He saw the darkness engulf, and without looking, he knew what it was. He felt a jolt of energy surge through his body; he quickly grabbed Helena by her hand and pulled her, trying to pull her out of harm's way.
The gray foot crashed down and they felt the impact reverberating in their teeth. They had just made it out at the nick of time, the foot was just by their side.
The other foot crashed down a few feet from them; they were between the giant's legs, and it wasn't making any moves to walk past them. Dorian looked up and saw the tattered brown tarp the gray giant wore around its waist.
It was lean but had really toned muscles and had parts of a brown cylindrical structure sticking out of its chest, with several red flashing lights on its base. Dorian not wanting to believe they were captured tried to pull Hellena away but she grabbed his hand,
"No!"She says, Dorian saw the look in her eyes and knew what she meant.
She reached into her pocket with her one good arm, the one she'd spent the whole time healing. She brought out a gold coin and handed it to Dorian
"Take this," he takes it. "go that way, run north, run as fast as your legs can take you," she says. "You'll find a cave. There's a tunnel inside, follow it to the end, and you'll make it to Styx, throw the coin in the water, and tell them you're headed for doom."
Dorian nodded his head. He was mentally exhausted at this point, and they could both hear that the giant had begun moving again. They looked up and saw its hand coming down to get them, like the claws of a crane
Now go! She tells Dorian. He turns to leave and realizes if he does, he'll be leaving without her. He turned back and by the look in his eyes
Damn he's gonna cry again
Dorian wanted to speak but before he could she cut him off and said,
"Don't worry, I'll be fine"
He vice come of cold, but with a hint of finality, like she wanted to see this through to the end to play her part, to see him make it to Styx
"Now go already!"
Dorina saw the hand was so close and took off running; his legs were still mending, and he was still slow, but he powered through despite being in great pain. The giant went after him, trying to grab him as ran.
But its biggest mistake was ignoring a war mother. Hellena formed one of her circular portals and pulled out another Gatling gun. She grinned maniacally as she aimed for its joint,
"I always wanted to kill one of these, let's see if I can do it on my back"
The fingers were almost wrapping around Dorian, he could see their black tips from his peripheral. He tried his best to go faster but his speed kept decreasing.
His muscles couldn't stand the strain they needed time to heal; they were tearing apart with every step, and he was falling further and further into war machines' grasp.
She placed the gun on her across her body, trying to get the right angle to fire from. Time was running out, but with her other hand badly damaged, she knew her attack had to be a precise one. She turned her head to get a good view of her target.
How could she keep a mechanical behemoth like a Gatling gun at bay with only one hand? She slid the gun gently between her chest and prepared herself, for she knew this would cause her damage, too.
The gray fingers closed in on Dorian, and he made a last-gasp effort to leap with all it might, to propel himself out of its reach, but would his leg let him jump that far? He didn't know, he felt they couldn't but he was down to his last option.
He saw the black tips of the war machine fingers, he could feel the heat from them and resolved to jump.
Running against the sand of a desert wasn't easy, but jumping against it wouldn't take you very far; it was his last bet now.
He put pressure on his toe and power into his legs; he moved his center and felt his femur break under the weight. The two pieces rubbed against each other and created an excruciating amount of pain that caused him to slip and fall as he found himself shrouded in the shadow of the giant gray hand under the blazing noon.
A deafening drumbeat cut through the air, it sounded like a raging thunder, but under those clear skies, it could only be one thing, the Gatling gun.
A spree of bullets shot out in red-hot streaks that exploded against the elbow of the war machine, crippling the arm in mere seconds.
It looked down for the source of its anguish, and underneath him, between his legs, he saw the war mother with the gun against her breast, her arms wrapped around the trigger and the tip of the barrel balanced on her chin.
Balancing the tip on her chin was the only way she could properly aim it with one hand.
Dorian opened his eyes and saw the hand withdrawing. He got up quickly and saw it retracting back towards Helena; her last words echoed in his mind, and he took off running, running toward the caves.
The gray giant wanted to stump her to death now more than anything. It raised its legs and she smiled and said
"You shouldn't have done that."
She raised her legs up to her body and held the gun between her knees, pointing it upwards, she pulled the trigger, sending a flurry of bullets flying up the giant tarp and hitting it between the legs. In its groin. It growled and took two steps back.
"You want a vasectomy huh?" she screamed at the giant, it growled back at her.
Dorian kept running as fast as he could; he could hear Hellena scream at the war machine, but she said not to look back, and he did as she wished.
Soon, he could see the caves; it was a rocky region. He kept going; he heard the war machine growl, but he kept going.
The war machine growled at her and charged in, sending its foot crashing down on her.
The war mother opened fire unleashing a cacophony of thundering blasts that shook her very core.
She couldn't keep the gun steady, but she sent enough firepower to tear through the giant's foot. Blood rained out of the face of the foot, but it still crashed down on her all the same, and she smiled as it did.