The Witch: Principalities
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Darcy turned the screwdriver, tightening the screw until it was properly in where it belonged, where it wouldn't be stealing any other girls' bikini tops. She took a step back to look at her handiwork, and to stay out of the way for the next person coming down the slide. They screamed past and splashed down just as she got out of their path.

Getting out of the water, Darcy handed the screwdriver back to Lace. "Thanks. That's that problem solved."

Elena and Madine stood nearby, waiting for confirmation that the problem was dealt with. Once it was clear enough that it had been, Madine had to be the one to ask the question. "Lace, did you have that screwdriver in your car, or did you steal it from the park's maintenance closet or something?"

The blond shook her head. "I walked to the nearest store and bought one."

"In that?" Elena pointed to the sky blue bikini Lace was wearing.

Lace put her hands on her hips and nodded confidently. "Of course."

Adjusting her top, with more than a little bounce, Darcy waved off the water slide behind them. "Anyway, who wants to sit in the wave pool a while?"

"Sounds like a plan." Madine turned to head for the wave pool, but then stopped. She looked back to Elena, who was tying her hair up into a ponytail. "Oh, hey that looks pretty good on you."

Elena paused what she was doing, looking up in surprise. "Huh? I mean, really?"

"Yeah." She reached out her hand for Elena to take. "Come on, let's go."

Elena was quiet for a moment, then hurried to finish tying up her hair. She took Madine's hand. "Okay, let's go."


Melany pushed herself up onto one side, sitting up and looking into the room. She couldn't let John face this on his own. He wouldn't win, and then neither of them would survive. She had to stop him, to get him to turn around, pick her up, and carry her away from here.

"John... don't... don't fight them..."

It took all of a second for a large man to step out of the crowd and approach John. His muscles were visible through his suit, bulging to escape confinement. He opened his mouth, and a glowing orange snake tongue waggled about. Fiery horns grew on his head, burning up to a point before turning all black.

John looked over the top of his sunglasses at the beastly man. "And that's your name? Tiny?"

A deep, guttural voice came from the man's throat. "I am the Executioner of Anbar!" He seemed to take actual offense at John's lazy insult. He pointed one finger at John, flames sprouting and growing a long claw on the fingertip. "Show respect to the Principalities, for you will be the next drop in my sea of blood."

John just glanced behind him to where Melany lay bleeding. He turned his attention back to the room. "Which of you did that to her? I want to give you special attention."

The Executioner laughed in his face. "We all delivered a cut to the whore, symbolic of the total letting she will suffer once we are finished with you."

"Damn. Guess I'll just have to kill all of you." Out came the cards. Before the Executioner could put a stop to it, three cards had punched through his chest, knocking him back. He staggered, but didn't fall, as the cards hit the far wall. John grunted in disappointment. "So how tough are you guys, then?"

"More mighty than any of the weaklings you have fought before, if you expected that to stop me."

"I expected it to at least do something, but I guess not. This should work, though." John called those three cards back to him. They shot back to him, cutting through the Executioner's neck. John caught them deftly and returned them to the deck. The Executioner's head hit the ground, and his body collapsed. John fanned out the cards in his hand and looked around the room again. "So... who's next?"

A man who looked to be dressed as a Catholic bishop recoiled at the suggestion. "You could just kill a Principality like that? You've already done more damage than you could possibly hope to imagine! You won't ever defeat all of us, but the very idea of slaughtering so many Earthly Principalities... do you not care at all for the balance of the light and the dark?"

"Please. As the world's greatest magician, I can tell you right now that if you rely on shadows to keep your secrets, you're just an amateur waiting to be called out."

"You insolent fool!" The bishop brought flames to his hands. "The sacred dichotomy is the most important aspect of the spiritual realm!"

John wanted him to shut up, so the next card went between his eyes. It buried itself in his brain, then spun rapidly, causing his head to explode in a shower of ichor and brains. All assortment of fangs, claws, wings, and spines began to sprout across the room, a cacophony of howls and screeches filling the air as the demons showed themselves.

The first one to charge, a man with bull horns, came at John from the left. Four cards spun out of the deck, cleaving the man in half from his head on down. On his right, a woman with ghoulish skin reached out for John. She grabbed his forearm, but he called out another card to slash across her belly. As her green guts spilled out onto the floor, a winged demon leapt through the air and kicked at John with razor sharp talons protruding from the remnants of its boots. Two cards swiped over John's head, chopping the demon's feet off and holding it in the air by its stump ankles. A third card ran along the length of its back, flaying it open.

A man in a neat suit, who looked to be Oriental except for the red lines glowing across is face, opened his mouth and unleashed a swarm of flies. A Middle Eastern man's hands each turned into an array of long blades. An elderly mestizo man's eyes began to crackle with electric energy. An old Catholic priest reached out his hands, his fingers growing out to a full meter in length.

John grimaced. First things first, he called a card to swipe across in front of the priest, sheering all the fingers off. While the priest writhed in pain, John brought out the majority of his cards to form a fan, spinning with enough speed to cause a loud hum and a powerful wind, blasting the flies away. He sent one card down the middle to punch through the swarm-wielder's throat. The overload of now-unbound demonic energy caused the man to explode in a ball of fire, disintegrating all the flies.

The fan turned just in time to deflect a whip-like tail from one of the women in the room. She had turned into a feral cat-woman, dark hair covering her face, and a long tail tipped with a stinger sprouting from behind her. Beside her, another woman wore barely anything, piercings and tattoos covering her naked body. The cat-woman hissed, and the naked woman cackled.

Mr. Angel had backed off, hiding behind the altar as the battle unfolded. He called to some of the others, a red skeleton with skin and muscle dripping off its bones and a pitch black hulk with enormous wings and glowing red eyes. "Reichstag! Diver! Don't let my daughter escape!" He continued shouting orders at the demons, and they actually seemed to listen to him. "Safah! Pin down those cards! Maneater! Fusuq! Keep him occupied! Stuprum! Get out of here before we lose another!"

The old priest moved to try and hide, but two cards cut his legs out from under him, and then a third nailed him to the ground. It flipped over inside him, tearing his innards apart. Maneater, the cat-woman, struck again, jabbing at John's shoulder with her stinger tail. She hit her mark, but a card moving around inside his suit had made its way to his shoulder and blocked the venom from being injected. Another card cut across, severing the stinger from the rest of the tail. Maneater howled in pain, and Fusuq darted in to take her place.

Before John could properly fend off Fusuq, two others rushed around him and headed through the door. Prince Safah caught three of the cards flying about the room between the blades of his hands. The cards twisted, shattering the blades that held them, then shot through the demon's body. Milky white liquid seeped out of him, but he still stood. As he staggered back a few steps, a crackling arc of lightning shot through the air past him.

John blocked the lightning with five cards, grabbing one card out of the center of the group and turning to face Fusuq. He slapped the card on her forehead, and the lightning gathered from the attack channeled through her body and charred her to a blackened skeleton. He turned and threw the card back at the source of the lightning. It knocked aside the arcing energy, deflecting it into a pillar and blowing the marble apart, then struck the elderly man who was the source. The man's upper torso splattered against the wall, and his legs slumped over, his head landing beside them.

Safah roared at John. "You will pay for slaying my daughter!"

John paused. "Which one was that?" Safah howled with rage, so John brought a card down on his head, slicing through his face. Half the demon's head slid off, and more milk-white liquid dripped out of him. John turned away and sent another card through Maneater's head, blowing the back of her skull out onto the wall. "Alright, who's next?"

The sound of a door closing drew his attention to the back of the room. Mr. Angel was gone, along with a few of the others. It didn't matter. The demons here seemed bent on defeating him, so it was probably only the cowardly humans who ducked out.


Melany crawled away from the scene of the battle, hoping to get somewhere she could hide until the fight was done. If she was lucky, John would survive her and come find her after, but if not then she needed as much time and distance between her and the unholy gathering in that room.

A hand reached down and grabbed under her arm, lifting her up. "Your friend in there is causing some serious waves among the forces of darkness, I can tell you that." It was Sadie, or Seduction.

Beatrice, Betrayal, took her other arm. "Come on. We need to get as far away from here as possible."

A stream of red fire shot past Melany's shoulder, hitting Beatrice in the chest and blowing a hole through her. Ahead of them, and from the sounds of it behind them as well, tall men with demonic features and wearing security uniforms were closing on them, waving hellish guns in their direction. Sadie pulled Melany to the nearest door and kicked it open, diving inside.

Melany clamored to try and stand again. "We have to get Beatrice!"

"After a hit like that, she's gone!"

"We have to try!"

Two of the security guards stepped into the room, levelling their weapons at Melany and Sadie. Above their heads, Witchcraft and Necromancy melted through the ceiling. Two clawed hands plunged into the security guards' heads, tearing them open in a spray of green and yellow mulch. Their bodies hit the ground, and Sadie jumped up to help the two allies get down to the floor.

"Alright, there's more coming. Betrayal's down. There are Principalities in the building. What do we do?"

Necromancy pushed past her and knelt beside Melany. "Here. You need this." He held out his hands and produced a soft green glow. Melany's more severe cuts began to heal.

Melany looked at them all in surprise. "I knew you guys were using me, but I thought you'd abandon me when it suited you. Why are you risking yourselves like this?"

Necromancy stood up and stepped away, just as two more security guards appeared. They struck Sadie in the back, knocking her into the room. The guards were about to spray infernal fire into the room when a big familiar face appeared over their shoulders. Murder grabbed one of their heads in each hand, crushing them both to death with ease.

Melany felt her face betray her with a smile. "Murder! You're here too!"

He grumbled something and reached down, picking Beatrice off the ground and helping her into the room. The big demon explained in his knowledgeable way. "Not every demon wants the forces of darkness to win. In fact, many of us are against that outcome."

Witchcraft sighed, adding "We have no option for salvation. We were made for evil, and it is the core of our beings."

Sadie sat up, rubbing the back of her head. She laughed. "It's kinda funny, when you think about it, but we're helping you because we know you're meant to bring about something good. To help protect humanity from our own kind."

Beatrice coughed up some black liquids, but managed to say her part as well. "Me, I'm just playing my part perfectly. Betraying the cause of evil. Feeding that old man's demon cult worshippers to whatever you call with that hat."

Necromancy nodded affirmative. "That's right. Though the victory of light will be our fiery end, we are among the few who recognize evil for what it is. We will use evil means to further a good cause."

Melany gawked at them. If they'd told her any of this before, she would have probably never gotten them into this mess, and been a better help the whole way. "You guys have got to be kidding me..." She shook her head and stood up. "Okay, what's the plan?"

Murder answered. "We're getting you to safety."

Necromancy fidgeted for a second. "But first, uh... can you give the rest of us nicknames?"

"What?" Melany wasn't sure what to make of that. "Nicknames?"

He nodded. "Like Sadie and Beatrice. We want you to give us nicknames."

After a moment, Melany finally sorted through the statement and realized that they wanted her to give them nicknames. She stood up and looked over them. These were the only friends she'd ever had. They needed real names. Something about the atmosphere in the room told her that this was the end. They weren't just being weird or jealous or anything. They wanted names for her to remember them by. If that was it, then she couldn't refuse.

She looked to Murder. "I feel like it's too obvious, but I always wanted to call you Murry."

Murder bowed his head slightly. "A little generic, but I've never had interest in just being unique."

She moved on to Witchcraft. "How does Whitaker sound?"

He nodded. "I expected more trouble coming up with something. Good job."

Finally, she turned back to Necromancy. "And... Nick?"

"Thank you." There was a moment of silence, and then Necromancy... Nick turned towards the door. "Get out of here, mortal. Let the demons handle this fight."

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