Club Luna

Announcement content warning: brief violence

All six of us were still standing in the dark quiet elevator as we looked at each other, hoping someone had an idea of what to do next. Paige reached out and pressed the red emergency button on the elevator controls, but that didn't work either.

I still had my phone in my hand, but it was showing zero bars and no wifi either. I stuffed it in my bag for now, so I wouldn't accidentally drop it incase we had to run.

Brooke opened her mouth to say something, but she was cut off by a strange, hollow voice from the sub-basement hallway.

"Cassandra Underwood."

My name almost echoed or reverberated a bit, and the voice send chills up and down my spine. I couldn't tell if it was a man or woman who spoke, but I was pretty sure whatever they were it wasn't human.

My friends and I exchanged a worried glance, and Kaylee whispered "That has to be the demon, right?"

Before anyone could respond the voice echoed down the corridor again, "Come to me, and I will spare the lives of your friends."

I felt my stomach lurch and my blood ran cold as I glanced around at the others, then my eyes settled on Kaylee. She shook her head, but I nodded.

"You promise you won't hurt them?" I called out the open doors. "If I come out, you'll let them go right now!"

The voice responded, "As you wish. They are of no interest to me, Cassandra Underwood. You are the one I seek."

"You can't go Cass!" Kaylee whispered. "You don't know what it'll do to you!"

I whispered back, "If I don't it might kill you. I can't let that happen!"

Marissa stepped up and stated quietly, "I'm not going to sneak away while some demon's threatening my friend. I say we stick together, face this thing as a team. We're Club Luna, we keep people safe from this kind of stuff. That includes our friends, and ourselves."

"You heard what May said," I responded with a frown. "We can't fight a demon. Please just let me go, at least you'll all be safe."

Paige sighed, "Assuming it keeps its word. Demons have a reputation for being untrustworthy you know?"

"I'm not sure it's a demon," Melanie added. "I don't smell anything out there. Nothing supernatural anyways."

That made all of us pause for a few seconds, then our club leader made the decision.

"Club Luna sticks together," Brooke stated. "Paige you're up front with me, we'll be ready with defensive spells. Kaylee and Cass, behind us. Marissa and Melanie, you take the flanks. Marissa ready with the attack magic, Melanie watch our backs."

Everyone got into position around me, with Kaylee on my right and Melanie on my left. Marissa was further to the right on the other side of my girlfriend. And Brooke was in front of me, with Paige in front of Kaylee. The two taller girls cast a shield spell together, it was big enough to protect all six of us. And Marissa was ready with her own magic, while Melanie's form shimmered slightly and revealed her wolf ears and tail. I figured her wolfgirl form meant she had better hearing or maybe she was even stronger or something.

With everyone set, the six of us started moving together out of the elevator. We got a few steps out into the dimly-lit sub-basement hallway just in front of the elevator, and we were all looking left and right to try and figure out where the voice was coming from.

"Emergency exit to the left," Brooke stated. "Let's try and get out of -"

Before she could finish her sentence there was a glowing swirl of magic all around us, and I felt something deep in my chest. I closed my eyes tight and clenched my teeth, expecting all kinds of pain again as the magic drained into me.

Except that didn't happen. There was no chill down my spine, the little hairs on my arms didn't stand up. There was no pain or burning. I felt a tug in my chest, then a second or two of vertigo, but that passed as quickly as it came on.

"Oh crud," Melanie half-whispered, and she sounded worried.

I opened my eyes to find the six of us were standing together in the middle of a large cavern. It was probably fifty meters across and the ceiling was a good twenty meters above us. Large pointy stalactites loomed over our heads, while big dangerous-looking stalagmites rose up from the uneven terrain at random around us.

It looked like we were standing on the only level ground in the place, but that wasn't actually reassuring in any way. The stone beneath our feet was polished smooth and inscribed with a large complicated circle full of complex runes and sigils. It was about six meters across, and we seemed to be exactly in the centre of a nine-pointed star.

The cavern was lit by a few dozen flickering torches, and thanks to the stalagmites there were hundreds of strange scary shadows dancing all around us. The cavern walls were rough and full of alcoves and even more shadows, with no indication of where the exit was. Or if there even was an exit.

"Uh gang?" the wolf-girl said quietly. "I know I said I couldn't smell anything supernatural when we were in the elevator? Um, this place smells of demon. Like, a lot. A whole lot."

Marissa stated grimly, "Looks like we're in the demon's lair. This might even be hell itself..."

"Oh please," that same voice from before wasn't hollow anymore, now it boomed and echoed throughout the chamber. It didn't sound angry though, if anything it was exasperated. "Demons don't have anything to do with hell, or the devil. Or satan, or any of that nonsense. All that stuff is completely made-up. It's something you humans invented, to scare and coerce other humans into doing what they were told."

We all exchanged some confused glances with each other, then Brooke asked "If this isn't hell then where are we? And why have you brought us here?"

"Is it your lair?" Paige added.

The voice responded again, and even though it boomed and echoed around the cavern and sounded like it was supposed to be scary and impressive there was a disconnect with what it was saying, and the way it was saying stuff.

"Seriously? What, now you think demons are bears and we live in caves? No, this is a temporary workshop at best. It's isolated from the rest of the world so you can't call for help. And I brought Cassandra here so we could work undisturbed. The rest of you just came along for the ride. Which by the way, ten points for bravery and another ten points for being loyal friends. But minus fifty points for self-preservation and thinking things through."

"Don't you lay a finger on them!" I stated loudly. "You promised you wouldn't hurt them if I came out of the elevator!"

The voice protested, "But you... They... Right. I never said you had to come alone."

Me and Kaylee exchanged another look. Whoever or whatever was behind this, they weren't acting all that scary or even dangerous. Like the situation was definitely scary and we'd definitely been taken someplace strange, but the more we talked the more I got the feeling this person wasn't the big scary demon they were trying to be.

"Why won't you show yourself?" Kaylee asked. "It'd be a lot easier to talk if we knew who we were talking to."

Paige added, "And what should we call you? What's your name, or how should we address you?"

After a pause, some of the countless dancing shadows around us started to move in an unnatural way. They began to coalesce together and grow, and the darkness became something solid and tangible. It moved towards us, weaving around the stalagmites as it approached.

All six of us stared at the growing column of darkness, until it stopped about five or six meters away. Then it shifted, and me and my friends all kind of collectively took a step backwards.

The demon was tall, though it was hard to say how tall. That's because it wasn't standing, because it didn't have any legs. Instead it was like half person and half gigantic snake. The snake part was probably ten or twelve meters long, covered in dark scales that shone and reflected the flickering torch light. The human part was big, like if she was a normal woman she'd probably stand at least nine feet tall.

She had what looked like large wings folded up over her back, and a tall pointed horn emerged from the side of her head over her left ear before curving upwards above her head. Over her right ear the base of a matching horn was visible but it was broken off, and the asymmetrical look gave her a sort of tough, dangerous appearance.

With her body balanced on a coil of her snake tail her head was still more than two meters off the ground, so she towered over all of us. She wore a sort of polished metal bra or bustier or something, it looked like it was made of gold. And her shoulder-length hair looked dark and wild, like it hadn't been combed or trimmed in a while.

My heart was racing and I was positive my friends were all just as scared as me. They were all acting brave though, so I did my best not to let on how scared I was either. I had no idea if we could bluff our way out of this, but it felt like talking had worked ok so far, none of us had gotten hurt yet.

It also crossed my mind that if we could stall long enough, my parents would get involved. I hadn't forgotten what May said about some angels being more powerful than demons. I didn't know for sure if my folks were strong enough, but there were two of them and I figured together they could probably beat the demon snake lady.

Meanwhile the demon glared down at the six of us and in that loud booming voice she stated, "You may call me Ninaya."

Before any of us could respond she pointed at me and ordered, "Cassandra Underwood step forward. The rest of you would do well to move aside."

Instead of getting out of the way my friends all moved closer to me. Brooke and Paige renewed their shield spell, while Marissa raised her right hand so she was ready to cast some offensive spells.

I gulped but asked, "Ninaya? You're Socha's consort right? Are you and her my biological parents? What are you going to do to me? Are you going to kill me? And um, sorry if this is rude but how'd you break your horn?"

Kaylee gave me a funny look when I asked about the horn, but mostly I was trying to stall and play for time. I just hoped it wasn't so obvious I wanted to keep her talking.

The giant snake demon lady gave me almost the same funny look as my girlfriend. She stopped pointing at me and scratched one of her ears as she frowned. She probably meant to be muttering to herself, but instead her voice boomed out and echoed around the cavern again as she stated in exasperation, "This is not going according to plan. Why can't things ever be easy? Why does this stuff always have to be so hard?!"

A moment later she seemed to realize we'd all heard that loud and clear, and she looked almost panicked for a half second. Then she tried to cover for herself or distract us by stating loudly, "When the final seal is broken Socha will be restored, and you Cassandra Underwood shall be no more!"

Hearing that my heart skipped a beat and a wave of fear passed over me. Next to me Kaylee looked pale, she put an arm around me and held me tight. Meanwhile Brooke and Paige reinforced their shield spell again, while Marissa looked like she was itching to start throwing fire spells around or something.

"After your death your friends will bow down to Socha, or she will destroy them!" the demon added, which made all of us even more uptight. Kaylee and Marissa were especially tense.

Melanie on the other hand was just quietly looking around the cavern. Then the wolfgirl leaned closer to me and whispered, "That's not her. The demon scent is behind us. I don't know what the snake lady is, I'm not getting any scent from her."

I stared at the werewolf for a second, then looked back at the demoness in front of us as something else clicked in my head. I didn't really know anything about Ninaya, but I knew Socha was a master of deception and illusion and trickery. Maybe her consort was the same?

"So what are you waiting for?" I asked her. My voice wavered, I didn't sound half as brave as I'd hoped. Actually I sounded downright scared, but I pushed myself to continue. "If you just have to break the last seal, why haven't you done it already?"

Brooke Paige and Marissa all turned to look at me like I was crazy, while Kaylee hissed in my ear "Cass?! What are you doing?!"

At that point Melanie slipped behind me and over to between Marissa and Kaylee, and she whispered to them as well. Then the werewolf moved back to stand behind me and to the left, while Marissa quietly passed on the new information to Paige, who shared it with Brooke. So everyone knew the demon was behind us, and whatever this was in front of us it probably wasn't the real threat.

I ignored them and addressed the illusionary demon again, "It's because you can't, isn't it? You need us to do it for you. That's why you're acting all threatening and scary but not actually doing anything."

"That's not true!" the demon insisted as she set her shoulders and put her hands on her hips. And despite being a giant scary-looking snake lady with a loud booming voice she sounded more like a petulant teen as she insisted, "I could totally do it if I wanted! It wouldn't even be hard, just blast you with a bit of magic and pow! Game over!"

My girlfriend frowned and adjusted her glasses as she asked, "You could do it if you wanted? So that means you don't want to? If you don't want to do it and we don't want to do it, then maybe just let us all go? It sounds like we're all in agreement, so why are we arguing?"

Marissa seemed to figure out what I was thinking, she relaxed and told Paige and Brooke, "Drop the shield spell. Don't use any magic. I think that's what she's been waiting for. She wants us to attack, and I bet that'll somehow get reflected or redirected into Cass."

"That's not... It isn't... You don't..." the demon seemed flustered as she tried to come up with a response. Then her shoulders slumped and she pouted, "Darn it! Socha's gonna be so mad at me."

We all exchanged some bemused looks. Hearing the giant scary snake-lady boom out 'darn it' was almost too surreal to believe.

I slowly turned around and looked at the empty cavern behind us and asked, "Ninaya? Will you show us your real self? Not the scary illusion, I'd like to meet the real you."

Kaylee and Melanie turned around too, while Brooke and Paige and Marissa were still kind of keeping an eye on the snake demon.

After a couple seconds the illusion flickered and vanished, then the real demon slowly emerged from behind a big stalagmite, about five meters away from where we were standing. And I felt a shock of surprise as I stared at her.

She could have been my little sister. She looked a year or two younger than me, like fifteen or sixteen at most. She was petite like me, probably even a bit smaller. She had the same messy shoulder-length brown hair and pretty brown eyes, and the same cute little boopable nose and pouty pink lips. She was even dressed in similar clothes, she wore pink leggings and a loose purple top and white sneakers.

About the only thing about her that was obviously unnatural was she had a small pointy horn sticking up above her left ear, and a broken horn over her right ear. Where that looked tough and scary on the illusion it just looked kind of sad on her, like 'little kid with a scraped knee' kind of sad.

She was still pouting and her shoulders were slumped in defeat as she said in a shy quiet voice, "So you figured it out, you got me. I don't want to hurt anyone. That dingus Brian was supposed to do it, but he's almost as useless as me. And yeah, I thought if I acted scary and mean then one of you would attack so your magic would get reflected back."

"Anyways I guess I'll send you all home now," she added. She looked at me and warned, "And um, sorry Cassandra but you need to avoid magic from now on. If any more of those runes get damaged Socha will be freed, and I wasn't lying when I said that'd kill you."

I gulped quietly, and I could tell Kaylee was scared to hear that too. So were the rest of my friends. I tried not to think about it though, and I took a couple steps towards Ninaya as I asked "What about you, are you going to be ok? You're not all alone are you?"

This time everyone gave me a funny look, including the small demon girl. Then she sighed and shrugged her shoulders, "What's it matter? I'm the bad guy, you called my bluff and won."

"You look sad," I replied. "And even though you were scary you didn't actually hurt any of us. And you're letting us go, so I don't think you're that bad after all."

Ninaya was pouting again, and from her expression I got the feeling she was lonely and upset and trying to hide it by acting tough. Except her tough act was about as effective as mine would be if I ever tried to act tough.

After a couple seconds I suggested, "Why don't you come with us? I have to let my parents know I'm ok, then maybe we can all go out and get lunch together or something?"

"Seriously Cass? Are you sure about this?" Kaylee asked quietly.

I nodded, "Yes I'm sure. She looks sad and lonely. She also looks like my little sister, so I'm pretty sure we're related somehow."

Before anyone could respond a column of brilliant white light lit up the cavern. It was between Ninaya and the rest of us, and an angel appeared in the middle of the light. She wore flowing white robes, her white feathery wings were outstretched, and her long hair flowed like spun gold while a gleaming golden halo floated above her head.

She held a long pointed dagger in her right hand, and as soon as she was there she lunged forward and thrust her weapon at the small demon.

Ninaya let out a terrified scream as she crumpled to the ground while I ran forward shouting, "Mum no!"

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