A blade swishes past Karic's face as he narrowly avoids decapitation. He jumps back to distance himself from his pursuer but this man just won't let up!
"I'm only nineteen you shedding hillbilly! " Colson shouts while chasing Karic like an enraged bull. Karic didn't understand why this dude was so desperate to affirm his age to some guy that he's trying to kill? It just doesn't make any sense!
Karic drew an arrow from his side quiver and nocked it into his bow, which honestly is a horrible weapon to be proficient in when you're fighting in a tavern, surrounded by fog, and being chased down by a maniac wielding a great sword.
He tried to shoot at Colson but he was too close for him to have time for fully drawn arrows and, though the boy seemed to be attacking in a rage, Colson was very cognizant of when Karic shot his arrows making them easy for him to dodge. Karic felt his frustration rising as a hot feeling started to rise in the pit of his stomach.
"How did you summon this fog anyway ma-I mean kid!?" Colson's eyes narrowed in suspension as he came to an abrupt stop from his unending pursuit of Karic.
"Hey, I heard that. You were just about to call me man again!" Karic scoffed while he drew back his bow with an arrow at the ready.
"Why do you even care?! Besides, I said kid! As in, you shouldn't have stopped chasing me kid!" Karic released the bow string and let the arrow fly at Colson. Colson shifted slightly to the side with and unimpressed look on his face.
"Was that supposed to hit me or were you planning on trying something a little less obvious?" Karic smirked.
"As a matter of fact..." He snapped his fingers an act that gained no reaction from Colson. That is until the arrow from behind him started to spark and a bolt of lightning shot out from Karic to the arrow. Colson, who was standing betwixt the two, had no time to jump out of the way and was caught within a connected current of electricity.
"GRRAAAAHHH!" He howled in pain but Karic wasn't done yet as he then fired out two more arrows to either side of the boy. The arrows dug into the ground and the lightning bolt began to bounce between the arrows and through Colson at high speeds.
"Oooh! I bet that one hurts! But hey, you've probably experienced more pain in your long life than me so you should be able to bear with it!" Karic joked. Colson glared at the orc with tears in his eyes from the pain.
"I'm gonna kill you!" He cursed making Karic laugh.
"No man. I'm gonna kill you!" Karic drew back is bow again and fired out another arrow, this time aiming to finish Colson. Colson's eyes suddenly went wide as he mustered all of his strength to dive toward the arrow. Karic was baffled by the boy's strength as the arrow dug into his shoulder instead of its original target, the head. Colson then dove at Karic with a sinister gleam in his eye.
"Let's see how you take the shock!" He screamed as he bear hugged Karic. Colson stood with his eyes closed tightly as he held Karic within his grasps just waiting for the pain to flow from him to the orc.
"Hey, kid." Karic spoke with a bit of strain in his voice as Colson was squeezing him very tightly.
"Yeah?" Colson responded still waiting for the next wave of pain.
"You do know that I can just deactivate my spell right?" The large boy's eyes went from tightly closed to open as wide as he could have them in a moment of dawning.
"No, I did not know that."
"Well now you do." Karic said in a gentle voice before jamming his knee into Colson's stomach. Colson felt the air leave his body but didn't release his hold on the Orc, instead he intensified it. This was Colson's only plan.
Karic kneed the boy again in the gut. "Did you think you were some bigshot or something!" He lifted his elbow and slammed it into Colson's back making the boy buckle slightly. "You know what? You were right to correct me about your age! Do you know why!?"
Karic clasped both of his hands together and slammed into Colson's back while also condensing a spell midair that was the image of a genie of some sort that snapped it's fingers and conjured a bolt of lighting at the same time that Karic's sledgehammer slammed onto Colson's back.
"It's because a grown man would never do something as stupid as desperately clenching onto his opponent with no sort of plan!" Colson couldn't even muster a scream as pain rang through his entire body. He felt the air dissipate from his lungs and he couldn't gather anymore. The boy's grip on Colson slowly relaxed as he fell to his knees, barely conscious.
A smile plastered itself onto Karic's face as he looked down at the boy. "You were a slight blip in my original plan but, it's good that things still worked out for me in the end." Karic shoved Colson, who was still loosely hanging onto him, off with a swift kick. Colson fell down to the floor limply.
Karic let out a frustrated breath. "I said that, but I still have no idea what to do about this fog." Karic stepped over Colson's body only to feel a hand grab onto his ankle. He looked down what he believed to be a corpse.
"You still alive down there? Man, I'm two for two in the not finishing targets department."
"L-loo-look..." Colson was stammering over his words and his face was on the face down on the floor so, it was difficult to understand what he was trying to say.
"What is it kid? Did that bolt of lightning shake your brain loose or something?" Karic giggled at his own twisted joke and went to yank his leg free. But just as he tried the hand grabbed on tighter than before and stopped him. "What the-" Karic kept trying to free his foot but the kid wouldn't let go. Colson then suddenly looked up from the ground revealing a sight that made Karic shudder.
The boy's face looked as if it were melting. A huge part of his back was charred from the lightning revealing part of his a spine and something that definitely wasn't skin burning but the most haunting things were his eyes that were literally leaking out of their sockets!
"Look behind you!" Colson said in a breathy and discomforting voice. Karic unconsciously did as he was told only to be met with the butt end of a sword's hilt. He would have been pushed back but his leg was still caught in the creepy kid's grip so, he tripped and hit the ground with a heavy thud.
Karic winced in pain. "What the hell was that?" He looked up to see what had hit him and his pupils went large at the sight he was beholding.
"Well, that goes to show you that criminals are not to be underestimated even if you're an aspiring knight!" Colson said in a proud voice while looking down at his own body.
A completely uninjured Colson standing over the injured one that Karic had just been fighting.
Karic was thrown for a loop.
"Did I hit the ground too hard?" Karic felt around his head for any signs of a concussion but found none. Colson glanced over to the confused orc.
"What? You act like you've never seen a boy that can duplicate himself before?"
"You can what?!" Karic screamed as he pushed himself up from the ground.
"Oh, I guess you wouldn't have met a duplicator since this is the first time that I've seen you." Colson smiled at Karic cheekily while the man was filled with confusion and rage.
"What the hell is a duplicator?" Karic asked through gritted teeth. Colson shrugged and shook his head.
"I don't know? It seems like a waste for me to explain this to you. You're gonna be a corpse in a second anyway." Colson waved around his great sword that Karic hadn't noticed had disappeared earlier in the fight.
"You mean to tell me that this entire time I've been fighting something that wasn't even the real you?!"
"Well, technically you still may not be facing the real me. After all..." A voice similar to the one currently in front of him came from Karic's right as another Colson walked out of the fog.
"...I could be the real deal." Karic stared at the sudden introduction of another duplicate only for him to hear the sound of footsteps approaching his left side making him turn his head again.
"Don't listen to those two, I'm clearly the real deal." This sudden fourth Colson said as he flexed his arm and held his bicep. Karic's eye began to twitch. His mouth also began to twitch. In fact, one might think Karic's head was itchy or something because every part of it that could move, began to twitch.
Karic felt the heat in his stomach rising again. Oh, and it was rising fast. Karic yanked his foot back hard as his mind became filled with a stress induced headache. He gripped his head tightly as he tried to process all of the information that he was currently getting but none of it made any sort of sense.
"There's more than one of you? How the hell-RAGH! And which is the real one!? Have I ever been fight the real one or were you just messing with me this entire-AGGH!" Karic started to pant as the heat infected his entire body. It felt itchy.
"SOO ITCHY!" Karic suddenly shouted as he started scratch himself like a dog with flees. "Everything is so confusing but I can't focus because I'm so DAMN ITCHY!" The Colsons watched Karic began to unravel
"Is there something surrounding him or is that just Denver's fog?" One Colson asked gesturing to the area around Karic.
"I don't know? I've never been in Denver's fog so I don't know how it works. What about you guys?" Another said.
"You guys realize that we're all the same person so if one of us doesn't know the answer then, none of us do?" A snarky Colson commented.
"Shut up! Just attack the guy!" The impatient Colson holding his great sword urged. All of the Colsons glanced at each other before shrugging and charging straight for the tweaking Karic.
"No, get back!" Karic grunted while gripping his own arms so tightly that his nails started to dig into his skin. "GET THE HELL AWAY FROM MEEE!!" Karic roared and an opaque barrier suddenly shot out of his body and pushed away from him in all directions.
The many Colsons were pushed away by the barrier. The fog that was surrounding Karic was also carried away by the force field. The barrier kept expanding at a rapid rate until it was stopped by what Karic assumed to be the walls of this tavern.
"GET OUT OF MY WAY!!" He screamed again suddenly increasing the force to which the barrier was expanding tenfold. The barrier burst through the walls tearing down the tavern and revealing the night sky. The fog that once surrounded everyone within the tavern began to dissipate as the Denver lay on the ground next to Narie north of the epicenter.
Eric and Alisa groaned in pain as they were being crushed under Edmund's unconscious body due east of the point of origin.
Kent and Joana lay on the ground both heavily injured west of ground zero.
Nasak and Leroy pick themselves up from the ground south of where it all began.
Clones of Colson all lay on the ground in various areas.
All the while Karic stands in the center of everything breathing heavily and looking up at the moon while drenched in sweat.
"Whoo!" He exclaimed. "That was a crazy one!" Karic let his eyes wander around and notice the varying states of his comrades. "Oh shit, were we losing to these guys?! What the hell, I thought this was gonna be in the damn bag!" Leroy similarly looked around and noticed even Joana laying on the ground.
"If even Jo's down then these guys must be some good fighters!" The lizard said surprised.
"Hey, maybe it's time we called it a day, huh?" Karic said to any of the people still awake. "I mean...I just don't wanna try to deal with any of this while I'm tired, ya know?"
"Yeah~" Narie agreed still laying on the ground. "I'm not even really sure what happened in my fight?"
"At least, you weren't fighting a lunatic that froze your face and tried to stab you when he tripped you. Also someone that could summon forth the elements at will with no spells was insane!" Joana complained.
"Hey, me and this kid were even before Karic burst like that. I think I could've won." Leroy said trying to assure himself more than anyone else.
"Then we won, right?" Kent pushed himself up from ground but didn't stand up because he was too tired. "The Djinns have lost to the Pig Defense Forces!" Eric and Alisa just finished pushing Edmund's body off of them when they heard Kent's declaration.
They looked at each other in silence just blinking before exploding into cheers.
"WE DID-"
"SCRRREEEEEECCCHHH!!" All of the tavern brawlers felt their insides and the air around them shake as a bloodcurdling screech sounded out. They all turned in the direction of the screeches origin.
The ocean. But not the ocean directly. Instead, a small island off the coast of Pesinwok. An island that held a lighthouse.
A lighthouse that was currently spewing green flames from the top like an erupting volcano. In fact the flames were coming out of every single way out that the lighthouse had available. The flames burst out of the top of the lighthouse with great force while emitting a strange green gas as well. At that moment everyone followed the flames up on their path and noticed that they were forming a shape in the space overhead.
The shape that they were forming?
None other than that of a giant bird!