The boy was crazy.
Which was, of course, someone else’s problem because Mark was not going to touch that one with a ten-foot pole.
‘But wait!’ they’d say in outrage. ‘Aren’t you an elite? A hope and inspiration for all adventurers of NLA, one of the strongest people in the region? Who else would be able to deal with the puppy, if not you?’
Someone else. Maybe that bitch Sydney. Or send an army. Make a deal with a demon. Just give the guy what he wants? That might work.
Since yesterday, everything had been in chaos, the sudden appearance of the lost ones not allowing a humble guy like him even a minute of breathing room.
Then came the reports. A solid half of them were about the sightings of a ‘friendly neighborhood speedster’. From all their contacts, everywhere all at once. It was absurd.
Then some pretty strong puppies appeared, claiming that they came from the same place as the lost ones and the speedster, adding to the mess.
And then they explained what they knew.
And of course it was Mark’s problem now, somehow.
‘But you’re so strong, Mark!’ they’d say. ‘So dependable. Please go deal with scary nonsense, you’re the only one who can and have more of a sense of civil duty than a sense of self-preservation!’
So, lost ones were stuck in some limbo hell dimension? Sure, okay, they knew that already, there were a few people here and there who managed to get out by spawning along with the monsters and surviving the experience. But there were also elves now? An evil elf god that seemed to control the apocalypse, killed in a city-spanning battle with the speedster guy? And there was another, friendly elf who put the lost ones back? And they were basically on the city’s doorstep?
Honestly, the whole thing raised more questions than it answered, but it left Mark and the higher-ups with a few concrete and very concerning conclusions.
One, the ‘friendly neighborhood speedster’ was capable of–reportedly–city destroying feats, and was fast enough to be a global presence, being noticed everywhere they had contact with. A one-man nuke on their doorstep. According to people who saw him, he was on a hair-trigger, ready to murder anyone who looked at him wrong. On their doorstep. Here. His problem.
Two, if some-fucking-how an unstable demigod was not enough, he was also–probably–being mind-controlled by another elite, for better or worse. That made an already precarious situation more delicate than defusing a nuke. It was two nukes. On their doorstep.
Was he stressing the ‘doorstep’ part of the problem enough?
Three, an invaluable source of information about the apocalypse and everything that was wrong in the world just so happened to hang around with the two nukes.
The situation seemed stable at first, as it always did before fucking exploding. They had a sane and normal person in contact with the group, even if Mark questioned how ‘sane’ someone could be to put themselves in that situation. A woman with a communication skill – perfectly capable of figuring out just how unstable the ‘friendly’ speedster was before others made contact. It was information, blessed information on who was who and wanted what, giving them time and knowledge to prepare for contact that wouldn’t result in the ‘friendly’ speedster slaughtering the town because of a perceived slight. Like, what if he was a scientologist, and would take offense that they had reused that church as a warehouse? Shit like that was silly, but it could cost lives when power was involved.
Anyway, it didn’t matter anymore. It turned out the speedster was–presumably–under control of a little girl who was reportedly no less troubled, and now they had to rescue the informant, and they got stuck in a dungeon on the way because of course, and all of that didn’t fucking matter because he was here.
Mark was, very much, reconsidering his life choices. He should’ve listened to Sydney more, believed her bullshit ‘I’m strong so fuck off’ philosophy. Sydney didn’t get stuck in dungeons. Didn’t have to deal with this shit. He would have to praise her profound wisdom if he survived.
Mark watched the boy carefully, studying every word, every movement and expression to get as much information as possible in order to unfuck this mess.
It was a bit hard, since the boy in question was still facing the wall. Keeping a pose straight out of JoJo. Not easy to read expressions from that.
What did that tell him?
The boy was crazy.
What did that tell him?
They were screwed.
Anything useful from that?
Nope. Screwed.
Welp, okay. Not the first time that happened. It was time to improvise.
What were his objectives? Survive. Figure out how dangerous the boy was to the city. Figure out how dangerous the mind-controller was. Maybe kindly point out to the speedster that he was controlled. If their informant could get away on her own, surely this guy could also do that. There was a good chance that his ‘crazy’ was a direct result of the control in the first place. If nothing else worked, try to steer them in another direction from the city. If that didn’t work… Well, no way in hell he was fighting the guy. He’d wish Sydney good luck before bolting. Though, she’d also bolt, so…
He really needed a pay raise.
Thankfully, since the guy wasn’t looking, Mark could use that to discreetly signal the others to stand by without alerting him. Daniel was on a hair trigger, and God bless them if he decided to find out what would happen if he tried shooting the speedster from the back. His boys, at least, were trained enough to recognize his plan in an instant.
And that plan was, of course, bootlicking.
“Hello,” he said, putting up his friendliest smile and trying to stop his voice from shaking. “You really saved us here, friend. What’s your name?”
The boy finally turned around. Empty eyes pierced him, making his senses scream ‘danger’. Instantly, his body was paralyzed, his fight-or-flight response choosing ‘nope’ and dying a shameful death. But through the sheer force of will, he kept smiling.
An intimidation skill? That wasn’t in the reports. Though it explained why everyone said he’d looked like he was a second from murdering everyone.
“Didn’t I tell you?” the boy said, tilting his head. Mark felt goosebumps raising on his back. Shit, shit, shi– “It’s Speedmaster. Wait–” He paused. “Yeah, no, that definitely doesn’t work. Just call me Dennis.”
An intimidation skill was actually a good thing. Very good. It meant that whatever the reports were saying, whatever his senses were telling him, it was exaggerated. Not about the boy’s capacity, because that was proven without a doubt right in front of him, but his craziness. This could be just an overpowered kid with a sense for theatrics. It was the intimidation skill that made everyone jump to the worst conclusions.
Mark wasn’t everyone. He forcibly released some of the tension in his shoulders.
“I’m Mark,” he said kindly, and waved at his subordinates. “These are my friends. Bill, Daniel, Evan and Jack. I believe you’ve met already?”
The empty eyes that promised nothing but death–just a skill, he had to remember that–stopped piercing his soul as the boy glanced at the party members. Daniel’s finger twitched against the trigger. Mark frowned at the idiot, silently promising to personally murder him if he so much as looked at the speedster wrong.
“Yeah, I think I saw those two nerds before,” Dennis nodded, pointing a finger in Jack and Evan’s direction. “Aren’t you guys Mary’s friends?”
Under scrutiny, Jack also seemed like the ‘I shoot things when uncomfortable’ type. Mark glared at him, promising even more murder than the speedster could deliver. Somehow.
Seriously, couldn’t he have more sane and chill teammates? Right, sane and chill usually didn’t have a high enough level to join his party.
“We are,” Evan answered calmly. Bless him. Mark was absolutely gonna poach the guy if they got out of here alive.
“Know where she is?” Dennis asked while sheathing his sword. “We think she ran away because of a dumb misunderstanding, but I’m a little bit worried about the spider-clowns.”
Intimidation skill. He’s not crazy. Whatever he says must be sane when I’m not forced to interpret it the worst way. Surely.
Mark was repeating that in his head like it was a mantra.
Was lying a good idea here?
Nope, no chance in hell he’d risk lying to this monster. Even Sydney could become unreasonable when lied to.
“About that,” Mark smiled sheepishly. “We were kinda… on our way to pick her up?”
Dennis shifted his gaze back on him. Something in Mark’s gut reminded him that he was still holding his daggers. He could just… flick. The boy was close enough there was no way he’d expect that. If Mark ignored the fact that this was someone literally looking at him, and someone capable of moving at speeds that even Mark couldn’t perceive.
Dammit. Couldn’t he kindly turn it off?
“We have a pickup truck and everything,” he said, uttering the dumbest thing that came to his mind, as if that explanation would soften the blow of telling the guy that they were literally rescuing Mary from him, specifically.
“We think that the girl is controlling you,” Evan said. Mark’s heart dropped in his stomach as he heard the words. Damn the brave fool, maybe he was a little bit too chill. “Once we spent the night away from her, it became obvious that our decisions were compromised from the moment she woke up. One of the notable ones was leaving El’el and Mary with the girl because it was ‘okay’ and ‘they had to wait for you’. Clearly, all of you are under her control. The purpose of our party was to… Um, fix that.”
Mark stood very, very still.
Fix my asshole, motherfucker. You don’t directly tell elites that you’re ‘fixing’ them.
Dennis smiled.
Mark tightened his grip on the daggers, preparing to iaido the hell out of the boy while praying for miracles.
“Oh, that’s great!” Dennis said cheerfully. “And you got a car? Dude, you guys are lifesavers, I can’t stress enough how sick I am of walking everywhere.” The boy looked around, seemingly only now noticing how tense everyone was. As if that was somehow easy to miss. For some ungodly reason, he looked sheepish. “Ah, right. You don’t have to worry about Lily, I totally have that handled, she wouldn’t hurt a kitty.” There was a pause as he thought about something. “Probably. Since you guys are free of the thing or whatever, she didn’t eat any babies, right? And if she did, how many? I need an exact number to work with here.”
Intimidation skill. Surely, it makes sense outside of its influence. Is it a passive? Or is the boy playing mindgames? He has to be aware of it.
“Not that we know of,” Evan replied stoically. “Is that something to be concerned about?”
Dennis shrugged.
I think that’s a yes.
They stood awkwardly, watching each other. The situation felt a little bit defused, but it seemed that no one in his party was brave enough to speak first. It was Mark’s mission again, to be brave and underpaid.
“Would you be willing to help us out here?” he asked, pointing at the empty picture. “I really don’t want to bother you, but we’re kind of stuck in this dungeon and…”
“So it is a dungeon!” Dennis exclaimed, making everyone flinch. “Kinda badass of you to just casually decide to clear it on the way, not gonna lie.”
“No, we’re stuck,” Mark said.
“What do you mean?”
“We’re trapped.”
“Just go outside? The door’s right there.”
“We are locked in a spatial loop. There is no exit unless we clear the dungeon.”
“Oh.” Dennis was silent for a moment. “Wait, you’re telling me that you were supposed to… rescue Mary, or something, and you got yoinked by a skill place on the way? By accident?”
“Yes,” Mark said through his teeth. He had a lot of words to say to the next person who asked him to take a car because his mission was ‘time-sensitive’.
“I take back everything good I thought about you. You’re scrubs.”
“That’s reasonable.”
“Will you help us?” Evan asked. “The only way out is to destroy the core, and we’re too weak on our own.” He waved at the splat of colors on the floor. “Obviously.”
Dennis looked at the puddle in question with a thoughtful expression on his face.
“You would’ve died if I didn’t come,” he muttered quietly, almost to himself.
“Yes,” Mark agreed.
“This isn’t a boss, right? Is there a boss?”
“Yes. The deeper we go, the stronger the monsters.”
“And you’re stuck.”
“Yes.”
“And you definitely totally would’ve died if you tried to go deeper.”
Is he just rubbing it in?
“Yes.”
“So you’re basically still dying, in other words? In grave danger?” The boy kept asking the questions, his head raised, looking at the ceiling, like he was talking to someone else. “And destroying that ‘core’ is the only way to save you?”
“God dammit, yes,” Jack grumbled, finally overriding his fear with dumb anger, it seemed. That one, Mark wouldn’t poach. “Are you going to help or not? We’re fucking stuck here.”
Dennis smiled at no one, seemingly reaching a conclusion that he didn’t share.
“Yeah, that works,” he said, nodding to himself. “Wait a sec.”
He disappeared.
Mark opened his mouth to ask the others what they thought–
The space around them screamed, collapsing on itself.
AN: Not gonna lie, I am a bit afraid of falling into the ‘dissect the same situation over and over from different POV’s’ trap, but it feels fine for now? And anyway, who doesn’t love a bit of glazing? I love it, you love it, everyone loves it.