It was quite the surprise. Rather clever, in fact. Not that I had much time to appreciate that the sewer channel by the pipe had been dug out deeper to house whatever creature had grabbed me.

  Instead, my vision went blank, obscured as I became submerged in the filth. I lashed out with my feet, but failed to connect with anything and the monster kept a tight grip on me. Even if my shotgun functioned down here, without being able to see my target meant there was a chance I’d fire in the wrong direction, missing or even hitting one of my squad.

  I couldn’t even tell how far I had been dragged beneath the surface. Thankful that my goggles were water-tight, I still couldn’t see anything. My left hand lagged through the thick sewage, before grabbing at a Flash grenade, pulling and activating it.

  The flash struggled to burn through the dense water, but it did what I wanted it to. A brief silhouette of the surroundings above the surface. Enough to tell how I was orientated. My left arm raised up, and I fired the grappling hook. Powerful enough to break the surface and strike the ceiling. The line went taught and started to pull me up against the dragging grasp of the monster.

  Angered at their meal getting away, they rose up to bite my leg.

  Their first, and last, mistake. As their sharp teeth ground against the thick metal of my cybernetics, my left foot came around, finding purchase on their shoulder. Overcharge burned down and exploded out the base of my foot, splintering their arm from the rest of their body.

  The tension released, and I was pulled upward. My lungs burned as several seconds passed before I broke the surface.

  Roxy and the others were ready to guide me onto the floor, and I was dragged to safety on the higher platform. Sewage ran from me, my gear soaked through. Barrel of my gun arm leaked into a puddle on the ground. No cuts to get infected, thankfully.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t breathe.

  Despite being mostly waterproof, the filters of my re-breather were stuck full of slime and worse. If I tried to force it, then I’d risk of breaking them - allowing the sewage to go straight into my lungs. Something that would have dire circumstances. Drowning on dry land.

  The group had been shouting, asking if I was okay, but my vision was already fading. Spotty. Lungs convulsing as they were desperate for air. Roxy said that we had to remove my gas-mask, probably under instruction from Clara.

  It would take too long.

  I waved them back with my left hand, creating some space. As my head throbbed with pain, a sick feeling rolling around my insides, I turned the end of my shotgun up. Pointed it beneath my chin.

  “Dubs!”

  Click. I pulled the trigger.

  The Water shot burst and expanded, power-washing most of the filth from my face. Liquid pulsed up through my re-breather, watering down the sludge enough to break it free. I leaned over and faux-vomited. Air made it into my lungs as the filters struggled to shake off the last of the dirt.

  [Just give me a moment. Roxy, you are now in charge of leading the mission.]

  In all the turmoil, I forgot that I could still speak even if I couldn’t breathe. Belle had put her healing on me, but I wasn’t really hurt. At risk of passing out and sliding away from sanity, sure. If that had to happen to one of us, I might have been the better target.

  “Speak to me, Dubs. Are you injured?” The super had kneeled down in front of me, but at a distance where she wasn’t in range to get sprayed by the sewage that ran off of my outfit.

  [I am covered with shit and grime. It is not ideal.]

  “But are you injured?”

  Slowly, I shook my head. The re-breather was all but clear now, although it would need a deep clean later. Shotgun was functional. I’d shredded one of my boots away by kicking the monster, and my trousers were spit where it had bitten me.

  “Shame none of us have rain powers,” Ren said dryly. The elf had her cloak wrapped around her face, but the disgust was clear. “Best we could do is dry you off.”

  That seemed preferable to being soaked and miserable for the rest of the mission. The way they intended to do it, however, was… inventive. I couldn’t fault them for the idea, and would have probably been impressed if I didn’t feel like a corpse.

  Roxy turned her arms into lava, and then Ren blasted her from behind with a continuous gust of wind. The heated air pelted me like a giant hairdryer. Against the wall, I slowly rotated as I became dry. After a full rotation, they stopped, and I slumped slightly in resignation.

  “Remember these?” the super asked, stepping over to me. In her hand, she held a round button.

  I did remember. The anti-odor device she had stuck on me when we had that first house party and I had met this bunch of weirdos. How different we all were back then.

  [History repeats, hmm?]

  “She gave me a pack of ten of them. The plan was to use one each when we left the sewers and had to face the public. Of course, she gave extra just in case.”

  One of us was bound to fall in. It was inevitable. I looked over at the flowing river below us. The monster might not be dead, but after losing an arm, it didn’t seem too interested in climbing out and having a second go.

  [The area below that section had been dug out to make it deeper. My assumption is that the blockade down the other route is due to excavated rock.]

  I stood in place as the super applied the round patch. My senses were completely shot, so I couldn’t smell anything at all, anyway.

  //Clara: I’ve added a miniature oxygen tank and an emergency flush to mod to your re-breather.

  //Clara: It already has a hydrophobic and self-cleaning coating throughout the piping.

  //Clara: Otherwise you would have choked on your own blood a few times in the past.

  //Dubs: Okay.

  “Alright, Belle. Make sure Dubs doesn’t break his head on anything or loses his senses.” Roxy put her hands on her hips and addressed the troops. “A little shit-water won’t stop the best upcoming hero team currently in Goldarch, so let’s keep up the pace.”

  //Clara: There’s usually a point where a rebranded hero will dissociate from their new persona.

  //Clara: They’ll feel they are just in fancy dress, and imposter syndrome takes control.

  //Clara: Rockslide will keep them on track while you recover.

  //Clara: I’m getting lots of… information that any more stress will negatively affect you.

  //Clara: Luckily the drone didn’t receive any permanent damage from our quick swim.

  //Clara: But both of you will need to be stripped down and scrubbed clean later, Gunquake.

  //Clara: Thoroughly.

  I appreciated her trying, but I didn’t have any energy to engage with her playful jabs. Not that she was wrong about the maintenance required. Both my gun, legs, and re-breather needed opening up to make sure I didn’t have filth lurking in any gaps. It wouldn’t be an attractive or amusing process for either of us.

  Belle sidled up next to me. “I can only help you as much as you let me. I’m sure you feel pretty sorry for yourself right now, but be open and honest.”

  With a sigh, I stretched my back out and stood up straight. Why did everyone have to be reasonable and on my do-not-murder list?

  [I almost choked to death on liquified shit. I may be a little grumpy for a while, but I’m glad you were all around to assist me.]

  She pulled a face. “Roxy was very close to jumping in after you. I’m sorry we didn’t have an immediate response to save you.”

  [Not a grudge I hold. Things worked out.]

  It was the truth. None of them would be able to see in the sewage, and were much more likely to get infections or an illness from being submerged in it. The ambush had turned a minor inconvenience into a potential death pit, and the team hesitating was the right call at that moment.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  If we had left the elf as the last one to cross as intended, things would be much different right now. That was often how trouble ended up - a dice roll of luck and circumstance. Dancing around the what-ifs left you as exhausted on your legs as I was right now.

  I was at least glad that the next section of our travel via this detour was offset from any of the sewer channels. Large pipes ran along the walls on either side of this next passage. Sewage, clean water, and possibly electricity ran through them. Maybe. It was just a guess. We had settled into the ‘protect Dubs’ formation, which had Roxy at the front, and Ren and the Captain at the back to keep me in the middle.

  A fever was creeping in at the edges of my brain, making my head feel warm. I was tired and reconsidered the bravado that pushed me to accept this mission so soon into my recovery. Stims trickled into my system through my neck, briefly relaxing the aches around my body. The worst thing was that I hadn’t been injured really, but the exertion had left a large dent in my stamina.

  “Did you pack spare boots?” Belle asked. “Although I don’t think we’ll have time to change before seeing the public.”

  [If I know Clara, then we did, and we will.]

  //Clara: Correct on both accounts.

  The shielder smiled. “Color me impressed, as always. Even though you lost the bet and owe us the first round of drinks, I would like to take you up on that training. He has been keen to see me wield His influence, and you having Dispel is handy.”

  [As soon as I am recovered enough, we’ll pencil that in.]

  I may grow to detest having a calendar, but I also had more of an excuse to remember which day of the week it was. Roxy had her birthday coming up in a few weeks, and a visit to her parents’ was still on the table. That had been something easy to agree to at the time, but the more real it became, the odder it felt.

  Or that could just be the lightheadedness.

  [Pause a second.]

  We stopped as I put my hand on the nearby pipe and hunched over slightly. A dizzy feeling swirled around my head and my stomach clenched as if it wanted to throw up. I could not, and would not. Belle had her arm looped under my gun-arm to help keep me standing.

  Eventually, I took a couple deep breaths, and I was good enough to move.

  [Thank you.]

  “Don’t mention it.” She pulled a face and brushed her arm where some flaked sewage had rubbed off of me. “Although, I think I’ll pass on any future sewer mission.”

  “Yeah, fuck this,” Roxy agreed from the front.

  The pipelines ran on for a while longer before taking a left turn. This was the edges of the suspected lair now. One of the clues was the working lighting running down the walls. With a signal from the super, we switched off our flashlights. I checked my map, but all I could think about was how inefficient this was.

  Roxy could just break straight through the streets above the right place and dropped down onto the villain in seconds. It might take a while to repair, but it was stimulating the economy, or something. That wasn’t… exactly my expertise.

  “More claw marks,” Ren noted.

  I looked down at the floor past my broken boot and could see the light marks scratched through the concrete. It annoyed me that we didn’t know how many monsters lived down here, or if the villain had gotten wind of our arrival and ran off.

  My minor amount of experience told me that the mad doctor wouldn’t want to abandon his projects. When your life work was on the line, you acted irrationally. That played into our hands, but also meant he would be desperate when accosted. I fully expected any remaining abomination to come out of the woodwork to defend him.

  A little bloodletting sounded fun.

  In a perfectly sane and rational way, of course. My brow furrowed, and I narrowed my eyes at my companions to make sure that I was just thinking this and not speaking it out loud. Seemed fine, so far. You had to be careful with your squadmates, just in case you had conflicted views on something and needed to murder each other to hash it out. Even more awkward when they were all your brothers, but boys would be boys.

  Or corpses.

  I winced and tensed up as my brain clicked almost audibly, switching to thinking about Warlock. The kitten, not the super soldier that he was named after. Any growing animosity, twisting descent into potential violence, or hard-fought reflections from the past melted away into soft comfort. I had heard of therapy animals, but there was something almost magical about the cat.

  There was the chance the super had gotten something more than just a kitten.

  My focused glare aimed at the back of her head didn’t melt the truth away, so I gave up on that. Any imagined ire was just burning away my remaining energy, even I could see that. I opened and closed my shotgun chamber, letting flakes of dried mulch fall from the barrel. What a miserable way to spend an evening.

  Perhaps the only good thing was that my melting brain made the rest of our walk feel like it took seconds. Most of my focus was just spent trying to hold myself together. It wouldn’t do to collapse or have a breakdown mid-mission. It wasn’t even ego or how the squad view me.

  I just didn’t want to let them down.

  A few fevered seconds later, and we stopped. Map said we were well within the lair area, and in a position where we should see actual signs of our target. The wide opening in the wall on our left looked to be a good bet, based on how cautiously Roxy approached it.

  We stepped up to the edge of a large room. Massive, really, compared to most of what we’d come across so far being underground. It was also dark, any working lighting devoid in this space—aside from something dull glowing from the other side.

  “Staircase.” Roxy said, clicking on her flashlight. A relatively short one leading down to a messy floor.

  As the rest of the team switched theirs on, more of our surroundings came into view. A wide chamber, square in design. A wide pipe in the close left corner was constantly leaking a small amount of water, the noise of it louder than expected due to the couple of inches of dark water across the floor. There were cables running across the walls, avoiding the arched side exits that had been covered up with rubble.

  Straight ahead, a control panel and two large inert generators were blocked off by some thin grating. A wall of mesh that looked hastily constructed.

  “Looks like we’re on the right trail,” Roxy murmured.

  It looked like something else to me, but something had caught my tongue. Curiosity was a gag that had me eager to fuck around and find out.

  The super started off down the stairs, and we followed on. Our lights swept the closed off walkways and picked up the masses of cables running the walls. Batches of the ceiling to wet floor. The smell of blood filled my re-breather, but I was almost certain that was my imagination.

  I glanced at Belle. She looked on edge, clearly able to get a whiff of what the pages ahead were covered with. The rest of them were also on edge, but that was more for the basic tension of stepping into the unknown. My uncanny ability to predict future malady had skipped the sewer diving experience, but now… with my brain overheating… I could almost hear the rising orchestra in the background. Sharp strings prickling at the next narrative twist.

  Halfway through the wide room, and a floodlight bloomed into life, briefly blinding us.

  Behind the control panel ahead, a figure stepped out. Weapons were raised at the ready.

  Doctor Hydra.

  I had known a few with—or adjacent to—that occupation, and he was nothing like them. He was a drowned rat with mad eyes and a slimy complexion that made it look like he drank the sewage for fun. Head-canon. Which was also the two-part instruction I'd enact to end this mission, if I was still in charge.

  “Hold,” Roxy commanded, holding her arm out in front of us. “This is a trap.”

  Perhaps stating the obvious at this stage, but I understood the parts that she didn’t say. The floodlight had done more than just reveal a bunch of oddball heroes looking for trouble. Those cables running down the wall not only snaked their way across the fencing, but the ends went all the way to the floor. Like tree roots, splayed wiring reached out from the wall, submerged in the shallow water.

  “That’s right, m’little morsels,” the doctor crooned, his accent odd to my ears. Either eccentric or not a Goldarch native. “If you try to interrupt t’process you’ll be fried din-dins.”

  “Surrender yourself and let’s make this easy,” the super responded, holding back her rising anger.

  She held the same assumption as me. Hitting the grating obscuring the villain would set off the electricity and light up the room, using us as bulbs. Whether that would kill us or not was not something she was willing to find out the hard way.

  “You supers think you’re so grand,” he spat, twitching with fervor. “Hydra will show t’world t’true pinnacle of mortality! Let t’strongest survive and thrive!” The villain leaned forward and hit a button on the control panel.

  Floodlight vanished, and was immediately replaced by a rotating emergency light. Crimson, flickering between darkness and bright red as it turned in position. I looked behind us as the villain cackled stereotypically.

  Eyes in the darkness, at the top of the stairs. Maybe a dozen or so figures looming. To the right, where the large pipe had been leaking in the corner, a thudding sound echoed through the room. Then, with a growl, a soaked body fell out onto the ground. Followed by another. These creatures looked wilder than the others. More corrupted and crazed. Undesireable. Uncontrollable. Unacceptable.

  “Hold them off,” Roy said. “I think I can sort this.”

  “You alright for this?” Bell asked, putting a hand on my arm.

  What a question that was. While the team readied to head off this threat, the surrounding sounds died off. As though a DJ was turning the dial, readying up the beat drop of the next track. I felt cold, but was burning up. The red emergency light pulsed in tune with my heartbeat, and I nodded along.

  But that wasn’t acceptance.

  I blinked at the woman, who was now in full tactical gear. It was standard for the squad, of course. The name tag said Bishop, and I could feel how uncomfortable they were even with their face obscured.

  My head lolled back to the threat ahead. Only, it wasn’t monsters anymore. Not even superheroes. Fear-stricken eyes looked at the members of my squad. Civilians.

  “They said just one last fight, and then we’re done. Free.”

  I looked back at Bishop, my brow furrowed.

  [Freedom? One last mission.]

  “Yeah, Bard.” He gave me a pat on the arm. “Get it done quick, and move on.”

  Something within my mind broke, the glass cracking. A slim line that itched and twisted the reflection. Any nerves rolling around me washed away to be replaced with disgust and anger. Revulsion and revolution.

  I reached for my assault rifle but found only a pump-action shotgun as my friend.

  My vision flickered monochrome and back to blood red. Civilians turned to crazed monsters to defiant supers. My allies were shadows and Disasters and tac geared soldiers. None of it mattered, yet this was the pinnacle of everything.

  With the pulse of emotions swirling around this chamber, I flipped the switch. Whoever my enemies or allies were, the way forward was exactly the same.

  The only thing that made any sense was the sole purpose I had been created and rebuilt for. The cycle repeated, unbroken.

  I must kill.