The demon called forth into the depths of hell. Where her voice reached, it was received by all of her unholy minions. Hands of bone and sinew grasped from the ground as servants strove to please their powerful mistress. The hands grabbed at her enemies, slowing their advance to a crawl. Satanichia, unholy lord of the fiery pits of hell cackled as the enemy demons struggled in vain to reach her. On the off chance that one came remotely close, her blade decapitated the fool and all his hubris in one swoop.
Beside Satanichia stood the archangel Gabriellia, wielding holy magics of the highest angelic order. Those who luckily dodged the skeletal hands of Satanichia's constructs were engulfed in the blessed fire of God. Truly, all enemies within this land would do well to cower before these two forces of conflicting morality.
((Party: FallenAngel001: nice combo i leveled up))
((Party: Archdemon003: All who fight in the shadow of the true Queen of Hell shall share in her power!))
FallenAngel001 has left the party
((Archdemon003: WAIT! I'll stop, I promise!))
FallenAngel001 has invited you to a party
Sighing in relief, Satanichia quickly clicked 'Accept' and the two continued slaughtering demons. Immediately after school, both girls had immediately logged on, each with different ulterior motives. Satanichia, for her part, just wanted to spend time with her new friend. She would gladly accept the role of tank and the high repair bills that came with it. The two had been questing together for the better part of a week now, and were quickly becoming close.
((Party: FallenAngel001: say, ur pretty good at this))
Satanichia was unsure how to take an earnest compliment for a feat that she hadn't made up to appease her father. She wasn't used to such praise.
((Party: Archdemon003: Uhm, thanks. I'm pretty new at this but I play a lot of single-player RPGs. You're a great healer!))
She quickly complimented her friend back. She wasn't used to having a healer in her party that she didn't have to switch control to. Watching her health bar stay above 90% was oddly satisfying. As the two noticed their inventory filling, they began running to the nearest town to sell their junk items and repair their equipment. Luckily there was a neutral town nearby.
((Party: FallenAngel001: im always a healer, easier to find groups. when we hit lvl 10 lets make a guild))
Satanichia smiled widely. Not only was a friend willingly talking to her, she wanted to form a guild together. This was beyond what she had expected.
She was still typing a response when FallenAngel001 sent another message.
((Party: FallenAngel001: hey i gtg cya tonite?))
Satanichia was disappointed to see her friend logging off so soon, but she could at least look forward to later on. Besides, her family was about to have dinner anyway. She spammed backspace and typed out a new message.
((Party: Archdemon003: Definitely! I'll see you-))
...but before she could finish typing her friend had logged off. Smiling in anticipation she mentally braced herself for family dinner. She was another day closer to college and she now had a friend. These thoughts accompanied her as she made her way downstairs, two stairs at a time and humming a quiet tune under her breath. She skipped around the corner into the rather small kitchen and sat down at the table.
"You're in a good mood tonight," her mother, Amélie, said happily as she placed a bowl of porridge in front of her, "What's the occasion?"
Satanichia looked around the room and stood to peak around the corner to the living room.
Her mother seemed to be reading her mind when she said, "Your father is picking up your brother from Rugby practice."
The young girl smiled wide and let her guard down as she told her mother about her new friend in her game. She told her about their meeting and their plans to form a guild together. Despite her mother's confusion about angels and demons and what exactly a guild was, the woman was very supportive and smiled happily at her daughter. After all, Satanichia wasn't the only one who put on an act for the sake of keeping the peace in the house. The only one in the house that didn't put on such a pretense was her little brother, but their father saw his rebellious attitude as the "foolishness of youth."
Satanichia only stopped telling her mother about the adventures with her first friend when the door opened and her father, Dougal, and brother, Ethan, walked in. To change personality to suddenly was like plunging oneself into a lake of icy water, but the girl had mastered the skill over the years.
"...and so I'm thinking of getting on as the new leader for the Science club at school, but I don't know if it's worth my time," she said loudly, careful to ensure that her father would hear her loud boasting. Part of her wanted to vomit in her mouth at the fake face she had to put on, but that part of her had long been dead. Likewise, her mother smiled sadly at her and put out the porridge for Dougal and Ethan.
"That's our girl," Dougal said boisterously as Amélie sat down. He clapped his daughter on the back and pumped his fist, continuing, "You've only been in public schools for a year and you're already running the place. I couldn't be prouder."
Satanichia just gave her falsely egotistical smile and let loose her signature cackle. Looking forward to leaving the table and returning to her video game, she pounded the table obnoxiously and proclaimed, "The Queen of the school requires her sustenance!" Her father just laughed loudly and nodded his head in agreement.
"Agreed! Let's say grace!" he thundered out.
Dougal rubbed his hands together excitedly as he looked at the food and grabbed his wife and daughter by the hand before they bowed their heads in prayer. After a few seconds, he interrupted the silence with an "amen" and the family began to eat. The good thing about Dougal's personality was that Satanichia could generally get by silently by just tuning him out and eating until she could excuse herself to her room to return to her video games. Unfortunately, that led to a bit of a lonely life, and her brother and father didn't even really know who she was beyond her façade, but it was a sacrifice she was willing to make. After basically inhaling her bowl of porridge and thanking her mom for the food she pushed down her excitement before she asked her father for permission to be excused.
"What? Why? You'll miss the rest of my story," he said with a raised brow, "Are you feeling ill, Annabel? You normally love my stories from work."
Truthfully, she hadn't even been paying attention to his story at all. This was the nightly dinner routine. Normally, she was pretty good at estimating the length of his stories, but tonight she was a little off. It was probably because of her eagerness to leave. She laughed nervously as she quickly tried to formulate an excuse.
"I'm sorry father. I have homework, and the class president must stay ahead in her duties to keep the underlings in line," she lied smoothly. Dougal eyed her critically for a moment before nodding and smirking.
"Of course she must. I expect nothing short of perfection," he instructed with a gesture as she rose and walked upstairs. She wasn't super worried about his expectations. After all, he never actually verified her grades or seemed to genuinely ask about her education.
She hopped into her room, trying to summon the pip in her step from earlier. It usually took quite some time after her parting from her father before she could regain her previous vigor and joy. She sat down at her makeshift computer desk - it was actually an old patio table that she had found on discount at a local store. Her face lit up at the MMORPG's logo on her monitor. She typed in her credentials and entered the realms of Hell on her character. She opened her friend's list and, seeing that FallenAngel001 was offline, began farming for herbs to make some potions for when the other girl logged on. It was a tedious task, but it had to be done. The farming went by in a flash in her anticipation for the adventure she was bound to have. Before she knew it, two hours had passed and she finally got the news she was waiting for.
FallenAngel001 is online!
"Why do I have to be here?" Gabriel asked in boredom.
"Because our teacher thought we would be effective partners for this project," Vignette answered with a sad, resigned look. Truthfully, the teacher knew that Vignette was the only student that could get any work out of the lazy student. What he didn't know is that Gabriel only actually did any work about thirty percent of the time. Most of the time she just copied Vignette's own homework.
"His mistake," she retorted as she removed a carton of grape juice and a straw from her pocket and poked the straw through the hole. She sipped the juice loudly and Vignette winced at the loud noise and stares from the other students. Gabriel simply ignored them as she supported her face on her empty left palm and continued the juicy kerfuffle.
"No, it is not his mistake!" Vignette argued, jerking the juice from the shorter girl's hands and placing it on the opposite side of her on the table. She kept blocking the blonde as she reached around her for the beverage. She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, "Come on, Gab. We have to finish this assignment tonight or we'll fail.
"I thought you would have it finished already," Gabriel admitted. Without a shred of regret, Vignette noted sadly.
"Just… go find these books for me," she said with a low voice that practically screamed self-restraint and frustration as she handed Gabriel a list of books that she had looked up and assumed would be useful on the project. The girl slowly wandered off towards the bookshelves.
It was a simple project. Each group in the class consisted of two people. Each team was assigned a random topic that was covered during the previous weeks and had to create a small presentation for the teacher. Vignette and Gabriel were lucky enough to get an easy topic: The Periodic Table of Elements. Vignette had planned the entire project: a destructible block-like model of the Periodic Table of Elements with all of the important information for each element on its designated block. Each block would also be openable from the back with a small slip of paper with a random piece of trivia for that specific element.
So far, they had finished the first three periods of the table. Well, to be accurate, Vignette had finished the first three periods of the Periodic Table. Gabriel had just played some mobile game on her phone and sipped juice until the older girl had taken her phone away. At this point it was six o'clock in the evening and the girls would be lucky to finish up before midnight.
While Gabriel fetched the research materials for the trivia information on the elements, Vignette continued her work with potassium. Making the blocks out of construction paper was actually pretty simple. All she had to do was fold the paper into boxes and tape them with clear tape in a way that would allow the paper to open from the back and would simultaneously hide the tape. She had just finished up the fourth period when Gabriel got back with the books she needed. Honestly, she was quite surprised and happy that the lazy-good-for-nothing had even managed to get the right books to begin with.
About two and a half hours later the two were finally finished constructing the actual model and labeling the elements, but they still had their work cut out for them. Both girls were nose deep in various books about the history and applications of chemistry and Vignette had no shortage of regrets for her ambitious ideas for the project. The information was easily available, but it was still time-consuming.
"This is boring. Can we just skip school tomorrow and work on it then?" Gabriel asked with no small amount of hope in her voice.
"If you had worked on it with me earlier this week, we could have finished it by now," Vignette said absently as she continued her research in Alkaline-Earth metals. She didn't notice the girl's pout, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway. The deadline was approaching, and she didn't have time for the nonsense.
"It's hardly my fault that I've had plans this week," Gabriel said as she faceplanted into the book on the table in front of her, "This stupid project had bad timing."
She's saying this with a serious face.
"What's with your priorities? Couldn't you at least try to put in some effort at school?" she asked with a huff of annoyance. Gabriel shrugged her shoulders in response.
"I put in all the effort I can," she said.
You literally put in no effort.
"After all," she continued, "my services at the church take up a lot of time."
This surprised Vignette. She had no idea that Gabriel actually did something that helped people. She actually had to look up from her book to see the serious expression on her friend's face to know it wasn't some kind of joke.
"You volunteer at a church?" she asked in genuine curiosity and a fair amount of pride in her friend. This is fantastic! She's actually taking on a responsibility! Vignette's smile was a force that could only be stopped by a miracle.
"Of course," Gab said with a serious expression, "I've helped many people, including a girl influenced by demons."
Vignette was beginning to feel a little suspicious at that, but she supposed that one under the influence of the Satanic Bible may seek some sort of guidance or help at a church. After all, her family traditionally followed the teaching of the Satanic Bible. She closed her book with a bookmark and asked, "You actually help people at an actual church?"
Gabriel nodded and proudly explained, "Yes. In fact, just last night I assisted in the care of a dozen refugees."
Vignette felt tears forming in her eyes from the pride she felt and rose from her chair to hug the shorter girl.
"I'm so proud of you! Here I thought you were a useless shut-in who only plays video games and sleeps!" Vignette whisper-shouted to her friend while hugging her tight. Gab just scribbled down a fact about Cobalt for the project while ignoring the hug.
"Eh?" she asked in a nonchalant tone.
"You're actually doing something productive," she said warmly as she pulled back with the hug, "you can go on home. I can finish it from here. Since you're actually doing something in service of others, you probably need some rest."
It was slightly out of character for Vignette to take on this much work on her own and excuse Gab, but she had to encourage such uncharacteristic charity from her best friend. Besides, the two had made some good progress so far, and she could finish up the rest of the work on her own by eleven thirty at the latest.
"Really? I can go?" Gabriel asked as her face lit up with what Vignette could only call angelic joy. When she nodded, the girl pulled her into a hug of her own. This was the most enthusiasm she had seen from the gamer all day.
When the girl had finished packing her things – which only took her about fifteen seconds – and left, Vignette just smiled and continued her work. A friendly wave was the last she saw of her friend for the night. With a resolved smile, she set back to the project. She may not be volunteering at a local church, but she couldn't let Gabriel be the only one hard at work.
"Ugh. This is such hard work…" Gabriel mumbled as she struggled up the stairs towards her dorm. She was currently over-encumbered by the weight of four two-liter bottles of soda in one bag – carried by her right arm – and two bags of potato chips in her other arm. She panted on every step and sighed in relief when she reached her door. Placing the sodas on the ground for a brief moment, she fumbled for her key and unlocked the door. She walked into the door and used her hip to close the door and, after putting the rations on her bed, she locked her door.
Her dorm was rather small. It had a small single bed on the left, an end table next to the bed, a small square table on the opposite side of the bed and a closet next to it. She had a small round purple rug that went well alongside her pink comforter set and matching pillowcase. The table was a small foldable wooden thing that one might expect to find on a patio. It had two matching wooden chairs that were also foldable. The closet was small. It was about a 2x2 room with a small storage shelf above the hangers.
Gabriel moved the groceries to the table and plopped onto her bed with an unattractive grunt. She opened her laptop, plugged it into the wall, and turned on her wireless mouse. Tapping the power button, she pulled out her phone and browsed Reddit as she waited for the boot up sequence. After an annoying patch with a few inevitable post-launch hotfixes, she finally logged into "Hallowed World," her newest MMORPG. At the character selection screen, she selected her only character, Gabriellia – Gabrielle was taken, as was Gabriella. With a quick tap of her index finger, she hit the play button.
Opening her friend's list, she saw that her only friend so far in this game – Display Name: Archdemon003, character name: Satanichia – was online. With a quick navigation of the menu, she sent a group invite to the other character. It was accepted almost immediately.
Archdemon003 was invited to the party!
Archdemon003 has joined the party!
Party: Archdemon003: Ah, if it isn't my greatest ally in the fight against the darkness!
Gabriel facepalmed, but there was a grin on her face at the silly antics of the roleplayer. She always threatened to leave the group and stop talking to the girl when she RP'ed in group chat, but she would never actually do it. To be honest, she found it quite endearing. Ah, to hell with it. With a deep breath, she mentally braced herself and tried to channel her grammar lessons from school.
Party: Archangel001: O powerful demon! Hast thou forgotten that thou art a force of darkness as well?
She felt a little awkward at her in-character talk, since she had never RP'ed before, but she smirked at her response to the demon character. She would love to see her partner's face at the sudden change in her speech pattern and grammar. I bet she's flabbergasted.
Party: Archdemon003: Nyahahahaha! You are mistaken, for I stand on a different level than these pathetic excuses for demons!
Party: FallenAngel001: Truly, they shall tremble before your fiery wrath and the power of God combined! ((just need to repair my gear))
Gabriellia went to a tailor to have her equipment repaired and began the trek to her pal's locations. She said a few prayers to buff them and Satanichia traded a few potions of regeneration to her. It was definitely nice to have an alchemist in the party. Between her angelic buffs and the potions that were in supply, the two were nearly unstoppable and could even challenge enemies that were twice their level.
Party: Archdemon003: We shall make them beg for mercy! ((Also, welcome back!))
Party: FallenAngel001: thanks long day -.- do u have a mic?
Maybe Gabriel was used to the quick replies, so after two or three minutes of their characters idling together, she was surprised that she was still waiting for a response. Her avatar started dancing in place as she sorted her inventory and put the potions on her hotbar. Just when she was about to stop dancing and spam heals on the other girls' character to fill up her notification bar, she finally got a response.
Party: Archdemon003: I'm back! So sorry! I had to find my mic!
Gabriel opened the game menu and clicked on the "Social" tab. She checked the box next to "Enable Voice Chat" and plugged her own gaming headset in. The green light appeared on the mic and she held the push-to-talk button to test her mic out. Seeing the indication on the screen that the game was indeed picking up her input, she smiled in satisfaction and typed a response.
Party: FallenAngel001: heh i was starting to get worried. join voice chat
Party: Archdemon003: My sincere apologies. There was a disturbance of the highest demonic order to which I was forced to attend.
After a short pause, Gabriel noted the icon in the top left of the screen that indicated a new addition to the party chat: Satanichia. Her character icon was just the facial portrait of her character in its starting gear, while Gabriellia's was a simple angelic symbol from the game's lore.
"Can you hear me?" she asked cautiously. There was yet another pause until Gabriel heard the response.
"H-hello," the soft voice mumbled. She could barely hear the other girl because she was speaking too softly.
"I can't hear you. Can you speak up?" Gabriel asked. She wasn't being unkind, but she was simply straight to the point in a no-nonsense manner.
"S-sorry! I'm not… not used to this," the other girl said a little more clearly. Gabriel wasn't sure what she expected, but it wasn't this. This girl who played a demonic character – whom happened to be a tank – and said such confident boisterous things sounding so… shy in real life? It was a subversion of her expectations and, honestly, she found the tiny, shy voice to be somewhat adorable. Like a puppy that tries to growl or a lion cub roaring.
"It's okay," she said, trying to dispel the awkwardness of a first voice-to-voice conversation. The awkwardness would just make it worse, since the two played the game quite often and would likely continue to do so I the future. She continued, "So I think we should head to the Mortal Realms in the ruins of Pennsylvania for our next quest. I hear there's a demon warlord that drops a pretty good sword and a cosmetic halo."
"T-that sounds good. I've been meaning to upgrade my sword for some time and I'm almost level ten," she said as her character drank the potions in her inventory. Gabriel noted that this girl didn't speak in-character on voice chat, to her surprise.
"Good. When I reach level ten, we can form a guild. We should start considering names," she mused as her character, too, drank the potions that she had obtained from the other girl's character. She buffed both of them with stamina and health buffs and cracked her knuckles to get ready to cast her healing spells.
"Yeah. Do you have any ideas?" she asked as she activated a teleportation stone to teleport to Pennsylvania and stood outside the ruins of Philadelphia, waiting for Gabriel to give the sign before charging in.
"Go!" she ordered as her demon friend charged in and began fighting the other demons. Her friend's dodge rating was so high that most enemies couldn't land a hit, and those that did were splashed with her acidic demon blood and took damage from that. Between these traits and their toughened skin, demon characters made fantastic tanks, and, for someone new to MMORPGs, her friend was actually one of the best tanks she had ever grouped with. She had yet to be attacked by any mobs during their (so far) short leveling adventures and she was quite happy to have made this friend. As she casted a healing spell and a shielding spell, she spoke, "I was thinking something like Holy Hellfire or Fiery Heavens."
The other girl didn't drop aggro in the slightest as she responded, "I like the first one. Holy Hellfire. It has a ring to it."
They had made it a few blocks into Philadelphia, and they were approaching the supposed spawn location of the NPC that would supposedly give the quest that spawned the demon warlord that dropped the sword and cosmetic halo. Thanks to the addition of voice chat to their repertoire, they didn't have to stop to type, so the leveling process was much faster. Not a single player had reached the level cap – level 75 – yet, so that was still very much a desire of Gab's, and with her partner, it was actually a possibility. The two were steamrolling through the ruined streets of the Pennsylvania town.
"I found the NPC," Gabriel said quickly as her character jumped up and down to show the location to her party member.
"Hey, this is one of the refugees from your healing spell quest last night," Satanichia noted.
"Huh. You're right," Gabriel said, impressed with the attention to detail the game developers showed with the continuity of the quest.
The girls accepted the quest and fought through more of the city to get to the mini-boss. The fight itself was supposedly simple. The tank just had to face the enemy away from the group because of a massive cone-shaped area spell that damaged all players caught in the blast. As soon as it was cast, the tank would need to sidestep the blast and taunt the mini-boss again to ensure it doesn't face any other players.
For a veteran player like Gabriel and a talented tank like Satanichia, the fight went off without a hitch. The Demon Warrior sidestepped expertly, and her blade slashed at the monstrous flesh of the massive serpent-like demon and the angel's healing magic washed over them both and shielded them from fatal damage. After about two and a half minutes of fighting the boss, it finally fell in a bloody death and a burst of fire that dealt heavy damage to both players, but Gabriel managed to heal through it with no problems.
Satanichia leveled up to ten from the kill and equipped her new sword. It was a smoldering black sword with fiery cracks traveling from the pommel to the tip of the blade. The guard itself was actually made of two sharp black spikes that matched the obsidian of the blade, but with actual flames coming off of the spikes in a fiery cross-guard. Gabriel's eyes widened at the HP increase that simply equipping the sword provided.
"Wow, that was a sweet upgrade," she noted with excitement.
"You're right. Did your halo drop?" the demon asked.
"Uh, no, but can we try again tomorrow? The boss is repeatable, I think," she said with slight uncertainty.
"Of course. I'd love to test out my new-," but she was interrupted by a voice in the distance. Gabriel couldn't quite make out what was being said, however. After a brief moment, Satanichia was back and quietly asked, "I, uh, I have to go. I'm sorry. Will you be online tomorrow?"
Usually Gabriel was the one that was forced to log out early, so this was quite a surprise, but it couldn't be helped.
"Yeah, I will. I'll be on right after school," she answered as she teleported back to a neutral town to log out. Out of slight curiosity, she asked, "Is everything alright?"
After a brief second, Satanichia said loudly, "Of course! Nothing could be better for the powerful Satanichia! I have a powerful minion and a new sword!"
Gabriel couldn't stop her giggle.
"Okay, then, Mistress, let's meet up again tomorrow," she said jokingly and left the voice chat as the other girl logged out. She took her mic off and rolled over to look at the clock on her end table.
10:17 pm.
It's amazing how time flies. She yawned and grabbed a chip from the bag that she didn't even remember opening and took a swig of the soda that she also didn't remember opening. After putting her meal on her end table, she turned her attention back to her game, deciding to spend some time working on her cooking skill. She needed to learn some kind of crafting skill, and she couldn't let Satanichia be the only one hard at work with her alchemy.
Satanichia lay in her bed trying to stop crying as she rubbed the bruise on her neck. She had thought that she was in the clear when she excused herself from dinner, but apparently tonight was one of her father's "drinking" nights. He likely wouldn't even remember what had happened by tomorrow, but she would. So would her mother. It had been months since an incident like this, however, and even she had let herself believe they were finally over. She thought she would only have to deal with her father's normal obnoxiousness from now on. She had been wrong.
She hadn't even said a word to him when called for her to come to his room. She had apparently taken too long, as evidenced by the bruise on her neck and the one on her ribs. Her mother had promised through her own tears that it wouldn't happen again, but Satanichia had heard it all again. This had been the whole reason she had forsworn her given name for her online username, and it was the reason she had grown to loath her father. The only silver lining was that he had never laid a finger on her brother. The moment that should ever happen, her mother would likely even have the courage to act.
She pushed away the pain and focused on falling asleep. Her tears were no longer falling, but her face was still red, wet, and hot. Her nose was running and she couldn't stop sniffling, but at least the crying had mostly stopped. She had learned to cry quietly and to stop as quickly as possible on her dad's drinking nights.
As she dozed off, the only bright spot in her dreams was an angel standing at the end of a dark tunnel, reaching out to her. Oh, what she would give for that presence right now.
