Sarah stared wide-eyed at Julian’s prone form. A swirling purple mist surrounded the man, and Sarah almost stretched out a hand to touch it before thinking better of it.

“Shit! Do you think he’s dead?” she asked, apprehension in her voice.

“Well, techni—“ Shiro began to say but was interrupted by a furious Sarah.

“You know what I fucking mean,” she said, her vision darkening.

Shiro shrugged and glanced over his shoulder. “The Legion is still standing, so I’m guessing he’s still alive.”

Sarah followed his eyes, taking in the fighting happening below. The battle was going on as strong as it had moments ago, and try as she might, Sarah couldn’t find anything suspicious in the distance. “Right. So they’re probably trying to trap him in a spell or something.”

“Should we move him away from here? We’re kind of in the open,” Shiro said as he looked warily at his surroundings.

The purple mist continued to float ominously around the fallen Villain. “I’m not sure,” Sarah said. “What if the purple stuff is contagious?”

“What even is that thing?” Shiro asked.

“How would I know? I’m no more of a mage than you are.”

Shiro shrugged. “Well, let’s hope he wakes up soon. I don’t think there’s much we—“

Pain erupted in Shiro’s chest as an arrow pierced cleanly through his body. A second followed a moment after, but with his increased Strength he was able to move fast enough to dodge it, if only by a hair. “Ambush!” he yelled as soon as he’d regained his wits, and pandemonium broke out soon after.

“Fuck,” Alexis swore quietly as she nocked another arrow. She’d meant to incapacitate the minion, to give David an opening to finish off their target, but she hadn’t expected him to shrug off her arrows so easily — and had he dodged the second? None of the people she’d seen so far in this world should have been able of such a feat — hell, the only reason she could fire arrows that quickly was because of the System.

From her vantage point, she could see the battle with perfect clarity. The one she’d hit with her arrows recovered in an instant, yelling something to his companion — who then turned around, just in time to see David leaving his Cloak of Shadows right next to the target’s body.

The knight noticed him instantly — there was no way it wouldn’t have — but Alexis doubted her arrows would be of much use against the armored fiend. She was fairly certain she could pierce the armor, maybe even punch through it completely, but it was clear now the two minions were just as undead as the rest of the zombies.

She needed a different approach.

Alexis reached for her quiver, rummaging through it until she found her bundle of special arrows. She’d asked Cameron to magic up a bunch of arrowheads for her and the boy had delivered beautifully. The ones she needed right now, though, Alexis had barely a dozen — she needed to make every shot count.

Alexis nocked the orange-tipped arrow and held her breath as she released it into the charging bear’s scruff. A pillar of flames exploded from the bear’s back and the knight jumped off in surprise, landing messily with a sideways roll.

The other minion hadn’t been just admiring the view, though. Before David had the chance chance to sink his daggers into the Dark Lord, the boy barreled into him, throwing David’s daggers off course and taking the hit himself. For a moment, Alexis dared hope that’d put the minion out of commission, but they’d had no such luck — if anything, judging by the ferocious grin on the boy, the monster seemed to enjoy it.

And then the oddest thing happened. The knight yelled something, though Alexis had no idea what it was, and the bear moved ahead with no regard for its burning back — and then it draped itself over the Dark Lord, like a protective, flaming, living sarcophagus. It seemed like they wouldn’t be allowed an easy win.

Grabbing a handful of arrows, Alexis raised her bow again and got to work.

Cameron was once again second-guessing himself. He watched the fighting from close by, shielding himself with an invisibility spell while preparing to unleash a hopefully devastating strike, but they all moved so fast. He knew his companions had focused more on the physical stats, unlike himself, but he couldn’t even follow the Dark Lord’s lackeys’ movements — sure, they were undead, but weren’t they suppose to be normal people? The way they were fighting was well beyond what a human should be able to do. Had the Dark Lord empowered them so much, he wondered?

Focusing on his own working, he wove together the threads of Force like he’d done so many times before — he’d practiced this spell extensively while they traveled. It was a working of pure devastation: an explosive release of pure, unadulterated kinetic energy, concentrated in a fist-sized impact. If he aimed it at someone’s head, it would rip it cleanly off — or so he hoped. Cameron hadn’t had the chance to test it out on anyone, yet, but it had punched straight through a thick tree, before.

The only problem, right now, was the speed. He hadn’t tested it on a moving target — trees didn’t run, after all — and these guys ran fast. And with the bear looming protectively over its master, there was little chance of cutting the head of the snake.

The bear was already on fire, though… he wondered if perhaps there was a way to capitalize on that — but right now, it didn’t matter. He readied his spell, his Spectral Fist as he called it, and aimed for more vulnerable of the two minions. With a bit of luck, he could tip the scales in their favor — he just needed to get the timing right…

Cameron steadied his breath and prepared to fire.

Shiro swore under his breath as another arrow barely missed his face. This one landed in the ground not too far away, setting the dry grass ablaze with a thunderous crack. A hair closer and that would have been my head gone, he thought as he twisted away from the attacker’s daggers.

He was good, that other boy. Shiro had no doubt he was another Hero, and most likely his archer companion as well — but he didn’t have the time to dwell on it, as both seemed to focus their attacks on him.

Of course. Why go for the armored target — or the fucking bear — when you can sink your weapons into some tender meat?

Not that his flesh was tender, by now. He was lucky his Revenant status came with a powerful healing factor, or else he’d have been a crisscross of scars by now.

With Shiro on the backfoot, the rogue pressed his advantage, slashing from a low angle with both daggers — only for them to be parried by a gleaming sword coming from over his shoulder. Shiro looked up, mouthing a silent thanks to his companion, and rolled to the side to get out of Sarah’s way. He circled around the attacker, keeping an eye towards the rock on the other hill — he was pretty sure the arrows had come from that direction, though he still hadn’t been able to spot the archer.

Shiro had taken a few arrows by now, and the rogue had nicked him twice with his blades, but aside from Sarah’s aura, he was feeling barely any pain. He wasn’t at his strongest right now, but with the rogue caught in a deadlock he thought he might be able to get him in a hold.

He paused for a moment, to plan his attack, then rushed forward to grapple the rogue from behind — only for his right shoulder to explode in pain. Shiro stumbled forward, his momentum carrying him into the other boy, but his attack was ruined and he crashed heavily onto the rogue.

To his credit, the rogue quickly extricated himself and vanished while Shiro tried to piece together the events of the past few seconds. He was sure it hadn’t been the archer — and his shoulder, which looked well mangled and definitely dislocated, had no puncture wounds. It had been like he’d been punched by a particularly angry gorilla.

That left a single explanation — there was a third attacker in their midst.

David cursed his luck as he danced around the knight’s deadly blade, cringing in pain despite haven’t taken any hits yet — she was a menace, that knight, there were no two ways about it. He was fairly certain she was a girl, though he couldn’t tell exactly why — and he wasn’t particularly interested at the moment, anyway.

The whole attack went wrong in the worst way possible. The three of them, they were a party of glass cannons and they knew it. They weren’t supposed to end up in a straight brawl, and yet his attempt to kill the Dark Lord first failed, and the two minions were intent on making mince meat of him.

He was a rogue, god damn it, he wasn’t supposed to be the tank in this situation!

And Cameron was twiddling his thumbs as well — David was expecting at least some backup, but aside from a handful of exploding arrows from Alexis, he’d been all but alone so far.

He’d vanished after the weirdo’s stumble — had that been Cam’s spell, maybe? It could have been, though he wouldn’t be giving the boy any points for it. He’d almost been crushed by the other boy’s deceptive weight. Was he made of metal or something? That would have made an alarming amount of sense, given how much damage he was soaking up.

He watched the two minions from behind his Cloak of Shadows, trying to assess them for weaknesses, but his gaze kept going to to bear — or rather, to what the bear was guarding. He needed to kill the Dark Lord. He had to do it, and he had to do it now—

Another explosion startled David, and he realized he’d been advancing steadily towards the bear. Turning around, he saw Alexis had gotten the weirdo good with an explosive arrow while he was setting his shoulder, but the boy was still standing despite having lost a good chunk of his arm. He screamed in pain, an almost monstrous roar, and began running — straight towards Alexis’s little hidey-hole.

David was torn — his mind screamed at him to kill the Dark Lord, but Alexis was as good as dead if this monster got his hands on her. Against his better judgment, he broke into a mad dash, running after the boy who was closing the distance at an alarming pace.

David’s class was all about speed, though, and soon he was upon the boy. Still hidden by his cloak, he raised his daggers, readying himself to cut into his enemy’s throat and sliced down with all of his strength.

His daggers bit into the boy’s shoulders to a devastating effect, and he felt bones and tendons give, but before he could even breathe a sigh of relief, the monster turned around, smashing him in the head with his remaining arm.

David heard a crack, and then oblivion embraced him.

Cameron screamed when David’s head twisted around, and he could have sworn he’d heard the sickening crunch from the top of the hill. His relationship with David had been strained, at best, but he’d still considered the other boy something of a friend. It was to no avail — the boy was dead, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He only realized his mistake — that he’d given away his location — when he saw the knight’s sword appear from his chest. That’s odd, swords aren’t supposed to go there, was his last thought, and he was gone.

The monster had her in his sights, Alexis knew. Her companions were dead, and she couldn’t even blame the two undead for that. No, it was her own damn fault — if she’d been more useful, if she’d been more careful and hadn’t given away her position, David would still be alive. She was the reason they were dead just as well as if she’d done it with her own two hands.

She glanced at her hands where she was still clutching an arrow. It would be so easy to give it all up now. She just needed to stab that arrow into her jugular, and she’d be free again.

But she couldn’t. She had to bear the guilt for their deaths — she had to atone. But getting away from those two, that was an impossible task, so she picked the only option remaining to her.

Alexis walked away from her boulder, releasing her camouflage — and once the monstrous boy with the missing arm was close enough to hear, she raised her hands to her head.

“I surrender.”