Two days had passed since the land scouts had failed to return. Two days of grueling, monotonous, back-breaking labor in the dim, oppressive light of the crystal cavern. The initial, frantic energy and excitement of the great digging project had long since evaporated, fizzling out, leaving behind an almost silent routine of chipping, scraping, and hauling. It is mind-numbing work.
It will be hilarious if one of them gets some health complication from this endeavor, like the black lung, and is put down by predators when they have to once again run for their little lives.
The air was thick with dust, coating everything in a uniform, miserable grey, and making every breath a gritty chore. We are already seeing results, but it is slow going. You thought I meant their progress? Not at all, I was talking about them not being able to breathe and becoming dead inside.
"Chip, chip, chip... Digging away while their fate is decided topside," The Great I commented, my voice a bored drawl as I observed their pointless toil. "Do they feel the approaching doom? Probably not. They're too busy complaining about blisters and the dust getting in their sensitive little noses. Ah, ignorance. It's the closest thing to bliss these pathetic creatures will ever experience. I desire to keep it that way, too."
The tunnel was now a respectable, if cramped, passage extending a dozen yards into the mountain, a testament to their relentless, desperate effort. But not surprisingly, progress was agonizingly slow. It's not like cutting through loose soil or granite alone. The diggers, even fueled by the crystal dust they now consumed in necessity, were reaching their limits. Their claws were worn, their muscles screaming in protest.
No matter how much their feeble bodies ripped and repaired themselves to gain muscle mass for more strength, the poor things were only seeing diminishing results due to a lack of sufficient food and rest. Soon, I may even get to enjoy the sight of their bodies devouring themselves from within, much like hikers in snowy mountains ignore fat and go straight for the muscle.
The mood in the cavern was tense and sullen. Every passing hour that Mallory, Remy, and Peter did not return tightened the knot of fear in their stomachs and little hearts.
Every strange echo from the dark, clear waterways or the surface above it made them flinch. They worked, they ate their meager rations of cave fish and glowing moss, and they waited, their hope dwindling with every shovelful of rock, dust, and soil.
The monotonous, rhythmic scraping from the escape tunnel echoed through the cavern, a heartbeat for their new life that might be dead on delivery. At the base of the main silk line leading to the surface, Steve Birk was monitoring the tension, his multiple limbs allowing him to check the anchor points and the braided rope with a practiced efficiency. The deviant was one of the poor fools who trained and started to learn how to use their new bodies. Now, if only he would act more like a true centipede.
Suddenly, the line jerked violently in his grasp, not once, but three times in sharp, frantic succession.
His head snapped up, his multiple eyes widening. It was the signal, the one they had all prayed they would never receive: Emergency. Scouts returning under duress.
"Emergency!" Steve's voice was a sharp, urgent screech that cut through the noise of the digging. He didn't wait for a response, immediately turning to the nearest authority figure. "Coach Roberts! We've got the emergency signal on the surface line! Three sharp tugs!"
Coach Roberts, who had been overseeing the collection of debris and the haulers assigned to it, spun around, his massive hippo-form radiating a sudden, intense killing intent as he became enraged as if he was about to charge. "CEASE DIGGING!" he bellowed, his voice a thunderclap that rolled through the entire cavern, silencing the chipping and scraping instantly. "EVERYONE, QUIET! SILK TEAM, REPORT!"
The abrupt silence was more terrifying than the noise had been. In the tunnel, Jack Sutton froze mid-swing, a chunk of rock held in his grasp. The student conveyor belt shuddered to a halt.
Every head, caked in grey dust, turned from their work, their eyes wide with a new, sharper fear, and fixed on the gaping hole in the ceiling.
"They're coming down fast," Rita Causey called out from her position near Steve, her own hands flying to the rope to help manage the descent. Mallory ignored the rope and was falling in a spiraling circle in quick descent, while the others barely seemed to have their hands on the line. "Something's wrong, they're practically falling!"
A wave of cold dread washed over the cavern. Moments later, two figures appeared, at the side to spread a net of silk to catch the rappelling figures, with faces etched with unadulterated terror and the urgency of the news.
It was Mallory Weiss and Peter Frost. They stumbled onto the cavern floor, collapsing in a heap, their bodies trembling with exhaustion and a dread so profound it was almost a physical presence of a ghost over their backs.
Their tattered clothes were shredded, their faces were pale and gaunt, streaked with grime and tears, and their eyes were wide with a haunted, hollow look that spoke of horrors witnessed.
"Finally! Some action!" The Great I declared, my bored drawl instantly replaced by a tone of gleeful interest. "The tedious digging montage is over, and the heralds of doom have arrived! Look at them, the little Roadrunner and the terrified Rabbit, fresh from the front lines! Oh, delicious news they must carry! I do hope it's something wonderfully, soul-crushingly awful as if I didn't already know!"
Ms. Linz and Coach Roberts were the first to reach them. "Mal! Peter! What is it? What happened?" Ms. Linz asked, her voice tight with a fear she couldn't conceal. "Where is Remy?"
Mallory looked up, her breathing coming in ragged, shuddering gasps. She tried to speak, but only a choked sob came out.
It was Peter, the Rabbit-hybrid, who finally found his voice, his words tumbling out in a panicked, terrified rush."He's gone," Peter whimpered, his large ears flattened against his skull. "They took him. The soldiers... they took him away."
A collective gasp went up from the students huddled nearby. Mrs. Weiss pushed through the crowd, her face filled with cold fury. "What do you mean, 'took him'?" she demanded of her daughter. "Report, Mallory. Now!"
Mallory finally found her voice, recounting the events with a flat, dead-eyed precision that was more terrifying than any scream. Clearly, the girl was suffering from some triggered trauma from her mother.
She told them everything: Remy's reckless decision to follow the patrol, the swift and brutal ambush as the fool had the tables quickly turned on him.
Then, her voice dropped, filled with a horrified awe.
"He... he ate a large crystal, he had on him," she whispered, and a new wave of shock rippled through the cavern. "It was the size of a marble, and he just... swallowed it. And he changed. He got bigger, stronger... he was glowing. He fought them; he actually fought them equally for a brief time. They even shot him, and he healed almost instantly. It was..." she trailed off, unable to find the words.
"But they got him," Peter finished, his voice trembling. "They used some kind of... electric net. He went down, and they took him. They didn't kill him like they did Will. They seemed to be talking to someone on some comm system and just... dragged him away."
"They put restraints on him," Mallory added, her voice hollow and trembling. "Thick, metal ones. They're taking him back to their base as far as we could tell." We followed them from a distance.
It's a new encampment, a more fortified version than the last one. They're no longer sweeping the area as wide as before; they're now setting up for a long-term operation as if getting ready to move.
And they have him restrained in the camp. We kept our distance so we wouldn't face the same fate and came back as fast as we could after we found out where he was being kept." As she reported that, Mallory's voice quieted at the end, and she looked off in the direction of the hole in the wall with confusion.
The full, horrifying weight of the news crashed down upon them. A dead, suffocating silence filled the cavern. Remy wasn't just missing. He was captured. And he was a walking, talking treasure map leading directly to their front door.
The soldiers now knew not only that they existed, but that they possessed the ability to use the crystals in a way that made them exponentially more dangerous.
"So they know," Mr. Decker breathed, his voice a low, horrified whisper that seemed to echo in the sudden stillness. "They know about the crystals. They know what we can do." His jaw crooked as his teeth showed, and he scratched the back of his head.
"They're going to come for us," Ann King whispered, her voice trembling as she looked around their small, fire-lit camp. "They're going to come down here... into our home..."
The thought hung in the air, unfinished but understood by all.
"Bad news delivery!" The Great I cackled, savoring the beautiful, blossoming panic. "The little rodent-boy is MIA, likely singing like a canary in some high-tech magical torture chamber as we speak! The walls are closing in, my little freaks, metaphorically speaking... and perhaps literally very soon too! Oh, the suspense is just delicious!"
While the crowd of students and adults alike started to crowd and mumble about like hens pecking at grass, a couple of the more stubborn type left the group and returned to the hole to dig once again.
Mrs. Weiss pushed through the crowd, her face chiseled in cold fury that melted away the instant she saw her daughter's state. She knelt, pulling her daughter into a warm, protective embrace.
Brett Weiss was there a second later, his armored form a silent, solid wall around them, his own hand resting on Mallory's shaking back. For a heartbeat, they weren't leaders or weapons; they were just a family, terrified and clinging to each other in the darkness.
"You're safe," Mrs. Weiss murmured into her daughter's hair, her voice losing its usual sharp edge. "You're back. That's all that matters."
Then, as she pulled back, the warmth in her eyes was replaced by an intense, calculating gleam. The mother receded, and the strategist returned. She held Mallory by the shoulders, her gaze sharp as if she was possessed and could not help herself any longer. "The crystal," she said, her voice a low, urgent buzz. "Tell me everything. When Remy ate it, what exactly happened? How and in what way did his size increase? Did his movements become more erratic? How fast was the regeneration? Was it instantaneous, or did it take seconds? We need to understand this power."
Before Mallory could form a coherent answer, a deep, resonant BOOM echoed from the far end of the cavern, followed by the sound of a massive cascade of falling rock.
The ground shuddered violently, throwing several off-balance students to their knees and sending a shower of dust and pebbles down from the cavern ceiling.
For a heart-stopping second, everyone froze, their minds leaping to the worst possible conclusion: a cave-in. They had been digging their own tomb after all.
"Plot twist! Just as doom approaches from the surface, a new development from below!" The Great I announced, my voice practically vibrating with delighted anticipation. "Is it salvation? Or just a slightly roomier tomb? Oh, the timing is impeccable! Or perhaps just wildly, beautifully coincidental. Let's see what the dirt-diggers have unearthed!"
Before Ms. Linz could even shout a warning, a figure stumbled out of the thick, grey dust cloud billowing from the tunnel's entrance, coughing and waving a hand in front of his face. It was Jack Sutton, his boar-like features caked in a fresh layer of grime, but his eyes were wide with a wild, triumphant light.
"We're through!" he roared, his voice a raw, joyous bellow that cut through the fear. "We're through! The wall collapsed! There's... there's indeed another cavern on the other side!"
A wave of stunned, disbelieving silence fell over the group, instantly followed by a surge of desperate, adrenaline-fueled hope. The news of Remy's capture, the certainty of the soldiers' approach — all of it was momentarily forgotten in the face of this single, impossible possibility: a way out.
Coach Roberts and Ms. Linz were the first to push through the lingering dust, followed closely by Shirou, Katy, and the other students. What they saw stopped them in their tracks.
The back wall of their crude tunnel was gone, replaced by a jagged, gaping hole that opened into a vast, breathtaking darkness. It wasn't the surface. It was indeed another cavern, far larger and deeper than their own, its ceiling lost in an oppressive gloom far above. A cool, fresh breeze, carrying the scent of deep earth and running water, flowed from the opening, a stark contrast to the stale, dusty air of their camp.
The initial, wild hope of the breakthrough quickly gave way to a tense, cautious apprehension. The new cavern was vast, a cathedral of stone and shadow that dwarfed their previous sanctuary. The air was cool and damp, and the only light came from the crystal fragments they carried, their soft glow creating more shadows than it dispelled. The sound of running water was much louder here, a constant, echoing murmur that spoke of deep, unseen channels.
"Well, don't just stand there gawking," Ms. Linz urged, her voice a low whisper as she began herding the last of the students through the jagged hole. "We don't know what's in here. We need to secure this position and find out what we're dealing with. Ira, if you would." The hypo-hybrid's ears twitched as his thoughts were broken, and he came forward to get things back under control.
Under Coach Roberts's direction, a defensive perimeter was quickly established around the tunnel entrance, with the stronger hybrids facing out into the oppressive darkness.
A scouting party was formed without a word, the roles now unusually familiar. Pat Duvall took the lead, his nose twitching, trying to parse the new, complex scents of this place. Shirou and Katy flanked him, their own senses on high alert.
"New cave, new critters! And these ones look bitey!" The Great I commented with cheerfulness. "Seems the water features come with built-in security systems. Because of course they do. No easy breaks for our heroes! It would ruin the narrative pacing! Let's see what fresh horrors this level has in store for them, shall we, Humanity?"
The scouts moved forward into the gloom, their crystal-lights casting long, dancing shadows. The cavern floor sloped downwards towards a wide, subterranean river that flowed from a dark, gaping tunnel on one side and disappeared into another on the other.
The water was black and impossibly deep, but here and there, schools of the same blind, pale fish they'd seen before darted through the shallows, their translucent bodies catching the light. It was a clear source of food.
But as Katy's sharp eyes scanned the banks and the submerged rock formations, she froze, holding up a hand for the others to stop. "Wait," she breathed, her voice a low hiss. "Look. On the walls."
Shirou and Pat followed her gaze. At first, they saw nothing but the wet, glistening rock of the cavern walls where they met the water. Then, they saw them. Clinging to the stone just below the water's surface were dozens of creatures that looked like mottled, grey stones themselves, each about the size of a football.
But as they watched, one of them shifted, and a long, obscene, tube-like mouth, lined with what looked like hooked teeth, extended slowly before retracting. They appeared to be ambush predators, perfectly camouflaged and waiting, right out of a nightmare.
Pat let out a low, almost inaudible whine, his nose twitching. "And in the mud at the bottom," he whispered, pointing towards the shallows near where the fish were swimming. "There are… shapes shifting slightly. Things buried in the mud, waiting, must be some of the monsters Mr. Decker talked about."
The scouts' report was delivered to the weary but attentive students. The news of more monsters lurking in the path ahead didn't trigger the same wave of despair it might have just a day before. They were tired, but they weren't broken; they now had another source of food. The successful breakthrough of the tunnel and the invigorating power of the crystals had forged a new, resilient desire within them.
They had faced monsters of immense strength before and had already won these battles within the jungle. They questioned what made this moment any different. This was just the next problem on a very long list of chores to be done.
The resilience is admirable, in a somewhat pathetic way. But hope… hope is a dangerous weed. Or, depending on how it is cultivated, the most exquisite kindling. Left to grow wild, it chokes out the far more beautiful, more artistic flower of despair.
It creates a narrative I cannot abide: the one where the hero toils through endless suffering, bleeding and weeping, all for the sake of a single "happy ending." A perfect, neat little bow on a story of agony. How utterly vulgar. It's a cheap trick, a piece of crap on an otherwise perfect meal as the garnish. Ruining the whole experience of the meal at the final bite.
No, true art lies in the other kind of hope. The kindling. The kind you allow to burn brightly, to consume all fear and doubt, to become a roaring bonfire of belief right till the very end. You let the hero or victim see the open door of hope. You let them breathe in the fresh air of freedom, knowing they are about to achieve their desires.
You let their fingers brush against the doorknob, the joy of sunshine to fall across their face and chest, to be blinded by the outside and ready to take that final step... and then, in that perfect, exquisite moment of imminent salvation, you have the abyss look back and drag them screaming into a darkness from which there is no escape. That is a masterpiece. That is a story worth telling — a tragic, heroic death.
You see, Humanity, you strive for perfection, but you don't even understand the concept. Perfection is a stagnant, dead end. It is a state where nothing more can be created, nothing new can be discovered. It is the death of art, the death of science, the death of ambition. For a true artist, a true scientific artisan of suffering like myself, perfection is the ultimate despair. I reject it. True beauty lies in the endless, messy, chaotic cycle of trial and error, of evolution and failure. This budding hope for a perfect, safe outcome is an artistic dead end.
Oh, this will not do. Scribe! Are you getting this? I want you to describe this next part with particular venom. From my throne, I leaned forward, a slow, predatory smile spreading across my magnificent, masked face, only known to myself. I reached down, and from the very fabric of my couch of solidified despair, I plucked a wisp of pure, concentrated misery and desire.
"Watch closely, Humanity, this is how true art is made." It writhed in my hand like a living worm, a beautiful little creature of hopelessness. "A little reminder," I whispered to it, "that no matter how high you climb, the fall is always waiting." Then, I blew gently. A silent, invisible missile of negativity was sent to correct this disgusting narrative deviation.
I watched it leave my realm and cross into the cavern in an instant and sink into the back of Barry Jenkins's head. Not the exact desired target, but a usable one. A cold, insidious thought, not his own, but soon to be. Yes... that's the stuff. The Bombardier Beetle hybrid shuddered once, his sarcastic nature now sharpened with a new, colder edge of hopelessness.
Now, chronicler, write what you see. Show them the poison taking root.
Barry Jenkins, the Bombardier Beetle hybrid, shuddered once, a subtle, full-body tremor that no one else seemed to notice. The light in his eyes seemed to dim and glaze over with madness slowly.
He slowly lifted a chitinous hand, pointing at the back towards the tunnel, then towards the dark river ahead. "Well, this is just fantastic," he said, his usual sarcastic rasp now hollow, devoid of its usual humor. "The soldiers are coming from behind, and a river full of rock monsters and whatever the hell else is hiding in that mud is in front." He let his hand drop, turning to the others with an unnervingly dead-eyed stare. "So, that's the choice. What, we get shot, or we get eaten, either in the waters below or the land above? Anyone got a preference?"
"No," Mr. Decker said, his voice cutting through the rising panic with a calm authority. "We are not done. We are getting hungry, but we are not starving. We are tired, but we no longer have to worry about thirst. We are desperate, and that is what our driving force needs to be if we want to make it out of here alive. That," he pointed a sleek, grey arm towards the dark, subterranean river, "is our source of water. Those fish are a source of food. And those predators... are a problem to be solved and be our meal in victory over the clutches of death."
He turned, his gaze sweeping over the other aquatic and amphibious hybrids. "Jeff, Ace, Kent, Nicky. You're with me. We're not running into that water blind. We are going on a short-range patrol. We will test their defenses, we will learn their patterns, and we will secure a food source. We are not prey here. We are to be scientists first, and we have been forged more into warriors each day by this horrible world."
Nicky Newell, who had been trying to make herself as small as possible, flinched as her name was called. "Wait, warriors?" she squeaked, her voice trembling as her tentacle-hair quivered with anxiety. "Larry, I'm a librarian! I have been shelving books for years.I don't... I don't fight things! You've all seen me be basically helpless since we go here and I had a constant guard on me in the last underwater exploration. My only defining trait is that my tentacles just... they just grab whatever gets too close, I can't control them in a real fight!"
"Now, now, Nicky, don't be like that!" Barry Jenkins's voice, smooth and unnervingly cheerful, cut in before Mr. Decker could respond. He stepped closer, the crystal light glinting off his insectoid shell. "Think of it as... an experiment! A chance to contribute! We get to see what these things are, and you," he gave her a wide, unsettling grin that didn't reach his glazed-over eyes. He reached out as if to gently brush one of her waving tentacles from her face, which was covering her eyes.
The tentacle reacted instantly, lashing out and delivering a sharp sting to his fingertips. Barry hissed, yanking his hand back, a flash of genuine pain crossing his features. But just as quickly, the pained expression was gone, replaced once more by that same, wide, unnerving smile and dead eyes.
"You get to understand how your own body functions," he continued as if nothing had happened, "and maybe even get a free meal out of it. It's killing two birds with one stone, really."
Nicky stared at him, her face horrified with disbelief. "What?" she stammered, taking a step back. "Barry, are you hearing yourself? That's... that's! I'm not a piece of bait you can dangle in front of a predator to see what happens! I'm a person!"
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial, almost eager whisper. "It's not a sacrifice, Nicky, it's a controlled observation. You'd be perfectly safe. I'll be right there. Mr. Decker and Ace will be right there, too. The instant one of those things latches on or towards you, we'll tear it right off or crush it before it even reaches you. But in that second, we'll learn everything — how they attack, how they feed. It's the fastest, smartest way to get the information we need to keep everyone safe. It's not a sacrifice; it's a contribution."
Nicky recoiled, her face paling with a new kind of horror. The casual, almost gleeful way he suggested using her as bait was more terrifying than the monsters themselves.
Before she could protest further, Ace Read scuttled over, his eyes glaring at Barry with pure disgust. "That's enough, Jenkins," he rasped. As Barry made to follow the group, a smirk appeared on his face. Ace moved to block him, shoving him back with his free claws. The impact of chitin on chitin made a dull thud. "You're not on this team. Go find some other way to be 'useful' that doesn't involve using people as bait." His voice was low and menacing.
Ace then turned, his claw grabbing Nicky's wrist with a surprisingly firm and gentle grip as a gentleman would typically do when escorting a lady. "You're one of the aquatic team, you're with us. No need to be afraid, we have been doing great together so far. Let's go." He didn't wait for an answer, simply tugging her along with the rest of the small team as they moved towards the water's edge, leaving a stunned and resentful Barry Jenkins behind.
"Now, I must confess to you, my dear audience," The Great I said, my voice losing its boisterous energy, replaced by a tone of almost academic reflection. "Direct intervention of that nature is... distasteful to me. A true artist of suffering prefers to let the rot bloom organically. But their persistent, nauseating sparks of hope were becoming a narrative dead end to set fire to my delightful garden.
Consider my actions less a direct manipulation and more... a bit of grafting. I merely planted a single, poisonous branch — that charming beetle-boy — in their little mind.
Now, I shall step back and observe with great interest how that delightful little fruit grows and chokes the life from everything around it as new seeds develop and are planted around him. The best tragedies are always the ones the victims inflict upon themselves. No?"
The small team cautiously approached the water's edge. The air tasted of wet stone. Under Mr. Decker's direction, they entered the shallows, the crystal-clear water shocking their skin's senses as if walking through a tundra naked.
The attack was instant, a blur of grey motion from the periphery. As Ace Read, the Crab-hybrid, scuttled over a submerged rock, the one beside it detonated into life. A long, tube-like mouth, lined with hundreds of hooked teeth, shot out and latched onto his carapace with a sickening CRUNCH.
"Gah! It's got me! Get it off!" Ace shrieked, his voice a gurgle of water and terror as the creature's immense strength began to drag him under, his claws scrabbling uselessly against the slick stone.
"Shit, Ace!" Kent roared, his own claws snapping defensively as he was forced back a step by the sheer violence of the attack.
Simultaneously, the mud at their feet erupted. Three more shapes, like armored, eyeless lampreys, burst from the silt, their own circular maws gaping as they lunged for the team.
Chaos erupted. Mr. Decker let out a series of high-pitched clicks, his echolocation instantly mapping the attackers in the murky water. "Those wall-clingers are slow to detach! Focus on the mud-burrowers first! Jeff, to my left!"
Jeff Wright, the newt hybrid, moved. His slick body was a blur in the water. He dodged a lunging lamprey, his own senses screaming at the vibrations in the water, and drove a sharpened crystal into its soft underbelly. The creature convulsed, releasing a cloud of dark, inky fluid as the light of the stone dimmed a little.
Kent and Ace, their crab instincts taking over, became defensive fortresses. They hunkered down, their hard shells deflecting the gnashing teeth of the burrowers, their powerful claws snapping and crushing.
One lamprey, latching onto Kent's leg, was met with a swift, brutal pincer movement that severed its body in two, and half of its body moved towards his mouth to be devoured in that moment.
Nicky, for her part, was trying to stay back, her timid librarian's mind screaming in protest against the violence. She stumbled as one of the mud-burrowers lunged in her direction, a choked scream caught in her throat. But the instincts of her tentacle hair had other ideas. With a speed that was entirely independent of her own will, several of her longest anemone-tentacles whipped out like living lassos. They stung, then wrapped around the thrashing lamprey, their tips adhering with a sickening, fleshy squelch.
The creature convulsed as the nematocysts fired, but it was held fast in place. To her absolute horror, and the stunned disbelief of Jeff, who was nearby, her hair began to retract, dragging the still-twitching creature towards her scalp, where it was quickly enveloped and began to be... digested and absorbed. Nicky let out a strangled sob of pure revulsion, even as her body's monstrous new appendage efficiently dispatched and consumed yet another threat that was nearby.
After a few brutal, chaotic moments, the immediate attackers were either dead or had retreated into the mud. The creature on Ace's shell was finally dislodged. Its teeth had managed to punch through in a few places, leaving deep, bleeding gashes in the chitin and flesh beneath. But to the astonishment of those nearby, the wounds were already beginning to steam faintly, the flesh below the shell knitting back together at a slow but visible rate.
"Fall back, now!" Mr. Decker commanded, his voice sharp. "Grab some specimens, while retreating! We need to know what we're fighting!"
Ace, with a hiss of satisfaction, seized the twitching other half of the lamprey Kent had bisected. He began dragging his grotesque prize back towards the shore, the rest of the team following his lead.
They retreated from the water with the ragged, battered, and bleeding bodies from the cold water. They were alive. They now had food — a gruesome but necessary bounty wrested from the dark waters full of fish and monsters.
They had their lesson, paid for in blood and fear: their new home was a hunting ground, and every step forward would be a fight for survival. They needed to prove to themselves and the world that they are the fittest.
"And now, watch closely, Humanity," The Great I murmured, my voice a low hum of genuine, almost paternal amusement. "My little seed of despair has sprouted legs. He is not resentful or resourceful yet, but he is not afraid. He is... curious. He sees the emotional, predictable outburst from the crab, and it bores him.
His gaze drifts, seeking a more... sophisticated playmate. Ah, there. The silent viper in the shadows. Look at him go now, my little beetle, taking his first, wobbly steps into the grand playground of manipulation while bumping into a couple of walls along the way. It's almost sweet, in a horrifically corrupting sort of way, I almost feel like a father pushing his chick out of the nest to make it fly for the first time. Let's see if he can make a friend."
"That was quite the show, wasn't it?" Barry began, his voice a low, cheerful murmur. "All that splashing and screaming. They really think a few dead fish will solve all their problems."
Conrad didn't move, but his slitted eyes slowly turned to focus on Barry. "Their success is temporary," he hissed. "It is based on emotion, not strategy or any real intelligent thought. They are almost less than the animals that they are merged with."
"Exactly!" Barry's grin widened. "You see it too, don't you? The flaw in their logic. They think a full belly solves the problems. They think 'hope' is a viable long-term strategy." He leaned against the rock wall, feigning a casual air. "But all this 'hope' and 'teamwork'... it's just so... boring, isn't it? It's the same story over and over. I think it's much more interesting when things start to fall apart. When people show what they're really like."
A flicker of something — interest, perhaps, or a predator's recognition of its own kind — gleamed across Conrad's eyes. "And what kind of story are you hoping to see, little Baz?"
"A more interesting one," Barry said, his voice dropping to a whisper, the cheerfulness now gone, replaced by a cold, eager hunger that mirrored Conrad's own. "One with a little more… despair. A little less predictable heroism. I think you and I, Conrad, could make things far more interesting around here. After all," he added, his glazed eyes glinting with a borrowed, malevolent light, "a good story needs a proper villain, don't you think?"
As the last rays of the dimming setting sun began their slow retreat, painting the underside of the jungle canopy in shadow with rays of purples and oranges streaking through. The incessant chirps and rustles of the forest's smaller inhabitants seemed to die away all at once, replaced by stillness as if time had frozen.
From the west came a new sound, one that had no place here. It was not the shriek of a predator, but the flat, dead rhythm of marching — the steady, percussive crunch of armored boots on dry leaves, branches, a machine chewing its way through the forest.
They poured from the treeline like soldier ants erupting from a disturbed nest. It was not a patrol, but an invasion; a single, overwhelming organism of destruction.
Their armor swallowed the dying light, much like the hope of any obstacles that stood before them. Their visored helmets erased any trace of individuality to make them lose as much personality as possible.
Dozens of them fanned out as a synchronized multipurpose swarm. Each one moved in concert with the others, their weapons held ready. Riflemen formed the core, while soldiers with long swords pulsing with a faint blue light took the flanks, and silent archers found positions on the periphery, their own bows humming with contained energy.
They were a complete tactical unit, a flood of steel and cold intent that had come to scour the landscape clean if so desired.
At the head of the column was the officer, his own armor slightly more ornate, his visor glinting in the fading sunlight. Dragged between two of his soldiers was a familiar, pathetic figure: Remy Valois. The miraculous healing granted by the single crystal had long since faded from his system.
Now, his body was just a collection of fresh and old wounds, a scarecrow of tattered flesh walking forward with a destroyed will.
The left side of his face was swollen shut, with discolored flesh, and his eye was lost somewhere in the swelling. His sandy fur was matted with dried blood from a dozen minor cuts, and he limped heavily, his leg dragging uselessly.
His healing factor, now without a fresh supply of the magical energy, was a normal and slow, agonizing process like any normal mortal creature. The soldiers' work was methodical; for every cut that began to seal, they would make a new one. He was kept in a state of agony, a damp misery of blood and sweat that clung to his fur, chilling him deeper with the forest air.
The heavy chains on his wrists had worn the fur away, leaving the skin raw, swollen, and weeping. He was no longer a person. He was a beast of burden to be hauled. His head lolling, his eye unfocused, he was only walking in the direction of the pulled chains. He was a piece of meat, a compass of flesh whose only purpose now was to point the way.
"Oh, goody, the gang's all here! And they brought party favors!" The Great I boomed, my voice losing its purring satisfaction, replaced by a surge of manic, joyous energy. "I was getting so bored! Just sitting here, watching them dig and argue and eat slimy fish... but now the real fun can start! Look at them, so serious in their little tin suits, setting up their little fences. It's adorable! And they brought my favorite little traitor with them! Oh, don't look so sad, little rat, you just kicked off the main event! Someone had to get the ball rolling, and your face was perfectly shaped for the job! Now this is a party! Let's see if these 'vermin' can put up a real fight, or if this is going to be a very enthusiastic pest control session! Either way," I let out a low, rumbling chuckle, "it's going to be a blast!"
The officer walked to the edge of the churned mud, his boots making no sound. He knelt, his visor reflecting the chaotic scene: the massive, gnawed-on snake skeleton, the signs of a desperate battle, countless corpses of beasts, and the gaping black hole in the ground. He let a handful of the damp earth run through his gauntleted fingers, then rose, his focus entirely on the dark pit. "They're down there, alright," he stated, his voice calm and clear.
He turned to his lieutenant. "Seal the area. Standard siege protocol. Sensor drones are activated in three minutes for a full perimeter sweep. An energy fence will be established in five. I want this hole contained. Nothing gets in," he gestured to the surrounding jungle, "and nothing," he glanced down into the darkness one last time, "comes out."
"Yes, sir!" the soldiers responded as a disciplined wave of voices.
"No. No, no, no, no, no! Wait, what are you doing? What is this?" The Great I's joyous energy curdled into a raw, panicked snarl. "A siege? A SIEGE?! You don't siege vermin! You don't set up a perimeter and wait for them to starve like a bunch of bloody accountants! You go in! You go in with your pretty blue guns and your shiny swords, and you turn the whole damn cave into an abattoir! You make the pretty crystals run red! You kill them all in a glorious, beautiful, perfect symphony of screams and violence! This... this is boring! This will be as tedious as paperwork! This is basically waiting for the oven to preheat! I didn't orchestrate this grand reunion for a prolonged, tactical stalemate! I want my bloodbath! I wanted screaming! I wanted despair! And you're denying me my feast?! Unacceptable! Utterly unacceptable!
And I can't even do anything about it! Oh, the agony! The injustice! I set the pieces, I wind the key, and I am forced by this tedious, unbreakable rule of causality to sit here and watch! I've already planted my little seed of corruption down there, and any more direct interference at this stage would be... noticed. It would draw attention. It's too soon! It's not fair! You can't do this to me! I'm the main character, narrator, and holding the writer by the literal neck of this story, and you're turning it into a boring cold war moment and blue balling me now?!
They began their work. Paying no mind to the remains of the giant snake or any other corpse other then setting into a pile to be burned.
Their focus was singular. Small, insect-like drones lifted silently from their packs, their blue sensor lights beginning to sweep the clearing in overlapping patterns. Other soldiers knelt, driving posts into the ground that hummed to life, projecting a low, shimmering energy field between them — a portable fence of energy.
Within minutes, the clearing was transformed into the heart of a secure outpost of the siege and potential war that it desired to face.
Down in the cavern, the digging had stopped. The only sounds were the steady drip of water somewhere in the darkness and the ragged, shallow breathing of over a hundred souls.
Every eye was fixed on the hole in the ceiling. It was a patch of grey, dying light against the black stone as the last of the day's light faded, giving way to the night's moon and stars above.
They knew the soldiers were up there. They waited. That was all they could do.
A shape blocked a part of the light, casting its shadow below. A man in armor. He was dragging something. The shape gained form, and a low murmur went through the cavern. It was Remy Valois. They could see the chains on his wrists, the way his body was limp as it was hauled.
The officer dragged the Jerboa-hybrid to the edge of the pit. It seemed he had the beast washed and made it presentable for it peers below. The officer did not look down at them with rage or malice, just with a kind of blank indifference, as a farmer might look into a pen of animals. His posture was still and economical, that of a man at work.
"You down there!" the officer's voice boomed, amplified as it was echoing off the crystal walls. "Your scout has been cooperative. He has upheld his end of our bargain, and I am a man of my word."
A flicker of insane, impossible hope sparked in some of the students' hearts. A bargain? Could it be?
The officer reached down and, with a slow, deliberate motion, plucked a single, sandy-brown hair from Remy's terrified head. He held it up for a moment, then let it flutter away into the darkness of the pit. "I promised I would not harm a single hair on his head," the officer declared, his voice ringing with a twisted honor.
Then, with a movement so swift it was almost a blur, the officer drew his combat knife. He yanked Remy's head back and, with a single motion, slit the boy's throat. A dark torrent of blood gushed forth, a silent scream frozen on Remy's face.
"I also promised I would let him go," the officer stated, his voice utterly devoid of emotion. He released his grip. Remy's body, limp as a puppet with its strings cut, simply collapsed and tumbled into the darkness of the hole.
It fell, a pathetic, tumbling shape, landing with a sickening, wet thud of over-ripened fruit to the ground of the cavern floor, not far from Ms. Linz.
A wave of stifled, horrified screams ripped through the cavern. Several students turned and were violently ill. Others just stared, their minds unable to process the casual, theatrical brutality they had just witnessed.
"YES! YES! THAT'S THE GOOD STUFF!" The Great I howled, my voice a symphony of pure, unadulterated joy that probably cracked a few dimensions. "Oh, look at him! The pompous little tin man has a poet's soul! 'Didn't harm a hair on his head!' 'Let him go!' Hah! That's not just an execution, that's a punchline! It's art! It's the kind of beautifully twisted, technically-not-a-lie logic that makes this whole pathetic mortal coil worth watching! I might have to promote that one! See, this is what I was talking about! Not sitting around, not waiting! Just pure, creative, soul-crushing cruelty! That poor, stupid rat... He thought he was dealing with normal soldiers. No, no, no. He was dealing with lawyers with guns, and as quick to compromise as an alcoholic father leaving to get milk. Oh, how far, far worse than a simple fated end."
The sickening thud of Remy's body hitting the cavern floor echoed in the profound, horrified silence. For a long moment, the only movement was the slow, dark spread of a pool of blood from the corpse. Ms. Linz took a stumbling step forward, her hand flying to her mouth, a choked sob caught in her throat. The casual cruelty, the theatricality of the murder, had been designed to break them, and it had worked.
High above, the officer watched their reaction for a moment, his face unreadable. A lieutenant approached him. "Sir, your orders? Shall we prepare an assault team?"
The officer turned away from the hole, his gaze sweeping over the secure perimeter his soldiers had established. "Negative," he stated, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. "The asset's reaction to the catalyst proves the high energy potential of this location. A direct assault with heavy ordnance is out of the question; it could damage the crystals. Burning them out is equally inefficient for the same reason." He looked back at the dark pit. "They have a limited food supply and no way out. We have them caged."
He turned to his lieutenant, his voice dropping to a low, cold command. "We set a five-day siege. We wait. Let hunger, thirst, and fear do the work for us. Let them turn on each other.
By the time we go in, they'll be too weak to fight and desperate enough to tell us everything we want to know before they welcome us as messengers of death with open arms. Now, post the watches and get settled in."
"Yes, sir," the lieutenant replied with a crisp nod. The soldiers on the surface began to move anew, settling into a purposeful routine, establishing watch rotations and setting up small shelters. They were no longer a hunting party; they were jailers, waiting patiently for the prison riot to burn itself out as the caged rats eat each other alive.
Down below, the horrifying reality of the officer's plan began to dawn on them. They were trapped. Really and truly trapped. The initial shock of Remy's death gave way to a fresh wave of panicked, desperate arguments that erupted as one of their fears was actualized before them.
It was Ann King who finally broke the spell, her voice a high, panicked buzz. "We have to leave. We can't stay here. The new tunnel in the cavern!" she cried, pointing a trembling hand at the new dark tunnels. "Either that or one of the other corridors into the caverns until we find our way out! We have to go now, before they trap us in here!"
"And go where?" Mrs. Weiss snapped, her voice sharp with a pragmatism that bordered on cruelty. "Into another dark hole that leads further down, full of monsters we haven't met yet, and be lost in a dead-end labyrinth? We'd be blind and picked off one by one!"
"It's better than waiting here to be executed!" Danny North roared, shoving himself to his feet despite the raw, still-healing wounds on his arm from helping to dig the tunnel. His shaggy Musk Ox form trembled with a mixture of pain and fury. "I didn't almost get swallowed whole just to sit in a hole and starve to death while they wait for us!"
"Then what about the tunnel we were digging?" George Hancock's voice was a low, steady rumble that cut through the panicked shouts, drawing their attention. "We made progress. It was slow, but it was ours. It's the one path we made for ourselves, the one thing we can control." He looked around at the terrified, arguing faces. "We can't give up on that now. It's still our best shot at getting out of here together."
"And how long will that take?" Mr. Decker countered, his voice heavy with despair. "Weeks? Months? We don't have that kind of food or time!"
"Ah, and we're back to quiet desperation. So much better for the nerves, isn't it?" The Great I commented, my earlier rage now settled into a deep, satisfying amusement. "My little tantrum is over, and now we can all settle in for the main event of a pressure cooker for despair! Team Swan thinks they can out-dig the soldiers. Team Wasp thinks they can out-fight the monsters, and yes, they think of the soldiers as monsters. And my favorite little freak," my focus zeroed in on Shirou, "probably thinks he can hero his way through this with the power of friendship and good intentions! Adorable! So what'll it be, kids? Starvation? Mutiny? Getting eaten by the things that are in the dark? Or will you tunnel right into the soldiers' laps? The possibilities are just endless, and they are all so wonderfully, exquisitely painful!"