+Prologue+

The night was heavy with death.

I stood amid the slaughter, looking about sadly. Several of the small houses were aflame, casting a dancing light on the ghastly scene sprawled before me. Blood was awash in the streets, painting the walls of nearby buildings, puddled thickly on the ground. Bodies were piled everywhere, limbs flung carelessly, if they weren't missing. Stomachs ripped open, entrails and other organs dragged from their body cavities. Faces torn from skulls. Carcasses crushed into smears of gore. Men, women, children, Pokemon, and even a few animals decorated the village with their remains. The bitter, harsh scents of death, fear, anger, and waste bit at my sensitive nostrils, and I couldn't hold back a sneeze.

I turned my back on the scene, only to have it greet me again. It didn't matter where I looked, everywhere there was murder. My hand-paws curled themselves into fists, and I felt my claws prick at the palms. With a sigh I uncurled my fists, ignoring the trickles of blood coming from the small holes my talons had caused. I swished my tail, angry with all this mindless killing, and my wings fluttered in agitation as I closed my amber eyes for a moment. After I felt a bit calmer, I opened them again and walked to the closest building, a tiny, ranch-style house with its windows shattered and door missing. I stared at the sad-looking structure for a moment before walking inside, carefully stepping around the streaks of blood and meat that were sprinkled about. After a moment I found the bathroom and looked into a full-length body mirror, almost hating what I saw reflected in it.

Even though the only light was that coming from the fires, my sharp eyes saw my reflection as if it were midday. The glass showed me a creature of about six feet tall, looking surprisingly human from the waist up, for the most part. A lean upper body covered in a simple white tee-shirt, an elf-like face framed by a long golden mane. Amber eyes that gleamed in the darkness, a small mouth that hid deadly fangs. Muscles cording under the flesh, strong yet petite shoulders tapering into long, powerful arms. Hand-like paws that ended in five digits, each tipped with a wicked white talon, with the middle one being about an inch longer than the others. From my back, between my shoulders, rose a long thin fin covered in dark blue scales, and two more fins grew from the bottoms of my upper arms. They were covered in the same midnight-blue scales as the fin on my back, against which were folded long black wings, two on either side of my back-fin. What looked like cream-colored flesh was actually thick, callous-like skin.

From the waist down I looked more like my host, a Garchomp. My legs were reptilian, ending in thick, heavy feet-paws. On each of these was three toes, all six of them tipped with claws that were smaller but no less sharp than the ones on my fingers. Two large spikes rose from the upper half of each legs, and a thick, powerful tail sliced the air behind me. Everything below my waist was covered in tough scales the same midnight-blue as my fins, except my stomach. This was covered in thick orange-red scales, as was the underside of my tail.

I snarled suddenly, whirling from the mirror and smashing it with my tail. It shattered with an explosion of smashed glass, which fell to the pale-white linoleum with a sort of tinkling crash. I felt a sharp sting along the side of my tail where a stray piece of glass sliced through the scales and meat, and felt a fierce sort of self-destructive pleasure arise from the pain. Then the moment passed, and I sighed heavily as I felt the cut begin to heal. Sometimes I hated what I was, just because of the fact that my kin were such...monsters.

I was a DeMon who hated senseless killing, who didn't revel in chaos and terror and murder. That had set me apart from just about every other DeMon, and not in a good way. They all saw me as a weakling, a traitor to DeMon-kind. I can't count how many times I've had run-ins with my brothers and sisters, but I can tell you that each of them ended with my brethren trying to kill me for the simple reason that I was Benign. How many of them I've had to slay, how many poor Pokemon, commanded in a horde or made into Bound that I've had to kill, I can't say.

Outside was the cause of one of countless battles for survival. I had come to this town in the guise of a normal Garchomp, since we DeMon are able to appear fully as our hosts for short periods of time. I had heard rumors of strange Pokemon attacking the townspeople here, Pokemon who weren't being led in a horde or Bound. These Pokemon had been in their own small group, about five or six, all different. They had been said to have possessed glowing red eyes and huge fangs, and had attacked people and ripped into them to feast on their blood. My reason for deciding to check out these rumors was simple: I'd heard of similar things happening all around the country, but this happening had been closest to me at the time.

I had flown here to check on things, only to find that another DeMon had beat me to it. This one had been a Raichu DeMon, and, like all my other ilk, he chose to look like a horribly mutated version of his host, whereas I preferred looking as human as I could. He had been only about half my height, covered in dirty, pus-yellow fur that had been missing in large clumps, revealing black, swollen flesh beneath. His legs had been about two times too long for his height, his arms nearly two times too small. His arms and legs had abruptly ended in massive white claws: there had been no paws or digits. His tail had resembled a scorpion's more than a Raichu's, long and segmented with a giant, poison-drooling stinger at the tip. His face had been mashed in, his mouth wide and so full of ripping fangs that it hadn't been able to close fully. He'd had six pulsing red eyes, each of them full of madness and loathing when he had seen me. His ears had been simple holes in the sides of his head, and spikes had been running down his back. All in all, he had been extremely unpleasant to look at.

He had told me, as a manner of gloating, that he had come here to take advantage of the chaos being caused by the weird blood-drinking Pokemon. No one had paid him any mind at first, because several people had been killed or severely injured by the Pokemon, and only after the DeMon had Summoned a massive horde of at least one hundred Raichu had the humans realized a DeMon was among them. The male had also had a few Bound with him, but no one had really cared about them. Their DeMon hadn't ordered them to do anything, and he hadn't been in any danger, so they had simply loafed around as the Summoned Raichu and the DeMon had carried on killing.

I had lost my temper when that little freak had bragged about how easy killing all those poor humans had been. I'd slipped from my Host form to my Pure form, the twisted shape our host bodies take upon a DeMon's initial possession of a Pokemon. I hated that form, how hideous it was and the evil it represented. That I had taken such a sick shape had driven me even further into rage, and when the male DeMon had ordered his Summoned and Bound to attack me, I had killed them with a massive outpouring of one of my Professions, Fire. A hellish blast of red flames had exploded from my body, created and powered by my spirit, focused and strengthened by my host's body. The Summoned and Bound had died instantly in those flames, though their DeMon required a bit more force to take down. After having finished the battle, I'd calmed down enough to assume my Hybrid form, the one I preferred being in.

Now I stalked out of the house, trying to avoid all the death spread out around me. I spotted the remains of one of the Summoned Raichu in the distance and felt a pang of regret hit me. Those poor things, and the Bound as well, hadn't deserved to be used as tools as they had been. They hadn't deserved being forced to fight. They shouldn't have had to die, but when a Pokemon is Summoned, its mind is warped for the rest of its life, and Bound are loyal to their DeMon until the last breath leaves their bodies.

And I'd learned nothing, had absolutely nothing, to show for it. All this bloodshed I'd subjected myself to, and hadn't caught even a glimpse of one of the odd Pokemon that attacked the village earlier. I growled softly as I left the tragic scene, my wings peeling open as I walked. As soon as I passed the boundaries of the village, I looked up at the full moon and pondered where to go next. The closest big city was about an hour's flight from here, and it would be there that I would most likely get any information about where to go or what to do now. I was fully dedicated to solving the mystery of the strange blood-drinking Pokemon, because some part of me knew it had something to do with DeMons as well. I didn't know how I knew it, exactly, except maybe as some sort of instinct or intuition.

My wings opened to their full span of nearly twenty feet, and I refused to look at the scene behind me as I crouched, then leapt into the air. My wings pumped a few times as I gained altitude, and as soon as I was high enough I switched to soaring.

And with my departure, the only one left looking upon the sad, terrible massacre was the cold, indifferent moon...Chapter End Notes:Eeewwwww, PE2K uses BBC code instead of HTML, so I have to change all the BBC codes to HTML in order to get the effects. This means I'll be longer in getting Orders posted, since it generally takes about an hour to go through each Order and make all the changes needed.

I should note there are some warnings and such not in the list AGNPH gives, so let me make sure you know them: OC, Gore, Language (mostly mild, might change later on). Death and Violence (non-sexual) were already on the list and, as such, have been selected.

Anyways, what ya think? Let me know and remember, "Impure souls of the living dead shall be banished into eternal damnation. Amen."

~T