Everyone crowded into the boiler room, which at this point was way too far up the tower to be effective as a boiler room. Once Orsinus closed the door, he looked back at everyone. “Alright, we’ll be flying blind from here on out, so be ready for anything.”
Hurat stepped to the front. “I’m not really worried. These are just animals with sticks, aren’t they? We’ve dealt with them just fine before.”
Horan followed closely behind Hurat. “They are, but you shouldn’t underestimate them. They’ve had a plan for all of the Greeks before, they can-“
“Okay, this is boring.” Orsinus opened the door and looked out at the hall.
Directly opposite the doorway, three bird-headed demons stood at the ready. One stood by a plastic barrel with a lever sticking out from the top. A second held up a garden hose, connected to the barrel. A third held a lit lighter up to the nozzle of the hose.
The instant Orsinus opened the door, the first demon yelled “Contact at team D!” and pulled the lever back. What appeared to be gasoline sprayed out of the hose, which was immediately ignited by the lighter.
Without thinking, Horan threw his hands up and sent a gust of wind towards the demons. Instead of covering the Primoi in flaming gasoline, the stream of burning liquid instead flew back onto the demons, setting all three demons on fire.
As Horan lowered his hands, the sound of more approaching demons began to echo down the hall from both sides. Horan looked back at Hurat. “Told you they could be a problem.”
Orsinus stepped over the burning remains of the demon ambush and walked down the hall to the right. “I’ll handle the demons on this side. Since I’m feeling generous, I’ll let you all deal with the ones on the other end.”
As the Aztecs gleefully charged off to confront their share of the demons, Orsinus casually waved his hand. A bolt of lightning shot out from his palm and struck the first few demons that were beginning to round the corner, then curved round the corner and finished off the last few demons on his side.
Even without Orsinus’ help, the Aztecs made quick work of their obstacles. In less than a minute, everyone had already regrouped on the far end of the room. Orsinus looked around. “Great work, everyone. At this rate, we’ll have dealt with the demon leader in ten minutes.”
Hurat stepped forward and folded his arms. “Alright, you can obviously do this yourself. Why’d you bring us all here if you’re all it takes to bring down whoever’s in charge?”
Orsinus shrugged. “Y’know, I just… wanted to make sure it would work out. You can never be too safe, as I always say.”
Hurat remained unimpressed. “The only reason we’ve even been able to do anything is because you gave us space to do it, even though you can do it way easier.”
“That’s not true!” Orsinus pointed at Horan. “That guy stopped us from getting set on fire!”
“If we hadn’t been here, would the flamethrower even have been a problem for you?”
“I…” Orsinus tentatively raised a finger, then dropped it limply. “No. But you’re all still important to this job, okay?”
Hurat sighed. “If that’s the case, let me fight the demon leader myself. If we’re just here to make sure you can do it and not so that we can all see you look cool, you’ll let me.”
“But…” Orsinus slumped. “Okay, you can have the final kill.”
The Aztecs erupted into elated cheering. Horan stepped away from the group and walked over to Mark. “Are you sure it was a good idea to come with these people? I haven’t had anything to say in a while, and it’s starting to make me anxious.”
Mark shrugged. “I’d rather do this than meet some other annoying Greek. And I think it’s best if you have something to do, at least for now.”
“What? Why?”
“You know, because of the…” Mark sighed. “I know you’ll just get upset if I make you think about it some more. Let’s keep going up.”
Before Mark could start walking towards the stairwell, a large hole opened up beneath everyone and the whole group fell into the abyss. As Mark fell, he watched a hail of arrows fly through the air and get swallowed up by more holes appearing in the walls. Immediately after the first few arrows vanished into the walls, the space outside the hole dissolved into white light.
The whole group rose back up into a dark art gallery, the paintings covered by blank sheets. Zaratos stood next to the hole, looking at Orsinus disdainfully. “Really, Orce? You’re going to bring all these weak Primoi up to the most dangerous part of the tower, and just stand around and let them get shot at? You’re unbelievable, honestly.”
Orsinus got up. “Wait, What? Zar? Where’d you come from?”
“I’ve been going through the floors, trying to deal with anything I find. You’re lucky I found you a few minutes ago, or you would have a lot of dead Aztecs on your hands.” He looked at Horan. “Also, nice reaction time with that flamethrower. I would not have had time to deal with that one.”
Horan looked around awkwardly. “…Thanks…”
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Zaratos helped a nearby Aztec to their feet. “Anyway, I redirected those arrows back at the flying attackers outside, so they’ve been dealt with.” He stepped through the crowd to look Orsinus in the eye. “And now you are going to separate yourself from these folks. Either you send them back downstairs and deal with the demons here yourself, or you let them deal with it alone. If you stay with them, you’re just putting them in danger.”
Orsinus huffed indignantly. “Hey, we’ve been doing just fine until now! I can protect everyone just fine, you know!”
Zaratos sighed and looked around at the Aztecs. “Do you guys want to stay up here or go back downstairs?”
The Aztecs unanimously shouted “Stay!”
“Glad to hear the verdict.” Zaratos opened up a hole between Orsinus’ feet, who fell into the darkness with a brief yelp. Zaratos swiftly closed up the hole. “He’s on the roof, I’ll bring him down once we’re done with everything.” He noticed Horan in the crowd of Primoi. “Oh, hey, you’re here. How much longer until we get those reinforcements?”
Horan shrugged. “Well, it’s been about an hour since then, so… now, I guess.”
“Oh, okay then! Gotta go!” Zaratos hurriedly opened up a hole under himself and fell through. As he fell in, he opened up another hole under everyone’s feet and they fell back into the darkness.
-
The group was spat out in the penthouse bedroom, a cat-headed demon stumbling back as he saw the large group of Primoi suddenly appear from a hole in the floor. The demon ran down one of the small hallways dividing the sections of Orsinus’ bedroom, yelling out “Contact! Contact on this floor!” as he ran off.
Hurat stepped forward and thrust forward into the air with his palm exposed. A gout of fire launched out of his palm and flew at the fleeing demon, missing by a few inches.
Hurat cursed and stepped back. “Alright, get ready, everyone. They might have more flamethrowers.”
Mark looked down the hall. Humanoid shadows were growing on the wall around the corner. “I recommend we split up into teams, remember that we’re looking for someone here.”
Hurat shrugged. “I dunno, do that, I guess. Sure.”
Horan sidled over to Mark, who turned his gun into a good-sized assault rifle and began striding down the hall. “So, got any smaller plans besides ‘split up’?”
Mark shook his head. “It would have been nice to have more time to plan this out, but Zaratos didn’t give us that chance. Just try to leverage the element of surprise.”
Horan looked over at the Aztecs, who were still pairing up. “I think we lost that a while ago.”
“Yeah.” Mark raised his rifle. “Well, when all else goes wrong, start shooting.” He raised his gun and quickly felled a demon that rounded a corner. “Let’s move.”
-
It seemed that while Orsinus wanted his bedroom to take up the entire apartment, he hadn’t figured out exactly what he could do to make one bedroom fill that much space. As such, his bedroom was a maze of en suite bathrooms, food stashes and walk-in wardrobes. The demon defenders took every advantage of this, leaping out of every room they could hide themselves in. However, they were outnumbered.
The demons were spread thin trying to defend the part of the bedroom that actually contained a bed, which was located in the centre of the floor. The various teams of Primoi slowly pushed further into the massive, needlessly labyrinthian bedroom.
Mark and Horan encountered a row of demons blocking access through a hallway, shields raised to hide their entire bodies. A line of spears stuck out from the chinks between the shields, ready to impale any who came too close.
Mark pointed at the barricade. “Horan, you’re up.”
Horan waved his arm and sent a surge of wind forward to hurl the demons back. The only obstacle left standing was another cat-headed demon, brandishing his sword. “If it isn’t Horan and his twerpy friend. I’ve been waiting a whole day for this.”
Mark raised his rifle. “Right, you. Stop calling me a twerp, it’s getting annoying.”
“You’re annoying!” Long lunged forward and smacked Mark’s gun to the floor before he could fire a shot. He then wheeled around to deflect Horan’s sword blow.
While he faced away, Long stepped on Mark’s hand, releasing his grip on his gun. Long kicked the gun away and pushed up against Horan’s blade. “First Horde of Subjugation, third close-quarters division. There’s a reason Commander Yang put me so high up on the ladder of command.”
Mark growled in frustration and drew his knife, raising his arm to plant it in Long’s back. Once again, Long spun around and pushed Mark’s arm away. Free from Long’s assault, Horan regained his posture and prepared to strike again.
Long backed away into the pile of slowly rising demons, keeping both Mark and Horan in his field of view. “I’m not making this easy for you. You aren’t getting away again.”
Yang called out from down the hall. “Long, regroup and fall back! Don’t be a hero!”
“No!” Long struck probingly at Horan, who easily deflected the attack. “I’m not letting you down!”
Mark groaned. “Oh, would you just shut up? Horan, blast him.”
Horan waved his hand again and threw several of the shielded demons back even further, but Long ducked under the gust of wind and swung at Mark’s head. Horan barely managed to send another gust of wind to push Long’s blade away in time.
With his opponent’s guard removed, Mark seized the opportunity to plant his knife in Long’s gut. Long staggered back and fell over with a cry of pain, crawling behind one of the shielded demons for protection.
While Horan threw the demon against the far wall, Mark noticed Long reaching for the rifle on the floor. He quickly dove onto Long, sending a brief spurt of gunfire into the wall. The two briefly grappled before Mark headbutted Long to the floor.
As Horan checked to make sure none of the other demons were getting up any time soon, Mark retrieved his knife and gun from the unconscious Long. “Just a little further, let’s go.”
Mark and Horan turned a corner to finally find themselves in the part of the bedroom with an actual bed in it. Yang stood on top of the bed, holding on to a cable connected to a winch, which was located on the edge of a hole in the ceiling. Yang held onto the cable with one hand, and held a loaded crossbow in the other. When she saw Mark and Horan, she tugged on the cable and fired the crossbow at Horan.
While Horan blew the crossbow bolt away, Yang was yanked out of the room by the cable and scrambled through the hole onto the roof.
Hurat and Omet ran in through a second entrance. Hurat looked around in confusion for a moment before spotting Mark and Horan. “Where’s the leader?”
Mark pointed towards the hole in the ceiling, before climbing on the bed and leaping up to grab the edge of the hole. “Let’s finish the job.”