Nero was strolling down the street at night. If there was anything he truly liked about this world it was night time. There was something about it that was actually calming. His mind was a constant thought process, and planning. Only night was able to give his mind a rest and for some things to become even clearer. As he was walking he strolled past the internet cafe that he had met Samuel. He didnt look inside for the side of it was a big peice of glass. But walked right by it, enjoing the clarity he was currently feeling. A pleased smile actually on his face, and that itself was rare.

Since finding out about demons, Samuel had been doing lots of studying on folklore legends of various peoples, and some of them were fairly out there. He knew despite what Jacob had said to the contrary, that he found a grain of truth to all of it. He just probably didn't want the hacker delving to much into such things because it could expose a potential weakness in demonic form. It also gave a crash course too Samuel to learn about the different types of demons, which seemed to be at least three catagories that the folklore all talked about. The good spirits usually associated as angels, the bad spirits who were typified as demons and mischief makers, and all the sundry spirits that fell between those two groups. Samuel himself was doing some research on the subject at the same internet cafe having a camera there to help him out with some of the other paranormal theories he had.

Samuel would look up from the computer screen, and see the departing image of what looked like Jacob, which to him was interesting. He didn't want to try and shadow the demon given that he had no experience in it, but he would use another just as effective method. He would pull up his myriad of virus and established several routes by proxies before bouncing the signal off several more times to make it hard to track. He would then go through the route of using backdoors in several store cameras he would pull up real time footage of Jacob as he strolled down the street. (Looks like he can be seen by humans.) Samuel would think to himself.

Not to far from the cafe Nero suddenly stopped and looked up. He saw something dash from one roof top to the next. He sighed heavily and walked to the side of a building and then jumped straight up. He cleared a good story before he set his foot on the railing of a fire escape. After making contact the lept again. He repeated this process until he reached the top of the 10 story building. Once at the top he looked around. "You know its annoying to have someone follow me when im just taking a stroll. Am I not allowed to do that even?" He said as he turned to see a small squirrel looking at him sitting on his high legs. It then spoke to him in his mind. "I know what you are up to demon. You have been busy, seemingly trying to fit in with the humans. But I can see past that, you are up to something. I intend to find out." It said as its nosed twitch. A sly grin crept across Nero's face. "Oh im up to something am I? Well then why not stop me here? If im so evil slay me now and be done with it."

Something weird happened then, he could see the rest of the humans suddenly no longer registered Jacobs presence. *He probably shifted to being unnoticed by them* Samuel thought to himself as he did a quick search and pulled up several other cameras, and a quick search with video software brought up the image of Jacob standing on a ten story tall building with another person their. *Wish I had a whole battery of sensors with me, that I could record this all.* Samuel thought to himself, but he would just have to make do with burning a copy onto his laptop and also his own private server. *Looks like Jacob is a little bit pissed.* Samuel thought to himself as he continued to observe the situation.

The little animal titled its head towards Nero. "No I will watch you and observe. and once I discover what you are up to I will report you to my superiors and they will deal with you." The furry creature said. Nero then looked at his hand. "I was afraid you was going to say that. I cant allow you to do that." He said as his hand began to glow blue. Ice particals began to swirl around it and then came together to form a double edged sword. "I must kill you now little one. Im sure your master will notice you missing but it will not matter. Kami and Oni kill each other all the time it wont make a difference." He said as he dashed at the little creature. "We know about you ice demon it is why I was sent to deal with you." The Kami said and began to glow red. It then lept up to about face level and unleashed a massive fireball that engulfed NEro. "Being you opposite you can not beat me. My fire will met your ice." It said. "You know whats funny, people think ice is weaker against fire. But why? Ice is frozen water, and water beats fire. And secondly fire lives by eating oxygen. But ice frezzes oxygen and grows even stronger by making it apart of itself." He said from the flames. And suddenly the sword lashed out from the flames and cut the little spirit across the chest.And then a few more quick slashed and the fire went out. "It is I who is your opposite, you can not hurt me." He said as the animal touched its wound."I under estimated you demon. No more." It said as it glowed bright red again and erupted in flames itself. Once they went out a woman with red hair so bright it seemed on fire. She had on a red gown and her eyes were ablaze. She then held her own swords of fire and pointed on at Nero. "I will end this quickly."

Samuel was watching rather intently especially, when the glowing special effects starting happening. The squirril thing seemed to have some sort of fire ability compared to the icy glow that Jacob had around himself. *The fire guy is going to be at a disadvantage unless he can pull out a significantly hotter fire then what it looks like he is capable of.* Samuel thought to himself as he continued to observe the situation. *The squirrel needs to create a distraction and run away if I am thinking the power from it is about the same to Jacobs.* Samuel continued to think to himself.

"Its about time you got serious." Nero said as he prepared to fight. The woman dual wielding came at him head on. First starting with a low sweep with the right. Nero countered that with a downwards block keeping the fire sword from coming up. But then the left hand of the woman came down. Nero side stepped towards the left and was now in between the two blades. The woman then tried to cross the swords in to cut him in half. But Nero jumped and front flipped over the woman. He thought he had successfully escaped but the second he landed behind the woman he received a kick to his back and went flying forward. He caught his balance and turned around in time to see the woman had jumped and was coming down with her swords. Nero jumped to the side but did not have much time to recover for as soon as the woman landed she sprang over and attacked him again. The fight continued for a few minutes, with Nero primarily on the defensive side of it. He finally saw an opening when he parried a double attack with both swords. It took strength but he parried successfully and went in for her open ribs. But just as he thrusted in for her body she dissapeared. He then heard her voice from behind him. "You should have staid on the defensive. You would have lived longer." Nero turned around wide eyed to her sweeping her swords clean across his chest. His blood flying into the air as he flew back.

*Claw against sword, it almost seems like a disadvantage for Jacob if I didn't already know about him being a demon at this juncture I'd put it at even for them.* Samuel thought to himself as he watched the feed with interest. It gave him an idea of just what kind of physical abilities that his 'partner' had, which meant that he could prepare counter-measures for when the time came. It also helped him a lot to know just what the demons were actually capable of in combat. *Just got to hope that Jacob actually lives through it, but the squirrel girl is kind of cute despite the brimstone aura around her.* He thought.

Nero's body het the ground and his ice sword shattered, He had deep wounds on his chest and was panting for air. The woman walked up to his and standing over him she pointed her sword at him. "You should have known better demon. Your not that important, your weak. You may have been able to best my weaker form but not this one. Blame your own stupidity for this defeat." She said as she raised her sword up high. "Weak...Stupid...I am far from them!" HE called out as a blast of energy erupted from his body. The woman was forced to jump back. The energy continued to pour from Nero's body, as his cloths fluttered violently in the air. He then let our a demonic roar as the energy erupted again into a blinding blue light. Once the light faded the human form of Nero was no longer there. Instead a two story tall three headed beast with glowing blue fur stood, covering most of the roof. "Learn who you are speaking to wench. I am Nero! Cerberus of the underworld! Hand picked to do the devil's work." He said in a vicious beastly tone. The ground that he stood on was frozen and it was spreading to the rest of the roof. The woman saw this and lept to avid it but was struck down by one of Nero's massive paws. He pined her with it and ducked his heads down. "I have a feeling you have never felt cold. Know that my essence will be the last thing you ever feel." He said as the woman began to shiver and then from the inside out she began to freeze. The color drained from her face and first her eyes froze and then from the roots down to the tips her hair froze. The rest of the body then stiffened and froze. It then shattered under the weight of his paw. A lgith the shined again and Nero returned to his former self. "Tch. I lost control when she insulted me. Id better watch that from now on. I better leave. that display of power was sure to attract some beings." He said as he walked to the edge again and lept off.

1306

Samuel seeing the end results of the fight would wait until Jacob had left before scrubbing the copy that the camera had made of it, and replaced it with stock footage with alter time tags. He then deleted any trace of him being in the network before cutting off access to his proxies, but he was satisfied with how everything had happened. *I have my first piece of evidence against Jacob should the time come, but I will need more then this. Its good to know that some of my assumptions are true though, and this gives me weight for potentially dispersing the video to them, when the need arises.* Samuel thought to himself as he shut down his laptop and put it into its carrying case. He then left the cafe and headed back to his apartment having decided to not stay out in public for the rest of the night.

Updated ero.

Updated Nero