Humanity's #1 Fan

In the end, it turned out that Earth wasn't Pinnacle.

After her psychic evaluation, Ashtoreth had been sent back while the humans prepared for the assault on Primeval Karaz. She was fairly certain that they wanted her to participate when they did attack… but it was taking them more than a few hours to prepare, and they didn't want her anywhere but Earth if it could be helped.

Of course, Ashtoreth knew what that really meant. Right now, they were deciding what to do with the results of her psychic evaluation.

Hopefully the elves had been charitable in their interpretations of her thoughts.

She scoffed. How likely was that?

They at least had to know her intentions, now. Even if her deal with Dazel bothered them, they'd be able to see exactly how and why she'd made it.

She doubted it would be a problem. The worst that they could want would be to kill or bind him themselves.

Dazel had come back to Earth, then left her on her own. She expected that he was preparing contingencies in case the humans decided to simplify the whole situation by coming after him.

She'd returned to the house.

It was really just her house, now. Hunter was sleeping with his family, and she assumed that Kylie was, too. Frost had his own place.

Whenever Dazel wasn't around, it made the house feel very lonely. Part of that was the fact that it was still sequestered in an overlarge basement area instead of outside.

She was almost nervous as she threw herself belly-down onto the overlarge bed that she'd gotten once Kylie had moved out. It was bizarre: she knew that they could only have discovered that she wouldn't betray them, because she wouldn't. That was the truth of it.

And yet she still had to wait while they made their decision.

"Why did I even come here?" she groaned, flipping onto her side and staring out the window at the concrete wall. "Alone house. That's what you are. A house of cold, cruel isolation." She sighed. "Maybe I'll go check out the North Pole."

She got up and moved to the living room, shaking her head. She'd never been the best with leisure time, but surely there was something she could do bumming around Earth for a while as she waited for some of her friends to come back.

A plastic jar of peanut butter rested on the living room's end table.

She saw it and fought the urge to cry.

"Come on, Ashtoreth. Cheer up."

Why was she in such a terrible mood? Had the elves done this to her?

"Fiendish paranoia," she said. Then she added, "Maybe."

She looked back at the jar of peanut butter. Then she moved into the bathroom. She paused to look at herself in the mirror, pensive.

She was the same Ashtoreth as always. Her two red eyes, once violet, stared back at her. Her horns curled up from beneath her diadem, flanked by the tips of her wings.

She looked at her race.

[Vampiric Archfiend of Humanity]

Obviously she didn't look human. But did she feel it?

For all that her racial upgrade had made her giddy, she'd avoided mentioning her system-granted humanity to anyone except her crew. Matthews had been more than clear on the fact that no matter what, humans wouldn't be comfortable with an archfiend as their monarch.

Somehow, she knew this wouldn't alleviate that criticism.

Still, she had to keep thinking about what Frost had said to her.

If she'd been born on Earth…

She reached up, forming a claw to cut away the ties in her hair before running her hands through her hair. She wove her fingers through the air, glamouring away her horns and wings, then turning her eyes violet.

Then she frowned and cocked her head. She still didn't look human.

Red? Blonde? Black?

Green? Blue? Hazel?

She turned her hair blonde and her eyes blue, then tried red with green, then black with grey. It was strange, seeing herself.

"My version of getting blue hair in college," she whispered, smiling at herself before disappearing her fangs. She wove a baseball cap and jammed it onto her head, then made the image of a bookbag to sling over one shoulder.

Then she stood in front of the mirror and just stared.

Brown hair, brown eyes? She looked at herself and smiled. Humans might put them down for being common, but brown was one of the most interesting colors there was.

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"How do you do, fellow humans?" she asked, grinning.

Then her smile faded, and she stared at herself in the mirror a little more. "Hey guys," she whispered.

She tried it again, but louder. "Hey guys."

A voice came from behind her. "Hey."

Ashtoreth wheeled to see Hunter standing in the doorway, then scrambled to remove all her glamors.

"Sorry," he said. "I probably should have called you with telepathy. But I really wanted to see if I could sneak up on you."

Ashtoreth scoffed, straightened, then jerked her head back to the mirror. "Only if I'm distracted by something dazzling."

Hunter smiled, but said nothing. Ashtoreth just looked back at him for a few seconds before things began to feel awkward.

"It's okay," he said. "I'm not good at being a human either."

Ashtoreth laughed. "What? You're human by definition. Everything you do should fit the category."

"Tell that to the other humans," said Hunter. He shrugged. "I dunno. I feel like most of us actually wind up feeling like we don't fit in."

Ashtoreth glanced back at the mirror. "Well that won't happen to me," she said. "I want to fit in. And I will."

He shrugged. "Dunno. Seems like a tall order."

She scowled at his reflection.

Hunter only shrugged again, looking away as if he were uncomfortable to receive even the slightest bit of her disapproval. "Listen. The most I've ever fit in is with Sadie—and here with you. I don't really think you're supposed to get all of the humans to approve of you. Most of us really only get a handful. And that's fine, because most people suck."

"So cynical," Ashtoreth said admonishingly. "Where'd you learn to hate your own kind?"

"On Earth. With humans?" Hunter shook his head. "You know, I bet you'd make a great celebrity," said Hunter.

Ashtoreth grinned. "You do?"

"Sure," he said. "But the thing is… people really love to watch famous people fall. And they'll have a thousand reasons to want to bring you down. And I don't think you'd take having a whole bunch of fans turn against you very well."

"Pfft," Ashtoreth said. "I could come back from being cancelled."

"Sure, maybe," said Hunter. "But only by appeasing the herd."

She frowned. "Well… I am part goat. Sort of. I bet you I can herd with the rest of them."

But Hunter was shaking his head. "Going with the group… it's stupid, but it almost always works."

"Even though it's stupid?"

Hunter shook his head again. "If you speak up to disagree with the herd, they'll push back. It'll cost you just to speak up, whether you're right or wrong. And if you turn out to be wrong? They'll never let you live it down. And if you turn out to be right? They'll never forgive you."

"It can't be… that bad," Ashtoreth said.

"It is, and it's biology," said Hunter. "Being ostracized meant dying when we were primitive hunters and gatherers, which is what humans have been for most of history. So we all learn to emulate the beliefs of the people around us—the ones that best help us survive. It's got nothing to do with figuring out right from wrong… because there's no worse wrong than telling everyone else the truth if they're committed to a lie."

"Oh," Ashtoreth said, nodding. She was only vaguely certain of why this topic mattered, but Hunter seemed pretty fixated and she didn't want to derail him. "That all makes sense though… even if I guess it would be pretty annoying to deal with…"

"I think the worst part about it all is that if the whole herd finds out they're wrong, they just pardon each other. Move on and speak as little about it as they can get away with." He shrugged again. "I dunno. I think there's some ways to push back against everyone without making them dislike you, but I never figured it out."

"Sure, okay," said Ashtoreth. "But maybe you just haven't had the right environment! Maybe I could just… make everyone agree with me on everything so that they never turn against me. I mean, I'm sure with the right media environment, and the right education system…"

"Look, it doesn't matter," said Hunter. "You only get to have a few human beings accept you for who you really are. Not all of them."

"But—"

"You're human to me," said Hunter. "And the rest of us. And Sadie, even if she doesn't really know you. That's four people." He shrugged. "That's as much as most people ever get."

Ashtoreth sighed. It hadn't escaped her that she was most similar to Hunter out of all of them. He might be right.

"I just…" she paused, then finally said, "—I want everyone to love me."

"Yeah," he said. "That means you're safe as can be. It's a great cure to being scared."

Ashtoreth blinked. She wasn't scared.

"But if you want them to love you, then when they don't, you'll hate them. Really you should just not care about them at all. Save your thoughts for the people who get you. Most people suck, and it gets worse when they start forming groups. Wanting fame is wanting all of the sucky people to form a group and worship you. It's like… the worst possible relationship you can have with other humans."

Ashtoreth looked down. Then she turned and looked back into the mirror. "The taste didn't change."

"We know."

"You do?"

"It's been two weeks. You'd have made a big deal about it by now if you liked peanut butter all of a sudden. Instead…"

She hung her head again. "I just… this is it. This is the closest to human I'll ever be. I didn't even think that's what I wanted—I was just going to be the good archfiend."

She turned back to Hunter, voice becoming pained. "I think… I never really planned for a future on Earth. When I did imagine it, it was a daydream, not a plan. The plan was for the invasion, for the start."

"That's fine," said Hunter. "I don't have a plan for my future on Earth either. Anyway, they sent us all back while they prepare. I came to get you for dinner at my house."

"You did?" she asked, brightening.

"Everyone's coming."

"They are?"

"Let's go," he said, turning to leave. Then he paused. "Also… could you, um, not tell Dazel that I ever told you about humans using like, herd metaphors?"

Ashtoreth snorted. "Sure. I guess. As long as he's not, you know, too starved of material."

Hunter's expression was grim. "If he comes to dinner… he probably won't be."