Match of the Millennium

Description: There's a lot going on in the world right now. Some people want a piece of the pie, and others want the whole thing. Lyraelle has amassed a huge following with her social media empire, but as her engagement rate falls, it's up to her to find out why. According to the information the NOL has provided, the best place to start would be following up on the scores of abduction contracts open on the black market. There are certain nightclubs deep in Old Delhi that cater to Darkstalkers, and it's around these parts that she'll find a hard drinking, hard fighting devil of a man. Unfortunately, she will not find him in good trust. The only problem with being strong enough to fight off headhunters is that you then need to be tough enough to fight them all off.

[LYRAELLE]
The walled city of Shahjahanabad was founded in 1639 by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a new capital for the Mughal Empire, remaining such until the fall of the Mughals in 1857 to the British Raj. Today, it remains as the symbolic heart of the National Capital City of Delhi, one of the most dense and populous cities in the world. Once filled with mansions of nobles and royal courtiers and elegant mosques and gardens, it is now known for its bazaars, street food, shopping areas and Islamic architecture. One of the most prominent examples of the latter is the Jama Masjid, or 'World-Reflecting Mosque,' another work of Shah Jahan, which served as the imperial mosque of the Mughal Emperors. Across from the mosque sits the famous Red Fort, another structure commissioned by Shah Jahan, which served as the main residence of the Mughal Emperors named for its regal, yet imposing red stonework.

However, though such icons of the old Mughal Empire may serve as inspiration to residents and visitors alike, much of its modern life now teems within its markets, which run throughout its streets, lined with vendors selling myriad goods from covered stalls both by the light of day and bathed in electric light by night beneath the crowded buildings of both early-modern and Mughal-era aesthetic that pack the region. One is much more likely to navigate many of the area's narrow and bustling streets on foot or by hired cart than in a motorized vehicle, though motorbikes and cars don't go entirely unseen.

One tourist taking in the old city's sights may stand out - a slim, curvaceous and pale redhead dressed in a pair of tight-fitting leather pants and a white tank top that reveals the celtic knotwork tattooed in sleeves along each of her arms from shoulder to wrist. Though the nation is known for its sweltering heat, the outfit is, if anything, a little light for a Delhi evening at this time of year, but the green-eyed woman appears unperturbed by the passing breeze as she lounges listlessly, a rickshaw carrying her through the chaos.

"The jewel in the crown, hmm?" the apparently-British lass (given her posh-English accent) remarks in idle thought as she catches glimpses of Red Fort in the distance. "Poor Lizzy. All crown and no jewel. Then again, she wasn't supposed to be Queen anyway." She leans over the side of the rickshaw to try and get a better view of the landmarks. "The Mughals, though - that Shah Jahan was class. Built his palace badass and sexy. If I had a castle, I'd much rather follow his lead and make my own than squat in someone else's."

"Ten minutes, Miss Darkheart," the rickshaw driver calls back over the clamor of the emergent nightlife.

"Wasn't it two minutes ten minutes ago?" the redhead queries with mild disdain. "Less optimism, sweetie. I prefer honesty. And, please -" The disdain melts into a sweet smile. "- call me Roisin. I insist."

"It was two minutes ten minutes ago, Miss Rosheen. But nine minutes ago, some commotion broke out two blocks ahead."

"I thought commotion was the usual state of affairs," the redhead remarks with a bemused quirk of her glossy lips before propping her elbow on the side of the cart and resting her chin on her palm with a lazy pout.

[RAE]
Like the old saying goes, 'One man's commotion is another man's ruptured abdomen.'
--- 10 MINUTES AGO ---
Thin curls of smoke waft from the mouth of a narrow alley, little tongues of orange flame clinging to the red and white robes of the victims within. The cherry red glow of a lit cigarette bobs through the intermittent gloom as its owner trudges out onto the edge of the street, scarred face set in a look of savage triumph.
Having lost his vest several days back, the savage biker is bare from the waste up. A patchwork of grotesque tattoos and fading scars cover 70 percent of his muscular torso, coarse grey hair matted thickly across his chest, arms, shoulders and back. In odd places tanned skin has been replaced by patches of crimson scales, their armored surface glowing gently with residual heat.
As for clothes, He still has his black belt with the steel buckle, though the pants they hold up have seen better days, shot through with long tears and snarls, stained with patches of crusty dried blood. Yet more blood has soaked into the leather of his boots, drying upon the tarnished spikes drilled into the toes.
He looks like hell. Hair and beard ragged, right eye a boiling mass of orange that leaks down a red-scaled cheek to drip onto his chest. His teeth have long since reverted two a mass of twisted yellow fangs.
The demon is part way through exhaling a long line of smoke when the sniper bullet catches him in the back, blowing a hole clean through his shoulder blade and turning his black heart into pulp before exploding out through his abdomen in a spray of bloody viscera and bone. Sparks fly as the bullet ricochets off the pavement and hums away into the surrounding crowd, Rae staggering forward a step as his brain struggles to figure out what just happened.
A second bullet strikes him in the back of the skull, exiting through his mouth along with several teeth and the tattered remains of his cigarette.
That pisses him off.
A gurgling roar scatters already panicking civilians in all directions as the monster erupts into flames, the blood that pours from his wounds igniting with the raw power of hatred made manifest. Heart a pulped mass on the cement, spine fractured, the demon wheels on the spot to gaze back the way the bullets had came, maw yawning open to unleash a blazing torrent of flames toward the rooftops.
--- Now ---
The crowd ahead of Rosheen comes flooding back toward her, trampling over any unfortunate enough to fall and threatening to upend the cart in a mass stampede of fear. The scattered pop of gunshots follows them, accompanied by a high, terrified scream cut off abruptly.
If one could see over the heads of the crowd they would see the results of a moving battle. Two bodies in black cloaks sprawled across the ground, while a third is suspended a foot off the ground by a broken sign post jutting from its chest, pinning it to the cracked stonework behind like a bug on display. The narrow road is soaked with blood, some still pumping from the severed stump of a fourth cloaked figure's neck, the headless corpse flopping over from its knees with a silver revolver clutched in each hand.
Standing over the body, a glossy head of hair dangling from one tattooed fist, is Rae. Dropping the silver-edged cleaver that won him his prize with a ringing clatter, he holds the head up, gazing into the once pretty, darkly tanned face.
"Bitch." he snarls, abdomen now covered by a superheated patch of glowing crimson scales, matched at back and nape. Several of his teeth seem to have grown back in with the dull grey sheen of hammered iron, badly contrasting the stained yellow around them.
"That's one way ta give me head. Heh, heh, heh..."
Shoulders shaking in a low, hacking chuckle, the Demon of Hate hurls the head bouncing and flopping up the road, chasing the fleeing citizens as they escape past a cart that has just come into view.

[LYRAELLE]
It's the rumble that reaches Roisin first. As is typical, the sound of a great calamity serves as its herald. The trampling feet, the rogue honking of horns, the sound of stall goods being overturned - but most of all, the screaming of the mass of humanity responsible for all of it. The driver has already begun to turn the vehicle about face by the time that the first fleeing figures begin to appear, and Roisin pushes herself up to peer out the back of the rickshaw with wide-eyed curiousity at the human stampede.

"Well, that hardly seems 'du jour,' after all," the tattooed woman concedes. "I don't think any movie that starts like this ends well -"

Suddenly, the rickshaw is overturned as a motorcyclist trying to cut too close veers out of control into the side of it, sending its occupant rolling across the muddy, rough road like a red-haired ragdoll -

only to stop directly in the path of the oncoming horde.

The newly-dirty dilettante groans as she pushes herself partway up from a tour of the teeming microbiological populace of the street's stained surface.

"Miss Rosheen!"

A hand clasps around Roisin's just as she's about to use hers to brush the scarlet locks away from her face, and within moments the dismounted rickshaw driver is dragging her along with the tide of men and women retreating from the approaching tide of men and women, despite the evident danger that dragging the beleaguered foreigner places the man in.

"Aww, couldn't leave your paycheck behind, couldja, Hammad?" the tattooed woman says with an alarming lack of urgency - and a less alarming lack of an English accent.

"Who gives a shit about money? I'm trying to save your life!" the driver retorts as he stumbles forward with newfound momentum.

"Oh, that's sweet," Roisin coos patronizingly.

"Are you... American?!" Hammad asks as the shift in the woman's speech finds a way to penetrate the panic in his head.

Suddenly, he finds himself pulled back into the celtic-knotted arms of the redhead, her emerald-green eyes staring into his as she says in a sultry tone:

"Sweetie, I can be whatever I want me to be."

Suddenly, a pair of black bat-wings burst forth from Roisin's bare shoulder blades, and after two dizzying seconds, Hammad finds himself staring down at the horrifying scene from the relatively safety of a third-story hotel balcony.

"W-w-what -"

Hammad's eyes lift up to Roisin, only to see the demonic wings disappearing with a fleshy sound back into the woman's back as she rifles in a back pocket. A moment later, she produces a card and presses it into the stunned man's hand.

"Hang tight here, honey. You've just got a promotion."

Hammad's paling face crinkles in confusion.

"I don't work for you!"

Roisin's back is already turned. Her entire demeanour has changed - stretching and tense, energized - not unlike a formerly lounging tigress now preparing to hunt.

"Oh, I think you do."

Before Hammad can question his fate further, the redhead has vaulted over the side of the balcony, swinging down from the ledge of an adjacent one before lightly leaping forward between market stall canopies. The former rickshaw cab driver finds himself forced to pull away from observing as he lurches against the balcony rail and vomits over the side.

- - - - - - - - - -

As she emerges from the cloud of smoke and dust left in the wake of the retreating throng, things are oddly somewhat quieter for Roisin. In fact, the patch of street that she and Rae now share might be the quietest that it's been in centuries.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here?"

The voice that comes from the silhouette might - just might - be one familiar to Rae. Awfully familiar - or familiarly awful. As might the figure coming out of the fog-like debris - until the red hair and tattoos appear, at least. Maybe it's not so familiar. Or is it?

"Oh, God. Don't tell me it's -you.-"

The cocky sing-song that the scruffy, scarlet-haired vixen originally greeted Rae with is dashed into distaste as she continues her approach, shoulders sinking in... disappointment?

"It's been, what, a year? And I'm still barely over the hangover from last time."

Familiar (surely familiar) green eyes hone in on the old berserker, focusing on what after-effects may remain of newly-acquired should-be fatal injuries.

"Gee, I thought you'd really turn a corner after last time. Yet, here you are, another year uglier, another year... murder-ier."

[RAE]
There are lots of things that could be said of the savage old demon that stands before her. That he's unbelievably tough. That he's meaner than hell itself. And, unfortunately, that in the grand scheme of things he's pretty damn stupid. With an animal cleverness, for sure, but stupid all the same.
Eyes of flame spare only a glance toward Lyraelle's own before his gaze dips, snarl spreading into a fanged leer at the twin peaks bouncing below. If he even recognizes the disappointment in her tone he doesn't show it, a bit of molten lava dripping from the corner of his mouth to splat wet and sizzling against the street.
"What you mouthin' off 'bout, Tits?" he grunts in reply, scarred hands patting down his blood-splashed jeans in search of something. Not finding it, he kicks the headless body hard in the chest, sending it tumbling away in a short spasm of rage.
"FUCKIN' PRICKS!" he growls, flames licking through his fangs as he casts a distracted look to their trashed surroundings. Cracked stone, overturned stalls, corpses and silver weapons.
None of which he seems to be looking for.
Gaze returning to the red-haired demoness, he takes a single lumbering step toward her, shoulders knotting with thick ropes of tensed muscle.
"Don't know who the fuck ya are. Don't care. But if I don't get a cig in the next coupla seconds I'm gonna find out what partsa the human body are smokable, startin' with you."

[LYRAELLE]
Pink lips form a pensive pout as Rae fails to recognize Roisin - or rather, the transient entity currently occupying the fair form of the filth-flecked redhead.

"Careful. Potential side effects of attempting to smoke Lyraelle without proper authorization include headaches, tooth loss, infertility and abdominal pain," the red-haired woman warns as black, leathery wings sprout from the sides of her spine, unfurling to their full span in a moment and clearing the air pollution from around her person. She cracks her own neck with a tilt of her head, as if rising to the intimidating intensity of the wrath demon. Her persona is rather unlike their previous encounter - if it is the same person at all, even considering the name drop, she'd been possessed of a much more naively righteous air.

"'Cause if you do, I'm gonna piledrive you, kick your teeth in, rip your balls off, and give you a free and probably long overdue prostate check."

-Much- more naively righteous.

Roisin rolls her eyes toward the sky in frustration, fingers curling as her arms tense at her sides, bending at the elbows. "Urgh! Why would I say that when I'm not even wearing gloves?! Dammit, even just being around you is enough to feel it again, now! Stop rubbing off on me already!"

As Roisin's rage wells up sympathetically to Rae's own, small gouts of infernal green flame erupt in her open palms.

"I'm not going to go there again, so just fuck off and find a fucking fag somewhere else, asshole!" she practically barks. Of course, it's not intended as a slur, she's just been spending a lot of time working on an English persona lately, but it's unlikely to defuse the situation.

[RAE]
A second, then a third step is taken as Lyraelle throws Rae's words back into his slavering, idiot face. Bits of grit and trash crunch and scrape beneath his boots, while the raw heat of his presence washes over their surroundings.
"Hehh, Hehh hehh hehhh..."
Only a hand full of steps separate them as the rasping chuckles grind their way up from his chest once more. Hateful laughter from a hateful creature, the weight of which only grows within him as the threats are piled on. Not just hate for hate's sake, but something personal.
It seems he's finally recognized her.
"Good idea. 'Course, with you not havin' balls I'm gonna have ta......" rough words trail away as a long black tongue slithers from between his lips, licking away the blood and other vital fluids that have splashed his chin and chest. Only once the organ has retreated does he finish, lips pulled back to show all of his many fangs, "IMPROVISE."
Far from warned off by the red-head's rage, the emotion only seems to draw the monster in, steps transitioning from walk, to lope, to run as flames roar up his arms and feet, licking at his battered hide.
"I got everythin' I need Right HERE!"
Left fist powering forward, he attempts to smash the hairy, hate-flamed knuckles square into her pretty face. The first blow is followed by a blazing right cross toward her chest, followed by a left, a right, a left, and finally a driving right uppercut, the chain of heavy punches meant to drive her back against a nearby wall and cage her in for a very unsexy pounding.

COMBATSYS: Rae has started a fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Rae              0/-------/------=|

COMBATSYS: Lyraelle has joined the fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Rae              0/-------/------=|=------\-------\0         Lyraelle

COMBATSYS: Rae successfully hits Lyraelle with Death Engine.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////      ]
Rae              0/-------/----===|=====--\-------\0         Lyraelle

[LYRAELLE]
The sensation created inside Roisin - Lyraelle - by Rae's presence would be difficult for the demoness to describe even without the red haze itself descending upon her. Faced by an embodiment of an aspect assimilated previously by it, her own inner monster demands its opportunity to manifest. The Demon Queen is not measured or given value by her rage, but something inside swells with a primordial impetus to exceed - the urge that turns kinship and empathy to competition and loathing.

Nevertheless, the demon within does not entertain the same tactical scope as the elder berserker, refusing to be defined in the same manner, and the royal-in-disguise retains her own predatory senses even as she begins to mirror the old monster's mentality. Her wings burst, and she lunges -

*WHUMP*

No. She's caught clean in the face by the fiery fist, head turned by the impact as blood spatters from her split lip as the flames that were building in her palms disperse.

It's no mean feat to draw blood from the Demon Queen with a single blow, and though the injury is quickly cauterized by the same intense heat that accompanies the brawler's knuckles, the realisation of what's happened is unmistakable.

"Fucker -"

*WHUMP*

The second blow lands flush on the right side of her bosom, the white tank blackening rapidly from the hellfire as Lyraelle practically spits.

"- Fuckk -"

The heels of the black boots Roisin wears under her trousers leave skid marks against the road as she's bulldozed backward, driven into the wall as the blows keep coming, each deepening the black gouges in the material of her top as she's slammed through a stall and pinned against the back wall of it.

"- Fuck -

*WHUMP*

As the tank top falls away in tattered cinders, a black bikini-like top appears beneath.

"- Fuckface -"

*WHUMP*

The eye-catching undergarment appears to be made of some leathery material, though it seems incredibly resistant to the heat of the assault, almost as if -

"- Fucking! -"

*WHUMP*

- it was designed with the intent of withstanding such intense flames. Incidentally, as she's pinned against the brickwork, her own eyes start to glow bright, infernal green -

"- FUUUCK!

- and as she bellows with raging protest, twin beams of scorching hellfire wash forth from them, threatening to wash over the other demon's scaly, scarred face in a retaliatory bid to fly free of the pugilistic monster's pounding!

COMBATSYS: Rae endures Lyraelle's Balefire Gaze.

[   \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////      ]
Rae              0/-------/--=====|======-\-------\0         Lyraelle

[RAE]
With every impact of fist on flesh Rae's excitement grows, hate and eagerness blending into a cocktail of rabid sensation that sparks and hums through his damaged brain. Drooling lava down his front like a hungry dog, he leers into the pretty face of the demoness as her back is driven into the rear wall of the stall.
"Sorry Tits," he replies, barely seeming to notice the smashed bits of wood and cheap jewelry that begin to smolder and melt beneath his booted feet, little fires jumping from one bit of kindling to another and threatening to engulf the entire rickety structure. Pressing in close, the much bulkier monster breathes directly into her face, breath smelling of cigarette smoke and brimstone.
"I ain't takin' suggestions."
It is right about then that she gives him a look that could kill. Twin rays of hellfire hit the brute square in the face, the leftmost deflecting off of his scaly cheek while the right hits him eye to eye, snapping his shaggy head back and briefly blinding him.
"BITCH!" he roars, though the tone is one of frustration rather than pain. Flaming hands lash out to grope blindly for the winged red-head before she can slip away, left going high for her throat and right low.
Unless she can stop him, Rae will tip his head forward and power through the blast, burning left making to close around her throat while the right slips between her leather-clad thighs to get a very secure, if not so polite grip.
"Fuck You!"
Now he's just being derivative.
If all goes to plan he will leverage monstrous strength to jerk the curvacious queen off of her feet and hoist her high over head, only to bring her crashing down over his knee in a brutal back breaker.

COMBATSYS: Lyraelle blocks Rae's Hell And Back.

[    \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////         ]
Rae              0/-------/--=====|=======\-------\1         Lyraelle

[LYRAELLE]
It is perhaps a great mercy for Roisin that the perilously rising heat from the burning bazaar stall only scarcely threatens to draw sweat from her pores. When it comes to a battle between the two hellspawn, only direct hellfire is likely to pose a true danger.

Unfortunately, the same truth doesn't hold for the world around them.

Livelihoods are destroyed by the moment as the flames spread. A Pakistani currency exchange counter is struck by a deflected ray of optic energy and catches light, wealth destroyed instantaneously as paper goes up in a green blaze. Within seconds, even coins are reduced to defaced, molten slag.

Rae's choice (if it can be called that) to power through the infernal eye-beams gives Roisin less value than speculated in her attempt to buy space and time. The smell of burning leather is added to that of brimstone, spice, and human byproducts as the old berserker's flaming fingers scorch the thigh of Roisin's pants, her own hands clamping around the arm grasping her throat. The more visibly veteran hellion may appear to have a sheer edge on the more feminine fiend in brute strength, but her own grip is more than trifling - enough to keep Rae's burning grasp from tightening fully around her windpipe in a contest of will.

"Fucking Christ, Red. Been chugging from the Yamuna much?" she rasps out as her face tightens in disgust at the monstrous brute's hellish halitosis, moments before she's lifted up by the rampaging darkstalker.

*SLAM*

Roisin bounces and rolls off of Rae's knee, the motion snuffing out small fires still clinging to her pants that leave behind rent, smouldering gashes along her thighs that expose the flawless skin beneath. Her back bends as she comes to a stop, wings retracting rapidly, her left hand moving to press against it and assess the pain as her teeth grit. She's managed to use her resistance and limber reflexes to deaden the impact enough not to have her spine snapped - owing at least in part to her own infernal resilience - but it takes her a second to get back to her feet, and she doesn't quite straighten fully even when she succeeds, her chest heaving as she sucks in air recklessly through her open mouth and nostrils.

"You know, you're pretty much what I imagine whenever I try to picture the average FightChan user," she pants, before her back straightens the rest of the way with a series of popping sounds. It seems as though some of the demonette's own identity is fighting back against the primal rage calling out from the wrath demon before her. In fact, the sudden shift toward softness seems somehow sincere. "We don't have to be enemies, you know. If you'd just learn to share your feelings in a healthier way, I could probably help you get what you want."

A small flick of her wrist causes a green whip of serpentine hellfire to snake its way from her hand to the ground at her feet, lighting up her face in the baleful glow as she smirks.

"But first, let's focus on what /I/ want for a little while."

Swinging her arm over her head with dextrous expertise, she forms a whirling circle of flame over her head before swiping forward - sending the energy-weapon in an expanding arc that threatens to sear the exposed flesh from Rae's torso!

"Recog/nition/!"

COMBATSYS: Rae blocks Lyraelle's Imperious Scourge.

[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////          ]
Rae              0/-------/=======|=======\=------\1         Lyraelle

[RAE]
Fire, blood, smoke and ash. Less than inconveniences, these are the elements in which Rae is most at home. Unlike the limber demonette lying arched in the rubble, there is no shift within him. No sly adaptation that could curve him onto an easier path. It's pathetic in a way. He is what he is, a living force of destruction doomed to exist within a cycle of pain, the only way he knows how.
"Fuck off."
And there goes any sympathy anyone might have had.
Smoke curls around the berserker's bulky form as he trudges forth through the growing flames, eyes burning bright with focused malice. The liquid lava that had been leaking down his cheek has stopped, though his breaths now come in sharp, growling gasps. Chest working like a bellows to feed tainted air deep into his lungs, his already rough voice crackles and pops with the fire building within.
"What I want?"
Words rasped with surprising quiet, the monster takes another step forward, staring into the face of the recovered beauty.
"I get what I want."
The showy swirl of the whip gives the slower fighter just enough time to bring his left hand up, thick fingers closing around the whistling lash in a surprising show of manual dexterity. Flesh sizzles where the weapon wraps around his rough paw, skin burning away to reveal the meat and bone beneath. And yet he holds the construct in an iron grip, somehow preventing it from being retracted.
"I want you on yer fuckin' knees." he rants, heat rolling off of him in a shimmering wave. "I wanna peel the face offa every fucker what looks at me wrong. I wanna Pound Ya Through The Street, Bash out Yer teeth, Tear Off Yer Balls, and Ram My Fist So Far Up Yer Ass It Gives Ya A BLOODY FUCKIN NOSE! AND I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU WANT!"
The heat radiating from the old demon reaches suffocating levels as he grinds his blazing fingers closed, crushing the energy whip into a burst of energy that blasts free between them. Chest swelling in a final, deep breath, he releases it in a bellow that echos off of the surrounding buildings, chased by a wave of hellfire that roars forth from between his fangs to consume the spot Lyraelle is standing, the stalls behind, and the walls of the buildings beyond.
"FUCK YOU!"
Beneath the weight of the monster's depthless hatred, even stone can burn.

COMBATSYS: Lyraelle parries Rae's Hellraiser!

[     \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////          ]
Rae              0/-------/----===|=======\====---\1         Lyraelle

[LYRAELLE]
The hell-vixen tugs at her burning scourge as she attempts to wrest it back. Not many opponents have attempted to contest her command of the scalding weapon, if any. Her expression becomes petulant.

"You should know better than to play with my toys, tiger!" she says with a scowl, yanking and winding the energy around herself before finally giving up and letting it disperse from both of their clutches like a spoiled child as the other demon spews his vitriolic diatribe.

She lets him rant before interjecting as he stops to gather his breath, "If you're done flirting, then like /I/ was saying -"

'FUCK YOU!'

Roisin's green eyes reflect the glow of Rae's burning breath as it washes toward her. Instantly, she crouches down, black wings tearing out of her back. Flames engulf her legs and wings as she darts upward in a spiral, narrowly avoiding total immolation, though the spinning motion that disperses the hellflame clinging to her wings isn't in time to salvage her already-scorched boots and trousers, instead only dispersing the ashen remains of her outer garments. Again, the Demon Queen's modesty is preserved by what appear to be a pair of black socks and matching bikini bottoms that appear to be of the same fireproof material as her bustier.

It should perhaps be noted that the Demon Queen doesn't appear to have much modesty to preserve in this form, either.

"- what /I/ want!"

Crackling with blue lightning, the scarlet-haired succubus swoops down on Rae like a hawk, intending to latch onto a handful of his beard with a hand before soaring upward regardless of success - unless interrupted, of course.

"A little /privacy!/"

It would seem quite an unreasonable demand, coming from a tattooed, winged redhead hovering in her underwear three stories above a section of the world's most densely populated metropolitan area that is currently /on fire/.

"And a little /information!/"

If she's still got her grip on the brutal bastard, she'll punctuate her expectations by releasing him upward and spinning around to aim a well-timed kick wreathed in crackling green fire and blue lightning that could well send him through the ornate facade of a neighbouring haveli!

COMBATSYS: Rae endures Lyraelle's Fell Swoop EX.

[         \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////          ]
Rae              0/-------/--=====|=======\======-\1         Lyraelle

[RAE]
Blinded by the intensity of his own demonic breath, Rae misses the part where Lyraelle is able to leap clear. Unfortunately, that means he also misses the disappearing clothes act. Stone cracks or outright explodes beneath the sudden rise in temperature, every flammable surface within 15 feet of where the brute is standing combusting in a wave of projected hatred. Those objects unfortunate enough to receive a direct blast burst apart into clouds of ash or melt into bubbling pools of slag.
But then there's Her.
If the berserker were any less single-minded, the sudden appearance of the nearly naked queen might have taken him off guard. After all, Sans Pants is a legitimate technique known throughout the fighting world. However, all Rae sees in the brief window of time between spotting her and having slender fingers tangled in his scruff of a beard is her lack of burns.
"GRAAAAGH!"
Bellowing in rage, the iron-fanged monster is dragged clear of the ground and away from his element, pulled up through the smoke and into open space.
"FUCK YOU!"
As creative as ever, Rae reaches up in an attempt to snag any part of the demonette he can reach. Thigh, foot, wrist, his rough hands scrape across her skin looking for purchase.
"FUCK -"
Lyraelle's deceptively strong hand slips through his closing grip as she flings him up into the air.
"Y--!"
The rest is cut off as a socked heel catches him square in the gut. A spray of flaming spittle splatters across them both as paired lightning and fire rages across his damaged hide. Branching scorch marks shed ashy skin toward the earth far below, but rather than hurtling backward the demon jerks to a sudden halt, rough fingers having tangled themselves in the Demon Queen's luxurious red locks.
"HHHHHRRRRRRRRGHK."
Teeth bared in a gargling growl, the monster attempts to drag himself closer and wrap a strong arm around her shoulders, rough, sometimes scaly hide pressing chest to chest, cheek to scruffy cheek. Unless she can slip free, he will give a sharp downward tug on her hair, doing his level best to tear it free of her scalp even as his knee rises between perfect thighs to deliver one, Two, THREE groin shots of increasing ferocity.
More concerning than that, however, would be the sudden, drastic increase in weight that both of them experience. A downward tug that threatens to tear both of them from the sky and send them hurtling to earth as if attracted by a giant demonic magnet, only to crash land upon a gathered pile of scrap iron and rebar that has formed into a deadly clump below them.

COMBATSYS: Lyraelle dodges Rae's Fierce Combo.

[        \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////          ]
Rae              0/-------/---====|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\1         Lyraelle

[LYRAELLE]
Roisin's foot doesn't quite have the oomph it needs to deliver her demonic adversary to the interior of the adjacent mansion as hoped. She'd be disappointed at the missed opportunity to see the inside of the old building if she weren't distracted by something much more upsetting.

"If there's one thing I hate..." the Demon Queen starts to growl as a blinding green corona starts to burn in the air above her (though, to be transparent, there are many things that the Demon Queen hates) - before the strands that Rae is clinging to seem to vanish out of his grasp as the woman's facial features shift subtly, only the green irises remaining unchanged as the more-familiar face of Lyraelle Darkheart, social media superstar, celebrity succubus, CEO, and fighting sensation, the vanishing red locks replaced by a magnificent mane of hot pink hair shaken loose and leaving Rae to plummet toward the ground below. "...it's creepos touching my hair."

Only a brief glimpse of the Demon Queen's true form is bestowed upon Rae as the green corona washes out any attempts to capture her likeness from afar in viridian radiance. Her facial features return back to those of Roisin with equally casual ease as she reaches up to pluck the fireball from the air with the delicacy of a dandelion handler.

"But that doesn't mean I don't still love you guys," she says with a wink toward the falling monstrosity before lowering the fireball down on her outstretched palm as it takes the shape of a heart. Then, with a single puff from her lips, she blows the flaming green heart down toward Rae - threatening to engulf both the demon or the debris blow in an infernal explosion!

COMBATSYS: Lyraelle successfully hits Rae with Royal Salutation - <3.

[              \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Rae              1/-------/=======|>>>>>>>\>>>----\1         Lyraelle

[RAE]
If only he were the type of demon who got wings, Rae might be able to do something about his current situation. Ain't that a kick in the head? Near total immortality but defeated by something as mundane as gravity.
Finding his clutching fist empty, the berserker finds himself falling out of the air with ever-increasing speed, the magnetic pull dragging him back to earth at beyond terminal velocity. When he strikes the piled metal below it is to an enormous CRUNCH of things other than his body breaking, scraps folding around him as his bulk turns the pile into a crumpled crater around his superheated limbs.
"BITCH!"
The demon's roaring hatred echos through the streets as he glares up toward the vague silhouette hidden against the blinding radiance of her miniature sun. A sight that would concern him if he were capable of the emotion. Thrashing about, he is just about free of the wreckage when the green sun heart comes thundering down upon him, turning the section of street he had occupied into a pulverized mess. Chunks of stone are sent flying in all directions, melted metal fragments leap skyward only to splat down upon the surrounding architecture, and Rae himself...
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"
Staggering free of the smoke and dust, the demonic biker leaves a thick trail of burning gore from multiple nasty rents across his tattooed hide. Finger-width gashes yawn open from where bits of debris tore across his exposed skin, bits of jagged metal still lodged in some while a mixture of dark blood and liquid flame oozes forth to soak him from chest to knees.
He seems unhappy.
Rearing his head back, he casts a crazed, hate-filled stare up toward the distant redhead, sitting pretty in the air where he shouldn't be able to reach her.
Shouldn't. But then there's that whole animal cunning thing.
Keeping one hateful eye turned toward the sky, the monster continues his slow trudge along the street, exiting the scene of devastation and roughly booting open the side door to a tiny meat shack. Reaching into the darkness, he hauls forth not one, but two medium-sized propane tanks, tossing them carelessly to the ground with a ringing clamor. Then, with no more hesitation than a normal man opening a door, he steps forward and brings one flaming boot stomping down upon the pair of them, crumpling the metal and causing the gas within to explode in a burst of flaming concussion.
Concussion that hurls the insane demon skyward like the world's shittiest missile, bulk tumbling ass over kettle in an ungainly sprawl of flames and muscle that just manages to swing its boots forward into a dropkick before colliding heavily with the flapping demoness. Or, well, trying at least. Either way, in typical Rae fashion he didn't really consider how he was going to get back down.

COMBATSYS: Lyraelle dodges Rae's Bat Out Of Hell.

[              \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Rae              1/------=/=======|>>>>>>>\>>>----\1         Lyraelle

[LYRAELLE]
As second nature as the wings of her birthright have become to the Demon Queen, she's hardly considered the frustration that her subconsciously maintained elevation might cause for a rage-fuelled animal of Rae's kind. Hovering like a tease above the twisted mass of flesh and muscle, she looks almost surprised when he grabs the propane tanks.

An excerpt to provide a rare insight into the inner workings of the Demon Queen's mind:

W-T-F?

Oh, of course.

He's going to throw things at her.

Better get ready to dodge.

And come up with a one-liner.

Gorillas love throwing barrels, don't they?

Wait, what's he doing now?

Did he just suicide?

W-T-

- Oh.

At the last moment, Roisin twists to one side, allowing Rae to go hurtling feet-first past her, the hot breeze of his passing blowing through her hair for a brief moment.

"Geez. You didn't think I was gonna come down and finish what I started, huh?" she calls down to Rae as the bellowing demon starts to plummet below her again. "Alright, Donkey Kong. No need to blow yourself twice! I'll make this easy for ya! Ready or not..."

As the scantily-clad succubus turns her barely-clothed back on the brute, deja vu may perhaps set in - though, depending on how many high-caliber bullets to the head he's taken lately, his long-term memory might understandably be spotty.

"...Here I come!"

The demoness swings both legs up as her back bends once more, presenting her pale posterior - and, with a tremendous flap of her black wings, she's suddenly careening earthward toward the red devil like the world's sexiest missile.

The world's sexiest missile, according to Google, is the HOT missile, a joint German-French which is, like Her Infernal Majesty, is one of the most successful of its class, can be deployed by attack helicopters, and often includes a direct link for observing its point of view during operation.

The rate of descent is what really puts the danger in the demonette's derriere, but even that is primarily for the purpose of pushing her prey to the pavement and pin him prone with her posterior before producing the primary peril that the prima donna possesses -

Her tail.

Should she manage to so ensnare him amongst the obscuring rubble, the black, rubbery, spaded thing would sprout from her bruised lower back before doing its very best to make a poor decision: wrapping around Rae's nearest limb(s) and attempting to draw from the wrathful demon's essence.

COMBATSYS: Lyraelle issues a challenge!!

[              \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Rae              1/------=/=======|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2         Lyraelle

COMBATSYS: Lyraelle successfully hits Rae with Royal Requisition - Dark Queen's Throne.
- Power hit! -

[                    \\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Rae              1/--=====/=======|>>>>>>>\-------\0         Lyraelle

[RAE]
With every miss, every taunting deflection of his red-haired opponent, the urge to kill grows harder to control. His mind throbs with it, power growing wilder and more chaotic.
Plummeting to earth for the second time in as many minutes, the demon ploughs head-first through an already burning awning and into the flaming remains of the pottery shop beneath. A wave of shattered porcelain sprays in all directions as the crockery does its best to break his fall, leaving most of the heavy lifting to the brute's freakishly solid skull.
"HRAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Beyond speech, barely hanging on to what little shreds of sanity he has left, the monster lurches to his feet and tears his way out onto the street beyond, shards of baked clay dropping out of his shaggy hair to bounce across the flaming earth. Swaying and off balance, bell clearly wrung, he feels the wind of Lyraelle's approach well before he thinks to look up.
Chin lifting, he gets a glimpse of something soft and pale divided by a blur of black before his face is impacted by the supple picture of youth and beauty.
You know, not so bad when you think of i--.
The Demon Queen's downward momentum carries the brute over backward and brings him crashing to earth yet again, driving the back of his head hard into the pavement. She can feel the way his arms go suddenly limp beneath her thighs, the sudden lack of breath exhaling from his trapped maw. Limp and unresponsive, there is nothing he can do to stop the lashing tail from whipping down to curl about his bicep, drawing deep of the infernal rage that makes him such an unkillable nightmare.
And deeper.
And Deeper...
Isn't he supposed to run out?
A long, steaming breath scalds its way across Lyraelle's pale cheeks, muscles twitching all across the monster's brutish form. Where once the surface of his skin had been hot it grows super nova, pavement smoking where his body makes contact with it.
"...UUURRRRRRRRRHHK."
A low, rasping groan gurgles forth from the depths of the monster's chest as his brain reboots, having completely short circuited from the raw overload of HATE coursing through his veins. Barely seeming to notice the touch of the red-headed demonette, he plants one hand against the melting pavement and begins to lever himself up to his feet, shaking his head like a bull to clear it of ass. As he does so the burnt patches of flesh that mar his body begin to fall away in large sheets, revealing more crimson scales beneath. Where bits of metal have lodged in his body the flesh heals around them, anchoring them in place as they begin to glow with hellish heat, his essence expanding to include them as part of his body.
Regaining his feet, he slowly turns his head in search of the scantily clad woman that has caused him so much trouble, flesh peeling away from his damaged left hand to reveal the scaly limb beneath, bits of loose skin clinging to fingers that now end in hooked black claws.
He is, oddly silent, fanged maw hanging slightly open as the world slowly, too slowly, resolves itself from a kaleidoscope of blurs and colors into information his limited brain can process.

COMBATSYS: Rae gains composure.

[               \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Rae              1/---====/=======|>>>>>>>\-------\0         Lyraelle

[LYRAELLE]
There are many metaphors one could use for Lyraelle's predations. One of them is food. When choosing a type of food, there are easy, simple meals that are abundant, but never exciting. Then, there's restaurant food. That's fighters. You have to pay for the privilege, and the menu selection is limited depending on where you go, but the settings are nice, you can try new things, and the higher class you can afford, the better.

Rae is one of those extra spicy dishes from a cheap local place: delicious at the time, hell to pay afterward, but sooner or later, you'll try it again.

In Lyraelle's case, it may be because that poor impulse control has rubbed off on her.

She could keep feeding and feeding. Even as she draws in a breath through her nostrils, ignoring the superheating of the body beneath her, flashbacks from the first time flood back into her mind, her teeth clenching as she tries to assert control of her instincts. Memories of blood spattering the silhouettes of bikers as she'd hunted them down. The screams that even hardened sociopaths couldn't resist letting loose accompanying the crack of snapping bones and the smell of searing flesh. She can't think of another time that she'd ever felt so...

Damn...

Happy?

When her eyes open, there's an orange glow behind them, mingling with the usual green of her irises to produce a sickly yellow gleam. She lets out the satisfied sigh of a junkie who's had a long-awaited fix.

By the time that Rae resets, he rises to find her on her feet again, propping herself against a burning pillar with one hand and greeting his revival with a manic pixie smile.

"Don't worry. I'm sure yours isn't the first central processing unit that's overheated because of me."

Pushing herself away and starting to circle, she continues, "You're quieter now. Feeling more relaxed? God, I hope not. Having to kick-start your partner's rage-boner is always a little embarrassing."

In a practical flit of speed, she seems to disappear and reappear a foot from Rae, close enough to bask in the heat.

"Like, is he actually find me that inspirational if he needs me to do this?"

With that, the red-haired hellion's hand strikes with sudden speed, aiming to backhand the brute in the face with enough force to taste her supernatural might should he receive the blow.

COMBATSYS: Rae fails to interrupt Medium Punch from Lyraelle with Harmageddon.

[                   \\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////         ]
Rae              1/-======/=======|=======\-------\1         Lyraelle

[RAE]
Hazy blurs of color shift and sway before the demon's burning eyes, noises crashing nonsensically through his sputtering brain. Perhaps this is his limit. Days of fighting off bounty hunters, a near constant rush of hellfire forcing him to regenerate again, and again. How many times has he been shot in the head? How many death blows has he managed to survive? How much of him is even still human. If the outsides are turning into scales, what about the insides?
"UURGH."
Another low groan works its way from between his fangs, the only verbal answer Lyraelle is likely to get. Swaying on the spot, the blurry outline of her figure appearing before him draws his burning gaze. Triggers what little T-rex brain instincts are left inside the sputtering mess of grey matter he normally uses as a bludgeon.
Lurching forward, he takes the shot to the face without even seeming to notice, pale skin hammering already scarred lips back against rows of jagged iron fangs. However, what spurts from their shredded surface is nothing resembling blood. A spray of pure, undiluted hellfire roars forth from the contact, his veins practically glowing with the stuff as he rears back a fist and swings...
Completely missing the demoness and putting his fist straight through the column she had been leaning against. Both it, and the awning it had been supporting topple into a smashed heap, leaving the biker standing facing away from the redhead, stuck at least partially on auto pilot.

[LYRAELLE]
The hell-witch's hand sparks and thunders on contact as a jolt of blue lightning courses through her, small streaks of black appearing across her exposed skin where the foul electricity passes like veins before fading as the stolen gift and curse of demonic vitality fuels her own rejuvenation. She starts to laugh with unhinged merriment as Rae's blind rage sunders the pillar behind her into rubble.

"See, this is how I like you. Now, your turn! Try calling me a whore."

Mysteriously still-manicured hands ball and press together before drawing apart, the crackling green cord of flame reappearing as she knots it, then stretches it out to a length. In seconds she's whirling the lasso of hellfire over her head.

"Get creative. While your right-hemi's still working."

The burning loop soars toward Rae, intent on encircling him and drawing tight to pin his arms at his sides.

"DISRESPECT ME! I wanna ENJOY this!"

If she manages to capture the old bastard cowgirl-style, he'd be subjected to the full-body force of the rage-fuelled Queen's might wrenching him closer and down toward the smoking ground, her socked right foot rising up above his shoulder before slamming down between the blades to try and pin him face-first to the earth while the other foot would remain on terra firma. Should she pin him thus, the lasso would slip loose, resuming its former function as an infernal bullwhip before the lashes would rain down on Rae with completely unleashed sadistic mania.

COMBATSYS: Lyraelle successfully hits Rae with Royal Reprimand - Lashes to Ashes.

[                        \\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////         ]
Rae              2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=------\-------\0         Lyraelle

[RAE]
World swimming around him like a drunk in 0 gravity with a particularly bad concussion, Rae huffs out a breath of flame and stares forward with raging incomprehension.
'Shhk, thht ss hhw I lhhk ffft. Nhw, yhhr thrn! Try calling me a whore.'
And just like that, it all clicks. Restructured nerve paths blaze to life within the hellfire soup that his brain has become, elevating him from his lost animal state and hitting him with a rush of memories. The fight, his humiliation. How GOD DAMN Much He HATES Her.
"WHOOORE!"
The word explodes from within him on a tide of flames, entire body erupting in a halo of hellfire.
"YOU FUCKIN' BITCH!"
Physical form fading to a mere shadow within the conflagration, he half turns, head swinging boarishly in her direction as the loop drops around his shoulders to lock his arms to his chest.
"Yer Dead!" he rages, jerked forward into a stagger that ends with him crashing face-first to the ground, pavement softening from the heat as she drags him scraping face-first through the debris. She can feel the might of him swelling, muscles flexing beneath the foot that plants on his back. See his fingers digging into the malleable ground as the whip comes down, cracking him again and again across his shoulders and the back of his head. Through the flames she can just see as long strips of skin are flayed away, consumed in the living inferno as the demon beneath is revealed one strip at a time.
"Fuck You!"
Shoving down hard against the ground, the monster surges to his feet with sudden speed, bucking the demoness off as he finally just, snaps.
"Ya Think Yer Cute? I'ma Gonna Peal Yer Face Off And Feed It To Ya! Those Limp Dicks That Love Ya Are Gonna Be Sick When They Find What's Left Of Yer Corpse!"
Within the heart of the living inferno, the shape that she can see has grown less human. Hair shedding away, bits of molten metal jutting from its back and shoulders amidst spikes of organic iron. The majority of its skin burned away to reveal the scales beneath shot through with branching veins of black metal.
Rounding on her with an animal's bounding agility, the unhinged demon hurls himself through the air toward her, both fists crashing down in a heavy overhead slam meant to catch her across face and shoulder and drive her into the ground, only for him to lift up one boot, iron talons having torn through the toe, and stomp it hard down on the back of her head Once, TWICE.
Then, and only then, if he can stop her from moving long enough to get his hands on her, the demon will sink his clawed grip into the flawless skin of one calf, dragging her free of the debris and swinging her as if she weighed nothing at all, bashing her through a crumbling stone wall, the flaming remains of a stand, a section of ground...All the while he roars like an angry beast, manic with hate.

COMBATSYS: Rae successfully hits Lyraelle with Lucifer's Hammer.
-* CRITICAL HIT! *-

[                     \\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////                ]
Rae              0/-------/-<<<<<<|=======\-------\1         Lyraelle

[LYRAELLE]
The chaos had started with a human tsunami rushing toward Roisin's rickshaw.

'I thought commotion was the usual state of affairs.'

When chaos is the usual state of affairs, it isn't chaos. It's directed, boundaried, a machine filled with gears of human ambition. Lyraelle's own life was dedicated to mapping those gears and turning the machine to her own ends, section by section. Some would call it 'order.' Others would call it manipulation. Chaos, though, was the antithesis of the Demon Queen's nature. When people were beyond caring what other people thought, when people stopped trying to feel good and let themselves feel what they felt, when people abandoned the constructs of expectation and operated on basic instinct, how could the Demon Queen rule? How do you own disorder?

Rae Briggs was chaos in the same way a city on fire was chaos. Order and reason couldn't appeal to him anymore than they could control a burning building. He was neither capable of giving or receiving love, and he didn't give a shit. He didn't care what anyone thought. For better or, more likely, for worse, he was what he was, no matter who was watching.

Confronted with that reality, Lyraelle was the only thing she could ever say she was for sure:

Jealous.

That's where it began. Now, she's living in that skin, regurgitating that rage in an unrestrained display of pain inflicted for no reason other than the base drive for catharsis.

When Rae bellows about the 'limp dicks that love her,' though, she's thrown off, figuratively first, and not for the reasons some might.

"Don't bring them INTO this, SWEETIE!" she hollers hysterically between lashes, before he surges up beneath her as she's winding up to redouble the violence of her scourging.

Staggering backward, the wicked redhead is disoriented just long enough by a rage-fuelled stutter in her sense of identity for the beast to find an opening.

Brutally bashed into the street to land face-first in a puddle of her antithesis's smouldering blood, Roisin lets out a dazed groan. Her shoulders lift for a moment as her ears ring, debris falling from her face, only to have it violently smashed back into the defiled ground as her red hair pools around her, her own blood starting to flow from her face as even supernaturally resilient cartilege is crushed by the onslaught.

"Bastard," is all that the dazed demoness can get out as talons dig into the flesh of her calf, the blood seeping from punctured skin only a taste of what is to come.

By the time that Rae finishes obliterating their surroundings with the demon girl's body, she's flung free to crumple like a broken bird, skidding away along the wretched ground to slam into an abandoned rickshaw.

Never has the Demon Queen's beauty been subjected to such raw carnage. Blood flows freely from gashes that would surely scar. Her nose is broken, along with at least a rib or two. One arm hangs limp from its socket. When she spits out the surge of blood filling her mouth, a tooth lands on the ground.

As she grabs onto the rickshaw with one hand to haul herself up, she spots her reflection in one of the carriage's cracked mirrors. A battered redhead gapes back at her through a single unswollen yellow eye.

Feeling nothing, she laughs.

In a flash, she's whipped full round to rush toward Rae, still cackling as she uses her still-good arm to jam the other back into joint, rolling it around as stolen regenerative abilities fuse tendons back together. A limp in her gouged leg fades after she barely avoids falling forward, the bleeding stopping as the slashed veins clot. Black, curved horns sprout from her head as she tilts her neck back a step from the other monster before shamelessly borrowing one of the brute's favourite tricks and slamming a vicious flying headbutt toward his face.

The follow-up would be a spinning elbow aimed to drive into the brawler's solar plexus hard enough to double him over through sheer force if not through pain.

Finally, she'd spin again, aiming to whip her tail around Rae's neck with a flick of her hips and pull him into a tight chokehold as she'd land on her feet, the insidiously strong appendage siphoning at his essence with even greater greed than before.

This time, it would seem, she'd have no intention of stopping until she's ushered him into oblivion and brought an end to the chaos.

COMBATSYS: Lyraelle successfully hits Rae with Royal Prerogative - Covetous Clutch.
! VENGEANCE !

[                                < >  ////////////////              ]
Rae              1/------</<<<<<<<|=------\-------\0         Lyraelle

[RAE]
At some point during the demolishing of his surroundings the wordless roaring gains a new rhythm. A hacking, grinding, rise and fall of savage laughter as that overwhelming urge to hurt finally gains an outlet. In fact, he is still laughing when he finally releases the Demon Queen to bounce and skip her way across the ruined street, doubled over as his iron-studded shoulders heave with the effort of it all.
Every breath fuels an exhale of fire as he transitions from mad cackles to the odd chuckle, pushing upright and giving an idle glance down to his metal-clawed hands.
"Hugh." he grunts, seeming as indifferent to the changes as he is to most things. It doesn't change anything. Doesn't stop him, so it simply is. In fact...
Burning gaze lifting from his jagged claws to the battered redhead who is even now getting to her feet, he comes to a single, brilliant realization.
Having claws is going to make that face peeling thing a lot easier.
Stepping forward to make fantasy a reality, he shows no reaction to the horny girl tearing free to charge him. Trundling ahead, his only attempt at defense is to lower his skull slightly and accept the headbutt full on, skulls crashing together with an almighty 'THUNK!'
Knocked a bit off balance, the hard-headed monster rocks back on his heels, flaming brow furrowing as one hand swipes out to try and catch the smaller demon by the upper arm, to grind the lunging elbow to a halt and take her once more into his grasp. The tips of his claws graze her rapidly healing skin as she blasts right through the attempt, driving a burning grunt from his lungs as he doubles over the strike, scaly torso taking it as if his bones themselves were transforming into iron.
But all of those are merely appetizers, a warm up for the arrival of the tail that lashes around his throat, threatening to cut off his air supply entirely.
"GRAAAAAAAARGH!"
Head thrown back, Rae braces his feet against the molten pavement and resists the tug, muscles bulging throughout his neck and shoulders as he works to prevent the loss of oxygen. The heat that emanates from his body doubles, then redoubles as she begins to drain him, hellfire flooding up her rubbery limb to fill her veins with the essence of what he is.
Howling to the heavens, the monster channels every ounce of his being into the thought of destruction, lightning crackling forth to ring his neck as her tail works to hold it in. To contain him.
'THUD.'
One knee splashes down into the semi-solid street, the balance of power shifting, tipping as more of his soul is drained.
THMP.
A fist joins the knee, the brute hunched forward as his body burns, everything around them burns...
'FWHHOOOOOOOM!'
A final blast of raging hellfire erupts from Rae's hunched form as the hatred within him hits some point of critical mass, impacting the surrounding buildings like an infernal bomb. Windows are blown out then flash melted into sprays of molten glass. Burning debris is blasted down the narrow streets like flaming grapeshot. And at the center of it all, Rae Briggs finally falls with a heavy 'WUMPH' to lie face-down in the carbonized crater that was once a street, battered body now 70 percent demonic scales, the radiant heat fading from the bits of spiky metal that protrude from his flesh. Finally, mercifully, the Demon Queen is able to quench his flames.

COMBATSYS: Rae can no longer fight.

[              \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Lyraelle         0/-------/----===|

COMBATSYS: Lyraelle blocks Rae's Hellraiser.

[                 \\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Lyraelle         0/-------/---====|

[LYRAELLE]
As the firestorm washes over her, Roisin's black wing wraps around her battered body like a protective shell. Shards of burning detritus impale themselves in the demonic flesh despite its preternatural toughness, heat glowing along the appendages as the rage spills over and through her. When the outburst finally subsides with the waning of Rae's energy, there's nothing but a sizzling sound and smell in the air for a few seconds. Then, with a leathery flapping sound, the wings unfurl violently, sending the broken bits of glass and rebar stabbing into the area around her, nothing but spite to the already-destroyed environs. The last of the succubus' wounds are sealed as she's revealed, the fingers of one hand reaching up to delicately adjust her nose as she wrenches the mirror from the burning rickshaw and uses it to fine-tune the repair as if it were a last-minute makeup check.

"There we go," she declares, tossing the mirror over her shoulder to land with a tinkling crash in the sundered vehicle from whence it was borrowed.

"Now, what's going on with those bounty hunters?" she wonders, placing her left hand on her hip as she raises her right to shield her glowing eyes from the light of the burning district as she scans the area for the bodies, the yellow slowly fading to green. Some distance away she can see a black-cloaked corpse impaled on a street sign near another three lying abandoned in the street, one headless.

Right. That's where she'd found him. She focuses her keen hearing to hear chatter coming from their comms.

Whatever she hears seems to bring a smile to her lips, and she bends over to place a fingertip amongst the tattooed, twisted sinew, metal, scales and flesh of Rae's chest. Searing green heat glows through the digit as it traces a tiny scar.

"Rest up, Sleeping Beauty. The dwarves are coming to get you."

The scar disappears into Rae's skin as Roisin turns away, her wings, horns and tail fading as her feet carry her with a smooth sashay into a nearby alley...

"And the Fairest in the Land wants to know where they live."

...humming to drown out her heartbeat as it thunders in her ears.

COMBATSYS: Lyraelle exercises her royal prerogative of non-action.

[                 \\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Lyraelle         0/-------/---====|

COMBATSYS: Lyraelle has ended the fight here.

Log created on 18:52:25 01/20/2022 by Rae, and last modified on 22:00:46 03/09/2022.