Stella somehow was not impacted by the teleportation at all when the group arrived. Her hair was perfectly done and she barely even looked ruffled.

Though she did look sympathetic as Radar promptly ejected his lunch onto a corner of the sentry station.

Jack had to catch Hadrian when the older demon staggered a little, who swatted at him halfheartedly with a grumble but didn't really protest it.

"Man... you must really be wearing yourself out, Hadrian," Petra said, somewhat sympathetically.

Hadrian flipped her off, but he seemed too exhausted to really form a proper rebuttal.

"We need to split into smaller groups," Lukas said, after a long, somewhat awkward moment of him 'staring' into space through the blindfold. "The Storm'll probably notice when their sentry station stop giving reports."

Hadrian rubbed a slightly trembly hand through his hair, kneading at the bridge of his nose briefly. "Their reports aren't frequent, unless something happens- since I presume you took them out before they could properly send a report, we have anywhere between ten minutes and two hours."

"What are you thinking for- for group division?" Radar asked, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

"Gill, Maya, and Stella should take one group and take the Eastern entrance. Jack, you stick with Hadrian... and maybe you should bring Aiden. You two should take the Western entrance- less guards, so it'll give Hadrian a minute to recover."

Hadrian flipped Lukas off too.

Aiden shrugged. "Fine with me. If things go south, at least we've got two functioning fighters."

Hadrian turned his middle finger to him, too.

"Petra, you and Ray stick with me. We'll circle around to the Northern entrance."

Petra gave an understanding nod. (And perhaps a grateful one, for not pairing her with Stella.)

"That should divide us up even-"

There was an oink.

A long pause reigned before Radar twisted to look at the bag he'd brought, reaching in and awkwardly poking about before he managed to tug Reuben's little head out.

"The fuck is Reuben doing here? He was supposed to stay with Ivor and the other lords!" Despite Aiden's sharp tone, he still bent down to scratch the piggy behind the ear a little.

Radar looked near tears from fright. "I-I-I'm sorry, I- I swear-swear I didn't know-"

Jack shook his head. "He probably somehow got wind that we were going to try to save Jesse and just snuck into your bag. Not your fault, kid."

Lukas bit his thumbnail. He stood there for a second, lips downturned, before nodding. "Can't help it. Aiden, Hadrian, Jack, could you bring Reuben with you? It'll probably be less chaotic."

Hadrian gave a long, weary sigh at the prospect of having to handle a pig.

Jack just shrugged. "Better company than that Enderman that tailed Nurmie for three days that one time."

Petra narrowed her eyes at Jack. "You've never told me about that. You're going to survive so you can tell me that story."

This got a laugh out of Jack and a smile out of a few other people.

Hadrian just flipped everyone off again.


Reuben was, honestly, really easy to handle.

He was quiet, didn't squirm around a lot, and barely even weighed enough for Aiden to notice that they'd stuffed a tiny pig into his pack.

Aiden tsked as he bumped the ground with his foot. "Definitely some recent signs that someone's passed through here."

Hadrian grunted. He wasn't quite leaning on Jack- but he still had to occasionally be steadied. He rarely ever exerted himself so much immediately after a teleportation, especially when he had to transport more than himself and maybe a partner. "Good. Then they haven't blocked off this entrance."

Jack kept tapping on his sword hilt with his free arm. If Hadrian and Aiden had noticed, neither of them said anything.

"It's quiet... a little too quiet."

"Cliche, much?" Hadrian murmured, but he didn't fight the statement. If anything, his red eyes kept darting about, from rock to jagged rock, overly cautious of each shadow he saw.

Aiden hushed them, eyes flickering about. "We need to ca-"

It was so fast that had their reflexes still been human, they would've all died in that instant. One moment nothing was out of the ordinary, another a knife was swiping through the air-

Jack and Hadrian both dived to the rocky ground, Jack already sweeping his sword out-

It was far from coordinated, but the swing caught their assailant by the ankle. A spray of blood stained the rocks as the demon's knee crumpled beneath him.

Hadrian cursed. "They must have a new sentry station-" He rolled, narrowly avoiding the blade that struck the ground with a jarring sound, and thrust a glowing hand upwards.

He grabbed ahold of the weapon hand, desperately trying to jerk the blade from the rocks- his hand blazed-

Their attacker screamed and jerked away from his sword, blisters already spreading across the burnt skin.

Hadrian took the opportunity to seize the hilt, his magic searing into it and making it untouchable.

"We have to find it before the reinforcements kill us!" Hadrian let go of the hilt and grabbed the face of an attacking demon, blisters already bubbling up under his hand- another agonized scream-

Aiden's bladed whip was already making quick work of the horde that had abruptly surrounded him, slicing throats and slashing eyes. It almost looked like a strange, bladed orb was surrounding him.

"Up there!" Jack barked, dodging another sweeping blow from a nearby demon with a sword before deflecting with a sharp twist of his wrist. "On that ledge!"

Aiden glanced at it. It balanced precariously on the cliff- like one strong force would rip the whole thing off of the face.

"We need to get up there-"

"I've got it," Aiden called back, face twisted in concentration as the whip darted everywhere. "I need cover, though."

Jack swept his blade in an arc, blood spilling and bodies slumping with each swing. The horde of demons was rapidly becoming overwhelming. "We've got it handled! Do whatever you need to!"

Hadrian grunted as he narrowly avoided being stabbed in the face by another blade. The glow in his hands was already fizzling out. "Do it quickly, perhaps."

Aiden let the whip drop into a circle surrounding him, gripping the handle almost like it was a sword he prepared to stab downwards with.

The rocks here were barren, jagged- it was a long shot-

There.

Aiden's eyes flashed as bones erupted from the circle of blades surrounding him on the ground. There were shrieks- Jack didn't dare take his eyes off of his targets, his blade already slick and red with blood.

Hadrian glanced backwards briefly- bones were practically sprouting from the ground, melding together, creating significantly larger bones that connected to more giant bones-

A giant skeleton- tiny (in comparison) armor pieces dangling from skulls that had long since left the body, swords that looked like toothpicks randomly sprouting between the few singular pieces he was able to make out, towering above the miniature battlefield.

Several in the horde were shrieking, running around like headless chickens as the skeleton shifted.

Aiden stood calmly at its feet, eyes dim. Even from this distance, Hadrian could catch the faint hues of celery green that his human eyes were. The bladed whip pulsed, little sparks of magic (or was it just pure power) dancing in the circle that the skeleton was contained to.

Far above them, in a skull with teeth crafted from femurs and skulls and sacrums, the eyes of the giant skeleton flared to life.

Skeletons were not exactly known for being strong, but the sentry station may as well have been made of paper from how easily Aiden tore it away from the cliff, scattering demons through jagged, mountainous rocks.

One assailant that none of them had noticed was edging towards Aiden's back- he lunged, a jagged shard of a shattered blade clutched in bloody fingers-

Jack spotted the motion out of the corner of his eye and could only shout, too far to do anything-

Reuben sprang from Aiden's pack.

The pink that made up the soul creature melted to gooey, sickening black- like there was a pig-shaped void, flying through the air.

Red pinpricks flickered to life as one of Reuben's ears melted into the little void-

Hadrian raised his eyebrows.

Vessel creatures were very rarely magical. Even Stella's vessel creature, a rare find in itself for a demon baroness, was the animal humans called 'llamas'. They could be rare animals, common animals, small and large- but rarely were they magical.

It took either a natural affinity for magic... or a large amount of trauma.

In Jesse's case, it may have been both.

Reuben darted between the demon's legs.

Immediately, wisps of a smokey substance began dragging itself from the demon's eyes, chest, stomach.

He didn't even have the time to scream.

A bloody object, glowing with a furious light, erupted from the demon's lower back, shattering the spine on its exit. The smoke from the eyes flitted, almost casually, to join the object.

The soul sank into Reuben's skin, melting into the darkness.

The demon's body hit the floor, a few feet short of Aiden as he ripped apart the sentry station, smashing through mountain and stone with ease.

Jack turned to look, blood dripping from his sword.

He was faced with Hadrian staring at Reuben, a giant skeleton surrounding Aiden and smashing the sentry station apart (and probably part of this ancient mountain), and a dead body with a giant hole in the stomach less than five feet from Aiden's circle of destruction.

"I stop watching for five seconds-"


A/N: Hey, long time no update :D

Well. Happy new year! I hope to wrap up October Children and finally get back to work on Hybrid in the upcoming year, but with how busy I'm expecting things to get, I'm not exactly going to promise anything, haha.

I hope you guys had a great 2021, despite all the weirdness, and here's hoping 2022 is the year things finally stop being a poopy mess lol. I hope you enjoyed this update- way overdue at this point, lol.

Responses to reviews!

DubstepDragon14: Yaaay! / Thank you! I'm hoping this update did the wait some justice lol. / petra's a spider and aiden's a skeleton... unintentional theming there, but it works haha.

TheAmberShadow: Aiden's may not be scarier than Maya's, but to be fair if I looked up to see a skeleton that could stomp on me and squash me flat, I'd be pretty scared lolol

Pretzel Pocket: Hehe / Even more of "everyone being done with everyone" in this chapter haha

ariariariaria: You can always be more gay, I've found lol

Happygoluckymegami: It is! I wonder if it stemmed from stranger danger / Stella still has not apologized properly, to be fair. / :)

That's all for now! See ya, so long, and g'bye until the next year rolls around!

x.X. A.L. X.x