Grudge's hook-blade hovered near the red button on his transmitter. Kai bled out on the steaming rock floor.
Lena's fingers flew over her cracked wrist-scanner, trying to hack the neural hub feeding Zara.
Selene stood like a statue, her plasma rifle loosely aimed at Grudge.
"One move, trash," Grudge spat at Ethan, sweat cutting tracks through the grime on his branded forehead. "One spark from that fancy stick... she fries."
Ethan's crowbar hummed against his back, heavy with power (ENTROPY: 92%).
His bone-leg felt like a block of ice. He saw Kai's pale face, heard Lena's frantic breathing. Zara's scream echoed in his skull. Think. Faster
"Grudge," Ethan said, voice low and steady. "Vultura uses you. Throws you into the dark. Like she throws kids into cages. You think she cares if you live?"
Grudge's eyes flickered. Doubt. Just for a second. "Shut up! She gives strength! Order! Not this... rot you cling to!"
"Order?" Lena snarled, not looking up from her scanner. "Order is wiring kids to explode? You traded Mama's strength for this?"
Grudge flinched. "Mama's gone! Your way loses!"
That was Selene's moment.
It wasn't a blast. It was a pulse. A blinding white light and bone-jarring cold erupted from her rifle
[CRYOLANCER ULTIMATE: PERMAFROST WAVE].
Not aimed at Grudge.
Aimed at the neural hub behind the cages.
CRACK-SHATTER!
The pulsing hub exploded into a million frozen shards. The cables connecting the children snapped like brittle icicles. The cages locks clicked open, hissing steam.
Zara gasped, the green fire vanishing from her eyes. She slumped, unconscious.
Grudge roared, stumbling back from the wave's edge, hook-blade swinging wildly. "NO! YOU RUINED IT!"
Selene moved like lightning. Not towards Grudge. Not to help. Towards Zara's open cage.
"Selene, NO!" Ethan lunged, crowbar flaring green.
Too slow.
Selene grabbed Zara's limp form. She slapped a small device onto the girl's neck - a Legion bio-tracer. Her mirrored visor turned towards Ethan.
"Contract fulfilled, anomaly," her voice was ice. "I have my bait. You have your... reunion." She glanced at Kai, bleeding and helpless. "Briefly."
She raised her other hand. A shimmering disc materialized beneath her feet a Legion Teleport Pad.
"Stop her!" Lena screamed, scrambling up, her cannon arm sparking uselessly from earlier damage.
Ethan poured Entropy into his legs, leaping (ENTROPY: 85%).
The crowbar swung for Selene's head.
Selene didn't flinch. She pressed a control on her wrist.
WHOOM!
Not the teleport pad activating.
The main geothermal vent behind them exploded.
Selene had mined it earlier.
A torrent of superheated steam, rock, and molten dust erupted, filling the place like a volcanic breath.
The force slammed Ethan sideways. He crashed into a cage. Lena was thrown against the far wall. Kai vanished behind a wall of steam and falling rock.
Ethan saw Selene. Untouched within a shimmering blue Legion shield bubble. Zara lay limp in her arms.
Selene met Ethan's eyes through the destruction. Her visor might have hidden her face, but the contempt was clear in her voice, cutting through the roar.
"Survive the Bone Reavers, trash. If you can. Aris will want someone left to punish."
The teleport pad flared. Light consumed Selene and Zara.
They vanished.
Leaving Ethan, Lena, and Kai trapped in a collapsing cavern... with something worse than Grudge.
The explosion hadn't just opened the vent. It cracked the floor wide open. And from the glowing, molten fissures, figures climbed.
[BONE REAVER - LVL 8]
They weren't drones. These were nightmares. Eight feet tall, skeletons armored in blackened, volcanic rock.
Molten veins pulsed where muscles should be. Their skulls were elongated, jaws hinged, filled with black teeth.
Empty eye sockets glowed with the same sickly green . Heat radiated off them in waves.
One landed near Lena with a ground shaking thud. It let out a sound like grinding boulders and focused its burning green gaze on her.
Another emerged near the pile of rubble burying Kai. It sniffed the air, drawn by the scent of blood.
Grudge stared, his braveness gone, replaced by raw terror. "Oh, Scrap..." He backed away, his hook blade trembling.
Ethan scrambled up, ignoring the pain. The crowbar felt warm, eager. ENTROPY: 80%. Not enough. Not for three Level 8 monsters.
"Lena! Kai's buried!" he yelled over the roar of the vent and the Reavers' grinding growls.
Lena dodged a swipe from the Reaver near her, her damaged cannon-arm spitting useless sparks. "I see him! Can't get close!"
The Reaver near the rubble pile began digging. Not with claws. With heat. It placed a hand on the rocks.
They glowed red, then white, then melted like wax. It was clearing a path to Kai.
Panic choked Ethan. They needed an escape. Now.
His eyes darted past the advancing Reavers.
The explosion had blown open a section of the far wall. plasteel blast doors were on the floor, warped and buckled by the force.
Behind them, darkness.
A tunnel? A way out?
The Reaver near Lena lunged. She dove sideways. Its molten fist slammed into the ground where she'd been, leaving a sizzling crater.
The one near Kai had almost melted through to him. Kai's pale hand was visible now, twitching weakly.
Grudge made a run for it straight towards the open blast doors. "OUT! GO!"
The third Reaver, near the fissure, turned its burning gaze on Grudge. It moved with terrifying speed, intercepting him.
Grudge screamed, swinging his hook-blade. It shattered against the Reaver's rock armor.
The Reaver grabbed him, lifting him off his feet. Grudge screamed again, louder, as the Reaver's molten grip sizzled into his flesh.
Ethan didn't hesitate. He couldn't save Grudge. He might save Kai.
He focused everything into the crowbar. Not on the Reavers. On the buckled blast doors.
[ENTROPY SYNTHESIS: STRUCTURAL WEAKNESS AMPLIFICATION]
He swung the crowbar, not at the doors, but into the ground near their base.
Green-gold energy surged down the crowbar, into the rock, vibrating through the metal framework holding the buckled doors.
CRRRRAAAAAACK!
The weakened supports gave way. The massive, warped blast doors groaned, then collapsed inwards, crashing down and revealing a yawning, dark tunnel beyond.
"LENA! NOW!" Ethan roared, sprinting towards the buried Kai, ignoring the Reaver melting the last rocks away.
Lena saw the opening, saw Ethan's move. She fired her sparking cannon-arm not at the Reaver chasing her, but at the ground near the molten one digging up Kai.
FZZZZT-BOOM!
A weak blast, but enough to spray superheated rock fragments.
The Reaver digging up Kai reared back, momentarily distracted.
Ethan reached the rubble pile. He grabbed Kai's arm. "HANG ON!" He hauled with all his strength, his bone-leg pistons screaming. Kai came free with a gasp of pain, half-conscious.
The molten Reaver recovered, turning its burning gaze on them. It opened its obsidian maw, a deep green light building in its throat.
Lena reached them, grabbing Kai's other arm. "MOVE!"
They stumbled, dragged Kai towards the dark opening where the blast doors had fallen. Behind them, Grudge's screams abruptly cut off with a wet, final crunch.
The Reaver near Lena closed in. The third Reaver finished with Grudge and started towards the tunnel.
Heat blasted at their backs. The molten Reaver unleashed its breath weapon a torrent of glowing green magma.
Ethan shoved Lena and Kai through the dark opening and dove after them.
lWHOOSH-SIZZLE!
The magma stream hit the tunnel entrance, splattering molten where they'd just stood. The heat was unbearable, even inside.
They collapsed in the pitchblack tunnel, gasping, Kai moaning between them. Behind them, framed by the hellish glow of the wall, the three Level 8 Bone Reavers reached the tunnel entrance.
They stopped.
They didn't enter the darkness. They just stood there,their green eyes burning into the darkness where Ethan hid.
One let out a low, grinding growl that vibrated through the floor.
They weren't following. Yet.
Ethan slumped against the cold, damp tunnel wall. Lena flicked on a weak wrist-light. The beam illuminated Kai's ashen face, his leg a mess of blood and melted flesh.
It illuminated the dark, dripping tunnel stretching ahead suffocating blackness. And
"She took her," Lena whispered, the sound louder than the Reavers' growl. "Selene took Zara. And she left us for them"
Ethan looked back at the burning green eyes watching from the entrance. He looked down at Kai, dying in the dark.
He looked at the crowbar in his hand, still humming faintly (ENTROPY: 65%). Not enough.
They were alive. Barely. Trapped in the dark belly of the earth. Zara was gone.
And three Level 8 monsters waited just outside the door, ready to devour them.
The only way was forward. Into the dark.