The author finally shows his head again in this story! Yeah, I've been working a lot on The Reploids of the Late Master Thomas. :/
Hiroto pushed through some of the brush that surrounded Neo Arcadia, the two Yua's, Alpha, Haruto, and Thor closely following. They pushed through, not uttering a word.
The thing on Hiroto's mind was whether he would be able to protect his team from what had invaded Neo Arcadia. He wasn't sure if the things were following them or not but it was best to be safe.
"When's Omega going to get back?" 1st Yua asked.
"Don't know," Hiroto replied. "When he gets back, he'll be in for a surprise."
"What if the things are still there?" Thor asked.
"He can fight them. He is Omega, after all," Hiroto said.
"We should at least tell him where we went," 2nd Yua said.
"I don't want to risk any of you getting caught," Hiroto said.
"Recon risks getting caught since he's a scout," Alpha pointed out.
Hiroto sighed. "That's the job of a scout! To scout out–" He crashed through some underbrush and fell into a deep hole where darkness ruled.
"Hiroto!" Yua yelled, grabbing the edge.
The hole seemed to go on forever. Hiroto's mind raced. How could he protect Yua if she was dead? What about Alpha? What if he was just pretending?
He crashed into some stone, making his whole body cry out in pain. He tried to get back up but couldn't get past the pain.
"Yua! I'm alive, but I can't move," he called back up.
"We're coming, Hiroto!" Yua yelled. "Odin's making a rope!"
Hiroto looked around while he waited for Odin. It was more than just a hole. It was a cavern, filled with tunnels.
"Hey Odin!" Hiroto called out.
Odin looked over worriedly into the hole. "Yeah, Hiroto?"
"Just cast a healing spell! This is a cavern! I kinda want to explore this place."
Odin looked at the rest of the Assassins. "No, Hiroto. We're getting you out of there. I'm building the rope."
"Odiiiinnn," Hiroto said sternly, glaring at him.
Odin groaned. Sometimes it was useless to argue with Hiroto. "Fine. I'll finish the rope, we'll all go down there, I'll heal you, and we can explore for half an hour."
"Deal," Hiroto agreed.
The rope was soon made and the Assassins made their way down and waited for five minutes as Odin went through the motions of casting a spell. He finished the spell with a flourish and picked Hiroto up. Hiroto flinched, expecting the pain to come, but relaxed when it didn't.
"Remember. Thirty minutes," Hiroto reminded.
"Thirty," Odin confirmed.
They wandered through the various caverns, most of them empty except for some jewels here and there, fungi being abundant in the really damp parts.
Hiroto led them and his foot squished into something.
"Careful. It's really damp right here," he warned.
Odin stepped on it and looked down. His eyes widened. "This is not ground."
The thing that they were stepping on suddenly disappeared and reappeared adjacent to Hiroto. It was a little more than twice the height of Thor and lacked eyes, its body somewhat resembling a slug. Two tentacles formed its arms with an extra one on its back, a huge mouth covering most of its head with protrusions that were like mouth guards. It dove straight at Hiroto, but Hiroto just stood there.
"Hiroto!" Recon yelled, pushing Hiroto away and narrowly dodging the creature's mouth.
"Balhannoth!" Odin yelled, casting spells that burned the creatures' green flesh. "If it disappears, run like crazy!"
The creature straightened after diving for Hiroto and made a strange growl. Recon pulled out his mobile plasma launcher and fired at it. It disappeared seconds before the hit impacted.
"Run!" Odin yelled.
"I can get it!" Recon yelled back as the others scattered, both of the Yua's form starting to be draped in black.
"No! Recon!" Odin yelled, running towards Recon as the Balhannoth reappeared next to Recon, stunning him and it grabbed him with its tentacle, dragging him close to its gaping maw. Recon pulled his trigger finger, but found that he had dropped his weapon. Now Yua was running up the Balhannoth's flesh with super speed, kicking at it with all her might. Hiroto slashed at it and narrowly avoided being crushed by its tentacle. He was thrown back by the force and his saber flew out of his hand. Thor's muscles were bulging as he hit the monster as much as he could but nothing seemed to be able to stop Recon from coming closer to the creature's mouth.
"Thor!" Recon yelled. "Throw my gun up towards me as I get stuffed in its mouth!"
"Right!" Thor yelled back, grabbing the gun and readied himself to throw it.
The creature seemed to sense Thor grabbing the gun and flicked him away with one of its tentacles and teleported away. Hiroto was up and running towards the gun. The creature shifted its head in his direction and shrieked, Recon inches from its mouth.
"I'm out of spells!" Odin yelled.
The creature teleported over to Hiroto, stunning him again and grabbing him with its other tentacle. Yua dashed towards the gun, faster than the creature could react, but she was limping after crashing to the ground when the creature had teleported away from her assault.
"Please," she whispered as she grabbed the gun. "Don't die on me now, Recon and Hiroto."
Recon was placed in the creature's mouth and Hiroto was soon to follow. She didn't have the strength to throw it upwards so she ran up its body and onto its shoulder. It made a slight twitch and Yua threw the gun towards its mouth. Its mouth slammed shut, seconds after the gun had landed inside, and it teleported away in front of where Odin was running.
"Recon! Fire!" Yua shouted as she fell again.
Multiple blasts fired and Balhannoth groaned. It toppled and fell, Hiroto clutched tightly in its grasp. Haruto ran over to Hiroto and tried to force the creature's tentacles open.
"Thor! Help me!" Haruto pleaded. Thor lumbered over and slowly wrenched its tentacle open, releasing Hiroto as he gasped for air.
"Recon?" Yua asked, stepping closer.
Every step was painful, making tears roll down her cheeks. Thor wasn't looking too good either. Haruto had some damage, but wasn't too bad. What had happened to Alpha? Yua looked around and saw Alpha knocked out cold.
"He's coming!" Hiroto exclaimed happily and the teeth of the creature blew out and Recon crawled out, looking the worse for wear.
"This isn't over yet," Odin said grimly.
Hiroto looked around. "Alpha!" he yelled and started to run over to Alpha but was stopped by Odin.
"Don't move a muscle," Odin warned quietly. "There's more people here."
Before anyone could ask why, the cavern slowly filled with voices speaking in a strange language, if it was a language at all.
"What are they?" Haruto asked.
"Drow. Lots of them," Odin said.
"What're they saying?" Hiroto asked as Recon pulled up his gun.
"I haven't learned all of the Deep Speech, but something about 'slaves'," Odin said. "Don't resist. If you do, you may be killed in a cruel way. Drow are known for this. Put your weapons down. You'll feel a prick from their needles, I'm guessing, since they knocked out Alpha."
"What did they do?" Yua asked.
"It's a special poison they make. It knocks out foes instead of killing them. Slaves are worthless dead. We can regroup after we get captured. They sell their slaves at an auction to the highest bidder."
Yua looked around. The forms were becoming more distinct. Tall, dark humanoids with pointy ears. They carried crossbows tipped with a pointy end. It wasn't barbed, so that confirmed the desire that they had to make them into slaves, if there really was poison on the tips. A few of them lifted their crossbows and fired, the crossbow bolts sinking into the Assassins skin. Within seconds, they were feeling the effects of the poison and passed out, Odin casting a spell in their last conscious seconds to repair Yua's leg.
