Demons and most other otherworldly beings tend to lack a physical body when they first enter into a physical plane and must be given one before they can affect the world outside of giving a pact to a mortal. While there are spells that give physical form to the spiritual body of a demon they prefer to gain a body by molding the flesh of another to match their form or condensing a body out of mahou and other forms of blood magic. -Common Monsters

Demon, formerly Jason

These old and souls in tiny bodies are annoying, their attacks are weak to the point of being but a nescience. Their lightning tickles and we would chuckle at the pitiful attacks except that these decaying souls manage to dodge, parry or counter everything that we have tried to do. We are finding it difficult to injure them, yet they do not have the strength to harm us.

Their defense is good and whatever that mortal woman did seemed to hurt but she is of no consequence now. Whatever the weapon that she used was, it is now expended and thus no longer a threat.

I chase the old souls back towards the younger Ravnos. They are too weak to kill us, hurt and annoy perhaps but not kill. They simply do not have the strength anymore to do so. They are not going to be much of a meal, might as well play with them and let them have the hope of joining back up with their younger kin and then season them with the despair of all dying together.

I follow the soul that takes the longer path back to where our minions are fighting the young Ravnos and his allies. The fight seems to be going well, many of my demonic kin have ceased to exist. None of the Ravnos’s allies have fallen yet, two great pieces of news. All of these mortals will strengthen us and our competition is now lower than before.

Just after the mortals notice us, another of our kin falls, his mortal shell destroyed. The old souls are able to inflict injury but they lack strength. I see the young Ravnos struggle to keep a quasit, who will soon be an upstart, from killing him. I smile this is almost too easy, the only one here with the power to inflict serious injury is too unskilled to use his might.

I move behind the largest of the quasit and kill it to utilize a mahou. The mana-laced weaponry of these mortals all shatter. At least that is what should have happened, the human whose soul is mixed with an animal kept her blade. She would have been our meal of choice save the existence of these three Ravnos.

No matter, one weapon that can harm us is insignificant. The two old souls in small youthful bodies are now each wielding a spear but even with their alterations to what is happening they cannot guard all of the other mortals. I smile as they move to defend the others, leaving their young kin to us. Fools, he may have strength but without skill there is nothing but a walking meal.

We swing a claw at the young Ravnos and rend the spear between us in twain. Another appears in the boy’s grasp, a worthless action. The youth manages to get a hit on us with the spear and the weapon shatters, the cost in doing so is worth the opportunity to tear a piece of the young Ravnos's flesh. A slice from the shoulder. We take it and eat it before all.

We savor it and the terror that the mortals feel. They all care about this youth. The old souls are telling instructions to the young Ravnos, as he attempts to recover what was lost. Confusion fills his eyes as the wound scabs over but does not heal. You are cursed to never heal what we take until our deaths, how else are we taking anything from you?

One of the quasits die, skewered by a spear, but not before taking the arm of the weakest mortal here. That mortal woman is a fool running to defend her kin against something she has no way of defeating. One of the elves, now weapon-less, runs and begins some healing magic. We with a smirk release an antimagic field.

The elf managed to close the wound but that is of no importance, the mortal will still die soon enough. The young Ravnos throws a torrent of icy blue fire at us. Some ice forms over our physical body. It is of little consequence, we flex and the ice breaks and falls off. We break another spear of the young Ravnos. This is too easy.

The mortals are terrified as their weapons now do next to nothing to the three quasit that are still alive. The adolescent male takes a strike meant for one of the human girls and falls to the ground. His guts begin to spill forth, our lesser kin rush to eat them. The old souls and the woman who is part animal fend them off.

The young Ravnos yells in rage and his newest spear changes as it flies at that quasit. Our kin screams, it and not its physical body was hurt. The quasit abandons the physical world and retreats to the abyss.

So the young Ravnos knows how to harm the spirit. That will not help him against us, we are many and the original soul of our host cannot be driven off like that. The old souls now are each facing off against one of the quasits, shouting at their kin. Either the young Ravnos does not understand what they are telling him or he does not care in his anger. The light in his eyes has shifted, they are now the eyes of an enraged beast.

The Ravnos pulls out another spear from the space between planes and stabs us with it. One of the many within us screams in pain. We do not care, less competition for the power that will soon be consumed by us.

Our claws glow as we break this spear with them and take a jump into the air. I doubt this young Ravnos's ability to fight at ranged or in the air. Something feels off and we find our antimagic field broken as the young Ravnos turns into a dragon. He roars and we plumet to the earth, as the small dragon rising into the sky. The impact of the ground means little to us.

We have seen dragons such as these before. The live in the gaps between planes and the emptiness of space. They are dangerous beings, capable of moving through the void freely and without being injured by it, while nigh all else would be destroyed.

The dragon Ravnos dives down and its claws begin to tear into our flesh. We lick our lips as we return the favor. His claws truly harm us but so do our claws to him. For each piece he takes from us, we take a piece from him, and there is much more of us than there is dragon flesh. His furry is a cost we gladly pay, after all this is not even our body.

Soon we are both covered in each other’s blood. One of our arms is cast aside as the heavily injured dragon jumps away from us. He got the better of us in each exchange, his scales forcing us to take smaller pieces than he can from us. Even so the small dragon body has so much less it can sustain compared to us.

Our wings are shredded, and many pieces of our flesh have been lost. Even so we grin, once we consume him this will all be worth it. We will be whole and able to pass physically through the void with our true body. At least some of us will. That fight will be held after this. The dragon Ravnos should bleeding to death from the injuries we already gave it.

Our mental celebrations are cut short as the dragon Ravnos returns to human form. He is only missing a piece of his shoulder, all the damage done to the dragon did not stay. The light in his eyes and the dragon’s seem slightly different. We throw a bolt of black lighting at him. This is not fair, one should not have two bodies. The young Ravnos seems to deflect the dark lightning bolt, though cringes in doing so.

He takes a few steps towards our heavily injured form and bathes it in a dark purple flame. We can feel the body start to wither and burn as we throw dark lightning blindly, having lost our vision. Our brawl with the dragon left us near immobile, this is not right we were supossed to consume you!

Then our body fails and we return to the void, running to the abyss. This excursion was now worthless, maybe we can sell the information to other demons? We cannot return to that physical world for a time anyways.

Adrian

Dragon-me is writhing in pain in the back of my mind as I wrest the control of my body back from him. I bathe what remains of the demon he fought as I lost myself with fire laced with death. I should not let that happen again. I do not want to be an observer to my own body. The black lighting stops, and I turn to everyone else. After I pull the last of my mana to pull my last pair of clothes from void cache, I start to walk over to the rest of them.

Mom has lost her arm and is unconscious. Bryan was disemboweled and everyone else has some major cuts. Lysan is keeping Bryan alive but it looks like she is overdrawn in doing so. My little brothers are staring at me. I think they started to when dragon-me took over. He is much more suited to fighting than me. Even if he was mentally shouting, don’t touch my hoard the whole time. We were both angry over the demons harming my friends and that was his in to take control.

At Bryan’s side, I am thankful that I spent so many nights studying anatomy as I move his guts back where they are supposed to be. Within minutes he is whole again. Though he will need a few days to get back the energy I expended in his healing. I don’t think he will wake up until tomorrow.

There are no more lethal injuries. I take a deep breath and hug my little twin brothers and run my hand through their brown hair and see no panic in their hazel eyes. They, like everyone else on dad’s side of the family, are much better at magic than me. Why did their magic feel weaker than mine now? They are still clearly more skilled and talented. I release a mental sigh, they are safe and I move us over to Mom. Can I reattach her arm before she wakes up?

“When did you learn to heal?” Asks Frank.

I smile before answering.

“The day after the monsters like the ones in my games showed up.”

I need to keep them calm. They may be smarter and more talented than me but I’m the big brother so I need to protect them. Even if they don’t seem traumatized by the demons or the blood and gore strewn about.

I put the severed arm up against the stump and warp the flesh to reconnect and since it has only been a few minutes the arm should be fine. Mom stays unconscious, probably a good thing until this is all cleaned up.

I pick Mom up and turn to my brothers. “Can one of you help Abagail,” I point at her, “bring Bryan to a bed?”

Frank nods and both of them go to help her carry him. I bring mom to her bedroom as the trio begins to clean up the battlefield. I’ll heal them next, burn the corpses and then get everyone ready to spend a few days here recuperating.

Mom will need to learn about magic too. I am going to be in so much trouble when she wakes up; I didn’t contact her in several weeks, crashed my car, killed people, got in fights, 'dyed' my hair, stole stuff, slept with and brought home strange girls. About the only thing I didn’t do that she would get mad about is drugs.