“There's another one…”

  Jophiel scowls, a presence entering her psychic range.

  Stopping her training, her horn dims and several blocks of stone fall to the ground with a thud. She turns to the spot she knows where the human resides.

  She feels the malicious… thing encroaching closer to the fence, a swarm of bck, nasty probes of parasitic mental influence sent by… something, whether it's controlled by another entity or it itself is an entity… the mare doesn’t know.

  Like long, boney hands reaching out, stretching in a morbid efficiency, it reaches the boundary set up by her master.

  Maybe it's because of her own ck of expertise, but Jophiel is unable to directly see the strange aura of these “crosses”. But she's able to vaguely sense the boundary, a sort of general shape instead of a solid image.

  She doesn't like having these things so close, especially near Joshua, but she already knows what happens when something dares enter the “crosses” domain.

  The moment it gets too close, it's like a psychic bomb going off. A wordless, voiceless scream, and a gentle hum like a sturdy shield taking a hit.

  It's… strange, seeing it happen. With her eyes it's like nothing happened, the cross glowed a bit and that was it. But with her sight, it's almost beautiful in its brutality.

  The “cross” aura is like a gentle giant, Jophiel hopes she's used that phrase correctly.

  It's cool, consistent, and strangely… old.

  But when it moves, it moves.

  It's the equivalent of using a sledgehammer against a fly, but with the finesse of using a single toothpick. It doesn't hurt the thing, or damage it, it utterly destroys it. Complete destruction with no exceptions or fluctuations.

  Jophiel once picked up a memory Joshua repid in his mind once, a car crash. The same kind of brutal destruction that you can't seem to stop looking at. It's raw, but strangely addicting?

  But what interests her is the silence.

  While her psychic ability is amateur, she's still able to pick up on vague thoughts, emotions, and the such.

  Joshua is teetering on the tightrope between total mental breakdown and a primal resolve built on stubbornness and going with the flow of absurdity.

  The… what was the word Joshua used… Demon? Demon. The Demon is loud. Anger, mostly. Like a child throwing a tantrum, shing out at anything around it. It's pure unguided malicious hate trying to make others as spiteful and unstable as they are.

  Misery loves company. She'd believe that if not for Joshua's comment that Demons cannot feel love.

  The cross on the other hand?

  Quiet.

  Dead quiet.

  But it's also angry.

  Very angry.

  It gives her chills, thinking about being on the receiving end of such anger. It truly makes the Demon look pathetically small in comparison.

  It's a burning, righteous fury. One yered over and over and over again with a sense of unbearably hot feelings of absolute disgust towards the mere concept of this thing's existence. And it's not afraid, in fact it seems almost eager, to make that fact shown.

  And just as quickly it strikes out, it becomes silent again. No lingering presence or attachment, it just gets its job done and goes back to post like an old knight standing at attention.

  It's a bit shameful to admit as a psychic type pokemon, but she's been taking notes. If this can protect Joshua, then she can swallow her pride for as long as it takes.

  Jophiel takes a few steps forward, looking beyond the chain link and at the mass of something Joshua calls a Demon.

  Her horn ignites, and she broadcasts her will.

  “You have no dominion here, begone”

  The mass swirls, like it's curling up in pain. But its voice hisses through slitted tongues like a serpent.

  “You dare… bring the Fool's Light here? To our kingdom?...”

  Fool's Light…

  “You will get no closer to my partner and his home. Leave, while you can still speak”

  It snarls, violently shing out in all directions, as much as an incorporeal entity of shapeless will can do.

  But it never crosses the line.

  Jophiel can see.

  It's scared.

  But it's pride won't allow it.

  “Your days are numbered, interloper… you are not the first to step foot in our domain, and all before you have fallen. What makes you think your human will do any better?”

  Such btant manipution, she doesn't even need her psychic powers to see it.

  Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, she smiles and looks back up at the crosses posted along the fence.

  “You should already know the answer to that”

  “The Lamb has NO power here!” It snaps out.

  “Then take a step closer” She responds, amused.

  Using her hoof to gesture along the fence, she chuckles.

  She chuckles more seeing the thing not move an inch, just quietly seething to itself, it can't even respond to her because it knows what would happen.

  “C’mon. Prove it to me. Seems like he still has quite an impact here, no?”

  The thing shakes in anger, ready to explode.

  But it stills, and goes into a deathly calm. But beneath its appearance, Jophiel can still see its rage burning.

  “Mark my words, horse. Your insults will not go unpunished. One day, you and your human will slip, and we will be there. He is but one man, no amount of faith can save him from all of us…”

  “...”

  Jophiel sighs.

  Opening her satchel bag, she levitates another cross out of it.

  She has the verses memorized, but without proper feelings she's unable to make use of them.

  But the cross is still blessed.

  With a flick of her head, the cross shoots upwards and sms into the ground where the Demon lingers.

  Instantly, it begins to scream. To curse, to beg, to weep, and back to cursing. It takes only a moment for the presence to disappear like nothing was ever there in the first pce.

  Jophiel performs a scan, sending a pulse of psychic energy around her to check for any remnants of the thing.

  Nothing.

  She chuffs, and decides to leave the cross in the ground. She must have missed a spot while pcing them on the outside perimeter, that one got too close to the fence.

  Walking back to her part of the base, resolve hardens in her heart.

  She will make it through this.

  Joshua will make it through this.

  They will make it through this.

  Together.

  …what was that thing Joshua says sometimes? To close off a sentence.

  Ah, right.

  “Amen”