Ellis was standing on a rooftop, gazing down at a house whose occupants' raucous laughter and familial conversation floated up to his ears. With his new perception, he could make out snippets of what they were saying. They were chatting about the old days, when they were young and adventurous, before age and the ‘job’ had worn them down. Most complained about their wives, a few complained about their sons and daughters. All of them agreed to a complaint about their knees, which they found the most humorous for some reason.

  Men. People. Human beings who had lived a life, who knew love and kindness, who had served their city by putting their health and body on the line to try and make it better. And Ellis stood on that rooftop, with the people who wanted to slaughter them like animals.

  “Why do we have to kill all of them?” Ellis whispered, his every thought now focused on trying to keep as many men alive as possible.

  “Because it’s fun?” Michael said, lying down on the tiled roof while bobbing his finger toward the sky, counting the stars.

  “Because one of them has to die. And we cannot have any other escape.” Ameena’s voice was like ice. She stood stock still while her eyes gazed upon that house, the slight breeze jostling her hair into her face.

  A mere day ago Ellis had thought killing her would be easy. But when she had commanded him to track those guards, he had obeyed like a slave, almost running after the men to make sure he didn’t lose them. She was not as powerful as Michael, but Ellis only had to look at her eyes to know that the bravery he felt upon seeing her stats was nothing but stupidity. She may not be as powerful as the idiot.

  But she was no less dangerous.

  “Then… let’s wait? Follow the one you want to his house, kill him when he’s alone? We don’t have to kill all of them!” Ellis argued.

  Her eyes turned to him. “They are guilty just for speaking to him with that tone!”

  Their laughter drifted up once more.

  Ellis swallowed, and tried his best not to look at her. “Attacking all of them now, so soon after dusk is dangerously stupi— impatient. They are the famed Albus Citadel guards, after all. My father practically drilled patience into my head, so I suggest we use it now. If we wait, we don’t have to face all of them and we will have less bodies to hide! There are literally only upsides to waiting!”

  Ameena’s eyes didn’t waver, but the grip around her wand had made her knuckles white, as if her mind was agreeing but every other part of her wanted to rush in there and kill them all. She looked away, her jaw clenching and unclenching. She swore under her breath, and turned back to Ellis with hate in her eyes and a ‘fine’ on her lips.

  And then Michael stood up and stretched, joining Ellis at the roof’s edge. He put a lazy arm around Ellis’s shoulders, yawning as he inspected the house.

  “True, very true. That does sound smart. Counterpoint, you said the Guard Captain was riding at the head of those ‘soldiers’, which means that there is a chance the people who killed your family might be in that house.”

  A grey light flashed in Ellis’s eye, the weight painful and familiar, and yet more heartbreaking than ever.

  Michael shrugged, glancing at Ameena as he did so. “Almost definitely, if the company they keep is anything to go by. So why spare them? Besides, I’m here. Killing all of them will be easy.”

  Ameena might have listened to Ellis. She might have seen reason. But Michael had swayed her with a shrug and smile. And he had used the worst argument against Ellis, because now he couldn’t voice one whisper of a complaint. Any opposition would inform them that he knew the secret. Who had really killed his family.

  With the choice made, Ellis committed to the lie. With his stomach in knots, his teeth almost cracked from the lie he forced past them. “You're right. But I still suggest patience, let ‘em get drunk first.”

  ~BREAK~

  Michael landed with a thud against the stone bricks, and charged at the window weak along the hinges. The glass crashed inwards as he jumped through it, the dead guards' stolen sword drawn and a mad laugh escaping him as he charged right into the middle of the shocked men.

  Ellis followed him in a moment later. Status screens jumping out at him because of his activated necklace, almost blinding him to the carnage unfolding. The men had been arrayed in a broken circle, some seated on chairs, others using the tables or counter tops. Half the men were armed, but none of them had their armor on. All of their armour, and half their weapons were arranged in neat piles near the front door.

  Ellis had barely made it through the window and Michael had already slain two of the thirteen men inside. Another one had jumped backwards over his seat, toppling over it in the process. For his trouble, Michael’s sword lopped off half of his hand instead of his head.

  But despite their drunkenness, and the surprise attack, the men responded like seasoned veterans. Three of the armed men jumped up and attacked Michael instantly, while the others formed a wall so their unarmed friends could fetch their gear.

  Ameena followed Ellis in, knife and wand drawn. She waved the wand not at Michael, but at empty air. From the place she waved at the guards' loud conversation from earlier started up again, drowning out the men’s harsh curses and panicked questions of what was going on. Then she waved her wand at Michael, and four of him appeared to crash through different windows, all laughing the same way the real one had.

  The three guards backed away from the real Michael, completing the haphazard circle they made to face their new ‘attackers’. The men had bought enough time for their unarmed comrades to find their swords, but not enough time to armour themselves. Only three men faced the real Michael, Ellis and Ameena.

  “What do you want!?” the man with half his hand called out, standing behind his men and surveying their attackers, the same way Ellis was surveying them.

  All the fake Michael’s spoke at once. “Give us Leno Warde, and you may live.”

  “There ain’t no Leno here, you creepy fucks!” The single ginger in the room shouted back at them, causing a grey light to go off in Ellis’s eye.

  Ellis glanced at Ameena, and then back to the large status screen hovering in the middle of the guards formation. Most of the guards had stats Ellis would kill for, living up to the reputation they had garnered, the weakest of the lot having a 7 in strength and a 6 in constitution.

  But the status screen he peered at now was undoubtedly the strongest of the bunch, and it wasn’t close:

  A child of Dumiso:

  Leno Ward:

  Strength: 10 (Guard’s braces: +2)

  Mana: 1

  Dexterity: 7

  Perception: 6

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  endurance: 6

  Constitution: 7 (Shoes of comfort: +2)

  Total stat points: 37 (+4)

  Level 3

  He had an impressive 41 in total plus gear, and the man was barely armoured to begin with. Ellis noted that his total was the third highest in the room, behind Ameena and Michael, and he wouldn’t bet on her if they had a fight.

  Ellis was about to turn to Ameena and tell her where he was standing, but all the Michael’s spoke in unison before he could even open his mouth.

  “He is standing in the middle of your formation. This is your last chance.”

  The man in the middle seemed taken aback, and his companions started whispering to one another. They weren’t soft enough for Ellis’s ears.

  “What the fuck did you do, Leno!?” The ginger asked.

  “I don’t know! Let’s capture one of them, and kill the rest. We’ll interrogate them later,” Leno replied.

  Another man growled in agreement. “Amen to that brother! They killed Liam and Rake, they ain’t leaving here alive.”

  All the men charged out at some unspoken command, separating themselves in groups to face all the attackers, their battle cry almost equaling the laughter that filled the room. Ellis saw the real Michael brace, before he chucked a chair at the three men charging him. It bounced off the first man, who fell flat on his face from the impact. The second man stumbled over the first man’s flailing legs, while the third kept going, eyes wide and desperate.

  With a single swing of his blade, Michael lopped off the third man’s head.

  He caught the stumbling man by the throat, and threw him at the men attacking his clone near the door. The man who had fallen crawled forward under Michael’s sword swings, and managed to stab the top of Michael’s foot with a long dagger, twisting it into the meat with a triumphant cry.

  Michael used that same foot to stomp his skull into a paste. “Ellis!” he called out, barely being heard above the illusion. “Any time you want to jump in!?”

  Ellis notched an arrow with shaky hands, and pushed the last of his mana into activating his ring for the first time. Leno was the biggest threat, but he was snarling at a fake Michael who was taunting him on the left, the illusion distracting the men who had charged with him.

  “The two men in front of you look the most dangerous! The three on the right are going for the door!” Ellis called out.

  “I have the men on the right!” Ameena roared, sprinting at the three downed men, who were struggling to stand after Michael had thrown one of their number at them. While she sprinted, two mirror images of her started sprinting at the men from opposite sides, who all struggled desperately to stand and face their attackers together.

  Michael grinned at her, then went after the men straight in front of him, walking forward with his arms spread wide.

  Leno’s voice piped up, “They’re mana users boys! Some of these arseholes aren’t real!”

  “Which ones!” The ginger shouted, his back inching towards the wall behind him as two Michael’s walked him and his companion down.

  “I don’t fucking know! Figure it out!” Leno roared back, before directing the men with him to stop stabbing the fake illusion who was grinning at them, and charge towards Ellis.

  The half handed man was with Leno, but he had a sword in his good hand and a snarl on his lips. Ellis focused on him and pulled back his bowstring. The arrow almost let loose by itself, and didn’t even whisper as it soared through the air. It caught him in the throat. He collapsed to his knees, grasping at his neck as he choked to death. He fell face forward into the growing pool of blood, lost among his friends.

  But Leno and the man with him, a stout man with a light scar running down his lip, charged straight past their fallen comrade. Ellis ignored the men running towards him, his eyes locked onto the man he had felled as he stood frozen to the spot.

  Leno crashed into him, making all the air leave his lungs as his back crashed into the wall. He slid down the hard wood onto the floor.

  Letting loose a triumphant cry at having found something real, Leno went in to stab him. The tip of his sword hit Ellis right in the belly, burying itself a centimeter deep, but moved no further. He scrunched his eyebrows as Ellis snapped out of his stupor, and started fighting back, swinging his bow at the stout man's legs and receiving a loud ‘thwack!’ for his efforts.

  The stout man swore at the blow, before he too thrust a sword at Ellis, who barely managed to move his hips out of the way in time, the sword missing his stomach by an inch. The stout man’s boot followed not long after, catching Ellis in the face.

  And while it did cause his eyes to water and his teeth to clack together so loud it almost drowned out the noise, it wasn’t nearly as painful as it should have been.

  For once, Ellis was almost grateful to Michael for giving him the ring.

  He tried his best to crawl away as Leno shouted at him, “Why won’t you die!”

  “Because of heresy! Now fuck off!” Ellis shouted back, stomping his foot down on Leno’s leg, right above his kneecap. The stout man once again kicked Ellis in the face for his efforts as Leno stumbled back, but the ring made it bearable.

  Ellis pulled out the two knives at his hip, and swung them at the men wildly. They backed off a little, which gave Ellis enough time to shimmy his back up the wall and get his feet under him.

  The ring was taking the brunt of the damage, but Ellis didn’t know how long it would last, and they were still leaving deep scratches in his arms and chest every time they swung their swords. Leno sized Ellis up and down. He snorted in annoyance, and turned around to give orders to the men who were dying like flies. Clearly, Ellis wasn’t enough of a threat to hold his attention.

  With frantic desperation, Ellis looked past the status screen that was right in front of his face to the stout man bearing down on him. The status screen told him a lot about the man, like his name and that he was thirty years old…

  But it was his eyes that told Ellis he was a kind man. A good man. A man who would believe in every plight and try his best to fix it.

  So Ellis spun a lie.

  “Jacob! I’m being forced to do this! Please don’t hurt me! Remember when you helped me at the market the other day!?”

  Jacob looked like he was struck across the face, his eyes going wide as he tried to place what Ellis was talking about. In that moment of hesitation, he plunged his knife forward. Jacob responded in time to stop Ellis’s thrust with his new dagger, the blade coming to a stop an inch away from the front Jacob’s throat.

  But he did not stop the knife Ellis had received from his mother, which had been buried to the hilt in Jacob’s armpit, the beating of his heart reverberating up the blade. They stood frozen together, as the thump thump grew more frantic, and then slower. Jacob looked down at the dagger, eyebrows knitted like he had heard something confusing, before looking up into Ellis’s wide eyes.

  He coughed once, covering Ellis’s face in blood and spit. His legs went limp, and he slouched deeper into the knife as a bloody gurgle left his mouth. Ellis did not let him fall, Jacob’s last embrace freezing him to the spot.

  Leno turned back after a moment and screamed in pain as his companion slumped to the floor. He grabbed Ellis around the throat, and smashed him against the wall. “Why would you do that!? Why are you after me!? What is wrong with you people!?”

  Ellis didn’t answer. He just continued staring at Jacob lying on the floor. “I… I’m sorry,” he stammered, his voice barely a whisper.

  Leno slammed him against the wall again, shaking the house with the impact. Ellis let out a deep cry, the pain coursing through his entire body as the ring wore off. He still had his new dagger in hand, so he drunkenly stabbed at the arm holding him up with a frantic snarl.

  Leno dropped him with a hiss, jumping back to inspect the cuts littering his arm. Ellis tried to press his advantage, but Leno punched his sword hilt into his nose, which burst into a shower of blood and snot.

  Raising his sword over his head, Leno swung it down with a grunt, but Ellis managed to roll out of the way. On his hands and knees, he crawled forward with all the speed left in his body, and grabbed his father’s bow off the floor. He swung it backwards as hard as he could the moment his hands closed around it, in a desperate bid to hit Leno’s chasing legs.

  It found Leno’s blade instead, which cut through the bow and half way into Elli’s wrist, the bone catching the sword before it could go any further. Ellis howled in pain, and scrambled backwards to get away from the man looming over him.

  “Fucking bastard! Die!”

  He raised his sword above his head to cut down at Ellis. He didn’t look up in time at the loud footsteps charging towards him.

  Michael slammed into Leno like a warhorse, carrying him past Jacob’s body before they crashed into the wall. Leno slouched towards the floor, but Michael grabbed him by his hair and started beating his head into the wall, once, twice, before Ameena commanded him to stop. With a grunt, he dropped the unconscious man onto the bloody floor and spit on his back.

  “Serves you right. Pick on someone your own size next time asshole.”