"AH, WHAT THE HELL!” Damian shouted out in surprise, his precarious position and sudden jolt, managing to make him fall out of bed.

Did he see that right, was there a crow on his bed? And it talked, that couldn't be right, right? He slowly raised his head, peeking over the side of his mattress, and as he thought, there was definitely a crow sitting there.

“Jumpy one there, aren’t you? Good that may help you survive.” The crow spoke again.

Yep, the crow was talking, actually talking. Not like in the way that birds can mimic sounds, but full cohesive sentences. Was he dreaming? No he was too coherent and had never gotten the hang of lucid dreaming. Was he drugged, again probably not, he was able to focus. That seems like something that would be hard to do if he was drugged. Had he gone nuts, but weren’t crazy people not supposed to know if they were crazy? But there was still the fact of the talking bird….

Damian popped his head up, “Wait, did you say survive?”

“There we go, latched onto the important bit, eh? Yes I did say survive, your life is gonna be in mortal danger from now on.” The crow paused for a moment. “Or would it be immortal danger? Doesn’t matter, the key word is danger.”

“What do you mean, why would I be in danger, aside from the fact that I’m holding a conversation with a bird?”

“Don’t worry, you're not crazy, though if you were crazy I’d probably be the part of your brain telling you you're not. Though that doesn’t help here does it? Nope, this is one of those good news bad news situations.”

"Which is the bad news, that I'm in danger, or that birds talk apparently?"

"Hey, you can think your nuts all you want, but if you don't listen you'll probably die in horrible agony. Now do you want the good news or the bad news?

“Okay I got it. So what’s the good news?” Damiaian asked tentatively.

“Well, other than you’re not loco in the coco, YOU ARE NOW A DEMIGOD!,” the crow changed his voice to be more grandiose, “As I said before. This comes with your basic superhero kit, enhanced speed, strength, accelerated perception, and healing, plus a couple of others tossed in, but the real kicker is Immortality.”

“Wait,” Damian stopped him, just going along with this bizarre conversation for now, “don’t you have to be born a demigod? My parents are good people, but I’ve seen my dad walk around the house in just his boxer shorts, there is nothing godly about that.”

“Normally yes. But you’re not that type of demigod, half human, half divine. Instead, you’re literally a partial god.”

"How does someone become a partial god?"

"It had to do with what happens when a god dies, but we can get into that later, we have to get moving. You remember how I said you might survive? Yeah, that was a sooner than later type of situation."

"What are you talking about?" Damian asked, starting to panic.

"First you might want to leave your apartment, unless you want it to look like a wrecking crew came through here."

Damian was still sitting on the floor next to his bed. He was trying to figure out how much, and what kind of screwed he was. The crow hopped over to him, impatient that he was still sitting there, and pecked the top of his head.

"Ow, what was that for?"

"You. Need. To. Get. Moving." Each word the crow spoke was punctuated by a peck.

"Ow, ow, okay I'm moving!"

Damian got up and checked his pockets. Apparently he hadn't removed anything when he had fallen asleep with his clothes on.

"Okay, now we need to get out." The crow told him as he flapped up and perched himself on Damien's shoulder.

Fearing more pecking, which felt pretty damn real, Damian followed the avian's instructions. He left his apartment locking the door behind him.

Heading to the stairs, he asked the crow, "So where exactly are we going?"

"I'm not really sure… Is there some sort of open space nearby, preferably one where there won't be any people nearby?"

Damian considered it while quickly descending the stairs, when a place did come to mind.

"There's an old abandoned auto shop nearby. The back lot has some old junkers back there, but it's mostly empty and has a tall privacy fence. It's just a few blocks over."

"That sounds great, let's go with that."

Damian exited his building and jogged down the street, "So what were you saying about me being a partial god?"

"Okay I'll explain this as quickly as I can. When a god is killed, which is very difficult to do by the way, only their personality or ego dies. The power needs to go somewhere, so it looks for a new host."

"Then how did I become one? I just met a dude in the alley who looked like he tried to hug an angry honey badger. Then he did something to me, I felt all strong, and then he was dead."

"He surrendered his power to you. Look, the amount of power a god holds would burn out a mortal body in an instant. So the power splits up between potential hosts, then the hosts have to participate in a contest against one another, to win both pieces of divinities, or sparks, for themselves."

"What kind of contests?" Damian asked, rounding a corner.

"It all depends on what god it was. The contests are usually based on what they had domain over. Got a farming god, you basically got yourself a state fair pumpkin growing contest. God of alcohol, It's like Octoberfest combined with a frat house party."

"So who died, and what kind of contests am I going to have to do?"

"Ares, the god of war, died. As for the contest, it'll be battle and conquest." The bird said darkly, "Gods of war always have the bloodiest successions."

"Wait, what does battle and conquest entail? Like I have to fight people?"

"Yes, but that's putting it simply. You'll either have to kill or, and there's no putting this nicely, enslave the other chosen."

"What!? I've barely ever been in a fight, let alone kill someone. And I'm not even going to talk about how wrong taking someone as a slave is."

"Hey it's eat or be eaten right now kid. Either you do it to them, or they'll do it to you. Plus if you're really hung up on the whole involuntary service thing, you can just release them after they surrender their spark. Though I doubt many would take the offer."

"Who would want to be a slave, it's slavery, it doesn't exactly have a good reputation."

"One word kid. Immortality. Even if you lose your spark, you're not human anymore. On your own that means a long life, strength, a healthy body, and all other sorts of good stuff. But if you bind yourself to a deity that you once held the power of, you're immortal, eternally youthful, as long as that god's around, you're golden."

"And people do this willingly? Seems like it could be a coin toss if your boss is an asshole."

"You're right about that, that's why you want to win. But it's not always bad, when Artemis took over as the goddess of the moon, she turned all of her opponents who lost into her hunters."

Damian finally arrived at the auto shop, anp went through the gates to the back lot. He bent over to catch his breath, dislodging the crow in the process. The bird croaked in indignation as he flapped to the ground.

"How do you know all of this?" Damian asked between deep breaths. "And who or what are you exactly?"

"I'm your divine animal." The crow said proudly, puffing out his chest feathers, "I'm a manifestation of your powers. And I also contain things that your body and mind can't handle yet, such as the knowledge that Ares had. If you had all the knowledge that he had in your head, best case you'd become a vegetable, worst case your head might pop like a zit."

"Ew. So you can handle all that and not explode?"

"Yes, and it's my job to give you all the relevant information you need."

"Speaking of which, why are we here? You said something about danger."

"Oh yes. A monster is coming to kill you."

Damien just stared at the crow for a moment and total silence, and then burst out, "A monster!"

"Yes a monster, it should be here rather soon. I'm not sure what kind it'll be, but I sensed it while we were in your room."

"You didn't say anything about monsters! You just talked about other people!"

"Yes okay, let's make this quick. Monsters exist, they don't like demigods, and they can also take your spark by killing you. They can even become gods themselves if they collect them all, it's happened before."

"So what do I do?"

"Kill it obviously, haven't you been paying attention?"

"HOW, is the main question here."

"We're going to have to work on your listening skills. You have powers now, remember? You just ran over a mile in three minutes and you were barely winded. Find something big and heavy and whack the thing with it."

"Oh." In his half panicked state, Damian hadn't been paying attention to what he had been doing. Maybe he could handle this… CRASH!

Right at that moment the fence at the other side of the lot exploded, sending wood pieces flying everywhere. Standing in the wreckage was a massive bull. The creature was at least ten feet tall, and had giant horns that looked like they could punch through the side of a tank. The whole thing look like it was from some kind of cartoon, it had all black fur covering its body, and glowing red eyes, actually glowing, red eyes.

"Oh good, it's an herbivore." The bird said cheerfully, "I was kind of worried it might be dangerous."

"Dangerous! That thing is huge! And do you see those horns? That thing could turn me into a shish kabob!"

"Yeah, but imagine something that big with sharp teeth and giant claws to boot." The crow said while flying onto a nearby rooftop, " You might want to grab something."

Damian, realizing the danger he was in, looked for something to fight with. Only seeing cars and car pieces, he decided to test out his new "super strength". He went to the closest car with the intent of picking it up and chucking it at the bull but only managed to rip the car's door off.

The bull bellowed, lowered its head, and charged. Damian decided to try something he had seen in TV and movies. He held the car door to the side and underneath one arm, like a matador's cape, but he underestimated the speed at which the large beast could move.

Instead of gracefully spinning away with the car door, leaving the bowl to rush past, The bulls horn slammed directly through the car door and spun Damien away to the ground. The bull did continue on however, and crashed into a stack of cars that had been behind Damien.

Damien got up, shaking out the dizziness, and looked for another weapon. He saw a long metal rod on the ground, maybe a drive shaft or something similar, with one end that had been broken to a jagged point. Remembering the man from his dream holding the spear he picked up the rusted hunk of metal.

The bull was just extricating itself from the car pile, and turned around to face Damien. It snorted at him and dug at the ground, Damien knew it was about to charge again. Then he had an idea. Damien braced himself for the charge, as expected, the bull rushed forward again. Instead of holding his position, or running away, Damian ran towards the bull.

As they came within just a couple yards of each other, Damien slid on his back, his makeshift spear in one arm. He had inches of clearance as he said underneath the bull's head, but as soon as he cleared it, he jerked the rod upwards. The jagged end pierced into the bull's chest. The bull's own weight and momentum jammed the piece of metal into the ground while driving it further into its own chest. The bull even managed to flip itself over , clearing Damien, and slide on the ground for several yards.

Damien got up and wiped his face off, smearing the creature had splattered his face and clothes in its blood. Looking over at the bull it lay on its side weakly breathing, it took a few last shallow breaths, and then ceased moving. As he watched, its body began to break down. It wasn't the golden light that had come from the body of the man of the alley, but instead its body turned into white motes of light as they drifted away.

In a minute it was gone, and all traces of it, except for the destruction it had caused, vanished. Even Damien's face and clothes were now clean of its blood. He still felt his heart pounding in his chest from all the excitement, as the crow flew down and landed on his shoulder again.

"See I told you, nothing to worry about, herbivore type monsters are usually pretty dumb. Now there's only one thing left to do."

"What's that?" Damian asked with curiosity.

"Grab the loot of course!"

"Loot?"

Damian walked over and sure enough there were items on the ground where the bull had been. He hadn't seen them as they were in the trench that the bull had dug with its body. There in the ground was a small pile of coins, and what looked like a piece of the bull's horn.

He picked up the horn, it was completely hollow and had holes cut in either end. He held it up for the crow to examine.

"Any idea what this is?"

"Oh, a magic item from your first monster. Give me a moment." The crow closed his eyes and seemed to concentrate. "Nice, It's a summoning horn. If you blow it, it will conjure a spectral version of the bull, that'll charge straight forwards and attack anything in that path. Looks like you can use it five times before it breaks."

"You can get magic items from monsters?"

"Of course, otherwise what's the point in hunting them, well, other than money?"

Damian looked at the pile of coins on the ground. They look like some kind of antique gold coins that you might find in a museum. He reached down and picked one up, the coin started to glow and change shape, when it stopped, Damien held a crisp $100 bill instead.

" Wait, is this thing real?"

" Real is in that, you could deposit it at a bank and not get arrested, or real as in the concept of money itself? Because the answer to both is yes."

"How is that possible? It just appeared out of a dissolving monster as a coin and then turned into US currency."

"Simple answer is magic. Now let's collect the rest of them and get out of here, all this noise has probably attracted some attention."

Damian did as the bird said, and left the auto shop's lot, and started heading home.

"Well, I think congratulations are in order, we've survived our first battle."

"We? I did the fighting." Damien said incredulously.

"Yes, but remember that I'm a manifestation of your power. If you die, it's bye bye for me too. Same thing if you give up your power to someone else."

"Oh." Was all Damian said.

"But hey, at least you know I've got your best interests in mind, even if it's just to save my own feathers."

They were both in silent contemplation for a minute before the crow spoke up again.

"Anyways, as a celebration of not dying, I have a request."

"What kind of request?"

"Something easy, I want a name."

"A name?" Damien asked in confusion.

"Yes a name, despite the vast amount of knowledge that I hold, I was born this morning. So a name would be nice."

Damian walked for a couple of minutes in thought. But then an idea came to him.

"I've got the perfect name!"