We Steal An Escape Route

He slipped over to the level 15 demon in half a second and knocked him out.

"Let's go" Arlo said leading them to the back door and up to where some demons were looking at merchandise. Arlo pretended to examine a few before slowly exiting the building with his new 'siblings'.

He found Sho pacing in the corner. He immediately walked over to the group his eyes examining the humans.

"You turned them all into passable demons? I thought you were just going to open the cage." Sho muttered. "Honestly you make so much extra trouble for me."

"Aww don't say that, look at them they are adorable" said Arlo, pushing the two silver haired humans forward. Sho had been using the alias Shylo Rainwater so of course he set 'Alicaio Rainwater' and 'Jako Rainwater' as his two new siblings.

"Whatever" said Sho rolling his eyes, "If they don't keep up I'm leaving them behind though." He started toward the portal and Arlo paused at another stand buying three ruby beads the lowest class storage system and passed one to each of them.

To Arlo's amusement Sho played along at the gate, "Hello I'm Shylo Rainwater these are my two little brothers Alicaio and Jako." He paid the fee and dragged the two of them through the gate with him.

Arlo walked up "Hill Blackwolf and this is my brother Ryanto." They moved up through the queue and were about to pass the portal when someone yelled "Hey stop all portals we've had some human escapees."

The portals immediately closed and Arlo let out a hiss under his breath. An employee from the auction was checking demon contacts and necklaces. Shoot if he removed his they'd see his green eyes, if they removed Ryanto's it'd be basically the same as screaming human.

The portal button wasn't far though. Arlo whispered to Ryanto "wait here don't move an inch." He activated his stealth and pulled down the employee's pants then activated the portal grabbed Ryan and leapt through it with both of them covered in the stealth.

Arlo grumbled this was bound to cause a commotion. He and Ryan appeared on the other side and he immediately grabbed Ryan dragging him into the shadows at the edge of the square. He kept his stealth on as a few auction employees landed on the other side.

One of them glared at Sho who had watched Arlo hide already. "Hey prove you're a demon we have some human escapees!"

Sho shoved his face into the low level employee's and hissed "Do I look like a stupid human to you."

At this range the employee could clearly see the lack of contacts. "No sir" he whispered.

"How many dumb humans you looking for?" Sho stated.

"Three" he practically whispered.

"Great now that you have your answer scram before I decapitate you." Sho's voice was like ice and the employee fled in panic.

Once they had all left, possibly assuming no one had actually gone through the portal and it was just some glitch, Arlo released his stealth.

Across the plaza Sho shot him a glare, "See I told you it'd be nothing but trouble. Not to mention you want to hand deliver them to the human world don't you."

"Well since we already brought them this far." Arlo said.

Sho rolled his eyes. "Fine let's get a room for the night and then figure out how we're going to not only get ourselves but three wanted humans across as well."

Turns out the inn only had one available room left for the night. Sho had tried to get two. It was obvious enough that he wanted to do things to Arlo during the night but was ticked because now he couldn't.

The room had two beds. Arlo and Sho were laying on one with the three humans somehow sandwiched on the other. Sho lay with one arm draped around Arlo and his head resting on his shoulder as he watched the humans still with suspicion.

"Would you stop staring at us!" growled Jake.

To Arlo's surprise Ryan smirked and said "Leave them alone, I find it cute how much in love the two of them are. He is just staring because he's worried we'll do something to his friend."

Sho's eyes narrowed further, "You have true sight." He muttered.

Ryan neither confirmed nor denied his statement. However to his friends he added, "We don't have to worry about them eating us, at least they currently have no other plans." Ryan laid on his bed and closed his eyes. Alice seemed hesitant, and Jake looked as though he had no plans to sleep anytime soon.

"Jake take first watch if you're that worried." Muttered Ryan, "I'll trade off with you in 4 hours and Alice can take third."

Seeming satisfied enough with that Jake sat with his back against the wall. Seeing Sho still seemed uneasy Blacky muttered "I can keep watch, I slept in Arlo's hoddie for awhile earlier." He walked over and sat a few feet from Jake who was now eyeing him.

Satisfied Sho laid his head on the pillow still keeping one arm wrapped protectively around Arlo. Arlo closed his eyes not worried at all since he had the best guard wolf ever and an overprotective boyfriend.

He peacefully fell asleep among the other two who were still glaring daggers of trust issues at each other.

.....

The dawn broke through the window and Arlo opened his eyes to a lot of noise. The others around the room also were up while Blacky and Alice were looking through the window.

"What's the commotion?" he asked Sho.

"Apparently they are still looking for the escaped humans in this area." Sho replied

"Why?" said Arlo confused

"Your acting wasn't good enough." Commented Jake.

"You are the escaped merchandise don't blame it on us." Sho growled back.

"It's still your kinds fault for calling us high quality food." Jake shot back.

"Both of you shush," grumbled Arlo, "Arguing isn't going to help anything."

"Your fault from bringing them along." Replied Sho with a yawn, "but whatever I don't have any better sources of amusement at the moment. We can always toss them out again."

"Let's just get over the wall and both problems will be solved." Arlo said, "we can leave the humans there and continue with our own problems."

"Why are you going to the human realm" asked Ryan.

"No reason you need to know." Sho replied icily. He seemed a bit touchy about others knowing his weakness so Arlo just shrugged off Ryan's gaze.

"Now what is the best way out of here, with this chaos we can't exactly take the front gate." Muttered Sho.

"The dark market passes?" asked Arlo.

"Not enough time to get through finding one. Also problematic since they might eat the humans." Sho replied.

"What about over?" asked Ryan.

Arlo and Sho looked at him like he was crazy.

"Uh oxygen loss." Replied Sho.

"I can fix that." Ryan replied. "I have an air bubble type spell, although usually used underwater high air travel is also a thing."

"Can Blacky climb the wall?" asked Sho looking at the wolf.

"Never tried." Replied the wolf, "but shouldn't be a problem. If I can't we just find another way."

They slipped out of the inn in the same 'family' groups as before and moved north of the city. Once the tree line covered their movements Blacky went up and dug his claws into the wall.

Instead of being the impenetrable wall that Arlo imagined, the wall crumbled at the edges allowing Blacky to easily dig into it.

"Oh yeah I can totally climb this" stated the wolf, "question is can you all manage to not fall off?"

"As if we'd fall." Scoffed Jake.

"I'm sure we can manage," Ryan replied. Alice however looked terrified at the prospect and Arlo caught Jake trying to calm her down.

They ended up tying some rope around Blacky like a harness and Arlo ended up just tying himself to the harness.

"What afraid of falling?" Jake mocked Arlo slightly.

Before Sho could start up another round of arguing Arlo replied, "yes very much." and left the conversation at that.

Once they were all aboard the wolf express Blacky backed up into the trees a bit before running full speed at the wall. He then launched himself at it and began running up the side of the wall as if it was still the ground.

Arlo already hated rollercoasters and the Blacky climber was no exception. Going up at wall at about 60 miles per hour, totally a safe way to travel. Once they got to maybe two miles up the five mile wall, demons riding on flying mounts started to converge on them.

One drew back a bow and fired an arrow at Blacky, Arlo immediately retaliated with his own arrows as Blacky dodged the incoming ones. Arlo shot two of the riders down but then an arrow grazed Jake's shoulders and he fell from the wolf's back.

Blacky's tail shot out and wrapped about the falling human then rolled him up like rug. The wolf had his wings out beating the air to help keep himself moving.

The remaining demon riders circled in, there were just too many of them. Arlo felt like jamming his eyes shut as several more bows released arrows and Arlo watched them fly toward the wolf.

Then a friendly notification appeared.

[Skill4: Winged wolf 3/5]

Blacky had leveled up again and it made all the difference. Instead of being wings he could only glide on, this time he could fly. Although still pathetic on its own, combined with the wall, the wolf's speed doubled.

The arrows jammed into the wall below them as Blacky shot forward with even more force. The air started to thin and breathing became much harder. Arlo felt his vision start to grey a little when a legit bubble of air formed around them with Blacky still able to run and not destroy it.

Higher and higher, they left the flying demons in the dust as they had to return to land. Blacky broke through the cloud of smoke that covered the demon plain and over the top of the wall.

Bright sunlight, they were above the clouds, miles around everything reminded Arlo of a plane ride from his past life. It was beautiful, and they were falling. The wall didn't have much of a top to rest on so Blacky had gone right over it.

They plummeted toward the ground for a mile then Blacky spread his wings slowing their decent. It became more like a hot air balloon ride on a mostly 'flying' wolf.

Downward, until the bubble vanished and they could breathe again.

"So where do you live?" asked Arlo to the three humans.