The Desert is Cold in the Dark [Dark Data]

[Jim Raynor]

The desert monster, face glistening with pockets of fused glass, roared in a creaking grumble as it shoved an invisible fighter across the room. Despite the damage they were doing to it, their victory didn't seem any closer. Although losing mass to the glassing of its body, the creature kept fighting with the same intensity, reacting to the pain only with anger and renewed vitality. The temple shook with another of its furious bellows, loosening thin pockets of dust and sand from the wall cracks that showered down upon them.
 
"This ain't workin,'" Jim said to himself. "If we're gonna keep glassin' him, we need to do it full throttle! All or nothin'!"
 
Jim checked the display of his rifle as he clicked the grenade launcher into activation. Four were left in the current cartridge, and he had another full one on him with another eight ready to go, so twelve all up. Eight would be enough to do the trick, he hoped; since all of his shots were separated by cartridges, he would have to rely on his fresh one. There was no time to reload for his idea, so he had to go with his best shot.
 
He ejected the current cartridge from the base of his rifle, stuck it to his back, and sank the fresh cartridge into place. He only had one chance at this, and if it failed ... well, he'd cross that bridge if he had to come to it.
 
"Kid!" Jim hollered, hoping Sun Ogong could hear his voice. "I got a plan! When I give the signal, I need you to shoot a fireball! Make sure you're ready! I'm goin' for it!"
 
"He's ready!" Somerled called out from above Jim somewhere. "He can hear you and he'll make the fireball when you call it out!"
 
Without another word, Jim dashed around the desert monster's head, firing his rifle. One grenade a second burst from the barrel beneath the weapon, each one thudding into the desert monster's shifting head and sinking into the sandy mass. The first couple penetrated without incident, but then the desert monster's attention moved to Jim. Its sunken violet eyes fixed on the running terran commander, and a gigantic sand palm raced towards him.
 
"Not today!" Jim shouted, his jumpjets blowing a wave of flame from his back and hopping him over the swiping palm. Still in mid-air, grenades rained down on the desert monster until Jim heard the familiar clicking of a spent cartridge.
 
His feet crashed on the ground, cracking the tiles beneath. "Kid! Fireball at that thing's mouth, pronto!"
 
The desert monster roared, its mouth yawning wide as an orange streak of fire zoomed inside and vanished into the black.
 
"Perfect!" Jim yelled.
 
The first grenade's timer ran out and an explosion tore a chunk of the desert monster's head apart in glassy shrapnel. Sun Ogong's fireball tickled another of the submerged grenades, expediting its fuse and setting off a chain reaction that roasted the desert monster's face from the inside out. It opened its mouth in a soundless cry as a torrent of flame billowed out, its facade transforming into glass as the popping ordinance soldered and shattered the sand that comprised it.
 
Jim flew across the temple from the shockwave, his back slamming against the weathered stone walls. When he looked up, the desert monster's head had imploded in an irregular jagged heap of glass, its hands losing shape and falling into mounds of sand. The temple groaned and creaked from the explosion, but held intact.
 
"Did it actually work?" Somerled said, inspecting Jim's handiwork.
 
Jim ejected his spent cartridge and loaded in his half-used cache of grenades into his rifle. It wasn't over until it was over, for sure.
 
In their quiet optimism, the hills of sand that once were fashioned into hands funnelled into a central point. Soon the desert monster had returned fully, except there was one fundamental difference.
 
It was at least a quarter of its original size. The usable materials of its hands was all it had to rebuild itself with.
 
"Heh. Might still be an annoyance, but he ain't killin' no one," Jim said, smiling.
 
A loud boom echoed through the temple, rocking the ground. Jim's eyes darted around, looking for the cause. It sounded again, more urgent and violent than the last.
 
"Yeah, keep on guard," Somerled said, obviously responding to something Sun Ogong muttered.
 
A thunderous crack brought burning pain to Jim's ears. He gazed up to see the cause. The temple roof shuddered and broke apart, spilling dust and fragmented sandstone towards them.
 
"Crap! This better not be a cave in!" Jim yelled, though he barely heard his own voice over the rumbling.
 
Raynor ran, sprinting around a sturdy column and peeking out. The falling debris collapsed upon the mini-desert monster, burying him from view. Jim almost took heart from that, until he saw the veritable truckload of sand that rained down from the new hole in the roof.
 
"Ah shit, that ain't good."
 
Moments later, the strewn debris exploded outwards as a revitalised desert monster rose up, his roar more terrifying than ever.
 

859 words.
Jim spent 8 of his 12 grenades into the desert monster, which were then ignited by Ogong's fireball. The resulting explosion almost killed it, robbing it of the majority of available sand and reducing it to a much smaller version.
However, the explosion also compromised the weak foundation of the roof, which collapsed, bringing with it a new source of sand. The desert monster has reformed and is much more pissed off than it was before.