Sariel

The hair on the back of my neck stood up when I saw a figure with the same face as me appear. I instinctively reached for my wand, but Uriel grabbed my wrist.

“It’s just a cosplayer,” said Uriel.

A fragin’ cosplayer? Was Uriel out of his mind? The person was my double! I mean, the doppelganger had purple and green hair instead of platinum blonde like me, but otherwise, he looked exactly the same as me.

“He doesn’t look that much like you,” said Seraph, but I could see he was worried, too. A slight frown marred his perfect features.

The person walking towards us was close enough now that I could see that it was just a human, not an apparition. Still, I couldn’t help but feel that this was a harbinger of bad luck.

Asteria put her food down and screamed, a little shrilly, “Sariel!”

She ran towards the person and threw her arms around his neck, just as she had to me when she first saw me yesterday. Like me, this person had to bend down for her to reach his neck. He was dressed in a hodgepodge of clothing: a green shirt, purple jacket studded with silver buttons, black pants, and green boots. For some reason, he was also wearing not one, not two, but three belts.

“Are you alright?” he asked Asteria.

“Ooooh!” Asteria was incoherent with joy.

“Are you hurt anywhere?” he asked.

“Noooooo! I’m fine. Where are the others? I thought you’d be together,” said Asteria. She let go of him and they started walking towards us.

“I’m afraid we were separated when we stepped through-”

Asteria coughed, cutting off whatever he had been about to say. “Do you think those two will be okay?”

“What could threaten them?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe… a whole new world full of unknown dangers,” said Asteria.

The way she was talking made me think they weren’t from around here. I briefly entertained the thought that they were Eatuhean spies, but if this double was a spy who had been surgically altered to look like me, then he wouldn’t reveal himself to us.

“Look who I found!” said Asteria. She gestured to the three of us, then made the unnecessary introductions. It’s not like everyone didn’t already know who the three of us were. “Sariel, these are Uriel, Sariel, and Seraph. Everyone, this is my friend Sariel. He’s a cosplayer.”

“Yes, a cosplayer,” he said. The corners of his mouth twitched. He looked me up and down. I had the distinct feeling he wasn’t impressed.

Up close, I could see that he wasn’t a true double of me. For one thing, he was a lot younger. For another, his nose didn’t have that bend mine did from that time when I broke it when I was thirteen. Nor did he have that small scar over my left eyebrow I’d gotten the first year of the war.

That was a relief. I took my hand out of my pocket, letting go of my weapon, to shake his hand. His grip was firm and his hand was callused from wielding a sword. The others shook hands with him, too.

“Are you hungry? I have some food here,” said Asteria.

“Mmm, yes,” said the other Sariel.

I really wished she had introduced her friend by his real name instead of his cosplay alias.

Asteria handed him a cardboard box of sandwiches and a bottle of water. We sat back down on the benches. This time, Asteria sat beside her friend as they both ate.

“My sandwich is too salty,” said Asteria. “Nice bread, though.”

Seraph cleared his throat. “About that artifact…”

“Oh yeah, you want to buy it?” asked Asteria.

“Which artifact?” asked the other Sariel.

“Oh, I didn’t have any money, so Sariel lent me some. I gave him a heal artifact in return,” said Asteria.

“Heal artifacts are extremely rare, though. Do you really have enough credits to buy one?” the other Sariel asked me.

“Rare? I mean, just an ordinary heal artifact,” said Asteria.

I knew it; she didn’t even realize how valuable the artifact was!

Uriel got to haggling the price with the Sariel cosplayer, or whatever he was. I had grave doubts about him, but the important thing was to secure the artifact. Of the three of us, Uriel had the most credits since he came from a wealthy family. They settled on a million credits from each of us. That was a relief. I’d have to liquidate most of my assets, but it was more than worth it to acquire a high-grade heal artifact.

Suddenly, the other Sariel cocked his head and said, “He’s coming.”

I frowned and looked at the others. They shook their head slightly, silently indicating that they couldn’t hear anything either.

“Who?” asked Asteria.

“Uriel,” he answered.

Ah, yes. The giant she said was bigger than Uriel.

Asteria hastily finished eating her pastry then jumped up in excitement. In a few minutes, I heard the far-off tread of an approaching figure. Soon he came into view.

He didn’t look much like Uriel. He was taller, bigger, and younger, with piercing gray eyes and lustrous brown hair. An aura of health and power fairly radiated from him. I felt a pang as I looked from him to Uriel. This was what Uriel would look like if the war hadn’t prematurely aged him. Uriel just sighed and shrugged his shoulders. Seraph was frowning and looking back and forth at Uriel and the “cosplayer.”

It was one thing to see a cosplayer who looked a lot like me. I’m fairly tall and reasonably good-looking, but this guy was way beyond that. Not to mention, the sheer size of him meant he had plenty of duris blood.

Asteria ran towards him and embraced him just as she had with her other friend.

“What took you so long?” asked Asteria.

“I was on the other side of the city,” he said.

“Noooo! Uriel, you shouldn’t have followed me!” said Asteria.

“Well, I couldn’t just let those two go alone, now could I?” he said.

“What about your family?” asked Asteria.

“They’ll be fine. I have complete confidence that my wife will be able to handle things,” he said.

The other Sariel went over and the two of them clasped hands.

Asteria introduced us to the new guy who, predictably, was called “Uriel.” This was getting very annoying. Asteria gave “Uriel” a box of sandwiches and a water bottle.

“Hey, you got the artifact, don’t you guys have somewhere else to be?” Asteria asked me.

“I’m not leaving until I see the last one,” I said.

“That should be worth a laugh,” said Uriel.

The three of them looked at each other, then “Uriel” said, “Suit yourselves.”

Alright, so they’d somehow found two guys who looked like me and Uriel, but there was no way they had a “cosplayer” who looked like Seraph.

Seraph’s hair color was the rarest in the world. I’d never seen anyone else with hair that black. It wasn’t just that. Never mind that the cosplayer would need to be extremely tall and have the perfect body of a Vinleaf hero. How in hell would anyone be able to copy Seraph’s deathly pale complexion? It would probably just be some guy in a wig with a ton of white makeup slapped on his face. As for Seraph’s facial features, a person would need extensive plastic surgery to come close to imitating it. And it was always a hoot to see the newest golden contact lenses.

The three of them were chatting about the third member of their group, the Seraph “cosplayer” who Asteria called “Ely.”

“How freaked out do you think he is?” asked Asteria.

“He must be frantic with worry by now,” said “Uriel.”

The other Sariel turned towards us and said, “If you hear someone running towards us, don’t be too alarmed. That’s just Seraph.”

“I see,” said Seraph. He was obviously as amused as I was by the thought of a Seraph cosplayer.

“It’s getting late and I’m not sure I can stay awake anymore,” said Asteria. “I didn’t sleep a wink last night because I was so worried about you three.”

“You were worried about us? I spent the entire night running around looking for you. I had visions of you being carried off by street thugs,” said “Uriel.”

He had a point. It was a miracle Asteria survived long enough for me to rescue her from the streets. Kraej City was not a safe place for the feebleminded, though she seemed much more normal today. Maybe it was the strangeness of her two companions that made her seem less peculiar by comparison.

It didn’t take long before we heard the sound of running footsteps. The person was unusually fast. Their friend must be a real martial artist if he could run at that speed.

“He’s coming,” said the other Sariel to Asteria.

“It’s about time! Slowpoke,” grumbled Asteria.

I caught my breath when I caught sight of him.

“What the frag!” said Uriel. He sounded as shocked as I did.

I wanted to turn to see Seraph’s reaction, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the newcomer. I’d always thought Seraph’s waist-length hair was ridiculously long, but this person had long black hair down to his knees. It was the same color as Seraph’s hair. He was the same height and had the same perfect build Seraph did. His face…

Well, I suppose it was the same as Seraph’s face, except for the fact that he looked ten years younger. With a shock, I realized for the first time that the war had also aged Seraph. He was the youngest of us three, and I’d thought he’d mostly come through unscathed, but when I saw the newcomer’s face glowing with youth and vitality, I knew that this was what Seraph would be like if he hadn’t been subjected to the rigors of a never-ending war.

I sensed that Seraph and Uriel had moved closer to me. My hand was on my wand, and I knew without looking that the other two had also drawn their weapons.

“Uh, guys, what are you doing? It’s just my friend,” said Asteria.

I slid my eyes towards her and saw that her friends had interposed their bodies between her and us. The man approaching us had made no hostile moves, but I didn’t let go of my weapon. He stopped some distance from us and coolly scanned our group.

I didn’t know what would have happened next if we all hadn’t heard the sound of an approaching helicopter. I was loath to take my eyes away from the new guy, but, eventually, I looked up to check who was coming. The helicopter had the Kraej Company logo.