Matthew had never speedrun a romantic relationship before.

  He and Amélia had their first kiss by the end of the evening, they started holding hands the next morning at school, and Matthew pretty much expected to meet her parents by the end of the week. Amélia also suggested that they both combine their immense cosmic powers to create a brand new monster together. Matthew hadn’t decided yet whether their new child would have dragon wings or tiger claws, but his new girlfriend insisted it had at least three eyes and four arms.

  And he wouldn’t have it any other way!

  “Insufferable,” Kari complained once their team reached the junkyard. True to its word, Tarantulas had apparently provided Crypto with a map of the Dungeon and safe passage to the next one. “You were just insufferable today, Matthew.”

  “Oh come on,” Matthew protested. “I only asked you to pass my letters to Amélia during class once or twice.”

  “Eight times.” Kari raised her hands and fingers. “I had to play postman for the two of you eight times. I only managed to slip them past Miss Jansen’s vigilance thanks to my spells!”

  “I warned you that setting those two up would lead to disaster,” John told Kari. “Can you imagine the catastrophe that would befall the world if those two deviants start breeding with each other?”

  “It was a matter of life or death!” Matthew insisted. “Oh, and did I tell you I’m going out with Amélia now?”

  “Yes, you most certainly did,” John deadpanned. “You aren’t even married, and yet I already can’t wait for you to get a divorce.”

  Kari let out a sigh heavier than stone. “I was seriously tempted to check your messages, but I feared to see what I would find there.”

  “Good call,” Matthew confirmed. “Your precious innocence must be protected.”

  Amélia turned out not to be shy at all, just inexperienced. Some of the hardcore stuff she suggested to Matthew went beyond his wildest fetishes, and that was really saying something.

  “Did you at least manage to develop a useful spell?” John inquired, but didn’t let Matthew answer immediately. “A spell useful for our current venture, not your doomed relationship.”

  “Sort of?” Matthew shrugged. “I wanted to turn into a ghost, but Amélia convinced me to research a temporary vampire transformation spell first. I should be able to turn into mist if I come to embody the concept. I’m optimistic we’ll complete it in a few days’ time between her incredible drive and my spellcasting genius.”

  Kari looked afraid to ask for details, but her morbid curiosity proved stronger than her survival instinct. “Why a vampire?”

  “So I can bite Amélia in the neck and make it hot,” Matthew replied. “Wanna playtest the spell with us this evening? I’m sure you would be into it too.”

  “Probab–” Kari choked, her cheeks redder than tomatoes. Her not-so-secret hot vampire fetish showed itself again. “That was a low blow, Matt!”

  “Let’s keep the exsanguination for the Dungeon,” John said as he put on his navigator, a gesture which his teammate quickly imitated. “We’re in position, Crypto.”

  “Good,” their manager replied on her end of the line. “Tarantulas and Finn should have set up a direct route to the frontier between this Dungeon and the next. Today’s goal is to gather information on the latter.”

  “I don’t trust the spider,” John stated with all of his trademark bluntness; an opinion which Matthew shared. “What if this gate leads us into another trap?”

  “Chang is on standby duty and will move to assist you at the first sign of trouble.”

  A heavy silence fell upon the group. All three Crawlers present exchanged glances in utter disbelief until Kari found the courage to address the elephant in the room. “This is a weekday.”

  “I’ve asked Chang to take a day off.”

  News that World War III had started ahead of schedule would have shocked Matthew less. Mr. Chang never took an unplanned break. His exceptionally rare vacations were all meticulously planned years ahead of schedule.

  The fact that he even agreed to this spoke volumes about the Association’s resolve on the matter. If Tarantulas betrayed them, it would die. The end. No walls nor traps would hold Mr. Chang back. He would slice the spider to ribbons with one hand, carry the Doc out of the Dungeon with the other, and guide Matthew’s crew to safety.

  Kari let out a breath of relief. “Well, I’m reassured!”

  “Don’t jinx it, please,” Matthew pleaded. “I haven’t stockpiled enough luck yet to tip the scales.”

  “I won’t lie, for once I agree with Matsumoto,” John said. “We’ll keep in touch, Crypto.”

  “Remember to stick to recon today, and inform me if you see or need anything. I will provide all the assistance I can.”

  After thanking their manager, Matthew opened the doorway to the junkyard’s Dungeon and immediately felt a change in the place’s atmosphere the moment they arrived. For a start, his Doom Sense had grown quieter than a tomb. The suffocatingly hot air had grown chillier too. The mechanical entrance chamber no longer seemed fundamentally hostile to them. Moreover, a wall to the left was gone, which unveiled a previously hidden passage.

  John squinted at it, and then at poor overworked Kari. “Matsumoto, please don’t tell me your Key missed that passage when we could have sidestepped all the traps.”

  “I swear it wasn’t there last time!” Kari protested.

  “The passage could be the Dungeon’s real trap,” Matthew pointed out. “You think you have a map of the Dungeon with a miraculous safe passage, and then BAM! The walls close in on us!”

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  “Who’s the one jinxing us now?” John inquired. “Anyway, this passage shows on the safe passage map Tarantulas provided us with. Is your Doom Sense acting up?”

  “Nope,” Matthew confirmed. “The way seems safe.”

  “Then let’s go,” John decided.

  They thus began to walk through the tunnel, with John using a blowtorch to light the way forward while Kari and Matthew walked at the front to detect any danger. The corridor split up at multiple points with arrows carved into the steel, or showed unlocked secret doors with hidden pitfalls now clearly marked with magnetic tape webs.

  It seemed Tarantulas had followed through on its promise. After days of grueling trapfinding, it felt beyond good to follow a clear path ahead.

  Matthew did notice changes in the scenery the further they advanced. The metal walls bent at the edges, the corridors twisted into spirals, and crystal lamps appeared where there used only to be shadows before. A powerful force warped the very fabric of the Dungeon.

  “We’re approaching the next entrance,” Kari said. “I can see the Flux particles in the air.”

  Matthew had never seen a case of a Dungeon consuming another while it happened; only after the fact. Now that he could see the transition, he would compare it to a nasty case of cancer slowly overtaking a healthy body and reshaping it into something alien.

  The trio eventually stepped into a deep chamber in the Dungeon’s bowels, where the very walls had contorted into a pit of twisted cables pulsating with multicolored Flux. Violet and Yellow particles intruded upon the Red and Blue energies native to this Dungeon, slowly altering its very fabric. The entrance to the invader’s threshold lay there, the gate waiting to be opened.

  A blue hologram appeared at the corner of the chamber, showcasing a projection of the Doc and Tarantulas. The latter was fast-reading a book by flipping a page every second, its freakish eyes memorizing every word in an instant.

  “Greetings, children,” the Doc said with a warm smile. If his current captivity had worn on him, he didn’t show it. “I hope you’ve been well since we last met.”

  “We should be the ones asking you that, Mr. O’Connor,” Kari replied with a frown of worry. “Are you safe?”

  “I am well taken care of, but thank you for asking. While my host does not trust me enough to meet me in person yet, it does provide all the food and water I require in return for intellectual stimulation.”

  Matthew wondered what kind of experiment the Doc was running on Tarantulas, especially when he read the book’s cover. “Critique of Pure Reason?”

  “It’s a philosophy book by Kant,” John said. He was always the most well-read among the group, at least when it came to socially acceptable literature. “Are you trying to teach a monster human philosophy, Doctor?”

  “Indeed, John,” the Doc replied with far more enthusiasm than Matthew would have expected from someone in his situation. “I’ve been introducing my host to the concept of ethics and empathy. I believe Kant and Rousseau will be a fine introduction until we move on to more complex subjects like Sartre and Nietzsche.”

  “I have questions,” Tarantulas suddenly said upon closing the book. “Kant argues that respecting one’s autonomy includes respecting that of others, and that virtue is the highest ideal a human being can aspire to. However, considering the subjectivity and limited perspective of the human mind, how does one objectively identify virtue?”

  “Well, it is a very complicated subject,” the Doc replied excitedly. Intellectual debates truly stimulated him. “Schopenhauer addressed a similar criticism of Kant–”

  The spider’s grammar is improving, Matthew noticed as the man lectured the monster. Tarantulas was growing more and more adept at mimicking human speech and behavior with each encounter. The speed at which it learned was deeply unsettling. I really hope the Doc knows what he’s doing here.

  “–hence the debate that virtuous conduct may have nothing to do with rational life,” the Doc concluded.

  “Informative, but inconclusive,” Tarantulas countered. “I require more data.”

  “And I will be happy to enlighten you once my students return safe and sound.” The Doc crossed his arms and studied the chamber. The hologram apparently worked both ways. “What can you tell us about this intruder?”

  “I cannot inform you about what your organization’s operatives will find on the other side,” Tarantulas replied. The mere fact that it used the term ‘organization’ for the Dungeon Wreckers Association bothered Matthew. It had intuitively grasped their teams’ social structure. “The intruding head would not let me enter it.”

  “It seems like a Violet and Yellow hybrid at first glance,” John said upon analyzing the rift. “The same combination as the Church Dungeon.”

  “I hope this one won’t be as vicious,” Kari said.

  Tarantulas quickly shot down her hopes. “This head is hungry, voracious, and relentless. It seeks to spread and achieve maturation.”

  “It’s looking to climb up the stage ranks,” Matthew said while cracking its knuckles. While he had no love for Tarantulas, this made the invading Dungeon both their problems. “Time to send it tumbling down the stairs!”

  “Be careful,” the Doc pleaded with them. “Do not hesitate to retreat should you need it.”

  “No need to worry, Doctor,” John said upon raising his hand. “We’ll deal with it.”

  John focused on the thin, barely detectable rift that separated this Dungeon from the next and struggled to rip it open. Tarantulas was right, this Dungeon didn’t want intruders in it. Its threshold refused to budge.

  John never asked for help, so Kari moved in to assist him. Her Flux joined with that of her teammate’s, but even her immense control couldn’t help much against this impenetrable fortress… until Matthew joined in. He used his Key to force a hole open in the rift between Dungeons, at which point they were all but propelled across the threshold by an invisible force.

  The trio teleported away from the depths of a metal maze into a pit of multicolored soft balls. They softly landed among a vast indoor playground of twisting slides, crawling tubes, swinging sets, and honeybee-shaped springs. A disco ball lit up the place, and Matthew noticed rows of arcade machines lined up along a wall.

  “You guys alright?” Matthew asked upon stepping out of the soft balls pit. A soft and pleasant green carpet covered the floor. Neat.

  “I’m fine, Matt,” Kari replied. She and John quickly joined him and looked around their surroundings. “I… I didn’t expect this.”

  “Are any of these things a mimic?” John inquired.

  “My Doom Sense isn’t picking up anything,” Matthew replied. Nothing in the room appeared threatening in the slightest, and even the air smelled of candy. Weird. No Dungeon was harmless, so perhaps this one was the insidious kind that liked to present an innocent front before going for the kill.

  At least their navigators worked well enough for Crypto to contact them. “Temple Alley Team, do you copy? What do you see?”

  “We’ve landed in a daycare,” John mused. “This playground seems deceptively banal.”

  “At least they have good tastes,” Matthew mused upon checking the arcade games. The games included classics such as Super Mario Bros, Street Fighters, and even relics that disappeared many timeshifts ago like Space Invaders…

  Huh?

  Wait, why would a newborn Dungeon include arcade games that disappeared from Earth many years ago?

  A terrible chill traveled down Matthew’s spine as a frightful doubt wormed its way into his mind. He walked along the line of arcade machines towards sliding doors leading to the next area. He heard Kari call out his name, but he didn’t answer. His steps and heartbeat both quickened when he noticed Flux particles flowing across the air; not all of them Yellow or Violet as the entrance would have suggested.

  His blood froze in his veins when he reached the sliding doors and saw the light of bright, neon signs glowing over empty commercial alleys filled with empty shops. His skin grew pale and his fingers trembled when he finally, finally realized why they had ended in that place after destroying the Major Chicken Dungeon.

  It had been trying to assimilate it, just like the junkyard.

  “Run…” Matthew muttered, his breath short. “We need to ru–”

  An enormous hand burst out of the nearest wall and grabbed him by the throat.

  Five fingers the size of his arms coiled around his shoulders without warning and lifted him above the ground with inhuman strength. Matthew could barely hear the sound of his heartbeat pounding in his chest and skull, or his teammates’ shouts. The vile thing’s laughter drowned everything.

  “What’s wrong, Matthew?” the Mall’s guardian taunted him with a deep voice uttered by a dozen gnashing maws. “Your prey sense didn’t tingle this time?!”

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