Alice had always considered herself more a cat kind of lady. Puppies were cute and all, but the kittens of the world always spoke to her inner child. And they were vastly more adorable. But even with that fact...

"Where the hell did all these cats come from?" she shouted seeing the army of felines roaming through the streets of Angelas.

Meows echoed from all around. They were climbing over buildings. Sitting on cars. Rummaging through garbage cans. Some were even lounging in the middle of the road, heedless of the cars honking at them. And it wasn't just one large group. The thousands of meows practically drowned out the many confused voices of Angelas citizenry. No matter how much they tried to shoo them away, they hardly reacted beyond the occasional hiss or leaping to ledges out of normal people's reach.

"Son of a-" Alice shook her head. "Forget the PIB. We're gonna need a swat team or something. Animal control. Eric, you think-"

Her jaw fell as the mage whipped out a pistol, training it on the field of cats.

"Hey! What the f-"

The blast echoed across the street, more than loud enough to draw the attention of several civilians. Alice immediately grabbed the idiot and pulled him through the nearest ally, shoving him against a wall.

"Are you friggin' insane?" she shouted. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I was getting confirmation," he said.

"On what? That bullets work on cats, you psycho?"

"That those cats aren't real."

She blinked. Eric gestured back to the streets, where Alice saw people looking around for the shooter. And the many cats still lounging about.

"A normal cat would run at the sound of a gunshot, wouldn't it?" Eric asked. "It seemed the easiest litmus test. Even the laziest cat would recognize a perceived threat."

Alice looked from the streets to him. The mage pushed her away, finally holstering his pistol to point in the direction he fired.

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"See," he said. "I shot those cats with holy-tipped rounds. Hardly lethal, but strong enough to incapacitate most threats. So why are none of those cats harmed? Why are they still lounging on the car?"

She groaned. It was true that not one of the cats looked injured by his random shoot-out. Even a demon would flinch if it took a bullet like that. But the cats continued to meow and groom themselves, ignoring the voices around them and any danger they were in. It was as clear an indication as any that they weren't dealing with an actual horde of cats. Or any physical imitation, for that matter.

An illusion.

"Alright, I see your point," Alice said. "But don't ever just fire out in a crowd like that, rookie. We're supposed to be in the shadows, remember."

"I do. Though in my defense, I am slightly intoxicated at the moment."

She just looked at him. Now that he mentioned it, his face was a tad red, though he showed no other hints of being drunk otherwise. How many shots had he taken, again?

"Right," she said.

Putting her drunken partner aside, Alice looked back to the illusionary cats. Thinking about it, seeing illusions at all put whatever they were dealing with from garden-variety monster into the lesser demon camp.

Of all the creatures they hunted, rookies like them tended to stick to beasts of the lower holy variety. Sapient monsters, mutated experiments, the occasional occult nut job. They were fair game for a rookie. Level X bottom-of-the-barrel garbage. But a lesser demon. That was Level Y. Akin to hunting a leprechaun or a phantom. Something that she knew for a fact Uncle Brown wouldn't have approved of her hunting if he'd known about it. Which could only have meant...

A wide grin spread across her lips.

"Eric," she asked. "You're not too drunk to go demon hunting, are you?"

Considering it was technically breaking protocol, she expected the mage to put up some kind of resistance. Instead, he smiled back.

"I'd actually enjoy the challenge, Morino."

He pulled out his gun, switching out the magazine for what she could only assume was something more powerful. Hopefully enough to put whatever made the feline illusions down in one shot. Or two. Save the second so she could get a good lick in.

It's no hellspawn, but anything's better than rookie crap.

Though saying that, she knew Felissa would pitch a fit if they weren't careful. She'd said it herself. She was on thin ice with the PIB for not taking her career seriously. But because they'd been assigned the mission, they had a built-in alibi. Should questions arise about their demon hunting, they could always play it off as them simply investigating like they'd been told to. The fact that they'd end up fighting a lesser demon would be an unforeseen consequence. They were just rookies, after all.

She pulled out her bat, the charm radiating with holy light. It was as good a radar as any. The closer they got to creatures of the dark, the more it would burn with holy. All they had to do was follow the trail. Alice nodded to herself.

"C'mon," she said, moving ahead. "Let's go hunt us a demon."