My body was broken but the demon was still there when I called out to him. He was calmer than expected, still frustrated but calmer. It was days before we got out of the bed. It should have been longer but the demon was healing our body.
"Since when can you heal us? Why have you never done it before?" I asked him subconsciously. From what I understood until that point in time, his powers entirely centered around physical ability like fighting.
"I have always been able to do it. I just never cared to before as it was always your fault we were hurt so I let you learn a lesson on your own. But this time, it was my decision so I am healing us." The demon said straight. This is a power that would come in handy in the future. I had to keep in mind the abilities of the demon. If I was guessing correctly, there were still other things he could do that I had yet to find out.
The nights came and went as we laid immobile in the bed. Quite a lot of vampires, some known some not, came to see us while we laid. The princes did not. Instead they called to us when we were able to leave.
All the vampires who came to visit were excitedly telling us of the fight and how amazing it was to see someone challenge the princes like that again. None of them thought I had any more to offer than the first time. I smiled to them while they talked but inside, both the demon and myself were filled with rage. He was angry and I was both angry and upset.
"We are progressing nicely. Our progress is even faster than I originally expected. I suspect we will be able to take them 1-on-1 within the next six months as opposed to the years I originally foresaw." The demon echoed inside. "We have not yet seen their full capacity together so I cannot make a judgement on that but if they have the skill I suspect, it will be well over a few decades before we are ready for that battle. But we will take over by then with some careful planning."
"Of course." I said absent-mindedly. Odesza had been let out so he was not even here to converse with. There were a few other random no names in the beds adjourning mine but I did not know nor care to know them.
Just before dawn, the visits stopped the first night. I was not in the mood to hold a conversation with the demon either as I just laid out and went to sleep.
He had me trapped when I slept so there was no way to avoid conversations if he wanted to have them. Instead of getting my attention from inside the dream, he just pulled me into the dark he lived in. It was the first time I ever had a chance to have a face-to-face with him.
He had a liquid like body except it was like a black watery substance. His skin shifted and rolled around his body as he hovered a meter or so away. His body size and height mirrored mine as he was in my body.
"This is what you look like? This is quite an interesting development." I said as I reached my hand out and tapped the liquid in his head. It really was like a tar as I forced my finger in.
"This is surprisingly close to what my original body was like. The sizing is different but otherwise very similar." The demon said motioning his head up and down his body. His visage did not have eyes so I could only guess he was looking at himself.
"Oh. Isn't that quite the lucky coincidence." I said as I continued to touch him. The liquid was strange and made me feel strange when I touched him.
"Stop it, please. This is a conversation we can have at a later time. As I was saying before, we should be able to take Hideki in a few months at least. I have yet to see the third prince in battle and Hoizon is far out of reach. But we only need to handle one at a time." The demon said circling me.
"Handle one at a time? What does that mean?" I asked taking note of what he said. He was planning something I could tell even without being able to see his expression. We were bonded enough that I could read his emotions even without him meaning to show them.
"Well if we are to take over these vampires, like you want, we will certainly have to deal with the princes. We should be able to separate them long enough to fight them 1 at a time with some careful execution." The demon said paused in front of me. The liquid around him just continued surfing around his body.
"How would we go about separating them? They are ALWAYS together. I have never seen one without seeing the other two." I said stressing how much they were together. It was doubtful any of the vampires had ever seen them alone.
"That is easy. All it will take is some placement. We can force them to separate with some cooperation from the Moonwalkers." The demon said slyly. The Moonwalkers would never work with us of their own free will. We were the biggest danger to them.
"We can take advantage of exactly that. None of them are foolish enough to try us alone. They will send groups when they want us hunted. We can take advantage of that. When they send a group for us in the future, after some more training, we can force the group to take us to their leader and we can plan with the higher ups of their clan." The demon said planning our next moves.
He was a tactical genius as I could not see how that would work but judging by his tone, he could not see it realistically failing. There was not much else to do than go along with it. I had confidence in his abilities.
My body was in much better condition the second night. We were not quite ready to leave the bed but we would be by the third night. As happened with the first, more vampires came to talk and replay the fight with me. I was in a much better mood this night so I engaged more readily with them.
A few wanted to train together as they saw me as good competition but that was mostly the older vampires that were stronger. The newer recruits were hesitant around me as I had just proven that I far outclassed them all even together. None dared to give me anything but respect in fear of the repercussions. My message was received it seemed.
After a few hours of the vampires coming and going, I asked the doctor to stop visitation so I could sleep but I meant to have a long conversation with the demon.
"Hey, come out. We should talk." I yelled out in my head. I wanted to ask more about his origin and why he looked the way he did but was met with no answer. He was trying to avoid the conversation. I could not blame him considering we were still new to each other. But he would tell me before we took over, I was going to make sure of that.
When I woke up the third night, I was back to full motion and was not in any pain. Without wasting any time, we got out of the bed to go talk to the princes.
The guards let us in immediately when we knocked. This time there was no hostile greeting like previous. Regardless, we kept our eyes on them to make sure they did not try anything funny.
Hoizon was looking down at some tablet one of the vampires was holding in front of him. When we entered, he lazily looked up at us before motioning the vampire away. Hideki had the same excitement from the fight in his eyes.
"Well, well, what do we have here? You are quite the interesting little being, aren't you?" Hoizon said noticing Hideki. I was already bowing from my knees and figured it for a rhetorical question.
"We should schedule something in the near future so you and I can both go all out again. It has been a long time since anyone pushed me to that extent." Hideki said practically drooling. Of course he would beat us as is but not for much longer.
"Of course, my king." I lied. If they scheduled something, I had no intention of participating if it wasn't compulsory but they did not need to know that.
"Tell him to come out. This is a conversation meant for the other you." Hoizon said watching me. I thought I knew what this conversation would be about but apparently not. There was no escaping this time. We had to tread carefully.
As I stood, I focused to force the demon to answer my calls. There was no way he was going to come out on his own so I had to force him to.
"Stop it!" The demon angrily said from my mouth as I forced him out. He was being very resistant. It was odd to disagree so strongly with him as we always found common ground on everything but he DID NOT want to come out at all.
"You need to come speak to them. They know about you already. We do not have a choice." I said out loud trying to coax him out. We continued to struggle for a few more moments before I got him out and forced him in control.
"You must be the other one." Hoizon said examining us. We had no changed on the outside at all but even from a dozen meters, they could tell we were different. The air had gotten heavy from forcing him out.
The demon looked at the princes in a panic trying to figure out a way to escape the situation. We looked to the door with the guards standing on either side. While there was no doubt we could get through them if we tried, the princes would almost certainly stop us. There was no way out.
"Calm down, we are not going to hurt you. If we were, Hideki would have just killed you when he had the chance. We just want to talk." Hoizon said rising to his feet. This made the demon jump us back a dozen meters on guard.
'This would be a great time to have some weapons.' The demon thought in a panic. It took a few moments but I managed to calm him down enough to have a decent conversation.
"What do you want with me? Why am I forced here with you?" The demon said trained on Hoizon and Hideki. The third prince was of little concern.
"We wanted to find out about you. As you are quite a new recruit to the clan, we need to have some basic info on you. You are the only one we know of in history to have this...odd second personality. You seem stronger than the other one as well so we definitely need some information on you." Hoizon said peering back at us. If we even thought about making a move we would be stopped.
"Why do you need that information? I like this body. I will not be driven out. I will kill us both before I let that happen." The demon said threateningly. He would not let us separate so easily.
'Whoa. Kill us? Where the hell is this coming from?' I asked him inside. He ignored my question.
"We have to have it. You are smart enough to know you will not escape if we deem it so. Answer the question and you will be allowed to leave." Hoizon told us more seriously. He was not going to let this go without some answers.
"I definitely will not be able to escape alone. Not yet. It would benefit us most to answer your silly little questions." The demon said figuring out there was no alternate answer. The reply was meant to get the guards hyped up to come to us but they did not move. I could not tell if they knew what we were thinking or they were just genuinely afraid to challenge us. Either way, they did not move from where they were standing.
"I am an ancient in your terms. I am much older than anyone from any of your legends. From a time before vampires, humans, and most sentient life. Well before the humans you know of." The demon started before Hoizon interrupted him.
"What do you mean, 'before the humans you know of'?"
"Well, your humanity is only a few billion years old. There was a humanity before them. The earth is much older than what your kinds think." The demon said. He was going to hide some of the information but he had to give them some kind of answer.
"Just how old are you then? And what are you exactly?" Hoizon asked interest piqued. He was focused entirely on us then as if everything else in the world was gone.
"I am a few million years old. Do not worry yourself with an exact number. Just know I am older than all of you." The demon replied straight. This was a fine line we were treading.
"Oh? And how did you exist before the humans of today? What happened to them?" Hoizon asked investigating. The vampires had a different history from the humans and he was checking to see if the demon's answer lined up with it.
"Well, they died." The demon said shortly.