Amélia’s family was indeed loaded beyond belief.

  “Is this the place?” Kari asked upon checking their GPS for the eleventh time. “This can’t be the place.”

  “It’s called the Dubois Mansion,” John replied with a scoff. “That’s about as clear-cut as it gets.”

  Matthew wasn’t sure he could call a twelve-story tall French-styled fortress of white stone and leaded glass windows surrounded with its own hedge maze a mansion. A high pointed metal fence kept the poor and paupers away from the marble statues decorating the path to mahogany doors and a garage likely filled with expensive cars worth more than all of the Association’s whole net worth.

  This place was only missing a few knights standing watch outside to become a real life princess’ castle cliché; in their place stood two butlers waiting for them at the gates and who promptly invited them inside. Matthew would have found French maids more to his taste, but he guessed Amélia had a slightly different kink than him.

  One day had passed since their last foray into the airplane junkyard, during which the Doc and Crypto remained in constant communication. The latter asked Matthew’s team to assume standby duties until Tarantulas disarmed the traps leading up to the neighboring Dungeon and provided the appropriate map.

  Hence, Matthew had decided to take Amélia on her offer to hang out at her home and invited his teammates along. Sasha, Petro, and Maggie were already there based on what the latter texted him. Matthew still couldn’t believe she was answering his messages now. The last time she did that was over four years ago.

  By contrast, he hadn’t talked to Jack since their last argument. He still felt sore over his disregard for his fellow Crawlers’ sacrifices.

  “You must be Mr. Maruki and associates?” the eldest of the butlers inquired. “Miss Amélia and her other friends are expecting you inside.”

  “Thank you, Sebastien,” Matthew replied politely.

  The butler forced himself to smile. “I’ve told Miss Amélia that my name is Kevin.”

  “You’re a butler,” Matthew reminded him. “Your name is always Sebastien while on the job. Or occasionally Jeeves, or Alfred.”

  “Forgive him,” John told the butler. “My friend lost the ability to tell domestics apart since he brought crypto online. It’s a medical condition.”

  “Please, guys, just stop,” Kari pleaded with them. “Don’t start a mess before we even pass through the gates.”

  “Kari, Kari, Kari, you’re not behaving like a true high-value shareholder yet.” Matthew wagged his finger at her. “Come on, at least grab a fan and try out the noblewoman laugh!”

  “I can see why Miss Amélia is so fond of you,” Sebastien mused with a sigh. He opened the front doors after they finally walked through the large front yard and invited them to step into an art deco hall with more luxurious carpets than Matthew had hair. They climbed gold-plated stairs and reached a vast salon with deep leather chairs, large sofas with their own plasma screen TVs, glass cabinets, a small library, a poker table, and even a billiards table. The whole room smelled of tax breaks.

  Amélia and the others were already there, with Maggie, Sasha, and Petro engaging in a billiards game while their host watched. She smiled upon seeing Matthew’s group arrive. “Good evening,” Amélia said, her hands behind her back. “Do you… like my place?”

  “You need French maids to go with the butlers,” Matthew suggested. “To complete the set.”

  “Again with the French maids?” Maggie snickered. “You’ve been ranting about them for years. Find yourself a new kink.”

  “I’ve… I’ve asked Sebastien to recruit one, but it’s taking a while,” Amélia said, confirming she indeed shared the same tastes as Matthew. She then turned to her butler. “Thank you for bringing them.”

  “Thank you kindly, Miss Dubois.” Sebastien bowed on his way out, though he did leave a few refreshments behind. Matthew could get used to this.

  “So?” John asked upon approaching the billiards table. “Who’s winning?”

  “Petro,” Maggie replied upon striking a ball with her cue. “How did your Dungeon run go?”

  “Besides the fact we let our teacher become a monster’s hostage and the existential dread that followed?“ John shrugged his shoulders. “Pretty good, I suppose.”

  “Our manager said I could help rescue Mr. O’Connor if necessary,” Sasha reassured them. “I’ve found that I can open up my portals to other people’s locations, so long as I’ve met them before. If that Tarantulas thing tries anything, we can strike at its doorstep.”

  “Is… is it true, though?” Amélia nervously bit her lower lip. “Are all these awful Dungeons really connected?”

  “The spider could be lying,” Petro pointed out.

  “Its intel has yet to be verified.” Kari cleared her throat. “I… I kinda hope it’s mistaken.”

  Matthew himself wasn’t sure how to take Tarantulas’ information either. On one hand, Mr. Auguste had a point, knowing that all Dungeons shared the same origin meant they could potentially kill them all at once; but on the other hand, if the Doc’s theory was correct that Dungeons and Keys were the same entities… then they might all derive their powers from the same awful source.

  Were Keys severed heads of the hydra that became their own entities? Or were they still connected to that thing and fed it? Matthew wasn’t sure he would like the answer to those questions.

  “Also, your brother is a selfish ass,” Matthew told Maggie.

  “Gee, I never noticed.” Maggie snorted. “What took you so long?”

  “Nostalgia, I would assume,” John guessed as he crashed the billiards game. “Matsumoto and I had him pegged for what he was since the moment we met.”

  “I swear he wasn’t like that before,” Matthew protested. While Jack’s behavior did on grate him, he still felt loyalty to his old friend and teammate. They’d escaped death together after all. “The Mall Incident broke him, I think.”

  “No, Matt.” Maggie pushed her cue with far more strength than necessary. “My brother was always like that from the start. He just stopped hiding his inner asshole.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Matthew kept his mouth shut. Part of him wanted to argue and see the best in Jack, but the venom in Maggie’s mouth gave him pause. Her distaste for her own brother went deep. Did something happen between them that he was unaware of?

  “Anyway,” Maggie said, changing the subject. “I got your text message. You want my help with a new Orange spell?”

  “I’ve started working on an intangibility spell again,” Matthew confirmed. “Since your Key lets you absorb the properties of physical matter, I thought it would help.”

  This drew Maggie’s full attention. “An intangibility spell?”

  “That’s your master plan to deal with the airplane junkyard’s Dungeon, Matthew?” John asked with a scoff. “That’s your stupidest idea yet, and that’s saying something.”

  “What’s stupid about it?” Sasha asked. “An intangibility spell sounds useful.”

  “Other Crawlers have tried developing one for a while now,” John replied. “Someone even succeeded. Obviously it didn’t go well.”

  “He couldn’t become physical again?” Sasha guessed incorrectly.

  “That person turned intangible, but remained bound to gravity,” Kari said with a shudder. “So he plummeted hundreds of meters down before he canceled the spell, and died crushed between rocks.”

  An awkward silence settled in the room, which Petro quickly broke with deadpan Slavic stoicism. “That’s rough.”

  “Which is why I’ve been thinking of a workaround,” Matthew countered with enthusiasm. He couldn’t let a lethal accident get in the way of a good idea! “A spell that would only turn parts of the body intangible. I’ll take a step through a wall and then turn it solid on the other side before I can fall into the earth!”

  “Spells that affect only parts of the body demand immense Flux control, which you lack,” Kari pointed out. “Besides, spells that change the state of matter are all Orange, which isn’t your core color.”

  “It’s close enough, and we have two Orange Crawlers in the room,” Matthew insisted. “They’ll help!”

  “A spell like that would be useful,” Petro conceded. “To avoid hits and obstacles.”

  “We could create an intangibility spell, but there’s no way it won’t backfire for him,” Maggie said, her cue pointed at Matthew’s eyepatch. “If he turns intangible, then this other A-hole will start sucking in everything in range.”

  Oh.

  Oh, right, Matthew hadn’t thought about how an intangibility spell would interact with his eyehole… that would definitively complicate matters…

  “Why…” Amélia cleared her throat. “Why don’t you simply turn into a ghost?”

  Matthew blinked at her. “A ghost?”

  “Yellow is… it’s concepts, right? So it should cover ghosts and undead right?” Amélia inquired. “Why don’t you create a spell that turns you into one?”

  “That…” Matthew stroked his chin as he considered the idea. The thought hadn’t crossed his mind, but the more he considered Amélia’s proposal, the more applications he imagined. “That’s genius! I could turn into Danny Phantom!”

  “What about an astral projection spell?” Sasha suggested. “You may not need to turn intangible at all, just project your soul out of your body.”

  “We don’t even know if a soul is real,” Kari countered.

  “Kari, when will you realize that things like ‘real’ doesn’t matter to us Yellows?” Matthew pumped his fist with excitement. “We deny reality and substitute our own!”

  “At least please make sure it doesn’t involve killing yourself first,” Kari pleaded. “We don’t have any resurrection spells available.”

  “I, uh, I have a few occult manga if you’re looking for ideas…” Amélia suggested, her cheeks now a deep shade of pink. “I… I can show you while the others finish their game…”

  “Lead the way, kohai!” Matthew said as he followed her around her mansion. It only just occurred to him that none of the others were following them.

  Matthew wasn’t a girl whisperer, but he was pretty sure being invited to one’s room alone was a big show of trust.

  True to her earlier claims, Amélia’s bedroom proved to be many, many times bigger than his own. He expected a princess’ nest with pink walls and everything, and instead discovered a bookworm’s cave. Entire shelves filled with manga and romance novels stood next to fantastically creepy murder rabbit plushies, undead dragon toys the size of ponies, and Harry Potter memorabilia. The king-sized bed and cushions all showed maddeningly bizarre shapes like open eyes and spirals on their sheets and covers. Even the window’s outline resembled a skeletal archway.

  Handy was of course hiding among the plushies and came to greet him with a few noises. Matthew summoned Articat from his notebook and let the two monsters play together while he and Amélia read mangas on the bed; which proved so soft that Matthew thought he would never find the strength to leave it.

  Amélia was right, her collection of rare books and manga contained many weird ideas appealing to his inner Yellow soul. Since his color covered concepts, it should include fantastic creatures such as vampires, ghosts, and other critters. He only had to find one that could pass through walls and reverse-engineer a spell from that idea.

  Amélia suddenly coughed at his side. “Uh… Matt? Can I ask you a… a weird question?”

  “Sure, but only if I can provide a weird answer in return.”

  Amélia let go of her own book. “Have you… ever considered double suicide?”

  Matthew froze, closed his manga, and then focused on Amélia. He hadn’t expected her to ask something so… dark. “Why that question?”

  “I dunno, I… I thought marriage was the greatest romantic gesture, until my parents…” Amélia shook her head. “Their vows to love each other didn’t mean anything, so…” She scratched her cheek. “I don’t know… a couple dying together sounds like a true commitment.”

  “‘Till death do us part?” Matthew pondered her question. Truth be told, he did love someone enough to consider dying for her once; mostly to avenge her. “I never thought about a double suicide, but I guess that’s mostly because my big crush died a long time ago.”

  “You’re talking about P–” Amélia hesitated an instant before daring to utter the cursed name. “Perse?”

  “Yeah.” The more he remembered her, the more his mind wandered to dark places. “I did consider murder-suicide at one point though.”

  “What?” Amélia looked frightened all of a sudden. “In a… a romantic sense?”

  “No, not really.” No way in hell. “You know how my Key controls the concept of holes? Well, that includes black holes. Real black holes. Not the cartoon vacuum cleaner kind, the ‘eat starlight and chomp planets’ kind.”

  Amélia paled at the implications. “You could destroy the Earth?”

  “The Earth? I could destroy the whole solar system if I wanted to.” Or at least he theoretically could, having never found an occasion to actually check. “I don’t wanna brag, but I am the most powerful Crawler in the world.”

  “That’s…” Amélia chuckled. “That’s kinda cool, actually.”

  “Really?” That took Matthew aback. “Most of the people I’ve told the truth too usually found it terrifying.”

  “It… it can be both, I guess?” Amélia replied. “But what’s the connection with… you know?”

  “The issue is that a real black hole will suck in all the air around me, crush me with gravitational pressure, and basically kill me along with everyone else. But if I were to cast it in, say, an isolated pocket Dungeon dimension…”

  “You would destroy the Dungeon and yourself.” Amélia rested her head on her palm with a look of concern. “You… you were thinking of blowing up that Mall place?”

  Matthew nodded sharply. “I wanted to after the incident. The Doc talked me out of it.”

  “That’s… that’s good.” Amélia nervously brushed her hair. “I, uh, I don’t want you to die. Obviously.”

  “Thank you kindly.” My god, she sounded about as good at conversation as he was. Matthew had pondered how to carefully approach a certain subject, but he guessed he should elect for the straight approach. “Amy?”

  “Y-yes?”

  “Wanna go to the Fall Formal with me?” Matthew asked bluntly.

  Amélia gasped in surprise and stared at him for a moment. Her spine stiffened like a bowstring. “Are you…” she cleared her throat, as if afraid to ask for confirmation. “Are you… asking me out?”

  “Yup, I am,” Matthew replied bluntly, before softening the blow. He didn’t want her to feel pressured. “I mean, if you want to–”

  “Yes!” Amélia all but shouted back, startling him. A strange and terrifying hunger had all but swept her shyness away. “D-do you want to kiss now?”

  “What?!” Damn it, she was skipping a lot of steps! “Already?”

  “Yes! No!” Amélia’s cheeks had grown redder than John’s lasers. “C-can you recall your Articat?”

  “Wait, wait, I don’t do bestiality!” Matthew warned her. “I’m setting boundaries here!”

  “No, no, it’s just…” Amélia took a long, deep breath. “I think it’ll be hotter if he watches from behind a shelf and rubs himself while… while we do it.”

  Matthew found himself at a loss of words. His gaze met that of this perverse soul, who had dared to venture into depths of degeneracy he had never found the courage to explore, and could only think of one thing.

  I think I’m in love.

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