Castle lost her balance and then her breath as she slammed into the rock wall, grateful beyond words for her armor. Beyond words as without it she’d be dead, and also because the whiplash had concussed the ability to speak out of her.
Don’t stop moving, she thought as she slumped to the ground, head pounding and ears ringing. Don’t stop moving!
It was easier thought than done as her body felt stuck like swimming in molasses. Castle grit her teeth so hard she heard one of them crack, and the pain cleared the fog from her mind like a whirlwind.
The dinosaur was approaching her again, but more carefully this time. Thick blood spilled down its jaw and dripped to the dusty ground from where she’d managed to cut a deep groove along its cheek. Its steps careful now, but not slow by any means. She rose to her feet to meet it once more, rolling her shoulders at the stiffness settling in from the sudden impact.
“Come on, you son of a bitch,” Castle spit out through a mouthful of blood. “There’s a reason you’re extinct.” She raised her halberd, knowing it was longer than its arms and she could be defensive long enough for Aster to hopefully rejoin the fight. One thing she and Aster had figured out quickly while sparring was that if you were being defensive, you needed to defend a “line”, so to speak; basically, a spear was strongest when it was moving along the same line as its haft. Trying to break a spear or a halberd head on would be like trying to break a needle by pressing straight down on it.
So she secured her footing, bracing the halberd at her side, careful to keep the dinosaur from flanking her. Is this what prehistoric humans had felt like when they were hunted by giant bears and wolves? It was terrifying— it was also exhilarating.
A flash of movement to the side told her Aster was ready to reengage, so Castle feinted a lunge forward, earning her one hundred percent of the dinosaur’s attention for a moment. It was enough.
Thwack!!!
A deafening roar tore from the throat of the beast as Aster’s tomahawk sunk deep into the thick muscles of its thigh. A thin line of blood ran down the leg, turning into a stream as the dinosaur pulled the weapon out with its jaws.
Castle took advantage of its distraction, leaping forward and piercing its underside, though the head of her weapon only allowed it to sink so far. She grinned as the dinosaur began to turn, thinking she’d caused a retreat.
She was wrong, and had forgotten about the club on its tail. It collided with her, sinking the side of her chestplate deep into her ribs, cracking several as she flew through the air and into the running water.
It was frigid cold, which did nothing to dull the roaring ache in her side. She couldn’t breathe, and she knew with all the certainty of a medical professional, that she was fucked.
What air she managed to get down quickly came back up with blood. She couldn’t breathe, and as she tried to find purchase in the stream she found herself weighed down by her armor. Panic overtook her, every movement a desperate, frantic hope.
Above her and around her was movement. Orange flashed, the shine of metal dulling to red, and inhuman shrieks bled through the water to her ears.
And then all went black.
----
As soon as Aster’s tomahawk left her hand, she exploded into motion. Her ankle was healed, and even the bruises on her body seemed to fade away as she sprinted forward. She was in peak condition, and that was the worst thing the theropod could have hoped for.
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Before she could close entirely, however, Castle had stepped in and stabbed at its underside, which was good, but then she had gotten sloppy, which was bad, and now she looked more like a crumpled soda can than a human being. That, for the record, was very bad.
Aster debated grabbing her from the water first but stopped that train of thought when she saw how fast the raptor had turned back toward her. It spat her tomahawk onto the ground and stepped on it, the wood cracking beneath its weight.
Something flared up within her, filling her with a fire that intensified her senses like tunnel vision, and suddenly nothing else existed besides her opponent. And nothing beat her— not even a fucking dinosaur.
With a yell she closed the gap, sliding on her knees beneath its tail as it tried the move again. The problem with attacks that required you to turn your back on your enemy was that you couldn’t respond quickly when they evaded your blow and countered it. Thus, the springclaw raptor was surprised when Aster shoved her spear up its gut.
Though she’d just delivered a brutal hit, Aster knew she was still in mortal danger. The taloned feet on either side of her began stomping down as the raptor screeched and steaming hot blood spilled down around her. The moment slowed again as she felt the rhythm of the animal’s movements, granting her the timing to both retrieve her spear from its belly and disengage from the dinosaur.
A quick survey told her it wasn’t fit to run, so she prioritized helping her teammate. Castle was unconscious, and while she wasn’t breathing Aster didn’t think she lacked a pulse. The cork popped off the vial of a health potion and she was careful not to waste a drop as she poured it into Castle’s open mouth. Before the vial had even been emptied, Castle had started to cough up water. Interestingly enough, Aster noted there was no health potion in the liquid. Did it absorb that quickly?
Time for that later.
Aster turned to check on the raptor and saw that not only had it not fled, it had nearly stopped bleeding and was turning their way. Good, she thought, hoisting her spear. I was just getting the hang of you.
The fight that followed felt to her like every other competition she’d ever faced. Her opponent stepped, she countered. It was stronger? She used its momentum against it. They’re too defensive? Bait them out. Too offensive? Make them overreach and get sloppy. Can’t find a clear opening? Find a trade-off and make one.
The raptor landed a blow with its tail, but she’d braced the shaft of her spear against her side and took the hit in stride, skidding to a stop. Then she sprinted forward, trying to copy the theropod’s tactic of launching itself too fast to counter. This resulted in Aster’s spear digging into its neck, over the collarbone and past something hard that gave under the tip of her spear.
What she hadn’t expected was for it to clamp its jaws down on the haft of her spear and pull. Her legs lifted from the ground as she fought to keep her hold, thanking her dumb luck that the dinosaur had short arms and couldn’t get her.
For a moment she met its eyes. There was pain there, and fury, and not a little intelligence. She knew she’d feel conflicted about that later, but not right now. Right now, she had to keep it distracted, so she crossed ‘kicking a dinosaur in the face’ off her bucket list.
“Come on, you prehistoric piece of shit,” she said, dangling from the spear, trying her best to wrench it away. While she couldn’t, she did succeed in making move around inside the wound.
The raptor’s lips pulled back in a snarl as a growl like a persistent clap of thunder tore from its throat.
“You know why you’re extinct and we’re not?” Aster said, holding eyecontact. “Teamwork.”
And then the hammer side of Castle’s halberd slammed into the springclaw raptor’s head with an audible crack, and Aster saw its eyes glaze as its jaw loosened, dropping her to the ground with her spear.
“Push it over!” she yelled to Castle, who ran and slammed herself against the dinosaur’s wounded leg, sending it stumbling until it crashed into a wall and fell to its side.
Wasting no time, Aster ran forward and, catching the dinosaur’s eye as it gained a modicum of awareness back, ran her spear through it.
*You have slain [Springclaw Raptor - lvl 13] - Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level. 3072 TP Earned.
*’DING!’ Class [Warrior (Medium)] has reached Level 5 - Stat points allocated, +1 free point*
*’DING!’ Class [Warrior (Medium)] has reached Level 6 - Stat points allocated, +1 free point*
*’DING!’ Race Human - G has reached Level 3 - Stat points allocated, +1 free point*
*’DING!’ Class [Warrior (Medium)] has reached Level 7 - Stat points allocated, +1 free point*
*’DING!’ Class [Warrior (Medium)] has reached Level 8 - Stat points allocated, +1 free point*
*’DING!’ Race Human - G has reached Level 4 - Stat points allocated, +1 free point*
A flood of warmth flooded through her body as the levels came, and then another notification:
*Warrior (Medium) class skills available*
Now that’s interesting…