POV: Phobius Barnes

That night Danny vaguely explained to me what had happened. First off she couldn’t make her appearance disappear at will like she could make it appear. She told me it typically wears off with a night’s sleep. Also she could only tap into her true power when in that form but in her words, “even this is enough though.” It was obvious she wasn’t ready to tell me her story but she felt compelled to try to explain to me what had just occurred.

Danny cursed her own weakness, when in my eyes she was insanely strong. Her dad had a strict training regiment for her but for some reason she isn’t ready to tell me she left before her true combat training even began. She mainly had a lot of knowledge such as knowing the majority of the skills in this world by heart.

It explains why she was so interested in skills she has never heard of before. Finally some questions are starting to get answered.

Whenever I tried to ask more about other demons or her father she would just go silent and look down. Those questions would have to be answered later on. The main quest at hand was getting as strong as possible, and if by some miracle they can, get the apparition at the bottom of the cave.

How much farther down is the bottom though?

We ended up stopping after Danny’s light show and took camp for the night. Eating some more bread and drinking some more water. I suggested that we keep watch in shifts since we didn’t know when monsters would sneak up but Danny assured me that it was all fine, that if our lives were in danger she would be able to sense it and wake up. With that we went to sleep, feeling ready for the next day as it felt like a lot of our worries about each other went away. That didn’t mean that all the worries went away however.

POV: Danny

“I’m so embarrassed.” I couldn’t stop rolling around on the ground, whispering to myself. Never in my life had I done something like that, especially not with someone who was basically a stranger. I couldn’t stop myself from stealing glances at Phobius since then, and now that he was asleep it was even worse.

“Why did I do that?” With a heavy sigh I crawled over to him. He is so standoffish when he is awake but when he’s asleep it’s like he's a stuffed animal I just want to hug. I can’t get attached to someone just because he’s nice to me once. That is probably the only time he’s going to be nice to me, he must have been delirious from all of the fighting and realize how much of a monster I am when he wakes up.

No matter how much I wanted to believe him, months of traveling trying to get along with other races had taken a toll on me. As soon as everyone saw my horns they ran away. I even hid them while talking to people but once I revealed them either on purpose or accident they ran away. When I walked up to Phobius, I was so sure he was just going to run away in terror so when he didn’t I was really shook. I think I did a good job hiding my surprise though. If I showed it he may have tried to run away, even more than he already did. But, he didn’t try to run away because I was a demon, he just tried to run away because he has his own problems he’s dealing with, and I just tagged along. I feel pretty bad about that but I have my own mission I need to accomplish so I have to march on, even if that means Phobius will one day leave me.

“I don’t want that though.” I whispered, slowly stroking his hair. As soon as I realized what I was doing though I immediately pulled back. “God, I seem like a creep.” Looking down at Phobius something inside of me resonated, I don’t know why especially because he was a human. However it could’ve had something to do with that other side of him I couldn’t read. Is there a chance that this whole side of him is fake and that other side is real?

No! I can’t think like that. I just need to remember my mission, and focus on that.

“But, is that what I want?” My mind was a whole bunch of contradictions at the moment, like my mind and my heart were trying to pull me separate directions. I just kept staring at Phobius, unable to look away, and somehow found myself inching closer and closer to his face.

“Ugh.” Phobius' eyes opened up and immediately went wide. “AH!” He jumped and scooted back quickly.

“Umm…Umm. I can explain.” I stammered out. “Well…uh…you see.”

“Morning to you too.” Phobius smiled, before getting up and ruffling my hair for a few seconds. Then just acted completely normal, stretching and doing his best to wake up.

“You’re…not scared?”

“Scared?” Phobius looked me up and down which for some reason made my face feel hot. “Oh yeah? What happened to your wings? And your horns went back to normal too?”

“What?” He’s acting like they weren't a big deal at all! Almost like he forgot I had them!

“Not gonna lie, I’m not sure which look I like better for you.” He put his fingers on his chin, seeming to actually be thinking about which he liked better. “Both of them look pretty good to be honest.”

Why is he suddenly being so nice and talkative? And why when he talks about me like that I feel so embarrassed?

“What’s wrong?” He looked at me so innocently that I felt like the way he acted so serious and distant yesterday might have been a dream.

“A lot of things!” I found myself speaking before I even spoke. “Why are you suddenly so nice and talkative?! Why do you make it seem like my appearance yesterday didn’t matter at all?! And how are you STILL NOT SCARED OF ME!?” By the end of my yelling, I was panting out of the lack of air. Phobius just stared at me dumbfounded before putting his hand to his head and letting out a huge sigh.

“Damn, do you just not listen or something?” From everything I felt since that moment yesterday all I have felt is good feelings from Phobius, but it’s still hard to believe it after everything I went through.

“Look, first off I’m not scared of you because I’m not scared of you. Simple as that. Second, your appearance yesterday does matter, why do you think I’m talking about it? And lastly, well I don’t know why I’m talking more.”

“I thought you were just tired or something from all the fighting so you couldn’t really understand how much of a deal you seeing me like that was. Plus saying you're not scared of me just cause, isn’t an answer!”

“You know you’re still a real pain.” He counteracted.

“Then what was all of that yesterday if you think I’m such a pain?!” The way I’m feeling just couldn’t get through this guy's thick head.

“It’s cause you’re not JUST a pain, your also a person, a girl and…” His cheeks started to look flushed. “And I didn’t want to see you in pain.”

“Uh.” I thought I was ready to have a comeback for anything he said, but I found myself too flustered to say a single word.

“Shit! Just…get it through your thick head this is how I feel. As for being talkative and nice, don’t expect this to last forever. Who knows on that part?” He was as flustered and confused as I was, it seemed.

“Um.” I couldn’t get anything to come out of my mouth, I was too flabbergasted to say anything, and most of all my heart was racing faster than it ever had before.

“Look, how about we just have breakfast?”

“Uh, sure.” I started to get bread and water out of my inventory but then he stopped me.

“But first.” He smiled but there was a feeling of dread behind it. “There is something I have to do first.”

POV: Phobius Barnes

Before breakfast I had to do the one thing I knew was going to cause me immense pain. Check my stats and if I leveled up, put all my skill points into that one stat, the #$*(&^@ stat. I knew for a fact that this was going to hurt, and who knows what was going to become of my mental state afterwards. I remember seeing a vision of something that wasn’t mine, of a castle, maybe that would happen again.

“Here goes nothing.” I whispered and turned my back to Danny. Just as I was about to tap the plate once so only I would see the stat screen, she stopped me.

“Um. Sorry but if you’re going to do something with your stats I can already see them.” It came so out of left field my brain was still trying to comprehend what she said.

“What?”

“Yeah, I can see your stats. Including that one weird one that’s there. I’m not gonna lie that and your strange skills that I have never heard of before was one of the main reasons I tagged along.”

Wow, she’s being really upfront about this.

“I thought you weren’t going to tell me about yourself.” I poked at her trying to see if I could get some answers.

“Well, let’s just say that’s thank you.” She smiled at me, being brighter than ever.

“Thank you for what?” I looked at her confused but she just continued to smile at me without responding. “And of course there's no answer. Well I guess I should warn you what’s about to happen then if I leveled up.”

“Hm.” Her smile dropped a bit, and I could feel a sense of worry in her.

“I’m going to put all my stat points into that one weird skill you were talking about. The truth is that it levels up all my stat points if I do.”

“Wait really?” Her eyes shined at the revelation of finding out something she didn’t know.

“Yeah, but there’s a major drawback.” I took a deep sigh before continuing, remembering what happened last time I put points into that stat. “I’m going to go in massive pain for a while, how long or bad is going to vary on how many points I put into it.”

“Couldn’t you just do it one at a time then?”

“I hadn’t thou-”

DON’T DO THAT!

What? Why?

If you want true power, put as much into it as possible each time. I recommend putting everything you got from leveling up yesterday into that stat all at once.

“I can’t.” I quickly corrected myself. IT was right before, so I’m just going to have to trust him on this one. I want revenge, and in order to get revenge I have to get as strong as possible. If a short amount of time of pain is the cost for that, I’m going to do it. Then I can make their pain last a lifetime.

“Why not?” Danny’s eyes were so full of worry, it actually made me warm inside for a second. Is this what it’s like to have someone worry about you?

“I need power and the best way to get that is to put all the stats in all at once.”

“How do you know that?” You have to hand it to her, she really knows how to bug someone to the point they would have to tell her what she wants.

“I just do alright. Now that I warned you I’m doing it.” I double tapped the plate and pulled up the stat so both Danny and I saw it.

Name: Phobius Barnes Race: Human Age: 17

Level: 7 Class: Detective Skill Points Available: 20

Strength: 30 Agility: 45

Defense: 30 Stamina: 35

Magic: 27 #$*(&^@: 11

Skills: Language Barrier (Lvl.Max), Analytics (Lvl.Max) Dash (Lvl.2), Hindsight (Lvl.2), Foresight (Lvl.5), Machiavellianism (Lvl.2) Empathic Accuracy (Lvl.2)

Killing a few humans gives two levels immediately, but killing monsters for a whole day straight only gives 4? Does killing things with more intelligence grant higher experience or something?

“Um. I have a lot of questions by the way.” Danny chimed in. I just looked at her, warning her to back off. “Wait! No! Just about your skills. Don’t worry, I know now to ask about anything about you. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” I responded with a sigh. “My bad for jumping to conclusions. I guess I can tell you about them.” Her eyes lit up at that statement, then… “But only if you show me your stats.” Her face immediately dropped.

“I…I don’t know.” She whimpered.

“It’s fine. I have a feeling I’m going to be out of commission for a little bit so you have some time to think.” Mentally preparing myself for what’s to come I started to move my hand toward the stat screen. That’s when I noticed how much my hand was shaking. If I was holding a cup of coffee I would’ve spilt it all over myself by now.

“Hey.” A hand suddenly touched my shoulder, turning around Danny was giving me a warm smile. However her lips seemed to be quivering a bit and her hand was shaking slightly. “It seems this is something you are determined to do, so I’m not going to try to convince you to do it a different way but…I will tell you that I will be here for you. So no matter how much pain you’re in, I’ll help you through it. Like you helped me yesterday.”

“Thanks.” I gave her a smile in return and turned my focus back to the screen. “Let’s do this thing.”

You ready?

Of course I am.

Then let’s go.

I clicked on the #$*(&^@ stat 20 times in total, which would increase all my stats by 40. A second later.

“AHHHHHHH!” My head felt like it was going to explode, it was like the worst migraine I ever had and multiply that by a thousand. “AHHHHHHH!” I didn’t even have the mental capacity to cuss. I collapsed out of pain, holding my head screaming the loudest I ever had before.

“Phobius!” Danny screamed. I could barely make out her voice however. The pain was so unbearable that I started to scratch at my head so hard that I broke my skin and was starting to bleed.

“Phobius, don’t do that!” My hands were getting held back by something, by what I didn’t know. Without my hands I started to thrash around, whipping my whole body around violently. Trying my best to bang my head against the floor to end this, I felt my whole upper half of my body get confined. I couldn’t move it at all so all I could do was kick my legs with all my might.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” In the pain I could feel something in my head moving, like two things were combing with each other. Two sides of me were combing and the sudden change was causing my brain to go into overload.

“I’m here. I’m here.” Someone whispered into my ear while holding me down. The pain wasn’t slowly fading either, in fact it was growing by the second. How much time had passed, a few seconds, a few minutes, an eternity? In that moment, my past, present, and future was just that pain I was feeling. Who was I? What was I? Where was I? Nothing existed but pain. It kept growing and growing until my brain couldn’t handle it anymore and I simply passed out.

A demon sitting on a throne was in front of me. He was huge, at least 10 feet tall and his horns and wings were gigantic. The expression on his face could be nothing short of horrifying. He had multiple smaller demons in front of him, almost like they were guards.

In his possession though; he had four things: a sword, a knife, a crystal, and a gun. The sword looked like something straight out of an anime, with decorations that looked like a master craftsman worked his whole life on it. The knife had a curved blade and a curved hilt as well. The crystal was a pure blood red, with a mixture of black moving inside of it almost as if the crystal itself was alive. Lastly, the one that looked most out of place. A gun that looked super fancy, with much more detail put into it then any gun in the world I came from. However there was no way to cock the gun, no safety, no way to reload it either. But there was no doubt a barrel and a place for the bullet to shoot out of.

Suddenly I was thrown into a different vision, this one was of a third person perspective of what happened last night. When I was holding Danny in my arms and she was bawling her eyes out. But I could see more than just us. I could see our hearts formed out of mana, both red and black. Each of our mana hearts had cracks in it.

“I’ve been…so lonely…for so long.” Danny sniffled, exactly how it happened last night, but as soon as she said that and I put my arms around her our mana hearts started to move. They got closer together and our mana started to swirl together and when it did the cracks in our hearts started to fill, slowly disappearing altogether until finally they did.

The scene then swiped to what looked like me passed out and my head in Danny’s lap. She was stroking my hair, tears rolling down her eyes.

“I’m here, Phobius. I’m here.” She then moved my hair out of the way and kissed me on the forehead. Even in a vision I felt myself blush. “I’ll always be here.”

The scene moved again, this time to a bunch of shadowy silhouettes. There were five in total. One seemed to be sitting on something, with another one on its lap. The one sitting had its arm around the one on it’s lap. There were two standing behind them on opposite sides, holding onto his arms. The last one looked to be sitting on some sort of arm of whatever they were sitting on. The one sitting down in the middle of it all, had its hand on it’s head.

One by one the silhouettes started to appear. The one’s to appear were the two in the back, they were both female. One had ears that looked like an elves, and a very curvature figure to put it mildly. The other one had wings and a halo above it’s head, and her body was a lot more modest in size but was just as pretty as the last one. After that the next silhouette to appear was the one sitting on the sort of arm chair. It was a female once again, and she was pretty small, with cat ears and a tail. The last two silhouettes to be filled in were a demon and a human, female and male, Danny and me.

“AHH!” I screamed waking up but for some reason I was held down again tightly.

“Shhh, I’m here.” I heard a voice say. I couldn’t see due to the fact they were holding my head down, but when they let go I saw that it was Danny.

“Danny?” I tried to sit up but Danny forced me back down again. Taking my surroundings into account, Danny above me, me lying down, and something soft against the back of my head, only one thing could be happening. My head was in Danny’s lap.

“Ahh!” I let out a little yelp, and quickly sat up surprising Danny as well. “My head.” My whole body was wobbling like a Jenga tower, and I felt like I was going to topple over any second.

“My lap isn’t that bad is it?” Danny asked, forcing my head back onto her lap. Her cheeks seemed flushed as she spoke and always looked away in embarrassment almost like she had something to hide.

“It just surprised me.” I couldn’t deny though that the feeling of my head on her lap was extremely comfy, the softness of her tights, the warmth of her body, she smelled pretty good as well for someone who has been in a cave a whole day. After a minute or so of silence she was the one to break the silence.

“Hey…Do you ever feel like.” She pondered. “How do I say this? Like we’ve met before? No that’s not it. Geez, why can’t I find a way to say it.”

“Like we're connected? Almost a nostalgic feeling?” I had a feeling that she was experiencing the same things as me. Could she be feeling this way because of IT? If that's true she doesn’t really care about me but about IT, huh?

“Yeah.” She slowly responded. “Do you feel it too?”

“Hey. Someday I’m gonna need to explain something to you, something that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. And when that day comes, promise you’ll listen.” I turned my head up to look at her, but her face was partially blocked by her moderate breasts.

“Don’t look up!” She pushed my head back to where it was previously. “But…I promise I’ll listen.”

“Than-”

“ONLY…if you listen to what I have to say as well.” I didn’t even need to look at her to tell what expression she was making. She sounded so serious which was one of the few moments she had in the past day.

“I promise.” I could feel heat rising to my cheeks, but I decided to try and ignore that for the moment, as our goal was in sight. “Alright.” I sat up and this time she didn’t try to stop me.

“Huh?” She cocked her head in confusion.

“I have a new goal, it’s up to you whether or not you still want to come. I no longer just desire to get stronger, I want whatever weapon is at the bottom of this cave. I don’t care how long it takes, what I have to do to get it. I will eat monster meat if I fucking have to. So.” I looked her straight in the eyes and smiled without even realizing. “You in?”

She just stared at me for a few seconds before responding. “After our promise to each other you think I’m gonna back out now.” She stood up and put her hands on her hips, showing how confident she was feeling.

“It’s gonna be tough, you know.”

“You trying to get rid of me or something?” She dramatically pouted and pushed her fingers together, in a very cute motion.

“No. I would actually prefer to have you with me.” I scratched the back of my head and looked away.

There is no way I can look her in the eyes when I say shit like that.

She just stayed silent for a moment, and suddenly moved herself into my field of view. The biggest smile was on her face, and I could feel the happiness emanating from her body.

“I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

“Alright then.” Cracking my neck, I jumped up to my feet. “Let’s get going.”