The five demon dogs continue to slowly prowl towards us, their features more apparent as they creep closer and move around. Two of them look like German shepherds, another like a golden retriever, with the final two looking like some kind of pit bulls. A good look reveals all of them have extra long claws on their front paws. Spikes protrude from their backs along their spines. As well as from their tails, which have taken a mange infested appearance.
"OK, so good news and bad news." Charles says.
"How is any of this good?" I ask him while jumping to my feet still holding Anna.
"The scanner is a newer model that should ping the location and type when a demon is scanned. So help should be coming soon, assuming the signal gets picked up."
"And the bad news then?" I ask as the corjo demons start to spread out to surround us.
"We are way out in the woods and those are corjo demons, pack hunters by nature. Individually they're weak, at least by demon standards. But they work together as a group to compensate for it."
"Shit. Ok, can they climb?" I ask.
"Climb?" Charles questions, confused.
"Yea, like climbing a tree?"
"Oh, no idea, maybe?"
"Still a better place than here. Let's go!" I say as I reach out to grab Charles, then turn and run towards the nearest tree.
The demons of course see this and decide to chase, immediately breaking into a run and bolting after us. I stop at the base of the tree, looking for a branch to jump up to while Charles catches up. Charles of course runs right into my back, bouncing off and almost falling on his ass.
"Grab on!" I told him while extending my wings. Time to see if these things have any push. As Charles throws his arms over my shoulders I bend down and push off, flapping my wings as hard as I can as I try to activate my flight magic for some extra height. We boost off the ground, my wings coming back close to my body to avoid the branches as Charles barely holds on and Anna screams in my arms. It's barely enough, but we get just high enough off the ground that I can get a stout branch under my feet. I plant myself firmly on the branch, taking one hand off Anna and using it to balance myself on the trunk.
"Charles, climb! I got Anna!" I say as I start looking for branches higher up that look strong enough to hold the weight of two people. Charles, having somehow kept his head on straight, immediately jumps off my back and starts climbing. Thankfully the tree I jumped into is an older oak, meaning plenty of close together branches to use as foot holds. We get a couple of seconds head start as the demons make their way to the base of the tree. Charles gets a bit higher than me on account of my wings being unwieldy in this mess and me having to carry Anna, but overall we get good height.
We're about twenty feet up when the first demon gets to the tree and tries to jump up. It gets good height but still not enough to be even halfway to us. But it's so focused on us that it doesn't even try to gain any footing, instead snapping at us at the apex of its jump before falling back down, bouncing off of and breaking branches in the process. The demon hit the ground with a thunk and bounced back onto its feet, seemingly enraged by its failure as it snarled up at us.
Other demons weren't idle either, two of them were circling the tree from a short distance away, probably to cut off any attempts at escape, while the remaining two were clawing at the base of the tree. We climbed up a little more, stopping almost twenty five feet off the ground. A nasty distance to fall, but it still didn't feel far enough away from the demons below us.
“Hey Charles, can you call 911? I don’t trust your stupid scanner thing.” I ask him while keeping my eyes on the demons below.
“Yea, give me a second. I think I got service.” Charles replies.
I turn my attention to Anna, who’s still shaking. She looks back at me with a conflicted expression, tears still streaming down her face.
“Hey Anna, you OK?” I ask her in as soft a voice as possible. She doesn’t answer with words, simply nodding her head a bit.
“OK, that's good. Do you think you can sit on your own? I need to change back and maybe deal with the problem at the bottom of the tree.” I ask her. Again no words, she just nods her head and reaches out to grab onto a branch so she can pull herself over. I help her sit down on a particularly big branch and find hand holds to help keep herself stable. She seems reluctant to sit alone, so I motioned to Charles to come sit near her while he was talking on the phone. From the sounds of it he had just gotten through to the 911 operator, but he made his way down anyway to try and comfort Anna. With my friends taken care of, I turn my attention back to the issue that drove us up the tree in the first place while shifting my more demonic parts away. I debated on trying to fly out of this shitshow, but realized after checking my mana that doing that with Charles and Anna isn't viable. Just getting into the tree was expensive as hell.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Mana: 2137/4224
Down below three of the demons were still trying to figure out if they wanted to climb the tree or not while another was still patrolling. One of the demons that was originally patrolling had stopped in place and was chewing on something. It took me a moment to make out what it was chewing on, but after a few moments of squinting I realized it was the mauled remains of one of Anna’s crutches. Destructive little shit chewing on it has turned it into a barely recognizable pile of scrap metal, the other crutch is nowhere to be seen either. Maybe it got dropped and melted in that beam thing that melted the car. Said car was also now burning, the front half finally catching fire from the intense heat.
Finally one of the demons below, seemed to have tired of waiting around, and starts clawing at the base of the tree. After a moment it backs up, then runs forward and jumps a couple feet up the trunk. I desperately tries to sink its claws into the trunk with some success, but eventually fails and loses grip, falling back to the ground. Unfortunately, both it and the other two are emboldened by its partial success. All three demons back up before jumping and attempting to scale the tree trunk. Two of them fall back to earth, but the third finds grip and starts slowly crawling its way up the trunk. I’ve seen videos of dogs climbing trees online, but it is way more fucking horrifying when its corjo demons and the tree is a one you’re in.
“Charles! These things figured out how to climb!” I yell at him while the other two demons try again, and successfully start climbing the trunk.
“uuuuuhhhhh… shit! Yea, they’re climbing the tree……….. I don’t know, maybe? Hey Lucy, can you knock them down with something?” Charles asks me after talking on the phone for a moment. Anna meanwhile, breaks into hysterical crying and starts hugging Charles. Poor Anna, she is not having a good day.
“Yes… actually, you just gave me an idea Charles.” That hopefully works, because if it doesn't, we will have angry demons in the tree with us.
The three demons slowly climb their way up the trunk, slightly staggered in distance but still aligned enough that I think I can get them all with one hit. So I wait, and wait, seconds go by as the demons continue climbing. After about half a minute they are getting close to where the branches start about twelve feet up. If they get onto those branches my plan might not work, so it's now or never. I inhale, pumping as much mana into the screech spell as possible, then release it with intent to cause disorientation.
The ripped blast of sound flies down the tree, snapping a few weaker branches and shaking the rest before rushing over the demons climbing the trunk. The effect is immediate, they become disoriented and lose grip. They flail about as they fall back to earth, trying desperately to right themselves before impact, but failing due to the effects of my attack. Two of the demons land awkwardly on their sides with heavy thuds, before getting up and limping away. The last one lands on its head and neck at a funny angle, and a nasty crack. After a moment of no movement it becomes clear it's dead.
I pump my fist as I congratulate myself on the plan going better than expected. One dead, with the other two no longer being able to try climbing judging by how they’re limping. The remaining two that were circling the tree don't seem very keen to try either, instead opting to keep circling at a distance. They may think they can wait us out, but help is on the way…. Supposedly. Up behind me I can hear Charles comforting Anna through her sniffling.
“Hey, see, it's fine. Lucy even managed to kill one. We just gotta wait till help gets here.”
That seemed to give Anna a lot more confidence, as I hear her sniffling imminently die down. Now that it's quiet I can hear a faint sound in the distance, muffled due to the distance but definitely coming closer. After a few moments I realize it's the sound of helicopters, a lot of them. It doesn't take long for them to arrive. The first to show up are some kind of gun ships. One is a newer type, having quad jet engines, one on each corner of the craft. It looks more like a flying T than a traditional helicopter. I can't remember what it's called, but supposedly the design is so it can easily mount large modular weapon systems, troop transports, equipment, etc. This particular one had a particularly dangerous looking rack of missiles mounted to it.
The other one was a newer looking Apache attack helicopter. Looking decked out with more missiles and a particularly large nose cannon. Said cannon was already pointed into the clearing, probably at the demons, but not firing. The reason why became clear as the helicopter dove low, and someone dropped off the landing rails on the other side to slam down in the middle of the clearing as the helicopter sped off. I can't quite make out much about them, other than they are armored, and to survive a fall like that it's going to be some high tech armor, or they are a defender.
The demons wasted no time in turning their attention to the new arrival. Breaking off their camping of the tree and blitzing straight for the interloper. The question of defender or decked out soldier was answered as the new arrival raised their hand and let loose a bolt of some kind. The bolt split into four a moment later, each sub shot speeding towards a target. The remaining demons never stood a chance, their heads exploding the moment the bolts made contact. And just like that it was over. Until a stupid popup almost knocked me out of the tree!
- Power level threshold met! Beginning class selection!