Department of Chaos

"E… Exit the store? Corporate would go crazy! You’re never more than 25 meters from a Bullseye manager. Th… That’s what the handbooks say!" the man clucks back nervously, even as the rest of the group take off and leave the man to sweep up cracked mugs and fallen cookware.

Abby skids to a stop, sliding into the grocery aisle with cool, calculated grace. She looks around for a screaming woman, and instead only sees a small, red chaos demon further down the aisle. It’s dressed up in some of the mis-matched clothes the crossed streams had send racing around the store.

Baked beans drip, drop down the sides of its head - a twisted, chaos demon’s approximation of human hair. It screams again, and Abby can confirm that this was, in fact, the source of the womanly scream.

Bait…

The thing giggles just as soon as the other Etheral Squadmates slide into view and decide Abby with backup! Before you can grab up your particle throwers, you watch as the chaos demon starts to float into the air…

A strange, confused sound escapes it, as it turns tail over tip, as if in zero-gravity. It squeals when one arm suddenly elongates right in front of you. Then, a leg grows longer, followed by its head becoming more refined and… green. It was as if the thing was undergoing some unexpected, painful evolution right before your very eyes!!

Arms burst out of the new, longer sides of the once-plump red demon. Horns push through the scalp and shoulders. The new, larger, greener thing hangs in the air, before unfurling itself to its full height. It considers you with a smug, unconcerned gaze at the far end of the grocery aisle…
Worst of all… you feel your own bones pull and stretch and elongate within your own bodies. Suddenly, you’re looking down at the aisle floor, and feel it to be at least twice as far away as it had once been. Looking across, the green creature of chaos has also matched your growth, so that the aisles and the produce are child’s play to cross…

Your particle throwers spit and sputter, arcing towards the green, slender demon. Your sudden growth must have induced vertigo in several of the Ethereal Squad, as you struggle to truly aim your beams in the proper direction. What had once been short and red was now long and green…

You swear you see the demon smirk, as it flits and dances its way towards you; passing cans of beans and instant noodles as it slips between your streams.

Once it has made its way towards you, as you struggle to make your beams connect with him, the demon reaches out and strokes A.J delicately across the face…

A moment ago, AJ had felt her self stretching. You all had! That sudden lurch towards. Now, the opposite happens; only moreso for AJ. She shrinks, shrinks, shrinks; back to her regular size (as do you all) but then more. Her hands grow smaller, but not just that. They grow child-like. Pudgy and clumsy!

Catching her reflection in a refrigerator, she sees that she looks like she did when she was only six… Her ghost hunting uniform and equipment now comically big on her…

Your particle throwers spark up, just as the clock is turned back on AJ by a dozen years or more.

Niles and Jasper send their shot true this time around, but meet invisible resistance only a few inches away from Abaddon, the Harbinger of Chaos. A force field shimmers and then ripples, as more and more beams are brought down on it.

It warbles once Abby’s beam hits. A hole begins to open, as your beams scream against whatever energy was surrounding the demon. Curtis manages to punch through finally, and catches Abaddon in the shoulder. His skin sizzles and blackens where the firefighter strikes.

But then, the chaos demon clicks his fingers…

Niles feels himself ripped from his place! Suddenly, the large green demon is among the Etherea Squad, and the beams are now trained on Niles instead.