Sun Never Sets 2: Fires of Friendship

"In a time long since passed, in an age of chaos when demons ruled the mortal realm, humanity's hope was carried in a demon called Daybreaker, The Legendary Platinum Knight. Born of human blood, she used her demonic powers to rid the world of evil- monsters both mortal and immaterial. With an inextinguishable light within her and a magical sword bearing her own name, she destroyed the Lord of Chaos and severed the bridge between the mortal and demonic realms, and was thus known as The Sister of Light- The Guardian of the World."

"Millenia later, in the present day, her legend is continued by her strongest disciple:The Demon Slayer, Sunset!"

[Canterlot City]
[Friday, 9:00pm]

Ring, ring!

In a well lit, quiet storefront in Canterlot City's inner city's area, a phone rang.

Ring, ring!

It was quickly answered by the store's owner. She responded to the greeting quickly, a casual yet matured tone to her voice.

"Sorry, we closed at nine tonight. We'll be open again on Monday."

The owner waited a moment, patiently awaiting one of two outcomes. There would either be an apology, a goodnight, and a quick hangup, or...

"Oh, Monday, got it. Sorry about that! Have a nice night."

The owner shrugged, and set the phone back on the receiver. She stood up from her desk at the back of the room and raised her arms above her head, exhaling as she stood on her toes and stretched her body out. On the way back down, she ran her hands through her shoulder length cut of red-and-gold streaked hair, and then rested them on her hips, framed just between her blue jeans and her black t-shirt.

"Oh well," She said to herself. "Looks like I've got a quiet night ahead of me."

It had been a long, slow day of off and on business. Sun Never Sets was an all-in-one repair and magical pawn shop, and its proprietor bought, sold and took on just about any job. Today, it'd mostly been a few sales of some mundanely enchanted necklaces, and a quick fix on a motorcycle ignition cylinder. Nothing wrong with the bike itself, just some messed up grooves on the inside of the locking mechanism. More of a job for a locksmith than a mechanic, but she took her best shot at whatever jobs she was given.

A light hanging from a ceiling fixture illuminated her shop—just a wide room at the front of her building—allowing her to comfortably take stock and mentally prepare for the task of tidying it all up. Three sets of glass displays in the center of the room had been smudged up with fingerprints on top and along the sides, slight but noticeable obstructions to the wide range of interesting trinkets and gaudy valuables inside. The bookshelves looked alright, very few people came to her for something to read, but the couch running along one wall had been bumped from its place somehow, misaligning it with the coffee table in front of it.

She sighed. She got all this stuff to make a more comfy atmosphere for her for possible customers, and here they were, making themselves at home.

The hardwood floors were pretty dirtied up as well, that was going to need a sweep-up. She might even take a mop to it tomorrow.

Along the back wall was a weapons rack- enchanted hatchets, cursed muskets, a small handful of exotic weapons hung there. In the middle of this rack was a quite sizable yet plain looking greatsword, a well worn yet cared for centerpiece of the weapon collection. However, a small note beneath it read "NO OFFERS.", indicating that it was not part of its surroundings.This was a special piece, one the owner was not willing to part with. But, none of the other weapons had been sold today, so she wouldn't have to worry about reorganizing the rack over the weekend.

She made a mental to-do list as she paced across the floor of her shop. Put the couch back, wipe down the displays, sweep the floor, maybe dust off the bookshelves too... What else was there?

Oh, right, the trash!

Near the door, she had a properly sized trash bin that caught all sorts of junk from people coming in and out. Most nights she didn't actually have to worry about it—rarely did one day's worth of business leave anything more in there than a few scraps of paper or candy wrappers, but by the end of the week it'd be full, and tonight it was.

Yeah, that wouldn't be a problem. She'd do the trash last after everything else was cleaned up.

She ducked away through the doorway in the back of the room, into her living area behind her storefront. From here, around the corner, was her kitchen area, and from it she retrieved a broom and some cleaning wipes.

The couch was easy enough to set back, just a quick lift and slide, and she was able to quickly identify and wipe down each of the problem spots on her glass displays. Tossing her first one in the trash, she took another wipe to the bookshelves beside the displays, leaving all visible surfaces sparkling clean.

Now for the floor. Her broom was an old wooden handled thing with long wiry bristles on the end of it. It didn't come with a dustpan, but she had one behind her desk. With quick, coordinated sweeps and swipes she made her way from one corner of the floor to the other, collecting all of the dust and dirt into a neat little pile before knocking it into the dustpan she'd set up in a matter of minutes. Then, lifting the dustpan, she emptied it over the top of her filled trash can, smiling to herself as she looked over a now clean floor.

This was her average night for the past few years. Unless she got a special call, she'd keep things clean and running here at home.

She looked down into her trash can again. Honestly, she was surprised at how useful a tall can like this one was. She just had a small store, but there sure was a lot of trash coming in and out. There seemed to be some room in it still though. Maybe she'd toss the trash from her kitchen in here too, take it all out in one trip. Yeah, that sounded good.

She turned to head back to her kitchen, but out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw something through her front window. Across the street, near a payphone, a figure was just standing there. Were they using the phone? Who even used payphones these days anyway?

She didn't give it too much thought, she just pulled the curtains closed on both of the windows. Nothing to worry about. Out with the trash, then. Her smaller kitchen trash bag went into the larger one from the store, and after tying it shut she threw it over her shoulder and headed through the back door.

She kept the broom with her, she used it to hold open the lid of the big dumpster out in the back alley. There was a single, blueish light out here, the only source of light in the darkness between her building and the neighboring one. Not much of the sky was visible, both buildings were two stories, and the surrounding streets were mostly quiet, save for the distant sound of a motor running somewhere.

Come to think of it, the motor sounded like it was getting closer.

Yeah, louder and closer.

VROOOM!

All that was initially visible when she turned around was a bright beam of light, roughly centered with her stomach, illuminating the entire alleyway and growing closer at an alarming rate.

"What the-"

The bright light quickly heralded a sleek blue motorbike ripping through the back alley, its rider helmetless and wearing a black leather biker jacket, a short, dark purple crop top, and slick leather pants. She had long, flowing locks of deep indigo hair that blew back into straight bangs against the top of her face, with a streak of silver and pink running up just left of her center. Over her eyes were a pair of slim, violet tinted sunglasses that matched both her hair and her top, and padded braces adorned each of her forearms, with tall, thick boots accompanying each foot, completing the all biker-leather getup.

The striking note about her outfit was that of what appeared to be a hardened pauldron over just one shoulder, marked with some kind of unearthly symbol, two five pointed stars layered atop each other, one red and one purple. All together, she looked to be some sort of road warrior slash warlock combo. This was the typical kind of weirdo the shop owner expected to pawn off a cursed pinky ring on her or something of the sort.

The woman on the bike seemed to be in a controlled frenzy, breathing heavily but also razor focused, and she looked at the shop owner with both exhaustion and purpose.

"Whoa, slow down there!" The shop owner held up a hand to tone down what seemed like an unreasonably tense moment. "What's... uh... What's up?"

"Are you Sunset Shimmer? The disciple of the Legendary Platinum Knight? The demon called Daybreaker?" The biker woman spoke quickly and clearly, as if something might suddenly erupt any moment.

"Uh. That's me, hello." The shop owner nodded her head. Sunset Shimmer was her name, and she was quite confused at this woman's random and spectacular introduction. "Who are you?"

"Someone with a demon problem."

"I have a phone number you can call for that."

"No time."

Immediately after she spoke there was a distorted gurgling sound followed by a shifting of reality- something was cutting through the air behind Sunset and she couldn't quite see what until she turned around and-

SWISH!

A pair of long, scythelike talons were falling directly atop Sunset's head as she looked behind her. Each talon was attached to a limb of a murky brown and blood red monster standing just as tall her and with two more bladed limbs supporting its weight on the ground. Four in total, there was a strange, stitchedness about this creature, as if it had been torn apart from other beasts and hastily sewn back together, as was evident but its head being wrapped in pitch black scars. A toothless mouth opened wide, and its eyes seemed to be wholly missing from its sockets. How it could detect her, she didn't know, but she only had a fraction of a second to get out of the way before its talon sliced her up like a cheap sandwich.

A fraction of a second was more than enough time.

Without dropping the trash bag or the broom Sunset bent her knees, dropping to a squat and immediately extending her leg in the demon's direction. Her steel toed boot kicked end first into the thing's knees, toppling it over as it committed to its downward swipe. Sunset herself kept herself inches from the talon tip as she moved, just barely clearing it to bring her knee up into the monster's jaw. The impact rocked the demon backwards, and it promptly took a moderately hefty bag of garbage to the chest as Sunset heaved it over her shoulder and let it loose. The bag bounced upwards, and the demon fell to the floor.

Another demon of the same type leapt from the shadows behind the first, pressing off the side wall of the alley for extra height as it dove in for a spinning slice with all four of its sharpened appendages. It flew towards her like a razor edged frisbee, but Sunset nimbly slid beneath the creature and thrust the handle of her broom up into its core to hitchhike off of its angular momentum. As the wooden rod made contact Sunset pulled, spinning herself up and around, and the demon around and down, slamming it forcefully back into the wall it launched from.

A third of these blade limbed creatures barreled down the alleyway, flipping off of its forelegs and driving itself into a dropkick in Sunset's direction. Just recovering from slamming the second aside, Sunset planted her feet and brought the broom around in a wide vertical arc, cutting off the third monster's kick and bouncing it down against the floor. She followed up with another twirling upward swing, striking the demon so hard the resulting shockwave caused the lids of the adjacent dumpster to flap open with the impact, and then launching the monster up into the air where it collided with the still airborne trash bag.

The second demon cartwheeled back to its feet, but Sunset struck it square in the mouth with the rounded end of her broomhandle, jumped into a cartwheel of her own, and slammed down on the strange stitched beast just so that it rubber banded back up off the ground to her level. Sunset's foot met its face, and she kicked off, launching herself up into the air to meet the demon she'd sent flying a moment ago. She collided with it broom-first, stopping its momentum as she hit it once, twice, three times with aerial strikes, and then launched it back down to the earth with a fourth.

A loud, metallic crash followed as the demon hurtled directly into the dumpster, and following it Sunset tossed the trash bag in after it.

The two demons still on the ground had a moment of panic, looking at each other as their confidence lapsed and Sunset descended on them with a cleaning implement and a smile on her face. She dug both her heels into the first as she landed, and then parried a sloppy swipe from the second off of her broom, only to counter with another full vertical twirl of weapon, this time throttling it into a high rev spin that propped the demon back up into the air.

Sunset then took the leg of the one beneath her and slung it hard over her shoulder, smacking the falling demon and sending both of them directly into the trash with the first.

With the end of her broomhandle, Sunset then pulled the dumpster lid shut. Monsters like these were no problem for a veteran demon slayer.

"Okay, that's the trash dealt with. Now, what did you-"

She turned back around to the mysterious motorcycle riding stranger, but the first thing she saw was a black blur of a boot twirling directly at her at lightning speed. Sunset's surprise only registered for a moment before she was knocked flat back against the hard wall of her shop. The mysterious woman had jumped from her ride and launched a spinning kick right into Sunset's chin, and was now transferring that aerial momentum into a flying punch.

Still stunned and quite confused as to what was happening, Sunset ate both of her assailant's hands in rapid succession. One punch bruised her cheek and bloodied her nose, a second cracked the wall as her head slammed against it, and the third took a chunk out of the wall entirely. The woman then spun again, her leg springing up and around into a roundhouse kick that completely crushed the solid wall behind Sunset and sent her spiraling back into the floor of her shop.

Sunset pressed down on the floor as she rose to her knees, caught and shaking her head clear. She wiped the blood from her lip, staring at her now red-coated hand in confusion. Her bleeding had quickly stopped thanks to her demonic physiology, but this woman she was fighting had to be quite strong to forcibly clear her sinuses with just her bare hands. And then knock her through her own wall.

Her own wall, that was now scattered on her just-swept floor.

"Ugh... Come on!" She glanced back through the new hole in her wall, only showing a slight annoyance as also noticed her couch was again displaced in addition to the collapsed wall on her clean hardwood. The pain of the beating she'd just received didn't at all seem to phase her. "I just got done cleaning up here!"

The woman attacking Sunset took slow strides through the hole in the wall, her eyes obscured by her sunglasses but still laser focused on her target as her head shook disapprovingly. Her lips held a judgemental smirk as she spoke in almost shocked disdain.

"Are you truly this city's legendary protector? I thought Sunset Shimmer could handle herself in a fight."

Sunset didn't respond. The woman paced around the interior of the shop, her eyes shifting to the greatsword framed behind the glass counters. A few steps and it was within her reach, but as her hand closed around the handle Sunset finally raised her voice.

"Hey! Read the sign. That one's not for sale."

Sunset stood, one arm flicking upward and flourishing her broom into several stylish spins, wielding it again as a weapon to properly face off against her mysterious attacker. Her eyes narrowed as she met the biker woman's eyes through her shades, waiting for her to make the first strike.

There was a strange light behind the woman's glasses, a flash of purple energy that corresponded with her lifting Sunset's blade to attack. Without another word, the woman charged forward, leaping over the counter and swinging the sword toward its owner.

Sunset showed no surprise, however. In response, a red glow from within her was given in response and she moved out of the way just before the greatsword made impact, her dodge so fast and so blurred she seemed to move right through the metal of the weapon's blade. Now to the side of her attacker, Sunset swung her broom around at neck level, dropping the woman to the floor and twirling her weapon around for a follow up.

The woman moved in kind, however. Her legs kicked out as she was grounded, tripping up Sunset mid attack and bringing her to the ground as well. The woman rolled up to her feet, and then immediately thrust the greatsword down into Sunset's chest. Sunset cried out as the metal pierced her, struggling as she was pinned to the floor.

"I was told that Sunset Shimmer was a powerful demon slaying warrior. That she was the true inheritor of Daybreaker's legacy." The woman turned back toward the hole in the wall as Sunset again silently lay on the floor. "I wasn't expecting someone who could barely stand up to a real threat."

Next thing Sunset knew, the woman was back to her motorcycle, but she wasn't getting on it to leave. Instead, she leaned the bike forward and slung it hard over her shoulder, the whole machine creaking as it was heaved through the air by another shocking feat of strength from what seemed to be an ordinary human woman. But at this point, it was no surprise to the demon slayer. Every move her opponent made was leading Sunset all the closer to having her figured out, and Sunset now knew she shouldn't be holding back.

"Stand up, you say?" Sunset laughed darkly, a challenging look suddenly spreading across her face. "I can do that."

Bracing all four limbs on the floor, Sunset burst up from the ground to a perfect stop on both feet (with the sword still sticking through her chest) and reached out for the motorbike spinning right for her. Her arms pulled in, twisting herself around the two-wheeled machine so that she flipped in the air over the handlebars and it landed both tires perfectly on the ground beneath her without damaging it or her surroundings, then landed perfectly atop it. Both heels balancing on its seat, Sunset dropped to her knees and reached back into her pants waistband beneath her t-shirt, drawing out a pair of twin silvery pistols tucked within. Each had oversized barrels and delicate engravings along the grips and receivers, clearly custom made one-of-a-kind pieces.

Today and Tomorrow: The names were etched into their respective slides, Sunset's go-to weapons for precise and rapid firepower. They featured enchanted bottomless magazines and fired rounds powerful enough to make the biggest and baddest of devils cry in agony. They twirled twice each before coming up to Sunset's eye level, a proud glint in her eye as she put both sights on her leather clad attacker.

"Let's get to work then, shall we?"

She pulled her triggers one after the other, rapidly sending a flurry of hot lead downrange.

Quickly recovering from her bike throw, the woman's hands rose, fingers curling and extending outward as strange magics began to fog up around them. Around the both of them the air suddenly snapped to a frigid chill, and a domed ice barrier formed right before her as Sunset let loose her volley of fire. The bullets dug deep into the barrier but didn't penetrate it, the sudden drop in temperature notably sapping their energy as they screamed out of Sunset's barrels.

Legs coiling for a moment, then Sunset sprung from atop the bike and drove her heel into the ice shield. With her entire body smashing against the mass she was able to crack and shatter the dome instantly, but the woman behind it quickly followed up with another strike of magic. Her hands and forearms sparked violently with a cobalt lightning, and she sped into a turbocharged dash that broke off into a flurry of punches in the oncoming Sunset's direction.

Even with the greatsword still stuck through her, the woman's arcane assault wasn't a problem for Sunset. The demon hunter's forearms rose as a red magic of her own charged up within and around her, enabling her to easily deflect each of the woman's blows with perfect and precise timing. The woman's combo was capped off by a lightning blast fired from both wrists, a crackling stream strong enough to push Sunset back into the middle of her shop floor even as she held up her perfectly timed blocking technique.

Now back on the offensive, the woman's body again ignited with magic, this time a fiery trail following her limbs as she cast a volley of three small fireballs from her palms. Sunset easily lined up her sights on each one, but she quickly realized that shooting them with her pistols did nothing to disrupt them. Even with her precise aim, her bullets just melted on contact with the flaming projectiles.

She instead had to duck and weave as the fireballs came in, but even then, she saw the woman raise her arms again to continue casting her spells. Instead of shooting more fireballs, the ones that streaked past Sunset stopped in their tracks, floated in mid air for a moment, and then zipped back in her direction with the same velocity. Again and again, they were simply redirected to keep chasing after their target. Dodging wouldn't work forever, she needed to get rid of these things...

Putting her guns away, Sunset arched her back and touched the floor as a fireball passed over her, then put her free hand on the hilt of the sword still sticking through her. With a mighty heave, she yanked the weapon out of her, adding a splattering of blood to the accumulating mess on her floor, but with not a single ounce of pain or hesitation she righted herself and prepared to wield the mighty weapon in both hands.

Corona's Edge: It was a large yet unassuming greatsword, the personal sword of Sunset's mentor, wielded by her long ago and eventually passed on to Sunset herself. While regarded by most as nothing but an uninteresting slab of barely enchanted demon steel, it was quite special to the demon slayer, a memento from the one who came before her; Sunset held it like a million dollars. She was proud of it, she had it as a central display of her shop, and the only way anyone was getting it from her was if they were getting it from her blade-first.

With just as much expertise as she handled her guns, Sunset twirled her sword about her, carefully yet hurriedly slicing through each of the fireballs still harassing her. Except they didn't burst or break away on impact, the fireballs instead stuck to the blade of her sword. Its edge seemed to want to suck up the magic contained within the flames, but before that could happen Sunset twirled in a full rotation and flung the heated orbs back at their controller.

The woman's lips curled as she panicked and dove down, getting caught and thrown forward by the explosion in the alley behind her. She rolled forward and came to a feeble and ungraceful stop flat on her butt, only able to straighten her back out for a moment to see Sunset's greatsword dropping down on her.

Summoning what was left of her magic she rose her hands in defense over her head, a purple glow appearing around both her hands and the blade of Sunset's weapon as they both suddenly became rigid and unable to move. A basic kinetic magic was all the woman could muster, pushing against Sunset's strength with no particular elemental flavor and quickly losing.

"This power... Incredible..." The woman wavered, clearly unable to keep up with the Legendary Demon Slayer. All of that, and the hole in her chest had closed itself up and any remaining bruising on her face had faded. "You really are her, aren't you?"

Sunset pulled her sword away, instead drawing one of her pistols to raise a threat in its place. The woman's arms still hovered protectively over her head, she bravely looked up into Sunset's controlled glare of anger. There was nothing else she could say. She was rendered speechless.

"Ever since I was a little girl I had demon powers," Sunset said, as if to correct the woman's previous claims of her weakness. "Being half-human and half-demon makes you tough, but the problem is that creeps like you just never leave me and my friends alone. That's why I do this demon hunting thing."

Slowly, threateningly, Sunset closed what little distance between her and the woman were left, until the finest detail of Sunset's gun muzzle was clearly visible to her downed foe.

"But I don't kill humans. I don't even like to hurt them," Sunset said. "That's why I let you beat on me there for a minute. But you're not human, are you? You only look like a human."

The woman closed her eyes. Sunset was correct and the acknowledgement from the woman cause a dangerous smile to spread across her face.

"I've met some strong humans before—even humans with magic like yours—but no human calls my mentor Daybreaker. Only demons know that name." Sunset let her sword arm relax, and she slung the great weapon across her back. By some anomalous property of the weapon, it hovered in place perfectly flat behind her, leaving her hands free to draw her pistols again and level them with the fallen demon woman before her. "You're not the first to show up. And you're not going to be the last. I'll keep cutting you down until your boss is all out of goons to send and has to face me one on one. And then..."

Sunset clicked her tongue against her cheek and mimicked the action of firing her gun.

"Goodnight."

The woman was silent for only a few more moments. "You're right about one thing. I am from the underworld."

"I appreciate the honesty." Sunset's expression did not change. "Now, I'm going to give you two choices. One, I put you to sleep for good right here. Or two, you can go back to whoever sent you and tell him that if he wants me, he can walk his sorry can through my doors during business hours."

Her off hand reached for something in her back pocket, and between her two smallest fingers, still holding her other gun, Sunset flicked a flimsy paper rectangle in the woman's direction.

"There's my card."

"I..." The woman looked down, picked up the card adorned with the elegant cursive logo of Sun Never Sets, and then looked back with a newfound sense of seriousness on her face. "I'm not your enemy, Sunset Shimmer."

Sunset did not let her gun drift away from the woman, but she did hesitate. "Uhm. I'm going to have a hard time believing that."

"Those demons that followed me here wanted to kill you," the woman explained, "but I came here on my own accord, because I needed to be sure you were as strong as I've heard."

"Yeah, right." Sunset smirked. "Because I bet you just love getting slapped around like that."

The woman took this pause in the action to stand, but she walked back away towards the hole she made in the wall.

"In truth, I came to ask you for help."

"A demon trying to hire a demon hunter, huh? That's rich." Sunset let a smile come through, if only for a moment of disbelief.

"A long time ago your master defeated the ruler of the underworld and separated the world of mortals from the world of demons. That ruler swore revenge, and now plans to take over the mortal realm..."

Sunset's shoulders fell, and she lifted her chin in amusement. "Oh, come on. The ruler of the underworld was beaten five years ago. She tried to come back, and she was taken care of. Where have you been?"

"Not the Sister of Darkness. I'm talking about the Lord of Chaos- the original ruler of the underworld before Daybreaker and her sister removed him from his throne. Those five years ago, he was somehow resurrected, and since then he's been gathering power. He's planning his return at his old castle, past the town of Hollow Shades, overlooking it from the castle ruins atop Mt. Eclipse."

Sunset scoffed. She still wasn't sold on this whole thing. "Right. So why does a demon want to have a demon king deposed? Aren't you on his side?"

The woman's expression suddenly shifted into a scowl, as if she were genuinely hurt by the question. "Don't you know your own history?"

"Huh?"

"Not every demon is a monster, Sunset Shimmer." The woman stood fully now, glaring at Sunset as she finally lowered her weapon. Her hand rose to remove her sunglasses so that Sunset could look into her eyes and understand. "Daybreaker was a devil herself, one who could see the evil of the Lord of Chaos and the value of the human world. You are a devil who values the human world. And I..."

As the woman trailed off, Sunset did understand. This woman's demeanor was very familiar, the way she suddenly took such a principled stance over matters of morality. It was very much like Sunset's mentor. In a weird way, it was very much like Sunset herself. Those eyes carried a genuine spark of distress as she spoke, even if she was a demon, it seemed she really wanted better than to serve an evil ruler.

"You really came all this way to ask me for help?"

The woman nodded. "You're the only one that can stop him, Sunset. I would, but... I'm not strong like you are. Not strong enough to challenge the Lord of Chaos on my own."

A casual shrug rolled through Sunset's shoulders. "I dunno, you punched me through a wall and threw a motorcycle at me. You seem pretty strong to me."

"Oh, sorry about that- I..." The woman's demeanor changed quite sharply as she realized the collateral damage she'd caused to Sunset's shop. "I can fix that!"

A purple glow again surrounded the woman's hands and the image of two strange glyphs was burned into the air just before her palms. The arcane light enveloped the crumbled bits of wall scattered on the floor, building for a few moments before the material all reformed and compressed back into the wall gap. With her kinetic magic, she did her best to reconstruct the wall she so hastily broke down. In a little under a minute, it was mostly restored to the way it was, with only a very light scarring where the broken gap once was.

"That's about as good as I can do... almost like new, I think."

It was weird. A moment ago this stranger was beating Sunset into the ground, but now she seemed super nervous, wringing her hands together as she frowned apologetically. Now she was showing some self awareness?

"Thanks, I guess," Sunset wasn't sure how to handle her now. If this woman was telling the truth, Sunset finally had an opportunity to get vengeance. She had a score to settle with the infernal depths, a hell to pay in the literal sense. But until now there was little she could do about it outside of taking on every demon hunting job she could in hopes it would lead her to the types of devils responsible for her inner pain. So that she could destroy them, and in some way let her pain start to heal. "And about your job: I'm in."

"Really? Just like that?" The woman was taken aback. She half expected Sunset to turn her down after the entire battle that just went down, but there was something about the way Sunset's eyes shifted when they met hers that made the famed demon hunter look... almost sad.

"The underworld took away someone very important to me five years ago. She was my best friend, and when I lost her, it was..." There was a painful exhale following the recounting. Sunset's hands shook gently around the grips of her pistols and she did not finish her sentence. "If you're telling me we can keep that from happening to anyone else, that we can put an end to the evil of the underworld, then yeah. Just like that. Tell me everything I need to know about this job."

"Okay." The woman blinked and let out a breath. This was happening, it would appear her trip here had been a success. "Where should I start?"

"How about your name?"