Witch Juice Ch. 11

Jenna looked at Emmett blankly. "Are you serious?"

"Yes... and... we are...." Emmett struggled to find the right words that didn't just make his story sound ridiculous.

"Not so easy, is it?" Lilith scoffed.

"And... um... she's a witch," Emmett tilted his head towards Lilith as she smiled and waved in turn.

"Uh... holy shit..." Jenna, freaking out, her lip quivering, nervously waved a shaky hand back at her.

"Oh, oh, don't worry, I'm a good witch."

"Yeah! A good one- she was helping Aidan," he lied.

"Really? Aidan is a part of this too?"

"Kind of, not really," Emmett answered, his face straining to get the details right. "Okay, remember all that shit happening at the Academic Hub?"

"...yeah... with the fire alarm and the explosion?"

"Well... that was an attack... from a demon- oh right, also demons are real."

"Fucking demons!?" Jenna stumbled backward. "Oh my god, holy shit. This is crazy... How long have you been fighting... demons!?"

"I've been fighting them my whole life. This guy," Lilith pointed at Emmett, "like, not even 24 hours."

"Jesus..." Jenna held her hands up to her head, slowing walking backward, her eyes darting every which way. "I think I'm gonna be sick... this is... too much..."

Emmett rushed to her side, "Hey, hey... it's gonna be okay, alright? We, uh, already killed one demon."

"Yeah, not making me feel better, Emmett," she responded sharply.

"Ok, right," he stated simply, followed by a nervous cough.

"Emmett... it's happening again..." Lilith said nervously.

The wall behind them began to ripple once more as an eerie hum echoed through the room.

"Were you followed?" Emmett asked Jenna hastily.

"That-that's why I was trying to find you!" The wall hummed louder.

"Get away!" Lilith shouted.

The ripples raged furiously as the hum escalated into an ear-drumming buzz that shook the temples of everyone in the area. The circular waves that radiated across the wall soon began to quake into asynchronous, jagged waves that ferociously ripped and tore at one another. Finally, one final bursting splash erupted from the middle of the wall. A shadowy figure rocketed out, rushing into Emmett, causing him to crash into the ground and slide towards Lilith. But the figure rushed past her, and with a sharp screech, it slid by the feet, coming to a complete stop.

The figure stood up from a hunched over battle pose, revealing himself to be a tall man in a trenchcoat and face obscured by a wide-brimmed hat, save for glowing yellow eyes that pierced through the shadows upon his face.

"A fucking demon..." Lilith whispered anxiously.

"Move and she dies," the demon growled. He turned to reveal Jenna held underneath his arm. She was writhing around, her face pained by his strong grip. He held a single, pointed finger to her neck as a small, red, flaring spark began to emit from its tip.

"J-Jenna..." Emmett weakly called out, recovering from his tumble.

"What do you want?" Lilith asked, her hands out, ready to fight, despite her powerlessness.

"My lord requests a tome," the demon stated.

"Th-that's all?" Emmett asked hurriedly. "We give you what you're looking for, and you put her down?"

He squinted at Emmett, "Yes."

"Emmett..." Lilith whispered. "These are sealed and archived for a reason, we can't just go giving away secrets to demons."

"But-" Emmett objected.

"I request... the tome..." The demon spoke clearly and calmly, which only served to unnerve Emmett and Lilith as they waited on his every word. "...The Realm of Spirits... written by Silus Aetherdom."

"Fine-" Emmett started.

"Emmett!" Lilith interjected. "We can't, not that book."

Jenna began to groan in pain as the demon pressed his sparking finger into her neck. "My next hostage will be another from outside. I can do this all day."

"He's bluffing, Emmett..." Lilith whispered. "I just need you to make the potion-"

"You have ten seconds to get me the volume... ten..." the demon began to count.

Emmett's bones shook under the immense pressure. His skin felt hot and sticky, his brain was tearing itself apart as his mind stormed over what to do. His fingers and toes felt numb.

"Nine."

"The potion, Emmett... just find a way..." Lilith murmured.

"Eight."

"...h-how the fuck am I supposed to-"

"Seven."

"It's in my pocket... just... grab it and..."

"Then what!?"

"Six."

"I don't know... you seem to slither out of this shit all the time..."

"Five."

Emmett gulped hard. His breath became short and he could feel searing tears well up in his eyes.

"Get your shit together..." Lilith commanded.

"Four."

Emmett tried to inch towards Lilith, but the space was too great. The demon immediately saw his small move.

"No tricks, boy. The volume, now!" he roared.

Emmett clenched his teeth in fury. "Lilith... I can't do anything... I have to save her..."

Lilith's forehead was also beaded up with sweat. "Just..." she struggled to come up with anything.

"One!" He skipped.

"Wait, wait! No, please!" he begged.

The demon's finger flared up with a maddening sparkling shimmer. "Zero!" he cried.

"Computer, get me the book on The Realm of Spirits!"

"Emmett, no!" Lilith cried out.

The tiles on the ground lit up, marking a trail all the way to the back of the room. The last tile emerged as a tall pillar. The demon keeping his finger pressed to Jenna's neck, motioned Emmett to follow him.

Lilith shook her head madly. "You can't... Emmett, if you do, you're giving them exactly what they want!"

Emmett didn't listen. He simply began to walk forward, following the demon to the pillar. As they approached it, the demon motioned him towards it again.

"Pick it out."

Emmett stood at the base, as the tile beneath him lifted, carrying him to the very top compartment. Through anxious tears, Emmett scanned the compartment until his eyes came to a thick book, titled "The Realm of Spirits." He pulled out the heavy book as the platform slowly descended back down. As soon as he touched down, the demon threw Jenna aside.

Emmett's eyes bulged out with fear. "Jenna!" he shouted after her. The demon forcefully snatched the book from his grasp. He opened the first page and his eyes quickly whizzed about the page.

"This is it," he stated, though he still didn't look happy. The book disappeared in a flash of bright, red flames as the demon clenched his fist with a satisfied nod.

Emmett scurried towards Jenna, who was groaning in pain. "Are- are you okay? Jenna?" He kneeled to check on her.

"I'm- I'm fine... Emmett!" Jenna warned as Emmett spun around to witness the demon pointing his finger right at Emmett.

"And now..." he started with a malicious grin.

"Lilith! Kill this son of a bitch!"

Lilith, wiping her mouth of the potion she just mixed, cast her arm out. "Eat this!" she cried.

The demon, startled, images of Valdrina's battle filling his mind, turned towards Lilith, quickly crumpled into a defensive stance as his confident gaze broke into one of fear, his eyes wide with anticipation.

Tension filled the air as Emmett stumbled away from the demon, dragging Jenna along with him. The demon quickly solidified his battle stance, his arms crossed in front of his face, readying to defend against Lilith's spell. His breathing quickened, his chest heaving.

He stayed in that stance for several seconds, before peering out above his arms. He grimaced. What he saw was Lilith straining as her arm was aimed at him. She was softly grunting, attempting to cast a spell, but nothing was happening.

"Disappointing." He raised his arm, hand spread out. A spear of scarlet energy sparked into life, balanced on his palm as he grasped it. He reeled his arm back, ready to launch his deadly magic aimed at Lilith.

Emmett shouted out, his words a rushing stream: "LICOA! Dot, slash execute, dash lowercase 'o', pillar dot dispatch, colon AB-656-990-S!"

Just at that moment, the tile beneath the demon began to glow, just as he was taking aim. A pillar suddenly emerged from under him, lifting him, causing him to lose his balance as the pillar rocketed up. He threw the spear, though it harmlessly sailed right over Lilith's head. However, it impacted the pillar behind her instead, resulting in a loud, crackling explosion of red energy erupting from the strike. The damage caused the pillar to be broken in half, the top portion beginning to fall on top of Lilith. Noticing this, she frantically dashed out of the way, causing the pillar chuck to crash onto the ground, shattering into countless glossy shards as page scraps and book bindings exploded out.

The demon continued to rocket up on the pillar, until it came to a sudden halt, causing him to rebalance himself. "You bastard!" he cried. He readied another energy spear.

"LICOA, last command, argument recede!"

The pillar suddenly started to lower again, causing the demon to lose his balance again, causing him to drop his energy spear. The spear hit the ground below, destroying the base of the pillar in another explosive energy burst, causing both the demon and the pillar to begin to fall to the ground. Emmett and Jenna hastily scrambled away from the impact zone. Though, as the pillar crashed into the ground, the resulting quake caused them to tumble. However, the demon was able to roll on impact, causing him to lose his trenchcoat in the process, revealing his monstrous, demonic features and gross, vile scowl. He recovered out of his roll with a kneeling battle stance, able to skillfully summon another energy spear in the same motion.

Emmett could feel his terrifying gaze on his back, causing him to bolt up from his fall. The demon reeled back again, his thunderous scarlet spear ready to sail into him. Emmett looked at the tile on the ground in front of him. "One, two, three," he quickly counted between panting breaths. "LICOA! Last command, argument dispatch, colon DZ-887-102-X!"

Another pillar sprang into the air between him and the demon as he threw his weapon, the spear piercing into the newly birthed structure, causing it to explode like the others. The resulting blast sent the demon, along with Emmett and Jenna flying. He and Jenna hit the wall, while the demon crashed into another pillar, grunting with pain as his body was smashed into the hard, glassy material.

He, however, was not ready to give in. He freed himself from the cracks of the impacted pillar, blotches of his purple blood spattered about the crash site. His scowl tightened into a seething, vindictive display of fury. Despite his injuries, he marched forward with the same resolve as before.

Emmett ended up on top of Jenna, who was still conscious. Even through the exceedingly tense situation, her sweet smell surged his body with a delight that pierced through the stress that built up inside him.

"He's still... coming..." Jenna observed with a weak cough. Emmett turned his head to look at the tile on the wall.

"You... are no warrior... you do not fight like any human I've ever seen...soon, you will know the might of Ochus..." He readied another spear this time towering over Emmett's body. He raised the spear above him, poised to plunge into Emmett's chest.

"LICOA..." Emmett coughed out, "Last command..." He gasped out a sharp wheeze as his breath became short as the pain from the impact jolted through him. Ochus finally sent the spear down, but the tip stopped right before it made contact with Emmett's chest.

Lilith was grasping the demon's arm with all her might, her face scrunched with all her strength.

"Off of me, witch!" Ochus swiftly knocked Lilith away with a backhand with enough strength to send her flying, her body limply tumbling onto the floor.

Ochus continued his attack, but Emmett finally cried out: "dispatch, colon EF-153-436-G!"

A horizontal pillar rocketed out of the wall just above Emmett, who grabbed Jenna and ducked right under it as it rushed over them, suddenly colliding right into Ochus, easily pushing his body far away from the two. As the pillar halted its advance, he continued to tumble away, eventually crashing into the opposite wall, cracking the tiles around the impact. Ochus' body laid there, limp.

Emmett and Jenna remained squeezed underneath the protruded structure. He was laid right on top of her, looking at her face to face, staring straight into her round, dumbfounded eyes.

"...Emmett..." Jenna whispered. Her eyes were glistening, the deep brown pupils piercing Emmett, sending shockwaves of light flutters into his chest. Her soft voice made his head feel light. However, his mind was brought back into reality as her body heat absolutely razed him as he rested on her pillowy frame. The hot feeling, as expected, quickly rushed down to his crotch, and before he knew it, his own beast was called to attention at full force. The outline of his emerging hard-on was nestled into Jenna's thighs.

"LICOA," Emmett suddenly said, "last command, argument recede....please." The pillar, with a soft mechanical whir, began to withdraw back into the wall. Emmett promptly rolled off Jenna as they were freed, panting as the adrenaline came down.

"You alright?" he asked.

"Y-your friend- needs help," Jenna replied, pointing towards the unconscious Lilith.

"Oh shit, right!" Emmett scurried over to Lilith and kneeled over her body. He could see that she was still breathing, only barely hanging onto consciousness.

"Lilith!" he called out to her. He kneeled over and shook her. "Lilith, wake up!"

"Emmett!" Jenna hurried over. "You can't wake up a person like that! We need to get her some help."

Lilith coughed as she awakened. The first thing she did was glare at Emmett.

"See, she's fine," Emmett pat Lilith on the shoulder and stood back up. Jenna came to her side and extended a hand, helping Lilith get up to her feet.

"Real sensitive," Lilith chided sarcastically.

"Hey, job's not done. You have to put the lights out on that fucker."

"I... can't. The potion isn't working..."

"What? How?" Emmett asked, surprised.

"Potion?" Jenna chimed in.

A creeping feeling crawled up Emmett's spine as he thought about Jenna knowing about the actual source of the potion.

"Um... it's a... secret," Emmett replied nervously.

"Oh," Lilith started, though Emmett's senses already flared up, telling him that she was about to humiliate him again. "This is a potion made of Emmett's-"

Emmett swiftly shoved his hand into Lilith's face, covering her mouth as she squealed through his hand with muffled objections.

"My genius! It's made with my genius," Emmett began to sweat at the brow as Jenna looked at him strangely.

Jenna squinted at his hand covering Lilith's mouth. "Why... did you just-"

"She was going to say something stupid- part of a dumb joke, a dumb inside joke that will remain..." he glared at Lilith. "...inside."

Lilith put her hands up in surrender. "Okay, okay, fine, whatever."

"Guys... he's getting back up," Jenna said nervously, pointing towards Ochus, who was gradually shambling back up to his feet, groveling to himself as his face swelled with scorn.

"Resilient bastard..." Emmett commented.

"Emmett, I'm gonna need some... juice pretty soon," Lilith urged quietly.

"I know... we have to get Jenna out of here, first," he whispered back.

"I don't think we have time for that..."

"What do we do now?" Jenna asked in a panic.

"I can maybe hold him off with the pillars," Emmett replied, his words wavering without confidence.

Ochus stood up, another energy spear formed in his grasp.

"Do it, pillar him!" Jenna commanded eagerly.

"Uh, LICOA: Last command, dispatch..." Emmett counted the tiles in his head as Ochus readied his throwing arm.

"Hurry!" Lilith pressed.

"Command not accepted," LICOA responded.

"Fuck- Lilith!" Emmett shouted accusingly.

Ochus, with a resounding battle roar, flung the spear towards them. The crackling spear of energy sailed through the air, singing out an eerie whistle while it traveled. Though the image of the searing red missile was menacing, it was still far enough for the group to react, leaping out of its path, Emmett grabbing Jenna and tumbling to the right, and Lilith diving out to the left. The powerful spear smashed into the wall behind them, destroying the tiles and exploding into a burst of tile shards that rained down on the three, causing them to cover themselves as they dodged.

Ochus kept his distance, forming a new spear, scanning the area to see where Emmett had landed.

Emmett, crawling on the floor, covering Jenna, coughed out: "LICOA... Last command-"

"Last command failed. Please try a new command," LICOA answered immediately.

This time, Ochus continued to feed energy into his weapon, it growing larger and longer, the arcs of pure magical power furiously shooting around his arm, the mad crackling of the red lightning roaring throughout the room. The walls were bathed in the vile, blood-red aura of his energetic weapon, the raging light straining Emmett's eyes.

"Shit, LICOA, Dot, slash execute-"

"Command failed: System is reading too much interference."

Emmett froze as he saw Ochus brandish his energy spear in the distance, ready to fire. The words jumbled in his mind as he witnessed what might be his final sight. He simply threw his body over Jenna's and clenched his eyes tight as he prepared for his impending doom.

"Jenna..." he whispered. "I..."

"Emmett..." she looked him in the eyes.

Ochus hurled his mighty energy spear at Emmett. Even through the darkness of his closed eyes, the intense scarlet light bled through his eyelids as it approached. The heat of the pure magic energy covered him, searing his back harder and harder as the milliseconds passed. He hugged Jenna close and tight as the sound of the sparking lance quickly filled his mind, booming and crashing into his eardrums, his brain mixed to slush by the insane, splitting cracks of arcing energy.

Finally, it came. The crackling sound of Ochus' mighty spear of lightning climaxed with a single, swathing "Woosh!" that overwhelmed Emmett's ears. He could feel a powerful burst of air rush over him and the heat on his back quickly dissipated into a calm coolness.

Emmett's eyes popped open as the eventual pain never came. He looked at Jenna, who also opened her eyes that stared back at him, tears running down her distressed face. Emmett looked back up to see what the spear had actually hit, but as he saw the billowing coattails of a familiar, brown trench coat in his peripheral vision, he already knew who it was.

"V-Vincent!?" Emmett exclaimed. Vincent stood tall in front of Emmett, having taken the attack head-on, unphased. A corona of blackened, burned material was painted on the wall behind them where the energy had glanced off of Vincent's body. "Y-you can do that!?"

"Anti-hex seal, baby," Vincent turned his head towards Emmett with a cheesy grin, giving him a thumbs-up.

"Wha-what is this, who is this, now?" Jenna stammered out.

"A, uh, good guy- I... think?" Emmett answered.

"Gimme the low-down, who's this creep?" Vincent tilted his chin towards Ochus, who was seething with rage as he eyed Vincent.

"Justicar... finally, a worthy adversary," Ochus growled as he pulled apart his trenchcoat, ripping away his disguise to reveal his lean, red-toned muscular frame.

"He, uh... well you basically got the entire gist: magic spears," Emmett struggled as he got on his feet, helping Jenna up at the same time. "But, I thought you couldn't use magic."

"Justicars have more than a few tricks up our sleeves," Vincent reached into his inner coat pocket and pulled out a small necklace with a silver pendant shaped like a sword. He held it out, squeezing the pendant in his fist. Then, in a single burst, a beam of light erupted from his hand, forming into the shape of a slender, longsword with a cross-shaped guard. Vincent brandished the sword to his side, the shining glow cast away to reveal an impressive silver blade. He pointed it towards Ochus. "Square up."