Colin's posts

Azazel looked at Rylie as she came out of the shower, and bit his lip slightly.

'...if I hadn't met Aedan first...' he started to think, before shaking his head.

"Ah, yes." he said.

"Well, you answered my first question with that statement you made." he told her.

"So, onto the second one. Would you be interested in fixing up another bike?" he asked her.

"Alyssa, the arcane mage that joined the Unit recently, was in a bit of a... well..." he muttered, before stopping and sighing. "She got dragged to hell, and she was riding her bike while it happened. Meaning the bike ended up in a smidgen of an accident with a tree." he explained.

"And even through the Unit, insurance can get REAL pissy and hard to work with when supernatural things start getting involved. Trying to find red tape loopholes in 'acts of God' and blah blah bullshit." he grumbled.

"Mind seeing if you can fix it up for her? I'll compensate, of course." he added.

Ryker suddenly felt some thoughts in his head.

Thoughts that were... simplistic, to say the least.

"Hm." he mumbled.

"I see." he said.

"So what you're saying is that the presence of this dragon endangers you." he commented.

"If the dragon weren't here... then you'd be fine, yeah?" he then asked.

Azazel sat down on the couch she had, and nodded.

"All right." he said.

"Sure thing, thanks." he told her.

With that, she disappeared into the bathroom, and he started to hear water running.

He looked in the mini fridge, and noticed some cans of beer.

"....screw it, after what's happened, I could use some." he muttered, taking a can out and sitting back down to wait for her to finish.

"Oh...!" Azazel exclaimed lightly.

"I didn't mean to interrupt you." he said.

"I wanted to discuss something with you, but it might take a bit." he muttered.

"If you want, I can wait until after your shower." he told her.

"Because... whatever happened, it couldn't have been pleasant, considering your ribbon seems to be MIA." he then commented.

"Uh?" Levi muttered.

"Um... yeah, all right, sure." he said.

"Sure, I got nothing going on." he told her.

"I'll grab a quick shower after you." he said.

After a few hours, at the Unit HQ, Azazel made his way to a dorm door, and knocked on it.

"Hey, Rylie?" he called in.

"It's me, Azazel. Got a minute?"

"Uh... you okay?" Levi asked her.

However, before she answered, a crumpled piece of paper was thrown through the closing portal, mere moments before it closed itself completely.

"Huh?" Levi muttered, picking it up and looking at it, uncrumpling it slightly.

"Oh, it's for you." he said, handing it to her.

When Aly accepted it, she saw it was a note from Azazel.

Call me if, tomorrow, you still can't get the Hell out of you. was all it said, and it had Azazel's cell phone number on it.

To Levi, the message would be confusing nonsense, but Aly would know what it meant.

Azazel paused for a moment, thinking about it.

"Hmmm." he mumbled.

"Yeah. Yeah, I bet I could come up with something." he said.

"I'll let you know soon." he told her.

With that, he created a portal in a nearby wall, and Aly could see Levi on the other side of it, looking VERY confused and concerned.

"Through it, ya go." Azazel said.

"The sooner, the better."

"All right then." Azazel responded.

"I'll get a portal ready on the quick-fast." he told her.

"Gimme a sec." he then said, as he started prepping.

As he did, Cerberus nudged Aly's back slightly, whining lightly... though, considering the size of the canine, the whine was decently loud.

"Heh, guess he doesn't want you to go." Azazel laughed.

"An elder ice dragon?" Ryker asked.

"What... is there a difference?" he asked him, looking skyward once more.

"And how do you know it might be an elder?" he asked further.

He was wondering what was going on... why was Eke as scared as he was?

And why was the shard embedded in his chest starting to pulse lightly?

The demon crawled over towards her, and as soon as he was close enough, she felt the ties that kept them together 'reattach' themselves.

And as soon as they did, his influence surrounded her, giving her a MUCH stronger shield than Azazel had been giving her. Granted, she wasn't completely protected, and it was still only a matter of time before she was mentally broken, but it had slowed down considerably.

Azazel, having paid the demons, made his way back to the pair.

"Now YOU owe ME." he told the demon.

"300 O-Cores isn't exactly chump change." he growled.

"...." the demon was silent, and Azazel shook his head.

"Right, Alyssa, ready to go home?" he then asked Aly.

Azazel was silent, and then sighed.

"Yeah, yeah." he said.

He then flicked his wrist, and a large sack appeared beside him. He reached in dug through it, and then produced three strange rock-like spheres, with holes in them. And through the holes, it looked like there was a deep red substance glowing inside.

"Here." he told her.

"Three Red Cores." he said.

"That should more than suffice." he sighed, as Aly's partner started to crawl over towards her.

"Don't tell me you care about THIS little turd." one of them said, pointing to their target.

"I don't." Azazel responded.

"The debts that come back to haunt him are his own business, not mine." he said.

"However, when a personal friend of mine..." he went on, gesturing to Aly. "...is harmed in the process, I MAKE it my business." he told them.

"Also, Cerberus has taken a liking to her." he continued.

"And if we can't reach an arrangement where they can re-attach themselves, and she can return home to the surface, they might not like it." he added, as the canine heads glared at the demons.

Azazel had Cerberus stop relatively close to them, and had the canine lay down, putting its heads down and allowing the riders to slide down onto the ground.

"Yo." Azazel greeted them, after clearing his throat.

"What?" one of the demons responded, clearly unimpressed.

"Oh, just wondering what it is that HE owes you." Azazel said, gesturing to Aly's 'partner'.

"What do you care!?" the same demon snapped.

"I care because when you dragged him down here to collect, you ALSO brought down the human partner that he had attached himself to." Azazel responded.

"And while this situation is, admittedly, in a very grey area in terms of what's allowed and what isn't... with the status I have with the higher ups, I could, in theory, escalate this." he explained.

"Not that I will, for sure." he quickly clarified. "But I want to know why you dragged him down here." he said.

"...he owes us 300 Orange Cores." one of them said, referring to a type of 'currency' among demons.

"For the love of..." Azazel growled, before looking at the female that seemed to be 'in charge'.

"If I give it to you, will you consider the debt closed?" he asked her.

Ryker held Eke close in response, and made sure he knew he was there. If nothing else, he wanted to be something solid, something Eke KNEW was there, and could count on.

"Woah, woah, kid." he said.

"Easy, there." he told him.

"You don't need to answer me, I was just asking." he assured him further.

"Just focus on breathing, and keeping it regulated."