POV Aaron Dalton

Nat left two weeks ago, and now Tess, Sophie, and Lily are leaving for Beyond, and leaving us on our own. I mean, almost. Even though Izzy’s still not quite back to herself, she keeps an eye on us. I’ve noticed Noodle slithering around and spying for her recently.

Then there’s Maya. Damned Maya.

I don’t know what happened, if it was after the Beyond incident or if she just woke up some new side of herself, but damn, she’s been getting kinda scary these days. When in full [Focus], her eyes remind me of Nat, an impression that seems to be strengthened by the way her armor’s started to resemble his. Honestly, I like the badass tattoos, the ones even Nat’s been coming by once in a while to copy. The problem is, he keeps teaching her a bunch of scary things in exchange, like manipulating tricolored mana.

We don’t need more people with tricolored mana orbs.

Thankfully, she prefers to use it for armor and weapons instead of blowing it up and hoping it causes more damage to her enemies than it does her.

(We seriously need to train more. Min-Jae’s getting stronger, Maya’s catching up, too. And Izzy… she might end up on her own training arc or something,) Dennis sends over, seeming to easily know what is currently on my mind.

(Izzy’s gonna go on some arc where she finally awakens the full power of her Fragment. Or maybe Noodle’s the one who’ll end up awakening some ancient bloodline or whatever.)

(If you think about it, if it weren’t for Nat, wouldn’t that make all the most powerful members of our group girls?)

(Alright, I see where you’re going, but chill, we’re not that lame.)

(You wouldn’t have a chance if you went up against them on your own.)

(You dumbass, we’re twins, so we count as one, even in 1v1s.) I send back.

(That’s true. Tess is probably the strongest, though, and there’s no way we’re beating her.)

(I don’t know, man, I’d rather fight Tess than Lily.)

(Fair enough… so who’s up next in the power rankings?)

(Us?)

(Huh?)

With that, I respond, (I’m telling you, Maya with her

[Focus] could probably take Sophie… if she, like, really, really tried. She is stronger than her in close and mid range combat. Maybe Sophie would have an advantage in long range, especially if she could get away with setting traps, but if Maya were to resist her mental manipulations, I’d be more than willing to bet on her.)

(True true. I bet we could face Sophie too.)

I stop, and Dennis comes to a stop at my side. In the distance, we watch as Biscuit, in his puppy form with his tiny antlers budding on his head, stops and sniffs. Both of us are quiet until he sneezes when dust gets into his nose.

He takes a few steps and sneezes one more time. He waits a few seconds, thinks it might be done, then takes another step and sneezes again, shaking his head as he does so. A few quick, angry woofs burst from him at whatever absolute monster could have caused him to sneeze, while he wipes his nose in the grass on the ground.

When he starts walking again on his short wobbly legs, I send, (If we surprised Sophie, we might be able to beat her. But damn, she went full on mindblender skill tree as of late.)

(At least she’s our mindblender. How about Min-Jae?)

(We would kick his ass.)

(Totally, easy fight, no sweat.)

(Yeah, that fucking neeeerd.)

(Neeeeeeeeeeeerd.)

(Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerd.)

(Doesn’t even have time for his best buds, constantly studying, and going out solo hunting.)

(Asshole.)

(Asshole!)

(Food food, asshole, sustenance! Be not afraid, bitch!) I send, mimicking Biscuit’s voice.

Dennis pauses and looks at me. (Damn, that was a good impression.)

(Thanks, I’ve been trying to teach him some new lines to surprise Nat, but Biscuit just won’t listen to me.)

Both of us go silent again as we come closer. We’ve long since learned how dangerous it is to talk that close to Biscuit, since he can connect to even our most private links. We cannot have that while spying on him.

Biscuit is standing in the middle of a small clearing. And I realize there’s another presence nearby that we haven’t marked on our map of the area. This is a place we don’t really visit often, since we noticed one of the demon tribes moving around here too much.

But what walks from behind the enormous jungle trees is not a demon.

It’s a dinosaur.

A goddamned dinosaur.

(A goddamned dinosaur,) I hear Dennis in my head.

Both of us quickly move to duck and hide behind the branches and leaves. We watch Biscuit sniff in our direction. I almost think he’s caught us, but then he sneezes again. A series of angry barks burst from him as he jumps around, annoyed with himself. It distracts him enough to keep him from looking our way.

The dinosaur tilts its head and lets out a series of noises similar to Biscuit’s barks, almost as if it were mimicking him. I feel my mouth open, but force it shut. That dinosaur most of all reminds me of a T-Rex. Huge head, massive legs, long tail, dangerous eyes behind armor-like scales.

Lastly, over its head floats a crown. A pale blue crown, the same crown Nat once had.

[Rex Coronis - lvl ???]

Biscuit comes closer. He looks so tiny in comparison. The T-Rex seems even larger than the ones I saw in the movies, maybe twice as big. The corgi doesn’t seem to care and begins to grow as well. Biscuit becomes the size of a big dog, then the size of a horse, then a car, then a bus, and grows further until his head reaches the chest of the dino.

Even then, Biscuit retains the proportions he had in puppy form with his tiny antlers. My vision blurs as I try to take it in, as if my brain is telling me I’m seeing some kind of optical illusion, after all, the corgi just should not be that big.

Taking a few jumpy wobbly steps, Biscuit reaches the T-Rex and headbutts him as the beast lowers his head. For a few moments, they push against each other until the T-Rex sidesteps. Biscuit pushes further but cannot stop himself, rolls, and crashes into a boulder. He gets stuck on his back with his legs waving in the air as if he were swimming and twisting in an attempt to get up.

The T-Rex lets out a few deep barking noises and, with its massive maw open, takes a few steps closer before lowering it. For a moment, I imagine him tearing into Biscuit’s belly, but instead, he nudges the stuck corgi so he rolls over to get back on his legs.

Biscuit woofs a few times and rushes at the T-Rex again to play, the ground shaking beneath him as he jumps.

“The best T-Rex of the 9th floor,” Dennis whispers next to me.

Both of us crank up our Sneaky Mode and leave the two big beasts to their game. Before we head out, I pull out my phone, record a quick video, and snap a few pics.

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POV Tess Hansen

As we appear in Beyond, two figures come into view. Lily does not hesitate and reacts even faster than I do. She uses [Sacrifice] three times in a row, shooting ahead at a speed that feels like it should be impossible for her tiny body to handle.

All my javelins shoot forward too, imbued with as much primordial lightning as I can force into them. They whistle as they cut through the air. I channel more lightning and let it flicker through my body. The ground bursts under me as I use [Psychokinesis] to prepare for the leap forward.

Lily crashes into the monstrously tall four-armed thylarin with burning symbols carved into his forearms. Her [Disintegration] flickers everywhere, erasing everything it touches from existence.

All except Luan.

(Go, help Lily. I’ll handle it here.) Sophie shouts through our connection, and I do not hesitate. I fly high into the air, channeling more primordial lightning to craft something much more dangerous. Something I’ve been working on for a while.

I don’t just let the lightning flicker through me. I force it into shape. Arcs bend and curve around the javelin until a spinning ring forms around the haft, a circle that grows brighter as it tightens. The air hums and shrieks under the pressure as currents collapse toward the weapon. Metal groans. Even the hardened body of the javelin begins to glow, heat rising as the circle compresses tighter and tighter.

The instant I release it, a flat metallic snap cuts through the air, followed by a boom that shakes the ground.

The javelin vanishes from sight, leaving only a jagged white-red line tearing across the air. It’s not smooth, it flickers and breaks apart as plasma bursts along the path, each fragment collapsing almost as quickly as it forms. Dust and stone rip upward in its wake, pulled into the vacuum.

Far ahead, the projectile reaches its target almost before my eyes can follow. A compressed air bursts outward from the collision. The delayed thunderclap crashes through a heartbeat later.

I see through the dust easily, and Luan’s eyes lock on mine. In his hand, he holds the javelin, glowing red-hot as if ready to melt from the friction and speed I launched it with. The weapon is lodged slightly into his chest, but he holds it, stopping it from going any deeper.

Two of his hands snap the javelin in half. The other two, for the first time since the fight started, move as well. They slam together in a clap. The burst of shockwave that follows is strong enough to send the charging Lily flying.

Instead of being thrown away, she crosses her bone axes in front of her body. The gray mantle behind her back expands in size and extends in length while leaving an eerie feeling in its wake.

But before anything else can happen, a scream tears through the surroundings.

Sophie falls to her knees, pale, bleeding from her eyes, nose, and ears. She coughs dryly and groans in pain as she sways, then collapses sideways.

I dive down in front of her, preparing another projectile for Faora. I should have targeted her first. We should have killed that feylith. I should not have left it all to Sophie, no matter what she said–

I stop.

Faora lies on the ground, unmoving.

“Did you really think you would get me a second time with that shitty skill?” Sophie cackles weakly behind me, coughing up blood. Lily’s already there, healing her body immediately. Healing her mind, though, will take far longer.

“Did you fucking think you would get me again, bitch!?” Sophie climbs back to her feet, pushes Lily away, and tries to move past me.

She screams, every word growing louder than the one before, “Did you really think you’d break me? You wanted me on my knees, begging for mercy? Look at you now!”

Luan moves almost too calmly. In a few steps, he reaches the feylith’s body. Her hair and eyes are both white. I can barely believe what I’m seeing.

Faora is dead.

Luan is as surprised as I am. I tense as he observes the body at his feet.

He whispers something as he reaches down and closes Faora’s eyes. He hunts out some items from her corpse for some items before standing up. Then he turns to leave.

Just like that.

I stop Lily from rushing him. He doesn’t seem to want to continue the fight.

Then Sophie calls out, “I can do what you needed her to do.”

Luan stops, his back still turned to us.

She continues, “I’m stronger than her. I have a lot more time left in the tutorial, and I saw it all in her memories.”

“You would have to join Frontier as well, and be willing to work with me,” he says as he turns around. His wounds already healed. I feel an immense pressure radiating from his body as he takes those few steps towards us. Not even for a second does he seem to think we would be a threat to him.

“I know,” our mind mage says.

(Sophie,) I whisper.

(I’ll tell you everything back on the 9th floor. Trust me, okay?) She answers in an uncharacteristically soft voice.

I watch as she passes by me, and I let it happen. She walks to Luan’s side and follows him as he starts walking away once again.

Worried, I turn to Lily, but the expression I expect is not there. She doesn’t look desperate, doesn’t seem scared of being left behind again. Lily’s not that girl anymore.

“Well, Sophie has some explaining to do,” she says with a weak smile. She seems to trust our friend, and maybe I should as well.

“It seems so, but let’s trust that she knows what she’s doing,” I sigh, and look at the feylith’s corpse. It looks like we’ve got yet another monster in our little group. I’ll have to keep working hard.

I switch back to scouting while telling Lily, “I have a way to contact Leticia and Jean on the 2nd floor, so let us clear this one quickly and see if we can group up.”