Back up, so you can shoot it!

You take a small leap backwards, skidding on gravel as you land, and raise your arm as fast as you can so that you'll be able to fire a shot at the monster. Time moves in moments as your feet fly and land backwards as fast as they can, while the grey-skinned monster in front of you snarls and rushes towards you at its own much faster speed, trying to make up the ground you gained with the leap before you can line up the pistol for a shot.

Your front leg rises, moves backwards, and crunches down into the gravel path below you. Your gun arm is halfway up and moving, and in the few moments that all of this is happening, the monster is nearly upon you. Before your arm finishes its rising arc, the monster is within scything range again, its right arm pulled back and ready to strike in the rapid instants you know it to be capable of. You close your eyes as the gun rises higher, nearly level to the monster's neck as it stands right in front of you, ready to strike, and.....

The scythe comes down hard on the side of your body, {if Armour == 2}right into your unprotected torso{else}colliding against your armour with a ching and sending a jolt of **** through your side{endif}. You bite your teeth together and squeeze your eyes tighter, expecting more pain to come, but it stops there at just the feeling of mild impact. You open your eyes just in time to see the second strike, which comes down on your chest and knocks you back to the gravel path partly stunned but entirely unharmed.

You blink and quickly check yourself as the monster growls and stalks closer towards where you're scrambling backwards along the path. It's not just that you aren't feeling hurt, you actually aren't hurt at all. The monster's {if@ ExplosiveShots == False}scythes are way blunter than you'd expected them to be, given the way they look{else}scythe is way blunter than you'd expected it to be, given the way it looks{endif} -- apparently Professor Phoebe was overselling the personal risk a little bit.

Still, it didn't feel good, and it won't look good on a report card! So you're not too thrilled when the monster winds back {if@ ExplosiveShots == False}with both scythes at the same time in preparation to hit you extra super hard!{else}again, in preparation to hit you extra super hard!{endif}

twang

wooossshhhhh

skkiiiienn

The monster lets out an angered snarl, and whips its head to your right side, where the crossbow bolt that just skkiiiienned off of its armoured flank came from. You look too, and see Jace peeking out of the little hut's window with his crossbow. Without a moment's pause, the monster dashes off towards him at rapid pace, kicking up a small dustcloud that you have to cough away as it rushes towards what it perceives to be a bigger threat.

"Ungh!"

There's a loud CLANG to your left, as Cameron connects with a powerful shield strike to the head of the monster he'd been facing. It falls to the ground, stunned, before quickly scrambling back up to its feet awkwardly and sprinting all wobbly back in the direction it came from. Cameron looks over to you, and offers you a hand up, which you take.

"That.... probably could've gone a bit better for both of us." He says, panting heavily as he pulls you to your feet. He gives you a little smile, then looks over to the hut where your monster's now just about reached Jace. "Ah, hell. I'm gonna- oh boy."

With that, and a quick tightening of his left forearm's shield straps, Cameron starts to run his way over to the hut to help out Jace. You look over to the bridge. The monster that Cameron was fighting has reached the bridge now, and is about to partner up with the solo one that Delilah's been going against to no avail for this whole time.

To your right, that other monster is about to cause some real problems for Jace and his crossbow in the hut. You look back and forth between the two places, trying to decide where you'd be most needed, and only having an instant to decide as you reload your pistol up to maximum capacity with the impact bullets that jingle loosely in your pocket.