Chapter 8: Survivor's Echo
Before her life was measured by the cold weight of a trident, the shifting lines of a threat-assessment map and the Aether orbs extracted, there was a small, cramped apartment filled with the rich aroma of garlic and simmering tomatoes from her father's spaghetti sauce.
Clio could almost feel the familiar scratch of the worn-out couch cushions, where she and her younger brother, Levi, would build forts out of blankets. She could almost feel the weight of his head on her shoulder, see his gapped-tooth grin as their father, humming joyfully but off-key, announced that dinner was ready.
Her mother would be back from work often late, switching on the lamplight as she walked toward them to read them a story before they slept. The quiet rustle of her turning a page, a gentle sound meant the world was safe, that the monsters were only in stories.
It was a world built of small, perfect moments.
A world that had burned to ash.
The team pushed deeper into the hostile dimension. The initial, narrow tunnels of Havenworth Station had opened into a vast, cavernous space that felt like a desecrated cathedral. A humid mist clung to the ground, and the air hummed with a palpable, predatory energy.
As they navigated a treacherous path along a chasm, Ace glanced over at Sun, who was scouting ahead with a tense, coiled silence that was different from his usual professionalism.
"You seem awfully quiet, Sunbeam," Ace remarked, his voice echoing slightly. "Does this dreary little tunnel bring back fond memories of your misspent youth?"
Sun shot him a glare over his shoulder. "Focus on the mission, Ace."
"Just an observation," Ace said with a smirk. "You look less like a scout and more like a man walking through his own mausoleum."
Sun didn't reply, but his hand tightened into a fist before he turned back to the path ahead.
They rounded a massive pillar and froze. In the center of the cavern, on a raised platform of glistening black rock, stood a monster unlike the others.
It was larger, nearly ten feet tall, its crocodilian features sharper, and the eyes that reflected its intelligence. Its scales weren't just oily black but shimmered with a faint, malevolent purple energy.
Etched onto its armored hide was a faint, jagged symbol that seemed to drink the light around it. It was flanked by a dozen of the smaller, B-class monsters.
And as it turned its head, its cold, reptilian eyes locking onto hers, Clio's world shattered.
The cavern dissolved. The air shimmered. The subway tunnel was gone. Burning city street. Black smoke. An Amber Gate in the sky. She saw it. The same eyes. The same symbol. It tore through the barricades, its roar louder than the sirens of the emergency vehicles. Father pushed them. Mother screamed. Levi... Levi... snatched up. His small, terrified cry. Gone.
Her breath hitched. "No," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Not again."
The trident in her hand felt like it was made of lead. Her feet... stuck. She couldn't move.
The monster leader saw her freeze. A low, guttural hiss that sounded disturbingly like a chuckle escaped its throat. It knew. It recognized the terror it inspired. It raised a clawed hand and pointed. Its dozen minions, hissing and snapping, surged forward.
With the team thrown into chaos, the monster leader turned and melted into the shadows at the far end of the cavern, disappearing down a dark, narrow passage.
"Vance, engage!" Thorne yelled, his rifle already barking as Aether-infused rounds cracked through the air, trailing blue energy.
But Clio couldn't move. She was trapped in the past.
Sun reacted instantly.
"Ace! Protect her!"
Sun became a blur of motion, his shadowy tendrils lashing out to trip and ensnare the charging beasts, buying the Bureau agents precious seconds to form a defensive line.
"Oh, for goodness's sake," Ace muttered. "She's stuck in her own head. How tedious."
He made a casual, sweeping gesture. A dome of invisible force shimmered into existence around Clio just as a monster's claws raked across it with a screech. The creature was flung back, its arm shattered.
The fight was a desperate, chaotic scramble. Heat flooded Clio's cheeks, so hot it stung her eyes. Thorne's rifle cracked
Pop! Pop! Pop!
The sound of the rifles, the roars and the people screaming made her cower. Trembling she thought of her-self a fraud. A coward, frozen on her feet.
Levi's face. Then Thorne's. Then his men. No. She wouldn't let them die, too.
"No! never again!"
The single thought cut through the panic.
With a scream, she shattered Ace's protective dome and charged into the fray. She was a tempest of silver and blue light, her trident a blur as she tore through the remaining monsters. Within moments, the last creature dissolved into dust.
Thorne lowered his rifle, giving her a hard, assessing look.
"Glad to have you back, Ms. Vance."
"It's heading for the core. Let's finish this."
Clio's eyes were fixed on the dark passage where the leader of the crocodilians had gone toward.
They followed the passage, which sloped steeply downwards, ending in the place which contained the Dungeon's core. The chamber was smaller, dominated by a massive, pulsating crystal of pure green Aether, the Dungeon Core.
Coiling around it was the monster leader. Dark, viscous tendrils of energy extended from its claws, burrowing into the crystal, siphoning its power. The green light of the core pulsed erratically, tainted by the creature's foul, purple aura.
It turned as they entered, its eyes glowing with malice.
"What in the hells is it doing?" Thorne breathed, his rifle raised.
"That's impossible."
"He's right. Dungeon spawns are extensions of the core's will. They protect it instinctively. They don't... feed on it."
Clio stared, her professional training overriding her shock
Ace had been observing with a bored expression, but now his head tilted. He looked intrigued. "It's... eating the core. The puppet is eating its master. Now that's truly desirable…"
The monster let out a roar and charged. This time, Clio met it head-on. As she parried a claw strike that gouged deep furrows in the rock floor, she noticed it. The symbol. It was crude, fresh. The one from her memory was ancient, scarred. Its eyes... cunning, yes, but not the same soul-deep evil she remembered.
It's a copy. It's not him.
The realization was a splash of ice water. This wasn't her past. This was her mission.
"Sun, its left flank!" she yelled.
A whip of pure shadow lashed out, pulling the monster off-balance. The Bureau team opened fire, their coordinated volleys hammering its hide. Ace, looking bored again, simply tapped his foot. The ground beneath the monster turned to slick, unstable mud.
With the beast momentarily struggling, Clio saw her opening. She put all of it, the rage, the shame, the memory of Levi, into her grip. The trident's azure light flared, burning hot. She lunged forward, plunging her trident deep into the monster's chest, right through the jagged symbol.
The creature let out a final, agonized shriek and dissolved into a shower of black, viscous goo, leaving only one thing behind.
It was a shard of obsidian-like metal, no bigger than her thumb, etched with the same guttural rune that had been on the monster's hide.
Ace walked over and picked it up, examining it between his fingers. The air around him grew cold.
"So, according to your rules, this shouldn't be possible," he stated, his voice devoid of its usual flippancy.
"It's not," Thorne confirmed.
"Then these are no longer your rules"
Clio and Thorn looked startled not quite able to make much of it.
Ace walked toward Sun who instinctively took a step back after noticing a shift in his companion's demeanor.
His voice dropped, becoming a murmur meant only for Sun's ears…
"This is no creature of the Dungeon. A natural spawn is born from a mix of chaos and order. I didn't sense that. It wasn't born here. It was created here or maybe sent here."
"But, Ace.."
Just as Sun began to speak, Ace held up a hand, continuing to mull over what he say,
"The core was not its food; it was its forge. This creature was created to use the Dungeon's power to build something."He turned the shard over in his fingers. "This rune… it is a sigil of binding. A mark of ownership. A crude dialect of a language I know well."
As Ace looked at Sun's stunned face he said..
"This monster was a pet and not a puppet after all. Some lesser power on your world is attempting to build an army, using this little 'Dungeon' as its nursery."