Demon Slayer: The Strange Demon

by Blackdrag-rose

Interlude: Encounter

Pinkamena laid there for a few moments, taking in what had happened to her, before discovering that her sight had come back in no time at all, allowing her to see all of the trees that were all around her, even the ones she had collided with on her way down towards the ground, as she could figure it out by the fact that they were damaged and a few happened to have little pieces of fabric that no doubt came from her robe. That was followed by her carefully pulling herself up into a sitting position, where she felt the ground around her, confirming the fact that she happened to be in a real body, and not in Pinkie's mindscape like usual, something that actually seemed like a dream and that she would wake up at some point in the next few minutes, only to find that she was stuck in the Observatory and had fallen asleep watching her other half, which had happened a few times in the past. As she sat there, touching everything to be sure it was real, Pinkamena came to the decision that she had been given her own body, that she had been separated from Pinkie and had likely been sent to an entirely different world than her other half, as she found it unlikely that she would have been sent to the same place as Pinkie, otherwise they would have landed in the same place. Thinking about that made her take a moment to consider what had to be the final and most real piece of evidence, that this was really happening to her and, more importantly, that it wasn't a creation of her own mind or Pinkie's mind, which happened to be the blood that was resting nearby, all thanks to the sharp rock she had landed on, something that had nearly killed her and could have put an end to whatever she was supposed to do in this world, before it even started.

Such a thing made her consider what happened next, the person who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere and used his own blood to heal all of the wounds that had been inflicted on her body, something that was incredibly odd when she took a moment to think about it, though she suspected that he was trying to forge a new tool for whatever his purposes were, but had been disappointed by what happened her with... causing her to chuckle for a moment.

"Oh, if only you waited for a few more moments," Pinkamena said, as she found it to be incredibly funny, that the person had been in such a hurry and had figured that whatever had happened to her body would have gone by quickly, instead of the period of time she had taken to be altered into her new form, and if he had waited for a few more moments he would have discovered that whatever he had done to her had been successful, "I should be thankful, since he did save my life in a matter of seconds, but treating others like tools or trash isn't the best way to go about things."

She really had no idea why the person had stopped here and bothered with her, or where he had come from, but the way he acted told her all she needed to know, in addition to the power she had felt as she stared at him, screamed that he was someone who had ill intentions for the rest of this world, so if one were to believe what Pinkie thought about the missing Equestrians, about them being heroes or something, this meant that her mission had appeared before her. It was hard to say where the being had gone, since she had nearly lost her sight before it returned in full force, so the first thing she had to do was figure out how to move her new body, which would involve falling onto her knees and hands, and then finding a surface of some kind so she could look at her new body, just to see how she had been altered, both by the magic that had brought her here and what the figure did. Based on what she could tell it was still the middle of the night, or at least in the hours before the sun came up, though she didn't hear the sounds of a stream, meaning it might take some time for her to find an area where she could see herself, to which Pinkamena sighed for a moment before trying her luck by raising both of her front legs, or arms as she reminded herself, and placed them on the ground. From there she forced herself onto her hooves so she could stand up and see what was wrong with her, where she staggered for a moment and fell back not a few seconds later, causing her to sigh as she realized that just standing up was going to be far harder than what she first thought, so walking was going to be like a nightmare, especially in a place like this.

It took her some time to get the grasp of things, even though she kept falling and had to get back up before being able to repeat the motions, but eventually she was able to walk with her new legs, where she knew it would take some time for her to get used to them completely, allowing Pinkamena to head out and see what was in the area that she had landed in, before worrying about her mission and the man who had done this to her. Based on what she could tell it looked like she was in the bottom of a ravine, or maybe she was at the bottom of a cliff since she discovered a tall stone wall after a few minutes of walking, though her luck did improve as she heard the sound of running water, to which she followed her ears for a few more moments and smiled as she found what she was looking for, a small river that cut through this place, even if it might have been larger in the past. With it found Pinkamena walked over to it and quickly discovered that her earlier thoughts were right, her body now looked like an Equestrian had been merged with a Human, when she thought about all of the things that Princess Twilight said another the race that was on the other side of the mirror portal, and she had been right about the other alterations to her body, her eyes were now crimson colored and had become silted thanks to what that man had done to her, plus she had the fangs or sharp teeth in her mouth. It made her look more demonic, if she was being honest with herself for a moment, but she also liked it, though that was when she found an odd marking on the back of her left hand, eight directional arrows that were pointed outwards and had a circle that connected them near the tips, though what it meant she had no idea.

Instead of moving and resuming her search, like one would think in her situation, Pinkamena decided to take a seat for a time and thought about what was going on right now, how her body looked like a Human's mixed with an Equestrian's, the fact that this world was likely inhabited by Humans and other monsters, otherwise she would be totally Human, the figure she had burned into her mind, and the fact that she didn't actually need water anymore, though that didn't stop her from drinking some before taking her seat.

"This is going to be hard, tracking down someone in an unknown world." Pinkamena said, mostly out of habit since she did speak to Pinkie every so often inside their mindscape, or rather the Observatory so she didn't bother the echoes of those her other side brought into her created space, though she continued to stare at the stream and the ravine, trying to figure out where she might have landed and where to go from here, something that told her she needed a map before trying to do anything else, causing her to let out a sigh, "I need to track down someone and talk to them... though that might be a hard thing to do, if the people of this world don't speak the same language as me... maybe the process of coming here did something else to me, to make that not a problem at all..."

She raised her left hand for a moment, allowing her to stare at the odd design once more as she wondered what it meant, as the being who changed her form once more, giving her crimson demonic eyes and the sharpened teeth, which could be fangs in some sense, didn't seem to have any markings on his body, not that she could tell since he had a suit on and she had been slipping into unconsciousness, before she thought about something else. It was something that Pinkie had said at one point, before starting her trek to the cave that the Tree had been resting in for a long time, about the awakening of powers or something, that those who were lost might gain power beyond imagining, but at the time she had just thought it was Pinkie being weird and spouting nonsense, even though now she had to assume that such a thing was right and made her wonder another fact. If she was one of the displaced, and Pinkamena was sure of it thanks to everything she had been through so far, that meant that some sort of power would awaken within her at some point in time, though given that she had been part of Pinkie for a long time it was likely that whatever skills or power she might have would be similar to what her other half would gain, or maybe she would gain something entirely different. In fact there was a chance there might be something slowly awakening inside her, no doubt caused by the figure who had altered her already altered body into what it currently was, though she had no idea as to what might accelerate the process of awakening her power, except maybe using whatever skills and powers this world possessed, using one to power and reinforce the other.

As she thought about that, however, something struck the ground behind her and she turned her head to see what in the world it might be, only to discover an ashen gray skin colored body resting nearby, with two green lines that happened to be on the upper parts of his arms, and she was sure it was male based on the missing mounds on it's chest, though it did fall from such a great height, causing the body to be splattered in a mess near her, arms and legs resting apart from the chest, while only the head was missing.

"What... is this odd feeling?" Pinkamena inquired, as the moment she noticed the body, and saw all of the blood, two new things happened, something inside her informed her that this was a demon, how she had no idea since this was her first time encountering such a thing, maybe second considering the first being she encountered in this world, the second was an odd hunger that suddenly awakened out of nowhere, one that was unlike anything she felt while she was in control of Pinkie's body.

As she turned her attention to the body behind her, however, all of the blood did something odd, it seemed to awaken the power that was inside her, as she found something odd about her marking, a crimson color seemed to be coming from it, which could be a sign that the power she was after was already waking up, where the blood stirred before bursting into the air and formed an orb in front of her within a few seconds, like she was controlling all of it. In the following moments she found that the pieces of the demon's body seemed to regenerate, where new arms and legs seemed to be coming out of the main body, before it collapsed, like it had used a lot of energy or something, though after a few seconds she stared at what was in the area she had stopped in. Not a few seconds later she decided to go with the feeling that was starting to get a little crazy, like a voice telling her she needed to eat to grow stronger, or something to that effect, where she grasped the blood orb and found that she could shrink it down to the size of a marble and swallow it, something that lead to a new sense of power surging through her body, before she turned towards the body. What happened next came as a surprise to her, as the hunger drove her to lift one of the arms up and dig into it, like she was a carnivorous being now, tearing meat off of a bone, though as it happened she sensed the slumbering power within her body awakening, forming a faint aura in the area around her, or at least Pinkamena assumed that was the case, and a new strength grew in her as well, something she would have to find out about at some point in time.

For a few moments nothing else held her attention, besides tearing apart the limbs that had been separated from the rest of the body, before she felt a rather painful burning sensation wash over her as the sun rose, where she screamed in pain as that man's alterations to her body were set ablaze, her arms and legs being charred as if she was being burned alive, as it was all she could think about, before the pain receded before any of her bones could be exposed to the light, where she found that the burns faded away and her body returned to normal.

"So, the sun is fatal to demons... and part of my power is to nullify that pain... good to know," Pinkamena remarked, where she knew it would have sucked if her adventure had ended there, burning alive as the sun's rays touched her transformed body, but as she thought about that she noticed that the demonic body that had landed nearby was surrounded by what had to be a dome of swirling energy, causing her to glance at her marking again as something came to mind, "I see... this is my power... Chaos World, the power to make my will known to the world... no, to enforce my will upon this world, to alter it as I see fit."

The reason she came to that decision was because, even with her nature as the displaced sent to this world, she was sure that it was impossible for someone to be turned into a demon and then suddenly gain the power to walk in the sunlight, a feat she felt that the odd man wasn't even capable of and might be a cause for them to interact with each other again, in the future, and she was sure that her power had reacted to her unspoken desire to survive the sun's rays. Of course she also assumed that another unspoken desire might have been fulfilled, as she wasn't sure what a demonic being had to eat to survive, even though it looked like she was capable of preserving the flesh of a fallen demon and devouring them, but as she thought about that the body sunk into the ground and disappeared. In that moment she discovered something as she considered this, she still had access to her mindscape, one that was no longer tied to Pinkie, though right now it appeared as an empty field of some kind, meaning she was going to have to work and remake the place at some point, though just before she returned to reality Pinkamena created an area that could expand as much as she wanted and stored the body of the fallen demon inside it. If her suspicions were correct this would give her an infinite amount of food, to pull out when she needed to eat something, though she sighed as she locked the door and returned to reality in the blink of an eye, as it looked like she might be able to move between her own mindscape, a real world only she could access that was near and far at the same time, and the waking world, as Pinkie preferred to call it.

With that done she heard the sound of something screaming, the demon whose body had fallen down here, and knew that he must have been burned alive by the sun's rays, where she sensed that it was coming from the top of the cliff that was far above her and she grinned for a moment, as this would be an interesting test of skill, before she leapt at the sheer wall of stone, found a very small foothold for her hoof to touch, before launching herself up the wall. Even after nearly being burned alive by the sun, and the discovery of what had to be her new power, Pinkamena found that she felt incredible, as in she had far more strength and endurance than before, meaning if she maintained a constant diet of food she would no doubt stay in this state, something she would have to test in the future, before she returned her attention to the wall and used several more stones to reach the summit. Once she reached the top, and landed on the flat surface in front of her, she found that there were more trees in front of her and kept walking without delay, where she found a small building that looked like a shrine or temple, even though there were two figures outside it, one looking like a young male, dressed in a checkered coat of some kind that seemed to alternate between black and sea foam green, a blue scarf, and a white shirt with black pants. The other figure appeared to be an older male, once more based on the form of the body, who wore a blue coat of some kind over a black shirt and pants, though he had short silver colored hair, to show his age likely, while the younger male had black hair, but Pinkamena could tell that the older one was wearing some sort of red stern looking mask over his face, preventing others from seeing what he looked like.

Neither of them seemed armed, not that she knew what the weapons of this world looked like, but as she walked towards the pair, emerging from the trees and finding a smooth stone path leading to the temple, Pinkamena found that both did pause for a moment and turned to look in her direction, where the older male seemed to find her first while the younger only took a few more seconds to spot her.

"Her scent... it's like a demon's, but also different." the younger male said, his tone showing her that he seemed worried about something, no doubt because of the fact that he must have encountered the demon whose body Pinkamena had stored inside her Storehouse, though she had no idea what he meant by her 'scent', even if it might mean that he had the power to smell certain things that others couldn't, "Urokodaki-san... what is she?"

"...I do not know..." the masked male replied, though Pinkamena had to assume that the younger had used his last name, and not his first name for some reason, since she felt that 'Urokodaki' was too odd for it to be the first name of the man in question, before he turned his head towards her and studied her for some time, no doubt taking in her demonic features and recalling whatever legends he had heard about, "Demon... how many people have you eaten? How are you able to walk in the sun?"

"First off, my name is Pinkamena, not 'demon', and I haven't eaten anyone... not unless you count the body part of the demon who landed behind me earlier," Pinkamena replied, where she had to assume that he was speaking of Humans, as in how many Humans she must have eaten to gain the power that allowed her to walk in the sun, just an assumption on her part and might be wrong when she thought about it, "also, I haven't been a demon for too long... maybe just an hour or so by my reckoning... so I have no idea what sort of rules a demon is supposed to follow, and I'm still trying to figure out how I'm doing this."

True, the last part of her statement was a lie, though with these two being suspicious of her, given that a demon had likely been burned alive in front of them and the younger one had to be following the lead of the older male, meaning he might be just as inexperienced as Pinkamena was in this sort of situation, though she didn't want to reveal her hand yet, as there might be information she could gain before revealing her unique power to them.

"You may join Tanjiro, his sister Nezuko, and I... but the moment you try to eat us, I'll kill you." Urokodaki stated, showing her that demons were definitely enemies of humanity, at least on this world, and that he might have a way to figure out if someone was about to kill Humans, likely honed to deal with demons, all while meaning that she had a tight rope to walk if she wanted to get out of this situation alive, since she was still experimenting with her powers and skills, but she had no desire to be slain right now.

Pinkamena nodded her head for a moment, allowing them to see that she understood what he was saying, to which the old man beckoned for them to follow, hence why Tanjiro collected a bamboo basket that he carried on his back, which had to be where his sister was resting right now, as she smelled another demon nearby and assumed that was the case, before the two of them followed after Urokodaki and headed toward whatever the future held for them all.

Comments

[Fluffy-Boi]

Ooooo. This is getting good

[tkepner]

you suffer terribly from run-on sentences. Long sentences are more difficult for readers to understand, which causes dis-satisfication with the story, making it seem "harder" to read than it should be. For example:
Based on what she could tell it looked like she was in the bottom of a ravine, or maybe she was at the bottom of a cliff since she discovered a tall stone wall after a few minutes of walking, though her luck did improve as she heard the sound of running water, to which she followed her ears for a few more moments and smiled as she found what she was looking for, a small river, even if it might have been larger in the past.
That should be at least two separate sentences, if not three.
"Based on what she could tell it looked like she was in the bottom of a ravine. After a few minutes of walking , she discovered a tall stone wall, so maybe she was at the bottom of a cliff? She heard the sound of running water, so she followed her ears for a few more moments. She smiled as she found what she was looking for, a small river that cut through this place. The river banks looked as if the river might have been larger in the past,"

Quick rule of thumb: Any sentence with AND , that isn't a list, should be two separate sentences (unless there is a VERY good reason for it to be one sentence -- such as being someone talking. People use and in their speech frequently.)
Second rule of thumb: Any sentence longer than two lines in your word processor should be broken into two sentences (again, unless there is a very good reason for it to be that long).