Trail 60: Moms And Demons (Completely Unrelated)

--- Jon ---

“You sure you should be up and moving like this Minnie?” Miss Edna asked as he and his Ma started stretching for their run. “I mean, shouldn’t you take it easy? You did just wake up after all.”

“I’ve spent the last two weeks in a hospital bed, even if they had a magic user healing us, if I don’t get moving I’ll start losing muscle mass.” His Ma explained. “Besides, we're just doing a simple run through the city.”

What neither him nor his Ma told her was how there were about five different points on their ‘simple’ run that included decent parkour spots if you wanted to focus more on running over things than actually climbing.

Miss Edna crossed her arms. “For some reason I don’t believe you.”

“That’s because you know us too well.” His Ma admitted before raising Brutus’s leash. “Look I’m bringing Brutus with us, that means we aren’t doing anything so crazy that a dog can’t keep up with us.”

The fact that Brutus -in spite of his old age- could parkour anything that didn’t require hands was not something he or his Ma felt the need to add.

Miss Edna narrowed her eyes at his Ma. “You know I can make you take it easy.”

“You could try, but we both know I’m not the one who’d end up bound in the end.” His Ma agreed, seemingly amused before gesturing towards him. “But look, Jon isn’t worried about me going out and running, and we both know he’s a worrywart.”

He mostly wasn’t worried because he knew it’d be hypocritical of him to stop her. (And I have both Pix and Miss Edna to heal her if something goes wrong.)

His second parent turned to him with an extremely dry look as if she knew exactly what he was thinking. Namely the hypocritical part given the numerous times she’d tried -and failed- to make him take it easy after he’d spent the night fighting Corrupted back in Blackwell. Something he rarely did, instead opting to get the minimum amount of sleep before spending his day wrangling a bunch of hyper kids at the camp.

“That’s because he’s your kid.” Miss Edna told her, knowing full well where he got it from.

“True, but you helped raise him.” His Ma pointed out, misunderstanding what Miss Edna meant.

Miss Edna scoffed. “Yeah, and he’s lucky I’m the one who taught him how to con someone because you aren’t conning me Minnie.”

“Perhaps not.” His Ma sighed, lowering her head. “I am, however, outrunning you.”

Both his Ma and Brutus took off at once.

Miss Edna gained an offended look before turning towards him.

He just raised his hands and slowly started after his Ma, knowing that if she got too far ahead of him she would absolutely turn this into a race.

Scene Consequences

-Gained 2XP to Mobility for helping Ma get back to it.

--Currently: Lv. 7 (5/16)

---

“Ah, Ma Whitaker, you’re back!” Their neighbor Mr. Petrovich cheered upon their arrival to the apartment rooftop they and their neighbors had gathered on for their weekly hangout. “We were so worried when we heard you were in the hospital.”

“Eh, you shouldn’t be.” His Ma assured the man. “I’m too tough of a bitch to really be brought down by a minion Creep.”

“Don’t let her lie to you, the doctors say she’s supposed to be on bedrest for a couple more days.” Miss Edna cut in.

“Rest is for the weak and the dead.” His Ma shrugged off the other woman’s concerns.

“One of which you are until -and the other you will be unless- you get some rest.” Miss Edna argued. “I saw the way you were leaning against the railing on the way up here.”

His Ma rolled her eyes. “You know I always wondered where Jon got the worrywart from.”

“Yeah, and I always wondered where he got the recklessness from.” Miss Edna glared.

Their neighbors watched their little back and forth for a minute, before Ms. Valentine coughed into her hand and stepped forward. “Uh, I’ve uh, I’ve seen you around a bit but I don’t think we’ve actually met? I’m Sarah Valentine, I’m one of Jon and Minerva’s neighbors.”

“Oh, I’m Edna Donovan. I’m…” Miss Edna glanced at his ma for some reason.

“She’s family. She’s basically Jon’s second parent at this point.” His Ma explained for the other woman as she pulled him into a hug. “He’s been spending his Summers with her for, what? Ten years now?”

Miss Edna ruffled his hair. “Something like that, yeah.”

“And, uh, how did that get started exactly?” Mrs. Jefferson asked her eyes darting between his Ma and Miss Edna for some reason.

“I uh, I went through a rough patch when I was younger.” His Ma sighed, running a hand through her hair as he hugged her back because that rough patch wasn’t really her fault. “While I… cleaned myself up, I signed Jon up for a nearby summer camp that Eddie owned, and he liked it enough to keep going back.”

“And given some… stuff from when he was little, I tried to keep Minnie in the loop as much as I could.” Miss Edna continued. “One thing led to another as Minnie asked for parenting advice and we started complaining about ex-husbands and everything else, until eventually we started hanging out every once and a while. At least until she moved away from a fifteen minute drive to a two hour one.”

“Please, we both know you could fly over whenever you wanted.” His Ma scoffed.

“You’d think, but cities have all sorts of laws on that kind of thing nowadays.” Miss Edna grumbled. “And the last thing I want is cops harassing me.” His Ma gave Miss Edna a look, causing the older woman to roll her eyes. “You know you don’t count.”

“I see…” Mrs. Jefferson nodded with an odd -if amused- tone to her voice.

“Well, if you’ve been half as much help to Minerva with Jon as she’s been to me with Kenneth, I can see why you two would be so close.” Ms. Valentine smiled, her eyes glancing to where Kenneth was playing with the other kids.

“Yeah, I’m woman enough to admit I wouldn’t have raised Jon half as well without her.” His Ma agreed, ruffling his hair.

“Ah, you don’t give yourself enough credit, Minnie.” Miss Edna frowned. “You could’ve raised him two-thirds as well at least.”

His Ma flipped Miss Edna off with a grin.

Scene Consequences

-Everyone has now met Miss Edna and knows Ma Whitaker is back and on bed rest.

--Not that’s going to slow her down.

---

He looked around, not quite believing he was in the correct place despite knowing that he was. With a shake of his head he walked up to the otherwise mundane cookie cutter house and knocked on the front door.

After a moment the door was opened by a man in a black suit perfectly normal if not for the deer skull with glowing yellow eyes he had in place of a head. “The master… is expecting you…”

(Yep, this is the right place.) He grimaced, reeling in his instinct to attack the creature that he was sure was a construct of dark magic rather than a sapient being.

Not so smartly following the unnatural butler into the building he found the house was furnished as any other suburban home would be if using darker colors than most would favor in this neighborhood. (Though there aren’t any photos anywhere so not quite as homey as others.)

Which made sense given how DeSade had simply bought this house for his stay in the city, believing that ‘renting’ was beneath a real Dark Lord. Even if just a hotel room.

Eventually the unnatural butler led him to a dark wood door and gave him a half bow.

With a sigh he knocked on the door, knowing that DeSade was a firm believer that ‘Manners maketh man’.

“Come in.” DeSade called from behind the door.

Stepping into DeSade’s office he found the man sitting at a dark wood desk going over some paperwork while surrounded by several bookshelves lining the wall and a couch waiting in front of the desk.

“Take a seat.” DeSade told him, not looking up as he gestured towards the couch.

Rather than doing as he was told he instead leaned against the wall next to the door. “Think I’d prefer to stand.”

“Suit yourself.” DeSade shrugged before setting down his pen and giving Jon a once over. “Now normally I’d allow you to choose what lesson you wish to take in preparation for your fight with the Horror, trusting that you know what you’re doing. Today however I wish to go over exactly what you know about Demons thus far, and fill in any blanks so as to ensure you aren’t stumbling into this blind.”

Understanding the prompt given to him Jon began to explain that, “Demons are in their simplest form conceptual elementals created by Necro and Madness colliding. This has the double effect of differing them from elementals by giving them more complex and esoteric concepts to begin with while also fueling them with Malice rather than Anima. Which is part of the reason they can fuel themselves by ‘eating’ a mix of Madness, Anima, and Necro depending on their own conceptual core. This fuel is then used to mutate their core in a way that Anima on its own cannot thanks to the Madness aspect of Malice. ”

“Very good.” DeSade nodded. “Though I do feel that while your understanding of Madness’s influence on the development of a Malicious entity is sound, you don’t quite understand how the Necro half of the equation functions.”

“And how does Necro influence a Demon?” He asked.

“Beyond being the source of the myths of Demons and souls?” DeSade questioned him back. “Well the explanation for that depends on how far your understanding of Necromancy has come.”

He didn’t bother holding back a grimace at that.

“I see, then it seems like we’ll be giving the long and dry explanation rather than the simple and easy one.” DeSade sighed at his failing, before beginning a very long and very dry lecture that neither of them truly enjoyed no matter how informative it was.

Scene Consequences

-Gained (DeSade’s Rank - Jon’s Rank + 1 = 5) XP to Demonology.

--*Skill Level Up* Demonology Lv. 5 (3/12)

---

Having received a text to meet up from Artemis he got off the bus at the stop she had sent him and found her looking around anxiously.

“Uh, is everything okay?” He asked.

“Yes…” Artemis sighed, running a hand through her currently green hair. “Everything is fine just… follow me.”

“Okay…?” He nodded, not willing to call her out on the lie.

After a few minutes of walking Artemis stopped and stared at one of the houses before sighing and moving towards a wooden gate. “Come on, we need to go through the fence.”

He glanced at the house for a moment before moving to follow. “I’m just going to hope this is your house and not some random strangers.”

Artemis grimaced as she admitted, “It is… I had a few other places we could’ve tried to do all of this but… we’re going to need some place to stash the arm while working on it. As well as some place with enough protections to keep the [Fear] Anima from leaking out all over the place.”

“Yeah… after how the Haunt went that sounds like the kind of thing that’ll grab attention fast.” He agreed with a grimace of his own.

“It is, which is why we’re doing this here instead of a random hotel.” Artemis told him, briefly holding a hand out to stop him as she glanced around the corner of the house. “Alright, move quickly. I don’t want either of my parents to see you.”

“Uh, wouldn’t it be easier if they just knew I was here though?” He frowned, following as Artemis hurried to a small shed in her backyard.

Artemis gave him golden eyed glare as she unlocked the shed. “And how would your parents feel if you snuck a girl over to your house, because we could always do this at your house?”

He briefly thought about it, and much more rapidly decided, “Point made.”

Especially since, given his Ma’s condition, she was laying around the house with Miss Edna, meaning that any instance of inviting anyone over would result in both of them being there. (I may be a risk taker but I am not stupid.)

“That’s what I thought. Now get inside.” Artemis told him as she held the shed door open.

Stepping inside, he immediately felt a difference in the space around him. “Uh, you know spacial enchantments are like super dangerous, right?”

“Only if you screw it up or are a hack.” Artemis rolled her eyes as she turned the lights on to reveal a room the size of his living room and kitchen. “And don’t worry Miss Edme -a professional Enchantress- set this up with my parents for my sixteenth birthday. Even if it did somehow collapse, everything will still fit. It’ll just be a pain to climb back out.”

He looked around the room noting the workbench and chair sitting between a pair of shelves covered in jars, books, and other magical necessities before drifting over to the bed against one of the walls with a decently sized trunk next to it. He then compared all of this to the rough size of what the shed was on the outside before confirming that while it would be cramped with the two of them, if the spatial enchantment collapsed it would not turn him into a bloody paste. “Alright, I believe you.”

Artemis gave him a dry look. “I saw how long that took you.”

“And I’ve seen an empty one of these implode something before.” He was not stupid enough to mention that that something was a Corrupted Human, or the fact that he’d set the implosion off, multiple times.

His eyes drifted back to the bed as Artemis moved to the trunk. “Do you sleep out here?”

The other teen glanced at him over her shoulder before turning back to the trunk. “Sometimes if I get really into a project, but my mom doesn’t like me sleeping out here and my dad ‘ll carry me back in if he notices me missing.”

After a moment of digging in the trunk Artemis pulled out several things and set them on the sides of her work bench. “You have the arm, right?”

“Yeah.” He nodded, before reaching into his pack and pulling the bundled up arm of the Halloween Horror and setting in the middle of the bench.

“Okay, now before we can really get started on the meat of this project, we need to get started on the meat of this project.” Artemis told him as she unwrapped the arm. “Namely cutting the arm into pieces and beginning the shaping process for this first project.”

“And, uh, how are we going to do that? Because I doubt just cutting the arm up with a knife is going to work.” He admitted.

“Theoretically, it could.” Artemis corrected him slowly, sounding like she’d prefer it if that wasn’t how they did this. “It would just take a lot more effort because of the density of the arm, as well as a lot of time to keep the Anima from, well, detonating. With us in the room.”

“Oh, fun…”

“Alternatively, we could use a spell to cut it.” Artemis suggested. “But using Anima to cut into crystalized Anima, could have an interaction of its own.”

“I’m guessing it’s the explosive kind of interaction there too?” He sighed.

“Yes. Though my control should be enough to do something there.” Artemis assured him.

“No, if your control is better than you should focus on the actual shaping of the pieces while I cut it up.” He told her. “If worse comes to, I can just have Pix patch me up but I’m not sure if I can reshape the pieces beyond cutting them up.”

He decided it was best not to mention that he had no actual idea how to reshape the arm aside from cutting it up, having not really had the time to look into it with his Ma waking up from her coma.

“Well, if you’re sure… I’m not going to volunteer for the more dangerous task.” Artemis admitted, sounding relieved to do so.

“Right, I’ve just got to figure out how to not blow us up.” He nodded.

“Oh, do you hear that? I think my mom is calling me for lunch.” Artemis chuckled nervously as she inched towards the door.

And honestly he couldn’t really blame her.