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Reapers



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Thu Feb 23, 2017 7:20 pm
Featherstone says...



RAVEN ÆTHER

I grabbed Anglæcan and ran to the man's aid, slicing at its limbs to free him. What had I gotten myself into? And now I needed help? Ugh.

I swung at the Type 5's arm, swiftly slicing it off and freeing my....savior. Yech.

"In the handbook it said something about a pale spot, like an eye. I think we just need to find that," I said as I dodged a flailing arm.

He simply nodded and sidestepped the ghost's swipe. As the thing targeted him, I darted in with all the speed of a striking adder, slipping my blade through flesh and bone into the creature's side. It roared and spun on me. I turned and ran, racing up my car and vaulting off the roof as it pounced. Now I had its attention.

"Do you see the spot?!" I yelled to the man.

"Behind its shoulder!" he called back. No wonder I couldn't see it- it was running head on towards me.

"Left or right?" Once more I dodged, hitting the ground as it leapt over me. The man was there in moments, swinging his mace as I recovered my feet. As he distracted it he gave me a nod- it was my chance.

I lunged forward, yelling my mantra. "Liberatur inmundissimi spiritus fallendis facesse hinc transire ad vitam in Æthere; et hinc eieci te!" As I said the last word I plunged Anglæcan into the pale, eye-like spot on its shoulder. It screamed and fell, the body turning to dust.

I sheathed my blade and removed my mask, exiting the Grim. "Thanks," I grunted at the man as he did the same. "I'm Raven, Raven Æther."

"Azrael," he said shortly. Wasn't he friendly.

I knew that name. Yes, Ray Mason, more commonly known as Azrael. He often helped the less experienced or flat out unskilled Reapers when they bit off more than they could chew. Like me. At least I hadn't been helped by some random newb or anything.

"You need a ride?" I gestured to my vehicle. "Or do you want to walk to wherever you were going?" As I spoke, Anubus flew back down to my shoulder, content now that the demon was dead.
"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost."


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Sat Feb 25, 2017 9:30 pm
Rydia says...



Ray "Azrael" Mason

"You need a ride?" Raven asked as she gestured to a rusty pickup truck parked a few steps away. "Or do you want to walk to wherever you were going?"

Azrael opened his mouth to tell her that he'd been going to the grim and a car wasn't going to help him get back there, but that was a lot of words which didn't need saying. Instead he nodded as he realised there was somewhere she could take him.

"St Paul's church. If you don't mind."

"I wouldn't have offered if I did," Raven replied as they reached the car ad she opened the door. Azrael followed her in and watched the bird hop off her shoulder and onto the back of the driving seat instead. The bird's blue eyes met Azrael's and they both watched the other uncertainly. "This is Anubus. He's friendly most of the time, though I'm not sure he always likes strangers."

Azrael nodded and decided to keep his distance but at the same time the bird hopped on to a perch built into the passenger seat, clearly having decided that he wasn't going to let some human get between him and his proper place.

"So why the church?" Raven asked. "Do you live near there?"

Azrael shook his head. "Just picking up a bounty."

"Oh." Raven fell silent for a moment but her fingers drummed lightly on the steering wheel in a telltale sign that she had something on her mind. "Do you want help with it? I mean, since you helped with mine because I'm not splitting the fee with you."

The girl seemed friendly but not without a harder edge and Ray couldn't help wondering how long she'd been in the game. Her skills and independent manner seemed to suggest it had been a while but long enough to help with this task?

She had saved his life. She'd been the reason it needed saving admittedly but he was probably still supposed to say thank you. Azrael opened his mouth to express his gratitude but after a moment's hesitation, he somehow found himself saying almost the opposite: "You tried to take on a type five on your own and that kind of move says you're not the team player kind of reaper." As soon as he said it he wanted to take the words back, not necessarily because he didn't mean them, but because he'd meant to say thank you first. This was why it was better to not let himself talk sometimes.

Raven parked the car. Azrael wondered if he'd angered her so much she was ordering him out but then he realsied that they'd reached the church. It was a small, grey stone structure with an arched entrance and a cross on the roof. It wasn't even big enough to have a bell tower. Raven turned off the engine and stepped out.

"Maybe I'd like to learn to be," she said and then shrugged. "Like I said, you're not getting anything for the type five and I don't want you to feel like I owe you a debt."

Ray grinned and nodded and then led the way forward, sliding his mask over his face as he did. Raven followed suit and they walked around the church to the graveyard at the back. The type 3 was easy to find, sitting next to a row of freshly dug graves and the body of the girl it had possessed shivered fiercely but the demon's eyes were intent on the stone slabs.

"A car crash two weeks ago," Azrael explained. "Five teenagers and only one survived." He nodded at the girl and raised his mace. The type 3 finally turned and eyed them warily.

"Leave us alone," it hissed, the tone sounding strange coming from the girl's mouth.

"Can we get it out of her?" Raven wondered. Azrael didn't respond but instead jumped forward and thrust his mace at the girl. She brought her hands up and blocked the blow with inhuman strength but there was a strain in her eyes and Ray could clearly see that she wasn't yet powerful enough to unlock her full demonic strength. Or its full demonic strength since Ray suspected the demon was actually the girl's dead boyfriend.

"Leave us alone!" it howled again.

"Azael, maybe we should try talking to-"

"No," Azrael said bluntly. He pushed more weight behind his mace and swung it again but with a clang of metal, the weapon clashed with Raven's sword.

"But it's only a type 3 and there's two of us. Maybe we can persuade it to un-possess the girl."

Ray knocked her sword aside but didn't strike straight away. Raven took this as an acceptance and backed off a step but then Ray ran at the type 3, brought his mace around for a killing blow and the type 3 tore itself from the girl's body and started to run. Ray's mace changed direction at the last minute and sent the type 3 sprawling to the ground. The girl started sobbing uncontrollably as she regained her senses and fought between compassion and horror for the thing her boyfriend had become.

"He just wants us to be together - please - don't- don't- hurt him."

Azrael ignored the girl's screams and dealt the finishing blow to the type 3. Job done.

"You should take her to the hospital," Ray said.

"Me? We should both go," Raven argued. She helped the girl to her feet and they both took off their masks. Azrael shrugged and followed her back to the pick-up truck since he didn't have any assignments to take care of. This one hadn't been his assignment either - he'd heard about it from another reaper who was having trouble persuading the type 3 to leave the girl's body so he'd decided to take matters into his own hands.

The girl's sobbing diminished once they had her in the back of the car and she curled up on the seat and stared silently out of the window.

"Azrael," Raven demanded his attention,"Did you know it would try to run?"

"No." He wanted to say more: that he'd hoped it would try to flee or that it still held enough feelings for the girl that it would let her go but he knew he'd have killed them both if he had to. Sometimes you had to save the people you could and try not to let the ones you couldn't save haunt your dreams.
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The light shines brightest in the darkest places.





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Sun Feb 26, 2017 5:16 pm
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Featherstone says...



Raven Æther


"So you just would have killed her?" I demanded. Normally I would have gone out of my way to make it look like I didn't care. Now I was too shocked that someone would put the life of an innocent on the line when they were the very thing we fought so hard to protect.

"No!"

"But you didn't know it would run!" The girl in the back was staring at us now with wide, fearful eyes. I wasn't sure how much she was understanding as she was still recovering from shock, but she definitely understood our tone.

"Then I would have moved the mace," he answered shortly.

""Protege purgare liber praecerpens messor aristas sum," I muttered to myself. Just another one of my latin mantras.

Without another word between us we reached the hospital. Not wanting to stay and answer their questions about what happened, I simply picked up the girl, yelled 'emergency', and left once they had her.

Aural stayed in the car. "Were am I to bring you?" I asked him shortly as I got back in. Anubus was giving him a death glare, probably picking up on my emotions, and leaped to my lap as I sat down.
"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost."


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Mon Apr 10, 2017 7:12 pm
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KiraThePotatoChip says...



Sebastian L. Whitecandle


Sebastian groaned, his ears ringing. As his vision came back into focus, he could see something very important was missing.

"Damn it, that's... hurk not good," he coughed, trying to regain his thoughts enough to reform his shroud. He managed to close himself in, but it was too late. The dinner bell was rung. Sebastian could see another reaper near him. He forced himself standing, having closed the large gash that he suffered from being knocked off the roof.

"There's too many of them, we need to carve a path out and run," shouted the nearby reaper. Sebastian growled, forming two black, smokey appendages shaped like blades. His shroud glowed red like it was cracking.

"What's your name?" questioned Sebastian with a lurch towards the demons. The reaper looked at him like he was insane. "I said, what... is... your... name?" shouted Sebastian, swinging his arms down into the shoulders of a nearby type three. The demon wailed as it disintegrated.

"M-Martin..." stuttered the reaper as Sebastian cleaved several small demons in pieces. Sebastian tore a type 1 from his shoulder, hurling it into the ground. His shroud became bulky, almost like armor as his bladelike hands shortened.

"With respect Martin, don't be a wimpy bastard like most other reapers, fight!" yelled Sebastian, reducing the armorlike shroud into a large lance, swinging it through 10 other demons. "Besides, imagine the pay you'll get from exterminating this horde!"

Sebastian got batted to the side by a type 4. He got up, panting heavily. "Join in, and we can ensure we get out of here alive!"

That sent the other reaper off. Within a half hour the horde had been reduced to but a few monsters. Sebastian sighed, leaning against a nearby wall. "All that work won't stop the formation of that type 6..." muttered Sebastian, reducing his weapon into a heavy cloak around his shroud. "Thanks for the assist... maybe there's hope for the new generation of reapers after all. Thought we were a lost cause. You should leave, the influx of demons is going to pick up again in a few minutes. I'm headed back to headquarters to inform my superiors of the type 6," Sebastian said, turning around into a nearby alley, limping away.

Sebastian exited the Grim, leaning on a lampost to check his wound. It had already closed shut, but even for a reaper, healing was slow. "That man on the roof... it could only have been him," Sebastian whispered, making his way to a nearby parking garage slowly. As Sebastian was alone with his thought, heading towards his vehicle, he tried to remember the events of the last incident with the man on the roof. The DDS had a nickname for that man, stupid as it was, it was quite fitting. The Beast of Three Thousand Eyes. Sebastian recalled a discussion from 5 years ago with his then partner.

"The Beast is not a demon, but a devourer of them. Many of our highest ranking reapers have actually consumed demons before, but it's very rare to form any abilities from the process. Theoretically, it is possible for a human to do the same. As far as we know, this Beast is a human, but we must also consider the possibility that he is a reaper, possibly one of our higher ranking ones," repeated Sebastian from memory.

The DDS had attempted to bring this person down before, however many reapers were lost in the process. Sebastian reached his vehicle, and climbed in, speeding off towards the DDS HQ.
Bisexual Disaster, Master Stroke of a human being, may or may not incite a revolution.





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Fri Apr 14, 2017 10:00 am
Rydia says...



Ray "Azrael" Mason

"Where am I to bring you?" Raven asked as she stepped back into the car. Azrael had been thinking about making a run for it - he thought he still might - but there was something he had to say to the girl first. He'd lied. And that wasn't like him. Ray was used to omitting information by just not speaking but Raven's judgement had really got to him earlier and somehow knowing that he'd lied to her was making it even worse. He shouldn't feel this bad about having been prepared to let the girl die - sometimes it happened and the other Reaper needed to understand that too. They all did. They needed to grow hard skins like his so it wouldn't hurt them as much the first time they had to - well, when bad stuff happened.

"Nowhere. I-" Ray closed his eyes and sat back against the car cushion in anguish. He could still feel the bird's eyes glaring at him - maybe the bird already knew?

"I'm going back to HQ to get my bounty. Jump out now if you're not coming with."

Azrael didn't have a reason to go to HQ - he couldn't collect a bounty for killing a demon that hadn't been his problem. He wouldn't feel right about it. HQ was as good a place as any though so he didn't get out either and after a moment, Raven started to drive.

"I would have let her die," Ray forced himself to say. The car filled with an angry silence and he thought about pushing the door open and just throwing himself to the road. Except he wasn't suicidal. At least... not against cars. If he was going out, it would be in the Grim with his mace in hand. "The type 3 would have killed people. Maybe even the reaper who kept trying to help it." Ray didn't know why he felt the need so badly to explain himself - that was more words than he usually said to any reaper. He was used to them thinking of him as cold. He knew what was said about him... how strange that most of them didn't know he'd been just like them before - well before bad stuff happened.

"And a reaper has more right to live than an innocent? Is that it?" Raven demanded. "You think we're superior to them?"

No. We're inferior but one of us, even a soft hearted new blood can keep hundreds of them alive.

It was a numbers game but Ray didn't expect her to understand; people were creatures of passion. You couldn't see beyond that until you'd seen what happened when you let yourself believe that the world could be kind.

"I'm a realist," Ray said quietly.

Raven only snorted and they spent the rest of the ride to HQ in silence. When they got there, an alarm was already ringing through the building and a running reaper informed them that a type 6 was in the making. Raven and Ray fell quickly into stride them.

"Someone brought the message in just ten minutes ago," they explained. "HQ want to send a task force right away - double credits for everyone who helps."

"For everyone who doesn't get killed," Ray growled. Double credits would lure in reapers who weren't ready for the job. From Raven's scowl it seemed on this point they might actually agree.
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~Previously KittyKatSparklesExplosion15~

The light shines brightest in the darkest places.








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