Upbeat Hyena 7 (Patreon)

Upbeat Hyena
Chapter 7

-VB-

Viviane stared down at her new “sister,” and felt something ugly inside of her.

“Go on, say hi to your sister, Angelina,” father encouraged the little demoness.

The little girl with red skin, slim horns, and fangs looked away, playing ildy with her fingers, and didn’t say anything. She shifted from side to side, but did not look up at her.

Viviane wanted to ask if her new sister thought she was disgusting.

She knew she was. Unlike her new “sister,” she could feel the taint of humanity still within her. Father always told her that it made her special, but she felt only disgust for that side of her. It was a disgust that’s been constantly growing in the months since she left her father to go out and make her own mark in the world.

Despite having claimed a small city in California for herself as a “cape,” that disgust had only grown and led her back to father to ask him to do something about it.

Instead of asking, she found herself frozen and worried when she found her new “sister.”

Her purely demonic sister.

Of the two of them, Viviane knew that her father must adore this “Angelina” more, if only because of how long he’s kept her by her side.

It made Viviane envious.

She hated it.

She hated that father let her go so easily but kept Angelina by his side.

The three of them were within father’s realm, where laws of physics went to the corner to cry, and they were surrounded by a horde of father’s new demons. None of them were like her and Angelina.

And then Angelina spoke up.

“H-Hi, Vivi,” she whispered shyly. “I’m A-Angie.”

Viviane’s emotions immediately warred with one another. On one hand, she hated Angelina for being by their father’s side for longer than she did (but since when did she care?), but at the same time, she adored the little tyke’s shyness and cuteness.

“Hello, Angelina,” she said as she chose for a neutral route. “I am Viviane of Eureka. I am happy to meet a sister.”

The cute girl smiled, beamed with happiness really, in a decisively undemon-like manner.

The “purity” here, Viviane decided, wasn’t from her demonic nature but from her innocence.

Viviane also decided that being near Angelina would not do well for her stability of mind or sanity. Instead, she focused back to father and curtsied.

“Welcome back, Viviane,” father hummed. “What brings you back home?”

Father looked as menacing and awesome as he always had. His giant shadowy form towered over everything, even those that were taller than he, and he presided over his realm like a god.

“I-I need help, father.”

“Oh?”

“I wish to be rid of my last humanity.”

Father didn’t reply, refuse, or hum immediately, and his silence scared her. Was he disappointed with her?

“But you do not have humanity.”

“But I do!” she insisted. Why was father being obtuse about this? “I find myself liking and hating humans in equal measure. Emotions drive me forward more than my mind should, and it -”

“Is perfectly normal.”

She paused. “But why?” she asked desperately, straining her voice.

“Because you are a demon of emotions,” father drawled as if it was the most obvious thing. “You are a humanly demon. It is within your nature to indulge in emotions, though you will lean towards things that are similar to your ascendence. I suppose that you have been hating the unrepentant outlaws and loving the orderly?”

“...Yes.”

“Because that is in your nature.”

“Tell me.”

She looked up in confusion.

“Tell me what made you come to me.”

---

Viviane glared at the image of the sex trafficker who supposedly used the city of Eureka in California as their hub and hideout.

“Boss.”

She looked up from where she had been sitting and glaring, and found one of her minions looking up to her.

It’s been months since she left father’s side, and came to a quick realization. As a single individual, she could do very little. Lacking her father’s ability to convert humans into demons, she had been forced to recruit like minded humans instead.

And the man in front of her was her right handed man, Jeremy.

“What is it?”

“Our man in the inside of the police station spotted Smokechain. He’s over by the docks.”

She stood up.

“We’re going then.”

He nodded and quickly left to mobilize the boys and girls.

Five minute drive had them out in the docks and moving in to surround the trafficker. Unfortunately, the “docks” of Eureka was more of a speedboat and sailboat anchoring pier than a true dock. It didn’t change the fact that this place was being used as the distribution hub for Smokechain’s sex trafficking.

Child sex trafficking.

Her people waited in the dark away from the streetlights and parking lot. They hid with their camouflage and guns in the tall grass closer inland and no more than a hundred feet from the piers themselves.

And then a moving truck came. Behind it, three vans followed. They drove quietly into the parking lot and parked.

She watched with her people before holding her radio up. “Target the men coming out of the vans. I got Smokechain.”

Her vigilante militia grunted quietly in acknowledgement.

They watched as men and women alike left the vans and the truck, and the back of the truck opened up. Smokechain was among them, light smoke drifting away from his body and from his hockey mask.

And tied children were hauled off.

“NOW!” she roared as she jumped out of the water from the other side of the Smokechain gang, and her people shot out of the tall grass, guns blazing.

The first volley wrecked the Smokers’ numbers, but not all of them were out and they hid and began shooting back.

She, on the other hand, jumped at Smokechain himself, and transformed both of her arms to their demonic clawed form. She struck quickly and abruptly, but Smokechain quickly transformed too into gas, and drifted away from her.

But it didn’t change the fact that her demonic form could hurt him.

He came out of his smoke form and glared at her, and his bare chest showed bleeding slashes.

“You again!” he roared as smoke coming off of him changed shape and solidified into white steel chains. He lashed out with them, and she ducked under them. “Im going to kill you, bitch!”

“Not if I do it first!” she shrieked right back at the pedophile.

She launched herself at him.

---

“And what happened?”

She gritted her teeth. “He got away. Again.”

“Did you win, though?”

“I did. But Jeremy died.”

“... Are you sad?”

Viviane wanted to glare at her father, but that was a sin. Instead, she turned her glare down to her feet. “Yes.”

“I see nothing wrong.”

She nearly lashed out.

“You valued your people, and some have died. Tell me, did you fail to rescue the children?”

“No! We rescued all of them!”

All fifty of them, in fact, had been rescued.

“Then he died fulfilling his duty to his neighbors, community, and you. Be happy for him, not sad.”

She left his realm after that.

It was only after she reappeared with her own portal in Eureka and closed them that she forgot to ask about her new sister.

Maybe next time.