NOW

Nicole flew over the ocean, a pink comet over the bright blue reflected off the clear sky. The air contorted around her, bending to her will as she propelled further and further from the shoreline. She carved a wake into the water below, shooting a straight shot deeper and deeper out to sea. Behind her, a winged missile called Winona tore through the sky to catch up. With each flap of her wings, her speed amplified. All Nicole could do was keep pouring on the willpower, giving more and more of herself to the broom. “Pink rocket time,” she whispered. “Pink rocket time. Pink rocket time.”

The wake dug deeper into the sea, casting bigger and bigger shocks of water to her sides. Behind her, she heard Winona’s wings working ever-harder. Nicole stole a glance, and saw the shoreline on the horizon begin to fade. 

Good. Now for part two of the plan. 

Nicole turned up the pink rocket, and shot faster and faster through the air, until finally the horizon faded and Nicole came to a halt. 

“Okay,” Winona said with a maniacal smirk as she caught up, “You win.”

Nicole smirked right back. “Music to my ears. Let’s talk.”

***

Thirty-Six Hours Earlier

Cass floated over Boston, drifting about in the fog. The moisture tickled her skin, and she struggled to find the stars through the mist. It had been either this or spend another Friday night alone in her dorm attempting to pay attention to whatever show or book or comic she wanted to distract her. Not that she didn’t want to, but lately… Lately nothing except the mission felt real. Like it was all that mattered, all that she should be doing. She was barely getting her homework and other assignments in on time, barely sleeping, barely thinking about anything else. So she walked outside her dorm, transformed, and took flight. 

Debbi would be mad. Amy too. They were… They were her sisters, and they wanted to look out for her, but sometimes they didn’t seem to entirely get the severity of what they were doing. It didn’t matter if she got hurt, if they got mad- what mattered was the mission. It was all that had ever mattered. 

She drifted until she passed by a police precinct, and realized said police precinct had been hit. The windows were shattered, cops were darting in and out, EMTs were outside, there was… Blood. So much blood, Dear God. 

Cass doubled around to see if there was anything demonic going on, only to find two people sprinting away from the precinct. Both wore wooden devil masks. 

Cass followed them from overhead until they entered an alley, wherein an Aramaic rune was painted onto the brick wall of the alley in blood. A third person, unmasked, waited for them in the alley, then slammed a fist into the rune. It glowed bright red, and the two masked assailants vanished. Cass flew into the alley, landing on her feet and summoning holy light. She reached with her telekinetic fingers for a dumpster and got ready to toss it at the remaining villain… 

Only to stop when she saw who it was. 

The woman standing in front of the rune was the same height as Cass. Had the same hair color, the same curly texture, the same dark brown skin tone and gray-brown eyes. 

“M-Mom?” Cass stuttered. 

The woman’s eyes turned solid black as she blew Cass a kiss. “Not quite.”

She slammed a palm into the rune and vanished in a puff of black smoke. Cass ran towards the rune, hoping it would work for her as well. 

A gravely screeching interrupted her from behind the mouth of the alley. 

Cass turned to look, only to find ten monsters pouring into the alley. Each was forged from a motorcycle, their engines revving with murderous intent. 

***

Four Hours Earlier

Cass rubbed the gash behind her left shoulder, where one of the motorcycle monsters ran its wheel on maximum velocity and tore up her skin. She really ought to have Nicole heal it, but… Well, she’d just told Nicole off and then snuck out of the house to go flying again, so even Nicole wasn’t likely to be in an accommodating mood. 

She wondered if this was the right thing to do. It probably wasn’t, but… The others wouldn’t understand. Her mom’s life was at risk. Debbi would want to stand around debating the issue and come up with some vague, malformed plan, Amy would go into hysterics, and Heather would just want to punch something to death. And all that was fine when the monsters were coming to them, but that wasn’t what was happening. 

As for Nicole… 

Cass needed answers, and the only way she could think to get those answers was by doing something that would horrify the blonde saint-in-training. Nicole was a good person, and if she could keep her hands clean then that was good for her. But it wasn’t good for Cass. 

She flew until she reached Boston, reached Saint Joseph’s, and used her telekinesis to rip the basement door off its hinges. She marched over the possessed Bishop tied to a chair. His eyes were closed, so Cass grabbed a cup of Holy Water off the table and splashed him with it. 

The demon roared venomously, while the Bishop’s body struggled with his bonds. 

Cass put a finger on the Bishop’s forehead. “Talk. And I’ll let you go. Simple as that.”

“Die in a fire, bitch!” Cyrus said. 

“You first,” Cass said, gathering more Holy Water from the tank of the stuff in the corner of the room. It was slippery in the grip of her telekinesis, and it shattered quickly, so instead she willed her cup over to the tank to refill it and then brought it back over to her. 

Cass poured a droplet of Holy Water onto the Bishop’s forehead, and Cyrus screamed with unchecked agony. A demon exposed to Holy Water was, from what she’d heard, in approximately the same amount of pain as someone getting teeth pulled without any novacaine. Which meant this… 

“Keep going, little witchling,” Cyrus hissed. “Every drop of Holy Water takes you another step closer to damnation. I can’t wait to see you there!”

The screams of the damned reached up from below and shook Cass. Oh God, what am I doing? Cass realized, remembering a round of dental surgery she’d gotten in middle school sans a sufficient amount of painkillers. This is wrong, I can’t do this. But I need to save Mom. That’s the right thing to do. Which means I need this demon to talk. God, I rushed I just rushed into this without thinking it through- now what? Cass’ hands began to tremble. Fuck, not now! Time to bluff. “I told you, talk, and you get to go home.”

“You think it’s home you’re sending me to?!” Cyrus said. “That’s rich- you’re sending me back beneath the Floodwater with the rest of the Legionnaires you’ve exorcized. It will take months to make it back to hell, and even after that, it could take years to make it back here, to see my wife and my son ever again. The odds of my seeing them again are far higher as long as I’m here.”

“Huh,” Cass said. “You know, I never thought of it like that. Is your son named Aidan, by any chance?”

Cyrus groaned. “Oh Satan, has the boy already blown his cover?”

“Yes,” Cass said. “For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure he was acting on orders.”

“Hm. Yes, that sounds like him. The boy is loyal to a fault, has trouble saying no to anything,” Cyrus said. “Still, I love him with all my… Well, maybe not all my heart and soul. I don’t actually have those. But you get the idea.”

Cass channeled Holy Light into her index finger and held it an inch from the demon’s forehead. “Well then, as you’ve explained to me, you’re gonna miss a lot of father-son bonding time if you get exorcized. So why don’t you start talking, and maybe I’ll think about letting you go.”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing!?” rang a furious, androgynous voice. From a room off to the side emerged a tall, tan individual wearing a flannel bathrobe. It was Abe, Father Gonzalez’s… Associate. Cass wasn’t really sure what their deal was. They seemed to be staying in a small bedroom beneath the basement, supervising the possessed Bishop whenever Father Gonzalez or Sister Quinn was busy. 

And they were pissed. 

“I can explain,” Cass said, holding her hands flat above her head. 

“She really can’t,” Cyrus said. 

“Okay, then explain,” Abe said. 

“I was interrogating our prisoner,” Cass said. 

“She was torturing me! Threatening to make sure I never see my family again!” 

“Were you?” Abe asked. 

Cass blinked. Fuck, what do I do what do I do what I do… I really didn’t think this through at all GODDAMMIT WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?! “Y… Yes.”

“Good God, girl! What is the matter with you?!” Abe screamed. 

“Perhaps years of soldiering has taken its toll on the young Ms. Ortiz’s mind and spirit,” Cyrus opined. “Perhaps she’s falling, like an angel from the heavens, slowly being consumed by the intoxicating aroma of brimstone-”

“Shut up Cyrus, I’m not talking to you,” Abe said. They turned to Cass and said, “We’re gonna go wake up Father Gonzalez and you’re going to give your confession. He’ll decide how you can repent for this-”

A spike of panic tore through Cass’ heart. This was bad- she wasn’t supposed to get caught, but how could she not when her plan was stupid, stupid, stupid you’re so fucking stupid what is wrong with you?!

Cass summoned her broom and flew out the door into the night, groping for breath as the air rushed past her. She went higher, higher, higher- as far as she could from the ground until the air was too cold and too thin to go any further. Surrounded by clouds, Cass thought she might get lost and have to drift forever. 

After what felt like hours, she looked down and saw her hands were trembling again. 

Dammit. 

She lowered herself towards solid ground, and started listing objects and their colors. “Red dress. Red hat. Gray sidewalk. Red stop sign.” The ground came into view, and she floated above an alleyway. 

Someone was inside it, hunched over a display of dead bodies. Cass gasped- three people on the ground, dressed in rags and sliced to ribbons, blood painting the concrete crimson. She hovered above the young man, pale and average height and slender, clad in blue jeans and a gray hoodie. He fell to his knees, and he wept over the bodies. 

Cass floated there silently, until she heard glass cracking behind her. She turned, and saw three monsters- a collection of broken beer bottles stitched together into a bipedal figure of shattered glass with shrapnel for teeth and fingers; a stop sign with legs, down on all fours, the letters dancing about in an ever-shifting rorschach blob; and a floating, half-smoked cigarette the size of a motorcycle with a smoldering stub of hellfire; and two humans, a man and a woman, both clad in devil masks behind them. Archie and Veronica- of course. Veronica got sprung from the clink and now she and boyfriend are on a killing spree. But how’s she walking again? Nicole broke her back. 

The young man turned around and stared down the monsters at the mouth of the alley. 

“Get down, man,” Cass said, floating just in front of the young man.

“You’re one of those magical girls,” the young man said. 

“How very astute,” Cass said, monotone.

“Guess it’s time for my first team-up, then,” the boy said. 

“I’m sorry, what now? I said to get down, gringo!”

In perfect Spanish, albeit with a thick Boston accent, the young man replied, “Don’t call me that,” as he marched past her. He carried a wiffle-ball bat behind him, dragging it over the ground. 

“Uh, pendejo, that’s not gonna-”

“Don’t call me that either,” he said, still in Spanish. 

The wiffle-ball bat sparked with white light, with Holy Light, until it was completely consumed. The glowing outline shifted until it no longer resembled a bat, but a claymore. 

The cigarette monster charged first, and the boy swung wildly and missed. The burning end of hellfire nearly stubbed him, but he leaped out of the way narrowly and began hacking and slashing at the air with his glowing makeshift sword. 

Cass collected her jaw from the ground as the other two monsters charged. She channeled Holy Light into her fist and willed the stop-sign monster directly to her. She buried her fist in the metal, grunting as her hand bruised from the contact. Black smoke rushed out, and the dented stop sign fell to the ground as a heap of metal while the demon was banished from this plane of existence. 

The boy finally landed a blow against the cigarette-monster, grazing it with the edge and carving a slice from the white paper. The cigarette burnt out as the demon was exorcized, and a dozen used cigarette stubs landed on the ground. 

The glass monster charged Cass. That was bad- a direct punch would probably cut up her hand. But maybe… 

Before the monster could reach her, the boy swung wildly with his sword. The broken-bottle-beast jumped out of the way, shockingly nimble, as the boy kept attacking. Cass fought against a headache as she extended her hands and pushed them together, locking the monster in place, and the boy sliced his sword through the monster’s center. A horizontal slash shattered the glass and purged the demon. 

Cass gaped at the young man, then noticed behind him that Archie and Veronica had fled. And that sirens were blaring while red and blue lights flickered down the street. 

When Cass turned to face the young man again, she saw that he was gone as well.

Lacking better options, she took flight.

Underneath the glamor, her phone buzzed in the back pocket of her denim. She took it out, and saw the words, ‘one new message from Mom.’

“Come to the place where we last spoke at sunrise,” Cass read. 

The trembling in her hands grew ever more severe.

***

“I have an idea,” Nicole said. The four girls stood on the beach in their uniforms, midnight long past, the air growing ever colder and ever darker. 

“I don’t like where this is going,” Heather said. 

“You haven’t heard it yet,” Nicole said. 

“Yeah, but you’ve already told us you’re not a ‘plan’ sort of person.”

Nicole sighed. “Be that as it may, I still have an idea.”

“Okay, let’s hear it,” Debbi said. The Donahues had settled back into the house, gathering their nightbags before they went to a hotel. Heather and Nicole had both already called their families and told them to find somewhere safe until the coast was clear. They were at a crossroads right now, their whole team. Whatever happened next would change the course of the struggle between good and evil. Best to divide and conquer.

“Winona flew out over the ocean, but she’s clearly hydrophobic,” Nicole said. “We need someone to draw her out while the rest of us look for Cass.”

“Nicole,” Heather said, pinching the bridge of her nose, “Please tell me you’re not suggesting-”

“I can fly out over the ocean, draw her out, and then get her talking,” Nicole said. “We need information and Cyrus still isn’t opening his mouth.”

“And what makes you think she’ll talk to you?” Heather said. 

“Me,” Amy said, still rubbing her arms and shivering. “She’ll want to talk to her about me. But that means that I should-”

“No,” Nicole and Debbi both said at once. 

“Amy, look at me,” Nicole said, taking her hand. “You’re not in a good psychological place to do something like that.”

“She’s right,” Debbi said. 

“And I’m the fastest flier besides Cass, who somebody needs to look for,” Nicole said. “That probably shouldn’t be me given she rebuffed me last time we talked. She needs her sisters.”

Debbi put a hand on Amy’s shoulder. Amy sighed. “Okay.”

“I still don’t know if I’m crazy about this,” Heather said. 

“What choice do we have?” Nicole said. “We’re being pursued by an enemy who knows us but whom we know almost nothing about. On top of that, while we did okay just now, I’m not convinced that Winona was going all out. I mean, come on, Heather- did that really feel like someone fighting at a hundred percent?”

Heather grunted. “No. It didn’t. Felt like someone testing us, trying to write a playbook on how best to deal with us. And that’s on top of the hundreds of hours of proverbial film she’s got on us from all those monster fights these past few years.”

“I’m the only one she hasn’t had time to plan for yet,” Nicole said. 

“But you’re also the least experienced.”

“But I’m the only one with a healing factor.”

“But you’re the only one with zero hand-to-hand combat experience,” Heather said. 

“Ladies, if I may suggest a compromise,” Debbi said, eyes going wide. 

“I’m listening,” Heather and Nicole said. 

Debbi smirked. 

***

NOW

Nicole flew along the coast as the sun rose. She was a pink comet over a gray sky beginning to burn red and gold. The sun rising over the ocean was always one of her favorite sights growing up. Still was, honestly. 

She smiled. Positive thinking was the only way around the hand grenades of anxiety going off in her brain. You can do this. You’ve got home court advantage. And she’s a yandere, so you know this will work-

“WHY HELLO THERE!” Winona’s voice tore across the horizon, flying back out from over the ocean like a pink-energy-seeking missile. Nicole accelerated at just the right moment, and the rogue nephilim crashed into a sand dune. 

Winona poked her head out from the sand and spat out a mouthful. 

“General White,” Nicole grinned. 

“I’m gonna kill you, bitch,” Winona said, smiling and giggling. 

“Oh come on, don’t be like that. I’d much rather have a nice conversation,” Nicole said. 

“I don’t have anything to say to-”

“About Amy,” Nicole said. 

Winona paused. “I’m listening.”

“Tell you what,” Nicole said, “Why don’t we have a race, see who can clear the shore’s line of sight fastest. If you win, you can tear me apart limb from limb or whatever it is you think about before bed, but if I win we can have a nice conversation like grown women.”

Winona’s smile reminded Nicole of a rabid fisher cat she’d had to shoot during a camping trip years ago. “Okay!” Winona beamed, dusting herself off and stretching her wings. 

“Cool!” Nicole said. “Race starts on three- 123GO!!!!”

And with that, she took off.  

Nicole flew over the ocean, a pink comet over the bright blue reflected off the clear sky. The air contorted around her, bending to her will as she propelled further and further from the shoreline. She carved a wake into the water below, shooting a straight shot deeper and deeper out to sea. 

Behind her, a winged missile called Winona tore through the sky to catch up. With each flap of her wings, her speed amplified. All Nicole could do was keep pouring on the willpower. “Pink rocket time,” she whispered. “Pink rocket time. Pink rocket time.”

The wake dug deeper into the sea, casting bigger and bigger shocks of water to her sides. Behind her, she heard Winona’s wings working ever-harder. Nicole stole a glance, and saw the shoreline on the horizon begin to fade. 

Good. Now for part two of the plan. 

Nicole turned up the pink rocket, and shot faster and faster through the air, until finally the horizon faded and Nicole came to a halt. 

“Okay,” Winona said with a maniacal smirk, “You win.”

Nicole smirked right back. “Music to my ears. Let’s talk.”

“What exactly does Amy see in you?” Winona said, her wings stagnant as she floated over the ocean. “Besides that you’re very, very fast- which I’ll admit you are.”

“Honestly? I’m not entirely clear on that. I don’t really think I’m that great.”

“Well yeah, obviously, but you’ve gotta have some idea,” Winona said, eyes narrow.

“No, legitimately: I have no idea. I don’t know how queer girls think.”

“But you are a queer girl.”

“And so are you- why don’t you take a guess?”

Winona blinked. “Well you are smoking hot, I’ll give you that.”

“But so are you.”

“Oh stop,” Winona said, smiling smugly, waving a hand.

“No I mean it- you’re an astonishingly beautiful woman. You’re much prettier than I am,” Nicole said, meaning every word of it. 

“You really think so?” Winona said, hopeful as a child on Christmas morning. 

“Yeah- you’ve got fantastic hair, killer cheekbones, gorgeous eyes, a great butt-”

“It is my best feature,” Winona said, smacking her cheeks. “I mean hey, looks aren’t everything, but mine will last forever, so I do have that going for me.”

“There ya’ go,” Nicole said. “You’re a real catch, Winona.”

“Thank you. You’re very sweet,” Winona said, beaming with pride and affection. “Maybe that’s why she likes you.”

“Could be,” Nicole shrugged. “Honestly though, I’m concerned it’s a misplaced sense of guilt and that she’s projecting.”

“Oh come on, give her more credit than that,” Winona said. “I’ve been watching Amy since she was seventeen- when she knows what she wants, she goes for it. Like the captain of the football team, or the captain of the basketball team, or the captain of the rival basketball team- girl’s got game.”

Nicole gulped. “Blue Blazes.”

“What’s that?”

“... I just gotta ask- how’d we get here?”

“We flew here,” Winona said, cocking her head to the side. 

“No, no I meant the stalking thing,” Nicole said. “Why exactly have you been stalking Amy since before she was legal?”

“Actually, the age of consent in Massachusetts is sixteen, so she was-”

“That’s not the point,” Nicole said, raising a hand, struggling to keep the anger and disgust out of her voice. She took a deep breath of ocean air, drinking in the scent of the brine. “What I’m asking is why a nephilim is doing all this in the first place- what is it that you actually want? Besides Amy, I mean.”

“To rule over hell,” Winona said simply. 

“And why’s that?” Nicole asked. 

“Because an angel needs to rule hell,” Winona said. “Nobody is willing to step up since Uncle Samael went back to heaven.”

Nicole stammered, “I… I… I’m sorry, what?”

“Oh yeah, nobody on earth actually knows all the details, do they?” Winona said, fluffing her light-wings. “Samael… Lucifer, or Satan, or just ‘the devil’ as you’re probably used to calling him… Repented his sins.”

“... There’s no way that’s true,” Nicole said. 

“Your friend Cassandra’s been having visions, has she not?” Winona said. “Ask her about it. The throne of hell is mostly empty right now. It’s meant to be ruled by the Unholy Trinity: Satan, aka Lucifer, aka Samael; his daughter Sin, aka Azazel; and her daughter, Death, aka Azrael. But Azrael went to work for Grandpa God a while ago, and a few decades back, Uncle Samael decided he was tired of hell. So he went to talk to his Father, and was ultimately welcomed back into the heavenly host with open arms.”

“No,” Nicole shook her head. “That can’t possibly be true- the devil wouldn’t just- God wouldn’t just-”

“Forgive the devil?” Winona said, tilting her head to the other side. “Whyever not? God forgives everyone, loves everyone. He loves all his children, including His Lightbringer. And that’s lovely, but somebody needs to preside over Hell. Azazel can’t do it all on her own- she was overrun and unseated by a group of rogue angels called the Outcasts, and their human allies, the Wilders. They want to destroy Hell entirely, which would be great if that didn’t mean there was nowhere for the wicked souls to go after they die. Nowhere except earth, nothing to do except haunting people and destroying stuff out of spite. You don’t want that, do you?”

Nicole struggled to find the words. This was a lot to take in, a lot to process, a lot to accept. She’d always been aware that there was no way the Catholic Church got absolutely everything right, but this was something else. “... Assuming even a fraction of what you’re telling me is true, why the heck would you want to take over hell?”

“Because I’m the most qualified,” Winona said with a cocksure expression. “Before Uncle Samael became Satan, there was my father, Samyaza.”

“The leader of the Watchers, the angels assigned with guarding the earth in ancient times,” Nicole said

Winona clapped and squeed, the same way Nicole would when someone caught one of her obscure comic book references. It was more than slightly disturbing. “You’ve read the Book of Enoch! Yay! That’s awesome! So you know what happens next?”

“The Watchers were filled with lust for the daughters of man, and procreated with them, begetting giants called nephilim,” Nicole said, dread and panic lancing her insides. 

Winona giggled while pointing at herself. “That’s me!” 

“And God sent the Great Flood to purge them from the earth,” Nicole said. Run away run away run away Nicole, run, you cannot beat this, RUN AWAY!

“And it mostly worked,” Winona said. “Except not all of us died. My father, Samyaza, loved me more than anything. He shielded me under his wings, kept me safe while the Floodwater washed over us. It drained into the negative space of reality itself, Chaos, where the Floodwater kept me and all the other survivors prisoner. Until finally, I was able to escape from under my father’s corpse, broke into hell with the help of the Demon Legion trapped beneath the Floodwater by Christ, and started carving out a life for myself. But then everything changed after Uncle Samael left. And I took it upon myself to pick up the pieces.”

Nicole let a breeze roll over her and a wave pass under her. Run. “If what you’re saying is true, then why have you been attacking people? Why have you been stalking Amy? Why have you been releasing demons into the world and hurting and killing people?! WHY?!”

Winona’s giggled mutated in a smug cackle. “Because of Soul Energy. It’s everything- I need it to take over Hell. And the only way to harvest it is by killing humans.” 

“Okay, so lemme see if I understand you: by killing people, you harvest Soul Energy to power your war machine, which, in conjunction with your Legion, you wanna use to defeat all your enemies and conquer Hell? Do I have all that right?”

“Yeppers!” Winona said. 

“Winona,” Nicole said, “You’ve got to realize what you’re doing is wrong.”

Winona furrowed her brow. “Mmmmmm no I don’t! I mean, what else do you expect me to do? Hell needs a ruler, otherwise the Outcasts will destroy it, and that will destroy everything.”

“So why do you have to have a stake in it at all?!” Nicole shouted. “If Lucifer was allowed back into Heaven, you could be as well!”

“Because Hell needs to be ruled by an angel. One who will make sure it functions as intended,” Winona said firmly. “I’m doing this because it’s the right thing to do!” 

“Killing people for the sake of sitting on some stupid throne is the right thing to do?!” Nicole said, grinding her teeth, tears in her eyes. 

“Well hey, everyone else is doing it,” Winona sighed. “You thought I was the only one releasing demons, creating monsters? I mean sure, in this state, and a few others, but I’m not the only one. I control the Demon Legion, which constitutes most of the Demonic Spirits, but that doesn’t take into account the Manifested Monsters, the Fallen Angels, the Wilders, plus the Spirits who’ve allied with the Coven or the Dark Prophet.”

Something about that… REALLY ticked Nicole off. “So if everyone else is doing it, that makes it okay? Do I have that right? Is that how you see all this?”

“As okay?” Winona asked. “No. It’s not okay. I’m well aware of that. But it is necessary. Now, I think we’ve had a lovely conversation today. Very productive. Very informative. I don’t suppose there’s any chance I can win you over to my side?”

“Are you gonna keep killing people?” Nicole monotoned. 

“Yes.”

“Then no.”

“Why not?” Winona pouted. 

“Because MURDER IS WRONG!” Nicole glared. 

“Most of the time, sure, but some people fuckin’ deserve it.”

“I’ve seen dead children at your monster attacks,” Nicole spat. “Did they deserve it?”

“I mean you never know, some of them might’ve grown up to be real assholes.”

Nicole glared, jaw plummeting into the ocean depths below her broom. “Yeah, um… The answer is still no. But I would like to make a counter-offer.”

“Oh? I’m listening?”

“Okay, just wait for it… Wait for it…”

That was when Heather soared down from directly above. She’d followed their chase the whole time, two hundred feet further in the air, nothing but a verdant speck amidst the clouds. Nicole lobbed a pink energy sphere at her teammate as Heather’s fist collided with Winona’s skull and sent her screaming into the deep blue. 

Nicole flew over and grabbed Heather by the back of her dress before she fell into the ocean herself. “COME ON COME ON COME ON LET’S MOVE!!!!!”

And with that, they flew back to shore, Nicole muttering, “Pink rocket time, pink rocket time, pink rocket time,” all the way onto land. 

Once they were a few blocks into the nearest town, they untransformed and hailed a cab, then took off for campus. 

In the distance, Nicole saw Winona flailing about in the sky above, soaking wet, searching desperately. Nicole hyperventilated, fear reverberating through every inch of her body and soul, her shield nearly collapsing under the weight of all that it was being asked to protect her from. 

***

The sun finished rising over the cemetery, a long and winding series of hills dotted with tombstones. Dew sparkled in the expanding light, casting a multicolored radiance over the field of death. Cass landed on the ground with a thud, the subsequent soreness of her feet dwarfed only by the pain in her back from having spent most of an entire night flying. 

The monster wearing her mother’s skin stood in front of her father’s grave.

“Hello, Cassandra,” the demon said with her mother’s voice. “I see you got my text.”

Cass glowered, hoping her trembling hands weren’t visible. She marched forward, trembling hands throbbing with Holy Light. 

She reached for the demon’s throat.

The barrel of a gun pressed into the back of her head through the fabric of her hat. “How’s it going?” said a feminine voice muffled beneath a mask.

Veronica. Directly behind her, by the sound of it. 

Cass’ hands wouldn’t stop shaking, her heart wouldn’t stop pounding, her mind wouldn’t stop racing. All she could see in front of her was a monster, one who needed to be stopped. Whatever happened to Cass didn’t matter, not so long as the monsters were defeated.

Pain and panic and horrible focus burned inside Cass’ mind and soul. She lunged for the demon. And all hell broke loose.