[This was the first oneshot I did for Jamy's 'Hell is for Children' story. I was meaning to put up more of the oneshots/ficlets when I got a good number but I lost inspiration/motivation, so now I'm just going to upload all that I have just because I can. It is entirely up to Jamy to decide if what is here happens in her story. I cannot promise steady updates seeing as most of these were written months ago before/after the hiatus.]
(AU Hell is for Children. With the 'help' of angels, X is sent in the future where her team disbanded due to the team finding out that X works for Crowley and Sora gave into what demon blood does, consumed copious amounts and used the power she gained to control many demons.)
Awakening in an unfamiliar part of a town, X looked around to see that everywhere was in ruins, no people walking around, no animals making a sound, even the insects were silent. The hunter took notice to the fence around the city she was in and noticed the words 'Croatoan' and 'Quarantine' on it while the rest was faded.
X made an attempt to contact her team but her cell was showing no signal anywhere and even with a signal the call would not pick up or the female voice saying that the number is out of service or disconnected. Pocketing the cell Night ventured further into the desolate city, instincts heightening themselves as she kept one hand hovering over her gun until she realized that she left it back in the hotel she was originally at, but she quickly padded herself down to find that she had her blessed knife on her.
Going through several alleyways X heard what sounded like footsteps running behind her. Rapidly spinning around to see what was behind her, there was no one there, keeping on her toes X continued to walk down the alley with her knife out and ready to attack anything that comes her way. Making it out onto a street X heard more footsteps and shuffling papers and trashcans which had sent X nearly over the edge. Turning around to see what was making all that noise, she found that there was a horde of people running at her and not taking any chances of them being friendly, plus being outnumbered, she ran.
Looking back to see if she lost the horde, it seemed that they grew in numbers!
'What the hell?! What the hell is going on here?!' X thought as she took a quick turn into a warehouse and quickly closed the door. The hunter had no time to rest before two men grabbed her arms, forced the knife out of her hand and started carrying her to god knows where. "Hey, let me go! Who are you and what the hell is going on here?!" X demanded as she struggled to get out of the men's grasp.
"Let her go!" a female voice rang out in the warehouse which surprised X since she recognized the voice.
"Sora? Sora is that you?" X asked as the men released her and the woman known as Sora stepped out into the open with two men at her side and holding a champagne glass of dark red liquid.
"Long time no see, X." Sora said in a not so kind voice, looking at the hunter with a dark look. "What do I owe the visit? Has your master decided that I'm far too much of a threat to keep alive? Or..." her voice began to have a slight cheery tone to it, "Have you reconsidered my offer?"
X was confused as can be about Sora's behavior and the men around her, "What are you talking about, Sora? Where's Monarch and Wolf and what's going on out there?"
The elder ex-hunter had a slight perplexed look slide on her face after her former partner asked her questions, but then had an idea of what was with her former friend's confusion. "Ohh," Sora chuckled as she did a gesture with her hand and handed her glass to the man on her left, "Those angels sure know how to screw with someone's mind when it comes to dealing with the apocalypse." she then added, "The year is 2014, X, the Croatoan virus broke out, our rag-tag family broke up because we found out about you working for Crowley and from there cities with outbreaks of the virus were quarantined."
Hearing the short-end version of all the chaos out there X was more concerned with how her friends found out about her secret about working for Crowley. "How'd you find out?"
"X, hon, that'll just spoil everything." Sora then took her glass back from the man and took a sip of it. "Can't send ya back with too much information, whoever sent you here is wanting you to learn something about whatever decision you'll make back in the present. Or to stop something, whatever it is, I don't know nor do I care." Sora downed the rest of the glass and handed it off back to the man on her left who left.
"What's gotten into you Sora?" X demanded not believing that the woman in front of her was the same girl that she saved from death, "Are Monarch and Wolf still alive?"
Sora shrugged her shoulders, "I dunno, lost interest in their survival after they left." Sora then strides over to a chair to sit down as the same man came back with a now full glass of whatever Sora was drinking. "Oh, how rude of me, X would you like a drink and please, have a seat." Sora gestured to a chair directly across from her.
Taking all that Sora now was in, X sat down in the seat Sora gestured to and was trying to wrap her head around the fact that her team was gone, but now she was parched from all the running she did, "Actually, yes I would love something to drink."
"Okay, well since the virus broke out our beverages are limited but we have a selection of bottled water, demon blood, wine..."
"Wait! What did you just say?" X demanded, hoping she didn't hear what she thought she heard.
"Wine?"
"No, before that!"
"Water?"
"No! After that and before wine."
"Ohh, demon blood." Sora answered, "Believe it or not, demon blood has it's perks, a lot better than energy drinks and protein shakes combined." The former hunter took another long sip of the dark red liquid that X assumed to be demon blood and grimaced.
'She's lost it! What the hell happened after the team broke up?' X wondered, the shock only slightly wearing off, "Umm, I would like some water. But please answer my question Sora, what happened to you and the others?"
Sora looked at X with an unamused look, set her glass down on the floor and crossed her legs and propped her head up using her arms resting on her leg. "When our family broke up, Monarch, Wolf and I continued to hunt... Well one night during a hunt a demon bled on me, some of the blood got in my mouth and I swallowed it without realizing it. A day later I found both strength and mental capabilities had skyrocketed, at first neither me or the others knew what happened until we thought back to that hunt." Sora started explaining, "Unfortunately, I was unprepared of how... addictive, it can be. God, the addiction was hard to fight, it was nothing that I've ever experienced before, in due time I was sneaking demon blood behind their backs and consuming it like there was no tomorrow."
"Did they even try to help you?" X got on her feet, "Didn't Monarch or Wolf stop you from practically destroying yourself?!
Sora glared at X before grabbing the glass half-full of demon blood, downing more before chucking it across the room, "They tried! Don't even think for a moment that they didn't do everything in their power to help me!" She yelled at the hunter from the past, "When things started to get out of hand they tried to call you! You never answered, you never came and I was left to deal with this addiction!" The former hunter then let out an exasperated sigh and turned to X, "Later, I saw it as your way of getting back as us, for leaving and abandoning you. If we left you, why should you come to help. So... once my sickness was too hard to cure, Monarch and Wolf left and we've lost contact. I'm used to being alone, but there's a limit to how much solitude one can take and once my limit was hit I started surrounding myself with demons using the power I had to keep them docile and under my control."
~Flashback~
In an abandoned house Wolf was holding a shaking Sora in her arms, trying her best to hold onto the elder hunter. Wolf couldn't help but feel terrified at the mess Sora had become and desperately looked to Monarch, who was pacing back and forth on his cell trying to reach someone.
"Any luck?" Wolf asked in desperation then flinched when Sora cried out and tried to break free of Wolf's grasp.
Monarch hung up the phone then quickly reopened it to hit the redial, "Damn it X, pick up! We need you." He muttered, growing tired of the seemingly endless rings and getting voicemails. "She won't answer!" Monarch told Wolf then tried to leave a message, "X, I know what we did was unforgivable, but we need your help. It's Sora, she gotten herself into trouble and we don't know what to do. Please, if you get this, call back or come to Minerva, Nevada, that's where we'll be."
With that Monarch closed the cell phone just in time for Wolf to unwillingly let go of Sora and her body get flung to one side of the room. Quickly retaliating the situation, Monarch got a hold of Sora managed to put her on the cot the group had and tie her down to make sure she doesn't throw herself across the room again. Too risky to leave Sora on her own, Monarch took charge and told Wolf to stay with Sora and call if anything happens.
A while after Monarch left to get new supplies for the road, Wolf felt uneasy with how Sora was struggling against her binds. "Sora, you gotta fight it. You're gonna make it." She tried to encourage Sora in hopes of it helping, not knowing that at the time she was hallucinating a demon version of herself.
"Admit it Sora, you need it." the 'demon' Sora taunted as she walked over to the bound Sora, cut her wrist to 'bleed' into Sora's mouth. "Give in and drink to your heart's content."
Sora shook her head violently from side to side as if to prevent the blood from getting into her mouth, "Y-you're not real... You're not..." she whimpered, trying to remember what was real and what wasn't.
"Sora, you gotta get a hold of yourself!" Wolf tried to break through Sora's hallucinating phase, "Look at me, Sora!"
The withdrawal stricken hunter looked at the youngest of the group and tried to hold on to the fact that she was real and worried. Agonizing pain began washing over Sora's entire being and in the process Sora pulled harder against her restraints.
While Wolf was making sure that the restraints didn't slack, the hunter was unaware of the new presence in the room. Realizing that she and Sora weren't the only ones in the room, Wolf turned around to see a demon behind her and swatted her away like a gnat.
"W-wolf..." Sora weakly cried as her body started uncontrollably started shaking again.
"She's not going to help you, Sora." the hallucination chided, standing next to the very real demon. "You're on your own, but now time to appease your need." The hallucination finished in a chipper tone as the demon knelt next to Sora, cut the palm of his hand started making his blood flow into the hunter's mouth.
Sora tried to stop the blood from entering her mouth by closing it and turning her head to the side, but the demon retaliated by grabbing her chin and forced her mouth open. Once a decent amount of demon blood was in her mouth, the demon forced her mouth closed and waited for her addiction to instinctively swallow the blood. Being unable to spit out the blood, Sora unwillingly drank the blood and not too long after drinking it, the hunter got the strength to break free from her binds, grabbed the demon's knife and slit his throat.
Hopped up on demon blood and still had an undying thirst for more, Sora couldn't help herself but drink the blood that was pouring out from the wound. Wolf was freed from the telekenetic hold the demon formerly had on her and just stood in shock at how ravenously the elder hunter drank in the blood.
Quickly getting out her phone, she dialed Monarch number, "Monarch, you need to get back here now! I don't know if I can handle Sora alone."
"What happened Wolf?" Monarch quickly paid the cashier the money for the food, grabbed what he purchased and stormed out to the red mustang.
"A demon got inside, a gust of wind must've broken the salt line or something but... it bled into Sora's mouth. She got loose and..." Wolf's voice trailed off and the distinct sounds of a phone being put down was heard, "Sora, you gotta stop!" From there scuffling was heard over the phone and protests.
"I'm on my way, just try to stop Sora!" Monarch then hung up the phone, buckled up and sped off using the back roads to get to the old house they were temporarily staying in.
Back at the house Wolf was trying her best to keep Sora far away from the now deceased human, demon blood still flowing out of the body. The youngest of the hunters had more difficulty holding Sora back now that she had drank the blood, which made her stronger. Keeping the demon blood addict in a choke hold served some good in preventing Sora to get to the body, since Sora's need for air was more important than the blood.
Car wheels sliding to a stop, Monarch turned off the car, jumped out of it and stormed into the house to find a dead demon and Wolf holding Sora back. As quick as possible Monarch went to dispose of the body, in the process of dragging it out the second oldest hunter ordered Wolf to keep Sora back until he could get all traces of demon blood out.
~X~
Living in Hunter Manor alone, X opened her phone to see several missed calls and messages from Monarch and WolfAngel. Deciding to humor herself to see what they want X put the phone on speaker and walked into the kitchen as Monarch's more recent messages came alive on the phone. Once the message was finished X walked back over to her phone, with a bottle of whiskey in hand and closed out of her voicemails before anymore started playing.
Unscrewing the lid to the strong alcohol, X took a big swig of it and sat back on the chair since she had yet to be commissioned and her leads on her current case had gone cold. Her current case was to find the key to Pandora's Box for Crowley, X knew what everyone else knew about the box, it had already been opened all those years ago so there shouldn't be anything left inside. But just delivering the box wasn't good enough to be paid, it was either deliver Pandora's Box with it's key or let Crowley hire someone else to find it and pay them.
Getting another call from Crowley asking for an update on the status of her case, he wasn't too pleased about X not finding the key. Practically ordering her to try harder to look for the key, the King of the Crossroads gave X a little more incentive to help by saying that her pay will be more than originally if she finds the key. Needing as much money as she could get, X got back to doing her research on where Pandora could've possibly hid her key then factor in where it could've gone over the time.
~End of Flashback~
The ex-hunter then sat back down on the chair, holding her head in her hands and tried to calm down, remembering that she was talking to the past X-Night, not the current. "Sorry... You're not the X I know, lately she's been coming around either throwing deals or trying to kill me, on orders from Crowley of course. I could never find that slippery eel, met him only once and that was it."
"Crowley usually doesn't present himself to people unless he's called upon for a deal or summoned." X said to the future Sora who then made a recovery by getting up from her seat, walking over to a cupboard and pouring possibly demon blood from a bottle and got out a bottle of water which was tossed to X. She uncapped the bottle and started taking small mouthfuls of the untainted water. "Just curious, how is it that you guys found out that I work for Crowls?" X asked, thinking that if future Sora told her then she could prevent them finding out and save their family.
Sora smirked for a moment then let out a light chuckle, "Okay, I see what you're doing... Pandora's Box, you find it, then forgetting something back at the manor you made a quick stop. While you were looking for whatever it was you were looking for, Wolf rummaged through your bag to find the box, we all confronted you about it and kinda forced you to spill the beans." Sora then walked back over to her seat, "As for the key to the box... do you know where it's at?"
All X did was shake her head from side to side, wanting Sora to answer so when she gets back to the present, it'll make her search that much easier.
"Shame," Sora put her glass down on the floor again as she strides over to X, gotten behind her and wrapped her arms around her neck. "Think accessories when looking for the key." She whispered into X's ear before letting her go and going back to where she was sitting.
'Accessories? What the hell?' was the thought that ran through X's mind, trying to figure out what Sora was getting to but there wasn't much time to ponder on the information due to the fact that two men, no, demons, came in.
"Mistress, she's here again."
"Well, what are you waiting for? Invite her in, can't allow those Croats to get to her." Sora then looked at a table that was on the far end of the room and without warning the table was raised off the ground and floating towards her and X. Once the table was placed between Sora's and X's seats, the demon blood drinking woman leaned back in her seat, putting her hand over her eyes to block out any light and had a pained expression on her face.
"You okay Sora?" X asked, looking behind her to see who the uninvited guest was that the demon was talking about.
"Headache, I haven't been drinking as much demon blood as I have been in the past. If I don't drink copious amounts I get headaches so I've been trying to regulate how much I drink." Sora explained herself then looked to the window on the roof, "Night, get down from there! I know you're here so you might as well show yourself!" Sora shouted at the ceiling and X looked up just in time to see her future self drop down and landed feet first on the floor.
From the moment X-Night landed inside the warehouse, several demons walked into sight but Sora raised her hand to stop them. Making a shooing gesture, the demons looked at one another then left the room knowing what Sora could do if they done something to anger her. X couldn't help but be both amazed and shocked at how she looked several years from now if everything went as it had. X-Night wore her signature black leather jacket, black tight t-shirt underneath, dark jeans and black boots. X's future self was also equipped with Silver Lily, two guns and a few hidden knives. X-Night paid no attention to X, her main attention was on Sora, emerald eyes locked onto her former friend but had said nothing to her.
"Crowley or chat?" Sora asked, leaning forward and propping her elbows on the table to look at X-Night.
"Crowley," she replied as she took out a gun and aimed it at Sora. "He found out about your men making off with his workers. My employer has turned a blind eye on several occasions since you started taking demons for your addiction, but taking his workers crossed the line."
Sora raised an eyebrow hearing that her recent blood supply was supplied by crossroads demons, "I have been noticing that my blood supply had tasted rather... bitter." Sora's tone had a slight hint of disgust when referring to the blood she'd been drinking. "If that's how the blood of a crossroads demon tastes then I'd rather not bother wondering what your master's blood tastes like."
X-Night didn't waiver and kept her gun fixed on Sora, though looking out of the corner of her eye she noticed X standing there looking at her in disbelief. "Who's this?" X-Night nodded her head in X's direction.
"Doesn't she look familiar Night deary... She's you, from the past." Sora answered without missing a beat.
X-Night lowered her gun as she looked at X out of the corner of her eye, seeing herself and how she used to be in the past. "Why are you here?"
X realized that her future self had asked her a question but even she didn't know the answer, "I don't know. One minute I'm resting at a motel from a commission case then the next I'm here." The present day hunter then asked, "When our team broke up... Did everyone leave? Him too?" X wanted to know if everyone X knew would leave her if they found out about her working for Crowley.
Knowing perfectly well who X was talking about all X-Night did was nod. The nod from her future self had started making X think about what she would and should do once she gets back to her own time. Though before the present day hunter could say anything else, Sora had ordered her men to come in and 'escort' X out.
Two demons entering on command, on both sides of the hunter they had to force X away from the two while X tried to look back and voice her objection to herself killing Sora. As X was forced out of the warehouse, the door was locked behind her and silence sunk in.
This can't be how my future is supposed to be!' X ran around the warehouse to see any other entrances inside. 'I know how to stop us from breaking apart, but I don't want any of this to continue.'
The young hunter then started scaling the smaller building that were close to the warehouse to try to re-enter from the roof like her future self had done earlier. Failing a few times, X finally was able to get to the roof and arrive at the window just in time to see that X-Night had her gun aimed at Sora once more. Just when she was about to open the window, X noticed that Sora was looking at her, shook her head from side to side before looking back at her executioner and nodded.
BANG
With one bullet, X-Night's former friend and ally fallen to the ground, crimson blood pooling around her body. Feeling the black hole enter her heart again, X was frozen in place, in shock that she followed Crowley's order to kill Sora. Granted that she didn't fully understand the circumstances that lead up to this event, but she had now wished that she never witnessed it.
Gritting her teeth in anger, X took in a deep breath, "Whoever you are, what the hell did you want me to see?!" X screamed at the sky, wanting the being that brought her to that time to hear her. "What did you want me to learn!?"
Never in her life that X hated herself so much, but it was there that she realized that she can change her future. None of what she witnessed was set in stone, standing on the roof preparing to get off, just as she turned a figure touched her forehead and rendered the hunter unconscious.
Jumping awake at the sound of 'Hell is for Children' X woke up in her motel room that she was originally staying in. Checking everything, X realized that she was back in her own time and quickly answered Crowley's call which was to be updated on the search for Pandora's Box. Telling him that she was close to finding the box, the two hung up on one another as X fell back on the bed.
'That future won't ever happen... I'll make sure of it.' X made a vow to herself, her rag-tag family was important to her since she doesn't even remember her real family or if she even had one.