Like hell I'm going to go out so easily!

The duplicate found himself unable to muster up any feelings besides one. Not fear, he'd been pretty much desensitized to that one when it came to the run-of-the-mill monsters. Not panic, because even in the worst case all his affairs were in order. No, if there was anything burning in him right now, it was righteous indignation. And the need to put that feeling to words made itself known just as the vampire in front reared its head to bite.

He could do better than this. He knew he could.

His arms moved reflexively to dig his knives right into the monster's throat, ignoring the twist of pain in his shoulder from the awkward angle or the shortness of breath he felt from having the wind knocked out of him. Oily blood flowed freely as his reward, signifying that he hit a major artery. A clean enough hit to buy him just him enough time to shift his legs out from underneath the pin and push the creature off. Up to one knee, a stab to the brain to make sure the job was finished. Spare a glance to confirm it. Dead.

He got maybe half a second to catch his breath before he was thrust back into the carnage once more. Scores of vampires jockeyed for a chance to kill him, and if it wasn't for the sheer weight of spellshot being cast from the warehouse in their direction, he would have been completely overrun in the first fifteen seconds. As it stood, it just barely softened them up enough for him to keep pace.

Another set of fangs moved to gouge deep into his outstretched arm, being stopped only by his reactive shield, whose charge was becoming increasingly more precious by the second. Any impact was a permanent loss, so he dealt with the stymied assailant quickly.

Twist his arm to the side, expose the neck, cut. Move on.

He dealt with another without too much issue. Then two more took its place, and he was forced to deal with them in a more risky fashion. Then two more. Then another-

One too many finally pressured him back down to the ground. How many exactly wasn't quite clear. Six? Seven? …A lot, he eventually decided, worked in tandem to pin him down and provide a clear avenue of attack. He'd never been constricted by a python before, but right now the image wouldn't get out of his mind as the monsters contorted around nearly every limb he had at his disposal. The only place the grapplers left exposed was his neck, and even that was cranked as far to the left as possible, just so that there was a clear opening for the bite.

He saw the fangs come down. He couldn't help but let out an unstable giggle at the sight. Short of a miracle, he was as good as dead.

Okay, now this is a proper way to go out! the clone decided.

He stopped laughing when a miracle actually happened.

Teeth versus skin should have been a simple equation. Teeth always win. To tell the truth, skin really didn't have much going for it in that department. So imagine his shock when, in this instance, skin managed to beat teeth.

The fangs crumbled like stale nougat when they made contact. With a tormented wail, the vamp unfortunate enough to have it happen to them lurched back into the throng piling up behind him, shrieking and clawing at its own face, as well as anything around it unfortunate enough to be close by.

The half dozen or so grapplers currently pinning him down were not spared from its reach.

Scratch marks blossomed on the exposed backs of his captors. They, naturally, took great offense to the stench of their own blood in the air, and immediately rounded on the one responsible. When more than one got into the fight, one or another would accidentally manage to nick a supposed friend, turning what was originally a rushed subdual into a chaotic free-for-all that pulled the fight away from him. From there, it cascaded further, until the entire brawl somehow managed to shift away from his section of the frontline, leaving him with barely a scratch.

He was absolutely dumbfounded.

What just…?

In his shock, he never noticed the inky blob watching him from the bough of a nearby dead tree. Didn't see the pair of reflective yellow eyes peering innocently out from the depths. The purr of satisfaction that came from Comet in his perch fell on deaf ears, but that didn't bother the cat one bit.

He just moved on, having fulfilled his moment of fancy. The clone was cast back into the crucible of battle shortly after, but the sense of contentment lingered long after he disappeared back into the night.

< -|- -|- >

The skeletal horse bounded around the final corner and into full view of the active warzone that was the warehouse base. Two sights immediately greeted him, one close by and welcome, the other further away and… significantly less so.

First up was the return of Grace and Enrico. They'd apparently taken their own warhorses on a more direct route to the warehouse, as the two of them came crashing through a glass storefront onto the street ahead of them. Henry found himself split between being glad to see them again, and curious as to how a pane of glass that big had managed to go unsmashed for this long. Dee whooped in delight at the needless destruction, hanging ten from his post off the front of his palanquin.

"Fuck yeah! Cavalry's here! Woo!"

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Robb groaned on the floor behind him, pearls of sweat beading down his forehead. Giselle was fighting for her life in the backseat, trying to contend with both the acceleration and lack of seatbelts. Henry's own legs were rubbing raw by the lack of padding on his horse. Needless to say, nobody else was really feeling his excitement.

…Especially when you factored in what else Henry was noticing.

The warehouse was just down the end of the road, and already the sharp glow of flames could be seen reflecting off the mist. One, two… probably close to a dozen separate flames surrounded the building, ranging from the size of a campfire to big enough to engulf a whole tree. Earthworks that weren't there before now lay in tatters, and that was just where they weren't flattened entirely by the dozens of vamps looking for a way inside. The only thing keeping them currently at bay was the barrage of magical projectiles making use of the natural chokepoints with ruthless efficiency.

Truly, the drills Martin had been leading nonstop were paying off in spades tonight. But unless they got there in time, it might still not be enough.

"Why the hell are there so many vampires?" he shouted over to Grace as her horse fell in besides his. "I thought you said it was just the western thrall-camp attacking them!!"

"It was!" Her voice was strained, and her breathing haggard from previous encounters. "Something must have changed shortly after I left!"

Henry swore under his breath. There was always something that went wrong. In times like these, it usually paid to have something solid to fall back on. Unfortunately for them all, he didn't have anything like that just this moment. In the absence of a plan B, he used the opportunity to complain and get his frustrations off of his chest.

"They should be tearing each other to shreds right now! Every other time two thrall-camps get within spitting distance of each other, that same result has always played out! Surely a few dozen mages can't be worth breaking that tradition!"

"On that front, you might be a little out of date," Enrico chimed in. "A few dozen mages would be an absolute game changer for any one of them. So much so that if one camp were to get the lion's share, the results would be even more bloody for them all."

"So… what? They're working together to split the spoils evenly, just to keep their current stalemate in play?"

"Pretty much, yes. Literally none of the other camps can afford not to take a piece of this, I'm afraid."

The front lines were fast approaching. No time left to discuss now, so Henry raised up his pistol and let out a bellowing warcry that felt the most apt to him in the moment.

"GOD DAMN IT ALL!!!"

Bursts of high-powered potshots bowled over scores of monsters at a time, punctuating his statement loud and clear. Suddenly finding themselves flanked from an unexpected angle, the vampires reeled in confusion and shock. They clambered over each other, understanding the concept of cover while the idea of strategy seemed to get lost in translation.

He made full use of that confusion, along with the sheer weight of his steed. Trampling and charging and circling around to flank vampires wherever he could meet them when they were least prepared. His voice was hoarse from all the yelling. Apparently, he'd forgotten to stop before crashing headfirst into the melee.

Before long, he was stuck in with the lot of them, watching the battlefield around him devolve into distinct points where whirlwinds of activity dominated, like stars in a grander constellation.

Dee was nowhere near the first to arrive, but he was definitely the most noticeable. The tide of runners beneath his palanquin mulched a few vamps unfortunate enough to be underfoot, and the moment it plowed into already chaotic ranks he dove straight into another guitar session. Surprisingly enough, this one was immediately recognizable.

Is that… Crazy Train?

It was. And, apparently, he was using it to re-summon his skeleton army. Like a stone tossed into a pond, the earth around the raised platform began to rumble. New bodies appeared slowly from the depths at first, then almost all at once in an ambush that managed to take London's renowned ambush predators by surprise. The effectiveness was almost as shocking to Henry as the quality of the performance.

It was… ridiculously faithful to the original. Not to mention played to such a flawless degree that it put the performances that lined his first impression of the man to shame.

Has he been... has he been sandbagging his own original work this whole time?

Henry noticed a small group moving in from his blind spot, just before they got into leaping distance. Which he handled with practiced ease by way of putting a hole through at least two hearts with one bullet. Rather economical on his part, not to mention incredibly worthwhile now that he was reaching into the bottom half of his speed loaders.

"If only duplicated bullets didn't misfire more than half the time…" he griped to himself under his breath. "I'd have made a killing as an ammunition merchant if that were the case. Might've been able to give the Ammokhan a run for his money…"

This was almost too easy, he was noticing. It wasn't like they'd brought anything particularly special to the fight, either. They all just so happened to be in the right place at the right time to cause maximum damage. Satisfied that none of them were in immediate danger of being overwhelmed, it was high time to get started on what he'd come here to do. Triage the situation and pull as many people out of the fire as he could.

First on his list was the only other eye in the storm that was present besides himself and his allies. Through the fog, it wasn't immediately obvious who was responsible for it, at first, but the closer he got, the less he was able to deny the sound of his own voice.

"-shitlicking sons of cousins, power hungry bastards boiling themselves like frogs in their own-"

One of his duplicates had managed to make it this far on his own. Not only that, he seemed to be on the offensive, now that he wasn't the lone defender within melee range of the vamps. Henry was confused a bit at first, until he got a good look at the color of his duplicate's crystal.

Sickly green. Somewhere within the fighting, he'd managed to figure out a way to shift into that berserker state he'd accidentally discovered while fighting his way up through the Gentleman's Club headquarters.

That's even possible…?

He reflexively reached to summon new copies, only to find a mental blockage that hadn't been there before. He knew that only himself and this clone were alive currently, his instincts told him that he should still have two slots open to use, and yet… they were unreachable. Locked off to him for the moment, and likely because of the desperate gamble of his counterpart.

Good to know for the future, I guess…

"-gonna try and run me over because you think you OWN THE PLACE?! HUH?! HOW ABOUT I SHOW YOU ALL WHO REALLY HOLDS THE CARDS HERE!!!"

Out of nowhere, the frenzied duplicate started making a beeline for the ruined warehouse, eviscerating a vampire for every stride he took. Acting like a pure-bred madman, and not trying to hide it in the slightest. Considering that more and more skeletons were marching in to cut off the stream of new bodies arriving to the fight, Henry came to the ironic conclusion that the man who literally could not think straight right now had the right idea of things.

He spurred his own warhorse into action, and made to charge his way inside the warehouse himself. The amount of spells reaching the outside was lowering drastically, which was either great or terrible news.

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