Hey guys so I realized like two months have passed (oops) and I decided to quickly put this chapter up for you guys to enjoy! Sorry for getting so caught up in school work (but mostly for being lazy) and thanks to anyone who's been sticking it out for this long. Just to get this out there: The story does seem to be going very slow (I know, trust me, I do) but it's only so long because the things that happen in season 1-3 (when things were arguably a bit slow) are kind of super important! So if you do enjoy the story, but feel kind of bored with it, I promise it'll get more exciting (by chapter 50! lol JK that's a little far). Hope you guys like this chapter!

28

Bobby was the first person we turned to. He had, after all, given us all of our answers when we sought them out. He would know how to deal with this… discovery.

"Look, all I'm saying is that the next time we need to be a little bit more prepared for her next superpower." Dave said. "I don't want to go through that whole thing all over again."

"I don't know what else to tell you kids." Bobby shrugged. "I can't find another thing on her brands. I don't even know what her star brand is going to let her do."

"How come it is that you never find out what happens to Cru and her brands until after it already happens to her?" Dave tried pointing out.

"Well maybe it's something we can figure out for ourselves." Zach suggested. "We could come up with a number of theories."

"Like what?" I asked doubtful.

"Like the fact that so far, all of your brands have been giving you awesome powers." Dave said. "Which obviously means that you are most likely going to get another awesome power with your star brand."

"But my powers have all had something to do with my brands. My Entrance Feather lets me travel within the universe, my Scroll of Truth gives me that 'brief portal of knowledge', the Revelation Candle brand lets me control my visibility, and, as Bobby has just discovered, my Battle Scars allow a wound inflicted by a nonhuman creature to heal quickly. They all kind of just work together."

"So what exactly are you suggesting?" Zach inquired.

"I think my star will let me leave here at will."

"At will?" Dave asked. I nodded. "Are you sure, because that's what we thought last time and you just left."

"I don't know." I said sinking down to the seat in despair. "And I hate not knowing."

There was a silence, but I could practically hear everyone in the room feeling bad for me.

Zach let out a sigh.

"I'm sorry, but am I the only one who doesn't think this is purely coincidental?" He said. "I mean come on. There's obviously a reason why we find information out about Ella's brand-powers after she already get's them."

"You thinkin' it's bein' controlled by the Great Realms?" Bobby asked.

"I mean that sounds a little too ambiguous," Zach said. "I'm sure it's something a little more specific than that."

"You think it's someone controlling her brands?" Dave asked.

"This kind of timing and precision," Zach observed. "It has to be."

"Can we just move on from this?" I begged.

The idea of someone playing God with my life was almost sickening. It had always been a possibility at the back of my mind, but it wasn't something I focused on. I was focused on my job, not my boss.

"But Ella—"

"Please?" I asked softly.

"I've got a hunt, if you're serious." Bobby said before another silence could befall.

"We're always serious," Dave said.

"Kind of interestin'," Bobby went over and picked up a file. "A few people who've been put away for murder have claimed that they did it because an angel told them to."

I scowled at Dave as he snorted at the word "angel".

"They're all obviously crazy," Dave mused. "What's the interesting part?"

"The intrestin' part is where the murder victims were all guilty of some pretty serious crimes." Bobby said. "I had a hunter down there two weeks ago that found a body buried in the first vic's basement and he found that the second one was a 30 year old man having a pretty serious relationship with a girl on the internet."

"Internet dating's not really a crime." Dave pointed out. "What's so bad about that?"

"She was thirteen."

"Oh, gross…" Dave muttered making a face.

"So what happened?" Zach sounded somewhat intrigued with where this story was going. "Why didn't the other hunter continue?"

Bobby sighed and took a swig of his whiskey.

"He quit. Didn't want to get in the way of no angel."

Zach raised his eyebrows.

"He just decided to let them die?"

"They weren't exactly model citizens." Bobby reasoned.

"I know," Zach replied. "I'm just… surprised."

"Yea well I ain't buyin' it." Dave said. "Probably some ghost of a dead priest or something. Let's just get the show on the road."

I rolled my eyes at his "must be a dead priest" comment, but said nothing of it, as I had strong memory of Dave's refusal to believe in a higher power. Well, other than himself, that is.

Zach, on the other hand, decided to vocalize his frustrations with Dave's unwillingness to agree that it could be an angel. We were driving towards Rhode Island where the hunt was taking place, when their argument began.

"I don't understand why you think that there is no possible way that this could actually be an angel, Dave." Zach started.

"Simple," Dave replied with a casual shrug. "It's because there's no such thing."

I made a face thinking Dave wouldn't catch it, but he unfortunately did.

"What?" Dave asked. "Don't start telling me you think an angel's actually behind this."

I simply gave a shrug.

"Oh come on." He grumbled. "So it's two against one, huh?"

"Hey, I'm not saying it's an angel." I spoke. "For all I know, you could be right, a ghost, or a demon could be behind this whole mess."

"Exactly."

"But just because we're not seeing an angel this time around, who's to say that they don't exist at all?" I argued.

"You went to a private school right?" Dave asked. I nodded a little confused by the question. "It didn't happen to be a Catholic private school did it?"

"So what if it did?" I said defensively.

"Oh boy…"

"Hey, just because I went to a Catholic high school doesn't mean I wanted to be there, jack ass. I was stuck in that godforsaken boarding school. It's not one extreme or the other, Dave. I may believe in angels but that doesn't make me a devout catholic, or a devout anything for that matter. All I'm wondering is why you believe angels don't exist."

"Because they don't."

"Based on what?" Zach was curious to know.

"Based on 'I-haven't-seen-one-in-my-whole-life'!"

"So?" Zach scowled.

"So if I haven't seen it, I ain't believin' it."

"You can't believe in the possibility that they have better things to do like, I dunno, watch over us?" Zach questioned.

"No." Dave almost growled, and his reaction triggered a memory of a moment similar to this. "I'm real happy for your newfound faith, Zach, really it's great. You know who else had that kind of faith? Mom did. She used to tell me all the time how angels were watching over us. That was the last thing she ever said to me."

"You never told me that," Zach said softly.

"What's to tell?" Dave argued. "Mom was wrong. There were no angels, there was nobody watching over us, protecting us, and there is no—"

"Dave," I rested my hand gently on his shoulder almost instinctively. I felt so bad for reminding him about his past.

"There's just chaos, and violence, and evil." He muttered a little distantly.

The worst part about this hunt was how Dave ended up being right. All of the victims had been linked through the same church where a priest had died a few months prior to the killings. Unable to rest in peace, the spirit of the priest had taken it upon himself to guide those who were headed down the wrong path to fulfill what he felt were righteous deeds.

Actually I wasn't quite sure which was worse: The very fact that Dave had been right, or the look on Zach's face when he found out he had been proven wrong.

"I just wanted to believe so badly that we weren't alone in all of this." He told me sounding more miserable than I ever remembered. "I just feel like there's so much evil in this world I could just…drown in it."

I advised him to turn to his brother, and he was surprised by this suggestion. I knew Dave would've been a better person to turn to, because in all honesty, I was a bit disappointed too. I'd remembered there being some angelic theme at some point in the show. In fact, I was almost certain of it.

I guess I had been wrong.

The good thing was before our hunt was over, Bobby had given us information on another one on a college campus. This initially got Dave somewhat excited, but he, for some reason, cut himself short before he could reveal how he wished he went to college for at least one thing.

The problem with this hunt was that at some point or another we all kind of felt like we'd been drugged or something.

We were there because a professor had either been pushed, or jumped out of a building to his death and a young girl was seen going in by one of the janitors working there.

There was a legend about how decades back, one of the college girls had an affair with a professor and once he ended it, she jumped off the building and killed herself, now a spirit, clearly taking revenge on other professors who were known for having affairs with their students.

Sure, at this point it seemed like a fairly standard hunt, except when we did a little research, the legend turned out to be a hoax not to mention that the floor that girl had supposedly jumped out of didn't exist. We went to the janitor who seemed friendly enough, and asked him some questions just to be sure since he'd been there for quite a long time but he came up blank.

On top of this confusion, and obvious dead end, the brothers wouldn't stop bickering like an old married couple.

"Could you turn the music down, Dave?"

"I can."

He didn't.

"Where'd you hide my shoes, Zach?"

"Your shoes? What would I want with your shoes? I wouldn't even go two feet within those things man. They stink."

"You stink."

"Dave! Can you ask before you go on my laptop and open up bustyasianbeauties?"

"Wasn't me. I haven't been on there since… a really long time."

"Yea? How come my screen is frozen on the website?"

"I dunno, Zach! Some of us are too busy focusing on this stupid job to get distracted by porn."

"Are you accusing me of not focusing on this job?"

"Uh, I'm accusing you of a little more than that…"

"I have never gone on busty—"

"Oh would the two of you just shut the hell up!" I cried finally. "Something weird is obviously going on here, and it's making you two fight like you're still in the second grade!"

"Dave's four years older than me, so I think I'm being the mature one here."

"Oh please, bite me—"

"Not now!" I yelled abruptly shutting them up. "There's a rumor going around that something happened to one of the students last night that's apparently a little bizarre. The poor kid showed up naked at the front of the building the professor jumped out of. I'm going to investigate, you two try and figure something else out." I grabbed the key to the room and opened the door, stopping to get out one last word. "Try not to kill each other while I'm gone." I warned as I shut the door behind me.

Exasperated, I decided I would not come back for at least a few hours, despite the very high possibility that the two would be at each other's throats by that time.

Unfortunately, what I had found out from asking around kind of made me want to slit my own throat. There was no logic or sense behind anything that was going on. I got handed: Alien Abduction of all things. After approaching the victim and seeing how frightened he was I was convinced that he really thought he got abducted.

I had also found out that he was kind of a jackass. Most of the people I asked about him laughed, and while it was a little funny, I noted the slight "well he deserved it" vibe from some of his peers. My suspicions were confirmed when I asked a member of one of his clubs.

"Who?" He asked.

"Curtis." I repeated. "You know that kid that showed up naked this morning in front of one of the buildings?"

"Oh yea, I know who you're talking about!" The guy replied. "Big jerk."

I raised my eyebrows.

"Really?" I asked.

"Yep, big time. He used to pick on underclassmen, couldn't keep a girlfriend for more than two weeks, and anyone who did last longer than that was either too stupid to realize he was always cheating, or were too slutty to care."

So there was another piece of the puzzle. So far both people were attacked in some proximity to the same hall, and both were complete tools. It kind of seemed like a pattern.

Luckily Dave chose that time to call so I was able to fill him in on my findings.

"Seems like they kind of go together right?" I asked after explaining the conclusion I had come to.

"I think so," He replied. "It sounds kind of spirit-like, but they two things that happened are completely unrelated. It's like some vengeful ghost has got a funny way of taking out its frustrations."

"Yea. Real funny…" I said. "So why did you call? Did something happen?"

"No. Well, kind of. Other than the fact that you've been gone for hours, and friggin' Zach slashed my baby's tires!" Dave answered.

"I don't know how many times I have to tell you, I did not!" I heard Zach holler.

"You dropped your stupid money clip!" Dave yelled back. "Who even carries those anyway?"

"I do so that assholes like you can't keep stealing my money, speaking of which I want mine back."

"Whoa there. Who are you calling an asshole? For your information, I'm keeping that money for personal trauma."

"Give it back!"

"No way."

"Dave!"

"Wha—Jesus, Zach! You almost killed me."

"I will if you don't give it back to me."

"Did you not hear me the first time? No—HEY!"

Their voices had become distant and I assumed that the phone had ended up in some corner of the room while they fought each other for a couple bucks. Completely hopeless in getting a response from Dave, I hung up and the moment I did, I remembered.

Everything that was going on (including the brothers' behavior) all seemed kind of like someone was playing a really big practical joke on us and just as I hung up I realized it was because someone was playing a really big practical joke on us. Sorry, correction: A trickster was playing a really big practical joke on us and most likely with the boys just because we were getting in the way of some of his pranks.

I put the phone away and adjusted the strap of my bag on my shoulder. As I turned around the walls of the student café where I met up with Curtis'… "friend", had unraveled into the peeling wallpaper of the motel, and the first thing I heard was Bobby's voice reprimanding both Dave and Zach obviously for their ridiculous fight.

"I'm surprised at you two, I really am." He was saying when they noticed me. They were like two little children being told off for not following the "play nice" rules. Zach looked relieved to see I finally made it back while Dave simply grinned. Bobby took notice of the fact that they were no longer paying attention and turned around.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"They called me not two hours ago for some help and I left right away. Little did I know I would be walking in on them toppling over each other on the bed.

Zach made a disgusted face.

"Word choice, Bobby…" Dave mumbled, slightly embarrassed.

"Right," I said. "Well if you guys have everything sorted, I've got our answer."

"That's what I like to hear." Dave said standing up. "What you got?"

"Trickster," I said setting down my bag and handing them a file. "I put together all of the articles of what has happened on this campus when I was doing my research and I even looked through some of the stuff that's happened in the past. There are a bunch of bizarre things that happened that kidn of revolve around legends."

"Brownie points." Dave muttered reading over it.

"Yea, and just as I was getting off the phone with you I remembered: Trickster!"

"As if these two hadn't already given it away." Bobby added.

"Huh?" Both Zach and Dave looked perplexed.

"Exactly," I said taking a seat. "Tricksters like Loki, and Anasi are known for deliberately creating chaos and mischief practically wherever they go. They can create things out of thin air and usually those things turn into deadly pranks." I took off my leather jacket and set it to the side.

"The victims fit the M.O. too. The thing usually targets people who think they're better than everyone else to knock 'em off their high horse. It sounds familiar don't it?" Bobby asked hinting at the two, who just stared at each other.

"So you're saying that this trickster person slashed my Baby's tires and hid Zachie's laptop?" Dave asked.

"Not a person, a demigod." Bobby corrected. "Those things are immortal."

"That's great, how are we supposed to kill it?"

"You could kill it with a stake." Said Bobby.

"Ok… how are we supposed to find out who it is?" Zach asked.

"Janitor from Crawford Hall." I casually said as I rested back and lay my head on the pillow.

"How do you know?" Dave questioned.

"I remember." I yawned. "Think about it. He's the only one that place has in common with the pranks. Think about the time of day this all happened. Nighttime, when janitor's on duty."

"That actually makes a lot of sense." Zach said, which was kind of funny because I felt like I remembered he was more reluctant to believe the janitor was responsible.

"Damnit!" Dave said throwing the file aside. "I liked that dude."

"Sorry," I said with a shrug as I closed my eyes, thankful for having time to rest after all of that legwork

"Alright, let's not waste any time." Dave shoved my legs to keep me from getting too cozy. "Get up, Cru. We've got demigods to fight."

I grumbled and rolled off the bed, quickly throwing on my jacket and following the three out of the motel. Dave had his bag of weapons while Zach carried the file, reading it over.

When we arrived at Crawford hall there was a big sign on the door saying all the classes in the building had been either moved or cancelled due to some maintenance discrepancies.

"Discrepancies my ass." Dave snorted readying himself to take on whatever a demigod was capable to doing.

"Wait," Zach stopped him. "Shouldn't we have a plan?"

Dave hesitated before nodding his head reluctantly agreeing with his younger brother.

"Yea, I guess we ought to, right?" He said slumping the bag on the ground.

"First off," I started. "We probably shouldn't be lugging in that giant bag filled with dangerous weapons. Moving to your car would be a little more sensible and that way we could sort everything out there."

We walked over to the car which wasn't far from the building, and set the duffle in the trunk of Dave's "baby" and took out a stake. Before he could close it, I stopped his hand and grabbed a second stake.

"I really don't think it's going to take two of these to kill the guy." Dave noted. "My aim ain't that bad."

"It's not bad at all," I told him, handing him the other stake. "But you're going to need two."

"Why's that?" He asked.

I shrugged.

"I don't know yet." I replied. "I just remember that there were two."

"Okay…"

"No, no" said Zach. "That's good. We can come up with a substantial plan with that. Let's get the two stakes, use one of them as a decoy and hide the other until you spring it on him as the real weapon. He's a trickster, we need to be a couple steps ahead of him."

As soon as we figured out our plan Dave and I headed to the building while Bobby and Zach stayed behind, advising us to wait for them before walking in. Looking at the expression on Dave's face I could tell how anxious he was as we were waiting on the steps.

"You want to go in without them don't you?" I asked with a knowing smile.

"Yea," He mumbled. He paused for only a moment before pushing through the doors. "Ah, what the hell. You coming?"

I grinned.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world."

Once we walked into the building we had somehow found ourselves caught in a giant lecture hall with nothing but a large tacky "love-bed" with two very…scandalous looking girls eating chocolate.

"Why are they eating candy bars?" I asked in a hushed voice, both hands firmly gripping the gun I had been given in case anything went wrong.

"I think in the car, Bobby was talking about how trickster's have this weird sweet tooth." Dave explained also making sure to keep his voice down.

"Come here, Dave." One of the girls said in an almost whining tone as she patted the bed. "We've been waiting for you."

"You guys aren't real." Dave replied shining his flashlight in their direction.

They hardly seemed bothered by it.

"Trust me, sugar," the other girl spoke. "It's gonna feel real."

Dave raised his eyebrows and turned to me as I tried to stifle my laugh.

"Sorry," we heard someone say from behind.

We both spun around seeing the janitor in his uniform resting his chin on the stick of his mop.

"I thought that would do the trick." He said.

"You've got a few of those up sleeve don't ya?" Dave said. "I like your style man I really do."

"Thanks," He said chewing on a chocolate bar he'd been hiding in his uniform pocket. A second unwrapped one had been sitting behind it in his pocket. "I like you too." As he finished up the chocolate he let the wrapper disappear into thin air.

"Unfortunately we can't let you keep killing people." Dave explained.

"Oh come on," The trickster tried reasoning. "All those guys had it coming. I just took them off their pedestal. I've seen your kind before, I've been around for a long time. How about you two lie low until I go over to the next town."

"Sorry," Dave shook his head. "No can do."

"Yea and who's gonna stop me?" He asked spreading his arms out to show hardly anyone was there to do so. "You and your brother and your mutual lady-friend?"

"'Ey." He sounded so stern.

The trickster grinned.

"Oh, so just your lady-friend." He joked. "No wonder the girls didn't work on you."

"Don't make me want to kick your ass." Dave threatened.

"Don't worry," the guy was still joking around. Gosh didn't he know when to stop? "Those girls will work for you just fine."

"I thought I—" Dave never got to finish because one of the girls grabbed him from behind and threw him across the room.

Quickly assuming the other girl was going to target me I vanished right in front of her. The trickster was astonished to see this, and was even more surprised as I appeared behind his minion and used my gun to begin choking her, but she quickly spun around beneath it and head butt me.

I staggered back, gripped the gun firmly in one hand, keeping it upside down, so that the blunt end was sticking out, while the rest extended past my hand almost like it was an attachment to my arm. I used as a baton against her face. She came to her feet in no time, but before she could punch me, I blocked her arm with my free one, and used the gun to send her back down.

Before she could spring up again in anger she disappeared, as did the other girl Dave had been fighting with.

"Holy crap," said the trickster pointing at me.

Dave ignored him and strode back to where they were arguing before, pulling out his stake. The trickster disappeared and reappeared directly behind Dave, and snatched the stake out of his hands.

"What is she and where can I get one?" The trickster said pointing at me again while the stake disintegrated in his hands. "You really ought to keep a spare."

"Sorry," Dave said suddenly jamming his second stake in the trickster's heart. "She's limited edition, one time offer type thing." He ripped the stake out and tossed it to the side as Zach and Bobby came running in.

"What the hell, dude?" Zach said. "We asked you to wait!"

"He's dead ain't he?" Dave pointed out.

The trickster was lying on the floor bleeding out his face still looking somewhat amused.

"Hey," Dave said a little out of breath. "You totally kicked that chicks ass by the way."

"Thanks," I said feeling a little tired myself.

As we were packing up, Zach and Bobby were still giving us a hard time for going in without them or their "ok" and Bobby was even threatening to not change Dave's tires before we hit the road. Seeing how Dave was about to really lose it, however, he insisted he was just fooling with him, and was about to get right on it.

"Since the two of you seem to be enjoyin' each other's time so much, you can do all the packin'," Bobby said.

"All of it?" Dave protested.

"All of it."

"Fine but if I miss anything of yours don't come crying to me."

"I'll be sure not to shed any tears." Bobby replied. "C'mon son," he said to Zach. "Let's work on 'em tires."

Zach followed him out the room and shut the door behind him.

"Finally," Dave said looking at me. "I swear to God, if there is one thing I'm thankful that trickster thing did," He said walking towards me. "It was slashing those tires. A whole 30 minutes without Zach or Bobby." He pulled me by my waist and gave me a long kiss, until I pushed him away.

"A whole 30 minutes that's going to be spent packing." I clarified.

"Aww, why?"

"Why? What do you mean—" Then out the corner of my eye I saw the wrapping of a chocolate bar. "Do you see that?" I asked not daring to take my eyes off it.

"Do I see what?" He asked following my eyes.

I blinked and the candy wrap was gone. A somewhat sickly feeling crept up inside me.

"I see what you're doing." Dave said. "You're trying to distract me aren't you?"

"No," I replied, touching the funny sensation on my neck.

"Come on, Cru," He whined. "Don't you want to kind of appreciate this moment?" He asked leaning in. "Even if we are supposed to be doing something else?" He smiled briefly before giving me another kiss, and I kind of took in the moment until I realized we were going to run out of time, considering a lot of things had been strewn about the motel room.

"Later, later, later." I told him after pushing away. "We have to get to packing or Bobby and Zach are going to come back wondering what happened."

"Aghh, fine!" He grumbled walking to the end of the room where his things were. I simply laughed. "You think it's funny now, but just you wait, DeVille. You're gonna wish you said yes."

I laughed again and it took me too long to believe him.