<strong>-- Azazel, Prince of Lies (http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=105405.msg4574445#msg4574445) - Absolutely joyous! --</strong><br/><hr/><br/>Lucifer was such a beautiful, magnificent specimen.  Even in the depths of his hatred, his bitterness, his unbearable wrath, his words flowed as the tinkling notes of wind chimes and his features could bring any mortal man to weep as his eyes melted from his skull.  What joy, what<em>rapture</em>to be at such a being's beck and call, to follow his every word like an obedient servant, to scrape and bow before his light, to make mistakes and gladly accept his violent admonitions, and to know that<em>every last second of it is nothing more than an act.</em><br/><br/>Azazel smiled with all the cruel purity of a child, his ivory features torn straight from the sculptures of Michelangelo--or perhaps it was the other way around.  And then they were gone, replaced by a devilishly handsome mortal face, but a mortal face all the same.  He wore nothing, his nude form laying casually on the edge of a ruined skyscraper overlooking the delightfully fascinating drama far below.  How marvelous his brother Azrael looked, his very being<em>throbbing</em>with all the righteous fury that their Father had instilled within his powerful breast.  It tickled him that Lucifer could have actually<em>believed</em>that he would ever try to kill such a beautiful, primordial emotion.  How easily such lies came to him now, and how easily they were swallowed.<br/><br/><hr/><br/><strong>"Vermin.  Wretched spawn of the Absent Father, spewer of filth, weaver of falsehood, pathetic cretin.  I would devour you, flesh and bone, sup upon your marrow, bathe in the ecstasy that is your sweet blood, and rape the withered remains until satisfied, if not for this damnable block upon my nature."</strong><br/><br/>The voice was as coal smoldering in the forge, molten rock seething down the mountainside, the rumbling of the very earth, cruelty and barbarism made manifest.  The words coiled like snakes in the air, pouring from between wicked rows of blackened tombstone teeth and tainting everything they touched.  They were the words of a sinner, a nonbeliever, and truly nothing good had ever or would ever come from them.<br/><br/>And Azazel laughed, for Belial was the most amusing of his Sons, and set him loose upon the world so that he might find lost Azrael and bring him home once more.<br/><br/><hr/><br/><div align="center"><em>"But for corruption thou hast made Belial, an angel of hostility. All his dominions are in darkness, and his purpose is to bring about wickedness and guilt."</em></div><br/>As Iofiel drew closer, she would see at last the titanic being crawling through the ruins of civilization, a thing of quivering gray flesh and taut muscle (http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/324/angelofpunishment.jpg), of tanned human flesh woven into ragged garments, of blackened iron welded and bolted into tortured sinew, of sharpened limbs that bled eternally and devoured all they touched.  Scabrous wings, scarcely more than bones shrouded in webbing and pustules, twitched in the open air like feelers, for the abomination that was Belial had long since had his hateful eyes plucked out, his skull bound back by wicked machinery, and his mind honed towards one purpose, and one purpose alone.<br/><br/><strong>"Repulsive harpy,"</strong>he spat as Iofiel passed by, his blades eating through the pavement as he dragged himself towards his real prize.<strong>"Azrael.  We meet at last.  Long have I awaited this day, when my spineless masters would allow me to carve my name into your heart.  As a fellow warrior, I will show no mercy, and only when your form lies broken and useless will I allow you to be caged once more."</strong>