"Are you sure this is a good idea?" I tried to keep an eye out as I asked the question. I didn't see anything but beach and apple trees, but better safe than sorry.

"I need to be able to defend myself," said Nynyane. She gestured at the Green Knight. William pulled the Sword of Bequest we'd taken from Mr. Evil off the strap on his back. He handed it over to the Lady on the Beach.

"Can't you just..." Mike wiggled his fingers. "You know... call down the lightning or something?"

"If I could do that," Nynyane pointed out, "I wouldn't need any of you."

It made sense, I supposed. I'd seen Nynyane work magic twice now. Both times involved a lot of chanting, and it seemed like she'd really needed to focus on what she was doing. It was powerful, in it's way, but I didn't think it was the kind of thing she could pull out in the middle of a fight.

"Fair." the Red Knight conceded. "It's just... If the Sword rejects you, you'll die. That kinda moots the point of all this."

"The Sword won't reject me." The Lady spoke with confidence. "If we're to face Roderick, we'll need every Knight we can lay hands on. I've killed, I know the Bequests, and I've more experience with a sword than any of you."

"Well, ok..." Mike shrugged. "I guess you're the expert..."

"Why the Grey?" I asked. We still had one other Sword of Bequest. One with a yellow pommel stone. "Why not the Yellow?"

"You've seen what the Grey Knight can do," Nynyane pointed out. "Very few Knights have a way to counter it. The Grey Bequest will make me hard to kill, and almost impossible to capture."

She looked like she was going to say more, but terrified screams erupted from somewhere in the trees. Two voices. Female. My grip on Solais tightened. Drynwyn burst into flames in Mike's hand.

"Not this shit again," said the Red Knight.

I couldn't see where the screams were coming from. With a start, I noticed we were all scanning the tree line. I looked behind us just in time to see a seagull swoop down. Something small and orange dropped from the bird.

Just before it hit the beach, the small orange thing became a giant man in orange platemail. There was no transition. One second he was three inches tall, and the next he was thirty feet high. He landed on his feet with a thud I could feel through the sand. He paused for less than a second, then broke out into a run.

I tried to shout a warning, but all that came out was "Bad thing!" Three strides were all the giant needed to reach us. I readied Solais, but before I'd even finished stepping towards the bastard something swept my legs out from under me. I hit the ground hard and a lot faster than I would have expected.

The giant in orange armor raised his big fucking metal foot. I thought he was going to bring it down and crush me into a fine red paste, but it slammed down a few feet past me instead. This was good, because I was helpless. The fall had knocked the wind out of me so thoroughly I still hadn't noticed my now fractured lower leg. When the pain hit, I couldn't do much more than shudder. My lungs hadn't managed to get back to work, yet.

"I accept the-" Nynyane started to shout, but it cut off with a sharp cry. I managed to roll over enough to see the Orange Knight sprinting for the tree line, a furious Lady in Tweed clenched in one gauntlet.

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"Oh no you fucking don't!" Mike sprinted after the giant. His flaming sword was in one hand. A shotgun was in the other. He didn't have a prayer. With his massive stride, the Orange Knight must've been running almost thirty miles an hour.

Mike would have (maybe) realized it was a hopeless chase eventually, but he didn't get the chance. Something pink blurred past him, accompanied by a loud clang. The Red Knight pitched sideways, his legs flying up into the air. About twenty feet past him the blur stopped. It was a man. In pink armor. holding a golden mace.

An annoyed baritone boomed from the tree line. The Orange Knight, I presumed. "Don't stop, dipshit!"

The Pink Knight spared a look towards the trees. He shouldn't have done that. He looked back just in time to see Mike pulling the trigger on his shotgun.

The boom of the shotgun cracked through the beach. The Pink Knight spun and crashed to the ground. Mike didn't bother picking up Drynwyn. He jacked another round into the chamber. He clambered upright, standing on one leg. The armor on his other leg was dented, and his foot was hanging at an odd angle.

I'd expected the Pink Knight to get up and blur away. He didn't. Mike hopped towards him.

A hand slapped down on my shoulder. All my pain disappeared. The Green Knight helped me to my feet. The Blue Knight fell in next to us, and we followed Mike's grunting, hoppy journey to the man in pink.

"Thought you were bulletproof, didn't ya?" I could hear the Red Knight's gritted teeth. "Steel slug rounds. High grain. Even if it doesn't penetrate, the impact'll fuck you up." He hopped a few feet closer. I caught up to him, and looked down on the Pink Knight.

He didn't look conscious. There was a dent in the center of his helmet, right where his forehead should be. Mike took one more hop closer. Using the shotgun, he pushed up the visor on the man's helmet. I saw a pale face with bushy eyebrows. The man shifted slightly. His eyes pried themselves open. He blinked several times, finally managing to focus on the barrel of the Red Knight's gun.

"Parry this you filthy casual." The shotgun boomed once more. It caved in the Pink Knights skull in a spray of pink and red.

Mike tried to hop himself around to face us, and almost fell down. He caught himself by jamming the shotgun into the dirt. He swore. Propping himself back up, he growled at William.

"Time's wasting. You gonna heal me or what?"

"Shit, sorry." William grabbed Mike's arm. Mike's foot righted itself. Even his armor lost it's dent. "Got caught up in the moment for a minute, there."

"It's fine." The Red Knight waved him off. He dug two more slugs out of the pouch at his belt and reloaded. "Let's go." He took off at a dead run in the direction the Orange Knight had taken.

"Wait, you daft bastard!" William called out as we hustled to follow the Red Knight. "It's a trap!"

"It's always a fucking trap!" Mike kept right on running. Drynwyn flamed in one hand. His trusty shotgun was primed in the other. I struggled to catch up, huffing and puffing. Strength of Seven or not, I'd never been much for exercise.

We'd been running for half a minute when a chill shuddered it's way down my back. We were forgetting something. The screams. The screams had stopped when the fight had started, but we still didn't know where they came from. Did somebody die? Did they have a couple of girls act as a distraction? Or was it something else entirely?"

Out of breath as I was, I tried to put my head on a swivel. The trees were widely spaced, and the ground was fairly even. The sun hung low on the horizon. Beyond that, I didn't see a damned thing. No movement. No animals. Not even a bug. A slight breeze rustled the leaves, but the only other sounds were harsh breaths and steel clad footfalls.

Mike finally decided to slow down. He switched to a jog while he waited for us to catch up. As a result, we were only twenty feet behind him when a hand the size of a lawn chair snaked out down from the branches of a particularly lush apple tree. It swatted the Red Knight to the ground.

A spindly arm followed the hand. Then a shoulder. Then long legs. The creature unfolded itself down out of the tree. It was so big I could barely imagine how it had managed to hide. Fifteen feet tall if it was an inch, the thing was so skinny I could see the outline of bones through the skin. It was grey, hairless, and misshapen. Its limbs, its abdomen, even its fingers looked like someone had taken a normal man and stretched him out like silly putty. Green light reflected from eyes set in a head far too small for it's body. Sharp teeth spread in a malevolent grin.

The rest of us skidded to a halt. I drew Solais. I'd sheathed it before taking off after Mike, on the grounds that the thing was basically a lightsaber and only an idiot would run while holding it. The other Knights had had similar ideas, and were hurriedly baring their blades.

"Fuck," Patrick swore. The Blue Knight set his feet, looking more nervous than I'd ever seen him. "It's the Wendigo."