NOT MUH HUGBOX, KC

Gabriel Kless’ arm ached as another impact hit his shield, the steel denting against the green fist that had struck it. Another blow, the bang resonating. Any more of this and he could swear his arm would break. There was a pause, and finally a third forceful strike, knocking him off his feet onto the muddy ground, the rain pitter-pattering all around him and his opponent.

She dwarfed him by well over a foot, her skin an almost turquoise shade of green. She was slender, yet beneath her arms and legs were dense knotted muscles. Indeed, a figure of martial perfection as she stared at the fallen knight with golden eyes seated beneath two horns, jutting from her forehead beneath a mop of knee length white hair in disarray. She was practically naked aside from the loin cloth around her nethers.

“Get up, little man. You were all talk and splendor only a minute ago. Where’s that bravado you showed me?” She said in accented Common. The young Paladin-Errant could barely hear her voice, his mind reeling from the fall. The villagers hadn’t said anything about a damned Ogre being in their backyard.

The Ogress grunted, gripping the hardened leather jerkin that protected his chest. She snarled bestially, ripping away the dented shield from his aching arm. Nearby in the grass laid his shattered sword, the blood dripping from her knuckles. It had been a blessed blade by the High Priestess herself, nigh-unbreakable.

Yet the brute now holding him like a rag doll had shattered it with enough raw power to destroy a tree’s trunk. His head jerked back and forth as the Ogress jostled him once, twice. Gabriel’s world was spinning on its axis.

“You can’t be finished yet. We haven’t started the fun.”

“Ple... ase… stop.” He groaned.

The Ogress laughed disdainfully, tossing him away from her not unlike a child disinterested in a toy. Unsteady hands groped at the grass and dirt, trying to find anything to use as a weapon. His gloves found the hilt and shattered blade, bringing it up as a last bastion of defense, rising on legs that felt like gelatin.

“I’m… warning… you.”

“Or what? You’ll try to go out in blaze of glory like your brainwashed little Order taught you to? Do you really think you can stop me, boy? You can barely stand.”

Gabriel’s eyes hardened, staring down the towering beast woman in front of him. “It’d be better to die with honor than be taken hostage by a demon such as yourself.” Bringing his right arm back, pointing the jagged blade forward for a stab. His legs moved unconsciously, propelling him forward in a suicidal run, his boots digging into the soft earth.