Neatly, as if in slow motion, Tom’s fist came together with the onrushing demon’s face. As the two connected, Tom released the ki, with a loud “Kiya!” As the ki was released with the punch, Tom felt his fist smash into the demon, even as the demon was enveloped in a cloud of red light growing from Tom’s fist, expanding as he felt his kiya expand from his lungs. The demon screamed once, loudly. The next thing Tom knew, there was a smoking corpse laying at his feet. Even that faded before his very eyes.
As the demon faded, Tom heard another nearby demon scream in pain. To his right, he quickly noticed that a fifth demon had grabbed Rupert and was holding him in the air, by Rupert’s waist. The problem however, appeared to be that the demon was now bending over in pain while holding the boy. He was bending over in a way that Tom, as a male, fully understood. Apparently, having been lifted to the correct height, Rupert was able to get a good kick in to a critical anatomical piece of the demon. The kid must be a lot stronger than he looks to cause a demon that much pain, admired Tom.
As the demon was cringing over, Rupert, who’s hands were free, pulled his hand back, and jammed two fingers into the demon’s eyes. Once again the demon howled in pain. This time, however, in an attempt to cover its eyes, it dropped Rupert. Bringing its hands up to its face. At that moment, Tom heard a loud scream from Jenn.
He looked over to where she was. She’d been grabbed by the two demons attacking her. Apparently they were only trying to capture her, not kill her, because they seemed to be taking pains to hold onto her. Knowing he had to get over to her, but also knowing that he couldn’t leave Rupert alone, Tom decided that one good kick deserved another. With a flying charge, Tom moved into the demon who’s hands were covering its face. With another kiya, he kicked the demon with all his strength, in the same critical location Rupert had. The hovering demon howled in agony and was propelled upward and over through the air for several hundred feet.
Tom moved toward Jenn, trying to make his way around the screaming horses. The demons holding her looked up and saw him coming. One of them seemed to smile. As he did, the other spoke something and a burning ring of fire appeared in the air behind them. Tom came around the horses as fast as he could, but even as he rounded them, the demons stepped back through the hole. Tom reached out to grab them, but already the hole was closing around his fingers. The hole popped shut, leaving Tom grasping nothing.
Tom heard shouting from behind him. It was the demon he’d just wracked. It was shouting obscenities at him and Rupert from a distance. Something about eternal vengeance, blah, blah; Tom didn’t care. He was just ticked off. He began flying towards the demon, intending on forcing it to tell him where the others had taken the girl. As the demon saw him approach, it quickly shut up and closed its eyes. Before Tom could reach it, it had faded from sight.
Tom sighed, and turned back down towards Rupert. He flew down to where the boy had picked himself up. Rupert seemed to have tears streaking his face, but the expression on his face told Tom they were tears of frustration not fear. “They got Jenn! How could they do that? I couldn’t stop them! Why couldn’t you?”
Rupert danced around in frustration. “Tom, what’ll we do. They’ll probably rape and mutilate her! Oh goddess! Where can they have taken her? Where!” He looked up angrily at Tom.
“I don’t know.” replied Tom helplessly.
Red-golden light shown through the Corinthian pillars to Exador’s right. Exador had just teleported into the entranceway pavilion of his erstwhile allies. The pavilion was neo-Grecian in Exador’s mind. Large white marble Corinthian columns, twenty feet high supporting a marble roof.
To his left, about forty feet away was a solid marble wall with a single large curtained entranceway in the middle. Ahead of and behind him were more large columns separating the pavilion from the outside. The outside was pleasant, if a bit unusual. The sky was a translucent red, streaked with golden strands of clouds. No sun was visible from Exador’s position.
The ground around the pavilion was covered with a wide variety of pleasant looking, if scrub like, plants. The soil was a reddish brown in color. Actually, to Exador’s mind, it reminded him of images he’d seen of the place the columns came from, except it was all seen through rose colored glasses. Even the sporadic local fauna, reminded him of the images, there were some people and also a number of reddish, vaguely demonic looking centaurs roaming the grounds, apparently tending the plants.
