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You slowed your breathing and forced your hands to ignite! Halfway into its mouth, you felt as much as heard the demon gasp. But you weren’t about to stop there. You were going to have to burn a lot hotter if you wanted to free yourself. So this time, you didn’t try to control it.
Absently, in the back of your mind, somewhere beyond the pain and fear that clouded your mind, you remembered an old saying your dad taught you once.
When you were so angry that you thought you couldn’t take it anymore, put it in a box, and save it for later. And when the time felt right, open the box, and let it all out.
That was probably an unhealthy repression of emotion by any therapist’s standards, but you understood what he was getting at. The trick wasn’t to avoid getting angry. It was to save your anger for something that mattered.
So, that’s what you did. You opened the box.
A frenzied shout filled your ears, and it took you a moment to realize that it was your own. Pale green fire trailed up your arms and onto your shoulders, before spreading to your chest and back. You were burning hot! So much so that you thought you might pass out from the intensity of it. You grew lightheaded, and your muscles screamed as something other than physical stamina drained within you.
You couldn’t keep this up for much longer, you knew, but you didn’t have to. Soon enough, the fat demon decided that it had had enough, and it released its slimy grip on you like a child yanking its hand away from a hot stove. It took everything you had to avoid passing out, and your hand automatically reached up to snag a nearby light pole with a webline.
Your limp form swung out of the demon’s gaping maw, still on fire, and feeling as if you might suffocate from the lack of oxygen. Too hot. Fire must be burning it up before it can reach your lungs. Or your brain…
Through bleary eyes, your vision slightly distorted by the heat haze shrouding your body, you glanced back at the fight between W and the fat demon. Somehow, she’d managed to ensnare its head in some sort of improvised reverse bear trap. It fought feebly as she pulled the horn deeper and deeper into its brain from behind its head. The building that she’d used as a foundation for this web structure was quickly crumbling, however, and you feared that it might give out before her opponent did.
A second later, your worst fears came to fruition, and the strain on the building became too great for its foundations to support. In a cloud of dust, W, the demon and about half of the building all collapsed , causing a wave of concrete and debris to sweep out onto the street, clouding your vision even more.
The sudden rush of force did very little to put out the flames engulfing your body, so you searched desperately for a way to put them out. After a few seconds, your wish came in the form of a fire hydrant!
(Cont.)
