Chapter 33 – Street Fight

Growling seemed to be filling the streets.

Phoenix scrambled in after them, cloak swaying after her. "Plan, now!" she shouted. This was the first time Phoenix had shown real motivation in a long time. She held the chopping board in her hands.

Crusher looked to Silk and asked, "Do you have one?"

"Nope, my plans are usually vague and on the fly. That's not what we need right now,"

"Crusher nodded. "Phoenix, we need a distraction, the bigger the better. Silk, I presume you have some way to make us unnoticeable to the demons while they're distracted. I will buy time, not much but some." He ran out into the main streets after this, not even giving Silk or Phoenix time to object.

"Time to try the new outfit," Silk muttered. The enchantments were a combination between the two suits but instead of focusing on defence or attack it focused on utility. It was useful and not particularly focused on combat but could handle it. "Impressive," he muttered. He had been thinking about this sort of idea before but hadn't really acted on it, it was obviously his subconscious playing tricks.

"Are you ready?" Phoenix asked seriously while throwing him the chopping board.

Silk nodded back.

On cue she started murmuring something complex under her breath. Heat seemed to be swirling around her. In seconds a great fire burst forward destroying everything in its path with no distinction for what was a demon and what was a household. Silk did not like that but couldn't say much about it.

Taking this chance Silk grabbed Phoenix and conjured the air around them to refract around them. While they seeming slipped away from sight Crusher was retreating from the flame. Silk slammed into Crusher to spur him to action and while the demons were running away, they headed towards the epicentre of the demons. The Castle.

The castle was now shrouded in a strange darkness which gave a sense of foreboding to all who looked upon it. It was like crack, you knew it would have ramifications but you do it anyway.

Three silhouettes were waiting for them. One was significantly bigger than the others and hulked over them.

"Come on now. Aren't you late? You were never late my dear Filum." Came a voice from the three silhouettes.

"Filum is an old name," Silk shouted back. "You know this."

"Is that you Graiv?" Phoenix shouted.

The hulking man stepped forward. "Aye, I'm glad to see. You just up and died on me last time, lets see if you last a bit longer."

"Same with you Crusher," The lean man blonde man called from next to Maya. "A black hole, that was a rather disappointing end."

"So we all know each other," Silk remarked. "I presume that isn't a coincidence."

"Of course it isn't, quite the contrary really." The man in the blue suit appeared from behind Silk. "You six are my final gamble. Well, not yet but soon."

"Not you again," all of them seemed to moan.

"It is me again, deal with it." The man in blue snapped. He turned to the Maya and her group. "You are coming with me," with a snap of his fingers they were gone.

"Lovely, I feel like we are playing right into his hands." Silk commented.

"He's playing a game out of his league," Crusher spat. "No lone man can play at this level."

"You'd be surprised," Silk responded. "The little things are sometimes the most important."

They burst through the front door with gusto but that didn't last long. They were greeted by two very unfriendly demons. They were as big as doubled decker buses and held the appearance of oxen but big black and very evil looking.

Overall a bad idea to fight against them.

"Come on," Phoenix explained. "Can we not catch a break." She was thrusting up pillars of flames from the ground into the oxen but they remained unfazed. Crusher had immediately grabbed a decorative suit of armour and was charging at one of the oxen, expertly weaving in-between Phoenix's attacks.

Silk took out the rapier and set the chopping board down. Stretching his magic out like threads he made a web to sense everything in the room. The oxen had moved their vital organs from the usual area, he could tell from the magic flow in the body.

The vital parts were in the main body but shifted about to make killing much harder. This was a standard trick that demons pulled which made it harder to kill every single demon as all were unique.

Hardening the threads so they had a physical presence on the world one of the oxen tripped, the other was stuck like a fly in a web.

The trapped ox roared and started breathing a cold fire at them to keep them away.

"That's not fair," Crusher spat. Holding out his hand the rocks and rubble from the fight converged making a makeshift hammer in his hands. "You should learn to play by the rules." He rolled in and with a powerful swing he connected with the ox's jaw making it stumble to the side.

Silk jumped shoving his rapier through the pupil of one of the dazed ox's eyes and with a yank it came free. Compared to the eye the rapier was like a toothpick, a now bloody toothpick but a toothpick all the same.

"Is that what our best shot is supposed to be. We got an eye." Phoenix complained.

"The eye of a demon," Silk held up triumphantly. The ox was no longer in a daze and it didn't take long for Silk to be thrown across the room.

"Silk!" Crusher shouted in concern.

"I'm fine," he groaned in response. Using the rapier as support he pulled himself up. "This is why I like air manipulation."

Luckily most of the damage was internal so while it hurt it didn't require the whole shedding of the skin to heal. Many people who had tried to kill Silk had called him a tough old geezer with no respect to death.

Using the rapier as a walking stick, he walked forwards. Every step was agony but the pain was subsiding quickly. The one-eyed ox looked at him with great anger, Silk pointed the rapier at it in response. He was vaguely aware of Crusher and Phoenix distracting the other one but Silk held his attention on one-eye.

The ox readied to charge, Silk etched on the floor. When the ox charged Silk dodged underneath it's massive body.

Silk ran to the wall and did anther quick etch of an enchantment and squared off with the ox. The ox charged again but this time spewing its icy breath. Silk studied the breath quickly used the air to cover him and creating a spark added heat. Using this he jumped through the breath, the tail missed him by a hair breadth.

"Too close," he muttered noticing some new blisters from the reaction between extreme heat and cold.

He etched the enchantment once more on the ground and squared off with the ox again. The ox had realised nothing was working so now had a new tactic of staring at Silk intensively.

"What are you going to do, shoot laser beams?" Silk laughed.

The ox snorted in response and sure enough a laser beam came out its eye.

"Crap," Silk swore. The aim wasn't great so Silk set up the air denser between him and the ox to refract the light from him. Using his defence Silk moved a bit away and etched one final enchantment.

Putting energy into his enchantment four string leapt forward from the four separate enchantments. It was impaled from four different directions. The strings started to retract and with it was an unknow entity.

The first string to break free from the Ox's body was in position of a live so at least the ox wouldn't be able to drink properly again. Next a heart came out, this put Silk at ease as his enchantment had worked. A bit gory but worked.

Silk quickly activated the second phase of the enchantment which made the two final strings become barbed. Extremely barbed. They started pulling and it wasn't long before two barbed strings came out with a whole lot of oxen on them.

Silk was sweating profusely from the great exertion that the enchantment had taken on him. At least it was dead now though.

Turning he saw an equally dead and charred ox with two maniacs grinning over the dead body. Only maniacs tried to kill demons though.