(AN: I suggest listening to 'El Dorado' by Two Steps From Hell while reading this chapter. It brings out your feels.)

The tree crashed down into the camp, nearly pinning Sophie under it. She yelped and jumped back as Zack wrestled with a demon-possessed blender. The evil appliance kept whirring angrily, and it sounded suspiciously like it was cursing and swearing.

Zack was also cursing and swearing as his hands got cut up in the blender's container.

Sophie looked around frantically, her eyes landing on Zack's backpack. She grabbed an electric dagger from the bag and chucked it at the blender. However, Sophie had never been one for good aim, especially when she was fighting monsters at five in the morning. The dagger lodged itself in the fallen tree, which promptly burst into flame as its wood came into contact with the dagger's flickering sheath of electricity.

Zack cursed and looked to Sophie. "Whose side are you on?!!!"

"Yours! I just haven't had my coffee yet!!"

Zack laughed and then yelped; the blender had gotten hold of his arm and was trying to pull it into its blades. Suddenly, before even the blender could do any damage, a shadow fell across the now-burning camp and a huge monster crashed down. It was at least thirty feet tall and equally as wide, with pale greenish-pink skin that dripped with yellowish sweat...at least, that's Sophie hoped it was. Judging by the creature's stench though, the probability of the liquid being sweat was very small. The monster carried a club and bore an underbite filed with large broken teeth. It may have had eyes under all its fat rolls, and maybe even a neck beneath all of its fifty chins. Sophie just wished she couldn't see its nose, which was like a pig's in that it was upturned and covered in snot. The creature also carried a club stained with what was hopefully rust-colored paint.

Sophie took note that the thing was bringing its jiggly arm back and that the club seemed to be coming her way.
WAIT. Sophie yelped and scrambled to escape the next death-by-uprooted-tree. The monster ignorantly stepped on the blender and killed it, unknowingly exorcising a demon and saving Zack from becoming an impromptu amputee.

Zack gripped his bleeding wrist and struggled to stand up. Sophie ran by him and yanked him up, Zack yelping in protest. "No time for complaining about your slit wrist, Zack! Right now we kinda have to worry about impending doom." The giant bellowed and whirled around, accidentally kicking Zack's bag. It flew forward and landed conveniently on Zack's head. Sophie turned and cupped her hands around her mouth. "THANKS, YOU OVERGROWN BUCKET OF LARD!!!" she shouted. Then a whole new wave of monsters erupted from the trees, tearing down the hill after Zack and Sophie. Sophie's eyes widened. She grabbed Zack's bag off his head as he staggered blindly, trying to wrench the thing off his face. Sophie dug through the bag and pulled out and dangerous looking gun. "What does this do?!" she shouted.

Zack flipped his shaggy black hair out of his eyes. "That's a prototype! " he replied. "I haven't finished it yet! I don't know what it does!!"

Sophie whipped around backwards and braced herself as she ran. She pulled the trigger and a beam of blue hit the giant. It turned blue, then disappeared. Sophie looked at Zack. "Now you know what it does!!!"

As they ran, Sophie shot at monsters. Even with the numbers she was killing, more would replace them. A shadow demon took the form of a wolf and loped down the hill, catching up with them. Sophie looked behind her.

She decided to run faster.

The demon gained regardless, and tripped up Sophie using its paws. It flipped her into the air and caught her in its mouth. Sophie tumbled into a cage of darkness and coughed. It smelled like her mother's cobweb collection in there. At least she still had her gun. Sophie realized that the sides of the demon were also thin and made of smoke. She stuck her hand out of its side and fired at monsters blindly.

The demon ran ahead of Zack, overlooking him. Zack stopped, dumbfounded. All he saw was a big black dog tearing down the hill with a gun sticking out of its side, killing monsters at random with bolts of electricity.

Inside the demon, Sophie cursed. "HEY, FIDO! IT'S DARK IN HERE!" Fido wouldn't listen. Probably because its name wasn't Fido. Sophie frowned. "I CAN'T AIM!" "Fido" still didn't listen. Or maybe it didn't care.

Zack was trying to catch up with "Fido" to free Sophie when the demon began to glow blue. It stopped and whimpered. Then it exploded. A couple seconds later, Sophie landed on her feet in a cloud of smoke. She coughed and looked at Zack, who bore a very very confused expression. Sophie cocked her head. "Did you know that it's really musty in the belly of a shadow demon?"

"....I do now...."

Sophie laughed and looked at the gun. "You should patent these," she suggested. "And I get to keep this. On another completely unrelated subject, I think we should run." Zack turned around. The Author had unleashed the big guns. A flock of holograph dragons screamed down toward the two.

Zack grabbed Sophie's hand and pulled her down the hill. "You're such a genius," he called above the wind, "you should be a professor!!!"

"Shut up, you idiot."

"Okay, marmalade."

"I SAID SHUT UP!!"

"Maybe."

"I hate you."

Zack smiled wryly and glanced back at the dragons before looking forward again. "You love me," he muttered out of the side of his mouth.

Despite the circumstances, Sophie's face flushed red. "You shut up or I'll feed you to the dragons chasing us," she hissed.

Suddenly one of the dragons flew overhead and crashed to the ground, dislodging it and creating a giant catapult. The upturned rock flung Zack and Sophie into the air. They screamed, tumbling through the air like rag dolls. The dragon snapped at them and tried to grab them.

Sophie looked down midair. The town in the valley was fast approaching. Zack reached into his bag as he fell, grabbing what he could from it. Clicking and tinking noises were heard as he furiously assembled something, falling faster and closer the houses below. Finally Zack held onto what he was making, snapped a cord with his teeth, and braced himself.

Two aerodynamic wings shot open and threw Zack upward as he grabbed Sophie around the waist. The mechanism whirred and creaked, and shot Zack and Sophie out above the valley in a matter of ten seconds.

The dragons weren't going to give up, though. They spread their electric wings and soared after the runaways. Zack had Sophie hold onto the glider as he dug around in his bag, one hand on his contraption. He pulled out the same square chips as before and chucked them at each dragon. Two hit home, leaving four dragons to go. Sophie frowned and looked at her gun. On it was a slot. Maybe...

"Zack! Hand me one of those chips!!" He did so, and Sophie inserted one into her gun. It fit perfectly. She flipped around and held onto the glider with her legs in one jump--leaving Zack staring at her in awestruck amazement--and steadied the gun on her forearm. Then she pulled the trigger.

Never before had such an explosion been heard. Months after this entire thing was resolved, the government would still be questioning the cause of it.

The explosion echoed for miles on end, shaking and rattling everything in sight. The flash of white temporarily blinded numerous people. It instantly vaporized the dragons and created such a huge shockwave that the glider was thrown into the side of a mountain half a mile away. (This is why you don't experiment with already dangerous prototypes, kids.)

The glider crumpled into a ball of aluminum as soon as it collided with the rocks. Zack got the wind knocked out of him and was pretty sure he'd broken a few ribs.

Then he was falling. Tumbling and rolling down the side of the mountain. He hit the ground and gasped with the impact before coughing in pain and groaning. After regaining orientation, he shakily pushed himself off the ground. He felt pretty good about where he was until he realized Sophie was nowhere around the glider's pathetic wreckage.

"Sophie!!!" he called into the forest, wincing as his cracked and broken ribs shifted within his chest. He looked about frantically.

"Sophie!!! Where are you?!!"