DPxDC A Boy and His Pit Demon
The world was green, green, green. Green beans, bean soup, Soup Time. Soupy, soupy Soup Time.
Would Soup Time hurt now?
Most things hurt now, because he was broken, broken, broken, but not the green. Green, green, green.
Green isle, green sky, green eye, green soup.
Green, green soup. He liked green, and he liked soup, but maybe he didn’t like green soup.
“No eggs, just soup. I am not Sam, I am not.” He giggled quietly at the thought of amethyst eyes encircled with black and purple paint and approached the lake of green.
It smelled like Soup had been left out in the sun to rot.
He laid a clawed hand over his icy chest. Food was mean. Sometimes, food fought back.
Food fights, fighting food, union fight, fighting Soup? Hot-rot green soup.
He was so hungry, but hot was bad.
Ice core, hot sore, hot-rot soup.
He was already so broken, broken, broken, and green was good.
The hot-rot soup was hot, and he was ice, but it wasn’t fighting back, and it might be nice.
What did he have to lose? Lost friends, lost home, lost mind, lost all, found Soup.
He hummed happily before diving headfirst into a pit of rancid, fetid ectoplasm leaving the Infinite Realms behind.
Damian was nine years old, but that wouldn’t stop him from being the best the League had ever seen.
He was almost there already, of course.
He’d even won a fight against his mother once.
Of course, Damian had set many traps on the battlefield in advance, but it was only proper to use every tool that one had on hand.
Damian moved smoothly through his training stances, clearing his mind of all thoughts except executing his actions flawlessly.
He had perfected them years ago, of course. He was not a baby, and he’d been practicing with the blade since he was four. It was important to keep all of your weapons, sharp, however, and ones own skills are the most valuable weapons.
He often practiced near his grandfather’s pools.
It was a place where few had permission to go unless accompanying his grandfather, after all, and the soft green glow was pleasant to be near.
It could be dangerous, of course, but Damian was not so foolish as to risk falling in while healthy.
A sound caught Damian’s attention, breaking him out of his fluid routine.
His head whipped towards the Lazarus Waters which had begin to froth and bubble violently.
Damian had never seen such a reaction before, but he’d heard from others what it meant.
Rarely, perhaps once every five decades or so, a demon would rise from the pits.
There was nothing even the best trained assassin could do against them.
They were strong, fast, unkillable, and the only thing you could do if one set its sights on you was pray for a quick death.
Damian straightened his spine and squared his shoulders, readying his blade. If he were to die, he would do so with his pride and strength in place.
He only had to wait a few moments before a nightmarish head rose from the boiling pool.
It was blacker than night, seeming to suck the luminescence from the waters around it. Its eyes were slitted, with sclera the same toxic green as the pool’s waters. Its mouth was a nightmare of serrated fangs bared in the parody of a smile.
Damian raised his chin defiantly to death. “You do not belong here. These are my grandfather’s pools.”
The demon’s head tilted far past what any human would be capable of, and it let out a low, static-filled hiss. “Hungry, hungry. Play, play?”
Damian gritted his teeth. He had never heard of a pit demon ever speaking before, and the thought of it wanting to play with its food before it ate him brought him nothing but anger.
If he were to die, he was going to do so with dignity.
Damian sniffed. “No. One does not play with their food.”
The creature let out another awful sound like lightning or a windstorm before its gruesome maw stretched even wider. “Fight food.”
Damian took a deep breath before he let it our slowly and pointed his sword at the creature. “Then let us fight.”
The creature rose slowly from the water, revealing a small, thin body, but Damian knew that size mattered little when it came to the power of a pit demon.
It was almost human in the same way that his mother could be called almost nice.
It had a head, a body, two arms, and two legs.
However, its limbs were too long. Each of its hands had five skeletal fingers each ending in a razor-sharp blade. Its thin legs had an extra joint, and its stance hurt Damian’s spine just to look at as it floated above the pool dripping toxic water that could kill or poison the living.
“Fight,” it growled in a voice filled with the cackle of a broken League communicator.
It did not try and dodge or evade as it spend towards him, claws outstretched, and Damian thought he might get at least one good hit in before he died.
Damian’s blow struck true, right at the demon’s center of mass, but it didn’t slow its momentum in the slightest, and Damian barely had time to get out of its reach before its claws could impale him.
He spun quickly, keeping the creature in his sights as it turned on the ground, back arching like a cat about to pounce.
There was no wound where Damian’s blade had struck, only smooth black skin, darker than night.
It was still playing with him. Still making a fool of Damian, even in his last moments of life.
Damian shrieked, darting forward and aiming a blade at the pit demon’s heels.
If he could injure it somewhere delicate, maybe it would retreat back into the waters.
The monster laughed, unnaturally twisting its legs out of reach and back into the air without a thought for the limitations of gravity or basic anatomy.
Damian pivoted, slicing upwards at the beast’s exposed face, but the being only caught the sword in its bare hand.
Damian had a solid grip on his sword.
One of the first things he’d learned, mastered before the age of five, was how to keep a firm grip on his weapon while maintaining enough flexibility for rapid movement.
The moment the creature wrapped his hand around the weapon, however, it was as if his favorite blade was as insubstantial as a cloud, and it went through Damian’s hand in an instant.
The demon laughed its monstrous laugh again, tossing the beautifully forged custom blade behind itself as if it were a common stick.
Damian knew he would die from the second he’d seen the pit demon emerge, but it was worse to know how insignificant of a threat he posed.
With a flick of his wrist, he unsheathed and threw a poisoned dagger at the creature. It whizzed between its eyes, and the creature turned its sharp smile to watch the blade sail away.
The creature dropped to the ground in front of Damian, assuming the deplorable fighting stance of a seasoned street brawler, and Damian brought his own fists up at the ready.
If this monster was going to toy with him like a cat with a mouse, if it liked to play with its food, Damian would be sure to win at least one game.
The pit demon was even smaller on the ground, barely reaching Damian’s own chest, and Damian grinned savagely.
He never got the chance to fight someone smaller than himself.
In a quick movement, Damian darted forward, aiming a blow at the demon’s shoulder.
Damian wasn’t sure what surprised him more, the fact that his attack had landed, or the fact that the creature hadn’t moved a single centimeter from the force.
Damian ignored the stinging in his fist and decided to count it as a win. He’d never heard of anyone ever landing even a glancing blow against a pit demon, not even when a dozen of Grandfather’s best had been fighting one together.
The demon threw a half-trained punch at Damian, and he stepped to the side to grab its wrist, hoping he could use the momentum against it and throw it to the ground, but his hand passed through the creatures arm as if it wasn’t there at all.
With the distraction, Damian almost didn’t notice its other hand whipping out, and Damian could do nothing as the monster hit his diaphragm with enough force to knock the air from his lungs and send him tumbling backward to the ground.
He heaved in a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut as he waited for the killing blow to land.
He had fought well and landed a hit against the untouchable.
A soft weight settled against his chest, and Damian’s eyes flew open.
The pit demon had settled on top of his chest. “Brave, brave, boy. Fights well, so young. Good fight.”
Damian shuttered at the being's sharp fangs so close to him, but tried to take pride in knowing that even a true pit demon thought him a worthy fighter.
His mother and grandfather might never know, but Damian knew that he had done his position as Heir to the Demon proud.
The creature moved its face toward Damian’s exposed throat, and he prayed for a swift death.
The creature nuzzled the underside of his chin before growing limp and beginning to hum softly.
Damian froze in confusion.
The pit demon’s mass shifted, black body becoming almost like a liquid as it pooled around his neck and over his chest. “Good boy, good fight, like boy.”
Damian knew he shouldn’t provoke the pit demon. He knew that. However, he had already played the monster’s game and wouldn’t sit passively until it decided it was ready.
That was one indignity too far.
“Are you not going to eat me now?”
“Eat!” The pit demon screeched, purring hum coming to a sudden stop. “Fight food, fight boy, eat food, like boy. Boy fight, I fight, like boy, eat soup.”
Damian swallowed. The pit demon spoke English, and Damian was fluent in the language. He was not as sure that the pit demon was fluent, however, with how little sense it was making.
“In return for sparing my life, you would like soup?” Damian tried, furrowing his eyebrows.
A hand reemerged from the black mass that was the pit demon, and a clawed finger pointed at the Lazarus Waters. “Ate Soup, green Soup. Sam I am not.”
Damian didn’t know how not being named Samuel was related to drinking Lazarus Waters, but that was irrelevant to the small, absurd hope rising in his chest. “You are satiated after consuming my grandfather’s… soup, and you have no plans on eating me?”
The demon wheezed out another crackling laugh and patted his cheek. “Funny boy, funny soup, like boy, keep boy.”
Its sharp hand melted back into its body, and it resumed purring.
Damian’s mind raced at the implications.
He had fought a pit demon, he had landed a blow and impressed the creature, and it seemed that it planned on staying.
Damian had– He had been the first to impress a demon with his fighting prowess, and he seemed to have won its loyalty.
He had always known he was destined for greatness, of course, but never in his wildest dreams had he imagined this as a possibility.
Damian laid a hand carefully on top of the purring monster on his chest. “If you are not Samuel, then what may I call you?”
The demon rumbled and hummed, pressing itself into Damian’s hand. “I am P4NT0M, I am Dan, I am not Dan. I am Phantom. I am Danny.”
Damian wrinkled his nose. Most of those names were unacceptable, but he supposed that he could make due. “Phantom, then. Welcome to Nanda Parbat. I am Damian al Ghul, grandson of Ra's al Ghul.”
The creature purred more loudly, and Damian ran a hand along the monster’s cold brow.
Damian grinned and sat up, cradling the black purring mass against his chest.
He was Damian al Ghul, first of the League of Assassins to ever earn the respect of a Pit Demon.
He would also be the first to tame a pit demon.
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