An actress in our midst!

The demon lord – he’d said to call him Baugh in private – walked at the front. Behind him, three of the current demon generals. Tepes, the enchantress; Salem, the moon witch; and Hecate, the princess knight.

It felt quite strange to finally be one of them. Up until recently, Jessica had been a faceless minion, after all. She still wasn’t quite sure why they had to be so nondescript as minions, but… Well, whatever.

Now that she was a general herself, she had come to know the others much better than when she had been under Salem’s thumb. And because she had proven herself as someone capable of being one of the main researchers, they had told her everything about their history and every detail she might need to know.

The two next to her were both special cases. Even if they weren’t necessarily the strongest, they had lasted much longer than any of the other generals. And that wasn’t a coincidence.

The first Pretty Spark sure had grown up to be a colossal bitch. Not just as a boss, but in general. Seriously, she had directly caused an apocalypse in the demon realm because of a fucking love triangle.

Like, what the hell? Who did that?

Okay, I get it, both you and Baugh loved Trish, but jeez, did you have to nuke the world?

The fact that she had later grudgingly approached Baugh to try and work with him on a solution to Trish’s condition and ended up as one of his generals while throwing away her civilian life didn’t endear her to Jessica at all. 

Hecate was much more agreeable. Generally a happy-go-lucky girl who had a panache for acting like the evil final boss. Jessica approved.

She was the daughter of Baugh and Trish, the demon lord and the first Pretty Flame. And also, apparently, from what Jessica had been able to conclude last time, the fifth weapon’s wielder. The same fifth weapon who was her own goddamn mother stuck in an unaging magical coma. Oh, and signs pointed to Baugh also somehow being the fifth weapon’s wielder.

It made absolutely no sense.

What a screwed-up family situation. And Jessica thought she had it bad.

Baugh had told her that back when the fifth weapon prototype went out of control, it sucked the world dry of magic, killing all life in the demon realm, leaving only the strongest demons behind as spirits. Only two true demons survived, because it sucked the magic into them. Yup, Baugh and Hecate.

But to top it all off, young infant Hecate, overcharged with magic, had then somehow eventually figured out how to open up a portal between the worlds again and slipped to Earth. Baugh had to have come to Earth himself to retrieve her and inadvertently encountered the magical girls just as he had found his daughter.

And then he had threatened the magical girls with death and demon armies taking over Earth. Because he was still pissed about what had happened.

Seriously.

What the hell, dude?

His excuse to not invade Earth had been that the connection between the worlds had been lost, but with baby Hecate opening that gateway – which was probably because of the whole attunement between the fifth weapon and her wielder thing – and Baugh running off his mouth, the vengeful faction of the demonic spirits wouldn’t be satisfied if he backed off anymore.

And that was the entire reason for the conflict.

Years later, Baugh had put Hecate and Sally – who had since defected after losing her magical girl powers – up as generals along with two other decently strong humans as his generals, and the rest was history.

Jessica shook her head.

What was done was done. It didn’t matter that the three she was walking with had been the main culprits behind the entire mess. What mattered now was figuring out how to dig themselves out of it without blowing up another world.

The four entered Baugh’s main office, walked to a seemingly normal wall, and after Baugh tapped the wall in a specific pattern, his fingers charged with magic, the secret entrance opened.

Once inside, the four automatically split up and went to their own little spot inside the small room. Hecate sat beside her permanently unconscious mom, Jessica and Baugh began going over their experiment notes, and Sally stood guard, watching for any and all intruders.

Sally, despite spending so long as Trish and Baugh’s assistant all those years ago and being a general now, was still oblivious when it came to some of the more complex intricacies of magic theory.

“So,” Jessica began. “Here’s the main question.” She looked at Baugh, who was still in his heavy duty demon lord armor. “If you and Hecate really are the wielders, how come your attunement hasn’t deteriorated at all in all these years? And how is it possible that there’s two wielders for one weapon?”

“Don’t call her a weapon,” Baugh murmured under his breath before speaking up. “My theory is that both those questions answer each other. Something happened, which caused two wielders, and the attunement being split is what stabilizes it.”

“That something being pregnancy, hmm?” Jessica quirked an eyebrow at him.

“... Probably,” he reluctantly agreed.

They both ignored the subtle glare Sally sent his way.

“Right, so… The problem we have is that we know it’s possible for a wielder to stop being a wielder, but now we need to figure out whether a weapon –” She glanced at Trish. “-- can stop being a weapon. So if we figure out what makes one lose the attunement, maybe we can somehow apply that on Trish.”

“Makes sense… but I don’t believe a weapon can just stop existing. We would have to transfer the properties onto something else. Make something else the true fifth weapon.”

Jessica nodded.

“Right. We just have to hope that it’s possible for an object to be the weapon and that it doesn’t need to be a person.”

Baugh went silent, but Jessica could feel his uneasiness.

“So there’s a few experiments I wanted to try. First off…”

BottledChaos Hey everyone! I hope ya'll are having a nice day. I got a lot of comments on the last chapter casting a vote for which story I should continue after I finish Actress and it was honestly a lot more split than I expected. Obviously, I want to tackle all three eventually, but which one will be first... I have yet to decide.

Anyway, obligatory links to my patreon and discord server.