11 IX

"Shawn's been gone a while," Lizbeth frowned, scanning the white-and-gold ballroom. "Should someone go get him?"

As requested by the King, all members of the Guard were dressed in their respective ball attire, with any weapons hidden from the view of passing angels or other demons, seeing as only a group of angel warriors known as the Queensguard was permitted to have weapons in the ballroom.

"Not it!" Samuel cried out rather loudly, enough that a few nearby angels turned to glare at them.

"Not it!" Gemma called next.

"Not it!"

"Not it!"

"Not it!"

That only left Asha, frowning at them with his arms crossed. "No."

Samuel stuck out their lower lip, mocking Asha. "Aw, is someone pouting?" he asked in a babyish voice.

Asha narrowed her eyes. "You're weird," was the simple reply.

Lizbeth burst out laughing. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I just hear you tell Sam he was weird?" She arched a brow, still grinning. "Who was it that starting acting like a chicken in the middle of dinner for no reason last night?"

Asha looked her dead in the eye with a completely straight face. "Aries."

Aries whipped his gaze to Asha's. "What? We all watched you do it, dumbass."

Asha just shrugged, turning around. "Or did you?" they asked before leaving the group to go look for Shawn.

Gemma shook her head, frowning. "Sometimes I wonder about her," she said to no one in particular, looking genuinely concerned for her blue-haired friend. However, there was a sparkle in her eyes nonetheless. Lizbeth nodded, surveying the room. Her purple-streaked blonde hair tumbled over her shoulders in thick curls, seeing as she could not put her hair up in its usual ponytail while wearing her hood.

However, as the rest of the Hellguards enjoyed the pleasantries of the ball, time passed very quickly and soon the demons realized that despite that, Asha hadn't returned. "Why hasn't Asha come back yet?" Gemma frowned, doing her best to look around. However, her short stature made things difficult.

Aries shrugged. "Don't know. Sam, go look for them." He turned to the boy sitting next to Gemma, who just frowned.

"Why do I have to do it?" they whined. Lizbeth laughed at his pouty-face, which only made Samuel stick his lower lip out further.

"Because then I don't have to," Aries replied with a smirk. Samuel grumbled something incoherently and stood up, making his way through the crowds of pompous bird-people in search of Asha and Shawn.

Gemma chuckled from where she was standing near the table next to Lizbeth. Her raven hair was curled and left to hang down to her waist, while her long red cape hung down to her feet and pooled on the ground. "You're cruel, Aries. You know that, right?"

He grinned. "Of course."

Lizbeth laughed, almost spilling her glass of sparkling wine on Gemma, who smacked her arm in return. "Watch it, Libby!" she exclaimed, doing her best to keep a straight face.

Lizbeth arched a brow. "Excuse me, you're the one who almost threw up on me a couple hours ago when you ate too many of those gelatin squares!" When Gemma didn't respond, Lizbeth simply laughed, knowing she'd won.

Gemma crossed her arms over her chest. "Shut up," she grumbled.

Quite suddenly, Lizbeth's gaze switched from her friend to a passing demon girl, wearing a tight black bodysuit and tall, bright red heels. "Wow," Lizbeth muttered. "She's hot."

Aries' eyes widened as he clutched a hand to his chest. "Hotter than me?" Gemma laughed, stuffing a small cookie into her mouth.

Lizbeth chuckled, still watching the girl. "Honestly, probably not."

Gemma smacked her friend's arm again, eyes wide. "Don't say that! It'll go straight to his ego!"

Lizbeth didn't respond and Aries just laughed. "Too late for that, Gem," he replied, still chuckling. Lizbeth stepped away from the wall she was leaning on and made to introduce herself to the girl, but Aries grabbed her arm, stopping her. "I think we should go find the others. They've been gone for a long time now."

Gemma nodded. "Yeah, Aries is right. We should probably go look for them."

Lizbeth stuck out her lower lip, pouting. "But I wanna go talk to the hot girl," she whined.

Aries shrugged, hauling her through the crowds of both angels and demons. "Tough luck," was his reply and Lizbeth huffed, allowing herself to be dragged away by her friend.

"Found them!" Aries hollered after almost ten minutes, and the girls ran toward him, both out of breath and panting from running across the ballroom. Whatever the trio was expecting their friends to be doing while they were away certainly wasn't this. Shawn was standing next to a blonde angel in a large grey dress, while Samuel was gesturing wildly toward the table that they had claimed and Asha stood next to him with her arms crossed.

"Oh, wonderful," Asha muttered faintly as Aries, Gemma, and Lizbeth arrived at the scene. "Now everyone's here to join the fun."

"Aries, Lizbeth, Gemma; what is it?" Shawn arched a brow expectantly, making them all slightly uncomfortable.

"We were looking for all of you!" Gemma exclaimed, throwing her arms out on either side of her small body. "First you disappeared, then Asha, and then Sam! We thought someone kidnapped you!" She tossed a glance at the blonde angel, who simply smiled awkwardly before quickly looking away.

Shawn, however, just chuckled. "I'm fine."

Lizbeth wasn't paying attention to the conversation at hand and instead studied the angel standing behind Shawn with her head ducked down and her hands clasped in front of her. "Who's this?" she asked, frowning.

The girl looked up and put on a large smile. "I'm Penelope! It's nice to meet you."

Lizbeth nodded politely, not bothering with smiles. "Nice. I'm Lizbe-"

"Pip!" Everyone looked up to see a short girl wearing a large yellow gown and a boy in a beige tuxedo running up to them, both angels. The girl had thick golden-brown hair that was pinned up into a half-up-half-down style, and she had warm, dark brown eyes. Aries watched her with an open expression, arms crossed over his chest. However, Gemma shot him a glance and he immediately looked away. The boy accompanying the girl had curly black hair and deep green eyes; he was very tall compared to his friend, and his hands were full of food. "What are you-" the girl stopped speaking when she saw the demons.

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