Red stumbled for an answer while Carlyle stared at them. "I... Okay... This is going to be hard to explain."

"Well, I'm waiting!" Carlyle rubbed the spot on her cheek where Red had hit her.

"After we got out of the casino, you were fully possessed by Lady Luck. I decided to keep it from you, because the point of it was to taunt me, and there wasn't much I could do about it at the time. I'm not familiar enough with possession experiences to act rashly, and I didn't want to screw it up. It seemed safer to keep it from you, since there was nothing that could be done about it anyway." As Red explained, they realized how stupid their choice was.

Carlyle balked at the explanation. "You're fucking ridiculous, Red! You really think I can't handle something like that? As if I have a fucking choice!"

"Obviously, my choice was stupid. But there's no use dwelling on it now," Red said.

"You lied to me!"

"No I didn't. I just didn't tell you what was happening."

"Bullshit! All of those moments of uncertainty were because of her, weren't they? But when I asked you about them, you just brushed them off as if I wouldn't notice something was wrong. Well guess what, Red, I did notice!"

Red turned away from her.

"I can't believe you. You're who the Jhikae Order sends along? You're so useless! You can't even save me from possession... What are you people even good for?"

Carlyle stood up and opened the door to the room. "Get the fuck out of here. Leave this fucking place. You can't clean up this mess, and now I have to live with that."

Red gathered their things. Before crossing the threshold, they turned to Carlyle. "At least... let me try to fix this," they pleaded.

"Fine. Tomorrow. You will fix it. If you don't, go back to where you came from and leave us alone. If you can't do it, I doubt any other members of the Jhikae Order will be able to, either."

"So you want me to just lie to them?" Red was taken aback.

"If you could lie to me, then I'm sure it will be no trouble for you to lie to them."

"I could lose my position..."

"And I was in danger. I could have died, Red, don't you see that? Now I have to deal with the fact that I've got a god in me that doesn't want to leave!"

Carlyle pushed Red out.

It was the middle of the night. Red looked around the empty street, thankful that streetlights had finally been installed. They weren't sure where to go. They struggled to remember if there was a hotel or some other temporary lodging available until the memory of a small inn next to the port came to them. They had had a few beds. Red hoped one was available.

Red started to walk, replaying the events of the night in their head to figure out how they could have done it better. Every time they went over it, they grew too frustrated to continue and started over from the beginning. They understood intellectually that they had made a mistake, but they simply weren't sure how to handle it.

They got to the inn, the person working the front desk was an older woman. "Hi. I'd like a room."

The woman looked at them, chuckled, and typed something into the tablet in front of her. "You have to pay in advance, it'll be a thousand credits."

Red raised an eyebrow. "For how long?"

"One week," the woman answered.

Red shook their head. They took out their qComm and held it over the tablet, swiping to confirm the payment. "Thank you Miss, let me show you to your room."

"I'm not a miss!" Red hissed at her.

"My apologies, right this way."

Red followed her to the room. It was furnished with standard space hotel amenities, including a personal bathroom. Every piece of furniture had a timeless ancient aesthetic which made Red cringe. They hoped the water in the shower was hot and the bed was comfortable enough to sleep in.

More than anything, they hoped that Carlyle would forgive them. Red opened up one of their Jhikae Order manuals and started back at the beginning of the section on possession, despite having already done so multiple times in the past few days.

After Red left, Carlyle sat on her bed trying to figure out what to do. She stared at the wall and then at the ceiling, trying to determine if Red had actually erred or if she had been too mean to them. She was so angry, angrier than she had felt in years, and she simply had no fucking idea how to handle it. She wanted to beat the shit out of Red, or at least pay them back for the brutal shiner they gave her.

A voice crept into the back of her head. "You know, that's not such a bad idea."

"Oh, great. Now you make yourself known to me. You could have done that ages ago, it's not like I have a say in the matter."

"If you were stronger, if you allowed yourself to express your emotions more fully, perhaps I wouldn't be able to use you like clay," Lady Luck said.

"Say what you like. I'm doing the best I can here. If I'm such a weakling, why do you keep playing with me? Why don't you go infect Red with your bullshit?"

"You know why, don't you? That ridiculous piece of technology embedded in their skull prevents me from making any kind of connection with their inner mindscape. However, with you, it's like an open door. You've just been begging someone to come in, so I thought I would take up the offer."

"I really don't know why you're telling me this. You have complete control, you can come and go as you please, what am I supposed to do about it?"

"Is that all you're good for? Giving yourself over to fate? Come on, Carlyle! I thought you were more interesting than that. Don't you hate me for getting between you and Red? Don't you want to kill me? Torture me? Ruin my strange life? Don't you wish I never existed?" Lady Luck tried to get a rise out of Carlyle.

"Of course I wish that! But right now I'm exhausted and in pain, all because of your damn antics, and all I want is for you to shut up so that I can go to bed!"

Lady Luck saluted. "Yes sir! See you in the morning, babe~"

Carlyle screamed into her pillow, frustrated and upset and tired. Instead, of sleeping, she stared at the wall and imagined herself anywhere else.

Red was actually reading the manual this time instead of skimming through it. Most of it was utterly inapplicable to their current situation, but a short paragraph at the end listed further reading where they could find actual spellwork relating to exorcisms. They scrolled through their archives hoping that they had at least one of the works listed. A quick pass was unable to turn it up, so they searched the names of each text individually.

They finally found one of the texts in a collection titled Battlecraft, a collection of essays and instructions for magic in the field. The spell was meant to calm possessed berserkers in the heat of battle, but Red hoped it would work anyway. They were running out of options.

It was early afternoon by the time Red woke up. They hadn't been able to sleep for hours, tossing and turning and trying to stop feeling guilty for their inaction. They had placed themselves upon the rack to be tortured endlessly for their failures as a friend and monk. They wondered if they were truly cut out for this work.

After a quick breakfast and the hottest shower they could manage, Red put on their uniform and headed to Carlyle's, spear in hand. They tried to project an appearance that was all business, but they knew that Carlyle would see right through them.

The sign on the shop said CLOSED. Red knocked. No answer. The door was open. They went inside and didn't see Carlyle anywhere. They walked into the bedroom and found Carlyle still asleep in bed. "Hey..." Red tried to wake her up.

Carlyle turned around and groaned something in her sleep. "Carlyle, wake up." Red said.

Carlyle didn't move.

"Hey! Wake up! It's time to get exorcised!" Red yelled.

Carlyle woke up this time. She looked at Red with a gaze of intense anger. "Can't we do this later?" she asked.

"No. We have to do it now."

"Ugh. Fine. What do I have to do?" Carlyle sat up in bed and brushed her hair out of her face.

"Try to get Lady Luck to take control of you. I'll cover it from this end. I found something that should work."

"Took you long enough."

"Now relax, and when you come to, you should be completely free of her influence."

Carlyle closed her eyes and took a deep breath. After a few minutes of silence, she opened them and looked around. "This isn't working. She's not going to just show up because I tell her to."

"Are you even trying? No offense, but you don't really seem like you are."

"Of course I'm trying. Do you really think I want to be stuck like this? But it doesn't make any difference, I'm not in control at all."

Red grabbed their spear in both hands and pointed it at Carlyle's chest. "Perhaps I should just kill you then."

"You're fucking psycho, Red. You know that if you killed me you'd never make it off the planet."

"But I must do my duty. If that means sacrificing myself, so be it."

Their eyes met and Red could see the emerald green beginning to shine through. "It's not like you're strong enough to protect yourself from me. Yesterday, I could have killed you a thousand times. But I didn't take them because I was too weak. Now I understand. My duty to the Jhikae Order is truly above all other things."

"Fuck you!" Carlyle yelled.

Carlyle became fully possessed. Red began the incantation. "RHEE WINN BACH, XORNI LO, CARLYLE!"

Carlyle started to convulse on the bed. Red repeated the incantation. "RHEE WINN BACH, XORNI LO, CARLYLE!"

A moment of utter peace and clarity overcame the room. It seemed as if everything had been perfectly arranged. Red took note of it for their report. Carlyle laid back on the bed and closed her eyes. Red continued to repeat the incantation for four minutes.

As the calm persisted, Red slowed down their recitations until silence seemed like the right thing. Carlyle opened her eyes, looked around, and sighed. "I guess you aren't such a waste after all," she admitted.

"Sorry I didn't do it sooner. I wasn't sure how, and I was afraid of hurting you."

"I guess that makes it okay. But next time... please just tell someone if they're secretly possessed. You didn't gain any special favors from not letting me know."

Red sat down next to her on the bed and put their arm around her. "I won't. I promise."

Carlyle turned to Red and smiled. "So, is there anything I have to do to make sure that this doesn't happen again?"

"Yeah. Here, give me your arm."

They took a black marker out from their bag and drew a sigil on Carlyle's inner wrist. "XORNI LO, ZIL DJAL, ZIL UCLED."

Red enclosed the sigil in a circle. Carlyle recoiled at first, and then grabbed her stomach. "Something feels... wrong."

Carlyle's body began to distort. She screamed out in pain. Red stood up and readied their spear. A beam of green light shot up from Carlyle, temporarily blinding Red. When they regained their vision, Lady Luck floated above them, looking down at Carlyle's limp form.

Red rushed over to Carlyle and checked her pulse. Still alive. Just injured. Red had to take her to the hospital.

"I thought your goal was to destroy me. Well, here I am, Red! Do you have what it takes?" Lady Luck taunted them.

Red didn't say anything, lunging at the floating goddess with their spear. The spear pierced her body and the shock-wave of energy emitted from the wound knocked Red on their ass. Lady Luck escaped through the ceiling in a blast of green light. In the back of their mind, Red heard "Catch me if you can!"

Red ignored the voice and carried Carlyle to the hospital.