Mirror Mirror on the Wall

When Grant and Phoenix first began their journey, they had made great progress.

The streets had been picked clean by the expeditionary forces which allowed them to travel unimpeded for quite awhile.

The farther they got from the dungeon though, the worse the streets became and the slower their progress became.

A few times along the way, they ran into an expeditionary force and stopped to say hello and check up on their progress.

Grant was slightly disappointed to hear that each of the teams he ran into had lost a few members over the past few days.

However, Grant steeled his heart and said a silent farewell to the deceased. It was inevitable that people were going to die, if not now, then certainly in the upcoming battles with other races.

Many times over the past month and a half, Grant himself had killed his fellow humans. How could he blame the monsters and animals for doing what came naturally to them?

After exchanging a few words with the groups, him and Phoenix quickly made their way deeper towards the heart of the city.

Grant was amazed that they had not run into any monsters until they were quite a fair distance from the dungeon.

When they came upon their first monster, a low leveled zombie, Grant began to pull his sword from his back, he heard Phoenix in his mind say that he would take care of it.

One moment, the Roadrunner was running casually next to him and the next, it had reappeared on the other side of the zombie with the zombies head exploding into a giant ball of mist a second later.

Grant had done his best to observe how Phoenix fought, but even with his senses pushed to the limit, he had still been unable to see the birds attack.

Realizing he had never actually looked at the birds stats, Grant opened the menu and was amazed by what he saw.

{Status:

Name: Phoenix

Level: 42

Race: Mutated Speedster

Path: The Speedster

Title: Flash

Strength: 282 | Agility: 982 | Health: 317 | Stamina: 791 | Mana: 402

Skills:

Flash Steps (Active: Level N/A)

Speedster Force (Passive: Level N/A)

Speed of Light Kick (Active: Level N/A)

[Holy fuck this birds basically the Flash! No, not basically, he's a real life version of the Flash only a giant bird instead of a human!

Does that mean that their is a Reverse Flash somewhere out there? Maybe they have a JL of Monsters?!

And what the hell is with his Agility and Stamina?! Mine are no where near that amount!

Plus he's even a higher level than I am!

No wonder I can't track his movements... I wonder how fast he can move with Flash Steps...

I truly have to thank Springtree for finding and raising this guy.. he's going to be an invaluable asset to the fighting forces in the future..]

To compare Phoenix's stats with his own, Grant quickly opened his own Status.

{Status:

Name: Grant Holmes

Level: 39

Race: Human

Path: The Unbound

Title: Unbound

Strength: 411 | Agility: 469 | Health: 488 | Stamina: 517 | Mana: 672

Random Rolls: 14

Credits: 1139

Available Free Stats: 80

Spirits:

Maximus The Magnificent

Skills:

Unbound Stats (Active: Level N/A)

Jack of All Trades (Passive: Level N/A)

Unbound Rage (Passive: Level N/A)

Tectonic Slam (Passive: Level N/A)

Overclocked Perception (Passive: Level 5)

Skill: Frenzy of Time (Active: Level 5)

[Well all in all not that bad, but I haven't found any worthwhile monsters for awhile. Basically everything I kill now gives me zero stats.

We really need to find new species of monsters on this trip so I can raise not just my level but also my stats or it's going to start getting tough in the coming months...]

When Grant became lost in thought, Phoenix started to get bored of standing around so he started to sprint around the surrounding area trying to locate more monsters to kill.

These low level zombies never got his blood pumping.

He wanted something that could challenge him.

Something to force him to move faster than he had ever moved before.

While he was running back and forth though through the buildings and debris scattered across the ground, something flashed past out of the corner of his eye that made him come to a screeching halt.

When he came to a stop, so did the opposing image.

It turned out to be a roadrunner almost identical to him! And it had even moved as fast as he did!

The two roadrunners stood still for what felt like an eternity just looking at each other.

Since the other Roadrunner wasn't showing any outward aggression, Phoenix kept his fighting spirit reigned in as well.

But after a few moments, Phoenix wanted to test this new opponent so he flashed to his side.

Sure enough, the other Roadrunner also flashed and reappeared right in front of him once again, resuming his original posture and staring him down.

Phoenix's excitement grew exponentially when he saw this.

In an effort to test the other Roadrunner, Phoenix began to flash back and forth in an attempt to best his opponent but no matter what he did, his opponent always managed to keep up with him.

Since Phoenix could move so quickly, the tests had only lasted a minute or two, but he was growing bored quickly.

If his opponent could move as quickly as him, then he really wanted to see what it would feel like to fight him.

So Phoenix prepared to charge.

But before he could, Grant appeared at the end of the street. He had followed the bond that connected Phoenix and him, which lead him to the birds location.

When Grant saw what Phoenix was doing, he suddenly started to laugh hysterically.

(Why are you laughing Grant?)

[Because that's a mirror my man! You've been taunting yourself!

If you charged forward, all you would accomplish is a little destruction!]

While he was talking, he had walked over next to Phoenix.

Since Phoenix saw an identical version of Grant appear next to his opponent, he was startled.

But after Grant explained what a mirror was and how it worked, his excitement was quickly replaced by embarrassment.

He played around a bit in front of the mirror after realizing that it was just him but quickly moved on so as to put the shame of this incident behind him as quickly as possible.

While Phoenix quickly walked away, Grant stayed behind and made note of where they were and how much of the mirror wall remained intact.

Mirror's had many uses, and since Grant had no idea if anyone knew how to manufacture them, he might as well have one of the expeditionary forces come relocate the material to the dungeon.

After taking his notes, he began to move in the direction which Phoenix had left, when he suddenly heard a massive explosion.

Since Grant had not seen any fire or smoke fly up into the sky, only a large pillar of smoke, he figured that Phoenix had finally found a worthwhile opponent to fight.

After stuffing his notepad into his backpack, he quickly ran towards the origin of the noise.

When he arrived, Phoenix was fighting a... human?

Wait.. no... It wasn't a human.

No human had light green skin!