The Knight

Terrence again.

Algeria and I had a run in with the Crimson Knight. OR rather, we saw it from a distance and immediately ducked out of sight behind a wall. Thing was huge. Probably 7-8 feet tall or higher. Covered entirely in black, red, and fiery orange armor. In one hand it carried a sword that was probably five feet long and a foot wide. Too big for a normal person to wield, but I dragged it along effortlessly.

"Don't suppose you have anything that could hurt that thing, do you?" Algeria asked.

"A cocktail would be useless," I said. "But this might make a dent."

I pulled a small metal pipe out of my bag. It was maybe a foot long and sealed off at both ends.

"An incomplete pipe bomb?" she asked. "How's that gonna help? That knight is a monster of fire and smoke."

"Making it fireproof, I know," I said. "But not shrapnel or kinetic explosion proof. Bombs can still damage something like that."

"You didn't even give that thing a fuse," she pointed out.

"Don't need one," I said. "Like you said. Monster of fire and smoke. If I can jam this thing in its eye socket and back off before the guy's body heat sets it off, I may have a chance. I'll need you to cover me, though."

"This is the dumber, riskiest plan I've ever heard," she said.

"Oh, you're gonna love my friends," I told her. "You in or not?"

"Hold on...," she said.

She opened her little tin box and pulled something out of it. It looked like a bullet, but it was see through, and had this soft, silver-blue light swirling around inside of it. She snapped the tin shut again and palmed the bullet.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Last resort," she told me. "Now let's just get this dumb plan of yours over with."

We turned our attention to the knight. It was walking away from us, unaware that we were even present. I began approaching it from behind, while Algeria stood back, gun ready. Once I got up close to it, I jumped up and threw my arm around its throat.

My plan was to get it into a headlock from behind and stab the bomb into its eye. Of course, that proved to be a bad idea, as it was way stronger than I anticipated. It through me off and turned to me, roaring. It lifted up its sword, and from this close up, I could see a large horizontal crack about midway down the blade. Must've been damaged while fighting Henry.

Algeria then opened fire, hitting it in the shoulder a couple times. IT turned its attention to her, letting out another roar. It began charging toward her. I frantically scanned the ground for my bomb. I had only dropped it about a foot away, and I quickly snatched it up. Then, channeling my inner baseball champion, I chucked the thing at the knight, hitting it in the head. It stop midstride and turned its attention to the bomb on he ground besides it.

Now, here's the thing about Crimson Knights. There's basically rage and warfare incarnate. Meaning they're very strong, very angry, and, at least in this case, very, very stupid. It hadn't registered that I had thrown the bomb, but it did register that the bomb had hit it, and so decided that the bomb was its enemy. And what do you do to enemies? Well, naturally, you attack hem with a giant flaming sword.

The knight raised its sword, which became engulfed in fire. Knowing what was about to happen, I turned around and crouched down, covering my head to protect myself from shrapnel. I didn't actually see the flaming sword come down upon the pipe bomb, but I sure as hell heard the following blast, and felt several shards of metal hit me in the back.

I stood up and turned my attention back to the knight, who was sprawled out on its back. It's sword had broken in half in the explosion, with both halves lying a few feet away from the beast. Algeria had the same idea as me and had turned away from the explosion to reduce the overall damage. She was lying on her stomach, seemingly dazed.

The knight got to its feet before she did and turned back to her. I drew my knife and called out to it.

"Hey, asshole!" I shouted. "I'm not done with you!"

It turned back to me, growling. I gulped. It stared a slow, angry walk towards me. Red hot smoke started billowing out of its helmet. Behind it, Algeria picked herself up a bit, pulling the clip out of her gun and loading her "last resort" into it. She shoved the clip back into her gun, cocked it, and took aim at the monster's back.

As soon as she pulled the trigger, the air around us grew much colder. The bullet soared through the air, leaving a trail of ice of the ground behind it as it flew. It struck the knight in the back of the spine, and it let out a pained cry, as frost covered its armor, and it slowly froze solid in one place.

"Terrence! The sword!" she cried at me.

Before the thing had a chance to thaw itself out, I ran forward and dived for the lower half of its broken sword. I grabbed its hilt, lifted it up, and brought it down on the knights frozen neck.

Its head toppled to the ground. A few moments later, the ice melted, and the armor clattered to the ground, as the knights body dissolved into smoke.

I leaned against the piece of sword I was holding, catching my breath.

"You and I are gonna have to have a talk about that crazy glacier bullet," I old Algeria. "Just as soon as I do something about all this shrapnel damage..."