Into the Abyss

“I don’t think so,” as fast as he could, Tom spun and landed a spinning back kick to the demon’s stomach. The demon moaned in surprise and bent over. As he bent, Tom quickly repositioned himself. Breathing as he’d been taught, Tom began a series of quick punches to the other’s face. Using the full force of his body, but keeping his shoulder’s fixed, he jabbed as quick and hard as he could at the demons face six times, kiyaing each time. Shifting his balance, he then executed a right crescent kick. Unfortunately, because of his leg construction, he didn’t coordinate it properly to get it as high as it should go. He’d intended to hit the guy’s chin, instead, Tom’s hoof impacted on the demon’s shoulder, spinning it around and to the ground.

Tom backed up as far as he could. As he did so the other demon slowly got to its feet. Tom charged through the air. He was attempting to do the double flying back kick that he’d used so successfully on the dragon. Unfortunately, he realized as he flew by, this demon wasn’t as large as the dragon, and it was a lot more mobile. The demon had simply seen him coming and leapt out of the way at the last second.

To his surprise, Tom kept going. He tried to slow himself down with his wings, but before he could decelerate appreciably, he found himself plowing through soldiers. Only vaguely did Tom hear the screams. All he could really note in those few seconds, was the thumping of bodies against his hooves and body. Hardly recognizing what he was seeing through the blood that was spurting everywhere, he came to a stop, about a two hundred feet from where he started.

Standing up dazedly, he unthinkingly looked at the mangled corpses around him. Uncomprehendingly, he noted calmly that at least one man’s head had been popped off. Some soldiers were missing limbs and many just had their guts hanging out. How could he have done this? Slowly he realized that at least some of the damage had come from the fact that they’d been tightly packed and had weapons drawn.

So in reality, the only ones he’d really mangled, were those in his hooves’ path. The other’s had just been jammed aside as he plowed through, and they’d accidentally sliced and diced themselves and their fellows. Wanting nothing more than to get away from the death he’d caused, Tom took the only open path out, back the way he’d come. As he emerged from the bewildered and wounded soldiers, he saw the other demon laughing at him. This was almost too much. “What the hell is your problem? It was your soldiers that got creamed!”

“I am laughing at you. You’re nothing but a fool.”

Tom was getting annoyed, this jerk was laughing, and now he’d noticed some fool wizard chanting something at the periphery of the clearing made by the soldiers. Tom couldn’t tell what the guy was chanting, but a black cloud seemed to be forming in front of the wizard. Tom didn’t know what the man was doing, but he imagined it wasn’t for Tom’s benefit. Angry, and lashing out, Tom once more charged the laughing demon. Again, the demon was ready, except that this time Tom didn’t do quite what was expected.

Instead of trying to physically throw the other demon, or punch it, Tom simply attempted to grab one arm and spin the demon around. He was simply trying to throw it off balance and make it stumble. His ploy worked. The demon stepped aside as Tom charged up and in the process added to the momentum that Tom needed to grab its arm and jerk it off balance and away. Stumbling on its goat-like legs the demon accidentally backed into the mumbling wizard and his black cloud, just as Tom had hoped.

However, the results were more than Tom had bargained for. The demon ran into the wizard, thus throwing off his concentration.

∼

Now, distracting a wizard in the middle of casting a spell is never a good idea. If a wizard loses control of a powerful spell, bad things can happen. This is especially true when the wizard is casting a Cloud of Disintegration, as this one was doing. Unbeknownst to Tom, C.o.D’s are one of the few spells that can permanently discorporate demons. It also happens to dissolve anything that gets in its way. Including casters that lose control of it.