Demon-Birds are relatively small compared to other demons and a single one can be overpowered relatively easily by an adult person. However they make a sound that puts people in a state of panic, preventing them from acting rational. On top of that this sound attracts others of their kind often leading to many of them grouping up on the same target.
Demonology I, basics on weaker demons
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Looking down from the balcony Robert sees a girl running from a pair of demon geese. “Fuck” He pulls out his revolver and aims for the geese. He shoots and hits the asphalt. He shoots again. With the same result. The geese are moving too fast and are too far away for him to hit them with the small revolver. Especially when using his left hand.
He frantically looks around searching for something to help. The girl weaves around the cars to get some distance between her and the demons. She occasionally tries to open on of the car doors but they are all locked.
Robert aims for one of the cars near the girl. He shoots twice and the alarm of the car starts blaring as one of the side windows shatters.
“Get in the car.” he shouts down to the girl.
“You think that’s gonna be enough?” the crow says
“It has to be. There is not much else I can do.”
“You know there is something you can do.” the crow says.
“Shut up.”
“You know she won’t last long down there.” clearly trying to get under Roberts skin.
“SHUT UP!”
“So, you’ll just let her die down there?”
Robert turns to the crow and shoots at it. One of its legs explodes in gore and it lets out a scream. But surprisingly it doesn’t disappear.
“I KNOW!” Robert screams at the crow.
“Then how does that make you any better than the guardians?” the crow shouts back at Robert. “You could just as well shoot her yourself if you leave her down there.” pointing one wing down to the girl.
Robert stares at the crow with open eyes. His mouth open as if to shout back at it. But he stays silent. It doesn’t matter that the crow doesn’t really care about that girl. It doesn’t matter that the crow has some other motive for wanting a contract with him so badly. For Robert, those words are true.
“So are you gonna cower up here claiming that you can’t do anything or are you finally gonna take my offer?” the crow continues shouting with anger and pain in its voice.
“do it.” Robert quietly presses the words out through a clot that had suddenly formed in his throat. “I accept your contract.”
“Finally!” The crow flies up to him, claws him at the cheek with its remaining foot and sticks the claw in its beak. Then it touches one wing to its own bleeding stump and holds it out to Robert who just wanted to protest about being clawed. “Taste this. We need to exchange blood to seal the contract.”
Robert does what the crow says and looks at it. Just as he wants to ask what now a message pops up out of nowhere right in front of him telling him the system is initialising.
After a second he recovers from the surprise and asks “How long will this take?”
“I don’t know. Seconds, maybe minutes.”
He looks back down and sees the girl inside the car kicking out of the window to keep the geese from getting inside after her. He can also make out some dark red spots on her legs where the geese must have bitten her while she was kicking. “I don’t think I have that much time.”
Robert puts away the empty revolver and starts climbing back off the balcony. Surprisingly the burning in his right hand quickly subsides and the hand turns numb. Without feeling it he has to look at his right hand to make sure he is still holding on to something with it before continuing to climb. That’s when he notices that the red colour of his burns are turning darker by the second. But he ignores it for now. He has to concentrate on climbing with the numb hand to get to the girl before its too late.
As soon as he reaches the ground he turns around and starts running towards the girl. One of the two geese is standing in the car window, its neck inside the car. The other standing next to the car squawking at the blocked window. The sound getting drowned out by the blaring alarm of the car and so does the mental effect.
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On his way there another message pops into his few and has him almost stumble. But it immediately disappears as he curses at it in his head.
‘I’ll put those away for later.’ a quiet voice sounds in his head that barely registers with Robert. He also ignores the writing that suddenly hangs above the demons telling him they are spawn of the species demon-bird of level one and two respectively.
With the demon-geese’s attention on the car they don’t notice Robert closing in on them. As soon as he gets there he jams his knife in the body of the goose in the window.
The second demon now jumps at Robert as he is yanking the first one out of the window and away for the girl inside by using the knife as a handle. A pained scream from the girl comes out of the car.
At this point Robert doesn't care what happens to him any more. He already lost everything that was important to him. He’d betrayed himself and accepted a contract to become a guardian. And to top it all off, his right hand seemed to be burned to a charred crisp. He won’t let that girl die.
The second demon-goose is clawing threw his jacket into his chest and about snap for his face. He lets go of his knife that is still stuck in the first demon-goose and stumbles backwards. Giving him just enough time to get his arms in front of his face to protect it from the beak. Instead of his face the goose bites into his right hand.
Ignoring the pain in his hand he pushes back on it and grabs it by the neck, turning its head in an awkward angle since his hand is still in its beak.
The first demon-goose gets back up and stumbles a little wobbly to Robert and bites him in the leg, barely managing to scratch the skin through the thick trousers.
Robert pulls the one he is holding away from him, pushing with his left against its body, until its claws are no longer digging into his chest. Then he steps forward again, crushing it against the car in front of him and feels something break.
Startled by the impact the girl cries out from inside the car. Robert looks into the car and sees the girl look back at him, scared but with some hope in her eyes.
Then Robert turns around and flings the bird a few meters away from him to take care of the one trying to bite him in the leg. The bird land hard on the asphalt of the parking lot. It jerks around in an attempt to get back up but doesn’t seem to be able to.
Robert reaches down to the knife in the demon-goose at his leg, pushes it inside the bird only to immediately yank it out while using his other arm to shield his face from the snapping beak while he is bent down.
This time Robert must have hit something vital as the bird tumbles over and fall to the ground. Robert hears a notification about having killed a demo and experience and skill points but isn’t really paying attention to it.
The car’s alarm is still blaring over the otherwise silent parking lot.
He goes to the broken car window and looks over the girl inside. One of the girl’s shoes is missing and she has multiple bleeding wounds on her legs.
He reaches into the window, stops for a moment when he notices blood running from his right hand where the demon had bitten him, then unlocks the door and opens it.
Following an impulse he imagines something covering up the wound on his charred hand and to his surprise he sees a grey cloud form around his hand and settle on the wound, covering it and stopping the bleeding. Though when he moves the hand he can feel the wound is still there underneath.
‘What the…’ Robert thinks
‘Probably your magic. You should check your status and your skills’ he hears the voice of the crow.
Robert looks around for it but can’t see it anywhere.
‘I dismissed my avatar for now. It’ll take some time before it recovers at you shot my leg off.’ There was a bit of anger in its voice. ‘You should check your status screen and your skills.’
“Where are you?” Robert asks while he continues to look around for the crow.
‘We are connected through the contract. Like I said I dismissed my physical form.’
‘So what, you are in my head now?’ Robert thought to test this connection.
‘No. But kind of yes. I’ll explain later.’ the crow replied in his head.
Robert said out loud to the confused looking girl. “Sorry about that. This is a bit new to me. Let’s see if we find the first aid kid in this car.”
She stares at his hand then at the wounds bleeding through the tears in her trousers legs. “Can’t you do that to my wounds as well?”
Robert looks away from the gloves compartment he just opened and back at her. “I’m not sure.” then he thinks to the crow ‘Can I stop her bleeding with that as well.’
‘I told you. Check your status and your skills.’ he hears the slightly annoyed reply from the crow.
‘My status?’ He wonders and in that moment a window pops up. Displaying a bunch of numbers, his name, attributes and a single skill: Ashen Cover.
As he concentrates on the skill another window pops up with a description for the skill.
{Ashen Cover (innate): Allows the user to create a layer of ash to have it settle on a surface. The ash is either taken from the surroundings or created from the users mana.
“Hmm, I think I can try it.” Robert says to the girl.