With a groan of metal on metal, the Queen came to her feet, and Cillian’s eyes went wide as she lifted her massive hammer. Did he escape down the hall or did he face the Queen? One massive zombie or a horde of smaller ones?

Abruptly, he threw himself into a roll, and a BOOM reverberated around the chamber as the hammer came down inches behind him. The doorway just crumbled under the hit, sealing off his escape, and Cillian scrambled to his feet and did the first thing he could think of: he ran between her legs.

In hindsight, that was not a good idea, because she bent down slowly, so slowly, to stare him directly in the eyes, in a position that had to be borderline demonic. His brain blanked.

Her eyes were glowing green, with a hint of red, and her wide, stretched mouth was falling off at the jaw, split from each end of the lips, like some fucked up Joker fascimile. There was something almost manic about the perpetual grin, something deeply disturbing, and the sound of a crack somewhere in her back was what did it for him.

Cillian screamed, so raw it hurt, and fell back right on his ass to scramble back. He almost lost hold of his hatchet, but ended up thrusting it forward like a priest with a crucifix in a horror movie, like that was going to do literally anything. The Queen slowly straightened up, and her head whipped around to pin him in place with a burning green gaze. Whipped too far, and Cillian only screamed louder as he continued to scramble back, right up until he was at the foot of the throne.

He didn’t care that he was making a fool of himself, or that he didn’t know who was watching. He didn’t care that he was about to piss his pants. His head felt so light, his throat was burning, his hands were so clammy he was even more terrified that he was going to lose grip of his hatchet.

It wasn’t going to end like this, was it?

It couldn’t end like this.

The Queen smashed a foot into the ground, and granules of sand from the arches rained down as something glass cracked far away. Mosaic tile split under her foot, and she lifted the hammer high. Cillian watched his death loom above him, and the screaming stopped.

Dodge.

He needed to dodge.

The hammer swung down, as if in slow motion, and Cillian waited one, two, three, and then flung himself to the side as the throne was destroyed in one single strike. Debris flung across the room, catching him over the head, and he rolled head over heels until he smashed into a pillar.

His face was wet. Warm and wet, and he slowly lifted his hand to it, watching in minor shock as it came away glistening red.

Oh.

Oh, he was bleeding again.

Wait…

His eyes caught sight of the destroyed throne, and the shattered mosaic. It was black. No, there was a crack. A small one, but a crack.

Bonus objectives: defeat the Queen with no damage dealt by you or to you.

… Oh.

That’s what that meant.

It was a hint.

Cillian felt half mad for even considering this, but now that he had successfully dodged twice, screamed his head off, nearly pissed his pants, well. He felt surprisingly more clear-headed and collected. He might feel better if he bawled his eyes out, but he felt better.

She was slow, he realized. A hulking giant that was incredibly slow. Slow bosses in video games were always the easiest to deal with. It was the fast ones with a lot of AOE attacks that you needed to worry about.

He could do something about slow.

This was crazy. Possibly more crazy than jumping into that water and getting the fucking useless medallion. But, hadn’t he already been given a skill because he had done crazy shit? An incredibly OP skill? Maybe the system here rewarded the batshit insane.

Slowly, Cillian staggered to his feet and wiped at the blood dripping down his face from the gash on his cheek with the back of his hand.

“Well?” he demanded, though he wasn’t sure she understood English, and she slowly tilted her head. “Either fuck me or fuck me up, Your Majesty!”

Either ‘Your Majesty’ or ‘fuck’ were her trigger words, because she was immediately swinging the hammer. Cillian braced, and then flung himself to the right with more force than he thought he had ever possessed in his body. He hit the ground and this time managed to actually catch himself in a roll, stumbling to his feet and hop-skipping back once, twice, three times.

“Well?!” he hollered at the top of his lungs. “Come fuck me up if you’re gonna do it! Or is your aim that bad?”

Another whoosh as she swung the hammer, and he skittered back as a deep crack leapt from the first hole to the second. Oh, okay, it was working. He just had to not die.

Wow, this was actually surprisingly easy.

“You’re not putting your back in it, woman!” Cillian screeched and internally flinched at the way his voice cracked. How long had it been since his voice cracked? Embarrassing.

“RAAAWWWWRRRGGGG!”

The voice boomed across the chamber, and she swung again and Cillian leapt back as tiny mosaic tiles shattered under her onslaught. Another piece sliced across his face under the other eye, and he tripped over the edge of his cloak, falling back on his back hard enough to wind him.

The starry-night ceiling was blotted out by a hammer head, and he squeaked as he rolled to the side. The hammer slammed into the ground, and he staggered to his feet and started to run.

Attacks were coming faster, he realized, and spun around to skip back and back, not willing to put his back to her.

“Come on, lady; this is just embarrassing!” he shouted as he tried to flip the cloak out of the way. “Aren’t you a queen? Why do you fight like you’re stuck in molasses?”

This… this was the power of a writer. Pissing people off. This was it in its entirety, fully on display, and it was probably going to get him killed, but what a way to go.

The hammer swung at him and he ducked as it crashed through a pillar, which was not part of the plan, but oh well.

“What?! You can’t handle all this sugar?” he demanded as his eyes tracked the cracks in the tile. Five hits, and she was already destroying her throne room. Two more should do it, provided she didn’t hit any more pillars, which he actually needed---

Oh, side hit, and Cillian dropped like a stone rather than bother to catch himself as another pillar was reduced to rubble. Oh, that hurt. That hurt quite a bit. Ow, ow, ow.

Quickly, he tried to scramble to his feet, only to trip over the edge of his cloak and end up on his back instead, head ringing as the hammer started to come down on him. His green eyes went wide, and he rolled to the side, barely managing to get over scraps of rubble.

The hit rattled his jaw, leaving his teeth feeling like they were vibrating. His eyes almost went crossed, and he stumbled to his feet, feeling like he was about to vomit up all of that lucky durian fish meat. Cillian’s knees wobbled, and he promptly pitched over and slammed into the ground.

The hammer was raised, and he realized he couldn’t stand up. No, no, no.

His eyes caught sight of the little blue, white, and green flag on his wrist, and he wondered what Jeremy would say if Cillian told him in the next life he went out flirting with a thirty-foot tall dead woman. He would laugh, probably, and remind Cillian that was why he shouldn’t mess around with women. Or he would be mad at him.

He’d probably be mad at him.

No.

Actually, no.

The hammer was coming down, and Cillian couldn’t even manage to roll. It was all he could do to flop onto his back, then again onto his stomach, and the hammer crashed down.

The ground buckled just like him, and that’s when real panic had Cillian moving. Right. Right, he was about to fall to his death, and he needed to move his ass. Feet scrabbling for a grip, he pushed himself back, and his hand sliced across a piece of rubble. Not even paying attention to that, Cillian scrambled back, back, back, to the raised two steps that encircled the room as the floor buckled, cracked, splintered, and essentially just began to entirely disintegrate with the Queen right in the center.

“RAAAWWWWRRRGGG!” she screeched just as Cillian reached a pillar and swung one last time, and he screeched as he clung to the pillar with arms and legs, but then---

CRACK!

The swing went wide, and the floor shattered.

It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion; you couldn’t look away. Cillian was arrested by sheer horrified fascination as the gaping hole opened in the floor and the Queen began to fall, fall, fall into an inky black abyss dotted with stars.

Oh… Oh, she was going to fall forever. And now he was stuck here, clinging to the pillar and not willing to budge, not even an inch.

He hadn’t thought this one through.

Slowly, he looked down at the expanse of black, and wondered how long it would take for her to die.

“Do zombies need to breathe?” he mumbled.

Wait.

Did he?!