Golden Girl: The Missing Piece (2)

13- I Get Punked by a Couple Potato-Headed Monsters

Bit of a long chapter, hope you don't mind!

Ember had never heard either of her two friends scream, never heard that level of fear in Indigo or Addy's voices, but she abandoned her original trajectory to head East any way.

They screamed and screamed, she ran and ran. She was nearing the clearing by the pond, nearly frozen over for the winter. She didn't know what situation she expected to find her friends in, but whatever she'd expected wasn't what occurred. She skidded to a stop, narrowly avoiding a tree trunk-sized club that came down at her from above.

She rolled, getting some distance between her and... a troll? It was enormous and tinged the color of a booger from clogged sinuses. She studied the bulbous nose and tiny eyes, marked that even a head twice the size of her body was dwarfed by the potbelly that protruded below. He only wore a loincloth. She tried not to look. 

It was safe to say that the life-sized, moving and breathing troll was much worse than the one she'd seen in her Defensive Magic textbooks.

Scanning the immediate area, her eyes caught on a tall bush, wedged in between the trees. She didn't remember... oh no. The bush grew taller as the body beneath it rose to its full height, a similar size to that of the troll.

"You don't look like you'll make much of a meal."

She'd been played for a fool. All that preaching to her friends about playing this smart, about how she was equipped for these sorts of things, and she'd just played right into these monsters' grimy ass hands. She'd just assumed the worst when she'd heard her friends' voices, playing like a loudspeaker over the forest.

Ember stared at the Cyclops standing next to a fully grown mountain troll, and not for the first time, wished to be anyone else. Her friends weren't here. Cyclopses could mimic human voices perfectly. They'd probably heard the girls when they were out here in the days prior, and tonight when Ember came back to the forest alone they used her friends' voices against her. The instinct to run to her loved ones wasn't ever going to be something she could unlearn. Of course she could just run away now, it was unlikely that either of these creatures were fast runners. But even though trolls were dumb as rocks, the Cyclops would eventually find her and drag the troll along. She'd face this fight now, or soon.

So she chose now, when there was no one else around to be caught in the crossfire.

She drew her sword from her necklace, flipping it in her hand to expel some tension and energy. Like a dog and a squirrel, Ember's motion drew the troll's attention, bringing him to yell and charge her, club swinging. She only had a moment to think, but... New York Forest, half of the trees were hardwood trees... that was likely a club made of oak. One of the harder of hardwoods, if Ember remembered correctly. If she got hit by that thing she'd be unconscious, dead, or horribly injured. So, 'avoid the club' was her first priority.

Ember ran, taking a flying leap onto a low tree branch, feet balancing precariously on the bark. The troll ran and swung at her, so she leapt again as the club hit the wood below her with a crack. The tree splintered and groaned. An idea began to form as the troll lashed for Ember again. She jumped again, to achieve the same result, a splintering sound. She caught a glimpse of where he'd struck, an elongated indent in the shape of that club, bark stripped away. The troll yelled as she evaded him, nonsense syllables and just general noises. He managed to do it twice more. The groaning of those trees grew louder, so Ember leapt back into the clearing, sword whirling again.

"Come on, you idiot! Come get me!" She screamed, waving her other arm above her head.

He yelled again and launched for her. She ran again, this time toward the troll. She darted between his legs just as the trees started to come down. Five trees fell one after another, and it was the third one that knocked the troll to the ground unconscious, the fourth and fifth that locked him under a pyramid of logs. Ember herself was small enough in comparison that she used the troll's body to climb out of the pile of wood and smelly flesh.