Act VIII: Nine Years Later, Chapter II: What She No Longer Missed

January 19th, 2039 - 7:16 A.M.

Loanne slipped out of her bed, dragging the sheets with her to the floor. Her head smacked against the nightstand on her left, making the water glass topple over to spill its liquid content and then roll down and break apart into a million pieces. Loanne let out a slur of a moan and sucked her teeth. Last night wasn't so bad for her to have been acting like this. Or so she thought to herself up until she saw four empty beer bottles lying motionless on the floor just past her bed. Okay, so maybe she had gotten careless of herself and resorted to Happy Hour last night. She had come home after watching a movie at the cinema lonesome to see a drama, and what a touchy movie it had been, as Loanne bawled up like a baby, spilled her popcorn and drink, and needed a good dosage of miracle poison to forget what she had seen.

It worked a little too well, it seemed. Loanne peered back at her bed, wholly relieved to see that she had not slept with anyone, or the possible worse. She was still alone-

I n-n-need to devour, Loanne!

Right, the parasitic lifeform still lived in Loanne, feeding away on the negative essence she continued to create, be they feelings or thoughts, the little things that had a dark aura that could be farmed and consumed. Always made her wonder why the damned creature didn't attach itself to a serial killer or a third-country war criminal or such. Maybe it kept on because it just knew she lived in torture, and with that, an endless supply of something equivalent to meat for it. She could kill herself just to spite it, to get it to fuck off, but her death would defeat the purpose. "Find someone else... Find some hothead psycho, leave me alone."

We can still go on! Y-you and me! We-we have been going out and taking the domestic abuse cases! That one Olivia Wilde movie, we're living it!

"You're always-" Loanne choked hard, but swallowed whatever tried to come back up. "You're always trying to remind me, but... No, there's just too many, I've been getting burned out on it..."

Indeed she had grown tired of it. On the side, where therapy had failed to help her, she became a shadow of the night. The type of woman who used her actions to do much of the talking, an advocate for the other women in an inhuman setting, environment, trapped in an unhealthy relationship of a sort. The ones stages, still able to be saved before they knew the exact personal hell Loanne had been subjected to by the deceased Chester Flanagan, still vilified to this day. And what a savior had she become, with the help of her demon companion? A silhouette of terror that only appeared to its intended prey and attacked, utilizing the anger of her own trauma, and the sole fact and reminder that these were women put in her position of powerlessness. It was a fire that consumed her and kept the demon fed with satisfaction. Loanne had reversed this evil order, but had become to feel a hypocrite in the crusade, and ultimately burning herself out with the violence. And there had been life-threatening times already. "No, I'm already done. I couldn't keep at it forever."

Ever so slavishly, she dragged herself out of her room to the kitchen. No other proper way to start the day than to brew some coffee and serve oneself with bread or toast. Such a morning like hers, but today she was only eager to get the coffee and be on her way, whatever the day brought. She was set for some time, and it would be like that as long as she took roles often, which were smaller than the average main roles she'd started to get at the height of her career. Nevermore.

"What's the use?" Loanne only had the single wish that the entity would take itself and its voice elsewhere, maybe back to wherever it had originated from. The demon had said so itself that it and its kind are beings born of dark humans of volcanic tempers, essentially roaming the land of man to commit nothing but destruction and chaos in their wake so that they could feed off of rage, the main supplement in a shadow demon's food cycle. That had not been the case with Loanne these past few weeks, and the demon had seen to that. "They just keep coming. Here, there, everywhere. I can't even feel mad-"

Yes! Yes, you can! You've had long enough to take a break, but verily, there is a woman, a dire victim of abuse that deserves the rescue she merely dreams about when she can so sleep in absolute peace! Just think... It had been persistent, the only reason for that was to secure itself the food it wanted now.

"No... For too long!" Loanne turned on the coffee maker, refilling the container with fresh coffee beans. "For too long, I've done what I could have and I have nothing to show for it! I'm just f-fucking frustrated that all of that, in the end, will never help me get back the one I've lost."

Are you...?

"Yes..." Loanne took a deep breath and accepted her state of being. "It angers me. Those women, they won't ever know. That psycho, never to know the full arm of the legal system. Me, left with nothing but trauma, and the attraction of you... I've killed evil men with your powers thinking to myself that I could save those they hit, hurt, or worse and I thought it would end at some point. But I keep being proven wrong, and if you see what I see, then I know you know that I see cases of women beaten or killed time to time. I've tried my hardest, but that's not enough for me. Whatever anyone could say... It does not satisfy me and that..."

You feel something else, do you?

"It was nothing but fog in here," Loanne rubbed her forehead. "It cleared up and I see my actions for what it is, and it's all just some sick childish response triggered by him. Everything I've done was just me being angry, wanting only to spite him. But he gets the last laugh, because he molded me so I could stoop to his level."

Grghhhhhh...

"I've become the type of person I've been going after, that's all there is to it." She grabbed a white mug off the cupboards and set it on the counter next to the coffee maker. "Which is why I don't want to go out there anymore. It's over. It's over for me, so please... I'd like you to leave."

You really want that of me, do you?

"Your original human, why can't you go back to them? I mean, you can, right?" The brewing had finished, prompting Loanne to remove the coffee jug from the machine, gently filling her mug. "I think you can."

Yes, I can... Do you think it wise? After all-

Loanne bobbed her head down, once more seeing the dry-red area of skin where she had been stabbed once by one of the abusers who'd armed themselves with a kitchen knife- the demonic shadow had allowed this to happen so that Loanne could have more of an angry output and continue to project away. Oh yeah, it worked and Loanne herself never thought anything of it; she was a blonde!

Lo and behold, this wound was reinforced by the demon, healed only by its regenerative properties. It had said so itself, all the wounds, from minor bruises to critical injuries, would be felt upon all throughout her body once the untethering took place. It meant that Loanne could die right there and then if the thing fled off of her body. She had known that and gave it thought countless nights, typically never sleeping until way past midnight. The impending countdown to a painful death, the one single reason she kept it around this long.

"I want this, of course I do..." Loanne sat down and took to enjoying her coffee. She had been calm and collected, already having made up her mind in the end, no second guessing at this point. "Whatever happens after isn't up to me. Let me have this drink first."

You are of grand certainty, wishing for an untimely demise.

"So glad you weren't able to read my mind," Loanne laughed weakly. "Bet there's many things you can't do."

That is correct.

"There were times when I looked to you and just... Envied you. You're a simple thing that isn't bound by human customs. You surely don't cry, you surely don't mourn over loss of someone, nor even love directly. All you do is stick onto someone and talk inside of their own minds and consume what I didn't think was possible to eat, however that works." She finished the last of the first round and let the cup fall with half-measured force. "In that aspect do I consider you a lucky thing alive. You and however more there are of your kind."

I'm only as lucky as the person who created me. There's one thing I have never told you, and that is, when my creator dies, I shall cease to exist as well. Me along with the memories of those who encountered me ever. But you humans are immortal, remembered through memories passed on from the next generation, and so on. Memories in the form of photos or old tales, maybe a box of mementos. Family heirlooms. Diaries. It takes the form of anything and such humans of the past may never be forgotten. But we shadow demons shall never know that luxury. It is what your kind call an existential crisis.

"Oh..."

But then, I am sure there are humans out there who die alone and with no next of kin to remember them as well. I only share this as food for thought before you decide to commit suicide by failure to tend to your wound. Many have suffered, continue to suffer, and will suffer in the future in the fight to gain this immortality, but look at you.

"How dare you judge me-"

You are being a little fucking bitch right now.

"Asshole..."

I'm so glad I could not read your mind, this I was not expecting from you. Life is a privilege I would not myself throw away, and neither should you!

"You just need me to keep you alive!"

Aside from that, Loanne-

"Hey, Loanne, keep it down on the improvisational act, will you?!" Darcy had been sleeping on the couch, missed by the sleepy-eyed Loanne the first time around. "It's not even eight yet."

"Ohmygod-" Loanne slapped herself silly. "Darcy, what the hell?"

"What do you mean what the hell?!" Darcy cried back. "You called me over for ladies' night but you got too hammered before we even went out so we stayed in!"

"Ohmygod..."

"Yeah, this is all on you..." Darcy sank back on the couch. "I stayed to make sure you didn't do anything stupid."

"Then why do I remember I went out to see a movie?" Loanne rubbed herself.

"We saw it here," Darcy revealed. "You cried like a baby and spilled our popcorn and tried to leave the house thinking we were at the theaters."

"I'm so sorry..." Loanne facepalmed herself in embarrassment and disbelief. "I'm a wreck."

"Well... I mean, it was kinda funny," the tan-skinned woman girl admitted. "I recorded some stuff, haha."

"D-did you hear everything just now?"

"No shit. You and that demon need some serious therapy."

"Really, I couldn't ask for a better friend," Loanne lamented. "Come pour yourself a drink if you want."

"I'll be up in a sec." Darcy yawned and rotated about to get comfortable again. And she was just about as comfortable as she had been prior to the yelling from the kitchen, disturbed once more by a heavy knocking not from the front door, but the balcony. Why, the intruding visitor could have broken the glass if they banged a little heavier. "Goddamnit! It's not Munchies again, is it? I swear that weirdo is trying to rape us or something."

AGH! L-LOANNE, I SENSE A DARK AURA! I-I KNOW WHO IT IS!

"W-we aren't in trouble, are we?"

LET HER IN, SHE HAS COME HERE FOR ME!

"She?" Loanne was forced out of her chair, hastily jogging out to meet her guest- Lupa- and let her in. "Darcy, we've got company. Tidy yourself up!"

Lupa had come in a messy state, her hair completely out of proportion, her skin colder than usual, and her eyes with developed bags that suggested she had not slept in awhile. In fact, she was drained of both food and energy that, when Loanne let her in, Lupa fell forward on her face, able to rest in safe hands.

"Oh!" Loanne pranced down and picked the albino girl up. "Jeez, she's a freaking mess!"

"Is that...?" Darcy stood looking at both girls. "How did she-?"

"I don't have any idea!" Loanne raced past her. "I'm putting her on the couch."

"F-fine-" Darcy pouted, crossing her arms angrily. "She's not dead, I hope."

"Dead tired would be accurate, but she's got a pulse," Loanne checked. "It looks like we can't do anything else-"

The demon had something to add, phasing out of Loanne's body to make a jump onto Lupa, wrapping her in its own dark essence. The shadow demon invaded the clone's body, a sightly process that needed a lengthy explanation so that Loanne could even try to understand what it was doing. "Hey! Don't take too long..."

The Sonno Realm

The ground was dark, color unable to be determined, but perhaps it was just black in general, or a heavy gray if it mattered to the arguing parties, and such was the sky, and both below and above cultivated a world so colorless, and so devoid of life proven as no soul roamed about this hollow world. No one except clone Lupa, moving in all directions in desperation to seek another out. She had no idea where this was or how she got here, but the last thing she remembered was seeing Loanne letting her in. Then-

I sense that there is something wrong. The demon appeared at her side, smelling her aura. Your life spark is deteriorating!

"I'll be dead soon," Lupa shared plainly. "I have about a year left until the contract's due. So I've decided to leave while I can to avoid..."

I think I understand, Lucy.

"Lupa," she corrected the demon. "It's Lupa now. Lucy is the other one's name."

It has a ring to it. Your business coming here, I feel, has to do with me and not Loanne herself. Tell me, what is it you need of me?

Lupa nodded, happy to see they were truly on the same page. "You, actually. The full-fledged powers of a shadow demon at my disposal. I'm done with this life of peace, I want to go down fighting as it should have been from the moment I sold my soul for a decade of being invulnerable."

The world became a landscape of blazing inferno, at long last lighting up where Lupa could barely see. The buildings far ahead of her, left and right, front and back- she was on a vacant street- burning up from the cackling fires that bred smoke then on. Every fire here in this incomplete world, created by nothing else than the raging emotion Lupa allowed herself to feel burn in her and manifest here. "I beg of you, for you to give yourself to me."

I cannot abandon my current host without killing her, it rasped. She has a wound that will reopen once I switch to a new host, and it will kill her without the proper help.

"What? H-how bad?"

Deep cut in the heart, she'll only have a minute or two before it stops.

"Then..." The intensity of the fiery atmosphere leveled up. "There is no way to take you... Unless-" The fires went out simultaneously. "She... She needs to do it- She needs to buy those extra ten years. Tell her while my body recovers."

I do not agree with this method, but there is no other choice. She wishes to unbind from me... So I shall indeed.

"Let me recover... Since I could not die, my body hit a state equivalent to death so I don't know how long I'm going to be out of it. If you could let her know that..."

Of course...

Loanne had followed the parasitic demon's detailed instructions passed from Lupa, having lied down with a fresh cut running across her palm to let her blood drip and let run. She called out the nameless shadows attached to the cult, signing away her soul for them to take, gaining a guaranteed decade so that she would not die on this day. Herself, without the whispers and the ideas spoken in times where peace was meant to take over. Years of forced companionship finally met its end. The shadows that surrounded her sank back beneath where they had first emerged, closing the supernatural deal. And with that, the demon latched onto Lupa, accepting her as its new host.

Seconds after, Lupa woke up, supplied with the proper amount of strength by her new companion. She pounced on her feet and stretched, now feeling energized for the day. "Somehow, this feels right... Didn't know it could pass its own energy to me directly."

"So..." Loanne checked her wound but found nothing there. It had been removed from her body, taking away the worry that it'd have gotten the better of her in the end. But, in a way, it still had, for it had forced her here nonetheless. "That's it, isn't it?"

"I wouldn't think about the clock," Lupa kindly suggested, "just live whatever life you have here, however you want. As for me-" She formed a single thought and the demon catered to her swiftly, oozing out of her body and reformed itself as a layer of customized armor identical to a suit of armor worn by a medieval-era knight. "We are ready for battle."

"Good luck to you both." Loanne laid herself down where Lupa had been. "Feel free to let yourselves out, all of you."

"What am I, chopped liver?" Darcy scoffed, mildly offended. "I'll come and go as I please. Besides, you're still hungover, and I'm inclined to help you until you get your shit together."

"Mmmgh..." Loanne was in no mood to argue, so she let it happen. "And I thought today was gonna be a long day... I'm going back to sleep now."

"I won't be coming back here, so..." Lupa tapped the side of her head for the bio-headgear to pull back. "It's been nice, not just to know you but to fight alongside you, even if it was a brief moment in time."

"Nothing I expected, nor what I wanted," Loanne reminisced deeply, "but it was a crazy day that didn't end until that evening. That battle at the base never stopped feeling like a loss, even if we succeeded in stopping McMahon's dream and that psycho who drugged you to do his bidding. That kid, that girl that Luna Loud killed, she said she was a fan of mine, and all I could ever see was that human girl happy to have gotten my autograph. Her and Leia, just regular girls not cut out for this. It's fitting for those who have nothing in the end, but I couldn't tell if you were one of those empty souls. You've made it clear that you were involved because of your two sisters, but..."

"Out with it."

"If it were possible that it was a life to live for to someone who has a pretext to be in it, then it could be certain another can claim they want to run from it but secretly love it. Uh, what I mean is..." But Loanne shook her head to disagree with her thought. "Right and wrong used to be clear to me, but not so. Not when I had that demon helping me terrorize the assholes I've been chasing after. I felt right with it and I loved it, but I hated it as well because it never stopped for me. I got no break until the exhaustion reached up to me. Now I don't want to anymore..."

"I still don't know what..."

"I loved it, that's my point," Loanne directly addressed. "I loved it until I didn't anymore. But you... You've gone away and come back for it to use as a weapon... So you are not done with battle... How is it that you cannot be burdened with the weight I feel? How do you k-keep going?"

"Oh..." Lupa closed her mouth and showed Loanne equal respect, nodding collectively. "Well... See, I have no answer for you directly, but I'd like you to imagine a really cold place, if that's not too hard. It could be the north pole, or way down there, whichever place- does not matter."

"A cold place..."

"Time and time again, I've walked through such cold places in my life," Lupa recounted, "I've felt the effects. Hypothermia, frostbite, whatever any normal person would succumb to when facing rigid temperatures. Too many, that my body began to accustom to it in time. The more times I've entered 'em, the less my body reacted to. I mean, sure, I could still feel the touch of ice, but I've become numbed to it. Numbed to the point... Uh, is this making sense?"

"I haven't passed through enough cold zones for it to not affect me? Is... That what you're explaining?"

Lupa shrugged her shoulders, also jingling the shoulder pads along. "I'm not the best at analogies here."

"To sum it all up," Darcy jumped in, telling it like she saw it, "Loanne hasn't been through hell long enough for it to completely destroy her soul. I know you, I see that you are colder than her personality-wise and that is your advantage here. You're... This."

"I don't need a psychiatric evaluation, but thank you for your input. As she suggests, Loanne, that just about sums it up. This isn't for you, never was, so I say leave it all behind. With that being said..." Lupa turned back and took her exit through the balcony, further proof she was this cold as Darcy had drawn upon.

"Rude," Darcy snarled. "Did she even thank you for this?"

But Loanne turned herself to burrow on the couch, pondering Lupa's words. Sinking, collecting and questioning the thesis statement of this verbal essay.

"Uh, I guess I'll let you rest," Darcy gave in, going away.

Have I not been through enough? Loanne went knee-deep into the revelation. I've only ever dealt with drama, nothing serious before Flanagan. Nothing even scandalous in my time on the spotlight, but theories and silly paparazzi stalkers, that's about it... But her, what had she been living through? What had she seen and what had remolded her? Is that the missing key that differentiates us from one another?

She brought her arms over her chest and clenched them into a ball. No, I can't imagine what ugly horrors... Maybe she was right. Maybe I was never meant to this, because I know in my heart! I know in my heart I... I can't do this again! I don't want a repeat of such events! Not now, not ever-

She let out a breaking squeal.

To be rid of this darkness might just be a good thing in the end...

Took slow breaths.

A thing I shall never miss... And may it not miss me.

Knew tranquility, and she never looked over her shoulder this time, falling asleep graciously.

AN: And thus, Loanne takes her cue and exits the story; she shall never appear again throughout this fic. I only hope it was a good exit, but I be not the critic.

Darcy entered the bathroom, washing her face only as she had not come to Loanne's with her own toothbrush or paste, and she'd be embarrassed to be out in public with a smelly breath. She made a little fuss out of it but had to let it go, and did so with a frustrated groan. She lowered her head and wiped the crust off her eyes before grabbing the towel off the rail, applying to her face by patting it on her instead of running it around.

And when she removed it and checked back at the mirror, she was met with Liberty Loud, face barren of any expression, but the tone of voice was casual, almost upbeat, "I see time's done nothing but age you up on this side of the fence. Nice to see you again."