Like an ancient monolith, Terminus stands over the forest, piercing red eyes tracking the light of Roxie’s sports car amongst the trees. Below, the trio races to come up with a plan, all while assailed by the ever determined Knights of Unending End.

Autumn veers to one side, slamming into a golf cart full of knights and forcing it into a tree, taking it out with a twisting crunch of metal and bone.

“What’s the plan?! The Apocalypse Trigger’s been met-”

“It has not been met!” Autumn cuts Serra off, “Terminus must escape the forest first!”

“Then let’s kill it first!” Serra swings her arm to take out a motorcyclist, their bike tumbling off behind them, “take us round the front!”

“Much easier to say than achieve!”

Roxie’s car rips through the forest, veering around towards Terminus’ back. The beast tracks them through the trees until they pass its rear legs where, all too soon, they lose its attention. The walking disaster begins, slowly, to move forward, each step sending quakes through the earth.

A hail of bullets from Serra’s revolvers bounce off its hide, ineffective. Terminus continues to move forward, the weather growing steadily worse.

Roxie takes a deep breath, reaching out to her natural fairy magic; an ancestry with a deep connection to nature, and nature here is abundant. The clouds overhead rumble more, louder, the thunder matches Roxie’s rhythm, a beat to her music.

Lightning splits the sky in a flash of pure white, piercing the air and crashing into Terminus’ back; the beast staggers, roaring in pain. Electricity arcs across Roxie’s guitar strings, racing through her fingers and up to her elbows. The fairy drops back, slamming her shoulder into the corner of her amp.

“Fuck! Ow!” she clutches her shoulder, rolling awkwardly into the footwell.

Terminus recovers slowly, swaying side-to-side, smoldering cracks across the entirety of its broad back. Autumn swerves right, towards its tail.

Arrows from the Knights of Unending End whistle by, clattering off the car and Autumn’s plating. Two of them sink into Serra’s arm, to little effect, but one catches Autumn in the neck.

Finding a gap between the metal plating, it makes a horrible grinding noise as Autumn’s body begins to shudder and shake. It’s all the automaton can do just to keep the car straight. Terminus’ tail swung downwards as they raced under it, with no way to swerve.

Serra is out of her seat in a flash, drawing her katana. Power surges through the blades as she sweeps them overhead, slicing clean through the monster’s tail. It falls to the ground with a thud, crushing the Knights unable to swerve in time. With reduced numbers, the Knights keep up the chase.

“Not goin’ anywhere now!” Serra grins, wiping blood from her eyes.

“Not until it kills us,” Roxie grabs Autumn’s headrest and pulls herself to her knees in the footwell, tugging the arrows out of Autumn’s neck and shoulder. Their mobility still reduced, but with the obstructions free they’re able to drift the car to Terminus’ left side, “let’s piss it off more!”

“Perhaps if-”

“Watch it!” Autumn had taken their eyes off the road for a second and Terminus unleashed a breath of black smoke and bile in their path. Serra grabs the wheel and yanked it to the right, steering between the monster’s legs.

The Knights’ vehicles may have matched them in speed, but their handling leaves much to be desired, and the zealots careen into the ruinous breath.

Rusted vehicles and rotted bodies roll pathetically out the other side, the withering of a hundred years had snuffed their lives out in an instant. The King slams his foot into his subordinate’s wrist, their buggy swerving wildly to the left.

Another Knight’s vehicle collides with their rear end, sending them spinning out into the trees, safe on the other side of the Primordial Reckoning’s breath. Their companion vehicles are not so lucky.

Beneath Terminus, Autumn takes back control of the vehicle, veering left towards its head. One massive foot lifts into the air, mud and rain-soaked stone crumbling off it, and comes back down above their heads.

Autumn releases the wheel, leaving Serra to dive for it, and raises both arms overhead, forming a chronomantic circle. Magic sweeps out across the leg and spreads to the rest of the beast, slowing it in time to a near halt.

The car speeds along under its slowly encroaching foot, the light of safety just ahead. Autumn rattles and shakes, desperately holding on to the magic they had summoned, while Roxie wraps her arms around their shoulders from behind the seat, humming a panicked tune to help maintain their strength.

With a triumphant roar of the engine, the car races out of harm’s way, but the edge of the foot clips Serra’s horns as they go, slamming her forehead into the windshield. She loses control of the car and it spins out in the mud.

Rattled around, Autumn nearly flies out of the vehicle, releasing control of their magic to grab a more secure position as the car slides to a halt. Terminus’ foot slams down with increased speed, the quake sending Autumn tumbling over the hood and onto the ground, profuse smoke billowing from beneath their metal plate skin, “Serra! Now’s our chance!” their voice compresses and distorts as chronomantic energies wrack their body.

Serra shakes her head clear, clambering onto the hood. With a wide stance, she inhales deeply, the slit-like vents in her side expanding to draw in more air. Her chest swells slightly, a glowing pink energy rising from the tip of her tail, through her spikes and along her spine, through her chest and up into her throat. Smoke leaks from the corners of her mouth, the energy fills her eyes, and she unleashes from her maw a beam of pure, concentrated, fiery power.

It impacts Terminus’ chest and began to carve its way inside, red hot cracks spreading across the beast’s skin, starting to crumble away. With a pained roar, the energy splits huge tears across Terminus’ body and rips out of its already fractured back, stretching into the clouds.

The Primordial Reckoning staggers and sways, the rain dies out and the thunder stops, clouds clearing to let sunlight once again break through, shining onto the trio through the bloody hole they had carved. Terminus dips to one side and collapses, a deafening boom echoing through the forest as it hits the ground in a cloud of splintered wood and splattered mud.

Serra blinks in the light, smoke billowing from her mouth and nostrils. With a heavy sigh, she falls back onto her butt, seated on the hood. Her tail flicks out happily, slapping the windshield, “still alive, Autumn?”

“Ask me again in five minutes.” Autumn’s speech speeds up and slows down at random, shaking and twitching painfully.

“Ow…” Roxie blew gently on her scorched fingers, “apocalypse averted, mission complete.”

“I’m not-”

“Blasphemers!”

The shout shakes the weary group from rest. The King, stood proud upon a battered buggy, a handful of surviving Knights at his side, races towards them.

“Infidels! Cowards! Bastards!” he screams, “cut them down! Kill them! No mercy! Fight to the death!”