#Chazaqiel: how the fuck was it me?? I wasn't really in any of these yet!

[haunting-of]

Danel is on the run.

Everyone was chasing him, everyone was on his trail. Jesha in their van, armed with all kinds of human weapons, just did not understand his point of view.

And then Chazaqiel, Bezaliel, and Asaradel were on foot, faster and closer on his heels, ready to kill him with their bare hands. Danel darted into one of the half blown-apart buildings in the empty street.

Inside was waterlogged and destroyed. He could see through the ceiling into the next floor, and was glad the tornado had done so much destruction already. It'd be that much easier to pass off some additional damages. He checked the wall, checking for a support beam.

And the three hunters weren’t far behind. As expected, Asaradel was behind him, Chazaqiel came in from the front, and from the amount of shadows swirling and pooling on the second floor, Danel didn’t even have to look up to know Bezaliel was there.

And their trap was nearly perfect. Asaradel, the weakest of them, could handle him turning to escape with the extra second it would take. Chazaqiel was the most aggressive, ready for Danel to come right at him. Taking any of them head on was too risky, though; if he tried running or fighting, then Bezaliel would catch him from above.

He was pinned.

With no guarantee that Chazaqiel would give him a moment for banter, he didn’t wait. The only way Chazaqiel wouldn’t attack was if he broke and buried her. Danel turned to the wall support and put his arms around it, pulling out the support beam for the second floor. It snapped and splintered as Chazaqiel lunged at him.

And the second story floor fell fast, hard, onto Chazaqiel's back, pinning her underneath it without managing to catch Danel with her clawed fingernails.

Bezaliel was caught off guard long enough to make an opening, and Danel ran without turning, aiming for the door just behind him. Asaradel instinctively prepared for a fight, muscles tensing, as Danel fluidly slipped by.

He prayed Chazaqiel wouldn't get up, and ran like hell.

Asaradel chased after, leaving the rubble behind him, but he'd never be able to catch him on his own. And after the dust settled a little, Bezaliel picked himself up.

And Chazaqiel?

He checked on Chazaqiel. Largely untouched, she was lying on her stomach under the collapsed floor, arms still stretched out to where Danel had been standing. Half of her face was covered in hair, and she tried to blow it away without much success. 

Bezaliel sized up how Chazaqiel's body wasn’t moving. “Your spine?”

Chazaqiel couldn’t nod. Or move anything, really. “It’s broken.”

Asaradel joined Bezaliel in the ruined building as the wind picked up again. They were both ready to do whatever it took now. Plague the world, damn the world. Danel had to die.

“We’ve tried reasoning," he said from the floor. "We’ve tried your... approaches. Now you make it hurt so much he'll wish he'd never crossed the line. I’ll meet him back in hell, and if you fail this time, I'm getting Samyaza.”

Asaradel shivered at the thought. Bezaliel's eyes grew wide from behind the dark mask, then nodded and stepped towards Chazaqiel. He stomped once on the base of her neck, killing her entirely, before leaving the corpse.