A Demon's Grand Adventure: Chapter 3 - Two-Pronged Strike

 "...have to have....strategy..."

 "But Scaaaarllllyyyyyy...."

 "No buts."

 Satoshi awoke to the smell of coffee in the morning, as well as the sounds of Scarlet and Gluttony scarfing down breakfast. He stared a little at the couch he called "bed" before forcing himself to sit up. His bandana was  tied safely onto a Prinny who had volunteered to take handle it, and he plucked it off before tying it around his own head. He peeked over the couch and saw that Felix was no longer there. Or Sora for that matter. In fact, that was a lot of fur on the ground...

 "It appears that our bounty has escaped," grumbled Satoshi, catching Scarlet's attention.

 "Nah, Gluttony's eating him right now," she replied, pointing to the hunk of meat Gluttony was chewing on.  "Told ya I was gonna feed him to Gluttony, since he wasn't worth much."

 "Disgusting."

 "Yeah, yeah, I know." Scarlet turned to her fellow bounty hunter and asked, "Aren't you going to have breakfast with us? It's been a while since we've had a decent conversation at a dinner table."

 "With the pig you're chatting with? No thank you."

 Gluttony shot Satoshi a glare, although the bounty hunter wasn't disturbed by it at all. Scarlet looked disappointed before turning to her food and chowing down. Satoshi watched until he could hear his stomach growl, and with a sigh, he got up from his bed and took a seat at the table, where laid out before him were strips of bacon, waffles, scrambled eggs, and a steaming bowl of oatmeal. He grabbed a spoon and scooped up some oatmeal before, from the corner of his eye, he saw Scarlet smiling at him.

 "Nice of ya to join us, Sato!" she said with a grin. "Sleep well?"

 "Moderately," came the curt reply. "The Prinnies were rather loud last night."

 Gluttony took another bite of his breakfast meat and shrugged. "Oh, that's what they do every night," he said with a sigh. "I can't stop them; they're just little party birds! Not very useful for night watch."

 "Perhaps then you should hire more competent guards. Even an imp could slip through your manor and steal precious belongings right under your nose."

 "They're not all incompetent!" the dullahan cried. "I mean, my elite guard and head maid are all prinnies!"

 Scarlet raised an eyebrow. "You have an elite guard? Never thought you of all people would get personal guards."

 "Well, someone has to be the first line of defense before I waste precious time dealing with threats!"

 "But... they're Prinnies. You sure ya not bein' stingy or something?"

 Gluttony glared for a moment before sighing, "Oh, you got me. I just have an obsession with exploding penguins! Can you blame me? I mean, look at them!" He grabbed one casually and held it up for all to see, this particular prinny wearing a yellow scarf. "Aren't they so cuuuute~?"

 "As cute as you are delusional," grumbled Satoshi, focusing more on eating his oatmeal than looking at the prinny trying to look as adorable as possible.

 Scarlet crossed her arms and said, "Hey, Sato! That's admitting that they're cute! Or are ya tryin' to say Gluttony isn't delusional?"

 "Touche."

 "I'm right here, you know," Gluttony said flatly as he set his prinny guard down.

 "Either way... That's not our concern right now, is it? Our concern is more focused on the Dark Council and those keys we must get to break into their headquarters. I suggest we all split up. One of us taking a boss alone-"

 Scarlet slammed her fist on the table and yelled, "Oh, not this bullshit! Look, Satoshi, you said these council guys are strong, right? So wouldn't it make sense for us to stick together instead of getting our asses kicked individually?"

  "I prefer to be unhindered," Satoshi replied coldly. "I am nowhere near strong enough to protect the weaker members of our party. It would only be a burden to me to worry about anyone else's safety."

 "Oh, so I'm a burden now, huh?! I'll show you a burden!"

 Scarlet stood up, preparing to throw a punch at her friend, only interupted by a certain dullahan loudly clearing his throat.

 "Isn't it a bit early to be throwing punches at each other?" he asked. "I mean, honestly, I don't care much, but I rather not leave a mess for Renais to clean up. Especially not blood; those are hell to scrub out of the carpets, you see!"

 Scarlet turned and glared at Gluttony, who only grabbed his cup of coffee and sipped. He then added, "Well, either way, dear Scarly has a point, Satoshi. Or have you forgotten that you worked together all those years ago?"

 Satoshi avoided eye contact, looking towards a group of prinnies playing Ping-Pong, and replied, "I haven't forgotten."

 "Oooh, you haven't?" A sly smile formed on the dullahan's face. "Then you should know this: 'United, we stand; Divided, we fall.' A common saying up on the Overworld, if I do say so myself. Then again, everybody was united to try to kill me and my siblings~!"

 The demon was silent for a moment, a sorrowful look on his face before it hardened into an unreadable expression. "Fine. I'll play by your rules. I suppose you two have decided where we should strike first?"

 Scarlet took her seat and said, "Well, the three biggest threats are Lady Jessica, Kisandra, and Lord Hamhan. Jessica, I know from back in the day. Bit more than a bitch, treating her vassals worse than slaves and pretty much stripping them of free will with her hypnotism. You don't know how many times I wanted to slam that smug face right into a table and rip her horns right off."

 "I suppose it only works on men only?"

"Yeah, only men. Not that she'd know a good looking woman when she sees one. She made some sort of lovey-dovey theme park for lonely men, no matter what the species. You know, for hook-ups and all."

 "And it's a front for her hypnotism and building an army, I suppose?"

"That's the gist of it, Sato. These are all single men we're talking about, who lost all hope of getting a girl the normal way and think of this theme park as an easy way to get some. Desperate men."

 Satoshi crossed his arms, deep in thought. "Weak willed demons and humans... those more easily susceptable to hypnotism."

 Scarlet smirked. "You catch on fast, don't ya? Either way, the park's supposed to be banned for girls, but Tina went ahead and disguised herself as an employee to sneak right in. Said she wanted to give Jessica a piece of her mind... and a bullet in the head."

 "And you sent her alone?"

 "With the expectation you'd be going there? Yep! You're her escort, Sato, and you better treat her right, or... well, I'll be pissed, to say the least."

  A blank look spread on Satoshi's face as he said, "Oh. Nice to see that you consulted me about this."

 "You're welcome!"

 The bounty hunter sighed and asked, "Well, and the other two threats?"

 Gluttony smiled and piped up, "Oh, them? Kisandra's the one who's making the army more competent in fighting! Has a whoooole gym to herself, I found out!  They have just about every sort of thing imaginable: Dumbells, barbells, trampolines, treadmills, cycle machines, yoga mats, exercise balls, an olympic-sized swimming pool, punching bags, boxing rings, and Jazzercise!"

 Satoshi looked rather puzzled. "Jazzercise?"

 "Oh, I think it's where they play some sort of smooth jazz and you like, lift weights to the rhythm or something, I don't know!" Gluttony turned to Scarlet and asked, "Do you know, my dear Scarly~?"

 "You're on the right track," she said. "It's kind of like learning to dance to jazz music, but it's a combination of resistance training, Pilates, kickboxing, and yoga movements to music and stuff. Sora tried it once, but she came back looking as if she stared into the depths of the Nine Hells for too long."

 "I don't think I can blame her, poor thing!"

 "That's because you hate going to the gym, you giant piece of lard."

 Gluttony, clearly offended, crossed his arms and said, "How rude! You could have described me better than that! I mean, honestly! I'm a giant piece of ham, if I do say so my-"

 One thunk to the head later, the dullahan grumbled, "Well, anyway, Kisandra wants a challenge to help kill the time as the army's being trained, so her holding one of the keys is to her benefit, at least. Then there's Lord Hamhan, who is actually 'borrowing' Greed's pad. And by borrowing, I mean he's outright using it to gather as much money as possible to purchase weapons and trained mercenaries from other Netherworlds."

 "And Greed isn't doing anything about this, because...?" Satoshi asked.

 "Because he's as dumb as a bag of golden bricks," Gluttony said bluntly, taking another sip of coffee. "He works solely on instinct. The instinct of getting material objects. I have no idea where he is now, before you ask; I'm not his babysitter. For all I know, he could be on Mount Aronia, searching for golden fleece."

 The bounty hunter contemplated on this for a moment. Scarlet expected him to go to the Tunnel of Love with Tina. He never actually worked together with Tina before, but he did know from what Scarlet told him that she was good with guns and White Magic. Odd for a demon, but he supposed that Scarlet's usual team is all about defying expectations. She was probably the weakest, too, although why Scarlet didn't want to go with her, he wasn't sure. For the time being, he was determined to play along with it.

 What about Scarlet and Gluttony? Scarlet had massive power at her fingertips, training for years upon years to become the strongest succubus known to man and demon. Gluttony... well, unfortunately for the Dark Council, they got him involved, and he was capable of destroying kingdoms back in the day. Satoshi didn't like him at all, with his callous attitude and selfish ways, but he was a powerful ally. One who at least knew how to restrain himself, to an extent. If he truly wanted to, he would have devoured the entire council long ago. He does nothing if nothing is in it for him, however.

 Great power... a gym leader awaiting a challenge...

 After several minutes of deep thought, Satoshi said, "It would be effective to send both of you to the gymnasium, in that case. Both of you have the raw power Tina and I lack, something we need against Kisandra. The Kit-Kat race do not pull punches, and it would take too long for me to set up traps to bring her down to my level." Another moment, and he added with a tiny smirk, "And perhaps the giant ball of lard, as you called him, needs more excercise in his life than he cares to admit."

 Scarlet stood up and cracked her knuckles, a grin spreading on her face. "Ha! Damn right he does! I haven't been to the gym in ages, anyway; might as well test my power against a real threat!"

 Satoshi could barely hear Gluttony muttering, "Oh, you have got to be kidding me."

 "I suppose you are bringing your prinnies with you, Gluttony?" the bounty hunter asked.

 The dullahan replied with a grumble, "Of course! Why wouldn't I? They are my Elite Guard!" He then stood up and called out, "Gonzales! Bonnie! We're leaaaaving!"

 In an instant, the yellow-scarfed prinny was at Gluttony's side, while a green-scarfed prinny slid down the stair railing and flopped like a fat seal over to his master. Both saluted and said, "Elite Guard reporting for duty, sir!"

 Gluttony turned to Satoshi with a bored look and asked, "Well? Are we striking now? Or are we going to have to wait until you handle your business with Tina, hmmm?"

 "Now rather than later. Better to take them off guard with a two-pronged strike before we move on to the next set of threats. I suppose they won't really expect me to strike, having been gone for so long."

 "That just makes it easier to kick their ass," Scarlet said with a smirk. "But enough talk! Let's get rolling!"

 The three demons and the two prinnies left the manor  in a hurry, although before they split up, Scarlet turned towards her friend.

 "Satoshi?"

 The bounty hunter turned towards the buffcubus. "Yes?"

 She stared for a moment, trying to find the right words to say, before shaking her head. "Nothing. Good luck out there."

 And before Satoshi could wish her luck as well, the buffcubus and the dullahan took to the skies, the prinnies flapping their tiny little wings as fast as they could to try to keep up with the duo.