Chapter 57: Chapter 37.2: Alive and In Concert

“Oh my god,” Roxy said. She clapped her hands together excitedly. “Huel, these kids are with me, we’ll be in my trailer!”

Roxy pranced up to the security fencing, moved it aside, and shepherded the dumbfounded loopers into her trailer. She slammed the door, behind them, closed the blinds, and then turned with giddy excitement towards the students.

“I can’t believe it!” She squealed. “I thought for sure somebody would’ve figured this shit out by now!”

“I can’t- I mean, we try sometimes but- It’s been really-” Vell started and stopped. He looked at Roxy’s collection of guitars arrayed in rows and then turned back to Roxy. “You’re a looper!”

“Yeah! I thought we made that obvious with the whole unspoken moment of mutual realization thing we just did,” Roxy said. She then clapped her hands together again, and extended one of them towards Vell. “Sorry, getting ahead of myself here. I’m Roxy, I’m guessing you knew that, and you are?”

“Vell. Vell Harlan.”

Roxy shook his hand, leaving Vell a bit dumbstruck.

“I’m Harley, and this is Lee.”

“Harley, nice to meet you, Lee, have we met before? You look familiar.”

“When I was thirteen you threatened to shove a guitar so far up my mother’s behind she’d be able to tune it with her tongue,” Lee said. Roxy gave a stiff, awkward nod.

“Right, Granger’s kid,” she said. “Uh...sorry.”

“Oh, no apologies necessary, I also have an unhealthy urge to physically harm my mother,” Lee said with a cheery smile.

“Oh, great, we’ll be thick as thieves,” Roxy said. “What about this one, then? She a bit starstruck?”

“Well, sort of,” Harley said. “Leanne doesn’t talk much to begin with.”

Leanne suddenly snapped to attention, nodded rapidly, gave a thumbs up, and then held one finger to her mouth in the “shush” gesture.

“Fair play, kid, I’ll do enough bantering for the both of us,” Roxy said. She gave Leanne a friendly pat on the shoulder. Luckily for both of them, Roxy turned away before Leanne started shivering with excitement.

“Okay, I have like, so many questions I want to ask, and a lot of shenanigans I want to tell you guys about, but first things first, if my highly-developed veteran looper intuition is correct, this is the second loop.”

“Good guess!”

“Nobody likes a kiss-ass, Vell,” Roxy said. Vell looked briefly wounded before Roxy cracked a smile in his direction. “Kidding. You can kiss my ass as much as you want, it’s an open invitation.”

“Will do,” Vell said. Roxy took a second to consider whether that was a joke or not.

“Okay, let’s go, looper business,” Roxy said. She clapped her hands together softly as she spoke, adding an almost musical rhythm to the simple sentence. “Huel mentioned a demon? You guys know what you’re doing when it comes to demons, right?”

“We’ve been to hell, lady, we know what we’re doing,” Harley said.

“Okay sweet, because explaining shit to the newbies was always my least favorite part of the gig.”

“Really? I love it,” Harley said. She grabbed Vell by the arm and clung to him. “Half of me and this guy’s relationship is me explaining shit to him.”

“We think I’m cursed to never be able to read an instruction manual,” Vell said.

“Neat! I don’t have time to unpack that so let’s just focus on the demon,” Roxy said. “Where, when, how, and How Two: The Sequel, how do we kill it?”

“Where: It’s in that spooky amp you picked up, When: during the sound check, and How: you slap the thingy and the demon cage inside it falls apart,” Harley explained. “As for How Two: Electric Boogaloo, presumably the same way you kill anything else.”

“Sweet. You guys still have that locker full of weapons?”

“Very much so,” Lee said. “Would you like to retrieve your old weapon?”

“But you’ll need a disguise,” Vell said. “Can’t have a celebrity running around campus, obviously.”

Vell drew his phone with a flourish, said the word “disguise”, and a rune appeared in the slot on the back of the phone. He handed it over to Roxy.

“Just pin this to your jacket and activate it. It’ll disguise you as someone else.”

“Ooh, neato,” Roxy said. “Who am I going to look like? An old flame, maybe? Or a new flame?”

“Uh...You’ll, uh, you’ll look like, my, uh, my mom, actually,” Vell said.

“Oh,” Roxy said.

“You used your mom as the template for your disguise rune?” Harley chuckled.

“Well who else was I going to ask?” Vell said. “’Oh hey, Professor Nguyen, can I borrow your full-body likeness?’ It’s weird.”

“Is that old hardass still here?” Roxy said. She flipped on Vell’s rune and turned into an exact replica of his mother, hijab and all. She poked her fingers through the illusionary shell, marveling at the runic technology in action. “Another looper studied this stuff, talked about how hard Nguyen was on him. I’ll have to let him know the old bat’s still kicking.”

Roxy resisted the temptation to probe into her illusionary disguise too much, seeing as she looked like Vell’s mom now and that could get weird fast, and got back to business. Lee took the lead as they headed back to the other side of the security fence.

“Weren’t there three of you before?” Huel said, as they passed by.

“I’m going incognito, Huey, don’t wait up on me,” Roxy said.

“Just don’t start any more fires.”

“I promise nothing.”

Roxy waved her hand playfully and then did her best to adopt a maternal persona. She tried as hard as she could to look slightly fussy and overly concerned with Vell’s well-being. Nobody suspected a thing, which Roxy credited to her acting skills and which everyone else credited to the fact that no one was really paying attention to them. Until they bumped into Cane.

“Hey guys. Who’s the lady?”

“Hey, uh, Cane, this is- my mom!” Vell said. He nearly said Roxy before remembering how she looked right now.

“Oh. Hey, Mrs. Harlan, nice to meet you. What brings you here?”

“I just came in to check on my dear widdle Velly,” Roxy said. She tried as best she could to suppress her British accent in favor of Vell’s bland American one, and only did a half-decent job of it. She made up the difference by grabbing Vell and holding him tight. “I get so worried about my baby.”

The bright side of Roxy’s poor acting was that Vell didn’t have to pretend to feel uncomfortable. Cane returned his nervous smile. He finished up a polite introduction and quickly made his exit.

“Widdle Velly?” Harley questioned.

“I’m not good at improvising,” Roxy said.

“Well you and Widdle Velly have that in common,” Harley said.

“Please don’t make that a thing,” Vell pleaded.

“Too late.”

----------------------------------------

“Here we are,” Lee said. She unlocked the storage room door and opened it up. Roxy dashed in, still disguised as Vell’s mother, and giggled with anticipation. “Is there something in particular you’re looking for, Ms. Roiland?”

“Call me Roxy,” she insisted. “And yes, but I think I got it…”

She scanned the room, perusing the arsenal of exotic and mythological weaponry. She tossed aside an entire rack of legendary swords and then jumped for joy as she reached for what had been hidden beneath. With a hearty grunt of exertion, Roxy hefted an ancient greek battle-axe and cradled it in her arms.

“Oh Labrys baby, I missed you,” Roxy said, speaking to the ancient axe the way one might speak to a beloved pet. She pressed her face against the flat of the blade and held it close for a moment. “What do you say to one more ride?”

Roxy hefted Labrys over her shoulder and turned back to her new comrades-in arms.

“Okay, I’ve had my moment with the old girl,” Roxy said. “Now to put her to use. Let’s go grab that amp and take it somewhere private.”

“I agree,” Lee said. “There should be some empty classrooms, or perhaps we can utilize one of the senior labs…”

While Lee mulled over potential battlegrounds, Roxy stared at her blankly.

“Why not use the lair?”

“What lair?”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Roxy stuck the head of Labrys in the ground and leaned on it like a cane.

“Have they already lost track of the lair? Man, it hasn’t been that long, has it?”

“Twenty years or so,” Harley said. Roxy cringed.

“Don’t make me think about how old I am,” she said. “Let me show you something cool.”

Roxy shouldered her axe again and took the lead, heading out of the storage building and across the quad again, towards the island’s edge. She found a large tree, put her back to it, and then took ten steps towards the center of the island. Then she stomped her foot once.

“Is there a secret door somewhere?”

“No, it’s an ordinary door, I’m just fucking lost,” Roxy said. She pointed a finger and waved it at three nearby buildings. “Which of these has the seismology lab in it?”

“That one,” Lee said. Roxy headed into the building and descended into the basement. She counted out the third door on the left and stepped up to test that it was locked. Making sure that nobody was watching, she disabled the illusion rune that kept her disguised, and then punched in the key code.

“Hey, still works,” she said. “I was worried I’d have to axe the door down.”

She swung the door open and led the loopers inside. Though the air was stale and the room was covered in a thin lair of dust, the expansive underground chamber still impressed. Harley gawked at a massive computer and several sets of tools that occupied the far wall.

“We had a Batcave the whole time and nobody told me?” Harley screamed, her offense obvious.

“Somebody must’ve lost track of it at some point,” Roxy said. “Doesn’t look like it’s been out of use too long, though.”

She dragged a finger along the surface of a large table in the center of the room, disturbing the thin layer of dust. She stared at the now empty table and fondly recalled hundreds of early morning meetings spent with good friends talking about strange things.

“Oh jesus,” Harley said, interrupting the fond reverie. “Everybody stop touching things!”

“Why?”

“Do you guys remember how Naomi and Dominic used to disappear together?”

Lee looked around at the numerous flat surfaces in the lair and then rolled her eyes.

“Oh good lord.”

“Yeah, we need to assume that everything in this room has been fucked on,” Harley said. Roxy wiped her dusty finger off on her jacket.

While the loopers tried not to touch anything, Vell made use of his new gizmo once again and summoned an arsenal of disinfectants.

“In case today’s apocalypse was a plague,” Vell said to Harley, preempting her question of why he had sanitary wipes ready to go.

“The man came prepared, I like it,” Roxy said. “Speaking of preparing, we should probably get this place set up for a demon fight. Vell, you keep cleaning, and you two ladies can go grab the amp while me and Ms. Mute Muscles over here rearrange all this old furniture.”

“Sounds good to me,” Harley said. “Have fun you three. Try not to swamp the rock star with questions.”

The two left the room and, despite Harley’s expectations, it stayed quiet in the dusty lair. Vell preoccupied himself cleaning every surface he could find and Leanne stayed tucked away in a corner, staring at everything except Roxy. The rockstar fiddled with Labrys for a second before the silence started to get on her nerves.

“You know, I actually was expecting you two to geek out once the gals were gone,” Roxy said. “Questions are allowed. Shockingly, I actually enjoy being lavished with praise and affection by my audience.”

“I mean, yeah, uh, there’s just, not, you know, too much to say,” Vell said. “I don’t want to be a bother, and, uh, I like your music a lot. You’re a great musician, probably one of the best.”

“Eh, I’d be lucky to scrape the top one-hundred, being honest,” Roxy said. “Come on though. You’re too nervous to just be a casual fan.”

“Well, I mean, I’ve had some good times listening to your music,” Vell said. “Fond memories.”

Roxy leaned on Labrys and gave Vell a coy smile. For some reason, the look on her face reminded him of Harley, and that made him sweat.

“You popped your cherry to one of my songs, didn’t you?”

Vell stopped mid-scrub and sighed so deeply some of the nearby dust blew away.

“Yes.”

“I knew it,” Roxy said. “Was it with that Harley chick? You two are banging, right?”

“No! I mean, yes, uh, well, no to the first question, yes to the second, but how did you know that?”

Roxy sat cross-legged on the table and held her hands in a meditative position.

“I am a master of psychosexual analysis,” Roxy said. “Seriously though, I took a minor in psychology as it relates to human sexuality when I was still doing my time here at the EOC. I’m pretty good at this stuff. Stand still, palms up, and watch this.”

Vell did as he was told as Roxy walked over to him. She appraised him far too critically, carefully eyeballing every bit of his posture and poise.

“So, not Harley...it was a couple years back, though...high school, maybe? That relationship didn’t end clean, but it’s in the past.”

“All right so far,” Vell said, both impressed and distressed.

“You have a casual thing with Harley now,” Roxy said. She put her hand on her hips and started swaying side to side. Vell wore his heart on his sleeve, and was an unusually easy read, but there was still something knotted up in him that took her a while to untangle.

“But there’s another girl,” Roxy concluded. “Or was. It’s over now, and it ended badly, but you’re still confused...conflicted.

“I would appreciate it if you stopped now,” Vell said.

“Fair play,” Roxy said. “What about you, Muscles, you want your sexual palm read?”

Leanne shook her head so fast her ponytail almost came loose. Roxy shrugged and returned to her seat. Leanne was an even easier read than Vell anyway -and a much shorter one. “Fear of physical intimacy” was a pretty short phrase.

“So that’s my superpower,” Roxy said. “Aside from the musical magic, obviously. Vell’s pretty clearly a rune whiz, so what’s your superpower, Leanne?”

After a second of quiet contemplation, Leanne flexed and pointed to her bulging bicep.

“Ah. So you’re just the strong, silent type all the way down, then. I can dig it,” Roxy said. “Would you rather I quit bugging you? You seem to be intent on staying quiet.”

Leanne shook her head fervently again and then flew through a series of hand gestures too fast for even Vell to possibly track. She took a deep breath and then repeated every movement of her hands at a slightly more human pace.

“She says it’s nothing personal, and she’s a huge fan, she just tries to keep herself distanced from all this loop stuff,” Vell translated.

“Why? It’s fun.”

Vell and Leanne shared a quick glance.

“Do you mind if I…?” Vell asked. Leanne gave a hesitant nod. She didn’t know how to express herself in simple gestures, and had to hope Vell might be better at it. “Leanne’s had...a slightly more complex history in the loop. She’s got some good reasons to not be so enthusiastic about it.”

“Huh. Well, everything goes a bit differently, but-”

Roxy was cut off mid-sentence by a loud pounding at the door. Harley’s muffled voice roared from the far side.

“Yo Roxy! You never told us the code for this door!”

“My bad,” Roxy shouted back. “It’s 287359!”

Harley slammed in the code and the slammed through the door, wheeling the amplifier/demon prison along with her. Lee followed a few steps behind, perusing a book on demonology as she walked. She narrowly avoided tripping over a chair as she made her way to the center of the room and set the book aside.

“I believe I’m prepared as I’m going to get,” Lee said. “Managing electricity isn’t my strong suit, but I think I can prevent anyone from getting electrocuted with some simple warding spells.”

“Nice. I got an axe and a strong desire to kick ass, so I’m good to go,” Roxy said. She turned to Vell. “You good?”

Vell summoned his cursed pistols and nodded. Roxy nodded approvingly at the guns and turned to Leanne with a questioning look. She held up two fists in response.

“Well, your knuckles are going to get a bit scorched, but you look like you can handle it,” Roxy said. “If everyone’s ready, mind if I crack open this can of whoop ass?”

No one objected, and Lee gestured to the cursed amp, inviting Roxy to take the first blow. She hefted the ancient weapon that had once split the skull of Zeus and brought it down hard on the metal amplifier. A few sparks of fire kicked up as metal scraped against metal, followed by a few sparks of electricity as the cage hidden within shattered. What was left of the electrical prison was torn to shreds as the lightning demon clawed it apart from within. The blackened skeleton of the beast slowly took form and sparked with lightning as it emerged.

It then stopped emerging as the skull appeared and Leanne immediately punched a hole in it. She shook the crackling skull off her forearm and stepped back.

“Ow! What is wrong with you?” the demon cried out in a shrill, wavering voice. The hole in his upper skull didn’t seem to stop the demon from talking. “A guy spends half a century in a fucking piece of stage gear and you just punch a hole in his head first thing as he wakes up? Can’t even let me get in a good stretch first?”

“Oh we’re sorry, were you not going to kill us all with lightning?” Roxy said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“I mean yeah, but you could at least be sporting about it,” the demon complained.

“Muscles, punch another hole in him,” Roxy ordered. Leanne obliged.

The next punch cracked a rib, while Roxy swung Labrys and narrowly avoided severing a limb. The demon tried to crack down with an electrically charged punch, but Vell interrupted the blow with a well-aimed shot to the wrist. Frustrated by the interruption, the demon tried to let loose a pulse of electricity, and was shut down by Lee’s protective wards. All the while, his broad, horned skull was being peppered with tiny laser blasts from Botley’s drone body.

With a roar of frustration, the demon brought down two fists in a heavy slam, putting too much inertia behind the blow for a simple shot to the wrist to stop. Roxy held Labrys flat and used it as a shield, blocking the strike while Leanne went low.

“Left leg, Muscles,” Roxy ordered. Leanne went left and Roxy went right, spinning out of the path of the blow, and spinning Labrys into the demon’s right knee. Leanne struck the left knee with a heavy kick and sent the skeletal frame of the demon plummeting forward into the ground. The two then made themselves scarce as Harley and Vell rained down bullet hell on the beast from hell. Cracks and splinters of bone started to show, but the demon wasn’t down yet. Roxy aimed to make that a very short ‘yet’.

“Take him by the horns and give me a layup, Leanne,” Roxy ordered.

Leanne once again obeyed, taking the demon by the horns. With a mighty pull, Leanne tore the skull free from the spine and hurled it at Roxy. Although astonished by the speed and force of Leanne’s throw, Roxy still managed to bring Labrys down hard on the skull. The inertia of Leanne’s toss and Roxy’s axe blow met in the middle, turning the electrified skull into splinters. Roxy coughed and waved away the cloud of bone dust. What was left of the skeletal demon did not move.

“Think that did it?” Harley asked.

“No, I’m alive, I’m just reassessing my options here,” the demon said. The skeleton, apparent unfazed by its lack of skull, sat up and continued talking. “You mind if we call a truce? I promise you that having my skull reduced to a fine powder has made me reconsider my life choices.”

“Yeah, skeletal vaporization will do that,” Roxy said, speaking from experience. She put Labrys in the ground in front of the skeletal demon. “So. You going to play nice?”

“Well, not exactly, I’m a demon,” the demon said. He scratched the empty space where a head should’ve been. “I kind of have to do evil stuff.”

“Why?”

The demon shrugged.

“I didn’t write the rules of being a demon, I just have to follow them,” it said.

Lee reached into her purse and pulled out a business card, handing it to the demon, who held it up to to the empty space where his head used to be.

“Sorry, can’t read a damn thing without my glasses,” the demon said. “What’s this?”

“The address to one of my parent’s businesses. They would be quite happy to have an electrical demon like yourself keeping the place powered.”

“I don’t know, that sounds almost helpful,” the demon said.

“Yes, but you’d be ‘helping’ the Burrows family, so-”

“Oh shit, those guys? Say no more, working with those guys is a dream gig. Top tier employment for a demon, I tell you, can’t find anything more evil than them.”

“What about Kraid?’

“Oh we don’t fuck with that guy, he’s too evil even for us,” the demon said. Vell nodded. That sounded right. The demon stood, waved in Lee’s direction, and then headed for the door. Harley was the only one who waved goodbye back. Roxy was more preoccupied giving Leanne a hearty slap on the back.

“Nice work, kid,” she said. “Wish I’d had someone as ripped as you on the squad back in the day. Would’ve saved us a lot of trouble in some of the big fights.”

Leanne blushed and gave two thumbs up. She then retreated sheepishly, still red in the face. On instinct, Vell grabbed Harley and Lee by the shoulder.

“We should probably, uh, go check and make sure that demon doesn’t do anything evil on the way out,” Vell said. “We’ll see you later, super cool fighting a demon with you, bye!”

Vell dragged the two women out of the room and slammed the door behind him. Roxy watched them go and then turned back to Leanne.

“Well, that was a highly transparent attempt to get the two of us alone together,” Roxy said. “You going to take advantage of it?”

Leanne held up one finger, asking for a moment, and took one long, deep breath. She had a hell of a lot to say.