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Ch 28: Claiming no knowledge of betting

Before the others had arrived Michael had faced off against the Audacious Aardvark Adventuring Association and the Penguins Perpetually Punching Party. He had barely managed to defeat the Super Imposed Kitten so he was glad to learn that his next match was in the finals.

Unbeknownst to Michael but beknownst to the reader, the group was up in the stands watching the second round of matches, the eventual winner was the blond draconian, Dragoon. “Bet you find him attractive,” Vincent muttered to Diamond to bug her.

It did but Diamond restrained from beating him instead she said, “Bow chika wow wow.” She did that because she knew it would bother him more than his comment bothered her. Vincent tried to hide the fact it bothered him by covering his face with his cloak and looking forward but it didn’t work at all.

Before the final match, bets were being placed on the result of the match where the person told the teller what they wanted. In the end the boards displayed the four largest bets which were ‘Dragoon beats and kills Michael 300:1’, ‘Dragoon beats Michael but doesn’t kill him 100:1’, ‘Michael beats and kills Dragoon 1:300’, and ‘Michael beats Dragoon and spares his life, gaining an ally 1:10,000,000,000,000’

“Five dollars on Dragoon killing Michael!” Izazu called out with a five dollar bill clenched in his fist. Rose looked at him and raised an eyebrow “What?” Izazu asked and got his ticket.

“Won’t you only get like a penny or something?” Rose asked him and put twenty dollars on Dragoon killing Michael.

A poor demon took out his last dollar and gave it to the teller “one dollar on the last one. Fly true little dollar.”

When the betting was over the two fighters walked into the arena to face each other. A man in a loincloth and skull mask stood up and smashed a gong with his fist before yelling, “FIGHT!”

Dragoon swung his great sword at Michael, the flames seemingly extending the sword’s reach to lick at Michael and left a huge burn on his coat which ruined it “Aww, I just got this,” he whined, examining his coat, “I hope you can pay for this,” even though he got the coat for free.

Ignoring the stupidity, Dragoon resumed assaulting Michael and threw the hapless demon hunter into the wall of the arena. Izazu decided it would be a good time to encourage Michael and shouted down, “Don’t believe in yourself, believe in me who believes in you!”

Michael looked up to where his ‘friends’ were with a distraught look and yelled, “Don’t believe in me, get down here and help me!”

“….,” Izazu paused and finally cheered, “wooooo, go Michael/Dragoon, wooooo!”

“Remember the weapons triangle!” Rose added with a chuckle from the stands.

Michael blocked the flame sword with Nirvana, the balls of steel from the Silent Prison protected Nirvana from the searing flames that wrapped around it. “I said ‘Good day’, sir,” he declared and pushed Dragoon away from him. He got up to see Dragoon running back “What’s the matter? Uhhh,” he was having a hard time with his taunt, “heard uh mommy calling??”

Dragoon held up his hands “I do NOT have mommy issues,” he yelled at the claim that no one had made.

“Uhh, I didn’t say-"

“Well I don’t!” Dragoon yelled and fire began swirling in his palms “This is for saying I had mommy issues, which I don’t: Karyuu!” A jet of flames burst from his palm, from which a dragon head emerged to chase Michael as the rest of the body formed into that of an elongated dragon. Michael scrambled up the wall to get away from the dragon but a pig demon pushed him off a second or two before the dragon would have hit and he fell to the ground on his a**. The flame dragon passed over head, having been too close to change directions at such a speed. The flames incinerated the crowd in the section of the stands it hit, spreading out into a half circle.

Michael heard the screams and realized that even though Dragoon hit them it was because he ran up onto the wall that so many innocent demons were incinerated, and maybe the pig demon pushed him down not out of mean spiritedness but to protect himself or someone with him. These thought weighed heavy on him as he could feel the intense heat over head. The dragon reformed and attacked Michael again, he saw Diamond yelling, “Disrupt it!” over the cries for his blood from the crowd who just witnessed what happened.

Michael rolled out of the way like he was the toreador and the dragon was the bull. He could think of only one way to disrupt the flame dragon but it would involve him getting crisped, so that was straight out since it would defeat the purpose of fighting. As the dragon was coming at him again straight on, time seemed to slow down to a near standstill and Michael realized his last hope rested with something extremely stupid and had a low chance of success. He reached into his coat pocket and grabbed a fistful of magnum cartridges, which he then threw into the dragon’s maw. The cartridges all ignited inside the flames, two fired into the wall, two tore through Dragoon’s right hand leaving crimson staining the sand and breaking his concentration, and one hit a demon nerd. “I... regret nothing,” the demon nerd said and died.

Michael charged Dragoon and smashed him in the head with the hilt of Nirvana while he was having Déjà vu about his hand, defeating him. Dragoon’s hair turned silver, slumping down into some spiky disorder and he collapsed. Michael looked at the unconscious Draconian as the flame blade dissolved into a burn mark in the sand. He turned walked towards the exit when the skull mask and loin cloth clad man jumped in front of him to impede his progress “Listen,” Michael muttered, just wanting to go off somewhere and sleep, “just send the prize money to your favorite charity or something: I’m leaving.”

The man was not amused as he said, “You aren’t going anywhere Demon Hunter. Lord Beelzebub has promised to compensate me greatly for your death, and if that Draconian can’t do it then I will have to take matters into my own hands.” He summoned four warriors to fight beside him.

Michael lifted up his sword and the warriors prepared to attack when Rose, having ran down the stands and hopping on a couple of heads, jumped into the arena and ran up beside Michael. Diamond, Vincent, and Izazu soon joined them in the arena to duke it out with the warriors. “You must be really weak,” Rose chuckled and drew her katana, “I mean, you need 5 people to beat up on this sissy.” She motioned to Michael with her head.

“Thanks,” Michaels said to her dryly, “I can feel the love.”

Diamond shrugged and told Rose, loud enough for the man to hear, “Doesn’t surprise me: Shao never has been much in the ‘strength’ or ‘endurance’ departments…. or any department for that matter.”

“QUIET!” He yelled, having fallen for the taunt. “Warriors, kill the rest: I’ll destroy the hunter!” The spectral warriors paired off against members of the group and Shao attacked Michael head on.

A martial artist in a blue ghi confronted Rose and declared “I am Argyle, Master of the Eagle Claw style: surrender or be destroyed.” He clawed his hand and got into position.

“Well,” Rose countered “I’m master of the ball-smash style,” she chuckled at the thought.

“What? That’s not a sty-!” Argyle fell over in pain when rose kicked him in between the legs at mach 1 and continued to groan until she gave him a kick to the head and possibly a concussion.

Meanwhile, Diamond was fighting a warrior who was shooting ice spikes from his palms which she knocked out of the air with blasts of water and he evaded her water whips with surprising ease. He fired an ice beam at Diamond to freeze her, she flipped out of the way and doused him with a blast of water when he stopped. He created an ice spear from seemingly thin air and thrust it in an attempt to freeze her by impalement. He quickly stabbed at her like a hornet, until Diamond yanked the spear out of the man’s hands and began attacking him with it.

The man produced another one and the two of them began sparring with the ice spears. Diamond eventually knocked the man’s spear up so his mid-section was left exposed and she ran him through with her spear. Ice spread across the man’s body from the spear, until he was frozen from the inside out, he wouldn’t have been frozen normally but the water that had soaked him had frozen his skin. Diamond smashed his head with a roundhouse kick and the rest of his body, along with the two spears, shattered when it hit the ground.

A bull like warrior in heavy iron armor that deflected any blow attacked Vincent head on. “Trash like you never learns!” he taunted Vincent and threw him into a nearby wall, shattering part of it. He walked over and picked up the seemingly unconscious Vincent by the neck when Vincent opened his eyes and grasped onto the armor, he heated it up with fire spells so the man was literally steamed within his own armor and let go of Vincent when he died.

Izazu had his hands full with an Amazon warrior who took broad swings with her blade, knocking his katana away from his body when he attempted to block her. She managed to knock the katana out of Izazu’s hand and kicked him to the ground; she was about to finish him off when Izazu threw a fistful of sand from the arena floor into her eyes “Son of a b***h!” she yelled and stumbled backwards with her eyes clenched shut; as chance would have it, Michael managed to knocked Shao back into the Amazon. Thinking it was Izazu coming in from the side, the Amazon grabbed her blade and put all of her weight into a horizontal swing at his mid-section. The entire Gladius Maximus had grown silent in the aftermath, for a moment it looked like Shao was unhurt until a thin red line appeared across his midsection, and his top half tumbled off the bottom half. The Amazon cleared her eyes and saw what she had done “Oh fu-” she mumbled before Izazu knocked her out with the hilt of his katana.

The Gladius Maximus burst into cheers when the battle ended and Michael looked at the Draconian who still laid on the arena floor when diamond walked up and said, “let’s take him,” she told Michael.

Michael looked to her then the Draconian and then back to her “Did you not see him trying to kill me?” Michael asked her.

“Eh,” Diamond brushed his concerns off, “You’ll be fine, you big baby.” Diamond picked him up without accepting input from the group and took him with them.

Michael stood there for a few moments, pouting “……..” he stood in silence before finally saying, “I’m not a big baby,” in an almost whiny manner and following them.
*******
After all the introductions were out of the way, they stopped to rest and Silver looked out into the distance, having recovered, he could feel his chance for vengeance was upon him. Meanwhile, Lestat was running away from a pack of voracious butterflies.