Rose tried to run- she really did.
The Minotaur, despite its massive size, was surprisingly quick.
He brought down the club with a colossal crash, creating a crater in the spot where they'd just been standing. The only thing that had saved them from a rather bloody end had been Steve's enhanced reflexes, the blond all but tossing them both across the clearing in a chaotic pile of limbs, putting as much space between them and the creature as possible. They were only grounded for a moment before the Captain was hauling them both up, eyes scanning the clearing and making an assessment while the monster worked to unstick his weapon from the ground.
Steve knew that they were hopelessly outmatched. While they were both enhanced, the Minotaur was empirically stronger and faster than the both of them. On top of this, the creature was armed- and armed with a weapon that negated their only other advantage (namely Rose's invulnerability). The Captain wasn't unarmed himself- living with some of the most paranoid people on the planet will do that- but he doubted the knife in his boot would be all that effective against the Minotaur's thick skin and the magic apparently shielding it.
Their best chance at survival was to get into the woods and try and get back to the Compound.
Out in the open of the clearing, the Minotaur had an abundance of room to maneuver. The trees, hopefully, would at least slow the monster down somewhat, allowing them to outpace it enough to reach people who could actually fight this thing.
All of his passed through his mind in the half second it took for the monster to free himself.
Rose's brain, in contrast, just screamed "fuckfuckfuckfuck" on a continuous loop.
Wanting to fight and protect the men she loved was a completely different experience to having a giant, bipedal cow try and fucking murder her.
The Minotaur, freshly freed from the crater it had made, whipped around to face the both of them. Seeing them both basically unharmed by its attack, the creature let out another trumpeting bellow, black eyes narrowing as it renewed its charge. Understandably alarmed, Rose went to flee but found herself stopped in place by her boyfriend's grip. Shocked and confused, the blonde half-heartedly tugged at his hand, eyes shooting between the charging monster and determined man.
"Steve?!" Her question came out shrill, the sleeve of her dress tearing as she tugged again. "What are you doing?! We need to-" He cut her off with a glance, sky colored eyes dark and serious when he whispered his response.
"Run. But not yet. If we move now he'll catch us- catch you- and it'll be game over." He nodded minutely at the massive, metal pierced club. "We need him to try and hit you."
Rose gaped at him.
"Are you fucking insane?!" Despite the peril they found themselves in, Steve managed to give her a small smile, thumb tenderly brushing the back of her bicep as he responded.
"It's been brought up before." As quickly as it arrived, the tender expression disappeared, staunch determination and brilliant focus taking its place. "I need you to trust me, Rosie- trust me and do exactly as I say, when I say it. Can you do that?"
What could she possibly say to that?
She had faced darkness and death before and his name had been the first thing she'd called. Magic had taken her anyways, but there hadn't been a single moment that she'd doubted him. How could she doubt him now?
Something inside her settles.
The panicked screaming in her head fades, the racing of her heart evening out to a steady gallop as she focuses on the man she loves. She takes in the tightness in his jaw, the darkness of his eyes, and the fixed set of his shoulders and knows with a bone-deep certainty that he'll do everything in his power to keep her safe.
The realization is both reassuring and terrifying.
She doesn't get a chance to contemplate it further.
In the seconds they'd spent talking, the Minotaur had finally reaches them, angry bellows escaping as it thundered towards them. In the very corner of her vision she was aware of leaves showering down on the forest floor in a flood of red and gold, each massive step shaking the trees as it raised its club to strike them. Next to her, she feels every muscle in Steve's body tense, the grip on her arm tightening enough that she thinks she might actually bruise as the man prepares for something.
The club comes down.
"Jump!"
She doesn't think- she just moves.
They jump at the very last second, just barely dodging the brutal swing if the spray of dirt Rose feels against her back is any indication. Again, they're only down for a second, and then Steve is hauling them both to their feet, sprinting across the clearing and back towards the entrance. Rose hazards a glance backwards and has to stop the near hysterical laughter from escaping her.
The Minotaur is stuck.
More accurately, the club is stuck.
It doesn't hold it for long, but it does buy them some time- time enough for them at least make it part of the way to the entrance. It's free again after a couple of harsh tugs and then the creature is coming for them again, magic sparking off of its skin and blackening the earth around it. Rather than continue their sprint, Steve freezes them in place, turning to face the charging bull in a gesture that was almost intentionally mocking.
This time, Rose doesn't argue.
The Minotaur comes at them, either too blinded by its rage or too stupid to understand what its prey was doing. It swings the club and, again, they dodge at the very last second, slowly but surely making their way towards the relative safety of the trees.
Rose isn't sure that she takes a full breath until they're finally under the canopy.
Steve doesn't bother to relax.
He only takes a moment to shake the dirt from his eyes and then they're sprinting into the forest, desperately racing towards the Compound. Rose, despite her best attempts, finds herself trailing just behind the massive man, her innate inelegance occasionally tripping her up as they all but fly over the forest floor. He only gets a moment to contemplate carrying her when the trees behind them start to explode. Inwardly (and outwardly) cursing, he tightens his hold on her hand and all but drags her through the underbrush, doing his best to both ignore the shattering trees and attempt to catalogue how much distance they have before the Cretan monster catches up with them.
The number he comes up with is less than reassuring.
Gritting his teeth he pulls her onwards, doing his best to emit an air of confidence despite the panic churning in his gut.
He feels like he's been in this place before.
If he focuses, he can almost feel the sun on his skin- feel the tickle of sand against his toes, hear waves crashing against the shore and Rose screaming in pain and he has her, he does, he can save her, he has to-
He can't fail her- he won't.
Not again.
Two things happen at once.
The first, is that the Minotaur finally manages to smash its way towards them. The trees behind them explode in a shower of splinters, the grey skinned creature bellowing triumphantly at the sight of its prey, club raised and ready to strike at them.
The second, and most significant thing, is that Rose trips.
To Steve, it feels like the world stops. He watches her fall, her characteristic clumsiness finally catching up to her, and feels his heart fall along with it. He can see the sharpened club coming down and knows with an absolute certainty that it will hit her- kill her- and he'll have been close but not close enough again-
Not unless he does something drastic.
Really, its not much of a choice.
He yanks her up and forward with the full strength of his enhanced body, propelling her up and out of the way and forcing him back a step and into the divot she leaves behind. He watches her go sailing through the air, periwinkle blue eyes large and terrified as they connect with his, the realization of what he's done yanking a horrified scream of his name from her lips.
Steve isn't scared though.
When the club finally connects with him, he's only really able to feel relieved, one lone thought echoing in his head before darkness takes him.
This time…this time he's finally on time.
-_-_-_-Page-Break-_-_-_-
Rose is pretty sure that the sound Steve's skull makes when the club hits it will never fully leave her.
It's like the whole world has gone quiet, the wet, echoing crunch vibrating between her ears and leaving her cold. She'd only been able to watch, her own flight and subsequent impact propelling her in the opposite direction of the man she loved. There's no sign of movement, not even an attempt to cushion himself when he smacks into the tree a dozen feet from her.
All she can see is red.
She's not even sure that he's breathing.
The noise that escapes her can barely be described as human.
"Steve!" His name escapes her in a hoarse wail, tears streaming down her face as she desperately tries to rouse him. "Steve- please- please get up!"
He doesn't move.
The Minotaur's attention shifts.
She feels the moment its eyes find her, heaving breaths escaping it as it focuses on her face. She fully expects it to come at her- for it to raise that damned club above its head and strike her down in one great, arching swing. She expects it to kill her- for it to put an end to the guilt she can feel eating her alive (she's so stupid- she'd done this- how could she fucking trip- he was dead and it was her fault-) in one brutal movement.
She doesn't expect for it to speak.
"Well…that's a shame- isn't it, Birdie?" The magic around it pulses angrily, black eyes observing her crumpled form with an almost satisfied air. The tone was distorted but unquestionably feminine, insane laughter lining the rhetorical question. "Looked like it hurt."
Rose screamed.
"Fuck you, you psychotic bitch! You killed him!" It chortled lightly, flicking the mace in her direction; the chortle shifted into a full on cackle when she screamed again- this time in abject horror.
There was blood on the mace- and now it was on her face-
And this wasn't a dream.
"That's some naughty language, Birdie-girlie." It glanced at her love's crumpled body, eyebrows raised in mock astonishment. "And a lie on top of it. You're not being a very good girl."
Rose's heart jumps in her chest.
Hope, desperate and terrible, starts to replace her despair.
"You're lying." It clucks its teeth at her statement, idly tapping the bloody club on the floor.
"Rude- and untrue. I never lie." The apparently possessed Minotaur tilted its head, eyes shifting between Rose and her still lover. "Not unless it suits me, that is." Something dark twisted its face, the beginnings of cruelty twisting it's muzzle into something terrible as it began to march towards him. "Is he important to you?"
The blood in her veins freezes.
She can see the intention on its face, realizes what she/it plans to do, and does what she swore she'd never do again.
She begs.
"Hera- No! Please- no! Take me! Kill me- please!" To her surprise, the creature freezes just before his body, black eyes glancing at her curiously.
"Hera? You think I'm Hera?" It cackled, hand tightening around the club as it regarded her. "Oh, she's just going to love that." It clicked its tongue, malicious glee lighting up its face. "Too bad you'll both be too dead for it to matter." Then, before she can do more than raise a frantic hand, it picks up the club and swings.
Desperation the likes of which she's never felt pulses through her and she pushes.
A hollow gong echoes through the forest as the club makes contact- but not with Steve.
There's a shield hovering over his body.
It's a garish, pink thing, shimmering wetly in the fading light- nearly bubble like in texture. It appears almost fragile, but Rose can tell that its not- not by the way the Minotaur begins to smack against it, angry wailing leaving it with every rage-filled swing.
"No! No- nononononononoNO!" It snarled, slamming against the shield a final time before turning to face her, black eyes zeroing in on her outstretched hand. "You! You always ruin my fun!" The creature began to charge in her direction, an animalistic bellow leaving it as it raised its club again. "Parry this you fucking casual!"
To Rose's everlasting relief, she doesn't have to.
Instead, a silvery arrow comes streaking through the trees and slams into the creature's magical shielding, lighting up the tiny space in a shower of white and orange light. Its quickly followed by another and another, each projectile pushing the monster back with an irritated hiss, arms raised and shoulders hunched in an almost protective manner. She doesn't have to wonder at the identity of the archer for more than a second when Darcy is suddenly there.
She can honestly say that she's never been happier to see someone in her entire fucking life.
The brunette comes bursting into the small space with an angry roar, eyes glowing an eerie pale blue in the rapidly fading light. The source of the silvery arrows becomes clear when she sees the white, glowing bow clutched in her clawed hands. Rose can't make out any actual quiver, but the feral woman doesn't seem to need one, instead drawing the shining arrows from thin air and firing them with unerring accuracy at the slowly retreating creature. She makes her way to Rose's side in seemingly no time, taking a small break in her firing in order to pull the much smaller woman to her feet.
"You okay, Rosie?" The blonde let out a choked sob, relief, confusion and terror fighting for dominance as she shakily grasped at her friends shirt.
"I'm- I think I'm okay- Steve-" Darcy cut her off with a tiny growl, pale eyes just barely glancing in the crumpled man's direction before she responded.
"I know. I see. We need to get him to medical." Her voice was more animal than human, each word an almost muffled snarl against her sharp teeth. She fired again, the shot glancing off the creature's throat, the sigils covering it sparking angrily at the hit. She gritted her teeth at the failed shot, doing her best to simultaneously assess the scene and discover a weakness on the creature.
Neither were proving very fruitful.
Her friend was a good twenty feet away from them, prone and unresponsive- the only thing keeping him from being squished by the bellowing Minotaur being a sparkling, pink shield (and wasn't that new). They clearly needed to evacuate him, but the only way to do that would be to sneak him past the creature- something that would be impossible to do without injuring him further.
Their only options were to wait for help (unlikely, given that Darcy hadn't even heard the damned thing till she was almost on them- fucking magic-) or kill the creature and call for help on their phones.
If waiting was most definitely out, killing it was the next best thing.
Darcy was having more than a little trouble with the latter.
She'd shot at just about every vital point that she could reach and the only reaction she'd gotten was for the bipedal cow to hunch over, arms raised to cover its dark eyes from the sparking of her arrows. Snarling at her ineffectiveness, she shot Rose an irritated glance, all but shouting her frustrations at her.
"We need to kill it!" Rose scowled at her, eyebrows furrowed incredulously.
"No shit! Isn't that what you're doing?" Darcy growled at her, firing at the creature's crotch in a fit of pettiness.
"I'm trying but nothing is fucking working! It's like I'm giving Bessie a damned massage! Just-" She fired a couple more arrows, trying to illustrate the fact that her attacks were less than effective. "-everything keeps bouncing off! I can't find a weak spot!"
The Minotaur hissed at them.
"Is that a puppy I smell?" The creature froze, black eyes peering over the arm covering the lower half of its face. "Come to join the party, puppy?" To their combined horror, the Minotaur chuckled, ceasing its retreat in order to slowly make its way towards them, the club dragging loosely behind it.
Darcy gaped.
"It fucking talks?" She frowned, eyebrows furrowing before widening abruptly. "Is that thing possessed?"
Rose had to fight not to roll her eyes.
"Yeah, no shit, Darcy! That just means it'll annoy us before it kills us!" She raised her brows, giving the brunette a beseeching look. "Unless you have a plan?" The brunette grit her teeth, firing arrow after arrow in silent answer.
So far, the only plan she had was to buy them time.
Rose wasn't in the mood to wait.
Jaw clenched, the blonde desperately scanned the steadily approaching monster, searching for any disruption in the sigils hovering over its skin. To her dismay, however, she couldn't seem to see anything- she could only listen as the thing mocked them, spewing hatred and the occasional bought of insane laughter from behind its covered mouth—
The answer hits her harder than the club had.
"Its mouth!" Darcy hummed, shooting Rose a confused look before continuing her suppressive fire.
"I'd wish it would shut it too?" Rose groaned, shifting in her spot as the beginnings of a plan formed in her head.
"No- it's covering its mouth!" Rather than try and explain further, Rose continued with a seeming non-sequitur. "Do you remember that scene in the Fellowship of the Ring? With the cave troll?" Darcy squinted, struggling to keep up with the blonde's thought process and shoot at the rapidly approaching murderous Furry. Rose knew that she understood when her eyes widened, comprehension lighting up her face.
"Oh! Oh! The mouth! Great!" She pursed her lips, pale eyes scanning the thick appendage covering the supposed weak spot. "How exactly do you expect me to be able to shoot it?" Rose swallowed drily, eyes shooting over to Steve's prone form, love and protectiveness filling her up in equal measure.
She had to save him- there simply wasn't any other option.
"By doing something incredibly stupid." The words barely passed her lips before she was moving, sprinting around the still firing brunette in order to head straight for the charging creature. Clearly startled by her sudden apparent attack, the Minotaur froze in place, seemingly bracing itself for Rose to run into it.
Rose knows better than that.
Echoes of her fights in the cage push her past the Minotaur, instead finding her leaping around the creature in order to springboard off of the tree just behind it. She lands on its back with an enraged scream, ignoring the way her palms sizzled in order to inelegantly climb up its back. A great, meaty paw came up to bat at her, but found the effort a pointless one, her experience climbing her tree allowing her to nimbly dodge the desperate attempts to dislodge her. Seconds later she found herself perched on its shoulders, her blistered hands coming up to grasp the creature's massive horns. She latches on and, with a fury filled scream pulls.
The bull screams with her, feminine rage mixed with an animal's bellow as it's head is pulled up.
It's mouth is only visible for a second.
It's enough.
The arrow sails past its barred teeth and directly into its throat, its howl cut off with a muted, wet choke.
There's a single, quite moment where it staggers in confusion, the black in its eyes fading to reveal a muted brown, the club in its hand dropping with a tremendous "bang". Then, without much fanfare, it topples over, tossing Rose from its shoulders as it collapses face first in the dirt.
Rose barely notices.
She doesn't notice Darcy's excited whoop as she celebrates her successful kill.
She doesn't notice when the Minotaur's body begins to dissolve.
She doesn't notice the small, shining fragment left in the dust when it finally does.
The only thing she cares about is Steve.
She's across the clearing and at his side in the span of second, heart racing as she contemplates what she'll find. Her mind races with possibilities, her hope and her pessimism fighting for dominance in her head as she hovers a hand over his bloody, still form.
Her hope says that it's just a concussion- that her touch will rouse him and he'll be fine (he has to be fine- he can't be gone- he can't- she loves him and they're supposed to have a future together, he can't be-).
Her pessimism says that the woman was lying- that she'll touch him and find him cold-
His shoulders move as he breathes.
She doesn't try to muffle her sobbing- partly from relief and partly from new, dawning horror.
Because he may be alive, but there's a goddamn hole in his head.
