"One four eight, one four seven."

Chad stepped back. He started to turn.

"Chad, what are you doing? Get back in position."

Chad froze. His eyes locked on the man in the dark cloak. Raw terror across his face.

"Chad! Chad!" But Rad felt the same dread; it emanated from the figure, rolling out as waves of despair, intangible, yet heavy and undeniable. That wasn't the weakling Rad remembered. What had he called himself? Bob? That groveling, subservient man who'd spent a thousand credits to buy himself twenty-four hours grace. The man had changed. He'd grown strong and... wicked? But so had they. So had they.

"Chad, snap out of it." Rad clapped Chad on the shoulder and pressed the dropped dagger into the man's hand. "Take it."

He looked between his two friends. "There's three of us. He's just one man. We've all faced down our share of monsters."

Chad nodded slowly, squeezing the tutorial knife so hard his knuckles paled. Rad could see he wasn't convinced.

"You saw what he did to the croc?"

"Yeah I saw."

Chad didn't go on. He didn't have to. The monster had been vaporized. One second it was there and then darkness.

"Chad, he's just got some kind of earth control ability. Don't sweat it. Look, everybody watch their feet. He might try to trip us up or something."

"That or swallow us whole," Chad whispered to himself.

"Stay near the trees. Be ready to grab on at a moment's notice. The roots should stop him pulling us under. We''ll stay on the defensive. It's madness out there. Just watch, he'll get swamped by the monsters. Mark my words. We'll eat him alive."

Chad was shaking his head. "Are you guys blind? For christ's sake, the man rode in on a giant unicorn beetle leading a bloody army. You're laughing if you think some wandering monster gonna to faze him. No fucking way. I'm telling you. We got to run. We got to run right now."

Lad scoffed, but Rad was thoughtful.

"It's too risky, Chad. The forest's swarming with monsters. The girl did something. She summoned them somehow. Companion object bullshit." He nodded at something that looked like a perfume bottle in the tied-up girl's hand. "We've only lasted so long because of these trees. Even that beetle Godzilla couldn't penetrate. If we hold our ground, we've got a shot."

"Why doesn't he attack?" Lad asked. "Chad's pissing himself and we're all out of position."

Lad was right. It was the perfect moment for sudden violence. The man should've attacked them. But he hadn't. He just stood there, glaring at the three of them, boring into them with his eyes, like he was cursing their souls, that white dagger glittering unnaturally in his hand. Where had he found a weapon like that? The rain torrented down his cloak, but he didn't seem to get wet. He was... he was chanting.

"Lad, what's he saying? Can you hear?"

"It's numbers, Rad. One two five, one two four. He's counting down."

"He's counting down..." Rad considered. "Change of plan. We attack now. We can't let him finish that spell."

A spell with a five minute cast time? What on earth would it do? Tear the heavens open and call down the god of thunder.

"Lad pepper him with your darts. Chad you're our tank."

Chad groaned.

"Chad, I'll be right behind you, ready with a heal."

Chad groaned, but he set his jaw and readied himself.

"Good man." Rad checked the ground, mapping out his approach. "Now!"

Chad's form swelled as he activated his buff-up ability. His strides widened. He moved with a new grace and a kind of raw power. The ability doubled all his physical stats, turning him into a juggernaut powerhouse while active. Boosted Chad could punch through solid wood, shrug off devastating punishment and balance easily on the most precarious of footholds. Of course, he could only maintain the ability for a couple minutes and at the end he'd get hit with a period of weakness, but it was the perfect ability for short bouts of intense combat.

Rad stalked up behind, cradling his screwdriver. He was the finisher. If Chad could pin an adversary in place, Rad could end them. The medical screwdriver pasted through bone, shell, flesh. It didn't matter. He'd yet to find the substance that could stand up to his weapon. Rad only needed the one opening. That would be enough. They could do this.

The two of them closed in on the hooded man. "Ninety seven, ninety six." The numbers ticked ominously down. Chad opened with a vicious swing of the knife. It was a blazing, inhuman strike. At the same moment, one of Lad's darts zoomed forward pincering the enemy.

Perfect, Rad thought, as he kept his eyes trained on their target, poised to attack. He nodded his head. Their teamwork was flawless; they could read each other's intentions. Their powers meshed together, creating something stronger than its parts. "This bastard picked the wrong team to mess with."

The magician sidestepped. Chad's blow swung wide. The magician twitched his head. Lad's dart whizzed past. He heard Lad cursing to himself. "How fucking high is his dexterity. Isn't he supposed to be a mage?" To Rad's eyes, Chad's boosted swings were like metallic blurs, just shimmers in the air. His mind didn't even have to process the attacks. So to dodge like that... Who was this guy?

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Chad, unfazed, reversed grip and daggered down at the magician's leg, but the magician anticipated, raising his leg and stomped down on Chad's fingers. Chad grunted a little, more out of surprise than pain. He shrugged off the blow and bear-hugged the man with his left arm, preparing to knee him in the groin. But Chad's grip failed; he slid unnaturally off the cloak, like he was wrestling water. Chad caught himself with an outstretched leg and made to hammer the dagger handle into the man's stomach. Lad picked that moment to commit, three darts pinpointing in at the magician from all sides. Rad tensed, waiting for the moment when he'd jump in and execute the man.

But the magician twisted, letting Chad's blow skim across his stomach, just as the man's cloak billowed out, like it had a mind of its own, catching all three darts and jerking them off course. The white dagger stabbed down at Chad's face and Chad fell backwards, only managing to seize the man's grip at the very last moment. Chad's scramblings pulled the man off his feet and down on top of him. Chad had him by the wrist. Now was Rad's chance.

"Hold him Chad." Rad jumped forward, the screwdriver starting to spin up. Time to end this.

Rad crumbled to the ground as something massive impacted him from behind. There was a crunch and a flash of white pain. "My leg, my leg." The next thing Rad knew there was a mud-soaked crocodile clamping down on his leg and starting to drag him away.

That fucking crocodile. Had it been a trap? Had it all been a fucking trap? Were they dancing on his fucking palm? Rad's consciousness flickered. He was blacking out. It hurt too bad. He'd pass out and die. The crocodile shuddered as Lad put a dart through its eye. Rad's body moved instinctively. The screwdriver swung round and bored into the crocodile's head. The monster died instantly and Rad rolled away, starting to heal himself; his leg was a bloody mess. He'd need at least ten seconds before he could stand.

"Seventy seven, seventy six." Countdown to the end of the world. The man was still counting. He was still fucking counting. What was wrong with him? How was he maintaining his concentration? They had to stop that spell.

Rad watched helplessly as Chad and the man struggled against each other. Chad was the stronger. He was slowly forcing away that white dagger, even as the man leveraged his whole weight over the blade. Something was wrong with the man's right arm. It just hung there limply. We've injured him. He's only a man. He's only a man. Chad was capitalizing on the weakness, using his free hand to pummel the man's ribs in. Mighty, rattling blows. Chad had done it. He'd fucking done it.

No, something looked wrong. Rad was a doctor. He understood pain. And the man wasn't hurting. There was no grunting sigh; his eyes didn't bulge out; his gaze didn't waver, even as hammer blow after hammer blow impacted into his ribs. The cloak? Somehow the cloak was floating a few inches away from the man's body, dispersing the force of the punches before they reached the man.

"Lad, why aren't you helping?" Rad shouted. What the hell was he doing? Their man was pinned.

"Fuck off. I'm trying. He's doing something to my darts. He catches them in his cloak and then... I don't know. They feel far away and surrounded by something gooey. Like he's buried them underground or something."

"How many do you have left?"

"Only the one I used on the crocodile"

"Dammit. Dammit."

Rad's leg was almost healed. Two more seconds. He started to crawl towards the pair. One more second. Then he'd be up and diving at the man. Vrrr, vrrr, vrrr. The screwdriver whirred on.

The magician gave up on the contest of strength. He dropped the dagger. He was going to flee. Not with Chad's iron grip on his wrist. But no, the cloak caught the falling dagger and stabbed it into Chad's side. Chad gasped at the sudden wound, his grip slackening involuntarily, letting the man kick himself away, just as Rad dived at him with the screwdriver. The bit drilled forward, slicing through the mantle and... but the man was already jumping back. He was out of range. Rad had missed his chance.

Rad bent down and pulled out the white dagger, throwing it to Lad for safekeeping. He put both hands on Chad's wound and started channeled healing energy. The wound sealed itself up and the flush of color seeped back into Chad's cheeks.

"Why didn't you get him?" Chad spat out.

"You didn't see me get jumped by that crocodile?"

"No I didn't. I was fighting for my life here." Chad noticed the reptile corpse for the first time. He looked like he wanted to say more, but turned on Lad instead, "what excuse do you have?"

"Bastard's eating up my darts. I can smell them down there." Lad sniffed and pointed into the ground. "Somehow he's sunk them three or four feet down. I'm trying to get them out, but I can't see what I'm doing."

"Useless." Chad spat. "We should've run. I warned you."

"Chad, how's he keeping up with you in your boosted state?"

Chad shook his head. "It's not an ability. He's just... fast. Quick-witted too."

Chad sat up and eyed the magician, who was standing calmly a few feet away, continuing to chant. "He's an amateur fighter. Not that strong either. That stomp was pitiful. He's brittle too I reckon. A little longer and I'd have crushed his wrist in two. It's that cloak of his. Slippery bastard. Thing moves on its own."

"Twenty four, twenty three." All three men looked at each other. They were running out of time. Carl grunted himself to his feet. "What's the plan Rad?" There was no more complaining. They were at the knife's edge. Do or death. "Twenty two, twenty one"

Rad put his head in his hands. "Twenty, nineteen."

"Dammit all. I take lead. Lad give your last dart to Chad. Hover behind us with that white dagger. Chad on my left."

They had one chance. Rad hoped Chad hadn't been exaggerating the man's weakness. Cause this plan needed Rad to tank at least one good hit. "You can win't if you don't roll," he muttered to himself.

"Eighteen, seventeen." No time to hesitate. They had to interrupt that spell. Everything depended on that.

Rad charged forward. The screwdriver whining. He stabbed forward and the man slid closer, impossibly fast, slamming a fist into Rad's chest, and trying to knock the screwdriver out of Rad's hand with his hip. Rad felt his chest get torn up. A spiked glove of hardened mud digging into his insides. Rad gritted his teeth and held on, flooding his body with healing mana. Chad was a show-off asshole. The punch hurt like hell.

Rad slashed the screwdriver across, just as Chad arrived on his left flank. The man had no choice but to back up. "Got you." The screwdriver blade extended forward. The man's eyes widened a fraction. He tried to turn the back step into a duck, but Chad was already leveling a low punch. Lad's dart clasped in his fist.

The ground under the man suddenly gave way. He was falling straight down into the earth. The screwdriver swept across, just skimming the man's hood. But Chad's blow thundered into him. There was a resounding crack and a gush of forced out air, as the man was cannoned to the right, shuddering into the side of the giant beetle. The dart's extra range had let Chad pierce through the cloak. The man sputtered out blood, but he was still counting.

"Five, four."

The three of them closed desperately in. Lad's last dart sprinted ahead. It jetted into the man's side. "Yes!" The man shuddered, but kept chanting. Next came the white dagger like a shimmering arrowhead. But the man ducked and the dagger quivered into the beetle's back. The man's hood had fallen off. And he was smiling at them. That smile of death. Chad arrived next. His fist meteoring at the man's head. But the magician let himself fall over to the side.

"Three, two."

Rad wasn't going to make. His leg was screaming. His chest ached. He wasn't going to make it.

"One."