(The Street Fighter and Glitchtale references are strong w/ this one).

(Az. + As. Side)
"Azrael," Asmodeus said as Azrael munched on some dry ramen for lunch along w/ some Sunny-D.
"Yes?" Azrael replied between bites.
"I can sense reverse SOULs all across the U.S. again," Asmodeus said w/ an empty smile.
Azrael's eyes widened, and he paused mid-bite.
"Are you serious right now?!" Azrael asked.
Asmodeus nodded. Azrael inhaled the rest of his homeless-style meal and hopped up.
"Ok, let's see if I can get us to our destination this time."
Asmodeus then cloaked Azrael, and he teleported them. Once they were on the other side of the light speed tunnel, Asmodeus immediately made them invisible. Humans and monsters were running out of a forest in the distance.
"Fuck, why did a goddamn punching psycho have to show up here of all places?!" a one-eyed monster said as he pulled a human girl along w/ him.
"I DON'T WANNA DIE, I DON'T WANNA DIE!" a girl wearing a witch's hat screamed while sprinting through the invisible duo.
"Whoa, what the-?!" Azrael began both angry and confused.
"YES! I can be intangible again!" Asmodeus shouted delightedly.
"Wait, seriously?! That's amazing!" Azrael replied.
A big, fluffy monster w/ a four-point fluff on his head and sunken red eyes who was wearing a large hoodie turned to where Azrael and Asmodeus were standing. He was trembling, and Azrael thought he might've been slightly confused, but it was hard to tell. The monster then slowly shuffled away while still shaking.
"Huh, weird," Azrael said.
"Hmm..." Asmodeus said.
"What is it?" Azrael asked.
"I don't know why, but there's something about that monster that didn't sit right w/ me."
"Is he a threat?"
"No, not necessarily, but there was something... off about him," Asmodeus replied mysteriously.
Their thoughts were interrupted by another boy and girl running by. The boy was human time.
"Gasper, can we slow down? We're already well out of that forest," the girl said. She had messy brown hair that was in a braid over her shoulder, and she pronounced the name like it had a J.
"Oh, hell fucking no, Gwen!" the boy replied, "I will NOT slow down to become a human punching bag!"
Azrael and Asmodeus stared w/ wide eyes as the pair went out of sight.
"Um, Azrael, did you notice anything... familiar about that Gasper boy?"
"Uh, yeah. That boy looks just like me..."
A bunch of questions ran through their heads at that.
"Anyway, that forest is where the first SOUL is," Asmodeus said after a bit.
"Ok, let's go," Azrael said.
He ran over to the edge of the forest. Asmodeus tore off of him and became a scythe again.
"Ready?"
Azrael nodded and dashed off into the forest.
MISSION... START!
(Song: Rhythm and Balance SA2 ver.)
Azrael began to burst dash in the air for a bit before running into the first enemy. It was a giggling dark orange (though it looked more like brown) thing that looked like it was it a flame being. It wore an even darker headband and had a creepy looking face.
"Giggling little shit, ain't he? He shouldn't be much trouble to us," Scythe-Asmodeus said.
The little enemy then put its hands together for a bit, and then it thrust them out. A giant blast shot forth from its hands, and Azrael had to air dash upwards to avoid it.
"Ok, nevermind, let's waste him."
"I couldn't agree more," Azrael replied.
Azrael dashed down into the enemy and fired off his shots alongside Asmodeus' EX skill. All that remained of the enemy was a dark orange. Azrael stomped down onto the ground to replenish Asmodeus' dark energy.
"Let's get the fuck away from that puddle. I have a feeling that that enemy type can resurrect itself," Scythe-Asmodeus warned.
As he said that, the dark orange puddle began to bubble furiously.
"Run!"
Azrael wasted no more time and dashed away as a malformed arm rose from the puddle. Unbeknownst to the duo, a sighing figure spotted them from a treetop and put in a call.





...



(Grey Side)
As Grey and Cedric were having a lovely lunch of what Cedric called: "Honey Garlic Chicken Stir-Fry," Ash ran into the living room w/ a rectangular object in his plumy hand that was emitting a buzzing sound.
"Everyone, we're getting a job call!" Ash shouted.
Cherry threw open her door and flapped furiously down the hall, and everyone else grumbled as they made their way to the living room.
"Aw, work?" Pete whined.
"Who's it from, puta?" Cherry asked.
"Hold on, let me answer, and put them on speaker," Ash said.
He tapped on his rectangle for a bit before a voice projected from it.
"Hello, is this the Freelance Seven?"
"Yes, you've got the right people. Leader Ash is speaking (some rolled their eyes at that)," Ash replied.
"I spotted a boy w/ a talking scythe in the forest that I'm currently in," the voice said, "My dad is also in these woods, and I would like you to come over and get rid of him. If you don't come, that's fine too."
"Wait, why do you sound so uninterested?" Ash asked.
The voice was silent.
"Where is this forest?" asked Ash.
"Carnelian Forest in Maine," the voice replied.
"Well, alright. We'll send a couple of people to take care of your problem."
"Ok, thanks, I guess," the voice replied, uninterested.
Ash then pressed a finger on the rectangle.
"Hold on, did he say, 'a boy w/ a talking scythe'?" Cedric asked from the table.
"Yeah, why?" Benjamin asked.
"Oh, shit, that's both of the fuckers we had to deal w/ yesterday!" said Cedric as he inhaled the rest of his food, "I volunteer for the job!"
"Are you sure?" Ash asked, "That'd be two days in a row."
"I'm sure of it!"
"Who will you take w/ you?" Oliver asked.
Cedric turned to Grey.
"Will you come w/ me again?"
"Y-you w-want me to come a-again w/ you?" asked Grey nervously.
"Of fucking course I do!" Cedric said.
"Wait, before you two go, I have something," said Vicky.
She then floated down the hall. When she returned, she was holding two black objects in her hands.
"Wristwatches?" Cherry asked.
"They're communicators. I made eight of them so that we can keep tabs on whoever is out on a mission," Vicky explained.
She floated over to Cedric and Grey. She put one in Cedric's hand and put the other in front of Grey on the table. He picked it up, confused.
"You're supposed to put it on your wrist, like this," said Cedric.
He then unwound the strap on the wristwatch, wound it on his left wrist, and tied it. Grey mimicked the process. It took him a little longer, but he eventually got the watch tied around his right wrist.
"Good, now finish your food, and then we'll go," Cedric said.
Grey quickly scarfed down the rest of his food and stood. Cedric held out his hand, and Grey took it. Cedric's tail then twitched, and Grey went into the tight tunnel again. On the other side, they ended up in a dry area w/ bits of green poking out of the floor. In one direction, there were a bunch of big, brown things that had green stuff at the top. On the other, there were a couple of wooden seats. There was a large, fluffy monster seated on one of them all by himself. Grey wasn't sure if he was looking at the beast right, but it appeared as if he was trembling. On the others, there were a bunch of young people of different species.
"C'mon, Grey. We have a job to do," Cedric said.
The pair walked briskly over to the edge of the woods. There, they met a strange young boy. He wore a red band around his head, a blue t-shirt, and beige shorts. His eyes glew bright orange. His expression was very uninterested and slightly surprised.
"You actually came?" the boy asked, "Well, since you're here, please go into the forest and maybe help my father. I'm worried that the person who came here first might attack him."
"Ok, let's go, Grey," said Cedric as they made their way forward.
"Wait," the boy called as they were making their way into the forest.
The pair turned.
"If my father isn't peaceful, please don't hesitate to put him down," the boy pleaded sadly.
"Wait, what the-?" Cedric began.
"He's been sick in the head for so long and killed so many. Please put him out of his misery," the boy said wistfully.
"W-what do you-?" Grey started.
"Don't ask. Ok, we'll see what we can do," Cedric replied.
He then dashed into the forest w/ Grey following close behind. The boy watched them sadly, knowing that this wouldn't end well.






...



(Az. + As. Side)
Azrael and Asmodeus tore through the forest at a quick pace. There were plenty of small, dark orange enemies that appeared throughout the clearing. Some were on the ground, and others hopped out of trees. At one point, larger variants of these enemies appeared. They looked like the smaller enemies, except they charged w/ an upward, flaming punch. Azrael had to dash underneath the enemies and attack from behind. Some trees got in the way, either by being tall and big or by being huge and fallen. Azrael wall jumped over these w/ little difficulty. In one tree, however, Asmodeus sensed something. When Azrael was at the top of the tree, Asmodeus reverted to his chained form. He floated down and blasted a lower part of the tree. Inside, there was a purple orb. When Asmodeus brought it back to Azrael, it phased into him just as the last one did. Azrael sighed in relief at this, and they continued. Asmodeus noticed that Azrael was moving quicker, swinging Asmodeus faster, and hovering for more periods.
Hm, maybe there's more to those orbs than I thought," Asmodeus thought.
At one point, he got a familiar feeling.
"Azrael, keep your wits about you. Our company from yesterday is tailing us," Scythe-Asmodeus warned.
"Damn, why now?" Azrael replied.
After a few minutes, they came upon a rope bridge. After making their way across, they heard the sounds of someone cackling as he tore his way through the trees.
"There's our target," Scythe-Asmodeus said, "Hold on."
He then shifted into his cloak form and covered Azrael. Afterward, he made them intangible.
"Um, Asmodeus, why did you cloak us?" Azrael asked.
"I got an idea. Instead of fighting the target ourselves, let's hide in the area. When our opposition comes, they can take out the target in our stead."
"That sounds quite cowardly," Azrael replied w/ an intangible eyebrow cocked.
"No, it's strategic," Asmodeus insisted, "This way, we can save our strength to take the reverse SOUL. We also don't have to kill the man ourselves, and the pair doing the deed will more than likely tired by the time the target is defeated anyway. Either way, we win!"
Azrael wasn't too sure of this plan, but he chose to oblige, and he ran forward and hid out of sight near the target.






...



(Grey Side)
MISSION... START!
(Song: Web Spider's Stage from Megaman X4)
Grey and Cedric dashed through the area for a bit before they encountered their first enemy. It was a giggling dark orange (though it looked more like brown) thing that looked like it was it a flame being. It wore an even darker headband and had a creepy looking face. Cedric brought out his guitar and strummed it hard, which caused the enemy to melt.
"W-why-?" Grey began.
"I didn't trust it," Cedric replied, "Let's get moving."
The pair dashed off.








...




Grey and Cedric ran into plenty of dark orange enemies as they dashed through the forest. The smaller ones would shoot energy blasts at them while the larger ones attempted to fire fiery skyward punches at the pair. It was brutal, but Grey and Cedric managed to deal w/ the enemies just fine. They also had to wall jump to get over fallen brown things (Cedric had explained that they were called 'trees') as well as trees that stood tall and thick in their way. At one point, they came across a tree w/ an empty hole at the bottom. When the pair jumped their way to the top, Cedric sensed something. He jumped to a lower part of the tree and strummed his guitar hard. Another hole opened in the tree, and inside was a grey heart. Cedric grabbed it, and it disappeared. After that, he climbed back up the tree, and the pair traveled further down into the forest. After a bit, they found a thing that Cedric called a "rope bridge." When they made it across to the other side, they heard cackling and trees snapping.
"Get ready," Cedric warned.
Grey nervously braced his cleaver, and Cedric readied his guitar. They slowly made their way forward until they came across a nightmarish beast. It appeared human, except it was huge, was wearing strange, white clothes, a big red band around its head, and it had burning dark orange alongside a big, freakish smile.
"AH, FRESH MEAT!" the humanoid creature exclaimed.
"S-s-sir," Grey said fearfully, "We've come to w-warn y-you that two demons are h-here to a-attack you."
The creature laughed. It sounded broken and rough.
"I DON'T SEE ANYONE ELSE OTHER THAN YOU TWO, AND SINCE I COULDN'T CAPTURE ANY OF THOSE SCHOOLKIDS, YOU'LL HAVE TO DO! :]"
Grey and Cedric readied themselves.
"HA!" The beast barked as his fists glew dark orange, "GAEAT HAS BLOOD BAGS! :D"
FIGHT START!
(Song: Thunderstorm from Luminous Avenger iX)
Gaeat rushed at the pair and jumped while punching upward. Grey and Cedric jumped away. Grey slashed at the beast, and Cedric strummed his guitar hard. Gaeat's health went down to 88%. He then charged up a blast similar to the smaller enemies from earlier, except it was much more powerful. Grey and Cedric ducked to avoid the attack. Gaeat then dashed and jumped while shooting down fiery fists. Grey and Cedric had a hard time dodging these, and their health was down to 87% and 92%, respectively. The beast moved quickly around the field and repeated the same attacks in different ways. As the fight went on, everyone's health dropped down steadily. Eventually, Grey's health was at 18%, Cedric's was at 23%, and Gaeat's was at 5%.
"HM, LOOKS LIKE YOU DO HAVE QUITE A BIT OF FIGHT IN YOU. BUT I'M NOT DONE YET!" The beast shouted.
He then screamed at the heavens, and his body became engulfed in dark orange fire! His health dropped to 1%. Gaeat rushed around the area and fired off whatever he could.
Grey and Cedric dashed to avoid the cackling terror. They kept grazing different attacks, and their health dropped down to 5% (Grey) and 9% (Cedric). Grey, in a moment of desperation, slashed at the boss.
"GAH!" Gaeat shouted.
His health was down to 0%!
VICTORY!
Gaeat dropped down to the ground, and his fire fizzled out. A dark orange SOUL and a floating orange thing went up as well. The dark orange SOUL had cracks. As Grey and Cedric walked over to the items, they heard a voice.
"Nope!"
Azrael appeared out of nowhere in front of the body.
"Whoa, what-?" began Cedric.
"Asmodeus, now!" Azrael shouted.
Asmodeus appeared and grabbed the SOUL. Grey and Cedric watched in horror as Asmodeus stuck out his horrible, torn-up tongue and stabbed the SOUL w/ it. The SOUL drained until a dark orange outline of a SOUL was left. He threw the empty thing onto the floor, where it shattered.
"What did you do?!" Cedric shouted.
"None of your damn business," Asmodeus replied.
He then covered Azrael, and the duo disappeared just as Grey and Cedric ran up to them.
"Dammit!" Cedric shouted angrily.
Just then, the orange thing from earlier moved over to Grey.
"W-what-?"
He didn't get to finish before the thing phased into him. Then everything went dark.






...




Grey opened his eyes and found that he was sitting down on clouds that overlooked a city. He sighed.
Another day of sin and another day of crippling loneliness, Grey thought.
He then sensed someone approaching him.
"Who goes there?" Grey said, annoyed as he turned back to see who had come.
The person coming toward him was that angel he'd met the other day. He had a long, flowing white cloak that covered most of his body aside from his pale head and hands. He had ghost-white skin, pure yellow eyes, and a floating yellow halo above his head.
"Oh, it's you," Grey said, somewhat miffed that someone had come.
"Hello," the angel said w/ an awkward wave.
"Why are you here?" Grey asked while resuming his original position.
The angel sat next to him.
"I came by to see if you'd like some company!" he said w/ a warm smile.
"Why? >|:["
"After you saved me from those mean angels yesterday, I wanted to get to know you," the angel replied.
"Well, now you know about me, so leave," Grey said coldly.
"Oh, don't be like that!" the angel said while putting an arm around Grey, "I genuinely want to get to know you."
Grey began to shake angrily. The angel didn't let go. He wrapped both his arms around Grey and held him in a soft, warm hug. Eventually, Grey sighed and relaxed.
"Why are you really here?" Grey finally asked.
"As I said, I want to get to know you and be your friend! nwn," the angel said.
"How do I know this isn't an act?"
"I swear to you. I want to be your friend, and I am NOT fake," the angel said.
Grey fixed him w/ a hesitant stare.
"You're still apprehensive, aren't you?" the angel asked.
Grey slowly nodded.
"Well," the angel said as he let go of Grey, "Let's start w/ introductions, shall we? My name is..."
The dream was interrupted as Grey got pulled back to reality. Cedric was shaking him furiously.
"Grey! Grey! WAKE UP, PLEASE!" Cedric shouted at him desperately.
"C-C-Cedric, w-w-what'ssss g-going o-o-on?!" Grey asked as he shook.
Cedric's eyes widened, his mouth pulled up into a smile, and he pulled Grey into a big hug.
"Oh, thank God you're alright!" Cedric exclaimed, voice full of relief.
"Of course, I'm alright. What happened?" Grey asked.
Cedric pulled away and pointed to Grey's hands. Grey, confused, look at them, and he nearly jumped back in shock. His hands glew a bright orange!
"Grey, can you show me your SOUL again?" Cedric asked.
Grey pulled his SOUL out, and this time he did jump in shock. His SOUL was now bright orange!
"Can you change it back?!" Cedric asked worriedly.
Grey concentrated hard and visualized his cleaver. After a bit, the orange glow faded, and the cleaver reappeared in Grey's hand.
"Oh. My. GOD. You can copy SOUL traits!" Cedric said, surprised.
"Is that a bad thing?" asked Grey.
"Fuck, no! That's a fucking great power to have!" Cedric exclaimed happily.
Grey blushed at that.
"On a different note, though, what the hell did you experience while you were, quote-on-quote, "gone?"
"I honestly have no idea," Grey replied while shrugging, "I had a dream where I was speaking w/ an angel, and it was as if we knew each other."
"Hm. Well, let's get out of here," Cedric said while holding his hand out.
Grey took it, Cedric's tail twitched, and they appeared back at the dry area from before. The people at the wooden seats were now gone. The boy w/ the red band appeared.
"So, how'd it go?" he asked.
Cedric sighed.
"He's dead, isn't he?" the boy asked.
Cedric and Grey both nodded solemnly. The boy sighed.
"I wish things could've been different, but I'm glad that this madness is finally over."
The boy then brought out some green rectangles.
"No, no, we don't need payment," Cedric told the boy.
"You've done me, my father, and humanity a favor. Please, take this," the boy said as he handed Cedric the rectangles.
Cedric counted the rectangles.
"$500?! How did you-?! I can't take-!"
But the boy was already walking away.
"Wait, come back! We can try and find you a new home!" Cedric called.
The boy stopped.
"Please don't. I'd rather take my chances on my own," the boy replied.
"But-"
"I said no, and I MEAN no," the boy practically snarled out.
"Could you at least tell us your name?" Grey asked.
The boy paused.
"My name is Talo. Goodbye."
He then ran off.
Grey and Cedric watched him run off until he was out of sight. Cedric then held his wristwatch up to his face and pressed something on it.
"Hey, is somebody there?" asked Cedric.
"Hi, yes, this is Vicky speaking. What's up?" she asked.
"Could you ask the Freelancers to gather in the kitchen? We have some important information to share," Cedric said.
"I can do that now," Vicky replied.
"Good. See you."
Cedric let go of the watch and held out his hand again. Grey took it. Cedric's tail twitched, and they disappeared.


WEAPON GET:
BRAVE FISTS! (Grey)
FRIGHTENING BANDANA! (Asmodeus)
DOUBLE JUMP! (Cedric)