Stepping into the circle of sand felt like stepping under a waterfall. The air roared and swirled with the pressure of the gigantic figure’s Willpower. His implacable gaze remained fixed on her. She tried not to tremble as she got closer. This was just another fight, she could do this.

Her foot touched the sand and the giant exploded forward.

She didn’t see him move. Only heard the thunderclap long after he struck. Sand drifted down from the sky. Pain echoed after the hit. Ribs cracked as they remembered they were struck. She rolled and bounced across the uneven tiles of the courtyard and left spots and smears of blood where she struck. Her eyes rolled and blinked, and Anton looked down at her with concern.

“Boss, are you alright?”

Zoe groaned and coughed and sat up.

“I’ve been better.”

Her Vitality seethed like ants across her bones and torn muscles as she wiped blood from the corner of her lip. It took a few minutes for her to find the strength to stand, and even then it was woozily. She leaned against Anton while her flesh mended.

During this time, the gigantic figure returned to its lotus position in the center of the sand.

Zoe tried to play the fight back over in her head, but it was too fast. She snorted. Calling it a fight was generous. There had been one strike and then she flew away. The giant’s palm was almost as wide across as her torso. If he struck a weaker person, they would have exploded. She was half convinced she had exploded, it was the only way to explain the ache in her chest.

Once her breath returned, she walked around the ring and inspected the giant. His eyes remained closed as she fixed hers on him. The muscles were corded and thick like mockeries in iron. Grey hair and the golden rings that bound it into cords as thick as a ship’s rope. She completed her circle around him and learned nothing more than she already knew: he was a deep well of strength, and she had only a thimble with which to drain him.

Even with all her levels, and all her stolen power, she didn’t measure up to this figure seated before her.

Her knuckles clenched as Mirror poured up her arm. She unspooled chains from the Mirror and at the end of one she formed a bell. Once the bell formed, and her breathing steadied, she charged.

A thimble would have to be enough.

###

Bella’s sword howled with that familiar refrain -- an acidic wind scouring mountaintops into fluted banshees. The cyclone wrapped around the slashing blade and struck the black tendrils protruding from the crack in the sky.

Her arms shook from the impact as the swirling wind struck the emerging Mubilashi. A deep ache built in her shoulders as she drew the blade back and struck again. It felt like cutting through metal. Tough, but her blade was stronger than any metal.

A tendril extended toward her in a straight black line spiked with teeth and she flowed out of the way. It buried into the flowers and branched out haphazardly. She dodged the advancing brambles of Mubilashi flesh while keeping her eye on the crack above her.

The Mubilashi in the crack watched her. Dozens of bulging eyes tracked her with childish curiosity. She was just a bug to them -- something that needed its wings plucked -- but she would show them that bugs could bite.

A spiked tendril darted toward her face and she swung her blade up to defend. Metal hit Mubilashi, but there was no clang, only a dull, tacky impact. She pushed against the force of the tendril, but then it split in two and shot around the blade toward her eyes.

There were only a few inches for it to travel before it blinded and brained her, but lightning struck her first.

Skidmark’s transportation technique struck her with a flash of comforting heat, and then Bella appeared beside her friend. Flowers swayed around them, heady, calm, as the Mubilashi reeled in its spiked tendril like a dejected fisherman.

“Thanks for the save,” Bella said.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Skidmark nodded. It wasn’t the first time she’d saved Bella, and both women knew it wouldn’t be the last. Still, Bella wasn’t going to act rudely: if Skidmark hadn’t saved her, that tendril would have scooped out her brains.

“The crack is getting wider,” Skidmark said.

“I know.”

“Can we close it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think we can?”

“I hope so.”

Skidmark snorted.

“Mountain of Faith, right? Do you think if we believe extra hard the Mubiolashi will vanish in a cloud of unicorns and pixie dust?”

Bella grimaced.

“Sarcasm is kinda…”

“Ugly, yeah, you said earlier. Hey, the tendril is coming back.”

The Mubilashi reached through the crack with a long midnight finger. Teeth slid along the inky skin like the teeth of a pale chainsaw. Slowly, growing faster, a giggle escaped the mass of eyes bulging in the crack.

[I’ma getcha]

[I’m gonna getcha!]

“Sorry for what I said,” Bella said. “

“Me too.”

“Want to help me kill this thing?”

“I’d love to,” Skidmark said as she pointed a finger gun at Bella’s head. “Ready?”

Bella’s eyes faded like bleached denim.

“Ready,” she said in a flat monotone as her blade started whining.

“Bang, bang.”

Lightning flicked toward the crack in the sky. Bella appeared in the air before the bundled Mubilashi, sword howling, and her runes blazing bright.

###

The second, third, and fourth time Zoe stepped into the ring she was knocked out in one strike. On the fourth time, she managed to keep her armor from shattering, but this focus slowed her movements. After coughing up blood and spitting a tooth, she strode toward the ring for round number five.

“You got this, boss,” Anton said.

His silver eyes hovered around the ring, ready to help her dodge, once she got past the first move.

Zoe found her hands trembling as she stood on the outside of the stones encircling the sand. She couldn’t be sure if it was the fear of the pain or the fear of failure --

The giant’s eyes snapped open. He didn’t speak, but his gaze drilled into her own. A buzzing sound filled her ears as Willpower rocked her on her feet. She frowned, why was he paying such attention to her? Every other time, he remained meditating until she entered the ring. He didn’t need to prepare -- his speed and strength far outclassed hers.

“Why haven’t you failed me?” she asked.

His eyes remained fixed and unblinking, and she thought he wouldn’t answer, but she remained waiting. There was no change to his expression, but after a while, he spoke.

“You haven’t failed the test.”

“I have to defeat you, but you defeated me, how is that not a failure?”

“You sound as though you want to fail.”

Zoe glowered at him and stepped into the ring.

Sand exploded up as the giant rushed toward her. Zoe was already moving. She leaped to the side, keeping her toes low to the ground so she could push off and change direction. The giant wasn’t just fast in straight lines, but also at turning, and the last time she leaped high he swatted her from the air without effort.

She didn’t see or feel the fist coming toward her, but she knew it was there. Mirror sloughed from her skin as she lightened herself and slid across the ground. The giant’s open palm shot overhead like a cannonball and she punched up.

Her fist slammed into his forearm. If her hand was flesh and bone it might have broken, but it was Mirror, and when a crack appeared between her knuckles she willed the hand to wrap around his arm. He was already moving, spinning a knee toward her face. She yanked herself up onto his arm and let his momentum twist her onto his back.

Anton cheered from the sidelines.

“You got this, boss!”

Zoe’s heart pounded. Exhilaration spread across her face with a maddening grin. She raised an elbow and brought it down hard against the back of the giant’s head.

For some reason, she never connected.

Instead of delivering a devastating blow to the skull, she flew through the air and slammed into a pagoda pillar. With a weak cough, she slid to the ground. Vitality itched through injuries she couldn’t feel through her stunned mind.

The giant stared at her, but rather than sit down, it smiled.

“It seems I don’t have to go easy on you after all,” it said as it settled into a wide-footed stance. “Stop holding back and show me what you’ve got.”

The giant beckoned with his leading hand, and Zoe grinned as she rose to her feet. Her Skein twitched with anticipation as she advanced toward the ring. Idly, she wondered if she was supposed to be having this much fun.

Sand met her foot and she dashed to the side as the giant advanced. Thunder rumbled as its fist passed through the air. The smell of incense filled the air. The giant swung, an elbow racing toward Zoe’s head, smoke trailing the movement.

Mirrored chains flung out from her arms. She gripped the Giant and used him to fling herself out of the way. He wrapped a hand around her chains and yanked her up off the ground. WIth a grimace of pain -- with a joyous laugh -- Zoe severed the chains and used the forced momentum to slam her fist into the Giant’s chest.

[Bell at the Center of the World]

Ripples shuddered the giant’s flesh and forced it to step back as she kicked away toward the sand. Soundwaves, Skeinwaves, passed through her as she lighted down. Flames trickled between her fingers as she prepared to use [Empress in Time], but the giant stepped back. He raised a hand to stall her as he cocked his massive head to one side.

“Interesting.”

“Quit stalling.”

“Mubilashi are breaching the sanctum at the Mountain’s base. Your friends fight them even now.”

Zoe’s grin slipped from her face as a cold feeling spread through her.

“What? This is a test, right?”

“Every step up the Mountain is a test, Zoe Chambers of Earth. Tell me, will you go and help your friends? Or will you fight me?”

He raised his open palms into a readied stance as he waited for an answer. In the sky that surrounded them, thunder rolled, and Zoe felt the rain fall through the mist. She looked over to Anton, who shrugged, but the motion was tighter than normal.

“It’s your call, boss.”

She bit at her lower lip and made up her mind.