The man in the yellow tracksuit towered over me. Lightning crackled over his hands as he stepped forward.

  [Evaluator: You'd better do something about this before he gives you a 50,000 volt enema.]

  [Connor: Shit.]

  [Connor: He dropped my mace before we got pulled through, and I don't have any attack skills.]

  [Evaluator: Enema it is, then.]

  He was right. I couldn't take Yacksuit in a purely physical fight, and that's before you account for his crazy lightning powers.

  [HP 6/65 SP 150/150]

  And I'd barely had enough time to regenerate health. I was left with two choices: The legendary techniques I had learned from a lifetime of watching anime. First, the legendary Joestar secret technique!

  I turned and ran down the tunnel at full tilt.

  "Hey, come back here!" Yacksuit shouted "You're not getting away from me!"

  I rounded the corner and found two more tunnels. Not only that, neither of them was marked with chalk. If the others had come this way, they should have at least done that. Unless...

  A lightning-clad fist flew past me. "Pay attention!" I was barely able to get out of the way in time. Running wouldn't work, I'd have to use the secret technique I learned from Naruto instead.

  "Whoa, hold it, Time out!" I said back, holding up my hands in an X pattern. "Look around for a second."

  "What am I gonna see besides what's left of you?"

  "I dunno, only the fact that we're stranded here." He looked at me with something besides anger for the first time. "There's no return stairwell to the first level, and my friends came through just moments before we did. We should have passed through right on top of them. But there's no sign of anyone but us."

  "A maze level?" Yacksuit blinked at me as the electricity on his fists faded out. "You mean we're all by ourselves down here?"

  "Looks like it. No point in killing each other down here just for the ants to get the survivor."

  He scoffed and nodded.

  See, sometimes Dungeons generated these Maze Levels to be extra annoying. Once you were in one, you couldn't get out until you found the stairwell down. You'd be dropped down into the level at random with whoever you entered the stairwell with, which meant Max, Caroline, and Harper were all together somewhere, Yacksuit and I got stuck together, and if his boss and friends came through, they'd be somewhere else entirely.

  "So," He looked me over one more time "You want me to think our best bet is to go at this together? What's to stop you from linking up with your group the first chance you get and having that cute girlfriend of yours put an arrow in my neck."

  "First of all, she's not my girlfriend. Second of all, nothing. Just like nothing is stopping you from killing me if we find your friends first."

  "Nothing is stopping me from killing you now, other than the fact that Nick wants you alive. And even then, you're on thin ice."

  "Okay, find that idea disturbing, gonna definitely unpack that later. Fine, nothing is stopping you from handing me off to your weird, creepy boss if we come across your friends first."

  I really didn't want to think about

  We stood for several uncomfortable seconds while he stared at me. "You lost your weapon."

  "Yeah. You don't happen to have a back up, do-" He threw something at me. I caught it easily and definitely didn't almost drop it pointy end first directly on my foot, which is good because it turned out to be a small knife.

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  "Can you handle that, kid?" He grinned at me.

  It looked like a simple pocket knife, with maybe three inches of blade.

  [HP 13/65 SP 150/150]

  It would still be a terrible idea to try and fight him. I barely had any health, and he wouldn't give me a weapon if he couldn't still take me even with it.

  [Evaluator: Huh. I was not expecting you to live through that.]

  [Connor: Talk-no-Jutsu for the win.]

  [Evaluator: You are the lamest wannabe hero I've ever worked with.]

  [Connor: Hey, how many have you worked with, anyway?]

  [Evaluator: I don't remember exactly. Somewhere between eight and seventeen billion, two hundred forty six million one thousand and six.]

  I turned back to Yacksuit. "So, we've got two paths, do you want to-" He walked right past me down the left path. "Okay, or just ignore me, cool."

  "Don't talk. I'm one of the star hunters of the Tremor Guild. What are you, level 5?"

  "...two." I sighed.

  "That's what I thought. Stay quiet, follow me, and try not to get killed by ants. Keeping you alive isn't my job so stay alert."

  "Keeping you alive isn't my job" I muttered under my breath. "What level do you think you are, anyway, Yacksuit."

  He stopped dead. "What the fuck did you just call me?"

  "Huh? Oh, Yacksuit. You know, short for yellow tracksuit. I've been calling you that in my head this whole time."

  "My name is Spark-Dog!" Shouted Yacksuit "If I hear you call me Yacksuit one more time I'm bringing out my Dragon again."

  [Evaluator: Sounds like a good way to catch an indecent exposure charge.]

  [Connor: Right? Did he just not hear himself?]

  "I said stay alert. What is that thing you do where you stare off into space like that?"

  [Evaluator: Oh man, buuuuusted.]

  "I.. have ADHD." Probably not a cool thing to lie about, but I panicked. Also with my personality, who knows, it wouldn't surprise me if I did have it.

  "Huh." He looked at me funny. "Anyway, let's keep going. There's a high mana signature this way. This floor doesn't have a boss, but if this much mana is gathered in one place, it probably means there's a Stairwell Guardian."

  [Evaluator: Ooo, he can sense mana. That's quite a skill.]

  [Connor: Can I learn to do that too?]

  [Evaluator: Get a magic-type skill and we'll talk. You need at least a little mana to sense other mana, but you don't unlock mana until you have a skill that uses it.]

  [Connor: Huh, so I'm guessing the lightning powers count then?]

  [Evaluator: Seems likely. I can't see all his details the way I do yours, but...]

  [Connor: Wait, you can see ALL my details?]

  [Evaluator: Yes. I can see you all the time too. ALL the time.]

  [Connor: Oh no.]

  [Evaluator: Oh yeeeeees.]

  I waved the screen away and looked around the tunnel. We'd come to a wide, circular chamber with a handful of other connecting passages.

  "Hey kid, when we step out there whatever is here is gonna attack, so try to be careful. I can handle myself, but I'm not a tank, so there's not much I can do if it attacks you."

  "What's got you acting so nice all of a sudden?"

  He glanced at me, then looked away suddenly. "You just started to remind me of someone, that's all. Maybe you're not so bad."

  "Yeah? Huh."

  Spark-Dog stepped into the circular room. "Let's do this thing."

  A wall crashed down, and a blazing red ant with huge, demonic horns crashed into the tunnel.