Aleksandra crashed to a halt as a stray root caught her by the boot, sending her sprawling into the ground, adding yet more dirt, grime, and nastiness to her already absolutely ruined coat. She seethed internally for a moment, before the reality of the situation returned and she looked behind herself fearfully, expecting to see the beast bearing down on her with murder in its eyes and death for herself. Instead, it seemed to have taken off after Adam instead. She had not properly heard what he had said, her ears still rang slightly with the crack of gunfire, but she could see him flourishing his sword and gesturing, and she whispered a silent prayer of thanks to whatever higher beings were listening as she jumped to her feet.

Adam had given her a moment’s reprieve, and she hastily pulled both of her revolvers from their holsters, hurriedly fumbling for more ammunition to slot into the chambers, including a full cylinder of the smokeless loads she had developed, coupled with ‘dumdum’ bullets to expand within the creature - in theory. She looked up, half expecting to see the thing’s fist raised above her, but mercifully it was still chasing Adam. Something she intended to rectify forthwith.

“Hey!” She called, firing off a shot of black powder and hurriedly slotting another cartridge into the revolver’s cylinder. “Why are you chasing him? I’m off to go flay your mother alive and make pies out of her!” She took aim at the beast, firing a shot aimed at its head - the round missed its mark, but only just, grazing by and slamming into the thing’s jaw instead. Aleksandra frowned, firing off another two shots in the same direction - but both missed, zipping off into the trees behind the thing. 

She had its attention however, and she took aim and fired again, aiming for its legs - another two rounds found their mark, on burying itself in the fleshy section of its thigh where she would be amazed if it did any appreciable damage at all. The latter homed in on its shin, the lead slug digging into the bones and flesh. The creature seemed ill fazed, and only angrier. 

Aleksandra gulped, backpedaling slightly, before mustering her courage. She drew her sword, saving the other revolver and its more powerful ammunition for when she had a better chance of hitting the beast. “Actually, scratch that! I’ll just flay her and…” she trailed off for a moment, “Stab her a lot with my even shinier sword! And then set her on fire!” 

The beast was, once again, charging towards her, but she didn’t flee, instead carefully backing away and towards a tree. Once it was close, she would dive aside and hopefully the monster’s own momentum would carry it into the tree and buy them some time. However, as it began to close the distance, she took aim, praying under her breath that this would have [i]some[/i] effect on its mad charge towards her. 

Six shots rang out, the supersonic crack of the projectiles far louder than other rounds from before. Two shots were aimed at its head, one missed, grazing the shoulder. The other homed in on its neck, burying into and punching out the other side of the beast’s neck. Maybe, if she were lucky, it had dealt some injury to its spine. The other four shots took aim at the legs, two missing their mark entirely and one merely grazing its groin. In her eerie calm as she took aim with the final shot, Aleksandra remarked to herself that it certainly looked exceedingly painful nonetheless. 

The final concussive blast rang out from the barrel of her gun, the bullet speeding along its path and embedding itself within the thing’s knee. Her prayer quickened as she hastily threw her guns back in their holsters, not bothering to draw her blade as the monster neared. When it was scarcely a meter or two away, the earth itself shuddering with its charge, she dove, putting every iota of strength she possessed into her legs to carry her as far from the thing as possible. She landed awkwardly, and a searing pain lanced through her as her ankle twisted. At the very least, it was sprained. 

Silently, she made peace with the fact that she would likely die any second now, and dragged herself around to look at the tree and monster she had only moments before stood in front of.