Agatha moved as fast as she could, as fast as she thought. It was weird to control two agates at the same time, but she had to do it. There wasn’t another way. She shaped the umbrella that she had been controlling on top of Christie so it grabbed the redhead’s torso from the front as her backpack was on her back, then she locked it in place with Anchor. As for her own umbrella, Agatha shaped it like a gauntlet on her hand and pushed it forward with Speed Control. She felt her arm tear apart from the sudden impulse, but that was the fastest way she had to get to Christie, who didn’t even look conscious as she hung in the air.

  The moment she reached Christie, her body dryly impacting against the girl’s unconscious body, Agatha recalled her agates and placed a platform on her feet. With great difficulty, she grabbed Christie’s waist so she didn’t fall. And with greater difficulty, she maintained her upright.

  Speed Control Anchor.

  The platform started to move, but it was awfully slow with her and Christie on top of it. Agatha looked behind her as the platform rose away from the stream, and she wished she hadn’t.

  First came the sounds as it was really dark and the rain also obstructed her view. They were mighty sounds that even overcame the loud rain. But the moment another lightning bolt fell next to them, she finally saw it.

  It was colossal. A size that defied logic and nature. She could only take in the silhouette in those scarce instants that the flash of the lightning lasted. Tens of meters in size. In all directions. A moving mountain. Cliffs for carapace. Fossilized trees for legs. Boulders for pincers. Agatha wished she could throw a Light agate at the silhouette to look at it better, but she didn’t have the luxury of doing so. Nor that she needed it to know what it was. It was a creature of legend that inspired dread and awe in equal parts.

  A behemoth.

  “KRAAAA!” The megalithic monster shrieked with the weight of the depths. A moment later, it was charging at them.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK! Agatha put more pressure on her lone agate, but it didn’t have more strength; it was at its limit. She couldn’t go faster, and the behemoth was approaching them fast. Colossal was its size, but also the destruction that it brought as several trees toppled with each step that it took. The many-legged monster charged at them, walking sideways, not just ignoring the stream on the ground but outright reshaping it with each step it took.

  Agatha pushed the platform higher and higher up, now happy that Christie was unconscious so she couldn’t look around and panic at the view. Both the heights and the colossal crustacean. That didn’t stop the dirty-blond girl from slapping her roommate so she regained consciousness, but that didn’t seem to help at all. If the rain isn’t waking her up, then the slaps won’t do shit. Remember, Agatha. Remember. What did they say in biology class about unconscious people?

  It was hard to think. Really hard. Using the umbrellas had exhausted far more than she thought, as she barely had any practice using two agates at the same time, and now she was pushing her lone sapphire to its absolute limits. Her head hurt like never before. She wanted to puke. She wanted to cry. And a heavy sleep assaulted her with viciousness as her presence of mind dwindled.

  She slapped herself to regain some focus. A massage in the solar plexus! Agatha's mind was blessed with temporary clarity and, with no shame at all, she undid the first buttons of Christie’s coat with one hand and even more difficulty. Her mind and body were overloaded. She felt herself slipping between the panic and the rain. Agatha pressed her knuckle between Christie’s soft breasts and rubbed them against the unconscious girl’s sternum with all her might.

  In a second, she got a grimace out of the redhead’s visage. In the next one, she had eyes wide open in display.

  “Fractures, that hurts!” Christie shouted violently as she clutched her chest. Agatha couldn’t begin to comprehend how much it would hurt when her knuckles were hurting too from all the rubbing. “Agatha?” She asked in confusion.

  “Yes, it’s me!” She was so happy to see her roommate open, even if it had only been a momentary lapse.

  “What is happening?” The redhead groaned as she continued to clutch her chest and grit her teeth.

  “A behemoth!” She couldn’t even believe it herself. “I have taken to the skies, but it is following… us…”

  As Agatha turned her head backwards, she realized her folly and her heart sank. She had flown too high up and the behemoth had lost interest in them. Instead, the monster had found a new target.

  “Is it going towards…?” Her roommate didn’t even dare finish the sentence.

  “Yeah…” Agatha bit her lower lip.

  She had read in Christie’s stories how characters found themselves at a crossroads and she always thought how stupid it was. There was always a clear decision! She often thought.

  Now she didn’t think that.

  There were many decisions at hand, but all seemed equally awful. Only one thing was clear: if she stayed up here with Christie, they would survive.

  But is that the right decision? Agatha doubted there was a good one, but she needed to make one, nonetheless. The one she was pushing for at the moment was decent, but it left an extremely sour taste to her mouth.

  But… Each second counted, yet her thoughts were sluggish. Can they outrun the behemoth? Maybe Shayla can, but it runs really fast. So fast that I doubt it. They are going to die.

  They are going to die.

  That thought echoed through her mind. While her teammates were incredibly smart, they were only First Stratum lithorists, not even soldiers. And behemoths were said to need entire armies to be taken down. That or heroes like the Shining Knight. There was no chance on earth that Mateo and Shayla made it out alive.

  “Christie,” Agatha said softly. Very, very softly. She almost didn’t even hear her own voice with all the rain.

  “Yes?” The redhead replied as she was pressing against her. Whether it was out of the feat of the heights or the behemoth, or whether it was out of the cold and the rain, Christie was clutching at her and hugging the petite girl with all her might as they stood on their lonesome on that small, agate platform.

  “If I left you on the ground, could you fend for yourself?”

  “I… do not know, but… what are you going to do?”

  “I am going to get the behemoth’s attention,” Agatha stated as a matter of fact.

  “Are you insane?” Christie shouted.

  “No, I have never felt more lucid in my entire life.” And she meant it. A preternatural serenity commanded her when she had been on the verge of unconsciousness a few seconds before. “So, can you do it?”

  “Will you be safe?”

  “Yes,” she didn’t mean it. But she smiled at her roommate, nonetheless. Whatever happens, one death is better than two, and far better than three.

  “I… will do it,” the redhead nodded grimly, her wet hair glueing to her face and coat. “Leave me on the ground.”

  Descending was easy, trivially easy. Agatha had to make the effort to not lose concentration and crash into the ground. As Christie stepped out of her platform, Agatha remained paralyzed for a second. She had so many things to tell her, yet she gave up as she realized that this wasn’t the right moment. Not with the rain and darkness. I guess I have become infected with all the novels she has made me read, she giggled out of nervousness.

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  “Well, I am going to help them,” Agatha didn’t wait to hear Christie’s goodbye; she simply dropped her backpack on the redhead and took to the skies.

  It was easier that way.

  Even though she couldn’t use the Light command if she wanted to keep flying at – relatively – high speeds, she really didn’t need it. For better or worse, the behemoth was easily visible, and flying high meant that the forest wasn’t an obstacle, just the rain that was chilling her to the bone.

  As she flew relatively close to the behemoth, Agatha was relieved to find that Mateo and Shayla were still alive as she saw several lights floating around. But the behemoth was getting close to them. With another taxing dash, Agatha managed to catch up with her group. The moment she did so, she landed and recalled her agate if just to relax her mind for a moment.

  “Agatha?” Mateo shouted in confusion.

  “Where is Christie?” Shayla instantly questioned as everyone continued running, which brought a smile to the villager’s face.

  “She is fine, I carried her to safety.” Well, I hope it’s safe… “I would like to do the same with you, but I barely managed to fly both of us out.”

  “Take only me then!” The Intaksolfani said without a single fucking hint of shame. It was respectable, really. Agatha had never seen that much shamelessness in her entire life.

  The words shocked Mateo, who stopped and turned to throw a nasty look at the dark-skinned girl, and then promptly regretted it as he saw the approaching colossal.

  “I have a better plan,” Agatha explained. “I will get the behemoth’s attention and draw it elsewhere. Probably in the opposite direction where I left Christie so you can meet up with her.”

  “That’s a crazy plan,” Mateo said.

  “That’s a fantastic plan,” Shayla said.

  Agatha couldn’t bring herself to hate Shayla; the girl was so unapologetically and predictably herself that the fault was just in the seamstress-in-training for hanging with the merchant’s daughter.

  “I am open to suggestions if someone has anything better,” the dirty-blond girl scowled, and her teammates fell silent. “I thought as much. Continue running, and once I draw the behemoth’s attention, go in the opposite direction. I would not like to leave Christie alone.”

  Her teammates nodded, and Agatha summoned her sapphire again, her headache appearing as sudden as the blue and translucent stone. Instead of summoning it as a platform, she gave it a conical shape. The first commands were Control and Amplify Spin. The sound that it made was terrifying. Never before had she applied the Amplify and Spin command together, and it took her by surprise. She knew that no matter what she did, she wouldn’t be able to take down the monster. This was a behemoth, a moving mountain, and not measly river crabs like the shalesnappers. But she needed to get its attention somehow.

  Once the agate had gained a lot of centripetal velocity, Agatha removed the Control and Amplify commands – while still maintaining the Spin one so it didn’t hurt her head as it was still active – and substituted them with Amplify Speed.

  Her agate became stronger with each new Stratum, and so did the Amplify command. It was an execution so brutal that even after she had covered her ears, Agatha felt her eardrums tremble.

  Air shattered.

  She blinked and instantly lost track of her agate.

  “WRAAAA!” But there was someone who very much saw it.

  As the lithic and deep shriek echoed through the valley, Agatha was well aware that she had managed to get the attention of the moving mountain.

  That’s not all, big guy! The young lithorist recalled her agate as she couldn’t judge if it had even done something to the behemoth and shot it instantly to the sky. First was Amplify Speed alongside Range. Once she felt like her agate was far away, she switched the order of the commands around so she still maintained Speed, but it now carried Amplify Range too.

  Agatha had no way of knowing how far away her agate was, but she could guess the answer was a lot. Then hastily, she switched commands for she feared her agate might be recalled.

  Range.

  But most importantly.

  Amplify Light.

  Her lone agate was already a second sun when she used Light, but now that it was upgraded with Amplify… She had brought actual day to the forest.

  “Fractures,” she muttered softly.

  Fortunately, her agate wasn’t far enough to be instantly recalled the moment she switched out the Amplify Range, so she really took in her surroundings. The forest was brighter than even during the day. Her agatelight was so scorching that the shadows of the trees were even darker than before she had summoned her agate.

  She could only thank her foresight for not having looked upwards.

  “WRAAAAA!” The same couldn’t be said for someone else.

  If the previous supersonic agate had failed to get the attention of the behemoth, then the Amplify Light series certainly did. And maybe it did so a bit too well.

  The behemoth’s pace intensified in a fit of rage.

  Taking advantage of the fact that her agate was still in the sky even if it was well out of her command range, Agatha started sprinting in the opposite direction where she had left Christie, down to the valley. If she were lucky, her group would find her. If she were even luckier, then the sudden day amidst the storm would alert a certain soldier.

  Her head hurt a lot, but thankfully, her body was still somewhat fresh. Unfortunately, the ground was even fresher. It wasn’t as hard as before to navigate the forest with the newly gained daylight, but the mud quickly sapped her stamina. This part of the valley wasn’t as grassy as the one from the first day, and instead it was rockier, which only made the mud even worse.

  The behemoth had seemed to adapt to the blinding light, for it had no issues following her. Agatha felt the trees topple behind her. Never before had she been so scared in her life. Her heart was beating out of her chest, and she knew it wasn’t because of her mad dash.

  Seeing that her Amplify Light agate no longer had any effect, the student recalled it to preserve a bit of mental presence. Her legs were killing her, but even worse, she felt her consciousness weave in and out. It was a horrible feeling being exhausted both in mind and body.

  Even if she wanted to take it up to the skies – which she didn’t, as she needed to put as much distance between the behemoth and her team – she still wouldn’t be able to. She was that mentally drained. She felt that if she her lone agate another three simultaneous commands, she would just pass out.

  So she ran.

  She ran with all her might.

  She ran as if there was no tomorrow. For she doubted there would be one for her.

  This is the best decision. This is the best decision. Agatha kept telling herself so she didn’t have any regrets. For better or worse, she had saved them. Perhaps there had been another way, but she hadn’t found it. She was just so exhausted… A part of her did lament not being able to become the world’s best lithorist. Especially now that she had discovered the untapped potential of her perfect agate.

  Agatha tripped, though fortunately her fall was mitigated by a puddle of mud. She didn’t take long to get up and running again, but those were valuable seconds she had lost. The toppling of the trees and the shaking of the earth only grew louder. Forget her eardrums, she could feel it in her stomach.

  Her lungs burned. The rain didn’t help at all. They somehow burned yet were one step away from hypothermia.

  She tripped again. This time it took her way longer to stand up.

  She couldn’t remember how long she had been running. It had been far too long. In a final gambit, Agatha summoned the flying platform with the Speed Control Anchor series.

  It worked.

  At first.

  She flew for a hundred meters before her sight blacked out for a moment. It was just a single instant, yet enough time for her impact against a tree.

  “Ah!” The air escaped out of her lungs from the collision.

  The girl tried standing up again, but this time her body finally gave out. She didn’t know if it was the exhaustion or if she had broken something with the fall; she just knew she couldn’t move anymore. With a lot of difficulty, she rested on her back against the tree that had caused the accident and raised a hand pointing at the rapidly approaching mountain.

  She didn’t cry as the behemoth closed onto her, only a hundred meters remaining. She did, however, feel her pants grow hotter.

  “Heh,” Agatha giggled with a nasty cough. “If there’s something remaining of my body after this, at least they won’t distinguish the rain from the piss.”

  She took her victories where she could.

  Because there were none.

  Agatha was terrified. Looming death usually had that effect on people.

  But she also refused to go out without a fight.

  The petite girl shot her agate against the unstoppable mountain.

  Light Amplify Speed.

  She could no longer care about how much her head throbbed. It was likely there wouldn’t be anything left of it beyond red mist in the next minute.

  The first shot missed.

  Even though the behemoth was so colossal, she was on her last stand and her gaze was swaying. It also didn’t help that she had also hit her head on the fall and she was seeing double. Agatha manually recalled the agate before it got out of the recalling range and shot again.

  The second shot clunked against the lithic carapace of the behemoth.

  She had expected as much. But the Light command had helped her see her target better.

  The third shot was a bullseye.

  Her lone and gorgeous sapphire hit right on the overgrown crustacean’s eye.

  “WRAAAAA!” The behemoth came to a temporary halt as he shrieked in pain.

  Perhaps it was as tough as a mountain as her carapace was as thick – if not more – than a whole Fran?ois, but its eyes were still an exposed squishy mess.

  It took but a moment for the behemoth to march again, but with renewed violence and rage.

  The fourth shot…

  “Ukh!” Vomit burst violently out of Agatha’s mouth, and she collapsed on the ground, no longer having enough strength remaining to stand upright even as she supported herself against the tree trunk. Her vision was red. “W-what has happened?” She said between grunts.

  Then she saw it. A dim light on the behemoth’s pincers the size of a house.

  “Ah,” she softly murmured.

  Somehow, the colossal had caught her small agate in its massive appendages. Boulders pressing against a single pebble. And it had cracked Agatha’s agate.

  The girl was so numb, her heart, body, and mind, hurt so much that she couldn’t even feel the pain of having her agate fractured. She was already a dead woman walking.

  Yet as the behemoth approached, she only had one final thought on her mind.

  I should have told Christie goodbye.

  And death came from above.

  EleDraws!

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