Page 3 of Wrong Squad, Right Mess

“We didn’t get trapped inside from the regular opening. We’re much too far away from the portal for that. This is different.” He pressed his lips together for a moment, keeping his voice down to ensure our words didn’t carry. “What if this wasn’t Corsa, at least, not directly?”

“What do you mean? It wasn’t an accident. There’s no way it could have been a coincidence that a tear happens right where we are? No way.”

“It wasn’t an accident, but I don’t think it was Corsa, either. First of all, he’s a mentalist. He can’t control the dungeons or portals. There are espers who can, who can travel through them, but he never showed those skills. We assumed that Corsa had a connection with Yun, but what if it’s more complicated than that? What if The Pitt itself has a bond with her?”

“Excuse me? What sort of new-age bullshit are you spewing?”

“I’m serious. She touched the heart, so maybe she took on some of the power of the dungeon, removed it from the heart, weakened the walls of The Pitt. Maybe that forced a connection between them. If that’s the case, the tear could have targeted her because of that and we were simply caught up in it.”

I tried to consider the possibility, but it made no sense to me. “You’re talking like The Pitt is alive.”

“Nothing like that. It’s basic energy. Like energy seeks like energy. There is a reason that corruption is pulled from espers and into guides, why compatibility matters. It makes the process easier. With Yun carrying some of the energy from The Pitt’s heart, it might be as simple as the dungeon seeking that energy again. Remember when, years ago, that esper tried to bring a working heart through the portal? Instead of destroying it, he tried to retrieve it for study?”

I recalled the story, though I’d never looked deeply into it. I hadn’t cared about idiots like that. Hearts should be destroyed, not hoarded and toyed with. A few had been brought back after damage, when a dungeon on the verge of collapse all but closed around the person. The energy was virtually gone by that point, allowing its removal.

To try to take a fully powered heart was insane.

“What happened? I mean, I’m sure it was bad, but what exactly happened?”

Shear shrugged. “They didn’t come back, I can tell you that. Whether they died or were trapped, well, that I don’t think anyone knows. Still, my point is that the power within a heart is connected to the dungeon itself. Maybe this was the dungeon’s attempt to draw that stolen energy back.”

I couldn’t claim to fully understand the theory, but I couldn’t dismiss it, either. It made as much sense as anything else. Hell, Shear could have told me this all happened because of an angel jerking off and I would have taken it as a possible cause. Nothing much made sense, so why not go with the craziest ideas?

“So what does that mean? How does it change anything?”

“It doesn’t, at least not yet. I don’t know what that might mean long term, but right now, we still have to head for the portal. If we can get Yun back out of the dungeon, we can keep her safer. Besides, the last thing I want to do is run into Corsa in here…”

“Just how dangerous could he be?”

“Very. He was powerful before he became a corrupted. Now? He is likely on a level that none of us can easily handle. Add to it his years here, and I have no idea what he might be capable of. I’ve been trying to build defenses in your minds, but when we stop for a break, I should do more. It won’t hold long term, but it should offer some protection. Think of it like some sandbags against a flood. They help, but they aren’t going to stop a tsunami.”

“Lovely visual,” I countered, then rubbed my temple. I would have liked to travel faster, to get us all out of here as quickly as possible, but only Ingram and I could truly move that fast.

On top of everything else, I still didn’t much trust the Guild, and it wasn’t like I could go grab help. Our only choice was to make our way out on our own, to try to keep Yun alive for all of it, hope the dungeon didn’t kill us, and avoid the rampaging corrupted who was after us.

So, yeah, pretty much just a normal day for us, right?

Life really was fucking weird…

Chapter Three

Shear

They aren’t strong enough. No matter what I did, the mental blocks weren’t nearly enough. I knew that, but I couldn’t seem to make them any stronger.

To be fair, they would have easily protected any of us against a regular enemy. This sort of mental barrier would have made it so even a talented S-Rank mentalist couldn’t gain a foothold.

The problem was that we were facing something beyond that, beyond me, beyond anything we’d handled before.

It left me standing outside of the group, near what appeared to be a shed.

Part of the real world appeared inside dungeons, though never so much. It seemed The Pitt had replicated far more than usual. I had to think that was another side effect of the strange dungeon, of what Yun had done to the heart. Perhaps it couldn’t divide the space as neatly as usual.

I also had no idea exactly where we were. The Pitt would appear in Southern California, or possibly into Arizona or Nevada, but since we’d ended up inside it, we didn’t know where it had opened. I had to guess it was a less populated area, since I hadn’t run across too many buildings and had seen no civilians.

At least, no living ones.

Still, I couldn’t shake the sense I wasn’t doing enough.