#mickey

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ONE.

—

The truck rolled to a stop as Daiyu let go of the gas pedal, but didn’t fully stop until she pulled up the handbrake with a satisfying krrr. Driving the truck with the trailer behind it had been pretty great, the high of having stolen it successfully running through her body. She pulled at the wires, cutting the engine and grinning brightly.

Some time had passed since this mission had started, since Mickey and her had scouted the best truck to steal for their plan and had then done just that. While the farmer had been (understandably) pissed off as they'd driven away from his fields, the birdshot had missed any vital parts of the vehicle and eventually they had reached Owen and Kelly accompanied by the strangest creature she had ever seen. And she had seen some weird fucking creatures. The beast (actually, she wasn’t sure on the nature of the creature, it didn’t ping like most beasts did) had been loaded in the back and she’d hopped in front of her stolen vehicle proudly. The drive had gone relatively smoothly, at least in the front. She had made sure Mickey had put on a radio station with tolerable music, had driven from the crater to Worm Row with an excitement coursing through her. Curiosity was a rare emotion, and it was not often positive. Today, she was more than positively intrigued though.

She looked over at Mickey. “Let’s see if the … we need to name this thing … if it’s down to move a little faster now.” The creature was definitely in no hurry, it seemed.

—

Mickey Hartmann: Master Criminal. He played around with the thought in his head. He only had time really, sitting in the passenger seat and driving to pick up Owen, Kelly, and whatever this creature was that they were supposed to meet. Sure, Mickey hadn’t exactly pictured a life of crime for himself, at least not outside of the drugs and partying that were supposed to come with the life of a professional hockey player (or so he thought). But he had to admit that riding in a stolen truck was a lot more exciting than riding in a non-stolen vehicle. Normal ones just didn’t have that rush of adrenaline. The club music coming from the speakers didn’t hurt the vibes either.

Mickey had never quite seen anything like that creature before. His supernatural exposure was almost entirely limited to fae cosplaying as human beings up to this point, so this was definitely something new. “If this was Spider-Man, they’d totally just call it ‘Rhino.’ Lacks a bit of originality if you ask me.” It was sure taking its damn time, though. “Maybe we should call it Lickety-Split.”

—

Teamwork wasn’t Owen’s forte. On rare occasions, maybe one other person had been invited to join him on a hunt when those were still a regular part of his life, but that was it. Emphasis on the rare. Anytime there were more people gathered, it usually spelled trouble, or it meant that Owen was the reason for those people gathering (in a negative way). But this shit was important. Probably. The idea of some fuck ass gigantic animal being the simple solve to the fuckery going on with this town’s latest nonsense was… well, it was fucking stupid but it was also all they had. Without a fix, Owen would be fucking helpless to do little else but watch a certain shifter lose control completely — also, all of the other horrors it would bring and whatnot. Blatantly ignoring the fact that without a fix, Owen wouldn’t even be around to watch anything because he’d be fully dead again without the magic. Which was a thing he was choosing to ignore in its entirety.

So, when Kelly had approached (Owen really needed less goddamn rangers in his life) with this insane plan of hauling some creature from point A to B, how the fuck was Owen supposed to say no? Genuinely, how in the hell did someone say no to firefighter/ranger Kelly, with his ridiculous accent and frankly impressive negotiation skills. Had it been negotiation or just… a lot of fucking words being said in quick succession? And maybe the blatant flirting hadn’t harmed the ranger’s cause — even if in retrospect, the more Owen had needed to deal with Kelly, it had become apparent that it had been a case of accidental innuendo combined with bad choice of wording. Whatever, didn’t fucking matter much now, did it. 

At least they were finally here, after the tedious fucking task of herding a giant, lazy creature into a trailer that barely fit it. Owen’s suggestions of physical violence to hurry it along had, annoyingly, been shot down. Fucking Kelly. At least Daiyu was there to share his annoyance (again, too many fucking rangers) and, at the time, inviting Mickey had seemed like a genuinely smart call. This plan had holes and gaps where there should have been information, so a medical expert seemed like a good call — prepare for the worst, right? What might Mickey’s knowledge on insta-kill sigils be, Owen wondered. But now, with Mickey talking about Spider-Man and trying to name the thing, Owen was starting to doubt… pretty much everything. 

“Don’t fucking encourage him, we don’t need to name the bastard,” Owen scolded Daiyu, knees pushing into the seat in front of him. Sure, definitely put the tallest person here in the fucking back seat. “Let’s just get this over with.”

—

Tardigrades. Kelly had read a book on ‘em, once, could rattle off a few facts as a party trick. The name came from Latin, meaning “slow walker.” (Check. Kelly considered himself patient, but this was a real test of that self-assessment.) They were extremophiles, able to withstand crazy conditions. (Check. Like, say, purely as a hypothetical, being sealed underneath a crater…?) Hell, they had even survived in space. (... Check? Look, it was more a theory than a fact, but Kelly had always had a soft spot for aliens. Their guest wasn’t exactly a little green man, but it also wasn’t setting off his senses. It wasn’t like anyone was jumping out the woodwork to disprove the theory.)

Oh, and they were small. Kelly couldn’t rightly give their new friend a check on that. It was big. Bigger than most beasts that Kelly’d had the displeasure of dispatching. In a way, that was nice. Sheer size of the thing kept it from moving too much in the confines of the trailer. (He’d get Owen back, later, for locking him in with the thing. Somehow.) Still, Kelly was glad he’d dressed for a hunt, covered his skin, ‘cause it was just about pushing him up against the cool metal. And while it seemed docile enough, that didn’t mean it didn’t have protection of some kind. Best not to go skin-to-skin, if he could help it.

What he couldn’t help, what he couldn’t fix, was stubborn. He’d tried to convince Daiyu that they could hitch a rented trailer to the Chevy. (Surprise, she wasn’t just a freelance arsonist, but another ranger. Kelly’d carve out some time to worry about that later.) He’d tried to convince Mickey to back out and let the hunters handle it. (Surprise, he wasn’t just a friendly face in the emergency room, but a human that someone had spilled the beans to.) He’d tried to convince Owen not to call in backup in the first place. (No surprises, there, actually, Kelly’d been a bit madcap when he’d found the other man in his shop. Sue him, Colt had been a little scarce on the details. (Though, she'd let slip that this was a source for a battery, which'd jogged his memory. Kelly would have to find a way to ask Zack a couple… follow-up questions.)) Luckily, Kelly could outstubborn a mule. Or a tardigrade, if it came to it.

As the door to the trailer swung open, bringing in some much-appreciated fresh air, all Kelly could do was stare, gobsmacked, at the long… long… long stairway down into Netherville. Now, how in the hell…

—

TWO.

—

“Lickety-Split, come come,” Daiyu cooed, fully having ignored Owen’s demand to not name the thing. She had very little interest in interacting too much with the slayer, both because of his back-to-life business and his ties to Talia. She tried to charm the beast into moving from the trailer, eventually succeeding as it slowly started the trudge from the vehicle. It really was ugly, though in a way that was almost cute. It took quite a bit of goading to get the creature to the mouth of the stairs. Staring down, she looked at the rest of her mission team with a bit of dread. 

Kelly went first, she followed. Shoving at the tardigrade’s ass, she tried to make sure she did not misstep. Daiyu had imagined quite a few deaths for herself (most recently, dying on her living room floor), but dying on the stairs after being crushed by a massive tardigrade called Lickety-Split was very low on her list of ‘ways I’d like to die’. As she pondered this, she extended that sentiment to Kelly, who was below the creature and very much ran the risk of being crushed himself. 

At some point, Lickety-Split paused. It used its weird vacuum-like nose to sniff around the stairs and Daiyu groaned, starting to push at the beast with all her might and weight. “So tell me why we opted for the stairs, rather than the fucking tunnel again?” Never mind the fact that she had driven them all here.

—

His appreciation for the tardigrade’s alien-adjacent nature was waning, with prolonged exposure to its full glory. ‘Course, Kelly’d gotten an eyeful when they’d pulled it out of the ground, and he was well-acquainted with its rear end from his ride in the trailer, but the face was… challenging. Kelly wondered if Flip would be able to smell the creature on him, later, and fidget and pout until Kelly showered off the foreign smell. (Not that Kelly wouldn’t be taking a thorough shower before he even touched the kid.) A drop of something—slime?—landed on the front of his jacket, calcifying near-instantly. (So, in addition to the shower, he was burning his clothes. It had already been in the plan, but a reminder never hurt. Except when it really, really did.)

“Stairs’re narrower than I expected, that’s for damn sure,” Kelly mumbled. They were mighty lucky they’d even managed to get it to take the stairs. Little like a cow, so Kelly had thought it might be afraid. Maybe its brain hadn’t quite come online… or maybe it was tougher than it looked, and falling down a few hundred stairs wouldn’t pose a problem. Kelly took careful steps backwards, supporting the tardigrade’s weight. Somewhere behind him was Owen, assessing if there was any trouble up ahead and ready for the assist if the whole operation started sliding. Mickey, up top, back above Daiyu, was “supervising,” able to see the bigger picture from his vantage point. (And, if needed, Mickey could try and distract any looky-loos—though, if Kelly was understanding right, this might be the one time it was more important to get a job done than to get it done unseen.) With the tardigrade pressing down on him, Kelly could concede it might be for the best that a doctor was on standby. The monster might survive an express trip to Netherville, but Kelly didn’t love his chances.

So, ‘course, to fuck with him, the thing halted, and Kelly slipped a step, going down to a knee. He felt the beast sniff at his hair, hoped he didn’t look like a tuft of algae. “Tunnel?” he said, rising from the stone and reassuming his position. His voice was on a knife’s edge. If there was a goddamn tunnel this entire time, Kelly was going to kill her. (Well, not kill. Even the thought of killing another hunter curdled his stomach.) “Daiyu. You and me are havin’ words, the second this is over with.” He glanced over his shoulder, giving Owen his best, if his briefest, can-you-believe-this-shit look before remembering Owen’d locked him in the damn trailer. Traitors. His kind were traitors, every one of ‘em. Hunters were a joke; no one should trust ‘em to do jack all.

“Hey, Mickey?” Kelly called up, not really expecting the doctor to hear him, what with the echo. “I like you best. Keep up the good work.”

—

The error had dawned on her moments after she had said those words, realization striking with a dull thump against her chest. She really hoped that somehow Lickety-Split’s movement and general strange energy would keep everyone from realizing her slip up, but alas. Daiyu heard Kelly echo the word she should not have spoken and she felt a childish embarrassment. It was embarrassing, honestly. She’d been in that tunnel a few times since helping the owners of Hole Foods deal with a worm and yet today she’d completely blanked on the alternative entrance.

“No need for that, Kelly! Kelloggs? Has anybody ever called you that? That’s a good nickname, you know.” Daiyu moved to grab her blade from her belt and poked the tardigrade softly in the butt to get it to move again. It worked. “Anyway, gee, I … fucking forgot about the tunnel. Trust me, I hate myself most right now.” She doubted that was true. She was not the person who might die being crushed by a giant creature. She might have to bear witness to it, though, which would also be unfortunate. Not that she — at present — felt very emotionally involved with Kelly’s wellbeing, considering the confusion he brought with him. He was a ranger, which was fine and well, but then why had he pinged shifter to her before? Never mind that, there was also the way he’d been opposed to her killing things with fire before.

“I’ve found the key to spurring this guy on, anyway,” she called down, poking Lickety-Split softly again. Its butt gave way underneath the sharpness of her blade and she could only imagine that she was softly prodding jello without breaking the surface. It seemed to keep the creature intent on moving away from her, to which she took no offence. After a while of trying to keep momentum going (failing and succeeding intermittently), she called down once more: “The end is near!”

—

“Ain’t—” Kelly started with a grunt, adjusting his grip on the tardigrade, stubborn and still. “Ain’t nicknames supposed to be shorter than the original?” He didn’t bother pointing out that, technically, Kelly was a nickname, that his birth parents had chosen to saddle with him the unwieldy, barely-a-name Kellison, and that his adoptive parents had taken pity on him. It was the kind of thing you’d tell a friend, and Kelly was feeling… less than friendly. And, if he had to bet on it, Daiyu would take that name and run. ‘Sides, she was deflecting from the elephant in the room (or, well, the tardigrade on the staircase). “More worried about stealin’ a damn truck than you were about thinkin’ through shit, huh?” It was unfair; Kelly knew he was being unfair. Even if they’d used his truck, they’d still needed a trailer. Daiyu’d just seemed a bit… eager, is all, to go and steal it. And this wasn’t supposed to be fun, this was supposed to be work. Important work.

He could concede, after a fashion, that she was managing to keep the tardigrade moving. Whatever she was up to, the creature didn’t seem to log it as much worse than a fly on a cow. A momentary annoyance, and one it’d like to get away from, but no big deal. “Careful with it,” Kelly said, as a precaution, just in case she forgot that this was their only shot. Back he went, checking in with Owen to see when he’d need to curve and steer. It was slow, and it made him wish his knees were a good ten years younger (not that he was old), but it was as much a success as he could hope for. Would’ve been much easier in a tunnel, ‘course, but, hey, just another of life’s little pleasures.

“Easy does it,” he murmured to the tardigrade, finally coming to the base of the stairway. Shadows stretched around ‘em, the light from the surface not having reached this far down, but it wasn’t total darkness. Kelly wondered if that was how the town justified letting folks keep using the staircase, especially if there was a tunnel. If anyone fell, it seemed unlikely that the… less-than-savory residents of Netherville would report it out. As he composed himself, he glanced around. No obvious blood spatter, but a different problem caught his eye. When Kelly had first heard about Netherville, he’d thought it was a joke that someone was playing on him. But, mere feet away from where their little group was huddled, was a whole other community. People walked to and fro. For now, they weren’t paying the tardigrade any heed. But that wouldn’t—couldn’t—last, even in Wicked’s Rest. Panic could whip into a frenzy, fast.

“Shit. How do y’all suppose we’re doin’ this?”

—

She moved so her head peeked out behind the creature’s butt. “What, who made you the judge on nicknames? A nickname is any name I wanna give someone, Kelloggs. Besides, it’s the same amount of …” She frowned, the word syllables lost on her. “It’s as long as Kelly when you say it, so.” Daiyu rolled her eyes as she went back to hiding behind the creature’s big butt, poking it softly once more. She did not like to be held accountable for her slipups, especially because she very much wanted to be someone who did not care about the consequences of those on others. And though it wasn’t like she was heartbroken about disadvantaging Kelly or Owen, she did not particularly like it either. “Wow, you almost make it sound like stealing a truck is easy! How about you do it next time, hm?”

As they continued down, she did wonder about Kelly some more. She usually saw the merit in adding more hunters to her social network, but his bond with Owen was a frustrating fact. And that fucking day in the woods … she was sure he would love hanging out with Henri and talking about rules. But even if Kelly had something on her — and she was sure he did, considering his buddy-buddyness with Owen and her general luck — she had something on him, too. Daiyu was slowly starting to put together the strangeness of Kelly being a ranger. First and foremost because he’d still been opposed to fire as a weapon, when it was a great weapon, but also because that ruled out him being a shifter. There had been no one else that day in the woods besides that little tike and she had to wonder … though she felt it was a question best kept up her sleeve. Besides, she was busy with the tardigrade’s butt.

Once they reached the base, Daiyu circled around Lickety-Split and regrouped with her team. She patted the beast’s flank with a flat hand after tucking her knife away, looking at the three of them. “That’s a good … whatever that is,” she said, looking at the strange creature. She then followed Kelly’s gaze and worried words, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Diversion.” She looked over at Lickety-Split. “Y’all do one, I walk him.”

—

Diversion, huh? Diversion might could work. Only, what sort of diversion could distract an entire neighborhood from the tardigrade? Still. “Best idea I’ve heard out of you yet,” Kelly said, unable to resist a backhand to go with his compliment. He sent his fellow ranger a sidelong glance. They’d have more than enough time to hash out their differences, later. And, to her credit, even if she had done the math, started to put together an answer to the Flip equation, Daiyu was being decent enough not to out the kid to the whole “team.” Look: Kelly didn’t like to think poorly of a fellow ranger, but she’d done herself that disservice all on her own when she’d even thought about threatening the kid, back when. She was lucky that they’d had their little spat when they had. If it had been even a few weeks later, Kelly wasn’t sure that he’d have walked away as easily—not after Lia.

But there was work to be done, here and now. Kelly wracked his brain, sifting through all he knew about Netherville, keeping his back to the tardigrade to, hopefully, mask its form. Predictably, most of his awareness of the neighborhood came from firefighting, not from hunting. (What werewolf would crawl around in a dank cave when there were woods for miles on the surface?) Still, even his day job wasn’t much help. West Station covered this chunk of the town, but the how was a bit of a work in progress. The higher-ups had talked about the difficulty of reaching the place—or so he heard—but most else was rumor. The facts were this: Netherville had soft priority. If two sets of tones went out, one for Netherville and one for Downtown, West Station would take the former. East Station would pick up the slack. Netherville itself had unique issues, compared to the surface neighborhoods. Seismic activity was the most immediate (natural) threat to the place’s stability, so much so that there was an early warning system. Kelly couldn’t summon up an earthquake, but maybe…

An idea crossed his mind. A long shot, but… Kelly glanced at Mickey. Human speed would slow him down. “I’ll catch up,” he said, throwing Owen a lazy salute. Sure, it was nowhere near locking Kelly in the trailer, but some hunters hated babysitting. Owen seemed the type. 

Without another word, Kelly was off.

—

THREE.

—

In theory, a distraction was something that Mickey excelled at. He distracted people at work all the time so he was told. Distracting coworkers seemed a bit different than trying to find a way to keep eyes off of a rhino-sized interdimensional bug thing now affectionately known as Lickety-Split (at least to Mickey and Daiyu). He hoped that Owen had an idea that didn’t involve violence, though given the few interactions that he had had with Owen, he stayed a bit worried to get his two cents in. “Dynamic duo back at it again, huh?” Mickey hopped up and down eagerly, gently poking at Owen’s shoulder and immediately stopping once he realized that he was poking a very unpokeable person. “Too bad I don’t have my water sprayer thing this time, huh?” he began miming the pulling the trigger of the soda gun, for the effect. 

All good ideas started with a good brainstorm, so Mickey did what he did best and started yapping. “How are your tap dancing skills? I’m thinking we find a top hat and maybe a cane and go out there and put on a show like Netherville has never seen before. Ooh! Or maybe we find a second, bigger version of Lickety-Split and parade it through the caves so that our supernatural Energizer Bunny can slip by unnoticed?” He tapped his fingers against his chin as he walked along and tried to think of some other ideas. “We could publicly challenge the mayor of the town to a duel? And then fake a heart attack to get out of the duel! Wait, does Netherville have a mayor? It feels like they would. I just think he’d probably dress like the Phantom from Phantom of the Opera.” Okay, Mickey was officially out of ideas. “Any of these resonating with you, Roadhouse?”

—

This could have been done through a tunnel, fuck you very much, Daiyu. This could have been done without the assistance of a medical professional (professional being used very loosely here), but maybe if Owen broke Kelly’s nose, Mickey could make himself useful— Focus. Daiyu and the fucking battery source were waiting patiently for a signal to progress, and Owen’s fuzzy mind found it all too easy to block out the stream of words coming from Mickey (a special fuck you to Kelly for leaving Owen alone with the rambling doctor), but he needed to lock back in. The white noise of sound that was Mickey became words once again and Owen regretted immediately, placing a hand heavily on Mickey’s shoulder. “Hey, doc? Shut up before I make you and we have a medical emergency distraction. Alright? Perfect.”

Had any of what Mickey said been useful? The fuck had he been on about… dancing, new monster, a duel. Yeah no, not fucking useful, like Owen had thought. “A controlled fire might do the trick? Or if there’s any way to set off any sort of fire alarm, even without the fire, but fuck if I know how this thing is set up.” Owen looked around, as if there would simply be a ‘break in case of fire’ box tacked onto one of these rocky walls. Imagine if the person planning (again, planning was used loosely) this had made any sort of actual fucking plan at all. “Where the fuck is Brooks, anyway?”

—

It was hard to tell, but Mickey was starting to get the idea that Owen was not in the mood for some lighthearted ice breakers. Sure, not every idea was going to be a winner. But this was just to loosen the ol’ brain up, get the idea juices flowing. There could only be so many bad ideas, so eventually they’d have to be good. That was just the law of averages. Probably. Mickey was a doctor, not a mathematician. “In this situation am I the one that’s supposed to treat the medical emergency in this distraction? Because if I am the distraction and I’m supposed to treat it, I’m not quite following the log—” Owen’s displeased look made Mickey pause, using his fingers to mime zipping his mouth shut before flicking the invisible key away and giving Owen a thumbs up. “Shutting up. Got it.”

As it turned out, shutting up was really hard to do. Owen bounced around his own ideas. Admittedly more appropriate, but less fun and whimsical than Mickey’s own ideas. Sure it might get the job done, but they weren’t going to be spotted by any talent agencies afterwards. Not to mention the irony of starting a fire when they travelled here with a firefighter. Presumably, the two were mortal enemies. “Just needs some smoke, yeah? I have matches in my bag if we can find an alarm to set off.”

—

At last, a moment of silence. It had only taken one more withering look and it had earned Owen a blissful… thirty seconds of silence? At least when Mickey did finally open his mouth again, it was a genuine idea that didn’t leave Owen wanting to find the fucking giant beast and beg it to just crush him and get this over with. “It’s a start to a plan…” Owen sighed, still surveying the area in the hopes that the solution would present itself. He felt that this ragtag team of fuck ups deserved at least one hand out. “Alright, come on. Let’s find something that looks like a fire alarm… or something to set on fire.” It was for a good cause, right? Kelly was bound to agree with them. For a beat, Owen eyed Mickey like he was considering setting the doctor on fire, and then they were off. 

Annoyingly, the silence was worse. The silence gave Owen space to think about what might happen if this didn’t work. How long it might take for the slowly growing feeling of weakness to no longer be staved off by the Oasis, how long after that it would take everything to end. If it would be drawn out and shitty and painful and if Wyatt would even be human enough at that point to care– “Alright, weirdest shit you’ve seen at the hospital. Go.” 

Mickey’s yapping provided a nice (though Owen would never admit as much) backdrop to their search, which brought them closer to the outskirts of the lived in area and consequently, finally to where Brooks was hiding. “There you fucking are,” Owen called out. This place could work for a fire, actually. Just needed to hope there was something that would alert people to the damn fire, other than it just growing real fucking big. “We have a… plan is too fucking generous but something we can try.” 

—

Kelly heard ‘em—well, heard Mickey—before he saw ‘em. Good. He’d need a hand from Owen for the next part, anyway. “Don’t get your britches in a twist. I didn’t go that far.” He waved the men over to him, grinning. ‘Cause he was polite, he let Owen explain the bones of his and Mickey’s plan, such as it was. Then, ‘cause it wasn’t the worst plan, if a bit lacking on the execution, Kelly told ‘em, “Good job.” Then, ‘cause Kelly had a better plan, he led the trio forward and into a lopsided stone-hewn building, past caution tape. There sat Kelly’s prize, the backbone of his idea. Understandably, as neither man had been with him as he’d hunted down the hidden cache, he wasn’t sure that his teammates understood his plan. So, Kelly started explaining.

See, as far as Kelly knew, when Netherville had been uncovered, whatever the hell that was supposed to mean, there had been some question about what to do with it. From an emergency services perspective, as the Chief was pretty unconcerned with the politics of saving lives, that question boiled down to how to service the neighborhood. ‘Course, it’d been surviving just fine on its own, and Netherville was keen to keep it that way. But that just hadn’t sat right with the Chief, especially not with townsfolk moving down to make their homes on the cheap. Alongside West Station answering the call, there’d been another, more pressing compromise made, one that Kelly suspected might have a promise or twelve cooked up in it. And so, the entire neighborhood, even at the edges, was outfitted with what amounted to a load of tornado sirens, basically overnight.

Obviously, there weren’t no tornadoes brewing below ground, but, what with construction and foot traffic and the good ol’ Wicked’s Rest strangeness, there’d been concerns about, if you could believe it, earthquakes. Kelly wasn’t quite sure how the technology worked, didn’t need to be, but he knew it was sensitive—a Westie had complained about being called out to false alarms. False alarms that still forced folks indoors (if partly ‘cause the racket was loud), still made West Station drive out to manually check for activity before turning the sirens off. And, given how long the average call took down here, it’d take time for ‘em to make it all the way down, find out nothin’ was really wrong, and give the all clear. Just enough time, then, if they could manage, for Daiyu and the tardigrade to make their way through the streets of Netherville. (As a bonus, one that’d make Eve proud, it’d limit the number of folks who got a good look at the tardigrade.)

The real hurdle was creating seismic activity, but they didn’t need to summon up an earthquake, just make the sensors think they had. “That’s where this beaut comes in,” Kelly finished, slapping a hand down on the cool metal of the locked magazine holding, presumably, enough explosives to drop a building down. Kelly’d had ample time to come up with the plan, scour the edge of the neighborhood for buildings set to be demolished as Netherville expanded deeper underground, and practice his explanation and elevator pitch for Mickey and Owen. And, well, two out of three would have to do, given the explanation had gone long in the tooth. 

“Fire ain’t a bad idea, but if it spreads, that’ll pull innocents into this mess. Instead, boom. I’ve done a demolition,” once, years ago. ‘Sides, Kelly wouldn’t need to supervise it, just light it and get clear. “We good? I’d ask if y’all have questions, but there ain’t time. Daiyu’s probably gettin’ all impatient.”

—

Surely every doctor had a weird sexual story prepared for when people asked about their craziest hospital experience. Mickey had a few of his own, but he was right in the middle of explaining how a man had managed to sever seven of his fingers at a Wendy’s when they ran into Kelly and his story got interrupted by the larger plan at play.

The brief history lesson was fascinating, but didn’t really paint a picture for Mickey of what Kelly’s grand scheme was. At least, not at first. Soon enough, the general idea became obvious enough. “This sounds suspiciously like our plan but with more boom,” Mickey noted. What was an explosion if not a fire but… louder? Sure, whatever. He wasn’t a demolition expert. Come to think of it, he wasn’t convinced Kelly was either.

“I actually have so many concerns, from a medical and safety standpoint. But I’m more of an unofficial medical practitioner at the moment. Plus, I think I might be a felon now after the whole truck thing. So, I guess I’m just going along with this clearly unsafe plan.” Mickey shrugged, fairly certain this was going to end very poorly. As the only non-hunter here, he assumed this was like a normal Tuesday thing.

—

Explosions. Sure, why in the fucking fuck not. Owen’s only question about this whole damn thing was ‘does it get me home quicker?’ so he was willing to deal with Kelly taking the reins and going all demolition on them. Mickey took care of voicing shit that any sensible person might comment on when it came to an uncontrolled explosion but even that didn’t really reach levels of any actual concern. Great, so they were doing this. “Worst case scenario, we have one less ranger to deal with,” Owen commented dryly as he joined Kelly in prying open the human-but-not-hunter-strength proof container for the fucking explosives. “Well, worst case scenario, we all share a tomb when this whole place comes crumbling down. Pretty fucking romantic.”

With a final, smug blow from Owen to the lock that seemed to be the only thing keeping this ragtag team from an industrial-grade explosion (common sense wasn’t stopping them, as previously stated), Kelly had, horrifyingly, full access to a wide range of explosives. For a moment, Owen wished he wasn’t an atheist, because he partially wanted to pray to some unknown entity right about now. 

Shooting off a text to Daiyu that the distraction was being prepped and to ‘listen out for it’, Owen shoved Mickey to the side when it seemed likely that the doctor was about to handle anything related to the setup. “Pretty fucking useless to us if you blow off your hands, aren’t you?”

After commenting on the amount of explosives and consequently being shot down by Kelly, Owen settled for briefly daydreaming about the ranger trapped under a mound of rubble before silently finishing the setup for this insane plan. “Alright, Brooks. Floor’s all fucking yours, don’t make too big of a hole in it.”

—

Clearly unsafe. Clearly unsafe? For Chrissakes, this was why Kelly didn’t involve civilians in hunter business. There was always bellyaching over danger, and it wasn’t like Kelly could even blame Mickey for it. Being less durable must be terrifying. It was why hunters did what they did. And being able to handle risk, that was part and parcel; nothing hunters did was without risk. Doing the job, being good, was about risk management. A controlled explosion, of a freestanding building already marked for demolition, was one of the damn safest plans that Kelly could come up with. With nobody out here at the edge of the neighborhood, and Mickey keeping his hands off the explosives, the collateral damage was limited, the only real risk to the hunters. If Kelly’d had more time to plan and scout, maybe he’d have come up with a better plan. But he hadn’t, so he couldn’t. If this was a call and Kelly’d been pushing a gurney into the emergency room, there’d be a reason to defer to Mickey and his experience. Hunters had different kinds of experience. Experience that Mickey just lacked.

‘Sides, these were industrial-grade explosives. It wasn’t like they were magic or nothing. This was predictable—more predictable than fire. Kelly’d heard Mickey’s concerns, really, but there just wasn’t time to be doubting.

Owen’s reaction was more muted; Kelly couldn’t get a good read. Hunters never liked playing second-fiddle. Most wouldn’t dare admit another’s plan was better than their own. So, if Owen wanted to crack jokes at Kelly’s expense, Kelly’d take it. So long as Owen was helping, he’d even crack a few of his own. “Least our corpses won’t come back, yeah? If this all goes wrong, there won’t be enough left of ‘em to piss off slayers.” Was that the sort of truism that might reassure Owen? That he wouldn’t end up like Emilio? (Kelly didn’t know if they’d run across each other. Even in territory this small, not all hunters knew each other.) With a final smack from Owen, the lock clattered to the ground. The magazine was open for inspection, and Kelly took stock. There were a lot of explosives, that much was true, but Kelly’d almost… been expecting more—backups, in the event of dead charges. Should just be enough. Brushing off Owen’s concerns and burying his own, Kelly went to work.

Explosive demolition—commonly referred to as implosion, though that wasn’t quite accurate—wasn’t one big boom. It was more like cutting through steel or wood. Smaller explosions, like relief cuts, first, to weaken the structural supports. Building up to a final, bigger, explosion. Ideally, the building collapsed in on itself, limiting the debris and impact. As he and Owen busied themselves with setting charges onto the stone pillars supporting the floors above them, Kelly sketched this all out to the other men. (And if it convinced ‘em that he knew what the hell he was doing, all the better.) The detcord chained between the charges, circling back to the middle, where the remaining explosives were set up. With any luck, Kelly’d engage the trigger, and they’d all go off in sequence. When he felt satisfied that they’d done the best they could, Kelly ran the last of the detcord outside. “Plug your ears, y’all. Won’t take long at all.”

With one last look at his partners in crime, Kelly activated the trigger. It jumped. He was certain he felt it jump. But… nothing happened. Shit. Owen’d been wrong about the worst case scenario. Worst case scenario was that Kelly’d wired it wrong, or there was a fault, and they’d wasted precious time. Kelly waited a long moment, toggled the trigger every way he knew how. Silence, still. The trio were back to square one. And one of them had to stay behind, while the others went to try a different plan, to deconstruct the explosive web. Couldn’t well leave it set up; that was an unacceptable risk. Maybe a fire would have to do. If Owen and Mickey could find the source of the sensors, fry the electrical, trick it? Too damn long, but it was all they had left.

However, as Kelly turned to his allies, about to spit out an apology and offer to stay behind, the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Not like his hunter senses; there wasn’t a distinctive itch. More like a storm rolling in. Complete with thunder as the first explosion shook the ground, stronger than Kelly had expected. What the— He whipped around as the second blast triggered, stumbling. His eyes went wide as purple, then green, smoke erupted from the entrance, unnatural and strange. Kelly took a step back—or tried to, but something was tugging at him, like the explosions were warping reality inward. There wasn’t time to stop it, not now that it was already in motion. Kelly could try and put as much of himself between the source and Owen, hope Owen could do the same with Mickey. If he let himself be tugged, maybe whatever force wouldn’t grab hold of the others. An acceptable risk. “Go! Fuckin’ run!”

And as quickly as he’d been pulled forward, Kelly went still, frozen in place. Boom, boom, boom. The sirens began to blare overhead. And then, he was being blasted back in a mess of stone, heat, ash, and the unmistakable ripple of magic through his body. Shit. Fucking spellcasters. Always fucking up a good plan.

—

Obviously, Owen wanted this stupid fucking plan to work so they could be done with this stupid fucking mission and the nonsense of magic being on the fritz. That was what the sensible (and sometimes less dominant) part of his mind demanded, but, as Kelly uselessly clicked the button, Owen couldn’t help the wave of smug amusement. It was definitely visible on his face when Kelly finally turned, probably to make some excuse, but the ranger only had a hot second or so to appreciate the infuriating expression before the sudden noise and rumbling caught them all off guard. Owen had trouble staying steady on his feet too, both from the ground quaking and also something… less obvious. Something that seemed to have an even stronger pull on Kelly. “Fuck,” Owen bit out, digging in his heels as a second or two passed, wondering if he’d actually be able to pull on Brooks’s shirt collar and yank him back — probably not, as he was barely holding his own ground. Besides, rangers were designed to be extra tough. Short doctors with big mouths weren’t.

With Kelly’s shouting urging him on, Owen pushed against this invisible strain, grabbing at Mickey’s forearm to tug him along for a few very hard-earned steps until the pull lessened and actually running became a possibility. There was no looking back to check on Kelly — if he was fucked, seeing it in action wouldn’t be helpful for shit. The ground rumbled again as the building finally came down in its entirety, whirling up dust and skipping smaller pieces of rubble all the way over to where Owen had pulled Mickey along. There was no waiting for the dust (or presumably fucking magic) to settle before Owen was rushing back towards the wreckage with a harsh demand for Mickey to stay back, peering at the rubble and waiting for a sign of life. Hopefully Daiyu had taken the fucking explosion followed by sirens as a sign to move the fuck along. 

After what felt like fucking ages (yet was probably closer to five minutes or so) of peering and pushing at whatever pieces of rubble Owen could realistically lift, there was a fucking sign of life. Considering he’d dropped a whole building on himself, Kelly looked… well, he looked fucking alive, at least. “You fucking idiot.” After waving Mickey over and clearing some more of the rubble off the ranger’s worse-for-wear body, Owen found himself hesitating. Daiyu could probably walk the fucking thing herself but making sure Kelly was in one piece wasn’t the end game here — getting that slow giant to where it needed to go was. “Try to get him out of here,” Owen demanded of Mickey, peering at the ranger’s chest to try and surmise if it was moving the way it should before shifting his gaze away. Irrelevant. “We’ll double back for you if you have any trouble. Don’t get fucking arrested. Or die.” With that hopeful message, Owen pulled himself away from the damn bombsite, hurrying to where Daiyu was hopefully making progress with the magical beast of fuckery.

—

FOUR.

—

Waiting in an alcove with a really large creature she could not identify was rather tedious, Daiyu found. She was not interested in bonding with Lickety-Split, even if his huge rump made a nice structure to lean against as she fiddled with her knife. Cleaning some of the rims of her nails, she waited for the thing she was supposed to ‘listen out for’ according to Owen, hoping he would not cause a ringing to her ears. On the other hand, some part of her figured that a little bit of tinnitus would be worth whatever cause they were serving here.

That was the worst part about being stuck there, though. The creature showed no signs of intelligent life or understanding her when she’d talked to it, and so she was alone with her thoughts. Daiyu was alone with her thoughts aplenty, but not often on group missions, mostly on the account of her not really doing group missions. But there was a greater good now that she was attempting to serve out of some weird loyalty to this town and some of its inhabitants. An annoying thing to reflect on, considering all the people in town that also had it out for her. 

She was ripped out of her weighing her hatred and loyalty for Wicked’s Rest when the first explosion rang out. That was a clear ‘listen out for’ thing, she figured. “We’re on,” she muttered to the thick, strange creature. She turned around, pressing her weight into the large tardigrade-esque thing to get it to move. When her body weight wasn’t enough, she added the pressure of her knife. 

The following explosions, sirens, and the sting of her knife were enough to make the beast start to move, albeit slowly. She remained behind it, eyes flicking around her as she moved from where she had hidden and trying to see if there were any people who might stop her. Being seen was not her main concern now, even with all the influence Eve had had on her life. Three big explosions in a cave system lit a fire under her ass, was all. She did not want to die under a load of rubble with a strange creature as her only companion. “Come on, LS. Get a move on.”

—

FIVE.

—

Kelly had become a chicken finger. Specifically, the ones Mickey left in his air fryer a little too long because he got distracted by… Well, pretty much anything distracted Mickey. Owen had left him to make sure Kelly was alive and that was pretty much all he could confirm at the moment. There was no surprise that the plan that’d seemed riddled with danger and prone to backfire had managed to backfire and be very dangerous. Unfortunately, the only person around that Mickey could announce his ‘I told you so’s to was currently unconscious in the rubble. 

“Way to really steal all the attention for yourself.” Mickey laughed nervously, trying to stay lighthearted despite the obvious horrors happening around them. He knew little about the three he had found himself partnered with. Even Owen, who was considered a friend, or at least adjacently so, was still mostly a mystery to Mickey. What he did seem to understand is that for whatever reason they were all built for this existential horror shit more than Mickey was. They all seemed to have an intimate knowledge of the supernatural, whereas Mickey’s claim to supernatural fame was that his sister glowed sometimes. He was clearly out of his depth, and trying to treat someone that had just been exploded was actually the most normal thing to happen to him all day. He had leapt at the chance to prove some level of usefulness that didn’t involve rhino sized bugs, stairs from hell, or grand larceny. 

“Very Tony Stark of you. I do respect it, but I think— Hey!” Mickey snapped his fingers to ensure that Kelly wasn’t passing out on him, “Let’s stay awake now, ‘kay? I’m pretty sure if you die on me now I’m going to lose my medical license.” He would totally lose his medical license regardless if the board ever got wind of this. Kelly was clearly in pain, but he was conscious, which meant that he probably looked worse off than he actually was. “I’m going to sanitize and wrap some of the open wounds. It’s going to hurt like a bitch, but probably only like thirty percent as much as having a building fall on you. All in the perspective, yeah?” Given their location, he’d have to hope that this would be enough to let the hunter healing do some of the work for him.

—

Fuck. That seemed to be about the best that his brain could come up with. When you’d had your shit rocked—and, if he could focus, Kelly might be able to name other times in his life when his shit had been so rocked—your brain retreated to its baser instincts. Kelly’s baser instincts seemed angry. 

… Shit. Did this count as talking to himself? Bad sign.

The first sense to come back to him, fully, was touch. Now, this was not his ideal sense. Hearing, that’d be preferable. But, no, the ringing hadn’t quieted down just yet. Through the din, Kelly heard muffled voices, just barely. Two, maybe? From touch, he felt calloused hands, pulling him across cold stone. Those were the only neutral sensations. Mostly, he felt pain. Normally, he could rationalize a bit of pain—okay, a lot of pain. He was born to take pain, funnel it into something useful. How had this been useful, again? Kelly hadn’t quite gotten there, yet.

Time wasn’t a sense. It tried to slip away, but he caught it between his teeth, let it yank him back towards the present. “Where’s Flip?” he asked, through the cottonmouth. Wait. Why would Flip be here? Kelly was in… Netherville. Someone was checking his pulse. He wiggled his fingers and toes, eager, even delirious, to help someone attend to their duty. He’d be fine. In a bit, he’d be fine. So, he’d just… rest his eyes, a little.

Snap-snap. Right in his face. Hearing was back. Kelly even recognized the voice. Begrudgingly, he tore his eyes open, pleasantly surprised that the light was dim. Might be a pain in the ass for Mickey—right, yeah, okay, it was coming back—but he’d make do. “Who the hell’s Tony Stark?” Not the most important question, Kellison. Pay attention to the friendly doctor. Oh. A building had fallen on him. That… explained a lot. Kelly tried to sit up, immediately regretted it, thumped back onto the stone. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “‘M a terrible patient. Do your worst, Mickey. I can take it.” What doesn’t kill you…

—

Kelly was definitely conscious, but Mickey supposed he should be worried about a concussion. At least, his first words didn’t inspire a ton of confidence that he was present and aware. “What’s flip?” Mickey asked. If he was talking about flip cup then they were definitely in trouble.

Who was Tony Stark? Mickey understood not caring for Marvel, but not even knowing the name? Maybe he was even worse off than Mickey originally predicted. Weren’t hunters supposed to have super healing or something? Shouldn’t he be witnessing the wounds close up before his very eyes? Wishful thinking, Mickey supposed. While Mickey worked to get the man cleaned up, he kept talking absentmindedly. Partially to keep the man awake and mostly because Mickey had not quite mastered that shutting up command from Owen yet. It was a work in progress. “Nah, you’re not that bad of a patient. Honestly, thinking about the group of us here, you’re probably number one. Or maybe number two. Owen’s definitely three, on account of being a little terrifying. I mean, we’re definitely friends. He probably wouldn’t tell you that but he’s actually pretty fond of me, I think.”

Once Mickey was satisfied with the gauze wrapping, which felt like slapping a Band-Aid on a bullet hole considering a building had just fallen on the man, Mickey leaned back. “For obvious reasons, treating someone on a cave floor isn’t my ideal work space. Do you think with my help we could get you on your feet? I can get you to the truck and then take another look.”

—

Kelly could’ve addressed Mickey’s confusion over Flip, but, for now, it was better to ignore it. Time would tell if Kelly needed to call on the doctor’s services; Mickey had risen to the top of Kelly’s list in a hurry. It was a dubious honor, to be sure, but surely the doctor expected as much. Mickey was the first doctor in this town that Kelly knew had some idea about the supernatural. If unsavory sorts found out about that, Mickey’d be in high demand. Kelly, on the other hand, was plenty savory. ‘Sides, he could act like any other parent, concerned about their kid’s wellbeing and too nervous to wait for their primary care physician. And, hell, Kelly asking a question or two best suited for a pediatrician (… or a veterinarian) was small potatoes compared to the field dressing that Mickey was doing out here.

Mickey was a rambling man. Kelly wasn’t quite up for a conversation, but he tried his best to pay attention, keeping track of the rankings that Mickey was doling out. The last bit was the most interesting to puzzle over. Sure, Owen might be “terrifying,” but Kelly was… sixty-percent, maybe even seventy-percent, positive that he hadn’t imagined the slayer jumping to shield Mickey as the explosion had gone wrong. Now, that could be hunter training. Their kind were always eager to throw themselves in the line of fire to protect humans. But, well, it could be that Mickey was right, that Owen was fond of the doctor. None of Kelly’s business. (What friends did Kelly really have to compare it to?)

“I’d like to be topside,” Kelly said in lieu of a real answer. He guessed, based on the pain that sitting up had brought, that his ribs were broken. But this time, he’d be prepared, and knowing where it’d hurt worst always helped. More or less. No need for Kelly to grit his teeth or stuff his mouth with gauze. But, as the doctor took Kelly’s arm to try and help the ranger to his feet, a new problem reared its head. Fire shot through Kelly’s forearm, up to his shoulder, breaking the calm that Kelly had barely wrangled. “Mother of fuck! Goddammit.” Quickly, probably a little too quickly, Kelly flung himself up off the stone, using his other arm—unbroken, thank fuck—to steady himself against Mickey. He took a breath, then another, his broken arm dangling at his side. “Phew. Sorry ‘bout that, Mickey. Let’s get movin’.”

—

“Topside sounds great. For once, Wicked’s Rest is looking like the safer of two options.” Mickey wasn’t sure how the caves normally ranked compared to Wicked’s Rest on account of not coming here very often, but he was sure that the relative danger that people were in flip-flopped between the two. With an explosion, it definitely edged Wicked’s Rest out today.

As soon as Mickey pulled, he could tell something was wrong. The instant pain and jerk back. “That’s not a great sign.” Mickey whistled. It was almost certainly broken. His experience with hunters was non-existent, at least that he knew of. They switched sides, so that Mickey could help support Kelly from the non-broken arm, and Mickey began talking as they made their way to the truck. “I can get a splint on it, but there’s not a ton I can do without proper medical attention. I can get a sling, maybe even swing a cast if I’m lucky. But it would be relying a lot on hunter healing. Have you broken bones before? Is this a common thing?” It had taken years for Mickey’s leg to feel fully recovered after the damage the monster had done to him as a kid. Sometimes he still wondered if it ever truly healed. He was almost impressed with how casually Kelly was taking the news, if it wasn’t probably a mixture of adrenaline and childhood trauma. Mickey supposed the least he could do was try to match that blasé attitude. “Sure thing, dude. Let’s get you to the truck.”

—

Safer, huh? Kelly wasn’t sure if he agreed with all of that. If Daiyu and Owen completed the mission and brought the tardigrade to the rendezvous point, who would be safer, in the end? Was it better for humans not to know what was stalking them in the night? Would they sleep more soundly?

Kelly shook his head. Explosion must’ve knocked a few screws loose. ‘Course it was safer, nobody knowing. If that meant magic had to run rampant, so be it. Right? It was far too late to be doubting the plan. Kelly, the team, they were just the delivery service. Couldn’t know what the consequences of it all would be; they’d have to cross that bridge later. ‘Sides. Kelly thought of Flip. Even if magic was on the outs, never repaired, the kid would still be jerked around by the phases of the moon. But with it back up and running, he’d be predictably jerked around.

As the two men began walking, the sirens still blaring overhead (though, honestly, he barely paid them any mind), Kelly used his good hand to pat Mickey on the shoulder reassuringly. “Broken more bones than I can count, man. Don’t worry. I’ll be right as rain before you know it.” Relative to a standard human, anyway. Depended on how bad the damage was. He’d have to think of a good lie for work. Just good enough to use his medical leave without much question. (It was generous. On account of all the deaths… and the union.) Eh. Kelly’d figure it out. He’d survived worse than wrangling a toddler with one arm. Daniel had Flip tonight and, hell, he’d just survived a goddamn explosion. As far as hunters went, that made him goddamn near invincible!

… Invincible, but sore.

—

SIX.

—

It hadn’t taken too long to catch up to Daiyu — after all, she was slowed down by the damn giant beast. Honestly, Owen would have preferred for it to take longer to catch up, as falling into step with Daiyu meant spending time alone with her for the first time since admitting that he didn’t want her, or a werewolf that had tried to kill her, dead. The silence was just as suffocating as the damn vibe of this whole place and Owen couldn’t fucking wait to get out. Even with the stupid beast almost crushing someone on the stairs and Kelly getting his dumb ass practically blown to bits, Owen still expected the other shoe to drop. No way this would just… succeed.

“Kinda expected you to tell me to fuck off when I reached out,” Owen started, antsy and annoyed at their painstakingly slow pace. If they tried to go at the whole thing in silence, he’d attempt to blow himself up, too.

—

“Still might,” she said curtly. She had heard Owen approach, even with her sense of smell somewhat ruined. Daiyu had grown quite fond of walking alone with Lickety-Split, glad to let the others distract and destroy as she prodded the creature along. Between Kelly (annoyingly self-righteous and entirely confusing) and Owen (recently resurrected and apparently caring about her wellbeing), she was in no mood to keep up the cooperation. But here he was, the rest of the team potentially left behind. 

She glowered at him for a moment before returning her attention to the beast’s butt. “The fuck did you guys do back there?” She hated the way her skin crawled with discomfort. She did not want to say why she was here. That the magic in town being all weird was annoying to her, sure, but that the memory of Wyatt’s feral state subdued by her own darts was still gnawing at her. Even now that she did not talk to him much anymore. There were others she worried about too, but it was the lamia who was at the front of her mind now that Owen was sidling up next to her. 

—

Owen eyed her and something that might have been a smile, if the other fuckass ranger on this mission hadn’t just almost blown all of them up, tugged at Owen’s lips. “Great, can you? Kinda fucked that you haven’t, honestly. Diplomatic Daiyu is weird.” Owen pushed, because there was little else to do and because rangers could overall get fucked, but he didn’t mind Daiyu, and Wyatt had been so damn butthurt at getting blocked. If there was a way back in, if all of the damn drama somehow seemed less important in the wake of saving this fucking stupid town again, then Owen had to take the chance. 

“Brooks blew himself up,” Owen answered nonchalantly, debating how long to pause before finally adding, “but he’s alive though, I think. Almost got me and Doctor Yapper in the process, too. Worked though. He’s in great hands. Well, adequate hands. Hartmann’s pretty decent at patching people up, even helped Wyatt out, once.” Conspicuously, Owen watched Daiyu for a reaction. 

—-

“Don’t worry, the second this shit is done, I might consider impaling you on stalactite. Or the fucking other one — stalagmite? Whatever the sharpest one is,” she said, not with a whole lot of passion. Daiyu didn’t want to fight Owen. Not right now, and not physically. She wanted to get the weird creature to its place, wash her hands of this act of what Owen rightfully called diplomacy, and move on. Any act of what could be considered charitable goodness tended to sit strangely with her, and especially because she’d come at Owen’s call, she was feeling the kind of twisted up that required the woods, her dog, and some quiet. 

She swiveled her head to look (up) at Owen when he mentioned Kelly, mouth slightly agape. “What the fuck,” she mumbled. “What an idiot.” Owen mentioned the fact that Mickey had helped out Wyatt once and she filed the information away for future use. Though Regan had become her de facto medical advisor, it was good to know what medics knew about the supernatural. Daiyu tried to bat away the mention of Wyatt mentally, but it was hard to with Owen towering over her and his name in his mouth. She looked back ahead, at the large butt in front of them. Part of why she was doing this was Wyatt. She wondered if Owen knew that. She wondered why that mattered to her. “Guess we’re close to a successful mission then, even with this band of idiots.”

—

The threat, halfhearted as it was, helped to ease the tension some. Owen hummed in thought, only briefly wondering what it would actually look like if he were forced to physically fight all five fucking feet of Daiyu, before banishing that scenario from his mind. It wouldn’t come to that, since Wyatt was the only fuse with a big enough blow out to have Owen actually fighting another hunter again and Daiyu had a soft spot for the shifter. Didn’t she? “Sounds like a plan, Blade.”

Moving into more comfortable territory of calling another ranger an idiot, Owen huffed a laugh. “Yeah, no fucking clue who thought it was a good idea bringing this mission to him in the first place. At least he had the brains to ask for backup.” The same could be said for Owen, uncharacteristically reaching out to Daiyu and Mickey for help with all of this. It was easier, when it wasn’t his mess that needed fixing. Sure, the stakes were pretty fucking high, too, but that had never stopped Owen from soldiering the fuck on by himself before. Daiyu brushed by the mention of Wyatt in a way that spoke volumes and with the ranger looking the other way, a faint smirk tugged at Owen’s mouth. That southern bastard and his inescapable charm. 

“Shockingly.” There wasn’t a whole lot of need for more talking, neither of them particularly verbal except when it came to insults, which was a thing Owen begrudgingly appreciated about his fellow hunter. At least the initial awkwardness had been somewhat diffused, allowing Owen instead to focus on how infuriatingly slow this damn fucking beast was.

—

The mocking of her surname was discomforting in a way it wasn’t with others, because Owen knew that her surname was a fabrication. And that wasn’t even high up on the list of uncomfortable truths the other knew about her. It was as if that game of truth or dare had continued even after the faun running it had died. At least some uncomfortable truths about Owen were held by her, too. Daiyu still felt that the scales were not balanced, though.

She scrunched her face in thought for a moment. “So you got other rangers in your network besides me, huh? I’m almost wounded, but, ya know, I don’t care.” Unaddressed went the fact that Owen had asked her for backup, even with all that was stuck between them now. His death, Talia and Wyatt, the secrets spilled before all of it. Daiyu had a feeling that he knew that she was doing this in part for Wyatt and she hated the idea of that being why she’d been asked along. She had been too obvious with her feelings with this one. 

She prodded the beast’s butt once more. “This is taking forever,” she muttered. “It better fucking work, or else I’m sending these bitches an invoice for wasting my time.”

—

Owen scoffed, side-eyeing Daiyu before turning his attention back to the beast. “Right. Never care about anything, do you?” Like looking in a fun house mirror. Whether she was worse at pretending than Owen, or it just looked like it because he could see through Daiyu from experience, he knew she did care. Not about knowing other rangers but just in general. A discussion for another time. “An invoice? This doesn’t work, I’m beating up everyone fucking involved.”