“So this is Johanna’s fault? Damnit, I knew I hated your girlfriend,” Charlene was raging at the news.

“Charlene. She is not my girlfriend,” Betsy retorted, trying to keep an even keel.

“If she hadn’t gone all evil, I’d bet good money you’d know what she tastes like at this point. Fuck, why?”

“I don’t know. It sounds like she just passively drains people by being too close as a way of sustaining herself. But Suse couldn’t get why Hana accepted, before they had to split apart to prevent Suse from dying.”

“Shit. So, she was given power by some chick cut from the void. You think that’s the evil sister?”

“That matches the description of her, yes,” the goddess, who had been serenely floating alongside them as the paced angrily around the hideout finally spoke.

“Great. So, what’s the plan? Redeem her? Is that even possible?” Charlene was gesturing wildly.

“If I know my sister, then no. She will not relinquish any control that she has over your friend. If she is not fully gone now, then it is only a matter of time,” as the goddess finished speaking, Betsy’s phone went off.

“Tell you boyfriend you’re sorry, and that you’ll call and make up tomorrow.”

“It’s not Jerry. It’s Beck,” Betsy responded before opening the text to read it.

“Who? A classmate from-”

“Hana’s signal is up! And stable.”

“What?”

“Beck’s a tech guy. And a criminal. He hacks things and makes fake IDs. A mutual friend of me and Hana, as well. I asked him to watch over her over winter break, since she was still recovering from the head injury. He’s been tracking a signal some device on her sends out since she went missing. It would pop up and ping occasionally when she’d appear in the shadow form. I-”

“So, wait, you knew she was connected to the shadow demon this entire time?” Charlene interjected.

“I didn’t connect the dots, no. Look, I was never sure it was her, the signal didn’t always appear when she did. Sometimes she appeared without it.”

“Did the signal ever appear without her?”

“”No…”

“Were they in the same area too?”

“Look, lets just hop over to this area.”

“I wish I could aid you in destroying her.”

“What?”

“It would be a mercy. I know this must pain you, but think how much pain she must be in. Sometimes, the greatest suffering can be made from trying to hold onto something past when it should be let go.”

“I’m with her, Betsy. Either Johanna snapped, and she is just as evil as any of the demons, or she is being controlled. We’ve yet to see even a hint of a demon releasing a host, and we’ve fought demonized people already. Several of them.”

“Yes, well. We were picked for our hearts and courage, right? Perhaps its bad to only now feel like saving them instead of killing them is the right thing to do, but now I feel like it is worth at least trying. Please. If she is being magically compelled to do what she’s done, and we actually had a chance to save her and didn’t, I would never forgive myself. And, thinking forward, if we can save her that means we can save others, right?”

There was a moment of silence. Betsy looked at Charlene pleadingly. Charlene tried to look strict. The goddess floated there, a neutral smile on her face. Finally, just as Betsy was about to crack, Charlene sighed and nodded.

“Damn me, but you’re right. If it is possible that we can save her, and others in the future, we need to try. Lets go.”

“I wish you two luck, of course. I hope you will be able to free your friend. But take care, either way. It is entirely possible that even were such a thing possible, after so long under my sister’s foul influence there is nothing left to save. This is one you revealed your secret to, correct Samantha?”

“Yes?”

“Then take care this is not just some ploy to take advantage of what ever sympathies she may know you hold for her. Go, now, before you lose this chance.”

Betsy smiled at at the goddess, and ignored Charlene rolling her eyes, before she started opening a portal. She’d been in her magical form, still trying to eke out as much time as possible in her preferred body. Betsy was still in her human form, and so used her friend’s portals. They were on top of a roof. The tallest building in the town, a full 10 stories. It was the building where Hana had worked as a secretary. And there she was, her form unstable, billowing and jettisoning out from what was more or less a woman’s silhouette. She looked even worse than Suse had described over the phone. Betsy took a deep breath then stepped forward, walking up to the edge of the aura of cold. 15 steps, she noted.

“Hana.”

“You shOUldn’T have coME. I SHOuldn’t havE cOme eitHER. I should HAVE JUsT rUn aWAy to some dESerTed isLAND in the miDDle of thE OCean,” her voice was distorted, and quiet, much as it seemed like she was screaming.

“Let us help you.”

“Kill ME, thEn. If you knOW a WAy, beFORe I kILl anYONe eLse. I try so HARd to fiGHT it, but its LiKe… Its hunger. WORse tHAn eveN WheN i FirST StarVEd ALOne,” her form flickered and expanded, the shadow spilling out like smoke from a witch’s pot., roiling across the floor.

“No, please. There has to be another way.”

“I Can FEel the CoNtOl sliPPing. I̴͉̞̞̺̦͙̘̰̕'̸̨̲̮͉̇̂m̵̹̎̓̔̅̇͒̚ ̷̛̦̲͉͗̊̀͑r̷͕͍͈̼̭̦̿̚ú̴̝͙̤̱̜͇̑n̶͎͚͙̾̈́̿̽n̸̥͋̃̌̏ĭ̸̡̻͎͍̟͇̽̃̍͐̾̕͜n̶͈̥̬̻̾̿̐͑̂͝g̶̭͉͈͕̞͕̲̍̿̄͛̈́̑̆ ̵̨̙̗̠̗̰̈́̅ö̵̟͓͓͎͚̫͉̈́͑͆̿͂u̵̮̚͘̚t̴̨͇̞̤͉͊̿̆̾͘]̵̢̧̙͉̮̦̜̮̎̈́͠.̷̮͒̏̈́̀̇͐,” she was hunching over now, holding her head in her hands.

“Please, ther-“ Betsy stopped, her inner radar pinging like crazy.

“It was a trick. She was trying to lure us away,” Charlene sounded surprised, before quickly snarling. “She really has turned. Damnit, I’ll go handle the college, you keep her here. Or kill her if you can.”

Before Betsy could offer any argument Charlene teleported away. As she she was turning back to face her friend anyway, her other friend howled in pain. Betsy spun around again just in time to see Hana explode, the shadow quickly growing to cover the entire area. Betsy transformed on reflex, taking her empowered form just as all sensation vanished. She could have sworn the last thing she’d heard was a plea to run. But it didn’t matter. They’d fought before, Betsy knew how to stop this. The shadow form was hurt by the light she emitted, fled from the pain. So she began to glow like a sun, then stopped. It was Hana. Could she hurt Hana. She felt the cold drain, shocking her out of her confused stupor. She cycled the power through her body just enough to keep the drain from getting bad, and then she opened her mouth to speak. She couldn’t even hear herself. Could Hana? She felt like one of those characters from those comics that Captain Suse liked so much, trying to slay darkness with feelings and words. She stopped glowing, she didn’t want to hurt her friend. She finally heard something, a screeching whisper, a mockery of Hana’s voice.

“M̶̼̗̤̝̘̗̬̜̫͊̎̍͌ǒ̵̡̯̙̺̪̳̘͍̍̈́́́̀͝r̶̜̓̾́͛̈́̔e̵̻̰̭͍͈͒̀̑̑̐͂͝”

Did she mean the light? The very same light which drove her to cry out in pain and flee, time and again. Cautiously, testing, Betsy flared the light again. There was the hiss of pain, followed by the exultation of a starving woman finally fed. She strengthened the light until the pain sounded greater than aught else, then dimmed it and walked forward. 15 steps. She hugged the air. Betsy spoke again, the silence back in full force to steal away her words. And yet this kept going. Betsy had no idea who, or what, was winning; she could feel the cold starting to creep in and settle in her bones, but she could see. Granted, all she could see was her light in the darkness, but she could see. And this kept going, and going, until, finally, she felt arms wrapped around her back. They were deathly cold, and trembling in pain, but they were wrapped around her, returning the hug that she could finally feel. Betsy pulled her head back to look at the blank expanse of the silhouette’s face, where’ Hana’s face should have been.

“It’s like stuffing yourself with food seasoned with poison. Is that it, Hana?”

“Go,” Hana’s voice was quiet, whispery, as if it wasn’t all there; it was one voice again. “Help your friend.”

And then Hana let go, disappearing into the night sky. Betsy stared after her for a while, before summoning her sword and beam off to the campus, and the rapidly diminishing demonic presence. She’d find a way to save her. Betsy was determined.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Charlene. Stop spending so much time outside of fights as Violet. I know you feel more comfortable this way, I do, but what if you run out of power in a fight again? Kim’s already in a coma, how do you think she’ll feel if she wakes up and you’re dead?”

“Ah, Betsy! What are you doing here?”

“We’re roommates, what do you mean what am I doing here?”

“Ah, well, you see… I heard you finally broke up with Jerry.”

“Stop changing the subject.”

“Okay, okay. To be fair, though, I’m not just frivolously wasting power by spending time in a body I’m actually comfortable in.”

“I never said you were frivolously wasting power.”

“That’s what it feels like. I know, I know. I understand your argument, I do. Its just… Look, what I’m using the body for is the power. I’m experimenting, like a scientist. But with magic. I’m trying to get the the spells I cast to be permanent. I’m also trying to enchant objects to be able to cast spells I imbue them with. And before you start criticizing, I talked to the goddess about it, she said it was a good idea to try.”

“Are you at least being careful?”

“Yep. I have a timer. 5 minutes to just, feel at ease. 55 minutes to work at it. No more than an hour. I haven’t gotten anything to work yet, so I decided to go a bit smaller. Simpler,” she gestured at a stone with markings on it sitting on her desk. “This is meant to record and play back sound. Figured since we could do it without magic, should be pretty easy to replicate it with magic.”

“Do you even know how the technological version works?”

“No. I study dusty old books of wars and morals and religious bullshit.”

“Why are you a religion major anyway?”

“Its easy to dual major it with history here, and I figured it would look nice on a resume in the future,” she shrugged. “Plus, its fun being able to out debate Bible enthusiasts to the point where they have to declare certain parts of the book are not official to lose less.”

“Well, I slept through Sunday School, so I’ll just forfeit that challenge right now.”

“No shit?” Charlene laughed. “You seem like the type who would have done it, be a good girl or something.”

“No. I sort of wanted to, mostly cause of Gram. But I was too tired, Saturdays were always pretty full and usually didn’t even get home until late.”

“This have anything to do with why you and your parents have more of a politely defrosting, trying to reconnect relationship, than an ‘I hate you mom and dad,’ or ‘You’re the best, mom and dad,’ relationship?”

“I thought we’d gotten closer than that by now.”

“Yikes. How bad was it.”

“I was placed in Gram’s care for a while. Wasn’t too bad of a move, same little town. And they weren’t forced to stay away, that’s how we repaired what we could. Problem was mostly mom, dad was, it’s almost like he was jus scared to say no to her more than he wanted any of what happened to happen,” Betsy stopped abruptly. “But that’s over now, I prefer not to linger on the past, the scars are probably as healed as they are going to get. Dad’s been great for a while, and even mom is a good listener these days.”

Charlene just nodded, likely sensing that that was as far as Betsy was willing to divulge. Betsy herself just sat there in silence, letting the memories come and go, like she was but a rock in a stream of memory. Bob’s meditation techniques were always helpful, and he was sweet so she could see why Gram likes him, even if they hadn’t gotten married yet. They sat in silence, like this, for several moments as Charlene murmured in that strange language that had been put in their minds with the knowledge of how their transformations worked, occasionally cursing as something presumably went wrong with the attempt. And it was like that they sat until Charlene’s alarm went off. Betsy could see the stiffening of her shoulders, even as she turned around and smiled, powering down even as she did so.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Boring. This was supposed to be a fight, you two. Surely you two have had enough time to adapt to being a two-woman show by now, yes?” the man before them was androgynous, and his voice had a lazy tinge to it.

Betsy gritted her teeth and tightened her grip on her sword. Charlene was panting, but still would have quipped back if Betsy hadn’t shot her a look. They met each other’s eyes and exchanged small nods. The man before them had introduced himself as Lord Nergal, Charlene had made fun of his name\, and Betsy barely blocked the attack he intended for Charlene. He was A-Grade, he had to be. His skin was resistant to even her magical sword, and Charlene’s attacks had about as much effect on him as radiant heat from a fireplace had on a normal human, resistances he used to great effect to batter both of them rather severely with his bare hands. He wasn’t invincible, however. He had scratches and light electrical burns, Charlene’s lightning seeming to be her best bet for actually hurting him, and most of her crowd control easily dealt with by his ridiculous strength. Good news, at least, seemed to be that he didn’t resist when they tried to remove him to the mirror plane, something all other demons had tried to resist. He just grinned at them and let it happen.

He dashed forward, so quickly Betsy could barely follow it, but thankfully she had gained some ability to read his intentions from having fought this long. Her parry wasn’t perfect, but it kept his hand from striking at her throat. His knee caught her gut, launching her into the air, but she grabbed him by the upper arm and spun around quickly to throw him up. He couldn’t fly, which made it hard for him to do dodge while there, letting Charlene hit him with the strongest lightning attack yet in the fight. He spasmed a bit, but not enough to allow Betsy to strike him instead seeing her coming and parrying her blade with a kick, followed by another one launched at her head. She managed to get an arm in the way, blocking it, but she was sent flying her arm feeling nearly broken from the force of that one blow alone. As she rolled to a stop, she saw him standing up from a crouch, a forking pattern on his back where that last lightning bolt hit. She quickly got up and teleported behind him to attack. Apparently she’d done it too many times, however, as he was already spinning around to strike her with his elbow.

The armor dented and cracked with the impact, the flash freezing probably not helping, though it was already reforming by the time she stood up to see him bursting out of the cage of ethereal force that Charlene must have surrounded him with. She met his charge with her own, parrying his blows and countering with her own, grinning as she scratched deeper and deeper with each blow, grimacing inwardly as his fists landed with near bone-shattering force and bone-chilling cold, and generally trying to distract him from Charlene long enough. Until, finally, she felt a twinge as the androgynous man launched another kick. This time, she trapped it with her arm, dropped her sword, grabbed him by the collar, and lifted him up over her. He was ridiculously light, especially considering the weight behind his blows. Betsy grumbled about how all of these demons broke at least one of the things she had learned about combat basics, just as the spell Charlene had been preparing finally struck. It was a spell in several parts. First were the swords, made of energy or light, flying through the man. She let go of him after the first hit, letting them pin him to the ground as she flashed backwards and away, recalling her physical magic sword to her hands. Second was the pillar of light. Or maybe it was magic. Or just energy, she supposed, as it fell from above like the wrath of god. Or a giant lightning-bolt that didn’t splinter. Charlene landed, likely cancelling the flying spell she’d been maintaining and started panting even more heavily.

“I’m, I’m almost out. F-fight f-f-for 3 days stra-straight my ass,” Betsy turned to respond when they were interrupted by the androgynous man’s voice.

“Oh, very good. My lady warned me to not take the two of you lightly,” the giant laser faded out and left him, still pinned to the ground, staring weakly at them and bleeding heavily, his wounds leaking a mixture of shadow and blood. “The day is yours, I suppose. Perhaps we’ll meet again. I look forward to the day.”

And he laughed as the shadow bled freely, enveloping him before melting away. Charlene grimaced, shifted the two girls back to the real world, and collapsed to lean on Betsy. They stood there for a little bit longer, listening to the crowd that had formed, and smiling and waving and reassuring them all for another few minutes  before Betsy flashed them away.