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It's over.
Crowley shies away, useless heart thudding in his chest as thick black blood slides down his cheek. The sting barely catches his attention, despite the shock of it.
"Enough is enough," Hastur snarls, teeth bared. The lynx's fur is matted and covered with maggots. Crowley's lip curls. Enough -- it'd been, what, two, three months? Hardly a flicker in his immortal's life, technically, but it'd been .. nice. it'd been nice.
"I'm honestly surprised it took you this long," Crowley snarks, because he is. He'd, what, stolen some important files? Run away? That was reason enough to come come chasing after him as soon as possible, nevermind that he'd put the files back. His gaze refuses to settle on either of the duo, mind racing for a solution far too quickly for him to settle on one.
Maybe, it's because there isn't one.
Under normal circumstances, Crowley would never have been able to match up to either of them. He wasn't a particularly powerful demon, after all. Just one of many lower ranked demons. .. Mind, under normal circumstances. It's a hopeless plan. It's a terrible, horrible plan.
It's the only one he's got.
"And you'll be paying for every extra hour," Crowley isn't surprised the bastard had jumped at the chance to have a hand in his .. execution, probably. His slow, gruesome execution. He doesn't doubt that they must've dug up some dirt in his absence.
You see, the thing about lying about nearly every portion of your life to your superiors was that, even if they didn't really get to the meat of it, there was still so very much to hold against him if you looked for only a moment.
"I, uh. Hm. I see," Crowley smiles thinly, a sliver of fang slipping out of his jaws. All or nothing. All or nothing. This is it.
He doesn't want to go back.
What's a little more rebellion, in the grand scheme of things? At least then he can be dragged down to hell having fought back. For the first time in his goddamn life.
"I ... don't think I am, actually," His tail lashes. He's not thinking about Aziraphale, or the Tanglers, or, or .. anyone at all. He's not going back, because he doesn't want to, and he's sick of it. He's sick of it. He's done with it.
This is it.
Things happen very quickly. Ligur starts to say something, stepping towards him but Crowley's catapulted himself into the wolf's chest before any words can registered. Ligur yelps, losing balance and tumbling to the ground. It's his own fault -- it's not Crowley's fault that he'd probably only had this form for, what, a few hours at most?
You see. When Crowley said normal circumstances -- well. He'd been a serval for much longer than they'd been a lynx and a wolf, and he'd gone without miracles for much longer than them. This was a purely physical fight. What Crowley lacked in size and strength and ... ability, he made up for in familiarity.
Hastur is tripping over himself. Crowley scrabbles against .. whatever surface he's on, Ligur, or maybe just the ground, and sinks his teeth into the wolf's shoulder. The revolting taste of demonic blood floods his mouth.
Crowley has never been more thankful that his sense of taste is so dull.
Hastur is a fucking idiot. The lynx digs his claws around Crowley's chest, trying to yank him off, and both of them slam into the ground as he loses balance. Ligur is on his paws in a moment.
Crowley is so fucked. Crowley is so fucked. His only strategy here is to keep them separated, and he needs a second of distraction. Just one.
Crowley tears his claws down Hastur's face and, quick as a flash, is back on his paws. He feels dizzy, and afraid, and it's impossible, but he wants to get out of here. Ligur's there, and he's put too much weight into his lunge, and he stumbles. Crowley hisses regardless, feeling the dizzying dig of Ligur's teeth. He's not in a position to fight. He doesn't know how to fight, not really -- not in a humanoid form, not in his demonic form, and certainly not now. He's fucked. He's fucked. He's fucked.
Crowley, though part his shoulderblades are otherwise occupied being bitten, desperately swipes at the wolf until a lucky shot -- where? The neck? He doesn't know -- has the black wolf reeling. Crowley scrabbles back, but doesn't get a chance to reorient himself before he's back on the ground.
Again.
None of them know how to fight like this, after all -- knocking them down seemed to be the agreed upon safe option.
"You," Hastur snarls. Disoriented, Crowley worries that he's going to have maggots on him, and in his wounds, and maybe there's something wrong with Hastur's corporation, because he's practically foaming at the mouth. "Are going to regret this,"
"Ngh," He feels like a fucking marshmallow. His brain was replaced with a marshmallow. "Yeah," He agrees, miserable. He can salvage this. He can. He just -- squeeze his eyes shut, wriggle a bit, and close. A strange noise emerges from Hastur's throat as he's launched off of Crowley's form, and Crowley tries not to wince at the blossoming ache in his wings. Wings had terribly powerful muscles, after all, and it'd be .. difficult, to push Hastur off with an injured leg, wouldn't it?
Crowley catapults to his feet as quickly as he can, shying away from his superiors as he shakes out his wing. He's covered in mud, and probably a few maggots, he's not sure, it's hard to focus. It's a rather hopeless situation, he thinks. He's not exactly .. meant for this. The only reason he's made it this far is because they're all shit at fighting, and he's managed to keep them from double teaming him properly.
All in all ... not the dream scenario.

//part 1!!
tl;dr crowley told his superiors to Fuck off and is now Kind Of Cornered. powerplay is, in fact, allowed on them, feel free to chase them off!
anyways crowleys pretty much fine, just pretty disoriented from panic and also falling to the ground like 5 times cause theyre all idiots

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For a long time, Crowley just sort of considered Hell .. a job, maybe. Not a pleasant one, but he did what he had to to get by. He certainly hated going downstairs, and actually interacting with them, but it was ... fine, when he was away from them.
Okay, fine, listen. Yes, Crowley hated Hell, and he hated them quite a lot, in his own sort of passive way. It was inevitable he'd turn on them someday -- and then promptly refuse to tell anyone about the results of that. Demons were more frequently killed than redeemed after they commit a crime against Hell. Especially as somebody so low ranked. Replaceable. Not so replaceable that they could just let him get away with it, mind. An example to be made.
Crowley hadn't ever even considered that he might receive help. Sure, he might be near integrated into this place now, but, well ... he'd never been rescued before, and he hadn't expected that to change now.
As such, Aurum's arrival seems to .. break something, in Crowley. Just a complete shut down, the serval freezing as he sees the lion land in front of him. And, for a long moment, it's difficult to process, as Aurum bursts into flames and snarls at the unfortunate duo. He's already a bit .. frazzled, and his brain had just been working overtime but a few moments ago. He's not afraid of Aurum. Crowley, despite everything, even when he's temporarily incapable of comprehensible thought, trusts him even still.
It's only when Aurum slams into Hastur that Crowley snaps out of it. Holy shit. He tracks the lynx's movement as he slams into the tree, and can't manage to bring himself to feel anything other than shocked awe. And, really, after such a brutal beating, Crowley doubts they'd try again. They're powerless here, after all.
.. Somehow, he doubts that, that they'd give up completely, but it's enough, for now.
Is this what whiplash is like? Crowley's brain is desperately trying to catch up, to process much of anything at all. It isn't going well, but he can at least acknowledge that Aurum's sudden switch from ... whatever the hell that was to .. whatever this is is .. very jarring indeed.
"'s a lot more than I was expecting at all, honestly," Crowley settles on a long moment later, after he can begin to properly process language. He's still somewhat tense, but he seems to be, gradually, relaxing, more because of Aurum's tone than any actual comfort. He gets the feeling he'll be on edge for months now, and he's starting to feel the mud and the wounds and the wriggling more clearly. He ignores it."Fuck, you took care of them quick," He's not entirely sure what that says about Crowley's fighting skills. .. Alright, he's going to face it, now that he's thinking clearly. He had the disadvantage of being much smaller than Aurum, sure, but Crowley was shit at fighting. He can't believe that he was going to be beaten around by two jackasses who didn't know what they were doing. Unbelievable.
Crowley shakes himself from his tangent. It doesn't matter. Aurum is still worried.
"I mean ... it could be worse?" Crowley says, dubious. He's not a terribly good judge of injuries, especially his own, regardless of the feelings sinking back into him. It wasn't anything he'd particularly enjoy walking around with or dealing with on his own, but he's not fond of the other options, either. Which, considering Crowley's history, is probably something he'll have to do someday.
Crowley sits down, heavy, to take the weight off his shoulders. He's silent for a long moment, before attempting to shrug. He regrets it immediately, and his face skews into something vaguely pained. He takes the dive, presumably to distract from this. "Oh, you know," He says, because Aurum probably did. It feels better to not just ... say it, anyways. "Superiors. Weren't too pleased with my uh. My quitting," This is the most eloquent way he can put it at the moment. There's probably some better words out there that he can't quite find yet, though. Quitting doesn't quite encompass temporarily stealing very top secret documents and then disappearing for like, three months without warning.

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