"You're quiet. What's going through your head?" Nora asked.
"It's just as I thought, they're covering up how many moderate demon incidents there are." Sam said.
"Why would they do that?" Nora asked.
"Many reasons, to keep cities in line, to punish those that have displeased them, to test C.O's in the middle tier – take your pick. But none of it can be proven." Sam said.
"So will we get in trouble for taking these demons out? You already told that old inn keeper we would help them out, I'd hate to go against our word…" Nora said.
"We're duty bound to fight any demons we come across. We're on our way back to the capital but since there aren't any missions or any reason to rush maybe we took the scenic route and happened to stumble across these demons." Sam said with a smirk. They stopped when they came across the demons. With a smile on her face Nora powered up and rushed out of the car.
"Typical Nora, no plan just rushing off." Sam said as he got out of the car. He drew his pistols and ran towards the demons. They were dark blue, moderate level demons – the next step up from the lower level black demons. The darker color helped them blend into the night time sky as they raided villages and towns, but it made them stick out like a sore thumb during the day.
The more human souls these bastards eat the more powerful they become – after blue is red, the hardest level any C.O. has come across in decades. They say for every red demon at least one C.O. is needed. Then there's the hardest of them all – they're a deep purple. They've been spotted very rarely in the past century and never near a civilization. The last one that was killed took down two C.O.'s before it died.
Sam fired his pistols at the demons, making sure not to let lose any fatal blows – if a human killed a demon it's soul would be lost and over time it would evolve back into a low-level demon. That's why, although difficult and rare, humans killing demons is strictly forbidden.
Sam aimed for their legs and back merely to immobilize them while Nora jumped up to hit them in their heads. But they are more skilled than the low-level demons she was fighting the other day, they were able to block her shots. Sam knew that he'd have to do something to give her an advantage, before Sam jumped up he shot one of the demons ears off. It was stunned, confused, and caught off guard which gave Nora the opportunity to slash through his figure causing it to dissipate. Only a floating black globe that was his soul in the air, she grabbed it on the way down and swallowed it whole. A smile came across her face as she looked at the remaining 3 demons to fight.
"One down three to go, we can even skip practice today, you hear me Sam?" Nora shouted.
"Yes ma'am!" Sam shouted back.
"Good, then let's kick some ass!" Sam said and rushed in towards the group of demons. She jumped on top of one of the demon's head, took out a pocket knife, flipped it open, and stabbed it in the head. The figure vanished and Sam fell to the ground; she landed on her feet, grabbing the demon's soul orb on the way down. She swallowed it and a huge smile appeared on her face.
She was up to 78 and once she killed the other 2, she'd be up to 80. These demons they'd have to tell the capitol about, so they'd be added to her official count which was last 64.
She stood up and darted to the next demon. She ran her fastest and used the momentum allowed her to run up a short tree, when she got close to the top she pushed off and landed a swift kick on a demon's face. While in the air she threw her pocked knife at the other demon, but it dodged the knife. While the first demon was caught off guard, she quickly took out her metal staff, snapped it in place, and slashed through the demon in front of her. The demon disintegrated and she grabbed its soul and ate it.
She turned her attention to the last remaining demon who was now running towards her. She was caught off guard by how close he was, but Sam was already on top of it. He had seen the demon dodge the knife and was already running towards them. Once he was close enough, he fired off several rounds into it's shadowy legs until it fell to its knees – or what would most closely resemble knees.
"Now!" Sam yelled to Nora.
"Right." She shouted back. She jumped up and swung her staff at it; the demon swatted her away with one hand and Nora fell to the ground with a loud thud. "Now you've pissed me off." She said.
Nora took out a .22 pistol out of her boot and shot the demons hands until she ran out of bullets and tossed the gun aside. While the demon was still stunned and in pain, she grabbed her staff, got up and ran towards it. She got behind the demon, jumped up, and slammed her staff down as hard as she could. The demon vanished and grabbed his soul. Sam ran over to make sure she was ok while Nora just stared at the dark, blue and red, shadowy soul.
"Why does it look different?" Nora asked.
"It's as I thought, this demon was in the middle of transforming into a more skilled demon, that's why it's black and blue. It likely only needed another soul or two in order to go to the next level." Sam said.
"Why was his soul just blue and red, not the outside too?" Nora asked.
"It initiated the process in it's soul first, then once it's had enough human souls it changes on the outside too. Once it's initiated the process on the inside it starts to get some of the power it would have in the next level, it gains more power with each soul it eats until it finishes the transformation." Sam said.
"Right and their power nearly doubles with every transformation." Nora said then swallowed the soul whole. It was an interesting flavor, a combination between the two types of souls, sweet and sour at the same time. "Not a fan." She said and Sam laughed.
"You won't get many of those so don't worry about it. The important thing is now we're up to 80 demons." Sam said and Nora turned her powers off. "And with every soul you eat your powers get stronger."
"Yes…" Nora said.
"What's wrong?" Sam asked.
"Um…it hurts to move." Nora said with a nervous smile.
Sam laughs and just picks Nora up, she wrapped her arms around him as he carried her to the car. After he got her in the car he drove back to the sight of the fight and picked up her weapons.
"This was for us so don't be too mad ok?" Nora asked in a meek voice as Sam got in the car.
"I know it was, but you still need to be more cognizant of your limits and the affect it has on your body when you go overboard. The important thing is that you're ok and that you're getting better." Sam said as he shut the door.
"Yeah…" Nora said, she was starting to get drowsy and staving off sleep was becoming harder to do.
Sam smiled as he looked over at her and put on his seatbelt. "If you're tired you should sleep, I'll drive until you wake up."
"Are you sure?" Nora asked.
"Of course." He said with a smile.
Nora closed her eyes and quickly drifted off to sleep. When she woke up, she was laying in a bed in a hotel, she must've been out for a long time. She sat up and looked around, Sam was in a chair at the table cleaning his guns which made her smile.
"You don't have to clean your gun after every fight you know?" Nora joked as she climbed out of bed.
"And you don't have to make that joke every time." Sam joked back. "It's just a habit I've gotten into and a good luck charm, you haven't been injured once since I started doing it."
"You're so superstitious. How long was I out?" Nora asked.
"About six hours." Sam said.
"Dang, why'd you let me sleep so long? It's got to be nighttime by now." Nor asked.
"You needed your rest and we weren't going out again today." Sam said as he finished cleaning his gun and started assembling it.
"And why the hell not?" Nora asked.
"You're able to retest at headquarters-" Sam started but Nora interrupted him.
"Woah, who said I wanted to go take that awful test again?" Nora asked with a disgruntled look on her face.
"Can I finish please?" Sam asked.
"Yes Mr. Attitude." She joked and went over to him. She sat down in his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. "What did you want to say?"
"You're able to re-certify to try and move up to the skilled group which would give us more missions and make us look good. And if we take the long route, we just might be able to get to 100 by the time we got there." Sam said.
"I'm still against it…" Nora said.
"Ok, tell me why?" Sam asked.
"Well the most obvious reason is because that test is the fucking worst, worse than fighting actual demons. Aside from that the roads back to capitol are almost always kept clear and now is no exception. Lastly, it would be much easier to kill the remaining 20 in the outskirts where no one would see us, so we don't have to report them." Nora said. "If anyone sees us fighting, we'll have to report those numbers, and someone might catch onto us and what we're trying to do."
Just the closeness of their bodies caused both Nora and Sam's heart beat to beat faster. When Nora's stomach started to get butterflies, she went to get up, but Sam pulled her back down.
"I didn't say you could get up." Sam whispered in a husky voice sending chills down Nora's spine.
"Don't say things like that unless you're prepared to act on them." Nora said and then felt his erection rub against her.
"We'll have to kill these last 20 quickly then." He whispered in her ear before nibbling on it.
"I agree." She said then abruptly stood up.
"Let's get ready to go then." He said then stood up. It was uncomfortable to move around too much but it went away by the time Nora was ready to go.
"I'm ready. Let's close this gap quickly, 20 to go." Nora said.
"Yeah, let's get it done." Sam said in an upbeat tone.