The sky was a maelstrom, the air thick with a brewing storm. Lightning wielded by Gilthunder bleached the world of colour; then everything went quiet and still.

I hadn't realised I was holding my breath until I went to speak. "Did he do it?" Everyone else looked stunned and blinked in the harsh sunlight. I didn't need to say who 'he' was – Gilthunder probably had a few months worth of payback that needed to be exacted on the Grand Holy Knight.

Gowther cocked his head. "I don't sense Hendrickson."

"Which means-"

"They did it!"

Howzer and I high-fived and King buzzed happily around Diane's head.

"What's the plan now?" Diane asked.

"We should probably start discussing that. If Hendrickson has been defeated, then the knights will start flocking towards the disturbance," Leraj answered, a hand at his chin in thought.

The five of them delved into a discussion which I zoned out on. My brain was mush and trying to absorb all the words made a headache pound. I only realised I was pacing away from the five when I kicked rumble. It skittered against a broken door and I surveyed the line of dense damage that had been caused. Maybe I did have just enough space in my brain for thinking because I couldn't move past Leraj's words about the new generation. Over and over it circled like a broken record.

I watched the demon's back. He didn't look tense – did he believe that with Hendrickson gone, it was over? My skin prickled. I didn't want to voice the screaming thought in my head, that it seemed too easy. Gilthunder had immense power yet Hendrickson... I looked in the direction of the castle with hands on hips.

Those times in the courtyard, fighting under his eye, using my powers. I might have only been in his presence a small amount of time but I got the sense he hid much of his true strength under the serious demeanour.

"What the hell?" came a mutter. The others didn't notice and I turned my head just enough to look over my shoulder. "Guila?"

Jericho had propped herself up on a section of crumbled stone, shaking like a leaf in the wind. Guila rushed to her side and knelt beside her. The young knight looked stunned and it took Jericho a few seconds to shift her focus to her comrade.

"Dammit, how dare you!" She winced, her anger seemingly the only thing keeping her partially upright. "I'm going to kill you."

"No, you won't!" Ziel threw himself between Guila and Jericho, arms spread.

"Who the hell is this little brat?" Jericho asked.

I gave a small smile at his brave fighting words and turned to face them. With Guila and Jericho in close contact I couldn't let down my guard. Now all three new generation knights of our little team were huddled in the same spot and – after a glance at the others – no one else had noticed.

I tried not to let the panic eat at me and reasoned that if something happened, I could handle it.

"Ziel. He's my little brother," Guila explained, proud admiration in her voice.

Jericho gasped. "What happened with the battle? Where are the seven deadly sins?" Her eyes fell on me and my phantom hackles raised. "You!" Her malice was practically visible in the air around her.

"Careful, Jericho," I said, levelling her with a look that had her freezing instantly, her eyes widening in fear. "I'm not as placid as Guila when someone makes a threat towards me." I wasn't the same knight she last saw, and she knew it as she sliced her gaze away from me.

"There's no longer any reason for us to fight with them, Jericho," Guila calmly explained. "In the end, we were defeated by them."

"Huh?"

"Almost forgot, you never answered the question that I asked earlier. I asked you the reason behind why you drank the demon blood, remember?" Jericho turned her face down away from Guila and her question, a tortured look crossing her features.

A chill ran down my spine, a gentle breeze stirring dust around my ankles. The foreboding feeling weighed down on my shoulders and I tried to keep the panic from my features. Every mention of 'demon blood' made me feel I walked on glass. One wrong word or move and everything would shatter.

"So, what's the plan, guys?" I asked, throwing a carefree smile on, raising my voice enough to catch the attention of the others.

"We head for the castle still," Howzer said. "Chances are we'll run into knights but really, anywhere we go, we're going to run into knights. All good with that?"

We all nodded in agreement, except Jericho who soured at the thought of following us. Our ragtag team set off again. We weren't far from the castle so we kept our eyes peeled for any knights. I left my sword in its scabbard though. With everyone else hanging their weapons, I felt that it would be cumbersome trying to flail my sword in such a close area to the others swinging their weapons.

Somehow, I ended up with Ziel keeping pace beside me, my one step two of his. I really didn't want to entertain the child with the panic bubbling away inside of me; however, with the way he was gazing at me, I realised I didn't get a choice in being the 'shiny new thing'.

"Are you a knight too?" he asked, eyes darting to the sword. "You don't look like a knight but you have a sword."

"Ziel!" Guila scolded the boy but I merely stopped walking, put my hands on my hips and bent over to face him.

"No, I'm a Sin. You ever heard of the seven deadly sins?"

"But they're knights."

"Are they, though?" I questioned, giving him my best fox smile. He stared at me for a few seconds, confusion etched between those brows, before I straightened and kept walking.

He immediately attached himself to my side again like a little fox cub. "So if you're not a knight, what are you?"

I put a finger to my lips and tapped it. "It's a secret," I whispered.

He paused for a minute. "Tell me," he whispered back.

Pretending to be hesitant, I swung my head left and right. Ziel did too, staring at his sister until she looked away with a smile. I crouched down in front of him, the others walking past us with grins.

"I'm a fox," I mouthed, and I swore his eyes were about to pop out of his head. I nodded my head when he started to shake it. "Had ears and everything," I went to add when an explosion ripped through the sky.

I pulled Ziel behind me, half expecting danger close by with how tremendously loud it was; in the distance, half the castle fell away.

Open mouthed, we all stared at each other as dust swallowed what remained of the structure.

My skin crawled. "What the f-" The crawling turned into frenzied, scorching scratches beneath my skin.

My breath caught in my throat and the world faded away. The others huddled together, their movements slow and sluggish. Faint ringing sounded.

A pulse ran through me, like a heartbeat trying to push my soul out of my body. My knees buckled, everyone's shouts soft in my ears. This was it, it was happening, as I wrapped my arms around my midsection, feeling like my insides were trying to get out.

Leraj's plan, it had failed.

I wretched, bent forward and held up only by hands on my shoulder so I didn't face plant into the blood pouring out of my mouth again. I thought in the shop had been enough but no, I had to go through that torture again.

It got worse.

Something wanted out.

I squeezed my eyes shut, tears dripping free. Someone was pounding on my back and I couldn't breathe, my lungs screaming for air. With a final thump, out came the thing. My body trembled, feverish, and fell sideways. I cracked open an eye. In the dirt of the street lay a shrivelled up black heart.

It pulsated once before a boot smooshed it. I reared my head back which was definitely a bad idea as the world spun. "That's wasn't yours, was it?" I moaned, only catching a glimpse of golden hair in the sunlight with blurred eyesight.

"No, that wasn't my heart, but Estra, I need you to move," Leraj begged, tugging on my arm until I sat up.

He yanked me onto my feet just as a foot landed there. I stumbled after him like a drunkard, glancing once over my shoulder. My vision cleared enough to see Diane and.... My vision went pretty clear after that.

That's... that's a new generation? That's what I would have become?

A grotesque demon wrestled with Diane – she had it up against the building but I could see the struggle it caused her. In the centre of its chest was Jericho, lying limp with eyes closed. 

"Wh..." I couldn't finish the word, mouth numb. Leraj lifted me like I weighed nothing and jumped out of the way as rubble rained down where I'd just been sprawled. "What's happening?" I croaked, sensation coming back into my body, the raised voices of the others.

"Estra!" I tilted my head over to the side, Elizabeth running over to me.

Leraj placed me on my feet gently and the princess threw her arms around me instantly. I would have fallen over if Leraj hadn't kept a hand on my back from the force of her hug.

"Elizabeth," I muttered, eyes moving over her shoulder to Gilthunder, a woman with purple hair and Meliodas standing over with Diane. I pulled back and wiped blood from the corner of my mouth. "Where did you guys come from?"

"There's isn't much time for a chat," Meliodas said.

"Captain, it's been forced to go this way. You mean someone's behind this?" King asked, Chastiefol at the ready.

"Yeah, Guila and Jericho were only a couple of the new generation this is happening to. Doesn't it seem kind of strange that only new generation knights in the city would go crazy at the same time?"

"I'm not sure I understand."

"Look there," Meliodas said and all our heads turned to the growing number of demons amongst the buildings. All large, all grotesque, all hungry.

"Isn't Estra the same though? Why isn't it happening to her?"

"She ate a demon heart," Leraj said quickly. "It was a long shot but it seems to have worked in neutralising the demon blood she was forced to drink."

The demon that was Jericho suddenly clambered back onto its feet and sprinted at Meliodas. Diane held it back once again, grunting with the effort.

"Diane!" Elizabeth cried. I struggled to pull my sword free as the growing number of roaring demons grew and grew around us.

"Perceptive as always."   

A/N: All thoughts appreciated! Just wanted to also say a big thank you to everyone who's been reading and voting on Fox of Greed. It just recently reached 100K views ^-^