Pawn Training Lesson 3: Demon Hunting

It had been a month since Levi started his hunt for this Wendigo Demon. Well, he should say, their, hunt for the demon.

With him on this hunt, there were three Pawns newly recruited like him. Their names and personalities are as thus follows:

John Valentine. A seventeen year old blonde haired green eyed boy, from somewhere called 'Norway', who was around six foot in height, probably two hundred pounds of pure muscle and full of more energy than a mating rabbit.

Francis Von Trier. A twenty year old Frenchmen with black hair that dropped past his shoulders, brown eyes that showed no energy, and the plainest expression ever. Rarely speaks, always sleeping or doing something totally unproductive, and dirty as all Hell. About five foot five and made of skin and bones.

Kawada Misume. Although her name, in normal formation is Misume Kawada, meaning, he had no clue. Something Pure or whatever. She was a sixteen year old Japanese girl. Her black hair, she says is usually up in a Shimada Mage, but typically just leaves it tied back in a simple ponytail as she's dubbed it. She had fair skin, almond shaped eyes with the same color as the shape, and thin lips. She stood about five foot even, and had some serious agility. She was very quiet and kept to herself mostly.

"Levi-san, I think you should see this." Misume dragged Levi from his thoughts. They had been hunting the last of the Satyr Demons under the wendigos command.

They had hunted down ten Demons total, this being their eleventh. Levi had absorbed each orb, and gained only one new skill. Something he called, 'Spring Step'. It allowed him to dash forward up to two meters within an instant. His condensed Soul Energy has reached exponential levels, close to completing the first layer. Of the four of them though, John was the strongest. Levi was the fastest, Misume was the smartest, and Francis was the laziest.

"Where is this bastard going?" Levi muttered. He was dragging their 'Bait' Francis to a cave entrance. Totally un-Satyr like behavior.

"I think we finally found the lair. Look at all the bloody tracks. Francis doesn't have long if that's the case. We're gonna have to face the thing now." John spoke very rough English, so his sentences were quick and choppy.

"Look, John, even if we wanted to, we aren't ready to take that beast on. Besides, I think the Wendigo is out for lunch at the moment. Otherwise, Francis wouldn't be delivered personally. He'd have been the main entreè a couple kilometers back." Levi spoke slowly in order to make sure both of the poor English speaking kids next to him, could understand.

"If we wait too long. Francis won't live." John shook his head. The way he was acting, Levi could only see them charging ahead blindly, regardless of logic.

"Levi-san, John-dono is right. Francis-san most likely will die before we make plans to rescue." Misume backed John up.

"Are you confident enough in your abilities to go up against whatever, and how ever many, demons are in that cave?" Levi sighed, hoping that logic would pull through.

"I believe that I can fight." John nodded.

"Hai, watashi no nōryoku wa tsuyoidesu." Misume reverted back to her native language, as constantly speaking English tended to strain her mentally. Although, Levi had no clue what she said, he accepted the fact that both most likely decided to go ahead and rush blindly into the cave.

"Very Well, let's go save Francis." Levi shook his head as he gave up trying to convince them of logical reason.

John nodded as he stood up and nonchalantly walked over to the cave entrance, Misume tailing closely behind. Levi stayed further back to observe the surroundings, expecting at any moment, an ambush.

They reached the cave entrance rather quickly and without incident. The rotting smell of corpses and blood stained the air as they entered the cave. Misume pinched her nose, but John and Levi seemed to be rather unfazed.

Levi began sticking to the shadows to avoid immediate detection, thankfully the other two decided that was smart and followed suit.

The deeper they went, the denser the smell became, enough so, that Levi could practically feel and taste it.

"This may end up becoming one of the largest mistakes I will have ever made." Levi muttered to himself, attempting not to gag. John signaled for them to stop, and Levi could see why.

They had finally reached the opening to a cavern, and the amount of Demons had far surpassed Levi's original fear. There were at least two dozen, and each of them had a bound and gagged human hanging by the feet, above them. Levi watched the satyr they had followed, wrap a rope around Francis' ankles, and throw the other end over a sturdy log pillar laying horizontally on two vertical log pillars that were at least fifteen feet in height, and hoist him up so that his face was level with the satyr.

"A pawn outta get me noticed for promotion." The satyr announced loudly for all to hear earning him scowls and hateful looks.

"I see, so they're competing to be in the best graces of this wendigo demon." Levi mulled. This was far more problematic than he had originally thought. If they really wanted to succeed, they had to kill all the Demons, free all of the humans, and then defeat the wendigo, all without a hitch.

While Levi was thinking, John had already rushed into the cavern, followed by Misume, both brandishing foreign weapons, catching the demons by surprise. They had already cut down a demon each before the rest could react.

"YOUR PAWN WAS BAIT GEORGE!" One of the low tier Scorpî Demons screeched as she flew into battle.

"I'm surrounded by morons." Levi stated to himself as he joined the fight. His choice of weapon was a pair of daggers, as it allowed him to swiftly deal with his opponents without having to worry about the weight of a weapon delaying his reaction time. Cutting down these Demons proved to be an easier feat than it looked.

With the combined skills Levi had gained, low tier Demons fell easily to his blades. Although, he still couldn't believe this was considered training.

The last two demons were the first, and apparently only, lamia and Arachnî that they had run into, so Levi's excitement for a couple new skills got the better of him and he rushed blindly towards them. Not realizing Misume was aiming for their heads as well.

The two crashed into each other, causing them to lose their weapons and fall over, giving the demons a chance to attack. Luckily John was able to parry their strikes after freeing Francis, who promptly joined the fight.

After they dispatched the remaining Demons, and helped Levi and Misume recover their weapons, Levi went and absorbed both orbs. One was dark blue, and the other a shade of hot pink.

This time absorbing, was different than usual. Immediately after the pain, his body collapsed, and he began to feel incredibly tired. Levi remained on his knees until he felt his fatigue disappear and stood back up.

"Is it happen? Now? The sleep?" Francis spoke even worse English than the other two. Levi shrugged, even he wasn't quite sure yet.

"We still have last demon to hunt before we can call this over. The boss. If we want any hope of defeating monster, we need trap or successful ambush attack. Remember need fire to kill this bastard. Iron hurts, but only the fire kill. So from now, we use our iron weapons to immobilize, before we strike with fire." Misume tried speaking slowly, but Levi could tell she was really struggling to sound coherent enough to understand. Levi nodded in agreement, and they unanimously voted for an ambush.

***

They decided to mask their scents with the ungodly pile of gore, and set the humans free, keeping them huddled in the far corner as bait. They then used the same system of simple hoists, to rope four Demons into a position like they were guarding the bait. Using three of the partially devoured corpses, the group placed them around with discarded weapons to make it seem as if the demons had eventually succeeded in defeating the 'intruders'.

To add effect, they even transplanted residue of their Soul Energies into the corpses to produce the effect of recent death. All they needed now, was for the bite.

It wasn't long after they had finally settled into their determined ambush spots, that they heard a ghastly wail echo into the cavern. It was dark, but because of their heightened senses, it was as clear as if moonlight were lighting the cavern. That didn't mean the humans could see, but they could hear, and they began crying muffledly out in fear.

Then it entered. It was still in the evolution stage, so its figure was still very human rather than beast. It looked to be a woman in her mid twenties, crawling on all four. She was entirely nude, and her skin was rotting off. Black Tarred tufts of beast hair, rotted organs, and bone could be seen from certain rotted parts. Her hair was a stringy mess, and her eyes were yellowish white. She had no lips, which gave her the expression of a terrifying ear to ear blood soaked smile.

"You three! What happened in here?" She immediately asked angrily with a slight wailing echo in her voice. When she got no response, she lunged at the middle most dummy and got tangled briefly in the web of ropes.

By the time she had realized what was happening, it was already too late. Levi and the others had made their moves and successfully cut all the major tendons, rendering her temporarily immobile. Using an oil soaked torch, and a flint and steel, they shoved the flame through one of the rotted holes. Successfully completing their training mission. And Levi, greedily absorbed the miasma, a blood red colored orb.

Unlike before though, after collapsing, Levi fell asleep, and he wouldn't wake up from it for a very long time.

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[Sorry if that was too quick, or anticlimactic, but I wasn't aiming for this particular demon to be as strong as the Native American version, or as intelligent. As explained before, it was simply more concerned with food, and keeping hidden. Not so much on being smartly prepared, I'm also more interested in moving this story along. Later on when I have time, I'll update this rough draft version to fit better standards, but as it is, I'm just trying to get this to be popular]

***The first 6 Chapters of This Novel is dedicated to explaining the times before Angel's and Demons Made themselves known to Humankind, giving them abilities. These Abilitied Humans are called 'Pawns'. But, more importantly, the first five chapters are to enlighten the reader to Levi's Background, of before he went(Spoiler) into a 400 year slumber. In that time his original Angel Master, falls and becomes a Fallen Angel. Not quite Demon, not quite Angel. For sake of keeping an easy to follow plot, I have kept it as, Fallen Angel's or Ascended Demons, keep out of Human Affairs, thus Rachel actually Implements her entire being into a System so that when Levi awakes, he will not be without an Ability. Yes, the explanation is lengthy, but, there is a reason for this. I have much to change, and a lot of people have already read the book up to chapter 5. Now, of course, there are some other details that must be explained. Angel's and Demons do in fact despise each other, and do not work together. That is why there are Factions. In 2057 there will be approximately Seven Angel Factions countered by Seven Demon Factions. Each Faction has their own Area. Ex: The Lust Faction will have Part of Russia and All of Canada as its area of control. No, Earth is not the only Limit. Earth is just the neutral zone, as that's where humans were born, and the best way to obtain more 'Pawns'. There are other worlds and each Faction tries to gain control for their respective sides. As the book continues, more will be revealed, so don't worry about anything being left out. I don't wish to leave anything unresolved. As this is Chapter 6, and the final Prologue chapter, I wanted all readers to be satisfied with the plot before the next chapter time skips to 2057. So, without further ado... enjoy the 'Fallen System'.***