"Well boys, that sounds like our signal to leave."

"What? What about the gate, isn't that what we came here for?"

"Yes, and we found it. But I expect we were supposed to be able to get through to the other side, so unless you have the spare parts to fix it, I suggest we get the hell out of here until we can fix it."

While Erik and Seth were arguing, Alfie was already working to find the door connected to the keypad. While the device did expose the existence of the door, it didn't really give away the position of it, plus the keypad was completely busted.

Even if they did have an intact, non skeletal corpse to get through the biometrics, it was completely broken just like most technology these days. Eradicated by the descent of mana.

A pink gas, like cotton candy, curled from every pore of Alfie's skin. His armour twisting into multiple spouts, making him look like a strange mixture of a porcupine and a road flare. As amusing as the sight was, it did serve a purpose.

He directed the spouts, pouring the gas throughout the room as the air trembled with yet another deafening roar, more pebbles clattering to the ground as the earth beneath them trembled with the distinctive sounds of heavy footfalls.

The pink gas flowed throughout the room, brushing against the walls, before starting to disappear into a particular section of wall.

The sight of that immediately set all three of them into action, steel like fingers digging into the crevices as powerful arms started to force open the concealed door. The heavy steel - which had been spotted with stone to disguise it, groaned loudly as the mechanisms holding it closed buckled and bent.

"We should... have brought... the Amazon..."

Mana flooded their muscles as they forced the door to open. It was thicker than any vault door, filled with dozens of locks and binding mechanisms. It seemed that the government were making absolutely certain that no one would be able to get through this in their day.

But while they were accounting for explosives, hackers and other security breaching methods, they could have never accounted for three men with mana powered muscles. Actually... with the size of this door and the gate they were dealing with, it kinda felt like they did account for it, just got their maths wrong.

After all their effort, all they managed to do was slide the door open by a few inches. A small gap, or above average depending on who you asked, but it was more than enough for them to squeeze through.

Erik went first, it wasn't a discussion it was just a fact that as soon as the door opened wide enough he lunged through. Next was Alfie.

Of course, just as Alfie was almost all the way through, everything had to go wrong. In the back of his head, Seth was acutely aware of the position of his karambit, which was lodged in the side of Nessie.

And just as Alfie was squeezing through, he became painfully aware that it was in the room with him.

The pink cloud of gas swirled around his feet as the air was forced out of the way of something large and fast. Planting his hand against Alfie, Seth shoved him the last of the way through before thick tail slammed into the door. Stone crumbled and weakened steel crumbled and bent.

COUGHCOUGH!

Alfie spluttered and wheezed as a cloud of dust was kicked up from the impact. He was laying on the ground, sprawled from the sudden push, but he wasn't laying on rough stone. Instead, he was sprawled across a smooth, flat surface of cold steel. The type you would expect from a secret military bunker. Orientating himself quickly, Alfie turned back to the door as his expression paled.

"Not again..."

The small gap they had pried open was completely closed, the door warped and bent inwards. Massive boulders and hunks of stone pressed down upon it, as well as created a miniature landslide leading up to the door.

There was a small gap near the top of the pile, no more than an inch in diameter, where a mixture of brown dust and pinkish gas was leaking through from the other room. But Alfie wasn't focused on that, instead his eyes were locked on the metallic fingers jutting out from underneath one of the boulders.

It's fingers were twisted and broken as they remained outstretched and everything below the wrist was crushed, mangled and hidden within the mini mountain of stone.

"No... No... Not again. Seth! SETH!"

"I'm fine! Get back to the surface, I'll find my own way back. You'll need the Amazon to clear this."

At the sound of Seth's voice, Alfie let out a sigh of relief. He was about to shout back, but was interrupted when Erik put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him to his feet. He quickly brushed off Alfie's arms, as if the dust was of any importance right now, before giving him a light shove away from the door.

With a low, but firm voice, he stared into Alfie's eyes while he spoke.

"You go, Get help. I'll stay here, start moving this stuff. Go, now."

Alfie bit his lip in contemplation, glancing between Erik and the small gap high above them where Seth's voice had leaked through. He didn't want to leave his friend, not after he had almost lost him again in such similar situations, but another shove from Erik made him finally make up his mind.

He quickly nodded, turning on his heels and took off down the corridor, sprinting as fast as his legs would carry him.

Watching Alfie's back shrink as he left, Erik turned slowly to face the pile of rocks once more. He glanced down at the crumpled and crushed prosthetic, a mixture of emotions swirling within him, before he approached the pile. But instead of clearing it, he began to climb, pulling himself up and over the rock pile, as he climbed towards small hole that was leaking pink smoke.

***

Leaping to the side, the earth tremored as Nessie's tail slammed down onto the ground where Seth had once stood. Parts of his body were still in the form of white smoke, swirling in the air as his armour steadily pulled itself back together to form a solid whole.

It was the ability of his armour, strangely named the [Ghost and the Shell] and which he had acquired from killing the white shelled Ant. The Ghost Ant's intangibility had remained somewhat in the armour, allowing him to bypass a few physical attacks a day. Five of them, to be precise.

One had been burned on the impact of the tail itself, which had gone through his body as he abandoned dodging to get Alfie safe, while another two charges were spent on falling rocks. He could have saved his arm too, but that would have simply been a waste. It was better to save the remaining charges and use them in tandem with his black blood under armour so that he could use the charges for the truly devastating attacks.

Although, as wasteful as it would have been, it didn't make Seth feel any better about being stumpy once more.

'Right after I find a new power core too. Tch, Typical.'

Ripping off the monstrous clawed arm of one of the aberration corpses, Seth stabbed the nub of the arm onto the jagged, metallic remnants of his former arm. Quickly, the arm regained its former colour, which happened to be a deep blood red, as power from the core flowed into it.

Seth flexed the arm, testing it's movements and how much the claws interfered with his movements. It seemed like they were supposed to be retractable claws, the type that would change from talons back to regular fingernails, but he couldn't get them to work. He lacked the muscle control, or whatever was required.

All he could do was move the arm, which was enough since the claws were already out on this arm.

The gnarled, twisted face of Nessie loomed over him as it let out a frustrated growl, but now that it was out of the water Seth got a lovely view of how this legendary beast truly looked.

It closely resembled a plesiosaurus, an aquatic dinosaur with flippers, a chunky body and a long tail and neck. That was understandable, since that was what most assumed it was when it was just a legend.

Parts of its face were completely gone, the lips of its left side non existent and revealing its wicked teeth to the world.

One of its eyes seemed damaged, while the twisted flesh of burn scars travelled down the majority of its long neck. Although it wasn't killed by his explosive attack, it was clear that it did something.

Summoning his spear into his hand, Seth pointed it towards it towards the snarling beast of the ancient world, as if he was challenging it. A cocky smirk snuck its way onto his lips as he took in the sight of the damage.

"You've got something of mine, and I intend to take it back. I see that you had fun with my last trick. Since the others are gone, how about I show you another trick.

Arise."

Slamming his spear onto the ground, the simple sound echoed throughout the entirety of the cave and, as if answering the call of their lord, all the bodies within the room started to shift before lifting themselves off of the ground.

'I've always wanted to say that.'