NAOKI GLARED AT THE THREE KIDS BEFORE HER. Kasper Daniels lay on the floor, unconscious. 

They were in a classroom, the door locked and the shades drawn, the lights lowered to dim. Xandra and Paris were sitting on top of the desks, and Dexter had pulled a chair out next to them. The second all five of them had gotten inside, Naoki had whipped around, smiled apologetically at Kasper, then slammed her fist into the side of his head and knocked him out cold. 

Now she was glowering at them like they'd murdered her grandmother and danced atop her coffin in neon high heels. 

"Do you see what you've made me do?" she demanded, pointing at the snoring body at her feet.

"But he's a Puppet!" Paris protested. 

"Oh, gee, I guess we should just kill him off too then, yeah?" Naoki said sarcastically. "Kasper's still going to wake up with a lump the size of Texas on his skull and an eye blacker than your morals, not to mention a broken arm, but it doesn't matter because he's a Puppet!" 

Paris shrank. "Sorry." 

Naoki sighed, leaning against the door. "No, I am. I'm sorry. Especially to you and Dexter," she shut her eyes. "It's been... a long week. And I'm sure you guys are feeling just as overwhelmed." 

"I'm sure it's hard for you, too," Dexter said kindly. 

"You're doing your best," Xandra acknowledged grudgingly. 

"Yeah it flat out sucks here, not gonna lie," Paris crossed his arms. 

They glared at him. 

"I know Illias and I haven't been the shining models of Keepers that we should've been, either," Naoki continued, ignoring them. "But I promise, I'm going to do whatever it takes to keep you all safe. Relationship problems aside." 

Dexter smiled encouragingly at her. 

"But I need you guys to work with me too," she said seriously. "I know you're new to this, relatively, but we spent a week training almost non stop. You guys are capable, I know you are. So don't lose your heads. Stick to your training. Follow your gut, but not too much."

"So what's our next move, then?" Paris asked. 

Naoki nudged the sleeping Kasper on the ground. "When Kasper wakes up, Xandra is going to follow him to his house. Once you get there, knock him out again with those sleeping pills I gave you. I don't care if you have to force it down his mouth. We're going to wipe his memory anyway." 

Xandra nodded, accepting the small packet of sulphur-yellow pills that Naoki passed her. 

"Once you incapacitate him, get to Illias' house. Here's a key, his apartment is the penthouse. Just go straight up, and feel free to use the bedroom to the left, across from the master bedroom. That's my room. Take the pill yourself. When you get to Mirage, we'll meet you there.

"Paris, you and Dex and I are going to enter Mirage, and do the usual. Once Xandra knocks Kasper out and tells us where he lives, we'll all get there and kill the Damia. Kasper will be saved, and then we can wipe his memory of this whole disaster, and pray to all the holy gods that Kiernan doesn't find out," she said grimly. "Got it?" 

"Got it," they chorused. 

"Perfect. I'm sending Kasper home now. Xandra, follow him from a distance. Paris, you and Dexter are going to clean desks until I get the message from Xands," Naoki folded her arms. "We have to at least convince Brady we did some disciplinary work." 

"So Xandra gets to be a spy, and I have to be a- a- a maid?" Paris spluttered. 

Naoki threw a rag at him, and it splatted clean onto his face. "Get to work, Cinderella." 

Dexter caught his. "Betcha I can clean more than you." 

Paris was already throwing himself at the tables. "Oh, you're on, Dex." 

ILLIAS GLANCED OVER AT THEO, who was deep into the book in his hands. At first Illias had began by reading aloud, but Theo claimed that Illias was too slow and his voice was too expressive, so he read it himself. Now he couldn't put the damn thing down, and was nearly finished with it. 

"Good book?" Illias asked quietly, grinning. 

Theo nodded emphatically, eyes still glued to the page. "I like Jesper." 

"I knew you would." 

"I bet you like Matthias, don't you." 

"What's that supposed to mean?" 

"Tree-hugger." 

"At least I don't have an addiction problem." 

"Ouch, Helvar, low blow." 

"Oh whatever, Fahey." 

They laughed. Theo set the book down, saving his spot with a napkin. 

"How's your ribs?" he gestured. 

Illias flexed slightly. "Feeling better. That potion we took speeds up healing, so I can at least run around without any damage. If I take any blows though..." 

"Same here," Theo winced as he touched his sore flesh. "Feels like I got run over by a truck." 

"I kinda slammed you into a countertop." 

"You lifted me up?" 

"My power is enhanced strength," Illias shrugged. "It wasn't hard." 

"Okay, Mister Strongman. What's Naoki's power?" 

Illias was about to answer when the med bay door opened, and General Rox strode in. 

"Theo, Illias. How are you two feeling?" he asked kindly. 

Theo batted his eyes, tugging his bed clothes so they were a little tighter around his abs. "Much better, General." 

Illias rolled his eyes. 

"Good to hear it," Rox was apparently oblivious. "If you two are up for moving around, I've got some charts and data I want you to look at." 

Illias was out of bed before he could finish. "Okay! I mean, yeah. As you command, general." 

Rox laughed, tousling his hair. "Let's go, boys." 

Theo scrambled after them, feeling for the first time in a while, at peace. 

XANDRA WAS NO SPY. Hell, she wasn't even a sneaky person. Yeah, maybe she did some morally questionable things and got away with them, but it was more about timing and chance and pure risk than super sneaky feet. 

So Kasper and his Damia were basically deaf, blind and stupid, because Xandra tracked them all the way to Kasper's house. 

It had been a close call. Three times she almost face-planted in the sidewalk, twice she almost got ran over by a taxi in order to catch the same light, she tripped on a stray cat and got clawed half to death, and she nearly smacked into Kasper himself when he stopped to light a blunt. 

"Goddamn, you dumb ass creep," Xandra hissed, nearly slamming herself into a building trying to turn the corner as Kasper peeked behind himself, checking to see if he'd dropped his lighter. "Just walk in one straight line and get home!" 

Finally, they made it to the house. Kasper lived in a shady looking apartment complex, with a grungy courtyard, brownish-black bricks and several homeless people ambling around with their pants hung low and their hats ratty. 

Kasper buzzed himself through the door, striding through. Xandra wedged her foot between the gap before it could close, stretching in a near-split to keep him from seeing her through the glass. 

She had to do it before the elevators. If Kasper saw her, he'd recognise her, and the Damia would be out to get her in the blink of an eye. 

Right before the elevators, though, so it's easier to drag his body inside, she mused, slipping through the door, and letting it close softly. 

Inside, the building smelled like cigarette smoke and piss. Xandra wrinkled her nose, even as a twinge of pity built up inside. It couldn't be easy to live like this, to walk so normally among poverty and despair. The stench of hopelessness almost overpowered the smell of smoke. 

It made her wonder what Kasper's Damia would look like. Something so terrifying it rendered him to pieces. 

Kasper clicked the faded not-quite-white button, the yellow-yolk light blinking on. 

Xandra crept up behind him. 

He rubbed at his nose, sniffing. 

She raised her fists. 

Kasper stilled. 

She brought her hand down just as he turned, nailing him full on in the face. 

"What the fuck?" Kasper yelled, nose dripping blood, bent at a horrible angle.

Xandra panicked. She shoved up into his nose harder, a self-defence tactic she'd learned a while ago. Kasper screamed, blood gushing everywhere, then passed out on the floor. 

Xandra panted, blood dripping down her fingers. 

The elevator doors parted with a cheery ding! 

Kasper twitched on the ground, blood soaking his grubby cotton shirt a deep maroon. 

"This probably could've gone better," she muttered, and dragged him into the elevator. 

THEY MET IN MIRAGE, black pits howling hungrily, angry winds whipping through the air. Instead of the normally blue-on-blue sky, grey streaks ripped through the patchwork like the tails of comets. 

"Is it supposed to look like that?" Paris asked, nearly toppling over trying to look at the sky. 

"Mirage has weather shifts, just like the real world," Naoki crossed her legs, leaning against a chunk of asphalt outside the school-slash-Keeper-fort. They were waiting for Xandra. 

Dexter was poking at the edges of a black hole, Paris holding onto his collar for good measure as he studied the sky. 

"So these things, they really take away your ability to Walk?" Dexter asked. 

"So we assume. In all honesty, we don't know half as much about Mirage as we pretend to. But when newcomers arrive, and they're panicking, and the only semblance of authority says "I don't know", panic tends to grow higher." 

Dexter nodded, sliding a chunk of rock through the hole. It vanished. 

"I see Xandra," Naoki stood, brushing off the legs of her Keeper armour. 

Paris and Dexter were clad in the black sneak suits that Keepers wore underneath, but had yet to "earn" the Keeper armour. (Naoki just told them that nothing would fit, since all the armour was tailored, but Kiernan liked to maintain something like sacredness among the Keepers.) Instead, they had the barebones of armour, with light guards and thin plastic covering their stomachs and chests. Paris opted for a black face mask, claiming it made him look "cool". 

"Everything went smoothly?" Naoki asked, tossing Xandra her catsuit. 

She caught it. "Yeah. More or less." 

"Is that blood?" Paris sounded like a little kid, asking if his friend was holding the new Pokemon Sun deck. 

Xandra pushed through the school doors. "It got a little messy." 

They waited for her to change. When Xandra resurfaced, Naoki pulled out a map from a pocket at her side. 

"Where does our Damia live?" she flattened the map against the rock she'd been leaning on. 

Xandra tapped the spot on the map. "Fifty-second and eleventh ave. Those shady apartment complexes by the Starbucks." 

"Ooh, Starbucks," Paris gasped. 

"We can walk," Dexter offered. "It's not that far." 

"How about a nice jog instead," Naoki winked, folding up the map and pocketing it. 

"You just have to get more training in, don't you," Paris groaned. 

Xandra smirked. "See you there, slowpokes." 

She zipped off in a blur of black. 

Paris kicked a rock, sulking after Naoki and Dexter. "I wanna be the Flash too." 

"WELCOME TO THE WAR ROOM," Rox pushed open the doors to the girl's locker rooms. Inside, instead of the customary beige lockers, long mirror and running showers, was a room coated in maps, diagrams, drawings, and pictures of deceased Keepers. 

"Why the locker room?" Theo asked. "Not that, normally, I'd be complaining. But it seems a lot less crowded in here than I'd prefer." 

"The locker room has the best defences. It's soundproofed, with thick walls, and it's nearly impossible to access without being seen on our security cameras or by someone patrolling the area," Illias explained as they went deeper in. 

There, several Keepers were sketching out diagrams of strange, box-shaped contraptions. 

"You should bring Paris here," Theo murmured, touching a blueprint. "He'd love this stuff." 

"We will, sometime," Illias said, off-handedly. "Here, this way." 

They turned the corner, to where Rox was spreading out another map of Manhattan. 

"So what's the deal, Gen?" Theo asked. 

"Don't call me that. Here's the idea," Rox smoothed the map out. "We started to look at patterns among the Damia's Puppets. Maybe there's a regional explanation, or something the Queen is looking for." 

"So far we haven't found a lot," Illias showed him the black dots that sprinkled the island, ranging from Hamilton Heights all the way down to Battery Park. "It doesn't make sense." 

Theo studied the map. "I've been to a lot of these places." 

Rox and Illias blinked. "Huh." 

"Yeah..." Theo tapped a few locations, then a few more. "I kinda... you know." 

Rox raised a dark eyebrow. "Please specify, Mr. Sun-Laurent." 

Theo rolled his eyes. "I fucked a bunch of people at their houses. A lot of these houses, actually." 

"Jesus, Theo--" 

"We're often paired together, yes." 

"--At least your promiscuity is coming into use now," Illias covered his face with his hands. "Good God." 

"Better Theo," Theo said, pleased. 

"So how many of these houses?" Rox asked. 

Theo frowned, thinking. "Like, half? I can't remember exactly, but I do remember how many audiobooks I listened to on the way home. So like, by subway, that's about two hours at most. And a couple minutes at least. So I've been definitely up to here." 

He tapped the highest point on the map. 

Rox looked both impressed and afraid. 

"Wait," Illias looked up from rethinking his life choices. "Does that mean Theo..." 

"Oh no." Theo's face went slack. "Question. Did I fuck a bunch of those creepy-ass monsters?"

Rox hesitated. 

"Oh God, somebody get me a shower, I need to--" 

Rox grabbed him by the shoulder. "Calm down, kid. You probably didn't." 

Illias whispered, "You don't know that." 

Theo made a squeaking sound. 

"But now we can conclude that the majority of the Puppets are students," Rox mused, holding his chin. 

"I've got another question," Theo raised a hand. "So when I did the dumb thing and tried to take over the Damia, it was able to control me and Hanne. And Damia abduct people in their homes, or wherever they sleep. So...aren't their families in danger of being corrupted too?" 

Illias stared at him. "That means entire buildings... blocks... streets..." 

"This puts so much more at stake." Rox sat down, staring at the map before him with horror. "So many more people could be Puppets, and we would never know." 

Theo sat down, too. "I wish I hadn't thought of that." 

Illias took a breath. "Okay. We need a plan. What do we know? You can't be inhabited twice, once you're Puppeted by a Damia, but their families are still at risk. And anybody who sleeps close to them." 

"So what, we just wait for everyone to get abducted, then fight the Damia off? That's a shit load of work," Theo said. 

"Or," Illias furrowed his brow, "We find a way to ward entire buildings off, not just individual people." 

"Impossible," Rox shook his head. "We don't have enough wards. We used most of them safekeeping the school." 

"So we make more," Illias said, jumping to his feet. "We could do it! And the more Keepers we induce, the more powers we get. Who knows what kinds of things people could do? Maria can make a healing potion, maybe she can figure out how to make a ward potion too! And Ezra's wicked good at construction, maybe there's a way we can combine powers and make wards physically? I--" 

"We've tried it all, Illias," Rox said softly. "We tried everything. Nothing ever works." 

Illias deflated, and Theo squeezed his shoulder. 

"We'll find a way," Rox reassured him. "We have no other choice. We just have to keep thinking." 

PARIS WAS ATHLETIC, RELATIVELY SPEAKING, but he was gasping for air by the time they got to Kasper's house, sweat dripping off his black body suit. 

"Gross," Dexter wrinkled his nose. 

"Shut up," Paris panted, crouching over. "Holy shit. Can't breathe." 

Dexter rubbed his back comfortingly. 

"Need a moment?" Naoki teased, stretching her toes. 

"How-- you-- so-- calm--" Paris wheezed. 

She cracked her neck. "Training. Like I said, I earned my spot as a Keeper." 

"She's implying that you won't make it," Xandra teased. 

"You're-- mean--" he choked out. 

Dexter patted his shoulder. 

"Let's go," Naoki gestured to the door. "We don't have time to waste." 

The glass was already shattered, so Naoki swept her hand along the frame, clearing any glass away for the others, then stepped through. Xandra followed, Dexter on her tail, Paris wheezing behind them. 

It was creepily quiet in the dim, sickly light. The hallways were silent, and every step they took echoed like the rattle of a cannon. 

"Elevator?" Xandra whispered. 

"Stairs," Naoki replied. "Electricity probably doesn't work." 

"No," Paris pleaded. "No more exercise." 

"Buckle up, French Fry," Xandra hip-checked him as she walked by. "You can handle a few stairs, can't you?" 

Fervently, Paris shook his head. 

They climbed in silence, the rattle of Naoki's armour shuttling up and down the reverberating staircase, an occasional gasp from Paris or shushing from Xandra. Dexter moved with unsettling quiet, his dancer's feet padding like a panthers along the smooth concrete. 

"Fourth floor," Xandra whispered. 

Naoki opened the door, crouching through, sword unsheathed at her hip. Xandra slipped two daggers from their holsters at the base of her spine. Paris hefted his black carbon hilt, and Dexter touched the grenades slung around his hips. 

"Ready?" Naoki checked over her shoulder. Paris was startled to find real concern there. He'd never seen Naoki Mae as the mother hen type, but in a dreamscape with demons that could possess humans, he supposed it wasn't the most outlandish thing to happen. 

"Ready," they nodded. 

Naoki burst the door down to apartment 4G. The others blasted in, weapons drawn, footsteps thundering, ready to fight. 

author's note! 

hi guys <3 

i'll just let you all know that there's only a 60% chance of one of the gang dying. i'm still rethinking it, because obviously you guys don't want your babies to die, and while i'm a sadist when it comes to these things, i'm also not mean. 

so have your hopes but don't keep them up XD

okay see you around for the next chapter! 

also screw updating on Wednesdays, i think i update enough to not have to have a regular schedule LMAO