Meanwhile, with the Angels

Elsewhere, Panty waited on the side of the road, tapping her feet as her sister was taking her pick of flavors from the nearby ice cream stand, the wreck of the previous vehicle they commandeered plowed into the nearby alleyway with its walls scraped to heck and back from the tight entrance.

Panty was daydreaming something of a similar metaphor as she was glancing at a bunch of guys walking along the street, spying and judging each one from her seat on the street bench, bored to tears. She just got her text that her vehicle Seethrough got de-cursed, so it should be here any minute, so they were waiting for its arrival before they got back looking for that ghostly prick.

Stocking, carrying a ridiculous stack of ice cream scoops in a cone plopped herself down in the seat next to her.

“Still not here yet?” She asked, gazing at the stack of frozen flavored sugar in eagerness.

Panty sighed and leaned back on the bench, looping one arm around the back of it to start peoplewatching behind her, “No, Chuck must be taking a joyride around the city or something before dropping it off again, damn mutt.”

Behind them, a businesswoman caught her eye, and in reaction the high-heeled woman in a suit sneered at them as she entered the jewelry store behind them, Panty giving the finger to the back of her head as she did so.

Stocking shrugs. “Could also be that weird limo that knocked us off the road is going after Seethrough and he’s trying to lose them.” She took a lick of her ice cream, sighing with relief, “Really weird for the Demons to attack us now of all times and not follow through with actually fighting us.”

Panty tutted at this, “tch, yeah, right after that dickweed got away, they came out of nowhere and ran us off the road. They didn’t even present themselves like they usually do, they just swerved around the corner and haven’t come back. And who knows when that wiry bastard we’re chasing is going to start-”

But the sound of a couple of clicking noises and the flash of silver from the jewellers window seemed to have caught Panty on alert for some reason. Glancing back, the businesswoman was grinning maliciously on the other side of the plate glass window, as she held a pair of black and silver tommy guns glinting in the evening sun, attendant falling under the counter in a panic. The blonde angel’s eyes widened as she proceeded to rocket out of her seat, practically tackling her sister out of the way, leaving behind a mountain of ice cream scoops to be riddled with holes.

Panty took the time to summon up her gun as she moved to stand back up and peek over the street fruit vendor booth, Stocking catching on quickly despite her annoyance and shock as she unsheathed her katanas from her legs, right as the woman stepped over the broken glass and screaming patrons to get a better sight of where they dived, the disguise tearing off to reveal her naturally crimson self, Stiletto making a show of cracking her neck as she raised the guns, clicking sounds as empty cases spill out, and automatically reload from the aether for a new volley to be inserted.

“Alright you feathered freaks, one word out of you that sounds like you wish for something, and you’re mounted on my wall. Just hand over the stone and we’re all-”

But before Stiletto could finish, the swish of a few jet black spikes came zipping towards her, as she raised the drums of her guns to her face to deflect the shots. At the same time, a tangle of black strings wrapped around Stocking, dragging her back to the shade of a nearby tree that was hanging over the stall, the silhouette of a trenchcoated man with ghostly ringed eyes hanging from under it upside down like a bat. The series of strings entangled the goth angel like a spider web leading to the intruder, making special care to bind her arms in awkward ways so that the swords wouldn’t be able to reach a single wire.

“Not so fast, Stiletto!” Barked Gabardine, “The stone is mine, and she should hand it over to me, lest her precious sister is bound to the point that she’s a pile of severed bird meat.”

To punctuate this, the strings tightened more, Stocking going redder in the face as the coils accentuated her form intensely from under her clothing, in addition to roughly digging into her flesh.

The tightness stopped the moment Stocking whimpered out, “Ahn~ Harder, daddy!” and Gabardine got visibly weirded out, “...Oooookay, just the strict binding then, but I WILL slice her up if you don’t hand it over.”

Panty scowled, keeping her aim at Stiletto, but her eye on Gabardine. “And…Who the fuck are you two exactly?”

Stiletto laughed heartily, “Ohohoho! Seriously, did you not expect people to come after the Stone of Job the moment you grabbed it? I, Stiletto, fifty-third daughter of Asmodeus himself, will be the one to obtain the sacred treasure for my lord, and earn that promotion to be an Archdemon Lord!”

Gabardine squinted, “Hah, yeah right! If it weren’t for me, you’d be clueless to its existence and still be some mere pit fiend stabbing away at ghost climbers trying to escape their hole. You were just a mere pitstop girl that I sweettalked into giving me a ride out of there.” The strings tighten, almost instinctively from his anger, making Stocking speak in arousal, “I, Gabardine, infamous former-sorcerer of the Clochendagah Kingdom, will be the one to reclaim the Stone of Job that I hid away!”

Panty then went wide-eyed, recognizing now what they were yammering about. Not about their **** backstory exposition, no, she couldn’t give a fuck. But rather what they were there for and accusing her of having.

“Wait, you mean THE infamous apology gift to Job? The one that got lost to history for generations. Here. in Daten City of all places. You fucking serious?” That gave Panty pause, only to realize as she slapped her forehead.

“...Oh fuck, so that’s what that damn spindly bastard’s been doing!”

Gabardine’s eyes widened as he suddenly realized there was another someone he would indeed describe as a “spindly bastard” that was there, but figured he would’ve been blasted also. The first one that found him plucking out the Stone he hid. So it wasn’t the Angels that had the stone after all, it was the other culprit. How did he live to even grab it? “That stick figure is still in the Material Plane? With the Stone?! And you couldn’t beat them?!”

While Stiletto was visibly confused, Panty shrugged, saying, “Fuck off. It’s hard to hit something that scrawny when he kept doing that separating his body parts trick while running aw-!”

Gabardine tossed the melting puddle that was Stocking into the still complaining Panty, making both stumble into the concrete as he swung himself off, trying to hunt down his real prey.

Stiletto lurched somewhat as if she was about to give chase, but realized how fruitless that’d be. She didn’t even know who this spindly bastard was. And if it was enough to convince Gabardine, then she knows it’s not the Angels after all, so she might as well waste them and leave for the actual culprit.

But, just as she aimed at the pile of angels, seeing if she could threaten them into revealing who this target was before she made them into saintly swiss cheese, Stiletto’s phone began to ring.

Clicking her tongue, she slipped one of her guns back onto her heel as she took the call from her earpiece, “Can it wait? I’m kind of busy. I’m trying to find-”

“Apologies!” squeaked out the voice of Kneesocks from the earpiece, “But I have wonderful news! We managed to capture the guy that was manipulating our event! Turns out it was one of our former employees who likely obtained some kind of super level ghost powers or something!”

Stiletto rolled her eyes, until she started to make a connection in her head. “Wait a sec. Would you describe the individual as a, quote, ‘spindly bastard’?”

Kneesocks took a second to think, “Umm, I suppose I would, sure. Though he seemed to have bulked up a little from initial inspection.”

Stiletto’s eyes widened and a fanged grin spread across her crimson features as she put away the other gun, walking to the curb, “And you got him tied down, right? Gagged I hope?”

“Certainly, boss! Scanty is making preparations to shoot him with a Corpsedust bullet. It’s a bit much, and we were lucky to find his cremated body in the ash pile downstairs, but we’re prepared to get him to do whatever we wish!”

Stiletto fistpumped the air as she celebrated without a modicum of decorum, “Fuck yeah! Good work, girls! I’m going to be right there at any moment! Save the shot for me when I get there, I want to be able to command him directly too, and we both know that first sight is what judges their master!”

Stiletto hung up without another word and bellowed out a whistle, and steering from around the corner was the limo, bending impossibly at high speeds around it before straightening back out as it came to a stop. She hopped in as fast as she could, just as Panty managed to shove off her sister and aim, a few plugs of holy bullets made its way into the trunk of the vehicle as it sped off towards the middle of town.

“Fucking dammit!” Panty cursed as Stocking righted herself, “From the sounds of it, they might have their hands on that skinny prick. We gotta get there before they can do anything!”

Just then, a shining white jeep plowed through the wall across the street like it was nothing, then parked itself in front of the pair. The front door opening reveals the sight of a grinning green doglike creature with spindly limbs and covered in zippers, muttering out “Chuck!” over and over.

Panty grinned as the angels dived into their respective seats, dunking the green abomination into the backseat as hard as Panty could, as she yelled, “Next time, no more joyrides!” Seethrough revved up, as Panty put the pedal to the metal, chasing after the limo, both to see if she could take it down, and to get to the Demon headquarters first.

Stocking shook herself back into focus, righting herself in the seat as she asked, “I missed a little, I think, what happened?”

Panty smirked, and responded, “We’re still going after the same ghost. Only this time. The payout’s going to be bigger than the both of us combined can even spend~”