Demon jerked at my voice, letting out a high squeak. I pushed the barrier against the gun, and the shot moved off to the side as it went off.
"Stay away!" the villain screamed with a raspy voice that reminded me of nails on a chalkboard. "I can't… can't keep killing everyone. Please. No more. Please." Their voice trailed off into a pained moan.
"Look at me. I'm not dying right now, and I'm right here." I crouched down, laying a light hand on Demon's arm.
They flinched at the contact, but then their eyes opened as they realized I was touching them without having my life sucked from me. Pity welled up in me; Demon had clearly been through a lot.
"Why don't we just talk?" I suggested.
Demon slumped to the side, resting their head against the cabinet. Honestly, even naked, it was hard to tell, but I thought it might be a woman.
Demon looked over at me. "I've been alone for so long. I'm not sure I remember how to have a conversation."
Sitting down cross-legged outside the bathroom, I felt the need to help her. Few had powers as impactful as ours, and hers had kept her so isolated. I wanted to help give her hope.
"So far, so good," I encouraged her.
"How are you not dead?" She eyed me a little warily.
I grabbed one of the suckers. "I can keep these things from latching onto me."
Demon frowned. "What things? You can see something?"
"Mmhmm." I nodded. "I just have to avoid them. I'll be fine."
"You're really okay? You aren't feeling woozy? I really think you should scoot further away."
Demon's voice had a tinge of excitement, but then her face fell once more. "I've already done so much. Killed so many."
Demon dragged herself from where she was leaning on the cabinet and mirrored me, sitting cross-legged. "I'm a terrible person."
"No." I said it forcefully enough that Demon jumped. "Just because your power got out of control doesn't make you evil."
I'd told myself the same things countless times before.
"But…"
"Let me guess. This power arrived suddenly. When it did, people died. You fled, but people kept coming near you and dying?"
Demon nodded. "Yeah. I was in college when my power popped. It was okay for a few weeks.
Then… then my power changed, and everyone started dying. My classmates, then the cops, then the hospital where I tried to go for help…"
Demon began crying again.
I winced at her story, imagining the horror for her and those around her. Those she loved.
But what made little sense was that her powers had changed.
They didn't change. They can be trained, like a muscle, but the ability remained constant.
"Can I take a closer look at you?" I asked.
"Sure. But you said there were things coming out of me? Can you remove them? Cut them off?" Demon asked, hope in her voice.
Even if it had hurt her many times, I cringed at the thought of destroying a part of her.
"I'm not sure," I replied honestly.
Demon nodded vigorously and then froze, not sure what to do.
I smiled, slowly scooting forward, parting the mass of suckers coming directly out of her body to focus in on her superpower.
The first thing I noticed was that she had two powers, which wasn't surprising given that she was female.
But the odd part was that one of her powers was… leaking, for a lack of a better term.
"Hold on. Let me try something."
The suckers had been attracted to ki, and now that I saw this leak, I had an idea of why they were so hungry.
Drawing more ki from the air, I gathered it in a big ball before pushing it up against Demon's chest. Every sucker in the room turned and dove at the ball of ki I had created.
Like hungry little devils, they devoured the ball, but I kept pushing ki into it.
While that was happening and they were distracted, I made a small sliver of ki and covered up the leak.
Unfortunately, my distraction wasn't enough. As soon as ki touched the leak, a sucker came and devoured it too.
I grumbled. I hoped it would be that simple.
"That are you doing?" Demon's voice was higher pitched and far smoother. "I… I'm going to kill you. This is what always happens." She started crying.
"What happens?"
"People die when they get close and I heal." She put her head in her hands, a rosy color returning to her skin.
Filling my voice with confidence, I said, "This doesn't bother me one bit. I'm feeding you—you're not feeding on me. There's a difference."
She peeked out between her fingers. Her eyes turned an almost electric blue as ki pulsed faintly within them. "You aren't dying?"
"No, but you might get better. Do you have a conditional way to restore your abilities?"
She blushed. It wasn't common to share such things with people, but some supers could only restore their powers in specific ways.
Some tabloids had hypothesized that Wrath restored her abilities through personal harm or pain.
"Yes, contact with people," she said meekly.
Her skin continued to turn a healthy color, shifting from the almost rocky texture to old granny wrinkles.
And soon it was like her skin was dialing back time, becoming fuller and plumper. Her body was filling out.
My hand hovered before her chest, and it rose, like it was going to meet my hand. I smiled, amazed at how quickly her body was restoring itself.
Soon the suckers retracted. The ones that had been questing outside the house sank back in through the walls, and the power rested just under her skin instead of spreading far outside the home.
Demon reached out and grabbed my hand. Little tingles where she touched me made my hairs stand on end, but it felt good.
"Thank you." She started crying as she held my hand and continued to restore herself back down to a woman in her twenties.
Demon had rich black hair that fell down her back like a waterfall. It parted around the two black horns curling out from her forehead.
As her tear-filled eyes peered up at me, I was struck by the bluest eyes I'd ever seen. ki crackled behind them.
Full pink lips curled up into a smile even as she continued to cry, but I knew the tears were shifting into ones of joy.
She filled out, and it became harder to keep my eyes on her face and ignore the fact that she was sitting naked on the floor, her body now sinfully curvy. A little devil's tail whipped behind her before curling itself around her waist like a belt.
"I… I…" She looked down at her body, making me start to pull away, thinking she'd want some privacy. But as I drew away, she clasped me tighter, suddenly terrified of me leaving her and everything slipping back to how it was before I'd arrived.
I paused, letting her take a moment to breathe, keeping contact with her.
"Thank you," she said, her voice filled with a hope that hadn't been there a few minutes before.
"You're welcome. I couldn't watch someone go through that," I replied simply.
"No, really. Thank you! I feel better than I have in so long."
She tackled me, and I let her knock me back.
Demon wailed like a little girl as she buried her face in my chest and let it all out.
Everywhere she touched me, there was that little tingle. Contact with her seemed to drain a bit of ki from me. But for me, it didn't matter.
My body was absolutely brimming with ki. A little experiment of mine—I had tried to give myself another superpower.
All I had accomplished was giving myself general enhancements, not enough to be a superpower.
However, it appeared to slow my aging along with keeping my body healthy, so I had kept it.
Demon was draining some of my ki, but I could pack more in as soon as she did, keeping myself topped off.
I rubbed her back, letting her cry it out. When my shirt was drenched with her tears, she finally pulled herself together.
She pushed off my chest and stared at me with her enchanting eyes. "I love you."