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Despite the fact that there was a metal band cuffed to her arm that linked her to an imminent demise should she stray from orders, Clerise was feeling pretty damn good.

Because Clerise?

Was on minipet duty.

It didn't happen as often as she'd liked, and she'd promised to take on two sessions of the underwater lab duty, her least favourite, in exchange for today's shift. But it was so, so, worth it. The labs were decorated with tinsel that probably wouldn't last long, because honestly, the strands looked like they'd been run through the ringer already. There were a few strings of christmas lights, blinking blue with little runes, but they kept shorting out at random. Out of concern for her own safety, the redhead had warily unplugged them, squinting as they continued to blink for a brief period of time.

But for now, it was sort of peaceful. Clerise was chilling in the middle of the room, in an open area, sitting on the floor with her back to one of the cages. She had a cephalato in her lap and was scritching behind one of its fins.

Easiest duty ever. There had been an unfamiliar name next to hers on the list, though, and he hadn't arrived yet. Which was fine-- Clerise just tended to show up as early as she could manage to spend longer in the labs. Minipets were worth it, the little bastards. So was the peace and quiet.

Clerise offered a wave, wiggling the cephalato's tentacle at the newcomer as well. The purple minipet went along with it, because it didn't have bones, and struggling sounded a lot like effort.




She looked Jake up and down-- not bad. Another pretty thing to look at on the island was always welcome.

"Hey! Yeah, thankfully. ********' love minipet duty. I'm Clerise, and this is uhh..." The redhead craned her head to look at the cage a few rows down, squinting to see the minipet's name. "This one is Hellma number five."

Turning back to the new guy, she gestured a hand at all the cages. "I cleaned most of the cages already. A few are checked out in the labs, and we have to feed them in a little while, but uh. Right now you're free to socialise with the ********." Her voice took on a curious tone. "You newish? Don't know your face, and I remember the pretty ones."

"Good to meet you," Clerise said with a nod. "Uh, I dunno actually. I figure one of the regular lab techs, probably. I think it might just be the type, but I am...not sure who gives them those types, yeah? Maybe whoever finds the first one like real science instead of. You know."

She shook the minipet as if it were a polaroid picture. "Fear magic s**t."

At the sheepish look, the redhead just waved a hand. "Nah, dude. I seriously get here as early as I can when I can get minipet duty. It's the best thing on the whole ******** island."

Jake's confusion about socialising minis cracked her up though, and her laughter was warm and immediate. She stood, carrying Hellma 5 back to her tank, and with a bit of fighting, shoved her back inside, ignoring the petulant glare.

"Nah, just...letting them stretch their legs a little? Making sure they don't refuse to eat or something, since these are all needed for experiments." Clerise scrunched her nose up: she didn't have to like it, but them's was the breaks.

She looked through the tanks, dragging her fingers along the glass, tapping each one as she went along, settling in front of a Blossilia.



Popping open the cage, Clerise pulled the creature out, filling the labs with the aroma of a a sweet flower. "I've been sort of a shut in lately, explains why I haven't seen you about much. What's your division?"

And then she dumped the minipet in Jake's arms before he could answer, carrying on as if nothing had happened.

"Death, huh?" Clerise racked her brain trying to think of others in that division. Besides the obvious: her favourite, Otto (precious babbu child) and her least favourite, Caelius (demon spawn of a cousin). Deryk, she vaguely recalled, and...Eva.

"You have the shittiest leader," the redhead said, venom seeping into her voice like water sinking into cloth, her sharp features contorting. And then, just like that, it was gone. "But some of my favourite kiddos are in Death, so maybe you'll be okay."

Clerise smirked. "Not as good as Life, of course. We do research, hospitalization, and supply weaponry. We're the most versatile-- too bad we suck donkey d**k out in the field, though. Seriously. A bunch of nerds."

She laughed, poking at a minipet through the bars of its cage. "I don't really know if I fit in here, but I do live my division."

Clerise squinted at Jake's incredulity.

"Yes," she said, simply, and the phantom pressure of a thin scythe-blade was stifling. "Do not think you are valuable," Clerise explained, her tone icy. "You are nothing. You are worth nothing. Your life is a currency, and your only bargaining chip is following his lead."

She rolled up a shirtsleeve, revealing a metal cuff heavy on her arm. "If I breathe wrong," Clerise continued, her voice taking on a clinical edge. Detached. "I die. If I don't follow orders exactly-so, I die. Someone else-- that I cared about-- got confused in a sticky situation, and instead of realising that there are shades of grey when your friends are involved..." Clerise pursed her lips. "Anyway. I took his punishment for him, and that punishment is wearing this."

Clerise busied herself for a moment, pulling another mini from the cage. This one was a tiny octopus, and it promptly got its slime all over her. "He also nearly killed me once or twice. He is also a cousin, which I found out later. We're uh. Well, there are a lot of related people here, if distantly. The ability to harness fear and see shadows, it's genetic. So. Yep."

She squinted at Jake. "I do like minipets. Maybe I can just be a minipet matron."

"We're a war machine," Clerise replied. "We exist to counteract ******** death itself. We stopped the apocalypse this year. Literally, that was a thing that happened." She shrugged. "But being in charge of a war machine has its toll, and the cost for his was basic human decency. ******** gave a middle finger to where she assumed his office was, seething.

"Someone paid another guy under the table to hack the documents. There were a few others, but I don't know 'em. My cousin is here too, also in life. Mimsy, if you've met her."

Clerise howled with laughter at Jake's wobbling smile, and strolled over to him to offer a strong clap on the back. "Sorry, little dude. Didn't mean to throw s**t at you all at once. Tell you what. If you've got any questions about...all of this." The Life huntress waved her arms, and the octopus minipet gleefully burbled as it held on for the ride. "Just ask. About anything, I mean, about Deus. I'll tell you what I know, spread the wealth and s**t. Least I can do for you, mancandy."

Clerise snorted at the idea of anything being 'illegal.' "There are no bodies of government, here. We're all legally dead, for ******** sake. Illegal don't mean s**t around here."

She steepled her fingers diabolically. "Well, for the best. Mimsy is a spiderbitch anyway." After that, she waved a hand, and the minipet attempted to eat her fingers. She seemed to ignore it. "I missed a bunch too, lot of gaps to fill in. But...here's what I gather."

A deep breath.

"We fight things from Halloween, made of s**t called fear. You get scared of something, and it births a creepy crawly in their world. Sometimes it's not enough to be a monster." She shook her arm, and the minipet went flying across the lab. Clerise let it wander around, dazed. It could handle itself. The door was closed, after all. "It turns into a minipet, then."

"But if there's enough fear, it turns into a race. A species. A monster that's sentient, usually with a face and eyes and s**t. The whole shebang. And then, with some handy dandy Life tech, we turn those kids into weapons to fight evil, or something."

Clerise pointed at Jake. "Your weapon used to be a teenager. They lose the memories of their past life, and get shoved into little stone tablets till they bond with a hunter. A hunter is someone who saw all that fear s**t, and then got brought here. We had to duke it out in a bigass battle royale against each other, in really crude golem bodies, while our real bodies were in pods. That's what pod duty is. Waiting for a hunter to wake up, ya dig?"

She walked towards the mini, and scooped it up, carrying it like a child in her arms. "So that's the basic s**t, then you lay on the Horsemen that want to kill all of us." She pointed to her scars, cut like swirled feathers into her skin. "They are very ******** dangerous. One of them broke my weapon for two or three solid months. During the apocalypse, I had to use my fists. Seriously. That happened. I eventually got some runic daggers. Anyway, the Horsemen hate us and wish we were dead, and the feeling is mutual."

She tapped her chin. "They tried to do it once, back in '99. I found some s**t on it, and the others helped me put it together. Then in May, they tried to do it again. A bigass phoenix happened, made of some grey s**t? It made us see a ton of weird s**t. I've been out of the loop, but that grey s**t happened again in the Haunted House a few months back."

Suddenly, Clerise looked sheepish.

"I uh. I didn't go. Let me tell you right now: do not try to eat your pendant, no matter how much someone offers to pay you."

"You don't wake up, I guess. It's not like there's just one winner-- think of it as an evaluation, I guess. I was Pi. You get like, a little letter because you can't remember your name or anything." She hummed a little to herself. "If you lose, I guess...you don't wake up. Sometimes the bond to a weapon doesn't ever happen, so there's nothing that jolts you to life, yeah? And sometimes the body gives up, or whatever."

She didn't know what happened to the bodies once they passed on.

Clerise snickered at Jake's shock. "For a sum of about a grand, I did. But then they pumped my stomach, and Sunny-- she's a nurse, scariest b***h on the whole island, seriously-- took half my cash. And then some." She pouted.

"Try to make nice with the labtechs, if you can. If you bring electronics to the island, they go dead hella ******** fast. If you pay a techie, though, they can fix it up so it works on runic power instead of a battery. For a price, though."