He turned down a random hall, moving quickly as a doctor or one of those researchers? He could not tell for sure, they all wore the same lab coats, and after the years, their Identities had become lost in an endless memory of faces, replaced repeatedly, just to keep the secret of his existence safe.
But still not one of them had come here without being made aware of what they were coming to do. Not a single one of them, and they had come gladly. Tearing him open, poking and prodding, taking out and then putting back in, over and over until he became what he is now.
Muted, almost unfeeling, and angry. Cold, silent, but angry. It was the only emotion that could find a way to pierce that veil. He shook his head as he reached the end of the hall and turned a corner. Those guards with the decoy body would have blown the special elevator that led directly to the roof to make sure no one followed them in their escape.
He would take the stairs as that would be faster for him. Only one problem, was that a security guard? Azrael growled as he started walking, slowly picking up speed, his movements eerily silent even if he was running with all his strength. The guard turned at Azrael's bloody running form. His immediate reaction was to whip out his grimoire, but Azrael got to him before he could even begin to flood the grimoire's spell circuits with magic.
The grimoire looked basic. Azrael had no idea if there was an aspect attached to it, but It looks like the guard has a stun gun? By method of elimination he might have a lightning aspect from his wind affinity. Azrael would not jump to conclusions about his opponent's weapon though. He could not tell what rank of grimoire that was, but in his current state anything more than Mortal II would mean death and not incapacitation. Azrael was trying to avoid that as much as possible. Even if it was almost impossible for him to die.
Before the cast could be finished, Azrael grabbed hold of the barrel of the grimoire. Spell matrixes came to life and sigils burning furiously as the guard prepared to release the grimoire's spell.
Azrael responded quickly by smashing his head forwards. A shocked cry escaped the guard's mouth as he let go of the grimoire and brought a hand to his broken nose And smashed in face. Azrael grimaced, he was much stronger than most humans, at least stronger than those in the mortal rank I. It was obvious this guard has not advanced his path past the mortal-I rank, leaving his physical qualities not better than a normal human being. But then again Azrael was not sure he could be considered human either.
The guard collapsed on the ground, screeching as the pain from his smashed in nose and damaged skull ravaged him. The damage was significant, Azrael was sure the guard would go into shock soon enough, but considerable damage or not it did not look like the guard will be dying any time soon… And letting something suffer life when it needs death… this was not how Azrael was taught.
He raised his legs up and brought it smashing down onto the guard's face. The gory sight that followed the motion did not seem to shake him as the guard's cries got cut off. Then he looked down at Grimoire in his hand and hissed through his teeth. A habit he had picked up from Thomas after interacting with the Man a few times.
The grimoire was basic. Standard issue for most guards with two spell cards in it.
It was basic, a grimoire with mass-produced spell cards, and crafted with subpar materials. He doubted he could even use those spells as rapidly or as quickly as he would want due to the terrible materials. That would be a limitation, at least to a certain extent. Not to mention it would be difficult for him to handle since he did not have a grimoire path affinity for wind, or the lightning aspect.
Azrael continued his way into he got to the stairwell. He frowned as he realized it was much brighter lit than the hallways he had just escaped from. He looked up, noticing a massive skylight, lined with lights at the edge. A sucky design at night though, you could not look through the skylight to see the night sky as those lights would burn your retinas off. I wonder if they did that on purpose?
Either way the stairway was filled with a lot of people trying to leave or come up from lower floors. This would slow him down terribly as It would not be long before those stooges find out that the body with them was just a decoy. Once they did the full force of this place would be coming down on Azrael. He needed to be out of the building before then.
He took one look at the skylight and the lights around its edge, then looked up the stairwell. He needed to go up a few floors to get out of here, there were still more levels down, more secrets… Father was down there. Azrael leaned on the railing and looked at the stairwell, as if his eyes could pierce through the crowd of people and find the person he was looking for.
"Hey! What are you doing? Code Black! I repeat Code Black! Azrael's is-"
Azrael turned and moved quickly, his form a blur as he slammed the end point of the first guard's grimoire under the jaw of the new arrival, it seems one of the researchers? He fired off the
There was a small flash and a powerful discharge of lightning as Azrael blasted half the researchers' jaw off. The shocked gurgling sounds he made with half a jaw filled the stairway as someone screamed in background.
All eyes were on him now, he had made a mistake. He should never have let the thoughts of Father intrude. The director was not around or would have been on that chopper with his body the very moment this all started. Azrael doubted the angel would have wanted to be far from his precious son and investment.
Azrael shook his head, an attempt to shake off the stray thoughts. Then he took aim with grimoire then fired off the
But at this range it should not be possible what Azrael was trying to do, and with a basic grimoire of all things. A person would have to overload the spell cards and circuits, giving it more power, but not by much, or else the grimoires would experience degradation. The problem though was that gathering the magic necessary to overload a Grimoire takes time, and there was only so much magic in a person's body.
Except of course for Azrael… there was no magic in his body. Not at the moment at least. He was unawakened and as such the source in his body was dormant. Of course, with no magic in his body, it should not be possible for him to use grimoires. But Azrael was an experiment.
No magic was a side effect of what he was… whatever the hell that was, normally by this age, other humans, or even the Celestial-Born and Infernal-Born already awakened and gained access to their source. But just because he had no magic in his body, did not mean he could not use it. The working theory though was that it was only temporary and the older he got, not only would he gain a capacity for magic, but it would keep getting bigger. Because he was so different, his awakening was taking a bit longer than most. But Azrael could feel it, it shouldn't be too far from now, and this was why it was important he got the hell out of here.
Azrael had exquisite control over magic, so much so that he could manipulate the ambient magical sources in the air and use them to cast spells and make himself stronger as the situation demands. Of course this takes a toll on his body, and he could not do it past a certain point. Magical damage to an un-awakened body are a lot to heal… one of the only few times, screams of pain has ever come out of his mouth.
Still, pouring magic into the grimoire was no stress for Azrael. He had to be careful not to ruin the grimoire, but he still got his results. As the spell finally reached its intended target.
The skylight and the lights around it shattered. Causing even more screams as the place darkened. But not pitch black, there were still individual light fixtures on each landing of the stairwell, but those could be easily taken care of.
Azrael ran and leaped off the railing, his body flying into the air and two floors up. Azrael fired off the
Azrael pulled himself up, the strength of his arms more than enough to propel him straight to the next floor. He was now two floors below his destination, and they were all packed with people trying to escape. The landings were all dark with only a red exit sign glowing from the door out to the ground floor.
Azrael moved, vanishing into the scared crowd of people. Even with the panic his appearance had caused, he was moving through them a lot easier than they would expect. And that was because as he moved, he took random personal effects from different people.
A silver wristwatch, an army green leather satchel, a Sweatshirt tied around someone's waist that he replaced his doctor's coat with. A receptionist had extra rubber bands on her wrist, he borrowed two of those and tied up his long hair in a ponytail. The next effect to move was a hat as he slipped his hand into a particularly heavy-set lady's bag and took out her face wipes, and a little make up.
Still in the crowd, all pushing to escape while frantic guards pushed and tried to get him back. But the thick throng of bodies impeded them more than it did Azrael. His face and any other exposed parts of his body had been cleaned up. Sunglasses on some guy dressed in a beach shirt covered his eyes. The sweatshirt over his head and make up to hide any slowly healing bruises. Then he saw a guard, squeezed to the side of the railing as he looked around frantically for Azrael.
It was too easy to tip him over and make it seem like it was an accident. Azrael reached out to grab the guard and came back with his boots instead.
"Oh my God! Somebody help him! He fell!" viable way to shift a bit of attention and create space. Some good Samaritan rushed over to the edge to see if the guard survived… or they just wanted to see how a smashed-up person looks like, who knows.
Either way, it was enough space and time for Azrael to cover his bloodied feet. There was an abandoned blazer on the ground, which he scooped up and hung over one arm, a distracted man lost his briefcase and was not even aware of it.
It did not matter that Azrael was a lot shorter than most of the people here and still had the lanky awkward gait of a teenager. He pushed and maneuvered his way, moving through the crowd like a snake through grass. It was as if there was no obstacle and he just kept moving towards his goal.
Azrael swiped a key card and strolled through the exit door. He showed up in the main lobby of the building. It was still just as hectic as there were people all still rushing out from other sides of the building. The main lobby though, was on fire.
"Father is going to be so mad at Thomas." He muttered as he took in the sight of the carnage in front of him.
Azrael felt that scene in front of him was comical. Thomas had let an armored van drive straight into the lobby, smashing the 20-foot statue of Father and bringing it crashing to the ground. The van had the words-
FUCK YOU, CHICKEN WINGS
Written in bold red letters and quite a few suggestive drawings on them. Azrael felt or thought he should feel amused at the situation. It was hard, he looked at the scene again and smiled. But his smile was something horrifying to look at, it was as if his lips were not sure whether to be together or apart.
Well say what you want about Thomas. For a spy he was not very subtle, not that Azrael knew much about spies. He had still just built his knowledge from observing people, and over the course of his growing up, he never had much of chance to observe spies until Thomas came into the picture.
He walked towards the entrance, intermingling with the crowd with the same frantic frenzy they used to get out of the building. At this point freedom was so close he could almost taste it, he, however, had to be careful.
It was not as hard as he thought to get past the entrance, coming up in front of an open foyer. Ahead, he could see a small contingent of guards lined up, but no amount of scrutiny from them, would be able to tell Azrael apart from the panicking crowd of people rushing out. especially after Azrael had swiped another coat, this time a hideous multicolored feminine raincoat.
He shifted his posture, making himself look terrified and hysterically more afraid than should be normal. He was the brightest thing and the first person the guards located. But the blubbering feminine mess and an ugly raincoat was not the priority of the guards, so he easily slipped past them after one of them had told him what direction to exit the compound from.
And he did. In the distance he could hear sirens as police officers and firefighters rushed to the scene. Not that any of the people here would let the police officers in or even let them know any of what has been happening down here, they were just there for show anyways, the police had no power here. A crowd had gathered in the main street leading up into the compound.
This was right in the middle of the city's corporate district, so there were thousands of workers and pedestrians going about their daily lives. Azrael slipped past them, ignoring the questions of the bystanders who kept asking what had happened.
Instead, as he worked his way through the gathered crowd of bystanders, Azrael removed every article of clothing he gained from the facility that he could replace easily. Soon enough all the coats, the hat and much of whatever extra blood stains on him were gone in seconds. He slipped the grimoire into a man's raincoat, then walked to the top of the street where a small sedan was parked with the plates reading.
[DRGN PRNCE]
Azrael rolled his eyes; sure, such a name was pretentious and stupid. He opened the side door of the car, as if he were the one who had left it there and took a seat, as the car started almost immediately and drove into the city and away from the only life Azrael had even known.
"So… how was my distraction?" Azrael turned to middle aged black man sitting beside him and tried his best to give a smile, though it was still quite painfully awkward for him.
"It was… Quite explosive."
"Yes! Hahahaha that it is! Yes, it was." They both lulled into a comfortable silence, as Azrael, exhausted not just from being torn open, but also escaping the compound, closed his eyes, and let sleep drag him into a world of dark dreams. A world that told him no matter how far he ran, it was only a matter of time before Father found him again. And all that he would know… Would be pain.