Interlude: The Incident

AN: This was supposed to be a cute story about sexy monstergirls, but my brain is constantly going Drama! Plot! Lore! And now here we are.

Trevor was, to put it politely, a nerd.

He excelled in math and the sciences, he was physically unimpressive, and the less said about his social skills the better. He was shy and timid, spent more time reading sci-fi and playing video games than he did outside, and rarely spoke to a woman other than his professors.

None of this was due to any moral failing on his part. He wasn't lazy or a creep. He was unfailingly polite and worked hard in school, always willing to go the extra mile to help a classmate.

So why didn't this young man have a girlfriend? Another shy nerd or outgoing tomboy drawn to his quiet intensity or unerring focus on his work? Why didn't an extrovert adopt him into their group? If only to take advantage of his intelligence?

Sheer, bad luck. Or, very, very good luck.

Unknown to Trevor, he had been born with a gift and a curse. He was entirely immune to mental influence of any kind. He could see through illusion and ignore hypnosis both magical and mundane. His emotions could not be manipulated or read. An enchanted **** collar would be nothing but worked iron around his neck.

This was a powerful gift, if only that was all it did.

For unknown to modern humanity, people had Auras. It was nothing that couldn't be written off as **** reading of micro expressions and subtle pheromones. Simple instinct and learned behaviors. All these were essential to human interaction.

But Auras were vital. Anytime two or more people interacted closely, their auras connected. From angry mobs and marching armies, to close friends and intimate lovers. The **** sharing of emotional information bound people together as much as it divided them.

Trevor was disconnected from all of this. In any interpersonal situation, he was both blind and deaf, but also invisible to this subtle connection the rest of humanity shared. He was still noticed and recognized, he had acquaintances and his professors acknowledged his achievements. His family loved him. When they remembered him, that is.

He had never been bullied or had a close friend. His parents never neglected him but never treated him as more than a responsibility they cared for.

Trevor appeared strange and unsettling to those around him. His eyes never seemed to properly meet theirs, they saw no emotion in his eyes and his facial expressions and body language looked fake, robotic. So he was quietly, instinctively, shunned and excluded.

As you may imagine, this scarred Trevor deeply. He withdrew into his studies, escaped into fiction where people and the things they did made sense.

Luckily, he found that as long as he never joined high quality voice or video calls, he could interact normally online. This alleviated the worst of his loneliness and kept him from becoming bitter and jaded.

That was why he was here in this college town. He hoped to do well enough to earn a scholarship and transfer to a university so he could work with psychology and computers, maybe fix whatever part of his brain that was broken.

Of course all of this was derailed when rumors of Her started spreading. He saw the obviously fake images and rolled his eyes at the people who fell for such a simple prank.

Then he saw a succubus and a bunny girl on the street across from him, giggling and holding hands as they walked. He was impressed by the quality of their costumes and jealous of the clear romantic undertones.

Only to be shocked when the succubus's tail coiled around the bunny's waist and pulled her away from the edge of the road when she lost her footing. That wasn't a costume.

Trevor looked at the other pedestrians, expecting someone else to shout or stare or at least pull out their phone to record the impossibly dexterous tail as it coiled around the bunny's leg. No animatronic or puppet could do that without drawing attention. But, nothing. It was like all anyone else saw was two girls fooling around.

He burst into a sweat and felt the world spin. His head hurt as he watched the girls continue to the nearby park. Instead of following them he sat against the wall and put his head in his hands.

He remembered the worst day of his life. What everyone believed was a simple, if tragic, fire at a grocery store. He remembered the Angel and the Demon. The golden flames as the Angel beheaded the Demon. The Angel's glowing third eye that pulsed in a not-color that erased all evidence of the Demon. Including the memories of every witness.

Trevor remembered watching his crying mother, shielding her son with her body one moment, calmly calling the fire department the next.

Everyone but the eight years old Trevor remembered a freak accident that killed six people. Trevor knew it was more than that, the Demon had been hungry.

Trevor had spent ten years repressing the incident. Hoping it was the wild imagination of a child.

He breathed deep, almost meditating on the sidewalk as people passed him by. He calmed himself and ran to catch up.

He watched as the succubus comforted a ragged, crying redhead. He followed them to a small rental on the edge of campus. Left and came back the next morning.

Waited for them to leave.

He held his breath to stop his shocked gasp at the floating woman dressed in delicate chains. The redhead was now an even more beautiful elf, snuggling into the succubus and smiling widely at the bunny as she bounced ahead.

He froze when the succubus met his panicked eyes with her inhumanly entrancing indigo gaze. She tilted her head in confusion, like he was the strange one.

Her eyes glowed and he felt like he was a child again. Something washed over him and he ran.

He wasn't crazy. He hadn't hallucinated that. Magic or something like it was real.

The blonde bunny girl was familiar, her glasses were missing and she was a bouncy shortstack instead of a skinny nerd, but her face was nearly the same. Trevor had seen her in the library. She'd checked out books for him last semester!

He ran to his dorm. He was somehow the only one able to see magic, he was going to find out why.

One way, or another.