"I wasn't expecting that," he muttered as he cracked his neck, rising to his feet. As soon as he stood, Ambrose landed a punch to the copy's face. The killer was quick to put up his defenses. As soon as Ambrose went to take another strike, the imposter blocked it and landed his own left hook. As Ambrose lost his footing, the imposter kicked at the youth's knees, toppling him in an instant.

     A shot went off, striking the killer in his back. With haste, he spun away before Hollis's next shot could hit. With as much speed as he could muster, the phony ran for one of the dreams and, with a final sneer, ran through and vanished.

     Ambrose, now letting his defenses down, crawled to a sit. His body went fully limp as he took careful breaths. "We shouldn't follow him." Was all he said.

     Hollis let out a breath before dropping to the grass. After a moment of motionless pondering, he looked over the gun in his hand. A pistol, a Desert Eagle. Despite having been fired, it still held all seven bullets. Guess that's a dream for you.

     "Ah. Are you alright?" There was concern in his voice as he shifted his attention to Ambrose. "I was a little worried about hitting you by mistake so..."

     "Oh? One of those 'I don't know which one's which' things, right? You know, I always wanted to be in one of those scenes."

     "Well, no. It wasn't hard to tell which one of you was which...it's just that you two were moving around so much and so close the whole time."

     Hearing this, Ambrose let out a loud, hearty laugh. Hollis was astounded by this man. How could he laugh at a time like this?

     "Oh well. We did what we could, and I say we did pretty damn good. What about you?"

     The brunette stared, not sure what to think. After a moment of contemplation, he pushed himself up and walked over with languid strides before dropping down next to the sandy-haired youth. "I think we did pretty damn good."

     "Yeah! Exactly!" The pleasure over the other boy's face was still strange to Hollis, but he found it somewhat refreshing given the situation they had just endured. While he found Ambrose to still be an unusual man, he couldn't help but find some semblance of comfort in having him around.

     In the blink of an eye, the youth's excitement melted away and was abruptly replaced by a stoic, piercing gaze. "It looked like you two were in the middle of something when I came in. What was that about?"

     The brunette had forgotten about this. "Uh...we were..."

     What were they discussing?

     "We were talking about the real killer."

     "Oh? What else can you tell me? Did he give you any clues to his real identity?"

     "Not really. He tried to frame Terra for it but said something about not really trying to frame her. It was..."

     Weird.

     "Hm, really? Well, I don't have even an ounce of doubt that it wasn't her. I may not have known her as long as the others, but I know she wouldn't harm even a fly."

     "..." Hollis wanted to say something; he wanted to disagree. Though he himself felt there was an innocence to her, she couldn't be ruled out. This young man seemed to be of the opinion that if you knew someone well enough, they could never surprise you.

     That wasn't how it worked. Hollis wasn't sure why he believed that, but he knew that it couldn't be so.

     "Well, just to be sure, it wouldn't hurt to keep an eye on her still."

     Ambrose's eyes squinted as his smile grew. "Whatever you say."

     Most people don't think you're taking them seriously when you say that.

     "Anyway," The youth's tone had a dreamy sound to it. "I didn't tell you about this, but I had everyone come to a meet-up earlier."

     And the killer knew about that...

     "Why didn't you tell me?"

     Ambrose pursed his lips, like he was thinking hard about his answer. Then, he peered at Hollis from the corner of his eyes. "I didn't want you to get hurt. Not to mention, I didn't want you there as a distraction. I had everything thought out in an exact way, and if you were there, I was afraid things might get derailed. This wasn't meant as a jab at you, more so I was afraid someone would turn any drama that started around to include you. I didn't want to have to make a plan that had tons of branches to it. I needed something simple and neat." His eyes narrowed sharply. "You understand what I'm saying, right?"

     Hollis was surprised by this explanation. It was so thought out, he wasn't sure how to respond. The killer had been close in his own explanation, but Ambrose's was far more elaborate.

     "You were hoping to weed out the Somnium Killer?"

     "Or at least get some clues." His eyes dropped and his expression faltered to grief. "I didn't get much. It fell into a torrent of arguing. Afterwards," his mood seemed to shift. "I tailed Shyed."

     "Ah? Really?"

     He smiled. "I was a little late because I'd been following her around. Really though, she mostly ran through her typical routine. After she left the meet-up she spun around in a dream or two and then flew back to her own place. She's never been particularly active, so none of this was out of the norm for her." He seemed like he wanted to say more, but he refrained.

     Hollis was unsure about this. He wanted to see everyone fairly, but his suspicions were pinned mostly to Shyed. She was the one who showed the image that started the original issue. Not to mention, watching the way the killer was fighting, he was very quick and light on his feet, something he expected was more likely with one of the women. It obviously wasn't a style someone like Tic would adopt.

     "Ambrose. How does fighting work here?"

     "Oh?" A smirk twitched at the corner of his lips. "Well, I can't really say I understand it myself. I'm not a particularly...fit guy in reality. I-I mean," there was a painfully awkward chuckle in his voice. "I've never actually fought before. Here..." His expression fell. "Well...I don't know. I really don't understand how it works. It just...does."

     "It seems to be pretty personal though. The way you were moving was completely different from that copy. There has to be some sort of personal preference behind the way you do it."

     Ambrose nodded, pulling the knife back out and flipping it around in his hand. "I agree. I don't know how it works, but I know what feels right and what doesn't." His stare intensified as he forced himself to continue. "I narrowed my suspicions down..." His gaze dropped. "I don't know how I could do this though. These are my friends, you know? It doesn't...seem right."

     "Yeah, but..." Hollis paused, sucking his breath in. He wasn't a very emotional sort of guy, so this kind of talk alluded him. He knew Ambrose was feeling a deep sense of guilt simply having to suspect his friends of being the killer, but he wasn't sure what else he could say to make him understand that there was no other way around this. And clearly, since he was telling him this, Ambrose was expecting to hear some words of comfort.

     "But..." Hollis repeated with less enthusiasm. "You don't have anything else you can do about it. It is what it is."

     Ambrose peered over to the smaller boy. He chuckled softly, his head tilting in Hollis's direction. "Yeah, I know. Say, how much do you remember?"

     "Hm?"

     "You had amnesia, right? Or did you forget?" Ambrose playfully elbowed the brunette. Hollis replied, "R-right, yeah. I, uh...I remember some more than before. I remember I have a sister—er, stepsister." He suddenly recalled people correcting him when they were children. He had grown accustomed to simply referring to his father and sister as father and sister, yet when talking to others, they would correct him and tell him to refer to them as 'stepsister' and 'stepfather'. Remembering this, his face warmed. He couldn't understand why, but these corrections always made him feel needlessly embarrassed.

     "A sister? Do tell me more." There was a playful tone in the tall youth's voice as he leaned forward.

     "I don't think she'd be into you. You're too...egotistical. She likes her men intelligent."

     "An ego doesn't mean one lacks intelligence." His smirk turned more into a sneer. "Anyway, I'll pass anyway." He waved his hand as he turned from Hollis.

     There are times he sounds so smart, and then others where I can't tell if he knows he's grammatically incorrect...

     Ambrose chuckled before resting his chin to his knee. "I can tell emotions aren't a big deal to you, so I won't bury you any more than need be, guy."

     "I can't respond to that stuff, but I don't mind sitting through your ramblings."

     "Oh? Aren't you an angel?"

     "You said I was a sweetheart before."

     "It's interchangeable." His voice grew softer as the exchange went on. Once there was a break, Hollis exhaled and sat motionless.

     "...When I'm out, well, I guess when you arrive wherever I am, you'll meet her, right? Mayura's her name."

     "Your sister, huh? Pretty name. How long have you known each other?"

     "Childhood." He glanced to the sky above as he recollected their meeting. "We hated each other at first, and I hated her dad. We never got along, no matter what we were doing. She didn't want a new mom; I didn't want a new dad. Neither of us wanted a sibling." He smirked. "Kids in the neighborhood started teasing us, but she managed to turn it around so that they were teasing me."

     "Ouch..."

     "Eventually, there was this incident...I don't remember when exactly, but we went camping. Her, me and her dad. We snuck out at night, and she was going to play some joke on me, but we fell into a small, dry riverbed and couldn't get out. We walked most of the night and eventually, her dad found us in the morning. After that...we've grown closer." He chuckled under his breath. "She still teases me, but it's not malicious."

     "Typical sibling teasing, huh?"

     "Yeah."

     "That's sweet." He blinked slowly as he turned away once again, his head inclining.

     Hollis could tell that this conversation wasn't fully distracting him from the bigger matter at hand. Sure, he had a little under a month left here, but a month was still plenty of time. Right now, he needed to focus on Ambrose, the one this killer was imitating.