Thanks Echo, Carlin, Elzio said, as he pulled the Jenna Doppel back, dissolving it once it was out Alyssa’s sight.

Your gratitude has been noted and passed on, Echo said.

Then Elzio’s eyes fell to the map, where he saw the real Syrene was still slowly whittling away at minions. Erlin and the real Jenna would be on her soon, and he wasn’t going to have time to help. The two of them would join Gyrao to attack and likely defeat her. Elzio had practiced sparring with Syrene their whole journey over, every evening, and while she’d come a long ways, defeating three heroes was just not a possibility with their current levels.

Even if Syrene played down her skills, the sheer amount of time it would take for Erlin and Jenna to whittle down her health points would give her away as the real Syrene. But this wouldn’t all be bad. It would take her some time to respawn, which meant Carlin’s artifact would ready for her to take back to the road. Syrene would get her power boost.

The flipside was that there would be one hell of a push in the Southern Road. Elzio needed to push them back northside, so they could contend with Alyssa.

Elzio turned and ran back to the base to rendezvous with Syrene after her death, eye on the map the whole time.

Jenna and Erlin showed up on the map only a few minutes after the conversation with Alyssa. He couldn’t actually see the fight with Echo’s arena configuration, but he could watch the stat bars. It was a shame; watching Syrene in a fight, a real fight, would have been very interesting.

She performed well, and Elzio’s heart soared to see Jenna die and Erlin reduced to barely any health at all before Gryao dealt the killing blow. The wave of minions lasted just long enough for Elzio to see Erlin start to head back to his base for healing.

Well done, Syrene. This helped immensely. Elzio and Syrene could now push hard north without worrying about just how much would be lost in the south. In fact, the sooner he showed in the north, the sooner they’d respond.

So he turned on his heel and hurried back to the Northern Road. He hadn’t made much headway away from it, so he was back on it pretty quickly. Once there, he ordered the Syrene doppel to fire a stun bolt at Alyssa, which gave him the time to get in close enough to make a doppelganger of her. Level 3, just enough to fight on its own.

Alyssa didn’t say anything as the Syrene and Alyssa doppels began pushing minions towards her. She barely even kept up with the minions as they encroached more and more on her tower, and didn’t peel off to search for Elzio as he disappeared into the bushes. Her heart wasn’t in it.

Echo, he said. When Syrene gets to lane, tell her to take her aritfact and go straight to the Northern Road.

Hopefully with an aggressive enough push, and a damaged enough morale, they could make something happen here. And judging by Alyssa’s timid responses, her morale was in a bad place.

Elzio kept a healthy distance on the fight and checked his mana supplies. Enough for a level 2, so he summoned a puppet clone of himself and set out into the forest. He needed to find out when Erlin and Jenna were on their way. He had to keep an eye out for Nolath . They couldn’t show up before Syrene got here. A good fight was going to be necessary to push Alyssa’s crumbling faith over the ledge.

Syrene has respawned, Echo said. I have conveyed to her your message, and she is on her way.

Good, Elzio said. How’s Carlin holding up? I know this must be rough for him.

He is… yes, you are correct. He is taking this rough. Echo sounded a little frustrated by this. I think he expects more sympathy and sadness from me, in regards to his once friends. They are here to kill us.

Poor Carlin. Echo was a tough rock to get water from when it came to empathy for humans. Just go easy on him, he said. Remember, he’s making this sacrifice to help us. Whether or not it’s objectively right, it still takes nerve to do that.

I suppose. Then Echo’s voice shifted, from pensive to urgent. Nolath is heading towards the Northern road. You do not want him to join Alssya at this point, or he will defeat your doppelgangers and potentially even restore Alyssa’s faith.

That would never do. “On it,” Elzio said. “Good catch.” He moved the Elzio doppel closer to Nolath, close enough to snap a branch and cause the hero to freeze in his steps.

“Damnit,” Elzio hissed through the doppel’s mouth, before turning tail and running.

Nolath wasn’t letting this oportunity pass up. With Alyssa in the north, Gyro in the south, and Erlin and Jenna about to show up in either lane to push the advantage, taking out Elzio was techncially the right call.

Elzio only hoped it wasn’t actually the right call.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Syrene made it to the Northern Road before either Jenna or Erlin did, but only by about a minute. That was enough, though. Elzio dropped all of his doppels the moment she arrived. He needed the rush of mana because a handful of level 3s wasn’t going to work here. And Nolath was now a solid five minutes away after having chased the Elzio doppel so far. He wouldn’t be a part of this fight.

It was Syrene versus Alyssa, Jenna, and Erlin. Syrene had lost this 3v1 last time, but this time, it wouldn’t just be Syrene. Or it would, but it wouldn’t just be one.

Elzio threw a level 6 Syrene doppel into the fray. The combined levels of both Syrenes was now 31, which put them at only a few levels below their opponents combined level. Syrene had, however, taken Melting Magma. If they drew this fight out, she would do a ton of damage.

They just had to draw it out.

Erlin charged in with a Valiant Sweep, which dealt a significant amount of damage and slowed both Syrenes. The real Syrene responded, hitting him hard with a high leveled Lightning Blast that stunned him for several seconds, and slapping on a Melting Magma, which the doppel layered on top of.

“What do we do?” Alyssa asked, her voice spiking in panic. She looked to Jenna, and took a deep breath. “You were right. You were right all along.”

Jenna, who’d definitely been about to run to Erlin’s defense, paused at Alyssa’s words. “Aly I’m sorry. I din’t mean—”

“Stop talking and come help me!” Erlin spat. “She’s going to—”

While the two girls were sharing their tender moment, Erlin had taken significant damage. Unfortuatnly for him, just as he spoke, the Syrene doppel cast its version of Lightning Blast that again stunend Erlin.

“Damned if we do, damned if we don’t,” Alyssa said. She nodded, eyes bright, and turned towards the lane. “Might as well do.”

With this, she charged into the fray, past Erlin, past the Syrenes, past the minions, and straight towards their tower. Its built in cannons swiveled towards her as she ran.

“Alyssa what the hell are you doing?” Erlin’s eyes had fixed on Alyssa as she ran in, initially darting about the area as if waiting to understand what she was doing. Now that he saw she was sacrificing herself, his eyes bugged in panic. “Get away from there!”

Elzio didn’t waste time watching Alyssa run, as much as he would have loved to. Instead, he ordered the Syrene doppel to begin charging an Energy Cage, which formed four walls of lightning around Erlin. At the start of the channel, the cage was probably twenty square feet, and the walls only dealt a small amount of damage on touch. But as the channel continued, the cage shrank and the walls grew more dangerous. Any attack to Syrene would interupt the channel and end the spell, but Erlin’s only ranged ability, Valiant Sweep, was on cooldown.

“Jenna!” he shouted, spittle flying from his mouth. “Attack her!”

Alyssa, who had just crossed into range of the structure, turned around. A canon shot hit her square in the back, dealing a hefty blow to her hit points.

“Jenna,” she said, voice breaking. “Jenna, we promised. And I’m sorry, I—” She cut off as another shot hit her. “We have to do the right thing. I’m sorry.”

“One of you hit her!” Erlin’s voice broke in rage. “We could all die if you throw this. Whatever grievances you have, it’s not worth—someone hit her!” Now his voice spiked again as the cage grew stiflingly small around him. “Alyssa!”

Alyssa’s hit points had dropped dangerously low as she took a fifth shot. She looked at Jenna one last time before looking at Syrene. “We were wrong,” she said. “We were wrong. Please. Remember us as—”

The final shot hit her, and her body froze, shuddered, and dissolved.

Erlin shouted wordlessly, voice ragged and hoase from the shouting. He turned to Jenna, no doubt ready to hurl more orders at her, but before he could speak, the now full-strenght cage, closed around him and his body convulsed before vanishing.

The route fell quiet as the two Syrenes looked down Jenna.

It was time for Elzio to make his gamble.

“Jenna,” he said, stepping out from the forest, hands in the air. “I’m not sure what’s going on with your team, with your country. I promise, we are here to help you. To help Ythrel, to help—”

“I know.” Her voice was a whisper, and she looked afraid. “I know. I swear, I didn’t volunteer for this. I didn’t want to go. There were three of us who were friends at the academy, Alssya and I, and another hero Carlin. Carlin ran, which was the right thing, but-but it was always easier for him. They didn’t want him. Alyssa promised me she’d refuse the call if I did, and she didn’t but now—” Jenna held her hands up too. “If we win this, I’ll be punished for my disobedience. Punished… severely. Permanently. I don’t survive this, win or lose.” There were tears on her face now.

Syrene, the real Syrene, stepped forward. “The modification nexi can take to increase survival rates for enemy heroes, we didn’t… I’m sorry. Had we known there was resistence on your side, we could have worked together. We could have—”

“Maybe.” Jenna smiled, brushing her face. “Maybe in another lifetime we could have. You can kill me here if it would put your minds at ease. I won’t resist you. You’re fighting to save my people. Your cause is mine. It always should have been.”

“If you want to help us, there’s more you can do than just die,” Elzio said, words slow as he put together another plan. “If you could find Nolath and Gyrao, see if you can convince either to abandon the fight, or at least delay them. Stop Nolath in the woods so we can push down towers without him joining. You can’t cast spells against him, but even just verbally delaying him.”

While they spoke, Syrene and her doppel set to work whittling down the tower and minions.

“Make a doppel of yourself for me to chase,” Jenna said, nodding. “That would get Nolath ’s attention. You being alive makes fighting your team very difficult. I’m not even sure how you have the mana for all these clones.”

Elzio hoisted his artifact, as he summoned a doppel of himself. “Mana staff.”

Her eyebrows puckered. “You have an armorsmith? I didn’t realize there was a third—”

“Carlin. He didn’t just run.” Elzio smiled. “What you’ve done, the three of you, it will be remembered.”

“He was braver than I was,” Jenna said, turning to the Elzio doppel. “And smarter. I thought they’d just let me go.”

“Don’t be upset with yourself,” Syrene said. She closed her fist, firing a blast at the tower, blowing it to pieces. “We never train heroes for this kind of thing. We weren’t ever supposed to.”

Jenna took a long breath, blue eyes sparkling with tears. Then she brushed them away, and her face was a mask of stoicism. “All right. Send the doppelganger out, I’ll give it a few seconds and then follow pursuit. Just have it patrol the side of the path facing the forest. Nolath will come after seeing the fight on the map.”

Elzio nodded and gave the command.

“Tell Carlin that Jenna and Alyssa say hi.” She smiled before turning to the woods and darting from the lane.