A warning and a fight

“DANGER!”

A sudden voice rips through your mind, blasting you out of your quiet sleep.

You instinctively let loose a huge surge of magical energy, blasting everything around you away in a huge surge. An enormous boom echoes though the room as the shockwave ripples out, sending chairs flying, clearing the immediate area around you.

You stand up, forcing sleep out of your head, and swiftly glance around to take stock of the situation. You spot Evie standing in a corner of the room, mouth open in surprise at the sudden wakeup. Having noted that she seems to be unharmed you let your eyes continue on to scan the rest of the room, running over the scattered chairs and tables, before resting on something that is slightly out of place.

Amidst the wreckage of the once tidy room you spot a dark form lying pinned under the weight of several heavy seats. A pair of red eyes, burning with a savage hunger, glare at you from a black torso so shadowy it is difficult to pick out any features at all. Underneath the burning eyes sits a ferocious fanged maw, long white teeth running in layers deep into the dark recesses of the monsters mouth. The beast struggles fitfully, but to no avail.

You watch in perverse fascination as it tries to free itself, its struggles slowly growing weaker. It form also begins to fade with its strength, the shadowy figure becoming wispy, and the chairs slowly sink down into the space the thing once occupied. With a sudden clatter the chairs drop down to the floor, blowing apart the remainder of the monsters form.

A feminine voice comes from behind you, and you look back over your shoulder to see that Evie has approached and is now standing just behind your shoulder.

“What was that thing?” she asks in a quiet voice.

You begin to open your mouth to reply that you have no idea, but something else comes out instead:

“That was an animal demon, probably one of hunger. They are common at night, common and dangerous. And they never come alone, usually in groups of.....”

Your mouth drops open in surprise, now where had that particular information come from? Any further musings on this topic are however dispelled as an insistent scratching comes from the entrance to the pool. Clicking and chattering sounds, like those of claws and teeth, come from the darkness just outside the partially open doors to the pool, but you cannot see the cause of these sounds. Remembering your own advice you guess that there are probably more of these demons out there in the night.

You gather your will, and focus a globe of air dense enough to emit light in the palm of your hand. Turning to look out the door you throw the globe into the dark night, hopefully revealing the source of the noises. The glowing globe sails out through the crack in the doors, and illuminates the immediate area beyond.

Hundreds of small, red eyes turn to watch the globe pass, the light reflecting and illuminating their eyes, like those of cats. You get a faint impression of bodies, but it seems like they are made out of the night itself and therefore you see only the eyes.
You try to count the numbers of pairs, but give up almost immediately, there are just too many, and probably more out of the small circle of light.

As you scan the crowd outside in the night, you notice that one pair is focused not on globe, but rather on you. The eyes widen as you meet its hungry gaze, and suddenly begin to race toward you. As it passes between the doors and into the light of the pool its body is revealed.

A sleek black form races towards you on all fours, kind of like a small panther. The entire figure is nearly featureless, its hungry red eyes being the only contrast to the black form. A crack opens in the front of the things face as it streaks toward you, revealing row after row of sharp white fangs.

You quickly slam a wall of telekinetic **** into the oncoming demon, but with surprising power the demon smashes its way through your barrier. Changing your tactics completely you narrow a thin spike of ****, and smash it into the face of the demon. The spike rips into the demons shadowy body, piercing deep into featureless form. Once you have judged it has reached far enough into the body you send spikes of **** out from the central spear, ripping the monsters body to pieces. The body instantly becomes transparent, falling to pieces almost as if it were smoke. You breathe a sigh of relief as the demon disappears completely.

A sharp gasp from Evie makes you glance back up at the entranceway, just in time to see the mass of eyes begin to race toward you, slamming their small bodies through the gap in the door, forcing it open wider to allow more to enter. A mass of shadowy, writhing forms streaks toward you, savage eyes glaring their hunger at you as they approach. You slowly retreat back from the entrance, all the time sending spikes and blades of **** into the mass, sheering through shadowy legs and torsos. Nothing you do however makes an impact on the advance of the demons, there are just too many of them for you to stop by yourself.

You slam a spike into one of the closest demons; ripping through its head and making it fade from existence. Looking to the right slightly you shout over your shoulder to the stunned girl behind you.

“Evie! Oy!” the girl glances toward you, fear dancing in her eyes, “summon that demon of yours! We need all the help we can get!”

The girl nods in understanding, and closes her eyes to begin to summon it, obviously remembering your lesson from earlier. Your attention snaps back to the oncoming horde, and you start to throw spear after spear of compressed air into the writhing mass, leaving the girl to complete the summoning on her own. Detonations of the air spears send groups of the small beasts flying though the air to smash into the walls with bone breaking ****, only for the demons to get up and start running toward you again.

You harden two long blades of super compressed and searing hot air onto your forearms, and sprint into the mass, magically enhanced muscles giving you superhuman reflexes, and begin to lay about yourself. You slice through demon after ravening demon, until the air seems filled with the smoky fading remains of the monsters. Your world tunnels down to only your immediate surroundings, your mind focused only on the task of cutting and cutting, identifying each demon in turn, and then ripping it apart.

A strip of firey pain runs across your back, and you spin round, slamming a blade through the demon that caused it. Another lance of pain shoots through you as another demon rakes its claws across the back of your thigh, ripping a long rent in your jeans. You continue to rip into the mass of demons, your reflexes slowly losing their edge as blood loss drains your strength and speed.