With Spence and his baseball bat tagging along, Dick and his roommates were tasked with the murder of the same mocking demon they had the night before. Viktor was already a few yards ahead of the group on his skateboard, Franky once again challenging himself to catch all of Viktor’s thread and metal scraps, and Spence had his head locked towards the sky, entranced by something. When he wasn’t watching the road, he kept stumbling and bumping into Dick—each time, Dick would steady him, and he’d go right back to staring upwards like nothing happened. 

“What are you even looking at?” Dick asked him, irritated as he kept tripping over his own feet. Spence took a second to respond, like he was thinking, or like he didn’t hear Dick at all.

“The sky,” Spence replied quietly, still staring. 

“Why? There’s nothing there. It’s pitch black.”

That was when Spence finally looked down at Dick and away from the sky, his amused and excited expression turning sour within seconds. “I’m looking at the stars, you piece of shit,” he said. He glanced away from Dick, shoving his hands in the torn pockets of his flannel. “You’re dumb as hell if you can’t see the moon and stars.”

Dick looked up at the sky, but he couldn’t see the precious stars that Spence could so clearly. “No. I can’t see them,” he said.

“Maybe it’s because of that stupid haircut,” Spence said. Dick lifted his hair that he deliberately used to cover his eyes, looked at the sky again, and realized that Spence was, for once, right about something.

“Oh…you have a point,” he said. “But…I mean, they’re just stars. You can watch them at any other time, but not when you’re walking right next to me and using me as your cane.”

“Don’t be cane-sized, then. This is, like, the one night I took off, so as long as we’re outside, I’m going to do whatever I want to make this worth my time.”

Dick looked away and grumbled to himself. “I’ll show you cane-sized.”

The quiet nighttime was broken by the vicious barking of a dog, and a doberman charged out from its yard and at Viktor. Viktor could barely try to get away before the dog bit his hand and yanked his shoulder out of the socket. It started to run around with Viktor’s skeletal arm in its jaws, playing keep-away with Viktor who hopelessly yelled for it to sit and stay. But the dog seemed to stop ahead of them as it found new interest in the arcade, whose lights were all shut down except for the arcade cabinets inside. It started to bark at something inside, dropping Viktor’s arm in the process. Franky helped Viktor put his arm back on as the four analyzed what was inside. Three figures were lined next to each other holding laser guns to the screens, playing the cheap zombie shooter games which Viktor only used to like. Two of them had the same stick-straight puffy hair, but the third looked to be a few feet taller than the others--and had a sharp, wolf-shaped muzzle. 

“Don’t you think they look like Cindy and Tabby?” Charley said as if he instantly recognized the girls’ silhouettes.

“How can you tell?” Viktor asked. Franky blushed.

“Well, I don’t know. I…I can see their hair,” he said. “And I have cat-like night vision.”

“If you can see in the dark so well, who’s that other guy?” Dick asked, moving close to Franky to try and see what he was seeing. He seemed to be perfectly fine watching them in the dim light, while the rest of them had to squint, and Viktor’s dead eyes barely even had a chance.

“Looks like a seven to eight foot tall male hellhound demon wearing a hoodie,” he said. “He doesn’t have horns but he has a fluffy tail, red eyes, and claws as sharp as daggers. But he doesn’t seem to be hurting the girls at all--”

But Dick had already taken Spence’s baseball bat, and was heading towards the door like he was going to break in using it. Before anyone could try to stop him, though, Dick politely knocked on the door and waited for one of the girls to let him in. Cynthia soon answered, seeming confused at why Dick looked so concerned. 

“Hey, man, what’s--”

Dick cut Cynthia off as he stormed in, heading for the hellhound who was in the middle of a race with Tabby. He patiently waited by the demon’s side for the game to be over, as his friends walked in after him; Spence sparked a conversation with Cynthia, Viktor went to toy with the arcade machines and Franky analyzed the new demon’s form. Once neither of them won the race against the CPUs, Carnage and Tabby turned to greet Dick.

“Hey Dick!” Tabby said. “You out hunting too?”

“Yeah, hunting for you,” Dick replied, gesturing to Carnage with his knife. “What are you doing here? Playing mortal for the day?”

“Relax, he’s a friend,” Tabby said. “He’s just like Ted!”

“What are you talking about? This mutt is nothing like Ted. There’s no other demon like Ted. He’s the only one allowed to be up here,” Dick said. He strained his eyes to look into Carnage’s bright red ones. “Have anything to say for yourself, boy?” he said to him.

Carnage started to bare his teeth. “I’m not your ‘boy,’ kid,” he growled. His ears perked up when Franky approached him holding his hands in front of him like an offering.

“What’s your name, buddy?” Charley asked in a sweet tone. Carnage cocked an eyebrow.

“I’m not your buddy, either.”

“Do you behave more like a dog or a human? If your answer is the former, would you like to sniff my hands to get used to me? I’d like to study you,” Franky continued. Carnage grimaced, glancing reluctantly between Franky's gentle expression and his cupped hands. But he still lowered his snout into Franky's hands and gave a few sniffs. Once he lifted his head again, he seemed more at ease.

“You smell like fish blood,” he muttered.

“Oh! What a surprise!” Franky smiled, as he folded his hands in front of his chest. 

Dick pointed his knife to Carnage’s neck. “Enough fucking around,” he said, “fight or give up. Either way, I’m here to kill you to preserve Ted’s honor.”

Carnage stood up, towering over Dick’s puny height with his nose in the air. “Why’s that? You think he’s better than the rest of us? You think he’ll give you a kiss?”

“Well, of course I do. He does so much stuff for us.”

“Like what?”

“Well…well, he…is nice to me, and…”

Carnage flexed his claws and cracked his fingers. “Still want to use me as your sacrifice? What if I told you Ted Ramirez isn’t a god at all? What will you do when he’s killed by his own brothers?”

“Well Ted is nice to me and you’re a dick!”

Dick thrust his knife at Carnage’s chest, but, again, it did no harm, and Carnage wasn’t amused. Dick’s face flushed as he sighed at himself. “I…I forgot you guys don’t…don’t get killed. How do you do that?”

“You know demons can shapeshift, right?” Carnage said. “Our flesh can’t be penetrated. If it does, we can just put it back.”

“Ohhh, that makes sense. So how can I kill a demon?”

“I’m not telling you!” 

Carnage grabbed and held Dick in the air by his neck, slamming him against an arcade machine and shattering the screen. His claws dug into Dick’s skin as his face flushed with every breath that escaped his lungs, seething through gritted teeth. Carnage waited patiently for Dick to die, and with half of Dick’s effort to stay alive.

“Ted will appreciate your sacrifice,” Carnage said. But once Tabby came to his side, he dropped Dick onto the floor like a toy and turned his attention to her. Franky and Spence went to Dick’s aid while Tabby marveled at the newly-broken machine.

“Are you serious?!” she said, gripping her hair extensions. “Seriously, are you serious?! I’m gonna get fired!”

Carnage’s ears cocked downwards as guilt overtook his expression. “He was coming right at me. He tried to kill me,” he said.

“Well you obviously had, like, ten thousand advantages over him.” Tabby leaned in to whisper to him. “And be nice to him. Jeff Fitzsimmons was his dad.”

“Yeah. No shit. Look, I’m sorry for breaking the machine. I’ll take the blame and pay for it and go to jail or whatever you guys do,” Carnage said. Tabby groaned and hid her face in her hands.

“It doesn’t matter. They’ll find out that I was in after hours,” she said. “You can’t take the blame anyway because then they’ll take you to the CIA and perform experiments on you.”

“I’ll pretend that I broke in,” Cynthia chimed in, putting her hand on her worried partner’s shoulder. Once Tabby looked up at her, her watery eyes turning calm, Cynthia walked to where Dick was sitting; Franky and Spence were picking glass shards out of his skin and wiping his blood with their sleeves. She stood over him, almost pitifully, but she still crossed her arms and scoffed. 

“And you,” she said, “I could kill you. How dense do you have to be to try to kill a whole person for nothing?!” 

Dick used Franky and Spence’s heads as crutches to help him stand up. “That’s not a person! That’s a whole demon, Cynthia! I was trying to protect you.”

“If you want to kill him, you should kill Ted, too.”

“I would never.”

As Dick’s head felt light under the standing pressure, he started to falter and Franky stood to help him. Cynthia pressed the bridge of her nose between two fingers and sighed.

“I’ve been here longer than you and you’re already more brainwashed than me,” she said. “Ted’s just a demon. He’s not a god. Didn’t you hear what Satan told him?”

Dick let his anger out in a shallow sigh as he leaned against Franky and stared at the floor. “I…I know. I just don’t want to disappoint him,” he said.

“You’ve only known him for, like, two weeks. I’ve known him for two years and I disappoint him all the time.”

Tabby went to help Dick stand as well, holding the crook of his elbow and gently patting him. “Demons are just demons, and demons are just people,” she said. “Cynthia and I think we should get along instead of killing each other. If you still want to worship Ted, that’s fine, but that doesn’t mean you get to kill innocent demons. Just like you wouldn’t kill innocent people.”

Dick focused his vision to the other side of the room, where Viktor and Carnage were. Viktor sheepishly held his hands to the hellhound three times his size, letting him smell him before he gently stroked his fur. “I know,” Dick said. “You’re right. But whatever Ted says…is my duty.”

Dick broke away from Franky and Tabby’s grasp and started to limp towards the doors. Cynthia and Tabby watched in disdain, as Spence rolled his eyes and followed. Seeing the altercation fizzle out, Viktor reluctantly left Carnage behind and held Franky's hand as they left together.