Unknown time, Unknown Location

Raynare's eyes blinked open, only to shut tightly against the harsh light blinding her. Eyes closed, the fallen lifted her arms to further block out the glaring light.

Rather, she tried to, only to find her arms unable to move. They were stuck at her sides, her wrists restrained to the surface of whatever she was currently laying on. The fallen managed to crack an eye open against the light and looked around.

The room was stark white, the walls covered in clear plastic. The scent of rubbing alcohol made her nose wrinkle in distaste. Raynare could see that she was strapped to a steel table, plastic restraints holding her arms and legs still. She scowled as she considered them; her supernatural strength should have made quick work of such mundane bindings, but the fallen felt sluggish. It was an effort to even turn her head.

A thrill of unease went through her as she considered the reason for her weakness; drugs that worked on the supernatural were exceedingly rare, but they existed.

So how had she been drugged? Raynare wracked her brain for answers, first recalling the last thing she remembered doing. She had just revealed herself to the Hyoudou boy after spending the day with him to get him alone. Well, she could have just intercepted him going home, but the city of Kuoh had proven remarkably boring, especially considering that it was enemy territory. So she had decided to play with the boy, make him think his life was looking up before she eventually killed him. The date had been incredibly awkward; the sacred gear holder couldn't seem to stop staring at her the entire time, awestruck by the fact that he was on a date with a beauty like herself. Granted he had a weird way of showing it, as his face remained passive as his eyes traced her every movement. Still, the fact that he was paying attention at all was remarkably different from the behavior he had displayed during her observations. The fallen had managed to trudge through it till midnight, when she had finally drawn the date to an end at fountain in the center of the park, a place she thought suitably dramatic.

Again, she had been quite bored.

But right as the fallen had revealed her wings and announced her intent to kill him, she felt a sting at her stomach. Then she had woken up here. Yes, it was almost certain that was when it had happened. But who? Raynare ruled out Hyoudou; the boy was only a human, with no knowledge of the supernatural, and was quite infatuated with her. Could it have been the devils? Did they know I was in the territory? The fallen couldn't rule out the possibility, but doubted it. She would be dead if she had been caught by devils.

So who?

"Subject has woken after only an hour since being dosed. Note: subject seems to have a resistance to Tetroxiden. Possibly a trait of her species." A dry baritone rang out from behind her.

Raynare's eyes darted to the origin of the voice and her eyes widened in shock.

Issei Hyoudou stood wearing the same clothing he had on before with a white lab coat over it. His expression was blank and professional, his brown eyes dully analyzing her as he spoke into a digital recorder.

The fallen attempted to speak, but only succeeded in making a wet gurgle.

"Even if it isn't as effective on your species, Tetroxiden affects the nerves in addition to rendering one unconscious. It dulls the signals sent from the brain to the rest of the body, resulting in limited control of the body. You won't be moving for at least the next six hours, though you might be able to speak in a few moments." The boy spoke again, the corner of his mouth twitching in amusement as he walked to her side.

Raynare didn't try again, though it had more to do with sheer rage than anything else. A human had done this to her? Something that was a mere cockroach in comparison to even a lowly devil had drugged her?! Impossible! Even if he had used his sacred gear, it was much too weak to have any effect on her, which meant a standard human had captured her. She wanted to grind her teeth; the fallen would start by ripping his arms off, then bludgeon his privates with one until-

She was taken out of her thoughts by a slight prick at her arm. While she had indulged in her fantasy, Hyoudou somehow acquired a syringe and multiple plastic vials, and began filling them with her blood.

Raynare was beginning to feel something other than anger. She wasn't sure what it was, but it left a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"I'm quite glad you decided to show yourself to me."

Somehow, that didn't quell her stomachs uneasiness.

"You see, I've hit something of a... let's call writers block. After my success in robotics, I've felt... lost. The only area I haven't explored in robotics is nanotechnology, and I, unfortunately, lack the materials or equipment to pursue that route."

The boy cleared the table, setting the syringe and vials on a steel roller table to his side. He then lifted a briefcase from the floor and set it next to her body, fiddling with the lock as he did so.

"So, I've been looking for something to study until such a time that I did have the materials and equipment. It's been," He grimaced, "harder than I anticipated. I tried researching genetics, but... well, I found it too limited to be interesting."

The lock clicked, and the briefcase opened. Hyoudou smiled at her now, softly, gently, with a dark glint entering his brown orbs, and Raynare suddenly understood that she was afraid. Of a human. No...

"I have high hopes for you."

Raynare was terrified.

2:00 A.M., Kuoh Academy- Occult Research Club

Akeno, a buxom beauty with long black hair held back in a pony tail by a yellow ribbon, wearing a Kuoh Academy uniform placed a hot cup of tea before her King, hoping that it would calm her down.

"Something has to be wrong, the summoning circle should have been activated by midnight at the latest." Her King, Rias Gremory, bit her thumb in worry as she sat behind at her desk. She was a beautiful girl with long crimson hair and a heart shaped face, who also wore the Kuoh Academy uniform which was similarly strained under the girth of her breasts.

"Ara, perhaps this fallen decided to take things further than we thought?" Akeno mused with a lightness she didn't feel.

"With what my familiar saw? Unlikely. 'Amano Yuuma' probably can't stand humans. No, She should have killed him by now, the circle should have summoned me, and Issei Hyoudou should've been my new pawn by now." Rias ranted, slapping the desk in frustration.

"Perhaps," Akeno started, "he never got the flier?"

"My familiar saw to that personally. He accepted it right before the date."

"Ah. Maybe he threw it away then?"

"I don't-" The crimson haired beauty bit her lip, then sighed. "It's... possible."

Akeno hummed in agreement. She understood her Kings frustration; it was only a year until graduation, and Rias didn't have enough pieces to fight a rating game against Riser and win. That wasn't even taking in the time needed to train up a reincarnated devil. Rias continued.

"This is... it's such a disappointment. There was so much potential for his sacred gear! I should have had Koneko-chan follow him for the date."

Akeno blinked. "Potential? I thought we didn't know what his sacred gear was..."

"Well, we don't. It's just..." Rias shrugged. "Koneko-chan reported that he smelled like a dragon."

"Ah." The black haired beauty nodded in understanding. A sacred gear with a dragon sealed within it was always valuable; even the weakest had useful abilities, not to mention the prestige of having someone linked to a dragon as a member of the peerage. Pure blooded dragons were extremely rare, especially those not reincarnated as devils, so it was no wonder that even being tangentially related to one was a symbol of status.

Akeno was torn from her thoughts by a loud groan from her King, who had put her face in her hands.

"Buchou?" The dark haired girl asked, unsure of what else could have possibly gone wrong tonight.

The crimson King remained silent for a moment, then spoke with a tone of dread.

"I have to tell Sona that I let a student die."

Akeno was torn between laughing at her King's dramatics or flinching at the idea of the Sitri heiress learning that a student in her school had been killed as a result of Rias's actions. Then she realized that the entire plan had been Rias's idea.

"Fufufu."

4:00 A.M., Hyoudou Residence- Basement

Issei clicked his briefcase closed, setting the lock as he did so. He had finished his 'in-depth' examination of Yuuma, and had learned quite a bit, such as how her body had resisted the dose of Tetroxiden he had given her. Throughout her body, he'd found pockets of some strange white glowing... well, he was unsure what to call it, because it certainly wasn't a solid or liquid, but calling it a gas seemed wrong as well- energy perhaps? It was terribly general, but it clearly wasn't a gas. From these pockets- located in the heart, lungs, liver, kidney, and brain- the energy flowed throughout the body, entering the musculature and the bones, each of which were magnitudes tougher than a humans. It seemed as if this energy had an enriching effect on the body, burning through drugs and presumably alcohol incredibly quickly, while also making her much harder to kill; it was as if her physical body was less important to her survival, allowing her to take normally fatal injuries and keep going. Unfortunately, it seemed as though he had overestimated her endurance, as she had died during the process, turning the biopsy into an autopsy. And even worse, this meant that he would need to find a new subject.

While he was sure Yuuma's body would be useful, it was so much more efficient to experiment on a living person, to see how the body reacted to stimuli. There was also the much more pressing issue of how he would acquire another subject; he was unsure if he could count on another attempting to kill him, if only because he knew nothing of her species besides what he had found in her body.

Maybe he should have asked her a few questions first. Not that he regretted skipping right to the dissection; it'd been the first time he had ever cut open something so similar to a human, as he'd only ever worked on animals before. And before that, he'd been so entrenched in robotics and mechanical augmentation that he'd only ever cut himself open enough to have one of said robots implant his augs.

Oh well, he sighed, removing his coat and throwing it to the swivel chair in the corner of his operation room. He then exited via a steel door with his briefcase, having already stored Yuuma within his freezer room, and thus done for the night. Not that he'd be going to sleep; that was what school was for. No, Issei planned to get some work done on his latest augmentation project. This one wasn't as simple as attaching what was essentially an overclocked processor into his brain stem. Instead of something so small scale, he intended to go for an aug that affected every cell in his body; he knew what he wanted to do, he was just unsure of how to do it and how to spread it throughout his body. As far as he could find, such a thing would be nearly impossible without using radiation, which brought up a whole host of problems. Still, it would be worth it to figure out.

Immortality usually was.

And then, maybe after school, he'd figure out how to find more members of Yuuma's species.

XXX

Hello. So, this is my first fanfic, so it's probably pretty rough, but I'd appreciate it if you left a review telling me how. Be as harsh as you need to be; it can only help!

As you can see, this is just a one shot, but it wasn't always. I'd originally meant for it to be a multi-chapter story following the light novels, but then I realized just how few completed stories are in this fandom. I don't think it has anything to do with the overall writing skill of Highschool DxD authors, it's just... there's a lot of things to cover. At the time of writing, I know of twenty light novel volumes, and I for one just don't have the skill to cover that many events in a way that would let me be happy with my writing.

So I cut the story down considerably. If people like this premise, I might come back to it once I have more stories under my belt.