“The first one on the road was a doppel. This one’s gotta be a doppel too. Come on, Erlin, it’s a waste of our time.” Jenna’s voice was a hushed whisper, but not quiet enough to hide her words from Elzio, who’d hidden in some brush a dozen feet away. “The farmers are copies, Erlin.”

“Right, we should just sit around and do nothing.” Erlin’s voice remained the same growl it had been since Elzio had first encountered the two. “Even if this is a doppel, we take it out, we deny them experience. They share it fewer ways with just two heroes, so it’s way more important for us. And if she’s a doppelganger, the summoner will have to send another one this way, which takes away from the time they spend doing anything else.”

It was a solid appraisal of the situation, which Elzio had to give credit to Erlin for.

“Fine. We’ll take her out. Fine.” Jenna sounded reluctant, but that didn’t stop her from powering up a spell. Where Nolath had been content to jump into lane with a Quick Dash and attack the Syrene doppel under the expectation that it had been a doppel, Jenna wasn’t taking such risks. She was going in with the full brunt of her power, as was evident by the level 9 Blizzard she was charging.

“I’m going in in ten. Nine. Eight…” As Erlin counted, Elzio slipped into the Syrene doppel in lane, taking full control.

Now directly puppeting it, Elzio continued to dodge any attacks fired by Alyssa, their archer, absorbing passive minion experience, and waited for the attack.

At ‘one,’ Elrin leapt from the underbrush, sword glowing with a prepared ability. Over his head, a condensed ball of pure water energy pulsed, as if straining against its shell.

Alssya shot a Stun Bolt, which Elzio dodged. He began firing basic energy attacks at Erlin, who charged forward, tanking the attacks as he did. Elzio, still in the doppel’s body, turned to run, at which point Erlin hit the ground with a Seismic Rise. A ridge of earth shot up along the fault line caused by his ability. The Syrene doppel stopped in its tracks, unable to get over the wall, and turned back to the fight.

Jenna’s spell continued to thrum with energy. Elzio knew that, somewhere off the path, still hidden, the Hydromancer was waiting for the sign that Erlin was close enough to their target for her to detonate it.

This was Elzio’s chance. With the noise in lane, with Jenna’s concentration on her mini map, he could easily sneak up on her. So Elzio ordered the doppel to continue dodging, and jumped back to his body. He stepped lightly through the woods, feet falling as soft as possible. He wished he’d had the Stealth Aura he usually cast on Ylia, but such a spell wasn’t useful here. Maybe someday he’d have the power to take a full kit of spells into an arena, but for now, he just had to be sneaky.

Jenna’s focus was absolute. She stood frozen, fingers pressed to her forehead, magic swirling around her as she waited for Erlin’s call. Elzio lined up his vision, getting a good fix on her, and cast Summon Doppelganger. She didn’t even flinch when Elzio summoned the level 3 copy and teleported it away, before moving back himself. Teleporting the doppel had used up some extra mana, but it was too hard to know how stealthy it would be. If the Ythrel heroes knew he was making copies of them, his ruse would be up. He had to stay quiet here, so teleporting the doppelganger made the most sense. Anything to reduce the chance of noise and the odds of being heard.

It had been a good call. Just as the doppel vanished from Jenna’s side, reappearing twenty feet away in some underbrush, Erlin shouted “Now!” from the road, and Jenna’s hands sliced out. In the center of the path, where Erlin had just gotten within a few dozen feet of the Syrene clone, a blue wave rippled out. The energy shrouded the entire lane in a frigid slowing field, one that would do increasing damage to any enemy who stayed in it.

Even as a low leveled doppel, Syrene herself was so powerful that a mid level doppel lasted quite a bit of time. It even fired off a few spells, stunning Alyssa, throwing Erlin back, before trying to flee. But the fully-charged level 9 Blizzard had too great of a range, and the slow was just too powerful. The doppel had fought valiantly, but it was wholly unable to escape the Blizzard, which continued to sap the clone’s movement speed and hit points exponentially.

A few seconds later, both Erlin and Alssya had recovered from the brief crowd control, and it only took Alyssa a few more shots to take the doppel out.

“Definitely a doppelganger,” Alyssa said, as she lined up a shot, taking down a string of minions. “She had some health, but none of her abilities did any damage.” She shook back her hair, chin raised, face the picture of confidence. “You want me to start pushing the lane?”

“Play it safe,” Elrin said, voice brusque. “We’ll plant Nolath with you for now, and go south to take out the doppel there. Then we’ll push with Gyrao.”

Alssya’s shoulders dropped at this, and she swallowed, a bitter look on her face. “Right. So I’m just going to sit up here and soak more experience while you two go actually push lanes? We don’t always just want to play it safe. We can’t just assume this is going to be easy or—”

“Alyssa, this is an absolute training module of a nexus fight.” Erlin’s voice had a distinct scoff to it. “I’m sorry you don’t feel valued in this, but we need you here right now. If the real Syrene shows up, you need to sit under your structure with Nolath and focus on staying alive while we push the route down south.”

“I’m not totally helpless.” By now, the confidence had dropped from Alssya’s posture entirely. “If I push up, and I’m careful, I can pull Syrene to me and give you a chance to push down south.”

Erlin gave a long sigh. “That just makes you more vulnerable. We don’t have to take risks here, Alyssa. If you push up, and she jumps in behind you, then you’re down. If you’re down, then you take time to respawn, and we lose out on your valuable presence. Does that make sense to you? Do you understand how that works?”

His words were condescending enough for Elzio to feel offended on the Archer’s part. He was also offended on his part for being dismissed as a ‘training module’ of a nexus fight, but that was to be expected. Really, the discouraged and discontent on Alyssa’s face made her the perfect target for Elzio’s next attack.

“All right. I’ll soak experience.” Alyssa shot her two allies a glum look, one Jenna returned, before the two turned from the lane, ostensibly heading south.

Elzio needed to give it some time before he jumped in with his next phase of the attack, so he turned his gaze back to the minimap, making sure everything else was going smoothly. He pulled the Syrene doppel, the one who’d run his errands for him earlier, return to the Northern Road to match Alyssa.

The doppelganger remained blank faced and impassive, and Alyssa sighed as she continued to keep the minions in the lane evenly matched. If she killed too many, they’re push towards Syrene’s structures, leaving her flank exposed, and she’d been explicitly told not to do this.

After another five minutes, enough for Alyssa to get truly discontent, he launched his plan.

“Alyssa!”

Alyssa turned, not expecting the voice hissing at her from the brush. The Jenna doppel, fully controlled by Elzio, stood just a few feet away, motioning for Alyssa to come closer.

“What’s the update?” Alyssa asked, voice dull. “Am I allowed to push the minions out further? Do something totally crazy? Or am I still as useful to the team as a stupid doppelganger?”

Elzio took a deep breath as the Jenna doppel approached, trying to remember everything he had gone over with Carlin regarding the Hydromancer’s personality.

Sew doubt in her mind. Echo’s voice entered Elzio’s head so abruptly he almost jumped. I have been conveying your situation to Carlin, and he knows what you should say.

Someday, Echo would have the points to implement team wide communications, but for now, this would do.

With Echo whispering Carlin’s words into Elzio’s brain, he slipped into the Jenna doppelganger and began speaking.

“No, Alssya, listen.” The Jenna doppel looked urgently behind her. “We were jumped by Syrene in the forest. Erlin was killed, so we’re going blind for a few minutes here. I didn’t catch where she went after that, but I’m worried the Syrene you’re facing is her.”

“When were you attacked?” Alssya asked. “Cause this one showed up maybe a minute after you left.”

Jenna Doppel breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, so that’s definitely not her. What do we do? Do I wait for Erlin to come back so we can push out the Southern Road like we were supposed to? Do we push here, knowing Syrene is elsewhere?”

“Did she follow you?” Alyssa asked, firing a few bolts to take out a handful of minions. “I know you said you weren’t sure where she went, but we could still deduce where she might be if we know what direction she headed.” There was a new spark in her eye, like a child being handed a puzzle.

“She retreated. We packed a punch at her. She came out on top but was definitely hurting.” Jenna Doppel release a long breath. “I think she’s probably healing at her base. Damn, I don’t know what to do. I don’t even want to be here.”

“Jenna, please. Not again. Our hands are tied. We’ve just gotta grind through this.” Alyssa, now truly bored with her lane, threw out a high level Scatter Shot, which took out the wave of minions that had been pushing towards her.

“And then what?” Jenna Doppel asked.

“What do you want me to say?” Alyssa asked. “I don’t know! None of this has gone how any of us expected. No one thought he’d force you to fight. I figured he’d take one of the others. This whole thing is confusing and messed up. It’s literally less strategically advantage to force you to fight over summoning Lissala or something. Almost like…”

“Like he’s making an example of me. I’ve thought that too. It all makes me scared.” Elzio pitched Jenna Doppel’s voice to sound strained. Afraid. He could be certain he was nailing her mannerisms, but he’d spent hours working on some of the verbal and facial tells of the party with Carlin. “I’m afraid if we win this, I’m going to get punished anyway. My odds of surviving are low if we lose, but winning is going to be a death sentence too.”

“It’s not… we don’t know that.” Alyssa’s face puckered up, her lip quivering. “ I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have volunteered. I should have backed out. I… I’m sorry. When you didn’t show up, they said they’d forcibly conscript you, and-and I knew if they also forcibly conscripted me, our odds of winning dropped even more, and if we do lose, we all have a high chance of dying, and I don’t want the others to get hurt.”

Elzio grit his teeth, watching her start to cry. The worst thing about this fight was jeopardizing the enemy heroes that didn’t even want to be here.

“If we do lose this,” Jenna Doppel said. She held up a hand. “If. And one of us survives, we need to tell the world what we know. The citizens of Ythrel.”

“That Amos forced us to fight when we had doubts.” Alyssa's voice steadied. “He forced you—something no civil city should ever do.” She nodded. “Even if we win, I’ll tell them.”

“Alyssa, that’ll be a death sentence for both of us.” Jenna Doppel’s voice dropped to a whisper. “That’s treason.”

“Treason to speak out about evil?” Alyssa blasted a wave of minions. She looked up, as if to check that the Syrene doppel was still out of earshot. By all metrics, it was, but that didn’t mean anything when Alyssa was talking to a doppel. “Conscriptions are wrong. When you have volunteers, and you force heroes to fight, that’s wrong. I never should have volunteered. I was just scared and stupid. But Jenna, I think we have to do this.”

“Do what?” Jenna Doppel’s voice shook. “If we win, we tell the city, and we’re executed for treason. If we lose, we both have a high chance of dying in Nexus fallout.”

“If we’re going to die either way,” Jenna said, “then we have to do the honorable thing.”

“Tell the world?”

Jenna Doppel’s eyes narrowed. “Throw the fight. We can stop evil in its tracks, instead of just warning the people. If we lose this fight, Amos and his supporters fall with him. It we win, if we warn the people, it’ll just spur a violend and bloody revolution that the nexus will still win. We can stop this now.”

Alyssa froze. Elzio could tell he was pushing it, but there had been clear discontent among the heroes. Carlin had deserted. Jenna had refused to volunteer. And Alyssa was so so close to turning.

“We’ll die,” Alyssa said. Her lips barely moved as she spoke, as if afraid the Syrene doppel dozens of feet away could hear. “20% chance of survival for losing heroes.”

“And if we survive? We win?”

“But…” Alyssa was completely ignoring the minions now. “What about Nolath. And Gyrao?”

“Think about who we’d be saving instead of who we’d be jeopardizing.” Jenna Doppel swallowed hard, and Elzio summoned tears to her eyes. “I don’t want it to end like this either. I don’t… Look you don’t have to throw anything, but I’m a dead woman if we win, guaranteed. I can at least go out doing something for the people of Ythrel instead of just our nexus.”

“The nexus is the heart of the people though!”

Jenna Doppel’s tears spilled over now. “He was once. Before all this corruption and subterfuge. Now I don’t know what I follow. I have to do what my conscious tells me. At the end of the day, that’s all you can do too.” Then she froze, head titled, as if hearing something. “I have to go,” she whispered. “Erlin will be back soon. Do what your heart tells you. At the end of the day, it’s all you’ve got.”

With this, the Jenna doppel gave Alyssa one final nod before disappearing back into the forest, leaving the terrified archer alone, tears of fear in her eyes.