The Troll lumbered out of the cloud of dust and wood particles, its eyes shining like two green spotlights. Simon had no idea what this “green trance” was that the Troll was in, but he knew two things; it was heading towards Freemont because of it, and it snapped out of it for a moment if it got distracted. Luckily, Simon could be very distracting.

Bolts of lightning flew from Simon’s arms. Again, they seemed to have no effect on the Troll, even on the scar on its neck. Simon took a moment to compose himself. He steadied himself, focused, and fired one large bolt at the exposed skull. That got its attention.

The Troll was obviously sick of this human’s antics, because it began charging at Simon full throttle. Again, Simon ran at the Troll. His leg cried out for him to stop, but he refused. He wasn’t just running in blindly this time. He had a plan.

Just as Simon was about to be impaled in the chest by a tusk, he extended his right arm downwards, launching a bolt of lightning into the ground next to him. The resulting burst flung him to the side and the Troll ran past before skidding to a stop. Simon tumbled across the ground and landed on his back.

“That could have gone better. I’ll have to practice later.”

He slowly got to his feet and stared down the Troll again. He didn’t have to kill the Troll, just distract it, which meant he just had to focus on staying alive. Easier said than done. At least the Troll couldn’t hurt him if he stayed far enough away.

Just as he said that, the Troll slammed its fists onto the ground. As it did so, the ground heaved, and suddenly Simon was facing a wall of earth heading straight towards him. Simon panicked, it was too fast and wide for him to try to move to the side with his lightning blast, and it was too tall to jump, which meant there was one way around this.

Remember Simon, when you create something using magic, you can’t just think of it as another tool or another weapon. It is a part of yourself. It is an extension of your mind and your sheer force of will. And well…

Simon summoned his blades.

When your will is strong enough…

He waited until the wall was directly in front of him.

You can accomplish greatness.

He slashed his swords, and instead of being hit by one large chuck of rock, he was pelted by smaller, but just as painful, rocks. He fell backwards as one of the larger rocks hit him in the gut. He collapsed to the ground and tried to catch his breath.

“I need to work on that too.”

The Troll seemed furious as Simon climbed to his feet, blood dripping from his forehead.

“You’re going to need to do more than that to kill me.”

* * *

Lucy was running. She had never had to run away from danger before, and part of it exhilarated her. The rational part of her brain, meanwhile, told her to stop enjoying this and get to Freemont. Then there was the part of her brain that wanted her to turn around, to help Simon. She tried to tune it out, but the sounds of lightning and roars from behind her made it difficult.

Eventually she got to the edge of Freemont. She slid her father’s gun into the holster she had strapped to her hip and went up to the crowd that had gathered to look up the hill.

“Miss North!” It was Henry, the salesman, “What is going on up there? Is that man you were with causing trouble?

“No! Well, kind of, sort of, it doesn’t matter! You all need to get out of here! There is a giant Troll up there and its heading right for Freemont!”

“A Troll? Miss North, monsters haven’t come anywhere near this town ever since…”

Lucy grabbed Henry by his collar and pulled him up close, so he could see the sweat on her face and the determined anger in her eyes.

“Listen up you annoying little man, my friend is up there sacrificing himself to save your asses, so if you don’t gather your loved ones and get the hell out of Freemont, I will make sure that something kills you, and I can’t guarantee it will be the Troll. Do you understand!”

Henry shrunk into his shirt and nodded. Lucy let go of his collar and he ran off. She turned to the other people nearby.

“Well?! Get the hell out of here! Tell everyone in Freemont that there’s a Troll coming!”

As the terrified citizens ran from her, Lucy turned to look back up the hill. It looked like a wall of stone had burst up out of the ground. She wanted to fight, she wanted to help him, but she knew that she had her own job to do, and so she ran.

As she ran, yelling for everyone to get away, people began to believe her, and soon most of Freemont was scrambling around trying to find everybody, and get them out of town. Somebody ran up to Lucy as she got near the center of town.

“We can’t find the mayor anywhere! Have you seen him?”

“No, I haven’t, why?”

“The mayor’s office is back at the entrance of the town. If he’s in there and doesn’t know about the Troll…”

“Shit! Alright, keep getting people out of here, I’ll go back for him.”

Lucy ran all the way back to the mayor’s office. She tried pulling on the door, but it was locked.

“Mayor Gryffin! Can you hear me!? Open up!”

Either he wasn’t here, or something bad had happened. What should she do? She was running out of time!

“GWAAR!!!”

Out of time.

* * *

The Elder Troll swung its arm through the first building on the edge of Freemont. It was close to what it wanted to get to, it could feel it. The human with lightning arms had been annoying, but after a while he got too slow and got flung into the remains of that wooden structure. That was good.

The Troll smashed through another building and was very disappointed. There weren't humans anywhere. Why couldn’t they stand in his way so that they could be crushed while going after the thing? The Troll really wanted to get to the thing now. As long as the human with the glowing stick-thing didn’t come back, things would be fine. Was it a different human this time? It didn’t matter, it still hurt. At least Troll bone is thick on the head, unlike on the neck. The neck is very sensitive for Trolls.

After smashing through a few more buildings, the sensation that had been pulling it to this town became overwhelming. Nothing was going to stand between it and its goal. Except for that human standing there in front of where the thing was.

Wait, that human has the glowing stick-thing! This was terrible! The Elder Troll forgot about the thing for a moment as its mind clouded with rage. It only knew one thing. Kill the human with the glowing stick-thing!

* * *

Lucy was looking straight at the Troll. She was sure that it was going to run at her, but it began clutching its head instead. She took the opportunity to start climbing up the side of the mayor’s office, the stone cutting her hands. Maybe getting to higher ground would help.

She got to the top of the building and stood on the uneven tiles. Her palms were covered in blood, but she didn’t even feel the pain. She pulled the gun from its holster and looked at the Troll, who’s head was now at her eye level. Black smoke was oozing out of the wound she had given it earlier, making it hard to see.

She tried to find the scar that Simon had mentioned, but between the smoke and the rolls of fat that came down from the monster’s chin, it was nearly impossible to get a good shot. The Golden Bolt was ready, but she had to aim it just right or she would have to wait again.

While she stood there like an idiot the Troll decided to take a swing at her. She was able to roll out of the way, but the Troll’s claws nicked her side. Now she was bleeding from climbing a building, getting clawed by a Troll, and by rolling across a roof. So why was she having so much fun?

The Troll attacked again, cleaving tiles off the roof, leaving deep gouges in the stone beneath, sometimes revealing the wooden ceilings of the rooms beneath. She fired a regular shot with her gun, hoping it might do something, but the bullet just lodged itself inside the creature’s bulbous flesh.

She prepared to reload and fire again, maybe distract it and get it to reveal its neck, but then she remembered something. She had never tried to reload a gun while trying to dodge the claws of a giant monster. She barely dodged out of the way, but fell onto a section of exposed wood and crashed through it.

Lucy slammed against a desk, and could definitely feel a crack come from somewhere inside her. She sat up painfully and looked around. It seemed like she was inside of the mayor’s study. Luckily, he didn’t seem to be there. Hopefully that meant he was out of harm’s way.

The desk had broken open, and papers scattered everywhere. She noticed that one of them was printed on an official-looking piece of paper. She seemed to forget what was happening for a moment as she picked up the piece of paper. She glanced through it, reading some of the passages.

“We expect the test to be conducted with in the month. Failure to complete the Lord’s orders will be paid with your life.”

What was this? She scanned over a few other pieces of paper, seeing repeated words that painted a dark picture. Debt, reward, destruction. What was Gryffin up to?

She realized that her hands had a slight green tinge to them, as though green light was shining from somewhere. She looked around and noticed something that had fallen off the desk. It was a little glass orb, and contained within it was what looked like a small crystal. It was pulsing with green light. She picked up the orb and gazed at it. Then the she remembered why she was in here, just as the wall in front of her was torn away.

The entire front half of the building was shredded into rubble. Now there was only half of a room remaining, with her inside of it. The Troll raised its arm, ready to strike, and Lucy knew she would not be able to dodge this.

Then, the Troll slowly lowered its arm. Its eyes began to glow a green color, and it seemed fixated on the orb in Lucy’s hands. She slowly moved the orb from side to side, and the Troll’s head followed it.

“Maybe we can make him friendly?”

The Troll then looked at Lucy, its eyes still green, and growled in a way that made her feel it didn’t like her holding this.

“Or maybe not.”

She threw the orb as hard as she could into the air. The Troll reached up to grab it and lifted its head, revealing a large white scar on its neck.

“I hope this works.”

She raised the gun, and pulled the special trigger. The barrel of the gun flashed, and a golden bolt of light erupted from it. The spear of radiance struck the Troll in the neck, piercing through the scar, and coming out of the other side.

The Troll stopped moving, and its eyes went from green to black. The glass orb fell and smashed to the ground, the small crystal bouncing across the pavement. Lucy leapt and grabbed it before it could fall down a crack in the ground, and she stared up at the Troll. Black smoke seeped out in gallons from the hole going directly through its neck. But the Troll remained motionless.

Its eyes moved down and stared at Lucy, and for a moment looked like it was going to attack her. But then it decided to sit down instead. It laid across the buildings it had just destroyed, and closed its eyes. The wound on its neck appeared to grow, spreading across the Trolls body and reducing it to nothingness. The last thing to go were the eyes, which opened once more before they disappeared forever and stared at the human that bested them.

Lucy laid down on the cold stone beneath her, trying to ignore the pain. It was over. But did everybody make it out in one piece? Was Simon alive? And if he was, what was he doing right now?

* * *

Simon was laughing. He had probably broken most of his bones and lost enough blood to feed a million mosquitoes, but he was laughing.

“I told you *cough* it would take more than that to kill me! Ha! Ha! Ha! *hack*”

He had danced around the Troll for a good amount of time, only to lose focus and get flung into the ruins of Lucy’s house. After that, the Troll apparently lost interest in him. He slowly sat up, wincing in pain, and looked around.

Everything was destroyed. The bed, the fireplace, the bookshelf, nothing could be saved. Wait, what was he sitting on? He leaned to the side and pulled a book out from underneath him. It was a leather-bound tome with nothing but “Zachary” written on the front. He remembered seeing Lucy read it, and slipped it into his bag.

He then realized how quiet it was. He turned to look at Freemont, and his jaw dropped as he saw no Trolls anywhere within the general vicinity. He was about to express his surprise when somebody else did first.

“What the hell happened to the Troll?!”

Simon turned to see a familiar old man come waddling out of the woods. He didn’t seem to notice the mud and blood caked Simon amongst the rubble.

“Ah, you can’t tell me that somebody killed it, no, not possible, no. The Troll killed the magic boy, so what killed the Troll? I need to go down there, if they see me calm and collected they might think it was no big deal, yes, perfect. Then I will wait. Ah, this stupid town will be rubble before the month is out!”

“Excuse, me. Mr. Gryffin?”

The mayor turned sharply in Simon’s direction, his mouth hung open. Simon was brushing the dirt off of himself, ignoring the pain and trying to act confident and steady.

“What was all of that you were just saying?”

Gryffin began stammering uncontrollably, letting out a stream of ahs, wells, and ohs. Eventually he got out a coherent sentence.

“I… ah… you didn’t, hear that… no?”

“I heard everything. But go on, explain why this is just a big misunderstanding.”

The mayor’s hands were shaking violently, but he was still able to reach into his jacket and produce a gun. He pointed in at Simon, hands shaking.

“Ah, you heard it, but you won’t tell it, no. You died tragically in protection of Freemont, and will be remembered until its eventual demise, yes.”

Simon laughed. He stared the mayor straight in the eye, and his arms began to crackle with sparks of electricity.

“Go ahead old man. You’re going to need to do more than that to kill me.”

The man collapsed to his knees and put his head into his hands.

“That’s it. It’s over. Either I stay and get tormented by these people, or I leave and get tormented by the man who wanted me to do this. And even if I escape both, I still don’t have the money! There’s no escape! My life might as well be over!”

“Wait, the man who wanted you to do this? What are you talking about?”

“It’s over, it’s all over, it’s hopeless, over, ah, no, can’t…”

Mayor Gryffin slowly raised the gun to his head. Simon leapt forwards to stop him, but it was too late. Simon’s mind reeled as he took in what he had just witnessed. He leaned over and threw up the last of “The Kraken’s Fury”.

He collapsed to the ground, head spinning as he stared into the sky, which was slowly beginning to darken. Stars could barely be seen twinkling, and Simon slowly closed his eyes and his mind went dark.