The group returned to the Infirmary.

  The first order of business was their Containers. Aida gently tapped Cherie’s head. The green monster trembled, and then its back arched up. “Come on, baby, you can do it,” she said supportively, and voila, all six Containers, one by one, slipped out of the mess of quills on the peluda’s back.

  “Good job, Cherie!” Naomi cheered.

  Aida kissed her pet on the head, made a hand sign, and it disappeared in a puff of smoke.

  “So freaky,” AJ said, looking at her body sprawled on the ground. Somehow her glasses were still on. “So, how do I get back into my body?”

  “It’s a no-brainer, AJ! Watch me.” Yuri moved up to his Container and demonstrated. He did a spin for no reason and then dropped into his body. Only one Yuri remained afterward. He pushed himself up and displayed some spirited jazz hands. “Good as new.”

  Zeke walked up to his Container and jumped into the air, imagining launching off a diving board (something he had never done and didn’t plan on changing that fact), and reinserted himself into his physical form. He sat up and saw the others absorbing themselves into their Containers—AJ being the last to do it by lowering to her knees and slipping into her body like an aquaphobic trying to best themselves by dipping into a pool.

  Once everybody was back on their feet and reacquainted with being in their physical forms again, AJ asked, “So, we can enter the Netherworld in our physical forms?”

  With what he had read on the subject—courtesy of a book he found in the Library some time ago—Zeke offered himself to explain and started with, “The Heavenly and Netherworld Realms don’t function like other Realms, as in, they do not have a separate Astral Realm. They are, in a way, Astral Realms themselves. They are meant to reside in the astral form. So, when a being in a physical form enters Heaven or the Netherworld via a gateway: the universal stream, regular portals, or even just walking past a border, the physical Container is automatically converted into a state where the physical Container and astral form become one.”

  Yuri chimed in, “An added risk is that no Container would be left behind if one were to be killed while in this form. What happens next is unknown, just like with all other living things in spiritual form after they are killed.”

  Zeke was reminded of the next order of business when he spotted his medical bag on the stone floor—it was still in astral form. When it came to bringing objects to the Astral Realm, they followed the same principle as with Containers, converting into spiritual form, but did not leave a physical counterpart behind. Dragging items in and out of the Astral Realm was more of an exercise of concentration than power. The technique became laughably simple as soon as one got the hang of it.

  He walked over to his grandmother’s gift and pulled it back into the physical Realm by grabbing its handle. “Before we head out, let me get supplies,” he said, running off.

  Walking back into the Netherworld voluntarily with his group was a strange feeling.

  Zeke could imagine the souls trapped in the underworld cursing them out for their privilege and idiocy to enter the land of eternal punishment again.

  His medical bag was even more filled, with Mana bottles and medicine aimed towards soul purity—some were already in the dispensary, and others they had added over the months working as supernatural Healers.

  “I’m pretty sure we can’t just walk in there,” Zeke said as they strolled back to where they found AJ. “It’s most likely filled with an army of his demons, and we’re in their element now.”

  “With how much you guys reek of Tainted Generation energy with your Garbs and all, the whole place will go on high alert from the moment you step in the hospital,” Yuri said. “And with so many demons on us, we might not find the delivery room in time.”

  “We’ll keep ourselves from emanating our Garb’s energy then. No energy, no nothing,” Ugo said, waving his hand.

  They stopped and settled under the bizarre, twisty rock formation to continue their discussion.

  “But then you’ll just be humans stepping into the hospital, which can also cause an alert,” Yuri said. “Remember, some demons can even pick up the scent of a human. They’ll wonder why one that hasn’t been demonified yet is in the hospital.”

  Aida hopped over a puddle and approached Yuri. “So, what you’re saying is that we need to sneak in and stay hidden while we search for the delivery room,” she said. “We need to disguise ourselves as demons.”

  “Yes, what a wicked idea, huh?” Yuri said, chuckled, and then plopped himself down onto a rock.

  “Can’t Aida change our genes to match a demon’s?” AJ asked.

  Aida crouched and turned to sniff the puddle behind her. “If I did and changed our souls into that of a demon’s, it would be permanent since a spell like that would take a lot of Mana to perform, and changing us back would be near impossible,” she said, sniffing the rocks near her.

  “A demon’s soul can’t be unpurified,” Yuri added as he lifted a finger.

  Aida got back up—satisfied with her intake of sniffing a new environment. “Exactly, however…” she curled her lip to the side as her tail rose and wagged. “I can change our appearances to fit in without changing our genes.”

  “How?” Zeke asked.

  “I’m part-kitsune, remember?” she said, wiggling her fuzzy ears.

  “Rock on!” Yuri said, pumping his fist in the air. “So, you can enter people’s dreams, shapeshift, do illusions, and all that stuff?”

  “My illusionary skills aren’t all that impressive…” Aida admitted dejectedly. “But! A kitsune gift I’ve honed is shapeshifting and dealing with astral forms. Wade and I used to…” she trailed off as a pensive expression overtook her vulpine face.

  The group remained quiet and waited for her to resume. “Anyway!” Aida said, flickering something wet out of her eye with her pinky, and then sniffled. “It’s easier for me to change the appearance of astral forms, but with the mystical composition of the Netherworld, it’ll be like I’m doing that anyway, so I can make our skin and eyes more akin to that of a demon’s.”

  “We’d be pulling off the demon look,” Ugo said, rubbing his chin, “but we won’t be putting out demonic energy.”

  “Maybe I can help!” Naomi said, raising her hand. “If I suppress my angelic side and focus on the demonic side. I can coat you all in Black Magic energy. You’ll feel and even smell like demons.”

  “Wait, you can do that?”

  Naomi chuckled sweetly. “I have been practicing with my powers since you went to Zurich.” Then, she looked over at Zeke. “The demonic energy will envelop you and leave what is under intact—”

  “That’s a coating technique,” Aida said. “If you do that, it can help mask my kitsune magic.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been reading a lot more in the Library than we’ve noticed, huh, Naomi?” Zeke added.

  Naomi snickered. “I think I can do it, and your souls should be unaffected. Just give me a moment to…” She distanced herself and then hid behind a rock.

  “About the bit of our souls being unaffected. That’s not entirely true,” Yuri said. “Prolonged periods of being coated in Black Magic can cause purity levels to drop.”

  “Our souls’ purity is already dropping from just standing here,” Ugo mentioned as he spread his arms far apart.

  “Right,” Zeke agreed and then raised his medical bag. “That’s why we need to take as much soul-purity medicine as possible.”

  “You don’t need to give me medicine. I’m good!” Yuri said.

  “Okay.”

  Yuri’s face slowly darkened as he sat in silence. “You’re not even going to insist?” he asked, dejected.

  “You said you were good!”

  “As for our voices,” Aida said. “I’ll have to actually use my gene editing to change them. It’ll feel like a tickle.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?” Ugo said as his eyes narrowed.

  Yuri clapped his knees and stood up. “This sounds like one hell of a plan!”

  The gang stared at Yuri with vacant faces as he laughed at his own mediocre joke.

  A part of Zeke was hoping for him to turn out to be a traitor so that they could get rid of him. He shook the thought away and then got startled by everyone’s sudden shocked looks. “What?” he asked and touched his face. “Is there some demon bug on my face? My head? In my eye?”

  A dainty finger tapped his shoulder from behind. Zeke turned back, his heart gave him a jolt that forced him to leap a few feet away from the demon who snuck up on him.

  “Hi,” the demonified Naomi said, waving at him. She was thinner, although not as sickeningly thin as when she was sick, making her face more angular. A graying tone took over her complexion, and her blonde hair lost its brightness as her blue eyes were exchanged for glowing red ones. “With the Netherworld environment focusing on just my demon side was really easy.”

  Her pointy ears completed her new demonic look, and Zeke gaped back at her in horror. Now, all that he could feel from Naomi was a devilish aura.

  He waved back absently with a nervous smile on his face. “Hi,” he said.

  Naomi closed her eyes and pushed her brows together—Black Magic energy began to emanate from her rough, ugly hands.

  “Is everybody ready?” Aida asked as she made her hand sign, raising her index and middle finger and holding them close together.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Zeke and Ugo called off their Healer Garbs, and nodded along with AJ and Yuri.

  She pointed at each person in the group, except for Naomi, and orange imagery of their DNA structures was expelled from them. Aida made successive hand signs, editing their genes. It took some time. “Reminder, this may tickle… feel a bit weird. Brace yourselves,” she said as she finally finished and pushed the edited DNA back into them.

  ‘Weird’ was an understatement.

  Zeke and everybody else but Yuri dropped to their knees and groaned as they wrapped their hands around their necks.

  “Aida!” Naomi shouted, turning to the Geneticist.

  “If I told them it hurt, it would’ve been worse!” Aida said, raising her hands.

  “I knew you were lying!” Ugo said with a strained voice. “My dad’s a dentist. I’ve fallen victim to that tactic before!”

  Zeke curled up on the ground, squeezing his hold on his throat and shaking to the pain of his vocal cords being pulled and twisted. Then came a burn, like sandpaper was rubbing against them. He pushed a palm against the ground while the torture reached its end, and Naomi rushed to help him up.

  Aida raised her hands in a position where the tips of her middle fingers and thumbs were touching. “Now, just the kitsune magic. This time it really won’t hurt, I promise.”

  She did the spell before Ugo had the chance to call BS. A dark orange mist drifted away from her hands and breezed past the group.

  The transformation was alarmingly quick and, more importantly, painless, like promised.

  First, he saw Yuri, still with the same happy-go-lucky smile on his face, but his teeth were now misshapen and rotting. His forehead had demonic markings like tattoos, his complexion had become grayer, and his ears were pointy like an elf’s.

  Then, he looked over to a groaning Ugo as he got up. His face was now longer, like his even darker hair in contrast to his demon-blue eyes. He was feeling his pointy ears and the horns on his head.

  “How do you feel?” Zeke asked in his demonic, gravelly voice. He stepped back. “Whoa,” he said.

  Ugo took the opportunity to let out an evil laugh in his new devilish, echoey voice. “This is cool!” he said. “Wait!” He turned slightly away from everybody and pulled the waistband of his pants forward. He sighed after checking it and let go of the band, turning back to the group with a dejected look.

  Zeke read his mind and looked back in disappointment. “Did you… want it to transform, too?”

  “I mean… yeah,” Ugo said and shrugged.

  “Only incubi’s look different,” Aida added.

  Zeke removed himself from the conversation before it sank into even lower levels of degeneracy. He moved up to AJ as she got up and froze in place as he looked at her.

  “What?” she said, alarmed. Her voice was sinister and croaky as if she had a sore throat.

  AJ’s new supernatural form was sinisterly beautiful. The demonic markings on her face only added more to the beauty. Something about how her complexion grayed compared to the others was just different, even the way her pointy ears stuck out. They were jutting to the sides instead upwards. The elastic hair band that held her ponytail had snapped during the transformation, and now her lengthened, messy hair snaked down her shoulders. “Is there something wrong?” she asked while raising her brows, attracting attention to her shining dark golden eyes.

  “Um, nothing,” Zeke said and looked away.

  AJ looked down at her glasses on the ground and halted. “Whoa, wait, I can see—!”

  “I can’t,” Yuri said and laughed.

  “You don’t really need the glasses at all while in the Astral Realm or the Netherworld,” Zeke explained.

  Regarding clothing, theoretically, with a certain level of mental power, an individual could wear anything they wanted. Still, most, by default when crossing over to the Astral Realm, would always wear the garments they had on in the physical Realm—it was less of a burden on the mind.

  It’s why AJ’s glasses came along with her in the Astral Realm, but she didn’t need them.

  “Oh, wow…” AJ said as she looked around the otherworldly landscape.

  Zeke caught himself ogling at AJ and knocked it off once he noticed the others were observing him. He had gone through a notable transformation he didn’t notice yet. Horns were protruding out of his head, and he bore a grayed complexion like everybody else, but he had the most conspicuous red eyes with marks of the same color lined down his cheeks.

  “And now me,” Aida said as she directed her hand sign at herself. The transformation was swift, and she kept her beauty even with a slimmer and grayer face which was stained with veiny marks extending from below her eyelids. Her bangs slightly parted as the demon horns grew out from each side of her forehead, and her pointed ears jutted out from her thickened black hair.

  “Changing your voice didn’t hurt?” Ugo asked.

  “No,” Aida said in her husky voice. “Because I didn’t actually change it. It’s just an illusion. I can manage that much if it’s just for myself.”

  “Okay, now it’s my turn,” Naomi announced. “Please prepare yourselves.”

  The group braced themselves as Naomi stretched her hands forward and expelled the Black Magic energy onto them.

  The expulsion of energy went on for a while. It was like being attacked by a smoke cloud. Darkness filled Zeke’s vision as he bathed in the blackened power; once it was over, he blinked rapidly to adjust his eyes to see clearly again. He looked back at everybody else, and they were also blinking away the smoke in their eyes (except for Yuri, who was just laughing the entire time for some reason).

  Zeke turned on his heel hastily as a hellish energy surge put his senses on high alert, and then realized the output was coming from the group. For a second, he thought a demon army was approaching.

  He shared a smile with Naomi and gave her a thumbs up.

  Naomi rubbed her throat. “I should take on a more demonic voice,” she said as her voice got lower and ominous.

  “Quick!” Ugo said. “Someone give me something awesome to say,”

  “Oh!” Yuri responded in his new low voice. “Say… ‘let’s play a game.’”

  “Okay…” Ugo cleared his throat and put on a stern look as he said: “Let’s play a game.” He and Yuri burst into laughter as they approached each other.

  “Hey, check this out….” Yuri turned dead serious to say: “I’ll be back.” The two continued laughing.

  Ugo mimicked holding up a machine gun in his hand and twisted his face comically, sticking his lower lip out as he said in a thick, Cuban accent: “Say hello to my little friend…” and then he began to shoot his imaginary bullets. “Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta!”

  Zeke stepped toward them to interrupt the fun. “Where can we find the hospital?”

  “Quick geography lesson on the Netherworld,” Yuri said. “It is composed of many, many, many Realms that are found inside Circles.”

  “Yeah, I’ve read about that,” Zeke said, reminiscing another night of studying at the Infirmary’s library.

  “Neat, so you know that there are actually Five Circles. Right now, we’re in the Abaddon Realm in the First Circle: Maladorium. Abaddon is where you exit and enter the Netherworld. Right past the border of the Netherworld is the Realm of the Lost, home to lycans and vampires.”

  A rough “ugh” came out of Aida as her nose scrunched, and she snarled. “Lycans...” she said.

  “Our destination is the Second Circle: Avernus. In that Circle is a Realm called Gehenna, and that Realm is where the main hospital is.” Yuri said. “There is a Transportation Sigil to get there, but... hehe... funny thing about being blind... it made me suck at remembering all kinds of Transportation Sigils, and there’s not really a Braille version of those. Remembering hand signs is way easier for me. I guess you can say I cashed in all my memorization skill points into that.”

  “You can’t see sigils at all with your special way of seeing?” Ugo asked.

  Yuri shook his head. “I can see the outlines of things touched by Mana, but not things like sigils or magic circles.”

  “None of us have ever seen the hospital,” Aida said. “This is our first time in the Netherworld.”

  “No problem. I’ve prepared for this, too!” Yuri said, pulling out an absurdly long, thin vile from his pocket. “You all might want to take a step back.” They did as so, and he dumped its colorful liquid contents onto the ground. Yuri made several hand signs and then directed his hands at the liquid with open palms.

  A blue-green glow shone from his palms, and the liquid began to bubble and rise like batter in the oven.

  It began to shape and solidify before their very eyes, eventually becoming a blueish-mint-colored luxurious 8-seat SUV with a fantastical touch, somewhere between mystical and high-tech.

  “Wow, and I thought I’d seen it all,” Aida said.

  “With this, we can reach Gehenna in no time, rivaling the speed of using a Universal Stream, I promise,” Yuri said.

  Naomi slowly raised her pinky.

  “No, we don’t need to do that again,” Zeke said to Naomi, and she slowly lowered her pinky finger.

  “Remember. This is for the Tainted. No pulling energy from your Garbs, okay?” Yuri said.

  The trio of Tainted Generation members shared looks and then focused.

  Zeke pressed down his Garb’s energy, concealing it deep within him. While he did this, he felt Ugo’s and Aida’s Garb’s power dwindling away just like his until there was nothing.

  “Wonderful. Let’s get moving,” Yuri said while moving up to the driver’s seat. “Zeke, you sit up front with me. It’s quite comfortable inside. It even has a microwave!”

  “What does a car need a microwave for?” AJ asked as she approached the backseat door and opened it.

  “No, no, the question is, why wouldn’t it have a microwave?” Ugo answered and climbed in.

  “Exactly,” Yuri said, opening the car door. “If you can, then you should!”

  The vehicle’s interior was mystical, with everything radiating the same color as the SUV’s exterior. Zeke looked around, checking if everyone was there—the girls were together as Ugo was alone in a 3-seater behind them.

  Yuri pulled the gear stick back, alerting Zeke to strap on his seat belt and brace himself.

  He closed his eyes and hunched over with his hands on his head, waiting. After a couple of seconds, he cautiously opened his eyes, and nothing was happening. “Why haven’t we started moving yet?”

  “We are moving,” Yuri said while steering the vehicle.

  Zeke looked out the window, and everything was flashing past them. They were moving at near lightspeed.

  “Told you, it was comfortable,” Yuri said.

  “Oh, okay,” Zeke said and allowed himself to relax, which lasted for a whole second before he panicked again. “Wait, how are you driving? Oh, right, the Mana thing...”

  “Yes, Zeke, but actually, I’m not driving,” Yuri said and took his hands off the steering wheel. It continued moving on its own.

  “It’s a type of empty summon modified for transportation,” Aida said, “It’s called a mobile summon, creating a means of transportation without a soul but with the capability of taking the summoner to a destination and finding the best route possible.”

  The explanation had Zeke let out a small sigh. No matter how much information he crammed into his head about magic, there was always something new. Or even worse, maybe he did already read about it and simply forgot. He seriously needed to step up.

  “Oh, so it’s like magic self-driving AI,” Ugo said.

  “Hah! Yeah, I guess it is,” Yuri said. “Programming the destination you want the mobile summon to reach can be done orally or mentally. When there’s a location I want to reach is nearby, I risk using my way of seeing to steer.”

  Yuri’s finger reached for a button on the dashboard, and after a click, a TV screen lowered from the vehicle’s roof for the girls and Ugo behind them.

  And then, Yuri said one of the dumbest things Zeke had ever heard in his life, even though it was based on reality: “You can find a TV remote under your seats, and yes, I have Netflick.”

  “Yes!” Ugo cheered.

  Zeke blinked while staring at Yuri with a vacant expression. There he was inside a magical SUV that came from a vial on his way to a hospital in Hell as his friends, demonified, just like him, watched Netflick.

  The driver patted his pocket. “My summons stay in a liquified form stored in my vials. When they are in liquid form, they don’t waste my Mana. This way, I can have it reform with a spell that doesn’t waste as much Mana as a regular summon, and I don’t have to go through the hassles of drawing specific magic circles.”

  Like a responsible bus driver, Yuri made an announcement once the speedy journey reached its end. He killed the engine, and they all climbed out of the vehicle.

  As soon as Zeke’s feet touched the ground of Gehenna, he almost staggered over by the overwhelming conglomeration of Black Magic energy in the area.

  The rocky landscape they stood in had sinuous black and blue flames stretching into the sky, which was blanketed with dark clouds. Once again, Zeke noted the expected stench of sulfur was strangely lacking. The place reeked of smoke with a tinge of sickening sweetness and fruity undertones.

  Zeke looked back at Yuri as he executed his bizarre magic to melt the vehicle and got the liquid to swirl back into the thin vial. “Follow me. The hospital is just up ahead,” Yuri said as he marched forward.

  The gang followed the blind young man.

  Anderson’s Supernatural Medical Fun Facts: Purity-raising solutions are poisonous to demons.