the air with a small flap, allowing her to suddenly appear several feet above Hazumi and fire down at her, before disappearing onto another roof. This put her further from the mage, which she thought was good.

There was no way of telling what he might be preparing after all.

Since retreating, Hazumi had tried to recreate the scales she had used as armour once but whatever demon was providing her with that opportunity seemed to be gone. At least the alley was a good protection from bullets. Unfortunately, it also made moving that much harder. Luckily, she could still sense the angel approaching and prepare for it. She slammed her hand against the wall and the bricks erupted forwards just as the gun was shot. Some of the bricks broke upon contact with the bullets and shrapnel scattered over Hazumi.. and the child sat on the other side.

The angel disappeared as the bricks crumbled and Hazumi let out a breath, looking over to the shocked child. A piece of tortilla was dripping guacamole down its trousers.

“Sorry babe.” Hazumi apologized, turning back and returning to Lazarus' side briefly. “Should I go after it or have you got this?” She asked, making sure whatever those vibrations were that were coming off him were not going to harm her.

Lazarus frowned as his eyes clouded with quicksilver. “Um…” He was clearly not focused on her as he scanned for the Angel’s essence. Taking care not to look straight at her. “I think…” Lazarus ran essence down Dracul and pointed it up through the building at the angel. 

Skeletal hands erupted from the roof where the angel had landed clawing at her legs and feet trying to grab her and hold her in place.

“Assuming that worked she should be stuck to the roof long enough for us to get up there” With that Lazarus shifted the Golem bracers to his arms and increased the muscle mass of his legs and the grasping strength of his hands. With a tremendous leap Lazarus jumped five stories and grabbed a window sill and began to use his spectres to vault from one building across the alley to the other and back across. Rising swiftly with each leap. 

Hazumi looked around hesitant between pursuing the angel or dealing with the demolished wall and the traumatized child. She decided that Lazarus seemed to have the situation under control and so she returned to the alley. The child was long gone, probably trying to get a hold of his parents and so she started knitting the rubble of bricks back together and seal them in a reasonable improvised wall.

Lazarus sprung onto the roof and rolled popping up onto his feet prepared for a fight as he was sure the Angel would be extricating herself from the grasping hands, if she hadn’t already.

Her ankles suddenly apprehended by a set of skeletal hands, Mattea glared down at them, and with great swiftness, channeled trace amounts of essence between the joints. The essence quickly disrupted the mage’s control and she managed to jump away from the hands. Her wings slapped the air as she heard movement. A burst of wind would hit Lazarus just as he came over the roof, and if that didn’t knock him off there were several bullets already flying in his direction.

With his sight he’d note that the bullets were coated in a thin layer of essence.

Her wings had served a dual purpose in this case, first to attack, and second to blast her off the other edge of the roof and out of sight where she began quickly sprinting down the alleyway.

The gust caught him and forced him back but one of his spectre’s braced him from behind while the other two slapped the bullets out of the air with their copies of Dracul. While Lazarus drew on the well in Dracul to project an Entropy shield to render the others to dust. 

“I don’t think so” Lazarus opened his essence sight and seized the well in Dracul fully. His eyes lit with silver light that illuminated the roof top. Flicking his hand out he snatched the angel in mid run with his will given form by essence. “You coward. Snatching children and endangering innocents. You have been found guilty and you will not escape justice for your crimes.” Lazarus voice boomed as he walked to the edge of the roof to get a clearer visual on the angel. “I will tear the secrets from your mind if I have to but you will be brought to heel.”

As the specters made contact with the bullets the projectiles sheared right through them, repelling the essence that made the creatures up in a circle around them and continuing at the same speed to Lazarus, moving fast enough that he had not yet created his entropy shield. If he had still managed to snatch her from the air as she hurtled backwards, then her wings would quickly streamline, essence naturally flowing through them, as she hardened them and slashed with them, using them like blades to shear the specters apart.

However, an illusion would project over her the entire time, one of several layers, each depicting her caught by his servants and each more realistic than the last. It would take several precious seconds for him to break through, and in that time she would escape off the roof and run further away, attempting to take wing once she’d exited the alley, though she remained low as she flew, staying only a couple feet from the ground.

Lazarus sighed as the bullets contacted him. On the way up the building he’d increased the muscle mass of his upper body and laced it with the depleted uranium. The bullets struck him but didn’t go any further than a quarter of an inch into his body. It was a hell of a trick using that much essence but it had turned out to be quite a good call. His Specters returned to him and he ignored the illusions. The second she’d damaged the specters he’d known they weren’t real.

With his left hand he wove essence to track her path, the gold strands showed him where she’d gone, but in the throes of Dracul he ran an insane amount of essence through the spell combining it with his precognition and it offered about a dozen probable trajectories. With another heavy sigh Lazarus opted for something incredible subtle but truly fantastic. At the termination of each of the possible trajectories he simply forced the air out of each area. Rendering flight and breathing impossible in the areas. The angel would simply drop like a rock when her wings no longer contacted air to keep her aloft.

“You can not escape your fate why do you flee? You endanger more and more innocents. Why can you not see.” Lazarus pumped more energy into Dracul’s blade, it shimmered and rippled with the radiation contained around it. It was enough to totally deteriorate the cell integrity of any living being. Effectively turning their insides to liquid. Their outside would be turned to a fine crisp. It wasn’t quite the same as being hit by a nuclear bomb since it was a different form of radiation, but it was nasty. All he needed was a general idea of where she was. It would pass right through the surrounding buildings. Hopefully it wouldn’t harm any innocents but this was getting out of hand.
 
Her wings hit...nothing, and she thus hit the ground, realizing in the same instant that there was no air to breath. She cast about, suffocating a bit, and got to her feet--barely--so as to run towards a source of ai,- though she had no idea where the lack of such began and ended respectively.

Lazarus impacted the ground behind the floundering angel and walked forward. Weaving essence he thrust his hands forward weaving a Void Sphere into existence. Suspending Gravity and forcing all matter save the Angel floating in the center of it. He fed a thin amount of oxygen into the sphere so she could breath. “This is going to go two ways. Option one. You tell me what I want to know and I turn you over to the authorities alive. Option two. I tear the information out of your mind. Then I liquify your insides with high wave radiation and leave you a baked corpse in the street. Your choice.”

She gasped, pulling the air into her lungs. She did not respond immediately, though she managed to register what the mage had said. It was basically give in or die, and she didn’t like that, but sadly she didn’t have much of a choice. She gritted her teeth for a long moment, and then turned her head towards the man. If she mustered enough essence she might be able to conjure something to get her out of this, but he was giving her air, and without that she couldn’t do anything.

So she gave up. “Fine,” she snapped, her eyes still defiant despite her situation, “...ask away [I]mage[/I]”.

“Where are the other students.” Lazarus eyes were cold as he said it maintaining the Void sphere. It was dangerous to be feeding oxygen into it since it certainly was a structural flaw in the magic but he needed to at least give the angel a chance.

She sneered, “In several locations around the city, rotting, or starving, most of ‘em.” She sounded bored as she said it, no empathy in her actions whatsoever. She couldn’t forgive them after all….

“Locations. Now.” Lazarus was tempted to simply cut off the air and tear the information out of the angel’s mind but that was something he simply couldn’t do now. At least so long as the angel was cooperating he couldn’t. “I am willing to show mercy and turn you over to the peace keepers if you tell me the locations. Otherwise I will be forced to take other measures.” Lazarus’s eyes blazed like cold dying stars from the essence he was holding within him. 

“Like that’s much solace,” she mumbled, after which point she glanced down at a pocket in her pants. “I wrote down the locations. Couldn’t be bothered to remember,” her eyes turned back to the mage’s, there was a deep contempt in them as she stared at him. She could tell that he hated her right now, but he had no idea how much more she hated him, even if this was the first time they’d met.

The Academy, the Peacekeepers, and the Musicians were entities in her mind, things to hate. She knew the Peacekeepers’ judgement would be little better. She would likely be killed for her transgressions, perhaps three times over due to the death of her comrades. Still, the more time she had to live, the more likely she was to escape.

She’d done it before, not that anyone remembered. She’d changed her face...her identity. She wasn’t who she had been.

Lazarus looked at the pocket she had indicated but he’d caught the wave of pure hatred that had rolled off of her. His eyes searched her face as he continued to sift through the emotions rolling off of her. 

“Your hatred for me is tangible. Yet I do not know you.” Lazarus walked forward until he was right outside of the sphere. “Why do you hate me so much? What drives you to kidnap students and harm others?” Lazarus gestured “Can you not see the damage it does? And don’t give me some crap about me not being able to understand. I’ve wiped whole towns from the face of the planet for my hate so yours is nothing. But I wish to understand. Why?”

Her eyes turned away, something her head would’ve done could she have moved. For a long moment she was silent before she finally chimed up, her tone a venomous one, “It’s more what you represent, than who you are, but really the question is this...” she smiled, a look of sickly sweetness, “...why would I tell someone I hate, why I hate them?” She wished she could spit in front of his feet, or even better, in his despicable face. “I gain nothing from your knowing, ‘cept perhaps pity, which I don’t want and don’t need.” She glanced at the pocket she had nodded towards earlier, “You going to get the list or not. While I might as well be on death row, I would prefer to spend the rest of my life alone and away from you and yours. Even if it means sitting in a prison cell, bound and gagged.” The hatred and disdain in her tone was palpable, especially to one such as he, who could literally feel and take in emotions. It would be like an acidic smog: weighing down, polluting, and stinging the both body and mind.

Lazarus stared at the Angel for a long moment before using enforce will to remove the list from her pocket and pinching off a piece of the void sphere and dispersing it so the list landed in his hand. “I already pity those who see death as a means of forwarding an agenda. It is why I do what I do. I was in your place once, only I had to make the choice to see that my actions were destructive and dangerous myself.” He sighed at the Angel “This is not a perfect world, killing and harming others doesn’t make it better. It makes it worse. People like you and I don’t belong in it. The only difference between you and I is that I know we don’t belong here and I’m willing to remove others who are like me.”

She’d met at least two people like him before, or at least it felt that way. Maybe they were nothing alike, this mage and that seraph she’d met so many years ago. It didn’t really matter. “If there’s no place in this world for all manner of people, then I don’t much care for it anyways,” she had a different smile on her face now, one that was always knowing. “Oh, and you’ve got your facts all tied up, like you know what you’re talking about. Don’t act like you know me, [I]mage[/I],” she said, her eyes glaring even as her smile remained, though it was less apparent now.

She exhaled sharply, if there was anything she hated more than traitors and the Academy, it was people who acted like they knew shit, when they didn’t know anything at all. Maybe she’d be better off getting herself killed now, rather than face the Peacekeepers….

Then again, maybe suicide was below her. Yeah, it was. She didn’t want that, even if it would be a final act of defiance. The longer she stayed alive, the more likely she was to live even longer--if just another day. “Funny…” she mumbled to herself, “...don’t realize how much life matters till it’s about to be snatched from you.” She shook her head and sighed, a smile on her lips. It was ironic.

“Try remembering every single one of your deaths. That will rain on your parade.” Lazarus tilted his head as he stared at the Angel. Was it really as simple as ending another meaningless life? Because that was what the peacekeepers would do to her. [i]Am I really considering letting her go?[/i] “What would you do if I let you go?” the question was genuine and his curiosity was real.

She sneered as he mentioned her other lives. It’s not like he could understand what it was like. Even if he were a mage, he was human and as long as he was human he would never understand both what it felt like to die so many times and what it meant to lose everything you were each time. However, when he asked her a question, her eyes snapped to him, and her mind snapped to attention.

He could read her, this she knew. She was a miracle angel and thus could detect interaction with her own essence, even if only vaguely. So if she lied, he’d know. Even if he didn’t know, he could find out because clearly he was capable of [I]‘ravaging her mind,’[/I] as he had put it. Should she say nothing? Should she just reply with the truth...or just part of it?

After at least ten seconds of silence where she stared at the man, trying to measure him up...trying to figure out [I]why[/I] he had asked her, and what she ought to say, she finally spoke. “I don’t see why it matters…but maybe I’d start a new life. I know I’ll never forgive the Academy,” she said the name with noticeable vitriol, then continued, having to exhale and take in another breath as if getting rid of the filth that the word represented to her. “Maybe I’d leave this city...maybe not. Maybe I’d try and disappear only to come back and take that horrid place down in some way.” She looked at the man.

He was odd. He was dirt, no, less than dirt. He was shit in a gutter just like all the Academy’s puppets, just like any traitor. It was only worse that he had, as he put it, [I]’been like her’[/I]. Still, he was odd, worth at least the smallest amount of observation. “Hard to say what I might do…” she said, sounding unsure as she looked away from him and at the ground. That was hardly what he wanted to hear. She was going to die, but at least when she came back this time...she wouldn’t remember what had happened, wouldn’t have to deal with having lost things dear to her.

No, there’d be a new set of troubles instead. It never ended.

Never.


Lazarus looked at her with dead eyes. “I shall grant you a final chance. You deserve that much. I know your anger.” Lazarus let the radiation fade from Dracul as he leveled it. “When you wake, you will be made new. Are you ready?”

At first her eyes lit up, but then he continued and they filled with fear. What did he mean by that? “Wha…” she started, then stopped, swallowing hard. It was either whatever this mage planned...or incarceration and death. “Yeah,” she steeled herself, but in her eyes the fear remained.

“You shall not taste the void, but you will be given another chance. I’m sorry.” A tear dripped from Lazarus’s eye “You will get another chance.” Dracul glowed with a fel green light. And then he plunged it into the Angel’s chest. Dracul erupted from between her shoulder blades and part of Lazarus died as the light in her eyes went out. Pulling the soul cleanly from her body and storing it carefully and undamaged in the core of pure diamond that ran through Dracul for such things. As he released the void sphere he caught the Angel as she fell. Flopping into his arms he stemmed the blood and began wrapping essence around the body to repair damage and completely halt decay. “I’m so sorry.” 

Lazarus turned and began to walk, the Angel’s body in his arms and the soul stored in Dracul. His eyes were cold and lifeless. 

Hazumi soon rejoined him and gave him a long serious look. Her face was much calmer than before. “You can leave the body to the police. Would you like me to make you a lift?”

Lazarus looked up sharply. “Step away from her.” His eyes blazed with the fire of dying stars. Still cradling the angel in his left arm with his right arm he shoved a crumpled paper into Hazumi’s hand. It was the note with the locations of the students. “I think there has been enough anger death and hatred for today don’t you?” He gave the police officer a look “Thank you for your help.” He shouldered past them carrying the angel.

Hazumi frowned at his remark, the suspicion that he could have a way of knowing what she'd done in the apartment creeping in. It wasn't something she was proud of and not something she'd appreciate anyone knowing. Clicking her tongue in annoyance she gave the note to the man beside her and asked him to organize the retrieval of the children. With that the case was mostly closed and with a sigh, Hazumi weaved a simple horse out of the essence around and headed back to the Academy.