Nathan stumbles backward and is completely baffled. He feels his chest begin to tighten up and his breathing becomes raspy.

"Wha.... What?"

Catia's eyes averted from Nathan's and she puts her hood back on. She runs away at an intense speed and is out of sight before long. Nathan just sits there shocked and confused but he needs to pay attention to the battle that is ensuing. Nathan tries to stand up and he immediately begins to feel the pain of his current injury and takes a knee. His left leg is completely unusable. Nathan turns around to still see Joey with his grey looking skin and teal aura and he wonders why he got shot at. 

"Joey, I'm hurt man and can't move. We may need to retreat."

"Don't worry Nathan, as long as I have Lure on they can't kill you from up close it seems like, can you at least parry the arrows? Plus I can't move as well."

"Ya, now that I'm on my guard that should be simple enough."

"Ok, good luck."

As Nathan is looking at Joey, 3 people in white robes begin running towards Joey with their weapons drawn. Nathan decides that even though he can't move he can still help plus we don't know how long Impenetrable Defense lasts but they needed to get closer before he could do that.

Back at where Tanner's group is, Tanner is still deflecting arrows as before but they are coming at a much slower rate. It seems that some of Bree's Ice Spikes have hit their targets but Bree is beginning to look pale and is probably running out of magic power. She realizes this the same time Tanner does and stops sending out Ice Spikes and goes shoulder to shoulder with Tanner so he can defend her.

The arrows just kept coming and Tanner notices that Lure isn't working at the people at a certain distance away. Tanner concludes that he can just send Nathan out to take care of them but something is off. Tanner looks at Nathan, who is taking a knee for some reason, and then it finally hits him.

"Shit, Nathan's injured and it looks bad."

Bree looks to where Nathan is and notices his injury too but she doesn't know what she can do at this point. As she goes to say something she is interrupted by Niki.

"Behind us!"

Tanner quickly turns his shield around and manages to narrowly block an arrow going towards Niki's face. The situation seems to be getting dire as the relentless barrage of the arrows and the growing numbers of enemies are overwhelming the group. Tanner begins to think of strategies on how he could sway the momentum of the battle but not leaving Nathan behind at the same time. As he is blocking the person behind him, an arrow goes straight to the back of Tanner's head but is met with someone else's flesh.

"AHHHhhHHH!!"

Tanner eardrums are nearly shattered as Niki lets out a blood-curdling scream and blood begins to squirt on top of Tanner's head. Tanner turns around to see Niki had put her hand out in an attempt to stop the arrow and succeeded but unfortunately had received a pretty painful injury in the process. 

Bree sends out an accurate Ice Spike towards the robed person behind them and hits them directly in the head. Bree winced a little as their blood began to spray all over the place but they were the ones who started this fight. Now all Tanner had to focus on was the people who were originally shooting arrows at them but he catches a glimpse of something that makes his blood run cold.

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Back on Joey and Nathan's side, the 3 people rushing towards Joey is currently hitting his stone body repeatedly but to no avail. Joey begins to wonder how long his Impenetrable Defense would last but that was not the first thing to give out. As Lure wore out completely, the robed figures were drawn out of there relentless bloodlust for Joey and had noticed Nathan was injured and completely immobile.

Joey begins to taunt them and scream at them as they walked past him but to no effect. He begins to try to deactivate his ability and try to help Nathan but he didn't know how to do so. As the people disappeared from Joey's sight he began to worry about what would happen to his friend.

"Please Tanner, save him."

As the three people approached Nathan, he put up his hands as to surrender and looks towards the ground but one of them begun to laugh.

"Man, to be tricked by Catia and to give up in a fight, just how pathetically weak are you?"

The other two begun to laugh and they seemed to all be male by how they sounded. Nathan slowly looks up with his one eye at the 3 men and he gives them a menacing stare. He had not activated Pressure yet but that was for a reason.

"Huh, you gonna look at me like that punk? Alright, let's see you make that menacing look when I'm done with you."

The one in the middle pulls out a long sword and begins to walk towards Nathan but this exactly what he wanted. The robed man lifts the long sword in the air as he prepares to slice at Nathan but he quickly drops the sword. Nathan uses Accelerated Step to speed up his entire body and pulls out the throwing knives from his cloak and quickly send them into the darkness of the robed figures heads. He sends out six and they all connect their targets and they all fall lifeless to the ground. 

Nathan had wanted them to be closer so he could have an easier shot at them and it worked perfectly. As the robed figures continued to not move after they hit the ground Nathan let out a long breathe of relief. He limps over to the bodies and takes the two knives out of each of their heads and puts them back into his cloak, blood and all. He limps over to Joey and even deflects two arrows along the way. As Nathan makes it to him, Joey's worries for his friend evaporate from his body and is replaced by relief. Nathan puts his arm around Joey to help keep him stable and Joey's paralysis from his ability seems to be wearing off. As it completely wears off he puts his arm around Nathan to support him even more. Nathan looks at Joey and smiles.

"Let's get the fuck outta here."

Joey laughs and nods at Nathan.

"Agreed."

As they walk back towards Tanner and Bree, the arrows seemed to have stopped being shot at them. As the two make it back to the rest of the group Joey puts Nathan on the ground. Tanner takes a knee next to Nathan and slightly touches the arrow in his leg.

"Alright, I'm gonna take it out fast ok-?"

Before Tanner could finish the sentence Nathan takes out the arrow himself and screams in pain. Tanner takes this as the hint to start the healing process and does so. A slight pain could be felt in Tanner's leg and he thinks it must be a muscle cramp. The wound closes and Nathan flexes his leg tightly. 

"Seems to be back to normal, thanks Tanner."

"No problem. So did you find out anything about these people?"

"Ya, I did..... Catia was one of them."

The whole group gasps and Nathan explains the story of how he managed to rip a hood off and see Catia's face. The whole group is baffled at how someone with the guild is connected to what is going on and then Niki finally realizes what it is.

"Oh my, I just realized that-!"

Niki is thrown to the side as Nathan had pushed her out of the way of an incoming blade. Nathan countered this incoming blade and swiftly slit the neck of Niki's attacker. A girl could be heard gasping for air as she falls to the ground and her blood begins to sprinkle the area around them. Nathan instantly takes off her hood and sees a blue haired elf, which meant that it was not Catia. Nathan looks back to where he had pushed Niki to help her up but is met with a truly infuriating sight. 

Catia stands there with a small dagger to Niki's throat as she seems to be holding Niki hostage. Tanner gets into a fighting stance whereas Joey has the most confused expression he has ever had in his life and Bree readies an Ice Spike. Nathan just shakes his head and lets out a small response to the situation.

"What the actual fuck."