Saki

  The next time I awoke, it was not pleasant. The first thing I heard were the screams, the loud crashes, the silence.

  I bolted up, expecting it to be a nightmare, but the sounds continued outside. I looked around, only to realize Tama and Tera were gone. My eyes went wide as I realized what was happening. I crawled out of bed and shifted back to my Foxkin form before grabbing my clothes and throwing them on. I was still a little tired, but the sleep was very helpful.

  Opening the door, I made my way down the stairs and out the front door. We had gotten an inn close to the town's walls. I saw the archers on the battlements firing and I rushed to go up there. I was stopped by a large man who asked for my identification. I showed him my adventurers badge and he let me pass.

  Reaching the top, I saw the devastation before me and froze. The undead army was here, and I watched as they rushed at the wall. Adventurers were killing them by the dozens, but they were numberless. I watched as healers ran out of stamina, as warriors and rangers were overcome by sheer numbers.

  Of course, Drestor had been given time to prepare, and as I watched, whenever an adventurer or guard fell, they immediately exploded, making their bodies unusable and the undead around them destroyed. It was a brutal way to die, but preventing being risen into undeath was the goal.

  In fact, that wasn't automatic. I knew for a fact the people fighting had to activate that item. Meaning these people willingly exploded themselves rather than become undead. I understood their pain. I was given the item by a guard rushing by and handing them out.

  It was a small trinket with a button on the top. When pushed while pushing your own stamina into it, it overloaded your body causing a stamina reversal, causing your body to explode.

  It was a gory, horrible death. But the thought of being a mindless rotting automaton made the act more than worth its last "void you" to the horrid Lich.

  I searched for Tama and Tera. I found Tera quickly. She was in the front lines of the adventurers. She was shooting fireballs and using her two-handed sword to cleave through undead. She looked hurt but not badly.

  I continued searching, but instead of Tama, I found myself. To be precise, my undead self. She was holding her hands up and shooting fae fire at adventurers. I winced at that. I needed to stop her. She was my responsibility.

  A single tear fell from my cheek and I took a deep breath. "I'm sorry," I said quietly as I jumped from the battlements. I forced my way through the army of undead, pushing my way to my undead form. She noticed me a second too late as I fired a large bolt of foxfire directly at her.

  To my shock, she dodged! and returned fire, her eyes narrowing at me. She was conscious?!

  "What?!" I said, but I didn't get to finish as to my horror, undead me shifted into her fox form, then her combat fox form. Horrified, I watched as she grew all nine tails and coated them on earth. What the void was going on?!

  She fired earthen spikes at me, but I dodged them and pushed forward, throwing a bunch. One of her tails blocked me and another grabbed me. I felt another one grab my leg, then she grabbed all four of my appendages. Fear gripped me as I realized what she was about to do.

  I tried to break free but she was much stronger than me in our fox form. "How are you conscious!" I screamed at her. To my surprise she answered me.

  "You... leave... me... dead..." She said, her voice broken, wheezing. Her decrepit ears flattened.

  "I had no choice!" I cried. "We both would have died. It's why I am here now! I need to lay you to restit's over. Just let it go!" I tried and failed to break free, trying to summon a foxfire bolt. She slammed me into the ground, interrupting the bolt and knocking the wind out of me.

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  She spoke again. "Must... save... Tama," she said, her voice distant as she seemed to look past me.

  "I... what?!" I said in stunned shock. She suddenly let go, but wrapped three tails around my body.

  She then leaned her tails back and flung me across the battlefield. I slammed hard into the battlement, leaving a crack in it as I fell and landed hard on the ground. Coughing up blood, I stood to my feet, nearly losing myself.

  I looked around at the exploding adventurers, as they were slowly overwhelmed. The truth was, this city would fall if we didn't get reinforcements.

  The goblins should be coming soon, and the royal army shortly after. The Lich must have planned for the royal army, as we surely would fall before they arrived at this rate. But the goblins still had a chance to turn this tide.

  I watched in horror as undead Saki in her five-foot combat form proceeded to mow through adventurers and undead alike. She seemed uninterested in the fight itself instead she seemed to be searching for someone. That's when it hit me. She was looking for Tama!

  Horror filled me. I could not let Tama see that. She would be horrified. I tried to step forward but everything went dizzy and I fell to my knees. The blood loss was starting to affect me.

  I slowly managed to stand as a nearby healer rushed over and healed me. I thanked her and she nodded before running off to heal a warrior. She didn't make it before the warrior exploded herself. The healer looked sadly for a moment before nodding and rushing to heal someone else.

  Now in a better state, I shifted into my combat form. Surprisingly, nobody seemed to care. A few people looked at me suspiciously until I impaled a zombie with one of my nine earthen spike tails. Then they went back to fighting the undead.

  There would be fallout later, but we were on the same side for now and they understood that. I rushed through, using my tails as slicing blades to cut through swaths of undead on my way to undead Saki.

  That's when it happened. It was so fast I didn't have time to respond. Tama appeared seemingly out of nowhere like always. She blinked next to the undead Saki and I tried to scream, but a zombie managed to grab me as I did, stopping me from speaking for a moment.

  Terrified, I watched in abject horror at what happened next. I saw Tama say something to the undead Saki, and the undead Saki... nodded. I paused, my tails whirring around me, cutting through undead like they were wafers. Tama said something else I couldn't hear over the sound of battle and screams.

  Then the undead Saki turned and began attacking the undead around her aggressively. She didn't hit a single adventurer and started fighting with everything she had, pushing deeper into the undead.

  I stared, absolutely shocked at what I had just seen. I was so befuddled I didn't notice when a zombie had jumped up and grabbed me. It went to bite down and I realized I was going to die again.

  Instead, Tama appeared in front of me and the zombie fell to the ground in pieces. "Nya! There you are, Saki! Tama was looking for you! Let's go get Grok! He is here!"

  I had so many questions, even as I subconsciously shifted back to my Foxkin form. I opened my mouth to speak, only for Tama to grab me and say "Sorry!" before we both vanished and reappeared one hundred feet in the air.

  I clamped my mouth shut to avoid screaming. We vanished again and we were suddenly standing at the edge of a massive army of goblins. Grok stood in front, in full steel armor. I had no idea how he even wore that without being crushed under it.

  He yelled while raising his sword in the air. "Grok is here to kill the undead! Grok kills a big smelly skelly!" His voice echoed throughout the area, and the goblins around him cheered, then charged.

  I halfheartedly watched Grok's men run to their deaths while trying to process what had just happened with undead Saki. I tried to connect to her, only to realize I couldn't anymore?!

  I turned to Tama, the battle completely forgotten. "Tama, what did you say to undead me?!" I asked with desperation for understanding.

  Tama turned to look at me and said, "Tama said 'Hi Saki!' Then the undead Saki said 'must... protect... Tama,'" she said, making a zombie face as she did before continuing. "So, Tama asked why she was killing Tama's friends, and that she should be killing the other undead as they want to hurt Tama!"

  At this point I was just stun-locked and stood there frozen at the insanity. Tama continued, uncaring of my depleting sanity. "So, she told Tama that she would kill all the other undead to protect Tama! That she was a true best friend not like living Saki!"

  My eye twitched. First Tera, now a literal undead version of me, was vying for first place with Tama. What the actual void.