“We have to move her.” Skylar said, texting Richard on her phone.

“But we can’t touch her.” Arianna reminded her.

“We might have to just suck it up. She’s not as hot as she was a few minutes ago,” Jericha said, managing to touch Danny in short bursts.

“I’m open to suggestions.” Arianna’s retort was possibly a little sharper than she meant it to be, but then again she was just worried for her lover. Such a drastic change and such a brutal fight intertwined with one another had taken their toll.

With a start, Danny sharply gasped and sat up, placing a hand on her head and the other on her stomach. “How long was I out?” she asked.

Arianna had to clear the note of shock from her voice before speaking. Danny even sounded different.

“Not long, a minute, maybe a minute thirty,” Arianna replied, gently reaching out to attempt to pet Danny’s hair. It was warm, but it wasn’t hot. It was impossibly soft, taking on new waves and crimps, and where her hair caught the sun it almost seemed to have fuschia highlights. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I almost got ran over by a train after going toe-to-toe with some ancient, badass, half-demon. That guy was a real one-trick-pony you know? Every chance he got it was slam me into this or that, or my personal favorite… the choking. He was strong and had the stamina of… well… a demon,” Danny said, trying to lighten the mood a bit. “He is dead… right?”

“You turned his head into tapioca pudding. He’s very dead,” Skylar said, a mischievous grin playing on her lips.

Danny clicked her tongue, displeased. “I didn’t want to.” Her voice was quiet, mournful in a fashion. “He wasn’t going to stop. Even after I’d injured him badly he kept coming at me. After I had him on the ground, it just kind of… happened. I didn’t feel like I had a choice… he’d already made it for me.”

Arianna sighed. She knew Danny didn’t have a violent bone in her body--at least, she didn’t used to--but perhaps there was some underlying cause she didn’t know yet. “Come on, let’s at least--”

“FOUND YOU,” a voice screeched down the road. The group turned to see a ragtag group of twelve beings strutting down the road towards them, a mix of Orcs, Imps, Elves, and what appeared to be two Troglodytes held by chain-collars in front of the group.

“Shit,” Skylar growled. “Caedes Ménage--a murder gang.” She looked down at Danny, then at the rest of the group. “We need to get her out of here. No doubt they’re here for her.”

“What the hell would they want with me?” Danny asked.

“You’re quite literally fresh meat, kiddo. They want to eat you and try to gain your strength.”

“Wait… would that actually work?” Arianna asked, concerned.

“Doesn’t matter, does it? They eat her, they kill her. Bottom line,” Jericha replied, taking a spot next to Skylar between Danny and the gang. “There’s a handful right now, but we’re in the open and there’s bound to be more very quickly.”

“Agreed. I don’t think we can ask Danny to get back into the fight either, she’s in a bad way.” Skylar looked up and down the street, noting how oddly empty it had been. “I don’t think we’re making it anywhere as-is. Either the cops have a quarantine or the gang has blocked off our exits.”

“This would be the perfect time for some leather-clad chad to just come through with a few shotguns and an awesome one-liner.” Jericha quipped.

Skylar turned to Jericha with an amused smirk. “Was that a Terminator 2 reference?” she asked, earning a side-smile from Jericha. “My God you’re hot.” She clicked her tongue, amused.

“Why aren’t they coming any closer yet?” Danny asked, barely able to get herself into a kneeling position.

“You smell like blood, sweat, fire, electrical burns, and brains. They’re going to wait for backup,” Jericha said. “Let’s get back inside the venue, it’s the only place open to us except the subway… that is, if they’re not already in there.”

“Can you stand?” Arianna asked. Danny shook her head, her breath coming out in a hiss as she tried and failed.

“No.” Danny’s voice was quiet, not wanting to alert the gang of her predicament.

“Alright, out of time kiddo, up you go.” Skylar grabbed Danny, carefully putting her over her shoulder in a decent fireman carry.

“No, you’re going to-!” Danny began.

“I know, just don’t struggle!” Skylar booked it back to the venue, doing her best to ignore the very intense pain she was in.

**

I didn’t wait long to wriggle free from Skylar’s grasp, forcing her to drop me rather unceremoniously to the floor.

“Damnit kid, we’re not into the main venue yet,” Skylar grunted at me. I held up my hands to keep her from grabbing hold of me.

“I know, it’s just… listen to me!” I yelled, swatting her hands away. “Look, I’ve been going over what Yasna said to me, and he was right. He was, for all intents and purposes, harder to kill than I am. All those guys out there have to do is get one bullet in the right spot and I’m done for.”

“You better not be thinking of asking me to leave you, because I won’t!” Arianna said pointedly.

I shook my head. “No, I’m not asking for you to leave me. Buy me time. As much of it as you can.”

“What do you have in mind?” Arianna asked, bending down to my level.

I unzipped my pocket and retrieved the soul-grain, and held it out for the rest to see.

“I have a promise to keep. I need to absorb this and… to be honest, I don’t know what it’ll do to me,” I said, giving Arianna a weak smile.

“What is that?” Skylar asked.

“It’s what’s left of Babel. She’s condensed herself as tightly as she can to give me time to absorb her.” I chuckled uncomfortably. “Let’s just say it’s a hasty plan with a long term development. I’ll tell you the rest later.”

“Fine, get to it or whatever. I’m going to barricade the hole in the wall you made to keep the gangsters out,” Jericha said as she walked off.

“I’ll see if I can lock the front doors, or jam them shut,” Skylar said, leaving me alone with Arianna.

Arianna looked at me, her eyes scanning my body, barely ever making eye contact. I didn’t have to ask her what was bothering her, I could hear it in her mind.

“I know, it’s a lot to process. There’s going to be more… I don’t know what absorbing Babel is going to do. Well…” I chuckled, again nervously. “There’s one more thing that I have to change and it’s kind of… not a process I want the others around for.”

“Are you still going to be you?” Arianna asked me, her voice and expression flat. I could feel her attempt to keep her composure, trying not to worry if I had somehow just damned myself to eternal hellfire or whatnot.

“If I become more like Babel… I’ll be more me than I ever have been,” I said, trying to be reassuring.

“What do you mean ‘More like Babel’?”

I let out a heavy sigh, looking down at the soul-grain as I thought.

“There’s a lot about what she was, and is, that you don’t know. I don’t have time to explain it right now, just please… trust me.”

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Not even a little.”

“I would have hoped for a calming lie right there.”

“I wouldn’t be me if I lied to you.” I smiled at her, trying to let my love for her shine through my eyes. “If you don’t mind… in order to survive this, I have to put a little demon in me now.”

I would have laughed at my own double entendre, but I might have just ended up with a scared chuckle.

She smiled back at me, her expression showing concern while her thoughts seemed to spin around about a tangent of possibilities. She seemed to just settle on trusting me as she stood up to leave me alone in a custodial closet.

I looked back down at the soul-grain as I closed the door. “Right. I don’t know what I’m doing, but… she seemed to do this sort of thing easily.” I tried relaxing my mind, reaching out for the mind that was left inside the soul-grain, holding it close to me and breathing as slowly as I could. It was almost like falling asleep.

*

I felt like I was floating, almost formless inside a strange expanse. If there was ground below me, I couldn’t see it through the fog. If there was a sky, I wouldn’t know that either from the clouds. It was a strange sort of blissful limbo. I didn’t know what I was going to find, if anything, here. For all I knew this is all that was left.

But just off in the distance there was a figure, floating above the layer of fog. I didn’t even have to traverse the distance, I just seemed to exist wherever I needed to in here. It was a strange experience, one that made me wonder if this is how Babel felt often when she was intangible? Or at the very least, in my head?

The person was small, no bigger than a young child. ‘Although,’ I thought to myself with amusement, ‘that’s all children are--a person, but small.’ I didn’t know if I should disturb the child or not, but I wasn’t considering it for long before the child’s eyes opened to regard me.

“Who are you?” the child asked, sitting up. “Where are we?”

This was Babel. I could see her eyes shimmering with the same kind of light, but it was far dimmer. My heart sank as I took her in. I guess I’d been wanting to have one more talk with Babel. Maybe I’d even been expecting to be able to.

“My name is…” I thought to myself for a moment. I knew my name. But, I also had a new name. I could feel it. Something that was becoming more a part of me. “Styx. But my friends and family call me Danny.”

“Those are good names,” the child said, tiredly smiling up at me. “Do I have a name?”

“Oh, um,” I stammered, not entirely knowing how to answer her. She wouldn’t be Babel, and it wouldn’t feel right trying to stick her back into the old life, or some piece of it. I smiled at her warmly. “Your name is Hope.”

“Really? I like that name. Hope hope hope hope hope!” She giggled. “But which do I call you? Styx or Danny?”

“Our relationship is a bit more than that, Hope. You see, you’re not born yet,” I tried explaining.

“Oh, I’m not?”

“Nope, you’re still a spirit.”

“What kind of spirit?”

“A demon.”

She gasped before pouting lightly. “I don’t want to be a demon, they sound like monsters!”

“Some, maybe, but some are very loving, helpful, wonderful people,” I said, smiling. “Do I look like a monster to you?” I noted my own curiosity at the possibility, as I was, I couldn’t see what I appeared to her as.

She shook her head. “No. You’re all glowy and strong and pretty.”

I smiled at her interpretation of me, feeling rather flattered. “Thank you Hope.”

“What do I call you?”

“Well, like I said, you’re still just a spirit. But, you’re going to be my little one. You’re going to be my child, Hope.” As I said this, it not only sank in the rest of the way for me, but her eyes lit up and she stood up as the light in her eyes burned a little brighter. “You can call me Mom.”

**

Jericha had managed to knock a vending machine over, covering as much of the hole as she could. It didn’t have to be perfect, it just had to slow them down.

“Is this going to hold for long?” Skylar asked as she shoved a folding table against the door and wall.

Jericha shrugged. “Don’t know, doesn’t really matter does it? Even if it only lasts a second, then it’s a second that it bought us some time.”

“Jer, hold up for a moment, I have to ask you something,” Skylar said, trying to catch up to Jericha.

Jericha responded with exasperation, turning back to Skylar. “Yes, we can go out, IF we survive this and talk about what happened, just please… PLEASE… can we focus up for like two minutes?” Jericha said, her gaze tense.

Skylar smiled lightly and looked away, looking more than a little pleased. “Jer, I was going to ask if you had a gun or needed one.”

She retrieved a pistol from her waistband and held it out to Jericha. “I found this on one of the bodies in the main event room.”

“Oh.” Jericha turned a light shade of red, nodding and grabbing the weapon. “Sure, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Skylar walked past her, but before leaving the room she looked back to Jericha. “It’s nice seeing you again, Jer.”

As Skylar left, Jericha felt a twinge of guilt for snapping at her like that.

‘Check clip… chamber… safety…’ Jericha went through the motions of looking over her newly acquired sidearm. It wasn’t anything special, just a street-market semi-automatic, between ten to fifteen rounds. Jericha knew she wasn’t going to be able to rely on the sidearm, but it would come in handy in a pinch.

She went out back to the main room to see how everyone else was progressing in their endeavors. “Twinkles, what’s the deal?”

Arianna looked up from her phone, a note of panic in her eyes. “I’ve been trying to get a better understanding of the situation, see if there’s any news.”

“And?”

“It’s not good.”

“Can you elaborate?”

“The reason there’s no cops is because apparently they’ve set up a quarantine. A mix of Skylar killing, the Cambion showing up, and then their fight that ended with Yasna dead in the subway got us the wrong kind of attention.” Arianna said, flicking through her phone for details. “They’ve locked us down, we have maybe three blocks in any direction before we hit a barricade.”

“What about the Rogues we have trying to get Danny?” Jericha asked, furrowing her brow.

“A lot made it through before the barricade was set up entirely. They think around forty, maybe a bit more.”

“That’s not including any pipeliners,” Skylar said as she walked up. “These gangs are hunted by Hunters, the fuzz, you name it. Lots of them live somewhere in the subway system. Plenty of them are probably heading our way.”

“Which explains the double-timed, hardcore quarantine,” Jericha replied. She could feel a headache coming on, this was not the reunion she’d been hoping for.

“Danny’s the cheese, and they’re the rats. The people on the outside are just waiting for the exterminators to show up,” Skylar remarked. “I don’t know how long our girl’s going to need before she’s ready to boot-scootin'-boogie on out of here, but Richard is coming our way with a van and will be here…” Skylar looked at her watch. “Twenty minutes.”

“Shit,” Jericha cursed, kicking over an amp. “Twenty fucking minutes. Is he even going to be able to get through the barricade?”

“He’s bringing La Gigante. Trust me, that baby’s armored to the tits, not to mention her hybrid engine setup with a Cummins V8 and an Induction motor, combined with being converted to an all wheel drive… well, you’ll see.” Skylar said, smiling.

“I’m not a car person, but I know that sounds expensive,” Arianna said, earning a laugh from Skylar.

“I don’t care about its specs as long as it gets us out of here,” Jericha started. “At this point I’d take-”

Glass smashed in a side-room, alerting them that the gangsters had finally broken in.

“I got this,” Skylar said, running down towards the noise. “You keep our girl safe and I’ll keep the halls as clear as I can, okay?”

Jericha nodded, keeping an eye on the front doors.“Alright, time to put on your big girl panties, Twinkles. I hate to say we’re going to have to be ready to kill, because they won’t hesitate.”

“You say that like y ou have killed people,” said Arianna.

“I have. Many times. A long time before I came here though, so I’ll be a bit rusty.” Jericha shrugged, not knowing what else to say.

“That’s… really depressing.”

“You’d be surprised. Earth is actually very stable and peaceful compared to where a lot of us come from.” Jericha looked back to Arianna with a small smile. “I promise, I’ll clue you all in once we get out of this place.”

**

“Why are we here?” Hope asked, sitting against me. Well… more or less against me. As somewhat formless it’s hard to describe what it means to be touching another person.

I laughed a bit, hoping she’d not just opened up a big conversation. “Do you mean, in here?”

“Yeah,” Hope said, nodding. “It’s weird.”

“It is a bit, yeah. But right now, this is all there is.” I said, trying to keep myself as brief but concise as I could. I could feel something was happening back in the physical world, both around me and to me, and I was trying to keep myself focused on finishing up and caring for Hope in the meantime.

“Is it scary, being a Demon?” Hope asked, looking up at me. I clicked my tongue in thought as I narrowed my eyes into the distance. I’ve thought Demons to be scary; it never occurred to me that being one could be.

“Honestly. Hope, I don’t know. I haven’t been one until recently. Well, I’m going to be,” I said, shelving that thought away for a different time.

“Oh.” Hope looked away and back towards the horizon. I felt disappointed in my own answer. How in the hell had a small child’s disappointment made ME disappointed?

“You know, Hope, I’m not going to have all the answers you want.” I said. She patted me without looking at me.

“That’s okay,” she said quietly.

How.

The.

Fuck.

“Though, I promise to try, and I’ll do everything I can to make sure that being a Demon is fun, not scary,” I said, and she turned back, looking like she was going to say something. I held out my hand and gently placed a finger on the tip of her nose. “But, it still might be. But I will always be there for you.”

It took a second for me to register that I could actually see myself. I still felt somewhat… ambiguous… but I definitely had an arm. Lowering my arm, I saw Hope smiling at me, her little fangs exposed by her bright smile. I smiled back, in this moment I was feeling… good.

Hope’s eyes opened wider. “Woah! Your teeth are like mine, but lots more!”

I exploratorily ran my tongue over my teeth, and she was right. Each tooth had a more fang-like feel to them. Sue me, I don’t know how to say that my molars were fang-y too. “That’s because I’m an adult. I… think.”

**

Skylar came back into the main event room, covered in what could only be described as a green bile. Arianna could smell Skylar long before seeing her, and it was revolting.

“Woah, holy shit!” Arianna said, covering her nose and mouth. “What the hell is that smell?”

“Troglodyte entrails. They aren’t hard to kill, but they breed like ants. Their insides are covered in a pheromone that alerts other Trogs to the presence of danger, and they’re blind, so their sense of smell is pretty damn good. Right now they could probably smell me from three or four miles away.” Skylar said, trying to shake some of it off onto the floor.

“Yeah, great, but why are you covered in it?” Arianna asked, doing her best to keep from retching.

“Because I killed a couple of them..?” Skylar looked at Arianna like it was obvious.

“But you’re COVERED in it!”

“OH, that! Yeah. Fun fact, they have a pheromone gland hooked up to their stomach. Usually they’d belch over the walls of their hives, dictating to other hordes of their territory, or even that they found a food source. Problem is, their hearts are also notoriously close to their stomachs. If you miss the heart and puncture that gland and stomach, it causes a massive buildup of pressure.” Skylar smiled as she pulled congealed viscera off of her jacket. “They’re like big coke bottles with their own mentos.”

“Right… could’ve gone without that last part, but thank you,” Arianna said, keeping her distance so Skylar didn’t drip on her. “You dealt with them, then?”

“The initial few. I saw more of them gathering in the back and came to check the front, just in case,” Skylar said.

“Sounds like your assumption of the pipeliners was right,” Jericha sighed.

“I mean, when I’m not pulling babysitting duty, this is more or less my job.” Skylar shrugged. “Speaking of which, he should be here in fourteen and change. Check on Danny?”

Arianna nodded as she walked to the closet, though as she tried to open the door it felt stuck. Turning the knob felt fine, but the door felt like it was sticking to the doorframe. “I can’t get the door open!” Arianna yelled back to the other two.

“Does this door lock?” Jericha asked, trying to help pull.

“It’s a broom closet!” Arianna barked back.

“Back away,” Skylar commanded. Jericha and Arianna both did as instructed, then proceeded to use her knife to jimmy the bolts from the other side of the door. “Jer, hit the door with your guitar. Right here on the sides.”

“Why?”

“Handholds. We can either pull on one spot or we can pull the whole door.” Once again, Skylar’s tone said that it should be obvious. After taking a few whacks at the door, cracking it nicely, Skylar was able to jam her fist through it the rest of the way. When she pulled her hand back out it was covered in a thick, glossy slime.

“I’ve seen enough movies to know that this is bad.” Skylar commented, wiping her hand on her already soiled jacket. “Right, you grab that side and I got mine.” With a sticky squelch the door slowly came free, Skylar dropping it to the floor before returning her attention to the-

“What the fuck?”

Before them was what appeared to be a large… membrane? There was a massive sack filled with a dark-red substance, veins and sinew had grown off of it and attached to the walls in the room. It gave off a warmth, but not as hot as Danny had been minutes ago, and they could hear the rhythm of a heartbeat.

As they watched, there was a small energy surge inside the red substance, dimly illuminating it for only a moment, and they saw something inside gently twitch.

“What the fuck have we done?” Arianna asked, as she watched the form through the gentle arcs of energy.

**

I couldn’t tell anyone exactly why at the time, but I was shook by a strong sense of self-consciousness. Like I’d been walked in on half naked. I shook the feeling from me, continuing to concentrate to the best of my ability.

“Are you okay?” Hope asked, looking up at me.

“Why do you ask?” I asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

“You just look… um…” Hope tilted her head while she looked at me. “You’re making this face.” I watched as she did her best impression of my expression. Knitted brow, frowning, lips slightly parted…

“Concerned?” I asked.

“Yeah, that!” she said, and I smiled as I shook my head.

“Sorry, little one, I didn’t mean to. There’s just a lot happening in the real world right now,” I explained.

“Oh, does that mean you have to leave?”

“Soon, yes.”

“How long before I can see you again when you leave?” Hope asked, hanging onto my arm.

“Just a little while,” I lied. “But it will go by fast.”

“How long is a little while?”

“You know,” I started, smiling and tracing the bridge of her nose with my finger, “you ask a lot of questions.”

“I do?”

I laughed, pulling her up into my lap and resting my head on top of her head.

“Yes, but that’s a good thing. Someone once told me that smart people ask lots of questions.”

“Oh. Who said that?”

“A very smart person.”

“Ooooh.”

I smiled so widely my face hurt. There was just something so warm about Hope. Yes, I lost Babel, but I had gained Hope.

**

Jericha slammed her guitar into the face of a rather brutish orc, following it up with several more hits. Was it dead? Probably. But that didn’t matter much, just so long as they stopped moving. She turned towards the back exit and saw a Trog shambling through the doorway. She retrieved her sidearm and fired a shot at the Trog.

It bled from the entrance wound for a moment before slightly crumpling, and then groaning as it bloated. Jericha turned away so she wouldn’t have to see that, but she heard the sick sort of pop/ripping sound, and the smell told her the rest. She noted mentally that she should just aim for the next one’s head.

Skylar was off near the entrance, repeatedly stabbing an Elf in the neck, and Arianna was doing her best to fend off a pair of Imps with a broken mop handle. Jericha felt that Arianna had to be the bravest of the three of them. She was the only one who was ‘Normal’, and therefore handicapped in this game of monsters, and she wasn’t giving up.

Jericha shot one of the Imps, killing it instantly, and when she tried to pull the trigger again-- empty. But that had given Arianna enough of an opening to catch the Imp below his ribs with the jagged end of the handle.

Arianna let go of the handle as the Imp stumbled backwards and away, stopping only a few feet away to fall dead on the floor. She looked like she was about to be sick.

“Hey, vomit later. It only gets harder from here,” Jericha said, passing by Arianna to take care of the sharp-toothed Elf that had gotten stuck in the overhead wiring trying to jump from the ceiling.

‘Hit them where they’re soft…’ Jericha thought to herself, collapsing the Elf’s windpipe with a hard hit from her guitar. It choked and gargled as its eyes rolled back. Jericha didn’t stop to watch it die, she didn’t need to. There were others to fight.

When you’re waiting for ten minutes with nothing but your thoughts, ten minutes can feel like an hour. Though, when you’re fighting for your life, every minute that passes is simultaneously the shortest minute of your life… and way too fucking long.

Jericha tried to ignore the cuts, scrapes, the forming bruises, the likely broken bones… the faces… It had been a long time since the last time she had to kill anyone. Anything, even. She hated herself for it. Whenever she’d been able to, she even avoided killing pests inside her home. Death was something that should be avoided. Killing was something that should only be done if there’s no other way.

So why did she keep the Ironbark? Why had she had it made into a guitar? Ironbark was not something used for peace or entertainment… it’s purely to make instruments of death. She hadn’t planned this, hadn’t wanted this… but she prepared for this.

The only two things she was good at: Music, and killing.

She was trying not to focus too much on her feelings. Feelings in combat get you killed. Focus on acting. Though, as she felt her guitar crush another skull, sending the sickening vibrations up her arms, it was all she could do to not hate herself.

Skylar wrapped Jericha in a bear hug and pulled her away from the main entrance as a large vehicle drove right through the front door--and a decent portion of the wall. The hum of the engines vibrated the air around them. The revving was all but deafening.

Richard stuck his head out of the driver-side window. “Get your asses over here!”

“We can’t!” Arianna said, gesturing to the mass in the broom closet. “Danny is… look!”

Richard looked towards where she pointed. His face hardened as he went back inside the vehicle, then kicked the door open in time to hit a Trog and knock it over. He fired both barrels of a double-barrel into its head, turning it into mincemeat in an instant.

Skylar ran over to Richard, who in turn handed her the Kukri she’d left behind. “Hello baby!” Skylar said as she handled her weapon.

“We can’t afford to wait a long time. The front is relatively clear now that I ran about half of them over on the way in, but they’re still forming up in the back. She’s a beast but throw enough bodies in front of her and you’ll eventually slow her down,” Richard said, shutting the driver side door. “I’m guessing that’s your girl over there?”

“Yeah,” Arianna said, looking back to the mass. “I don’t know what happened. She just… this!”

“I don’t have time to explain the specifics, just don’t let them interrupt the process,” Richard said, reloading his shotgun.

“If she’s in there much longer we won’t be able to stop them,” Skylar remarked.

“Then we die in a blaze of glory with blood up to our ankles, and enough corpses to make our family proud of us again,” Richard said sternly as he looked at Skylar. “We’re Hunters, let’s act like it.”

**

“I’m feeling kind of… tired,” Hope said, her voice trailing ever so slightly.

I was feeling quite the opposite. I was feeling, not energized, more like… solid. More present. “It’s about time I went back, little one.”

“Do you promise that I’ll get to see you again?” Hope asked, her voice tired and a bit pouty.

“I absolutely promise. No matter what happens, we will see each other again.” I wrapped my arms around her, kissing her on the blush of her cheek. I felt my heartbeat. It was slow in its rhythm, but it was strong, and it shook me. I could feel it waking me up… bringing me back.

“Sty--Momma?” Hope asked, wrapping her small hands around my arm. “I lov--”

*

My mind felt groggy, detached. How long had I been asleep? When had I fallen asleep? I was just trying to get in touch with Babel, and then…

It was hard to see, it was so dark. My heartbeat echoed in my ears as I felt myself weightlessly floating. Moving felt sluggish, like I was encountering resistance. It was warm, and honestly, I felt safe. For the first time in my life my body was silent. My whole life it was like every cell in my body screamed at me, endlessly cried, raged at being wrong and disgusting. But now, everything was quiet.

A smile played on my lips as slumber threatened to take me again. Yet as I tried to draw breath I inhaled my viscous surroundings, and it did not satisfy my need for air. I was no longer asleep or tired.

**

“Oh, you fucking nerd!” Skylar yelled as she grabbed an Elf that had managed to slip by Jericha and was inches from Danny’s little… ‘Species’ cosplay. It spun in her grasp and managed to swipe her cheek with a knife, cutting her decently deep with its jagged edge.

Thankfully, neither the Elf OR Skylar were quite ready for the display that followed. In an instant the sack that held Danny ruptured, spraying the dark red fluid, and drenching the Elf. The ruckus in the room had quelled for a moment, startled by the display. Danny was kneeling for a moment, covered in a thick layer of the substance, breathing heavily and catching her breath.

The Elf recovered quicker than Skylar did and charged Danny, but Danny intercepted the Elf with a single hand. It took a moment for Skylar to realize Danny’s hand had penetrated through the Elf’s abdomen, and by the not-so-subtle cracking she was hearing, she was crushing the Elf’s spine. Danny slammed the Elf onto the ground, ending what was left of its life.

Danny slowly stood, pulling her hand from the dead Elf’s body as she did. As she unfurled herself and stood at her more-or-less unchanged height, Skylar found herself more in awe. Four horns adorned her head like a crown, violently brilliant magenta eyes glowed from beneath the crimson covering, the same tail she’d grown during the fight, her feet and legs had definitely changed. Looking more lupine, almost akin to a werewolf. Though her body had become fairly toned, her lack of clothing in this moment left nothing to the imagination:

Danny was indeed a woman, in every sense of the word.

The room erupted into a cacophony of action once again, hurtling themselves towards Danny, who seemed unfazed by this assault. She was fast… very fast, and strong. Her body moved like a ballet dancer, limber but exact. Nothing that attacked her lived very long, nor did they die painlessly. Skylar knew something in Danny had changed, something fundamental.

Several moments passed as those left in the building fled from their deaths, Danny stood on the stage, not having even broken a sweat. Richard walked over with his shotgun raised, aimed at Danny.

“Are you still you, kid? Or has the Demon entirely taken over?” Richard asked, the trigger half-squeezed as he stared her down.

“I am still Danny,” she began, her voice having an odd lilt to it. “But I am also Styx.” She slowly brought a clawed-hand up to look at, flexing it gently. “I don’t know how else to explain it, but I know that I still am myself.”

Richard stared at her for a moment before lowering his shotgun. “Good, then you can get your ass in the van by yourself.” Danny nodded lightly, making her way to a shocked looking Arianna.

“Tell me something only Danny and I would know,” Arianna demanded, tripping over her words.

Danny smiled, her fangs on full display. “When I was seventeen, and you had just turned eighteen, we stole my dad’s car and drove maybe ten miles out of town to a small orchard.” Danny chuckled. “You said you wanted me to try-”

“It’s you! Oh god… it’s you!” Arianna threw caution to the wind, wrapping her arm around Danny, who did so in kind, both careful to be gentle with the other.

“This love-fest is really touching, but Marines, we are leaving!” Skylar shouted as she helped Jericha to her feet and to the vehicle. Danny and Arianna joined quickly behind.

**

Richard’s driving was exemplary, for someone who drove like the speed limit was a dare. After all of that, when RIchard drove through the same barricade and smashed our way out, I felt like I was running on adrenaline and five back to back Red Bulls after an all-night spar with Mr. T. I was tired, again, but this time as I layed in the lap of my lover… my Arianna…

“We can’t go back to the safehouse. It’s been burned so we’re taking you somewhere else, somewhere out of the city,” Richard said flatly.

“But-wait, my father! He doesn’t know anything! I don’t want him thinking I just disappeared!” I don’t know where the panic came from, but it was true. After all this I finally felt like I had a moment to think.

“Let us worry about that, okay kid?” Richard said. “We’ll make sure he’s more or less up to speed, and then we’ll take him to come see- HOLY SHIT!”

Richard swerved to miss a person who’d walked out into the road. It was strange, I didn’t see the person but… I could feel their intention. I felt something directed for me.

Then… I felt the tires on the one side lift off the ground, as Richard tried to correct.

He didn’t see the massive vehicle coming headlong at us, but we all felt it when it collided with us.

Our vehicle tipped over and rolled, skidding across the asphalt, throwing us all around the inside like pinballs. I don’t know how it happened, I just know at some point I was ejected during the roll, crashing through glass and landing on the hard concrete.

I felt the pain shooting through my body, but it felt disjointed, like it was happening to someone else.

Then, I blacked out.