[I]Faster,[/I] Angoriel urged himself sharply, blinking the sweat from his sky-blue eyes and clenching his jaw so that his teeth hurt, his curly brown hair whipping about his head in rhythm with the erratic motions of his body. He could feel the burn in his sides, biceps, shoulders, buttocks and thighs from the exertion, but his fists had yet to start to get sore, even as he propelled them forward time and time again, each time from a new angle, to ram into the brown punching bag that hung from the ceiling in front of him. He pushed himself, moving faster, shifting his weight from one side to the other constantly as he launched one punch after another, each impact interrupting the pendulous motion of the bag and sending it straight back the other way before it could even get back into its vertical resting-position.
[I]Harder,[/I] he thought impatiently, flexing the muscles in his powerful arms, shoulders and chest even harder as he drove his fists into their target with increasingly greater force while maintaining the high speed and varying movement. He could feel the irritating sensation of sweat accumulating in his beard, and even more perspiration trailing down his neck and shoulders, where their paths became strange and twisted as they met the gnarly surface of his scarred skin, spread across his torso like a vest, and across his naked shins. Shirtless as he was the fluid felt cool where it flowed, even though the rest of his body felt hot like a furnace; his pelvis in particular, clad in thigh-length shorts as it was, the only garment he was actually wearing at the moment. The shorts were already drenched in sweat from his morning exercise, as he had just finished the usual workout before deciding that he would spend a while of this particular morning on beating this voice- and defenseless piece of equipment.
Why had he decided on doing so this morning, exactly? How could he ever be sure why he did anything when his motivation for doing anything was almost always conflicting with a desire to not do the very same? The angel in him did not want to hurt anyone, and frowned upon his own angry frustration, but the demon in him was furious and wanted to vent its rage. This was the compromise; pummel a punching bag into oblivion, allowing the release of some of his ire without endangering those around him.

Why was he so angry, then? That was perhaps a better question, although part of Angoriel's consciousness scoffed at this thought and wanted to ask if there was any way that he could [I]not[/I] be this angry. Fifty-six years he had lived and worked at De' Seil Carnival, preying upon the hapless people who wandered on its grounds whenever the chance presented itself, always the predator, never the prey... but now twelve of his compatriots of the Carnival had disappeared, and if they could disappear, what was to stop himself from being next? But no, another part of him argued, it was not that; it was because he had been unable to protect them, because his allies and neighbors had been taken by some unknown force, and this was his way of reacting to the loss. And then a third part of him, the logical mind that spanned across his good and evil selves, corrected that it was [I]both[/I] things that angered him.
He endeavored to punch even faster and harder, to push himself further yet as the intensity in his stare grew. For centuries he had been a guardian, a keeper of Urbaniel, and had always known who his enemies and allies were, and had always been able to defeat them with the aid of his fellow tartarus angels... but now his enemy was beyond the meager scope of his knowledge, hiding in shadow yet possessing the power to claim twelve beings strong and smart enough to partake in the collection of souls. He needed to get even stronger and faster than he already was; he needed more power, so that when their enemy finally revealed itself he would not be spirited away as the others had, but be able to stand and face the menace, whoever or whatever it might be.

[I]I will kill it.[/I] The dark angel's lips began to draw back, revealing his teeth in a vicious scowl, even as he made himself punish the punching bag even more severely. [I]I will kill the one who hunts me, this gloriously strong opponent. I will protect everyone. I will save them... by killing it.[/I]
He tried to imagine this adversary before him, tried to picture the punching bag as his true enemy, but in truth he had no idea what features to attribute to this creature... or these creatures, if there were more of them. Angoriel endeavored to motivate himself by trying to force a picture of his enemy into his mind, which abruptly made him see Vol in place of the bag, and despite of this not being his intention it nevertheless made him swing his fists with renewed vigor. [I]Vile creature,[/I] he thought, pounding the imaginary siren senselessly, all but forgetting where his fury originally came from with this distraction. He was punching the bag so hard that the force had it swinging up to the ceiling every time, and he was moving so fast that he had to take a step forward to continue to reach it. He struck Vol's face, or where he imagined it to be, and when he removed his fist Vol and become Andracos; Angoriel literally growled as the hatred flared within him, fueling his wrath even further, and then Andracos became Seil, and...
A sharp, loud snap resounded through the room as the rope connecting punching bag and ceiling gave up, followed by a boom as the bag itself was sent flying through the room, traveling some six feet or so before smashing into the wall with enough force to send a palpable tremor through the floor. There were several loud thuds of dumbbells falling to the floor, a crash as a simple cabinet was knocked over and a bowl shattered; was it not for the pandemonium around him Angoriel might not have realized that something was wrong at all, but simply continued his relentless assault on the punching bag.
As it was he just barely managed to stop himself from launching himself forward and unleashing all of his savage fury, only to realize that his tongue had come to take up far too much space in his mouth. Knowing very well what this sensation meant he looked down himself, confirming that his skin had grown pale and his arms had become grotesquely long and thick, and that his hands had grown to be huge, each finger adorned with a black hooked claw. His hair and beard had turned black, he knew, his eyes had become yellow and the area surrounding them was red.
Sighing impatiently to himself Angoriel turned around slightly, confirming that he had indeed pretty much razed half of his room - the half he reserved for training and bathing, as it were, whereas his bed and dresser occupied the other half - by enraging himself to the point of reverting to his true form. The quake caused by sending the punching bag flying with his unleashed strength had probably jarred some things in the room a bit, but it was not what had brought about the full extent of the havoc that had overcome the area. No, the mess around him was rather a product of him unintentionally sprouting the great span of his black-feathered wings from his back, which were clearly much too large to have room to move - or even exist, for most part - in the relatively tight quarters of his cart. The only things in this half of the room that remained standing was the headless mannequin that served to provide a place for his iron armor to be, and the makeshift rack that his hampol - the three-hooked iron pole of the tartarus angels - leaned against when he was not using it.
Angoriel grumbled to himself, annoyed by just about everything at the moment, and went to the wall which the punching bag was somehow still sticking to. Raising his large right hand he grabbed the rough surface of the bag - it was ripped, he noticed, either from the impact or from having incidentally come into contact with one of his claws - and simply pulled the sand-filled sixty-pound cylindrical leather-bag down from the wall, easily tossing it aside with his monstrously deform arm. There was a deep imprint in the wooden wall where it had hit, where the pinewood boards were cracked and splintered.
Annoying, but the uncorking of a vial was all it took to fix it, luckily. This was far from the first time Angoriel had transformed accidentally and wrecked his quarters, and unless he met his demise relatively soon or he suddenly acquired a much greater ability to control his concealment it was rather likely that it would not be the last. Because of this Angoriel somewhat suspected that he was probably the one with the Carnival who used the customization-potion the most...
He opened the drawer in his nightstand, retrieved the potion and almost habitually unplugged it, invoking the magic confined within, and soon his cart was restored to prime condition.

Some twenty minutes later Angoriel had resumed his human form, washed himself and changed from his training-shorts to his regular clothes, today composed of his black oxfords, white shirt, black suit pants, a black vest and his gray fedora. He felt better now, with some of the pent-up rage from yesterday out of the system. His worries about what had been revealed were still on his mind, but with some of his emotional imbalance handled through a harmless practice of violence he felt that he could better handle it rationally, bolstering his ability to ignore his angelic impulses to become obsessed with protecting others and smiting evil and his demonic urges to protect himself and kill everyone... which was generally a good thing to be able to withstand. Tartarus angels would probably need to keep learning to contain their dual natures even after Angoriel's contract expired and they finally received their freedom; that was one good thing about the training received upon arriving in Urbaniel.
Fixing the last silver button on his vest and quickly running his fingers through his hair, the dark angel looked around in his restored home. His gaze lingered momentarily at his hampol, which he had to resist the urge to bring with him... and again when it came to his nightstand, on top of which his rock from Limblel was randomly altering itself. It was fascinating to watch it sometimes, mesmerizing even, and at times he could spend hours just staring at it and marveling at its many different shapes, sizes and colors. But not today; today was still young, and with things the way they were there were probably plenty of things that needed doing.
And so he went and opened the door, and just like that there he was...

Back at the Carnival.