The rain hadn't stopped.
Outside the cavern, the storm howled like some ancient beast mourning its own birth. The sky cracked open again and again, lightning forking through the night, painting the cliffs in brief, violent white.
Beneath a rocky outcrop just meters from Great Beast, three figures crouched beneath, shadows dancing from a single flickering fire from Leo's finger
"It's still there," Leo said, voice low. "Haven't seen it move."
"Which means we only get one shot," El muttered. She crouched beside him, eyes sharp, hair dripping. "We either kill it in its sleep… or die when it wakes."
Matthew sat a few paces back, fiddling with a cluster of thin metal blades. His fingers worked in rhythm, checking each edge. "Let's not aim for the first one."
Leo gave a thin smile. "Agreed."
They fell silent again.
The storm raged above, but the cave itself remained quiet, too quiet. It wasn't natural, Leo thought. Like the whole mountain was holding its breath.
"So," Matthew whispered at last, "say it again. The plan."
El inhaled slowly, then spoke voice low:
"Three parts. First I go in. Get close while it's still asleep. Quiet. One strike. Right in the soft spot between the jaw and neck."
"If that fails," Leo continued, "I trigger the fire name. Blind it with a flash of fire. While it's disoriented, Matt cripples it from range, knees, joints, tendons. Whatever he can hit."
"And if that doesn't work?" Matt asked, arching an eyebrow.
El looked at him.
"We fight."
No one replied for a long time.
El had to be hiding something—a trump card, maybe. Some desperate edge that justified throwing herself straight into danger. Whatever it was, Leo could only hope it worked.
"You're not dying in there," Leo said immediately.
"I wasn't planning to," she replied evenly, but her tone was tired.
El must have something hiding in her sleeve, a trump card that's why she's aimlessly throwing herself off. Whatever it is Leo was hoping it would work.
Matthew stretched his back, groaning. "If things go wrong, I've got an explosive pouch. One shot. Big boom. Might buy us time."
Leo frowned. "Time to do what?"
"To run. Or to regroup. Or to die with style."
El snorted. "You would plan to die fashionably."
"I'm just saying," Matt replied with a smirk, "if we go out, I want the beast to remember who took out half its face."
Leo's jaw tightened. "We're not dying."
He didn't mean it as hope.
He meant it as a command.
The silence after that wasn't awkward, it was heavy. The kind of silence before a fight. Before a loss.
Leo looked at the two of them. El's steady eyes. Matt's lopsided grin masking fear.
They weren't just allies.
They were his people.
"Whatever happens," Leo said, "we stick to the plan. But if either of you has to break it to survive… do it."
The cave waited for them, dark, vast, and full of breath that wasn't theirs.
The storm broke again.
This time, it felt like an omen.
Matthew clapped Leo on the shoulder, lighter than usual. "See you on the other side."
Leo stared after them, heart thudding like a war drum.
He whispered to himself.
"Please work."
-present-
Matthew stayed closest to the entrance, crouched low with his sword reversed in his grip. His role wasn't to strike. It was to contain. To stop the beast from fleeing if things went wrong.
Suddenly, El was beneath the creature.
She knelt beside its massive head steam from its breath hissing against her arm. The stench of rot clung thick to its fur. Her hand hovered over its jaw. Blade poised. Ready.
Then—
Leo snapped his fingers. 'This had to work. It had to.'
A sharp burst of air zipped through the darkness thin and invisible.
It struck El's back with a soft thud. She surged forward. The sword came down.
It struck but was too shallow.
Blood spurted.
And the world snapped.
'Dammit! We're slipping—El missed, we're already on Step Two. No time. No time to fix it.'
The beast stirred.
Not awake, not yet.
Their plan had three parts.
A swift assassination.
A blinding distraction.
And if all else failed…
Brute force.
El had failed the first.
The second had to begin now.
"Shit—SHIT—" Leo stood tall, voice echoing off the stone as he roared a single word in the primal tongue
A pillar of fire erupted near the beast's face not to burn, but to blind.
The creature roared awake, shaking the cavern like thunder from within. Its head jerked wildly, its eyes squinting, nostrils flaring. It rose on four legs towering, rippling with muscle screeching with fury, but reeling from the sudden light.
"Matt, now!" Leo shouted.
From the mouth of the cave, Matthew hurled a cluster of metal shards, small, sharpened throwing blades forged from scrap. Then used his first style accelerating the blades to strike its leg.
They weren't made to kill.
They were made to cripple.
The blades sank into the beast's knee.
It shrieked, buckling as one leg collapsed beneath its weight. Massive claws raked against stone, cracking the floor and walls with every movement.
El leapt back just in time as the creature swiped at where she had been.
"Plan C!" she screamed.
She charged in again.
Blade flashing, El drove her sword deep into the beast's hind leg. This time it roared not in pain, but rage.
It didn't rear.
It didn't flinch.
It just moved fast as a shadow.
Its massive arm swung sideways.
The blow hit El full in the ribs, lifting her from her feet and slamming her against a pillar of stone.
"El!" Leo shouted.
But the beast was already turning toward him.
Its pupil-less eyes glowed in the dark. And this time it screamed.
The sound was horrifying.
Like grinding stone, metal ripping, and a hundred wolves howling in agony.
Leo flinched, a high ringing in his ears. Panic clawed at his chest. The cavern felt like it was closing in. 'Too big. Too strong. We're not ready.'
Leo slashed his blade upward, and fire answered his call.
The spell struck the beast across the face, searing flesh but it wasn't enough.
It didn't stop.
The monster charged.
Matthew lit the fuse to the explosive pouch and hurled it just as the creature lunged.
A sharp blast of light and powder filled the cave, blinding the monster briefly but it flailed in panic, a massive claw grazing Leo's side and sending him spinning.
Leo hit the ground, hard, gripping his ribs.
Blood splattered the stone.
He couldn't move.
His fingers touched warm, slick blood.
"Leo!" Matthew yelled, rushing forward with his sword raised. "HEY! UGLY!"
The monster turned to him instead.
And struck.
Matthew braced but the sheer weight of the blow launched him against the cavern wall. His sword cracked. His body slumped.
"Matt!" Leo cried.
The ground shook.
Another tremor.
El coughed blood and forced herself up, staggering. Her knees wobbled. Her vision blurred.
'Don't. Please, stay down—' Leo thought, frozen. Every part of him screamed to run, to throw himself in front of her—but he couldn't. His legs wouldn't listen. His side was slick with blood. His vision swam.
She looked up.
And there it was.
The beast's face loomed just inches from hers. Monstrous. Endless. Its breath washed over her like rot and burning hair. Its jaws widened, fangs glistening, coated in spit and the blood of something else. It was readying another strike.
But El didn't flinch.
Her eyes—no, something behind them, ignited.
A glow so unnatural it felt wrong to look at. Her veins glowed faintly.
She was seconds away from unleashing something… something none of them understood.
Then—
Something unexpected happened.
Crack.
A jagged snap ripped through the ceiling above.
Rumble.
The ceiling collapsed.
The cave exploded in chaos.
A support pillar, weakened by the battle, gave way. The ceiling groaned then split. A massive slab of stone came crashing down right on the monster's back, pinning it.
The beast let out one final, desperate, soul-shaking shriek—
And then it stilled.
More boulders fell but not over the trio.
A deeper rumble echoed behind them.
Then silence.
A deep, terrible silence.
Leo blinked. The dust choked the air. He coughed, trying to sit up. Every inch of his body burned.
Leo staggered to his feet, blood soaking his side. "We're… alive?"
Before he could catch a breath, a louder crack split the chamber.
Another wall at the rear of the cave collapses inward.
Dust exploded everywhere.
Leo spun around, sword drawn expecting the monster to rise again.
But it wasn't the monster this time.
It was the mountain itself.
The falling stones tore open the back wall of the cavern, revealing a gaping path sunlight piercing through where only stone had once been.
A hidden exit.
The other side of the mountain.
The air shifted.
Fresh wind rushed in, sweeping the dust aside like a curtain drawing back from a stage.
Leo coughed, still gripping his side, eyes darting. "El!? Matt?! Please—tell me you're alive!"
A groan rose from the mist.
El's hand twitched. She pushed herself up with a pained grunt, face smeared in ash and blood. Her ribs screamed, but she was alive. Barely.
"Unfortunately," El muttered weakly, "I'm still breathing."
Leo exhaled in relief, staggering forward.
"Matt!?"
Through the haze, he saw him—half-buried beneath debris.
Leo rushed to him.
"Matt!"
Matthew stirred, then slowly raised his hand thumbs up.
Leo laughed despite the pain. "Idiot."
He hauled his friend upright, careful of his arm.
El dropped to her knees, panting.
Matthew groaned. "That... went well."
They stood in silence.
The dust settled.
The cave fell quiet.
The beast, crushed beneath tons of rock, was dead.
Finally, El lifted her head and pointed to the sunlight spilling through the broken stone.
"Looks like luck is still on our side," she said.
"No more climbing," Leo whispered.
"No more monsters," Matthew added.
"For now," Leo murmured.
They stepped forward, over broken stone and shattered plans, through the wreckage of their trial.
Through the jaws of death itself—
And into the light of a new path.
Weary.
Bleeding.
But alive.