When I had first gotten shoved into my locker I had yelled, banged my body back against the door, anything I could think of to make some noise, to attract some attention. I had figured that somebody would do something. Even if they didn't confront whoever had put me in here I thought they'd at least go get a teacher. There was blood seeping out of my locker onto the floor and there was the spot where I had thrown up. Someone should have complained to a janitor about the smell, at least. But no, I heard to bell and the hallway slowly emptied. No one came to let me out. I hoped that with everyone in class if I made enough noise I could get someone to come help me. A student going to the bathroom maybe. I banged against the locker though it was beginning to hurt when I did that, at first it had been to try and get someone's attention but after a while it was just to keep me busy so I didn't think about where I was, what I was covered in.

Eventually I heard to bell again as first period ended and students came pouring back into the hall. I slammed the back of my head against the locker door and cried out for help, hoping that somebody would take pity on me. A voice amidst all the background noise caught my attention as it approached the locker.

"Damn Hebert, you're still in there? You really are such weak prey for the predators of this school."

"Sophia," I cried. "Please, let me out of here! I won't even say anything, just get me out!"

Her only response was laughter which faded away into the cacophony of noises as student traveled past my prison. No one helped me, no one approached the locker, nothing. Eventually the bell rang again, signalling the start of second period. I was still trapped in the locker, all alone. No one was going to help me, I realized. I could be in here the rest of the day. I could feel myself hyperventilating. What if a janitor never came by after school let out, would I be in here all night? How long would I be stuck in the locker? Would I die in here? How long does it take to die of thirst? Or would I die from an infection from the filth in here first? What about the bugs in here, would they eat me alive?

[Destination]

[Agreement]

[Trajectory]

[Agreement]

"Please," I quietly sobbed to myself. "Please, someone, anyone, get me out of here."

From out in the hallway I heard a sound that I couldn't quite identify. It wasn't quite an explosion, more like if something spontaneously combusted. Whatever the noise, I did feel a blast of heat from the slots of the locker door against my skull. It wasn't hot enough for my hair to catch fire but it was close.

With the sound of metal tearing a felt the locker door open and I fell backwards onto the floor. I landed in a puddle of...fluid that I would rather not think too hard about. Rolling over onto my hands and knees and after several breaths to compose myself, I stood up to thank my savior. However, the words never left my mouth.

I wasn't a religious person but what stood in front of me could only be described as a demon. I wasn't sure how tall he was but he was big enough that he had to hunch over to avoid hitting the ceiling and the gigantic wings made from fire extending from his back only made him seem even larger. His head wasn't attached to his body, it was a floating skull wreathed in flame with thick, goat-like long horns that curled backwards slightly. The demon was also holding the crumbled remains of my locker door in one of his clawed hands. All in all, this creature would have fit right in on an album cover for a heavy metal band. It was also staring right at me.

I admit it, I screamed. I also collapsed on the floor in a quivering ball.

All of this had precisely zero impact on the giant demon. He neither moved nor spoke. He just stood there, looking straight at me.

"Um...th-thanks for getting me out of the locker Mr. Demon...sir. If you aren't going to k-kill me could you leave now? Please?"

The demon continued to stare at me. Shit, why'd I provoke the monster? I was just worried it might sneeze or something and accidently set me on fire and now it's gonna kill me now. I should have just kept my mouth shut. Suddenly, the demon nodded his head and in a burst of flame, vanished. Huh, that explained the sound from earlier. Fire based teleportation.

Wait a second, the demon took my locker door with him!

Okay brain, that is so not the thing to focus on right now. You were just rescued by a fiery demon monster, there are bigger concerns at the moment than the status of the locker. Actually, given what was in there I'm gonna say it was ruined before the door was torn off...damn it brain, I said stop focusing on the locker!

Okay, Okay, calm down. Let's assess the situation. First, I'm alive. Given everything that's happened today, I'm counting that as a major win.

So I'm alive, what's next?

I'm still covered in...stuff I don't want to think too hard about lest I throw up again. Right, need to go down to the nurse's office so I can get cleaned up. Also, see if she has a way to find out if I still have my soul. Would hate to find out I accidentally sold it to the demon so that he'd rescue me. What am I saying? Nurses can't check for whether or not someone has a soul, I'd need a priest for that.

I felt pretty blase about potentially selling my soul to escape a locker, I wonder if that meant I really sold it and can't feel anything at all now...or I could just be in shock...probably the latter, that seems a bit more realistic.

If I'm in shock than I definitely need to go see the nurse. I stood up while trying not to touch myself too much, my clothes were...sticky.

Walking was an unpleasant experience but I eventually made it down to the nurse. Her reaction upon seeing me was a few stunned seconds of silence as she stared at me with her jaw open. For some reason I took a bit of pride in handling a situation that left a trained nurse stunned in silence.

Finally, the nurse collected her wits enough to talk to me. "Oh my God sweetie, what...what happened to you? How badly are you hurt?"

Unfortunately, before I could answer the nurse my body finally decided it had had enough stress for the time being and I promptly fainted.

I woke up in a hospital. That was both good and bad. Good because it meant I was getting some medical care for what had happened, bad because it meant I was in rough enough shape that I needed to be in a hospital. As I glanced around the room, my eyes fell on my dad, asleep in a chair that could not have been very comfortable to sit on, let alone take a nap in. It was nice to see my dad here but that meant I'd have to tell him what happened, something I had been putting off ever since the bullying started which had been...over a year now. Wow, it had been going on for a while. This was not a conversation I was going to enjoy.

However, since Dad's asleep I can shelve that problem in favor of another issue: the demon that helped me out of the locker. Though it retrospect it obviously wasn't a demon, it was cape. One of those monster capes judging from how it didn't look human, although I guess it could be a normal cape that could shapeshift. That was a thing right? While I was more of cape geek than the average person there were still pretty big holes in my knowledge.

I didn't recall hearing about any new heroes joining the Protectorate or the Wards lately. Maybe the demon was an independent? He could be an out-of-towner that just moved here or someone who just got their powers. I should probably check up on villains too. Not sure why a villain would rescue me, but I'd feel pretty stupid if he turned out to have a huge PHO wiki page that I had overlooked just because I didn't include villains in the search.

Although, if I did find out who the demon cape was...what was my plan after that? Track him down and thank him? Would he want to meet me again? Did capes have paperwork? I was pretty good with computers, maybe I could do some secretarial work for him to pay him back?

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Dad starting to stir. Wish I had more time to work out a plan for this conversation...who am I kidding? I was looking for any excuse I could to avoid this talk. If I had more time I wouldn't have planned anything.

In the end, I wasn't sure who cried more, my dad or myself. It was hard telling him about the locker, harder still to tell him about the bullying and how long it had gone on, but the hardest part was telling him that Emma had been a part of it all. If he had been upset before, after he had found out that tidbit he had nearly gone ballistic. I could see the strain on his face as he attempted not to shout at me. I knew it wasn't me Dad was angry with, it was the situation, but he didn't have anything else he could focus that anger at. He ended up having to leave the room at that point. I was able to hear him shouting at some nearby nurses though I couldn't make out the specifics. Eventually Dad came back in and told me he'd take care of everything and that I should rest.

It said a lot about the depressing state of my life that I was unsurprised when I eventually found out how little my dad had accomplished. He had gotten the school to pay for my hospital stay and for any medicine I'd need after I was released. I received a small payment for 'pain and suffering' but that was it. There were no 'credible witnesses' to the crime, despite it happening in a hallway full of students. There was no proof the that Trio was responsible so they wouldn't be punished, and we couldn't sue them since Emma's dad was a big shot lawyer. I actually think Dad would have gone through with the lawsuit, regardless of Mr. Barnes's advantage in that situation but I eventually convinced him that it wasn't worth it, that I just wanted to move past everything and not drag things out which even had the benefit of being true. Dad had told me that when I went back to school the faculty would crack down on the bullying, ensure nothing more like that happened to me. To say I was skeptical that they would do anything was an understatement but I didn't mention that to him. I was just glad to be out of the hospital, not just because I was bored but because I had given myself a mission, I wanted to find Mr. Demon and thank him. I didn't care if he turned out to be a villain, I was still going to do it (well okay, there were limits, if he was a member of the Slaughterhouse 9 I'd let it go). I liked the sense of purpose it gave me, having a goal.

Sadly, that goal was proving to be a lot harder to reach than I had hoped. While Dad didn't want me leaving the house the first day back, I had insisted on going out on the second day. I used the excuse that after a week in the hospital I was going stir crazy and needed to get out for fresh air. So I had spent several hours at the library using a computer to trawl through the PHO wiki and the forums, looking for anything about my demonic savior.

There were two fire pyrokinetic capes in the area. One was an independent cape named Spitfire, who was a teenage girl, so clearly not the nine foot tall demon I wanted. The other one was Lung, who could turn into some kind of monster the longer he was in a fight. On one hand, Lung didn't seem like the type of person that would rescue a girl from her locker, particularly a white girl. On the other hand, somebody rescued me and Lung sort of fit the criteria I was looking for. Though based on some of the photos I was looking at, Lung tended to become dragony when he transformed, not demony. I'd put him down as a maybe.

Expanding my search to the national level hadn't helped (though it had taken forever to scroll through). There were a lot of capes with varying degrees of fire powers, there was even a monster cape in New Mexico whose body was made of lava, but none of the heroes or villains I came across were demonic in appearance. So if the cape that rescued me wasn't Lung, that meant it was either someone that had gotten their powers recently or they kept a very low profile which can not be very easy to pull off when your head's on fire. That actually had some disturbing implications, if that was the case. As much as I want to thank him, tracking down a cape that's a serial killer would be rather stupid.

My search for pyrokinetic capes was finished. Now onto ones that could change their bodies. This one was gonna be a bit harder to figure out. Information on the Internet is already not that reliable and I can't imagine the capes that can shape change openly advertise every little thing they can do. So even if I find the right cape I might not know it just because they never showed off a demon form before.

With a sigh I began my search, griping wasn't going make this go any quicker so I quickly typed in the relevant information and hit enter. Looked like the only parahumans in the city that could alter their shape were Lung and Hookwolf. If Lung had been a stretch then Hookwolf was an outright impossibility. The man could change his body into a giant wolf made of blades, not remotely what I was looking for.

I glanced at a nearby clock. Ugh, I should probably head home. As restless as hanging out in the house made me, I knew my health wasn't completely back to normal and I would need some sleep soon. I'd be back tomorrow to do my research.

As I arrived home from my third fruitless day at the library, I flopped down on the couch and screamed into the cushions in frustration. I had finally finished checking every single shapeshifting cape in the country, comparing their known powers, suspected powers, and their last known location with the demon. There were a couple of people that were in the same category as Lung, where they could maybe-sorta-possibly be my savior if I squinted, but I hadn't found anyone that could definitively be identified as the guy that got me out of the locker. On top of all of my online reading, I was also watching the local news on tv plus reading the newspaper daily to see if they was anything being reported that could be attributed to Mr. Demon. Was this how police officers felt when investigating cases? I had spent hours researching and had almost nothing to show for it. Not to mention the school work that my dad had picked up from Winslow that I was supposed to be doing during my recovery so I didn't fall too far behind in my classes. Seemed like I spent all my time either stressed out doing work or asleep. That kind of schedule wasn't doing my health any favors. I was supposed to be getting better, instead I just seemed to be stuck at near exhausted most of the day. Tomorrow I would start searching PHO for teleporting capes but I wasn't very optimistic.

"Is there anyone I can ask for help without letting on the fact that I was rescued by a cape?" I mumbled to myself.

Seeing as my dad was still at work I was quite surprised when a voice answered my question. "Of course my mistress. I live to serve The Abyss Given Form."

I fell off the couch with a yelp as I tried to orient myself towards the voice. Standing in the doorway that led to the kitchen was a cape that...well she was clearly female. She looked like a demon you'd see in a religious themed porno. Large brown leathery wings grew from her back, but while Mr. Demon's fire wings made him seem larger, this lady's wings seemed to be bent or crooked which accentuated her thin frame. She had thin, foot long horns poking out of her red hair, which contrasted nicely with her pale skin. She was wearing something that looked like a underwear as designed by a blacksmith. A sinewy tail stretched out behind her, probably about three feet long. She also had a bust any model would be jealous of and a positively gorgeous face.

"What did you call me?" I asked in confusion as I tried to get my bearings.

"Whether obyrith, lourmara, or tanar'ri; all demons owe our existence to the Abyss. It created us. I can sense a large portion of the essence of the plane that had gone missing now resides within you. Thus, The Abyss Given Form," the demon lady explained. "If you already have a preferred title I will, of course, use that one."

"Uh, just my name, Taylor. Taylor's fine," I said as I reseated myself on the couch and gestured for the demon to take a seat in a nearby chair.

"Certainly...Taylor." She said my name slowly, letting it roll off her tongue in an almost seductive way as she sat down in an exaggerated manner. If I was into chicks I probably would have found her whole demeanor attractive, as it was it was just off-putting. Just the way she held herself, it was like she was silently sending a message, 'I'm so hot, guys will do anything to make me happy. Girls will do anything so they can learn how to be like me.' It actually reminded me Emma (Okay, so did her tits and her hair, but that wasn't what was disturbing me). I decided to try and ignore it for now.

"Alright...so...why and how are you here?"

"You summoned me here from Shendilavri when you asked for help while indicating a need for secrecy. I am well skilled in the arts of seduction and espionage. If you need help gathering information while remaining hidden I can easily assist you, Mistress Taylor."

"Wait, you'll help me just because I asked. No strings attached?" Something was seriously off with this cape, she was being far too nice to me. And what did she mean that part of 'The Abyss' was now in me? And where was Shendilavri?

"Of course Mistress Taylor, you are The Abyss Given Form, Queen Of The Demons, Chaos Embodied. Anything you wish for, we shall strive to provide."

I could practically hear the capitalization in the titles she was bestowing me.

"So you really are a demon and not a cape with a demon theme?"

"Some of my kind originally belonged to one of the mortal races, but we are certainly not human now."

"Wow…a real demon is sitting in my living room." I wanted to smack myself, Mom was an English teacher and had taught me a huge vocabulary of words and here I was struggling to get a sentence out.

The demon lady chuckled. "Well technically that is the word the mortal races use for us. What we prefer to call ourselves is-"

The word she said was long, utterly incomprehensible to me, and I'm pretty sure I saw several birds on the tree outside simultaneously drop dead off the branches just as the word finished leaving her lips.

"Right…please never say that word again. Let's just stick with calling you demons."

"Certainly Mistress Taylor, now how else may this demon assist you?"

I rubbed my head as I tried to work through all the information she was telling me as well as its implications. Before I started finding out more about big stuff like that though, there was something a bit more obvious I needed to find out.

"What's your name?"

"Malcanthet."

Seriously? If you want to be that obvious just call yourself malcontent and be done with it. Out loud I said, "So based on what you're saying, me being the Abyss then-"

"The Abyss Given Form," she corrected.

"Right, that. I'm The Abyss Given Form, so therefore all the demons will do what I say and help me when I need it?"

"If you summon them here, yes they shall."

"How many are there anyway?"

Malcanthet tapped a long fingernail against her chin dramatically.

"When you combine the constant influx of petitioners and the Abyss' ability to spawn new demons, I'm not sure it's actually possible to know the population of the demons at any given time. But I'd estimate it to be at least 50 billion," Malcanthet stated.

Golden f-ing Scion on pogo stick, that's a lot of minions.

Did I really just refer to them as minions? I wondered to myself. Heroes don't have minions, they have...crap, what do they have? Employees? Volunteers? Note to self, think on this later.

Realizing I had sat there in stunned silence for several seconds I decided to start the conversation again. "So I'm guessing the big guy the rescued me from the locker was one of your demons, what's his name?"

For the first time in the conversation, Malcanthet stopped radiating that smug alpha-bitch body language and looked rather embarrassed.

"His name is Alzrius, he's the Lord of Infernal Light and ruler of Conflagratum," Malcanthet said in the same tone of voice I used when talking about the locker with my dad. "He is extremely short tempered and would not take it well to be referred to as one of 'my' demons. Please do not do so again, if it gets back to him he might decide to kill me for the insult. While I am quite confident in my powers I know my limitations, in a straight fight against him I would lose."

She seemed to quickly rally herself and look more confident. "But I promise you mistress, I shall not remain in my current station for long! I know I am destined for far greater things, I will show you I am worth your attention!"

"Alright, uh, gimme a second to think," I said, to which Malcanthet nodded vigorously.

So based on everything Malcanthet has told me I was pretty sure I had become a cape. Being in the locker had caused me to gain powers, and those powers seemed to be that I could summon demons from some other dimension to serve me. That brought up a lot of questions. How loyal were these creatures? Were they sentient? Malcanthet certainly seemed like a normal person. How responsible was I for their actions? What was I going to do with this power? I stopped and thought about what Mom would say if I asked her that last question. There was really only one answer, I was going to be a hero.

According to movies, videogames, books, basically all of pop culture really, anyone that had the ability to summon demons was obviously evil and must want to take over the world. I wasn't going to do that, but I suspect that was going to be the first thing a lot of people thought when they saw me, that I was a villain, so I'd need some way to disguise my demons.

"Hey Malcanthet, is there anyway to make you guys change your shape to look less fiendish? I don't want to scare people."

"All Incubi and Succubi can alter our forms as desired to look human, it is why we make such excellent spies."

"Those words sound familiar," I muttered to myself, unaware that Malcanthet could hear me.

"We are quite effective at our job, I assure you. Those of higher skill, such as myself, can make use of our mind altering powers while disguised while the lowest ranking Incubi and Succubi can't access any of their powers while disguised. Most fall somewhere in between."

"Wait, did you say mind altering powers?"

"Yes I did Mistress, it makes securing souls to take to the the Abyss so much easier if we can nudge the mind in the right direction. Though the harder we nudge the more damaged the soul so there is a careful balancing act to consider."

Well, so much for that idea. Bad enough I have demons at my beck and call, I was not about to bring out any that could look human and alter people's minds. Maybe there were some that didn't look so obviously demonic?

"Malcanthet, you've mentioned several kinds of demons. How many kinds are there?"

"Well let's see, there's the Dretches, Yochlol, Sibriex, Balors-"

"You can stop," I interrupted. "Just based on the names of what your listing I don't think any of them will be what I need." Admittedly, I didn't actually know what any of those words meant but they sounded all...evilly so I figured none of the fiends looked like cute duckies and bunnies.

"If I may ask Mistress, what is it you need us for? Based on your questions and my summoning here, I assumed it was to infiltrate and take over this settlement, which I can assure you we would accomplish easily. But the look on your face implies that I am incorrect..." Malcanthet trailed off while looking at me with a chagrined expression on her face.

Right, the demons may obey me but they were still demons. Malcanthet had mentioned that they manipulated minds to gather souls, after all. They probably didn't have much in the way of morals, time to see what I could do about that.

"You said I'm The Abyss Given Form, correct?" I asked in as commanding a voice as I could muster.

"Of course Mistress!" Malcanthet immediately replied.

"And you'll follow my commands even if you don't understand them at the time?"

"It is not place to understand Mistress, merely obey!" Malcanthet said in the same tone a soldier would use when answering a drill sergeant.

"You'll follow my commands even if you disagree with them?"

"Even if a fiend did disagree, we would be foolish to disobey an order from you Mistress. As The Abyss Given Form you have the power to destroy any of us."

"Good, because I'm going to be a hero and help the people in this city."

The look on Malcanthet's face actually made me burst out laughing. I imagine she'd have the same expression on her face if I told her I was gonna flap my arms and fly to the Moon naked.

"That's...you want to...but," Malcanthet paused and composed herself. "You want to be a hero to the people living nearby? Surely it would be easier to just unleash several Succubi, we could use our powers to make everyone here adore you."

"You're right, it would be easier, but we aren't going to do that. In fact, my first order that I want you to pass down to every other demon is that no one is to use ANY mind altering powers on humans without my explicit permission from now on."

Malcanthet still had a puzzled expression on her face when she answered, "Very well Mistress. I shall pass along that order. Anything else?"

"No, that will be all for now. I shall call you again if I need anything."

"Certainly Mistress, I exist to serve." And with that Malcanthet disappeared. It wasn't like Alzrius from before, he vanished in an explosion of fire. Malcanthet's exited still involved fire but it was more subdued, like the embers of a flame dying out. I guess that fit with what I knew about them, he's a big important Demon Lord so he likes to make an exit. While Malcanthet's expertise consisted of spying and being in disguise so she was used to slipping away unseen. Or that could be a load of malarkey, maybe they just used two different spells to leave. I dunno, was still learning how this whole thing worked.

I should write down a list of things I wanted to learn and then call Malcanthet back and have her explain them to me. The wants, needs, and goals of demonkind perhaps? Maybe I should figure out what each kind of demon I had access to so I knew what I had to work with. Once that was done then I could figure out how to not make people run screaming for the hills when I went out in costume.

Ugh, a costume. I had no idea what I was gonna wear and I didn't think I'd get anything useful from Malcanthet in that regard, given what she was dressed in. I did not have the desire nor the body necessary to run around, fighting crime, nearly naked. While I wanted my costume to tie into my powers at least a little bit, I couldn't go too far with it or else I'd end up being mistaken for a villain. It was already going to happen just because of my powers, didn't need to help them out by looking super intimidating. Not that I really had a lot of options, wasn't like I could afford a professionally made costume, might have to settle for some old clothes and a mask for a while. What if I asked a demon (one that didn't specialized in seduction) for help they could get me a proper wardrobe?

Man, I thought trying to track down a cape was hard, being a cape was even tougher and I hadn't even gone out yet. Maybe I should just go take a nap, I had nearly exhausted myself at the library and then I came home to this...yea, naptime. Dad would wake me up for dinner when he got home.

As I climbed the stairs I couldn't help but noticed that despite how tired I was, I was happy. I was legitimately smiling, something I hadn't done in quite a while. Realizing just how long it had been since I'd been this happy did dampen my spirits a bit, but not much. I didn't know quite how I was going to do it, but I was going to be hero!

Author's Note: Taylor's minions will not have a copy-paste transition of their abilities from the game. Too many of them have powers that don't jive with their appearance thematically so I will be making alterations. In some cases this would be a nerf, in others it could be a buff, but whatever the case things won't magically be solved by an array of Wish spells.