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No Sleep for the Watchmen

Clicking within the dark room sounded easily from the door itself leading into it, the soft metal on metal noises picking up into the dark space just before the sound of the lock turning to release the latch with a loud metallic clack that twisted the door knob with it. When the wooden door opened slowly as the dark shadow of a man stood there in the doorway, the sound of this door opening gave off a high pitched squeak was something that not only did this man not care about but didn't have any intention of fixing either. The easy movement he made into his apartment sent the keys from his hand into a near by basket on the kitchen counter, an easy grunt left Nathan in a state of having to remember what all happened today. Honestly, it was all a haze about now, his mind trying to recall events that didn't seem to match up with what his mind was telling him happened. There was an explosion, he remembered that, the ground bursting up but something else he was having trouble recalling. He remembered that everyone was saying it was a terrorist attack, some kind of bomb going off, but what was that bomb? He remembered seeing something big, but he didn't remember any wires or anything, not that he could identify a bomb even if he had the chance to. It bothered the back of his mind, like he was forgetting something important that he was just not able to recall at all. As his body simply turned from the kitchen he made his way towards his room, fighting the decision to simply go to bed or eat first.

His figure was tired, his body needed rest after everything he'd been through, and while his stomach growled up at him the idea of heading all the way back into the kitchen just to cook something really didn't sound as appealing as just going hungry and dealing with the consequences later. Even through that his mind couldn't rest, too busy rewriting itself based on what he thought was real and wasn't. It was the memory of that man that was talking to him after the explosion, a guy named Sampson who was saying something about him needing to remember what happened, but what was there to remember? A bomb went off, people ran and he was one of the last group to leave. He did remember seeing some dead bodies, security, or police, or something, people that he didn't remember seeing on his way in, but they had to have been there if the bomb killed them, right? Maybe it was the trauma of seeing a dead body, he'd heard somewhere that seeing such a thing could cause some kind of issue with repressed memories or whatever the psycho-babble was that people used to describe it. His body felt tired, his mind felt awake, and even if he did try to cook something Nathan knew that he wouldn't be able to focus on it and would likely just set whatever pot of water he put up on fire. No, he needed to go to bed, this was simply ridiculous and at least if he was sleeping the shifting memories of that event couldn't bother him anymore. The idea of that alone left him with some level of peace that made him want to rush into the bedroom even faster.

Nathan didn't even bother to remove his shirt or socks, his body coming to flop down on the softness of his bed while it tried to bounce his body back off of it. When his figure as finally permitted to rest down, his shifting body pulled him more up onto the bed, the movement of an arm reaching out quickly in order to take hold of a near by pillow from the wall so that he could tug it under his head. There was an odd comfort about the way that he was laying, every logical position of his body told him that he should be the opposite, but somehow his figured liked it or maybe it just didn't care as long as he was finally permitted to sleep a bit. With the gritting of his teeth the deep inhale of his lungs and suddenly the feeling of heat washed over him, drew him from his nice position. This stance he'd taken on his front had left him more than happy to finally sleep a bit, but there was a warmth in the room that was just ruining the experience. A lift of his head and a movement of his hand would reach over to flop down on the side table, hitting his fingers against that wooden surface not once, not twice, but three times before those fingers finally found the plastic base of his fan, a push of the bottom would turn it on and even while it rotated in place to try and cool the air around him he still felt the harsh heat building up more drawing an easy sweat from his brow just before Nathan would turn his eyes towards the doorway as a means to locate the source.

What this man saw between him and his exit was something that drew his eyes wide, hovering there in mid air was the sight of what could only be described as a fireball just set in place, the in only seconds it grew larger, increasing the heat in this room and as the dark call of a roar echoed deep within the core of this flame it's pulsating movement drew it bigger, larger, fuller, and then with only a second of his eyes locking onto it the sight of the fire burst out hard, disappearing in the air around the creature that was left behind. The lines of red glow traveled up the length of his heated arms, his body steaming with contact to air of normal temperature that drew the shifting of eyes from this creature slowly over it's shoulder until it focused entirely on the man sitting up a bed. Nathan could only blink at the sight of the horned beast, seeing those black spirals shift backwards along it's skull just before the clear grin wrapped around it's lips.

***

When the demon turned quickly towards Nathan the sight of its tail lifted quickly, cutting through the air in a fast motion in order to swing hard and immediately at the man who sat on his bed, his body quickly responded but rolling off of the soft surface just as that tail left deep black burns into the otherwise white wall that followed the path of that tail. Nathan's eyes shifted back to where he had been while he picked himself up from the floor, but knew that he needed to get moving quickly if he was going to be able to get away from... whatever this thing is. His body shifted into a quickly run, trying to pass by the creature that was between him and his door with as fast a motion as his body would allow, but his passage was stopped immediately when the almost stone looking knuckles of the beast crushed down hard against the wall leaving a hole for the fist to pass through it. The sight of this sudden impact forced Nathan to stop his rushing motion and back away quickly, watching as that fist was pulled free from this wall and leaving the thud of the heavy steps that made up this creature's weight to stomp forward towards him. Even as Nathan found a wall against his back it was clear that there was little that he could do to get away from this creature when that hand moved to reach out for him only to find the hard scaled fingers wrap around that neck. Each scale was like it's own jagged rock colored in a deep charcoal tent. As the grip was tightened Nathan found himself having trouble catching his breath, but not due to strangulation. The choking wasn't bad at all, it wasn't even blocking his airway, but what drove the breath from this man was the sight of those lines between the hard jagged scales starting to glow red as the heat from them traced down the length of his arm in an easy and slow manner. The intention was clear, this creature wasn't going to strangle the man trapped in the corner of his own room, it was going to burn him into cinders in the slowest and most darkly enjoyable way.

The dark figure that stood there at the doorway gave a narrowed gaze at the sight of the demon slowly working to torture it's prey. The black body armor that mounted the front of the body set well on the shoulders and chest while the dark shirt underneath was tucked down into the black cargo pants which were themselves tucked into a pair of thick leather boots One color that spread across the outfit like a in an easy display. Event he mask that covered the face was colored dark as the goggles set over the eyes helped to hide any level of facial features just as the rest of the outfit helped to keep any and all body features hidden along with it. The lift of the assault rifle to her shoulder gave her the chance to pull the trigger down hard against the front of the grip feeling the firearm burst to life with the loud and thunderous cracks of bullets erupting out of the chamber and through the barrel only to completely ignore the flashes of light created from the muzzle itself. That mind counted the rounds, listening to the tone of the explosions and when it hit the number of three that finger came off only to grip it back down again, adjusting the aim only slightly with every burst in order to keep the aim true. This sudden soldier, the person that had somehow entered Nathan's house was here to take care of such a creature, here to make sure that this man was kept safe for at least long enough to make sure that the man wasn't killed. In a way there was prior knowledge that the demons might come and target him, but only because there had been patterns of it before.

Every hit across that stone-like body drove the demon to roar out in intense pain, demons in general could take more damage than the normal average human, simply being created superiority to these beings, but as weapons had advanced to deal with the normal person more effectively that efficiently easily carried over into the normal average demon. Most of these bullets crashed and flattened against the body of the demon, dealing little to no damage at all, but there were a few in some weaker points of the body that did manage to pass through, only getting a little bit deeper before being stopped as well and failing to limit the movement of this creature at all. If nothing else his hand released the target's neck, letting Nathan go for now so that the attention could be spent entirely on this person that had gotten the audacity to try and harm a creature like himself. That tail once again came into play, whipping fast in a high arch with it's almost blade mounted tail tip forcing the soldier to kneel down immediately while still firing, hoping to drive at least one round through that hide deep enough that it would count for something. Even while the tail passed right over the head, the demon wasn't going to stand there and take it while bullets ricocheted off of it's body. The stomping movements of that creature was enough to force the soldier into standing once more just before the motion of that hard slash with thick claws would range wide. This fighter was only lucky that the movement was slow enough to allow for a roll over those shoulders and getting the soldier behind this demon where that trigger was pulled down once more across the demon's back, forcing a jarring and pain riddled howl before those knees gave out from under it.

Somewhere one of her rounds must have cut through and hit the spine, but if anything else that meant that those heavy legs were now useless while the demon was left near defenseless. This soldier wasn't a fool, though, and knew that there was no such thing as a demon that failed to have some kind of attack up it's sleeve. Even while it continued to wretch in pain that guns-man moved in slowly, closing that distance with the firearm at the ready and willing to pull the trigger once that head came into range. What this soldier didn't see was the sight of the flames building up at the demon's finger tips, drawing the fire into a ball. When the soldier circled this demon enough to aim at the head that ball was unleashed, throwing it hard with a quick and sudden jerking of the arm in order to send the ball directly to this fighter with an intent to turn this person to ash. The movement of the ball was fast, too quick to respond to by normal means, but as those bullets once again erupted out of the rifle in a loud burst the fireball would be torn apart with rounds passing through it quickly leaving only a few strands of flame and hit to impact that body armor and face mask that was still more than enough to force the soldier to tumble backwards when those feet were made to lift from the ground. This fighter felt her feet reconnect with the floor after this, that set of goggles that had been worn no longer functioned and just as that hand lifted up to remove them the soldier would lift up back to those heavy leather boots, coming to stand once more with that rifle in hand while the damaged equipment was dropped down to the side. Nathan couldn't see the face too well, not with his eyes still locked on the demon that had just thrown a fireball, but even as he turned to look over at the soldier there was nothing to see about that face with the firearm helping to block most of the eye.

With the trigger being pulled again the loud wave of hot lead was passed long into the skull of the paralyzed demon, his head was jerked to the side quickly from the heavy impacts. Sparks lifted off of his horns and cheeks while the bullets were bounced here and there, flattening against his face, but every round that hit dug in just a little bit deeper and while the soldier kept up the hard assault there was only a small bit of time before the biting rounds nipped their way through the stone-like scales and then as one scale broke away the evidence of the bullet punching through the flesh, the skull, the entire side of the face drew the firing rifle to a stand still, releasing that trigger and refusing to hold it down anymore this fighter looked on. The sound of that hard body crashing into the floor sent a bit of a shaking into their legs not something that would stop them from keeping their footing, but absolutely something that would be noticed by these two. It seemed that this fight was over, even the body of the demon began to fade and dissolve against this clean air. Nathan was still in shock about all this, his apartment had been shot up, a demon entered his room through a fireball, and this gun ninja had managed to break into his house. He couldn't even see the face of this person, all he saw were the eyes, pulled slant eyes, it was probably bad to just assume that the slanting of the eyes and the yellow-ish skin color made this person some form of eastern race, but despite that that soldier was playing body guard for now, making sure that this person stayed safe. When Nathan remembered he was talked to earlier by that one old guy, he remembered the pleading and lecture, even the memories of what had happened inside of the museum was finally starting to come back. The haze of what happened, the general suggestion that it had been a bomb of some kind lifted away like mist climbing into the sky and those events once again came back into his mind like popcorn snapping events back into place over and over until the entire thing was recalled again.

Nathan remembered everything, but this person that had gotten in here finally lowered her weapon, allowing a deep sigh from that event having ended. That finger was off the trigger placing it to the side of the finger guard so that this soldier would be able to roll it back onto that shoulder and into ready position if something else happened. Properly trained and ready to go that free hand moved up towards that now ruined ski mask, taking hold of it and quickly pulling it off in order to show her face to him for the first time. Nathan was taken back by the reveal, the sight that her body was so well hidden by this armor and uniform that nearly anyone would look gender neutral in it. Such a thing was both unflattering and absolutely necessary to function as a proper unite. He didn't know what to say to her, didn't know how to handle himself now, and while she turned to look at him with a raised brow the roll of her eyes showed that she knew pretty much what he was thinking and how this worked. Her hand lightly pressed against his shoulder, giving it a friendly pat and motioned him towards the door.

"Come on, let's go get a pizza. You've had a tough day." She said softly with a sigh. The idea of being thought of as a guy wasn't offensive or praise worthy, it was the body armor doing it's job and she certainly wasn't about to shame the guy for something like that.

***

Feeling her hand touched down on his shoulder the movement of his arm came to quickly shrug her off, backing away from the girl with a fast shake of the head and the eyes of a man who still had no idea what was going on. Everything that had happened had only just started today and now that the sun had set things have only gotten weirder. The movement of his body was one of defense, confusion, and just near panic. The sight of the demon that used to be there but was no completely faded from reality only because of his own internal fire having consumed him left this man in even more of a horrified state simply because of the fact that all of this was new to him and nobody was answering any questions. In the museum had hadn't learned anything, simply having dealt with that enormous creature somehow after believing that he was going to be killed, and then this being, this thing, attacked him in his own home. Just accepting this all was something hard for anyone to do, and then you have these people happening by that seemed to be acting like it was normal. While that confusion washed through him, and the source of it having already vanished, it left the man focusing those feelings on the only other living person in his now rather ruined apartment that he wasn't likely to get the deposit back on now. The gritting of his teeth finally allowed his mouth to open and in a loud and almost panicked call of loudness, probably more than he intended for it to be.

"Who are you?! W.. What was that thing? Why was it in my house?!" He asked quickly, not giving any room at all for her to answer even the first question before the last one was blurted out with all of the finesse of a five year old screaming at the top of his lungs.

She had to wait for those words to be spoken, but while she looked back at the burnt marks in his carpet from where the demon had fallen she finally turned those brown eyes back at him, "Well... Technically this isn't a 'house' but... That thing was a lesser demon, lower quality fighter not able to build his way up through the ranks, and I am a member of a group designed to take them out."

He had no answer to that, demons, creatures, things of the night that could come along and fight people. It drew in so many questions, so many ideas. If demons were real what about devils? Were vampires real too? And zombies, were they a real thing? The very idea was starting to form a bit of panic in him while he just had no answers to such a series of questions, but this girl, this woman, she just might. The sight of this soldier was one of her looking around his place rather bored, studying his things and then moving to take hold of a pin that had managed to survive on the table that he had always identified as a desk, picking it up and looking at it easily with an easy tilt of her head and even moving to pocket the writing utensil with an easy declaration of "Stolen" that rolled from her lips and left Nathan lifting his hands in simply the most befuddled method of body language he was able to represent with limbs alone. He still had no idea what was going on, who these people were, why she was here at all to begin with, and while she turned to look at him once again the easy sigh of the woman picked up on his frustration of simply not understanding.

"Look, it's simple. Demons sometimes come into our world in order to cause death, chaos, mayhem, whatever. Our job is to put them down before people get hurt." She explained in an easy tone, moving to step in closer to him.

"And when you say 'demon' you mean..."

"Yeah, from Hell and stuff," She'd interrupt quickly, drawing an easy smile across her lips, "I'm with an organization that handles this, we branch into three categories of demon slaying that makes up the heads of the organization. This is why we're called Cerberus. An organization dedicated to keeping what belongs in Hell down below."

It didn't answer one very important question, something that really didn't tie in about this and drew a large bit of disbelief that this was even real despite what he had just seen. "If this kind of thing happens often enough that an organization is needed then why doesn't everyone already know about it."

The question was always a hard one, she understood the answer but it was hard for her to explain. She wasn't exactly one of those technical people that could just explain how everything works, but it was a fair question and she was going to do what she could in order to answer it for this man. "Well... The way that I understand it is that 'It's easier to disbelieve than believe'. When people see things that don't follow direct logic and reason they reject it. People start justifying events and believe that what has just happened in front of them wasn't real. Over time they just forget that they saw it at all and go about their everyday life. Just like you did."

Her body took her over towards the window, moving to fold down the blind so that she could look through it and see people starting to gear up in order to rush in on the place. She'd give an easy sigh to this as well and roll her eyes. The movement of her right hand lifted easily and while her thumb pressed into the glove she'd speak into the hidden microphone that was set there informing them all the mission had been accomplished and they they can stand down. Also that she was making an extraction. The tone of her voice went from being colorful to being far more monotone as she spoke to her team leaving a clear line between a her personality with others and her tone towards her duty. Nathan had to ask about the plan for an extraction, wanting to refuse such a service so that he wouldn't need to go with them, but then as she turned back towards him that shaking head told him that she wasn't really giving him that much of a choice.

"You killed a higher demon earlier today, the demons have absolutely taken notice of it. They're just going to keep coming after you. Sorry buddy, but the only way to keep you safe is if we take you with us. Pack your toothbrush, we're leaving."