“Have you found a way to beat them yet?” Faux asked Ezekiel as the two maneuvered around Mourn.
“We might be able to take out the behemoths if we can hamstring them. However…that’s one heck of a hamstring!” Ezekiel replied.
“Leave it to me,” Faux said with a grin, advancing on the giant.
The stealthy rogue slipped up Mourn’s left leg and began to wrap around his knee. As Mourn reached down to intercept the rogue, Faux waved one hand behind him, creating a blade of super fast water to lash out at the giant, stinging its hand. The flinch gave Faux enough time to spin around the giant and slash at its hamstring. His efforts were in vain, however, for the giant was fully armored, especially around the thighs. Before the giant could get a second grab at him, Faux slipped back down to the ground and returned to Ezekiel.
“It’s impossible…that thing has no open spots,” Faux declared.
“Then we’ll make one. Follow me. We’re going to direct the two giants into each other. Maybe they’ll make a swing at each other for bumping into the other,” Ezekiel said, moving towards Lament, who seemed covered with arrows all over his face, and spots of singed armor from lightning strikes.
Ezekiel barreled between Kara and Garis and rushed towards Lament. He leaped onto one foot and rushed to jump off it. Suddenly, Faux Fo landed on his back and pushed off in a flip, landing gracefully on the other foot and leaped off. Ezekiel landed between Lament’s legs and waved his scythe around at Mourn, who mindlessly charged forward with his hammer leading. He slammed the hammer into Lament’s foot as Ezekiel leaped back wards out of the way.
Lament let out a groan of pain and gave a mighty back-swing of his flail that crashed into Mourn’s chest, completely knocking him backwards. Mourn let out a growl and swung his hammer forward. Lament took a blow to the shoulder, but landed his flail on Mourn’s right calf. Both stumbled backwards and caught sight of their original targets. A moment of silence, and then the two moved back to attacking the humans.
“Everyone, aim for the damaged parts of their armor!” Ezekiel shouted, moving towards Mourn. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lament’s flail flying right at him. At the last moment, Ezekiel dove sideways in a mid-air roll to avoid the attack. The flail missed, or so he thought. As he began to rise he noticed a large piece of his gauntlet torn away and a nasty cut running along his bicep. He clinched his teeth in pain and rose to his feet.
“Ezekiel, are you alright?!” Kara called to him, letting fly arrow after arrow on Lament’s wounded shoulder, but doing so in vain.
The earth adept looked about to see that the Bladenheart army had either moved to the eastern walls of Tier Bastion, or fled inside the fortress, Cloud City soldiers chasing after them. Little remained on the battlefield other than corpses, and the group were still doing nothing against the two giants. At that moment Ezekiel nodded his head at a thought he had been pondering on for some time now.
“Garis…move all of your men inside and go with them. I’ve got this under control,” Ezekiel suddenly ordered.
Garis could tell from the look in Ezekiel’s eye that there was no room to argue. With a wave of his hand and a few words, he and his men were off into the fortress.
“Faux Fo, take my scythe. Take good care of it for me, will you?” Ezekiel said next, tossing his favored weapon at his friend, who caught it with a puzzled look on his face.
“Kara…you were right after all. Who am I to argue with the gods? Today is my day after all. I want you to take care of Faux Fo for me. I want the two of you to get out of here right now!” Ezekiel said next.
“W-what do you mean?! Ezekiel, what do you mean?” Kara demanded, fear clearly showing in her eyes.
“If I’m to leave this earth, then I’m using my death for some use…please just go,” Ezekiel said grimly.
“Ezekiel, you know we’re not going to leave you. Not after we’ve traveled all across Liteo! I don’t care what crazy stunt you’re going to try to pull, we’re behind you all the way!” Kara declared.
A thin grin slipped up the side of the old earth adept’s mouth. “So be it…it was a pleasure knowing you both,” Ezekiel said warmly as he pulled out a glowing green stone from his belt pouch. “And so the mountains fall…” With that, Ezekiel slammed the stone into his chest. The stone shone brightly and began to fuse into the earth adept’s chest, veins of green energy forming from the fuse spot and spreading all over his body. Suddenly, his one good eye began to shine a bright green, and even his right eye, which he had lost long ago, shone with energy. His skin all turned to a rocky color, and his size began to grow. Soon, he was as large as the two giants and made entirely out of stone. His gauntlet had fused into his arm as rock, making it appear larger than the other, and the gash in his arm was like a heavy chip. Every scar that Ezekiel ever had on his body showed as a crack or a chip in stone as he looked at the giants face to face. He had become a colossus.
Mourn swung his hammer right at Ezekiel, who caught the neck of the weapon and used the momentum of the swing to get around Mourn and slam his elbow. The shock knocked the weapon free of Mourn’s grip, and Ezekiel slammed it into the giant’s back. A gasp of air left Mourn’s mouth as he crumbled to the ground in pain.
A huge flail slashed across Ezekiel’s wounded arm, causing more of it to flake and chip away. Ezekiel let out a moan of pain, which sounded like trees falling, and fell to one knee. He looked up at Lament as it prepared to strike again, and leaped back to his feet, and in the same motion chucked his hammer.
The weapon hit Lament square in the chest, nearly knocking the giant over. As he began to regain his balance, a rock-solid fist slammed into his face, vines other plant growth immediately growing all around the impact point. Ezekiel gave another punch, making another patch of vines on the giant’s face. As Lament lifted his weapon to retaliate, Ezekiel caught it and jerked it free of the giant’s hands. He spun in a full circle, catching the already risen and charging Mourn right in the abdomen. The giant let out a wail of pain and fell back. Ezekiel pushed the giant all the way over and stomped on Mourn’s chest, weeds and vines growing from the source. A single sweep of the flail crushed the giant’s skull and caused it’s neck to dislocate. Ezekiel continued the swing up and behind him, hooking Lament in the faceplate. A quick jerk yanked the faceplate free, and Ezekiel turned to strike again. A second swing tore off the rest of the giant’s mask, revealing a horribly disfigured face.