Oliver wasn’t entirely sure how he’d gotten there, but he was currently face-down on a very unyielding, rough surface. The sound of tires on the road grated not seven inches in front of his nose, something he was finally able to focus on as his world slowly stopped spinning. Before his brain had fully settled back into its customary space in his skull, a pair of firm, deceptively strong hands had roughly yanked him to his feet, then began to lightly smack the dirt from his shirt. Her brushes were hardly aggressive, but Oliver felt keenly aware of the contact; right until he saw the faint disgust and deep exasperation on her face. The tops of his cheeks flushed and he stared to the side, a little embarrassed. A true lady on his arm, and he had tried to chase a dog through traffic instead. “I’m… I’m sorry, you don’t have to - ”<br/><br/>Mid-murmur, the classy redhead froze, then turned a face of what could only be described as barely-contained, enraged shock back toward the bottom of the narrow stairs. She dropped her hands and stiffly flew back down, leaving the puzzled young mortal to stare after her, belatedly remembering the recent news of someone being ‘after him’. Half-formed questions mingled with the sounds of lessening traffic and chatter on the dark streets, and after a few minutes he approached the top of the stairs.<br/><br/>The polite demon (Oliver still found his eyes latched to his horns before anything else) appeared to be staring dazedly at the wall right outside the front entrance.<br/><br/><br/>-----<br/><br/><br/>L paused uncharacteristically for a moment, mouth a thin line, though to his credit managed to hide any other signs of unease he may have felt toward the omnipresent rumbling of the Prince’s wrath. “Something bigger than any one mortal is happening,” he finally said, his voice quiet and more serious than it had been thus far “and the entire DMS is – hm?”<br/><br/>His expressive brows quirked into a crooked line, and he waved one hand in front of Mathias’s glazed-over stare. “Hey. Hello, Laz. Focus.”<br/><br/>Before the Prince could even properly un-daze his eyes, the smaller demon had clicked her heels right into the space between them, her narrow shoulders separating L from the hissed conversation.<span style="font-style: italic">“Calmez-vous</span>, please,” he interjected very softly, his voice adopting a politely soothing tone that was a far cry from the mocking sarcasm reserved for the Prince, “It is temporary, I assure you.”<br/><br/>The lightless depths of his eyes flicked up, finding the young man with the brown mop of hair that hovered at the top of the alleyway stairs. “It only means there is a bit more… babysitting, I suppose, involved.” He watched in unashamed openness (it wasn’t like the boy could see him, anyway). “Aren’t you supposed to handle that level with a lighter touch, regardless? A level seven crashed to a two just a few days ago, and they<span style="font-style: italic">believe</span>it was because of the, uh,” he paused, turning back to the two demons with a look of vague discomfort, “… pressure… that was applied.” He shrugged his shadowy shoulders. “Don’t get me wrong, torture is a good way to get results… just not always the right ones.”<br/><br/>He glanced back to the confused mortal. “All speculation, of course. Never anything definitive.”<br/><br/><br/>------<br/><br/><br/>Oliver watched as Vivienne got right in the tall demon’s face, her back straight and limbs rigid. He was familiar with this process; people often did the same to him when he started staring at blank walls or the sky instead of paying attention. A rush of sympathy for the silver-haired individual coursed through him, and he went down the first couple of stairs. Maybe this would be a good opportunity to get his jacket, while they were otherwise engaged.<br/><br/><br/>------<br/><br/><br/>Charlene’s pulling may have done little to actually release the disgusting grip of the Stewart-demon, but it<span style="font-style: italic">had</span>managed to stretch the limb that held her to even more grotesquely unnatural lengths. Like warm putty, the arm became thinner as it extended; without deviating from his faintly smug expression, Levis sent the side of his hand into what had probably once been an elbow. An unholy shriek filled the air as the distal half of the pathetic thing’s arm was cleanly severed. The disfigured, melting hoof didn’t relax, but from the empty stump upward it shriveled and blackened with unnerving speed, until it more resembled a dark, brittle bit of kindling.<br/><br/>The rest of the immortal reeled backward, shock registering on its face for only a moment before it became too goopy to really have an expression. No blood came from the stump; the sliced end just looked like it was made of the same melted putty substance, growing cooler and more formed closer to his shoulder. The shriek faded into a bestial snarl and a furious stare lit on the angel, but the clay demon’s mouth was no longer suited for speech.<br/><br/>Levis stared, unfazed. “Enough,” he finally said, bored, cutting off another snarl from the other immortal. Charlene had shaken off the charred remains of Stewart’s limb and stumbled backwards, fleeing only as far as the young girl that watched, wide-eyed, from yards away.<br/><br/>The gelatinous blob tried to respond, likely with some useless threat, but only managed a few gurgles and something that sounded only vaguely incendiary. “Really, just go,” the angel continued, open disgust tinging the boredom.<br/><br/>It paused, looking oddly pensive for a malformed pile of raw pottery. Its unnerving eyes darted to the door of its lair/apartment, then to Levis, and back to the door. He rolled his eyes almost imperceptibly. “Go ahead then.”<br/><br/>Grumbling and (very quietly) snarling with discontent, the increasingly-melting figure sludged its way to its door and slowly fumbled it open with its one present upper appendage, leaving a trail of greasy slime on the knob and surrounding framework. As it slammed itself inside, it managed to work out a last double-syllable phrase that sounded a lot like ‘bullshit’.<br/><br/>Levis let his stare (somehow) flatten even further. Demons.<br/><br/>Without another second wasted on Stewart’s pathetic self, he walked quietly over to Charlene and child, offering them a tiny, perfunctory smile before striding right past them and back into the child’s apartment. Shouldn’t be too long before the prize mortal felt obligated to seek the safety of her own home, or check on her guest; either way, her guest should probably still be there. Without a backward glance, he stuck a leg through the still-open window. Abruptly, a mortal woman, presumably the child’s mother, walked from the small hallway to the side of the kitchen in a long nightshirt and curlers. “Come on baby, time for be - ” She froze suddenly, staring at Levis, who had also frozen, still straddling the window sill. He held her gaze for another second, but decided she was not his problem and promptly continued to fall off the building.<br/><br/>His body rearranged as he flew, using his wings more as a momentum-halt than anything else, and it was a pair of woman’s hands that gripped the window to Charlene’s apartment. Almost without breaking stride, Levis pocketed her accessories and buttoned her shirt, noticing that a few near the bottom had popped; she collapsed back onto the couch in where she was (mostly) sure she had been before, scooping up the glass of horrific sweet bile that Charlene apparently liked to pretend was wine. It was only at that moment that she noticed her hand. Right across the knuckles, where she had sliced through the demon's arm, an angry red burn had appeared across her porcelain skin. It was only an inch or so wide, and though it may not even have been considered very bad by mortal standards, Levis was unsure whether Charlene would miss it. Or be willing to believe that it had been there before, considering recent events. She positioned the hand on the bottom of the class, cupping around the stem so that her knuckles faced the floor.<br/><br/><br/>------<br/><br/><br/>Another furious, markedly girlish, snarl of frustration came from the Seraphim’s rose-pink mouth, causing a confusing echo to bounce back toward her after hitting who-knows-what. She finally tore her angry stare from the terse handwriting in the ledger and let it fall back to Elliot, who was exactly two feet to the left of where she wanted him to be. Everyone and everything appeared to be constantly failing, and that enraged her to no end.<br/><br/>He didn’t think she would do it, clearly. Didn’t think she would make good on her threats of the past few centuries. Seemed to think she was all bluster, all talk. Well, he wouldn’t the first one to play his cards like he had a full deck and end up begging souls in the gutter with the rest of the malcontents and overconfident, no-class, common filthy pieces of shit that seemed to think her incapable of –  the thoughts disintegrated into pure profanity, but the fire-starting stare had been resting on Elliot’s stoic face the whole time.<br/><br/>“You are going,” she started, with rage controlled by a spiderweb-thin line, “to visit our friend. And you will tell him,” her voice started to raise, gaining levels of shrill that did not bode well for those within earshot, “that he has<span style="font-style: italic">one</span>” she unleashed a torrent of rapid obscenities that would have made a sailor blush like a nun, right before their eardrums exploded with the pitch “month to bring in a seven or with every fiber of every last living thing within my power I will see him stretched and beaten into a saddle for those pig rodeos and tied to the fattest most filthy shit-covered sow they have in existence and if they don’t have one filthy enough I will fucking<span style="font-style: italic">make</span>one because this is getting….” Her tirade had been growing dimmer (if more shrill and wrathful) as she walked, talking only a few steps to be any distance away.<br/><br/>It wouldn’t be<span style="font-style: italic">just</span>Elliot, oh no. He was technically capable, in that he could technically form words with his stupid face, but he would never be enough. He was her announcer. The calm before the storm. He would state the message to prepare the recipient, but more importantly, his job was to make sure the recipient had nowhere to run during her… evaluations. A bloodthirsty grin lit the seraphim’s face.