Eleni called up a fireball and launched it at Six. Six deflected it easily with a burst of telekinesis, rendering it harmless. Then she went invisible. Eleni shouted in rage and frustration, sending out a volley of smaller fireballs towards the place where she thought Six was. But Six had moved, climbing onto the beast’s head. Eleni was just above her now, scanning for signs of Six.

Six crouched and jumped, propelling herself into the air. She reached for the edge of the hovering platform, managing to grip it with the fingertips of one hand. But it was her injured arm, and her shoulder burned fiercely as she tried to maintain her hold. The platform rocked under the added weight, tipping to the side. Six swung her body, trying to knock Eleni off her balance.

Eleni countered by bringing the end of her staff down hard on where she thought Six’s fingers must be based on the tilt of the platform. Unfortunately, she guessed correctly. Six felt her fingers break. The intense pain caused her focus to falter. She flickered into view. Eleni kicked her in the face, hard, and Six flew backwards, falling onto the monster’s back and rolling. She dug in with her ruined fingers, screaming as they were torn even more out of joint but managing to just hang on. She went invisible again, and this time stayed hidden.

She needed a new plan of attack. Eleni could easily stay out of her reach, and with no immediate weapon at her disposal, and nothing around her to turn into one, Six had no way of knocking her off the platform. I need to bring her to me, she thought. But how? What could she do that would make Eleni come closer?

She decided to attack the creature. Maybe if Eleni thought it was in danger, she would risk coming down from the platform to help it. First, Six attempted to set her broken fingers, gripping them with her good hand and pulling them back into place. The pain was horrific, and it only partly worked, but at least she could move a couple of her fingers now. She turned onto her stomach and began crawling up the thing’s neck, going towards its head. Stabbing the thing in the eye had worked once. Maybe something similar would work again. The only problem was, she had no weapon now.

She reached the spot just behind the creature’s head, but still had no idea what she was going to do. Then she had an idea. She materialized, allowing Eleni to see her. At the same time, she pretended to collapse on the beast’s back, letting her body slump to the side. It took all of her willpower to hang on as pain tore through her hand and shoulder, but she did it. Her head lolled as if she had passed out from pain, her legs dangling along the side of the monster as it rocked back and forth.

Eleni took the bait. Thinking that Six was incapacitated, she formed a huge fireball in her hand. When it was glowing red, she hurled it at Six. Six, watching from between eyelids open only a slit, waited until it was almost upon her, then let go and slid down a few feet, thrusting both hands between a row of scales to stop herself from falling off completely.