Chapter 8: To Dance With Death

Chapter 7

I don’t know when it happened, but at some point my father had gotten a hold of my jacket. In normal circumstances the further I stayed from cliff edges, large open spaces, and things like that the better. But apparently, my dad had some crazy, or not so crazy considering present circumstances, idea that I would taking a leap off high places. So, for cases just like this, he installed both a parachute and a hang-glider into my jacket.

I pulled the loop I had found moments before and prayed it worked. My jacket stiffened and spread out in a V like shape, I grabbed the edges with my hands, and I was in a controlled glide to the bottom of the wall. My friends were looking up at me in astonishment, probably wondering what the hell I was doing jumping off the wall like that, and I couldn’t point out the danger to them without sending myself into an uncontrolled tumble.

Luckily, the danger was staring at me in shock wondering what the hell I was doing also.

I dived towards the first of the strange blueish hellhounds that was approaching my friends and pulled up at the last second, pulling again on the loop to return my jacket to normal and summoning a gladius into my other hand. Using the momentum of the dive I sliced through the poor beast before it realized what I was doing, then rolled bringing a shield to my other arm. The other hell hounds figured out what was up by that point and charged in, their previous stealth forgotten.

Alex and Steve, bless them, were quick to pickup on what was going on and joined in the fight. Steve was using his Celestial Bronze piano wire to slice up the poor dogs that were trying to attack him, but there were too many and he was going to overwhelmed soon. Unfortunately Alex and I were not doing too great ourselves, Alex rushed to help me, not knowing how many opponents we had, and by the time she reached me we were both quickly surrounded and fighting for our lives. I don’t know how long it was, could only have been a couple of seconds since the fight started, but I heard a BOOM from the other side of the wall. At the bottom of the rope Luke reformed from various pieces that had floated over the wall.

He took one look at what was happening, and then jumped into the battle. He moved with a grace that only a sword-master could achieve, no wasted movements, every move a killing blow. He decimated the twenty or thirty hell hounds that had surrounded Steve and then moved into the swarm around Alex and I.

The poor dogs had no chance. Within seconds Luke was standing next to us, not even sweating, and a blizzard of golden dust from the destroyed monsters swirled around us before floating away. Alex and I just stared in amazement at the accomplishment.

“No time for gawking kids, you have a job to complete.” He said, and after putting away his sword, pushing us to emphasize what he meant with his words. We put our weapons away and, with Steve trailing, entered the Fields of Punishment.

Chapter 9