Chapter 30

Cass's fingers kept a tight hold on the blade that was pushing down against her, threatening to slice into her. The woman who held the blade was much stronger than her, but her footwork was bad, and she couldn't use as much force as she should have. She had expected the blade to cut right through her gauntlets - only to discover that these gauntlets were far stronger than anyone her Level should have. Cass kept a grip on the blade anyway, ready for the moment when the woman started to pull it up to try another attack.

There was something in the periphery of her vision that she didn't allow herself to look at. She knew it was Drake. It was an illusion. A fake. An offer that wasn't real, an offer of real absolution, of one chance to take back one mistake. It made her cry when she saw it, knowing it wasn't real. So she didn't look. She focused on the Amazon in front of her, as words escaped various lips. "Leave, with Aliyah." "Leave, Aisha." "His, he has, p̷o̡̨i̵s̨͟͜o͏̶n̢, can pr̷̶et̨̕҉e͘n̶d to be." "You."

The Amazon finally started to yank her blade away, and Cass kept a hold, twisting her body, applying heavy, sideways force that sent the Amazon off course, made her stumble to one side. She almost yanked the blade out of the woman's hand while she was off balance, but not quite. "You're good," the woman got out, a grim look of respect on her face, as she got ready to swing the blade up.

Cass let go and rolled backwards. Even with just the periphery of her vision, she had seen the bits of planning and thought on the nameless girl and Drake's faces and in their movements, and she grabbed onto the nameless girl's forearm, ignoring the apparently grievous injury she had suffered to her stomach. She knew it was fine. "Run," she got out. "Up," she added.

The nameless girl blinked, but nodded quickly, and she was hefted up into the air before the Amazon beneath her could actually make her attack, blade swinging through empty air. Drake quickly got the idea, grabbing Noriko, and running carrying her, the still-conscious three Level Three Amazons following after them, shouting invective, occasionally trying to throw a rock at the nameless girl or Drake.

One of them hit the nameless girl right in the face, shattering her jaw and sending bone and blood spraying across the Dungeon wall as the lower half of her face disappeared in a moment, leaving only black and white and red in the yawning chasm, her top row of teeth - normally spotless white - chipped and stained red. The nameless girl didn't slow down at all, though, even when some lingering element of that force, combined with the running, made her right eyeball simply pop out of its socket.

Cass didn't really look too long. It wasn't that it was gross - as long as somebody was alive, and good, they were never gross - but she had to keep an eye on the chasing Amazons as they fled, in case there was anything she could do.

* * *

I was still in You and Yours Stance, as the shouting Amazons followed after us, their unconscious allies on their backs. Occasionally, they'd hurl a rock in my direction, and generally, I'd have to Duck Fate around it, burning through more and more of my Essence. I could feel it pulsing in and out of me - more out than in, unfortunately. They had a harder time targeting me, given what I looked like at the moment, and their attacks had less obvious effects, so they soon had decided to target Julia instead.

I didn't look her way. I had seen her face halfway explode, and that was about enough to leave me feeling a bit nauseous. I had trouble with blood back on Earth - I even puked from looking at a pretty nasty injury I'd suffered, at one point - but here, with my new body, that nausea had been reduced. Clearly it wasn't complete, though. There was some vague philosophical question there, about how much of who a person was, was their hormones and endocrine and all the other systems of their body that weren't in their brain, but I had an immediate concern: namely, the Amazons chasing me down.

"Stop following us!" I shouted over my shoulder at them, and one of them stuttered - then shook her head and kept chasing, even going so far as to (after taking a second to ready herself) throw another rock my way. It wasn't a reliable thing, You and Yours Stance. It's just that what the other person saw - a loving father, her virtue returned, absolution from responsibility, power through knowledge, a chance to take back her biggest regret - well, it was something of so deep and fundamental an importance that it was hard to bring yourself to hurt, or to deny it whatever it pleased.

They were just as fast as us, and stronger, and I had limited ability to fight back, and I was sure both Julia and I would run out of Essence eventually, from their attacks. I needed an edge. Rei? Rei was in the lower levels. Maybe under attack too, which made me grit my teeth at the thought, but she was stronger than me, if she was in real trouble, I couldn't help, and I was reminded of how much being lower Level than someone else really, truly sucked. It hadn't been that long ago that Goro had been killed...

I needed a solution. Something to grasp onto, better than intermittently shouting back at the Amazons to stop, slowing them for a moment before they rushed to keep up. A thought came to mind suddenly, something wild, but at least plausible:

The Dungeon.

The Dungeon was intelligent. Probably. There were lots of little things, but that could have just been pattern matching - oh, the monsters attacked after they didn't attack for a while, so it must be attempting to lure me into a false sense of security. But I was pretty sure it was managing its spawns, directing them, choosing what would appear where to maximize the chance that an Adventurer would die inside it.

It might just be as intelligent as Stockfish, but if it wasn't... and it hadn't attacked me, since I took on this stance, and I'd seen its minions hesitate dealing with me while I was in You and Yours Stance in the past...

"Dungeon! Spawn a bunch of monsters to kill the Amazons chasing me!" At this floor, it was unlikely to be able to actually do that, but it might spawn something.

"You're praying to the Dungeon?" One of the Amazons scoffed - then one of the walls simply exploded, making her shriek in surprise as the rock hit her and her companions and a dozen minotaurs clambered out.

It was intelligent. Enough to understand what I had said, to decide to do it. Maybe, if I had asked it to do something it didn't want to do, it wouldn't have, but asking the Dungeon to kill Adventurers is a bit like asking Rei to fuck. It was, so far as I could tell, the Dungeon's only motivation.

It was something to think about later. The floors we were on didn't spawn powerful enough monsters to stop some Level Threes, and I wasn't going to try to risk some Duck Fate/Resplendent Destiny/You and Yours Stance/Maw of Dripping Venom combo, under the circumstances. He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.

* * *

Ais was worried. Noriko was very earnest, and trained very hard, and Ais didn't want her to die. She enjoyed training with the girl, despite their differences in Levels.

Rei had gone to Loki and Finn and told them that the Ishtar familia was attacking Rei and Erza in the Dungeon. Loki and Finn had surmised that she was probably also attacking Drake, Noriko, Cass, and the Prettiest Princess. It was apparently related to a bet, or a War Game, which Drake had planned with Ishtar. Ais didn't understand everything, but she understood enough. Noriko was in danger. So were the people that Noriko cared about. That was bad. She needed to go help them.

The Dungeon was big. Rei had said her other bodies were on the 17th Floor, and had hidden in a secret hole in Rivira that they wouldn't be able to find, but also wouldn't be able to stay there forever. That was why Rei was with them, although she was in the middle of their formation, carried on Tiona's back for her own protection. With the way her magic worked, if she was injured, all her clones would be injured. Ais didn't mind. If Rei wanted to be safe, then she would protect her. Rei was currently talking to Riveria, asking her a lot of questions about magic. Ais knew Riveria well, so she knew Rei was needling the woman. She didn't know Rei well, so she didn't know if it was on purpose.

Finn slowed down his pace a mite, coming back to Rei. "They still in the hole?"

"They're still hiding, you won't be able to get in unless they come out," Rei said. "We should just focus on saving Drake and Bitch and Cass and Noriko."

"Mm," Finn replied by way of acknowledgement, his gaze going into the middle distance. "Any idea where they are?"

"I'm listening for them, that's the best you're gonna get," Rei replied with a huff. "I guess I should have kept a clone with them to keep them safe at all times, in retrospect, if that's what you're bitching about."

"I'm not complaining at all," Finn replied evenly. "Just trying to figure out how to find them."

"Yeah, yeah," Rei said, stretching. "Just cover more ground. I mean, Phryne is still following my clones or they'd have already emerged to find somewhere better to hang out," she explained.

Ais's brow furrowed at Rei's suggestion. Cover more ground? They were staying together right now, but Drake, and Noriko, and the Prettiest Princess, and Cass, were all in danger. They didn't all make the same pace, and right now, they were going the same as the slowest member of their party. They didn't have time to waste. "I'll go," she said, and she heard Riveria start to say something, but she ignored it. "Tempest," she said, before rushing forward like a bolt from a crossbow, pausing only briefly to let her feet scrape along the floor, slowing her momentum and changing her direction, before swooping forward once more.

In short order, the sounds of the other members of the Loki familia fell from her ears, as she moved towards the staircase to the 5th Floor, zooming through familiar passages, pausing only momentarily at the major junctions to try to ascertain the presence or absence of Drake. She moved through floors like they were rooms, losing herself in a moment of pure speed. The wind whistled in her ears, a distant sound - and then she saw it.

The Prettiest Princess, face half torn apart, some of her guts hanging out, walking on thin air. Cass, attached to her back. Noriko, dangling from an arm - but the arm. The arm. Her gaze slid up to the figure... her mother, Aria? Long blonde hair and pale skin, her lips parted in words that Ais could almost hear. Gratitude. Like she was saying, "Thank you," or "You've done well, my daughter," or something like that. It was better even, than seeing her real mother could be, because she saw all those sweet whispers and the glory that came with them and revenge against the monster that had killed her father and the finality of completing the Three Great Quests and-

"Ais!" Noriko shouted, and the figure quickly spun around, rushing towards her and landing right in front of her. Ais's hand almost reached out for Aria's face, and suddenly the illusion vanished in a heartbeat, cold water falling from the heavens on her foolish thoughts.

Obviously she had to actually kill the Red Dragon, if she was going to get that. She bit her lip at her own foolishness, almost pouting in place. "Three Level Three Amazons," Drake, the person who had been hiding behind the illusion, told her. "I distracted them with some minotaurs, but, I'm pretty sure they're still following?" He glanced over at the Prettiest Princess, whose face was in complete ruins, then quickly looked away from her.

"Ah, yes, goshujinsama," the girl agreed, despite the fact that she lacked a lower jaw, a tongue undulating uselessly in the air to speak. "I can still hear them following us. I think the minotaurs slowed them down a bit! That was really amazing, goshujinsama! Just think what you could do with a Skill like that!"

"You know you sound sarcastic, saying that?" Drake asked her, still not looking at her.

"Ais, please kill the people chasing us, thank you," Noriko said.

"Um, don't," Drake interrupted quickly, and Ais's brow furrowed slightly. "I mean, if you have to, but-"

"They're Ishtar familia, but Ishtar uses Charm magic!" The Prettiest Princess exclaimed. Despite one of her eyes hanging out, leaning over her cheek, she seemed cheery as ever as her tongue flopped about senselessly in the air. "They could be mind controlled. Even if they're not mind controlled, the threat of mind control would obviously make people do all kinds of things, right, goshujinsama?"

"Yeah. What Bitch said."

"Oh. If Drake and Bitch agree, then do not kill them," Noriko corrected. Cass gave a small, solemn nod.

Ais didn't know what to say about any of that... then she saw the three figures come around the corner. Samira. Rajya. Jalila. Plus, Aisha and Aliyah, carried on their backs. They scraped to a halt as they saw Ais. There was a moment of hesitation, on the part of both Ais, and the Amazons. "Tempest," she said, and surged forward as she saw their eyes widen.

She was a Level Five. They were Level Threes. Two of them were already unconscious. She moved between them, reaching out with the flat of her blade, slamming it into their faces and sending the conscious ones to join the unconscious ones in slumber. It took only a second, and they were down. She looked at the sleeping bodies of the Amazons, her lips twisting down in a frown.

Would Finn have wanted her to keep at least one conscious? He probably would. She had acted too fast.

"Christ," Drake said, as she skidded to a halt. She turned his way. Why had he said that word? She didn't know it. Kryst. Christ. Hard and soft and guttural. What did it mean? "Um. It's just that was really fast," he said, as she stared at him.

"Christ means 'very fast'?" She asked. It was an interesting word. Maybe the gods would give it to her as an Alias, on her next Level Up?

"No, sorry. It means wow," he explained.

"Christ," she repeated. It meant 'wow.' "So you say... Christ... when something is impressive?"

"Isn't she so cute goshujinsama?" The Prettiest Princess interjected, making her gaze briefly turn to the girl. Her lower jaw had appeared somewhere around her neck, and was slowly crawling up her throat towards her upper jaw. Her eye had started sliding slowly back up into its socket. "She just saved your life, so you should add her to your harem!"

"I agree," Noriko said. "Christ," she added, like she was toying with the word.

"Okay, Christ is like a cuss," Drake said, with a mild tone of annoyance. "Like saying 'holy fuck.' I was just surprised. And you can't just assume that every girl you see wants to join my harem, Bitch."

"I do," Ais said, making Drake's gaze snap her way. "I want to... become strong," she explained. "If I join your harem, I'll become strong?"

"Um. It's not quite that simple, but-"

"See, goshujinsama?! Cute and sexy! Plus she asked you out, so you have to say 'yes,' just like with Lena!"

"Rei and Erza are probably under attack too," Drake said, changing the subject.

Ais nodded. "Rei said they hid in a hole in Rivira. One we couldn't follow," she added, with a small pout.

Drake squinted. "I know there's a Charm that does something like that," he said, frowning.

"A Charm?" Ais asked.

"A Skill, sorry," Drake corrected. "It, uh, makes a little pocket dimension you can hide in. I think... the exit is in one place?"

"Goshujinsama, I don't think it's a Skill," the Prettiest Princess interrupted. She briefly met Drake's eyes, and they seemed to silently communicate something between them. Ais pouted harder, watching them.

"What is it?" Ais asked, and the Prettiest Princess and Drake both turned her way. "You're hiding something."

"Ah, sorry! It's a woman's secret, Ais-sama!" She bowed her head intentionally low, and her jaw fell off and clattered to the floor, leaving a blood splatter. She grabbed it before standing up, pressed it against her chin, and there was a snapping noise, like when you fit a metal axel back in place, and when she pulled her hand away, there was no sign left that she had ever been injured at all. "Please forgive me!" She smiled brightly and bowed again.

"Okay," Ais responded, turning her head down the halls.

* * *

Rei #8 felt a prick on her right hand. It was a horizontal cut on the middle phalange of her left pinky finger. Eleven. Rei #1 was on the Eleventh Floor. "If you can hear me, we're on the Fourteenth," she said, to no one in particular. It didn't seem to accomplish much, but that method of communication was one way. She paused, letting out a sigh. They needed to get out of Knossos, but they had no idea where any of the exits were, plus they were in danger of getting attacked by Dix Perdix, the total asshole cunt fuckhead leader of the Ikelos familia who was an abusive monstergirl slaver, who had probably done all kinds of awful things to Ali.

As if on cue, she heard a door in the distance, far behind her, begin screeching shut. "They're looking for us now, then," she said.

"They?" Erza asked.

"The Ikelos familia," she explained. "This is their territory, and they're like, huge scumbag asshole murderous slavers. Right, Ali?" Ali nodded quickly, vehemently, squeezing tighter around Erza's body. "So if you see them, you should kill them."

"I see," Erza agreed, bowing her head for a moment. "What do they look like, though?"

"They're the only people in Knossos other than us, and now that they've started locking doors behind us, they're probably about to show up," she said. She let out a sigh, considering what to do. Turning invisible was possible, but there were three Reis here - #5, #6, and #8, now that #7 was... gone. That was a lot of Essence to spend, plus it wouldn't help Erza or Ali, really. Stealth forms? Ehn. "Right, okay, so the head guy's got a curse which confuses and disorients, it might not work on you but I dunno. He can only use it one time, and it lowers his effective Level by one, unless he turns it off, and he's probably Level Five, so..." She trailed off, like her words added up to anything. "We could separate a bit? One up front?" She couldn't guarantee that a mindfucked her would actually disappear, though. Gah! Mind control sucked! Why hadn't she developed the anti-mind control Skill?!

Well. Drake's form of mind control was sexy... "I understand," Erza said, her voice firm. "I'll take the fight to them," she declared with confidence, Ali beginning to slither off her.

"Wait, wait," she said, hurriedly, and Erza turned her way. Ali paused, halfway wrapped around Erza, looking confused. "Meet my eyes," she said, and Erza did so. She bounced her consciousness into Erza's eyes, riding her senses. "Alright, go for it," she said.

Erza nodded, and Ali disentangled herself the rest of the way. A moment later, Erza rushed off, and all the Reis turned into birds, perching near the ceiling, just in case somebody came up. Ali curled up into a ball, shivering and looking around worriedly, from side to side, down the long, dark hallways she was trapped in. She'd have to reassure the monstergirl after this was all done. Possibly with sex?

Erza saw several figures, and Rei #8 rode her senses to see them as well. Dix's stupid goggles made him really identifiable, which made her seriously worried. Erza was only a Level Two, even with the boost of her insane power, she might not be able to take the guy on. "Oh? Coming right for me?" She heard the scumbag say. She was glad he was a guy. If he was a girl, she would have wanted to rape/mindbreak him, but that wasn't sexy with guys for some reason. This way she could feel cool about it.

Erza stepped up her speed, one sword in either hand, the distance between her and Dix closing at a rapid pace. The other Ikelos familia members - some no-names she had no idea about - looked concerned with how fast she was coming on, which made sense, since she was moving waaaay faster than Rei could outside of like, Goliath form.

Dix himself was confident, though, simply lowering his stupid goggles. "Become lost in an endless nightmare," he said.

Erza's vision split in two - on her left, enemies danced around her, lunging, the noise of them overpowering any other sound. On her right, though, everything was clear, crisp. Dix dodged to one side, intending to let her uselessly fly past him. He was completely invisible to her left eye... and completely visible to her right. It wasn't even a fight, not really. Rei #8 couldn't help but grin, as Erza shifted her angle, blade cutting towards Dix at extreme speeds. He even wore this awesome 'oh shit' face as he realized what was happening -

Then he cut out his Curse magic, restoring his Level as he drew up his spear to block Erza's attack. He let out a hot pant at the sudden, forceful smash of Erza's entire weight and strength slamming into him, all that built up momentum sending him sliding backwards across the hall's floor. "It doesn't work on you?" He got out, trying to jerk the spear to push Erza back, but she kept up the forceful attack, scowling harshly at him. "Somebody's pissed." His men didn't try to help, correctly realizing that this was a fight way out of their league. Rei #8 wasn't even sure she could contribute as an equal if she had been in Goliath form. She was supposed to be the strongest! Why did Erza get to ruin that right away?! She wanted to rush down to the Lower Floors to get an even more powerful form so she could be the strongest again.

"You hurt Alipheese Fateburn the Sixteenth, didn't you?" Erza's furious roar was ferocious.

"What?" He asked, genuine confusion in his voice. Rei #8 felt an inward cringe at having told Erza Ali's full name... it was something she gave Ali! He wouldn't know it! "Who? You must have me confused with someone else, lady."

"Alipheese Fateburn the Sixteenth - the lamia who you kept captive in these very halls," she explained.

"The fuck kinda name is that for a lamia?" Dix replied, finally managing to disentangle his weapon from Erza's. He spat. "Yeah. It's the only thing that satisfies me, hearing those monsters that can talk begging for their lives, begging for mercy." Damn. He had one crazy fucking smile. Not quite as crazy as Julia's, but he was definitely way less hot so it wasn't really working for him. It was this sort of rictus grin, lips curled up in a half-sneer, his eyes a bit too wide as he stared Erza down. "My ancestor passed on his damned curse to me, forced me to work, day after day, on this stupid Labyrinth of his. I can't resist it no matter how hard I try, everything I do has to be put in terms of continuing the work he started." He spun his spear around, pointing it at Erza as the two circled one another. "Even tormenting those monsters - I have to plan to use the money I get, from their cores, from selling them off, to buy more raw materials, to keep expanding Knossos."

"It sounds as if you have suffered gravely," Erza told him. Damn, she was such a shonen protagonist. Shonen deuteragonist? "But that is no excuse to hurt an innocent girl like Alipheese Fateburn the Sixteenth!"

"She's just another fucking lamia, you dumb bitch," Dix spat out, before darting in with his spear. Erza swept her head to one side, avoiding the stab that would have cut into her face, and made a powerful swing, looking more like a baseball bat smash than a regular sword strike. It cut into Dix's armor, sent him tumbling backwards, slamming into the farthest wall with a thump. "The Dungeon just spits them out," he said, wiping away blood from his face as he rose to his feet, ready to keep fighting. "There'll be another, and another, and another. Sixteenth's appropriate, though I'd guess more like two hundredth."

Rei #8's brain suddenly remembered something really fucking important. That spear was cursed. It inflicted wounds that didn't heal. Was that like, never healed, or not magic healed, or didn't coagulate naturally, or what, she couldn't remember, but it was definitely bad. She flew down, shapeshifted to human form, and shouted as loud as she could. "That's a cursed spear! Don't let it cut you!"

She could hear through Erza's ear. Erza hadn't heard her. Rei #8 grit her teeth. If she approached, then Dix might cast his stupid faggot curse on her, and then Erza might have to fight her. Dix did seem to have heard her, though, gauging by the way his expression shifted. "Your friends didn't run away, huh? I thought this was one of those, 'I'll buy you time' situations," he said.

"She doesn't need me to buy her time. I'll beat you."

"Yeah, might could," he said, lazily swinging his spear again, making a quick spinning movement that was meant to tempt Erza into the attack.

She didn't bite, keeping back, circling him. She Requipped, and Rei #8 saw as her armor suddenly became pure, glistening black, a long spear in her hand. She couldn't immediately tell what armor it was, but she lunged forward even faster than normal, not seeming to run so much as fly, as she charged forward, spear in hand. Dix himself was clearly surprised at the speed she brought to bear, twisting out of the way desperately as Erza approached, her lance spearing through the space he had been a moment before.

But Erza had been holding the spear in one hand - in her other hand was a sword, and it was tucked under the other arm. Dix realized it too late, as the blade simply neatly bisected his left arm, cutting it off and making him scream in pain. "Become lost in an endless nightmare!" He shouted the words out, and once again, Erza was caught in the effect. Once again, it was totally ineffectual since Erza was basically immune to gaze magic. His men, though, went crazy against one another. "Gods, dammit," he bit out, hand gripping his own arm near the cut, trying to stem the flow of blood as Erza solemnly looked down at him. "You, fuck." He was definitely not doing well at this point. Erza had cut off the hand which had held his sword. "All for... for what? A fucking lamia?"

"For a friend," Erza replied, making him laugh at that, a crazed look in his eyes. His illusion once more faded away, as he regained some of his strength.

"I'm sorry," he said, and there was a look on his face that was tortured as he spat the words out. Like he didn't want to say them, but was compelled to. "I'm sorry, alright, you bitch?!" He shouted. "Don't kill me! I have to- I have to keep working on Knossos," he said, some of the energy going out of him as those words escaped his lips. It was obvious to Rei #8 that it was the family curse compelling him to say whatever would most likely keep him alive.

Erza simply stared at him. There was a quiet, pregnant moment of silence, and Rei #8 couldn't remember if Erza killed people. It was a shonen manga, after all-

Then her sword cut his head off at the neck, and his body fell to the ground. Well, that answered that.

"The rest of you," Erza said, spinning around to a terrified group of Ikelos familia members, all pressed against the far wall as she looked at them. "You won't hurt any more talking monsters, understand?!" She raised her sword threateningly into the air. Rei #8 could imagine it, though her position was more like a mother hefting up a belt to threaten her child, rather than someone ready to kill.

"Yes! Yes!" They replied quickly, eyes big and wide as they stumbled back. "No more talking monsters, got it, scary lady!"

"Or monsters that can't talk, but are intelligent!" Erza added.

"Yes! None of those!"

"Or- or! Adventurers!" She added.

"Yes!"

"Or anybody you obviously shouldn't kill!"

"Got it! Nothing bad! We'll be good!"

At that point, Erza finally lowered her sword, letting out a huff of relief. "Good. Now, where's the nearest exit?"