How to be Badass (2nd Draft)

“Take out—take out the master guilds, sir?”

Gregory nodded, chewing on his lip absently. The gesture was a lot more… human than she had imagined a level six being. Level sixes were rare, and those that existed were escalated to an almost godly level in the minds of demonslayers.

“That’s possible?” Mimi had continued when he was clearly still waiting for a more solid response than simply a parroting of his own words.

“Of course it is,” Gregory said. “We’re not invincible. Just… bigger. The other Heads of Guild and I have decided that it’s a distinct possibility—maybe even an eventuality—and that we should prepare for it.”

“How does this concern me, sir? I thought I was summoned to give a report of what happened at my guild,” Mimi said. Despite her best efforts, she had no emotional energy to think about such an eventuality. She was just—sad. Just sad.

“I would like you to be part of the preparations, if you will. I think you have the potential to be a level six, considering how young you were when you became a level five. You were given the offer to stay and continue training when you came here for your training before, were you not?” Gregory glanced down at the page in front of him, which probably contained a brief history of Mimi’s skills and training.

“Yes,” said Mimi.

“Why didn’t you?”

“I wasn’t willing to stay away from my family and guild for that long. Sir.”

“Given those reasons are no longer relevent, would you consider changing your stance on that?” Gregory asked, and then grimaced. “Wow, that sounded really insensitive. Well, not even just sounded. It was really insensitive. I’m sorry.”

Mimi’s heart panged violently at his words. “You’re right,” she said calmly.

“That I’m an insensitive jerk or that your reasons for not becoming a level six are no longer relevant?” he asked dryly.

“Both,” she admitted, and Gregory laughed. Mimi did not. She was thinking about how she didn’t have a family or guild anymore and it was eating her from the inside out.

“Will you consider becoming a level six, Helsing?” Gregory asked again, and Mimi looked down at her lap, watching her hands where they sat laced, knuckles still scuffed from the fight. Massacre. From the massacre.

Quite simply, Mimi was what she had been raised to be. She was a demonslayer; a fighter, a protector. But now she was also what this loss had made her—she was so, so tired, and so sad. She had lost what she loved, what she had fought for, and now she was left only with what she was trained to do.

If there was even the smallest chance there was going to be another wave of half demons to take out the master guilds, then Mimi would do anything she could to stop that. She saw the bodies of her guild mates again, of her family, and felt tears threatening to rise behind her eyes. She fought it, biting her lip in an attempt to distract herself with pain, but they still spilled over.

“Sorry,” she muttered, hastily wiping them with the hem of her uniform. The damned material wasn’t very absorbant. “Yes, I’ll do it. Consider my stance reconsidered.”

Gregory let out a breath, and instead of addressing the issue at hand, addressed Mimi’s tears. “You can cry, Helsing. You’ve just lived through a tragedy. It’d be a shame if you didn’t, really. The demonslaying community lost many guilds, and a staggering chunk of our force, but you lost friends and family and teachers and students. They deserve to be mourned. I’m mourning, too.”

His voice was so soft at the end, and sad enough that Mimi looked up to meet his eyes again in surprise. Somehow it hadn’t occurred to her that Gregory would feel the loss of the community personally. But he did—he must, if the look in his eyes was anything to go off of.

“Yes, sir,” Mimi said, the words more of a habit than anything else as she sat, one wrist still pressed against her face.

“I failed you guys,” he said, and though his voice shook, he didn’t break Mimi’s eye contact. The intensity of the look was force enough that she broke it herself, trying to determine what it was he was looking for. Judgement? Acceptance? He took a deep breath in when she did, and said, “I’ll bring you to your new dorm, then. There are a few others there already.”

“Yes, Head of Guild Samson,” Mimi said, standing.

“I’d rather you call me Greg.”

Mimi watched as he stood himself and walked past Mimi to get to the door out of his office.

“Yes, sir,” she said. And then. “Greg. Fuck. I mean—”

She sighed, but didn’t bother apologizing when she saw that his eyes were light with amusement.

“Come on,” he said, gesturing her out of the room as he opened the door. “I’ll introduce you to the others. You’ll get used to it in no time. I’ll be the one teaching you, after all.”

After Allen had wiped the bile from his mouth, Allen teetered back inside, collapsing at the table again. Mimi put a cup of water down in front of him, and Allen grimaced, but gulped it down.

“That’s pretty much how I feel about the whole thing too,” Mimi said grimly. “Do you want to go?”

“Do I—do I want to go,” Allen repeated brokenly. “Why would I want to go.”

Mimi shrugged. “Closure? Understanding? To help? Beats me, bud, but it’s your choice.”

Allen’s first instinct as that of course he didn’t want to go, but she had a good point, so he said, “Can I think about it?” instead.

Mimi nodded. “Yeah, but we’re going tomorrow so decide by then.”

Allen nodded and slunk off to find Dustin. After searching the entire house to no avail, Allen threw himself frustratedly onto the couch in the video gaming room, which was dark and soft in the absence of occupants.

Did he want to go? They were probably going to kill them—the people that had suffered before he had, the people who had suffered worse than he had so that he could live, harrowingly aware, through his own brand of hell. It didn’t seem right. He swallowed hard and grabbed a pillow, shoving it into his face and growling into it.

It’s not the right answer, Allen thought to himself, staring into the ruddy darkness of the pillow, the fabric soft against his face.

Then what is?

He didn’t know. He didn’t know. The right answer was for none of this to have ever happened to any of them. The right answer was Allen coming home from a day of school to his dad cooking potato and leek soup and his mom—well, he didn’t remember what his mom had done, when she’d been around. He realized, with crushing weight, that he missed his dad. Not in a logical way—his father hadn’t been that paternal, caring figure for a long time. He missed him in a childish way. He missed his father’s arms around him and the smell of his cooking and the gentleness in his voice when he said Allen’s name, even when he had been angry with him.

But those were old memories. Digging them up was reopening wounds he had thought long healed over. Maybe he had just forgotten them.

He pulled his limbs in from his messy flop onto the couch until he was sitting in the fetal position, pillow pinned between his chest and his legs, chin propped on the pillow as his eyes closed and he let a few tears escape.

He thought about Dustin and Mimi and Sparrow and Char and Kidd and even Queri, even though she was gone, and even Fay, even though she was usually an asshole. It was somehow a balm. Even though things weren’t perfect here… Allen was just aware enough to admit that things were good. Things were better. Better than tip-toeing around his father, afraid any slip up would lead to those cold, scathing outbursts; better than tip-toeing around himself, afraid of awakening the doubt inside of him that he couldn’t act on.

He was free here. And he was loved.

Those people Queri had found would still be there whether or not he had decided to change.

And he had decided to change. It was revenge, yes, but after Izzy he had to admit to himself that he was also here to help those who got caught in the crossfire.

He needed to go with them. He needed to see where he had come from—what he had come from. He wanted to see them and be convinced that they weren’t savable, because once he had thought that he wasn’t savable. If there was a way out, if he had had the courage, he had thought that the only way was his own death.

He was feeling sick again as he thought about it, and that was when the door to the video game room opened and a shadow that was big enough to be Dustin or Kidd or Mimi swallowed the light from the hallway that tried to sneak in with them.

“Hey,” Dustin said, and Allen let out a breath. “I heard you were looking for me.”

Allen simply turned his head and looked at Dustin, letting all the pain he was feeling fill his face and just like that—Dustin was by his side, putting his arms around Allen and tugging him gently into his chest.

Allen turned his face so he could feel the scrape of Dustin’s shirt against his brow, listening to his heartbeat slow. “I’m going to go,” Allen whispered.

Dustin was silent at first, and Allen wasn’t sure he was going to respond. Then, his voice somehow raw, he said, “You don’t have to.”

“Yeah,” said Allen. “I do.”

“Why?”

“I—I owe it to them,” he said, struggling to sum up his internal monologue, his mess of emotions that somehow always got the better of him.

“It’ll hurt you,” Dustin said, his arms tightening around him, and Allen let out a bitter, grunting laugh.

“So will staying away.” I’m already hurt, Dustin. I’m shattered. But so are these people. And I owe it to them to feel whatever hurt I’ll feel in order to witness what was done to them.

And to try to fix it.

“You’ve always been a fighter, Allen,” Dustin said softly.

Allen thought about the years hiding from his father, from himself, from what he did, and he said, “No, I haven’t. I’m not.”

“Yeah,” Dustin said. “Yeah you are. You just didn’t have the tools before so it came out differently—in street fights and angry words. Now you have your tools. And you’re using them.”

Allen wasn’t really sure what to say to that, though it filled him with an indescribable emotion. He swallowed it back, twice, trying to steady his breathing.

“You’re good people, Allen,” Dustin added. “Don’t let anyone take that away from you. Not ever again. You deserve to get through this.” A pause and then, “We both do.”

Allen wasn’t sure he had that, but he wanted to, and that want was, in its own way, an admittance that maybe he deserved it. He nodded into Dustin’s chest.

“You don’t have to be a fighter,” Dustin added abruptly. “You are, but it would be okay if you weren’t. Some people aren’t fighters. And they still deserve to be free and loved and safe.”

“Are you a fighter?” Allen asked softly.

“I don’t know,” Dustin admitted.

“Hmmm,” Allen said, thinking. “Maybe it’s not all… black and white like that.”

More silence, and then Dustin shifted one of his arms from behind Allen, and a moment later his fingers were in his hair, cold and careful and comforting. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“You know it,” Allen said, and he was smiling, even if it was just a bit. “Do you want to play Portal?”

This time when there was a knock on the door, Queri was beyond relieved that it wasn’t M.

Instead it was her family, and Queri shamelessly reached up and put her arms around Mimi’s neck and unapologetically enjoyed the feeling of Mimi’s arms going around her and the feeling of the skin of her chest against her cheek.

The embrace was brief, though. They had business to attend to.

Queri waved Mimi inside, followed by Sparrow, who hugged Queri as well, and Fay, who bumped fists with her, her small smile just enough to know that she had been missed.

“Where’s Allen? I thought he was coming,” Queri asked, shutting the door behind her and crossing her arms as she walked over to join the others. They installed themselves around the room in various ways; Mimi was sat on the bed, Fay in the small armchair, and Sparrow cross-legged on the ground.

“He wanted to stay with Izzy downstairs,” Sparrow said. Queri nodded. She hadn’t really been comfortable leaving her under the watch of the hotel staff, but this conversation needed to happen and Izzy needed to not be around for it. Allen needed to know what was being said too, but part of Queri was glad he could be protected from it even a bit by staying away.

Queri gnawed on her lip. “I want to do a drive-by of the hospital, but I’m not entirely comfortable leaving Allen and Izzy alone here. They should be safe of course, but the demons want both of them and Allen’s not fully trained…”

“Allen is doing quite well,” Mimi said. “He can handle himself.”

“And Izzy?”

“He can handle Izzy, too.” Worry and pride duked it out in Queri’s stomach as she nodded and grabbed the keys to the car. “Let’s go, then.”

The drive-by was quick. Queri pointed out the hospital, and recapped what she had already told them. “I think the only way for us to get inside is going to be breaking in. Again.” Her voice dropped to a mutter and she said, “I really fucking hate breaking in.”

Mimi nodded grimly, a testament to the seriousness of the situation that she didn’t tease Queri for her lawful ways. “Any ideas for how we can deal with the situation?”

“You mean more peacefully than murdering dozens of innocent people?” Fay said dryly.

“Yes, that is what I mean,” Mimi snapped.

“Not particularly,” Queri said as she turned the corner at the end of the street and started back towards the hotel. A demonic presence that had flared up some time after leaving the hotel room flickered out again.

“That is uncomfortable,” Sparrow said, shifting uneasily in the backseat. “Is it always like that?”

“Here? Yes,” said Queri. “It’s always like that here. I hate that I can’t hunt them all down but I can’t leave Izzy alone for that long.”

As they got closer to the hotel, Queri sensed another demonic presence. It got stronger the closer they got to the hotel, and by the time they had parked everyone was jittery. “It could just be Allen,” Queri said.

“Allen hasn’t been able to go fetch demons himself yet,” Mimi said.

Without another word, everyone bolted from the car to the pool area, slowing when they reached the glass wall that looked in on the pool area. Allen was sitting with his legs in the water of the pool, leaning back on his hands with a small, human smile on his face. Izzy popped out of the water as the demonslayers opened the door and walked inside, and Allen said, “Fourteen! That’s your longest yet.”

Izzy grinned, her hair plastered over her cheeks.

“What’s going on?” Fay asked, and Allen looked over at them, startled.

“Oh,” he said, “a demon possessed me. I don’t know where it came from. It’s not too big, though.”

He held out a hand and demonstrated by summoning a kernel of power into it before reversing his hand and gently pressing it to the tiled ground beside him. When he picked up his hand, the tile beneath was a little discoloured, and a little cracked, and Allen said, “A lesser time demon, I think.”

Queri’s heart was still hammering, and she shook her head. “You scared us,” she said.

I need to rewrite this scene so that it all uh… is smoother? Has more realistic reactions to things? Sounds less like a robot? Yes all of those things. I’m pulling all of this out of my ass!

“You ready for another fun B&E adventure?” Mimi asked.

“Only if I don’t get possessed this time and end up in the hospital,” Allen said, looking just the tiniest bit cheeky. “Would you banish this demon? I don’t really want it.”

“Say please,” Mimi said, but she was already walking over to him.

“Please and thank you, Mimi,” Allen said, rolling his eyes to look up at her as she approached him.

“You know,” she said, “my friends at the master guild used to call me the Goddess of Combat. I wouldn’t mind that coming back into style.”

Watching Allen and Mimi interact made Queri’s heart ache with something she wasn’t quite familiar with. It scared her a bit, the intensity of it, and she understood, suddenly, why some people would sacrifice the greater good for those they were close to.

She didn’t like that she understood it, but she did. The depth of her love scared her.

She didn’t know if she would do the right thing if the moment came, and that wasn’t something Queri had ever feared before. She swallowed and said, “Goddess of Combat, we need to decide what we’re doing tonight.”

Mimi’s head whipped around, one hand on Allen’s shoulder, eyebrows raised. Queri rolled her eyes. “Oh, not like that you pervert.”

“Goddess of Perverts,” Mimi tried out experimentally, and Queri laughed despite herself, but the sound quickly died when she thought about what she had meant.

This scene is such a mess ahah okay okay this is okay I just need to figure out in the next draft what exactly is going on as far as them talking this out and when and where and who’s included. Yeah. Possibly scrap this whole Allen-getting-possessed thing entirely. I mean really. What are the odds of that happening? Not high. Actually maybe it makes sense, maybe the demons decided he was a lost case and decided to stop guarding the entrance to his vessel in the demon realm because it was a waste of resources at that point. But then he’d be constantly having to repossess demons. Probably.

Okay cool now that that’s dealt with.

“Let’s talk about this outside. We can keep an eye on Izzy pretty easily through the glass,” Queri suggested.

Allen got up. “I’ll come this time.”

The demonslayers stepped outside and closed the door. Queri turned to watch Izzy splash around a little, climbing out of the pool only to canonball back in.

To her surprise, it was Allen who was the first to speak. “I want us to actually check if all the vessels are unsavable,” he said, a hard, blazing look in his eyes and a stubborn set to his jaw.

Mimi made a noise of agreement. “I know you said the ones you interacted with were practically vegetated, Queri, but I agree. I’m not going to kill people in their sleep under the pretense that they’re probably unsavable.”

“If you think I’m that morally corrupt then why am I even here?” Queri asked with a frown.

“That’s not what I meant,” Mimi said.

“I know, but I’m disturbed by this whole business too,” Queri said. “Besides, you know more about insanity due to possession than anyone else.”

“I guess I do. It’s fairly straight-forward, really. The human mind can’t cope with the presence of a demon for very long. Those with demon or demonslaying blood are more likely to endure it safely because it’s less alien to them. The longer a vessel is possessed, the less likely they are to survive with their minds intact,” Mimi reeled off in a business-like manner. “We did experiments in trying to re-habilitate vessels who had gone insane, back when the guilds still existed. We made some progress with the weaker cases, but anything more extreme was hard to touch. There weren’t many I encountered in the same state you’ve described, but… they weren’t even in this world anymore. No reaction to anything, except random outbursts in which they seemed to be fighting off an invisible opponent, usually during waking up in the night, presumably from dreams. For a few, this disrupted their sleep so much that they died. After that we induced sleep for them to keep them from killing themselves.”

Wow.

That was more information than Queri had been expecting on the subject, and she was a little surprised she hadn’t heard about it already.

Reading the surprise on her face correctly, Mimi said, “It was never relevant. We never dealt with vessels that far gone, and I don’t like thinking about it particularly.”

That was fair. Queri nodded.

“It’s possible that they’re not all in that condition,” Allen said, and everyone else nodded in agreement.

“We won’t know until we check,” Mimi said grimly.

“The possessions seem to peak around eight and four, and drop off between the hours of twelve pm and four am,” Queri reported. “So I’d say our best bet for getting in and out of the hospital undetected are between those hours.” “Do they completely stop?” Mimi asked, and Queri shook her head.

“They seem to work in… shifts. So there’s fewer shifts out at that time, but there’s still a few,” Queri said. “I have trouble catching them because this city is so damn big and all I have is the sense of them. You’d have an easier time tracking them down with your soul vision.”

“And of course I’m the only one here who can do that,” Mimi said with a little sigh.

“Why does that matter?” Allen asked.

“Because I’m thinking of a two-pronged plan here. Two of us work around town cleaning up the shifts that are out and about, and three of us infiltrate the hospital and evaluate the situation there and do whatever it is we decide needs to be done,” Mimi explained. “I’m also the one of us who knows the most about possession victims, so ideally I’d be on both teams but that’s not possible.”

WHAT AM I DOING WITH THIS SCENE fuck okay uh. Establish a plan. Follow through with the plan. Yeah. Justify not having Mimi around in the hospital and hopefully have it logical bc I do NOT want to have to deal with more plot holes but I PROBABLY WILL. HEY IF YOU’RE READING THIS LET ME KNOW IF THE JUSTIFICATION WORKS OR NOT PLEASE AND THANK YOU!

“Well,” Fay intoned, “none of the rest of us can do soul vision for shit. So who else knows about possession victims?”

“Probably me,” Queri said quietly. “Since I work with them to defend them in court.”

“And I help you,” Sparrow said, bumping her hip against Queri’s comfortably. “I’m good at getting them to calm down and stuff.”

Queri nodded, eyes flickering to Sparrow when she bumped her hip. “Yeah, if anyone can see if these people have a chance it’s probably Sparrow.” This probably doesn’t make seesnnsnse

“Okay,” Mimi sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, eyes glazed with thought. “I guess Fay and I will be patrolling the city and you two will be in the hospital. Allen, where do you want to go?”

“The hospital,” he said immediately.

“Why?” Sparrow asked.

Allen lifted one shoulder. “I… don’t… want to see them possessed,” he said, pressing his lips together when he finished speaking and shifting his eyes to the ground.

HAHA SORRY BUD um i mean waht

Sparrow walked to him, putting an arm around his shoulders. “That’s okay,” she said. “You don’t need to. Come with us.”

Allen’s eyebrows were low over his eyes, and he didn’t respond.

Queri’s patience for the emotional energy going into this entire scenario was running thin. She wanted to get something to eat with her family and pretend that none of this was a problem for a while, because even though it was they all needed to eat and they all needed a break in order to fix it.

“Who wants to get something to eat?” Queri suggested.

“I do,” Fay said.

“I don’t really have much of an appetite,” Sparrow admitted.

“You need food to help people properly,” Mimi said firmly. “I’m in.”

Sparrow’s lips twisted unhappily but she nodded in agreement.

“Allen?” Mimi prompted when he still didn’t respond.

“I’m not really hungry either,” he mumbled.

“And I have the same response,” Mimi countered.

“You’re shooting up like a weed too so you definitely need it,” Fay said, raising an eyebrow when he finally met her eyes.

“How much have you grown since you moved in?” Queri mused idly as she walked over to the door to the pool area to fetch Izzy.

“Like, an inch,” Fay said, and then snapped her mouth shut and her eyebrows down in the same moment.

Sparrow snorted. “You don’t need to act like paying any attention to Allen is a crime on your part, you know,” she said to her. “That’s kind of rude.”

“Izzy!” Queri called. “We’re going for food! Get dry and dressed. If you’re ready in five you can choose where we go.”

“Okay,” Izzy called back, and there was a great deal of splashing as she made her way out of the pool.

Fay made a noise of vague frustration. “I’m not,” she said. “I just don’t want to—I’m not a sap!”

“Everyone be nice,” Queri instructed the others, and followed Izzy into the change room, because there was an entrance from the other side from the rest of the hotel and she didn’t want to take any chances.

“No one is ever going to think you’re a sap Fay, don’t worry,” Mimi said, poking her collarbone.

“Oh, I’m worried,” Sparrow said a bit mischeviously.

Fay glared at Sparrow impressively, but Sparrow only grinned cheekily in response. “You don’t intimidate me anymore, I’ve known you too long,” Sparrow said in a sing-song voice.

“Fay intimidated you?” Allen asked Sparrow incredulously.

“Uh, yeah, have you seen how scary she looks?”

“I live to intimidate,” Fay said, crossing her arms and casually leaning back against the glass of the pool area.

“And I live to please, and yet here we both are, doing neither of those things,” Mimi said dryly.

“You do not live to please,” Sparrow rebuked.

“Yes I do,” Mimi said. “I’m just not polite about it.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Allen said.

“It kind of does,” Sparrow said. “She helps people but she’s not gentle about it.”

“But I bet you can help someone without pleasing them, so does she really live to please, then?” Fay asked, taking a cigarette out and talking around it as she went after a lighter.

SO I KIND OF LOST THE CHARACTER WHO’S PERSPECTIVE THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE FROM SO NOW IT’S JUST. OMNISCIENT I GUESS. WELP.

Izzy made her five minute time-limit, and chose to go get McDonald’s, which was not altogether surprising and Queri knew that Mimi found stuffing herself with McDonald’s food when she was stressed to be cathartic and Sparrow loved the fries, so she supposed she and Fay (who was, a little surprisingly, a health nut) could suffer through it.

Over burgers and fries and one bag of fruit that Fay ordered with her McFillet, Fay agreed to see if she could get onto the network and see if they stored security footage somewhere she could access. I DON’T KNOW SHIT ABOUT TECHNOLOGY OKAY SCRATCH THAT UM

Over burgers and fries and one bag of fruit that Fay ordered with her McFillet, they talked about everything except what they were going to have to do that night. Queri allowed Mimi to put an arm around her, allowed Mimi to rest her head on her own, even though it smushed her hair. She tried to get lost in the easy teasing and quips that passed between them all.

But when they stepped out of the McDonald’s, they were stepping into the chilly autumn air and the reality of what the world was and what they had to be for it. Queri was as aware of her incompetency as she was of the fact that she had to try anyways, because it was her or nothing.

In the car they quietly talked over plans; Izzy was there, but they had gotten through all the dirty details, and she was going to need to grow into this world at some point anyways. Queri, through her observations, was fairly certain that the hospital was empty at night, but even if it wasn’t, possessed vessels didn’t pose much of a threat to demonslayers, and even half demons would be manageable in the odd chance there was one around. They concluded that they should be fine, between the three of them that were going in.

Allen got possessed by two more demons over the course of the evening, and that had everyone wondering what was going on. Eventually, Mimi suggested that whatever operation had had control of him usually guarded the entrance to his vessel in the demon realm. Perhaps they had stopped, now that he was no longer theirs.

Allen had smiled at those last words, and didn’t complain about the infringing demons, repossessing them easily and then waiting for one of the demonslayers to come touch him gently on the shoulder, cheek, hair, back, killing it.

“How can I sleep if this keeps happening?” Allen finally asked as it indeed neared time to sleep. “What if more powerful ones possess me and I don’t have the energy to keep repossessing them?”

“If they’re randos, it’s unlikely,” Mimi said. “You can wear an amulet to bed. We’ll be around to help if anything goes wrong.”

“Can I see?” Izzy piped up with Mimi handed Allen an amulet, and he handed it to her wordlessly. She immediately brought it close to her face, rubbing the hard bronze surfance and turning it over.

“It’s gone wrong twice before,” Allen reminded them, a look of consternation on his face.

“I think those were on purpose,” Mimi said. “It’s the only explanation that really makes sense. The odds of demons that powerful possessing you—ones that just fuckin—er, sorry Izzy—spew power everywhere like a child throwing a tantrum—are really low. If they’ve given up on you, you won’t have to worry about those.”

“Let’s catch a little bit of sleep before we have to go,” Sparrow suggested quietly. Her somberness affected them worse than anyone else’s, the absence of her bubbly energy stark and empty.

“Okay,” Allen said, but he didn’t look convinced.

Indeed, Allen didn’t sleep much over the next few hours—every time he drifted off he found himself startled awake by half-formed nightmares of demons possessing him and he unable to stop them.

It wasn’t that late yet, though he knew it probably would be by the end of the night. The demonslayers were awake by eleven, and ready to go by eleven thirty. Queri held a quiet argument with Izzy. Apparently she wanted to go with them.

“Izzy,” Queri said, kneeling down in front of her. “We’re going to have to do some hard things tonight. It’s hard for us, and we’ve been training for years to do this kind of thing. It wouldn’t be fun for you.”

“I don’t care,” Izzy said stubbornly. “I wanna know what’s going on.”

“I’ll tell you everything that happened,” Queri promised.

Izzy looked resentful, but nodded anyways, and they moved quietly out of the building.

It’s probably that Char should have given Izzy some tattoos before she left??? Maybe not????

Queri, Sparrow, and Allen were dropped at the psychiatric hospital while Mimi and Fay went off searching for whoever was scattered around the city. ((Also possible that I should have Fay go in w/ them instead since she’s the tech geek??? A problem for editing, since I’m going to ignore all realistic security measures during this draft for the sake of getting this the FUCK done))

Once they were inside, Allen found himself holding his breath, as the building seemed to be. It was still, dark, and everything felt muffled; sounds, feelings, breaths, and the spaces between them. It was suffocating, and suffocation is an excellent habitat for fear to grow, full of empty space where oxygen should be filling you with strength and instead replacing it with weakness, and your awareness of it.

“Where are we?” Sparrow whispered, her voice hush and breathless in the dark. Allen stepped towards her, and her hand brushed over his comfortingly.

“Some back room,” Queri said, voice also quiet. Her footsteps sounded, equally soft as she walked the perimeter of the small room.

“Duh,” Sparrow said. She paused for a second, and then said, a little louder than before, “I can hear machinery.”

Sure enough, the quiet buzz of working fans and the hum of computers permeated the air around them, just quiet enough to not be noticed if they weren’t paying attention. “Sounds like servers,” Queri muttered. “I found the door.” Said door swung open, and it was a bit brighter out there, the hall lined with hazy emergency lights lighting the way out of the building.

“Now where are we,” Sparrow asked, but the question was clearly both rhetorical and unanswerable, at least for the time being, so it simply hung in the air as they walked tentatively to the right.

“A hallway,” Queri eventually answered. Allen appreciated her breaking the silence. It had only grown more stifling.

They reached another door, and Queri opened it and peered in. It was an empty security room, large enough only for the two lit monitors, the desk they sat on, and a desk chair. The monitors

FUCK I NEED TO WRITE AND FINISH THIS BIT IT’S GOING TO BE SUPER ROUGH HERE GOES GUYS

—filled the room with a grainy glow. Allen did a sweeping glance over them. It wasn’t how he had imagined it—of course he had imagined it as white rooms. Of course he had imagined them like cells. He didn’t pause to dwell on why; he didn’t want to know. Instead he studied the room flashing up on the screen as is was; rooms of a dozen or so people, still as death on medically white beds.

On the other was what looked like a break room, and it was a little less sterile looking but not much. There were no colours, no touches of personalization, of humanity. Just some snacks and a vending machine.

The screens flashed and changed rooms. The one on the left showed a different room with another dozen or so people. Allen’s heart squeezed. Twenty-four people was more than he had thought there would be.

“Maybe I should stay here and keep a look out,” Sparrow suggested. “I can call you guys if someone shows up.”

“But if someone shows up here then you’ll be all alone,” Queri said, frowning. “I don’t like the idea of us splitting up.”

“I can handle myself, hon,” Sparrow said, eyes crinkling in a way that wasn’t quite a smile but was kind nonetheless.

“I know you can,” Queri said. “But I still don’t like it.”

“You have to realize how out of character that is for you,” Sparrow said, and Queri looked uncomfortable as she nodded.

“Yeah, yeah you’re right,” she said. “Okay, you stay here. Call me now and put your phone on speaker. Yell if anything happens.”

“Okay,” Sparrow said, pulling out her phone and dialing. Queri picked up on the first ring and Sparrow put her phone down on the desk. “Off you trot, then. Allen, you’re going with her, right?”

Allen nodded. He was feeling strange—as if he was watching himself, rather than inhabiting his own body. It was something that often happened after possessions, or after an interaction with his dad, and he didn’t like it—it was somehow like the opposite of possession, but not in a good way. The pendulum swinging to far the other way.

At the end of the hallway was a stairwell, and Queri and Allen started climbing it in silence, and Allen wasn’t sure if he was grateful or hateful of the noise their feet made in the space. It terrified him the way prey in a hunter’s territory should be terrified, but it also reminded him that he could be a hunter too, and prey had claws of their own.

I don’t need to hide, I don’t need to hide, I don’t need to hide, Allen thought to himself as they climbed the stairs. He thought about saying it out loud, just softly, but every time he tried fear swallowed the words back down like the greedy bastard that it was.

I want to hide, a small voice inside of him admitted.

Yeah, and I want to punch someone until that feeling goes away, but neither of us are going to get what we want, Allen thought back, and then realized how silly it was to think of himself as two separate entities inhabiting the same flesh. He was Allen, just Allen, no matter what he did, but just Allen felt so much a lot of the time that he thought he might just puke it all up.

By this time they were on the next level, and Queri paused in front of the door when Sparrow said, “Queri, I think there might be a lot more of these than we thought.”

“What do you mean?” Queri asked, her business-like voice echoing through the stairwell. I don’t need to hide.

“I’m watching these monitors flicker between rooms,” Sparrow said, sounding a little distressed. “It’s hard to say since they aren’t labelled and they all look similar and the video quality is shit but—I don’t know, there’s been an least three. There’s at least thirty six.”

“Okay,” Queri said, mouth moving over the word slowly, giving each letter space, clearly thinking through what this meant for them and their plan. No time for sympathy. “That’s enough that we’ll have to be on our guard if anything goes wrong.”

Vessels might not be very strong opponents, but with enough of them they could still be overwhelming, especially if any of them had demonslayer or demon blood and could use their demonic power. I don’t think I’ve explained that yet in this book hEY READERS HUMANS WITH DEMONSLAYER/DEMON BLOOD CAN CHANNEL DEMONIC POWER WHILE FULL HUMANS CANNOT now you know. That’s like, real dangerous and stuff. Obviously vessels flinging demonic power at you are vaguely more threatening than regular people flinging clumsy, demon-puppetteered fists at you.

Anyways woops that’s your bit of world building I swear I actually put a lot of work into that uhhh

Queri opened the door, and Allen didn’t move from where he stood, trying to calm his heart as it picked up, trying to push down his gorge as it threatened to rise in time with his anxiety.

It was just another hallway, but there were doors in this hallway—four. Literally what am I doing if this is a town that’s had desperation and violence FOSTERED in it by LITERAL DEMONS then this place would have KILLER security this is so unrealistic god. Queri walked towards one and tried it. His heart did not calm, and his anxiety grew until he was unable to handle it, and Allen sunk to the ground with his head in his hands, his breath a scream inside of him.

“Locked,” Queri said. He barely heard her. “Allen, are you okay?”

Allen wasn’t okay, but they needed to get into that room, and if there was one thing Allen was good at doing when he couldn’t handle his feelings, it was hitting things. So he forced himself back to his feet, stalked over to the door, and kicked it. He kicked it really hard.

And honestly it was really surprising when the locking mechanism snapped and the door crashed open.

“Well,” Queri said. “Well. I guess we go in now.”

Allen wasn’t moving as he stood in the doorway. It was a room like the one on the TV, except his eyes were much better than the shitty security cam. Each person became perilously, dangerously, an individual. A human with a past, but maybe no future.

“They’re asleep,” Queri murmured.

“They look comatose,” Allen said, and his voice was rough. He cleared his throat, his breathing ragged and his veins still full of adrenaline with nowhere to go. Everyone was lined up so neatly, all lying on their backs.

Purposelessly, Allen walked towards the nearest bed. He didn’t really want to see them up close, but he did, because then maybe he’d stop seeing his mom instead of a man who looked like he was in his early twenties, with the beginnings of crow’s feet in the corners of his eyes and a well-shaped mouth that was parted just slightly.

Holy fuck I’m gay, thought Allen. Not really, but he is. He doesn’t give a fuck at the moment because he has bigger problems. It’s past midnight and I need to write five thousand words today. I’M SO TIRED.

ALLNE was aware that Queri had walked up beside him, but he didn’t move from his careful study of the man. “He’s so young,” Queri murmured. “Not as young as you, though.”

“I think it turned out better for me than for him,” Allen said, and his heart agreed as it pumped in his chest; it hurt for the man in the bed who Allen didn’t know, would likely never know.

“I think they’ve induced sleep in them,” Queri said. “Like Mimi said they did to the badly damaged vessels.”

“How do we wake them, then?” Allen asked.

“I don’t know,” Queri admitted. “I—we’ll have to see if we can find the medications. Or change our plan completely.”

I’M GOING TO CHANGE YOUR PLAN COMPLETELY ANYWAYS DON’T YOU WORRY IT’S BECAUSE IT’S SHIT

“Will I have to kick another door open?” Allen asked, a half-hearted attempt at humour that not only fell flat, but flew completely over Queri’s head.

“Yeah, probably.”

Allen craned his neck around the room. “Maybe they just keep the stuff in here?”

There were some cabinets at the end of the room, and Allen walked towards them, just as Sparrow’s voice sounded again. “Hey guys, there’s two—er—people—who just went into the break room.”

“Shit,” Queri commented.

Sparrow made a noise of agreement.

“And of course we don’t even know where that is,” Queri muttered, more to herself than to anyone else it seemed.

“They’re leaving the break room,” Sparrow updated. “I don’t know where they’re going. I don’t have sighting of hallways, and I wouldn’t know how this place was set up enough to tell you anything even if I did.”

“Yeah,” Queri said. “Get in the cabinet, Allen.”

“The cabinets with the meds,” Allen said, deadpan.

“Yes,” she said.

“We can handle two—whatever they are,” Allen protested. He didn’t like small spaces, and he did like hitting demon people. It was an easy argument to make.

“Yeah, but once they’ve alerted any of their superiors that we’re here, literally every vessel in this place could become a soldier,” Queri said.

That was a convincing counter-argument, Allen had to admit. “And what if they open the cupboard to get shit?” Allen asked. “We’ll be in a bad position.”

“But we’ll have the element of surprise,” Queri pointed out.

“Fine,” he said, trying to grumble but his throat was too tight so he settled for a heavy scowl as he opened the cabinet and hurriedly swept a bunch of needles and small glass bottles full of something or another to the side until there was room for him to awkwardly shove himself onto the lower shelf.

Queri followed after him, onto the shelf above him.

“If you fall on me and crush me I am never going to let it go,” Allen said.

“Consider me warned,” Queri said, and then shut the cabinets to plunge them into darkness.

Panic swamped him in the same moment that the darkness did. He tried to focus on the sliver of light that proved that yes, he was in a dumbass cabinet, not trapped helplessly in his own body, unaware and he understood with visceral clarity what had driven everyone in this building to madness.He knew. But he survived. He might have survived, but he was damaged goods, and he started to shake as his mind convinced his body that he was back there again and he couldn’t escape.

He didn’t know how long they were in the darkness. There was only silence, and darkness, and Allen’s legs slowly going numb beneath him, and every brain cell that he had singing at him that everything was wrong.

He still heard the door open to the room. The noise grounded him; it was real, he was real. Even as he tethered himself back to his body, he realized that someone coming into the room was a distinctly bad thing.

There were murmuring voices on the other side of the room, and then the brush of footsteps and clothing as whoever it was that had entered the room moved around. It became obvious very quickly that the footsteps were coming towards the cabinet.

“Queri,” Allen hissed.

“Get out,” she whispered back. “Now.”

And, boy, he was afraid of these demon people and their human ways, but he was more afraid of the cabinet and the history it reminded him of, so he did, pushing open the cabinet and rolling gracelessly onto the floor.

He scrambled to his feet as quickly as he could, hands and feet scrabbling at the floor, breathing far too erratic for having just been sitting in a cupboard. Painstakingly, he balanced his stance and tried to process what he was seeing.

It wasn’t much different from how the room had been when they had crawled in the cabinet, except for the man in a lab coat standing in front of him, face slack in shock, and the woman in a lab coat holding the arm of the young man at the front of the room.

“Hi,” Allen said. “What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” the man asked. “Who are you?”

“Not the most important thing right now,” Queri said. The woman at the other end of the room had dropped the arm of the young man and was now watching them raptly.

“This is a private facility, ma’am, and we’re going to have to ask you to leave,” the man said calmly. “Otherwise we will have to call the police.”

So they didn’t know who they were—somehow, they thought they were just criminal civilians who had mistakenly found themselves in the demons’ nest. Allen, with all the self-preservation of a fourteen year old boy with dubious coping mechanisms, said, “I’m Allen O’Connell.”

The man’s eyebrows shot upwards. “Kagaku’s boy.”

Allen had no idea what that meant, and he did not care. A demon that had propriated ((this isn’t the right word but I can’t find it right now and it’s close)) him for his usefulness, as a successful outcome from all of the collateral damage lying around him. He didn’t want to know.

“Allen!” Queri said sharply. “That was really stupid.”

“Yep, I know,” Allen muttered. “Can we just like, kill them now?”

“Too late,” the demon said, taking a step back, and putting his hands out in front of him. Power pooled in his hands and then spread over the floor thinly, creeping towards them. Allen inched away from it, sliding his eyes sideways and trying to figure out what to do. He could try to get around the man, from the back. Or he could go after the woman, who was also starting to glow with a pearly power that was almost… pretty.

So they were both vessels with either demon or demonslaying blood. Great.

Finding out what their power did would go a long way to getting them out of this goddamned situation. Allen wished he was better at strategy, better at thinking on his feet. He was mostly good at hitting things harder than he meant to because he was also feeling more than he meant to. He looked to Queri for help.

Queri was already on it. “Sparrow! We need back up!”

“Yup!” Sparrow said. “Um, the vessels are moving!”

“How many?” Queri asked. A few of the vessels in their room were stirring as well, twitching, and right after Queri said that one shot upwards in bed. The hair on the back of Allen’s neck rose. It was creepy, in numbers like these, in a way he’d never thought of before. Sympathy for the vessels was erased, at least in part, by an animalistic fear.

“I don’t know! A lot!” Sparrow said. “I’m coming up now!”

In the time it took for Sparrow to get up there, they learned that the female vessel was inhabited by a healing demon, because when Queri threw a knife at the male, and it buried itself in his chest, he turned around and received a shiny little bubble from her. A moment later, the knife clattered to the floor, and his chest was whole once again.

“Shit,” Queri commented moments after the knife hit the ground. “They’re strategic.”

Sparrow burst in, and paused only for a moment to assess the situation before she swiftly shut the door (sidenote: the demons would have noticed that Allen fuckin… destroyed that door), and started cutting her way through the vessels between her and the door. Allen knew they weren’t dead, but it was still hard to watch them fall like wheat grains chopped at their base.

“Get the one in the lab coat!” Queri yelled at Sparrow. “She’s a healer!”

Allen and Queri were in a weird sort of stand off as the the male lab coat held Queri and Allen at bay with his power while vessels continued to shuffle around the room getting between Sparrow and the healing vessel.

“I’m going to touch it,” Allen announced when it became clear that they had to touch the mysterious, grey power, or risk getting backed into a corner.

“No, don’t—”

Allen did, and immediately he was swamped with such volatile fear that his vision went dark all at once and and he fell backwards, scrambling back using his arms and legs like an animal, numb with terror and to anything except getting away, away, until his back collided with the cabinets.

The effects wore off after a few seconds, but they left him winded. “What the hell,” he breathed brokenly, arms trembling as they held him up from the floor.

“What did it do?” Queri asked.

“Makes you scared,” Allen said. That wasn’t quite right. Scared sounded like a child who didn’t want to go up the stairs in the dark without hold their daddy’s hand. That wasn’t what that was. That was paralyzing, all-consuming panic. “Don’t touch it.”

Luckily, the demon wasn’t so countrolled that he could chase them with his power; he couldn’t detach it from himself. Instead he spread it about him in a sort of moat, stopping Allen and Queri from being able to attack, or retreat.

“We need to take him out,” Queri muttered. Allen’s eyes darted towards Sparrow. At least the healing demon couldn’t stop you from banishing or killing demons.

The door opened and more vessels streamed in. WHERE’S THE EMOTIONAL RESPONSE IN THIS SCENE WHERE IS IT I DON’T FEEL ANYTHING I’M SO CONFUSED. Allen looked in horror as more and more stuffed themselves in. He kept waiting for them to stop, for it to be all of them, but they didn’t. The doorway was stuffed, Sparrow was clearly overwhelmed, and he and Queri were trapped by this stupid demon.

Allen took a deep breath. He hadn’t stayed awake that evening for nothing. He had spent the time, with Fay, sorting through demons that possessed him, trying to get one that was useful. Not so powerful that he couldn’t keep it under wraps until the completion of the mission, but not so weak that he couldn’t do anything with it.

What he had ended up with was a middling strength destruction demon. He wasn’t sure if it was any match for the fear demon in front of him, but he wouldn’t find out if he didn’t try.

“I’m going to try to cancel out his power,” Allen told Queri. “Um, it’s a destruction demon, so be careful of the floor. I might accidentally, y’know…”

“Destroy it?” Queri said tightly.

Allen nodded.

“I guess we don’t have another choice,” she said, watching Sparrow. A flicker of power from one of the vessels around her caused her to stumble briefly, and Allen didn’t waste any more time as it gave another vessel the opportunity to give her a solid kick behind her knees that caused her to fall onto them. Queri whipped out her phone and dialed. “Come on, pick up, pick up,” she muttered as Allen tugged his demon’s power carefully over the power of the fear demon, who didn’t seem to know what to do when confronted with this breach in his plans. The two powers fizzled against each other angrily, burning each other out, and sending ripples of shock back through Allen. He hadn’t anticipated that.

The demon seemed to be feeling it though, too. Interesting. So they could feel pain. Or something close to it. He flinched, and lost control over his moat for a second, causing it to retreat slightly. “That’s it,” Allen said.

“Backup, now,” Queri snapped. “There’s a lot more vessels than we thought. And we were found out.”

Allen didn’t dare to check on how Sparrow was doing; this was taking all his focus (what focus lmao you haven’t really talked about what you’re doing bud), but the image of her on her knees and surrounded was more than enough imagery for him. He pushed forwards with his power, trying to make a path for Queri. He didn’t think he had enough to burn the other demon out completely.

“Go,” he gritted, and Queri didn’t need any more prompting to step into the path of safety he was working to maintain.

What am I doing what’s happening hmmmmm

The demon stepped out to meet Queri, who went for her weapons. “Leave him!” Allen shouted. “I can’t keep you safe if your fighting.” Too much maneuvering. He didn’t have that kind of control.

Instead he quickly burned a path to the side, away from the demon, and Queri ran through it until she got to the other side. The fear demon tried to surge after her, but as soon as he did the moat dissolved and Allen started forwards. Immediately the demon snarled and reinstated it, and Queri started fighting her way to Sparrow.

Allen released his hold on what was left of the power—not much—and took a moment to look. Sparrow was back on her feet, but she wasn’t looking too good; her movements lagged, and she had ugly scratches on her arms. She appeared to be taking out the vessels by brute force, rather than by banishing or killing the demons. She must have run out of power.

Demonslaying simply wasn’t meant to work in this capacity. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Allen had to get over there, too. They might be vessels, and he might not be able to use his tattoos, but clearly Sparrow couldn’t either and she needed help. More to the point, she was a priority to Allen. He could justify it all he wanted with the fact that these vessels were supposed to be insane, incurable, but the justification was just a relief for what he already wanted to do.

The problem was that now he had to get past the fear demon, with the ragged remains of the power of the demon. He remembered Mimi saying something about being able to transfer your own power into the power of the demon you were repossessing, but he also remembered exactly nothing off the top of his head about the theory behind doing that, and he’d never tried it. Not to mention Mimi had also definitely told him that it was a difficult thing to do, and had admitted that even she had trouble with it.

((this would have been easier back when the unbinding tattoo was still in circulation; soon as it started to wane in popularity, this particular skill was dropped as a requirement from becoming a level six. Around this time demons were further, well, demonized, causing the shift in the origin story, a back-lash on using the unbinding tattoo, stigma on children using their power before it’s bound, and a dislike for ‘sullying’ your power by converting it to demonic power as a level six))

((I still need to figure out what caused that shift in attitudes, it doesn’t have to be much since ofc they already hate demons and all but still))

He let out a short, hoarse yell of frustration and sat down hard on the ground. He grasped his hair in his fingers, closed his eyes, and prodded and his power, at the demon, at the demon’s power. Off the top of his head, he could remember nothing. What had Mimi said? Allen had a good memory, he just had to get it to work with him.

Come on, work with me, work with me…

He pulled at his power like silly putty, threading it together with the demon’s. A thoroughly unpleasant shock ran through him and the two sparked apart. He flinched violently, and opened his eyes to look at the room again. Queri had made it to Sparrow, at least, and they were fighting back-to-back now.

There were still vessels flooding into the room.

Allen swallowed against the sickness that threatened to heave itself out of him again as the implications of that shouted to make themselves heard. He hoped Mimi and Fay hadn’t been too far out. He hoped that they would get here in time to save their asses.

He couldn’t rely on that, though. At the very least, he had to see if he could help them survive that long. So he put his head back in his hands, and thoroughly hoping that he wasn’t doing something that would make Char take his head off because it was dangerous and foolish, he threaded his a small amount of his power and the demon’s power together again, this time more firmly, tying them in knots around one another and shuddering as spark after spark went through him in protest.

It was a small bit, but after working the two together for enough time it worked. It was hell. It hurt, and it took a infernal amount of focus and work, but he did it, if only with a small bit of power. Painstakingly, he repeated the process.

By the time he thought he had enough to work with, he was shaking, and when he climbed unsteadily back to his feet, he threw up just a little bit in his mouth.

Fucking hell, Allen thought. He had to settle if he wanted to be any help at all.

He didn’t need as much for himself as he had needed for Queri, he didn’t think. He knew how he was going to move, so he only needed to keep the area around him clear, rather than clearing an entire path. Looking the demon square in the eyes (just decided Allen’s a February baby), Allen fizzled himself a little hole to stand in in the moat, and stepped into it.

“Fucking demonslayers,” the demon spat. “You’re so troublesome. This is why we tried to get rid of you all.”

“I’m not a demonslayer,” Allen said, stepping towards him carefully. If he touched the power, even a bit, it would be ruinsome.

The demon gave him a look as if to say, now really, what are you doing, then?

The demon’s look had a point.

The healing demon was preoccupied healing the vessels around Queri and Sparrow to the point where anything Sparrow tried to take out came back at them. Queri’s power seemed to be flagging too, and the power that had been flowing from her to slow the vessels flickered and went out. She must have banished the demon before she lost the ability to repossess it.

Well, if the healing demon was occupied… Allen walked over to the fear demon and took out a short sword that Allen had taken a liking to in combat practice. It was a half demon weapon, heavy and sharp and deadly, and Allen didn’t have to try very hard to put it into the vessel’s neck.

God, I hope that you were hopeless, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Allen thought, and as soon as the vessel’s body fell to the floor he felt the old guilt, the old horror and confusion and moral ambiguity flood over him. He tried to ignore it as the fear demon’s power evaporated with the demon, and he only partially succeeded as he started working his way to Queri and Sparrow, feeling a part of him wither every time he smashed the hilt of his blade into the side of someone’s head and they collapsed, every time he cut their hamstrings so they couldn’t fight. At some point the vessels had stopped coming into the room. Yeah, that happened. Not too long ago.

When Mimi appeared in the doorway Allen fully understood why she said that level sixes were seen somewhat like gods amidst the demonslayers.

She stood there, and in the space of a blink, she sent a black, hush power over the room, seamlessly flowing around Allen, Queri, and Sparrow. There was a collective whisper of thunks as the vessels all fell in a wave, and then the power retreated again.

“Is everyone alright?” Mimi asked, rushing into the room, taking Queri’s face in her hands and running her thumbs over her cheeks. When Queri quickly nodded, Mimi went to Sparrow, holding her head and tilting it to examine the long, bloody scratches down her chin and neck, and then grabbing her arm to examine the wounds there. “Those are going to scar,” she said grimly.

“They burn like a sonofabitch,” Sparrow said.

“I can imagine,” Mimi said, and then she jogged towards Allen, stepping around bodies.

Allen, for his part, had immediately lost any semblence of his ability to push past his doubt as soon as the threat had disappeared. He sank to the ground, and he threw up, and he felt tears on his face and the sting of acid on his nose and then Mimi’s hand on his back. “Why is it that it’s always like this?”

What, me panicking in the fetal position on the ground? Allen thought.

“Demons,” Queri said bitterly. “What did you do to these… people?”

“Sleep demon,” Mimi said. “They should still be alive. Fay’s sorting through who we met on our way up here.”

“Is there anyone who was lucid?” Queri asked, kneeling down and feeling for the nearest vessel’s pulse.

“One,” Mimi said quietly, and Allen heard her crouch behind him, and she started just rubbing his back. “I’m still fucking shit with words. I know this is hard. I’m sorry.”

One, Allen thought. If there was one, then that meant there could have been more. That he might have killed one. Might have injured one.

It’s no worse than anything else I’ve done before, he thought dully, and hated himself for it, and hated that it was true. The smell of vomit was far too strong in his nostrils, and cloyed at the back of his throat, and he retched again, and again, and there was nothing left and he was just dry heaving on his hands and knees.

He wished Dustin was there. Dustin smelled good, and safe, and he made Allen feel human again. Right now he didn’t feel human; he felt like a monster.

“I’m a monster,” he said out loud, his voice rough from stomach acid. He choked on the words. “I—I’ve killed so many people.”

He knew he was crying but he wasn’t quite in the moment enough to do anything about it. He wanted to scream. He wanted to hit something. He wanted something to hit him.

“Sparrow, go back to the hotel room with Allen while we sort out what to do here,” Mimi said, rising to her feet.

She didn’t contradict what Allen had said. She couldn’t, because it was true.

It was all true.

Sparrow’s gentle touch wrapped around his shoulders, and he struggled to his feet for her. “I’m s—”

“Don’t apologize,” Sparrow cut him off, and Allen flinched. “You don’t need to. You did a good job, honey.”

Of course Sparrow had a handkerchief, and of course she used it to gently wipe Allen’s tears, and then the bile around his mouth. “Let’s go.”

Allen couldn’t particularly remember getting from the room to the car, and he didn’t remember much about the car ride back, either. But he was aware when Sparrow guided him gently onto one of the beds, helping him out of his soiled clothes, and pulled the blankets over him; he knew when she pressed a mug of tea gently into his hands and then crawled up beside him and put her arms around him.

She wasn’t Dustin, but she was still warm and understanding and human. And she didn’t look at him like he was a monster.

“I had to hurt some people in there, too,” Sparrow said, and Allen was just present enough to realize that she felt uncertainty about the way she had behaved as well.

“You needed to,” Allen said softly. “To survive.”

“And so did you,” Sparrow said. “I hate it, the concept that I’m more important than those people, because that’s not really… what it is. It’s the easiest way to say it, but that’s not what it is. They’re important, and that’s why I have to protect them, and also others that could be hurt like that. I can help them. But if I died there, then I couldn’t. Queri’s good at thinking like that, for the greater good. I’m not. I just want to not hurt anyone.”

Allen didn’t say anything, but it was nice to hear her talk. Allen wasn’t sure if he could apply those words to himself; he wasn’t a real demonslayer. His tattoos were useless.

But in his mind he saw Mimi in the doorway of the room, power shimmering around her and her eyes full of unfathomable colour. You’ve never seen someone fight with the full power of repossession behind them. He hadn’t. But now he had, and if he could do that—if he could do that in any capacity, then he could do more than just protect himself.

He could help fight. He could fight back.

The thought neutralized some of the roiling doubt and self-hatred within himself. He closed his eyes and let himself take in the feeling of the hot tea between his hands, and breathed in slowly, nostrils flaring. Behind his eyes flashed images of people dying; both recent, and ages ago. Both hurt. They probably always would. But maybe he could make some of it right by dismantling the operation, by making sure something like him could never be created again. Something like the psychiatric hospital.

I DIDN’T GET TO THE END OF MY OUTLINE BEFORE I HAD TO CHANGE IT TOO DRASTICALLY AGAIN TO JUSTIFY CONTINUING TO WRITE THIS ONE, SO HERE’S A QUICK SUMMARY OF WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THIS!!

The demons, pissed that the demonslayers destroyed the ward, retaliate by trashing the burial grounds of one of the old guild halls. Either Mimi’s old area guild, or the NYC master guild, I haven’t decided yet. Mimi is smad about this and goes to clean it up and the others come and it’s a great bonding and worldbuilding moment in theory.

Allen figures out that his dad is deeper in this demonic operation than he thought! He’s looking at the drawing Izzy did, and reminisces about his dad’s tattoo and is like “… wait… that’s a weird… coincidence…” and then feeling all dread-y, he goes and finds Fay and asks to look at Izzy’s file from the dr’s. He does, and Allen’s dad is down as a contact for one of the pieces of info, idk, email address or phone number or something, and Allen gets all Angery and stomps off to go confront his dad. Fay goes with him because she’ll be damned if this little shit of a boy is going to go off and throw himself at this unknown threat alone.

Neither Fay nor Allen really understand the magnitude of what they’re about to face; however, M does, and M happens to be watching. (Spoiler alert: he haunts out in Allen’s body without fully possessing him :)). M freaks out and tells Queri who tells everyone else and they all go to his and Fay’s rescue, including Dustin. They fight mini-boss Kagaku, who is the demon that was possessing Allen’s dad PSYCH HE HASN’T BEEN ALLEN’S DAD ALL ALONG and also his small army of demonic minions. It goes well until it doesn’t. Dustin uses his powers and it’s actually terrifying because he’s surprise hella powerful. Probably at some point over this battle too Dustin figures out that it is his dad’s operation that is behind all this, possibly from talking to Kagaku, I dunno.

Kagaku decides that tactically it’s a better idea to possess Allen than to continue possessing his dad, and does so. Kagaku is a fuckin…hellastrong demon. Allen struggles to repossess him. Oh, also, Char got badly injured at some point. Anyways, Allen is having trouble. Even if he does manage it, all the demonslayers quickly realize that they are all too drained to either banish or kill a demon of that magnitude. Char has the solution: a ritual.

Since she’s the only one with any detailed knowledge on this, she gives the orders to set up and complete the ritual. At this point Allen has managed to repossess Kagaku, but it’s taking everything he has and is unable to do more than just kneel there with him, hoping he can make it until they complete the ritual.

Mayybe at this point is when something happens that makes Dustin realize? Might add more suspense to the pacing. I dunno. Anyways, the ritual goes through, and Char dies because she knew she was already gonna die and she tied her life force to the ritual as the payment so that at least her death would be used to save those she loves.

End battle. Everyone’s a grieving mess. There’s a funeral. They try to talk to Allen’s now-unpossessed but also quite insane father. It’s a bit heartbreaking, in theory. Mimi reveals that she is Dustin’s human parent, in defending him from an angry, grief-driven out-burst from Kidd about his demonic heritage.

Umm… Probably Sam and Em show up like “… so… where???” and they’re all like “oh yeah she dead now” also I plan to have them already have met up before she died but I forgot to write that in so THAT HAPPENED and then she just like fucked off to the afterlife and Sam and Em collectively decided that they should try to persue that, since unlike last time she disappeared, they actually knew where she was supposed to be.

So they show up. Yeah. That sure is the book. Now I’m going to go change a bunch of shit and add a bunch of shit.