Get in Loser, We're Going Demon Hunting

“Hey, I need a hand with something.”

Mercury practically jumped out of her seat, her hand instinctively moving to her hip only to find that her gun was not there. And of course it wasn’t. She almost never wore it at the guildhall, especially in her own suite. Luckily, her emerald gaze set on the intruder to see none other than Jadus, the red headed demon who was the benefactor of her magic. Mercury glared at him playfully. “Stars above, don’t you know how to knock?” she asked. It was then she noticed the somewhat urgent look in his eyes, and now that her shock had worn off she realized it was a bit strange that he’d elected to show up directly in her room at Silver Wolf. The two of them never met at the guild hall. She frowned. “What’s up?”

Despite the fact that something was clearly off, he still grinned at her with his usual ease and flopped a seat down on her bed. “Something came up that I need your help with. Remember Thaken?”

“I think so. He’s that other demon you’ve been trying to outplay, right? You two have been going back and forth for a while or something.”

He narrowed his eyes at her like she’d just insulted him, though there was a twinkle of mischief in his eyes that betrayed he wasn’t actually mad. “‘Trying to outplay,’ she says, like I haven’t been turning circles around him for the last two decades just for laughs.” Jadus huffed a bit in feigned offense, drawing a snort from the woman before he continued. “Anyway, yeah that’s the guy. I guess I finally broke him, cause he snapped and decided to make a reckless move that not even the Primes do without years of consideration.”

She raised a brow in curiosity, recalling what information she knew about the Primes. From what he’d told her in the past, they were essentially the most powerful and influential of his race, treated like kings and queens within their respective domains. “You gonna keep me in suspense?”

“He’s attacking Earthland, specifically one of the cities in Fiore. Just popped right down and started summoning more demons and spirits, driving the people out and possessing them. He’s trying to bring his army through the veil to start conquering the mortal realm one town at a time.”

“Dick move,” she commented, with surprisingly little empathy toward the situation or the people caught up in it.

“Right? Anyway, I need you to go clean that up for me.”

“Not that I’m not flattered,” Mercury told him, even as she made her way across the room to retrieve Mercy, strapping the gun and its holster to her hip, “But won’t I be a bit useless in a fight against a demon? I use the same magic you do.”

He shrugged. “You used to. We don’t really have the time to get into the details right now, but I’ve been studying you in our training ever since you took that totem. Your magic has definitely changed. I don’t think it’s fully demonic in nature anymore. Besides, you’ll hardly need demon slaying magic for this guy, he’s going to be a pushover for you. Although fair warning, you may still want to bring some back up, if only to help with the numbers you’ll be up against.”

Mercury gave that some thought as she slipped on her boots. Her first thought was to contact Vandrad, but the surly Fairy Tail wizard was off on another job that he hadn’t needed her for. Who else did she know that she could take along? Her gaze glanced over to the computer monitor she’d been at only minutes before, where LacTube was currently up on the browser and a thought came to her. Tsubasa seemed a bright kid that would be interested in helping out this kind of thing. He’d struck her as having a rather adventurous spirit that wasn’t necessarily afraid of a little danger, and she was interested in seeing what he was capable of.

“Alright, I know a kid that can probably help. Where am I going?”

A few minutes later, she was knocking on the young man’s door at his room, her internal radars already confirming that he was there. Once he opened the door, Tsubasa would see Mercury standing there in an overly long white and tan button up shirt over a pair of shorts. The shirt had a somewhat dramatic collar to it from which a long red mantle hung behind her from one shoulder. There were gloves on her hands, and she was outfitted with the same pouch ensemble on her thigh that she’d been wearing the day they’d met. Now, he would also see an overly large pistol strapped to her other hip.

Mercury gave him a bright grin. “Heya, champ. You busy? Actually, don’t bother answering that. Grab your shit. We’re gonna go fuck up some demons that are terrorizing Oak Town.”

By the time the door opened, Mercury was able to observe that Tsubasa had been doing some kind of work on his LacBook. Presumably, working on some video editing. True to her word when he’d first shown up at the guild to join it, the ace had taken time during her off hours to browse through some of his videos on his LacTube page. He was a genuinely funny kid, a bit quirky and awkward at times but in a way that was delightfully endearing. Her instructions for him to grab his things was met with immediate action to do just that, snatching a backpack that he seemed to have at the ready and slipping the board he carried with him onto it. He also slipped a fancy looking knife into his pocket. Like before, she couldn’t see the imprint of the item once it had been deposited, leading her to think that he had some similar ability and drive as herself to keep his inventory hidden.

Once his computer was off and Ahab had launched into his jacket, Tsubasa was ready to go. As they exited the room, the young man told her he’d never been to Oak Town before, curious as to if it usually had demons running around or if there was some kind of special festival happening. The comment drew an entertained grin from the woman while she led the way out of the guildhall. “It’s definitely a special little party. They rudely did not invite us, so I figured we’d go crash it and teach them a lesson about exclusivity.”

Jokes aside, she went on. “Oak Town is a bit of a cultural hub for Fiore. They have the country’s largest library containing magical knowledge and artifacts. Naturally, that makes it a location of interest for Silver Wolf, one that we aren’t keen to fall into misusing hands. I’m not entirely sure what we’ll see when we get there, but as a heads up it probably won’t be pretty. I was given minimal knowledge needed to understand the scope of the issue, but since it’s an active invasion there wasn’t really any time to ask questions. There will probably be quite a few dead bodies, and even more possessed ones.”

Once they got outside, Mercury reached into one of her pouches and pulled out a small device of black metal, tossing it into the air in front of her. Before it could hit the ground, it snapped out into the shape of a round disc about three feet wide and five inches thick that hovered a bit off the ground. Slipping on a rather trendy pair of sleek sunglasses, the Ace stepped onto the disc and turned to look at him. “You capable of flight in any capacity? If not I have another of these you can use. Roads will take too long.” While she suspected that the board on his backpack was some mode of transportation, she didn’t know for sure, and even then she wasn’t sure if it only let him travel along the ground or if it gave him the ability to travel through the sky. Either way, if he indicated that he would need some help with her intended method of travel, Mercury would produce a second disc much in the same manner as the first, and he would find that operating it felt very similar to his own hoverboard.

The only difference really was that her device was probably much faster than he was used to. Mercury was exceptionally skilled when it came to technology and engineering, with most of her knowledge and tech coming from her background in a society that was much further along technologically than Earthland was. The disc would allow him to move at her top speed, racing across the sky so fast that the ground beneath them was a blur.

It would take them about thirty minutes to reach Oak Town, and once the city came into view in the horizon they could already see and smell smoke coming from several points within. They pulled up close enough where they could observe the state of things from the sky briefly before anyone would notice them. Unfortunately, it looked like the first step of the invasion had already been completed by the time they got there. Even moving as quickly as they could, thirty minutes was still more than enough time for even a small hoard of demons and spirits to lay siege to the place. There were quite a number of bodies littering the ground, mostly human though a few demons had managed to get taken down as well by some of the heartier civilians. The dead were being dragged out of the main roads and set up in piles by other humans that didn’t seem very upset by the carnage, telling her that they were probably possessed. There was no sign of Thaken.

“Alright, here’s the plan,” Mercury told Tsubasa quietly, making sure her voice wasn’t raised enough to draw attention upward toward them. Her emerald eyes studied those gathered below, running the statistics and scenarios through her computerized brain to calculate which methods of approach would result in the most ideal outcome. “First priority is trying to save as many people as possible. Most of these humans are probably being controlled. I’ve never tried to un-possess someone, but try not to kill them if you can. I’m sure the Council won’t thank us for that. Otherwise, if it’s clearly a demon feel free to attack with extreme prejudice.”

Mercury shot him an impish grin as she turned and purposefully fell off the edge of the disc, dive bombing toward the ground even faster than the item could carry her. At the last second she twisted to land on her feet in the middle of the most heavily populated square, her secretly metallic body shielding her from the damage the fall would have otherwise given her and causing her to create a small crater in the pavement a few meters wide in either direction. As the demons all stopped to stare in utter shock at the surprise entrance of this bold stranger, Mercury straightened out and unholstered her pistol, casually resting it up against her shoulder with a pleasant smile.

“How’s it going, shitheels?” she asked them like they were little more than amicable neighbors stumbling into one another at the grocery store. “I’m looking for Thickhead. Sorry, Fag-en. Sorry, Thaken. Would any of you be so kind as to point me in his direction? That’d be swell, thanks.” The demons continued to stand there for a moment, flabbergasted not only by the puny mortal woman’s presence but also her insolence in purposefully misnaming their patron in a number of insulting ways. Then, they all ran in to attack her.

“That’s fair,” Mercury said, more to herself than to them. Then, she took aim with her gun and started blasting.

Tsubasa picked up the use of her hover disc almost immediately, zipping off into the sky at full speed to the point where Mercury was sure he was probably going to kill himself. She probably should have been worried about that, but instead she was only amused. He came right back around and in little more than a minute or two had full control over the device, skidding to a controlled halt right in front of her. Like a kid eyeing a new toy in the store, he complimented the disc and asked if she could help him build something like it. Even Ahab, despite his fur having been assaulted by the wind, agreed with his pleasure with the item. Mercury grinned. “Sure thing, champ. Once we get back, I’ll take a look over your board with you and we’ll see about giving it a flight upgrade, what do you say?”

Honestly, Mercury was very curious about his own board. Most of the technology on Earthlast wasn’t very advanced, but every once in a while she came across something that seemed ahead of the current times, and his hoverboard seemed like it could fall in that line. But for now, they had a job to do. So the two of them whisked themselves away to Oak Town as quickly as they could get there. Once they arrived and had taken a moment to observe everything, Tsubasa listened as Mercury explained their goals, confirming that he would follow her lead. She dropped herself into the square and the younger man hung back, still in the air and smartly waiting to draw any attention to himself.

The demons were about as thrilled and impressed with Mercury’s bravado as anyone would expect. They didn’t even bother to shoot any sass back at her, which was doubly disappointing. Mercury disliked few things more than boring opponents. They came at her from all sides and the woman confidently started shooting, knocking a few of the weaker ones down. But she could feel energy above her, delicious energy that smelled like a feast to her sensitive nose. She glanced up just in time to see Tsubasa drop a small globe of lightning onto the ground which shot out and encapsulated them in a large shield that kept the monsters at bay.

The young man dropped behind her, his back to her own, as he added his own comments about how impolite it was for all of them to mob her without forming a calm and orderly line. His retail joke did not go unappreciated either as she loosed a rather undignified snort of amusement. Tsubasa informed her that the electric cage would keep them from coming closer for as long as it lasted, but she could leave it if she wished. He thrust a fist toward the ground and the result was a large stone fist jumping up from the floor outside the circle, bashing a demon so hard it went flying into the air and onto the cage, electrifying it. Mercury hadn’t really gotten the chance to ask Tsubasa too much about his magic, but whatever it was it sure was useful. She’d definitely made the right decision on bringing him with her, and now she kind of just wanted to see what more he could do…

But, they had demons to slay and people to liberate. He informed her that he was going to go try and focus on freeing some of the possessed people, reassuring her that he would do his best not to kill them. Then he was off, still using her hover disc and zipping away to go get some work done. It was good that he wasn’t the type that needed to be led by the hand. While Mercury was more than capable of giving direction, she much preferred to work with someone who didn’t need it. Grinning at the monsters around her in a very unfriendly way, she innocently told them, “Well, kids, looks like you’re stuck here with little, ol’ me.”

She casually started walking the perimeter of the shield, shooting out with her gun and felling demons one by one. Most of them weren’t really anything to write home about, though Jadus had been more than right about the numbers. Soon, they started to wisen up and moved around the barrier, attempting to find a weak spot where they could get through to her. As they moved, Mercury kept an eye on them. What she was trying to do was determine how many of the creatures around her were demons and which were possessed humans. It was hard when all of them were mixed together and moving around.

Figuring that Tsubasa had the best idea, she started focusing on some of those who were human. With the quick flick of her wrists, Mercury conjured small cages of black metal and trapped the few possessed people inside of them one at a time. They fought and railed against the bars, only to be shocked with her own electricity of black lightning. Once they were all set up and covered, Mercury changed tactics with a grin.

A bunch of turrets materialized along the outskirts of the square, unnoticed by the demons as they ganged together and tried to claw their way to her. With her free hand, Mercury pulled a tablet out of her pouch and opened it up to several views from the targeting systems on the guns. She punched in a command and they all started targeting the demons and locking on to them before she hit the instruction to fire. Then, the guns all unleashed themselves on the beasts in the square, mowing them down like soldiers on a front line. Any bullets that hit her cages by accident were simply deflected away, the civilians inside remaining unharmed.

Now that she finally wasn’t the sole focus of attention as the demons scrambled to either find cover or go after her remote weapons, Mercury strolled out of the dome. She snatched a passing demon by the scruff and knocked it to its knees. “Hi! Can you tell me where Thaken is?” It turned and screeched at her with a mouth full of sharp teeth and a disgustingly long tongue that was forked and twisted at the end like a snake. She slipped the barrel of her gun under its chin and blasted it’s head into chunks. “That’s a no. What about you?”

Mercury turned to the next demon, that made a swipe at her. Dancing out of the way of the attack, she snatched it by its outstretched arm and yanked it toward her, muzzle resting against its temple for another point blank shot that resulted in a fine mist of blood and gore. “Also a no. You guys are no help at all.”

For the most part, the demons out in the square didn’t seem very difficult to take down. Her turrets mowed through them with relative ease and they hardly put up much of a fight when she came against one face to face. Their strength had surely been in their numbers, and with the guns she’d set up around the perimeter distracting them from being able to gang up on her, they had quickly lost that advantage. This left her in the rather comfortable position of being able to more or less stroll through the square and casually shoot craniums off of demon’s necks.

She’d given up rather quickly on asking for any information on the whereabouts of Thaken. In truth, she had never expected any of them to answer anyway. Sooner or later the demon would show his face, after she killed enough of his pets and ruined his plans. Mercury didn’t know all the details of his history with Jadus, but she knew enough to know that not taking Thaken or his underlings seriously would be adding insult to injury on a level that Jadus would be proud of. Honestly, she was a little surprised he hadn’t come storming out yet, but he wasn’t exactly known for fighting his own battles. She was going to have to take out his army and back him into a corner to get him to show his face.

As Mercury moved through the square, she eventually caught sight of Tsubasa. The younger man had found quite a number of civilians that either hadn’t been possessed yet or that he had found a way to free from possession. He was leading them in a group through the streets to pick up other survivors, letting them see to one another while he fought back demons that approached them. She was impressed, actually. He had got himself right to work and was rather efficient at getting the task done. Granted, the large group was starting to get attention from other demons in the area that were starting to wonder if would be more worth their time to abandon Mercury to go after civilians.

Thankfully, he didn’t have them in his care for too long. The group rushed into a library and Tsubasa trapped them inside with the use of his rock magic, securing them safely within the thick walls of the building. This, of course, was just in time for a small collection of demons. Mercury paused for a moment in thought, wondering if she should go help him. This being their first job together, she wasn’t entirely sure how strong he actually was or if the group would be too much for him to handle on his own. Unfortunately, there was no way of knowing that without letting him start the fight unaided. He’d probably be fine, but just in case she did start moving her way a little closer toward him.

Before she could get very far, however, Mercury was stopped in her path by a odd phenomenon. Despite the warmth of the day and the hot sun in the clear sky, she was touched by a cold spot that sent a shiver down her spine. It was so out of place that red flags instantly went up in her head and she leapt backward on pure instinct to get out of the way. A split second later, a wraith appeared where she’d just been standing, swiping at the open air that had only a moment ago been occupied by her body. Before it could get the chance to recover, she pointed Mercy at it and shot three blasts in quick succession until it disappeared like dust in the wind with a pained screech.

It wasn’t the only one, though. She started to feel more cold spots forming around her, her internal sensors pinpointing a number of them forming a loose circle around her. Mercury raised her gun, getting ready to start shooting, but before any of them could fully form her world went black. She could still hear the sounds of battle in the square and knew that she hadn’t left the area or been knocked unconscious. However, she couldn’t see anything, even when she switched her eyes to infrared vision. It was like they had formed a large cloud of pure darkness around her that blocked her sight completely, leaving her to rely on her other senses alone.

Thankfully, those senses were quite strong these days. Even if she couldn’t see in the traditional sense, her electronic sensors were more than capable of detecting the exact locations of the lower temperatures spots around her, and her ears and nose were both working in overdrive to make up for the lack of vision. If they moved, she would know it. The danger would be if they could attack her without moving, however, so she quickly took the time to reach into her actual magic, hardening her body until it formed a thick layer of durable steel just below the surface of her skin, giving her some extra defenses for any attacks they might throw at her body.

What she hadn’t expected was for her mind to be attacked, though. Mercury’s heart suddenly started racing as a mild sensation of fear began to bubble in her chest. She almost didn’t notice it at first, not understanding right away that it was part of their attack. Mercury quickly grew a bit irritable, annoyed with being involved in all of this, and specifically with Jadus for making her do it. This was his problem, wasn’t it? Why didn’t he deal with it, instead of sending Mercury like some lap dog? Did he think she was his servant? His slave?

Dark thoughts settled in her mind, thoughts that were far too close to home. Here she was, putting herself and Tsubasa in danger because Jadus couldn’t fight his own battles. She’d been sent like a grunt to the front lines, just like Thaken himself was doing with his goons. How dare he treat her this way. All she had ever been was respectful to him, and this was how he repaid her? She’d trusted him. What a mistake.

No wait, that wasn’t right. Something nagged at her mind, telling her the mindset was wrong. Sure, Jadus wasn’t always the nicest person, but he’d always done well by her even when he hadn’t needed to. Even when she had given him every reason and excuse to kill her. He’d perhaps hidden a few truths of himself from her here and there, but for the most part he’d only ever encouraged her toward growth and made her stronger, with no strings attached. The only reason he’d even asked her to fight this battle for him was because his demon magic was useless against other demons, and according to him her magic had evolved into something stronger than just killing gods or angels.

She needed to clear her head, but the pounding darkness wasn’t letting her. In a fit of aggravation, Mercury roared, her body cloaking itself in a bright yellow-white light like that from the sun. The light expanded, growing brighter and brighter as it shoved back the darkness and scorched the wraiths that lurked around her, trying to corrupt her mind. In a very literal flash, they were burned away until she was standing once more in the open square, the wraiths and their darkness purged from existence with the light from her body quickly fading down to a gentle glow before disappearing entirely.

Mercury frowned, turning her hand over in front of her face as she examined the fading white light. Odd. The light from her slaying magic had always been such a dark shade of violet that it had nearly been black. After all, the black of her metal, lightning, light, and oil was what marked her as a god slayer. But this light had been white, like that of a god slayer with their holy magic. It should have been impossible. How had she managed that? Too many questions, and not enough answers. Certainly not enough time to think about it for now. Remembering her place, Mercury quickly glanced up to where she’d last seen Tsubasa, wanting to make sure he was handling the group of demons that had ganged up on him without needing her help.

Right as Mercury looked up to try and figure out what was going on with Tsubasa, she found him stumbling to a stop right in front of her. While she didn’t jump back, it was clear she was surprised by him being right there when she’d expected him to still be several meters away. “Speedy little thing, aren’t you?” she commented with an amused smirk, giving him an appraising look. “Nope, we haven’t missed Thakken. He hasn’t shown himself yet, but I imagine it’s only a matter of time.” She glanced around to take stock of the square. At this point, any civilians that weren’t possessed yet were holed up in the library, and those who were possessed were safely locked in cages where they would be safe until a way could be figured out for them to be handled properly. Everything that was left after that were demons, and their population had dwindled quickly between her turrets and Tsubasa’s own efforts.

Her internal sensors informed her that Tsubasa was experiencing some blood loss. That, and she could smell the coppery plasma quite well from this close, even over the scent of demon blood littering the area. “I see you made some friends,” Mercury said candidly, lifting up his arm and giving it a look over with a firm but mindful hand, much like a mother might. It certainly wasn’t a grievous injury, but it also looked like it probably hadn’t felt good. It was also still actively bleeding, which wouldn’t do. They still had a bit of fighting to do, and the last thing either of them needed was him getting dizzy or faint.

She reached into one of her pouches and pulled out a small cylindrical device. “Ahab, how’re you doing in there, chief?” Mercury asked without looking up from the wound, checking on the squirrel that was tucked away in Tsubasa’s hood even as she tended to the young man’s minor injury. “Hope you don’t mind needles.” She’d barely finished the sentence by the tip she placed the tip of the cylinder on his arm and a needle quickly shot out and pierced his flesh, pumping a small amount of medicine into him. He would probably be a little surprised at how easy it actually was. The needle was impossibly thin, to the point where he likely felt little more than a mild pinch. A second barely passed before she was already pulling it away and tucking the cylinder back in her pouch. Meanwhile, before his eyes the wound began to clear and heal up within seconds, the bleeding slowing to a stop and his flesh repairing itself and closing back together.

“There we go, good as new,” she told him with a grin. “Now, let’s see if we can draw our buddy out. Bear with me, here, I wanna try something. While I encourage him to come out and play, why don’t you find an advantageous spot and set yourself up. With any luck, I can keep him distracted enough that he won’t even notice you and you can find a nice opportune time to swoop in and help me flank him.” She winked playfully, then reached once more into one of her pouches. This time, she pulled out several small, circular drones about the size of golfballs. Despite not having any propellers, when Mercury tossed them gently up into the air they hovered several feet above the ground in line with her head, awaiting commands.

She took her tablet out of a pocket and punched a few codes in. The drones quickly zipped off into the large building at the north end of the square that appeared to be the city’s main hall. She could feel a strong demonic presence from that building and was fairly certain that was where Thakken was hiding. Mercury watched the live feed on her tablet as the drones zoomed quickly through the halls in pursuit of her prey until they eventually found him. With an almost sadistic little smirk, she punched another command and the room he was in filled itself with a bright pristine white just like she’d done earlier. Thakken’s roar of pain was so loud that they would be able to hear it from several meters away outside of the building, the structure and the ground around it shaking violently in protest with his agony. Even what remained of the other demons outside screeched and clutched their heads as though connected to his pain.

A few seconds later, one of the walls exploded as Thakken threw himself out of the holy light and into the open square. He was radiating with an anger so thick that one wouldn’t need to be an empath to feel it. He was gasping for breath and growling viciously, looking around as he regained in balance until his glowing eyes settled on Mercury, still smirking arrogantly as she slipped the tablet away. “Well, well, well. Look who finally decided to join the party.” He was about as terrifying looking as one might expect from a demon, with a gaunt face and body structure and dark skin. The cranium on his head seemed to have been replaced with a number of inky, sharp looking tendrils of darkness. He wore oversized dark robes that ebbed and flowed in the air like smoke trapped in glass.

He fixed a glare on her that probably would have frozen most people in their tracks, and she certainly did feel a bit of literal iciness coming from his aura, which explained some of the ice wraiths she’d fought earlier. But at this point Mercury had been in so many battles with creatures far scarier than demons that the look barely moved her. The truth was that she still didn’t really understand the weight of what a demon really was, which also left her a little disenchanted from being face to face with one. Or well, with another one. He glanced around at the carnage around her, seeing his budding army destroyed before he really got the chance to do anything with it. Then, his gaze was back on her. “Foolish mortal,” he spat at her, straightening himself up and slowly descending toward her. “You dare to interfere in my work? I will strip the flesh from your body and feed your quivering mass to the hounds of hell..!”

“Ooo, scary,” Mercury said, sounding more excited than intimidated. “Also unoriginal. Which is really sad because I was kind of holding out hope that maybe Jadus was just playing your stupidity off as a joke to make himself sound more important than he is, but it looks like he wasn’t exaggerating after all. It’s kind of disappointing, but that’s on me, not you. I was warned.”

Thakken stopped the second that Mercury mentioned Jadus’ name, his glowing eyes narrowing on her. “How do you…” His voice trailed off and he examined her more closely. “You! Your Jadus’ pet. The filthy little mortal he took under his wing.”

Mercury frowned at him. “Well, that’s just rude,” she told him. “I’m hardly filthy. I shower every day, thank you very much, and I can’t help it when your pathetic little lackeys bleed all over me while I kill them. If these stains are permanent, you owe me a new outfit.”

The demon chuckled darkly. “Oh, I am going to enjoy this. What did he think you were going to accomplish with the demon magic he’s been teaching you? That power will not harm me! If anything, it will make me stronger. But if he wants to throw your life away, I will happily oblige.”[/color]

“I think you might be surprised by the kind of tricks I can pull out of my sleeves.” Smirking, she raised her pistol and aimed it at him. “But by all means, underestimate me. That’s my kink.” Thakken launched himself at her with a malicious snarl, and Mercury took off running, firing shot after shot at him while keeping on the move to make him chase her. With any luck, he’d stay focused on her long enough for Tsubasa to find an opening to slip in a deliver an effective surprise attack.

Mercury grinned all the while as Tsubasa talked about equality in fighting demons and giving them a fair shot. The more time she spent with the young man, the more she liked him. His sense of humor played nicely against her own, and he was exceptionally easy going even in the face of overwhelming adversity. Ahab poked his head out of the hoodie at the mention of needles, commenting on how Tsubasa hated them and electing that moment to tune in for the show, apparently. Tsu didn’t even get the chance to really protest before she’d pierced him with the injection and he quickly did a verbal backpedal into nearly swearing. By the time she finished putting the syringe away, he was already feeling better and noticing the medicine’s effects. “I do make those,” she answered with a small smirk when he asked. “If you have any interest in chemistry, I can show you later how to make the compound yourself.” There was nothing magical about what she’d just used on him, so if he had any affinity for science, as he clearly did, then he could learn how to create something just as effective on his own.

She pitched her suggestion for Tsubasa to set himself up as a surprise element while Mercury would act as bait to draw the demon out. He was gone in a flash, zipping up and away while she set to using her drones to force Thakken out of hiding with her recently discovered holy magic. The demon came stumbling out, angry and indignant as most demons were -- no offense, Jadus. And of course, his tune changed the instant he realized exactly who she was. Throughout their exchange, Mercury was carefully calculating the odds and generating strategies in her head. It was impossible to do so fully, as Tsu would be a wild element that she couldn’t fully account for. But unless he did something insanely drastic, his actions shouldn’t really get in the way of her own. All she needed was an opening.

Thakken came at her and she took off, firing pot shot after pot shot in his general direction, not really trying to hit him. Her gun wouldn’t necessarily be of much use in this fight, and as such the weapon wasn’t really her focus. Instead, she was putting more thought into not just keeping herself moving, but watching where she was going. With each step she took, Mercury left tiny electronic devices in her wake. Too small to see with the naked eye, the devices fell from the soles of her shoes and burrowed into the surface of the ground where they awaited further instruction. While her path seemed sporadic, there was a very distinct methodology to it as she moved in an unseen pattern, placing the little gadgets in a way that would connect them all to one another once activated.

Thakken yakked at her the whole while, mocking her tactic and calling it out for what it was. At least, when it came to acting as the bait for Tsubasa to swoop in. The demon made it very clear that he knew what she was up to, and even taunted her by saying that he would take pleasure in making Mercury watch as he killed the younger man slowly, crying out to her for help and losing his hope. Sadly, it wasn’t a very effective tactic for taunting her. While she very much liked Tsubasa so far, to call Mercury an individual who was emotionally inept was beyond an understatement. She’d never had a single relationship in her life, healthy or otherwise, growing up. As such, she’d never really learned to connect with people or care about them. Vandrad was the first person she’d ever learned to trust, and even then she still wasn’t quite there yet. As such, sad to say though it was, Mercury wouldn’t have been too broken up or moved by the demon torturing… well, anyone in front of her.

Thankfully, it wouldn’t come to that as Tsubasa was not one to be underestimated. Even as Thakken finished threatening the young man’s life, the self same target of his venom dropped in front of him quicker than the demon could react to, causing Mercury to smirk. How often did people forget that just because they knew what someone’s strategy was did not guarantee being able to outplay or avoid it? Nothing seemed to happen right away, and Tsubasa was doing little more than just kneeling there, but Mercury wasted no time. She didn’t trust people on an emotional level, but as far as doing work and getting a job done she did have full faith that Tsubasa was more than capable on delivering as she’d asked him to do. So rather than focus on making sure he was okay, she used the precious few seconds he was giving her to finish setting up her trap.

Mercury continued to move, despite the fact that she was no longer actively firing at Thakken, making the last few strides in the directions she needed to complete the design she’d been forming with her devices. By the time she was done and turned back around, the demon was missing his sword arm and being held perfectly still by some sort of magical force Tsu was controlling. There was blood dripping from his nose and she could see the strain of how much effort he was utilizing just to perform this one task. It was impressive, more than impressive. Mercury honestly wasn’t sure she could have done it, and not just because she didn’t really have magic the way most others did.

She waited only a half a beat longer than she probably should have to act, captivated by Tsubasa’s skill despite herself, before lifting her tablet before her. Her free hand lingered above the device, a single finger hovering over the button on the touch screen that would activate the trap. Finally, she pressed her finger against the screen. All the small devices that she’d been depositing on the ground lit up with a brilliant white energy that crackled like electricity, the beams snapping out to connect the devices together like traces on a motherboard. Together, they formed a runic looking circle that stretched several dozen meters around the demon, who was caught in the relative center of the space. Tsubasa, being as close to Thakken as he was, would also be caught in the trap but he would find himself uninjured by any of the light or sparks that danced around his feet. The opposite would be true for the demon, who roared out in pain, his spine arching violently backward as his body seized and buckled under the intense pressure of the holy power that was smiting him from the inside out. He tried desperately to fight it, his eyes wild with rage and agony as he twisted to face Mercury, who had casually approached to stand beside Tsubasa with a devious little smirk.

“How?” he asked, his voice strained and gravelly. “Jadus could not have given you this power. What are you?”

Reaching into a pouch, she pulled out two pairs of fashionable goggle-like sunglasses. She gave one pair to Tsubasa and put the other on her face before standing in comfortable confidence with one hand on her hip and the other still holding her mobile device, thumb resting over the screen. “Now now, if I gave you the answer to that question, what mystery would you have left to entertain you back in hell?” she asked him pleasantly. “When you pass by Jadus on the way down, do be a dear and give him a little wave for me, will you?”

And with that, her thumb pressed itself upon the screen and the connected devices flashed, creating a several meter wide pillar of blinding light that swallowed the three of them whole. With the sunglasses on, she and Tsubasa would be able to keep their eyes from burning out of their sockets. After all, just because the nature of the energy wasn’t hostile to either of them didn’t mean that the light itself wouldn’t blind them like any normal light would if it were bright enough, especially since they were standing in the middle of it. Since Ahab was further away with the camera, he would find the pillar a bit difficult to look at directly but would otherwise be fine and not in any danger of losing his sight. The beam burned up into the sky and piercing the heavens for several long seconds before disappearing, and when it finally waned, Thakken was gone without a trace.

“Oh good, that actually worked,” Mercury commented candidly as though she hadn’t been entirely sure it would. Mostly because she really hadn’t been sure it would. She turned to grin at Tsubasa. “Not bad, champ. You did pretty good today. Consider me impressed.”