As Tom came in for his kamikaze collision, the smaller demon saw him. His eyes widened in surprise, just as Tom’s hooves connected with his face at a forty five degree angle. The little demon’s head went crack, backwards in a severe case of whiplash. His body was plowed backward by the force of the collision. Tom stumbled a little as he landed, but regained his balance. He looked toward the little demon.
He’d expected a knockout, but unfortunately, he didn’t get it. The little demon was about ten feet away. It was standing up, shaking it head, slightly dazed. Connecting him and Tom was a foot deep gouge in the ground where the little demon had tilled the ground with its body. Deciding to take advantage of every possible opening, Tom leapt over to where the demon was, and delivered a double punch to the stomach, using both hands and all his strength.
As always, he was suitably impressed by his strength. His fists didn’t go through the demon, but they did send it flying. It was hurled backwards and upwards twenty feet, bowling into a crowd of onlooking soldiers. The soldiers were knocked down forcefully; none would have been hurt more than some bruises and cracked bones, except that the little demon was now annoyed. Angrily it clawed its way out of the pile of soldiers, shredding uniforms and human flesh in equal proportion. Tom was rather nauseated by the sight, but he didn’t have time to fully realize the situation before the demon was on him.
It flew at him. Literally. It came at him with both fists extended before it, in a Superman pose. As it came at him, Tom who was in the air, flew slightly to the side, but the demon veered. Both of its fists connected in Tom’s middle. The momentum of the demon carried them both backwards. Tom’s backside rammed painfully into the force wall. As they slid down the few feet to the ground, Tom grabbed each of the demon’s wrists, which were still pressed against his stomach. He drew them apart and twisted them with all his strength. He twisted them inward and downward, so that the backs of the demon’s hands would be inside. He twisted and pulled. A human’s arms would have been broken and his shoulders thrown out of joint; the demon, however, only howled in pain. Thinking quick, Tom brought up his right hoof and slammed it between the demon’s legs. Because of his leg’s structure, the kick wasn’t as effective as a human kick, but his excessive strength more than made up for it. The little demon truly howled in pain now.
Its howls were so loud that Tom almost thought his ears would break. Having no choice but to carry on, Tom brought his knee up, and pulled the demon’s two wrists down. This action promptly connected the demon’s head to his knee with a satisfactory clunk. It didn’t knock the demon out, of course, but it did change the pitch of the demon’s scream slightly.
Out of the corner of his eye, Tom noticed some movement coming towards him. Looking up, he saw the other three demons converging on the fight rapidly. Quickly he scanned the sky looking for his support, he didn’t see any. Fun, thought Tom. Stepping over his now kneeling opponent’s back, Tom turned, bringing the demon’s arms with him. The demon’s arms were now behind its back, and crossed over each other. Using the oldest restraint trick in the book, Tom shoved the demon’s wrist up over the back of his head. Human arms would have been in bad shape at this point, instead the demon simply uttered a completely new timbre of howling.
Knowing that he had to get rid of this guy for the moment, he bent his knees and lifted. Ungracefully, yet with the rudimentary form he’d learned in class, he flipped the little demon over his back with all his muscle power. As it was, even if he’d been the greatest black belt of all time, instead of not quite a brown belt, he probably couldn’t have pulled it off if it hadn’t been for the shear strength in his new body. The demon went sailing over Tom’s head, forty feet, into the middle of the on looking soldiers. These soldiers, Tom decided, must be really stupid, despite the fact that they kept getting a demon thrown into their midst, they still held their ground and watched the fight.
One problem temporarily on hold, Tom turned to face the next three. This wasn’t going to be fun, Tom thought. He had absolutely no idea how to deal with these three. As he stood, staring at the demons descending on him, he felt a pinprick between his shoulder blades. Arching his wings slightly, he turned to see what had caused the small pain. He couldn’t see anything that could have pricked him. Quickly scanning the crowd of soldiers who had been behind him, he detected some slight movement, as if someone moving away. He really didn’t have time to deal with whatever was going on there. He began to turn back, when he spotted a dagger lying on the ground. Apparently, someone had tried to throw a dagger in his back. Tom stood still, staring at the dagger for a few seconds. He didn’t know why it surprised him that daggers were bouncing off his skin, given everything else he had discovered about his demonic form.
Suddenly, as he stood there, someone slammed into him from behind. Sinewy arms closed about his neck, trying to strangle him. He had temporarily forgotten about the demons charging from behind. Startled violently, reflexively, without conscious thought on Tom’s part, his long prehensile tail came stabbing straight up. Tom felt it shoot up, and before he could stop himself, it rammed hard into the demon behind him.
Once or twice, when he’d been in elementary school, Joe Montague, who had always been the class trouble maker, had snuck up behind Tom and quickly placed one of his hands flat on the top of Tom’s head, and pounded on it with his other hand. This was what Joe liked to call “Ten Thousand Volts,” which was because it felt like a bolt of electricity was traveling down one’s spine. That was the feeling he now encountered. It felt as if an electric shock were traveling down his spine, from his neck, down the small of his back, down his tail and up to the sharp pointed part, which was stuck in the attacking demon.
The offending fiend screeched piteously. The sinewy arms fell slack, and then slid off Tom’s shoulders. Tom turned around to see a badly charred demon, which looked as if it had been split in two from the crotch up to the sternum. Even as his eyes widened upon the grisly scene, the demon’s body began to fade. This Tom realized was what it must look like to others as he disappeared back to the Abyss. At least that was where Tom figured the demon was going. He really couldn’t think completely straight at the moment, but everything Boggy and Tizzy had said, as well as his own experiences with the dragon, indicated that the demon should be returning to the Abyss to regenerate. At least he hoped so. He would hate to think that he’d killed the smaller demon, just because it was following its orders.
Tom looked up from the offending corpse. The other two smaller demons were simply standing a little ways off, looking at the spot where their compatriot had vanished from. Slowly they glanced up with sickly smiles. There was, Tom thought, definitely a hint of wariness, and perhaps even fear, in their eyes.
“Hi?” one said hesitantly. It made a feeble gesture with one hand, as if waving hello.
Trying to think quickly, but without knowing what to say, Tom just stood there. He realized later that the look of concentration on his face could probably only be construed as a fierce scowl to outsiders. Whatever the case, the two demons looked at each other, and then suddenly without warning, charged Tom.