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West was feeling positively pranky this evening.

A mere two hours prior, he had been sitting in his dorm, racking his brain for an activity that would alleviate his considerable boredom. Normal book-related homework was out of the question, cleaning his room was mostly pointless considering his relative lack of belongings, and it appeared Yaya was not in her room so he couldn't harass the marid. Checking to see whether or not she was at Sharra's was simply out of the question.

He eventually decided a particularly violent practice session with his drums would... hit the spot so to speak, and now that he was finished with all of that, the wrath demon was making his way back across campus with a distinct spring in his step. Surely if he dawdled long enough out here some hapless nerdy soul would whine past, giving him ample opportunity to sock him or her in the face a couple of times. The problem with this plan, it seemed, was the addition of the light, clammy drizzle that dripped from the darkened sky. All of the students who had passed had done so quickly and with a great deal of hemming and hawing. Although their anger was delicious, West was sure that if he bullied one of this lot his irritated victim would be more inclined to tattle. West didn't want to get caught, for a change. There had been a time, not too long ago, when he had coveted detention, but after hearing about the truth of it from various sources, the boil had come to the conclusion he probably wanted nothing to do with such punishment.

And so he sat unmoving on a bench somewhere between the demon and undead dorms, eyes narrowed to slits, waiting.

It wasn't long before West began to zone out. The patter of rain against his horns coupled with the dwindling number of students passing by created enough white noise and lack of visual distraction to allow his mind to wander elsewhere, to places filled with cushy pillow and trays of food. Places like that weren't normally the sorts West daydreamed about, but he didn't normally sit out in the rain either.

Eventually he came back to himself just enough to notice how gross his wet clothing felt and to consider going back to his room. He stood, and was wiping his hands on his jeans when he noticed a faint, sharp odor waft past. More familiar with foods like tentagoat eyes and frogs, it took West a moment to puzzle out where he had smelled the smell before. Ah, yes. Lemons, limes, oranges. The brightly colored fruits weren't completely foreign to him, they were merely a rare supplement to his diet of animal flesh and gravy. He turned around and squinted into the drizzle when the sound of splashing accompanied a new, stronger whiff of citrus. What the hell?

The first thing he noticed about Savior was her clothing, or rather the lack of it. If he had thought Yaya or that succubus were prone to near nudity, this ghoul just stole all of their naked awards and glued them to her mantle. That alone would have been enough for him to approach her with a taunt on his lips, but the fact that she was splashing in puddles made the urge to harass her that much stronger. He balled up a fist and sauntered over with a smirk.

"Didja f'get yer clothes somewhere?" he asked with a sneer as he leaned over, trying to catch a glimpse of her face. There seemed to be something off about it, and this close, West wasn't even certain she was a ghoul anymore.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on there, strange... creature. West backed up a step as Savior came closer, then reclaimed that step when he realized how foolish he must look. This muddy, mostly naked ghoul was weird, but he had seen weirder, right?

"Yeah, clothes," he replied, a little louder and more harshly than he might have normally. "Like these," he continued, flicking at his jacket's collar and sending a couple of fat droplets of water flying toward the marrowstripe. "Not, uh, whatever yougotton is." He almost laughed as she proclaimed him male and herself female. At least now he knew.

"Whasswrong wit'you?" West muttered, eyes drawn downward as Savior's flimsy excuse for a shirt slipped lower. Okay then. Unwilling to admit approaching this ghoul might have been a bad idea, West took another step towards her, bringing a hand up to gesture angrily at his face. "Whas'that? Why d'ya keep touchin' yer face?" Was that a mask? "You a Jack damn ninja? I metta ninja an' you're no Jingleberry." He chuckled. Some part of him understood that this ghoul had absolutely no idea what he was going on about, but he'd be damned if he was going to stop now. If she kept going with the weirdness, she'd deserve a punch anyway.

This whole experience seemed to be slowly inching closer and closer toward the Completely Psychotic stop on the crazy train. Still, West persisted. This ghoul was really starting to get on his nerves.

At the mention of her mask, the demon took notice once more. Ah, a word it appeared she already knew. Maybe she was a ninja. A ninja who had been dropped on her head and was now stuck going to Amityville because she couldn't remember simple s**t like how to talk. Or maybe not. That was certainly not a normal ninja mask, if the ones he had seen were any indication. His ninja explanation also failed to address why she was barely wearing anything.

He took her return water droplet volley in stride. It was somehow less than insulting when an opponent just parroted his own movements at him with no malicious intent behind them. "You'r'right," he replied, doing his best impression of a pouting child. This just wasn't right. He usually fought people who fought back, their efforts at mocking him making them look foolish enough without West resorting to babyish taunts. "I dun'hav'va mask. Sad, right?" He frowned, voice returning to normal. "How 'bout I borrow yours?" He reached for her face then, but didn't touch it, waggling his fingers near her cheek as if to indicate he wanted her to hand the thing over.

West's lips spread in a wide grin and he nodded, eyes full of malice. Surely no one was this stupid. All of the apprehension he might have felt before this moment melted away as she lifted her hair again. This strange sandy creature was stupid, he decided, and she deserved what was coming to her. Not that it really mattered. He would have done it even if she hadn't deserved it.

His reply was low, mostly drowned out by the rain that had been steadily increasing in intensity ever since he had approached. "Yeah. 'S'mine now." His fingers didn't have far to go to reach the mask and close around the left side of it, right under the hooks. West stepped back quickly, putting a bit of distance between them in case she tried to lunge for it, and his backward motion was enough to tug the thing from her face.

For a moment he stared at Savior, brows drawn downward in confusion. Why was she wearing a mask at all, especially one made out of such a bizarre material? From what he could see she seemed to have a perfectly normal face, no ninja scars or anything. He would even have gone so far as to say she was... pretty. His confusion shifted to anger as a faint flash of lightning lit the sky. Definitely normal. That settled it. Normal pretty ghouls with barely anything on deserved to be taunted and have their things stolen.

It never occurred to him that maybe he was the stupid one.

Pain was nothing new to the wrath demon. He had been starting fights since before he could talk and with fighting came inevitable injuries. The thing he was learning here, that the students and faculty of Amityville had taught him in his few short months of attendance, was how devastating the element of surprise could be.

West let out an astonished shout as Savior's claws ripped through his forearm. He didn't struggle, having learned his lesson with the music stand, but the shock of having several new holes in his skin where there had been none a second before almost caused him to drop the mask he clutched. After she let go, had he been given a moment to think, he might have just given the thing back and taken the hit to his pride, but there was no reprieve, no time to formulate plans. She opened her mouth and he knew he had made a terrible mistake.

Holy s**t.

There was pretty much only one thought in his head, a thought that superseded even his appreciation of her formidable wrath. He had to get away from those teeth.

The demon backpedaled, faster than he had ever moved before, and very nearly stumbled over the bench he had been sitting on earlier. He awkwardly hopped over it instead, and its hulking mass thankfully kept Savior from scratching at him a second time. He took off at a shambling run, scooping up a curving length of metal as big around as his wrist from what looked like a broken old fence.

He concentrated all of his attention on putting one foot in front of the other without stumbling, but West was made for standing his ground and punching, not running, so it didn't take long at all for the ghoul to catch up to him. West smelled her before she tackled him, the biting scent of tangy fruit one that he would associate with crushing defeat for some time to come. This whole running away thing hadn't gone quite as planned.

The meager amount of air in West's lungs whooshed out of him as Savior slammed into his back. When he hit the ground, he felt an uncomfortable pop followed by a sharp pain, then even more pain as the muddy earth below him was forced into his cuts. The slashes she insisted on carving into his back only added insult to injury.

"ENOUGH!" he shouted, bringing the hunk of metal he held back over his shoulder to hit her hard, once, twice, three times. The demon jerked his body, flailing like a mechanical bull until he managed to turn himself over, his new gashes joining his arm in its uncomfortable throbbing.

Self-preservation was quickly replaced by pure anger, and West snarled, bracing the bar on his injured arm and slamming it up toward Savior's face.

West saw what was going to happen too late to stop it. His weapon had been stolen, turned against him, and as he watched the beam fly toward him, time seemed to slow and be over in an instant all at the same time. He brought his battered arm up up in front of his face and bile rose in his throat as metal cracked against bone and the limb dropped, lifeless, to his chest. Absorbing pain with a cushion of adrenaline was something that should have came to his kind easily, but the boil had found that recently he lacked the ability to call on such a skill with any regularity.

He scrambled backwards as Savior raised the pole for the second time, jabbing his foot up at her when she brought it down again. He caught it with the bottom of his boot, kicking her back and using the opportunity to heft himself to his feet, mask safely in hand. West was determined to keep the thing from her indefinitely now. He was going to win.

The demon hurried past, not seeing the Marrowstripe move but suddenly wincing as a great stinging welt opened up from just below his ear to right under his mouth. The wound bathed his neck in a sudden warmth that his fingers and toes no longer felt. He clutched the mask and sprinted for the entrance to the undead dorms, ducking inside the first open door he saw, which just so happened to be a bathroom. Now where was a good place to hide this thing? A pair of zombie boils stared at him in horror but took their leave quickly enough when he glared back, unblinking.