(That was cool Ruane! Much more than I expected you to do to him XD)

He was on the ground... again...this time in much more pain than before.

When was she capable of doing that?

Leo sat back up slowly, the static of her energy still on his body, he looked over to the woman but the dream had dissipated. This time he saw her for who she was and realized his grave error. This wasn't Faith, she is dead and there was no way she would of been here in the first place.

Ignoring the incredible pain he was in, he got back on his feet. His past washed over him like a wave of the sea, memories flooding his conscious. Looking over at the woman, she looked like a fierce tigress waiting to strike again if he dared made a move, but he didn't care what she did to him next.

The gunner was more than upset, but not at her, at himself for fooling himself so easily, his eye had told him the truth earlier but her refused to believe it. Faith wouldn't have such an aura in the first place. Now he had to vent out his frustration.

Leo raised his revolver and aimed straight at the woman, more precisely her head it seemed. Pulling the trigger, three of his standard munitions flew from the barrel and went straight for her...or so it seemed. The three bullets zipped right past her, only about an inch away from her head, and headed straight for the whatever he had sensed earlier.

I gotta say buddy, you picked the wrong day for a walk on the beach

"......I mistook you for someone else, but I will admit this... you were prettier in my imagination." this of course directed at the woman in front of him.

Leo was never a gentleman, and he always picked the worst time to not behave like one.

Raphael cared little for what went on between the two mortals, he only wanted the male. He could smell the demonic taint on him, the blood-lust descended heavily upon Raphael. The mortal had experienced a fresh burst of pain, and Raphael's muscles rejoiced. He was close enough to absorb it directly, but he wanted more. The strength of his life force washed over him, Raphael would be denied no longer.

The man raised his weapon and fired, but Raphael was not unduly troubled. He carried on relentlessly, two of the bullets thudding into his helmet and visor, jerking his head back violently, even when the third ruptured his cheek, he only paused momentarily. He raised a hand covered by a heavy black gauntlet to his mouth and extricated the bullet. He threw it behind him and it landed on the sand with a soft thump.


He sucked in another lungful of air; a foul, somehow malignant sound, and laughed at the futile effort to stop him. He put on a burst of speed, charging into the pair, hoping to bring at least one of them down.

Soon, soon, he told himself, soon he'd be powerful again, and tainted man would help him.

((Hey Monsters! I've got a demonic taint as well!)

Meirion observed her handiwork and was disappointed to note that the guy didn't end up in the sea. She raised an eyebrow as the man picked himself up and aimed his weapon at her head. They were all dead targets anyway, although it was very close. Too close for comfort.

She narrowed her eyes at his statement, but had to admit that it made sense. Ruane didn't give a monkey's arse whether she was prettier in his imagination or not. However, the anger was still boiling inside her, sealing the fact that she couldn't let this slide. If it meant a war, so be it.

If the bullets weren't meant for her, it must have headed for the other creature. Meirion turned around and saw that it caused him no damage. Further more, it seemed to be moving faster and heading straight towards them.

Well, if he wanted the man, the man was all his. Far as she could tell, the figure didn't want anything to do with her. Just to be on the safe side, Meirion started running to create a bigger space between the two.

The woman took off running, Raphael smiled to himself, he would deal with her later. Right now, his primary target was the man. He loped towards the man, unfurling his skeletal wings to make himself seem more imposing. The were not the off-white color normal, aged bones were, they bore a dark purple hue, and were covered with an thin layer of dark slime. Here and there moss had tried to colonize it, but they too fell victim to the demon's terrible power of cprruption. They had withered into dark patches of slime.

He liked to play with his food.

The sand ensured he wasn't moving at top speed, but the man still seemed disorientated, an easy target. He swept his wings forward, hoping he would make direct skin contact and his magic would start to rot the human alive.

(Writer's block. D'=)

All spark and no backbone to go with it

Leo watched as the crazy thunder lady ran away, leaving him to deal with the behemoth that moved steadily toward him. He still couldn't believe that his bullets didn't have any kind of effect on the monster, he just shoved them off like annoying insect bites. But something was wrong with the gunner now, an emotion that he hadn't felt in a long time had now slowly stirred into his being.

Leo's legs began to tremble, feeling like jelly as the creature moved ever so closer towards him. Something about the monster made it hard for him to breath, as though his presence were crushing his whole being. Feeling more disoriented than ever, Leo once again shot out the remaining cylinder but the bullets flew right past his target with not even an effort of trying to hit him.

The hell is wrong with me?!

Now he saw that his right hand was shaking and the gun with it. Underneath the bandages, the arm was twitching involuntarily making it appear as though something was trying to break free. Not realizing the horror that masked his face now, Leo rushed into his coat pocket and tried to reload his gun as quickly as he could but to no avail. The demon was upon Leo, his great shadow blanketing him.

He had only managed to fit three bullets into the cylinder before the demon lunged out at him. Without thinking about it, the gunner had tossed the gun to his left hand and used his cursed hand to make contact with the demon, hoping to stop it from overwhelming him. But that was a grave mistake...

A new pain filled his arm and it was so great that he couldn't move it away from the cold black armor of the monster fearing that it would break off if he did. Leo was blinded by pain, all his senses seemed to have shutdown, the gunner wasn't even aware that he was screaming.

Standing still a couple of metres away, Meirion widened her eyes at the figure’s wings. The colour was an unusual one, covered with some kind of muck. She shivered unconsciously at the sight.

The Professor pulled her gaze away from the figure and focused her attention on the man. Meirion winced as his scream echoed around the tranquil place. She didn't want to look but felt as if she was compelled to.

Some time passed before a haziness entered her vision. The screaming continued in the background as she considered her possibilities. She could leave him to rot, literally, or she could save him. It was in her nature to do good, which meant stopping his torment. However what he did...

She shook her head, no, her pride was nothing to this. It wouldn’t be right if she left him there to suffer alone. True, what he did to her was bad, but nothing to deserve this. Nobody deserved this.

Closing her eyes, Ruane concentrated. Blue light soon erupted from under her lids as she spread her invulnerability shield. It snaked through the distance smokily before reaching the man’s feet. Taking shape, the barrier began to separate the creature and the man, growing in size to fully protect his body. The shield glistened in and out of focus before welding itself to fit around the man perfectly. Arm and all.

As Meirion opened her eyes, the colour once brown turned to a lightning blue. She walked towards them slowly until she was a metre away. Tilting her head with puzzlement, the Professor looked at the creature with interest. As her right hand was preoccupied with holding the shield steady, she used her left hand to generate an orb of light.

The intensity of the orb grew until a spectrum of colours could be seen. It hovered in between them, leaning slightly towards the figure. "You'd be better off leaving the guy alone," Meirion said quietly.

The bullets didn't even faze him, in fact, the human seemed to be having some slight difficulty with his aim. He smiled to himself; it looked as if the fear was setting in. The fear was always their undoing. It led to rash actions and carelessness. He was almost upon him now, and he could see the horror clearly painted across his face; the trembling of his body. Another listless volley of shots flew past and the man was actually screaming now, Raphael was almost trembling with expectation.

The human had made his first, and perhaps last fatal error-he reached out touch Raphael. He was about use his wings to envelop him in a deathly embrace when he noticed the shimmering. Raphael took a step back in surprise at the barrier that was slowly pouring it's way around his prey. His surprise quickly turned to anger as he realised what was happening, he was being foiled.

He had misjudged; he should have gone after the woman first. He staggered backwards as she created a bright orb of light, retreating even further as the intensity grew. He grimaced in pain; the light was hurting his eyes. He took a defiant step forward as she spoke, frustrated at her interference.

He sucked another lungful of air through his mouth, making a slight whistling through the hole in his cheek, and spoke slowly, forming every word carefully. "You...have nothing...to do with this...human." He made another slow sucking sound. "You...would do well...to leave."

Meirion narrowed her eyes and vanquished the light without a sound. They were immediately clothed in darkness, one of Meirion's weaknesses. Well... at least the creature stepped back, which was a bonus.

She could hear his rasping breath and wondered where he came from. "What's your name?" The Professor asked out of the blue. It was better to be on first terms, than calling him "it".

After hearing his words, Meirion shook her head slowly, "How do you not know I have nothing to do with this human?" she murmured.

To his next statement, Meirion nearly laughed. "I think it is you who would do well to leave," she retorted coolly without thought.

Although Meirion didn't want to admit this aloud, the creature was slightly getting on her nerves. Getting on her nerves in numerous ways. A little threat, a little warning, would do no one harm if it bided her more time. She was prepared to fight until the end if she needed to...

Leo opened his eyes, as though waking from a dream. There was a field perfectly fit around him. The demon had changed its direction and now faced the woman making threats.

He noticed her hand was held up aiming in his direction.

Is she the one doing this?

A slight hint of guilt from earlier filled his heart. Most women he accidently harrassed would just do the old fashioned hit and run. This one was a saint if she had put that incedent aside to save him.

What a gal...

But his thought was cut off when he felt the tremor under his bandages. He glanced at his shielded arm to find what looked like an earthquake undernearth going on underneath the skin. Feeling the pain for the first time he clutched his arm and slumped to the ground once again. Blood began to tear down from under his eyepatch, the cursed eye pulsing underneath. Tearing off the eyepatch, he felt the eye was vibrating like a heartbeat, the black veins slowly erupting from the socket to cover his face oncemore.

Leo screamed again when one of his bones erupted and tore his bandages. The devil's hammer was changing and Leo didn't have the strength to hold it back.

All this for an illusion?! he thought remembering what he had done earlier. The gunner had never used his eye to that extent before and now he was paying the price. There was no going back now...

While bone and flesh continued to morph in his arm, Leo had one more sane thought before he would be moved aside from his demon. Clutching his gun as hard as he could he tossed it as far as possible toward the woman. It landed a few feet away from her, "SHOOT ME!"

That was the last thing he said, before the arm had finished its horrid manifestation of destruction. The bones had morped into horrid gun barrels sticking out of random places on his arm, while tainted black flesh wrapped around them. The red iris rose from within the black depths of his eye socket, making a couple of rotating motions before finally focusing straight ahead of him.

Seeing that he was still inside the barrier, Leo had pointed his arm downward and let loose an explosion of fire from the main gun barrel that stuck forward from where his hand should of been. Leo got up slowly from the ground, staggering a bit from his own attack.

He pointed the devil hammer at the two in front of him.

"Who wants to burn first?" Leo said in his big scary demon voice.

Raphael stared at the woman, she was brave standing up to him like this, he would take his time with this one. He would have her last. He laughed and her, slow and deep, rasping slightly with each exhale of breath. she was panicking, buying time.

"Raphael, it was the name given to me by the ones I once served. Now, it is a name for you to fear." He drew in another breath, and laughed at the woman. He stood firm at her taunt, he'd not leave until he had at least had the man. She had extinguished the light- good. Raphael worked best in the gloom. He stretched his wings, the bones clacking over each other an drops of malignant slime hitting the sand, subtly trying to wrap them around himself and the humans; but the scream from the man caught his attention, and he turned his head to stare in the direction at the horror before him.

He could sense the pain- it radiated in waves from this man, but rather than seize his chance as he should have done, he watched, fascinated despite himself as the demonic taint he had identified in the man spread like a disease through his body. His tongue tasted the air before him as the man pleaded with the woman to shoot him- perhaps they had a connection after all.


That mattered little at the moment- the demon that had been roused made it's first threat; and Raphael would not stand around waiting to see if he would make good. He stepped back, angling his wing downward and swept it forward into the man/demon, charging it with power. It hit the barrier that meddling woman had erected around him, the point of impact releasing a dark blue light as his attack was repelled. He stepped backwards withdrawing both his wings to him, furling them behind him.

His lip rose into a grimace. Humans can be such annoyances, he though to himself. His 'easy' meal had just flown out of the proverbial window. It just wasn't his evening. He'd need to think quickly to get this one, but he vowed that only one would leave with their 'lives' tonight. It was going to be him.