[As a quick disclaimer, any images or materials used are property of their original creators/owners]

The Demoness awoke with a start. One would after her personal ordeal, stiff, sore body disallowing the simplest movement of sitting up as she half turned over, grunting to herself, using her arms to push herself up and stare about at her surroundings. Well this certainly wasn't home.. Green grass, tall oak trees, whose leaves shimmered with morning dew, shivering as a cold breeze danced by.

Ugh, it was a mortal realm.. Or was it one of those other realms? Even they disgusted her, in spite of the kind of tenant that was there. The demons who actually enjoyed neutrality and the peaceful green countryside.
She referred to them as sport, targets, playthings for amusement. Ultimately dead weight demons. But then any demon that wasn't her got the same treatment, yet here she was now, beaten, almost broken, energy drained to the very limit, so much she couldn't even regenerate properly

She wanted revenge, anger was fuelled in her eyes as she struggled ot get to her feet, armored torso and lowerbody feeling heavy, immovable almost, but she managed somehow. All she needed to do was recover her powers, then BLAM, she'd go blast those treacherous lackeys to kingdom come.. Yeah, that'd be a damn good day.
But the question now was how would she do it? She couldn't just rest.. She needed food, perhaps the humans.. Nah she couldn't imagine such weak things were very tasty, she didn't understand what vampiric demons saw in humans.

Now Angels.. They'd probably make a very sweet, satisfying meal.. Arrogant little celestial-realm-dwelling-do-gooders. But now wasn't a good time to concern herself about them.. Except now that she was on this human realm, which she assumed was more likely, she was at risk of humanity's little guardians coming down and finding her.
Could her day get any worse? She didn't really think so, beyond some-one coming and finishing off the job her own minions started. There wasn't a whole lot more anyone could do to her she believed.

She stubbornly tried to take a few steps but found herself stumbling, falling down to one knee. Still too weak, she needed to rest a little more..

[yay punny title, lol]

It had been a while since he had really been out early. The grass was still wet, and the water flicked onto his shoes as he walked. The sun shone behind him, casting a long and faint shadow against the trees and fallen twigs and as he walked he could hear the chirping of birds in the high tops of the trees.

It had been a blessing that he needed more wood for the fire. With almost no purpose, he had simply sat around his room for the last few days, reading and studying old books until the small hours of the morning, where he would slowly fall asleep between the old and dusty pages. Although the information wasn’t knew, he enjoyed making sure that it was all stored inside his head for whenever he needed it. Although his life was currently slow, there had been times when quick thinking and knowledge had saved his life.

Slowly, as he walked, Seth became steadily more aware of something moving in front of him. Usually, he wouldn’t have heard anything, put in the gentle stillness of the still fresh morning, it was audible, although only barely. In his mind, he imagined a deer sleeping nestled in the slightly moist soil, surrounded by leaves and twigs.

When he approached, and looked out from behind a tree, what he saw was very, very different. Almost automatically he knew that it was a demon. There was something...inhuman about it. Not just the appearance, but it’s very presence suddenly felt...strange and uncomfortable. Surprised and taken aback by the start contrast of a demon in a place so full of wonder and life, for a few moments he froze. Part of him wanted to act, wanted to do something that he could think back on. After all, he couldn’t let a demon run around loose, it was his duty to protect others to a certain extent.

However, being attacked wounded or dying wasn’t high up on the things he wanted to do, and certainly not by something that he had read could be so dangerous, violent and merciless. Taking a deep breath, he stepped out from behind the tree and faced the terrible creature.

She flinched slightly in place as she tried to move once again, however something caught her attention and she froze. Her ears shifted, twitching once before she turned her form, again weakly stumbling while she did so, barely keeping her balance. She seemed to be looking straight at the human, her left arm withdrawn for a moment to help her balance. Her gave was losing focus, then realigning, but she just couldn't rely on her sight, everything was too unclear. But what she could tell was that this being before her had no demonic energy. No, a regular, stupid, useless mortal..

But then she knew even a human wouldn't be stupid enough not to recognize a weakened, near-defenceless demoness. She cursed to herself internally before growling, a deep, guttural sound not unlike a cat growling at a nearby rival, sharpened teeth bared. Her ears drooped slightly and her face became one of surprise. Energy, a recognizable energy.. Demon energy..! Had they found her already?! A stray hunter..? a whole swarm?! At least she could revel in the delicious irony that the human would be killed in his foolish curiosity.

No.. Just a single signal, but very close, especially as it rose slowly from the ground behind the human. A muscular, dark-skinned form, its face comparably ugly, that of an ogres,
"You're in the wrong place and definitely the wrong time, little man..!!" It chortled, a deep heckling laugh as it smashed a fist into its opposite palm, the thunderclap actually making the ground shake.

It came down to a choice really.. As she stared between the human and the larger creature. Either let him be crushed for the sport and amusement of it, followed by letting that monster do whatever it wished with her, be it dragging her back to the Nether.. Or.. Worse.. She shuddered to think of it as she eyed up the human.
If she died by the hands of a human she could never forgive herself, if she even had a chance to forgive or not to forgive after she perished.
But it was an act of defiance that urged her final decision.
She would die on her own terms,
"Wrong time for you..!" She hissed, reaching her left arm forward. With what little energy she could drag to the surface of her already weakened body she forced the last of it into several dark tendrils of energy that reached around the human, missing him rather deftly and impaling the larger demon in quite a gruesome manner, forcing it to stand in an awkward manner before the tendrils vanished, leaving the large, bleeding brute to stumble back with howls of agony, grasping at the large holes that had been torn in its massive form, the blood in its body refused to stay, although even that probably hadn't been enough to finish him, he was, however, no longer in a position to fight.

The demoness chuckled to herself,
"Take that.. You.. A-.." She cut off, collapsing, half face-first into the ground, no energy to continue on. She supposed whatever would happen next was what was to happen and she could no longer do anything about it.

Hearing the deep voice behind him, Seth froze. What had he done? He was going to die! He hadn’t expected it to be some kind of trap. His hands shook, and sweat ran down the back of his neck. Before he could react in any way, the female seeming demon shot something at him. Closing his eyes, he prepared for death.

Instead of great pain, or the cold feeling of life escaping his mortal forms, he instead heard a stumbling sound and spun round on his heel and jumped back. The horrific and grotesque scene before him would stay carved deep into his memory his whole life. There stood the now stumbling, gigantic figure of another creature. Its eyes were dull as it tried to cover its gaping wounds, blood falling in cascades onto the grass, staining it the same dark colour. The smell rose from the ground and as he breathed in shock, the acid like scent burnt his lungs. The creatures attention on its own desecrated body, Seth had time to turn and make to run.

That’s when he saw the other, female like demon. It lay crumbled on the ground, powerless...defenceless. For a brief moment, he thought about the reward and the pride of killing it. Driving a blade deep into it’s body, ending it’s existence. Yet, something about the helplessness of it’s appearance ended that thought.

His thinking was stopped by a great groan from behind him, and the hulking body of the creature that had tried to kill him. Slowly, it was regaining focus, and had advanced one lumbering step towards him. Still it would not remain in such a state for long, and as he thought about it, he realised that the other must have spent the last of her energy trying to hurt the huge creature. Had she been trying to save him?

Quickly, and with a great sense of panic, Seth bent down next to the female demon and closed his eyes. Whispering quickly and carefully, he waved his hands through the air just over its body.

From the air, shadows formed. Grey, smoky shadows bent and curled in the air like snakes, twisting over each other and then slowly sliding through the air towards the demon woman. As they reached her, they curled around her body, wrapping her hands and legs together.

Slowly, he put his arms under the demon and lifted her up onto his shoulder. She was much lighter then he would have expected, which he was more then thankful for. Taking one look back at the enraged monster, he started to walk off through the trees, back to home.

The lightly armored demon woman certainly was a lot lighter than she appeared. The evil presence of her energy had reduced dramatically, even with such close proximity there was only a weak pulse that would extend from her, stubbornly she still hung on to life by that thread, clinging to that last inch of energy as it was all that was left that sustained her, like a mortal.. If she were conscious she would have been upset at this fact, but her mind barely registered it, her mind was too unfocused and foggy.

The sensation of weakness was so strange, although over the years she had sustained vast power, even at her weakest she could unleash powerful attacks with focus, even as her energy waned she'd spent so long being strong that it became natural. She couldn't believe this was how her life had turned out, at the mercy of a human, the demoness figured it was better than being in the hands of a fellow demon, even those neutral freaks of nature. She tried to deal with the thoughts swimming in her head.

Revenge was by far the most prominent, thoughts of destruction and vengeance ran rampant in her mind, she wanted so much to destroy all those who betrayed her. Her concerns over what would happen to her varied form dealing with angels to whatever the humans cooked up. She'd heard of some who used demons in strange magical experiments, which frankly ended in disaster half the time, foolish creatures, trying to mess with the dark energies of the demons. Foolish, idiotic humans..
So why did she even save one? She couldn't comprehend entirely. She didn't trust humans, demons or anything else with her safety, she'd spent her whole existence fending for herself..