Coldsnap: Harbinger of Ice

Chapter 17: Attack of the Icicle Golem

The frozen monstrosity tried to stomp on Coldsnap, but she dodged to the side and caused its foot to slam a hole in the floor instead, raising the heroine's side of the platform and allowing her to jump upwards and impale her sword into its hide, injuring it. Once she swung off of her blade, extracted it from the wound, and landed on its back, she made her way towards Leo's ice prison and began working to free him from it by slicing apart the beast's fur in the hopes of getting him to the ground safely. 

The golem moved around the chamber erratically, attempting to shake Coldsnap off, but upon realizing it was no use, attempted to attack Firebird instead to prevent its weakness from being exploited. As it lunged forward with one of its hands while letting out a deep roar, she swung her blades out in front of her and projected two flaming energy wave projectiles that cut its hand right off of its arm, much to its shock. She then threw another smokescreen into its face, clouding its vision and rendering it difficult for the creature to see. 

As Firebird continued darting around the massive monster, using her agility to gain an advantage over its large, lumbering frame and continue inflicting wounds on it, Hydraxus moved his trident around in a circle and summoned a barrage of eleven ethereal light-blue spears around him, and used his hand to direct them forward into the icicle golem's body, but the golem soon recovered from Firebird's smoke bomb and held its shield out in front of it, causing the weapons to embed themselves inside the slab harmlessly. The creature smirked overconfidently, but Hydraxus then snapped his fingers, causing all of the spears to explode and reduce the shield to splinters, rendering the beast defenseless. 

"Nice, Hydraxus! Mind if I cut in?" Keena asked her instructor. 

Hydraxus nodded wordlessly, at which point his student twirled her staff and created a massive tidal wave that forced the golem backwards into the wall. However, the impact almost shook Coldsnap off of the golem's back, causing her to have to plant her sword into its hide again and hold onto it for dear life. 

Keena's eyes widened as she realized what happened. "Sorry!" 

Coldsnap laughed. "It's okay! You keep me on my toes!" 

She managed to cut the restraints anchoring the frozen Leo to the icicle golem's back, and sent his icy prison tumbling slowly to the floor. 

Firebird ran over and began projecting a series of warm, consistent heat waves in order to begin freeing him, but unfortunately, this left her open to the golem's assault. 

The creature dove to the ground and aimed its right arm at Firebird, preparing to discharge a massive icy blast in her direction. 

"FIREBIRD, BEHIND YOU!" Keena exclaimed. 

But the female fire mage just rolled her eyes and held out one of her knives behind her, spinning it in a circle and using the resulting fire wall to harmlessly melt it into water without even looking. 

Keena stood there for several seconds in stunned silence. ".....Or you could do that." 

The golem turned its attention to Hydraxus---using its feet to bury Firebird and Leo under a huge mound of snow in the process---and forcefully grabbed him in its left hand; the one that had originally held the crystal shield. Keena attempted to rescue her master, but the creature slammed its right hand down on top of her body, leaving her uninjured but mostly immobilized and unable to do anything but watch. 

However, just before the icicle golem dropped the struggling Hydraxus into its ravenous, frozen maw, Coldsnap got its attention. 

"Hey, 'Ice-Face'! Up here! You cross my friends, and you'll have to deal with me!" she called before leaping off of its back and driving her sword into its head, causing it to completely fall apart, followed by the rest of the golem's body.