I'll Fly.

@ sun spirit

Rennyn fell back quite a distance to ensure that the demon fast approaching would definitely be attracted by Leilah before himself. He stood in an elevated position, up on a second floor of sorts. It wasn't long after he'd settled here that darkness fell, and the other demon was making its entrance. Rennyn stayed low, but made sure he had a few, somewhat anticipating an interesting fight.

Instead, a large blast of light blinded Rennyn momentarily. When finally his vision returned, he'd heard Leilah's frustrated tone echoing off the walls. Looking around, Rennyn found only ash on the ground--Leilah must really have incinerated the other. Rennyn blinked quietly for a few moments, unsure if this was really what had happened, but yes... it appeared to be true. Leilah had finished the other off in record time.

A light bubble of laughter spilled past his lips, though it sounded suspiciously apprehensive, nervous. However, he quickly cleared his throat and straightened his expression, sure that he'd had some sort of wide-eyed dumb look on his face and was not about to admit to it.

"That was certainly faster than expected," Rennyn commented, hopping over the railing and landing easily in a crouch on the bottom floor. He kept his distance from Leilah still, even though he'd secured his own safety for the time being, he was unsure what this meant for them going forward. He decided to get straight to the point, then.

"Now what?" he asked her, avoiding looking at the pile of ash on the ground, "Pretty sure that guy was out here for a reason, and as I said your aura is a little... obnoxious. You'll want to be on the defensive for a while in case anyone notices he's gone." Though he doubted anyone cared particularly about the demon himself, Leilah would be a very interesting target. He'd seen for himself that she was capable, but what if the next demon, or the one after, or the one after that was someone much more powerful?

Not that he cared. He wasn't necessarily interested in keeping her out of trouble. He was more interested in understanding what that demon was looking for. If more showed up, that meant either Leilah really made a big impact, or they would be coming to replace the one that died. Only time would tell.

@ Yuurei.

What Leilah had hoped would be a chance to redeem herself and show that the demon really was no match for her instead not only disappointed both herself and Valoel, who felt cheated of its chance to draw demon blood and returned itself back to heaven in a huff, but also left her confused. All she’d done for so long was practice. She’d been able to blind an opponent effectively before she was strong enough to hold a sword. Why had the demon instead gone up in fire? His death meant little to her—she’d planned on killing him anyway, as she’d been taught—but though she’d known he was less skilled and less powerful than the angels that had taught her, whom she’d seriously sparred with, that had been too easy.

It was one thing to be praised for your ability by those who could best you, to fight to raise yourself to be their equal and be told that the best trained you, and even to know others were weaker. It was another to realize just how wide the gap was.

She was frowning at the ash of the demon when nervous laughter drew her attention, and she turned to find Rennyn approaching. She’d almost forgotten about him—something she berated herself for—and realized the demon aura that had bothered her before was now hardly felt. She supposed that was one drawback to having her abilities back: she’d have to put some effort into noticing his aura now. He seemed warier of her now; given the plans he liked to make though, she didn’t let it make her feel too secure.

“Valoel was disappointed too. I’ll have to apologize profusely and make a promise of blood before it’ll let me summon it again,” Leilah sighed as she turned towards the demon and took off the damn helmet that she’d worn, not that it had done her any good. It wasn’t her head that had got knocked around. At least her scratches had already healed with the return of her light, and she wouldn’t have to worry about her fragile mortal body.

Rennyn asked a good question though… She’d made a deal with a demon and killed a demon. No red-faced angels had appeared yet, but she was sure they wouldn’t fail to notice what she’d done or what her decisions meant for herself, much less what sort of ground she stood on with the demon she’d temporarily allied herself with. Distanced surveillance again? She couldn’t just kill him, and it was doubtful that he’d make an attempt unless he managed to think up some way of ensuring that he’d win.

“You keep commenting on my aura as if I can do anything about it. Now that I have my powers back, this is how it is,” Leilah responded with a shrug. “If all demons are as weak as he is, it won’t matter much if they get close and sense me anyway.” It didn’t occur to her that her light might be felt over strong distances or that it might’ve attracted unwanted notice.

She crossed her arms. “I still don’t know what I’m here for, so it’s probably safe to assume I’ll be here for awhile longer, so where does this leave the two of us?” She made a nod to the black marking on her arm. “I assume that’s permanent and something we’ll both get in trouble for.”

@ sun spirit

Rennyn snorted at Leilah's response, it was interesting that she was so willing to live with her shortcomings, considering the type of person she seemed to be. He wondered if it was confidence or naivety. Probably both. "That demon was nothing compared to those who might show up if you don't at least attempt to make measures to conceal it. If I were you, I'd get on learning." He shrugged, as if his words weren't really intended to be advice--because it really didn't matter if she died, as much as Rennyn was eyeing that soul of hers, his own life was more important. That was the most concerning part of all this--he'd definitely made his mark on her, and it was only a matter of time for someone to find out, with no telling if it would be friend or foe to him. But most demons didn't like Rennyn, so the odds weren't in his favor.

"That depends entirely on who found out about it," Rennyn replied honestly. Someone significantly high up wouldn't be bothered by something so trivial, but not everyone would be willing to let it go. In the end, it left Rennyn with relatively little choice but to keep an eye out, both for trouble and for Leilah. If only for his own sake. "I have a feeling there's more to my being here as well, and with my current inability to make any headway on the task I was given explicitly, that leaves you and I at somewhat of a standstill. Tentative allies, I would say for the time being. I'll stay out of your way assuming you stay out of mine. I am a little suspicious of that demon, and I'd like to find out more about why he was here. Hopefully it was nothing important..." but it was that intuition of Rennyn's again that made him wary.

If the demon's task was trivial, they'd be fine. But if it was something important... well, they'd find that out soon.

@ Yuurei.
(I JUST REALIZED. Leilah’s light is going to save her career as a waitress xDD she’ll still be bad, but because of the way her light affects people, no one will care)

Leilah narrowed her eyes at Rennyn’s snort, though she wasn’t entirely sure what he thought was wrong with what she’d said. Maybe at the idea of apologizing to a weapon? As far as she knew, demons didn’t have any equivalent of the Celestial Armory. He wouldn’t understand the consciousness each weapon held, how it had the power to choose who could wield it, much less that Valoel was one of the best weapons and notoriously picky. She’d be an idiot not to apologize and do whatever possible to return to its good graces.

“Good. Killing another demon as weak as him would be disappointing. A challenge will keep my skills from dulling while I’m here,” Leilah responded. Besides, as far as she knew, there wasn’t a way to conceal her light. It certainly wasn’t anything she’d ever been taught or heard mentioned as something she might need to know one way.

More concerning was the way her powers hadn’t responded in the way she’d wanted. She didn’t want to bring it up around Rennyn though. Their agreement meant she couldn’t use them on him anyway, but he could just as easily give any weaknesses of hers that he saw to someone else. She’d test it out and get to the bottom of what was happening on her own. He’d already heard her say something about blinding the demon earlier, but maybe he’d just think it was a fluke and that she’d just used too much power after getting her light back. No reason to let him know that she suspected it was something else.

“Good to know.” Since she knew for certain that she would have trouble once her mentors found out what she’d done, Leilah could only assume Rennyn was acknowledging the fact that there might be trouble from demons as well. She wasn’t sure what sort of repercussions might be associated with that—heavens, she wasn’t sure any angel in history had agreed to a demon mark before her—but it didn’t hurt to be prepared for the possibility that she’d be caught up in it. She certainly wouldn’t be surprised if the demon received a visit from an angel before the week was out.

“Well, neither of us can exactly make a move against the other. Since you seem to think more demons are inevitable in this area, how about this? If either of us senses another one, we tell the other, and you can trick the demon into attacking me again, at which point I take care of the problem. I get to keep my skills sharp and do what I was trained to, you keep other demons out of your business, and we reduce the chances of running into problems about the mark on your end of things.”

Leilah couldn’t believe she was planning on continuing to work with Rennyn, but it seemed like the smarter option for them both at the moment.

@ sun spirit

(I feel like I wrote this a little different, but I really tried to move us forward to the next arc I guess, hopefully it isn't too bad. Basically zero dialogue hehhh.. I also hope you don't mind the bit about how Rennyn feels Leilah's power, it just felt like it made sense, it doesn't affect too much I don't think)

Rennyn agreed with Leilah's straightforward plan, unable to think of what else they could even do given their circumstances, and awkwardly waved a goodbye to her, setting off to his own place of residence. His body felt dirty, despite having worked a lot less than his temporary cohort, so he decided to take a cold shower as soon as he arrived in, sun long gone by the time he finished. The human-like limitations of his disguise made the exhaustion feel overwhelming, and he wanted to take it off so that he could stay up the rest of the night and think on the day's events--plan more, maybe even go back out to try and see if he could find anything out or catch wind of what they'd done reaching anyone else's ears. However he wasn't capable at the moment of fully dropping the disguise. The one who'd put it on him had intentionally made it very powerful, and it could only drop if he exerted enough demonic energy--of which, he had very little of at the moment, considering how much he'd used while making the deal with Leilah. He wondered how long it would take to recharge, and figured that sleeping would, at the very least, pass the time quicker so he might be better equipped for whatever the morning might bring.

Nothing really happened in the next few days. Rennyn kept an eye on Leilah, less because he thought she might do something and more because if anything happened he wanted to know as soon as possible. He assumed she was doing much the same, and they seemed to take turns on occasion passing just near enough to one another to check on the other's area. While he couldn't speak for Rennyn, the mark he'd given Leilah had made her much easier to sense, not that her enormous beacon of an aura had made that difficult in the first place, he could tell now that something had changed--as if he could tell the ebb and flow of her power. He hadn't had the chance to test his theory, but he felt this may be attributed to the hole he'd made in her barrier and what he was experiencing was probably the actual fluctuations of her angelic powers--that if she were to expend more, he'd know exactly how much. He wasn't sure this was useful to him at all, but it was somewhat helpful from the perspective of knowing what was going on with her, and he took comfort knowing that if she needed to use her power to defend herself, he'd know and be able to get back to her relatively quickly. It wasn't nice in almost any other aspect, though.

As the days passed uneventfully, Rennyn almost started to feel... okay. He never felt "safe" in the normal sense of the word, but he was feeling somewhat less on edge. No one had come for them. No angels were stabbing him in his sleep, no demons digging clawed hands into his chest. Everything was okay. But things always seem to go wrong precisely when they start to feel right, and that is exactly what happened.

The day had been uneventful. Rennyn had gone out to make money, passed by Leilah's work, patrolled around looking for anything out of the ordinary, and then gone home at the end of the day. He fell asleep early, before the sun even set, as he normally liked to go out at night as well. But Rennyn awoke from his sleep prematurely, breathing deeply and staring at the ceiling trying to figure out what had woken him. He looked at the clock, it was only 11 and night, and Rennyn had planned to sleep another hour at least before getting up to go about his routine. Instead, something filled his body with dread. It was heavy and thick, not because it was powerful but because there was... a lot. And it was everywhere. They were all over. He could feel some of them close together, and some far apart. Something wasn't right. There were demons, a dozen or so, maybe more, all over the city.

He sat up quickly, pulling on whatever clothing was nearby. He was sure Leilah could feel it as well, didn't think he'd need to waste time going to tell her. A single demon would be easy to miss, especially with her own aura that was likely capable of blocking out anything that wasn't already nearby, but this was more than even she could block out. Something was going on, and he was sure they weren't here about the death of one, weak demon. He was soon out the door, heading out towards the nearest source he could sense, keeping tabs on Leilah as he went. He hoped she had a similar idea, but if she didn't he wanted to know where she would be going as well. There was rushing head first into this one, Rennyn just hoped they weren't there for them.

@ Yuurei.
(Mine's a little weird too lol but I'm a bit out of practice with Leilah too. Hopefully this is an okay transition! And yeah, I think it makes perfect sense! I also had Leilah be able to sense him enough to tell him apart from other demons, but I figure that's just because they're connected, and she can't feel much more than what I mentioned. Definitely not as much as he can)

Life didn’t quite return to normal after parting ways with Rennyn, but in some ways, it was less awful. Access to her powers relaxed Leilah, and without a human disguise forced upon her, she felt lighter. Well, without a full disguise. She managed to keep enough of one to hide her wings and the light that would literally emanate from her normally, to sort of subdue things, but she wasn’t fully human.

But then again, there were definite drawbacks to having her powers back too.

Constant paranoia, for one. She felt like she was constantly waiting for someone to notice and punish her. What that punishment would be, she had no idea. She’d never heard of an angel making a deal with a demon before.

There was also the fact that she couldn’t hide the mark on her forearm, no matter how she tried. Short of covering it with cloth of some kind, it refused any attempts. She wasn’t familiar enough with demon marks to know for sure, but she halfway suspected it was intentional, to throw her decision in her face and mess with her. It seemed like the sort of thing Rennyn would do. And she hated that she was familiar enough with a demon to know something like that.

Then there was the way people seemed to flock to her. It made her job easier, which she’d been struggling at before, but she didn’t want humans fawning over her constantly and had taken to keeping strange hours to keep interactions with them to a minimum.

Meanwhile, she kept tabs on the demon she’d entered into a truce with, who she suspected was doing the same with her though they never met with each other, and she waited for the peace to break.

But when it did, it wasn’t from the source she’d expected, nor did she think it was related to the death of one demon. For so many demons to suddenly appear, it had to be something bigger: an angel and a demon entering into a contract with each other, maybe?

Leilah’s immediate thought was to get out of the cluster of demons so they wouldn’t have the opportunity to close in on her and surround her. She wasn’t sure she could even feel them all, and she didn’t know if she could take them all on. The last demon had been easy, with her powers, but she didn’t know the power level of these.

Strangely, she realized she could tell Rennyn apart from the others, although she quickly realized that he seemed to be heading to one near him. Following him was a tempting idea, but she’d alert the demons well before she could get anywhere near them, so she retreated instead, getting away from the demons—hopefully far enough that they wouldn’t be able to feel her aura—and waited.

It might take time, but she knew Rennyn would eventually seek her out with information about whatever the hell was happening. While she waited, she’d just have to try and think of how she’d take on so many demons.

@ sun spirit
(I was too lazy to go back and re-read EVERYTHING but I did have to go back and look at what we were planning to do here lol. I didn’t remember at all.
Also sorry if I didn't give you too much to work with. I just wasn't sure I wanted to continue all the way until Rennyn got back to Leilah. If you can't come up with much its cool)

Rennyn headed in the direction of the nearest demonic energy source at his present top speed, or at least the top speed he could produce while still being stealthy. Rennyn’s heavy reliance on general agility over strength made this fairly second nature, so it did not take him long to appear nearby. When he arrived, the demon he’d been tracking had met up with a second, and they were continuing on their way in another direction—towards a growing mass of others. These demonic energies actually did not feel particularly strong, but the quantities pooled together and made them pretty hard to miss for anyone even somewhat sensitive to it.

Rennyn didn’t dare to follow too closely, so he could not hear whatever they might be discussing, but his idea was that once they arrive at the destination, the concentration of demonic energy would conceal his own pretty well—why would a random small demon’s energy stand out among a group of them? He imagined he could even walk straight into the gathering if he could be more certain that these demons didn’t know every attendant by face.

As he followed, he stretched out his senses for Leilah, finding that she’d retreated in the opposite direction. Well, that was probably a good thing in any case. If this did have anything to do with her, she wouldn’t exactly be able to hide herself like Rennyn… particularly with that overbearing aura of hers that she had yet to figure out how to manage.

After some minutes of consistent running, the two demons met up with the gathering. It had already grown past a dozen, climbing towards twenty or more now at a glance. Rennyn decided to wait longer to get in close, attempting his best to hear what he could from his very inconspicuous spot in a sparse sidewalk tree. There was a cellar attached to the building they crowded around, just down the side alley, and surprisingly it was one Rennyn recognized.

While Rennyn had explored much of the city in boredom, this particular location was one he scoped in interest because the cellar of this building was used for the gatherings of a rather fanatical demonic cult. Of course, they were nothing more than humans who mindlessly worshiped dark things and had no real idea of what they were toying with. Even so, it seemed Rennyn was not the only demon to find this place fascinating, and quite suitable for a demonic meetup. He laughed internally.

As the last members arrived, the demons moved into the alley and opened the cellar with ease—he was curious about how the little demon worshipers would feel when they saw their cellar lock broken though.

When they’d all disappeared inside, Rennyn approached. Playing it safe, he decided to stay outside, pressing his ear to the cellar door. Unfortunately, even with his more advanced senses, this was not wholly practical or efficient, and he had difficulty hearing. He caught snippets of conversation like “this city” and “definitely has to be,” making him furrow his eyebrows in frustration. What was in this city, and what had to be? A shiver of worry snaked down his spine. Could they be talking about Leilah? Did they really know about the pact? There was an uproar of jeering and some laughter, and Rennyn used the moment to lift the cellar door just a sliver, releasing more of the sound out into the open air. A voice bellowed over the din, quieting it down.

“My fellows, this will be our city. This is where we will—” his speech was cut off abruptly, and Rennyn had a very bad feeling. “Someone is eavesdropping. A little angelic presence is near…”

A what?! Leilah was miles away already, and there was certainly no other presence nearby but him…

“Shit.” He muttered quietly, picking himself off the ground and sprinting out of the alley. For this first burst, he didn’t care how much demonic energy he expelled, hoping to gain distance before he would then drop it all and blend incognito. He felt the mass of demons scrambling behind him, which was… not a good thing. However, Rennyn truly had confidence in his speed, even in this form, and he knew that the demons behind him likely would not drop their own limited forms either to remain undetected by anyone in the underworld who might be monitoring their movements on earth. He was sure they weren’t meant to be here, so they could only have either done so in secret, or were already in other places in the human realm and gathered together this night.

Idiot. He was an idiot for thinking they might be onto him and Leilah. And now, it was most likely his pact with Leilah that gave him away. What other angelic aura could be around to expose him? The level of her aura on him couldn’t be that strong at all, he figured the head demon had to be extremely sensitive in order to notice.

But there wasn’t much time for regretting now. He had to lose their tail before he could go and find Leilah again. She would want to know what was going on, and the small amount of information he had managed to obtain.