All Roads Lead to Nowhere
Krim
"Will you please shut up?"
Krim'd lost count of how many times he'd said that, and it had only been little over two hours since the shift.
"Give it a rest," Mist said, rolling her eyes. "You can't expect it to be quiet with this group."
She kicked at a creature he'd just killed on the ground - a centipede-like animal as long as his arm with a mass of tentacles around its jaws.
Krim rubbed the large cut on his arm, sighing. They'd been ambushed by about three different species in the last five minutes, and without Sword or Nyx they had no way of identifying every one of them.
"Look at this!" Bryce said cheerfully, showing off an insect's head the size of a fist embedded on the end of his pipe.
Leon was praying to the side, head tilted back and lips moving silently, hatchets stained with green and black blood hanging at his side.
"Was that all of them?" Mist asked, picking around in the centipede corpses, searching for her flint shards. "Thank god for Ronin, or we'd all have died…"
"That's not true," Ronin grinned, spinning dual curved blades. "You were really putting in the work there, lady. I think one went - right through my heart, if you get what I mean?"
He winked at her, and Mist shied away from him like he had some disease. Krim made a mocking, gagging sound at him.
Dear Anastasia, if you can even hear me. Why did I fall in with such a shitty group? We're barely getting by, and I have no idea where the others are.
He sighed again, looking into his flask, at the scant content left inside.
"We have to find some supplies, and fast," he said to Mist, the only sane member in the whole group. "Or we'll all die a dog's death down here."
"Can't let that happen, can we?" Mist agreed. "But still…"
"Hmmm?"
"Shouldn't our biggest priority be meeting back up? Otherwise, we should be prepared to lose a few…"
Krim knew she was right, but something nagged at the back of his head.
"…you know, before this, I was a cop."
Mist raised an eyebrow.
"For some time, I was an officer, and I've always prided myself on my intuition. Right now, I just can't shake the feeling that…"
"That?"
"A storm is coming."
Luc
"The fuck is this?"
Luc was pissed. There was no one around him at all. He'd wandered around, calling out the others' names, but no one had responded. Now he was stomping angrily around, kicking around for something to kill his boredom.
Just my crap luck to wind up by myself.
To be honest, most of Luc thought it was better that way. No useless morons like the jinxing chatterbox and no weird axe-murdering priests preaching about morals.
If anything came flying at his face, he'd just pulverize them with his fists, and if Airo turned up, he'd cave his head in with a flying knee.
There was just one tiny nagging thought in his tiny brain.
Some of those guys are strong, and they'll be fine even alone. But those other weak fuckers… what if they end up dead?
He was slightly confused by this feeling - it was unfamiliar. Worrying about someone else.
Kicking a rock across the ground, he was lost in thought (which was unlike him) when he heard laughing.
A strange, half-happy half-crazy, high-pitched laugh.
"Either someone's winning or someone's tweaking," he grinned, cracking his neck. "Finally, something interesting."
He sprinted towards the source of the noise, clambering over the rocky hills with monstrous agility, and landed heavily in a large hollow.
He was met with a giant pale cave scorpion, pincers the size of his torso and stinger poised to strike. Opposite it was a guy with pale blue hair, and in hand he held one of the scorpion's legs.
Luc looked on at the battle unfolding below him.
He was watching this rather slim, non-muscly guy, with almost girly features, absolutely slugging it out with a truck-sized monster scorpion.
And winning at that.
Damn. That guy's cool and strong. I'm gonna fight him.
That was pretty much Luc's thought process in front of anyone except Neo.
Diva
Diva nudged the corpse with her foot.
"Is it dead?" she panted, blood running down her face and dripping down her chin.
She wrenched her spear out of the dead beast's flesh.
"Any idea what this thing is yet?"
Jora shook her head, lowering her bow. She'd fired practically all the arrows from her quiver trying to kill the creature dead at their feet. Her hands were shaking.
"Hell if I know," Swifty said examining a huge gash on his calf. "Ask him."
Diva turned to the man withdrawing his blade from the creature's head.
He had arrived seconds before the now-deceased beast would've mauled Jora to death, and they were able to coordinate four-on-one to take it down.
"I know," he said, spinning his weapon. "Velocimanductor Exarnatus, the Death Flash. It should be extinct."
"Right," Swifty raised his eyebrow. "That's unsettling."
"Well, thanks for helping us," Diva said warily, eyeing the newcomer.
That thing was ridiculously powerful, I've never seen anything like it. And that guy…
She looked him and down. Dark blue hair, tall, well-built with strange pearly grey eyes. He'd practically torn the Death Flash apart by himself using those weapons of his - wicked-looking dual sickles.
I did pretty much nothing. Safe to say he hunted it alone.
"So are you friend?" she offered. "Or foe?"
Jora held her breath, and Swifty held his position, never taking his eyes off the newcomer.
"…I'm not your enemy," the man said, sheathing his sickles. "If you aren't mine."
Diva took the hint and confirmed that they didn't want to fight.
"Can we trust you?" she asked. "I know that doesn't mean much down here but…"
"If you don't stab me in the back," the man said. "I'll stick with you. I have valuable knowledge of a supply node not far from here. Alone, I wasn't able to loot it fully but with three extra hands we can easily empty it."
Swifty, Jora and Diva looked at each other, and silently but unanimously came to a decision.
"Alright," she said. "For the time being, let's stay together. Got a name? Label? Tag? Whatever?"
"Framed," the man said. "011."
"024, Diva. This is 056 Jora and the pink-haired guy is Swifty. I don't know his number."
"014," Swifty confirmed. "We never did tell you, did we? Chris was 013, and I'm 014."
Framed nodded and shook their hands, and while he did Diva couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed. Now that she knew that goofball Chris and Swifty were 013 and 014, she realized that if the labyrinth hadn't shifted and the group was still together, they'd have an overpowered team with many top rankers.
"…something tells me we won't be seeing each other for a long time," she muttered, surveying the empty wasteland beyond.
"Are you talking about your allies?" Framed questioned, coming up next to her. "Did you get separated?"
"Yeah," she said, a little wistfully. "You too?"
Framed was silent for a bit.
"I don't even know if they're still alive," he sighed. "Most of them were ranked in the 200s or 300s, and depended on me to survive. If anything they're probably already gone."
"Oh…"
"We won't have to worry about that," Swifty shook his head. "It's unfortunate I'm not with Chris, but even though he's a total douchebag with a shitty personality, he's the real deal. As someone who's been with him since the beginning, I can vouch."
"Same with the others," Jora nodded. "I'm sure we'll meet again soon."
Diva smiled a little.
"At least we have each other. It's far better than being alone."
The other three nodded.
"Naturally, the goal is still to meet back up as fast as possible," she continued. "But being realistic…"
She looked at the Death Flash dead on the floor.
"If we keep wondering, are we confident we can beat something bigger and scarier than that?"
"No," Jora said instantly.
"Yes, so here's the thing. Framed and Swifty, you guys both have a bunch of ration pellets and basic supplies. We don't have to worry about going hungry. I say we play the long game. Find a place where we can hold easily and bunker down, and restrict our movements to the surrounding area, slowly expanding it. I happen to be a geography graduate - I plan to map this place."
Framed raised an eyebrow.
"Do you know how ambitious that is? This place is huge."
"I know. But if we had a grid map of this whole floor, how much of an advantage would that be? We could plan attacks in the future, locate safe zones and danger zones, mark out coordinates using an X, Y and Z system…"
The other three exchanged glances.
"Well, I don't know about mapping," Swifty said. "But I'm with the 'hold-the-fort' plan. I do want to search for the others but yeah, I agree that we'll probably become food within days."
"I'll follow whatever you do," Jora said quickly.
"Let's do it," Framed nodded. "We might as well. Since I'm pretty sure down here, all roads lead to nowhere anyway."