"Welcome welcome, to the SECOND ever meeting of THE one and only Demon Protection Squad! Hosted by yours truly," Scar grinned and tipped his hat before doing a little spin on his heel.

"Woooo!" Impulse cheered, clapping with Bdubs. Scar steadied himself after his spin and walked back over, plunking himself down in the chair across from Bdubs and Impulse.

The three of them had gathered at Scar's house for this meeting, and were all sitting around his living room area, mugs of steaming hot tea before them. Impulse wasn't the biggest tea fan, as he was really more of a coffee guy, but he was giving it a shot. Well, honestly, as long as a drink had caffeine in it, he appreciated it.

Originally, they'd all met up at Scar's bakery, before Impulse had convinced them to go to Scar's house instead. While the bakery was full of wonderfully sweet treats and snacks that were perfect for a club meeting, it was also far too public for secret club meeting.

The wide glass windows meant that people on the street could see in, and the 'open' sign meant people could come in at any time. Since Impulse had agreed to show off some more of his demon powers, and since he'd be dropping his aura for them, he didn't want to risk having any of the other hermits seeing in. At least if someone came over to Scar's place they'd knock first or something, giving Impulse the few seconds he'd need to put up the aura again.

While they weren't at the bakery, that didn't mean that Scar and Bdubs hadn't wanted to take half of the bakery with them. The table before them was loaded with scones and cookies and doughnuts— well, let's say that Impulse knew why Scar carried around pocket cookies, the man simply never ran out of baked goods.

Bdubs grabbed one of the pastries, a jelly tart shaped like Jellie. "Alright, first things first," he said, taking a massive bite before talking again, "I have BIG news. About, of course, the running Tango issue."

Scar raised a curious eyebrow, subtly grabbing a cookie and motioning for him to continue, while Impulse pulled in an excited breath.

"I was talking to him the other day, and I brought up a little thing or two about demons," Bdubs waved his hand around as he spoke, scattering pastry crumbs on the floor. "Because, of course, he thinks I'm just interested in them because of that day at the library—"

"So that makes you the perfect person for the mission!" Scar interrupted, eyes wide, yet obviously not noticing the pastry flakes raining down onto his carpet. Bdubs nodded vigorously, with an almost smug grin on his face.

"Anyways though, he definitely doesn't mean what he said that day, he told me himself. All I had to do was bring up some cool demon facts and he almost instantly doubled back!" Bdubs finished his sugary treat and grinned.

"But how?" Impulse muttered, narrowing his eyes in confusion. Extremely biased people don't usually change their opinions in a dime like that.

"I think it has something to do with Zedaph," Bdubs answered with a shrug. "Tango told me that apparently Zed doesn't hold any strong opinions on demons, so he decided that he shouldn't either. He's easily swayed I guess."

"Neat," Scar drummed on his knees with his fingers. Impulse briefly remembered Xisuma saying something about how Scar shouldn't have caffeine, but it slipped his mind fairly quickly. "I think we can call 'Operation convince-Tango-not-to-be-a-meanie' effectively complete now! And you, Mr. Impulse, can show us the rest of your amoizin' magic!"

"Yeah! Drop that silly aura already!" Bdubs agreed, turning to Impulse like an eager toddler.

"Ugh, the peer pressure! Fineeee," Impulse said sarcastically with a roll of his eyes. He scooted a little further from Bdubs to allow his wings room, before releasing the spell that kept his human appearance in place. In a shower of purple sparks, his demon features came back to life. Horns grew out from his scalp, ears elongated, and shimmering wings unfurled.

Impulse curled his pointed tail around his leg and smiled. "Tada!"

Now it was Scar's turn to clap, his eyes glowing with amazement, even though he'd seen Impulse do this already, at their first meeting. "Gosh you're such a pretty demon, Impulse, I can't say it enough! your wings are so sparkly!"

Impulse felt blush creeping across his cheeks at Scar's comment. He wasn't sure if it was out of embarrassment or delight, or just unfamiliarity with people complementing him so much. Well, Skizz would complement him, but not nearly as often as Scar did. But to be fair, Skizz never really knew the depth of his insecurities with his demon features.

"Thank you," Impulse mumbled, brushing out one of his wings. "Now.." He held out a hand and traced the shape of a heart into the air with his pointer finger. A trail of soft, golden smoke was left behind it. "Magic trick of the day— shadow drawing."

Scar and Bdubs stared starry eyed as he made a few more shapes in the air. A smiley face and a star joined the heart before all three faded away at the snap of a finger, smoke dispersing around the room.

"Why's it yellow?" Bdubs asked curiously, waving a hand through the dissipating smoke.

"Every demon has their own magic color for simple spells like shadow drawing, and mine just happens to be a golden yellow. More powerful spells typically retain the deep purple aura of dark magic though" Impulse explained while trying to draw a cat face. "I can also make it glow, like this," he put the palm of his hand to the finished cat face and it lit up. When he snapped his fingers, the glowing smoke rained down in sparkles.

"So prettyyyyy," Scar breathed out, clapping slowly. Below him, Jellie had appeared out of nowhere and was batting at the slowly moving sparkles. Impulse laughed and made a quick scribble before popping it into another puff of sparkles for Jellie.

Fuzzy seemed to enjoy the magic too, the little moth crawled out from where she'd been nestled in his hair and down his arm onto his hand. It was as if she wanted to watch the magic more closely.

"Alright, this next spell is one that I know Fuzzy likes," Impulse turned his hand over so that the moth would sit in his palm, "It's a simple light spell, and it's easiest to do in the hands or eyes." Impulse sent his magic into his fingers and let his hand shine a dim yellow, it was the same light he'd used that had attracted Fuzzy in the first place. The moth spun excitedly in his hand, fluttering her wings to and fro.

"Aweee cute little princess," Scar cooed in the same voice he uses to talk to Jellie.

"Ick," Bdubs huffed, crossing his arms, "It's still a bug and I still don't like it."

Impulse opened his mouth to protest that, but felt a strange chill run down his spine that made him stop. Fuzzy's tiny feet felt like they were burning holes into his palm and when he looked down at her it was like he was being watched.

Well, that was silly, of course he was being watched, Fuzzy was just looking at him after all. She was just looking at him with those eyes that were too wide and too bright and too intelligent to be an insect's. That was... It was— fine, it was fine, Impulse told himself, trying to shake off the unease.

"She's not icky at all," Impulse snapped back at Bdubs finally. Both of them frowned at one another, Bdubs shaking his head. "She's a bug though, bugs aren't cute." His tone was as argumentative as ever.

For a moment, Impulse knew that Bdubs was right, as he looked back at Fuzzy and her almost humanoid— no no, beady eyes. Bugs have beady eyes that aren't cute or nice to look at. Fuzzy was a moth, an insect, nothing else, so she had beady eyes like she was supposed to.

Scar said something to Bdubs defensively about how cute Fuzzy was that Impulse barely heard. There was a whining ring slowly filling his ears. How was Fuzzy supposed to be cute when she was staring at him like that? His head hurt. When had his head started hurting?

Impulse let the glow in his hand fade away, maybe he'd overworked his magic and given himself a headache... No, no that didn't make sense, because he'd barely done two spells and it wasn't like he was out of practice because he'd been doing his cloaking spells on the daily. The ringing started to grow louder and Impulse wasn't sure he could hear the others over it even if he was trying his hardest to.

He stared at Fuzzy. She stared back harder, because somehow that was possible.

Everyone gets ringing ears from time to time, right? Wait- no, they don't? Did? Impulse didn't know, and he couldn't hear himself think because it was loud from the ringing and quiet because he couldn't hear the other two— loud and quiet, all at once. He panicked, was he... was he dying? Crazy things happened to people out of the blue sometimes like brain aneurisms and seizures and cardiovascular arrest and freaky stuff like that so what if he was dying?!

The panic rose, bubbling in his chest and making it ache too. It laughed at him, sneered and mocked and taunted.

The panic rose when he felt a hand shaking his shoulder that brought with it a touch that burned.

The panic rose and he heard a whistling noise that wasn't the ringing in his head because it was the air in his lungs.

The panic rose. He felt like he was dying, and that was because he was.

Oh no. He was dying.

Oh gods no, he'd broken himself by light magic-ing too hard and now his brain was gonna explode and he was gonna die a horrible painful death with all the ringing in his ears and the thrum of his heartbeat in his head and the cold and shivery feeling that he was being watched from every single angle.

"॥ᒍ⚍↸╎↸╎ᒣ... i̵̪̦̙͑̊̈̎̚͝!̸̢̡̧̛̮̱̳͉̘ᒷ̶̨̖͖̰̳̍͛̀͝ᖋ̵̯̣̹̜̳̯̲̘͌̈∷̸̨̡̨̡̥̖͓̦̓|̸̭̗̣̲̖̮̩͊̀͗:̸̨̡̦͊̉̌͑̄?"

Impulse... heard something?

It was in a language he didn't understand and that scared him. And he didn't think he could see Bdubs and Scar anymore and that scared him too.

No... no no no no, he'd really gone and died, hadn't he?

"॥ᒷᖋ⍑ᕊ⚍ᒣ⍑╎ϟϟ╎┤リᖋᒣ⚍∷ᒷ╎ϟ
∴ᒷᖋ·ǀ·— ⍑ᖋ∷↸ᒣᒍ⍑ᒍ|:↸
ϟᒣᒷᖋ↸॥...

∴ᖋ╎ᒣ∴ᖋ╎ᒣ, ┤ᒍᒣ╎ᒣ"

The voice spoke again except it was different this time... a different person speaking, maybe.

The ringing in his ears grew louder still, and at this point Impulse assumed his ears must be bleeding because of how badly it hurt. Distantly, he thought his body, wherever it was, let out a groan of discomfort.

"╎ᒣ'ϟ...╎ᒣ'ϟ⍑╎ᒲ╎ᒣ'ϟ∷ᒷᖋ|:|:॥⍑╎ᒲ...ᒍ⍑╎ᒲi!॥..."

The first voice spoke this time, and it sounded kind and calm. Or maybe sad. That word... that last word, Impulse felt deja vu for a second and he tried his hardest to remember where he knew that voice from but his headache was still so ever present.

The best way to explain it was that the first voice was like water, and the other voice was like wind. Hmm, Water and Wind, Wind and Water. He didn't know how he knew that, or how it made sense, but that's how they sounded. It was absurd, all of it confusing. Were the voices the ones who were watching him? Why? Was he dead yet?

If these were the guide angels to the afterlife, they were doing a real shit job.

"⍑ᒲᒲ ╎ᒣ'ϟᖋᕊ╎ᒣᕊ̶̝̬̑͂̋̊͘͠|̴̖͍̻͚̭͓̊̈́̌̅̔:̵̢̳͕͙̼̳͐́̀̅͆͝⚍̶͍̥͆∷̷̨̤̲̱̎̈́͆͌̂∷̵̡̛̀̏̃॥̷͇͇̺̩͌̆̊͂̐͝ͅͅ.̴̨̲̦̲̤̣̎... ᕊ⚍ᒣ╎ᒣϟ⍑╎ᒲ,॥ᒷᖋ⍑" Wind-voice murmured in his head. That felt like the last straw for Impulse.

Wind and Water needed to shut up and get the hell out of his brain. They clearly weren't killing him, doing something important or notable, so they shouldn't be here, just chatting away.

Impulse let out a soundless scream, feeling his face flinch and his eyes blink. He blinked again and again and again until a fuzzy image of Scar's face floated at the back of his mind. Scar was there, sitting in front of him. Bdubs was there, resting a hand on Impulse's arm.

He could feel them. Wind and Water couldn't, so they didn't matter and they needed to leave. But they didn't leave, they just kept staring.

He sucked in a shuddery breath, the headache getting worse and the image of his friends fading into the back of his head, being replaced with a fuzzy black. The pounding of his heartbeat infesting every inch of his brain was the only thing that indicated he had a heart somewhere at all. Far out in the physical world, his body curled in on itself in pain, pathetically.

"i!ᒷᖋ∷|:—i!ᒷᖋ∷|:ϟᒣᒍi!․■․ϟᒣᒍi!॥ᒍ⚍'∷ᒷ⍑⚍∷ᒣ╎リ┤⍑╎ᒲ․■․"

Water was loud, why did Water have to be so loud?

"∴⍑ᖋᒣ?! ᔮᒍᒲᒷ ᒍリ̇, /̶ᒷ̶|:̶ᑑ̶⚍̶ᖋ̶—┤∷╎ᖋリ↸ᒍᒷϟᒣ⍑╎ϟᖋ|:|:ᒣ⍑ᒷᒣ╎ᒲᒷ╎ᒣ'ϟ ⎓╎リᒷ—"

Wind's nonchalant tone countered Water's shouting, but it made Impulse's head more staticky. The two were... arguing?

"i!ᒷᖋ∷|:╎⍊ᒷϟᒷᒷリᒷリᒍ⚍┤⍑⋮⚍ϟᒣϟᒣᒍi!—"

Water's voice cut off, and something stopped being done. There was a wingbeat, and several more, the buzz of a moth, replacing the ringing in his ears. Clarity returned, the room returned, Scar and Bdubs returned, all in a blink.

Impulse lurched forward with a gasp, falling into someone's arms. His clawed hands scrabbled for purchase, eventually finding Scar's jacket and holding onto it like a lifeline. What the actual fuck just happened to him?

"Impulse— Impulse are you back with us?" Scar stammered, pulling back and steadying Impulse, holding him at arms length. Impulse nodded shakily, lifting his gaze up. Scar's face was contorted in concern and fear, his eyebrows upturned and his eyes blown wide. "Y-Yeah, I... I think so?" Impulse replied with a wheeze at the back of his throat, internally cringing at how stuttery and quiet his voice was.

Behind Scar, Jellie had jumped up onto the table and was growling at something, her ears flattened to her head. Impulse followed the cat's stare up to Scar's shoulder, where Fuzzy sat, oblivious to the angry cat behind her. When Impulse looked at the moth, an echo of Wind's sharp voice passed through his head.

No... no no no that couldn't have been his little moth's doing, that... that...

"Do you... do you mind explaining what the heck just happened?" Bdubs trilled from behind him, his voice an octave higher than it should be. Impulse didn't know when Bdubs had moved, or the reason why, but the panic in the shorter man's voice was eerily similar to his own.

Impulse swallowed down another gulp of air, breathing feeling much harder than it should've been. "I... I- I don't... I don't know... wh- what that was," he whispered, "B-but I think Fuzzy did it." Impulse let go of Scar's jacket with one hand and pointed a shaky finger at the moth in question.

The moth and the cat staring her down.

The moth and the strange markings on her wings.

The moth and her disembodied voice of wind.

The moth and her not-quite beady eyes.

What in Notch's name just happened to him?

~ end chapter 16 ~

A/N: Yep. I disappeared for nearly a month only to return with this extremely fricking weird chapter. Seriously though, I got really busy with moving, and then visiting relatives, and I hardly had time to write and when I did, ✨ writers block ✨ and ✨ zero motivation ✨ so that was fun. If ya need translations for the galactic don't be afraid to ask, I will supply. :) I am internally exploding with excitement for chapter 17, see y'all again soon...

(P.S. I recently got complete karma for writing that bit in chapter 10 where Jevin flicks the lights on and off, because one of my little cousins at a family reunion found the light switch. I just about lost my marbles.)