Rafferty dangled from her sword, some two hundred feet above the Breaks, stuck in the elbow joint of an angry God, and pondered her options.

She didn't think a fall from this height would kill her, as long as her Gear functioned properly.

Not getting stepped on was another matter.

Rafferty figured that she had about another minute before the muscles in her arms made the decision for her.

Her world shook violently as the God let out a great metal howl. She looked up and realized it was looking back at her. Its giant right hand was moving toward her, intending to pluck the offending object from its arm.

Rafferty wasn't going to need a whole minute to make this decision after all.

As the enormous hand moved into her peripheral vision, Rafferty yanked hard on her sword, and started her descent. She smacked her heels together and kicked backwards as hard as she could. If she was close enough to catch a piece of the God's body on the way down, she'd be propelled to relative safety. If she wasn't, she'd hit the Breaks face first.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Rafferty felt her foot tap metal, and she was hurled like a ball across the landscape. She crashed to the ground, and skidded across the dust. She choked on a cloud of it as her insides screamed at her. Her chest piece was supposed to redistribute the impact to lessen injury, but apparently it had redistributed it right to her ribs, at least two of which were broken.

She sat up and turned in time to see a thunderstrike bloom in the God's right fist. There was nothing she could do as fiery death flew past, high and to her right. It struck the cliff behind her, and there was less cliff than there had been a moment ago.

Gus said that their aim had been getting worse over the years. Gus also said that they might miss the first time, or even the second, but they'd never miss the third.

Time to get to work.

The standard playbook for dealing with a bipedal Class Three or larger was simple:

One member of the group took out one of the legs. The others controlled the fall. Then the whole group vultured it to death while it was on the ground.

Rafferty struggled to her feet, gripped the handle of her sword, and felt the Blue hum through the blade.

Let's start with step one.