Surprise Attack part 2

When Jonas had called out for them to run, Kim was immediately on alert. She'd been suspicious when he seemed on alert about something, when there didn't seem to be anything out of place. When he let her know that he'd tell her later, she was fine with it, but that didn't put her at ease.

When he called out for them to run, she picked up her pace, but was surprised at how slow Elin and Elmo were. Naturally, they couldn't break out into a full out sprint, given the bridge they were on wasn't wide enough to make that safe, especially with the loose rocks and how slippery some had been up to this point.

Then when the bridge was destroyed, she felt more alarm than she had experienced since they'd been getting overrun by the goblins when they were seeking to close the portal. Which somehow felt like years ago rather than merely a little over a month ago.

When the bridge crumbled, Kim felt her heart skip a beat until she could be certain that Elin was on the part of the bridge that wasn't breaking up, though she did feel a twinge of annoyance that Elmo wasn't falling either. However, she turned to look for Jonas and felt her entire frame go cold as she saw Jonas starting to fall.

She could not say what the reason for that was, only that it almost felt like she couldn't afford to lose Jonas, even though she couldn't say why. Only that it felt like if he did fall, that something lost might never be found again, which made her wonder if there might be something about Jonas that she hadn't even thought. Such as why she trusted him so readily when she still had doubts about Elmo. Not that she thought she was wrong about Elmo.

She felt Jonas' weight threatening to pull her off the edge o the broken bridge as she caught him before she was even aware that she'd reached out to catch him. She'd let herself to be pulled to her knees, which allowed her more stability to keep from having Jonas essentially pull her off with him.

When she was confident that the inertia pulling her after Jonas had been taken care of, she then let out a breath of relief before starting to pull Jonas up carefully, so as to keep from slipping and either falling herself or just dropping him without meaning to.

As he reached the level of the bridge that Kim was, he was able to help pull himself up and allow Kim to let go of him while he secured himself on the remaining portion of the bridge.

"What the hell was that?" Kim demanded as she moved back to give Jonas enough room to fully climb onto the stone.

"I'm not sure what it exactly was, but it did cast a shadow but wasn't otherwise visible where we could see it," Jonas answered as he finished climbing onto the now stone ledge.

"So it might be what we saw earlier," Kim concluded, somehow feeling vindicated about that fact, even though she couldn't say why she should feel that way.

"Could be," Jonas acknowledged, starting to move towards the more secure side of the canyon. "Could also be merely another creature like it, but I think you're right. That it's the same one."

"Any guess on why it waited until now to attack?"

Jonas shrugged. "Hard to say. Though, we were in a more vulnerable location when it did attack."

Kim glanced back at where the natural bridge used to be, unable to picture what would have happened if they hadn't started hurrying towards the other side when they did. "Yeah, never thought about how those could be a problem like that."

"Also, if it is the same creature as before, it made a mistake."

Kim felt like Jonas had just slapped her, with how shocked she felt at that statement. "What mistake? What're you talking about?"

"Simple," Jonas answered calmly, like he expected Kim's outburst. "If it hadn't shown it's shadow that time when it did, I wouldn't have been so cautious when I saw the shadow again before it attacked. I might have been suspicious, but I wouldn't have urged us to move more quickly. Though, if that was a deliberate mistake or an oversight on that creature's part, I can't say."

"'Deliberate mistake?'" Kim echoed, feeling like Jonas was making this up as he spoke. "How would it have been a 'deliberate mistake?'"

Jonas nodded, like he'd expected Kim's reaction. "Yes. If it was deliberate, then it would have been to either intimidate us or to try and get us to panic or something. I can't say for sure until I can know what kind of creature it is. Nor can I be sure of if it was an oversight either until I know."

"Uh, I think the shadow's coming back," Elmo commented, pulling Kim and Jonas' attention away from their 'discussion' and towards where Elmo was pointing.

Kim could see the shadow moving along the ground on the path they were on, though it certainly couldn't knock them off like it had tried a moment ago, but she also couldn't say if it was attacking at this point either.

"You know, it only has to wait," Jonas said, startling Kim.

"How?" she asked shortly. This whole situation had put her on edge. She wasn't even sure if it was a good idea to draw any of her swords or not.

"Well, the only way off of this area is either across any of the natural bridges or if we try our hand at some rock climbing, although I wouldn't recommend that, since we don't have any ropes that I would trust to do that with."

"Uh, should we try to run for it?" Elin asked. "We could take different bridges and hope it doesn't go for either."

"It's not a matter of making a run for it," Jonas said. "We can't say how fast it can turn, so if we wait for it to pass before heading across, we still might not have enough time…"

Jonas trailed off which caught Kim's attention as the shadow passed over them, leaving them like it hadn't tried attacking them.

"What is it?" Kim asked, wanting to do something, even though she knew there wasn't anything she could do at that particular moment.

"If Elin uses her attribute enhancement spell, we could see if she could improve our speed through our Agi," Jonas said, sounding like he was formulating a plan.

"Okay, so how does that help us?" Kim asked, feeling like she had to be missing something.

"Well, if it allows us to move faster, we can cross the bridge and throw off the shadow's time of when to try to knock us down again."

Kim looked at the shadow as it started to turn around slowly, like birds do, although the look of the wings on the shadow didn't look like the wings of a bird. Instead, they looked more close to what she remembered seeing on Aquis' back. Although, she couldn't say how similar, since she hadn't seen his wings unfurled.

"Are you sure it'll be that simple?" she asked, hesitant to sound like a 'doubter' since it was times like these that they needed to avoid conflict with each other.

"Not really," Jonas admitted. "I just can't think of anything else to work and it's not like staying here is a viable option."

Kim nodded, a little relieved that Jonas looked at it the same way as she did.

"Although, you know, we could try your suggestion, but with a twist," she commented quietly, the idea still forming in her mind.

"What's the twist?" Jonas asked, sounding hesitant himself, like he already had an idea of what she was going to say.

"As we cross, the shadow will approach, so when it's about to collide with the bridge, if I jump at it, I might be able to land on it," Kim answered.

"What?!" Elin cried, apparently having heard more than Kim would have liked.

"We don't have time to debate," Elmo said. "If we don't go now, it's probably going to attack us if it thinks we're not going to keep moving. Then if that happens, I don't think we'll be able to do much against it."

Kim nodded, feeling like Elmo understood, although she had doubts as to just how much Elmo understood. Not that it mattered. He wasn't going to be the one jumping on the shadow anyway.

"You know, I can't let you do that on your own," Jonas informed her, making her roll her eyes.

"So, you're going to jump too, huh?" Kim asked, already understanding what Jonas was getting at.

"At the very least, I'm sure it'll be useful to surprise the shadow."

"Then the next question is which bridge do we take for that?" Kim asked. "We'll need to pick one that we can be sure where the shadow will be when it strikes it to knock us down."

"What about that one?" Jonas asked, pointing at the one farthest from them. "We were going to take it anyway, and it's the most level of all the bridges."

Kim sighed as she looked down. They were at least fifty feet up. Although, even if they took the bridge with the steepest downward angle, they still would be at least forty feet up. While it's still a significant difference, she didn't think it would matter that much at that height.

"I guess it's as good as any of them," Kim said as the shadow passed over them again. "The question now is when do we go for it?"