Night's Omen

Siren, Salt, Goblin, Influence/Spell, Shy, Underground/Blood, Midnight, Alone, Thunder, Kiss.

Pretty comes later.

Influence/Spell

The Midnight nightmare was neverending.

Just when Rafael was starting to get his shit together, when he was venturing out more and had even been ice-skating (he had to get used to his wings instead of hiding away and pretending that he didn't have a life anymore, so using them to his advantage on the ice instead of worrying about them seemed like a good idea) with a few bribes to use the rink alone or with Kaylee after hours, that was when Midnight had to go off on the rest of the city.  At least, he hoped it was just the city, since they had civilians being evacuated to other places.  He'd been content to stay put (he wasn't fit for duty, and he figured he'd just get in the way) with Kenzie while the others tried to get a handle on the situation, but that wasn't allowed.  He got a call, this deep beckoning that was impossible to refuse, and it was all he could do to grab the bag of gear that all hunters seemed to keep some variation of in case they had to hit the road in a hurry, tell Kenzie to stay where she was, and slip out without awkward questions.  He was difficult to miss even in a crowd, but it was like being guided by an impossible current, one that wouldn't allow for mistakes. 

When he arrived at Frost and found Loic, it all made sense, and not in a good way.  Saffron was there, which was good only because it meant she was safe so far, but it quickly became clear that they weren't going to like their upcoming roles.  Bait.  Yeah, because Rafael wanted to go out there and be flashy.  More than anything  Uh huh.

The problem, he'd already found, was that he had no choice and Loic had made sure that if he had a choice, he'd make the same one.  How?  He'd told him straight out that if he was very good at what the vampire demanded, he'd fix his wings.  It didn't hurt that the vampire had him playing interference on Midnight's kill squad, which was just as satisfying as it was terrifying.  Loic knew this, that Rafael was afraid (and for a very good reason, nobody could argue), but that was why he was doing this.  Selene's decision to make him into bait was overruled when Loic stopped playing with his new 'toys' and put himself to the task at hand.  That was when a new, much more dangerous game began. 

"This is a gift," the vampire assured him, and then came the black.

Within a surprising ten minutes, Rafael dropped from the sky (apparently, his wings were fully functional and could carry his weight, plus weapons) a few feet away from Stavros Arun and a man that Loic knew to be William Garrett.  Stavros seemed irritated at his immediate instinct to beat the fuck out of whatever had dropped in on them not only having to be curbed because it was a friendly, but someone who was supposed to be out of the line of fire.  "Rafael, what the fuck are you doing here?"

The damaged macaw regarded him with his gray-blue eyes for a moment, then flicked them to William and nodded, a simple greeting.  "William."

That was all it took, and William lowered his head a moment, pulling his hat off and running his hand through his hair before replacing it.  "Stavros, your feathered friend's playin' taxi for one of ours right now.  Loic's multitasking."

Rafael merely smirked at Stavros, who scowled, but adapted quickly enough to explain the task at hand, which didn't really involve much explaining.  Basically, they had to evacuate Single Earth with as few casualties as possible.  No big deal.  Right.  If Rafael hadn't been sharing headspace with Loic (who was a constant source of overconfidence and a very strong personality being essentially super-imposed over his own without actually edging him out), he might have actually been worried, but as it was?  The three men discussed for about 60 seconds what direction to go (Loic's ideas, Rafael was just a mouthpiece here) before the vampire backed out just enough to leave that confidence and overlay of personality to keep Rafael doing his bidding and on the move instead of doubting his abilities, and the three of them were on the move.  Stavros had hunters from multiple guilds for this situation because they were expecting a rough time, but Rafael didn't have the chance to consider that.  He used a car to get a running start for flight, and then he dove through an upper window following a few gunshots to blow out the glass.  He wasn't the only one taking to the skies to work at the evacuation from above, but he was the first in, and the most direct.  He was also the one who got the biggest reaction.

"Oh, my God, are you an angel?" and its variations were the most common.  He had seconds to explain that they had to get out, and yes, he may have let them believe he was an angel.  It prompted more trust and faster movement, and as he prepped one room, he'd move to another until he had a few rooms' work of people ready to move.  Then, he armed a few people, put them either in the front or the back of the group, and lead them down the hallway.  Stavros had given explicit instructions to a few hunters to clear the emergency stairwell, since that was the route that each floor was being instructed to take, so once Rafael got them down to the next floor, he passed them onto a few hunters that were finishing up in there to continue the forward movement.  He hit the next floor, helped take out whoever was there, and the process continued.  It would have been clockwork if not for Loic beaming in a new set of instructions, which he quickly absorbed and used as a reason to instruct Quinn (who'd been sent wherever the biggest fire needed to be put out) to take his place working through for survivors.  She was in Terminator-mode, so she merely nodded and busted through the door out into that floor's hallway.  Rafael hopped the railing down to the landing for the next floor, slowed his fall with a flaring of wings, folded them and busted through that hallway's door, headed for the infirmary like a bat out of hell.

This, naturally, involved pushing past a lot more fighting, since this floor had a lot more open area and fewer bedrooms, so the Midnight operatives and hunters had somewhat congregated here, but other than making it through the fray, he wasn't concerned with stopping to fight.  It was survival and reaching his target, though that lack of any real attention to the people around him meant that he missed one very important detail that followed him as he fought through to the infirmary.

A blonde vampire was holding off multiple hunters, a young blonde woman behind him and a Smoke witch with a group of children who was clutching a wound in the corner that the hunters couldn't reach.  Rafael and Loic both instantly recognized him, but for very different reasons.  This was one of those moments where Loic's overconfidence was necessary to balance out Rafael's lack of it, since Stefan was one of the last people on the planet that Rafael was in a hurry to attack.  He'd spent enough time under the man's knives, and surprise surprise, that was what the Nazi was using to keep a pretty impressive space between himself and the hunters present.  Stefan was bloodied, but in the few seconds between his entrance and action, he didn't get the chance to figure out if it was fresh or not.  All of the hunters present were hurt, some worse than others, but they weren't pushing their numbers advantage because Stefan had already taken down two of them, both of whom were on the floor bleeding very badly.  Rafael shot forward as though he hadn't seen any of this, as though Stefan hadn't featured prominently in his night terrors, and the Nazi smiled just before they impacted.  That was when it got interesting.

Stefan, naturally, wasn't expecting the added aggression that Loic provided, or the slight edge of awareness once the vampire focused more of his attention on Rafael's surroundings.  When Desten made to put a knife in Rafael's back while he and her master danced around each other, both landing and blocking blows fairly evenly, Rafael flared one wing and smacked her as hard as he could with it (Rafael's problem, and what Loic was quickly teaching him better about, was that he'd been treating his wings like they were fragile instead of muscular and strong), then twisted and used Stefan's surprise to draw his gun and point it straight at Desten's face.  Point-blank, he'd blow her head off and Stefan wouldn't have a chance to do anything about it.  Loic's attention was still partially on Desten, but Rafael was staring directly at Stefan, knife still between the two of them for good measure.

"Do it, and I'll eviscerate you all over again, parrot," the Nazi sneered, and Rafael's lips quirked slightly.

"The Macaw isn't without backing this time, Reinhold," Loic told Stefan, of course using Rafael's voice to do it.  It didn't matter, since the power behind it made itself known.  "I could kill her or make her mine in an instant, if I so desired."

"You're throwing your aid in with these morons?" Stefan asked, though he was certainly more cautious suddenly.

"I have my reasons.  The hostages, release them."

"They're yours," the blonde said simply, putting his arms up at the sides, more like a wingspan than like he was relinquishing weaponry, but Rafael still nodded to Matthew and the children, who made their way past Stefan to the hunters behind Rafael.  One child even kicked the Nazi in passing, and Stefan (not to be abused by those lower than himself) shot his foot out to trip the brat, but there was otherwise no trouble in that regard.  "Now, my hawk, Loic."

"She's yours," Rafael told him in turn, lowering the gun, and gesturing her towards her master.  "I suggest you make your exit before the hunters kill you both, starting with the macaw I'm reining in."

"I would kill him without your aid."

"Maybe, but perhaps not.  I wasn't helping him."

Stefan's eyes narrowed, but he glanced from Rafael to the hunters nearby and nodded.  In the same moment, Loic withdrew back to that limited influence he'd had and Rafael lunged forward with a sudden blast of his wings to hit Stefan harder than he otherwise would have.  It was a familiar voice from behind him that allowed the Nazi to push away, grab Desten and teleport them both out of there.  Rafael twisted to find himself staring at Kaylee, sweaty and a little beat on, but obviously more shocked to see him there than worried about herself.  Rafael looked to the others, gesturing them on.  "The evacuation, go!"

"What the hell?  Since when are you back?" she demanded, and Rafael was too busy searching for some way of explaining to notice Loic's interest piquing until it was too late.  His wings flared, effectively taking her attention for a necessary moment, and then he was suddenly in her space, an arm snaked around her waist and he was pulling her upwards some to...kiss her?

Yep, he was definitely leaning down to kiss her, hard and aggressive, and while Rafael was all kinds of okay with that, it was Loic who'd pushed him to do it or he never would have made the move.  It was also Loic who'd recognized just how much Kaylee seemed taken in by the colorful wingspan and used it to Rafael's advantage.  Bait and attack.

When he released her, she seemed surprisingly speechless, to which he smiled.  "Since tonight.  You coming, or not?"