“It’s time to duel!” the [Cloned] Eryk Solbourne, free from restraint, exclaims. He holds up a large bag filled with items from Mystix, a loot bag I had been saving to go through until after things slowed down a little.

And he’s pulling stuff out left and right! No, stop! He gets a fossilized dragon egg and pelts it at one of the hooded figures. It smashes into their stomach and knocks them over.

“Clone Eryk!” I shout. “Humans on Earth are very weak. You must—hic—be careful!”

He laughs at me. “I am very aware of all of that,” he says. “But I said it was time to duel, and therefore they were given ample time to prepare themselves for such an event as this. I will take no remorse on these fiends who aim to harm Delta and her growing child.”

Delta looks at me in abject horror. Luckily, the cult members holding her down have already run away from the scene of growing chaos. “I stopped understanding what the fuck is going on here.”

“Alas, I am not sure I could give an adequate explanation that you would deem acceptable,” I say. “All of this is growing quite ridiculous.”

“Yeah… I see that.”

My clone is in the middle of a gargantuan fight scene right now. This winery has descended into nothing but cult members battling this one man who is absolutely whooping their asses, as Francis would say. Of course, the three of us are still tied to our seats and Clone Eryk seems a little bit too focused on his battle to free us.

Luckily, my past fear of being caught if I struggle to break my restraints is gone now, I exert a great force, as much as I can, and— Pop! The steel cuffs around my hands snap in two. The ropes around my legs come after that, and when I stand up I dropkick the chair and crush it for good measure.

It feels so good to be mobile again.

I free Delta and Francis as well, though they both look far too dazed to be useful in a situation such as this.

“Stay here for now,” I say. “I’ll help my clone fend off these cultists.”

“Two Eryks…” Francis mutters. “I just… Wow…”

I am unsure if this means he is excited or just stunned. I perhaps should have told them more about my [Clone] skill, but I didn’t even think about it. My apologies, friends.

I join in and fight with my clone. We are pretty amazing right now. In fact, we are beating up cultists at a rate I’ve never even seen before. If it were not for the fact that Delta and Francis expressly forbids me (us?) from killing if we can help it, our foolhardy captors here would be certainly murdered by our pure strength.

Though, I am quite confused why Clone Eryk is pulling out a dinosaur tooth, two feet in length, from the rucksack and wielding it like a sword.

“I really wanted to wait for that,” I say to him as I punch a cultist and then elbow another. “I was going to show Francis and Delta the interesting things inside.”

“Oh well! It’s fun to spoil—hic—surprises!” He staggers around and nearly falls over on himself.

“Wait a minute, you’re drunk.”

“Hells yeah I am!”

“Oh… So [Clone] has an interesting side effect that reduces the user’s drunkenness and transmutes it into the clone. I see… Does that mean…”

“When five minutes are up, you’re gonna be hella wasted? Yeah!” Clone Eryk gives me a thumbs up.

Karen tries to come up behind us and bash a fold-up chair over our heads, but Clone Eryk jumps into the air, does a few spins, and lands on the other side. He flips over a table and cackles.

Francis mutters again in the distance. “Clone Eryk…”

When Karen drops the fold-up table, Clone Eryk advances with a dazed yet confident expression on his face. She backs up and cowers in terror. “Please don’t hurt me…”

“Mwahahahaha!”

He raises his hand and then a giant orb of flames appears.

“[Fireball!!!]”

“You are not supposed to say your skills out loud,” I inform.

He doesn’t hear me. He also doesn’t shoot the fireball anywhere near Karen; he accidentally launches it up and it hits the ceiling. The huge chandelier comes crashing down, and then flames erupt all over the room.

“My winery!” Karen cries out. “Noooooooooo!”

This is amazing, and also horrible.

Well…

Clone Eryk waves at me and then dissipates.

“See you Mystix Cowboy…”

And then it hits me all at once.

Now I’M the one who’s extremely drunk off wine.

Hoo boy…