Mephistopheles of Los Angeles.

Aidan walked into an abandoned building that had came back to life for one night. The warehouse was lit by blacklights that gave the overall atmosphere a eerie glow. The air and walls seemed to shake from the bands instruments from which they spawned apocalyptic sounds. Everyone turned to look at him as he walked by due to his apparent age and demonic appearance. The band stopped playing and the lead spoke up and told everyone that the show was over. After everyone had exited the building the singer approached him slowly as if he were a bomb or rabid animal.

"U-Uh, we didn't want you to show up tonight. We uh, uh, didn't think you were actually real to begin with." Aidan smiled and he ran his black tongue against his razor sharp teeth, not yielding any blood however. Four ignorant souls to add to his vast collection, absolutely perfect. "Well, what is it you four want in exchange for your only souls?" They all looked at each other and all of them said money, too classic, well not all of them actually. One of them, the newest member of the band and child of an extremely televangelist pastor wanted fame.

Aidan shook all of their hands to finalize the deal and walked outside and threw his cigarette onto the ground. The newest member of the band had been dared to dive into a bathtub full of gasoline before the show had started. When they went into the building afterwards, they left a neat trail of gasoline along the way. The cigarette lit it and quickly sent a trail of flames up to the newest member and set him ablaze. Aidan called the police station and told them he saw a Satanic ritual go down in the warehouse and someone had been set ablaze as a sacrifice to Satan.

Although their rewards wouldn't be given in the present, it would occur in the future. All the pieces fell in place for the Police to charge them with the murder of the newest band member. They would go on to serve their sentence in prison and by that time they were all famous and the act people thought they had preformed gave them serious credit in the metal scene. They rolled with it and eventually became an extremely famous band, and thus they reaped all the money that came with it. The newest band member would have achieved his fame from his thought involvement.

Aidan sat on a nearby bench on the other side of the street and watched as the cop cars poured in. He said a short prayer, asking God to forgive him for the act he had just committed. He took out a small vape pen and began to vape it instead, as it would be conspicuous and he might have been brought in for questioning. He had a menthol watermelon that smelled extremely good and tasted just as good, although he had the maximum amount of nicotine one could have in juice. People ignored him, assuming he was just a thirteen year old cosplayer who thought vaping made him cool.

Something outside of the normal means of terrible transpired in the streets of downtown Los Angeles tonight. Something bad enough to pull Danny out from her regularly scheduled dealings for Stanford cheerleading. While the red and white clad cheerleader definitely stood out in the encircling crowd, she did not pull all the attention.

That belonged to the remaining charred body currently being bagged up by paramedics.

A warehouse turned venue seemed to be the epicenter of whatever calamity played out earlier, but a line of police tape cut Danny off from her investigation. Or, it was the first line. The police officer telling her to stand back and reaching for a stun gun sat the straw upon the back of the camel. Danny would need to do a little more hands on investigation for this to pan out.

Putting her hands in the black jacket, Danny walked over towards a group of four faces painted across a varying spectrum of confusion and amazement. "I just saw that guy like an hour ago."

"How do you even know it's him. They probably just did it to get attention." A blond girl looked over to the ambulance.

"I like the whole Satanic ritual thing. I wonder where the rest of the band went off to. No one has seen them since they kicked everyone out of the show."

The question piqued Danny in just the right spot. If she could find the band members, she could figure out exactly what happened. The quad in front of her already proved their ineptitude with knowing the whereabouts of the band, so Danny would need to find someone with a little know how about what that band looked like. She stepped past two men with a heavy smell of inebriation spilling from their breath. They would not be an anomaly.

But, a thirteen year old with a vape stick did catch her attention. "Hey, kid." Danny stepped forward, keeping her hands in her pockets and her eyes trained on the kid. "Do you know anything about that band who played here tonight? I'm looking for- an autograph. For a friend. She likes this type of music"

As the girl in the cheerleader uniform approached him, he slid his John Lennon shades down on his nose. His eyes seemed normal except for his glowing red irises that even the most mundane people would have trouble calling contact lenses. He sat leisurely and calmly, his leg crossed over the other and his arms spread across the back of the bench. Around his neck hung a pendant with the Archangel Michael piercing Satan with his sword pictured in it's small frame.

"Why no, I didn't even know there was a band here at all. All I saw were lost souls who had strayed from God running out of that place.. I would also worn your friend that Satan hides in such music."

A flock of black birds flew behind him and a dark, infernal feeling snaked it's way into the air. The smoke curled into shapes reminiscent of the souls of the damned, trying to flee from the ever present hellfire. As he spoke the wind picked up and a temperature as cold as death stained his face sharply. His appearance as a cosplayer only held up when a person was at a certain distance. The closer they were to him the more realistic the unholy additions to his body and face became.

He wore black slacks and a fancy white button up shirt with a jet black tie hanging around his neck. The clothes were very fashionable and seemed to fit him as if they were handmade. His slip on shoes were made of a dark green leather, perhaps alligator or another exotic animal?

"Ooooookay." The bow of Danny's knees broke just as quickly as her confidence in the kid in front of her. Perhaps the ranks of the inebriated would be helpful after all, but it could not hurt to try and get this guy to not try and put a Holy curse on her or something. "I will be sure to tell my friend about all of those lost souls straying from God's musical tastes."

"I'm not sure if this could have gone any-" A flock of birds rose from behind Aidan, compromising Danny's previous statement. "Well, it just got worse."

A long sigh came from Danny. "Okay. You know something. I don't know what, but something. I want to get to the bottom of this explosion thing, so can you just point me in the direction I need to go, or tell me at least what it is you are doing here?"

His fake serious face broke and he began to devilishly roar with laughter at the fact that she had took his masquerade as a religious fanatic seriously.

"Honey, do I honestly look like I care about God's musical taste?! I only wore this cursed pendant to piss off my boss."

The boy's thick Irish accent made the comment he just spat less jerkish than if someone with an American accent had said it. He held out his hand for what seemed to be a shake and introduced himself with a smirk on his face.

"The name's Aidan Saturday, but many have decided to call me 'The Caring Devil' or 'The Mephistopheles of Los Angeles'. But just call me evil-ass-soul-for-your-desires-servant-of-the-devil, please and thank you."

The sudden change in the demeanor came as either an expected surprise or an unexpected certainty. Neither truly defined the moment in anything resembling sense, but at the same time, Danny was talking to thirteen year old who could summon satanic birds, so who was she to judge?

"You have a boss?" The slow draw of Danny's eye ran from the kid's pendant to his vape pen. "I'm sure that's terrifying and horrible. Maybe, I should just see about working with you, Mr..."

Danny's hand reached out to accept the shake, while her face remained in as many pieces as a disjointed puzzle. "Okay, those first two names I get, but that second does not even come close to rolling off the tongue." Once the shake concluded, Danny reached her hand back and inserted it into her jacket. "So you know more about this situation than you're telling me. What's it going to take to get you to tell me, well, anything?"

Danny took out her phone, flipping it to the front facing position, and sent a blind text to Tsukimi. She never took her eyes off Aidan during the duration of the message, making sure to keep eye contact before returning the phone to her pocket.