An actress in our midst!

With a surge of magic, Tepes appeared in the portal room in her full glory, clad in her enchantress dress, spear in hand, and an intense aura around her.

The usual gatekeeper minion shied away from her as his eyes met her glare. “G-good day, general Tepes.”

Tepes only scoffed derisively as she turned away to leave the room. She heard the minion behind her heave a sigh of relief as she entered the corridor.

She couldn’t have been sure whether the gossip of the fight had already reached the castle or not. But since nobody had tried to apprehend her or confront her about it yet, she assumed not.

Good.

Still pretending to be the haughty, arrogant teenage general, she slowly made her way to the demon lord’s room at a casual pace. She didn’t want to seem like she was in a rush.

On her way there, she kept listening to the minions passing her by, trying to suss out whether someone had already heard of the fight. She even used some subtle magic to amplify her hearing.

So far, she only picked up on the usual reverence or badmouthing when they mentioned her in their gossip.

Good.

Unless something went wrong, this plan might just work.

‘So far so good on my end. What about your side?’ she sent out to Cody and Devola via telepathy.

‘He's not here yet. He might not show up, after all,’ Devola replied.

Not ideal, but she had expected as much. The others had gone ahead to her castle’s wing and were supposed to cause some kind of distraction to attract Baugh’s attention. But obviously, the demon lord wasn’t going to come running for every little thing.

‘Let’s do something more drastic, then… Sorry about your office!’ Cody yelled over the telepathic link.

Jessica frowned. ‘What are you –’

Her words were interrupted by a loud bang as the entire fucking castle shook. She jumped in surprise, as did all the minions around her.

“What the fuck was that?!” one of the minions shouted.

Jessica threw a glare her way, shutting her up. Minions weren't supposed to talk, after all. She then put on her best inquisitive glare and stared down the castle corridor in the direction of the bang.

“I’ll go investigate,” she announced as she quickened her steps.

That was a lie, of course. She merely used the distraction as an excuse to speed up her pace.

As she sped through the hallway, she noticed Baugh in the distance, turning the corner, and seemingly heading in the direction of her office.

She did her best not to smirk and keep her facade going.

She turned left when she was supposed to go straight, and soon broke into a run, heading for Baugh’s office. With a bit of help from some magic, she quickly reached it, opened the door and shuffled inside.

Unfortunately, the office wasn’t empty.

Heads turned to look at her as she stopped in her tracks and cursed in her mind.

Why was Hecate here? Or rather, why was a demonic spirit here? Since when were demonic spirits freely walking around the castle like this anyway?

“And she’s here!” the spirit that resembled a praying mantis hissed out. “I told you she’s a traitor! Now she’s barging in here, trying to usurp the king!”

Fuck.

Hecate turned to her and their eyes met and a silent understanding passed between them. They had an audience to perform for now, though.

“Tepes? What are you doing here? And what was that explosion?” Hecate asked.

“That’s what I want to know,” she replied without breaking her facade at all. “Didn’t the sound come from here?”

“No? It clearly came from your quarters,” the demon princess said in confusion, a split second before her expression changed into realization.

Jessica cursed in her mind, wishing she could telepathically tell Hecate what was going on… but she couldn’t risk the spirit intercepting the message.

“My quarters?” She frowned. “Weird, I could have sworn it came from here.” She turned on her heels, ready to run. “I’ll go check it out then.”

“No, you won’t!” one of the spirits called out and whipped its enlarged spiritual claw in her direction. She jumped to the side just in time to avoid it before glaring at her assailant.

“What is your problem?” she growled.

“My problem is that you are a traitor!” it roared just as the door opened again, revealing Baugh.

Fuck!

The demon Lord looked at Jessica, then at the mantis spirit, then at Hecate and asked, “What is going on here?”

“My Lord! That human is a traitor!” the mantis barked.

“What are you talking about?” Jessica ground out as her mind raced to find a way out of this situation. Should she call for a backup and risk the mantis picking it up?

“My human saw it! Some other traitors attacked your little theater play and you immediately sided with the magical girls!”

There was a minion with a spirit who hasn’t gone dormant yet in the audience, Jessica realized. Once again, she had to hold herself from cursing out loud.

Baugh looked at her, and despite him wearing a helmet, Jessica could feel the trepidation coming off of him. The jig was up. He knew it. She knew it. There weren’t many ways this could go.

But Jessica couldn’t give up just yet. She had to at least try talking herself out of this.

“I didn’t side with the magical girls! I sided against the traitors!” She sneered. “They did that on purpose. Tried make me look like the traitor because I was getting in their way!”

“Getting in their way? What do you mean?” the stupid thing growled.

“The rebels have been planning on causing another apocalypse.” Jessica revealed. “We’ve been working on a way to combat it. And just as I found a solution, they set me up.”

“Hah! Another apocalypse? Try the other one! If such a thing was possible, then why didn’t you inform our lord then?!”

“She did,” the demon lord finally spoke, breaking up the shouting match. “We have been secretly working on a way to resolve this and if you have found a solution –” He nodded at her. “-- then that is brilliant news.”

Good. Somehow, she had managed to defuse the situation.

“I still don’t trust her, my lord! What if she’s on their side? She sided with the magical girls in that fight! And they looked like they knew each other! The magical girls have already destroyed the world once! I bet she’s a double agent! Working to destroy us from the inside!”

This time, Jessica couldn’t help but audibly growl in the damn spirit’s direction. Of all the times for someone to realize she was a double agent…

“I don’t believe that,” Baugh said with certainty. “If she was out to destroy us, she would have done so already. She had plenty of chances to sabotage our efforts to stop the apocalypse.”

Good guy Baugh. It was so nice that he was in on the whole conspiracy. It had been wrong to doubt him. He would have never killed her just to appease the spirits.

Either way, since she had the demon lord backing her up, now, she just had to–

‘Jessica! We’re sorry! The demon lord already left and we can’t distract the others for too much longer! Did you kidnap her yet? Do we need to run?’

Devola’s voice rang in her head… And from the looks of it, in everyone else’s heads as well. 

Jessica clenched her teeth and curled her fists. That was the reason why she didn’t want to use telepathy right now.

Terrible timing Devola. Terrible timing.