Sirius narrowed his eyes and focused the beams, keeping them concentrated on Seth's bloody stump as he quickly cauterised the wound, doing his best to ignore the boy's screams of agony. Once he was done, he didn't rest even for a second. Dropping his patient, he immediately turned his golden gaze to the skies, looking for the other bird.

That's right. Now there were two of them. Of course there was. They should have known from the damn egg, yet they still were taken by surprise as if they didn't know it takes two to make a baby.

The second raven had come out of nowhere, sent down a volley of sword-like feathers and disappeared back into the night sky.

He quickly glanced at the raven they had already been fighting, yet unfortunately that battle had taken a turn for the worse.

The big guy, Coal, had gotten distracted at the death from above attack and had, in turn, stopped the strong pull he had on the reins he was using to keep the raven's beak clamped shut, even though his hands were still locked around it in a vice grip. The beast was quick to take advantage of that distraction.

When it felt the whip loosen from around its beak, it quickly shifted its head back and slipped from the reins. Then, before the malcontent that dared to ride it could regain its hold, the raven snapped its beak around the whip and ripped it to the side.

The raven swung the rope out, the rocky man being ripped from its back and dragged through the air as it kept a tight grip on the vine. It swung him around like a flail before letting go and sending the golem sailing into Cynthia, who splattered from the impact as Coal bounced across the ground like a skipping stone before stopping as when he slammed into a bus. The vine whip was still tightly grasped in his hands like nothing else mattered.

The newly freed raven stood tall and proud, letting out a triumphant roar, raising its leg and slamming it down on a nearby car, the vehicle's steel body crumpled like paper under its weight.

But Sirius wasn't about to let it have its victory moment. He narrowed his eyes, feeling the power build up behind the burning orbs before letting the searing celestial heat fly.

However, it wasn't the raven he was aiming for. Instead, it was the car it was standing on, or more specifically, the fuel tank of the car.

KRAKOOOM!

The vehicle exploded into a glorious, billowing fireball that lit up the street with its dazzling orange glow. The shockwave threw Sirius back as the heat washed over him, shards of steel shrapnel streaking through the air, imbedding themselves in walls, other cars and even Sirius' shoulder. Yet despite his injury from his own attack, a devilish smirk still danced on his lips.

All because, the raven got the worst of it. It was consumed by the fireball and peppered full of metal shards. Its large body just acted as a better target for the burning shrapnel, which cut through its tender meat and embedded itself deep inside.

The sounds of its cries as its flesh was torn apart, followed by the thump of its colossal body hitting the ground was like music to his ears.

The wave of air caused by its collapse swept away the plumes of black smoke, revealing the state of the creature. It lay across the road with its wings spread, whatever feathers weren't singed or burnt to a crisp were stained with blood from its multitude of wounds.

Some fragments of car were visibly sticking out of its body, while others had dug their way deep. On the tarmac below it was a slow, but steady, growing pool of blood.

Yet despite all this, the creature still stared forward with malice and an unquenchable thirst for blood, clinging to the edge of the mortal coil out of sheer spite.

"God… why don't you just die you stupid bird!"

He sent forth another pair of scorching rays, aiming to pierce it between its soulless black eyes. Yet they were intercepted before they could reach their target, as the other raven hastily dove from the skies and used its body to protect its partner.

Instead of piercing the skull of the fire breathing raven, they instead burnt into the side of the steel feathered raven's neck. The beams burrowed deep, melting its defences and digging into its flesh. But before they could do more than a superficial wound, Sirius had to immediately cut off the beams and dodge to the side as the raven waved its wing and sent a volley of sword sized feathers towards him.

Coming out from the roll, Sirius leaned against an upturned van and held his shoulder. The sudden movements sent jolts of pain from the metal fragment still embedded into his tender flesh, yet he didn't dare take it out.

"Come on… over here. We need to get out of here."

He turned his head towards a hushed and strained voice, seeing the one armed Seth leaning himself against the body of a half destroyed car. His eyes sunken and face deathly pale.

Glancing back at the pair of birds, he saw that the steel feathered one was busy consoling its dying partner.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he stood up and hurried his way over to his wounded compatriot, looping Seth's remaining arm over his non-injured shoulder, supporting his weight and helped him to the only place they could go at the moment that had any sort of cover. Back into the clothing store, at least there they would fare better than out in the open.

But the steel feathered corvid wasn't going to let this prey, these interlopers, escape that easily.

It waved its wings, sending volleys of its sword-like feathers streaking towards them. Yet the impudent little creatures kept ducking and dodging behind the metal contraptions, avoiding its attacks. However, it knew there was one thing that they couldn't do.

It hunched down, spreading its wings wide before starting to flap. Tsunamis of wind flooding the street, wave after wave, as the creature beat its wings and took to the skies. Yet it barely made it a few metres off the ground when it felt a sharp pain in its neck, where it previously took the pair of scorching rays.

***

Coal dug his feet into the ground, leaned back, and put all of his weight into keeping the raven from advancing towards the injured duo as they hobbled away. The rope of the whip was still in his hand, as the other end was anchored into the exposed flesh of the flying raven.

Seth, being carried by Sirius, put all of his focus onto Coal to give them one last chance to escape. It took everything he had to make that throw.

'Where do you think you're going? Get over here!'

He wrapped the vine around his arm, giving it a strong yank when the raven stopped flapping to send out another volley of feathers, counteracting its attack and dragging it from the skies. The ground shuddered as it slammed down, but he didn't give it a chance to regain its footing.

While it was still disorientated he gave it another tug, before starting to reel it in like a fish. Drawing the line closer and closer until it was only a few metres away.

Leaning back once more, he changed his stance, pulling the whip taut he put all of the golems strength into dragging the raven across the ground. It started slow, but quickly gained speed.

Dragging it around and around, his feet crossed over one another over and over as he spun in a circle and swung the raven's body. Imitating the hammer throw he had once seen on TV at the Olympics.

Once the bird gained enough speed, he let it fly. However this time it was under his control, as he sent it careening into the same bus that he had been thrown into. The bus skidding back and folding in half, clearly not designed to be the crash pad of a dinosaur sized bird.

'Think you can cut off my arm?! Maybe I should rip off your wing, show you how it feels! Or maybe, I'll just skip the foreplay and start with your head!'

His attention was pulled to the side by a soft squawk, the shrapnel-filled raven letting out a feeble yet enraged growl. The macabre avian shifted its body before immediately collapsing, pressing its head against the ground and looking away from him.

Anger bubbled inside of Seth, commanding Coal to walk over to the dying creature.

'No. It doesn't get to die like that. Not after what it's done.'

Storming over to it, he grabbed a handful of feathers and lifted it by the scruff of its neck. Forcing it to lift its head and look Coal dead in the eyes.

He cocked his arm back, ready to punch it straight through the skull, when he noticed the blue glow in its throat... The glow that it had tried to hide with its positioning.

A blazing azure inferno poured from the raven's mouth as it used its last breath to try and kill him, a serpentine tongue of fire erupting from its neck wound like a blazing rocket, turning the whip still embedded in its neck to cinders.

Bathed in roaring cerulean flames, uncaring for the loss of his whip, Coals arm plunged into the struggling raven's beady black eye, impaling it right up into the elbow.

The flames sputtered weakly a few more times before finally going out, as the beast finally slipped off the edge of the mortal coil.

At first Seth thought that Coal was simply fine, yet as the flames went out, Coal's vision turned black.

An abrupt and jarring sensation sent a jolt through his system as the small, secondary part of his consciousness that had been controlling Coal slingshotted back into his mind, feeling as if he had been powerfully whacked in the head by an electrified baseball bat.

Wisps of blue flames lapped at the ethereal threads that were once connected to the volcanic golem, before starting to rapidly burn up them… like a fuse.

Seth stumbled, falling from Sirius' hold as he collapsed to the ground. His lungs greedily drank the air as he wheezed desperately, every fibre of his being suddenly screaming that each breath could be his last.

Something deep within his chest, deeper than his heart, screamed for release from the agonising pain of the candle-sized azure flames.

It writhed and convulsed violently inside him, feeling like something was trying to claw its way out from the deepest depths of his being.

The wisps steadily shrank as they advanced along the path of the threads, though their speed didn't change. From the size of a candlelight, to a cigarette lighter and even smaller until they were just a flickering, ethereal dot on the end of spiritual threads.

Yet while their size diminished, every millimetre they advanced continued to send Seth into a new hellish depth of torment and pain.

He wanted to snuff them out, to sever the connection of his threads but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't. As the torture reached its peak, he was wishing he could tear off his remaining arm in hopes it would release him from this hell.

But no such salvation came. Even when the wisps finally dispersed, the torment remained.

Laying in a pool of his own cold sweat as he writhed in agony, a single sound danced its way to the forefront of his mind, vibrating all the way from the deepest recesses of his very being.

…The sound of cracking glass.