20 The Chief

Ian's head tumbles to the ground, coming to a stop in front of the Chief that I had forgotten about.

He raises his foot, places it on Ian's head, and crushes it with a sickening crunch.

A similar scene pushes its way into my head. Rat jumping in front of me.

A sword buried in his skull.

His blood seeping across the ground as I run away.

(No, not again. Why does this shit happen?! WHAT THE FUCK!)

My vision goes red and I fly at the goblin chief with a roar that no human should be able to make.

Ripping my sword out of its sheath, I swing wildly at the bastard. Each of my attacks are missing by the slimmest of margins.

(No, he's dodging them.)

I can form thoughts, but my body moves by itself. There's no strategy, just attack.

The Chief stays on the defensive, not letting my reckless assault get to him.

(Die you bastard! DIE!!!)

I continue the barrage, putting all of my power into each attack.

I don't even give him time to counter.

Sweat is flowing down my face, drenching my clothes and flinging off of me with every swing.

My blood pounding through my veins as my thoughts become even fuzzier.

Every heaving breath burns my lungs, but I my body keeps going.

Mid swing, a few droplets of my sweat fly onto his face.

The Chiefs face instantly fills with disgust and rage.

With an angry shout, he parries my sword up then kicks me in the stomach.

I tumble back at least 10 feet, roll a few times, and slowly slide to a stop.

When I finally get my breath back, I move to my knees and throw up breakfast.

Luckily, I kept a grip on my sword and didn't stab myself.

(That cocky bastard.)

He's slowly walking towards me, dragging his sword through the dirt. Drawing upon the last of my energy, I push myself to my feet.

I have a slight handle on my anger now, but only one thought is going through my head.

(I'm fucked.)

I'm barely blocking his attacks. My arms feel like lead, and every time I lift them my muscles complain.

Cuts run across my body. At some point, he cuts my eyebrow and blood flows into my eye.

(Shit, he's going to split my head open!)

Pushing my screaming muscles to the limit, I manage to get my sword up in time to stop the strike from splitting my skull.

Unfortunately, the sword's redirected down and into my shoulder. My arm muscles had given out at the wrong moment.

Pain courses through my body, bringing me down to my knees.

My sword falls feebly from my hand and I nearly black out as he pulls his sword out.

I can't do anything as he raises his sword for another attack.

The final attack.

All of a sudden, everything slows down.

The Chief looks like he's swimming through molasses. A drop of sweat slowly tumbles down his face, moving slower than a snail.

[Possible Candidate Found]

His face gradually lights up in slow motion, a triumphant grin painted across it.

(Possible Candidate?)

My thoughts are all over the place, pain still coursing through my body.

His muscles tense, preparing to bring the blade down.

[Starting Analysis]

(An analysis?)

Unfortunately I don't get the chance to see more.

Moments before the Chief starts bringing his arm down, Alcon slams into him with a snarl on his face, and everything turns back to normal speed.

The Chief stumbles back, barely getting his sword up in time to deflect Alcon's next strike.

Pushing the strange words out of my head, I try to get back up to help Alcon. With my good arm I weakly try to wipe the blood out of my eye.

My other arm hangs uselessly by my side, and before I can get to my feet, someone starts dragging me backwards.

Luckily, I'm being dragged across soft grass, otherwise the trip would have been a lot more painful.

When we finally come to a stop, I can hear Natalia desperately mutter a healing spell.

A green light shines around my shoulder and I can feel the familiar itching of the wound closing.

She also casts a stamina recovery spell on me. Matt hands me healing and stamina potions too.

In no time, I back on my feet, getting ready to charge back into the fight.

My murderous aura fills the air, but I stop when someone grabs my sleeve.

Natalia's eyes are on the ground. Droplets of liquid drip down, disappearing in the grass.

(Is she, crying?)

"Why are you being so reckless?! Do you want to die too!"

I jump a bit at her sudden outburst.

"No! Of course not! But I can't let that THING get away with that! I can't let my party members get killed! I can't let what happened to-...I can't let that shit happen!"

I almost blurt it out without thinking, but manage to stop myself in time.

My reaction takes her back for a bit, but she regains her composure.

"So you don't care if you die?! Well I do! You're more of a friend to me than that bozo ever was! He only joined the party, and our group, today! And he only did it to get into my pants!"

This helps me calm down a bit, but I can still feel that rage burning through my body.

(I didn't particularly care for Ian, but that hobgoblin killed someone that I needed to protect. The same thing happened with Rat. I could have saved him, saved them both. But I'm just not strong enough.)

Ignoring my thoughts, I start taking deep breaths and doing breath exercises.

Eventually, I'm back to my composed self.

(Thanks for the training Burch.)

I turn back to Natalia, the polar opposite of earlier.

"Do you have enough mana to cast another round of buff spells on me?"

Looking surprised by my sudden change of composure, she just nods.

"Good. That's probably the only way I'll be able to win."

As soon as Natalia finishes casting her buff magic, I start turning back to the battle.

"Be careful!"

I stop momentarily as Natalia blurts this out.

After giving her a small smile, I face the fight.

Seeing the Chief, I can't stop my eyes from narrowing.

"Don't worry, I'm planning to kill that bastard."