Another set of male voices piped in; the two remaining members of her foe's party, short and laboured as they dragged their feet in exhaustion.

"You... you showed us..." The mage pulled in a full lung of air, and breathed it shakily back out. "You showed us the way here."

Nikola clenched her teeth, backing further into the hallway. Now that she wasn't in motion, she noticed how many arrows had landed in her flesh in her travels, sinking between ribs and bones.

"You followed me across the glass," she stated, biting the words.

Nikola rose her cleaver into the air to initiate just about any of her attacks, but the auburn-haired leader of their group was ready.

He swung at her weapon with his sword and it hooked at the bottom of her cleaver's blade. It soared out of her hand, clattering angrily against the stone of the hallway. Her hand felt immediately, offensively naked.

Her cleaver! Nikola lunged after it, but three boys launched their greater body weight at her all at once and she was shoved backward. She did her best to dodge, but all her dodging did was land her against the nearest wall with a bubble of testosterone (in the form of three men) around her.

She was trapped. Her cleaver was beneath one of their feet, the bottom of one of their boots harming its beautiful honed edge. Nikola tried to maneuver through a remaining gap and one of their hands grabbed onto one of the arrows in her chest and stabbed her back into the wall as if it was a handle.

Her health bar ticked uncomfortably close to 50 percent. 63, 62, 61...

"We've got her this time," the Mage spat, planting his feet firmly into the ground.

"We do," confirmed their fox-eared leader as he, too, grabbed an arrow by the feathered end and drove it further into her flesh, "now who wants to deliver the killing blow?"

Killing blow.

The finality of the words made her realize just how close she was creeping to her demise. Her nerves screamed were screaming with pain she wasn't allowing to reach her lips. The faces of three men were grinning down at her, their eyes alight with a fiery determination.

They were so close to their goal.

Their goal of ending her.

"I'm-- I'm not just an NPC anymore--" Nikola growled through her teeth, clenched and jittering against one another. "You can't judge me for what I did when someone else was writing me."

"Shhhh," the orange one said, bringing a finger close to her lips, "it's not that deep, honey. We're just getting justice for our past selves. You'll respawn in your dad's house anyway."

"Yeah, why do you even care? Just let us have this. We know how much you love your dad, just go home and be with him."

Her father. Images of their shared house moved through her mind, the scent of bread filling her nostrils.

Her dad wouldn't be there waiting for her, in those wood-lined walls; he was broken, hanging somewhere in the game's code she couldn't reach. There would be no seeing him until she knew more about the inner workings of the world they currently shared, something Alli would help her with-- if she survived to remember.

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"I care because I won't be myself anymore if I respawn."

Nikola grabbed one of the bolts and freed it from her arm, jabbing the tip of it into the mage's squishy, undefended face.

The fox-man's party stopped with the idle chatter as the mage tugged the makeshift weapon out of his cheek and crunched it in pieces in one of his hands.

They each moved a predatory step inward and prepared their weapons.

Nikola's icy blue eyes began to quiver as the first slash dented her armour.

I have friends, she wanted to plead. I have friends and I never thought I would. I even brought somebody to life. Please, please, I want to see what she did with the village while I was away.

The mage's staff sent a spike of ice toward her face, which shattered against the space between her eyes.

31 percent health.

I want to see my father again--

She wouldn't give them the satisfaction of hearing her quaking voice leave her lips, wouldn't make herself into a coward for a group that only wanted to settle a score with the old her.

Another slice met her skin, and then another. She could feel fresh, warm blood trickling past her knees.

27 percent.

She could use another health potion, but what would be the point when she was so thoroughly trapped--

"Do you want to live?" Asked a voice from somewhere she couldn't see, cutting through the laboured breaths of her captors.

"Yes," Nikola growled past her repulsively chattering mouth. She didn't know who owned the voice, or if she would be mocked for her response, but she was desperate for an out.

The next moments ticked by in a blur. One second, there were 3 men in a semi-circle around her, and the next second they were each being impaled by a needle-like sword and thudding unceremoniously to the ground.

Their blood was warming her feet sooner than she could see the face of who had defeated the three who had nearly vanquished her. Was this a dream? Was she hallucinating? How could there be somebody out there who was strong enough to poke holes through the party who had given her so much trouble?

As every new moment passed, she was feeling more and more foolish for having thought her own power was unrivaled.

There were much bigger fish in the pond.

This particular fish had long, flowing pink hair and walked in on heels as dark as Nikola's raven hair.

Nikola pushed her body, which felt rather strongly about not standing at the moment, into a standing position. She turned on wobbly legs to face her saviour.

Her saviour was a woman; the aforementioned 'fish' with heels. Her armour was dark and shiny like her own, with jagged edges that screamed danger. She held a fencing foil firmly in one hand and had turned it back down toward the floor, indicating a lack of hostility.

"What do I owe you for ensuring my continued existence?" Nikola asked uncertainly, meeting the woman's vivid crimson eyes with her own half-curious-half-cautious gaze.

"Unflinching loyalty," she purred in a low-but-jovial tone, and then corrected herself, "but for now, how about cooperation in getting us both out of here alive? I tend to prefer the approach where we kill everyone who isn't us."

Suddenly, the woman who had rescued her looked twice as attractive to her eyes. Nikola almost bit her lip.