Chapter 11: Chapter 11: If Only

Mr. Atlas rushed over to Becky. He cradled her up in his arms, shouted her name. She didn't respond.

The giant pulled its sword out of the ground, and once again began its advance toward us.

"Retreat!" Saber screamed. She took off running toward the doorway we entered the courtyard through, and she waved us along. Mr. Atlas followed, still carrying Becky, and Hei and myself obliged as well. The giant pursued us, but we managed to escape into the tight stone corridors of the castle before it reached. Too large to enter, it shot another volley of stone spears at us, but their range fell short of where we were. We retreated around a bend, where we could no longer see it. My head felt light as I panted like a rabid dog. My ears rang, and my vision darkened in patches. I tried to blink my eyes back to normal as I rushed over to Mr. Atlas and Becky. Her clothes were torn and blackened with fire and blood, and her half-open eyelids only showed the white of her eyes.

"Becky," Mr. Atlas whispered. "Can you hear me?"

I heard her shallow gasps. "Mama? …Mama?"

"Hey buddy," Mr. Atlas answered. "We're here. We're here for you, Becky." He laid her down against the castle wall. He managed to rummage a waterskin out of his backpack, and he held it to her mouth. She didn't drink.

"It hurts," she said. "Help."

"...C-can you heal?" I asked Saber, the paladin of our group, the holy knight. My voice came out jagged. She stared back at me, as though I had said something insane. She shook her head, squatted down against the opposite wall, and lowered her almost-blank gaze to her phone's screen.

Mr. Atlas whipped out a sweatshirt from his backpack – his own, by the looks of its size. He chopped a sleeve off with his gigantic axe, then wrapped it around Becky's little stomach, where the worst of her wounds were.

"Hold it there," he ordered me. "Put some pressure on it."

I did as told, pressing my palms against her wound. She whimpered, as though she couldn't even manage to scream. Mr. Atlas cut ribbons from his shirt to wrap around Becky's other wounds.

I grew hot. And it took me a second to realize it wasn't just me. Down the corridor, even farther away from the courtyard’s entrance, glowing red veins of magma spread across the stone walls. They began to loosen bricks and sent them crashing onto the ground. The molten veins, whose heat baked us even from here, crept slowly towards us. I inched away, forced back toward the door to the courtyard, where the monstrous giant waited for our inevitable return. Of course we couldn't escape it that easily. Mr. Atlas hoisted Becky up again to move her. Saber remained squatting against the wall.

"Please," I said to her. "We need to go. We might have to fight it out."

I caught a glimpse of her screen. She was frantically jumping all over a video recording of earlier. The footage suffered heavy motion blurs, but I caught glimpses of the giant as it sank into the earth. Saber finally looked up at me, and she rose to her feet. She took one last glance at her phone with wide, desperate eyes.

"Its sword swing has a range of three meters," she spoke to me in a rasped, shivering voice. "No cooldown. Ability one, burrowing and re-emerging, with a max range of at least 60 meters. Cooldown at most 15 seconds. Ability two, wolf summoning. Cooldown unknown. Ability three, the four spears. Max range, about 120 meters. Cooldown at most twenty seconds."

The heat in the hallways grew suffocatingly hot, and it pained my lungs as I breathed in.

"It uses burrowing for both defense and mobility," Saber continued. "That meant if it burrows to get close, it'd lose its only defensive option. But our main ranged damage-dealer…needs rest, so we might not win by kiting it out anymore."

As disadvantaged as we were, we had no options besides fighting to our dying breath.

"I still have 750 health," Saber said. "I'll draw its attacks and punish its openings if it uses any special abilities. The rest of you, focus on damage. Rotate out with me if my health falls below 200."

Mr. Atlas gave a half-hearted nod. "Sure, screw it. Let's go."

He led the way back to the gate. Through the open doors I saw the stone giant waiting for us on the opposite end of the courtyard, where the Base-Core had once been. Mr. Atlas cleaved one of the wooden-double doors off its hinge. With a grunt, he dragged it over, and leaned it slanted against the wall inside the courtyard to make a small, triangular tent of sorts. He deposited Becky into the makeshift shelter.

"Hang in there," he told her. "We'll win this and get back home." As he tried to leave to rejoin us in facing the giant, Becky weakly clung to his arm. Her fingertips glowed dimly in the shade of the door. They were so thin that I could almost see through them. No. I could definitely see through them now. They had become translucent.

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"Just a second," he said.

"Don't leave me," Becky whispered.

"I'll be right back. Promise."

And with that, he charged forward at the giant. I tore my eyes off Becky and followed him in. As I got in range, I opened fire with crossbow and magic.

Saber maneuvered to the front of our assault. She sank her blade's edge deep into the giant's leg. The monster returned her attack with a rising slash, which she tried to sidestep to no avail. The obsidian sword bashed into her. Her plate armor clanged at the blow, and she staggered back. But she kept her footing. Hei and Mr. Atlas followed her up. The steel of their weapons chipped away at the giant's body, sending cracks across its limbs and torso. Soon, the rocky armor around its torso chipped away, revealing the red crystal underneath. And the crystal was fractured, too. But Saber took damage as well. Despite the protection of her armor, the obsidian blade had scored numerous hits on her. Blood now streaked her temples, and even her steel plate mail. One sweeping blow from the giant finally knocked her off her feet. She tumbled a short distance away, then managed to roll to a stop onto one shaking knee.

"Atlas, sub me in!" she wheezed. As the giant was recovering from its own swing, Atlas assailed it with axe-chops, initiating a trade of blows. I landed a Frost Missile. Atlas raised his axe above his head, charging it up until it gleamed red. Heavy Cleave.

The giant began to sidestep as much as it could while the ice slowed it. Saber slammed her palm into the ground, shooting up a crystal wall that cut off our foe's path. The giant quickly opened a fissure and sank in. As its head receded into the soil, Mr. Atlas brought his axe down. This time the giant escaped an instant too slow; the axe smashed clear into the top of its head, sending chunks flying off.

A second later, the giant re-emerged far away, with half its head now missing. It dropped its sword aside to plant its palms into the earth. Four red-hot spears of stone protruded from the ground.

"Get back, 120 meters!" Saber shouted, and we retreated from the giant. As we covered the final stretch away, the giant fired its first spear. It hit Saber mid-stride and sent her tumbling. She managed a few wild steps farther before collapsing. The giant did not fire a second shot at the downed Saber. She must've been out of range.

Atlas rushed back to fetch her. He propped Saber onto his back, then hobbled his way back to the rest of us. He laid her down among the lilies. Meanwhile, the giant kept its hands on the ground. The remaining three spears hovered in the air, still trained on us.

Saber's eyes had closed, but she still visibly gasped for air.

No, please. Not her too.

"HP?" Mr. Atlas asked. Saber mouthed something soundlessly. But she held out two fingers. Two HP left? Twenty? Certainly not much higher, by the looks of her. We couldn't see her wounds beneath her plate mail, nor did much blood leak out from her armor's gaps. But her lips had already lost color.

The giant raised an additional row of four spears out of the ground. Seven total - three already in the air and poised to fire, another four for the next volley. Or so it seemed. We made the mistake of giving it time to prepare, and it took full advantage.

It waited patiently for us to approach, and the half-face that it had left seemed to sneer. It knew the spears outranged any attacks we had. And I knew, too.

"...What now?" I asked. I had an answer, of course. The remaining three of us needed to charge back in. And we'd take hits. It knew to focus-fire a target until they went down for good. The giant would shoot one of us down, or two. Whoever remained would fight for their own lives, however far that would take them.

"Get behind me," Mr. Atlas told Hei and me. He raised up his axe before him. "Single file. Keep close. We need to hurry."

"You aren't doing this," Hei said. "That's insane."

Mr. Atlas merely answered with a scoff.

Something crossed my mind, a faint wisp of an idea. Before I could recognize what it was, my body began to move on its own. I walked forward, to the small patch of crushed lilies where Saber had fallen. That spot, right outside the 120 meters' range of the spears. I extended a palm at the stone wall surrounding the courtyard. At that moment, my thoughts came together. And I knew why I moved.

Ricochet.

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