Author's Note: I'm finally back to this story after a long period of writers block, still have it if I want to be honest. But that's for a different time. All translations are Swahili, courtesy of Google Translate, sooooo it's probably all wrong. So, in advance, sorry to all my Swahili speaking readers (if I even have any). Anywho, don't forget to read and review, and I hope that you enjoy the new installment of Harry Potter and the Dark Angel.

Abel stood next to the pyre of his friend and companion, Odin, the Wanderer as he had been know. Abel had to smirk at that, Odin was always a little eccentric, what with that tall pointed hat, dark grey traveling cloak, and the knotted and twisted oaken staff that he was never seen without. Abel remembered the look that had been upon Odin's face as he had told Lilith and himself of his choice to burn instead of carry on with them; he looked old, weathered, like a human who had seen far too much in far to short of time, someone who had seen too much death, and he had. They all had, it was a side effect of being alive during the War of All, as they had come to call it, for there was no one else alive that could remember the War that could call it anything else. Even Abel, who had only been alive for twenty years out of the innumerable centuries that the War had been waged, had been left scarred by it.

Now it was only he and Lilith that could remember these events, but he wished for nothing more than to forget; even if Lilith thought that these memories made better beings out of them. And now Abel stood gazing into the flames of a pyre that he almost wished he was on, holding onto the only possession that Odin had left behind, that accursed staff of his. Abel smiled at the memories that came to the fore front of his mind from such a simple thing, memories of the fight between the two immortals when Odin had first acquired the staff, they had leveled that village.

'It is so damned ugly, how can you even stand to have it in your grasp!'

'It reminds me of my childhood; not that some Fallen like you could understand the concept of sentiment.'

Fallen, that had been something born out of the trio's uneasy beginning. Lilith didn't appreciate being called a demon on two levels: one was that it was insulting to her to answer to a term coined by those pathetic nonmagicals that didn't have a mind for their own, and two was that it hurt. It didn't matter your predisposition, after so long a time of being called evil, monster, Demon, it takes a toll on the spirit. She hadn't fought for human annihilation out of spite but simply out of fear of something like the War happening again. So, Odin came up with a solution, one that Lilith could live with, even if only barely. The term fallen had come from a discussion about Lucifer's Fall from Grace, and how he dragged all of his followers with him by killing Gabriel in cold blood, during a peace conference, and on neutral ground no less, and so, she accepted the term... reluctantly.

"Oh really! Well, I'm sorry that we can't all be perfect little Angels!" And that was when the fight started.

Abel laughed openly at that, the way that they bickered one would have thought they loved each other rather than the mutual dislike that Abel knew that they held for each other, oh yes their feelings did become a little lighter as time went on but they were never friends.

"You should really throw that thing onto the five with him, Abel. That way we can finally be rid of it." Lilith said as she wrapped her arms around Abel's waist from behind, and Abel had to hide a smirk; she had been trying her damndest to seduce him for over five years now, and she had made little progress. In truth, Abel liked to tease her, mess with her head, it just never ceased to amuse him.

"You know as well as I do that I would never simply get rid of this staff. It is the last reminder of our friend." Lilith snorted at that, and Abel smirked. It did not matter to him that she disliked the staff; what mattered was the meaning behind it, Abel knew Lilith would not actually get rid of the staff. She would not voluntarily disregard the last bequest of one of the last known Crusniks in the world.

"Indeed, but we need to be moving along soon. It is not safe for us here."

"HA, not safe?! What exactly is out there that could possibly challenge us, Lilith? Wizards, they have not been a threat to us for almost seven hundred years, they lost access to much of magic's secrets. They are not even shades of their former selves. The only creature out there that could even dream of leaving a scratch is the nundu, and they are so few and far between that we would be lucky to meet one within the next century."

"You forget the Shaman!" Lilith shouted.

"The Shaman of Alkebulan wouldn't dare touch us; they still worship us Lil. We shall stay until the morning, as ancient custom dictates." And so they did. They stood upon the plains of the land that would come to be known as Africa, unmoving as marble, through the hours of the night waiting for the first rays of the morning sun to light upon the pyre. Abel was lost in his own mind as he stared into the flames, the remembered pulling Odin from the wreckage of Atlantis, remembered how he would spin tales of his youth by the fire at night, remembered his rage when they encountered Lilith, he remembered how tired he looked in the last hours of his life, and he remembered the relief on his face as the flames consumed him.

Abel was pulled from his musings when he noticed the first rays of sunlight peering over the horizon thus drawing his attention back to the pyre which was now naught but ash and sparce flame. The Great Star rose above the horizon and with creeping fingers grasped the pyre, and in that instant the flames exploded skyward and consolidated into a single form. A golden phoenix with ruby colored eyes hovered above the two Immortals, its gaze moving from one to the other was the only sign that it had acknowledged their presence. The phoenix then turned its head towards the rising sun appeared to heave a great sigh and nodded back at the two figures, and with that final gesture, faded to dust.

"May your soul find peace on the Fields, and may the mark of the Wanderer forever remain upon the earth." Abel and Lilith incanted simultaneously. As one the two turned to the east spread their wings and took off into the sunrise. They flew like that for two days, making no stops and never fluctuating in their speed. On the second day, by pure coincidence they came upon a man, lying, near death on the Alkebulan plains and Abel, being Abel, swooped down to help the man.

The dark skinned man was unconscious when Abel arrived, but from what he could see the man had been attacked by a large animal, with large claws apparently as four large claw marks stretched across the man's back from his right shoulder to his left hip. Abel lifted his hand over the prone figure's back and channeled healing magic through his palm into the wounds, causing his hand to glow in an ethereal green. He stayed in this position for five minutes as the wounds closed. It was a gradual process as Abel needed to be extra cautious in stitching back the muscles and tendons in the man's back and with a final sound , like stretching leather the skin finally came together, and with it a gasp of breath from the man.

In an instant the man was in a panic and tried to scramble on his hands and knees into the tall grass. He was babbling incoherently but the few words that Abel managed to catch did not inspire confidence: "Kubwa... chui..." Giant leopard. Nundu. Shit.

"What was that about not encountering one for another century?" Lilith chimed in with a sickly sweet voice that simply oozed with an 'I-told-you-so' attitude.

"Shut up, Lil" with that said Abel shot a lightning bolt at the man that delivered the equivalent of a large static shock to the man's leg, almost immediately snapping him out his craze as he turned to face Abel and Lilith. "Wewe ni nani?" Who are you?

"Tafadhali kutusaidia! Chui kubwa! Ni kuja!" Please help us! Nundu! It's coming! Another shock, this time to the stomach.

"Wewe ni nani"

"Fenyang"

"Nzuri. Ambapo ni kijiji yako? Ambapo ni kampuni ya Shaman yako?" Good. Where is your village? Where is your Shaman?

At these questions Fenyang looked down on himself as if in shame, but, Abel could tell, it was pure, unadulterated grief. "Wafu. Wao wote. Chui kubwa alikuja kwa ajili yao katika usiku." Dead. All of them. The nundu came for them in the night.

And Fenyang broke. Tears streamed down his face as he mourned the deaths of his friends, family, neighbors, of everyone he had ever known. Abel and Lilith allowed the man his grief, they knew what it was like to lose everything. It was agony, in its purest form, it was something that never healed. Never. However, this type of agony was completely different for a Crusnik than for a human, as exampled when, suddenly Fenyang slammed a hand to his chest, the blood vessels in his eyes ruptured, his breathing became course and uneven, and then, as sudenly as it happened, it went, and Fenyang's eyes rolled back as he collapsed to the ground. Thinking fast Abel placed his hands upon Fenyang's abdomen, his hands the ethereal green that came with healing magic but it was no use. Fenyang was dead, cause of death a shattered heart.

Abel sighed and silently prayed for the man while placing a hand on his head drawing all of the memories of life from Fenyang before his soul left that plane of existence. The head rush was staggering, but not unbearable. He saw Fenyang as a boy playing with his mother and father, felt the joy of going on Fenyang's first hunt, fell in love with Fenyang's wife, experienced the pleasure of their wedding night, fell in love again with the birth of their first child, Aailyah, and countless other things, and, suddenly, terror, pain, rage, desperation, and finally... content. Abel gasped and pulled his hand back and sobbed and sobbed. Lilith was by his side in an instant cooing words of comfort into his ear while she embraced him. He wailed like a baby for almost thirty minutes before he finally came back to himself, even so the tears did not stop. "It's never easy, Abe. The Mind Drain will always have this kind of effect on the user; you just have to keep yourself in the back of your mind, you have to remember who you are." Lilith whispered so low that Abel could barely hear.

"I know, Lil, but it still hurts. From Fenyang's memory the Shaman was still alive when he bolted from the village. We need to find him, and help him if we can."

"Lead the way."

They took off running, not even bothering to take flight and within two minutes they had crossed almost forty miles. Lilith couldn't believe that Fenyang could have gone so far with the injuries that he had sustained, but Abel knew better, Fenyang had been a hunter capable for running for three days and nights without rest or drink. When they came upon the village what they saw was astonishing, there was not a single hut left standing and the blood was so thick that it appeared to be forever stained to the earth. But they could hear the sounds of struggle and bolted towards its source. Another three miles, less than a few seconds, to the Crusniks, and Abel and Lilith found themselves witness to what was possibly the most amazing feats of natural magic ever to be seen since the war with the wizards. Before them was an ancient man who was emaciated to toe point of being naught but skin and bone, with only a loin cloth for decency, and a silver beard upon his face. In his hands he held a staff, much like the one that had been in Odin's possession, he held it in front of him as if to defend against something, and it wasn't long, more like instantaneouly, that they noticed what he was defending against. Before the Shaman was a leopard of gargantuan proportion, standing at approximately twenty feet tall at the shoulder and almost thirty feet long, the nundu easily dwarfed even the largest elephant, and it was locked in a heated stare down with a man half Abel's size and probably close to his age.

The two stared each other down for what seemed an eternity, and then, without warning, the nundu pounced. The Shaman reacted in an instant, bringing up his staff, and with it the sound of raw electricity pulled from the very air, and smashed its end into the nundu's head sending it skidding fifty feet across the savannahs. The nundu lay there motionless for a time dazed at the blow it had taken, and it was this moment that the Shaman took advantage of. Slamming the butt of his staff into the ground he channeled the magic of nature and bent it to his will causing three great pillars of rock to rise from the ground and encase the beast in a fifty foot tall pyramid. The nundu, even though it was out of sight, could be clearly heard, and it was enraged. Its claws grated against its stone prison in desperate attempts to escape and massacre the one who dared confine it. But as the first cracks appeared on the outside of the stone the Shaman brought his staff up and slammed it once more into the earth. There was calm, even from within the stone as the nundu sensed imminent danger, and it came swiftly. An earthen serpent erupted from the ground and posed itself to strike, and the Shaman mirrored its movements, in complete control. The Shaman's final motion was... unimpressive, to say the least, a simply swing of his staff, much like if one were to bring down a sledge hammer on a rock, however the result was awe inspiring. The massive snake mirroring its master came down and swallowed the nundu's tomb whole while burrowing itself far into the depths of bedrock that lay below, and, as if there was nothing out of sort only five seconds earlier, all was calm.

Abel and Lilith stood in awe of the man before them, they watched him as his shoulders slumped and he fell to his knees, but just as he was to collapse, he was caught by both immortals who laid him down upon the nearby grass. "Malaika! Kuja kwa ajili yangu, saa ya kufa kwangu! Mimi sasa kukamilisha!" Angels! Come for me at the hour of my death! I am now complete!"

"Nenda kwa amani, Jasiri Mmoja, na inaweza miungu tabasamu juu yenu." Go in peace, Brave One, and may the gods smile on you. As Lilith and Abel incanted this the Shaman who lay before them turned to stone and crumpled away to the ground.

In the moments after the Shaman's death Abel and Lilith surveyed the area, looking for anything to salvage from the ruined village, and it was while they were searching that they heard it, a high whine, the call of an animal for its mother. Thanks to their impeccable senses the search was not long, buried beneath the wreckage was a white, lion sized cat with black spots along its body, it was a nundu cub, and it was injured. "Of course, now I understand, she was merely trying to protect her child."

Abel approached the creature with caution, baby or not it still had fangs and claws, and when he drew near the cub whined and laid low,trying to hide from its perceived threat, but Abel reached out and placed his palm upon the creature's head and transfered feelings of calm to the cub. Slowly, she relaxed, Abel knew it was a she because the Mind Drain technique while mainly a one way connection could not stop some small back flow of knowledge, and she leaned into his touch. "Would you like to come with me?" Her answer was to snuggle closer," I'll take that as a yes. You need a name." She looked at him, and he at her, "Stelmaria."

Lilith who was watching from a few paces away could only shake her head and roll her eyes, "Really, Abel? Only you would make friends with a creature that could swallow us whole when it grows up." But Abel didn't hear her, he only smiled at his new friend and began to heal the small wounds along her body. "I do like that name though, Abel. Stelmaria, huh has a nice ring to it."

OMG DONE! Sorry about the ending I know it seemed kinda rushed but thats cause it kinda was, sorry. Its late right now, that's no excuse but still. Anywho, I hope you enjoyed it. Please review and leave me a comment, did you love it did you hate it, that sorta thing, okay? :) Until next time, PaladinKing, Signing off.