I faced the wall, and aimed my rifle forward. A small hole formed in the blood wall, allowing me to poke the muzzle through. I looked to my right, towards everybody else, and quickly thought up a game plan.

“Rob! Take this!” I yelled, tossing his one of the anti-electricity disks.

“Go out there and whittle down their forces. Rowan, go out there and watch his back. Try to take some tension off the walls as well.”

Rowan nodded, and he teleported himself and Rob to the other side of the wall. I heard an explosion soon after.

“Rose! I need you to set up some machine gun turrets to keep building up heat. Isabelle, use your rifle and aim for the joints. Cover Rose!”

I looked back into my scope, set up a shot, and ended up hitting a few dozen robots. I took out half of the ones I hit, with the others being used solely for ricocheting.

I transformed the rifle back into a sword, sheathed it, and grabbed my teleportation disks before tossing one of them over the wall, waiting a second, and teleporting to that disk.

I quickly put my disks back in my belt, and then I quickly unsheathed my swords and, after activating the sword, I sliced through a robot who had barely realized I was past the wall now.

I scanned the battlefield, watching and comparing Rowan and Rob’s fighting styles. Rob was mainly using his unique blood to slow down or immobilize enemies before annihilating them with his incomparable strength.

Meanwhile, Rowan was faster, using a mix of magic, flying, and nanotechnology to speed around the robots as he tried slowly whittling down their numbers. Even though Rob was clearly more of a force to be reckoned with, Rowan was still holding his own quite well.

I stomped my right foot on the ground, causing bits of nanotechnology to shoot out. The bits of nanotech landed on the ground and spread out across it, carefully positioning themselves across the battlefield.

I closed my eyes, and took a long deep breath. After a moment, I teleported to one of the bits of nanotechnology. I immediately flung my foot up, kicking a robot in the jaw before I spun around and sliced through it’s hip.

A robot lunged towards me, but Rowan teleported under it, and made a magical explosion which disintegrated that robot and a few others around him.

Rockets started flying through the battlefield and I looked to see they were coming from Rose’s newly made turrets. The rockets may not have done that much damage, but they stunned the bots enough to open plenty of them up for more attacks.

Plus, any weakened robots couldn’t even get a chance to recover, since Isabelle was picking off stragglers with her rifle.

Huh… I guess teamwork really is that useful…

I unsheathed my other sword, activated it, and started teleporting to the other bits of nanotechnology. After my first teleport, I sliced a robot’s arms off and kicked it in the back, making it stumble forward into an explosive haymaker from Rob.

I teleported again, spinning like a cyclone to destroy a few robots around me.

You could easily kill all of them, right now. Then you’d be the most powerful being aside from Knightmare, the swords spoke.

Trying my hardest to ignore them, I threw my swords into the air, unhooked several hand grenades from my belt, threw them up in the air as well, and shot electric darts at the grenades before calling my swords back to me. The resulting combined explosion from the grenades covered most of the arena, forcing Rob to use his blood tendrils to cover Rose and Isabelle.

Suddenly, the sound of battle stopped. The whistling of the ash-carrying wind was the only that that could be heard for the next half of a minute.

“Wow… that was surprisingly fast,” I commented, slowly sheathing my swords.

That’s what happens when you work with others, Pemo said.

Once the dust started to settle, I spotted Rob, releasing his blood shield and revealing a hole in his hip which was quickly healing.

“You okay Rob?”

“Yeah… it’s nothing big. One of your electricity protector things ran out right before you did that.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Rowan walked up to my side and grabbed my hand, caressing one of my fingers with his own.

Turning my head to look at him, I smiled, and told him “Good job Rowan. You did well… it’s weird seeing you as experienced as you are now in combat.”

Rowan blushed, and muttered “Thanks.”

Isabelle stepped up to me, asking “What do we do now? He isn’t here.”

I gestured my head up, so she looked up, seeing the floating structure.

“Damn… how do we get there?”

“You mean how do Steve and Rowan get up there?” A familiarly annoying voice said from behind.

I spun around, unsheathing my swords again, laying my eyes on Alexander… somehow still alive. His eyes had completely blackened. Any light that might’ve been there before had disappeared.

“He’s letting you two go up, as long as the others stay down here.”

“He? We already know you’re the same. And aren’t you supposed to be dead?.”

Alexander laughed, and walked closer as he said “I’m just one of his hundreds of dead puppets with no hope at a fulfilled future. And we only die when he wants us to. Even if he lets you kill Robert today, it won’t matter. That success won’t mean anything.”

I sheathed my swords, only for now.

“You don’t have access to what Knightmare is thinking… only what he tells you, huh?”

Alexander made his way to me, smiling, and, after staring at me for several seconds, he put his hand on my chest, and, in a blink, I was in a metal room with wires poking out of the walls. It was clearly rushed and unprofessional.

I looked in every direction, not seeing Rowan anywhere. I waited about a minute, thinking he’d show up soon after me. But he never came up…

There was a metal door in front of me. Something about it sent a chill down my spine. Like that feeling when you know you’re reaching the end of something, but are terrified to see what happens. But my craving for truth would always conquer that anxiety.

Before I opened it, though, my helmet collapsed, and I pressed my index and middle finger to my right ear, to the earpiece there. But before I could reach out to my team, a jolt of electricity sent a sharp sting up my fingers, and the earpiece snapped out of my ear, landing on the ground as the yellow electricity covering it quickly fizzled away.

“Fuck me…”

Suddenly, a burning sensation covered my earlobe.

“Damage detected on right ear,” my AI said, “Be wary.”

“Ugh… thanks.” My helmet reformed, and a screen popped up on the visor, showing my ear, which had a chunk of the lobe pulled off slightly, not enough for it to hang, but enough that there was a gash.

I approached the door, and grabbed the doorknob, only for a shiver to rush down my spine.

No… I don’t care what’s behind that door. I won’t stop until I do what I came here for.

I turned the door, and opened it. In the next room was a long catwalk inside a see-through glass cylinder, allowing me to see the coliseum below. At the end of the catwalk… was Rowan, and what looked like his mother. Or… an older, female clone of him.

“Hon… don’t do this. If nothing else, think about how this’ll affect Rowan.” The woman grabbed his arm…

I unsheathed a sword.

“I’ve already told you, he’s part of him. It’s my destiny to make him suffer, no matter what form he takes.”

She stared into his eyes, pleading him with her own.

“You don’t want that though. Think about what you really want.”

With an annoyed grunt, ‘Rowan’ shoved a sword through the worried woman’s spine, a single tear falling down as his cheek before he let her body drop lifelessly to the ground.

“Let Rowan go!”

“W-Wow… I just killed my mother. H-Have a little sympathy for w-what I’m going through.” His sadistic smile betrayed his lie.

“Don’t try to fool me, Knightmare. Rowan would never do this, even to someone he hated… like you.”

The smile dropped.

“Hate’s a popular word these days, isn’t it? Why not love everybody and be happy together?” He mocked, his eyes widening like a puppy as he held his hands together like a gleeful toddler.

“Well, as hard as any of you may ever try, love is strictly a you thing.”

“I would never try to forgive you for what you’ve done to me. You’ve killed my parents! You killed my sister! You just killed Rowan’s mother!”

The possessed Rowan walked forward, the smile forming back quickly. He went as close as he could to me, holding his left arm behind his back. Once he was a couple feet away, he brought his arm in front of him, revealing a detonator.

No…

I lunged forward, hoping to grab it, but a wave of black and red electricity pushed the to the ground. Then, he pushed the button, causing a massive explosion to erupt from beneath the Coliseum, which eventually reach ground floor and obliterated everything still inside the arena.

“No!” I screamed from the deepest part of my throat, forgetting to hold my swords.

“No..” I continued laying there, unable to think. Unable to feel… I just lost two friends right as I could finally trust them.

“Now… what to do with—”

He stopped, being interrupted by a gurgling sound.

I turned my head, still trying my hardest not to cry, when I saw that same slug parasite, inside Rowan’s mouth. It was pushed out, squirming to get back inside its host.

“S-Steve… I-I’m… in so much… p-pain.”

“Rowan! I’ll… I’ll help you!”

I quickly stood up, determined not to lose another. But Rowan pushed me away.

“N-No… I can’t b-be helped. Y-You… need to… k-kill me. End my s-suffering. Please!”

“No! I can… I helped you before. I can do it again!”

The parasite was beginning to make its way back into the shelter of Rowan’s body.

“N-No… you d-didn’t kill it before. Y-You won’t be able to d-do it. T-The only way to help me… is to end me.”

“I-I…” I stuttered.

Rowan grabbed one of my swords, putting them in my hands, the blade pointed towards his chest. Then, he stared into my eyes, lovingly.

“I lve you…” he said unclearly, the parasite blocking most of his mouth now.

Then, he pulled my hands forward, allowing the sword to ram through his chest.

As his body dropped down, I scrambled over to him, holding him up immediately after his head hit the catwalk.

When I turned his head to look at me, the light already faded from his eyes.

I couldn’t resist anymore. I had to cry… I bawled like a baby, letting out a sea of tears. This was the first time I had cried… since I was a teenager.

…