Really Strange Stuff - Ch.30 - Students (Patreon)

=::= Serenity's PoV =::=

Sure enough our patron goddess was able to pull some strings to ensure Callie and I could return to Canada without running into any trouble with the authorities there.

She had two requests for us first though. One was easy enough, she just wanted us to keep her updated on our demon investigation since there was always some potential danger dealing with powerful supernaturals. The other thing was a lot more serious. Neither Callie or I realized it at the time, but Cassandra explained that we'd caused a lot of trouble for some friends of hers during our last visit to Canada. And before she helped us back into the country, our goddess wanted us to make amends.

So during our October live stream my cohost and I officially apologized to that young werewolf and her girlfriend, for stalking and harassing them in our effort to get an interview.

"Sere and I are really sorry for the way we acted," Callie explained to the camera, with her ears drooping down low. "We let ourselves get caught up in the excitement of trying to expose the truth about the supernatural, and we didn't take the time to think about how that might impact people's privacy."

My ears were just as low when I nodded, "There's no excuse for how we behaved, and between the two of us I really should have known better. Exposing someone as supernatural is as bad or worse as outing a person as gay or trans. That's even more important when it comes to children and minors. Like Callie said, we got carried away, our judgement lapsed, and we made several bad decisions. We've recently been informed that our actions hurt two young people, and got them kicked out of their home."

"I'm happy to report that they found help immediately," I added, "And that things worked out for them in the long run. But both Callie and I are deeply sorry for the stress and hardship we caused everyone involved, and truly regret our insensitive actions."

Our calico agreed, "Please accept our sincere apologies, and our promise that we will do better in the future. Serenity and Bailey and I are all committed to doing a better job going forward. We will not put anyone's privacy or safety at risk for any reason."

We had no way of knowing if the wolfgirl in question was watching, or if Cassandra would pass on the message to her friends. Folks in the chat were predictably supportive of the two of us though. In fact a couple people were almost too supportive. While most were understanding and appreciated our public apology, a few people made some negative comments about how supernaturals shouldn't expect privacy. Or that the public's right to know the truth outweighed all other considerations.

So both Callie and I asked folks to tone that down, and warned that our mods would step in if people in the chat insisted on being vicious about it.

Still, over-all it was another good show. And by the time it was over we'd let our viewers know about the potential demon sightings in Canada, and the fact that team RSS was going to be heading up there to see if we could find out the truth. And if we were really lucky, maybe we could get a demon or two to appear on camera.

Unfortunately we couldn't just hit the road the moment the stream was over. We had some planning and preparations to take care of first, including reviewing the laws this time so we wouldn't risk running into the same problem we did back in twenty-twenty-two. That led to some red tape we had to get through, which meant we weren't actually ready to hit the road until the twenty-first of October. And while we were a little anxious about going through Canadian customs with all our A/V equipment, that turned out to be almost a non-issue. The customs guy seemed more interested in us being two catgirls and a foxgirl than he was about the purpose of our trip or what we were bringing into the country.

From start to finish the drive from Chicago to Toronto took the better part of a day. Including rest stops and everything we were on the road for a little under eleven hours, although the last hour of that was entirely due to Canadian rush-hour traffic. We left our place right around seven in the morning and reached the Toronto suburbs before five in the afternoon, but didn't actually get to our hotel in the north end of the city until almost six o'clock.

That left all three of us feeling especially weary as we struggled to carry the first load of luggage from the car up to our suite. It took a second trip to get all our gear up to the room, then Bailey sprawled across the big king-sized bed with a loud weary sigh. I left her to it and moved to the other side of the room, where I slumped down onto the large comfortable sofa instead.

Meanwhile Callie moved past both of us to stand next to the large south-facing windows. A moment later her ears had perked up while her tail twitched in anticipation as she exclaimed, "Hey come check this out! You can actually see the collage campus from up here!"

A moment later she added, "We should set up a camera with a long telephoto lens. Then maybe we can get some shots of the demon coming or going from right here in our room. Assuming she's doing any flying around this part of town."

"If she was flying around in broad daylight there'd already be hundreds of pictures or videos Callie," I pointed out.

Bailey agreed from where she was laying on the bed, "We haven't come across any reports of her flying around the campus. On the other hand there's been quite a few posts and pictures on social media the past two weeks, of that demon going to classes."

"Which is why we all agreed to start our search there," I stated. Then I added firmly, "Tomorrow though. All I want to do tonight is find something for dinner, then relax and cuddle with my girlfriends."

The cute calico grinned as she joined me on the sofa. She cuddled up against my side and purred, "How about some cuddling first, then food? Then maybe the three of us can put that big ole' bed to the test."

"Sounds good to me," I smiled as I wrapped an arm around her.

Meanwhile Bailey groaned softly from where she was laying on the bed, "Where are you even getting all that energy from, Callie? After spending all day behind the wheel I thought you'd be the most exhausted out of all three of us!"

"She's too excited right now," I responded. Then I gave the little calico a gentle squeeze as I joked, "You know how it is with kittens. They're all boundless energy and insatiable curiosity, right up until they crash hard. Right Callie?"

My tease turned out to be a little too prophetic, as the only reply I got from my best friend came in the form of a very soft purry snore.

Fortunately a little catnap was all it took before my girlfriends and I were ready to go out and find some dinner. We didn't have to go that far either, we had at least a dozen restaurants to choose from all less than a half-mile from the hotel. We all felt like comfort food, so we opted for a familiar 'family restaurant' chain. Then as soon as we'd finished eating we headed straight back to the hotel.

We all got a pretty good sleep, and the following morning we took advantage of the hotel's complimentary breakfast buffet before getting on with our plans for the day. Which pretty much involved wandering around the college looking for a demon.

"So based on everything we've seen so far we should probably focus on the creative arts areas," Callie commented as we pulled into one of the large parking lots at the far end of the campus.

Bailey agreed, "That's our best bet. Being in a play in June means performing arts, but the more recent social media activity mentioned drawing and painting classes, so visual arts."

I had a map of the campus on my phone, and I took a moment to check that before looking around to get my bearings.

"That should be the visual arts building there," I gestured to our left. "The performing arts will be a little further away, on the south-west side of the campus."

"Purrfect," my best friend grinned, while her ears flicked and her tail stood up in anticipation. "Let's go find us a demon or two."

Bailey and I both stifled groans at her little pun, but neither of us complained as we all made our way to the building in question. A minute or so later we were in the lobby of the visual arts hall, and I couldn't help making comparisons to our first visit in Canada.

Two and a half years ago Callie and I looked like a pair of grown men, and our investigation brought us to a small-town high school. If we'd just walked in and started snooping around with cameras there was a good chance someone would have called the cops on us, so our first stop was to meet the principal. Callie used her southern charm to talk the guy into giving us permission, especially since we'd already spoken with one of the students who was willing to vouch for us.

Now we were all a few years older, yet we basically passed as coeds. It reminded me of something Cassandra said when we became her disciples, that we'd all keep our youth longer than usual. Except it felt like there was more to it than that. While none of us looked like teenagers I was positive people assumed we were all in our early twenties. Maybe it was how we dressed or how we acted, but I was sure anyone who saw us wouldn't believe we were any older than college seniors.

Our fuzzy ears and furry tails didn't seem to get too much attention either. Even our cameras didn't seem out of place, since the visual arts building was home to photography classes along with drawing and painting and sculpture and the rest. And what attention we did get wasn't too different from what any other attractive young coeds got. People checked us out when they passed us in the halls, but that was about it.

And wandering the halls is pretty much all we did for the first forty-five minutes or so. Eventually we ended up back in the lobby again, where we decided to just hang out and wait to see if we might spot the demon girl going past.

We didn't have much luck though, and by lunchtime we were starting to think maybe we needed to try our luck over in the performing arts hall instead. That's when Bailey spotted something, and her tail started wagging as she hurried past a crowd of students while Callie and I trailed along a few paces behind her.

Thanks to our tall fuzzy sensitive ears we had no problem picking out the conversation our foxy girlfriend struck up with one of the local students.

"Hey you're Mandy right?" Bailey asked a friendly-looking brunette. The girl stared at our girlfriend's ears and tail for a moment before nodding. Then Bails continued, "My name's Bailey, and I'm sorry to bother you but I saw your post the other day about a demon girl? Is it true? Is there really a demon attending classes here?"

Mandy made a face, "You're talking about Mara. She claims to be a demon, but she only started wearing the fake horns and tail a couple weeks ago."

"Honestly I think she's just doing it for the attention," the student added, with another pointed stare at Bailey's ears. "Mara's got a bit of a reputation as a trouble-maker."

Bails asked, "I don't suppose you know where I could find her, do you?"

It looked like Mandy was going to ask why she was so interested, but she seemed to change her mind. Instead she shrugged, "I don't know what her schedule is, but she's in my Life Drawing class. That's not until tomorrow though. Maybe check the cafeteria? Anyways I have to get going."

Our girlfriend nodded, "Ok thanks anyways. Nice to meet you!"

The brunette nodded as she turned and continued on her way, while Bailey moved back to where Callie and I were waiting.

"Good work Bails!" the calico stated with a grin. "So now we have a name."

I already had my phone out, and searching for 'Mara' and 'demon' returned some very interesting results.

"Check this out," I told my girlfriends. "According to some folklore traditions, Mara is the name of the demon that brings children nightmares. It's literally where we get the word 'nightmare' from."

Bailey frowned, "She can't be the same demon though, right? Maybe she just took the name for herself? Or it could be a coincidence."

"True," I agreed.

Then Callie suggested, "Let's go hit up the cafeteria. Maybe we'll find her there, like Mandy said."

That was only a minute or two away, and as we made our way there I tried another search. This time for 'Mara' and 'demon' plus the name of the college. That did the trick, one of the top hits was about that play from June.

"Here we go," I announced. "Her full name's Mara Carter, she's a drama major. Or at least she was last year, and that play where she was the demon character should have been her last big project before graduation. So either she flunked, or she's back this year studying visual arts instead."

As we entered the cafeteria Callie's tail stood up and her ears angled forward as she gestured, "Why speculate when we can just go ask her. There she is!"

Sure enough the demon was sitting at one of the tables, with her horns and tail in full view of everyone else in the cafeteria.

I'd guess her age as no more than nineteen, she looked like a freshman even though she had to be in her third year already. She was dressed in a long loose black tunic top, black leggings, and sneakers. And plain as day she had a pair of tall curved pointed red horns sticking up out of the top of her head, while a long muscular dark red tail snaked out from under the back of her tunic. The end of her tail was draped over her right shoulder, so the spade tip dangled idly in front of her chest.

She wasn't alone either, the demon was having lunch with two other students. They both seemed to be human girls, one was a blonde and the other brunette. Both were wearing jeans and t-shirts, and seemed entirely normal. The brunette had a laptop on the table next to her lunch tray, while the blonde was looking at her phone while she ate.

Another thing I noticed was while the two human girls both had food in front of them, the demon did not. She had a bottle of spring water, but it looked like she hadn't even opened it.

As we started making our way towards the demon and her friends both Bailey and I set our cameras recording video. We were careful not to make a big deal about pointing them at anyone though, for now it was all about being subtle.

"Howdy," Callie greeted the three students with a friendly smile as she poured on her southern charm. Then she asked the demon, "You're Mara Carter, right?"

"Yeah that's me," she nodded. "And these are my friends Kate and Hannah."

Her eyes flicked up and down over all three of us then she added, "Cute tails. I don't think I've seen you around before, are you new here?"

Our little calico kept up her friendly smile as she explained, "My name's Callie, this here's Serenity and that's Bailey. We're actually reporters, we host a paranormal vodcast called Really Strange Stuff? We were wondering if we could get you on camera for an interview. Maybe your demonic twin too? Or better still, you and your twin sister along with the other two demons y'all go flying around with at night?"

Mara's eyes got wider and wider while the colour drained from her face as my girlfriend talked. Then when Callie mentioned the other two demons and flying at night the demonic coed actually cringed. I couldn't help thinking she looked for all the world like a kid who'd been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Unfortunately that's as far as we got.

The demon girl gave her friends a panicked look and quickly told them, "Sorry we'll talk later I gotta go now bye!"

Then without even pausing for breath she simply vanished on the spot. There was no flash of light, no indication of magic, she just seemed to blink out of existence.