the gunslinger and the demon fight

Something was—

Hurt.

Something.

Clawing out.

Hurt.

He had to stop.

Something was—

***

Place: library.

Time: minutes after plan two ended in disaster.

Lenna hadn't even done her act-as-a-bandit-shtick. Allegedly, she was about to do it, really, truly, but then she saw that the demon lord had turned back to normal and had kidnapped Reem again. Lenna was now crying in a corner.

Sinon and Lev, who'd bumped into her along the way, ended up escorting her back to the base of operations.

Mahieu had been waiting for them already. He laughed when he heard about Lenna being pathetic, but it sounded forced.

Now, the four of them sat around the table in the corner of the library, staring at the telesphere whose free trial had ended, or at the roof, or at their own tears.

"...so..." That was Mahieu.

"So..." that was Lev. "So nothing. Plan's still in action. The demon lord changing back kind of fucks up everything, but we still have Hilda on our side. She has to be pretty strong if he lets her wander around in his territory."

"Or he doesn't care," Sinon said.

"Whatever. Point is—"

And then Hilda tore through the roof, startling the single-digit clientele. As the roof began to repair itself, clutching onto her upper arm, she said, "You kids should've told me. You SHOULD'VE told me you were playing MATCHMAKER for the DEMON LORD of all things. What's next, killing god to defy destiny?"

That was the plot of Lev's other novel. Sinon, who was the only one to read it (yet),  smiled smugly at him. Lev gave her the finger under the table.

"Not sure who this lady is," Mahieu said, "But I'll assume she's Hilda, so—wait, shit, she's hurt!"

No one in the squad knew how to treat demon wounds. It wasn't too deep a cut, but it'd probably hinder her for a week or two. Mahieu tried and failed, then Sinon. Lenna was too busy crying, and she wasn't good with blood anyway. As Mahieu clumsily bandaged her arm and the squad (minus Lenna) gathered around her, Hilda explained, "Long story short, I tried to go through with the plan regardless of who was involved. There's something... I don't know... esoteric? About demon lords dating human girls. It's not unheard of. I wasn't even going to intervene, but then he changed out of his human form for some reason."

"Hmm..." Mahieu trailed off. "Maybe he sensed something dangerous? Like a seventh sense?"

Lev scowled at him. "I told you that doesn't exist."

"Maybe he sensed you," Sinon told Hilda.

"Perhaps. I'm not sure. I don't think he realized I was there until I attacked."

Mahieu squinted at her. "You attacked him knowing the demon lord had gone back to normal? And you call us insane?"

She grinned; her fangs poked under her lip. "I always appreciate a challenge."

"...right, but look where you ended up."

"In my defense, he's very unwell. Unsurprising, given the time of the day. Transformation magic is also just not used for a reason, so I thought... oh, well."

"But you fought him, right? And that's why you got hurt?"

"Kind of..."

"Did he use demon beams?"

Lev scowled at Mahieu. "I told you that shit doesn't exist. Cut it out, dumbass."

Hilda snickered. "Close. A button."

"...a button?"

"Well, two."

Mahieu grimaced. "Did you get that hurt with buttons? How does that even..."

"He threw them."

"He THREW them? How—how does that even make sense?!"

Lenna dragged herself towards them. "Revenge," she chanted. "Revengeee..."

"No," Sinon told her.

"Yes."

"No. Lev. Do something."

"She's just having a moment," Lev said. "Regardless of—whatever happened, we still have fourteen other plans to go. Hilda, did you manage to hurt him?"

"Why do you... oh! You want the girl to heal his wounds, don't you? Someone reads a lot of romance."

Lev held his tongue. He had to be nice. He had to be nice.

Hilda continued: "I'm not sure if that scenario is feasible. Maybe? Demon lords are veeery prideful. What about an umbrella under the rain? Ah, never mind. It doesn't rain here. A trip? Though from what I know, Sionn is a hermit. The other ideas that come to mind aren't things I should say in front of children."

In a nutshell: no.

She hadn't hurt him.

Operation mend-my-wounds was as good as dead, except... hadn't she mentioned he was weakened?

Perhaps there could be a way to speak to Reem about this... not tell her about the plan, obviously, but since she'd probably been around during Hilda's failed ambushes, she must've figured out that Hilda was a demon, which meant that Lev could come up with some bullshit about how Hilda had cursed the demon lord to die unless Reem... kissed... no, too early.

...or was it?

Was it, though?

They had no time to lose.

Especially if Hanan—

Screams.

Mahieu, Lenna and Sinon collapsed.

The library creaked. 

Dust fell off the half-repaired ceiling as the window rattled; bookshelves cracked.

More screams, both from people and buildings. Hilda winced. "What the..."

"What?" Lev glanced around. "Wait, what's happening?"

Face twisted in pain, Hilda knelt on the floor. "How can't you... how..." She trailed off, collapsing.

"Gravity magic," Mahieu rasped out. "Fuck."

"What? From where? Guys?" Lev barely felt it. "Anyone?"

His body felt slightly heavier than usual, so there was that. Hilda and Lenna had passed out, but Sinon and Mahieu hadn't yet. The latter said, "It's... just... do something!"

"What am I supposed to do!?"

"Stop it, I don't know!"

So now Mahieu was spouting nonsense. Lev got it, though. Due to the increase in pressure, it was harder for him to breathe, let alone think. Those with weaker constitutions had already lost consciousness. At this rate, buildings would soon start to collapse. 

Lev couldn't even drag the squad outside because moving them under such extreme conditions would probably hurt them more, especially with his... inability to control unearned strength. "I-I can—try? But how do I even know who's doing this? Or where it's coming from? How?"

"Demon lord," mumbled Sinon. "Time-space ma... magic... the..." She grimaced. "Only that thing could do something like this. H-hurry up."

"Wait!" That was Mahieu. Where he'd found the strength to belt that, only he knew. In fact, he dragged himself with his arms enough to grab at Lev's ankle. "Wait. Dude. I wasn't gonna tell you this, but Demonsbane is..."

"Here?"

Mahieu nodded.

Weirdly, Lev didn't feel like screaming or hitting something. He could've laughed—and he did. "But of course he is. So that explains why the demon lord is crushing everyone into tortillas. Amazing. So now I gotta go out there and either get killed by a gravity-bending time-stopping monster, or my brother."

Sinon was the only one left now. For how long? Seconds? "Don't say that."

"It's the truth," Lev said, gently prying Mahieu's fingers off the fabric of his cloak. "And if it's not, then I'd rather die before anyone else does."

Even with the curse, what could Lev possibly do against either of them?

If not him, then who?

To four unconscious friends, Lev said, "Be back soon. I hope."

It took him leaving the library to take in the full extent of the damage. Some buildings had already collapsed; others were right on the verge. All around, townsfolk lay unconscious. Those strong enough crawled, or even sat, but it wouldn't take long for them to fall.

It was noon, which meant lunchtime, which meant lots of furnaces, food stands, and other such appliances, burning, sizzling, with no one to control them...

...but he could not travel house to house to turn all of them off, check on the victims, and get to Sionn and Hanan in time.

"No more sacrifices," Lev mumbled, as he walk, jogged, ran. "Please."

The half of him that was dangerous guided Lev.

There was no option but to smell. Resentment, bitter, heavy. Ire, white-hot and volatile. Fear, gut-wrenchingly sweet. Why were all the negative emotions so... alluring?

A paper with terrible handwriting glued to a building nearby confirmed that, yes, Hanan, not just Demonsbane, was involved. Something twisted at the sight.

Spite, despair, anger.

A few blocks away from the epicenter, Lev's legs began to wobble. Even if he hadn't felt the strain of stronger gravity yet, his body had begun to.

A sphere of something zoomed his way. Lev, untrained and clumsy, barely managed to jump out of the way in time; the sphere crashed against a (thankfully empty) food stand, collapsed, and left nothing but a void behind.

Scary.

Demonsbane had never been much for spells. When he had to, he enchanted his weapons. He used obsolete, old-fashioned talismans and runes. He coated himself with anti-magic mechanics, which was probably the only reason why he could withstand the demon lord's field.

Speaking of which—there they were. A few houses away, Demonsbane ran, enchanting one of his guns as he did. He barely had time to turn when another void-sphere (for lack of a better term) zoomed at him. Instead of dodging, he shot it, making it collapse, then explode; a few buildings around caught fire.

...great, and Lev pretended to stop that.

Where was Reem, anyway?

This sucked.

Hanan wouldn't do this. He sulked if he stepped on an ant. He'd pick stray weeds from roads and replant them elsewhere. Demonsbane, though? He couldn't care less if his stupid fight with a stupid demon lord killed everyone around them.

As for the demon lord...

Why would he do something like this if, according to Sinon, he'd kidnapped Reem to lure Demonsbane away from the town, precisely to avoid destruction? What had changed?

A quake made Lev stumble along with a few scorching buildings. If the fire spread to the outskirts of Sun's Edge, where most buildings were made of wood, it'd be over. Lev staggered forward, forward, until he caught sight of Reem.  She lay like a rag at the corner of the block leading to the duel between Demonsbane and the demon lord.

Once Lev reached her, he found that she was, of course, unconscious. So he slapped her back into consciousness (daintily). It was a very basic spell. "Sorry," he said, "But I'm gonna need you to help."

"...whhhfff..."

To use this before would've been futile since he could only do it with a person at a time, and it would last for five minutes at best, but hopefully, for this, that would be long enough. "Can you hear me?"

"Mhm..."

"Can you tell your demon to stop?"

She shook her head. "I tried."

"And...?"

"I think he didn't... listen...?"

"Great. Alright. So we're making him listen. I'll carry you there."

As terrible as this sounded, this situation (minus the destruction) matched plan eleven, which Lev had named Only You Can Stop Him.

So...