So, there are three other duos who's already completed the climb. Huh, I had expected more, but we don't have much time to wallow in the glory of our success, because there are voices nearby. We were standing in an incredibly long passage, lit with dim torches radiating natural chrona, casting an eery blue glow down it - still made of rock, but more chiselled and man-made than the shitty cave. The passage stretches down both ways, and it's lined with hundreds of doors, the same ones that me and Neo have just jumped out of. And two silhouettes are moving towards down the corridor.
As they come closer, walking rather leisurely, I get a better look at them. Both of them are young-looking, not much older than me. The first one resembles a brick wall - huge hands hang at his sides on the end of thick as hell arms, and his shoulders stretch twice the width of mine. He looks grumpy as hell, like he's never made any other expression save for a frown, and I would've joked about it except he's even taller than the man who tricked me into coming here. The second one is the polar opposite of the first. He has a slim, dancer-like build, but it can't fool me - I can see the well-honed physique under his clothes. But his face, his face is unsettling. He's smiling, a small, serene little smile, but only his mouth is smiling - his eyes feel like they're boring a hole through my chest.
Those, scary, creepy mismatched eyes. One a deep, warm, inviting brown, and the other a scarily pale bright yellow. A mop of messy, slightly curly black hair falls over them, making him look like a perfect villain.
"Hello," he says to me.
"Oh, hey," I say, taking the hand he's just stretched out to me.
His fingers are strong, but rough and bloody from the climb he also had to make.
"You can call me Sword," I say awkwardly. "I think we were the fourth group to get up here."
"My name's Neo," Neo says, nodding.
His eyebrow raises.
"I take it your numbers are…?"
"007 and 008, you?"
He nods, taking in the info, still smiling.
"I'm Airo," he says, then nudges his burly partner. "This is Avoma. And our numbers are 001 and 002, we've been up here for a week."
I freeze.
001? He got to the top a week before us?
And he's been here for a week.
"You, you're the first group," I say before I can finish my thought process.
His eyes search mine, and I wonder what he sees in them.
"Yes," he says shortly.
We're quiet for a bit.
"…any idea what this place is?"
He shrugs, and then starts to walk past me.
"Wait, where are you going?"
"That wouldn't be any of your concern," he tells me.
"Isn't it better to stick together?" I ask, kinda getting annoyed at this guy.
Now he looks amused rather than creepy.
"Maybe. Ah and, one word of advice. We lost some prey back there. He was pretty ferocious, so you should watch your step around him."
Then the two of them stride down the passage, leaving me and Neo behind.
"What was with that guy?" Neo asks. "Who does he think he is…?"
But I shake my head.
"He made it up the pit in half a week," I say. "Besides, there was a dangerous look in his eye. It's best not to get involved with him… if he doesn't want to get involved with us."
There are still two other groups we can meet up with, and after talking for a bit longer we decide to go in search for them.
It's not long before we find someone.
He looks scarier than 001 Airo. There's blood running down his arms, pooling around him where he's leaning against the rocky wall, eyes closed. He's asleep. We barely approach when they snap back open and he drops into a fighting stance.
"Woah," I say, holding up my hands. "We aren't your enemies."
He observes us carefully, eyes going from me to Neo, and drops his hands to his sides. Only then do I notice the flint knife that was hidden between his fingers, and my heart goes up to my throat when I realize that this guy had been ready to gut me.
"If you climbed out of that pit," he says suddenly, his voice quiet but steady, "then you should know most things that come out don't stay human."
"…don't look much human yourself," Neo comments, and I elbow him in the ribs.
But, Neo is right in a sense. He's covered in dirt and blood, like he's just fought a war, and now that I see it he's covered in injuries. Scratches, gashes, a long red line down his face, blood dripping down into his cold, calculating, deep green eyes.
"Were you attacked?" I ask.
He nods, and I swallow. Airo's words come back to me.
"We lost some prey back there."
"Was it 001, no, Airo and Avoma?"
His teeth clench.
"If I wasn't alone, I would've won," he mutters, before glancing up at me, meeting my eyes for the first time. "Who are you guys?"
"You can call me Sword," I say. "This is Neo. We're the fourth group."
"004, Elemental," he says, and nothing else.
"Why're you alone? Didn't you have a partner…?"
"He killed himself on the sixth day," Elemental explains.
I catch myself, a little taken aback, and then swallow. He sees the fear in my face.
"…so you haven't yet come to terms with it yet," he sighs.
"Huh?"
He holds out his bloody, scratched, mangled hands.
"I can see you caught a pale viper. With me, there was just a nest of common cave snakes and a corpse."
"That means…?"
I glance at Neo, who looks shocked.
"You climbed up that pit by yourself, without an elixir…?"
"Four days ago."
"Then what do you mean by 'haven't come to terms with it yet'?"
He looks at me.
"You have a friend to rely on. You have a strengthening elixir. If one thing went different, you would be in hell right now."
I'm confused, so I ask him more.
"This place is hell," he summarizes. "A hell where you can die at any moment."
It's difficult to see under the blood and dirt, but he looks younger than me, and I'm by no means old, but he speaks like someone twice his age. Unlike Airo, his face isn't exactly cruel or scary, but more blank, devoid of emotion.
"You don't talk much, do you?" Neo asks, clearly not getting the hints.
"Not unless I need to."
"Cool," Neo mutters. "Love that."
I ask Elemental a couple more questions, and he answers them all with minimal words. What did he know about this place? Had he met anyone else? Who were 003, 005 and 006? What was Project Pharo? What the fuck is the voice in my head? Are we going crazy?
His answers ARE helpful, but talking with him in a normal conversation is sure to make me fall asleep.
"Nothing, but we were being watched. No. No idea. Don't know. Don't know. Supposedly."
When he said that we were being watched, I had glanced up at the ceiling and caught a faint glimmer in a corner, and my stomach had sunk.
Eventually, I plucked up the courage to ask him,
"So… it's probably better to stick together now that we're here with no visible escape route, right?" I begin. "How about you stick with us?"
He looks at me, taking me in with exhausted, emotionless eyes.
"…alright," he says. "Let's do it."
My hand stung when I shook his, but it was well worth it.
After agreeing to stay together with 004 Elemental, we continue down the passageway, searching for any others, such as 003, 005 and 006.
"We'll be lucky if they don't try to kill us on sight," Elemental warns, but I dismiss it.
Airo was one thing, but not everyone's going to be that crazy. Look, there's someone coming towards right now. Elemental shifts his feet. There really is someone coming towards us down the passageway, getting slowly larger.
"Uh," Neo says, backing up. "Isn't he… running towards us…?"
Yeah, that guy's getting bigger and bigger really quickly, and he's running real fast too. He probably also too-
"Sword!"
I blink, and suddenly the guy's right in front of me, eyes wide and bloodshot, filled with crazy murder. His hair's plastered to his forehead with sweat and blood and he's pale and sickly. He's right in front of me, fist drawn back, and probably would've gouged a hole in my face if Elemental hadn't hurled a wide, arcing sweeping quick straight into the side of the his head.
His body thumps past me and crashes into the stone wall, slithering to the ground. Still shocked, I stare at his limp form, blood running down his head, until Elemental shakes it out of me.
"Get ready," he says. "He is dangerous."
"Can see that," Neo swallows, backing up even further behind me. "Holy shit."
"Wha…" I stutter, but there's no time.
The assailant is already clambering back onto his feet, blood and foam sizzling around his lips, like some feral beast. His eyes, full of hate and violence and unsavoury thoughts, lock with mine and he lunges forwards like a bolt of lightning.
He's fast, but not too fast. I can see him. And apparently, Elemental can, too.
He hurls another sweeping kick and catches the feral guy in the stomach, and he retches before getting flung back again.
"What a kick," I say, impressed.
"No… it's really not," he muttered, glaring at the attacker, who's rolled to his feet again.
This time, with blood streaming down his chin,, he's smiling. Unlike Airo's, which was a creepy, small, artificial grin, this one's a real crazy smile. Then-
"Numbers… what're your numbers…?"
Honestly I was taken aback by the fact that he could speak - but then what had I thought?
"007," I say.
"004."
"008."
The attacker nods, breath rasping in his lungs.
"Right. That makes you all weaker than me, right?"
"So you're 003," I say, catching on.
Another loner. So this crazy animal guy is the one who made it up just after Airo did.
"What happened to your partner?" Neo demands, still hiding behind me.
The guy smirks and wipes blood off his face.
"He's dead," he says.
Sure said that awfully casually for someone dying. I glance at Elemental who's glaring at the animal guy suspiciously.
"How did he die?"
A shrug is his answer.
"How should I know? Maybe he fell and smashed his head open?"
His partner died and he doesn't know? Something clicks. Wasn't exactly difficult to think of.
"…he killed himse-?"
"You killed him," Elemental cuts past me.
What? How could he think straight to that?
"What are you talking about?" I demand, catching his shoulder. "You shouldn…"
And then I see it. The sheer, murderous insanity in 003's eyes, unlike anything I'd ever seen before. It was terrifying, and my legs shiver at the sight of them. Two dark red, bloodshot eyes, glaring into mine.
It was my first encounter with that crazy son of a bitch.
I was just gonna ask him another questions when suddenly he trundles forwards again, this time straight at Elemental. In seconds the two of them are exchanging blows, but Elemental's unenhanced body can't keep up with 003's, and seconds later 003 lands a glancing punch to Elemental's ribs.
"004!"
I run into the fray. What exactly was I expecting to do? Sure, I'd graduated from hand-to-hand combat with flying colours, and it's not like I hadn't hit someone before - Erisen was full of all sorts of troubles and I hadn't been mugged just once. But this guy was different. This guy was a monster.
Elemental collapses, coughing, and 003 lunged right at me. I raised my arms to block and his fist slams into them, pain shooting through my forearms as my feet skid along the ground. What do I do? Do I hit him? I have to protect Elementa-
A knee in the stomach sends me rolling back, all the air busted out of my lungs.
"Get your act together!" Neo yells, cruising past me, dodging a blow that skim his hair and landing a strike to the opponent's throat.
He pushes the advantage, but gets swept aside in seconds. Elemental scores a very painful-looking elbow to the back of 003's head, but he just shrugs it off, and does the same to the punch that collides with his jaw. 004 backs up.
"What are you made of?" 004 demands.
003's grin widens again, but he's off his guard and I split my knuckle in the teeth of his stupid smile. This guy's really starting to piss me off. Who does he think he is, beating us up with his chuunibyou antics? He stumbles, and I sail in again with my left, and feel the satisfying boom of my fist colliding with his forehead. I try another, but before I can pull it off he splits one in my sinuses, and the world goes up in black sparkles for a few seconds. Instinctively, I put my weight on my heels and as a result I lose my balance completely. Since I can't find it, I just roll in and fall on him, and what had started out as a fist fight turns into a brawl, with kicking, punching, pinching, pulling and yelling.
Some hand-to-hand combat graduate.
Eventually, he overpowers me, somehow, and I get flung across the rocks. Elemental, who was already injured from being attacked by Airo and Avoma, is struggling to even get to his feet, and Neo is also injured, his human body battered from just a couple hits. I bounce backwards on my toes out of his range, and catch my breath.
"What's your problem!?" I demand.
He doesn't answer. He just lowers himself and runs at me again.
Three of them run at me.
Three of them?
003 realizes and looks to his side. A young guy with spiky black hair and a small scar on his upper lip is cruising alongside him, and gives him a cheerful grins and salute. On his other side, a chill-looking dude with soft, silvery hair and a relaxed expression keeps up.
"Hey 003," the guy with the scar grins. "Remember us?"
"YOU TW-"
The silvery guy sweeps his legs out from under him and the two of them go to work. They bash him back and forth, and his blood starts flying, landing in drops all over the floor. A kick to the back of the knee. A straight punch to the face. An elbow in the neck. A hit into the ribs. 003 roars and fights back, scoring hits on both of them, but suddenly Elemental dives in and tackles him around the waist, spilling him to the floor. The two other guys jump at the chance, but 003 knocks Elemental off him in a split second and jumps backwards, onto his feet, growling.
Neo's behind him. Elemental and the duo have spread out, and I'm covering his side.
"…alright, I get it," 003 snarls. "Fuck off."
He hurls himself at Neo, bowls him over, and then suddenly drops to all fours, like a dog or something, and gallops away down the passage.
Silver-hair moves to chase him, but I catch his arm.
"Don't chase him," I say. "It's not worth it."
"Why!?" he pulls away from me, but doesn't run after 003, and just sighs. "…he could become a threat in the future. We were only able to deal with him because he was weakened by his time in the pit…"
"Who was he?"
"003," the black-haired guy explains. "His name is Exqua, and two days ago he attacked us, but we were able to fend him off. We've been chasing him since."
After a while, the adrenaline leaves and we move past the fight with 003, and make introductions. We introduce ourselves as 004, 007 and 008. The silvery-haired guy is 005, Artee, and the black-haired one is 006 Ronin. They had also caught a pale viper and split the venom glands, and they were the first normal people I'd met since leaving the pit.
"So," Artee says, before I can say it. "If you're fine with it, should we stick together? I mean, you guys seem chill."
"You took the words right out of my mouth," I grin. Pleasure to make your acquaintance."
I take his hand, and shake it.
004 Elemental, 005 Artee, 006 Ronin, and 008 Neo.