Nick blinked. The moment that he reopened his eyes, pandemonium ensued. The rhino’s body hit the ground hard, shaking the stones beneath his feet. The audience unfroze, screaming and cursing and cheering in an endless roar of thunderous emotion.
Nick kept on running as fast as he could, desperate to reach the melee in time to help his team. That was when he got a good look at the mutant’s flank, and the damage that Bret had inflicted while fighting to save his sister. For a moment more, the blade remained lodged within the creature’s body, but that all changed a heartbeat later.
Bret’s claymore was ejected from the fallen beast’s torso, its malleable muscles emitting a wet cough as they spat the sword out, losing a bit of tissue in the process. Nick’s jaw dropped in astonishment when he saw that the devastating slash had carved a three-foot canyon into the fibrous tissue encasing the mutant’s shoulder. A yawning trench of weeping pink flesh, at the bottom of which glimmered the shocking white of bone.
Blood began seeping out of the open wound, painting the arena floor in dribbles and drops and globs. It was a grievous injury, and it would have been fatal to any animal on Earth, but something told Nick that it wouldn’t be enough. That the monster was down, but not out.
Although the beast was bleeding far less than he expected, it was still a promising start. For the first time since the rhinoceros had transformed, he felt a true flicker of hope. We might have a chance of winning this after all, but the fight isn’t over yet.
Before Nick could close the final stretch of ground and rejoin his team, his hunch was borne out. The great and twisted creature began to stir half a heartbeat later. The others had been closer when the rhino went down but were still a few seconds away. They started yelling to draw its attention, while Paul and Veronica laid down covering fire, but Nick could already tell that it wasn’t going to be enough.
The creature shook its hideous head from side-to-side, then rose ponderously back onto its feet, limping when it put weight onto its left foreleg, the limb below the open wound.
Bret made no such reemergence. He was still sprawled out along the arena floor, only inches away from the rapidly recovering mutant. Nick hoped that he wasn’t unconscious, merely incapacitated from the tremendous expenditure of mana and stamina that had powered his miraculous shadow-clad cleave. Regardless, he was helpless for at least a few more seconds. Seconds they didn’t have.
The beast’s baleful gaze locked onto Bret’s fallen form. It cocked its gruesome visage to one side, like it was surprised to find him there, then raised one massive foot high, ready to grind the man to mincemeat beneath its razor-studded bulk. The others had almost arrived at his side, but it was already too late.
The creature’s claws spread wide and came crashing down, cleaving through the bones of Bret’s chest while liquefying his guts in a great plume of gore. It stomped a few times, like a child playing in a muddy puddle, flinging drops of blood high into the air.
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Horror rose thick in Nick’s throat, only for relief to come coursing through him two terror-tinged heartbeats later. Because that was when the vision of carnage faded away like smoke on the breeze, revealing an unmauled Bret lying a few feet over to one side.
It’s Sarah’s illusion, Nick grinned at the sight. They managed to save each other in the end. While this was unreservedly good news, it only bought the team a couple of seconds. The rhino’s horns were already whipping back around, poised to slice through Bret’s flesh like a fistful of razor blades through a ripe melon. He knew that this time, the blow would be fatal. Sarah didn’t have enough mana to cast another spell.
At the last possible moment, a shield of blue and a shield of red came darting between man and beast, as Kenji and Devin rejoined the fight, a few steps ahead of Nick and the rest of the team. Even together, they weren’t strong enough to stop the blow cold, although their quick thinking saved Bret from certain death.
There was an incredible clang as ivory met metal. Devin went cartwheeling through the air like a rag doll, deep ruby gashes vivid against the skin of his arms where the branching tines had reached around his shield. Kenji screamed his defiance, slamming the base of his massive tower shield against the stones in front of Bret’s body, defending him from the mutant’s strike when it followed up a heartbeat later.
Both men went skidding back along the arena floor, remaining just out of reach of the battalion of branching blades. Before the rhino could thrust again, Kenji charged, moving the fight away from Bret while shoving the beast’s head up, its chin braced against the rim of his shield. Although the heavy shield was pitted and marred, it held together, mostly due to Kenji’s masterful control in Nick’s estimation. The shield did not, however, survive what happened next.
For a few final seconds, the beast struggled to lower its head, wood creaking and titanium threatening to give way. But the shield was perfectly aligned against the stone floor below, the best possible angle to withstand force from that direction.
The rhino strained against the thick length of red wood, clearly confused by the novel situation. It gave Nick enough time to arrive at Sarah’s side, who was in the process of dragging Bret’s body away from the melee, despite the utter exhaustion carved into her features.
Working together, they were able to move quickly, sliding Bret a good twenty feet along the arena floor in less than ten seconds. Nick let go of the man’s foot, drawing his sword from his pack in a single motion, ready to join Kenji on the frontline. But that was not what happened.
He looked up in time to watch the corrupted rhino come to an epiphany. Instead of straining against the body of the shield to force its head down, it tensed, preparing to activate its charging ability. Alarm bells resounded within Nick’s mind. “Kenji, it’s about to…” But it was already too late.
Half a heartbeat later, the fallen beast’s bulk went surging forth, taking a few steps instead of breaking into a full gallop. Just enough to transfer its incredible momentum into Kenji through the medium of his shield, which was blocking the man’s view of his opponent.
The scarred strategist went rocketing back through the air like a cork from a bottle of champagne, flying a good thirty feet before slamming into the arena wall with a sickening thud. The quick-thinking tactician stood sprawled out against the white marble for a fraction of a moment before toppling to the ground in a spasming pile of limbs.