A thousand thoughts ran through his head in that split moment of quiet after Cedric and Valerian fell. To charge ahead, arms blazing like a madman; to turn and run back to the second stage—he didn’t owe these people anything, he wasn’t going to die for them; to stay frozen on this field of grass and flowers until it was his own turn to fall at the hands of this monster.

Then the Sage Treant threw its head back and let out a deep roar, as if crowing after defeating its enemy, and he knew what he had to do. Screw Cedric, the crew, and all the rest, but if Alex faltered here at the beginning, the first time he came against a challenge that seemed insurmountable, then there was no point in braving the rest of his life in this death game.

There’s no champagne at the end of the race for those who don’t dare, that’s what his father always said when he lectured him as a child. But after his parents and sister died, Alex turned inward—always taking the back seat, always staying in his lane. If for nothing else than to spite the man’s memory, he never reached out to something greater, never had any dreams of a better life.

In that manner, he had failed in his life back on Earth. He knew that. He had let his distaste for his dad turn him mediocre. Only he couldn’t do that in a world like this—hell, he didn’t want to. But to win in this world, he would have to risk everything, to gamble against death every day. To put his life on the line.

So when the Sage Treant brought its staff up above its head as it stood over Valerian’s body, the fireball that had left his hand a second before exploded against the shoulder of the monster, who staggered back a couple paces. It wouldn’t hurt it, not with that damned cloak it had on, but it would buy them a second.

Alex was right behind his trace, running straight at the monster, heart pounding in his chest. It was a bit too much like the first thought he had when Cedric and Valerian fell, but he liked to think he had a plan. He had to risk, yes, but that didn’t mean he had to be a fool about it.

Coming to a stop by the fallen bodies of the two second rankers, he hurled another fireball at the Treant. The monster had barely recovered its balance before the spell burst against its chest, covering its upper half in dark smoke. It stumbled back another step, though only just.

Pulling back on his power, Alex quickly knelt and put two fingers against Cedric’s neck. A second, and he had it. He was no first responder, but he could tell a heartbeat when he felt one. The Treant trying to bash Valerian when he was already down only confirmed it to him. The two of them were still alive.

Daven slid to a stop beside him first. “What are we gonna do?” he spoke between heavy breaths, bow clutched tight to his hand.

“You’re going to get these two out of here,” he said, and by then Diana had made her way to where they stood.

“What about us?” she asked, looking back as her brother grabbed a collar-full of both Valerian and Cedric’s shirts and started dragging them away with no small amounts of grunting and puffing.

Alex was surprised he didn’t hear any complaints from Daven, but as much as he was a loudmouth at times, the archer did prove himself reliable when push came to shove.

The Sage Treant chose that moment to express its displeasure. Waving its staff through the thinning curtain of smoke, it roared again, red eyes on a face all tree-bark much like a Deadwood’s staring straight at them. Alex spared a glance to the tag above the monster, and he was glad to see that it hadn’t gained a Frenzied status like the Killer Sloths had.

More than just a tag telling him their names, he would pay good money to have visible HP bars for monsters like these. Knowing how close they were to being dusted would be a game changer, and it was a puzzling oddity that he had one and they didn’t.

Thinking about it, he focused on his own.

HP: 80/80

MP: 56.3/130

Not good. This much MP wouldn’t last long. And he would bet Diana was in an even worse situation than him. Without Cedric and Valerian to cover as human shields for them, any protracted battle would see them dead.

He would have to be decisive in his use of the power from now on. No, he needed to have been meticulous all along, but moping about it wouldn’t help now. Once the toothpaste was out of the tube, there was no getting it back inside.

Alex forced a smirk on his face. “We take him out, of course.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Are you mad?” Diana hissed.

“No, we take him out,” he repeated. “Vineling hill style.”

Diana opened her mouth to refute him, but it clicked shut. Then she was nodding. “That might actually work.”

“There’s always Plan B if it doesn’t,” he said.

“What’s Plan B?”

Alex stared at her dead in the eyes. “You don’t want to know.” After all, he didn’t know either.

Looking back up, he noticed the Sage Treant was doing the same thing it had done with Cedric. Its staff, the very tip glowing with an ethereal, emerald green light, was pointed at his direction, some kind of taunt or enmity declaration.

Weird, seeing as it was a fucking monster, but at this point Alex had just decided to roll with the punches. Stranger things would no doubt become a part of his life from now on.

And like before, the stare-off lasted just a moment before the staff swung down.

Diana reacted before him. With her hands slashing across the air, she sent a pair of shimmering blades toward the monster, who halted the swing and brought its cloaked arms up to block the attack.

“We can’t let it summon more of those things,” she said quickly, then pointed toward the forest of roots scarring the surface of the clearing. “Or that.”

Quickly looking back, Alex noted Daven had gotten Cedric and Valerian away from the immediate danger-area. Good. “Then let’s get this over with,” he said. “We need to get closer and when it leans down to put us to sleep, we hit it.”

Diana nodded.

One more fireball and another air blade aiming at the head kept the monster on the defensive as they approached it. Alex felt like a character in a first person shooter game about to hit a close range RPG as he went down to kneel on the grass, Diana standing behind him, his two hands aiming up. Fire already played on the tip of his fingers, licking at his hands. Hungry for blood—or dust, as it were.

Growling, the Sage Treant slapped Diana’s last air blade out of the air with its staff. It looked surprised for a moment when it saw them in front of it, but by then Alex had already unleashed a firestorm on the monster. The torrent of fire, burning its way from his chest to the palms of his hands, became a mini flaming tornado when Diana fed her air magic into the mix.

The Sage Treant howled as the flames engulfed everything above its shoulders, and for that split second he allowed himself a mental cheer for a well executed plan.

But then, of course, Alex realized he was an idiot. An absolute, gigantic, soon-to-be dead idiot.

The Sage Treant wasn’t a hill—an unliving, immovable thing. Like any creature in pain, it simply… got out of the way. The fire tornado served as an inconvenient screen blocking his view of anything in front of him, so when the Treant ducked down below the trace, Alex barely threw himself back when the wooden staff came lurching at his side.

It caught him square on the elbow, spinning him. Something cracked. Hot, scalding pain flared all along his arm. There was a moment of vertigo, flailing, blinding whiteness. A breathless grunt escaped him as he hit the ground. Then Diana was pulling on him by the armpits like a child, dragging him away from the Sage Treant. A bump had his broken elbow hitting his own knee, and Alex had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from crying.

“Alex!” He heard Diana’s worried voice as if from beyond a tunnel. “Alex!” She pulled him harder every time she said his name. “Alex!”

“What happened?” That was Daven, sounding far away.

Another spike on his arm, like someone took a mallet to his bones. Come one, snap out of it! Grunting, Alex found his feet, if only so she would stop knocking his elbow and near sending him into catatonia.

He blinked up, Diana and Daven crowding around him. “I’m fine,” he said through gritted teeth. Alex forced himself to look down at his arm and regretted instantly. Yeah, not good. Taking a giant staff to the arm was not conducive to the human constitution. But at least no bone had broken the skin. That, at least, was good. He couldn’t let them know the extent of the injury, since he planned to heal it right now.

“It’s just a bruise,” Alex said, trying for nonchalance. The hissing after every syllable probably didn’t help.

“Just a bruise?” Daven said incredulously. “I heard that crunch all the way back there.”

“Let me check it,” Diana said, reaching for his arm.

Not a chance.

Waving her away and ignoring the protests, Alex turned to the giant elephant (antlered-monster-demon) in the room. The Sage Treant was howling up a storm, rubbing its face on its cloak. Dark smoke rose from behind its arm. Alex caught a whiff of kindling in the air and shook his head. He had just gotten his ass kicked by a walking bonfire.

“We should leave now,” Daven blurted out, eyes flitting between them and the Treant. “Diana and I can carry the two of them, at least for a bit. Then we’ll make camp for the night, or at least until they wake up.”

“And how far do you think we’ll get between the three of us against all the monsters in the second stage?” Alex asked acidly, then immediately winced. The pain was making him a dick. Shaking his head, he stood to his full height. “Look, we have better odds here than out there with two dead weights on top. We’ll go with Plan B.”

A reckless dick, too, but what did he have to lose? Besides life and limb, that is.

Diana started, “Alex—”

He turned and looked both of them in the eye. “Just trust me.”

A heartbeat and he had his answer. “Fuck it,” Daven said, “let’s do it.”

Beside him, Diana simply sighed. “Fine. What’s the plan?”

Alex nodded his gratitude. They placed an unhealthy amount of trust on a two-day old crew mate, but who was he to complain?

“Daven, I need you to stop him from moving his arms, even if for a second. Can you do that?”

A grim smile appeared on the archer’s face. Next thing he had two arrows on hand, a thin cord tied behind the fletchings stretched between the two. Alex was counting on that.

He turned to Diana. “Two things,” he said. “First, some air distraction. Then, the same you did for Cedric.”

“The same… are you crazy?” she hissed.

Alex shrugged. Maybe he was starting to be. “Can you do it or not?”

Diana bit her lip. “If it doesn’t work…” she trailed off.

“If it doesn’t work… run.”

Daven laughed.

With Plan C settled, Alex let the power fill him again, the thrumming heat coursing through his body was the tiniest comfort for the pain around what was left of his elbow. His plan was a bit audacious, sure, but he had already decided to gamble. This was simply him being pushed into an early all-in. Not ideal, but it would have to do.

The sinking feeling in stomach threatened to pull him under a pit of despair, but he didn’t let himself be paralyzed by it. He took off at a dead sprint. Every step was a stab at his arm, a knife sawing against bones and muscles and nerves.

The Sage Treant saw him coming and growled in anger. It knew he was the one to burn it. Its bark-face was charred and cratered by the firestorm, but it wasn’t dead. Alex was looking to fix that inconvenience.

He ate the ground between the two of them quickly. Blood thundered against his ears. He didn’t bother when the Treant made to swing. Daven trusted him to make the plan, so Alex had to trust him now—had no choice but to trust him.

And he was rewarded as the arrows flew ahead of him, crossing each other in front of the Treant before being yanked out of their trajectories to wrap around the monster. Alex had no idea how the feat was done, but it did its job. The Treant's arms snapped to the monster's sides, a flicker of what could pass for surprise flashing in those red eyes.

Alex let a nasty smirk show. Cedric wasn't wrong in calling this 'Enhanced' a bastard. It would, indeed, pay for his arm in blood and dust. He jumped without looking down, soared for a second before his right foot found purchase in what should be empty air. Diana had come through.

He jumped again, and suddenly he was of a height with the Sage Treant.

MP: 23.6/130

The number blinked faintly on the corner of his eye. It wasn't much, but he had already found a way to do the most damage with as little as this, even if it had a slight kamikaze-esque appeal to it.

The fireball in his hand writhed as he poured all the mana he had left on compressing it. He didn't have to look to know it had suddenly shrunk down to the size of a coin, snapping and crackling unstably in his palm. It wouldn't last two seconds before going off on its own. With a roar, the Sage Treant flexed its arms and broke Daven's restraints.

Too late.

With his own war cry, flying through the air like a human bullet, Alex shoved the tiny fireball against the Treant's face. There was a flash, then the world exploded.