Alexis, the Red Haired Gamer

Finding The Devil isn't hard, it isn't shy or afraid of them. But The Devil likes contests, The Devil likes to show off and keep people on edge. It won't just accept a battle, but it makes a spectacle of it for the whole town to see. They find it, Luca challenges it, it accepts but it's gonna be idk maybe a Fucking Showdown At Dawn type deal or some shit. Luca's never used a gun before but he can make shields, how could he possibly lose?

(He loses, of course, despite being given ample time to train and learning to fire accurately from the hip or some crazy shit that'd get him the win. The Devil says he lost before he even started--because his goal was to subjugate a demon. But he sold his soul to one before he even stepped up to the plate. Rather than take Luca's soul however, throughout this journey so far one of the npcs they meet in this world seems for all intents and purposes to be Luca's twin brother in this world, alive and well. Even though he knows this world is fake, given his twin is his whole reason for being here right now, Lucas is Utterly Shattered when The Devil takes his soul instead--and leaves his brother's soulless husk with them so Luca has one last shred of something to hold on to and doesn't completely lose his mind a second time. He's furious but afraid of losing again, because his brother will be taken away again for real, he'll have failed him in two worlds. But. . .he has to. . .he has to subjugate a demon? He can't be this useless still. . .?)

The Devil is the anomaly they have to deal with for Camp and Leo elects Elias as the one to challenge The Devil next. Once The Devil is gone, having accepted the challenge, Elias says he's never even learned to play a fiddle. Leo says it's a great day to learn, hop to it✨ Sho isn't here and he's not dealing with Lucas so he elected Elias as his servant boy for the mission lmao. Leo also says that, because both he and Elias have made demonic pacts, MC's soul is what he's wagering, which the devil accepts.

Mc naturally is from Japan and she is not familiar with The Devil Went Down To Georgia nor the culture behind it. Leo isn't either but one of Leo's many skills is Schmoozing. He worms his way into all the social circles, makes friends, goes to parties all day, gets intel. He brings MC and Luca and Elias along at first but Luca doesn't understand the point of this and finds it unproductive towards the mission. MC, not wanting Luca to be alone, opts to go with him while Elias and Leo go to saloons and shit. Obviously there'd be some point where she's alone with Elias and with Leo, probably after Luca meets his brother and indulges in living a life with him somewhere again, and again after Luca loses his brother and is despondent.

In the end the day of Elias and the Devil's contest(actually Leo and the Devil's contest, as Leo bet instead that The Devil couldn't beat Elias without knowing what Elias would even challenge him with) arrives. Elias is a performer and an entertainer. And Leo has entrenched him in the culture of performance in this world. Leo made an environment that the devil felt like it'd win too--he got on everybody's side and interest and made this showdown a big event, a big party, to thank the town for being so hospitable towards them. Everybody was there, even the soulless husks of everyone's loved ones.

So The Devil thought it had things in the bag when the competition was about entertaining.

All impressive and mystifying and terrifying and flashy spectacles from the Devil. No practice needed it has an orchestra of demons and infinite power.

And a performance born to entertain the crowd by a pair who've learned to work a crowd in different ways that ultimately reached the same conclusion--a performance that hyped everyone in all the ways everyone wanted to be hyped, a performance that was marketed as everyone's Last Day On Earth, so everybody let loose and went in like there truly would be no tomorrow, and at the first sign that The Devil may have just been fucking Played people celebrated even harder because by god they wanted it to lose, they wanted the lives they had and the souls of their loved ones back, and this performance that played to the very souls of everybody present, played songs they all knew and loved, maybe wasn't the best technically but was the best as a performance did begin to call those souls back, even Luca's brother starts responding again, watching Elias perform tricks, tapping his toes to music, and eventually he pulls Lucas to dance with him and by the end he's back to life and laughing and beaming and the light's returned to his eyes, no longer a husk of who he was but the twin that Lucas remembered(albeit, in another world entirely, but it was unmistakably him regardless. He could feel it.)

The Devil is defeated, the souls return, the town belongs to its people again, and Leo and Elias are the heroes of this little town, even when The Devil's parting message is that they've still sold their souls to demons and they'll be its someday or something.

The door reappears and Lucas is the one who makes it hard for them to return. Some part of him doesn't want to go back to that life without his brother. Everyone convinces him to let go though--his twin, having learned about or having said he already knew that he wasn't his real brother, says that the him from his own world needs him and if he can save him here then he csn save him back home too; Leo says this isn't even real, you didn't even do the work, what kind of happy ending is it here when you failed at the first jump; and Elias says that he's worked so hard and learned so much, surely it'd be better to put that towards accomplishing his goal for real. Every failure is a new chance to succeed.

They go back to Darkwick and Lucas probably still doesn't quite understand how he failed. Assumed it was some trickery of The Devil, or that Leo and Elias trained in some special way or The Devil Is Weak To Joy or something. Leo groans, rolls his eyes, calls him an idiot. If all he cares about are strength and technical skill and not actually understanding the situation, he's never going to get his brother back because he's just gonna try and run through walls instead of finding ways over and around them. Lucas does understand this when it's laid out the way Leo lays things out--plain and straightforward. He feels stupid but he still doesn't know hoe to use this information.

Elias brings up what happened at Emrys. Even at Darkwick last year they heard little bits and pieces. Leo fills in what he knows. And Luca finally talks about what exactly happened back home and what happened to his brother, thinking that maybe he just doesn't have the mind to understand situations and maybe Leo, Elias, and MC can help him to make sense of it all instead.

(Lucas does bring up that Leo put MC's soul on the chopping block when Leo emphasized the importance of knowing the situation you're in. What eas that all about then, what would putting her at risk do. Leo explains--again, the rest of them had unclaimable souls, which is why The Devil targeted Luca's twin instead. MC hadn't sold hers. Plus she was important enough to Elias and Luca and so many others elsewhere thst her soul would be more valuable than anything else he could offer.)

("To you, too, right?" "Sure. You're pretty useful I guess. And if you're alive that's way less paperwork at the end of the mission.")

(Maybe he grabbed her hand when he offered her up and The Devil could see that touching her was preparing to boost his stigma or something. If it got her, imagine what power it could give an actual demon? How could it say no.)

Ok so there is the cut, I cant put one anymore

So the lineup for the next episode is crazy, we're trading out some expertises for different ones (No HD cuz I don't have that power)

Luca, Ren, & Mio

We dont have anyone that can understand the japanese writing style the scroll uses like Zenji can so we're at a smalll 🤏disadvantage when it comes to that

But you know what we do have 😎

A guy that can build a bridge!!! Hi Mio! He's such the guy to jump in to help anyone soo as long as we properly learn about the bridge then we're set for that!

Ofc unless Luca wants to speedrun these tasks as they're written and gets all 😡 at Mio because "We can help MC's curse and save her!"

Poor Kaito who is looking forward to festivities with his buddy just for his buddy to be picked as one of the cowherds. 💀😭 Now you don't get one, I wonder what he'll be doing instead? Maybe going around with Towa instead since Towa's not a cowherd this time!

Then we have Ren, which is such a wildcard to throw in this episode, though I feel like he's gonna take things literally too at the beginning until they get halfway and he's like "this feels way too easy" and then starts overthinking like "Obviously there's gotta be something more, thats how everything works, and we definitely missed it so we're screwed". I'm wondering if his video game knowledge will get him to think outside the box right away?? But who knows, this is why he's a curveball.

We had a lot of lingering questions about this episode last time so I hope this will cover another path at least! I am 100% sticking with my guns about Mio = Bridge Building

We needed to unlock him first chat

Also I'm not a Mio simp or anything but his outfit is gonna make me 😵‍💫 just looking at it is like oughh, he suits the style so well! Mechanic man forced into fancy clothes that complement his vibe while still being something he wouldn't wear normally

I wonder if someone in Dionysia is gonna run a tenttt wait Jo 👀👀 I don't know what you'd do but do something pls ily!!

Also I hope we learn more about that anomaly that someone took in this episode that was a big Hotarubi staple (It was a feather or something right..?)

Ok so there is the cut, I cant put one anymore

So the lineup for the next episode is crazy, we're trading out some expertises for different ones (No HD cuz I don't have that power)

Luca, Ren, & Mio

We dont have anyone that can understand the japanese writing style the scroll uses like Zenji can so we're at a smalll 🤏disadvantage when it comes to that

But you know what we do have 😎

A guy that can build a bridge!!! Hi Mio! He's such the guy to jump in to help anyone soo as long as we properly learn about the bridge then we're set for that!

Ofc unless Luca wants to speedrun these tasks as they're written and gets all 😡 at Mio because "We can help MC's curse and save her!"

Poor Kaito who is looking forward to festivities with his buddy just for his buddy to be picked as one of the cowherds. 💀😭 Now you don't get one, I wonder what he'll be doing instead? Maybe going around with Towa instead since Towa's not a cowherd this time!

Then we have Ren, which is such a wildcard to throw in this episode, though I feel like he's gonna take things literally too at the beginning until they get halfway and he's like "this feels way too easy" and then starts overthinking like "Obviously there's gotta be something more, thats how everything works, and we definitely missed it so we're screwed". I'm wondering if his video game knowledge will get him to think outside the box right away?? But who knows, this is why he's a curveball.

We had a lot of lingering questions about this episode last time so I hope this will cover another path at least! I am 100% sticking with my guns about Mio = Bridge Building

We needed to unlock him first chat

Also I'm not a Mio simp or anything but his outfit is gonna make me 😵‍💫 just looking at it is like oughh, he suits the style so well! Mechanic man forced into fancy clothes that complement his vibe while still being something he wouldn't wear normally

I wonder if someone in Dionysia is gonna run a tenttt wait Jo 👀👀 I don't know what you'd do but do something pls ily!!

Also I hope we learn more about that anomaly that someone took in this episode that was a big Hotarubi staple (It was a feather or something right..?)