Ash and Evie in 15 minutes

For those who don't want to slog through the whole series. Inspired by Cleolinda Jones, Movies in Fifteen Minutes

A Mile With Sorrow in Fifteen Minutes, PART TWO

Evie's Worst Fears List, updated:
(1) Having Ash die on me. (check)
(2) Having any of my friends die on me, since I can count them on one hand. (check, check)
(3) Having Ash or my friends betray me. (check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check)
(4) Failing my quest to save my four original demon-summoning friends
(5) Losing my mind. Moreso than usual. (check)
(6) Having my friends lose their minds (check, check, check)
(7) Going postal on everyone (check)

EVIE: Twitchy, this story really kind of sucks...

TWITCHY: It gets better!

EVIE: FOR WHOM?!

The Snoqualmie Clinic of Elven Evildoers

ELVES WITH GUNS: Pew! Pew! Pew!

ASH: *yawn*

VIVIAN: What happened? One minute I'm texting Adrian and the next I'm asleep in a trunk surrounded by sleeping elves. What the hell happened to your aura, Adrian?

ADRIAN: Um...funny story...

VIVIAN: *slaps him* Idiot!

EVIE: We think Hope caused the explosion because she was distraught about her birth mother finding her. Where's Delores now? Can we track her?

VIVIAN: Um...the Coven kind of killed her to hush her up.

EVIE: ...

ADRIAN: Come with us! We'll solve the mystery and save the world! We have New Improved Demon Backup!

VIVIAN: Son, you are completely batshit. No way.

(ADRIAN'S convictions are shook.)

Newt's House of Memory and Despair

(ASH and EVIE leave ADRIAN to mope among ASH'S spellbooks as they go to visit NEWT to give her an update, and get a tulpa lesson.)

EVIE: Let's clear up that bargain we made, now that Rachel's alive and still has Hope's mark. Can I have the souls you owe me?

NEWT: Here's Red's. You get the details about the Hope-Zee deal before you get the others.

EVIE: Need to talk to Brooke first.

NEWT: So you'll be needing a new tulpa to bribe Dali. I'll teach you and Hope. This'll be fun.

EVIE: *makes a tulpa* Well, that was trippy.

HOPE: *cannot make a tulpa* Not fun.

NEWT: Let's get dessert. Girls like chocolate!

Dallying In the Dastardly Den of Dalliance

(ASH and EVIE next go to Dalliance to talk to BROOKE, the sole surviving person who might be able to tell them the original bargain between ZAEBOS and the WITHONS.)

EVIE: Brooke, tell me what you know.

BROOKE: No.

EVIE: I appeal to your better nature.

BROOKE: I appeal to your need to rescue people who got themselves stuck in the Ever After, even if they completely deserved it. Get me the hell out of here. Girls like freedom!

EVIE: Dali, can I buy Brooke?

DALI: No.

EVIE: But I need what's in her head!

DALI: You just want her brain?

EVIE: Metaphor!

DALI: I can't read her mind due to her Coven mental shields. Let's make a deal.

(A long discussion ensues. It just gets crazier and crazier.)

EVIE: OK. Let me get this straight. We need two things: get Brooke to spill, and remove the magical shunnings on your day-walking women. To do that, we have to break the Coven. To do that, you, Ash, and Al are going to trick your way into the Coven's mental mini-collective. You're bringing Pierce, Brooke, and Adrian with you. While you're in there you'll try to open the Secret Plot Device inside so demons can regain access to the Nexus of the Ley lines, A.K.A. the Linchpin of Doom that supports the Ever After. In return, I make three awesomesauce tulpas for your restaurant. And I have to convince Adrian and Al and Pierce to go for this mad plan. Is that about right?

DALI: Or you could just torture it out of her.

EVIE: No.

DALI: If you marry me I'll do it for you.

EVIE: HELL no.

DALI: This crazy plan sounds like more fun anyway. Go away now.

(Evie returns to find ASH and NEWT having a private discussion, and HOPE pouting over marshmallows.)

HOPE: I'm dying as my soul is pulled into the creepy ley line accident I created. This story sucks.

EVIE: I hear ya.

HOPE: I loved my family. Why did I do it? I don't remember.

EVIE: Good question. I must remember this.

In Al's Spelling Studio of Sulk and Suspicion

(ASH and EVIE go to convince AL to help them, after a tender one-step-forward moment alone... preceded by the usual seventeen-steps-back angst.)

AL: What in blazes do you want now? You hid Rachel. I'm still mad.

EVIE: After a whole hour?

AL: Touché.

ASH: *replays the memory from Adrian's POV* Nah, Ceri and Quen jumped her. She didn't forget willingly.

AL: *somewhat mollified*

EVIE: Now I shall shame you into doing what I want and also imply the possibility of future sexing with Rachel.

AL: OK.

EVIE: Now you convince Pierce to help us.

AL: Pierce, I shall shame you into doing what I want and also give you to Evie if you do.

PIERCE: OK.

EVIE: Well, that was easier than I expected.

Back in Ash's Magical Lab of More Misery

(ASH and EVIE share a tender one-step-forward moment, followed immediately by...)

ASH: I think you should marry Dali so you don't go insane.

EVIE: My life sucks. Al, let's go look at something that's an even bigger disaster than my love life.

AL: You got it.

Return to UCLA's Campus of Impending Doom, Ever After Side

AL: Yup, it's still here.

EVIE: What have we learned?

AL: That whatever happened here only affects the reality side. As if part of the building vanished into time.

EVIE: And that means...?

AL: Search me. You still mad?

EVIE: Tell me one nice thing.

AL: ...I didn't break your magic?

EVIE: Oh. Fine, I'll let it go.

AL: Capital. Now let's have a chat with Dali's ex, so you can see what you're getting into. Tessy?

TEZRIAN: CREEPY INSANE ATTACK ATTACK ATTAAAAAACK!

EVIE: What the hell?

AL: She went insane. We send our nutcases to the surface, because they can't die, just suffer a lot. Except my wife. I killed her to save her. *single tear*

EVIE: Not...entirely sure what lesson I'm supposed to be taking from this...

In Ash's Library of Questionably Decent Proposals

DALI: So...you changed your mind?

EVIE: Maybe.

DALI: I brought you a courting gift. Have some souls of dead elf babies that I stole from Zaebos. Girls like babies!

EVIE: How...thoughtful.

(DALI leaves, and EVIE somehow contacts the elven Goddess, accidentally using wild magic. The Goddess takes the souls of the babies home...wherever that is)

ASH: Wild magic?! Can't I leave you alone for FIVE MINUTES? *grab's Twitchy's list from Evie and makes another check mark next to #5*

TWITCHY: All right, guys, give me my list back!

ASH: *deathglare* You make one more check and I'll cram it somewhere embarrassing.

Back in Ash's Lab of Sly and Sneaky Subterfuge

DALI: Ok...we're ready to go storm the Coven and cause some real mischief in reality!

EVIE: This should be fun!

DALI: You're not going.

EVIE: Bugger.

AL: That's OK. You can shop for gargoyles. Girls like shopping!

In the Demon Mall of Cheesy Music and Awful Coffee

EVIE: Fuck this noise. *heads for the ley line of easy escape to an elven lair*

In the Lair of Drug-Dealing, Murdering Elf-Lords Who Are Currently Out on a Baby-Snatching Trip To Seattle With Rachel, Ivy, and Jenks

QUEN: You still mad?

EVIE: Nah, it's cool. But Al told me to get myself a gargoyle for my lessons, so I thought I'd talk to Bis.

QUEN: OK. *calls Bis*

RAY: Hi! I'm adorable!

SOLANGE: Hi! I'm recovering nicely from my ordeal as Ash's familiar and enjoying my job as a nanny for this adorable girl.

CERI: I'm the mother of the adorable girl! We're all so happy here!

QUEN: If I were demonstrative, I'd say how happy I am about my adorable happy family...but instead I'll stand here and look stern.

EVIE: *wistful sigh at all the adorable adorableness* At least there's one character Twitchy won't do anything evil to.

In the Gorgeous Kalamack Gardens To Gain a Gargoyle

(BIS arrives with his girlfriend GLISSANDO, and their respective fathers ETUDE and CRESCENDO)

GLISS: I want to bind myself to a demon and live forever with my stony schnookie-wookums!

CRESCENDO: Not happening.

(Crescendo prevents his daughter from going through with her plans by bonding to Evie himself)

GLISS: Twitchy, this story SUCKS! *flies off in a huff*

CRESCENDO: It kinda does.

EVIE: At this point, I can't imagine anything worse Twitchy can throw at me. I suppose I might as well check off that final item on the list, because fuck it. It's not like I'm ever going to figure out this Hope problem.

CERI: Tell us all about it, and let's brainstorm. Girls like brainstorming!

EVIE: THAT I will agree with.

(There is brainstorming. EVIE comes up with a working theory.)

EVIE: Hope had a sad, not a mad, and wanted life to go back to the way it was before she discovered the truth about her mom. She made a tulpa and nobody pulled it out of her head. I must tell Newt!

(But Rachel arrives! RACHEL line-jumps with the baby she and TRENT stole from ELLASBETH before ZAEBOS could grab it, creating a new ley line in the process right in TRENT'S garden)

EVIE: That can't be a good thing.

RACHEL: Zee's after us!

CERI: Holy ground! Head for the gazebo!

RACHEL: You sanctified a gazebo?

(Yes, she did. Everyone piles into the gazebo—except Evie, who finds out the hard way that she can't enter holy ground any longer)

EVIE: *dazed* Lovely.

ZAEBOS: Give me that kid!

EVERYONE ELSE: No.

ZAEBOS: I threaten! I posture! I shout and sulk!

EVERYONE: Still no.

ZAEBOS: I kill Evie!

EVIE: Wait, what? *is dead* GIRLS DO NOT LIKE DEATH!

Meanwhile, In the Secluded Super Secret Coven Headquarters

DALI: I have broken the protections that kept us out!

ASH and AL: Yay!

DALI: Now let us remove all the shunnings, freeing innocent witches and sexy daywalking lady demons to go forth free of magically imbued social ostracism!

ADRIAN, BROOKE, and PIERCE: Yay!

DALI: Now let us destroy the Coven forever and retake what is ours, mwuhahahaha!

ADRIAN, BROOKE, and PIERCE: Curse your sudden but totally predictable betrayal!

(Except at the moment of Evie's death, the three demons are distracted by the curse that powers demon resurrections. It siphons part of their souls and is disruptive to magical workings.)

OLIVER: I have arrived with suspiciously perfect timing! ATAAAAAACK!

THE WITCHES: ATAAACK!

THE DEMONS: Curse your sudden but totally predictable betrayal! *are booted back to the Ever After*

DALI: I'mma kill that girl.

ASH: Looks like I'll have some explaining to do...

AL: Let's go get her.

In The Writer's Devious Little Head

EVIE: OK, is this fanfic over?

TWITCHY: No.

EVIE: So...are we at least done with this damned list?

TWITCHY: ...maybe? *makes one last surreptitious check mark*

EVIE: So, let's recap. Ash told me Al broke my mind when he increased my spindling capacity, I'm halfway insane, that I have to marry Dali if I want to survive training. I made a bunch of deals with Newt I can't keep. My death screwed up my overly complex plan to take down the Coven and free Brooke so I could discover the contract details. And I discovered the answer to the Hope ley line problem and can't tell anyone because, again, SUDDEN DEATH?

TWITCHY: Oh, stop grousing about the death. You get better.

EVIE: So now that you've totally broken my romance with Ash all to hell, do we get better? I can't tell from your totally random sequel title.

TWITCHY: Not...right away, no.

EVIE: Are you done killing off characters or putting innocent and adorable people into terrible situations?

TWITCHY: No.

EVIE: Do I at least get some awesome training montages?

TWITCHY: Well...you could call them a lot of things, but "awesome" probably isn't on the list.

EVIE: You want me in this next fic, I want a raise.

TWITCHY: How about a makeover? Girls like makeovers!

EVIE: Someone save me.