The party scrambled into the main mining shaft, gasping for air as the stale dust gave way to the cold metallic tang of recycled oxygen. Relief came only in fleeting breaths. They clipped their auto-ascenders to the dangling ropes, the devices whirring softly as one by one they began their climb toward the entry point above.
Lio, weighted down by his oversized pack, stayed last. His arms burned, legs straining as he hauled himself upward. His heart pounded, both from exertion and from the memory of stone crumbling under his fists.
Just a little further… just a little—
The rest of his party finally arrived at the top, leaving Lio to be the last to arrived. As soon he has reached up there, a voice stopped him cold.
"Well now. Look what crawled out of the nest alive."
At the top of the shaft, three figures waited. All of them Shellwalkers. Their armor gleamed faintly in the lantern light, optics glowing cold and merciless. The two scouts from before stood at either side, rifles trained down toward the Corrin's party. Between them loomed a taller figure, unmistakably their leader. His black-plated Somata frame was broader, heavier—commanding presence radiating like a noose around their necks, as well as with arms that seems to have build-in weaponized cybernetics. It seems the two Shellwalkers who with them from down the mining zones could have been their leader's goons.
And that voice… synthetic, but dripping with smugness.
"Quite the haul you've got there," the leader said. His gaze flicked toward Lio's pack. "Auralite. A shit load of them. You've just saved us months of work."
He spread his arms mockingly.
"Of course, this is a dangerous line of work. Supplies are costly. And immortality doesn't pay for itself. So… let's call this a mutual benefit. I- the great and totally awesome Marauder Angstrom Matias- being generous and give you guys a fair split for your service; a 10-90 split. Ten for you, ninety for us."
Lynx's eyes narrowed, her robotic hand clenching with a metallic whir.
"Ten? You vultures—after all that, after we nearly get killed, you're going to rob us?! You piece of shi-"
The Shellwalker to his left suddenly lunged. In one brutal motion, he caught Lynx in a chokehold, his cold synth-arm clamping around her throat. The other pressed the barrel of a rifle against her temple.
Arlin snarled, raising his mace instinctively, but Corrin shot him a warning glance, hand tightening on his weapon.
"Try anything," Angstrom rasped, "and the girl's goes zero'd."
The second Shellwalker who held on Lynx, tilted his head, optics flickering like a mechanical blink.
"Don't take it personally. Immortality's not free. Our renewal fees don't pay themselves."
There is a very tensed atmosphere, where the party is in dangerous situation. They'd just escaped death by swarm… only to find themselves staring down the barrels of their new found so-called "allies".
"Damn it!" Arlin snarled, his mace halfway raised before Corrin's hand shot out to stop him.
The shaft trembled faintly. The low drone of Cave Bugs echoed from below, carried upward by the rising dust. A warning. Time was running out.
The Shellwalker Marauder leader Angstrom tilted his head, unbothered, as if savoring their desperation.
"Well, veteran? Make the call. You can keep your pride," he rasied his right arm that split open into a build-in micro grenade launcher, aiming at Corrin "or you can keep her breathing."
Corrin's jaw clenched. His rifle trembled just slightly in his hands. Then, without looking at Lio, he growled the words that felt like ash in his mouth.
"…Throw them the pack, kid."
All eyes turned to Lio, his hands clutching the straps of the oversized bag. His heart hammered in his chest, torn between his instinct to fight and the unshakable weight of Lynx's life hanging in the balance.
For a moment, silence fell. Only the distant echo of Cave Bugs carried through the tunnels below, hiss grew louder from the depths below, crawling closer with every second.
Dust fell from the ceiling in faint streams. The shaft shook again.
And still… Lio hesitated, tightened his grip on his pack, heart pounding. His party stood tense at his side, weapons half-raised, their expressions hard.
---
The shaft convulsed with sudden, violent force—stronger than ever before. The vibration thundered through the steel supports like the roar of some buried beast. Dust rained from above, and a low growl echoed through the tunnels, deep and primal.
Everyone staggered, balance slipping. Even the Shellwalkers' synthetic stabilizers shrieked against the trembling floor.
Arlin moved on instinct. With a bellow, his massive Drexxan frame crashed into Angstrom, the Shellwalker leader, like a charging predator.
"Get your hands off my crew!"
Angstrom reeled, surprise flaring in his glowing optics as Arlin slammed a metal shoulder into his chestplate. Sparks burst. Then, with monstrous strength, Arlin hurled him clean off the ledge.
But in that instant—
P-TCHK!
Compressed propellant snapped. Angstrom's cybernetic arm split open with a hiss, revealing a hidden micro grenade launcher. The weapon spat fire into the shaft ceiling—point-blank.
CRACK! BOOOOOMMM!!!!!!!
The blast tore through the supports. Rock, steel, and scaffolding collapsed in a murderous rain. The shockwave snapped through the shaft like a whip.
The world came apart.
Lio's grip ripped loose from the rope. His oversized pack—stuffed with precious Auralites—dragged him down like dead weight. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lynx scream as the Shellwalker goon still choking her lost footing.
Then gravity claimed them all.
"LYNX!! LIO!!" Arlin's roar bellowed above.
Lio's stomach dropped into the abyss. He plunged into blackness, Lynx and her captor tumbling beside him as debris chased them like a deadly storm.
The last thing he saw were Corrin, Zom, and Arlin's horrified faces—before the shaft collapsed in a deafening avalanche of stone and steel, sealing them away.
Rubble rained. Steel beams crashed. A wall of debris slammed down, cleaving the shaft in two.
Dust swallowed everything.
The rope above jerked taut against falling boulders—then went still.
Corrin, Zom, a breathless Arlin, and the lone Shellwalker stood trapped on one side.
Lio, Lynx, and their captor were gone—lost to the blocked off depths below.
---
At the bottom of the caved-in mining shaft, something burst out from the rubble, revealing they young Marauder, the Rank-F Lio, with deep breath and confusion.
A sharp sting in his chest jolted him awake. Lio coughed, lungs burning as dust and powdered stone flooded his throat. His body ached from the fall, his ears still ringing with the echo of the cave-in.
He blinked, vision blurred, until the faint glow of his cracked lantern painted jagged shadows across the rubble. The shaft above was gone—sealed tight beneath a tomb of rock and steel.
"…No… no, no, no…" Lio rasped, forcing himself upright. His oversized pack still clung to his back, miraculously intact. Zom's holographic mapper, however, lay shattered nearby, its delicate emitters sparking weakly. Their one reliable guide through the tunnels was gone.
Panic clawed at his throat.
"Lynx! Lynx, where are you?!"
His voice bounced across the chamber, desperate, ragged.
For a moment, only silence answered. Then—
A muffled scream. Faint, distant.
"HELP! ANYONE IS THERE—Let go, dawk it!" Lynx's voice cracked through the stone.
Another, deeper voice shouted in pain, followed by frantic, guttural swearing. The Shellwalker marauder—the same one who had held Lynx hostage—was screaming too.
"I DON'T WANT TO GET ZERO'D!!! I haven't payed my renewal yet!" Cried the surviving Shellwalker from the distance pathetically.
The sounds twisted together, echoes of bodies being dragged across stone. And beneath it all, the unmistakable hiss and click of countless legs skittering.
The Bugs.
Lio's blood turned cold. His fists clenched until his knuckles burned.
He should be digging out—he knew that. But the party above might still be alive, fighting their way to reach him. That was the logical choice.
But Lynx's scream cut through every thought like a knife.
And then came another voice—his own, in his head.
Even him. Even the bastard who held her at gunpoint. If you leave them both… then what kind of Marauder are you?
Lio's jaw tightened. He slammed his fist into the rubble once, the stone cracking under his knuckles.
"…Hold on. I'm coming." Said to himself.
He stand tall, steel himself, hoisted his pack, dust himself, and turned toward the echo of the screams. The tunnel ahead gaped open like a throat into darkness, jagged and uneven where the Bugs had carved their path.
Without another thought, Lio ran in—
Not just to save his friend. But to save them both.
---
The tunnel convulsed with noise. The chittering of countless mandibles rattled through the dark, followed by the grinding scrape of stone as the swarm surged closer. Their red-lit eyes winked alive one after another, filling the walls like a tide of hunger.
Lio skidded to a halt, chest heaving. He could hear Lynx still screaming deeper within—but if he tried to run headlong, he would be buried beneath a tide of Cave Bugs.
The swarm moved as one, the cavern air filling with the stench of acid and rot.
His hands shook. Not from fear—but restraint. He had sworn never to unleash that side of himself, never to let anyone see just how far from human he truly was. To the Marauder Guild, he was just a Level 3 Strength-Scale, a man able to carry trucks, topple walls—impressive, but still within human comprehension.
But this…
This demanded more.
He stand still, stance himself to the ground, loosening his 'awkward teen' persona, and ready for fight.
The first wave leapt, a dozen chitinous bodies flying straight at him.
Something inside Lio snapped.
His body blurred—faster than a thought, faster than a blink. He pivoted, striking with an open palms and closed fist that glows with heated radiance, shattered the first Bug like glass. Another swipe tore through two more, their carcasses crumpling into the stone with bone-splintering force.
The swarm faltered, but only for a heartbeat.
Lio's palm and fist strikes were fast and swift, throwing barrage of punches where very strikes upon the countless Bugs that lunges at him with pinpoint accuracy, blitzing through the tide. However, they just kept coming.
Then Lio's eyes flared.
Twin beams of searing orange fire exploded from his gaze, carving molten arcs across the cavern. The smell of scorched chitin and burning stone filled the air as the beams sliced through ranks of Bugs with careful precession, leaving behind the tunnel walls glowing red-hot molten rocks and glass formation where the energy touched.
The cavern shook, the swarm screeching in fury and terror alike.
Dust rained down, and for the first time since the collapse, Lio's lips pulled back into a snarl. His heart thundered—not with fear, but release.
"I told myself… I'd never show this at public." His voice was low, trembling, but steady. He crushed another Bug underfoot, stone cracking beneath the pressure. "But for them… for both of them… I had to save them."
In a blur, he launched forward—each step a thunderclap, every strike a storm. The swarm broke against him like waves against steel, chitin cracking, green fluids spraying, screeches drowned in the roar of collapsing stone.
And deep in the tunnels, Lynx's voice carried still.
Alive. Waiting.
Lio's eyes and fist burned brighter.
---
<<<[ Arc 01, Ch 05: END ]>>>