The man continues. "Glad to see you take it so well."

A deep-seated, boiling rage has Mikael seething. He knows this person.

what in the world is he doing here? He thinks to himself.

"Oh, I can feel it all. The anger, the humiliation, the fear, the sadness. It brings me so much joy that you can feel this much after everything!" The man exclaims.

"You sick fuck!" Mikael says, his aura exploding to counteract his opponent's.

"I hope you can put up more of a fight this time around." The man says, and lunges at Mikael so quickly that Mikael can barely react. The man throws a fist at him and he manages to block it, only for the punch to launch him into the air, hovering above the motel's roof.

"Mahogany!" Mikael screams and his spectral gauntlet quickly materializes on his arm, and he telekinetically repels the man's incoming right fist, but the force of impact sends Mikael flying to the ground - the motel's parking lot.

Mikael quickly swaps between Mahogany and his twin pistols, Wolfe and Styx. "Expunge!" he yells out, as he fires off two balls of lightning.

"Oh, please." The man says as he swats the attack away, causing an explosion on either side of the hotel's parking lot.

As the small amount of residents hear the commotion outside, they rush to the front to see the chaos. They only see the fires in the fields caused by the explosion and Mikael, but cannot perceive either the cause of the fires or the person Mikael is fighting. Marvin has seen this as well, but he can see that Mikael is struggling to keep up. He tries to emulate the hand signs Mikael used to put up the veil earlier, but can't seem to do that. The people are beginning to feel Mikael is some sort of mime or a crazy person.

Meanwhile, Mikael is still getting tossed around by the blond man, who appears to be getting bored.

"Are you still this weak? We gave you enough time, too." The man complains.

"What are you doing here?! What business does The Hand have here?" Mikael yells out, catching his breath after.

"Well, I doubt it'll be fun if you don't have even a *little* clue." He starts. "We're here to celebrate the birth of a new kind of Fallen. One that would easily be above a World-Eater. Who knows, they might have even more potential than *you* did."

"What are you talking about? A new fallen?" Mikael asks, confused.

He sighs. "You needn't worry about the details. You'll learn all about it first-hand, anyways." He turns his back to Mikael. "If that's all you have, then I'm afraid you have disappointed me, and I'll be taking my establishment with me." He points a finger at the building and a red particle of light materializes.

"Ignition - Legion!" Mikael yells out, causing him to turn back and look at him.

"This is interesting. I don't recall you being capable of doing that as of the last time we met." The man says, discarding the attack he had in mind and turning to focus on him.

Mikael still maintains a somewhat human appearance, though now appearing more like a fall. His eyes are substituted by hollowed-out black circles, he doesn't appear to have a mouth or nose, and he has horns growing on either side of his head, resembling tree branches. There is a swirling darkness around him.

The humans in the area have lost the ability to see him, and some return inside thinking it was an act, others thinking he's crazy. Marvin, however, can see Mikael's new form and remains outside to see how he can help.

Mikael's ring has seemingly vanished, but his necklace still hanging on his neck.

Dark tendrils of energy from the shadow-like presence around him shoot out at the man, who sends them away with ease, before blocking Mikael's sneak attack, pushing him away with relative ease. "You don't seem all that strong, but at least you look like one of us, now." He says.

"I'll fucking end you!" Mikael yells and springs back up, throwing a dark ball of energy at him, he dodges easily and proceeds to land an attack of his own, by taking a leap and hammer-fisting him into the ground, opening a small crater in the tarred ground.

Getting back up almost immediately, a beam of energy hits Mikael squarely in the chest, sending him flying into the distant bushes.

Trying to stand up again, another beam rains down on him, pinning him to the ground.

"It is not funny anymore, you know." The man says, holding up his finger and pointing the beam at him. "You haven't learned anything since the last time. You haven't grown in any way."

Mikael, still refusing to say anything other than grunting in pain, slowly gets back up on his feet, shielding his face and head with both arms, before the beam's intensity is raised, and he falls back on one knee, still holding up his blocking arms.

"I'll still kill you." Mikael yells through the pain. His right horn is broken in half.

"I think I should just end this-" He says, but is cut short by something.

The beam's intense heat and bombardment have stopped for some reason. Mikael looks up at the man, whose attention has shifted to the fist on his face.

The man looks at the person whose fist is still on his face. It's Marvin.

He seems to be offended, as the punch not only was ineffective, it also distracted him. "Who are you?" He questions, menacingly.

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"I could ask you the same question," Marvin says.

Mikael is in disbelief. "What are you doing here, you idiot?!!"

"Saving your sorry ass," Marvin says.

"Saving?" Mikael and the man chorus.

"A human, huh? I couldn't sense you." the man says. "No matter," he says, taking Marvin's hand and flinging him away so hard that he flies a significant distance away from them.

"Now, where was I?" He turns to Mikael, right before a large black spike impales him from behind.

"Huh?" The man is surprised. Mikael seizes the opportunity and proceeds to hit him with a variety of strikes, sending him reeling back a bit.

To keep up the momentum, Mikael quickly closes the distance between the two of them and hits him with a palm strike infused with telekinetic force, pushing the man away.

"Ignition - Crow!" Mikael says, and another transformation occurs. His horns and eyes are reduced drastically in size and the eyes look slanted as opposed to the previous one's round nature.

Mikael lunges again at the man coats his arms in red lightning, and hits him with a double palm strike, hitting the man squarely in the chest, sending him into a nearby car, erupting in a sea of flames.

Mikael's transformation quickly wears off, the featureless face cracking, revealing his heavy eyes and heavily injured face. He coughs up a little blood, staining his already injured body and clothes.

A maniacal cackle is heard from the rubble. The laugh echoes so loudly that the aura in the laugh is enough to knock Mikael off his feet. Marvin returns to the scene of the battle and rushes to pick Mikael up before they both witness a large silhouetted creature emerge out of the rubble.

Mikael senses that the people in the building are in danger, but before he can get himself to his feet, the shadowy creature blasts a beam at the motel, blowing it to bits, killing everyone inside, destroying the surrounding facilities, cars, and the like. Mikael and Marvin can only stare in shock at the sheer destruction caused.

The man emerges from the rubble as if nothing happened. His clothes are burnt entirely, but he seems refreshed, walking around, stark naked. "That's what I expected of you, dear child." he congratulates Mikael. "You have gotten a bit stronger. Sadly, I must take my leave now...I look forward to our next interaction."

He turns around and walks towards the burning rubble of the motel.

"Wait!" Mikael yells out. The man stops.

"Why are you doing this? Why did you have to kill all those people?!" He asks, coughing up, afterward.

"Oh, dear child..."He speaks. "If you don't understand that much by now, then the person you should be questioning is yourself." He concludes and disappears into the raging flames of the burning building.

Mikael and Marvin are left outside the building, with Mikael still heavily injured.

The nightmares flash in Mikael's mind. Tears start to flow from Mikael's eyes as he screams out in anger.

Marvin helps him get back to his feet and walks him over to the road. There, they sit and wait, using torn pieces of cloth to cover their noses from the smoke of the fire. Mikael eventually loses consciousness, leaving Marvin awake.

Determined to get out of the situation as safely as possible, Marvin searches Mikael's pockets for Contact Cards. He can't seem to find Chica or Ramiel's card and assumes he either forgot them in his apartment or they were lost in the fire. However, he finds one with a location assigned to it. The location, Thome, is not far from Grayville, and so he quickly calls the card.

"Hello again, troublemaker." The card owner responds. "What makes you think you can just call me anytime you feel like it?"

"Hello, I'm sorry, this is Mikael's partner, and he requires serious medical attention," Marvin says.

"Where are you?" She asks. "How bad are his injuries?"

"Southbound Motel in Grayville." He answers.

"I'll be there in fifteen." She says, and the call ends.

Marvin lies down on the grassy fields, next to his unconscious partner.

"I seriously need to reevaluate my career choices."

About fifteen minutes later, a mysterious woman in black, wearing an eyepatch on one eye as well as a long reddish-black trench coat, arrives in a small car. "Get in. Extra careful with him!" she commands. Marvin responds quickly, carefully lifting Mikael by the arms placing him in the passenger seat, and sitting right next to him. The car starts immediately and zooms off in the direction it came, even further away from Bayside.

Inside the car, there is a man in the front passenger seat, wearing a jack' o-lantern as a mask. The woman with the eyepatch begins questioning Marvin. "What happened to him?"

"He was attacked by a man," Marvin replies promptly.

"Bullshit. Try again." She says, taking out her pistol.

"I'm serious. It was a man, but other people couldn't see him." Marvin tries explaining.

"A devourer? A world-eater?" She asks, frenzied.

"Calm down, Bea." The man with the Jack-o-lantern says calmly. "As long as he isn't dead. None of this matters. When he comes to, then he can explain it to us."

"yeah, maybe you're right." She says, putting the pistol down.

The car picks up speed and drives away from the scene of the burning hotel.