The Fight

This is joint-written.

“Finally,” Niqi muttered, staring at the approaching armies off in the distance. She was at the mouth of the tunnel, and moonlight had long been shining on the fields. She got up and ran a ways into the tunnel. “Get your asses together, they’re here!” she called.

“F**k you!” Glide growled from further down the tunnel, appearing after a moment with Magus drawn. “It’s about damn time.”

Lujuria followed along behind him, holding the Bloody Doves. “Interruptions, all the damn time...”

“Hey, it’s not my fault they took so long you thought you could get another session in,” Niqi grumbled.

Ambree appeared, dragging Belleza along with her. “I was about to die from boredom,” she complained.

“Okay, everybody into the tunnel!” Glide barked, as soon as the armies were close enough to hear him. “We’re not wasting anymore time!”

The armies were compliant enough, although it was a bit cramped with so many people.

“Never thought I’d see the day where Crusaders marched with selkies,” Niqi said, glancing back at the armies they were leading.

“Yeah, it’s a strange situation, alright.” Glide said. “Let’s just get through here so I can start ripping things in half.”

The tunnels wound on and on for what seemed like an eternity. There were many side paths, and it seemed evident that the armies would’ve gotten lost were it not for Lujuria showing the way. Eventually, the darkness of the tunnels ended, and they emerged into the moonlight.

“Finally.” Glide hissed, taking his sling off completely for the first time, folding it up and storing it in his pocket. “Let’s get the fun started.” He grinned, a malicious glint in his eyes as he dropped into a crouch, sneaking toward the south gate of the Southern Cross.

Niqi signaled the armies to be quiet, and then to pass the message on to the troops behind them. She drew her katana, which she still had not named, and crept along behind Glide in a half-crouch that resembled the movements of a werewolf.

Ambree fell in line behind Niqi, drawing Insecte quietly. She didn’t change her posture in any way; she was still too short to be seen, hidden in the masses of taller creatures.

Glide left his blade sheathed, standing up when he reached the closed gates. He signaled everyone to move back. “I’m gonna kick the door down.” He smirked, pausing for a moment to pick up a shovel from the ground. “Everybody ready?”

“All set,” Niqi replied.

“Ready,” Ambree responded.

“Where am I?” Belleza murmured. “Are we done already...?”

“Can I do it?” Lujuria asked. “Please?”

“No, I got it covered.” Glide responded, pulling his leg up to his chest. “Everybody draw; I want you to rush in right when the gates open.”

Niqi gripped her katana tighter, her heart beating fast. “Got it.”

Ambree nudged Belleza. “Get ready to swing that flail around, Lady Stardust,” she said, trying to get her to come to her wits.

“For blood!” Glide roared, kicking the gates open and rushing inside.

“For carnage!” Lujuria snarled, following Glide inside.

“For cabbage!” Belleza exclaimed, running in and swing the flail wildly.

“For freedom!” Ambree yelled, sprinting inside.

“For Seisen!” Niqi called throughout the Southern Cross, shoving her blade into the chest of a demon shortly after.

Glide smirked, tossing his shovel to the ground and kicking the handle, the shovel blade cutting a demon’s feet out from under it. With his arm completely free, he held nothing back, finishing it off with a burst of energy.

“Zum zum zum, Capoeira mata um...” Lujuria sang, flipping through the Southern Cross and sending demons flying with flipping kicks.

“Excuse me, dearie,” Belleza smiled, tapping a demon on the shoulder with her flail, “you’re in my way.” She paused for dramatic effect, then slammed her flail into the demon’s skull. “Move!”

Niqi dashed all over the Southern Cross, seeking out opportunities to take demons by surprise. She moved quickly. Often, it would appear as though a demon had simply dropped dead on the spot.

Ambree vaulted herself off one of the walls of the Southern Cross, jumping on top of demons and slaying them from above. “I quite like this view,” she mused to herself, shoving Insecte through a demon’s skull. She jumped on top of the blade, shoving it further in, and then backflipped off of the demon, grabbing her blade on the way down.

Glide twirled his shovel in one paw, deflecting attacks as he steadily moved backward, eventually ending up bumping into Kigetski. “Hey, welcome to the party.”

“Shut up, Glide.” Kigetski snarled, slicing a pair of bloodletter demons in half with one swing of his blade. “You’re fighting with a shovel?”

“It was just sitting there!” Glide laughed.

Ambree landed in front of Glide, having jumped from another demon. “Throw me on top of that building,” she requested, pointing.

Glide dropped his shovel on the ground, drawing his blade. “Stand on the shovel. Trust me on this, it’ll be one hell of a ride.”

Ambree nodded, doing so.

“Now hold on to your lunch, kid, you might just lose it.” Glide smirked, stomping on the shovel handle and sending Ambree rocketing onto the roof of the building.

Ambree scrambled for leverage as she hit the rooftop, finally finding purchase in a few of the badly-made shingles. She took out the bow and quiver of arrows she’d snatched from a recently killed demon and began shooting down demons from above. “So glad I took archery now,” she muttered to herself.

Niqi scrambled up the wall and joined her after she’d fired off a couple of arrows. “Want some company?” she asked, not waiting for an answer as she started firing off black spikes towards the demons below.

“I suppose so,” Ambree replied, grinning.

“Hey, Kigetski, remember Spiral Twister?” Glide asked, switching his blade from his left paw to his right. “Wanna give it one last try?”

“You better know what you’re doing, Glide.” Kigetski muttered, leaping over Glide and landing in front of him.

“Spiral Twister!” Both growled out, Kigetski beginning to spin his blade as Glide created another black tornado, propelling him forward.

Belleza swung her mace with wild abandon, knocking demons out of the way as she made her way to the north gates, forgetting what she was in the Southern Cross to do.

“Grandma, come back, we’re not done yet!” Lujuria yelled after her.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Belleza smiled, kicking another demon through the closed gates. “I just wanted to stop for a second and pick some herbs.”

“Damnit, I’m out of arrows,” Ambree grumbled. “Guess I’m back to close combat. See you around,” she said to Niqi, and then jumped off the building, doing a flip in midair. She came down on a demon’s shoulders, dislocating both his arms. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you,” she mocked, jumping off and taking his head off with Insecte.

Niqi watched Ambree for a moment, smiling, before hanging over the building to drop. She saw a window in front of her, and changed her plans. Swinging her legs, she vaulted herself through the window, shattering the glass on the way in. She brushed herself off, looking around. “Holy s**t,” she muttered, looking around the massive store room. Weapons were everywhere, lining the walls and stacked in the corners. She grinned maliciously.

A demon came flying through the window after a few seconds, obviously dead, an enormous dent in its head. Belleza’s handiwork, no doubt. “I hope that didn’t hit anyone!” The old selkie yelled from the street.

“No worries, old woman!” Niqi yelled back.

After about a minute, Niqi emerged from the window, carrying several spears, a large, deadly-looking mace, and a curved sword. “Glide!” she called, spotting him a short distance away. She tossed the curved sword to him.

Glide snatched the sword out of the air, wielding it alongside Magus. “Party time.” He smirked, driving the blades into a demon’s stomach and yanking them upwards.

Lujuria leapt into the air, hooking his legs around a Flying Kama’s waist and starting to slice it to pieces with Glide’s daggers.

Niqi pinned a demon to a nearby wall with a spear, making short work of it with a single blow of the mace. “That is what I call carnage,” she said, somewhat disgusted, as she tried to shake bits of demon skull from the mace.

Ambree came skidding down from the top of another sloped roof; how she got up there is anyone’s guess. She jumped at the edge, curling into head-first dive. She held Insecte out in front of her, taking a demon by surprise by shoving it into the back of his neck. She flipped up and over him, trying to yank the blade out in the process. Instead, she pulled the entire demon over her head. She stood, stunned, for a couple of seconds afterwards, and then pried her blade out to go kill some more. “Bah, it’s getting to the point where there are more troops than demons,” she complained as she vaulted off another wall.

Driving the Bloody Doves into the Flying Kama’s chest, Lujuria swung himself upward, glancing at Niqi. “Channeler!” He called, swinging himself back down, yanking out the daggers as he kicked the demon toward Niqi. “Thought you might like his power!”

Glide dropped to one knee, sliding forward and flipping backwards again, launching a pair of screamers into the air. “Rengeki!” He roared, falling to all fours.

Kigetski darted forward, using Glide to boost himself up and slice one of the screamers in half, cutting the other with a downward slash. “Rengeki!” He responded to Glide’s roar, landing in a handstand.

“Is it my turn already?” Belleza asked, jumping up onto Kigetski’s feet and launching herself into the air, slamming her flail into the screamers’ corpses and sending all four halves spiraling to the ground.

Niqi stopped trying to clean out the mace, and advanced on the demon Lujuria had kicked to her. She swung the mace, which still had flesh lodged in it, at the demon on the ground, coming out of it with a chunk of his brains and skull as well. “This thing is absolutely crazy,” Niqi muttered, staring at it.

She threw the mace to the ground a few meters away, instead concentrating on trying out whatever new power this demon had given her.

“Heads up!” Glide growled. “I’m sick of warning you about s**t!”

“Lighten up.” Kigetski muttered, using Full Throttle to rend another screamer in half.

Niqi spun around, a demon about to half her with a sword. She shoved him into a nearby wall. “I wouldn’t advise doing that,” she said. A black spike shot from her paw, which she had pressed upwards against his neck. “You might get hurt,” she finished, smirking as he fell limp to the ground.

“Now,” she muttered to herself, trying to figure out what she had gained. Suddenly, the power emerged, and she utilized it. A double-headed scythe appeared, throwing itself at a nearby demon and killing it. She smiled, finding Lujuria in the crowd. “Thanks!” she called.

“No problem!” Lujuria replied, grinning as he delivered a roundhouse kick to a demon in front of him, knocking it into the way of Belleza’s flail.

“Oh, my, what was that?” The old selkie murmured, not bothering to stop and check. “Did I hit a fly...? Where did I get this flyswatter?”

“Damnit, where are all the demons? All I see are demon corpses,” Ambree yelled, jumping down from another rooftop to join the main group. “You got all the action here in this little corner I see,” she said, jumping on top of a demon and breaking its neck with her feet.

“I’m surprised this ‘demon king’ chump hasn’t shown up yet.” Glide laughed, a pair of bloodletters advancing on him. Shrugging to himself, he used the curved blade to impale one, quickly sheathing Magus and grabbing the other by the back of its neck, bending it forward to beat repeated knee strikes into its skull.

“Must be a coward,” Niqi mused, cutting a demon in half horizontally.

Lujuria nodded, finishing the last of his demons with a quick, clean decapitation. “Probably.”

Ambree swung Insecte wildly at the only demon around her, making shallow cuts all over it as it tried to back away. “Boring,” she mumbled after a moment, shoving her blade through its excuse of a heart.

“F**k!” Glide croaked out, struggling against the grip of an enormous demon behind him, a single arm wrapped around his throat. “Demon king! Demon king!”

Ambree jumped at the opportunity for challenge, quite literally. She bounded off of a wall, jumping onto the demon’s back and shoving Insecte into the demon’s neck repeatedly. “Damnit, this f****r won’t die!” she announced after a moment. She slashed the back of his head, trying to get him to drop Glide.

“Get off of me!” The demon king roared, reaching back and grabbing Ambree by her neck, heaving her into Niqi.

“Dude,” Glide hissed, “you’d better f****n’ let me go, or I’m gonna do to you what I did to Jason.”

The demon king didn’t seem intimidated, simply tightening his grip on Glide’s neck. “Quiet, goddess keeper.”

Niqi blinked. “It f*****g talks, and it f*****g knows s**t it shouldn’t,” she said, lifting Ambree up and setting her back on her feet.

“My head,” Ambree muttered, rubbing the back of it.

Niqi growled viciously. “Let go, Damnit,” she commanded, rushing at the demon and slashing the back of its ankles.

The demon king kicked Niqi away, not even bothering to look at her. “I want your power, goddess keeper.”

“Dude, motherfuck you.” Glide replied, leaning forward for a moment, purple energy concentrating at the back of his head.

Lujuria took cover behind a nearby building. “Hit the deck, he’s getting pissed off!”

Niqi righted herself and jumped behind a building, opposite Lujuria’s.

Ambree pulled Belleza along behind the same building, now that she was able to think clearly enough.

“Let... me... go!” Glide bellowed, slamming his head back and into the demon king’s chest.

The demon king let go of Glide, stumbling backwards. “You whelp! You’ll pay for that!”

“S**t, the demon called him a whelp. He’s done for,” Niqi whispered, smirking.

“Why?” Ambree asked.

“Remember the selkie king?” Niqi asked, trying to jog her memory.

Understanding dawned on Ambree’s face. “Right, that. Oh, God,” she muttered, snickering.

“Gimme that!” Glide barked, snatching a scythe from a half-dead bloodletter, then stomping on its face before turning his attention back to the demon king. “I’ll show you the true meaning of pain...” He breathed, purple energy enveloping the scythe. “Shetani!”

“You can't defeat me, whelp.” The demon king smirked. “Even with the help of your pathetic ‘goddess’.”

“I say he’s bluffing,” Ambree scoffed. “Why would he want Shetani if he thinks she’s pathetic?”

“Pathetic, am I!?” Shetani snarled through Glide, taking full control. “I’ll show you pathetic, you wretch!”

“That’s it, show me your power...” The demon king chuckled darkly. “Show me the power of the goddess of mischief...”

“Blackness...” Shetani hissed, the weapon in her host’s paws taking on a new form. “Death,” the goddess said, smirking coldly, “is only the beginning for you. Your weapon is ready, Glide.”

Shetani’s control over him gone, at least for the moment, Glide twirled the enormous scythe above his head, the blade leaving deep cuts in the buildings around, despite the weapon not touching them.

The demon king merely flicked his wrist, summoning a sword as large as Glide. “Let your goddess attack me.”

Glide tossed the scythe into the air, Shetani catching it as it came down. “Glide, permission to alter your form.”

“Make sure you fix whatever you mess with.” Glide responded.

Shetani nodded, altering her host’s body to resemble her preferred form - a black-furred female Varixian. “This is weird...” Glide whimpered softly.

“Quiet, Glide. I’ll fix it when Gensuma is dead.” Shetani smirked. “My powers...” The goddess murmured. “They’re my own again...”

“Attack me!” The demon king roared.

“Glide, your form is yours again.” Shetani said suddenly, restoring Glide to his rightful form. “Lend me your weapon.”

Glide nodded, drawing Magus and stabbing the blade into the ground. A few seconds later, a black-furred paw similar to his own dropped on the pommel of the blade. “You... you can take physical form...”

“The hell?” Niqi muttered, listening to the conversation. “I have to see this,” she said, creeping out from behind the building to watch.

Instinctively, Ambree followed.

“Shall we slice?” Glide smirked.

“Of course.” Shetani responded, pulling Magus from the ground and giving it a twirl. “Dragon combination?”

Glide shrugged. “I was thinking Tiger, but if you’d like to use Dragon, I can go with that.”

“I will not be ignored!” The demon king snarled.

Ambree sniggered. “He’s making himself look like an idiot.”

Shetani gave no warning before bolting left, the blade in her paws creating sparks as it dragged across the ground.

Glide lunged forward, springing up onto the demon king’s shoulders and swinging his scythe, driving the blade into Gensuma’s neck.

“Dragon and Tiger! Excellent idea!” Shetani grinned, dodging around the demon king and running up his back to slam Magus into Glide’s scythe.

Niqi nudged Ambree. “Come on, let’s go help. The demon king’s powers are gonna be lost unless I can snatch ’em,” she said. In a burst, she jumped out from behind the building, yelling and driving her blade into Gensuma’s arm.

Ambree caught on, doing the same to his other arm.

Come on, fall for the distraction Niqi internally hoped.

“Now!” Glide barked, twisting the scythe and swinging off of Gensuma’s shoulders. “Ren-”

“-ge-” Shetani continued, stabbing Magus in beside the scythe and giving the pommel a hard kick.

“-ki!” Niqi finished, hopping onto her sword and grabbing Gensuma’s horn for balance, her other paw pressed against the demon king’s forehead.

“Horobosu!” The trio exclaimed, Niqi ripping the powers from Gensuma’s body as the demon king fell.

Niqi backed away, breathing heavily for a few moments before breaking into a grin. “That is what I call an extermination,” she said, glancing around at the Southern Cross.

Ambree stood, smiling as she walked over to Niqi. She raised her sword into the air. “It’s over!” she yelled, addressing the entire Crusader and selkie army.

Niqi smiled at her, and then shouted “It’s finally over, Seisen!”

“... He’s laying on my sword.” Glide said after a moment, nudging the fallen demon king with his foot.

Reviews

[KEi]

-_-'

Why does everybody call Glide a whelp?