Sydui

Ayula, Hund, and I sat on the ground, looking up at a champion wielding what seemed to be some sort of old-looking long-ranged pulsar.

Out of pure instinct and rote memory, I checked my R45-556 for abnormalities as I rose to my feet.

I found nothing, as if it was the day it was handed to me for the first time.

I took one last breath in.

I charged low into close range.

Tiyntr fired, hitting where my head was moments ago.

I dodged under his rifle, hip-firing three rounds into his abdomen.

Tiyntr yelped in pain.

He then tried to grab me, so I jumped backward to gain some distance.

In moments, he brought up his rifle and aimed at my center of mass.

I fired an unstable shot into his gun's general direction.

Luckily it hit the side of the gun just solidly enough to push it to the side.

Unfortunately, Tiyntr's shot, even disrupted, managed to cause a gash in my side.

I grit my teeth and jumped to the side as soon as I touched the ground again.

This caused another shot of his to miss.

Tiyntr clicked his tongue and rushed behind the cover of a nearby tree.

I did the same and checked my ammo.

As soon as I considered the idea of a fresh battery pack, it appeared in my hands.

Taking this to mean that ammo pack capacity was a factor in this fight, but not ammo pack count, I pulled out the old pack and replaced it.

Just before I could refocus, a pale version of Tiyntr jumped out from around the tree I was hiding behind.

I panic-fired at it, missing twice before scoring a headshot.

This gave the pale version of him enough time to shoot me in the stomach, before said headshot caused it to disappear in a wisp of smoke.

I clutched the wound.

'It's fine.' I silently assured myself. 'I'm a Nemesis, I'll be fine, I've seen others survive worse.'

Either way, I'd have to move soon, staying put clearly wasn't doing me any favors.

I moved as quietly around the corner as I could, trying to find my adversary before being noticed.

I unlocked my eyes and looked around, but there was nothing to see, except for Hund and Ayula who were back to back.

Another pale version of Tiyntr leapt out from a nearby set of foliage, focused on Ayula.

Both she and Hund turned toward it, eyes widening.

I raised my rifle, moments from lining up my shot.

Hund pulled out a weapon and fired six times, the last two passing through the smoke of the disappearing copy.

Both Ayula and I stared at Hund's hand as it held a New Wave service pistol, still hot from the rounds fired seconds ago.

Ayula finally stopped staring at it long enough to look Hund in the face. "This is a joke right? O-or maybe you stole it... I don't condone theft, but there are plenty of criminals here-"

"Ayula stop." Hund pleaded.

"No! You stop Hund! This isn't funny!"

Hund's eye filled with tears. "Do I look like I think it is?"

Ayula was speechless.

Hund took the pistol, swung it around in his hands, and held it out for her by the barrel. "Listen, if anyone is going to punish me for my crimes, it should be someone I've wronged."

Ayula shook her head. "We met here in the Deathworld Game, you didn't do anything to me."

"I may as well have!" He took her hand, forced the pistol into it, and placed the barrel against his forehead. "So please... it would be a mercy. I may play the big hero, but I'm actually quite the coward when it comes to torture."

All the while, I couldn't even think, just watching this all unfold.

One of these villagers... one of these people I've guarded for all this time... is one of the people that branded my parents as fugitives.

I felt so many things at once: anger, grief, betrayal... and most of all, completely numb.

I didn't know what to do, I considered pulling the trigger myself... but the universe didn't allow me the time to finish thinking about it.

Three more pale Tiyntrs popped out of nowhere and fired before I could even process that it had happened.

Ayula pulled her hand away from Hund's service pistol and put it in front of Hund's head, causing a round to ricochet off an invisible wall.

She then took two rounds to the back and side respectively.

Hund cried out in rage, picked up his pistol and started blindly shooting at the pale Tiyntrs.

One of them was about to fire again, but I had a bead on them already, so they never had the chance.

Another was destroyed by the sheer volume of fire coming from Hund.

The third managed a clumsy counter-suppression.

Hund didn't even bother to move, taking the round in his lower ribcage as he continued to fire.

I knew that if I didn't find the original Tiyntr, this would never end, so I left Hund to his devices and used this opportunity to not let my inaction cause any more harm.

Damn it, you both better survive this!

It wasn't hard to find him, but he had a retinue of ten of his pale copies, and I didn't have a good enough vantage point to land a kill-shot.

What I wouldn't give for a grenade right now!

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

I took a deep breath in.

I landed a headshot on one of his copies, and then another, and another.

At that point, they realized that they were under attack and started to shoot en masse in my direction.

I ducked behind cover, waiting for them to reload.

Sure enough, my moment came and I leapt over.

I took a salvo of rounds that they apparently saved for me.

It became hard to breathe and I started to feel cold.

Brute force it is then.

I activated [Berserk] and [Slaughter].

As soon as I did that I was suddenly within close range of Tiyntr, and three of his copies were disappearing.

In the next moment I was holding the severed head of another and couldn't see the remaining few at all.

In the moment after that, I was beating Tiyntr into a disintegrating bloody puddle.

And then it was over.

At first, as I came down from my [Skills], it felt almost... breezy?

And then it I found out why.

I screamed out in pain as I was now riddled with holes.

The last thing I remember was Hund's face looking at me in shock.

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Aesos

I looked at Yingmoy, and then back at the flying girl.

"This is exactly why I warned you not to do specifically what you did." I said, glaring.

"Oh shut up Stalker, how was I supposed to know?"

My eyes widened in exasperation and annoyance. "By thinking about it for more than one second?!"

"Not everyone can think of things as fast as you can you moron, stop trying to-"

Our argument was interrupted by that feeling of asphyxiation, before it passed again.

We all looked to see Yingmoy stepping back toward us. "Are we ready to kill each other, or would you like some more persuasion first?"

The flying girl stayed true to her namesake and flew into the air. "Listen you-" Before all of us were suddenly strangled again.

The sensation ceased once more as she lost concentration and fell back down again.

Yingmoy laughed hysterically, gyrating as if doing a one-man tango.

"I'm not sure why I have to say this, but the [Skill] he's using activates when we get far enough apart from each other." I explained sourly.

"Tell me more, oh Stalker-y One! Tell me all about the things that you find super obvious and that we mere mortals should already know!" The flying girl countered.

"Both of you shut the hell up! Do you want to die before we've even touched Yingmoy?!" The mentor yelled.

Both of us looked at him angrily, but we knew he was right.

The flying girl aimed her crossbow and fired at Yingmoy.

Yingmoy laughed once again. "[Missile Guard]~"

The bolt hit a purple wall of force long before it could ever even pretend to threaten Yingmoy.

Both she and I scowled in frustration.

"Let me guess, melee only?" I asked.

He nodded vigorously. "Very astute you toothy beast you~"

I narrowed my eyes at the champion before me. "If you say another word, I will make sure you suffer before you die."

He resumed that odd squirming again. "Oh no, mister big bad Nemesis, please don't hurt me~!"

I bared my teeth. "We'll see how long you'll mock me while I tear you limb from limb!"

He smiled far wider than his mouth would suggest possible. "Oh~? Well then, show me that you can."

I charged at him, causing me to be strangled.

I expected as much, but something else happened too.

After a certain distance, I started to have resistance against my advance.

It felt almost as if I wearing something around my neck that was tied around a nearby tree... except that tree was those two idiots and Leyn behind me.

I jumped backward in order to catch my breath again.

"What is wrong with you?!" The flying girl exclaimed.

"I was trying to just do this the easy way and kill him by myself quickly, but it seems he already has a ward against that tactic."

"What does any of that even mean?"

I rolled my eyes. "It means that my plan didn't and won't work."

"I know that, I was asking about what you meant by 'a ward against it'."

"Do you want me to explain everything to you all the time? Surely you felt it too."

She threw her hands into the air. "Felt what?!"

I cocked my head to the side. "Did you not feel the pulling sensation?"

"No of course not?"

That changed things a little.

I looked forward toward Yingmoy, about to catch her up to speed, but Yingmoy wasn't there.

I jumped backward moments before Yingmoy came crashing down where I had just been.

"Oh? How did you see me coming?"

The real answer was that I didn't, I just wanted to create some distance in order to properly assess his location.

But why should I tell him that?

"I have a [Skill] that allows me to see into the future of course." I bluffed.

"That sounds like fun... let's see how well it works!"

Yingmoy jumped backward, only for his trajectory to suddenly bend until he soared in my direction again.

I jumped another time to the side.

Our eyes met.

He passed by me, turned, and then underwent a high-G maneuver, smacking feet-first into me as if he were a ball on a string.

My body warped against the attack that came from the same direction I attempted to dodge in.

Yingmoy then pushed off and landed back on his feet a short distance away.

I coughed against my newly collapsed lung, until my [Regeneration] activated and I had a moment to breathe again.

"I hate this guy." I said to nobody in particular.

"Ah you flatterer~!" He replied.

I sighed. "I'm getting really tired of him running his mouth."

"Yeah, I think I've just about had enough too." The flying girl agreed.

"I say we surround him and beat the hell out of him." The mentor suggested.

I shook my head. "No, that won't work."

The mentor whipped his head around to look at me. "Why not?"

I clenched my teeth in annoyance. "Two reasons: one, he's too mobile to pin down just because he's surrounded; and most importantly, two, YOU CAN'T DISCUSS BATTLE PLANS IN EARSHOT OF THE ENEMY!"

The mentor took his hands off his ears. "What do you want us to do instead?! Read each other's minds?!"

I felt like I was about to burst... I wish Andrew was here instead of these two braindead idiots.

At least then I could take my eyes off of Leyn for more than a moment without having to worry about him getting seriously hurt or something.

I was about to give another response, but someone else started talking instead.

"Everyone, we can't win if we just argue." Leyn said, choosing the perfect time to talk so that he didn't have to yell.

The mentor looked at him grumpily.

"Oh, I'm sorry Juohen sir, I didn't mean to-"

The mentor put his hands up. "I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at myself for doing exactly the same thing that I told Polyu and Aesos not to do."

"Wait, did you just call me-"

Once again, the words were choked before they could form.

This time I grabbed the flying girl, Leyn's mentor, and Leyn himself, putting them all on my back and walking back toward Yingmoy until our airways cleared.

I straightened myself out. "Alright, here's the plan... improvise."

Yingmoy's smile twitched for just an instant, which for the first time in a while, made me smile.

I charged toward Yingmoy, careful not to buck off my considerable number of passengers.

Yingmoy jumped backward, beginning to slingshot himself just like last time.

I dodged the other direction to see if it would cause any change, but it did not.

I prepared myself for impact as he swung around behind me once again.

"Polyu, throw me at him!" The mentor called.

Polyu used her [Skill] in a way that I didn't realize that she could and caused Leyn's mentor to be thrown as if he were a particularly large pebble.

"Take this you creep!"

The mentor put his whole body into a punch that one might call an uppercut if both had their feet planted on the ground.

The shattering of bones rang out in all directions as the mentor blew Yingmoy's jaw clean off and sent the both of them tumbling end over end in opposite directions.

The flying girl presumably used her [Skill] again, because the mentor suddenly stopped and was pulled toward us.

It was also interesting to note that we didn't asphyxiate even despite the distance between us having been significant for a moment.

It was the last piece of the puzzle I needed.

"I've figured out how he catapults himself!" I called out, making sure Yingmoy could hear me. "He can modulate [Chain Gang]'s boundaries!"

Yingmoy laughed. "That's correct, well done~!" He said perfectly, despite his missing facial feature.

"Wait, I'm confused, why does that matter?" The flying girl asked.

"Do you remember when I was being tugged because I was too far away earlier? He basically exploits that by changing the distances from very small to previous distance in rapid succession."

"I'll be honest, I'm still not sure I get it."

"It's okay Polyu, I'll explain it to you later; for now we need to focus on the battle at hand." Leyn replied, ending our tangent before it got any worse.

Yingmoy used this opportunity to slingshot himself at us again.

I dodged to the side, but it ended up not helping this time.

Yingmoy had used significantly less force and dropped into a slide.

He then put a foot flat against the ground, and using the last of the momentum to transition into a jump-kick to my face.

The kick itself didn't hurt all that much, but while his foot was still against my face, he used his [Skill] again to shove my face into the ground.

Both of my passengers were suddenly catapulted into the air.

The flying girl however used her [Skill] to slow both she and Leyn to a stop midair.

With that off my mind, I slashed at Yingmoy.

It was about as fruitless as I expected, as he just leapt into the air and slung himself back down at me.

However, it gave me enough time to push myself out of the way before he could land his counter.

Yingmoy reared up for another strike, but was interrupted by the mentor punching him in the back of the head. "What? Did you forget I was here?!"

Yingmoy began a roundhouse kick, but was stopped midair.

"That's what you get for blocking my shots!" The flying girl taunted.

Both the mentor and I prepared to attack Yingmoy at once.

Even though we were all so close to each other, we all started to suffocate... Yingmoy had changed the radius and left it.

However, there's one thing he hadn't accounted for.

He'd used it on us too many times already, so we could just push through it!

I took my foreclaws and dragged them across Yingmoy's chest, and the mentor punched him in the lower spine.

Yingmoy cried out in pain.

Our breath returned, Yingmoy breathing heavily.

We rallied for another attack, but we never had the chance to land them.

"[Vengeful Briar]."

Both the mentor and I were suddenly assailed by a massive purple thorn each.

The last thing I saw before my body was utterly destroyed, was the sight of the mentor being sent flying off into the distance.

Yingmoy began laughing hysterically again. "You lot had me going for a minute there! You almost had me! But you got complacent! I let you hit me a little bit more so that I could assure [Vengeful Briar] would kill your two most dangerous threats to me! All you have now are an archer who can't hit me and a scared child! Both of you are completely at my mercy like it was always meant to be!"

"Who was the one who got complacent?" I asked Yingmoy from behind.

He turned around, his eyes filled with surprise.

I wrapped my teeth around his neck, and tore his head off.

Both Leyn and the flying girl looked at me with a mixture of shock and happiness.

I spat out the dust that was starting to form in my mouth and then swallowed. "It seems that I haven't shown you or Leyn's mentor the respect that each of you deserve, and I aim to rectify that." I paused for a moment. "So, as a start... what are your names?"