Demon in the Snow, Heather Fledderus [rainbow fish read aloud .TXT] 📗

be your sparring partner until the end of term.”

Nate slumped in his chair. Bottom of the class. There'd be no way he could near the top, so he'd be stuck with some sort of loser. Chad had tried to show him a few pyro-techniques, but Nate just couldn't do it, couldn't find his Spark.

The rest of the class stood and started making their way to the front of the room, passing through a door one at a time. Nate slouched slightly in his chair, unwilling to get up- he was in no mood for games, not after what he had just found out. Hannah came up beside him, “Hey.”

“Sup?”

“I wanted to apologize about Li-”

“Nothing to apologize for,” he cut her off, “The guy's no different than all the guys on Misd.”

She tucked a loose hair behind her ear, “Alright.”

He glanced at the room where the other students were going, each grabbing some sort of visor headset on their way out. “So, how exactly does this work?”

“It's a virtual reality program. That way, no one gets seriously injured and people can go all out.” She paused, watching as Lionel and the other Casters passed through. “Hey, Nate,” she started, still watching them.

“Yeah?”

“Don't hate Lionel. He can't help the way he is. He comes from a family that believes only the pure-bloods should be 'Slayers.”

Nate cracked his knuckles, “Well, he's entitled to his opinion. I'll still knock his face in if he ticks me off, same as any other guy.”

Hannah laughed, “That could be fun to watch.” Her face turned serious. “Nate, I need to warn you. Your integration of the demons is good, but I've never seen you release any of them in battle. You use their powers, but not them.”

“So?”

“So that'll make the others suspicious if you don't release anything and still win. You know Misd history, the witch trials in colonial America?”

“There was a quiz the day you guys let me in on what you all do.”

“Well, that same sort of nuttiness can be associated with how people here feel about hybrids. Some time ago, scientists got it into their heads to use humans as bait or weapons. It got shut down for ethical reasons, and all the experiments were exterminated, considered monsters. If they even suspect that you might-”

“Don't worry about it,” Nate interrupted, lying through his teeth, “I've been practicing releasing the demons, and I've gotten pretty good at it.”

“Really?” Hannah looked relieved, “Good- I mean, good luck.”

Nate grinned as he got up. The room was practically deserted, the last few students filing through the door. “Alright. Let's do this.”

Hannah followed him down the  stairs, “You'll be up against other Summoners. I don't know what kind of terrain they'll program it with, but there might be some demons available to absorb and manipulate. Plus, the VR analyzes your hoard.” She failed to notice Nate twitch, his shoulders tensing for an instant before he relaxed. His eyes flashed gold in the same instant before returning to their icy blue.

“So you'll have an edge over the others. Some of these guys have never been to Misd, and the ones that have go there on controlled explorations, never coming into contact with more than six demons that they could absorb.”

“Sounds cool,” Nate replied, slightly distracted as he grabbed a headset and walked through the door. The room was an almost perfect circle, with chairs lining the outside of the chamber. Behind each chair was a display board. Some of the 'Slayers were already hooked in, and the display showed their fight.

“We'll eat lunch together, okay?”

Nate nodded, “Sure.”

He watched as one of the screens close by filled with white noise, a bar of text reading 'Disconnected'. The owner of the chair stirred, flipping his visor to look at the newcomers. His shock of red hair stuck out in several directions, with some in the back pulled to form a small ponytail that reached almost to the nape of his neck. He grinned at them, “Hitagasi! Saved you a seat.”

Nate glanced behind him  to look at Hannah, but she was already making her way over to a dark-haired girl who was smiling at her. Nate turned back with a shrug and made his way over to the empty chair.

“I'm Cain. I'm a Pyro.”

“People call me Nate. Summoner.” He shook Cain's hand.

“I know. You know what would be sweet? If you and me ended up getting paired. But it's practically impossible to rig the system, so do your best, and I will too. Too bad we couldn't meet before this, then we could have analyzed the skill level we would need in order for that to happen.” He noticed Nate studying how he had set up his headset. “First time, eh? Here, let me help.”

He took the headset from Nate's hand and placed it on his head, cinching it tight around his scalp. Nate tried to shove his hair out of his eyes, but it barely moved.

“There,” Cain said, stepping back, “Now all you've got to do is sit in the chair and lean back. The visor hooks up automatically with the chair and hey-presto: you're in a VR program. You've lived on Misd you whole life, right?”

Nate nodded. Cain grinned, “That's awesome. You must have a huge hoard of demons by now.”

Nate shrugged, “Actually, I never really tried to absorb them until I met Hannah and the others. So I might have a dozen or so.”

Cain's grin grew wider, “That's still a lot more than any of the rest of these noobs. If they're lucky, they might have six, most of which have been over-used in practice. The program takes that sort of thing into account.”

“You can over-use a demon?”

Cain nodded solemnly, “Apparently. But I wouldn't know much about that. I'm a Pyro, I'm just the destructive force on the team, the guy that gets to do all the fun stuff.

“Anyways, good luck.” Nate sat down as Cain went back to his chair. He flipped the visor part down, along with the headphones. Nate copied his movements, immediately cutting off his sight and hearing. He leaned back in his chair, feeling the electricity purr through him as the chair connected with his headset.

 

 

15. Duels For Tools

He was standing in the darkness. For a moment, Nate thought that he had returned to the crazy Cache place, where his demons hung out. But as he looked, there was no chuckle, no welcome, no sudden attack as one of them tried to catch him off guard. He watched as a world was built around him. Grass grew beneath his feet, spreading out in all directions. A lake formed off to his right, and a forest even further away grew up ahead.

A girl with dark eyes and long black hair twisted into a braid appeared. They took a moment to study each other. “I'm Nate.” He said at last.

“I know. I'm Angel.”

They lapsed into silence. “You ever been to Misd?”

Angel nodded, but didn't say anything.

“So, what are the rules?”

“What are the rules indeed, Mr. Hitagasi,” a voice echoed across the park-like setting.

Nate rolled his eyes. Maybe this was just a twisted form of his Cache. There were human-looking demons, but he couldn't remember when he might have run into one of them.

“The rules are simple. Since this is virtual, you two will fight until one of you can no longer continue.”

“That's it?”

Angel simply nodded in acknowledgment, moving one foot behind her to better secure her position.

“I should warn you both. Even though this is virtual, you're mind and physical bodies will most certainly be damaged in extreme situations. There will be no lacerations, but you will awaken to bruises and cracked ribs, along with ghost pain.”

The voice faded, its last few words echoing across the park. Nate swallowed. Ghost pain, pain that the mind imagined the body had, and made it seem very much real to the body. He doubted regenerative demons would be able to do anything about that.

Angel held her hand out in front of her, her eyes taking on a golden glow. “Gatara, I summon thee!”

A pulse of energy shot out of her hand, but rather than make its way towards Nate, it hovered in the air, twisting and growing, taking on the form of a huge beast with three giant horns sticking out of its skull. It towered over their heads, standing between the two of them. It roared triumphantly at its release.

Nate felt fear flash through him before another feeling settled in -contempt. A F-negative class, the weakest of them at that. He smirked. That was something he could take out with his bare hands. He balled his hand into a fist, preparing to attack.

Hannah's warning flashed through his mind, 'If the others think that you're one of them...' he sighed, rethinking his strategy. He hadn't lied when he had said that he was getting pretty good at the Summoning, but once he let the demons out, it seemed like even the small ones wanted to make his life hell.

He held a hand out in front of him, just as Angel had done. Time to build a distraction. In his mind, he flipped through the options he had allowed himself to keep, having buried the presences of the rest of them deep enough that even he could barely sense them to keep them from being detected by any sort of program. Hannah probably didn't even know how many he had, but it was way more than the dozen or so he had mentioned to Cain.

He chose Tzuchizimati, a G-class mist demon. It wasn't the strongest one he had kept, but it was the best as a smoke screen.

Fog swirled around the pair and Angel's demon as Nathan's materialized, growing into something that looked like a giant white frog with a shark's head. Its eyes blinked as its gills flapped in the moist environment it created. Nate waited until he could no longer see anything before moving, using the powers of a XL F-class sensory demon to see the world through a sea of red. The mist swirled around them all like fog, the mist demon and the other glowing pale pink while Angel herself was a bright red target. He was using a demon's power after all.

Nate ran towards the demon, keeping his footsteps to as quiet as possible. “Water shield attack!” he yelled. The demon complied, sucking in the mist closest to it, causing it to turn to a liquid ball rotating above it's mouth. It seemed like the only attack lower-class demons knew. Nate leaped feet-first into the ball, using his momentum to burst the bubble as he used the water to jump and land on his demon's head.

The other demon took the bait. Or it was Angel, whichever one decided that it was time for the demon to move. Nate grinned. Bursting the bubble made it seem like he was inexperienced, and the kid had fallen for it. And she was just a kid. This was too easy.

The building of the bubble had created a visible spot for Angel to send her demon through, but now that the bubble was burst, it reverted back to mist almost immediately.

Nate stood on top of his demon, watching as the other demon came closer, trying to