Tangoing with a Rock

After having it made it onto the devious island, Aka had been spending the past three hours roaming among the trees until she stumbled onto a group of numerous split pathways. Her decision of having to pick one was cut short when she saw the one obviously assigned to her. “Well that makes it easier.” She mused and begun her hour-long trial.

She had been walking for about fifteen minutes, batting away gnats, and glaring at the sun occasionally for the unnecessary heat—in her opinion—that it gave off. The path had begun sloping upwards along with the ground, so she debated for a little bit on whether to keep following the path. She chose instead, to veer off of it, in case whatever lay over the hill wasn’t friendly.

Aka slipped through the trees like water winding through a river and crested a hilly slope, where a terraced step pyramid could be seen sitting in the middle of the island, a rather large boulder intercepting the middle of the path that led the rest of the way to the structure. She reached into her pocket and whipped out her rifle shades while she spread out onto her stomach.

The orange-tinted shades immediately enhanced her vision and honed in on the entire clearing below. She alternated between zooming in with them, straining to see the least bit thing out of place or abnormality. But her attention kept dragging back to the odd boulder. Now she could see ancient markings craved into the rock.

If she learned one thing as a military teacher, it was to not overlook anything, even the slightest of odd things. Especially with it in such an odd spot. “Requip: Sniper Rifle.” Her favored main gun rested easily in her hands as she propped it on the mini stand.

She used her rifle shades to hone in on her target and released the safety lock, her pointer finger pulling taut on the trigger. “Bang.” She whispered and a fiery bullet flew through the air and struck the rock, only to come ricocheting back at her.

Aka yelped and only had enough time to flatten herself onto the grass before the bullet whizzed by and struck the middle of a tree. “What the actual hell?” She peered up and saw what she thought was a boulder, didn’t even have a single scratch on it. Yeah, definitely an abnormality. But still, from the distance and speed and velocity, a part of the rock should have blown off or at least create a sizeable hole.

Her shades zoomed in again and she would have thought she was hallucinating. What she thought was a boulder, had a light blue light glowing from its carved shape. Something rumbled in its direction and she refocused, seeing another rock emerging from the boulder to sit on top, as well as two long limbed rocks sprouting from its sides and the bottom. It wasn’t until two balls of blue light shone from its face did she realize it was a head. It has a head…

The rock creature stumbled to its feet and gave a groveling roar. Aka winced and got over her shock, quickly repositioned her gun. “Ah shit, this doesn’t look too good.” But she has seen weirder.

“Wide shot.” Aka fired a single bullet before it could move, the bullet splitting into several dozen magical attacks in a wide area, all impacting the rock creature in a cloud of dust and dirt flying.

The guns mage momentarily grinned, only to see it fully and completely moving away from the dusty region. It gave a low growl that reverberated through the earth and instantly locked its glowing eyes onto her faraway form.

Her eyes widened and she fired a quick Sunlight Shot, the bullet releasing a very bright, white light, temporarily blinding the surrounding area, and allowing her to abandon her vantage point without being seen. Aka hurried to scramble back down the slope, clutching her rifle in one hand and sliding back to the main path. Another grumbling roar shook her bones, and she hoped over the hill, seeing the creature’s marks still glowing and it carrying a large a boulder in its hands. The boulder was thrown at her, and Aka had enough time to lash out a Fire Spin, a spiraling torrent of fire shooting out of her hands and to the rock, blasting it into fiery pieces.

It was then that she realized what it was. A rock golem. She had finally pieced it together from its rune-like markings, and the high-resilience it was displaying, pretty much impervious to her attacks. Aka quickly made a mental note and realized she had about thirty minutes left. “Crap, I need to defeat this thing to get inside that building.”

Gripping her gun with more confidence, she hefted the rifle up with two hands and fired off a Sleep Bullet. Due to the bullet casing being made of boron nitride, a synthetic material with a similar structure to diamonds, but the atom structure made up of alternately-bonded atoms of boron and nitrogen, it was able to pierce the hardened structure of the golem’s outer skin. If she could get it knocked out, then maybe she’d be able to past.

But all her efforts garnered her was a completely awake, and enraged, rock golem charging straight at her. Aka gritted her teeth and blocked it’s massive swipe with her gun braced in front of her, but was sent flying back from the impact.

It tore off some rocks from its arm and started pelting them at the scarlet haired female. She dodged one and rolled out of the way of another before utilizing her fast reflexes and hitting them all off like a baseball bat with the body of her rifle. By the last one, she was lightly panting and trying to straighten up. She could have worn her knightmare armor, but didn't feel like doing repairs on the chipped or broken metal. But now that she looked, she could see a small penny-sized hole in its body.

"At least that's something." She huffed and dived to the side once more to avoid its thrusting arm, sweeping an arm of flames at it.

Stepping back, Aka re-lifted her gun and made a split-second decision. Her magic is very versatile, and as such, she has been trying to work on a particular mix of spells. Mainly ones involving her performing gun spells with different bullets. "Sleep bullet." She muttered and flung a wall a flame that would hopefully distract it for a few seconds.

She knew her guns like the back of her own hand, and was able to flip open the action, and detach the magazine by ejecting the cartridge within the span of two seconds. Palming the cartridge of shells, she loaded the Wide Shot spell onto her gun, but replaced the bullets with the ones in her hand. Grinning to herself, she pulled the trigger and let the single bullet, splitting into several magical attacks again, all set to impale the golem.

The golem however, seemed to remember her attack from earlier and thought nothing of it, letting the bullets hit him, then a sudden rumble of surprise as he found that they met their target, several holes throughout his body.

Aka checked her magical reserves and continued blasting shot after shot at the rock golem, letting lose a yell of her own as shot after shot of magic bullets pierced it, while allowing her to advance on it and get closer. She was finally within distance and jabbed the bayonet at the end of her rifle at the creature, only for the entire blade to shatter. Crap, forgot about how tough it is. The golem took her moment of hesitation to swipe a rocked arm at her, thrusting her backwards a couple of meters as she dug the heels of her boots into the ground. That hurt worse than a punch to her gut.

As a last attempt while she had little time left, she used Volcano by stomping her foot and a magic circle formed underneath the rock monster, a miniature volcano of fire literally erupting straight from the ground underneath it. Even though she already knew that such a move wouldn’t work on it, she wouldn’t be seen to the fiery blaze. Aka rallied her magic together, her blood heating up as the magic danced along her bones with a razing impatience. Gritting her teeth, her control over the magic wasn’t properly trained, so she struggled.

When the fire finally cleared, she was positioned a foot away from the golem and managed to just barely unleash all of her fire in a pointed blast, straight from her hands, searing hot flames, with the force of a battering rhino, condensed into a blast aimed straight at the pink gem wrapped in floating markings. Aka heard a crack and poured everything she had, her eyes displaying her determination, her magic following suit. Just once, this one time, I would like these flames to do as I say. The flames immediately stopped at the same time Aka could see the barrier gone and the gem teetering on falling out the other side of the golem.

Wasting no time, she stuck her hand out and clasped the core of the golem, withdrawing a couple of feet to observe the jewel. “Heh, my fire magic isn’t called Untamed Flame for nothing.”

The golem looked at her with its shinning eyes and promptly started crumbling, dust flying about that Aka had to close her eyes. She looked and saw nothing but a pile of dirt and rocks. Aka heaved a huge breathe and wiped the sweat off her brow before stepping over the pile while watching the barrier around the clearing disperse. “I beat the golem.” She said aloud and picked up her discarded rifle, slinging it over her back as she made her way towards the ziggurat, casually tossing the pink gem in her hand.