It had been almost a week since Sohinki discovered that Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla were demon hunters. It seemed so unreal now that he was sitting in the car with Joven and Lasercorn, headed to the Smosh Games HQ for a day of shooting. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that Joven and Lasercorn had been there that night too, Sohinki might have thought he'd imagined the whole thing.
"Am I the only one who feels really weird going into work today knowing that Ian and Anthony are going to be there?" Sohinki asked.
Lasercorn shrugged. "I'm actually kind of over it."
"What?" Sohinki said incredulously.
"Yeah, I've been texting Ian off and on since last Wednesday, and he explained a bunch and helped me get used to the whole idea."
"Why didn't you tell me you'd been texting him?"
"Oh, sorry, I didn't realize you cared so much about me texting someone." Lasercorn turned around to smirk at Sohinki from his spot in the passenger seat.
"Shut up," he said. "I just meant that I would've liked to hear some more details if Ian was sharing them with you."
"Yeah, he told me the story about how he found out Anthony was a demon hunter when they were sixteen, and how they've been hunting them together ever since."
"That is so fucking weird," Sohinki said, shaking his head.
"More like so fucking awesome!" Joven exclaimed, glancing at Sohinki through the rearview mirror. "I mean, did you see how badass Anthony's sword was?"
"Yeah, I saw it," Sohinki said, unimpressed. "Did you see how terrifying that monster was before he killed it?"
The Jovenshire ignored his retort. "I wish I had a sword like that. Hey, do you think Anthony would let me try it out?"
Sohinki refrained from saying anything rude to Joven and instead said, "What else did Ian tell you, Lasercorn?"
He shrugged. "Not a whole lot other than explaining some things here and there. Although he did tell me that Mari hunts demons too."
Sohinki blinked. He'd always had a bit of a thing for Mari, their extremely hot Smosh Games costar. He could just imagine her with some sort of badass weapon—a gun, a katana, whatever—hunting down demons.
"Maybe it'll give you an excuse to talk to her today," Lasercorn suggested with another smirk.
"Yeah, maybe," Sohinki said, trying to feign disinterest. "I'll take explanations anywhere I can get them."
"Well, doesn't this feel businesslike," Ian commented as he took his seat next to Anthony. "I feel like I need to make a fart joke just to bring the mood back down to Smosh levels."
Mari, Lasercorn, Joven, and Sohinki didn't even crack a smile at Ian's attempted joke, which Anthony found more than a little bit unnerving. He could practically feel all their questions threatening to suffocate him. He'd hoped that nothing would really change after last week, but it seemed that wasn't going to be the case.
Anthony glanced uneasily at Ian, who just shrugged.
Great. Thanks for the help, man.
"So, how was everybody's week?" Anthony asked, trying not to sound as awkward as he felt.
A chorus of fines and goods rang out from the group, but it was quickly followed by a heavy silence.
Anthony cleared his throat and said, "Joven, Sohinki, Lasercorn, I know you probably have a lot of questions for us, and I promise we'll do our best to answer as many as we can. But for now, just know that we don't want anything to change because of the whole demon-hunting thing. Ian and I are still the same people, and we're still going to act the same way we did before. I'm, uh, kind of hoping that we'll all be able to act normally on camera, because the last thing I want is rumors and theories going crazy in the comments."
They all nodded and then went back to the attentive listening that was so unnerving to Anthony. It kind of felt like the first time the six of them had met, four-and-a-half months ago, before they got used to cracking jokes and teasing each other all the time.
These uncomfortable silences were really getting to him. He glanced at Ian again, almost subconsciously, and found his friend's keen blue eyes watching him closely.
"There's also something else we thought we might, uh, propose," Anthony said. He paused awkwardly, trying to come up with a way to say it.
Ian jumped in, sparing Anthony the trouble of figuring out what he was trying to say. "We want to know if you're interested in hunting demons with us."
Anthony took a nervous breath, inwardly both cursing and thanking his best friend for another show of his classic bluntness. He glanced anxiously among Sohinki, Joven, and Lasercorn, trying to read their expressions.
Joven looked almost comically shocked and excited. Lasercorn's eyebrows were raised, which Anthony supposed meant he was surprised—Lasercorn was always hard to read. Sohinki, on the other hand, had a frown in place across his features. It was a fairly cryptic expression that Anthony had difficulty interpreting, but it definitely didn't exude positivity.
"Are you serious?" Joven asked. His eyes were the size of dinner plates.
"Yeah," Anthony said with a nod. "For once in his life, Ian's actually being serious."
"It's a great idea and all," said Lasercorn, "but none of us have ever hunted anything outside of video games."
"Yeah, well, neither had we when we started," Ian said. "But we learned quickly enough. Besides, you've got Anthony, Mari, and me to help you."
"Will I get a sweet sword like Anthony's?" Joven asked.
Ian shrugged. "Maybe. We honestly aren't fully sure how we'll have you guys help us, but we know we need it."
We kind of need it, Anthony mentally corrected him. Ian was the one who had come up with the idea of involving Sohinki, Lasercorn, and Joven in the demon-hunting portion of his and Anthony's lives. Anthony hadn't agreed at first—he was as comfortable sharing his secret now as he had been nine years ago when he first told Ian—but his best friend managed to make some fairly convincing arguments, especially now that Lasercorn, Joven, and Sohinki already knew demons existed.
Anthony sat engrossed in his own thoughts for several minutes. He barely even heard the series of questions that Lasercorn and Joven—Sohinki was strangely silent—fired at Ian. His friend seemed to be doing a good job of answering them, though Anthony wasn't paying very much attention. It was so nice to let Ian be the one in charge for a change. Somehow in their partnership, Anthony had ended up being the one who usually had to have answers and solutions to everything. It got pretty taxing after a while, especially given how many life-and-death situations Ian and Anthony found themselves in.
Ian's loud voice punched through Anthony's web of thoughts. "Anything else you'd like to add, Anthony?"
"Oh, uh, no, I think you did a pretty good job answering all the questions and everything. So if this whole deal hasn't made everything really weird, we can just go back to shooting today's videos like normal."
"Yep. So you're free to go, everyone."
Ian's dismissal heralded the scraping of chairs and opening of doors and the sound of Lasercorn and Joven joking or arguing or both.
"Where were you in the last half of that, dude?" Ian asked him. He didn't sound angry or accusatory or even irritated that Anthony had zoned out, just well-meaning and curious.
"I don't know, I was just thinking. Sorry to put you on the spot like that."
Ian shrugged. "'S'okay. It was my idea, after all."
A throat was cleared quietly, interrupting their conversation. Anthony glanced up and saw that Sohinki hadn't left with the others. He was still seated at the table with his arms crossed and a frown on his face.
"Something you wanted to talk about, Matt?" Anthony asked.
He nodded. "Guys, I think you're making a mistake, letting Joven and Lasercorn help you with this demon-hunting thing."
Ian and Anthony exchanged a look, both of them slightly surprised by Sohinki's statement.
"Well, I mean, I know it's a pretty crazy idea," Ian said. "But I think it'll be okay. We've been doing this for almost a decade."
"But they haven't. Look, I know those guys. They don't know what's good for them. They think killing demons is cool and badass, so of course they'll agree to it. They're not even considering how dangerous it is."
"We're not going to just throw you guys out to the demons and let you fend for yourselves," Anthony said. "We'll make sure no one gets hurt."
"Yeah," Sohinki said, still frowning. "But I'm still really worried that they'll agree to something without thinking about it."
"Let's just try it and see how it goes," said Ian. "Everything may turn out all right in the end."
Sohinki sighed and shook his head, still seeming unenthused about the plan. "I just sometimes feel like I'm the only one looking out for those two."
Anthony gave Matt a smile that he hoped was reassuring. "Well, you won't be anymore."
This was turning out worse than expected. Or maybe it was better. Sohinki hadn't quite decided yet.
It was two weeks after Anthony and Ian had announced their intention to let Lasercorn, Joven, and Sohinki help them hunt demons. They'd done a little bit of training and Ian and Anthony had given them lots of information about the demons they'd encountered and killed over the years. Unfortunately, as Anthony had pointed out, the only way to really learn how to hunt demons was by demon-hunting in real life. So Ian and Anthony had brought the Smosh Games crew along with them to one of the many dark, half-abandoned residential areas outside of Los Angeles. Lasercorn had commented that it seemed like a good place to get raped and Sohinki privately agreed with him. He wondered how many nights Ian and Anthony had spent in these crappy little suburbs; judging by how well they knew the neighborhood, the answer was quite a few.
"A demon exited the portal about six hours ago," Anthony told the group as Ian unloaded equipment out of the back of Anthony's sedan.
"What type?" asked Mari.
"Not sure. Something fast. It barely registered on my sensors."
"Was it big?" Ian asked as he pressed the door to the trunk closed.
"Human-sized, maybe. It shouldn't be too hard to kill."
"But how are we going to find it?" Joven said with a frown.
"By looking for it the old fashioned way," Anthony answered. "We'll split up into groups of two and comb the streets, looking for signs. We'll stay within a couple blocks of the portal for now; demons generally stick pretty close to it, probably because they think they can get back through it."
He grabbed his sword, which Ian had deposited into the pile of all the rest of their weapons, and strapped it onto his back. Matt wanted to ask if it was even legal to have that many blades and firearms, but since he wasn't sure what he'd do if the answer turned out to be no, he stayed quiet.
"First team to find the demon has to contact the others ASAP," Anthony continued. "So far, Ian and Mari and I have found texting our location to the other two works pretty well, and if we're all within a few blocks of each other, you shouldn't be on your own for more than a few minutes."
Ian handed weapons out to the three newbies, and somehow Sohinki found himself holding a hefty combat knife and a can of pepper spray. He gave Ian a skeptical glance about the pepper spray, and the blue-eyed man just shrugged. "Gun laws suck ass, man. Pepper spray's the best we can give you guys for a long-range weapon. But believe me, if you nail a demon in the eye with this stuff, it'll give you at least enough time to haul ass."
Sohinki remained skeptical, but he gave Ian a nod and stuck the pepper spray into his hoodie pocket. It wasn't like he would've known what to do with a gun anyway.
"Like I said, we'll be in groups of two," Anthony continued, "so Joven, you're with me."
"I've got Lasercorn," Ian said, glancing at the older man. Sohinki didn't miss David's triumphant smirk as he moved to stand beside Ian.
"Which means, Matt, you'll be with me," Mari said with a smile that was small but not unfriendly.
Sohinki was so busy trying not to show how pleased he was to be teamed with Mari that he only half-listened during the next minute as final preparations were made. He started paying attention, though, when Mari set off down the street.
They walked in total silence for a moment as Mari watched for signs of the demon and Matt watched Mari. He finally dared to ask, "If I talk, will I give away our position?"
She answered in a low voice. "As long as you're fairly quiet, we should be okay. I can guarantee that even if you don't keep your voice down, you won't be as loud as Joven."
Sohinki chuckled half-heartedly. "I know. Poor Anthony."
Joshua Ovenshire could not contain his excitement. He felt like he was going to burst with all the anticipation, exhilaration, and fear he felt as he trailed Anthony down the dark, abandoned streets. Unfortunately for Anthony, Joven's excitement had the undesirable side-effect of loosening his tongue. He kept peppering the other man with questions, wanting to hear everything Anthony knew about demons and how to hunt them.
"I just wish I could steal your brain for a couple minutes," Joven said. "So I could stop having to ask you all these questions."
Anthony smiled. "I kind of think I need my brain right now, Joven."
"Yeah, for sure," he agreed. "I wouldn't know anything about how to kill a demon."
Besides, he didn't just want to borrow Anthony's brain; he wished he could be the demon hunter. In his black leather jacket, with a sword strapped to his back and an aura of danger radiating off him, Anthony was the picture of badass. Joven wasn't sure, but he thought he might be slightly star-struck over the emo-haired young man.
"So Lasercorn said you and Ian started hunting demons when you were teenagers, but you guys grew up in Sac, right?"
"Yeah…" said Anthony, sounding unsure of Joven's point.
"But if the portal is here in L.A., then how were there any demons for you to fight up there?"
"Two portals. Part of the reason I moved down to L.A. was because another portal opened up here."
Joven frowned. "How?"
"I dunno. But I knew someone needed to be monitoring this one and hunting down anything that came out of it, and since I'd already been considering leaving Sacramento, I figured I should do it."
"So you take care of the demons coming out of this portal and Ian handles the ones up there?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
Joven saw Anthony's thick, dark eyebrows knit together. "What's wrong?" he asked immediately, his voice hushed. "Did you see something?"
"No, but I thought I heard something," Anthony breathed, holding a hand out to stop Joven in his tracks.
Joven's whole body tensed, and he gripped the knife Ian had given him so tightly he thought he felt his hand start melding to the handle. His heart almost exploded when a sudden chiming noise interrupted the quiet of the streets.
Anthony swore and pulled his phone out of the pocket of his skinny jeans. He glanced down at his phone screen and said, "Ian and David found it. Come on."
The demon had managed to sneak up on Ian, and he was pissed as hell about it. He would've liked to blame Lasercorn for distracting him—Ian could've sworn the man was trying to flirt with him—but the truth was that Ian wasn't paying enough attention to his surroundings. The worst part was knowing that Anthony would never have allowed a demon to sneak up on him like this.
Neither Ian nor Lasercorn had been paying any attention when the demon jumped out from behind a dumpster and pounced on top of Lasercorn, sending him sprawling to the ground. Ian swore and reached for one of his weapons as the demon turned, its feet still planted on David's chest, and bared its fangs at him.
The creature was so humanoid that it could almost be mistaken for a human woman. It definitely had the long hair, delicate face structure, and… well, other female characteristics, none of which were hidden by any form of clothing. But everything about her—it—was twisted and wrong-looking. Large, black horns spiraled out of its forehead and a tail snaked along the ground behind it. Its eyes were the vibrant, electric purple that marked most of the stronger demons.
Ian could hear Lasercorn muttering a stream of terrified cusswords as he struggled beneath the demon.
"David, shut the fuck up and stop moving," Ian snapped as he continued his staring contest with the demon woman, which snarled at the sound of Ian's voice and flicked a forked tongue between its teeth. "I'll draw it away. As soon as I do, contact the others and stay out of the way."
He didn't wait for Lasercorn to agree—he wasn't sure the other man was collected enough to have done so anyway. Instead, he uttered a harsh yell as he stepped toward the demon, hoping to threaten it enough to make it move.
His plan worked, just as Ian had known it would. The demon took a step back instinctively, settling into a defensive crouch and hissing. Then, in the space of a blink, it lunged toward him.
Ian dodged out of the way skillfully and pulled out his knife. While the demon was still regaining its balance after its lunge, he made his own move, jumping forward with the knife ready to stab. He felt it slice through the demon's skin, glancing off one of its ribs. Ian leapt away as soon as he could, but the demon still managed to whirl and rip its claws across the top half of his chest, tearing through his clothes to the pale skin beneath. Ian swore as the scratches started to burn.
He and the demon faced off again, each sizing the other up more carefully now that they'd both been injured. Ian considered going for his gun and trying to shoot it, but chances were the demon would just dodge the bullet, and Ian didn't want to waste the ammunition or make such a loud noise if he could avoid it.
He risked a glance at David, who was now crouched behind the same dumpster the demon had hidden behind. He had his phone out and looked to be notifying the others, which Ian was glad of. He'd appreciate having some backup right about now.
He looked back at the female demon just as it pounced forward, sweeping Ian's feet out from under him with a foot of its own. He stumbled sideways and barely caught himself before he hit the pavement, his wrist throbbing at the impact. The demon lashed out with a foot again, striking low on Ian's gut. The pain reverberated deep in his organs, and Ian tried to judge if anything vital had been damaged by the blow. He wasn't sure, but he didn't have time to conduct a check-up—not as the demon threw herself down on top of him, her teeth bared and ready to sink into his neck.
Luckily, Ian was still holding his knife in his right hand, which he positioned to hit the demon just before she landed on top of him. The blade sunk into her gut and she let out a long, soulless scream as she raked her claws across his face. Ian shouted and kicked her off him. Her blood splashed onto his chest as his knife was yanked out of her skin.
The demon landed a few feet away. Its eyes were full of pain as it growled at Ian and then turned tail and fled down the street. Ian stumbled to his feet and stepped toward Lasercorn.
"Phone," he said between clenched teeth. "Give me the phone, Dave."
A wide-eyed Lasercorn handed it to him. Ian tapped the phone's screen and then held it up to his ear. "Come on, Mari, you asshole, pick up, dammit," he muttered impatiently. He could still feel the adrenaline pulsing through his veins, making him hyper-aware of every sound and flickering shadow in the dark street.
A second later, the phone clicked as Mari picked up. Ian didn't waste any time with greetings; he just said, "It's headed your way. John's street. It's fast and wounded, so watch out. David and I'll be there as soon as we can."
"Mari? What is it?" Sohinki asked her, examining her face as she hung up the phone.
"Ian says the demon's coming our way, and that it's dangerous. He sounded pretty out-of-breath, so it probably put up a pretty good fight for him."
Mari walked briskly down their street and turned onto another, stopping in front of an intersection. Sohinki watched, wordless, as Mari pulled her sword—he'd been right to imagine her with a katana—out of its sheath and settled into a ready crouch.
"Did he tell you what the demon is?"
She shook her head. "I know as much as you do."
Sohinki scoffed. "At least your best weapon isn't a can of pepper spray."
Mari flashed him a grin, but it faded quickly. "Look, I don't want to sound rude, but since you don't know a damn thing about demons, it's probably best if you keep your distance."
"I was pretty much planning to," he assured her. "I'll just watch unless you need help."
"I won't. But thanks."
They waited another tense thirty seconds before Sohinki heard the sound of bare feet slapping the pavement. He was speechless when he saw the demon barreling down the street they were facing. She looked like something out of a video game—one with really good jiggle physics. There was black blood running down her abdomen, probably courtesy of Ian Hecox. But despite her naked body and the wound on her gut, she looked terrifyingly powerful as she sprinted toward them faster than any human could run.
Matt could only watch as Mari moved forward to meet the she-demon. In the space of a blink, the two had entered a fierce and evenly-matched duel. Mari's katana was deadly sharp and she wielded it expertly, but the demon was just fast enough to dodge her blows. Sohinki felt completely worthless and awestruck as he watched the two females fight.
He was still watching, slack-jawed, when the demon spun and lashed her tail, whipping Mari's blade out of her hands. The Asian girl was on the ground and rolling away instantly, but her katana was now a few yards away from her. She pulled a knife out, but the demon was already on her, snarling and biting and clawing.
Sohinki realized his friend was about to get severely injured unless he did something. The adrenaline in his blood made him reckless as he ran forward and swiped Mari's katana off the ground. He didn't know the first thing about fighting with it, but in the moment that didn't matter.
He'd reached the two women now; the demon was still straddling Mari and in an upright position. Her back was wide open and perfectly positioned for the katana's entrance into her torso. Matt shoved it into the demon as hard as he could, feeling blood and flesh and bones yield before the tip of the blade. The creature screamed, but he could hardly hear it over the blood roaring in his ears. The handle of the sword slipped out of his hands as the demon collapsed forward off Mari and landed face-first on the asphalt. It didn't move again.
Sohinki was heaving in breaths, but he still managed to extend a shaking hand and help Mari off the ground. To his surprise, she only had a few scratches across her chest and face and one bite mark on one of her shoulders. She set a hand on his heaving shoulder.
"Not bad for a newbie," she told him between her own panting breaths. "I think I owe you one now."
He shut his eyes, trying to get his heart rate to slow down to a human level. "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus," he muttered. "That was fucking terrifying."
He heard, rather than saw, her step forward and pull her katana out of the demon's corpse. It made a slick sliding sound that made Matt feel nauseous. Then Mari's hand was back on his arm, guiding him away from the dead monster and helping him take a seat at the curb.
"Thanks for your help," she said. "It was a little faster than I thought it'd be."
He exhaled a long breath and looked at her. "You seriously do shit like this all the time?"
"Yeah." She shrugged. "I mean, it's pretty much the same reason I like video games: the thrill."
"Thrill?" he repeated incredulously.
"Come on, Matt, you've got to admit that that was some fucking thrill right there."
"A bit more exhilarating than a video game," he admitted. "But I'm not sure that's a good thing."
Mari chuckled and got to her feet. "Come on. Let's go find the others. Anthony will want to look at the body, I'm sure, but then we can burn it and call it a night."
He nodded wearily, his adrenaline finally gone now.
"So," Mari said as they started down one of the streets, "you were the one who was hesitant about this whole demon-hunting thing. What do you think about it now?"
"I think I was right to be fucking terrified. But I also think you're kind of right about the thrill. And maybe, just maybe, I might be willing to help out again one time. But," he held up his hands, "I want a better weapon than the goddamn pepper spray next time."
Mari grinned. "I think we can arrange that."