The forces of Hell had long since been whittled down to the point where Ashtoreth was no longer needed in hunting them out. She simply didn't do as good a job as the teams of humans using divinations spells did, and it was a better use of time to have her train and prepare herself for the fight ahead.

She normally went to bed and woke up late, and had told the humans that sleeping through the whole of sunrise was a cultural thing. Training didn't start until an hour before noon—and with the knowledge of the upcoming attacks, she had preparations to make. Mostly she needed to compose a strategy for how she could optimize her upcoming aspect selection.

As such, she glamoured herself a housecoat and a mug of tea, then sat in the armchair and began to make some notes, brainstorming ideas to help her make the system offer her as many of her list of desirable aspects as possible.

She didn't try to find the others. She was still grouchy from the night before. After all that she'd done to gain the monarchy, Dazel had given her much cause to worry for the future of Earth.

And she didn't want to worry more than was necessary.

Soon enough she heard muffled shouting, and tilted her head to get a better bearing on where it was coming from—somewhere above them. It was an oddity: the people at headquarters were mostly disciplined. There were seldom raised voices.

The shouting continued, sounding like it came from the stairwell. "Just let me talk to her!"

"Sadie!" It was Hunter's voice.

"Huh," Ashtoreth said, setting aside her notepad. "Finally."

She opened the front door of the house to see that one of the two soldiers that were normally guarding the stairwell had opened the metal door and was saying something to the people inside.

A moment later, a crackle of energy appeared in the air on Ashotreth's side of the stairwell door, then coalesced into the form of a teenaged girl.

{Human Sadie — Level 265}

Sadie was a full head shorter than Hunter, with brightly dyed blue hair. She wore a black-and blue hoodie, a pleated skirt, knee-high stockings, and a pair of fingerless gloves. A straight, simple short sword was buckled at her waist alongside a long, thin wand that seemed to have been made of glass.

Ashtoreth took her in. "After last night, Dazel deserves to miss this," she muttered.

The guard on the inside of the stairwell door conjured an assault rifle as soon as she appeared, raising it to point at her back. "Freeze!" he shouted. "Not another move!"

Hunter appeared between the guard and Sadie in a burst of black flames. "Don't," he said warningly to the guard. "She's fine." Then he turned to his girlfriend. "Sadie!" he said.

The soldier looked between them, and then to Ashtoreth. His face suggested that he didn't like being ordered to stand down by a shirtless teenager.

Meanwhile, Sadie had spotted where Ashtoreth was standing on her front porch, eyes widening.

"Ashtoreth!" she said. Her voice had a scratchy, defiant quality to it.

"Hey Sadie," Ashtoreth said. "Nice to meet you."

Hunter had made contact with Sadie right after the election, but she wasn't allowed in headquarters and just as he'd done with his family, he'd made no effort to introduce her to the team.

"Put me in," she said, stepping up to stand in front of the porch, her eyes gleaming with fervor. "I can do it."

"Sadie come on," Hunter said.

Ashtoreth raised a single eyebrow at the younger girl. "Put you in?"

"Let me fight," she said. "I've been hunting demons from day one. Nobody wants to protect the Earth as much as I do—"

"You're not trained—"

"Shh!" Sadie said, her head snapping back to Hunter before returning to Ashtoreth. "I'm almost level 300," she said. "A few more cores and I can grab my tier 3 abilities."

"Sadie!"

"Quiet, Hunter!" She turned back to Ashtoreth. "You're the monarch," she said. "You can get me in. If you say I can fight, I can fight."

"Well, actually, I'm more like a constitutional monarch…"

"What?" Sadie asked, her eyes widening.

"It's not so bad," said Ashtoreth. "A little governer general here or there never hurt anybody."

Sadie's face fell. "Please, Ashtoreth. I want to help. I don't want Hunter going out alone."

"He's not alone," she said. "He's got the best of the best protecting him. And also some people from the military, plus Frost and Kylie."

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"But if you can protect him, then protect me," she said. "At least while I learn. Let me eat minds the way that Hunter did! Help me train, teach me to fight better—I'm already pretty good, I'll show you!"

Ashtoreth frowned. How to tell the girl in front of her that nothing about her was special enough to warrant risking her life in combat over the endless supply of soldiers that the Defense Alliance could field?

"Look," she said, raising a hand to the back of her neck. "I'm sort of hoping to build a decent reputation among humanity, and a sizeable fraction of them strongly disapprove of child soldiers. And it's not like the ones who do approve of child soldiers would be very upset with me just because I didn't have any."

"You don't have any?" Sadie asked incredulously. "You kidnapped my boyfriend for a year!"

"Hmm," Ashtoreth said. "Really, I prefer the phrase, 'frienducted,'"

Sadie blinked. "What."

"It was much more congenial, friendly way of forcing him into a year of fighting than your choice of words lets on."

"I—what?" Sadie shook her head. "Okay, sure. Listen, I have the [Warp] and [Spellcasting] aspects," she said.

Ashtoreth sucked in a breath. "Okay, that's actually pretty useful. Maybe they can put you someplace where you won't be directly on the front lines but still be useful…"

"No," said Sadie. "I need to fight. I need to fight with Hunter."

"Sadie," Hunter urged. "I'm sorry, Ashtoreth, I don't know how she found where the headquarters is—"

"Can you stop?!" Sadie roared, rounding on him. "We were supposed to be a team, Hunter! We were supposed to understand each other. With everything that's happened, don't you want to stay together?"

As the two of them distracted one another, Ashtoreth's gaze caught that of the soldiers who now stood by the door. Both of them looked a mixture of perplexed and furious. She shrugged at them.

"I don't want you to die!" Hunter said. "It's not complicated. You're not on my level."

"That's not my fault!"

"I know, but it doesn't matter."

"It's my planet too, Hunter."

Ashtoreth took a sip of her tea as she watched them. Then she cleared her throat, and both of them turned toward her.

"I'll see what I can do about getting you into the field," she said.

"You will?" Sadie asked, eyes wide.

"You will?" Hunter asked.

"But we're talking about something that will take months at least," said Ashtoreth, watching Sadie's face fall as she spoke. "First we have to see if Kylie's got the room to load up the spells she uses to drain people's skills, then we've got to get some of them into you, and you've got to train while you do in order to actually cement the knowledge you gain. As spellcaster, it'll probably take longer."

For a brief moment, Ashtoreth suspected that Sadie was about to start crying. "Everyone is fighting," she said. "People who have way fewer levels than me. People who don't know anything about it."

"Those people are useless to me," said Ashtoreth. "And to High Command. Whatever we're up to, it takes more than the neighbourhood watch." She shrugged. "There's no way to put you in by Hunter's side now, but if you'd like, there's some things I need help with."

A small flare of hope seemed to light in Sadie's eyes. "Like what?"

"I need a gofer."

"Huh?"

"A gofer. You know, 'go for this, go for that.' My familiar is absent this morning, and he usually gets me things."

"I noticed Dazel was gone," said Hunter, looking around. "Where's he at?"

"Dunno," said Ashtoreth. "He was really tuckered out last night, though." She smiled faintly. "Sad he won't get to meet Sadie."

"Is it, though?" Hunter asked.

"Did I get you correctly?" Sadie asked, peering at Ashtoreth. "You want me to… run errands?"

"Yeah," she said. "I'm getting a fourth aspect soon, and the system tends to offer aspects that take after your style. I'm trying to figure out how I can act in a way that gets me the ones I want."

"So you need me to get you some things that will help you with that?"

"Clocks," said Ashtoreth. "Go get me clocks and a bible."

"...What?"

"Preferably mechanical clocks, and preferably a Bible with large print. A half-dozen stopwatches, an alarm clock… and you know what? Something with a bit of flash." She nodded to herself as she pictured it. "I bet the system likes flash. Like a big clock I could wear around my neck on a chain."

Sadie just stared at her. "...You want bling and Jesus?"

Ashtoreth nodded. "But make sure the bling tells time, yeah."

"You're not serious."

Hunter leaned close to speak into Sadie's ear. "She's serious."

Sadie blanched, then looked from Ashtoreth to Hunter and back again. "I… fine, I guess?"

"Great!" Ashtoreth said, grinning. "I'm going to start training soon, so just leave them with Hunter or dump them in my house—the door's unlocked."

"Okay," Sadie said, still seeming dazed. "Do you, uh, have any money I can use?"

Ashtoreth briefly closed her eyes. She sighed. "What is it with this money fixation everyone has? Are the clock stores even open—I figured you'd just steal. I assume that's what Dazel does."

Sadie blinked. "Okay," she said again, her voice growing smaller. "I guess I'll… just go now?"

"Sure!" said Ashtoreth. "Oh—and another thing."

"What?" Sadie asked.

Ashtoreth grinned. "I love your style! It's easy to see why Hunter would be crazy about you."

Sadie seemed to try suppressing a smile as she looked down and away. "Thanks."

"Now go—bring me clocks."

She watched them both depart with a wistful smile. Then she took another sip of her tea and sighed. "This is… probably not going to work," she admitted.

But for [Time]? It was worth a try.

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