The moment the fight began, Orion knew—deep in his bones, in the same place where bad life decisions were stored—that something was very, very wrong.
Trevor didn't rush him like a normal dungeon boss.
He skittered.
Not charged. Not lunged. Skittered. Sideways.
At an angle that made no tactical sense whatsoever, crowbar raised, eyes wide, grin unhinged.
"WHY ARE YOU BACKING UP LIKE THAT?" Trevor screamed, sprinting forward anyway.
Orion barely had time to process the sentence before instinct kicked in. Dodge step. Too late. The crowbar clipped his shoulder with a metallic clang that rattled his teeth.
"Okay—okay—" Orion hissed, stumbling back. "Agile. What the fuck man, why a middle-aged man in his mid forties is so agile?"
Trevor cackled. Actually cackled. He swung again, then abruptly stopped mid-motion, pointing at Orion.
"WAIT—are you even from around here?"
"What does that have to do with—"
The crowbar came down.
Orion rolled, mud splashing everywhere, narrowly avoiding a dent in the stone floor that absolutely should not have been made by a crowbar.
"That's a cheap shot!" Orion yelled, scrambling to his feet.
Trevor wasn't just fast—he was erratic.
None of this movement make sense. No patterns, no repetitions. He was chaos reincarnate.
One second he was charging, the next he was circling, muttering to himself, then suddenly leaping forward with a feral howl. There was no rhythm. No pattern. No dignity.
Orion tried to observe. That was his strategy now. Observe. Learn. Adapt.
This plan failed spectacularly when Trevor pretended to trip, screamed "OH GOD MY LEG," and then swung upward the moment Orion hesitated.
"YOU FELL FOR IT!" Trevor howled.
"Not so quick old man..."
Steel met crowbar. Sparks flew. The impact rattled Orion's arms, but he held his ground, teeth clenched.
"Okay," he breathed. "You're just a guy. Just a guy with anger issues and a receding hairline. I've fought worse."
Trevor blinked.
"OKAY LISTEN YOU BOY, YOU KEEP MY HAIRLINE OUT OF THIS..."
Trevor's face twisted in offended out of belief.
The fight dragged on—chaotic, ridiculous, exhausting. Orion landed hits when he could, aiming for joints, ribs, anywhere unarmored. Trevor shrugged off wounds that should have slowed him, laughing through bloodied teeth, fueled by pure spite and whatever insanity powered him.
The biggest problem with him was he was ready to trade blows. The man was insane.
Orion also had hard time figuring out which of the opening were real and which were his faints.
Still, slowly, inevitably, Orion gained ground.
For once, he had better stamina, and second he had better weapon.
It was only Uncle Trevor's unpredictable fighting style which was throwing him off guard.
A clean slash across the thigh. A hard kick to the chest. A perfectly timed dodge step that let Trevor's crowbar sail past harmlessly.
Trevor staggered.
"Ha!" Orion gasped. "Got you now!"
Trevor dropped to one knee, breathing hard, crowbar slipping from his fingers. Blood dripped onto the stone.
Orion raised his blade, heart pounding. This was it. He stepped closer, cautious but victorious.
Though his heart hesitated a bit, this was a human he was going to kill not one of those monsters. Rick too was humanoid in nature but most of his face was covered anyway so it never bothered him.
Trevor however, was...
Trevor suddenly looked up at that time.
Smiled.
"Oh," he said cheerfully. "Okay okay... I give, we are no doing melee anymore. I'm not young enough to keep up with kids these days."
He let go of the crowbar.
And pulled out a gun.
Orion's brain stopped.
"Sorry kid, play time's over."
"T..that…That's cheating."
Bang.
The world exploded in pain. Orion felt himself lifted off his feet, chest burning, lungs emptying in a wet, horrible gasp.
Bang. Bang.
He hit the floor hard, vision blurring, ears ringing.
Trevor stood over him, smoke curling from the barrel. "Welcome to modern combat, buddy." He smile looking at Orion's sword and shield quirky smirk.
Orion tried to speak. Tried to move.
Darkness took him.
His last thought, fading and bitter, was simple and painfully clear:
"This dungeon is bullshit."
xxx
Orion woke with a violent gasp, air tearing back into his lungs like it had been stolen from him.
His hands flew to his chest, fingers digging into unbroken skin. No blood. No holes. No very modern, very illegal-looking firearm wound.
"I'm suing this dungeon..."
The Site of Grace pulsed softly beneath him, warm and familiar in that deeply unsettling way only resurrection points could manage. Golden light washed over his body, knitting together wounds that technically no longer existed. His heart was hammering, adrenaline still screaming at him that he had just been shot to death, thank you very much.
He sat up slowly.
"Okay," Orion muttered, rubbing his face. "How the hell I beat a guy who has a gun with sword and a shield?"
[A gun… so that was the thing in that madman's hand? Curious indeed. I saw no bolt, nor arrow loosed from it, and yet something unseen did pierce thy flesh all the same. Pray tell me, have the weapons of men changed so greatly in the ages since I last slumbered?]
Marika finally came out, like a curious baby she asked, completely disregarding Orion's very recent death and the PTSD emerging from it every time she said gun.
What can Orion say, how he supposed to explain what gun is to the goddess who never live pass Iron Age?
"Yes... its an advanced armament. It..its basically you pull the trigger and the other person dies..." Orion awkwardly said, not interested in explaining the mechanism of a gun to her just yet.
[How so intriguing. So its like sorcery]
"Hmm yeahhhhh... let go with that. Magic. Its like magic. You pull trigger and the enemy dies. Magic." Orion smiled, anything which shut her up for the time being.
Marika knew that explainable had bigger holes than an obvious gap in the lands between but for the time being, she refrained from her queries.
The memory replayed in Orion's head—Trevor's grin, the crowbar, the gun. No warning. No dramatic wind-up. Just bang, dead, lesson learned.
'Okay back to the question, how sword and shield would win a gun...'
He stood, rolling his shoulders, checking his gear. Sword. Shield. Dagger. Flasks—refilled, blessedly. His body felt whole again, but his pride had taken critical damage.
This time, though, he didn't rush.
He paced. Thought. Planned.
"Unpredictable," he said aloud. "Fast. No rhythm. And he cheats."
"Damn as a souls player, cheating is not even in our dictory and that man dare to do that in front of me" He all but growl, unsure whether it was righteous anger or envy.
That last part was important.
He exhaled, steadying himself. "Alright. He's unpredictable, however he lack much stamina, as long as I tired him out I can fix that unpredictability. But that not the problem I did that easily in the first run anyway."
The problem was the gun, Orion knew it. His level 1 body wasn't fast enough to dodge a bullet.
Orion flexed his fingers, feeling the familiar hum beneath his skin. Whatever this power was—Animus Ignus or stubborn refusal to stay dead—it responded best when he was in battle. Focused. Desperate, but fighting.
He adjusted his grip on the shield.
"Its not that different from a game actually. If I see in-game terminology, then it becomes obvious. Trevor didn't took his gun out immediately. He started with the crowbar.
Its almost like he entered into his second phase in the fight..."
"He pulled the gun when his health went down significantly. Unfortunately I don't see any health bar but I did hurt him good at that last kick. It almost felt like a phase change," Orion muttered, things getting clear in his head once he started to think.
"So, I just have to stop him before he enter that second phase, don't I ?"
The dungeon corridor stretched before him, silent and waiting. He walked it again, cutting down the goblins in his path with renewed efficiency. No wasted motion. No unnecessary risks. Just enough force to move forward.
Soon enough, the familiar chamber loomed ahead.
The fog wall churned.
Orion stopped in front of it.
He took a breath.
Then another.
"Round two," he said quietly and just before entering, he open his inventory and changed his weapon.
Then he stepped forward and vanished into the mist—ready, resolute, and very prepared to punch a man in the face before he could reach into his pants.
xXx
A/N : Sorry guys slight delay in chapter, have fun...