28.1ᴘᴀᴛʀᴇᴏɴ.ᴄᴏᴍ/sᴛʀᴀᴛᴏᴛʜʀᴀx

In the aftermath Rain's ears were filled with nothing but high pitched ringing. His jaw and throat ached.

He was stunned enough by his own roar that it took him a moment to realise that the Spider-goblin was drunkenly moving toward him holding up Cairn's axe over her head. Blood ran from her nose and ears but she was still mobile. He struggled to move his body properly, everything felt sluggish and unresponsive. He held up his arms pitifully and the axe came down. By chance she stumbled forward as she swung and the head of the axe flew over the top of his feeble defence leaving Rain to catch the haft on his arms. Crazed eyes looked back at him, Lazia's mouth opened in a silent scream of rage revealing strange spider like mandibles amongst fine white needle like teeth. Rain grabbed the axe and hauled down on it at the same time as he pushed upward. He smashed his forehead into Lazia's face, breaking her nose with a burst of blood. She let go of the axe.

This seemed to knock her free of her mindless rage and fear momentarily crossed her gaze. Then however she seemed to commit herself to her chosen path, her jaw clenching in hard-hearted determination. Her hands snapped out multiple seals and glowing markings washed across her entire body. Violet fire bloomed above her abdomen once more, but this time it did not stop coalescing and the ball of fire continued to grow, three foot, five foot, seven foot across, the heat from the vast ball of fire was enough to scorch the grass.

Rain shielded his eyes from the growing brightness then, finally recovering some basic rationality, he began to step away, wary of the Spider's intent. The Spider matched him and came on. Rain turned tail and fled as solar flares of violet fire began to jump from the fifteen foot wide fireball. It radiated so much heat he could feel it sear his back. The Spider chased after him, fingers swiftly dancing and forming ever more seals.

Rain gripped the axe from where he had been hugging it to his chest out of sight and suddenly, without warning, twisted mid bound, his arm whipping around as he swung his all into it. The axe flung from his paw like a bolt from a crossbow and tore through the air. But Lazia was ready. A solid violet disc conjuring into place in front of her chest to block the thrown axe. Unfortunately for her, Rain wasn't aiming at her body. The axe came down on one of her legs and snapped it like a twig. Rain caught sight of a moment of open dismay on the Spider's face before she came down hard. She crashed to the ground top half first and her abdomen rose up, fireball in tow, peaked, then came plummeting down to earth like a meteor.

BOOM!

Rain desperately flung himself away, but he was still picked up and thrown by the blast like a child's toy to be sent bouncing and rolling across the grass.

He came to a halt in a heap.

Several minutes passed with him unmoving. Then with a groan he slowly lifted his head.

All that was left of Lazia was a crater in the ground.

"Crazy suicidal Goblin… Now I can't eat you…"

With difficulty, he sat up. Every part of him ached. Bruises and cuts felt like they'd been uniformly patterned over his body.

"Ow- m- e-rs"

Rain looked around to see Opal twisting a finger in her ear.

"I can't hear you, hold on."

Rain cracked his jaw and poked at his own ears. The ringing sound dropped off a little

"I said, Ow my ears. I think you scared the snot out of every Gobbo in the damned cavern. First that, whatever that roar was, and then kabooming spidey."

"She was going to blow herself up no matter what I did, she was a, uh, witch. Goblin witches don't seem to like me very much."

"And the roar? I thought the cavern was going to come down for a moment there."

Rain shrugged. "I'm not sure, I didn't know I was capable of such a thing."