All out battle

The gunshot echoed loudly, followed by the sound of a body hitting the ground. The cultists' eyes couldn’t be seen, but their shock could be noticed from a mile away.

Louise’s fist instantly connected with my face. At least, it would have, if I hadn’t casted a shield to protect me. It was formed by a blue aura and was totally transparent, but still solid enough to protect me from magic-enhanced fists, which is exactly what Louise had done.

Slight cracks appeared on the shield, but not enough to shatter it. Louise jumped back, creating some distance between us, before pointing at me.

“What are you doing, you idiots?” She yelled. “Subdue him!”

“It’s no use, Louise!” I yelled as well. “I already told you, I remember everything! Including all the spells I’ve learned over the past few years!”

“You…You bastard! You’re not Arthur! I’ll kill you! I’ll rip your guts out!”

Louise instantly charged at me, but dodging came quite easily to me, as I’d practiced against her a thousand times. Her physical, combat-oriented style was something I was very familiar with. If those fists made contact with me, I’d immediately get blown away, that’s how powerful Louise’s magic was. In terms of enhancement, no one came close to her. But that was only if she managed to actually hit me.

Louise bombarded me with a flurry of punches, landing a grand total of zero. I ducked and dodged, weaved left and right, making sure I did not take a single one of them, as that could have been fatal.

She was already exhausted as the enhancement took a big deal out of her, but kept charging anyway. I shifted my focus slightly to the huge fireball that was being slowly formed by all the cultists.

I need to stop that before it gets too big!

Nah, I don’t think you do, buddy.

What the? You’re still here?

It seemed that getting rid of the original would be more trouble than I thought. From the start, the fact that I’d managed to survive the consciousness shattering ritual was weird, I had no clue what had gone down back then, but I didn’t have time to think about it.

The fireball had gotten pretty big, I wasn’t sure if I should try to tank it or attack the cultists, but I ended up not being able to do either of those as my head started spinning and I was sent flying straight into a wall, falling to the ground on my back.

Louise had managed to hit me square in the face, and now I could do nothing but lay helplessly as she walked towards me.

My vision blurred as she towered over me.

“How did you survive the ritual?” She kneeled down and grabbed my hair. “Tell me!”

“Unnghh…”That little squeal was all I could muster as she looked down on me and smirked smugly.

“Oh, that’s too bad, can’t handle a little hit?”

Damn it…I’d let my guard down for a second, and now I may have paid the price for it with my life…what a fool I’d been! I shouldn’t have tried to handle both Louise and the cultists at the same time! I should have opted to eliminate the most dangerous threat first before I could even think about the others!

She picked my limp body up and started heading back to the center of the circle, where the cultists had stopped casting the fireball as there was no longer a need, with me completely defeated in her arms.

Laying me down on the center like the first time, Louise walked out and made the same strange motion with her hand that Christopher had made, prompting the cultists to begin the ritual.

Suddenly, a loud crash echoed as the ceiling collapsed all around the cultists, crushing a few who were too slow to react, while the others screamed in terror and tried to avoid the debris.

A figure landed next to me, my vision was still fuzzy, so I couldn’t tell who that was.

A flash of lightning erupted from where the figure had landed, striking Louise right in the chest.

“Hnngh!” Louise fell to the floor, squirming in pain.

“Are you alright?” The figure said, reaching down to me and lightly tapping my cheek.

My vision finally returned, and I managed to clearly look at my savior.

“Emmett?? What the hell are you doing here?”

From what I’ve seen in the original’s memories, I didn’t recall ever having dragged Emmett into this, yet he was still capable of witchcraft, meaning that this was all his doing.

“Come on, we have to get out of here!” He helped me to my feet and started running towards the stairs.

“Wait, hold on!” I grabbed him by the suit.

“What? We have to get away, idiot!”

“No, wait a second..” I started walking towards Louise, who was still struggling on the floor.

“Are you stupid on purpose?” Emmett yelled, but I ignored him.

I picked up Louise even as she stared at me with a look of pure hatred, which I couldn’t blame her for. After all, I’d killed her brother in cold blood just mere moments ago.

“Damn it, Arthur, this isn’t the time to act as the knight in shining armor!”

We headed for the stairs, only to see a bunch of cultists blocking our path.

“You see?” He yelled. “If we hadn’t wasted time saving her, we could have both been out of here by now!”

“Neither of you are leaving here alive!” One of the cultists shouted at us. “Especially not with Lady Louise!”

“That’s what you think, bozo!” Emmett got into a fighting stance. “Arthur, can you fight?”

“No, not really…”I was already exhausted, but carrying Louise put an extra strain on me.

“It’s fine, just leave this to me.”

“You fools…”The cultist smiled, and started chanting quietly, a purple aura glowed beneath her hood, which was probably her eyes.

“No you don’t!” Emmett charged at her, but the other cultists pushed him back with a shield of their own.

As Emmett fought the other cultists, trying to reach the chanting one, the purple glow faded and she stopped chanting.

I suddenly felt movement right behind me and immediately turned back.

A body that had been buried under the debris suddenly rose up.

Both me and Louise grit our teeth in horror, we were in total disbelief at the sight in front of us.

I remembered seeing that spell in a book once, but I never had the opportunity to test it out. I ended up sharing it with everyone despite that, and now it came back to bite me.

“Y-You’re…” Louise whimpered.

That body, with a hole in its head, started walking towards me.

“Give back….my sister.”

Christopher Elmstone had been revived as a zombie-like creature just moments after I'd killed him.