Slowly limping forward in front of Chase were hundreds, if not thousands of terrible creatures.
It was hard to make out their somewhat humanoid figures, because of the crimson fog that was drowning the entirety of their surroundings.
Chase felt Poppy's hand squeeze his, not knowing how to feel about it.
He let out a faint whisper.
"What do we do?"
There was no response.
Because in the lead of the army, were three larger creatures.
All of them had deformed and lanky limbs, that kind of resembled that of a human if not for the tendrils that crept down from their thighs.
Their torsos looked like they had been sowed on by a mad doctor, and their heads looked even worst.
No eyes, no ears, and no nose...
Just one big mouth covered the entirety of the monster's head.
"Mimics..."
Poppy whispered.
"How?"
Chase growled back, unsure of how there could be that many inside of one mimic.
"I don't know, maybe the external mimic had eaten the others."
Growing ever more hopeless, his voice grim.
"There couldn't have even been this many in the dungeon."
Poppy shook her head, squeezing his hand even harder.
"Reproduction? I don't know."
The mimics had clearly seen them.
One licked its massive chops, and began to limp directly toward their direction.
Chase pushed himself off of the ground, and gently tugged at his soul.
Then a faint blue light began to glow on his hip.
A master crafted sheath formed out of thin air, and hundreds of gentle blue particles: Had appeared, with a graceful pommel and guard escaping from the top of it.
The mimics growled.
Then the most unexpected thing that could have happened, well... happened.
With a scream of terror, Neo had plummeted into the same bloodied water that Chase had.
He was groaning, and screaming something terrible about Strays.
Without a second thought, Chase and Poppy both ran to his side. Struggling to pull him out of the blood, they eventually dragged him onto the crimson shore.
He woke about as fast as he could, considering the current situation: It was still quite slow.
Neo struggled to open his eyes at first, Chase on his left side and her on his right.
When he first opened his eyes, he looked at Poppy with a dazed expression.
Then he turned his head toward his left.
A terrible fear must resonated within him, because his eyes grew wide. Beads of sweat could be seen rolling down his dark blue eyebrows.
"You..."
Neo summoned his jagged serpent blade faster than anyone could react.
Chase tried to throw himself out of the way, but the blue haired boy had already wrapped the blade's curved tip around his throat.
"What the hell are you!"
Poppy screamed, summoning an ivory spear.
"Dude, it's me..."
Chase tried to tell the crazed boy.
He had never once seen the laid back delinquent so frightened, which made the situation that much worst.
"I don't believe you! Poppy he tried to kill me, don't believe the gods forsaken stray!"
He was practically panting, and Chase could have sworn that he felt Neo's heart racing behind him.
"That was the mimic... Listen I need you to look in the direction we dragged you from, and quick."
"No! You're lying. You will use that damned cursed flame and rip my soul from my body!"
He was full on yelling, screaming at the top of his very lungs.
"What the hell are you talking about!?"
Neo clashed his teeth together so loud, that the both of them could hear it quite clearly.
"Neo, that's the real Chase..."
Poppy put a hand on his blood stained shoulder, trying her hardest to calm him down. Chase could hear the immense fear in her voice, knowing that they could have been drowned in a tide of mimics any second now.
"No! I've seen what he can do! I don't believe you, you bastard..."
Poppy put the tip of her spear at the back of Neo's throat, causing the boy to flinch.
A strand of bright blue hair fell in front of Chase's eye, he could feel the heavy breath on the back of his own neck.
"Knock it off..."
Poppy demanded.
"He's hiding something, Poppy! He's been holding back this entire time... Can't you tell!?"
Chase was starting to get really mad.
Without Neo noticing, he drew the cobalt blade slowly from his sheath.
Then while he had let his guard down, he swiftly yanked the pommel of the blade upwards.
Knocking Neo's blade out of his hands, he rolled forward. Slamming into the crimson ground, he tried to quickly regain his balance.
Then he felt a sharp and terrible pain where he had damaged his leg.
"You idiot! It's not healed yet!"
Poppy yelled, running over to his side.
Neo swiftly ran over to his blade, until he looked up to see the vast mimic army that was only about thirty meters away now.
"Oh..."
Then he picked the blade up with caution, never taking his eyes off of the horde of monsters that was nearing.
"Sorry..."
He mumbled, as he backed up toward the other two.
"If we survive this, I want a hand-written apology, and thirty gold coins. Damned nobles..."
Chase growled, kneeling on his uninjured leg.
Looking down at his cracked open leg, he noticed that the flesh and bone was actively shifting around where it had been broken.
"What the hell did you give me?"
Poppy glanced at the few drops left in the glass vial, and shrugged.
"Just a living fungus and postart mushroom mix..."
Chase stared at her deadpanned, knowing full well that she knew he had no clue what the hell she just said.
She sighed.
"A weaker regeneration potion... It will heal you fully, but not for a few more minutes."
Chase took a deep breath, and shrugged.
Standing up slowly, he bit down on his own lip. Ignoring the pain, he stood up to face the horde of monsters alongside the other two.
"That's not a good idea."
Poppy said, glancing at his ever shifting leg bone.
"The hell am I supposed to do... Wait for the mimics to devour us?"
She shrugged, and Neo was tilting his head at the army of monsters.
"What?"
Both Poppy and Chase had responded at the exact same time, causing his face to grow hotter for a moment.
"Where did the big guys go?"
Then it hit them like a manticore, litterly...
Chase had been launched in an unknown direction, and landed with a pained grunt.
Looking up, he realized that one of the mimics had gained a liking for the lone stray.