Chapter 37: Chapter 30 – Watch the Princess Conquer

The moment the wolf landed, he sniffed the air, breathing through his nose so hard, you’d think he was getting ready to huff and puff and blow a house away, before he looked around. Again, Khazmiel tried to talk through the wolf, unaware or uncaring about the fact its throat wasn’t built for that. 

“So you have the common sense to wash your filthy scent off yourselves. You can’t hide from me now, whore and whore’s child.” He tried to laugh. The noise was horrible. Fun fact, hyena laughs are nervous laughs. His sounded nothing like those. He gave the air another sniff, before stopping right there, freezing like a deer in headlights, eyes widening in surprise. “How…” 

I didn’t give him time to finish the thought. It was time to begin the fight proper. With a swift flap of my wings, I jumped high into the air, higher than the treeline, as I reached into my pocket for the opening move. With a lean back, I threw who I was holding down, directly towards the wolf, yelling a phrase that definitely earned me facepalms from my companions hiding amongst the trees. “Pocket Amy!”

The moment she left my hand, she grew from the size of a Polly Pocket to that of a giantess, all in the span of a second. Like seeing dough rise sped up. Combined with the momentum from the throw, her increasing weight added to the impact, as she hit the wolf square in the snout, a crack echoing across the park. Her fall broke from the impact. She corrected herself, the ground shaking as she landed.

“If Diego didn’t have a car, I’d use that so we don’t take up space on public transport.” Amy chuckled to herself, cracking her knuckles and her neck, before getting into a wrestler stance. Legs wide, arms opened up, preparing for the angriest hug.

“Who do you think you are, interfering with my work?!” The wolf was rubbing his nose with his front paw, whimpering a bit. “If you stand in my way, you will fall just like the whore and her child!” He finished rubbing his nose, and positioned himself to leap forward. He was definitely expecting to topple Amy over with his leap, but she just grabbed him like Steve Irwin grabbed gators, giving the wolf a swift suplex.

By that point, I had glided down, sneakily avoiding the wolf’s gaze as he focused on Amy, letting me divebomb him right in the stomach with a flaming fist the moment his back hit the ground. The momentI impacted, he cried out, bending forward to the best of his ability, as if he was going to hurl. After he straightened out again, he growled. Amy quickly got the memo and let go, as the feathers on the wolf’s neck ruffled up, looking like layers of sharp swords. You ever seen a shark’s jaw, with all their teeth just there in layers? It was like that, but with sharp feathers. I leapt back as the wolf corrected himself, standing upright once more.

Which made me remember, I forgot to signal everyone. I figured Pocket Amy would have been the signal, but I guess nobody figured she would suplex the wolf, which would have been a perfect opportunity to bind its legs with a slime catgirl and a flying snake. Now we’d need to tip him over again. Such a shame he wasn’t a goat that’d get paralysed when spooked. I shook my head and ran forward, sliding right underneath him, punching up. My physical fist didn’t connect, but the fire fist flew out and up, hitting him in the gut. I jumped out of the slide into a sprint to get out of his direct reach, digging my hand in the ground to anchor myself, turning on the spot to face him once more. He growled at both Amy and me, and fanned his tail out, as if ready to jump. Instead, the wolf twisted on the spot, hitting Amy in the side with his tail. The hit sent her back a bit, and she clutched at her side, wincing. When she removed her hand, her shirt had a cut as if by a sword. Her side luckily wasn’t cut, only bruised.

“This bastard’s got a sharp tail?!” I yelled out, which worked as signal enough for the rest of the crew to pop out, with Robyn flying up and above the trees, and Félicie sliding next to me, Leonard rushing after her. Well, rushing until he tripped over his own feet and slid the last few ones to reach me, the rucksack with supplies on his back moving forward once he stopped. “Good job, Leonard.” I considered helping him up in that moment, but truth be told after witnessing the tail, he’d be much safer pretending to be a snake. I sighed and rubbed my eyes. “I want to go and fucking strangle Nick for not mentioning THE SHARP TAIL!”

“That’s not the only sharp thing I’ve got, child!” The wolf barked out, trying to make his maw smirk, unsuccessfully,  before he whipped his head. A number of feathers flew out, burying themselves in the ground. The sound of them whizzing by was terrifying. I could hear one, inches above my head, and one going straight for me. I barely managed to avoid being skewered with a twirl to the left. Which had the unfortunate side effect of my ass clipping the edge of the feather, the back of my shorts cut somewhat. It had been so close, it was a miracle my underwear stayed intact, in all its striped weeby shimapan glory.

Félicie though? She stood near me in catgirl form, a feather going directly through her chest. She turned to me and gave me a smile, as if everything was alright in the world. Thus, I pointed towards her chest, and she looked down. “Oh, this is supposed to hurt, right,” was her response, before she stepped to the side, her slime body sliding around the feather to free herself. Devil may remain stunned at her friend’s antics. Cats truly are liquid.

“I didn’t think that would work.” Khazmiel admitted, surprising us all with his honesty. To be fair, this dude was so stupid he could not NOT be honest about his behavior.

Amy picked up two of the feathers, twirling them around, a proper smirk on her face. “This is why you don’t throw weapons in a fist fight. Thanks for the self defense lessons, grandpa!” She swung one at the wolf, who just narrowly dodged back with a jump. That one quick jump back gave me an idea for how to proceed. I looked towards May, who had been largely holding back. I wasn’t sure whether she was watching us youngsters do all the work because she trusted us, or because hearing Khazmiel’s voice put her in a panic. But when our eyes met, that question got answered. Those weren’t the eyes of a scared parent, but a proud parent. I was sure she had gotten a similar idea to mine. At least I hoped so. I wasn’t going to shout the plan out where Khazmiel could hear it; the guy’s brain cells were in the negatives, sure, but he’d be able to work past that handicap if I yelled out ‘Me and May will flaming fist uppercut him as he jumps back to make him somersault and land on his back, so that Amy and Robyn can feather pin him down and Félicie can cast Out Damn Spot.’

So I didn’t yell it out, I turned to Félicie and Leonard, pointed at May and myself, made an uppercut move with my arm, and then I pointed to Robyn, who paid attention to me, so that I could gesture to the feathers thrown around, making a stab in the ground move, before pointing to Félicie and making jazz hands.

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Based on everyone’s responses, we should get together to play charades sometimes, because everyone got into position. Amy had been swinging at the wolf the whole time, who tried to fight back by smacking her with his sharp fan tail, turning around on the spot. Honestly, it was awesome seeing two giants fight like that, even though Khazmiel was being a massive idiot in that moment.

You don’t do cool spinny movements in actual sword fighting. That only works in movies and anime, because the fight choreographers have the people practice that fight to look cool to us. Strategically, it’s the dumbest fucking  choice to turn your back to your opponent. Especially if that opponent is a big buff twin blade wielding blue oni lady whose nice top you’ve just ruined.

I ran towards Amy, as did May, and we stopped near her. I poked her in the leg in one moment, and she shot a quick glance at me. And then another, and then another, switching between attacking the wolf and looking at me. I had to act fast. So I did, I made an upwards swing motion. Amy gave a quick nod, and swung. The wolf jumped into the air, curving back to avoid the upward swing, giving May and I a perfect opportunity to strike. And thus, we jumped up and punched. Unfortunately, I had hugely miscalculated.

I forgot to consider May’s age and power in my math. She had millenia of training and generations worth of undiluted demonic blood coursing through her veins. She was used to her power. I had only unlocked mine.

So it was no surprise that when she jumped up, it left a dust cloud behind her, the smallest impact crater underneath where she had stood, and that her fist connecting with the wolf at that angle wouldn’t turn him over onto his back. No, it put him into a spin. A spin that sent him a few dozen feet into the trees, knocking a few of them over. A spin which he managed to correct and get himself out of with his tail. A spin which gave him a great leaping distance. I could see him limp somewhat as he corrected himself, but it was off. The limp was obvious, but he tried to move the leg as if it wasn’t injured from the multiple tree impacts. There was a fight there. The wolf didn’t want to use it at all, it wanted to waddle away using three feet to then lick the wound and rest. But Khazmiel wouldn’t let it. And thus, he made the foot touch the ground, as he prepared himself to leap forward towards us.

It was in that moment I noticed our non-pretend snake move into a precarious position. As Khazmiel jumped using the wolf’s body, he flew directly over Robyn, who in the moment moved her arms as if she was pushing something. And what she pushed was the air beneath the wolf. Rapidly and violently. Instead of an easy glide towards us, Khazmiel was now hurtling in the air, flying further and further up.

And from what my eyes gathered, that gave Félicie an idea. Quickly reaching into Leonard’s rucksack, she pulled out a water bottle. With a swift stretch, she reached the spot the wolf was expected to land. An uncapped bottle of water later, she was busy turning the ground into quicksand. Robyn had flown up during the time, to keep juggling the wolf in the air. He was too high up for us to hear whether or not he was letting out some expletives. Eh, the guy was a zealot, there’d be a campaign to let him say fuck if people cared for his well being. Félicie soon gave the go ahead, giving Robyn the thumbs up, who then proceeded to switch the position and direction of her gusts of wind, sending the wolf down fast. Fast enough for Amy to break his fall with another uppercut. Since, if he had kept falling at that speed, the quicksand would have behaved like solid concrete during the impact.

A fun fact to teach Robyn once she reached us, I supposed. Khazmiel snarled at us as he began sinking into the sand, yapping, desperately trying to get himself out, and only managing to bury himself further and further.

With him in the ground, everyone got within sight of him. The moment Leonard appeared, Khazmiel stopped thrashing around. He looked as if he was trying to frown. I did a double take between Khazmiel and Leonard, confused. “What, do you smell his fursona on him or something, you son of a bitch?” I gestured towards the wolf and Leonard in quick succession, awkwardly smiling. “You gonna start yapping at the puppy invading your territory?”

“Lily, please keep the bad jokes for after we get the source of your grandma’s trauma out of a puppy?” Leonard sighed, before he pulled out a piece of paper from the rucksack and handed it to Félicie. She double checked the page, handed it back to Leonard to hold up, and got to work. 

The exorcism of an angelic presence was way less dramatic than I thought it would be. Well okay, it still ended up being a little bit dramatic. But considering that the steps of Out Damn Spot were ‘make a series of hand gestures while uttering a phrase, with said gestures ending with you slapping the target right on the cheek’, the fact it finished with your hand passing through the targets face and exiting the other side as it carried an aura of the angel out was hilarious, to say the least. You expect a The Power Of Satan Compels You and it turns out to be a fucking bend and slap. The sound left an impression though, as did Félicie’s hand on the ghostly face of Khazmiel. And the moment the spectre had no point of connection with the wolf, it faded away, leaving behind a very hurt very confused very tired puppy that was stuck in a pit of sand and needed all the help it could get.

“Hey May, Leonard, is there a cleanup crew for these situations, or do we have to do it ourselves?” I asked, with both of them shrugging. At that very moment, I received a text message, from Bournael. It read simply ‘I finished cleaning up the flaming turd you left on my doorstep, you’re welcome.’ I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant by that, but I sent him a text back. A quick ‘Thank you? Could I ask for help dealing with a lost dog?’

I could almost hear the sigh in his reply of ‘Sure, be right there Lily’. Now all I was missing was a cat to give sausage to. Oh wait no, Féli was right there. All I was missing was sausage to give to Félicie for a job well done on a hunt.