‘Watch yourself,’ Astral’s core chimed. ‘You need keep to the basics. They can’t learn about Videl. They can’t know about why this place exists at all. They need to feel like they’re in control of the situation.’

The situation… was complicated. The methods through which the demon fed while in hibernation was even more so. Keeping the information concise and simple did injustice to the severity of the problem. Now was not the time to delve into the layers how the demon could feed on non-physical elements, how sin and virtue played an important role for the most dangerous of foes. She wasn't dealing with just some demon lord attempting to reclaim old territory. She was dealing with a demon with plans of ascension.

All eyes were on her. She'd have to be careful. A dying man like Damien or an ambition man like Dezmond had the means and intelligence to twist the knowledge to suit their own ends. Humans were not meant for immortality. Humans like the Daamon’s - even less so.

Astral opted to start with something simple for the Headmaster's sake. "Energy can be given freely or stolen. We see daily examples through human-on-human interactions. There are people who energize and motivate, and others who drain and leave severe emotional wounds in their wake. Relationships can be symbiotic or parasitic. Shallow or meaningful. Brief or long lasting. While humans don't use energy as sustenance, they do feed off of it. It shapes them. Molds them into people they weren't previously. This premise is the basics of how this particular demon feeds.

“During game time, the spectators willingly offer their energy to the players, who in turn offer their energy to the game. The energy created during the game is funnelled to the demon. Think of the games as meal times."

The Headmaster frowned as he shook his head. His lips tried to shape themselves around words that were never made real. The mental glitch that the Headmaster was experiencing was expected. The easiest solution was to stop the games. But his influenced mind focused on the hassle to do so, categorizing the inconvenience of saving lives under impossible. The Games were too much a part of his identity and a huge part of the culture at the school. Banning the games was akin to severing an arm. He wouldn’t ever be able to bring himself to issue the order.

Avery cocked her head as she struggled with the idea of a demon surviving on emotional energy. She had seen plenty of devastation during her tour to have a strong desire to counter Astral’s claim. Astral would have to tread carefully. She needed the E.M.I. to keep the situation under control. She needed to keep Avery comfortable, or else she’d lose controlling interest in the mission. It was best to stick to topics that the agent understood. "My preliminary research has shown that players, on occasion vanish from the games. I have reason to believe that they have been called to the nest.” To this Avery nodded. Astral took this as a sign that she had returned to familiar territory. “The requirements in answering the call are complex and highly individualized. After the fact, we observe trends such as intuition, drive, and heightened emotions. It’s not easy to predict who is a viable candidate for the call," Astral continued.

"So the demon is luring players to it to feed?" Avery nodded, approving of the theory.

"No." She felt her core cringe. She should have said ‘yes’ and just been done with the explanation. It was bad enough that the demon was feeding at all, but it was manipulating the games, the students, the campus culture, all so it could get the right combination of ingredients to ascend. Just agreeing with Avery undermined another layer to the threat they faced. Their enemy was building an army, which was why Astral needed the E.M.I. at all.

"But you just said-" the Headmaster blurted.

"I am aware of what I said. Agent White, where do you think that army of husks came from?" She tried to sound patient with the E.M.I. agent, but given the way Avery's face contorted she probably missed that mark by a mile.

During her recovery, Astral had reported the husk incident to Agent White. She needed the E.M.I. to be prepared.

"He's not eating his victims," Damien said. "He creating an army. I guess people who answer his call might work as a filtering system to figure out who he can convert."

"I hadn't considered that possibility," Astral muttered, genuinely impressed with her uncle. He was right in his observation. The rate of potential failure for a spawn to embed inside of a host was high.

Some demons preferred the shotgun approach to reproduction, opting to spread their young in every possible organic material available. It led to some interesting threats, but nothing as dangerous a fully actualize, self aware, and thinking individual.

The Headmaster went pale. “Husks? Here on the campus? The shields-”

Damien countered the Headmaster’s line of thought, “The shields keep demons out just as much as they keep demons in. When we did the install, we were told that the site had been blessed and cleansed. We have copies of the documentation that the Academy provided.”

“Legal matters aside,” Dezmond brushed away the blame game, “we have positive confirmation of husk creation.”

“Constructs too,” Astral added.

Dezmond stared. She couldn’t tell if he wanted her to keep quiet. Every time she opened her mouth, it added a new layer of problems to their mission. Should they fail to keep the danger hidden, the reputation of everyone involved was at risk. A long pause shuffled sheepishly between them, before he nodded. His pale gaze stared off into the distance. “Constructs are still dispatchable with low skilled Hunters. I hesitate to ask, but it must be addressed, are we dealing with multiple demons?”

Astral shrugged. “From what I can tell, the constructs haven’t fed. It might be a good sign in that our demon lord is a gluttony class demon. But that doesn’t mean he won’t shift to virtues if the battle allows it.”

“I’m not following,” the Headmaster muttered.

“Too much shop talk,” Avery smiled. “I don’t get that part of it myself. I’m more of a tell me where to aim, kind of girl.” She winked.

Avery and people like her were good at what they did. They took pride in their training, their efficiency, and in their execution. Their fault lay in their inability to consider their enemy as an abstraction, as an evolving, and learning creature.

The E.M.I. operated on the intelligence that had gained tangible results…most of the time. Now, they refuse to deviate from what they knew. They were going to get themselves killed against an enemy like this one.

"Have you noticed an uptick in the pattern of disappearing players?" Damien asked.

Avery glanced to Astral who shrugged. “We’re looking into it,” Avery said. “But all I can really say for sure is that on average three students go missing every three months. Some times all at once, some times sprinkled unevenly across the months, but always three. Kid, is there any significance to that?”

It was odd to have Avery ask for a higher meaning of random acts. “Well…,” Astral considered for a moment, “There are quite a few holy numbers. One, three, and seven come to mind immediately.” These numbers also played a heavy role in magic. “Mostly for that sort of thing, patterns will not deviate from numbers that are divisible by three or seven, so it’s easy to give significance to a number such as twenty-one when it’s really about the combination of the three and seven.”

Dezmond arched a brow. He wasn’t the kind of sorcerer who used math in his magic. He didn’t need to. But if he believed that if he performed a ritual on the twenty-first of the month due to the significance of the numbers involved, it would impact his spell casting. Astral was the kind of magic user who used s combination of math, alchemy, and chemistry to figure out her spells ahead of time. She knew which of her spells drew on resources, and which required an energy conversion matrix. Numbers were important to her, but only in the sense that she knew that people gave those numbers special significance.

"So…we should keep an eye out for a sudden spike,” Avery said.

Astral wasn’t sure, and gestured as such. Answering one way or the other was complicated. An uptick might indicate a supernatural belief system, but it also might mean that the demon was preparing to ascend, which they also knew to be true.

“It’s a good idea to keep an eye out regardless of higher significance,” Dezmond offered. “We cannot afford to lose anymore students, especially if they’re being converted to husks.”

The Headmaster nodded in agreement. Good! He was still onboard.

“In the vein of missing students, and why I’m asking about numbers,” Avery continued, “is that there is pattern of missing players in the last game. For the most part, with winning jock kids being assholes and abandoning the losing team to basically walk home really didn’t spring any alarm bells. I mean, my squads have done similar things in training without a second thought. It’s not a malicious thing, just a kind of ‘survival of the fittest’ kind of creed.

“That was at first! Up until we learned that none of the abandoned players came back. Ever. I mean some did. But the missing numbers are high. Nine for most cases, twelve in a few. Seven in a few others. Always the same numbers. Never three, with the exception of the last finals. But given what we know, that Seth kid interfered big time.”

Astral nodded. Numbers were significant to this demon. She glanced about he room. Three chairs. Seven plants. Three paintings. Twelve tall window panes. She shook her head and chuckled. Dezmond watched her with mild interest as she took in the view of the Academy, counting the individual districts, the rings, even the school of study, all divisible by three. ‘Be careful not to exclude possibilities just because it doesn’t fit the narrative. The illusion might be a trapping in of itself,’ her core warned. A red herring to place importance on the insignificant. Hide the truth with piles of distraction.

She needed to hold on to one truth: this place was built to for the practice of Ascension.

Avery continued with her report, “Their grades get filed. They graduate. They even get train tickets home. But when you look at the video feeds…nothing. They don’t board. They don’t go to their dorms. Hell, it’s not even them buying the tickets. Granted, we know that the ticket thing is an automated process for all registered students, basically, making sure they get hell out at the end of term.”

“Our fees include travel expenses to and from the Academy to the home address on their file,” the Headmaster volunteered. “On a few occasions’ students will purchase new tickets to head else where, but they purchase those new tickets.”

“My point is, the system registers that these missing students USED their tickets,” Avery said.