Fr0st had been over chatting at Raf’s house, and he had just come back to his cabin. But, along the way, he saw tracks that resembled a human’s. And more specifically, it seemed like the traditional footwear of an Archidon! Fr0st wondered why an Archidon had come by, so he went to the Archidon Empire secretly, and listened to the news. It seemed that a skillful assassin called Prometheus had escaped recently.

“Of course! That’s why there were tracks! They were Prometheus’s tracks, leaving Inamorta!” Fr0st thought.

Fr0st went as fast as he could to the forest, and started following the tracks. It seemed that this “Prometheus” character was very skillful in stealth, as Fr0st sometimes lost he track. But soon, he saw Prometheus. He had the element of surprise, or so he thought. Prometheus had been aware of someone following for the past while, and he was ready for any attack. He has hidden and watched for signs of his follower, and when he saw an Archidon, albeit a bit different from the usual, he figured it was a guard chasing him down.

Prometheus was confused. He could sense that his chaser could see him already, so why didn’t he shoot? Prometheus suddenly hid behind a tree and climbed up (for some reason all archidons can do that ). But Fr0st could tell what Prometheus did, when he saw the tracks, so he climbed up a tall tree, out of view from Prometheus, and then spotted Prometheus.

“Hey, you! Are you Prometheus?”

“I thought guards knew the names of people they chased…”

“Huh? I’m not a guard! My name’s Fr0st! I was exiled from the Archidon Empire a few years ago!”

“Oh god! I’ve heard of you! You tried to kill the infamous Magikill rebel! Too bad you failed.”

Fr0st knew sarcasm when he heard it, and notched a magical arrow to his bow.

“Oh, trying to shoot me, huh?”

Fr0st let lose his arrow, but due to the fact that only the tip had magic and the fact that Prometheus didn’t know about his special arrows, he somehow managed to catch the arrow in mid air. Then he shot so quickly shot it at Fr0st, who couldn’t react fast enough, and for the first time, Fr0st discovered what being frozen felt like. It was cold and stung, like snow covered his whole body, and of course he couldn’t move, which was terrifying in itself.

Thankfully, in a few seconds, Fr0st was free from his torment. He was extremely mad at Prometheus now, and fired his magical arrows rapidly, all 4 (once a magical arrow uses it’s power, it disintegrates), at Prometheus. Prometheus couldn’t dodge all of them without falling off the tree, so inevitably, he got hit. While he was hit, Fr0st pulled out a normal arrow and shot it at the branch that Prometheus was on. Prometheus fell for a few seconds, but he was already unfrozen, and he managed to grab onto another branch.

“Prometheus, I don’t want to kill you.”

“What were you just trying to do?”

“Ugh, sorry about that. I was pretty mad.”

Prometheus and Fr0st both calmed down, and talked to each other about what their history was, and Prometheus told Fr0st what was happening in Inamorta recently. Fr0st offered to let Prometheus live with him, but he refused.

“I can’t risk you getting caught too. I’m pretty sure there are guards following me. I have to leave.”

“Alright.”

Fr0st never saw Prometheus again.

Later on, he heard that Prometheus had been got and tortured by the master hunter, XCLONE HUNTER. XCLONE HUNTER had just recently joined the Archidonis Empire Guards, but he was very powerful, because he had the power to copy any power and to turn into anyone he had seen. Fortunately, he couldn’t turn back into someone else for 1 year after each transformation. Fr0st had only knew because he purposely listened to the guard’s conversation.

Fr0st was nervous. He knew XCLONE HUNTER couldn’t copy someone’s memory, so he wouldn’t have any knowledge of him.

But Fr0st had also heard a rumour that if XCLONE HUNTER was killed, the person he most recently cloned into would be revived, as long as it was XCLONE HUNTER who kill him before. Fr0st decided to hunt him down.

Knowing that the most common route to enter the Archidonis Empire was through his forest, so Fr0st lied in wait. His patience paid off. He heard XCLONE HUNTER coming. He knew because the footsteps sounded like Prometheus’s. Fr0st felt a wave of nostalgia for the real Prometheus.

He shot all of his arrows at XCLONEHUNTER, who, even though he inherited Prometheus’s foresight ability, he wasn’t able to dodge of the arrows. He died from several arrows piercing his body.

The real Prometheus suddenly appeared beside XCLONEHUNTER’s body.

“Thanks, Fr0st.”

“Prometheus! I’m glad you’re alive again.”

“Me too.”

And then he killed Fr0st. A secret ability that no one knew about, and was the reason why people thought that the most recent person he had killed would be brought back if he was killed. When he died in a form, he was reincarnated again, with the same body. And the “Prometheus” was actually still XCLONEHUNTER.

“Heheheheheheheh…” XCLONEHUNTER laughed evilly.

ELEMENTARY DEDUCTIONS
The forest was blanked by a thin layer of foliage, and the trees all around were almost completely devoid of leaves. Prometheus sat atop an evergreen in his perch, watching the events of the world unfold below him. As he scoured the landscape, something unusual caught his eye: a set of shallow footprints leading towards the north.

The prints piqued his interest. He had not heard any crunching noises when they were made, nor did he see anyone pass that location. They were shallow at the back with small steep indentations towards the front; evidence of a light-footed traveler attempting to make as little noise as possible.

“A light-footed man that walks in silence, passing through the deepest sector of the forest. Curious…”

This could not be an ordinary man. There was only one possibility: the imposter was an assassin. And there was another piece of information in the footprints: the spacing was unusually even, suggesting the imposter was moving at walking pace. Why would an assassin of such skill as to cloak the noise of his footsteps simply walk to his destination? Prometheus sat there, contemplating the ramifications of this fact, when suddenly it came upon him: the assassin walked at even pace, not because he was stupid, but because he was not afraid of being seen from a distance. His mind turned. His blood began to race; out of habit, his right hand reached for his quiver. This was not an ordinary assassin; he had killed hundreds of Shadowrath in his various missions against the Order Empire and knew their ways. No. This assassin wielded not a staff, not a sword, but a bow.

He almost fell from his tree in excitement. His heart pounded, his eyes widened and became ever more alert as he absorbed every detail of his surroundings. This would be the first time, in two long years, to face a ranged opponent of seemingly equal skill, and he was ready. Gathering as many arrows as he could find, he dropped down from his perch and landed noiselessly in a blanket of sheepskin. Following the footsteps, he raced off in search of the expert bowman.

FOR THE LACK OF AN ARROW
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

As he sprinted through the forest, the scenery raced past him faster than his eye could keep up with. However, one thing caught his eye and quickly sent him screeching to a halt. In front of him stood a large tree trunk, in which an arrow was deeply imbedded. He saw the arrow and his eyes widened in surprise: it was a frost arrow. He had used several when he was working for the rebel Magikill. They had the ability to pierce armor and turn people into ice. Yet, the enchantment on this arrow was different: weaker, somehow.

With much effort, he yanked the arrow from the tree and took a close look at it. The assassin must have done the enchantment himself. But how? Obviously, the assassin was not a Magikill; the arrow was not nearly as powerful as the frost arrows he had worked with during his time in Inamorta, and the footprints he had seen earlier didn’t match the slow limp of a mage. Something nagged at him; something that originated from the deepest depths of his memory; something relating to the violent era of the Rebellion. And suddenly he remembered. Could it be? Could this assassin really be him? He recalled a day from many years ago, when the Rebel nations were still at war with the Empire. An archer (an especially skilled one, at that) had attempted to assassinate Epicurus, the Master Magikill, the leader of the rebels, but failed. Epicurus had foreseen the archer’s approach and attempted to freeze him for questioning. The incantation was heard for miles around: “imprisonetur, glacios!” However, after the spell was cast, the archer was nowhere to be found. It had been assumed that the assassin didn’t escape alive; but now, with clear evidence of the presence of an expert archer wielding arrows of mild freezing power, Prometheus realized that this had not been the case.

Just as he came to this realization, he saw a fast-approaching blue-tinged arrow in the corner of his eye, and smiled. Of course. The archer wouldn’t just leave one of his precious frost arrows behind. Acting reflexively, he grabbed an arrow from his quiver, shot 1it at the incoming projectile, and quickly dodged behind the tree. The arrows collided, and the frost arrow shattered into thousands of tiny icy bits. Prometheus grinned. Finally, a formidable opponent had arrived.

BLOT OUT THE SUN
As he hid behind the tree, Prometheus attempted to formulate a plan. He had the advantage of knowledge. He knew that the assassin was the same one that killed Epicurus; he knew about the frost arrows, the assassin’s surprise weapon; he had a general sense of his pursuer’s abilities in speed, agility, and stealth based on the footprints he had seen earlier. What remained unknown, however, was how this assassin gained knowledge of his location, or even his existence. And so, in the brief moments that he spent hiding behind the large tree, Prometheus formulated a plan. He took short and fleeting at the environment around him, and noted observations about various things: tree trunk thickness, foliage concentration, the locations of various patches of sunlight that occasionally burst through the evergreens. He recalled from his prison escape that his archery had not dropped one bit since before his imprisonment; his marksmanship was still ridiculously accurate. And thus, when all the thinking and planning was done, he emerged from the tree with bow drawn and ready.

As soon as he emerged from hiding, he found a frost arrow flying at him, just as expected. He quickly sidestepped the arrow, and heard a rustling noise as the assassin ducked behind a tree of his own. Prometheus grinned. He had not underestimated the assassin’s skill and formal Archidon training, and was increasingly sure of his plan’s success. The assassin, like Prometheus himself, was trained to shoot, then hide or run. It was the way of the archer: get in, obliterate, get out. Thus, when the assassin quickly went to hide behind the tree, he went to the nearest trunk, which, as Prometheus had noted several seconds earlier, was quite thin and easily penetrable. Prometheus remembered a little quirk about the frost arrows: for whatever reason, they were able to piece wood or metal armor much more easily than normal arrows. And so when the assassin ducked behind the tree, Prometheus took the arrow he had yanked from the trunk a few seconds earlier, and fired it directly at the trunk behind which his enemy hid.

To his surprise, the arrow was met by a normal arrow, and was smashed to pieces. The tree chuckled. “I won’t let you defeat me with cheap tricks, Prometheus.” A figure emerged from behind the trunk and fired a bolt of 3 arrows aimed directly at his torso. Prometheus dodged them at ease, and retaliated with a series of single arrow shots. By forcing the assassin to repeatedly dodge arrow after arrow, he was able to push the assassin into a large patch of fallen leaves. He immediately stopped firing, the assassin a figure not more than 15 meters away. The figure laughed, and fired another triple shot. Prometheus quickly dodged the arrows. Then, knowing the assassin would not have enough time to reload, he charged directly at the man. The assassin attempted to dodge, but because of the leaves underneath his feet, he lost his balance for a brief second. It was all the time Prometheus needed. He fired an arrow at the imposter’s bow, and it shattered like a twig. Disarmed of his weapon, the assassin was left powerless.

There being no risk of injury, Prometheus sat down in the leaves a few meters away from the stranger.
“So you’re the one that tried to kill Epicurus.”
“That was me. The name’s Frost. A fitting name, I suppose.”
“Another Archidon, eh? How did you find me, anyway? Everyone who knew me previously is dead or has forgotten about my existence.”
“It’s this organization I work for, called the wRHG. We make a living out of-“
“Fighting each other akin to gladiators in an arena, yes. So you are not an assassin sent by the Empire then?”
“Nope. After I failed to kill your leader, I was banished and started living alone.”
“I see. So, in these wRHG battles… What happens now?”
“We take you to the facility… If you’re interested in joining, that is.”
“A facility full of elite gladiators that face off to the death for a living? There is no way I could refuse!”
And so Frost led his fellow Archidon to the wRHG facilities for a test of his abilities.