The Azra-El Series

Pre-Chapter Notes:

I apologize for the delay in posting this chapter. I got caught up with things irl and was also slightly distracted by a game. Writing the in-between chapters before the grand finale of this arc is also proving to be harder than expected. To Anon -- the game is LoL TFT

This chapter is sort of a filler, but as Finbar noticed in the previous chapter, I am trying to make each chapter stand out on its own, while still being connected and relevant to the entire story. I have DankMemez, my previous, editor to thank for giving me that mindset. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter.

Congrats to JpzAhren, for being able to figure out both the songs hidden inside last chapter. 150 Azra El points for him! Momo says that he didn't get the second one, but I believe he did.

The two songs were '

Crazy' by Gnarls Barkley, and 'Somewhere Only We Know' by Keane

. There are plenty of random references in the current chapter, ranging from philosophy to cartoons. Each one you can find will earn you 5 points. It's just for fun but I am keeping score. Haha.

Editors:

Chris Anow and DrasticXplorer aka Ser PervertedXplorer. They are doing great work.

Special Thanks to all my patrons:

BLiz, Eliyahu Bogart, Mike Siegmund, Dark Chaos, Max Lambon, RogueXVII,

Matt Miller,

Curtis, Bradley, Joshua, FlyPenguin, RandomTask, RogueXVII, Tristan, Vibrant, Tllxman, Wootdiew00p, The Glimmering Warlock, Benno Lorenz, Marcel Hearns, Michael Wall, John Weikel, Clay LaVal, Will Shaddox

for supporting my work thus far.

Soon I may only be able include the names of my newest patrons, but that's a good thing :P.

Obligatory Warning:

Only two sex scenes in this chapter. DrasticXplorer made quite a significant contribution in spicing up the first one.

Character Descriptions (relevant to the chapter)

Class 1A

Aahna Maitreya

: A cheerful, talkative, and overly enthusiastic girl, who became the de facto class representative of Class 1A. She is a cute, violet haired angel with a round face and large pale blue eyes that contrast against her pale brown skin. She has loose shoulder-length hair and is around 5'2".

Bi

Tru'ng

: A lanky, black-haired, unassuming girl with almond shaped dark brown eyes and a shy countenance. Her hair is long at the back with short even bangs covering her forehead. She usually tags along with Aahna. She is 5'6".

Rachel Arianrhod

: She is a confident & combative kid, with boyish short pink hair. Her bangs are parted in the middle and swept behind her ears, with a thick lock of hair hanging to the side.

Her mother is a knight captain in the Cloud Nine regiment, and thus, she seems to know her way around Pegasi. She is as tall as Blaze. She doesn't like Pixies.

Nina

: A blonde ponytailed angel who is good at sports. She is a decent pitcher in Flyball and is quite good at Troinet.

Kida

: A black haired girl with Japanese features. She is a good batter in Flyball, and amazing at arts and crafts. She is the one who makes the figurines that Blaze uses to scare Badava.

Afriel

:

One of the Malakim Seven of Class 1A. She dislikes Siofra but seems to have made up with her other classmates. She is an amazing flyball pitcher.

Class 4A

Priscilla Ainsworth

: Former Houri and Siofra's initial classmate, Blaze first met her at Varan's fair. She was representing Tir academy, along with her teacher Uriel.

She is a brunette with long hair held in two ostentatious pigtails. She is quite beautiful, with brilliant blue eyes, long lashes, a perfect nose, and pouty red lips.

However, her beauty is too perfect and is a thinly veiled façade to her arrogance and scorn. Her wings are beautiful, white and radiant.

Other Characters:

Nikolett Lovag:

The Malakim's chosen and Blaze's rival in the tournament. She is the one the Malakim have put forth as the candidate to become Sky's rider.

Valinna Storm:

Famous smith. The one who made Elyssa's spear that she purchased in the auction from chapter 5. Her apprentice Thyra makes Blaze's new gauntlets.

Tonya Falhoffnir:

Claudis's daughter. Blaze has not made his best impression on her.

Enjoy the Chapter!

We want to affect the world, not merely interpret it -

Manjushri Yiddam on the eve of being appointed as the wise one of the Ophanim. A young reporter asks her about the similarities between the Ophanim and the Chayot. The Ophanim seek wisdom while the Chayot seek knowledge and enlightenment.

Chapter 17

"Blaze! Are you okay?" a worried voice cried out of the jade stone voice projector. "Where are you?" she breathed.

The afternoon after his visit to Puhar, Blaze finally decided to call Elyssa. Jie Er had gone easy on him that morning and simply allowed him to experience the results of his training.

As they circled around Mt. Raivataka, twelve thousand feet of cool, mountain air separating them from the land below that morning, he didn't feel as enervated as the first time they'd started training.

Even after a few laps, he had enough energy to continue practicing on his wing forms, before working on his new Blazing Pirouette. However, the latest version was not up to Blaze's satisfaction, as it was not flashy enough and did not live up to its name. It was a lot more practical and effective though.

After a lunch of fowl soup and berries courtesy of Jeffery, Jie Er had flown off to Puhar to purchase a couple of bardiches while Blaze stayed back to get some rest from the morning's training. Jefferey came back in Jie Er's absence and Blaze was currently leaning against his mountain of fur.

"Sorry, Ely. I am fine. Just training near Puhar," he answered, feeling guilty about ignoring her calls over the past few days. His free hand scratched under the Arctot's fluffy belly and the massive bear let out a satisfied growl.

"Then why didn't you pick up your VP?! Did you leave it somewhere?"

"No..."

"Then you should've left me a message saying that you were busy!"

"Yes, Blaze Er," Anastasia's voice chimed from nearby. "She was planning on bringing a battalion in search of you and your aunt."

Silverware tinkled along with her voice and Blaze presumed they were still having lunch.

"I am sorry, Ely. I was dealing with stuff and I did not feel like talking to anyone. I should've called ..."

"What do you mean? Wait, let me go to my room and we can talk in privacy. Mum is being nosy," she said, but Blaze couldn't imagine the prim and proper Duchess eavesdropping on their conversation.

Blaze heard her walk across the hallway and climb the steps to her room on the second floor.

"So, tell me," she said after her door clicked shut.

"I don't really want to talk about it, Ely."

"Quetzal Shit!" she exclaimed, making Blaze chuckle, albeit a little poignantly; Sky did poop a lot, and he had never heard Elyssa curse before. "Would you leave it be if something was bothering me?"

Blaze sighed. "The training kinda messed with my head, Ely. Its related to me being an Unnatural, and I did something to Aunt Jie Er for which I will probably never forget or forgive myself for the rest of my life," he said. "And, it makes me feel like I really am a demon."

"I take back my curse from before. I think now is the more appropriate time to say,

Quetzal Shit

!"

Blaze laughed. Elyssa wasn't the best at making jokes, but he couldn't feel down while speaking with her.

"You know what I think makes an angel, Blaze?" she asked after pausing for a moment.

"What?"

"Feeling remorse over your actions and being able to correct them. There is also an excerpt I remember from a book I read. 'Imagine yourself flying over the savannah with a rifle in hand. You spot a lone, unsuspecting animal grazing by itself. Seeing the creature may evoke the innate hunter instinct in the best of us. You simply want to put it in your crosshairs and shoot. Bag the kill!

'Herein lies the difference between a demon and an angel. A demon would shoot, no matter the circumstance. An angel would follow her instinct only if she needs to kill the animal for sustenance.'"

But I did let myself be taken over by my instinct, though I wasn't conscious

, Blaze thought.

"Besides, if you're a demon, what do we make of the Malakim?"

"It's not that simple, Ely..." he said, poking at the ash in the fireplace. "What would you do if I turned out to be a demon?" he asked her after a moment.

"Nothing," she said almost instantly. "Well, if you go on a rampage and become an evil overlord of some kind, then I'd be there to kick your butt into shape. But I still don't think it will change the fact that you're my best friend," she mused after a moment.

Blaze chuckled. His response wouldn't have been much different if Elyssa was the one who had posed the question. "Ah, whatever! If I turn out to be a demon, I will just go conquer the demons and put an end to the Goddamned war," he proclaimed, hoping to put an end to the conversation.

"You better bring me along," Ely warned him. "That sounds like it would be fun."

"Obviously," he laughed. "Anyway, that was a nice passage, before. Where is it from?"

"It's a really old book. 'Good vs Evil' by Diotima Ayn. It's a good read even if I don't really agree with her philosophy," Ely replied.

"Oh? What does she say?"

"She posits a hypothesis about how good and evil, angels and demons are manifestations of light and dark energies. Negative emotions attract dark energy, while positive emotions attract the light. That is why angels who may do bad things without realizing it, do not get tainted. Anyway, ultimately, she tries to explain why demons are such slaves to their desires and emotions while the angels, even at their worst moments, can think of others," she explained, but the hint of scorn in her voice was evident to Blaze.

"You don't seem to think too much of her theories," he stated.

"Not really. She has some good things to say, but a lot of it is based on presumption and an oversimplification of things. I do not think she ever met a demon in her lifetime, either. It is all her perspective, and she uses unverifiable assumptions to justify her logic. It feels very much like circular reasoning.

"Well, most philosophies are that way, anyway," she continued, her tone slightly rising in pitch as words and her thoughts continued to flow unabated. "Partial philosophies rising from partial experiences of people with limited access to the world around them.

"But, I guess it applies to everyone, really. We can only hypothesize based on our own experiences or our interpretation of someone else's experience. An interpretation of an interpretation of an interpretation. That is how most of us try to attain meaning in our lives.

"Anyway, ultimately, I believe singular and ideological philosophies are worthless if they do not achieve the world you want to witness," she finished with a sigh, taking a deep breath.

"Elyssa!"

"Right, sorry. I went off on a tangent there. I doubt I made any sense," she apologized. She had included too many of her thoughts in too few words.

"That was brilliant! Marry me," he joked. Her random words may not have made much sense to most, but he held similar ideas, and her words gave the nebulosity of his thoughts a concrete shape.

"Marry?"

"Nevermind. It's a reference from the other world."

The rest of their conversation devolved into a philosophical discussion before Blaze brought up another topic. "Ely, guess who Aunty Jie Er's mother is!?" It was pretty cool to have a deity as a grandmother, even if she was an adopted one.

"Vida Veles Lokra?" she guessed. Unlike him, Ely's memory was flawless, and she remembered their conversation from the library.

"Yep!"

***

Jie Er returned by midafternoon and they went up the mountain once again.

"If a glaive is a sword on a pole, a bardiche is an axe on a pole," she said, bringing out a couple of bardiches while they hovered over the snow at eleven thousand feet. "They are excellent for making medium-ranged chopping attacks and their sharp, spiky heads can be used for thrusting. They are a good choice of weapon for mounted angels but can also be pretty nifty in case you have been unmounted."

She gave the weapons a once over before tossing one to Blaze. The wooden pole was around six feet long and its broad blade was almost three feet by itself, narrowing down to a spear-like tip. Though it was blunted, the weapon still looked wicked, and that excited him.

"Are we going to be fighting with these from now on?" he asked, giving the weapon a swing. The weight of the weapon sent his swing wide, forcing him to wildly flap his wings to keep himself steady. The bardiche was much more top heavy than his glaive.

"No," Jie Er replied with a slight smile. "You will be learning to fight

against

them. Besides, they are too big for your size."

"

Niki Lovag

uses them."

"She has years of practice with a bardiche and could also be taller than you. Bardiches are not an easy weapon to wield whilst flying on your own. More so when the blade is longer and heavier. Valinna gave me the impression that the axe-head of Nikolett's bardiche is much bigger than these.

"The only reason I see to use such a weapon is to cut clean through an opponent's mount or cleave a

Quetzal's

wings. I reckon it implies that Nikolett is completely focussed on becoming a knight.

"It is not an ideal weapon for unmounted battles. If she has defeated her peers using this weapon while unmounted, it just proves that she is extremely talented. It is probably one of the reasons why she has received such unwavering support from the other societies.

"However, they do not seem to recognize something that is equally important for a rider. Sky is not an unintelligent animal. The bond between you and him cannot be replaced, and this fact alone makes you worthy of being the first angelic Quetzal rider," she explained.

Though he had heard Claudis stress on the importance of the relationship between a rider and her mount innumerable times, hearing it from Jie Er made him happy.

He gave the bardiche another swing. If he considered his glaive to be unwieldy, the bardiche was a few steps above it. It made him wonder why Nikolett would even choose such a weapon in an unmounted fight.

Wouldn't using a spear be easier and better?

"What weapon would you choose against Nikolett?" Jie Er asked him once he put the weapon in his space ring.

"I am not sure. I could use a glaive but I think I will simply be outmatched in skill. The two weapons are too similar," he replied, remembering his first bout with Siofra. He had made the mistake of choosing a rapier, the weapon she was best at. "I think I should just go with my bat and use energy manipulation to create suitable weapons on the go."

He had already given it some thought. The best plan he could come up with was to use a short-ranged weapon to deflect her attacks, and then try to get inside her range.

"Good. Shall we try it?" Jie Er smiled, pointing the polearm at him.

Blaze pulled out his viridian bat and took up a defensive stance. He had been put to the ground by Jie Er one too many times to care about trickery. All he wanted from the fight was to figure out ways to improve. Strangely, losing to her never bothered him. He even felt competitive against Rebecca, but never with Jie Er.

Noticing that he didn't lunge at her like usual, Jie Er decided to charge at him instead. Her horizontal flying speed was better than his, even with the wind blowing against her.

Blaze hovered and watched. Patience, that had been drilled into him over the past ten days, stopped him from recklessly lunging at her

Her bardiche came upon him diagonally from left to right. Anticipating the force of the swing, Blaze steadied his wings and parried with his bat.

The force of the attack sent him flying through the air about twenty feet backwards, and he quickly used the momentum to turn around and dive away from Jie Er.

However, the next attack came down on him even before he could get away from her. The blade slammed into his left-wing shoulder and sent him tumbling to the ground.

A moment later, he was once again crawling out of a snow-hole.

"We are just getting started," Jie Er spoke from the air. In battle, she seemed to lose all her gentleness.

"I know," he said, shaking off the snow and jumping back up.

I get knocked down, but I get up again. You're never gonna keep me down.

I get knocked down, but I get up again. You're never gonna keep me down.

I'll be singing, when I'll be winning,

he sang in his head, as he rushed towards her, hoping to simply parry her blow with his bat and get inside her guard.

Jie Er twirled the bardiche over her head and slashed at him in an arc. He met it with his bat but was once again thrown away by the sheer force of her swing.

Hovering, she simply waited for him to steady himself. She had already proven than she could finish him off when she wanted.

He charged at her again, and just before the bardiche came down, he swerved out of its path to the left. However, the weapon changed direction, and was onto him in a fraction of a second. He took the blow on his hardened wing and was sent rolling through the air once again.

"Why are you so good even with a damned bardiche!?" he yelled at her in frustration. He had wanted to use her blow against his wing to swivel around her and swing the bat at her head from behind, but the force of her strike had been too strong. How could he maneuver or throw a counter when she was so darned fast?

"Because my mother taught me the same way I am teaching you. I had to learn to fight against all weapons. You can't help but become somewhat proficient at using a weapon that you have been beaten down with one too many times. I never liked

her

methods, but they worked on me, and they should work for you," she answered.

Seriously, I'd hate to think what sort of a granny Vida would've been if she was still alive.

Though angels did not become decrepit, he imagined an old coot hammering on his head with a an equally crooked stick.

"Use your wings and your flexibility!" she told him the same words that she must have repeated a hundred times.

"I am!"

"Not in the way you're supposed to!" was all he got as a reply. Jie Er liked making him figure out things before she explained the more intricate details.

A little frustrated, he decided to use a reckless move. With the bat pointing towards her, he shot at her from above. As he neared the angel, he wrapped his hardened wings around his body and dropped down at her like a spinning bullet.

Jie Er swung the bardiche to divert the bat but Blaze suddenly opened his wings and

pitched

up to block the glaive against his shin, while simultaneously using the momentum from his rotation to swing his bat at her. Jie Er dodged back, but before she could do anything, she found a hardened wing coming at her neck. She hastily blocked it with the butt of her bardiche.

Blaze wasn't done, however. He used the bat and wing as leverage to spin around and throw a kick at her face. The blade of Jie Er's weapon came from below and hit his leg away from her. Robbed of his balance, Blaze careened to the ground like a downed fly. He barely managed to regain control and land on his feet as he hit the ground.