AnnouncementThe cover, with the demons in their mortal disguises:

  From top to bottom: Saturday, March (when looking at Emancipation), Emancipation (locking in), December, Halloween (watching something get dismembered), and April.

  You’ve been in a rut these past few weeks. You tried (half-heartedly) to go through the sneaky spy training. You tried writing porn. You even negotiated disputes between mortals. You were pretty good at that, but you find it so…mundane. Slow.

  Quinn says you have ‘big sad girl hours’, whatever that means.

  You are March and nothing in all of Haven keeps your attention. Not the arcade, not the library, not the forest, not even the secrets of the tunnels below. The closest thing to fulfillment was messing around in the colosseum, but it cked something.

  Sure, there’s the sex. The mortals can be delicious sources of DESIRE. So can the other demons. You do enjoy it, especially that one time you put yourself in the incognito wall. Passerby spent their time vioting your pussy and asshole as you wiggled around to entice them with your harpy booty. The expressions of surprise when they went behind the wall to find you, the famed ice queen panting like a cum-starved whore were…amusing.

  But short lived.

  Nowadays, you spend your time eating dingleberry-fvored ice cream inside the new Astrologer’s Tower. There are plenty of isoted, spherical rooms someone could set up in and send a seeing eye to watch people from afar. Sometimes without them knowing.

  You swallow another spoonful as you watch Emancipation fuck some goblin bitch in an alley behind the general store. You’re not angry, you just wish your cute little brother would quit wasting his time with the shortstacks. Maybe spend a bit more time with a willowy harpy succubus.

  The goblin has her face stuffed in a goblin succubus’s snatch, sluttily moaning with every thrust of Emancipation’s hips. After a few more powerful thrusts, Emancipation ejacutes inside her and she crumbles to the ground. She flips herself over, breasts heaving, and gives Emancipation a half-lidded stare. She opens her legs, the cum bubbling out of her pussy, and the succubus takes advantage to dive between the goblin’s legs and lick her clean.

  The goblin trembles in pleasure and tosses an orange token Emancipation’s way, which dissipates in his hand.

  “Thanks, Emacy.” The goblin sighs with a shiver. “Gilli likes her cum fresh.”

  You bristle. She’s given him a nickname! Emancipation is about to answer when you both feel the foggles buzz in your pockets. And both pull up your pants to take them out. When you check it, the screen blips on and an update from Quinn appears. You and Emancipation have the same idea, though Emancipation at least gives a warning before he pulls up his pants and jumps into the air.

  “What about a little extra frosting on my tits?” The goblin calls out.

  “Sorry, maybe another time! There’s something I don’t want to miss!”

  You stay in the room long enough to make sure he’s coming and you zoom out of the room, ignoring the spiral staircase and soaring directly upwards to the rgest room in the tower. Quinn is there alongside Sunday, January, and New Year. Soon, all the interested parties trickle in: December, Emancipation, Saturday, April, and even Halloween. All those who wanted to go to Camelot.

  “I’m so excited to show you our newest seeing eye improvements!” New Year jumps in pce, her humungous tits almost spping her in the face. Emancipation is watching with vested interest.

  You’re not jealous. You are aerodynamic.

  New Year goes on a long winded expnation about what they did, which most of you stop paying attention to. Quinn is staring at her with a gentle smile on her face, and eventually her rambling slows down. The gist was that Quinn was about to summon a seeing eye in Hacksonville and use the ambient magic to make powering it easier over long distances.

  “The three of you have done great.” Quinn cracks her knuckles and takes the central seat in front of a series of screens. “Now let’s test this baby out.”

  Quinn messes with the controls and the screens blip to life. Several perspectives of Haven are shown, but for some reason, some of the screens are bck. Quinn frowns and turns a dial, a muted buzzing sound coming from several pces. You look around to find the origin of the noise, until you realize it’s coming from within your kin.

  Mostly from Halloween, though. You could see a few bulges on her stomach vibrating. Halloween smiles proudly, fluid leaking from between her legs.

  “Alight, roll call.” Quinn’s eyes twinkle with mirth. “Who has a seeing eye inside them?”

  Halloween throws her hand up, April and January sheepishly following her lead.

  “Points for originality, but these are the expensive ones. They’re not toys. Take them out before someone tries to control them.” Quinn chuckles and focuses back on the screen in front of her. “Okay…engage.”

  The screen goes white, and shapes gradually appear. Soon enough, you’re staring at a dwarven woman’s face with Quinn’s eyes. It doesn’t look like the area you ‘helped’ Quinn set up beneath the newspaper offices. Your eyebrow twitches slightly; you’re still upset she had a few of the harpies ‘guard eggs’ before taking them back after a week and dashing them on the floor in the mortal realm.

  She had you name them, draw faces on them, talk to them until you cared about the stupid eggs, then sacrificed them ‘as virgins’ to make the portals. She mentioned something about the emotional impact of a sacrifice.

  Rampant, or Quinn, waves to the seeing eye as it flies out of the basement of the restaurant(?) and into the sky. You’re all treated to a bird’s eye view of Hacksonville’s commercial district, the docks, and then the wall separating the city from the wilderness.

  “Most demons should be able to handle this range.” Quinn mentions. “Let’s see how far it can go.”

  As it turns out, quite far. Lord Quinn doesn’t even break a sweat as the seeing eye travels further and further away. Ten kilometers, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty…Quinn slows down at sixty, mumbling something about exponential cost. She’s about to stop when you see something in a corner of the screen.

  Smoke.

  “Lord Quinn.” You point.

  The POV gets closer and Quinn frowns. It’s a vilge, much smaller than Hacksonville. Instead of modern buildings of gss and concrete, they’re older stone and mortar houses. The wall surrounding the vilge was of a wood grown and woven like a giant basket.

  Was.

  Something had torn through it, leaving destroyed buildings and broken bodies in its wake. Goblin corpses litter the dirt road, faded screams echo in the distance. You realize it’s the first time you’ve seen a dead mortal. Quinn realizes this and shifts the eye away.

  You don’t like it.

  “We have to do something.” You hear yourself say.

  It’s the first time you feel driven to do something. It feels like there’s a fire in your chest, one that burns with a need to act, to destroy the offenders.

  “Why?” January asks.

  “Duh! It’s a chance to kick some fuckin’ ass and get id as a reward!” Halloween cackles and sps your butt. “I knew the frigid bitch had some bloodthirst!”

  “And risk exposure?” Sunday cocks an eyebrow.

  “Some of us trained in infiltration.” April hums, though his eyes linger on Halloween.

  “Even if you took the portal, I don’t think anyone could get there in time.” New Year hums. “If we sacrifice the seeing eye as a conduit, we could summon someone there.”

  “Well, I want to go!” Emancipation decres.

  The lot of you start arguing about who would get to go. Everybody wants to be the first one there since they would be the one to reap the most benefits as the others rush to catch up. You and Sunday watches on impassively as Halloween is held back by April, Saturday, and Emancipation before she could punch a smug December in the face. Until Quinn interrupts.

  “December.” She snaps her fingers and the rabble quiets down. “How fast can you summon?”

  “Could probably summon everyone here in about five minutes.” The minotaur shrugs. “I’m pretty fast.”

  “Yeah you are.” Halloween snorts.

  December gres at the short succubus. She gives him a smug, sharp-toothed grin.

  Quinn fills the room with a wave of her presence, stopping the argument before it even starts. She smiles and focuses back on the screen. You feel her exploring and shifting magical threads that would be difficult for any of you to affect. Changing them into circles.

  “December, you’ll go first. You’re fast, but I want you to pace yourself enough to be able to summon demons and still have enough left in the tank to fight.” She points to each of you in turn. “We’ll need to go in a specific order.”

  She says your names in quick succession and wishes good luck to December before igniting the seeing eye with magic. One second he’s next to you, then he’s gone and the screen fizzes out. All of you wait with anticipation.

  You calm yourself and look over the other demons. They’re quickly shifting into less demonic forms, the bright colors of their skin fading to whites and browns as their horns and tails recede into their heads. Quinn expins that your cover story is of errant knights on a quest to help the less-fortunate.

  Which is a thing in Prillia.

  You shift your summoned clothes to resemble a thick set of armor with enough space for your wings and create a sword from your magic. Saturday is summoned first. He finished making his more conservative ninja outfit when he disappears in cloud of smoke.

  April makes himself a set of armor with a pted skirt and high heels. He’s twirling a spear around before he too is summoned. Emancipation seems to have modeled his armor after your own. He waves to you, but you avoid looking at your cute little brother. Instead, you talk to Halloween.

  “Why are you so mean to December? I was there when he blew you out of that wall. You were moaning his praises then.”

  “That’s part of the fun.” She cackles just as Emancipation disappears. “Still better than doing nothing and fucking pining from far away.”

  Your freezing gre doesn’t affect her. She’s supposed to be younger than you, but her sheer power is not to be underestimated. And she knows it. Right before you’re summoned, she sps your ass again.

  Bitch.

  There's a pressure all around you for a nanothrust, and then you’re elsewhere. The sun feels pleasant on your skin, the air fresh and devoid of the faintest traces of sex. Mostly because of the burning smell.

  December huffs and starts drawing another circle, grumbling about wasting his bottle of milk. Good thing he had that on him, otherwise you’d have to wait for him to jack off for every circle. Watching him carefully draw Halloween’s summoning circle is like seeing someone work in fast forward. Impressive, if a bit jenky.

  Emancipation saddles up to you and points in the direction of the smoke.

  “The others went ahead! Come on!”

  As the both of you fly deeper into the vilge, you hear Halloween being summoned.

  “Aww, fuck! Smells like a good time!”

  “Well, you can’t go out looking like that. You’re still wearing that stupid bikini. You’re not even hiding your horns!”

  “Neither are you! I’ll work on it while you summon Tropo, Lord Quinn wants to see us do our thing. Well, me do my thing while you guys watch like a bunch of used cocks from the sidelines.”

  “Fuck you, midget.”

  “Fuck me yourself!”

  The argument fades away as you rush past destroyed homes, trying not to take in the sight of goblin bits spttered through the streets, on the walls, and even stuck on weathervanes. Your anger builds into a burning inferno, your eyebrows tilting downwards imperceptibly.

  “It’s okay, March. We’ll get them!” Emancipation tries to cheer you up.

  You fp harder.

  There’s a fountain filled with goblin body parts at the next intersection, where you find April fighting off a trio of strange creatures. He’s having a hard time, barely dodging out of the way from their cws and teeth. You dive toward them before you get a good look, your talons tearing out the throat of one of the misshapen creatures in a spray of bck blood.

  Emancipation nds hard on the shoulders of another, unsheathing his sword and stabbing it in the neck in one fluid motion. April takes advantage of the distraction to spear the st one in the chest.

  To your surprise, it continues to struggle. April tears the spear out and stabs it again, in the neck this time. It gurgles pathetically and drops dead.

  The three of you finally get a good look at the creatures and you feel a strange sense of…kinship. And at the same time, complete aversion. As if you and it are por opposites. They look like squid faced creatures with hunched backs, sharp cws on each club-shaped limb, and gnarled horns on their heads.

  “I found them, uh, eating.” April daintily pokes at them with his spear. “Are they-?”

  “Demons.” You say pinly. “Probably from Niflheim.”

  Your eyebrow twitches when you look at the feast they’d gathered for themselves. These three alone couldn’t have done all this. If anything, they’re stragglers. The fire inside you struggles to break out, a fvor of DESIRE only you can feel.

  “I’ve never seen her so angry.” Emancipation whispers.

  “You can tell?” April whispers back. He flinches when you whap him upside the head with a wing.

  “Where’s Saturday?”

  April points towards the center of the vilge, where you hear cshing metal. You and Emancipation take to the air and fly over. The smell of burning flesh fills the air, with a side of screams of terror. In the center of the vilge is a burning manor surrounded by fighters. Goblins in ill-fitting armor fight side-by-side with raggedy imps against far bigger demons in all shapes and sizes. Most of them are the same type of demon you just fought, but about a quarter of them looked like humanoids with horns and tails, except horribly disfigured. A few looked like burnt corpses, others frozen bodies, and yet more still wrapped in chains that swung around with deadly precision.

  There must be a hundred goblins fighting several dozens of these strange demons. Considering the bodies strewn around, their st stand started with at least thrice that number. At the center of it all, a huge demon rippling with muscle held up Saturday by the neck. He squeezes tight, but Saturday disappears in a puff. Shadowy copies surround the rger demon, slicing into his sides and running off before the monstrous creature’s meaty arms could grab them.

  Saturday’s intervention improved the morale of the weary goblins, redoubling their efforts in fighting off the demons. Not with much success, you note. An ice demon breathes out a jet of frost, freezing a charging goblin solid. A chain demon breaks apart the statue with the mangled body of another goblin.

  You and Emancipation dive down in perfect sync and slice through the necks of two the weaker demon troops. April jumps into the fray, stabbing demons furiously from a safe distance. He jumps away when they get too close, pirouetting about to sm the side of his spear into their guts to create some distance.

  “More of them?! RAAAH!” The boss demon roars. “WHY WON’T YOU DIE?! I HATE PATHETIC LITTLE MEATSACKS THAT WON’T DIE!”

  He swings his massive cleaver in a wide arc, tearing through allies and enemies alike. Saturday takes the opportunity to leap from behind him and try to garrote him with a sliver of shadow-wire. But the boss’s neck is too thick. You’d think with his massive frame, the boss demon would be too musclebound to reach behind him, but no.

  He tears the muscles in his own shoulders reaching behind him to grab Saturday. The real one this time.

  “GOTCHA, PUNK!” He gres at the sheepish ninja wannabe. “I…HATE sneaky little gits like you!”

  “Umm.” Saturday gives a lusty grin. “Are you sure aboAAAAAAAAUGH!”

  Saturday’s quips are cut short when the demon squeezes him in one hand. His cruel smile is short lived. Emancipation flies at him and scratches an eye out with a fsh of his talons. He narrowly avoids the swing of the cleaver, but the demon boss has a good aim.

  You stab an ice demon in the head and leap back to avoid a chain, helpless as the huge demon throws an injured Saturday into Emancipation. The force of the blow sends them crashing into the building in a tangle of broken limbs. April gasps and a gets a gout of fme in the back for not paying attention. He flinches and swivels around, stabbing the fire demon in the mouth. He jumps behind the goblin line to recover.

  “YES! Hahaha!” The boss demon fist pumps. He sms his meaty hand in his face. “Wait, no, gotta remember to check if they’re dead. I hate survivors.”

  You try to fly his way, but a chain demon catches you by the legs and sms you on the ground. You roll to the side to avoid the fires of a burning demon and disentangle your legs. The chain devil rushes you and you try to slice through him.

  Your sword breaks and fades away into wispy shadows. The chain demon unleashes a wretched, guttural ugh. You are helpless as you watch the boss demon lumber closer to Saturday and Emancipation. The demons have surrounded you and goblins are falling in droves. The burning inferno inside you reaches a climax. For the first time, your stone face cracks.

  “Don’t TOUCH HIM!”

  All that energy bursts out in a wave of white energy as your ice-blue hair ignites in bck-tipped white fmes. The demons around you shrink away as your body steadily glows in white and gray. The battlefield falls silent and you burst. The demons are blown back by the bst. Those closest to you are reduced to dust instantly, even the imps helping out the goblins. April’s eyes grow as wide as saucers, and he ducks behind a wall. The fire ignites on the demons but puffs out of existence on everything else.

  Not that you notice that. You’re too busy between the pain of your own burning body and trying to get closer to the boss demon. He wasn’t unaffected by the bst, but he seems unimpressed. He pats out the sparks that nded on him and stares at you curiously.

  “Youse are an unexpected lot.” He frowns. “I don’t mind a good fight, but I’m on a schedule. I hate being te. So let’s hurry this along: I am Hulphrez’gnarblop, captain of Grixum Bloodbather’s army.”

  He sms his cleaver on the ground.

  “And you, strange harpy?”

  “I…” You gre at him. The monster who killed all these innocent goblins. The fiend who destroyed a vilge. The demon who dared hurt Emancy. “I am your death.”

  You focus all that burning energy into a construct. It roils and trembles with profane energy, something that should not be. Injured demons and goblins alike watch in mute horror. Your knees tremble and you struggle to keep it together. Finally, you shut your eyes and fling it the demon’s way.

  To his credit, the demon doesn’t dodge. He crosses his arms and blocks the slice, grunting as it digs into his flesh and igniting in an explosion of bck and white. You fall to your knees, the smoking crater where the demon once was the only evidence-

  There’s chuckling. The goblins didn’t even get a chance to cheer! The demon boss waves the smoke away, enraptured by the still burning cut on his arm. He’s barely hurt, and you’re too tired to move. The fmes on your head die out, reverting back to normal blue hair. The demons around you cackle evilly and the demon boss stomps over to you. His soulless yellow eyes look down on you. He scoffs.

  “Impressive, but…” The demon captain raises his cleaver high.

  “Did someone say butt?”

  Right next to you is a figure covered in pitch-bck armor, as if it was shaped from the deepest shadows—Wait, no, it’s just a badly magicked armor on a short bitch. Halloween is in full pte armor, not even bothering to hide her massive horns through the helm. Although your kind can recognize a bad shadow construct at first gnce, she cuts an imposing figure for the surviving goblins.

  You turn your head painfully to the side, spotting December leaning by a destroyed wall as he drinks from a carton with a straw. He raises the carton in your direction, a crow on his shoulder. You could smell his cum from inside Halloween’s armor. Clearly, they were busy while you were getting beat up.

  Once again, you wish harpies could flick people off.

  Hulphrez’gnarblop stares at Halloween and rolls his eyes. He ignores the studded club she has slung over her shoulder and sighs.

  “I hate little girls.” He turns his attention to her. “Especially stupid little ones that want to py hero.”

  When he calls her a little girl, she freezes. You grimace. That was a mistake. Halloween cocks her head and you could hear her smirk. She looks up to meet the demon captain’s bored gaze.

  “Idiotwithapulpedkneesayswhat?”

  “Wha—”

  One second the twelve-foot-tall demon is looming over her. The next, his knee was reduced to a fine mush and he was tumbling over in surprise. You watch, in slow motion, as he opens his mouth to scream, only for Halloween’s club to bash through his teeth. This second blow sends him flying backwards, crushing one of his surviving troops. A spindly one that’s covered in sharp thorns. Knowing Halloween, that was on purpose.

  She jumps onto him and brings up her bck club and unloads on him. Every blow she releases a shrill scream along the lines of ‘who’s small now?!’ and ‘not so tall without your fuckin’ legs!’ A few demons try to jump on her, but a careless swing of her weapon crushes them. As the demon captain is being disarmed, April and December clear out the rest of the distracted demons.

  You stumble to your feet and go to check up on Emancipation. And Saturday, too, you guess. Emancipation sees you coming and gives you a thumbs up as Saturday helps him up. When you see his broken body slowly healing you wrap him in a hug. The three of you limp back to the others.

  April and December are standing with the surviving goblins, who are watching Halloween in mute horror. She’s bashed his limbs into a pile of bck mush that is struggling to regenerate. She stops and leans closer to the ragged demon’s head.

  “I…hate surprises.” He rasps. “Especially ones in small packages.”

  “Well,” the short demon shivers in delight and leans close enough to whisper in his ear. “I love sexin’ big fucknuggets like you. Especially the ones with big packages like you~.”

  “Oop. Nope nope nope.” December reappears next to the befuddled demon captain and drives a dagger through his neck, killing him instantly. “Halloween, we’re in public.”

  “Even better! An audience!”

  The two begin arguing again and one of the older goblins approaches you.

  “Thank you, strangers. I would welcome you to Greenbrook, but…” His sad eyes hover over the destroyed town.

  The house they were protecting is the only one still standing. The remaining goblins are tending to their wounded. You’re wondering what could prompt these goblins to take up arms to defend this house when you see it. A child peeking from the window. Despite your tired body, your heart swells.

  It was a worthy cause.

  “I suppose it’s time for you to arrest us.” The elderly goblin sighs. “We were desperate, so I broke out an old tome to summon some imps. The ws are clear, especially with the cause of this madness.”

  You blink. Best py dumb.

  “What imps?” You ask and look around. “All I saw were a few disfigured goblins.”

  “Hey, that’s mean!” One of the nearby goblins whines. “We barely look anything like the—Ow!”

  The old goblin knocks his cane on his head. He looks at you gratefully.

  “May I ask…why risk yourself for strangers?” Your cold gaze settles on him and he flinches. “Not that we’re not appreciative! Just…why?”

  “We’re errant knights.” You answer simply.

  “Errant knights?” The goblins perk up as they look at you in a new light. “What is the name of your Order?”

  Uh. They’re staring at you with sparkles in their eyes. They seem to be really into the idea, whispering among themselves and subtly pointing to you, December, Emancipation, and Saturday. Maybe the lie doesn’t hold up under scrutiny, considering that most of you look like non-native species.

  “We’re the Knights of the Holy Mother!” Emancipation jumps in. “Defenders of the weak, fighters for justice!”

  You really hope you’re not stuck with the name.

  Dee_DubbleYew