A chill creeps down her spine. 

A woman's voice from behind her states flatly: "No."

...

Yvette carefully looks towards the source of the voice, face helpfully neutral.

A neutral face looks right back at her, framed by red-dyed hair. The woman standing across the room looks twenty, maybe thirty — too old for a Lilim, anyway. Her dark clothing hugs her form tightly: a sensible black shirt, dark pants, running shoes. No jewelry. No tie. Her sole accessory is the small pistol that nestles against one of her hips. 

"Lilim don't get sick."

She has absolutely no idea who this person is, but this does not look like one of her parents. Let's - play it smart.

"I was wondering more in the sense of whether or not they could be made sick, by magic."

"Perhaps. The Shadows have all sorts of nasty abilities." 

The unfamiliar woman's expression isn't. 

"Something to be mindful of," says Yvette, neutrally, and then she goes back to her research while internally cursing her luck about not being able to feign sickness to get all of this researching done.

The unfamiliar woman sits down at Yvette's small table, and looks out the window.

Well that's a bit unnerving, but it doesn't bother Yvette very much. And she's a bit wary of potentially doing things her hypothetical self wouldn't do, so - she'll just. Do nothing, she guesses, about that.

She seems to have gotten all of the information from her computer that she can for now, and her diary is still quite encrypted. She'll - see about studying cryptography, then. Where's the beginner's book on it?

When Yvette goes over towards the bookshelf, the woman at the table speaks up. 

"Looking for information on your past?"

This woman is very disconcerting aaa.

"... Yes. My diary is encoded, I need to decipher it to read it."

She stands up: her presence fills the room, like something cold and rotting. "I can help you with that, if you'll give me your palm." 

Yvette considers, then offers her palm.

The unnerving woman looks at Yvette's expression. Her lips curve up. She shows her teeth. It is technically a smile. (What is she trying to do with her eyes?)

She takes Yvette's palm in her hands. "I'm going to read your past. Don't worry, this is completely harmless."

It sounds like she's said the same thing a thousand times before. 

Yep, super disconcerted, that's Yvette. But she's got a good poker face, and the unnerving woman isn't nearly as bad as a shadow, so... She'll deal.

"Okay. Go ahead."

The woman focuses inward on Yvette's palm, and the repulsive aura redoubles. Her hands seem cold, slimy, abhorrent in the way a dead body would be abhorrent - but she's holding on tightly, now, studying the lines of Yvette's palm. 

Her red irises lighten, becoming a pale, luminescent orange. 

"When you were building the cipher for your diary, you consulted page fifty-seven of the third book from the left in your cryptography section, along with page one hundred and sixty seven from the second book from the right." 

"That - is exceedingly helpful, thank you," says Yvette, sincerely, smiling a little.

Aaaaaand now she can have her hand back, yes? Please? She would like her hand back now.

She can have her hand back.

Excellent, her composure could only last for so long.

She retrieves the aforementioned books, and turns to the correct pages on both before she forgets them. Then: diary! And now to try decoding it.

The woman seems to want to watch over her shoulder. 

"You're Ishmerai's ally, right?" she asks, perhaps a bit too late.

She nods. "Her bodyguard."

"And... were you also, uh, snatched by the shadows?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry. Unless you're, uh, happy about it?"

"Do I look happy?"

".... No?"

"Exactly." 

"Right. Um. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It's not your fault."

"No, but I can be sympathetic. And. Also sorry about being a bit. Conversationally clumsy."

"Also not your fault. The Shadows made me godawful at social cues."

"Ah." And also disconcerting to be around, she thinks. "Well, I won't hold it against you."

"But look, I've been practicing." 

She 'smiles' again. 

Yvette is at a loss for words.

"Congratulations," she says, attempting to smile back and not really making it.

Pause. "Do, you want smiling pointers...?"

"Ishmerai's been training me: there's no need for you to spend time on it." 

"All right."

She gets to attempting to decode her diary, then.

The woman goes and stands by the window again. She addresses it, rather than Yvette.

"Oh, by the way. My name is Persephone. Seffie for short."

"Yvette. Nice to meet you."

To certain definitions of nice. The woman is very - unnerving, but that's hardly her fault. Yvette will not hold it against her, so - this meeting is nice.

"Nice to meet you too."

Persephone stares out into the sunset. 

Look at all this nice meeting that they are having. 

Such nice meeting, they are having such a great time.

Yvette will just be over here. Trying to make sense of this book. She'll be working backwards, since the most recent things are probably the most relevant.

Persephone has decided that she needs to vault the bed and push Yvette out of her chair. 

She clears the bed with room to spare.

Squeak.

Down goes Yvette!

What remains of the bed is now on fire. 

Shrapnel flies everywhere. The overturned table catches a hand-length splinter inches from Yvette's gut. 

Persephone looks calmly at Yvette. 

"Stay low, and get to the door before the Shadows take another shot." 

"... Going," she agrees, and go she does, staying low. She has the presence of mind to snatch the diary out of the line of fire. It'll be coming with her, she requires it.

Persephone follows her. No further explosions follow them into the hallway.

Taking Yvette's hand, she starts moving down the hallway, that efficient-looking gun of hers at the ready. 

"This way. Panic room." 

Yvette follows without complaint, diary clutched in her hands.

Panic room!

There is a hidden door in this wall. There is a solidly built room behind it. Persephone sweeps it with her gun, then beckons Yvette. 

"In, quickly. There are three mid-rank shadows closing on us right now."

In she scrambles! She has questions, but they will wait.

Persephone closes the door behind them: it slams home with a satisfying thunk.

"Well. Apparently you did something that really pissed off the Shadows."

Yvette swallows.

"Oops."

"Even against three mid-ranks, this should hold for long enough to give us time to think." 

Ishmerai appears from one of the shadows of the room. 

"I recieved a panic room alert. What happened?"

"It appears," says Yvette, "that I pissed off the Shadows."

"How many, what rank?"

"Three. Mid-rank. And they're organized, too."

"... We may be dealing with a Master. We are underequipped to deal with a Master."

"How quickly can we retreat if it is a Master," whatever that is, doesn't matter, "and - where is my bodyguard, I distinctly remember having one."

"We've occupied him with an important mission elsewhere, because you cannot convincingly fake being your historical self to a bodyguard who has known you all your life."

"It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Ah. Right. Okay."

"Fortunately, we are not without resources."

"Do you have any weapons training, Yvette?"

"Does having decent accuracy with thrown knives count?"

"That counts." 

Ishmerai offers a knife. 

"This is called the Lady. It's enchanted. The enchantment is an awful one to have right now, but not having it is worse than having it. Normal weapons can't even scratch Shadows of this level." 

Sophia coughs.

"Usually."

Yvette takes the knife.

"What's the enchantment?"

"Greater risk, greater reward. This situation has more than high enough risk already."

"Oh, wonderful. Okay then. Any, uh, tips?"

"Leave the fighting to us. If you have to, aim for the eyes or the heart - the heart's on the right side, not the left - and try to put it down in one shot. The blade you're holding likes lucky hits."

"Seffie, you're going to be playing bodyguard for Yvette while I mount our counterattack. Your precog's better used as a defensive measure. Don't worry about leaving any for tomorrow: this is sufficiently dire that it's better for you to overspend."

"Agreed. I'll need Grace and the Bastard." 

Ishmerai vanishes.

"Do you need me in a corner, out of the way, or do you need me where I can easily move from?"

"I need you where you can move. Getting out of the way is my number one defense, and it's also your number one defense while I'm your bodyguard."

"All right. ... Is there a safe place I can put this?" she asks, holding up the diary.

"Ishmerai can take it to a safe place far away." 

Ishmerai offers Sophia a heavily-engraved hand-and-a-half sword, and a silvery necklace. 

"If only I could take the both of you." 

"If only. I suppose stealing the gate tome for me early isn't an option?"

"That would take time we don't have, and still leave Seffie behind. Better that I stay and help fight."

Persephone puts on the necklace and accepts the sword: despite the apparent weight of three and a half feet of steel, she lifts it easily. 

Her eyes are glowing orange again.

"We have about ten minutes before an explosive breach that kills us all. Our best shot is likely in seven minutes, while the shadows are drawing the diagram. They came prepared with destruction runes, so there's definitely a high-rank commander."

Yvette thinks that she regrets having a smart mouth now, but she doesn't think it's helpful for her to say it. She just nods, looking grim.

Seffie attempts a smile. 

"Don't worry, I've made it out of worse situations than this before." 

"Please stop smiling, Seffie. It's really not helping."

"I don't mind," assures Yvette. "Right, uh - diary to safe place, please, if there's nothing else to do before we attack them?"

"Good plan." 

Ishmerai takes the diary. 

"Seffie, you'll know the signal."

She nods. 

And then Persephone and Yvette are alone in the room.

Yvette does not let herself be disturbed, and instead carefully gets a feel for the weight of her new knife. It's balanced, like her last one, but a bit heavier...

Persephone steps up to the west wall, and leans against it. Her gun is up against the wall: she holds her sword away from the concrete, ready to swing. 

"There will be an exit here in a few minutes. I strongly suggest that you be standing behind me then."

"I'm not going to be offended if you order me to go places in an emergency," says Yvette, and behind Persephone she goes.

"Force of habit." 

And now there is nothing left to do but wait. 

Yvette nervously tests the balancing of the knife. It is perfectly balanced, but it makes her feel better, and keeping her nerves from fraying into pieces is important right now.

Persephone waits, her expression as inscrutable as ever.

If this were a perfect world she could throw the knife a few times to really make sure she's gotten a feel for it - but she's too afraid to let the knife out of her grip, too afraid to step out from behind Persephone to retrieve it. She'll - wait, too. While nervously fidgeting with the knife, wondering if its heavier weight and her slightly shorter limbs will throw off her aim too much.

There seems to be a lot of waiting to do.

Why. Why this thing. If she's going to potentially die can she just get it over with please?

The wall explodes. A black, gnarled mass of smoke-muscle slides across the room and impacts against the far wall with a heavy thunk. 

Then its seven limbs slide in underneath it, and it raises its three-eyed head to stare directly at Yvette. 

Persephone's pistol coughs. 

The Shadow no longer has a face. Rotting nectar spills down its neck as it lurches towards Persephone and Yvette, one hideously-long arm sweeping across the room —

Persephone's next two rounds slam into its chest. 

With a sound like a glass shattering, the shadow collapses inwards and dissipates. A broken sphere of bone scatters on the floor. 

So that's what a shadow looks like when it dies. Yvette is torn by wanting to never see that again and also very much wanting to see that again several more times right now please, how confusing. This is a completely absurd thing to be thinking right now, why is she thinking this right now, she should instead be keeping out of the way of any danger and also looking for a good chance to imbed her knife into a heart or an eye. So she does that.

Persephone waits two heartbeats, then steps around the corner, gesturing for Yvette to follow. 

Yvette follows, of course.

The hallway outside is filled with eyes. They blink from every surface, long strands of shadow linking them together like a spiderweb.

Persephone advances through the darkness, reloading her pistol as she goes. 

Yvette swallows the urge to screech and flee, and instead follows Persephone and focuses on halting the shaking in her hands so her aim won't be off if she needs to throw her knife.

A swarm of cat-sized shadows turns the corner as Persephone reloads, their spindly fingers and toes scratching on the hardwood floor. 

Mouths open in the floor, swallowing whole most of the swarm - but a few lucky shadows escape, leaping through the air towards Persephone and Yvette. 

Yvette has the urge to throw her knife at the nearest one, but that would be stupid, she might need it later. Throwing it at something makes it difficult to retrieve and throw later. She will if she has to, but will not jump the gun, and will instead rely on the bodyguard.

Does she have to?

Persephone clearly has martial arts training. She kicks one of the oncoming shadow-cats into one of Ishmerai's mouths, then smashes a second in midair with the butt of her pistol. 

The third one scuttles around her while she's occupied. Yvette could try throwing her knife, but it's small, fast, and between her and Persephone.

Not going to risk it. Maybe she could kick it, though, in a pinch. Is there an Ishmerai mouth around?

There is a rather distressingly large number of Ishmerai mouths around.

Don't be creeped out, don't be creeped out.

If the shadow gets too close without Persephone dealing with it, Yvette's going to kick it into an Ishmerai mouth.

A hulking mass of bark and dripping oil lumbers around the corner. 

Persephone slams another magazine into her pistol, and starts shooting at the bigger Shadow.

Yeah, okay, fair enough, Yvette will just handle this herself while Persephone deals with that.

Yvette attempts to punt the cat-sized shadow into an Ishmerai mouth.

The small shadow darts aside from her kick, and tries to grab her ankle. 

She's fast enough to avoid its attempt, but sort of at a loss at what to do to kill it. She doesn't have much practice killing things.

Uh. Back up a little, attempt to stomp on it?

After a few tries, she manages to squish it under her heel. With a cracking noise, the Shadow dissipates, leaving behind a broken bone marble.

Well, on the general scale of victory against enemies, that was kind of - pathetic, but whatever. She'll get better. Provided she lives.

How's Persephone doing against the bigger Shadow?

The shadow bleeds ichor from a set of neat holes in its chest. It swipes at Persephone with broad, gelatinous paws: she darts and ducks around it, avoiding each attack by the barest hairsbreadth. Every now and then, she manages to score a cut with her golden blade. 

Are there cat-sized Shadows that are attempting to sneak up on her and throw off her balance, and is the big one leaving openings for Yvette to take advantage of with a lucky strike?

Ishmerai is dealing with the remaining cat-size shadows. As for the brute... It's big and lumbering enough that there are openings she could try for. 

Welp.

She waits for a good one where if she misses it won't hit Persephone, and then aims and throws.

Ouch, right in the eye. 

The brute clutches its face and falls back, warding against Persephone's cuts with its free arm. 

Persephone harries it until it retreats back out of the hallway, still clutching the knife in its face. 

That's Yvette's contribution to this fight accomplished! Now to not die. ... And maybe kick some cat-sized Shadows if she gets the chance.

It looks like she is going to get a chance to do that... right about now.

Persephone wades forward through the second mass of shadows, batting them aside into Ishmerai's mouths with wide sweeps of her sword. She beckons. "Hurry, we don't have much time before that Shadow returns."

"Coming," says Yvette, successfully accounting for a cat-sized Shadow's speed and punting it into a mouth. And then she follows Persephone, or attempts to.

Persephone's cuts through the mass of shadowlings seem to be clearing an adequate path, though her pace isn't exactly fast. 

Well she's faster than Yvette would be when dealing with a mass of shadowlings, so they'll have to hope it'll be enough. She will punt if a good punt is open to her, and keep Persephone from being flanked if she can, but that's about all she can contribute.

Persephone hands her the gun between swipes. "Give this to Ishmerai to reload." 

"By, tossing it into a mouth, or?" asks Yvette.

"Works."

Yvette finds an open mouth, and tosses it in.

After a few moments, Ishmerai's upper half emerges from the wall and hands it back to her. 

"That was a good shot. I'm sorry I don't have a second knife for you."

"Thanks," she says, taking the gun. "I'm just sorry that my attack method involves throwing my weapon away."

"So am I."

She returns the gun to Persephone.

"So is the big one a mid-rank?" she wonders, because she's got nothing to dodge and nothing really to do right now.

Persphone fires the gun, and with a flash of brilliant light, the Shadows vanish from the path. She grabs Yvette's hand and yanks her into a run before Ishmerai has a chance to answer her question. 

Okay, this works too! Yvette tables her silly question and focuses on running.

Hallway hallway hallway door street

The smell of rotting wood and sulfur rolls into the hallway. 

Right on time. You would think a precognitive would be able to see this sort of thing coming.

Yvette keeps very quiet and gives Persephone a 'What do you want me to do?' look.

Persephone looks at Yvette.

Two hulking shadows emerge from the door, spreading out to cut off the group's escape. One of them still has Yvette's knife stuck in its eye.

Ishmerai vanishes.

Yvette eyes the shadow with the knife in its eye, calculating ways to maybe get it back and then deeming them all really likely to get her killed.

"... So this would be a great time for a cunning plan to be revealed," she says conversationally to Persephone.

"This is the cunning plan."

Not sufficiently cunning. Now then, would you care to surrender?

"You know, somehow I just don't get the impression that you treat your prisoners to Geneva Convention standards."

No.

In lieu of continuing the conversation, the shadow points a finger at Yvette's head. Black energy gathers, extends -  

And burns a hole through the air a few inches to the right of Yvette's face, thanks to a timely shove from Persephone. 

Awesome. That's fine by Yvette. She'll just - uh, focus on dodging, now. Eeep.

The shadow chuckles, and adds a second finger. A pair of annihilating beams lance out - 

Persephone doesn't shove Yvette: she can dodge this one on her own. Instead, she levels her gun at one of the hulking bruisers. 

Yvette does dodge on her own! Precogs: often right about these sorts of things. Even if Yvette is internally going AAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

The half-blind bruiser instinctively moves aside from Persephone's gun - 

- and directly into one of those beams of annihilating darkness. 

No more Shadow.

"Get the knife!"

Yvette goes! Watching for more annihilating beams, because holy shit, but she would like her knife back please.

Persephone must doing something very distracting, because the next few beams aren't anywhere near the mark.

Excellent. But she is checking anyway because aaaa.

Knife! Does she get it without issue?

The leather-wrapped handle presses firmly into her hand.

Excellent. Now she has a weapon!

Does she have a free shot to the annihilation beam shadow? She'd like to hit it in the eye with the knife.

The annihilation-beam shadow has a whole hand extended towards Persephone now, independently shifting five rays as Persephone ducks and dodges between them. Her eyes glow brilliant gold, but Yvette can already see it beginning to fade...

Yeah, okay, good enough for Yvette.

Knife. Eye. Please?

Knife intersects eye, and the shadow falls to one knee with a sound somewhere between a scream and a buzzsaw.

Excellent, Yvette is contributing so much to this fight. She's kind of surprised.

But now that she's without a weapon (again) it's time to - dodge and stay out of the way. Is there anything that is looking like it's going to murder her?

The remaining hulking shadow is closing on her rather quickly. 

Bravely run away! To Persephone! Help, the squishy ranged needs your assistance!

Persephone can't go toe-to-toe with one of these things, but she can tackle Yvette out of the way of imminent death for the third time today. 

Yvette is very sorry that she keeps needing to be tackled out of the way of imminent death, she's trying. But she's sort of a fifteen year old in a warzone. A battle hardened veteran she is not, even if she has terrifying knife throwing skills.

As such, she's very amenable to being tackled out of the way. She moves where shoved!

"Where shoved" turns out to be 'onto the ground with Persephone atop her'. 

The shadow is nearly atop them: it swings a claw down at Yvette. 

Persephone parries the blow with her golden longsword- but it's off-centre. 

With a twist of its claws, the shadow rips the sword from Persephone's grip, tossing it away down the alley. 

Yvette wonders if this is how she dies, squished under a slightly creepy emotionless woman, far away from home.

The shadow falters in mid-swing, its claws gouging the street next to Yvette's head. Its other hand goes to its chest.

... Yvette glances up to see what happened.

The shadow vomits up blackness. 

Blackness filled with eyes. 

Oh. Okay then. That works. Yvette will just stay here some more, then. (So out of her depth!)

The shadow collapses and disintegrates into a pool of shadow-chunks. After a moment, Ishmerai's body coalesces, unnamable juices dripping from her hair.

"Well. That went better than I was expecting."

"We do seem to have won. Uh. Sorry that I needed to be tackled constantly."

"It's not a -" 

Tackle.

Yvette's knife tumbles end-over-end through the air, and thwacks painfully hilt-first into Persephone's shoulder.

"Um," says Yvette, alarmed, and then she is reaching for the knife since clearly they are not done.

Though it's not like she can aim from the ground.

The remaining shadow levels both hands at them, and energy builds at its fingertips. 

Enough playing. 

The golden light dies out in Persephone's eyes.

"Player three has entered the game!" says someone, and then the shadow is shot in the head.

The shadow reels from the shot: rays of consuming blackness sweep the wall of the alley as it staggers. 

Another shot slams into its side, curving in mid-air to hit at just the right angle.

The shot knocks the shadow into the ray-raked wall. The impact is too much for the shredded masonry to handle: with a grinding crash, the building collapses atop it.

And then a person lands neatly next to Persephone and Yvette.

"C'mon, up you get, it's not dead yet, I just kind of pissed it off - oh, oh, Yvette! I have a present for you."

Yvette needs a minute to be caught off guard, before she connects the dots.

"Wh - Blair?"

"Yep, hi, no longer a representative of the Y chromosome, just roll with it, here, have this it is a fancy reality warping spear that those of demon blood can use more effectively."

"... Okay!"

Her - sister? Sister hands over a spear. Yvette looks at it. Confusedly.

It looks like a spear right up until the moment that it touches Yvette's hand. 

Then it becomes a bolt of heatless crimson lightning.

... Yvette is going to roll with this.

"Um. Okay. So I throw it?"

"Yyyyyes? I guess?"

"... It is rather hard to hit something when it's buried under a building...."

The bolt of lightning pulses in her hand, pulling subtly away like a tensioned spring.