A fresh form of panic struck my heart as I stared down at the vines. They sprouted from the ground just beneath my feet. I squatted down and wrestled with them, trying to break free before I had to shut off Fight and Flight. Yet even with my heightened speed, I couldn’t get a good grip on the vines, they tightened even more. All the while, the boss’s silvery liquid slithered across the ground unopposed.

  Since when could it use vines? I thought to myself. Usually, the monster’s abilities made sense and were in line with what you could see. Boars charged, wolves bit, moose…magic missiled. Okay maybe it didn’t always make perfect sense but still this felt wildly unfair.

  Did the boss really need two forms of crowd control, the metallic liquid and plant manipulation? Like seriously. It’s not even my first time being bound by them in this godforsaken world. The only time I’ve ever seen that power was from that… I paused for a moment, staring blankly at the plant growth currently choking the life from my ankle.

  It clicked. Oh, that bitch!

  These vines were nearly the exact same as the ones Lirae used to keep me chained up back when I was first brought into the city. But it doesn’t look like I can use the same trick as last time to get out. I’m already in my shrunken form.

  I turned off FnF, it was just a waste of stamina at this point. Why prolong the inevitable? She won. She’d been trying to get rid of me for a while and she just found the perfect way. Let the idiot new recruit who bum rushed the boss face the consequences of such a stupid action. She could always get rid of the vines and none would be the wiser.

  “And just after I got away from its grasp too. Eh, can’t say I didn’t try.” I sat down, all of my motivation to fight drained away in a heartbeat. I’d lost and had no way of fighting back. I didn’t have another daring escape in me.

  The liquid, only a couple of feet away from me, didn’t stop its assault. Why would it? I looked up and saw that the boss was a good thirty feet away from me, and wasn’t closing in either. Which meant I couldn’t even complete the one quest Tutor gave me in this screwed up world. The boss was simply too far away.

  Its head lumbered around as one of its eyes skirted around the battle, the other stayed focused on me, never once turning away.

  “Well, maybe when it comes closer to finish me off.” I chuckled morbidly. “Why not? Maybe the reward for mimicking him is a get out of jail free card. Or a free reincarnation card. That’d be more helpful. Just slap that down on Terrence’s desk when I see him. If I see him.”

  I laid down on my back. The flames that lit up the night raged on, swirling and exploding. A beautiful, awe-inspiring sight that I hadn’t had a chance to fully enjoy until now. I shook my head in disbelief, Len really was a legend. If only I’d listened to his advice and avoided the boss.

  As I closed my eyes, waiting for the metallic liquid to overtake me, thoughts of my family ran through my head. My siblings annoying me, my mother making breakfast, my father showing me something on his computer, some garden work with Gran, a wilderness trip with Gramps. All of it came crashing down on me at once. I was done. I lost.

  And if that wasn’t enough, I felt the vines move further up my leg. It felt like Lirae was just adding insult to injury at this point. She already won. What need was there to humiliate me further?

  But the vines didn’t stop writhing. They climbed up my leg, then my other leg, then my whole bottom half. Before I knew it, the vines covered my entire body, leaving just my head free. I reflexively jerked my body, straining against the vines.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Imbecile,” was the answer I received. It was Lirae’s voice, coming from one of the vines nearest my head. I looked down and saw a small pink flower on my chest. But before I could question it, the vines constraining me stopped slithering. They locked into place and I couldn’t move an inch.

  “Hold still.”

  My body lifted off the ground as the vines beneath the dirt pushed me skyward, a good twenty feet into the air if I had to guess. I sat in the air, completely immobile, for a second before the vines released their hold on me. They unwrapped themselves quickly and swirled underneath me, flattening out and creating a platform. I got to my knees, I was suspended above the battle, looking down on it from above.

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  It was a wild sight. I could see different pockets of the battle. Different squads fought with reptiles of all shapes and sizes. Even a couple of the overgrown Reptans as well. Except now, I could see the tops of their heads.

  I eventually made my way to the edge. I was wrong about my initial guess. I was closer to forty feet off the ground. Heat from Len’s flames hit me in waves now, as sweat collected on my forehead. I was way closer to the flames up here.

  A roar bellowed from underneath, one powerful enough to cause me ears to ring even this high off the ground. I looked down and saw the boss rushing for the giant stalk I was on, its red beady eye still looking up at me.

  “Ahem, I believe I said to hold on. That is an order, soldier, not a suggestion.” The pink flower, no longer on my chest but at the edge of the platform, spoke again.

  Deciding not to question it at the moment, I replied. “Lirae, um thanks?”

  “That’s Mayor Laurellen, to you.”

  “Right, of course, uh, your Mayorship.” I swear I could hear her facepalm at my stupidity. But after all of this craziness, I felt I deserved some slack. Two stare downs with the Grim Reaper should earn a man that at least.

  Following her orders, some vines grew up near my hands, giving me something to grab on too. Without hesitation, I grabbed down on the vines. Not even a second after, the whole platform shifted. It leaned to the side, bending towards the monsters’ side.

  It took all of my being to stifle the scream growing in my chest as the stalk moved, but my grip held. The stalk stopped bending. I sat upside down, holding on to the platform with all of my might, unsure of what was about to happen. Yet, for some odd reason, the image of a catapult flashed in my head.

  “...Oh, dammit.”

  And I was correct. The entire stalk whipped the opposite direction. At the height of the arc, the vines I used as handholds slipped back into the giant plant. Which, in turn, sent me flying off into the stratosphere. Well, worse actually, I was heading straight for the flames I was just admiring a minute ago.

  My limbs flailed as I rocketed across the sky. “SHIIIII!” But before I could finish the curse, my body stopped, landing into something hard and metal. “Ow.”

  An armored arm reached around me and held me up. I looked at it and saw some familiar black metal.

  “Denn’s furry bollocks, you have to be the single largest moron I’ve had the displeasure of saving. Charging straight at the boss. Idiot.” Jaren said.

  I never knew insults could be so calming, but Jaren’s jeers meant one thing, I was safe. Well sort of. I looked down and saw that we were still way too far away from the ground, even higher up than the Lirae’s giant beanstalk stood.

  “Thanks, huff, Jaren,” I said, trying to catch my breath.

  “Eh, wouldn’t go thanking me yet. You need to get back down there, while I need to stay up here. And there’s only one way for that to happen.”

  I looked at the ground, then back to the half elf carrying me.

  “No…”

  “Yep, don’t worry. You’ll be fine. Definitely.” He tilted his head to the side. “Ehh. Probably.”

  “Wait, why do you need to stay up here anyway? Can’t we both drop down? Actually, how are we even floating here?”

  “Trick Len taught me.” He clicked his metal boots together. I looked at his feet and saw a green energy swirling around them, causing him to float. It looked just like when Len used his flames to fly. “But it's hell on my stamina, don’t know how he does it. Enough chit chat. Down you go.” He opened his arm, his hand holding onto the back of my armor.

  “One more thing, if you want to distract yourself from all that falling nonsense. Just keep your eyes on me. I’m about to do something really damn awesome.” Yet before I could say otherwise, I was falling again.

  “NOOOO!”

  I fell with my back pointed to the ground. Jaren gave me a little wave before grabbing on to his double bladed sword with both hands. He snapped it in half somehow, now carrying two swords, one in each hand. He shifted in the air, flipping upside down, blades pointing to the ground. Pointing straight at me actually. His eyes gleamed bright green through the slits in his helmet.

  Green energy exploded at the base of his feet, propelling him down. He flew right past, just barely missing me with the blades. The wind pressure from his passing flipped me around a few times until I stopped, the front of my body now pointed at the ground. Once I got my orientation back and stretched all of my limbs out, I saw what Jaren had launched himself at, the boss. The giant pale Gexen sat directly underneath us, standing on two legs.

  Jaren suddenly tucked his legs in and started somersaulting in the air, making sure to keep his blades out. Soon green energy covered his blades. He flipped a few times before he was just above the boss. It roared up at him in response, but it was too slow.

  A massive explosion of green and silver energy detonated as soon as the two met, cutting off the lizard's roar. The shockwave from the blast threw everyone in a hundred foot radius around the two off their feet. Monster and soldier alike.

  Then I felt it smack into me, making me shut my eyes. The force from the blast was enough to stop my rapid descent for a split second. I opened my eyes again, to see the aftermath. Surely that insane attack had to injure if not kill the beast.

  Jaren hung in the air just above the boss, his blades stuck in a wall of the boss’s silvery liquid.

  That was a problem. Jaren’s problem at least. Not mine. For I had my own pressing matter. I was still falling.