WARNING: The following contains uncensored curse words, descriptions of injuries, strong language, depressing backstory, sexual themes, gaslighting, mentions of rape and domestic violence and abuse, as well as rampant demon horniness... so yes, it's intended for mature audiences.

VIEWER/READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED!

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3rd Person POV

"Breakfast is ready!" Moxxie's voice called from the kitchen while Ayden and Jin were seen in their room still sitting on their beds, the former still in her pjs, writing in her journal and the latter cleaning themself from the bedhead/body they'd woken up with.

"Mrow!" Jin meowed in a way that voiced an enthusiastic 'hurry up!' and Ayden laughed when they hopped onto her head to flop down in a belly-up "play dead" manner as she told them,

"'Ight 'ight I'm goin'." She finished writing about what she'd dreamt about the night before placing her journal on top of the fancy book that Ozzie had given her, sparing it only a glance before smirking mischievously while peeking up at her sibling(s).

"Yaaaaaahhhh!" She yawned dramatically while stretching backward to make Jin slide off her head but they just flopped over and draped themself over her shoulder in their normal position so Ayden could chuckle and leave their room to get to the kitchen.

"There ya two are!" Millie spoke enthusiastically as she was making the coffee for everyone while Moxxie was cooking up some eggs with bacon and hashbrown rectangles as he commented while looking down at her pjs,

"I get you're taking a mental health break from work but I hope you're not just planning on sleeping the day away."

"~Noooooo...!~" Ayden drew out teasingly and sarcastically as she and Jin grabbed plates from the cupboards, the latter balancing some on their head so their sister could also grab the utensils, to place on the table in each demon's spot before she continued with, "Today's Take 2 on the sleepove' wi'h me an' Via."

"Oh yeah!" Millie exclaimed as she remembered while setting the mugs and a mini mug on the table to fill with everyone's drinks of choice as they all sat down in their places to begin eating.

That week ago, after the whole... Full Moon mess... when Ayden and Jin had come back home after running off, she'd told Millie and Moxxie that she was planning on talking with Via about her feelings for her since she was tired of subconsciously comparing her and Via to Blitzø and Stolas and was just gonna take the leap and tell her how she felt; something they were all too happy to root for since even they'd seen how Ayden gets when she talks about her best friend and supported her platonic attraction to her.

"Do you need some money to get more snacks?" Moxxie asked as he cut his hashbrown rectangle into squares to eat with his fork, an action that made Millie roll her eyes good-naturedly.

"Uhhh..." Ayden's mood turned to slight discomfort as she admitted, "Me 'n Via decided I shoul' skip the snack run this time since uhh..."

Millie sighed with a hand on her forehead at the implication they were afraid of another repeated incident when Moxxie spoke up to assure them both,

"Ayden, we're always gonna have danger chasing us because of what we do, you can't let that get to your head or keep you from living somewhat normally..."

"Yeh I know..." Ayden told him and kept up the morose expression for another second before shaking her head and putting on a cheeky grin as she asked them, "I'n't tonight yer date night pa't 2 too?"

"Yes it is." Moxxie wasn't too happy about the shift in focus but answered the question with a fond smile at his wife nonetheless.

"Ah still can't believe Oz just gave us that voucher for the VIP balcony at his club." Millie commented as she motioned with her eyes to the blue envelope from the fruit bowl in the middle of the table before asking with her eyes narrowed in suspicion as she asked Ayden, "You didn't sell yer soul ta him riiiight...?"

"No but I did say I'd finally stop givin' him an' Fizz crap 'bout that night if he did me this favo'." Ayden answered with a bit of a mischievous smirk that had an air of mock innocence as she ate a slice of bacon.

"Mrow..." Jin gave a trying-to-appear-unamused glance as they finished up their milk and started in on the cooked potatoes Moxxie had made especially for them.

"Is Jin gonna go with ya?" Millie asked as she finished up her plate and started gathering the dirty dishes from everyone who finished.

"Noooo!" Ayden shouted and Jin gave a faux-hurt meow with a matching expression that voiced 'why nooooot?' before she answered the unspoken question with, "Most o' them a'e real old fashioned and still don't know that platonic attraction is a thing..."

She enunciated the last part to emphasize it and Jin just went still like they always do when everyone within started conflicting with each other before Moxxie commented as he and Millie washed the dishes while Ayden and Jin, after breaking out of their debating stupor, wiped down the table,

"I blame that on society's insistence that everything must be romantic or sexual in order for individuals to even exist togethe-r-r-r-r...." Moxxie trailed off when Millie started entwining her tail with his and purring while nuzzling her head right under his, making him flush with a dopey, lovesick, wobbly smile.

"Keep'em in yer pants til ya leave pleeeaase!" Ayden whined as she threw the food scraps in the trash.

"No let'em keep goin', it was just gettin' good." A new voice sounded from the living room and they all peeked their heads around the corner to see-

"Blitzø?!"

"The fuck a'e ya doin' in he'e?!"

Said imp was reclining on the couch with his boots propped up on the armrest before he jumped off to brush himself off while "complaining,"

"Fuck off I've been waitin' on their asses for the past 6 minutes!"

"We're coming! And not like that!" Moxxie shouted before adding the last part seeing the goofy smug grin on Blitzø's face before he stomped off with Millie sauntering after him to grab their gear since they'd finished up the dishes.

With Blitzø alone with Ayden and Jin, the atmosphere shifted to one with an underlying tension to where even Jin discreetly bolted out of the room considering the two of them hadn't really talked since the Anti Blitzo party a week ago, the mission in Mexico not really counting since it was business and they'd barely exchange more than a few words.

Ayden was finishing up wiping down the table, facing slightly away from Blitzø as he coughed awkwardly before asking in a semi-optimistic tone,

"So uh how ya been Fuzzball...?"

"'Ight..." She answered tersely, still not quite looking at him as she brushed her paws off after tossing the cleaning rag in the sink before crossing her arms, still not facing him as she spoke again, "Still not ready ta come back ta wo'k if that's what yer gonna ask..."

"Well that's too bad cause these last couple'a missions've been real doozies without our stealth expert." Blitzø tried to joke but Ayden wasn't having it as she reminded him in a bitter tone,

"I told you I'd come back when I'm ready... bad enough I had ta save you and Jin's arses in Mexico a few days ago..."

But Blitzø raised his voice as he argued,

"It's been a fuckin' week how much more time do ya need?"

"Hey 'm takin' your advice ta deal wi'h my own shite instead o' gettin' caught up in yours remembe'?" Ayden looked back to flash an angrily annoyed expression at him.

"Oh sure the one time you listen to me kid...!" Blitzø huffed in a nonchalant tone that could've been joking on his part but wasn't taken that way...

"'One time?!' I always listen t'ya!" Ayden whipped around before harshly jabbing her digit at Blitzø and stomping forward with each emphasis making him back away with shock on his face at the hostility, "I've listened to ya di'ty jokes no matte' how uncomfortable they make me and you've known it, I've listened to yer bitchin' 'n complainin' 'bout the stupidest things even when I know the truth, I've listened ta how ya take fer granted everything I would've killed ta have jus' 2 yea's ago and now I've got'em too and I'm actually sta'ting to believe it's all real..." Ayden's eyes started welling up as her tone turned melancholic towards the end and made Blitzø's worried expression deepen.

"Jus' go..." Ayden turned away as she wiped the tears out of her eyes before muttering bitterly, "I've gotta get ready fer my thing wi'h Via since I've actually got the balls ta tell'er how I really feel... somethin' I thought mo'e of my family would be happy fer me fo'..."

Blitzø flinched back a bit at his words being thrown back at him again before it started to change to a frustrated grimace as it looked like he was about to yell back-

*Tch!*

Until a door closed in the close distance and he shook his head in time for Millie, Moxxie, and Jin to walk back into the room with their gear ready to go before he announced jovially,

"Alrighty gang, let's try not to burn down an entire city again, remember we're demons, not amateurs! I want style, I want pizzazz, and I want blood on the walls by sundown...!"

His plotting tone faded as he strode out the door with an attitude that belied what he had been feeling a few seconds ago before Millie and Moxxie each hugged Ayden as the former wished her,

"Have fun tonight!"

Before the latter leaned his forehead against hers comfortingly as he told her,

"You're gonna be OK, just tell her as much of what you really feel and are ready to share..."

"Yeh..." Ayden whispered half-heartedly before they approached the door and she lifted a paw to wave goodbye, "Thanks Millie, Moxxie..."

Jin looked up from where they were at their heels and caught the slight, subtle emotion from both parties from Ayden still calling them by their first names and lowered their ears a bit at the hidden message before they meowed their goodbye to their sister and the door fully closed behind them with the screeching of the I.M.P. van peeling away and fading into the distance sounding a few seconds later.

Ayden was left alone with her thoughts as they started drifting to what she was hoping would happen in order to move forward with the good and forget the bad but she couldn't help the gnawing feeling of doubt in her gut.

The faces of everyone who ever held her back and tortured her kept flashing to her mind and in the background around her as it started fritzing to the same rough and jaggedy with chalk drawing style from the Truth Bomb trip with their outlines surrounding her... taunting her... her mother, her father, D.H.O.R.K.S., Hannah....

(Song is "Middle Finger" by Bohnes, with some lyric changes, if you wanna listen along)

Spinning around and breaking the mental backroom she was about to fall back into, she started singing, her tone flowing out scratchily at first but slowly building up to a rhythmic style as she strutted back to her room to prep her duffel bag,

♫ They showed me "love" an' then spit in my face...

Made all thei' pleasure off all o' my pain...

They put a lion inside of a cage...

And they thought I wa'n't strong enough to escape... ♫

She stopped mid-shove of her pjs in her duffel bag when she looked over at her journal on top of the book from Oz titled in fancy golden lettering "Hellcats et Historiae" with a bright bronze flame outline on the cover before she continued singing,

♫ But I refuse to let'em make me feel like I can't fight...

Not only will I get up again, I'll own the fucking realm

Yeah! ♫

She grabbed both books and put them in her patched-up satchel before whirling around and lifting her paw up flipping off the world as she chanted,

♫ So I put my middle finger up

I'm done bein' thei' slave

My mentali'y's had enough

And they should be afraid ♫

*BV-VVV!*

A quick look at her phone revealed that Via had texted her to meet her at the garden once she made it over there and she smiled as she looked out the window, free of bars, before dancing across her room,

♫ ~Ohhhhh~ not your prisoner

~Ohhhhh~ better listen when I say

I put my middle finger up

I'm done bein' thei' slave ♫

She disappeared into the bathroom for about five seconds before coming back out wearing a black short sleeve halter collar crop top with a bright red pentagram on the front, black shorts that had an ace-symbol-buckled belt looping in a bright red mid-length back skirt with a pair of black ribbon laced toeless foot covers that wrapped up to the heart buckles on her thighs while holding out her right arm where one of a pair of bronze spiral armbands wove around the scratch scars along with her Aroace bracelet from Via as she sang,

♫ You woul'n't even look me in the eye

When you let me go and then left me to die

But the'e was no question that I would survive

An a'tist on fire is one that's alive ♫

She finished packing up her duffel bag while singing,

♫ You can't surround a lion with a bunch of lazy sheep

The one thing about monsters is that we love to feeeeaast ♫

♫ Yeah! ♫

She slung the duffel back over her shoulder on top of her satchel as she flipped off the world again while singing,

♫ So I put my middle finger up

I'm done bein' thei' slave

My mentality's had enough

And they should be afraaaaiiid ♫

She moved over to a wall, about to open a portal, when she stopped and smirked to herself as she changed her mind and left the house through the front door and started walking along the street in the direction of the Goetia mansion as she kept singing,

♫ ~Ohhhhh~ not your prisoner

~Ohhhhh~ better listen when I say

I put my middle finger up

I'm done being their slave ♫

As she sped-walked through the streets, jumping over debris and corpses while avoiding the attacks of nearby residents with graceful dance moves as she continued forward, she kept singing with a tone of hope growing in each line,

♫ Living like a riot

Setting off the sirens

Fists are clenched, I'm fightin'

Soul has been ignited

Ain't got time for dyin'

I'm too busy thrivin'

More than just survivin'

Heart is beatin' violent ♫

She sped up even more as the happy memories started overriding the bad ones and she was full-on sprinting with a joyful smile on her face as she harmonized in the background of the song,

♫ Living like a riot (Hey)

Setting off the sirens (Hey)

Fists are clenched, I'm fightin'

Soul has been ignited (~Heee-eee-eeey!~)

Ain't got time for dyin' (Hey)

I'm too busy thrivin' (Hey)

More than just survivin'

Heart is beatin' violent ♫

She vaulted off a broken car's hood to leap high into the air with her flipping off the Pentagram in the red sky as she remained airborne for a few seconds,

♫ So I put my middle finger up

I'm done bein' their slave

My mentality's had enough (~enoooough~)

And they should be afraid ♫ (~afraaaaaiiid~)

Landing on the ground with a ring of reddish-orange sparks igniting and flaring out when her paws touched the ground as she finished singing passionately with,

♫ ~Ohhhhh~ not your prisoner

~Ohhhhh~ better listen when I say

I put my middle finger up

I'm done being ~afraaaaaiiiid...~ ♫

As the last of the song faded to a finish, with her stepping out a mini fire she'd accidentally lit with the last move, Ayden found herself right outside the Goetia mansion grounds and the nerves that had built up were forced away with a deep breath as she walked up the property and knocked on the front door,

*TCH!* *TCH!* *TCH!*

The massive door opened to reveal one of Stolas's imp butlers she'd seen around but never got his name as he spoke in his posh tone,

"The Princess has been expecting you."

"Cool." Ayden spoke nonchalantly before asking, "She he'e?"

"She went to retrieve provisions for your overnight gathering."

Ayden looked down, smiling a little ruefully at the considerate action on Via's part before joking as she entered,

"You coul' jus' say 'snacks' and 'sleepove'' y'know."

But he didn't respond and merely blinked twice before closing the door and departing to attend to his duties, leaving Ayden to shift her eyes to the side in an "alrighty then..." expression as she made her way through the house to leave her duffel bag in Via's room before heading out to the garden with her satchel still on her back.

As she passed by the topiaries that were shaped into various Hellborn and even some Living Realm animals and creatures, Ayden started thinking about what exactly she was going to say to Via as she started trying to practice,

"Hey Via, you know you' my best friend and.. we've known each othe' fer a lil' while an-ugh no! That sounds like I'm 'bout ta propose o' somethin'!" She cut herself with a frustrated exclaim before trying again, "I really ca'e about you and-and err.. what was it I told Alex and Remi when I told'em 'bout how I felt?"

"I'm also very interested in that information."

"Yah!" Ayden jumped with her fur spiked up in shock when she jolted back at the sound of Stolas's voice from where he was in a casual gardening outfit with a straw hat, red t-shirt, and brown shorts and gloves tending to a large snaptrapper-looking plant with multiple eyes as it panted like a puppy from being scratched under its "chin" within the greenhouse, whose entrance she had been walking past while rehearsing her speech.

"How long have ya been listenin'?"

"A few minutes."

"Greeeat..." Ayden leaned against the doorway with her paws pulling her bangs over her face in embarrassment.

"Is this your first time confessing to someone?" Stolas questioned innocently making Ayden peek out from under her hair with a deadpan expression as she snarked before covering her face back up,

"Ya really think you 'f all demons shoul' be askin' me this question...?"

"Fair point," Stolas spoke up, either unaffected by or unrecognizing of the sarcasm, and gave his plant a final pat before saying as he walked toward her, "But in the short time I have known you, you have proven to be a dear and trusted friend to my daughter and, however you both choose for your connection with each other to be... I know you will cherish and protect that bond." He placed a hand on Ayden's shoulder making her peek out from under her hair enough to see him before he added in a slightly darker tone, "and if you don't, I know where you live and am not afraid to rain down fatherly fury on you..."

At the mild threat toward the end, Ayden fully unhid her face as she commented only mildly unnerved,

"'Preciate that, mostly..."

"Happy to help." Stolas grinned while patting her shoulder with an abrupt tone shift before he started to walk out of the greenhouse until he stopped with a hoot to ask, "Oh! May I inquire about something?"

"Yeees?" Ayden raised a brow as she drew out her answer in confusion before Stolas manifested a red notebook out of his pocket dimension and flipped to a page before making a pen appear as he asked,

"For your training, I'm fairly certain we've covered applications for your solo powers such as heat manipulation, flame-throwing, self-healing, and controlled combustion but did we ever cover fire solidification?"

"Making fi'e solid?" Ayden looked up in thought as she pondered the question before answering, "I don' think so...?"

"I'll put it on the agenda for our next lesson whenever you're ready to resume them." Stolas was about to continue walking away while writing in the notebook when Ayden stopped him with,

"Actually think we could try now? While I'm still.. waitin' fer Via...?"

"Oh well.." Stolas looked a little surprised by the ask before he questioned with an owl-like head tilt, "If you're sure but I thought you wanted to take a break from lessons?"

"Yeh well..." Ayden put her paws in her pockets as she started shifting around uncomfortably as she revealed, "Somethin's been goin' on wi'h my powe's an'... I kinda wanna see if it's still happenin'..."

"Very well then." Stolas looked a little unsure but gestured to the side to direct, "Let us go to the other side then, there's an empty plot to practice in."

A few minutes later they were in the empty plot area that was tilled for future plant sowing with piles of dead foliage and rubble around, Stolas sitting on a bench nearby and Ayden standing in the middle of the patch of dirt before he asked,

"So what occurred with your abilities?"

"Well..." Ayden fiddled with her paws a bit as she struggled to think about her wording before starting to explain, "The othe' day, Jin went on a mission wi'h the othe's and... afte'wa'ds they told me.. they blasted fi'e outta thei' mouth on the mission."

That made Stolas look up with an eye winced in confusion as he asked,

"I thought you were unable to use your hellfire abilities in your.. feline form?"

"I thought so too but.. that's not all that happened.."

Stolas's eyebrow quirk in a questioning manner made Ayden continue as she kept fiddling with her chewed-down claws,

"Ea'lie' that day, I was trainin' by myself on the roof back home and when I tried to fi'e a blast.. it didn't come out."

"It went through to Jin instead...?"

"Maybe....? The rest o' the day when I tried to blast out 'ny fi'e, it woul'n't go and ev'ry othe' day when I try ta make my powe's go, sometimes they don't 'lways come out when I want'em to... but Jin told me they haven't tried usin'em the rest o' the time..."

"Perhaps you and your siblings are still connected on some level that is interfering with your powers." Stolas hypothesized as he looked through his notes to continue suggesting, "In past sessions with the both of you, we thought physically merging with one another was the only way to share powers between the.. twenty-eight of you.. but we haven't ruled out other factors that can inhibit them such as environment, proximity to one another, mental and emotional states..."

Snapping the book shut, Stolas stood up from the bench and started using his magic to gather some dry twigs and small branches from the ground as he devised while still looking through his notes,

"For now, we'll focus on fire solidification, see if your abilities are still being inhibited, and determine what can be done from there."

Dumping the pile of kindling material in front of her, Ayden reached an arm backward into her satchel and took out the lighter she got from Sallie May to kneel down and set the heap ablaze, after a few tries since the fuel was running out, before putting her satchel to the side and taking a deep breath to calm her nerves.

Dipping a paw into the flames, she came away with a bright haze of flames that swirled between her two paws easily as flowing water, the simple motion easing Ayden's mind some more and she let a small smile onto her face.

"So far so good..." Stolas noted before encouraging, "Now try making it solid."

"Uhh..." Ayden made an unsure noise before standing up and stretching the fiery blob between her paws until it was "pulled" taut but it was still slightly rippling around within its semi-rectangular block form like a lava lamp so she was unsure if it was actually solid.

When she looked up at Stolas, he simply made a hand motion to gesture "go on then" and she moved a paw to the bottom of the "bar" so the other could hover above before moving it down.

*Fwoosh...!*

Her paw passed through the flames to make contact with her other paw below as the flames dispersed into ashy, ember-scattered smoke and she huffed through gritted teeth at her failure,

"Hrrr...! Dammit!"

"It's alright... this is a new method we're trying out after all..." Stolas was quick to keep Ayden from further discouraging herself as he tried a new/familiar approach, "Remember the visualization method we tried for heat manipulation? Try it again; but this time, imagine the fire's energy as layers, building up on each other until it compresses into a stable surface to fully grasp."

Despite not knowing what a few of those words meant, Ayden nodded before she took another deep breath to calm herself down,

"Haaah haaaah... ok..."

After reaching down to grab more fire and repeating the calming motions, as Stolas suggested she pictured the flames in her mind stretching out into "sheets" and just putting layers and layers of them over each other before pressing them together into one solid block.

When she opened her eyes again, the bar was reformed between her paws but this time it wasn't as translucent and shimmery and was now more opaque and shiny.

"Hehe..." Ayden lightly laughed, hopeful at the new outcome, before she placed a paw underneath and above again to prepare to touch it, wincing and looking away a bit in pre-preparation for failure,

*Ding!*

Before a metallic glass clinking like sound chimed from the confirmed solidified bar of fire that was now sandwiched between her paws and wasn't dissipating into thin air,

"Haha!" Ayden laughed jubilantly before holding and tossing the bar of fire between her paws and in the air, laughing some more when the bar maintained its form throughout the actions, "Hahaha!"

"Excellent work, now," Stolas snapped his fingers and a small mound of rubble rose up to make a training dummy out of dirt and dead branches as he instructed, "Try shaping and throwing it."

Wincing an eye halfway closed in concentration, Ayden made the bar hover between her paws as she pictured the bar elongating with one side sharpening into a point and, sure enough, the physical construct molded somewhat to her mental image and looked like a crude mini stake.

"HRR!" Ayden shot an arm out to propel the construct out and it flew out of her grasp and drove itself into the "chest" of the dummy, staying solid for a few seconds before crumbling into ashes, leaving nothing but a charred gaping hole.

"FUCK YEH!" Ayden exclaimed excitedly while jumping up with her paws raised above her head triumphantly.

"Indeed!" Stolas acknowledged excitedly as he continued jotting things down in his notebook as he thought aloud while Ayden made another bar and practiced refining it to other shapes, "Think of all the applications this could have; running platforms, fighting constructs, fire-based armor, weapons, and shields-"

"HAAH!" Ayden's pupils snapped to slivers and the bar she was working on started fritzing out and erratically changing shapes from squiggly to pointy to hexagonal and she felt a surge of panic paralyze her to where she couldn't move or speak as her breath started shakingly coming through gritted fangs.

"Ayden? Are you alright?" Stolas's voice faded into the background before another voice arose making her entire being freeze further in terror,

"Dad? What's going o-Ayden?!"

*PWOOSH!!!*

The flame construct in front of her imploded in a fiery blast and a slow-motion sequence showed Ayden and Stolas being hit to the ground by the primary shockwave before a secondary wave of flames headed for the entrance where Via and Loona were standing with bags of snacks in their hands.

With her head bending all the way back on her descent to the ground, Ayden's paw reached out and some semblance of her protective instincts seemed to have kicked in as some flames from the small pile were directed toward Via and Loona and took the brunt of the fire wave but still threw them back with the shockwave of the collision.

As soon as her back between her shoulder blades with the burn scars hit the ground first, a flash of pain zipped through her,

*KRZT!*

"AGH!"

*PLSH!*

"KLCK! KOFF!" Ayden's pained scream was cut off when she coughed as she fell onto the sandy ground and nearly choked on a small wave of salty water that washed over her.

'Wait what?!'

Scrambling to her feet, Ayden saw she was unexpectedly on a vaguely familiar beach from the way she recognized the mossy tide pool rocks, rocky cliff formations, and rolling green, tree-lined hills.

"Lechuza...?" Ayden muttered to herself as the name popped into her mind, but she had little idea of how she really knew the place when-

"Ally!"

She whipped her head around and saw a woman who looked similar to her mother but was taller and wearing a navy blue skirt wrap along with a light turquoise crop top that had a white starfish on the front and her fluffy springy hair was lightly swaying in the beach breeze waving to her from the dunes where she was barefoot and ankle deep in the sand.

"Ya lil' Bush Telly! Get'cher bum back ove' he'e!" The woman called out in a light-hearted and Australian-accented tone, "Yer Mum's gonna be ruddy mad if we'e late!"

But Ayden could only stare at her before unconsciously reaching her small human hand out toward her before,

*BA-BUMP*

A heavy feeling seized her chest and suddenly she was reaching out to more familiar figures: a blonde human girl and a tall, white and pink figure, their figures blurred by the tears in her eyes and the glare of the bright light of fire before switching back to the present where she was on her back looking up at the hellish sky through the glass ceiling of the greenhouse with a sparking paw reaching upwards and disjointed segments of harden flames in front of her in a semi-shield-like construct.

"What the...?" Ayden turned her paw around, looking at the reddish-orange sparks and hardened flames with a mix of wonder and fear before a yell broke her out of her fugue state,

"What... the fuck.. was that?!"

Bolting to a sit, she saw Stolas on the verge of transforming into his full demon form in his fury with his four bloody red, large eyes fixating on her and she crawled backward in her panic as he finished his transformation with an eerie reddish-orange tinge to his body that wasn't there the last few times he'd changed into that form.

"Woah woah! Wait Dad!" Via shouted with a hand outstretched from where Loona had picked her up off the ground.

*REEECH!*

With a bone-chilling screech, Stolas lunged toward Ayden in his monstrous form but a semi-powerful body slam from Loona knocked him off course and sent him crashing into the greenhouse wall where he cracked the glass wall.

*KRCK!*

In the short time frame of Stolas recovering from the back-to-back hits, Via managed to make it close to Ayden where she was still half sitting up on the ground with the shield fragments around her and questioned frantically,

"What's going on...?!"

"I dunno, we we'e trainin' an' suddenly I'm freakin' out, he's freakin' out, and now you' freakin' out!"

"I'm not freaking out...!"

"Both of you shut up!" Loona brought them back to the situation at hand as Stolas shook his large head clear of the dirt and glass shards before leveling them all with an enraged look.

"Oh shite...!" Ayden quietly exclaimed and subconsciously the shield shards' luminescence intensified, something Loona noticed happening both to the fire constructs and the outline on Stolas's demon form so she ordered,

"Ayden, drop the shield!"

"What?!" Ayden questioned incredulously and the two started a back-and-forth argument while Stolas clawed at the ground in preparation for a charge,

"Just do it!"

"I dunno how!"

"Just go to your happy place or some shit like that!"

"Kinda ha'd ta think 'bout that!"

"Then at least move out of the way...!" Via managed to avoid the shield shards and grabbed Ayden's still-sparking paws to pull her to her feet, resulting in the two of them ending up nearly face-to-face with the quick motion and being lifted into the air with Via's magic to make her easier to move.

Despite the quick movement, Ayden realized Via's fingers were intertwining with her digits and she felt a comforting warmth grow, going up her arm and spreading to the rest of her body.

"Haah..." She quietly sighed a little from the feeling and the sparks stopped crackling around her paws before the shield fragments dissipated into embers leaving the three of them completely unshielded from the incoming attack-

*KRRRRRR!*

Or so they thought...

At the last second, Stolas skidded to a stop in front of the young trio, causing some dirt to fly up and dust them, and the fiery outline around his demon form faded allowing him to revert back to his normal form, having lost his hat in the previous implosion and was now rubbing both sets of eyes as he questioned groggily,

"What in the Seven Rings just happened...?"

"My guess is something in Ayden's powers just made you go bat shit angry crazy." Loona stated bluntly as she brushed off her arms of the grime, not looking directly at Stolas while speaking to him.

"Rage inducement entangled with fire solidification..." Stolas muttered to himself before shrugging mildly as he noted, "I suppose it is a possibility given the nature of her powers. One thing I don't understand though...-"

As he continued rambling, Ayden had still been mostly focused on her paws, after freeing them from Via's grip and being let back down onto the ground, and the events that had just occurred with her muttering one thing,

"He di'n't mean it...?"

"What was that?"

"This powe' yer sayin' it can make people do o' say things they'd neve' no'mally do?!" Ayden questioned almost desperately as she leaned forward with her paws fisted in front of her, forcing the others to lean back a bit at her uncharacteristic outburst.

"That is what rage can do yes...?" Stolas answered in a weirded-out tone and Ayden turned blank-faced before stating,

"I gotta go."

"Wait what?" Via questioned as Ayden walked past her and Loona saying,

"I'll be back la'er, I jus' gotta do somethin'."

"Wh-the wh-?!" Via stuttered as Loona ran off to catch up with Ayden but she stayed behind a second to look at her dad.

Sensing her unspoken question, Stolas nodded, giving her the go-ahead to chase after Ayden as well as Loona was asking forcefully,

"Where the fuck are you going?!"

"Maybe if I sta't lookin' from he' turf, he'll be the'e too..."

"'Her?' 'Him?'" Via questioned as she finally managed to catch up and the three of them headed back into the city in a speed-walk, "Who are you looking for?"

"Jus'... an old friend... gotta find'em..." Ayden hesitated to answer before she muttered in a one-track-mind-like tone as she walked ahead a few feet, leaving Loona and Via to whisper between the two of them,

"Think it's some kind of ex-boyfriend?"

"Ms. No-Romance? Doubt it..." Loona snarked before adding with a subtle side-eye glance, "Sides I'm pretty sure guys aren't for her."

But Via missed it as she worriedly kept her eyes on Ayden from where she was up ahead, frantically glancing at street signs before going in the direction of Pentagram City before she wondered out loud,

"Who do you think it is then?"

Loona's ears drooped back a bit as she answered hesitantly before her tone hardened to a protective one,

"Whoever it is, I'm gonna make damn sure they don't fuck with her..."

"Yeah..." Via tried to sound tough but it came out unsure as they realized they were now deep in Pentagram City, Sinners outnumbering Hellborns on the streets.

"Heeeey Ayden...?" Via called out as she and Loona caught back up with Ayden to ask her as she surveyed the half-destroyed and crumbling buildings around, "What are we looking for.. exactly...?"

"That!" Ayden perked up as she ran toward a column of a blown-up building where a spray-painted symbol of a cherry bomb in a skull outline with an X in the middle of a circle in the center was and she placed a paw on it before looking around and muttering out loud, "She's gotta be he'e somewhe'e..."

"Ayden look," Via started to say but was cut off when Ayden started scrambling up some rubble only to fall down before she kept going, her pace and actions frantic and agitated, "We want to help but we can't if you don't tell us what or who it is you're looking for..."

"I'm curious about that myself... Ally..."

A feminine voice sounded from behind them, one that made Ayden freeze with her fur spiked up before she whipped around to seethe,

"Hannah...!"

"Oh shit...!" Loona hissed as she kept an arm partially out in a protective stance as Hannah strutted out of the shadows of the building debris and closer to the trio while drawing out,

"Never thought I'd catch you back around my neck of the city..."

"HRRR!"

*TCH!*

Loona snapped her jaws close to Hannah making her stop in her tracks before she barked, "Back up Bitch...!"

But Hannah didn't look the least bit intimidated as she teased while poking Loona's nose with a finger,

"~Hmmmm!~ You're cute..." Before catching sight of Via behind Loona and smirking condescendingly, "~But not as cute as that one...~"

*PSH!*

In a near instant, Ayden was practically a streak of light from how fast she bolted between Hannah and Loona and Via as she growled,

"Get... outta he'e..." Holding her arms out in a gesturing motion as she pointed out, "Case ya ha'n't no'iced, yer outnumbe'ed he'e..."

Hannah scoffed as she flicked a paw dismissively while striding a distance away making Ayden follow her direction as she stayed stanced in front of her friends,

"TCH! Those fair-weather weaklings'll come back around, they always do once the heat's off but you know me..." Looking back at them with a smoldering glare in her eyes, "I like doing things ~the hard way...~ HRR!"

She whipped around and grabbed Ayden by the throat with one paw, lifting her clear off the ground with a choked-out cry,

"HLCK!"

"RAH!"

Making Loona snarl and lunge forward to try and help Ayden, who was thrashing in the vice-like hold-

*FWWTCH!*

"GAH!"

"OOF!"

Only to get whipped back by Hannah's tail, crashing backward into Via while Hannah managed to jump up onto some more of the building rubble on a piece of the building's floor with Ayden still struggling in her grip, choking out,

"H-How the...-?!"

"Oh please you should already know how forceful I can be when you came to me waaaaaay back then, remember...?" Hannah leered before her tone turned deadly serious as she hissed, "And because of that, no matter where you go... no matter where you run... no matter where you hide... your body will always be mine..."

She had dragged a claw down Ayden's face, increasing the pressure with each emphasis, tracing and threatening to reopen her facial scar and making her involuntarily flinch her eyes shut before looking down at the scratch scars on her arm, the supposed symbol of her control over her, with a plotting smirk.

"Let her go NOW!" Via shouted from where she and Loona managed to recover and get up from being thrown back, her purple magic starting to swirl around her clenched fists and shine in her furious-gazed eyes.

"Tch!" Hannah just snorted in amusement as she questioned with a haughty raised brow, "And uh what're you gonna do about it, Princess Prissy Feathers?" Before her expression turned dead serious again as she sneered, her grip on Ayden's throat tightened to the point where her face was starting to turn dark ashy gray and her eyes were falling shut with her thrashing slowing, "In case you haven't heard yet, demons like you won't be in charge for much longer... we're making sure of that..."

Just before Loona or Via could question that, both Ayden and Loona's ears twitched with the clinking sound that came from a few areas around them.

Loona looked down to see a lit cherry bomb that had a mini skull with an X for an eye, similar to the graffiti tag, close to them and yelled,

"Get down!"

Managing to grab Via and pull her down and away from the bomb before-

*PSH!*

*PSH!* *PSH!*

*PSH!*

Plumes of bright red smoke with cherry and sparkle shaped glitter patterns went off around them all and, behind Hannah and Ayden's silhouettes in the smoke another figure appeared in the haze as she yelled,

"You know what gets me goin'? Rippin' up fuckwads who're trespassin' on my turf!"

The smoke clearing enough to reveal the new arrival was none other than Cherri Bomb!

AN- WOO! First part's finally here! And back on a Sunday! (Sorry about the longer-than-expected wait... hope it's still worth the wait...)

I had a little trouble figuring out what song should open this chapter and essentially set the tone for the rest of the story so hope I did alright with my selection ^^;

Also for the sake of flow and suspense, I decided to split this original "episode" into four parts instead of three so hopefully, the sequence of events is much smoother now

Special shoutout I wanna make is to help_me_make_constellations who, for those of you who might prefer being an audiobook listener, creates and posts audio readings of this fanfic on AO3 under the aforementioned username and over on Youtube under the username TahraetheStoryteller. She's already done up to Ozzie's+Queen Bee at this point and has done covers for other people's fics as well so I highly recommend checking her account and channel out ^^

Just a few notes and references for this one:

As mentioned before the song for this chapter is "Middle Finger" by BohnesGarden outfit Stolas and the plant are based on one of the official? Helluva Boss Instagram posts (not sure if they're still canon...)

And again, if anything doesn't make sense as to why Ayden reacts to certain things a certain way feel free to comment or DM/PM me and I'll explain as much as I can without spoiling anything that's going to be revealed in the next four parts ^^

(To the guest Arika over on Fanfiction . net, no Millie and Moxxie don't hate each other in Unhappy Campers their emotions were just running a little high because of the stress of the job, their personal feelings, and the grief from Ayden having died less than a week prior, I wouldn't call it overreacting either. And please don't demand answers like that on the public comment forum...)

Until the next one, hopefully sooner than expected, Bye!