Chapter X: Underground


AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Oh shoot, I completely forgot about this! I've no idea why I didn't put this up yesterday with Firewatch, but I suspect I was too drunk to reply to reviews and I refuse to update without replying to y'all. Just feels hella rude. Anyway, sorry about that. Here ya go.

So, reading this over, this chapter comes off as kind of a menagerie showcase of the weird and wonderful monsters I've added to my little world. And, well, it partly is. Mostly, it's just me wanting to get Hunter!Max out of the underground and onto the surface without needing three chapters worth of flashbacks. If you don't like this one, that's okay, it's just a necessary evil to get the past story to where I need it to be. So, yeah. Snippets of an Underground Journey to the surface. Enjoy.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

Gigi:

Boom. Updated. :)

tylerbamafan34:

Yeah. It's an idea I had while playing Love is Strange. Rachel is used to people expecting her to be things, so she tries to play the character and games they want. Max doesn't really play games or expect anything, so she's kind of thrown off base. I'm trying to, like, turn her expectations of people's expectations against her, if that makes sense?

MaxNeverMaxine:

You certainly are! Very, very slowly... :D And hey, maybe you'll find out soon. Probably not. But maybe! :)

And yup, she certainly is. Not sure if I'm gonna let that go anywhere, but it's definitely not gonna stop Rachel from trying. And I'm glad to hear it, as I say in pretty much every AN, Rachel is hella hard to write.

Guest:

Well. If you enjoyed the Hunter flashback parts of the last chapter, let's see what you think of a WHOLE CHAPTER of Hunter Flashbacks. :)

Aaron Leach:

Thanks Aaron. Glad to see you're still reading.

Momijifan Low-ki:

Not quite everything... ;) But yeah, Rachel is being a lot less subtle than she thinks right now.

And hey, they're like £10 on Ebay. So, that's about 12-13 dollars.


Something is close enough to touch her.

Something is close enough to kill her!

The Hunter jolts back to awareness, drawing her blade and launching back into a roll. She landed on her feet and surveyed the small chamber she and the panther had slept in the night before.

There's... nothing?

The Hunter frowns, concentrates for just a moment. Her head whirls. There it is again! A slight, ever so faint pat-pat-pat-thuk of feet on stone. Something was definitely moving around her, but she couldn't see anything.

She took two experimental steps forward, swiping her sword through the air. Nothing. She catches a glimpse of something at the entry to her home. A large beast, perhaps nine feet long. It was catlike, similar in shape to the panther, except for a pair of long tentacles sprouting from its shoulders.

The Hunter recognised it instantly.

Dirlagraun! These creatures were an uncommon sight in these caves. In fact, she had only ever fought one before, in one of the many tests she'd been put through back in the lab.

They had a peculiar ability to bend the light around them, disguising their location. The illusion was limited to their immediate vicinity, so the creature was within five or six feet.

She closed her eyes and focused her hearing, listening for the telltale pat-pat-pat-thuk of it walking around. After a few moments, she manages to narrow it down. Left, or right. The sound echoes around the tiny chamber, but she was certain. Left, or right.

pat-pat-pat-thuk-pat-pat-pat-

The Hunter whirled, blade slicing in a wide arc through the air to her right. Noth- Something hits her side, knocking her off her feet. She swipes frantically, grinning almost maniacally when she feels her sword cut through something.

A tentacle falls to the floor.

The weight jumps back, narrowly dodging a second attack. The Hunter curses and climbs to her feet. A jolt of pain lances through her chest, making her wince. Damned creature. She swipes in its direction, grinning again when she hears it squeal suddenly. She jabs forward, feeling the slight resistance of her sword biting into flesh at it slid home into the thing's chest. With a grunt, she slid the thing off her sword with her foot.

She sagged, feeling the ache in her muscles.

Left.

It was to her left.

Damn it.


The Hunter and the Panther both crouched inside a recess in the wall of the wide tunnel they had been travelling down. The glow ahead worried her. In the caverns, light could be indicators of both danger and safety. But they had no other option. The last alternate route was five miles back.

The Hunter took a deep breath and turned to the Panther. "Danger ahead. Be ready." The panther mrowled and nodded.

The next cavern was... beautiful. Huge crystals of pure white mineral towered above the Hunter and her pet. They jutted out from the floor, walls and ceiling in all directions, forming an intricate lattice through the cavern. After a moment of appreciation, the Hunter scanned the room. She could see no exits and no obvious path through. She carefully planned her next few movements, using long hours of training to predict angles needed and pressure required.

Her plans complete, she sheaths her sword, carefully securing it to her side. She takes a deep breath in and runs forward. She flips over the first crystal, slides under a second and narrowly avoids slamming into the third, flailing as she falls to her left. She lands in a roll, coming up onto her feet. There was a crystal lying straight across her path, perhaps six feet thick.

She looks behind her and to each side. Blocked in all directions.

The Hunter closes her eyes, then moves once more. She sprints forward, leaping and planting both feet onto a crystal. She pushes off and flips, landing on another crystal and immediately pushing off again. When both feet land on a level, horizontal surface the Hunter opens her eyes to see the Panther standing next to her on a huge horizontal crystal.

She scans the room again, this time noting a tunnel around thirty feet in front, ten feet above above them and another ten feet up to their left. The walls underneath them were almost sheer rock, with no way for her, or the panther, to climb up.

After a moment of thought, she pulled her sword and tested it against a crystal. It took a significant effort, but she managed to carve out a series of small footholds, allowing her to climb up to a higher horizontal crystal. Now at a better angle, she looked over to the exit tunnels once more.

The Panther jumped up from the lower level, landing neatly on the crystal beside her. She looked down at the panther. "Hey, girl. You think we can make that?"

The panther looked over at the tunnel, then back at her. She mrowled. The Hunter grinned. Of course. Their hard experiences in the darkness had given them a shared confidence. She took a deep breath in, then threw herself from the crystal, windmilling her arms and legs to help continue her momentum.

She looked down and, for a heart-wrenching moment, wondered if she wouldn't make it. If this would be it.

That's when she heard the deep, echoing rumble from behind her. The crystal she had been standing on had crumbled, slamming into the others around it. The bottom dropped out of her stomach as the crystals dropped like dominoes around her. The panther was hopping across the shards as they fell, nimbly keeping up with The Hunter's path.

She crashed into the side of the wall, barely hanging on to the edge of the entrance with her fingertips. As she screamed with the effort of clinging on to the sheer cliff, something dark and fast flew over her head into the corridor above. She loses grip with one hand and the Hunter's instincts wail with alarm.

She pulls herself up and rolls onto the floor of the tunnel, looking up into the Panther's concerned face as she gasps for air.

She laughs for a few delighted seconds. She survived! When the adrenaline-fueled laughter trails off, she curses. The noise will have carried for miles in the cold, still air of the caverns. She gets to her feet and strokes the panther, then turns and hurries off into the caverns. By the time any creatures drawn by the noise arrive, The Hunter and her panther were long gone.


The chamber was high and wide, its ceiling high above them and a lake of green-glowing, foul-smelling liquid bubbling and hissing twenty feet below. Dozens of spindly, interconnected walkways crisscrossed around the cavern, most leading to a series of tunnels heading off in every direction.

The Hunter peered over the edge, thinking on the strange liquid below them. After a few moments, she used her sword to hack a chunk of stone from the wall and tossed it into the pool. The liquid hissed loudly where the rock hit, bubbling and spitting and eating away at the stone before it even drops from sight.

Acid. Thrice-damned Acid.

She glanced upwards searchingly, looking for the telltale marks of run-off pipes. They were scattered throughout the region, pumping out whatever waste the labs above needed to get rid of. She found them, forty feet above. Luckily, the pipes were closed, leaving her free to navigate without further obstacles being placed in her way.

After a glance at the map, she picked an exit that should lead towards her destination. The map was inexact and the caverns were labyrinthine at times, but she'd lived in them long enough to develop certain navigational instincts. All of them told her that it was the right way.

She started out onto the walkway, walking a few steps ahead of the panther. The walkway held under her weight, but The Hunter saw no sense in taking chances. She stepped as lightly as she could across the walkways, carefully manoeuvring around the weaker-appearing, slightly crumbling sections as they made their way together towards the tunnels on the opposite side of the cavern. They had made it to the cavern's centre without issue when they heard a strange chattering sound.

The Hunter stops, sliding her sword out of its sheath on pure instinct, scanning the cavern around her for the source of the noise.

A tall, lithe creature steps out from one of the many side-passages. It was shaped like a human mixed with a bird. It had jet-black feathered skin and a raven's head. Both of its arms ended in hooked claws and both of its legs ended in black three-toed crows feet. A second creature stepped out behind it, then another, and another.

As the crowd grew, the chattering became louder and clearer. They were chanting over and over. "Kill. Kill. Kill." The horde began to disperse out onto the walkways, walking at first, but occasionally breaking into hurried trots, their anticipation clear.

The Hunter spared a glance behind her. The bird-men were there too. In minutes, she and the panther were completely encircled by chanting bird-men.

None of her tests had covered these... creatures. So, she'd have to resort to the basic solution. The Hunter raised her sword. The spindly walkways were not an ideal place for battle, but she had no hope of escaping without a fight.

With a bloodcurdling shriek, the bird-men rushed her, never breaking the rhythm of the chant "Kill. Kill. Kill."

The Hunter waited patiently for them to enter her range. The bird-men were happy to oblige, charging her without fear or concern for self-preservation. The chant had grown to a shout, the repetitive beat of their words echoing off the walls. As the Hunter's blade moved, those words became screams.

In seconds, three bird-men had died to the Hunter's blade as she pressed forward into the crowd. The panther stayed close to her, batting those she missed into the acid below. The hunter bent and cut and swiped her way through, calmly and gradually working her way forward.

As she closed on the exit, the hunter became aware of something. The birdmen were standing back, hesitation where once was suicidal aggression. She was missing something. These creatures had something planned.

She let her arms move of their own accord, flying through the familiar patterns, and cast out her senses.

She dodged the rock falling down above her only seconds before it crashed into the walkway, shattering it into pieces as rock, walkway and a dozen birdmen fell down into the acid pool. She landed in a roll and came up swinging, killing two birdmen before she'd even regained her feet.

She looked up and saw another three rocks fall, each with a birdman clinging to it.

The panther had ended up on another pathway thirty feet away. Her momentum had carried her straight into a pack of birdmen, bowling two of them right off the walkway. She then engaged the group, swiping at them with her claws and biting with her teeth. Unfortunately, this group was too much for her, and she quickly disappeared under the sheer mass of bodies.

When The Hunter saw the panther fall, her anger increased tenfold. How dare these creatures harm her friend? With a loud scream of rage that echoed more than any shriek the birdmen had let out thus far, she threw herself into the crowd, pushing and cutting and stabbing her way to where she saw the panther fall.

She turned with a snarl and kicked the birdman off the walkway. Then, she started forward again, cutting her way through the horde. The horde never let up their assault. Whatever these creatures were, they clearly couldn't learn from their mistakes. The Hunter dispatched them with ease.

She reached the panther in minutes and, seeing her covered with cuts and bites, made a split second decision. She hoisted the panther up with one hand, carrying her over her shoulder, then renewed her push towards the exit.

The panther did what she could, but it was ultimately unnecessary as the Hunter cut her way to the exit, running off into the tunnels with the cries and screams of the birdmen echoing behind them.


After they'd gotten far enough from the birdmen's cavern, the Hunter stopped, finding a smaller closed-off side passage to hide in. Gently, she placed the panther on the ground and began to check over her wounds. They were small, but many, and would need to be treated. The Hunter was aware of certain herbs growing in the region which would be useful, but she couldn't keep the panther safe while looking for them.

So, ensuring the entrance to the panther's tunnel was well-hidden, she set out into the surrounding caverns to search for the needed herbs.

When she heard the echoing clack-clack sound, she immediately froze. This was another sound she recognised. She didn't know this one's name, but she knew it was dangerous. She would need to eliminate the threat before she could return to the search.

With her heightened senses, it did not take her long to find the noise's source.

A huge form stood at the edge of a cavern, tapping its great claws against a rock. Every few taps, its mandibles clattered, creaking the distinctive clacking.

She took a moment to examine the familiar creature. It was easily double her height and twice her size. In place of humanoid legs, it had four large, segmented scorpion legs. Those four legs were matched to four huge arms, the lower two of which were tipped with large claws. The creature's entire body was covered in a serious of armoured chitin plates, rendering it a tough foe indeed. According to her lessons, the creature had a single weakness, a single gap in the armour on the back of its neck.

She crept along the outer walls of the cavern, taking care to remain as quiet as possible. The creature was distracted by its game, so that would be her chance to strike. If it noticed her, dispatching it would be much harder.

A sudden shriek pierced the air, and The Hunter immediately backed away from the creature as it turned. For a second, she thought it'd seen her, but the turn continued past her until the creature was facing the cavern exit.

A dozen green and grey-skinned humanoids charged in, shrieking like a bath full of cats, all armed with a mish-mash of black-stone weapons. The Hunter had seen these beings before as well. They were offshoots, failed versions of herself that the Foundation had discarded when they lost their usefulness.

They were, well, insane. The processes the Foundation had put them through had snapped their minds, leaving them driven by the primitive instincts of animals. These ones looked... hungry.

They immediately swarmed the clawed-creature, fanning out and surrounding it in seconds. They hurled themselves at the creature, swinging and howling, without thought. Apparently, The Hunter concluded, they lack the instinct for self-preservation.

She sat back and watched the fight. The offshoots fought with wide, uncontrolled swings of their roughly-made weapons. The claw-creature, surprisingly, fought with a precision even The Hunter admired. It darted and shifted and blocked every attack, using the very minimum amount of force and movement needed.

The Hunter frowned. Why wasn't it attacking?

The one she'd been pitted against had fought with strength and speed, and a distinct lack of the dexterity this one was demonstrating. Maybe her training had been less thorough than she had believed.

It was a worrying thought.

But there was no time for that now, she had to remain vigilant. When the fight ended, she could pick off the weakened victor.

She watched as one of the offshoots, now one of only seven remaining, managed to duck under a swung claw and dart forward, jabbing its sword into the claw-creature's gut. Surprisingly, it pierced the carapace and bit into flesh. The claw-creature screamed, a loud, piercing wail of pain, and pulled back. The sword snapped, leaving half of its length still embedded inside it. The creature kicked out and sent the offending offshoot flying into a wall, where it bounced off with a satisfying crack and flopped down onto the floor, lifeless.

The others didn't spare a glance for their fallen comrade, pressing their attack harder in response. The creature seemed to be tiring, unable to keep up its defence as blades slashed and cut into it.

She sat in the darkness, waiting patiently for the fight to end. It was the law of the caves. Only the strongest survive.

The claw-creature took out another two offshoots, but it was getting hammered by the others. They managed to push it back, until its back was against a wall and they were surrounding it.

They tore into it with their blades until the carapace broke, cracking in long jagged lines across its body. When the claw-creature fell and moved no more, they dropped their weapons and dived forward, pulling open the cracks further until they could feast.

When they were all distracted and disarmed, the Hunter rose from her hiding place. She stalked forward, her footsteps silent, and raised her sword.

Entirely focused on their meal, the offshoots never saw her coming. When she left the cavern, none inside were left alive.

The law of the caves. Only the strongest survive.

She found the herbs after a short search, then returned to her injured friend. With these herbs, the panther would heal quickly, and they could resume their journey once more.


The cavern was dominated by a peculiar structure hung from the ceiling by several cables. The Hunter stood on the floor of the cavern below it, examining the building. It looked to be a series of cubes attached together to form the greater structure. Every surface was unbroken and smooth, and all of it was the same metallic-grey colour, except for a single logo painted onto the side.

The Hunter hadn't seen these herself, but her instructors had mentioned them. The Foundation sent out mobile labs to the caverns. This appeared to be one of them, which would mean... She paced around the cavern, looking for the telltale glow of the laboratory door. She found it quickly, a painfully-bright orange square dominating most of one side on the central cube. The square of light was a forcefield, utterly impenetrable except for those in possession of the Foundation's keys.

The Hunter did not have one, and she had no wish to tangle with the occupants of the lab. They could tell the Hound and his Mistress where to find her. So, she turned and stalked out of the cavern, the panther at her heels.


The tunnel suddenly opens wide into a huge cavern. The air gets markedly colder as they move further into it. In front of them lies a vast field of small, white-yellow stones and shards, intermixed with larger grey boulders. The two stare out over it, but neither of them could see the other side.

On a hunch, The Hunter leans down and picks up one of the white-yellow stones.

Except, they weren't stones.

This entire field was filled with bone.

The shards are soft, rounded and ancient. The pit had been there long enough that any indications of whatever these bones came from had been eroded away long before. The Hunter swears softly. She had no idea how deep, or how far this bone pool went.

She kneels at the edge and stares out over it, looking for a route. The walls were a possibility, but an unlikely one. She'd be reliant on finding good handholds, leaving her helpless if there were none.

Out the corner of her eye, she noticed something in the field. A chain of smallish shapes, sticking up out of the pit. She followed the path along with her eyes, mapping out routes back to her side. Unfortunately, the shapes stopped further out from her side than she could jump.

She'd have to go into the pool.

She took a moment to take a breath, then The Hunter simply waded in. Her feet couldn't touch the bottom, but she found herself able to stay near the surface. Sinking into the pit would be a risk, but she had to take it. Going back was not an option.

She pushed forward, listening carefully for any sign of opposition. The panther paddled along next to her, looking very, very uncomfortable. If she hadn't been concentrating on staying up, she might've laughed.

The Panther beat her to the first stone, climbing desperately up onto it. When she climbed up, she found it wasn't a rock. It was a wall, ancient and broken. Something had been built in this cavern, before the bones filled it.

She was pondering what these buildings could have been when The Hunter caught a sound. It was light, only faint vibrations, but it was definitely there. Could it be something on the other side? Was she walking into further danger? Or was it...

A wide section of the pit exploded upwards, sending shards everywhere and pelting the Hunter and the panther with many of them, as something burst out of the pit beside the two companions with a feral scream.

The thing, whatever it was, looked like a person that had been grafted together with an octopus. A short pair of malnourished-looking legs dangled uselessly as the creature's body was held aloft by two huge tentacles that burrowed back into the pit. Two more tentacles extended from its shoulders like a scorpion's tail.

The Hunter dodged sideways just as one of those tentacles darted out, slamming into the spot on the wall where she had been seconds before.

She swore darkly, then made to draw her sword. This was a terrible place to do battle, but she was unlikely to be able to get anywhere better. She held the blade out in front of her, waiting for the creature to attack again. It was happy to oblige, slamming its tentacles down again.

She quickly dodged left, then hacked at one of the tentacles, eliciting another feral scream from the creature. It swept the tentacle along the wall towards her then, when that missed her, pushed out from the pit in a blur of motion almost too fast to be seen. The tentacles smoothed out behind it, giving it an aerodynamic shape as it dived over the wall and disappeared into the pit on the other side.

The entire cavern was quiet for a few seconds, until another scream sounded and the creature burst out again, swiping at The Hunter with its tentacles.

She let the instincts of The Hunter take over fully, leaping forward and onto a tentacle, running along it towards the creature's body. The creature flailed and she fell, barely managing to catch herself on one of the sharp barbs that lined the inside of the tentacle's length, legs dangling below her as she hung from the tooth. It cut into her hand, but her grip never wavered.

The creature's head immediately flicked in her direction, the two milky-white orbs of its eyes rotating wildly in two different directions as it swiped another tentacle at her. Its mouth opened, jaw spreading in two insect mandible-like segments as it let out another scream.

The Hunter saw it coming and dodged, twisting her entire body around through the air, her flip arcing her above the tentacle. At the apex of her arc, she twisted again and fell straight down onto the tentacle, straddling it like a horse. The creature screamed again, then tried to scrape her off. She jumped to her feet and ran up the tentacle she was standing on, instincts driving her feet to continue and stay ahead of the other tentacles now coming in at her from multiple directions.

When she reached the thing's shoulder she swiped at the flickering and fast-moving head, eliciting a scream and a gout of blood that burst from where she struck, but she never stopped, just kept running past and down the other tentacle, flipping off it and onto another standing wall. When she landed, she spun to face the creature once again.

The thing's tiny body was covered in blood, and where once was two, now only one mandible remained. Both eyes were still flickering about wildly as it screamed, desperately searching for her.

She took a quick glance around the cavern, looking for any path available to her. This wall was too small to make a good position for fighting. Her mind linked the standing walls and stones, mapping out routes and diversions, anything she could use to get somewhere better.

There was nothing in jumping range. She'd have to go back into the pit, albeit only for a short time. But the minute she moved into it, the creature would hear her and strike. She caught sight of the panther on the opposite side of the creature, crouched and coiled, ready to pounce. She nodded, and the panther leaped onto the creature, clawing at the joint where one tentacle was connected to the main body.

The creature screamed, flailing desperately to get the panther off. This was her chance. She dove off the wall and took off at a run. There was enough surface tension in the bones for her to make it to the next wall. As soon as her feet were down on solid ground, the panther released from the creature and pushed off it, landing easily on a larger stalagmite.

The creature whirled and struck out with a tentacle, knocking the panther off the stalagmite onto the bone. When the Hunter's thrown blade pierced its shoulder and she grabbed hold of it, pulling herself up onto its shoulders, the second attack it was attempting on the panther was forgotten in favour of removing her from its back. It took a swipe at her with both upper tentacles. They came in at her like the blades of a pair of scissors, trying to peel her off its back.

As she twisted and wrenched the blade about in the now-gaping wound, one of the tentacles fell, ripped straight off the body. The other continued and the Hunter didn't move quickly enough to avoid it. She was knocked off the monster and onto the bone, like the panther. When she landed, she landed hard and all the air blew out of her, keeping her down for a few seconds. The panther leapt from her position at the thing's back again, swiping with its claws. She missed and flew past, but it was enough of a distraction to buy the Hunter the time she needed.

Recovering quickly, she grinned up at the monstrosity, now with only three tentacles. It snarls and flails wildly with its other tentacle, batting her across the bones until she collides with a stalagmite, a sharp pain flashing up her spine. She jumps up onto her feet, and clambers up the stalagmite. The thing, seeing what she's trying to do, pulls its tentacles in again and moves to leap over her. Seeing it coming, she thrusts her sword up in the air as the thing hits its apex, grinning when it squeals in agony and disappears under the bone again.

When it reappears, she gets a good luck at the damage she's done to it. The throat of the small, suspended body was ripped wide open, its flesh hanging like a half-zipped jacket, revealing rows upon rows of teeth lining the inside of the throat. It snarls and the teeth quiver.

She draws her sword and slashes in the air, looking to keep the thing distracted as she spots the panther climbing up onto a broken wall behind it.

The panther snarls and the creature's head snaps back with a sickening crack, chittering for a second, then screaming as the panther leaps. The remaining shoulder tentacle lashes out, catching the panther in mid-air. She extends her claws and latches on as the monstrosity shakes the tentacle about, trying to dislodge her.

Seeing an opening, the Hunter throws her sword again, leaping and grabbing hold as it slides in to flesh. The skin on this side must have been weaker than the other, as she feels the blade start to tear through skin and she falls down onto the bone pit, sword now raised up toward the creature.

She drops down harder than before, and her feet sink a few inches into the pit. Immediately, she tries to pull them out, but... the bones seem to be pulling back, pulling her down into them. She wrenches her feet up and runs for a wall, anything to get away from the bones.

She pushes off the ground and leaps, climbing up the wall as fast as she could. The Hunter did not like to be restrained, not even for a second. She... I... Never again. Never, ever again.

A scream draws her attention behind her. This one wasn't from the creature, but from the Panther as the creature slammed the tentacle she was clinging on to into a wall, knocking her from it. The panther landed on the wall with a screeching howl of pain.

The Hunter saw red. Her instincts, her drive for survival, they all fall aside, replaced by burning rage. She charges forward with a scream of her own, leaping off the end of her wall and bringing her sword down in a shattering arc onto and through the thing's shoulder. It cuts through the flesh like butter, opening up most of the creature's torso, down to just above it's stomach. Were the Hunter thinking at all, she would've been glad for that. Disembowelling a victim was effective, but the subsequent smell was barely tolerable.

Both of the creature's white eyes snap back, focusing on her for a few silent seconds. Then, its tentacles go slack and it falls backwards to the pit with a crash, where it settles for only a moment until the bones start to reach up and pull it underneath. The Hunter retreats back to a wall; she stands and watches impassively as it disappears into the pit, joining the evidently ever-growing field of bone.

The panther watched her, then started following as she turned to leave. Another Prescott project laid waste to. The Hunter and the Panther made their way across the rest of the field, very careful to avoid prolonged contact with the pit. Very careful.


She looked down, checking the map once again to ensure what her eyes told her and her heart doubted was true. She was nearly out. The bridge ahead would lead to the final stretch of tunnels that would take her to the surface.

She rushed across, the swell of emotions driving her to pick up the pace.

A short, sharp cough behind her pushed her to a sudden stop. She knew exactly who she'd see behind her.

The Hound's face had a new scar, a residual gift of The Hunter from their last encounter. She smirked when she saw it, and The Hound bristled, made to attack. His Mistress held him back with an outstretched hand and a frown. "Not yet, Palmer. We have to give her one more chance. One more chance to return home." She smiled, an attempt at comfort the Hunter knew was insincere.

The blank look and move to draw her sword was all the answer The Hunter would give. The Mistress smiled, this time seeming entirely sincere in her pleasure. "We'll enjoy this."

They both raised their swords and moved forward, working in tandem as always.

The Hunter screamed in challenge and she welcomed it, giving herself wholly over to instinct and the drive to survive. She drew her sword and held position. They would come to her.

The Hound attacked the minute he was in range, a backhanded slash to her right flank. The Hunter blocked it with ease, her blade slapping against The Hound's marking the start of battle.

The Mistress shifted the angle of her sword, leading her own attack on the Hunter's left. The Hunter simply batted it aside and kicked out, forcing the Mistress to hop out of range for a moment.

The Hound immediately took over, releasing a barrage of strikes to scatter the Hunter's guard. She had to move quickly and deftly, but her perfectly balanced defences never dropped. The Hound wasn't likely to be worried by that though, the strikes were intended to buy time until the Mistress could reenter the fray, not to actually hit her.

The Hound pushed back from the Hunter and spun, narrowly dodging the Mistress's sudden thrust. The Hunter stepped back and batted her blade aside once again. She was unhappy to lose ground, but it was necessary.

The Mistress, disappointed her thrust had failed, spun in low, slashing at The Hunter's legs.

If there were any observer watching the fight, they would've been impressed with the Hound and his Mistress. They were strong, they were quick, they were skilled. But they would've been far more impressed with The Hunter. Where the Hound was strong, The Hunter was strong and tough. Where the Mistress was quick, The Hunter was quick and graceful. Where they both were skilled, The Hunter was dazzling.

But she was one against two and even the strongest fighter couldn't hold out forever.

The Hunter pirouetted out, her leg taken out of reach of the slash before kicking into the Mistress' side. The Mistress was barely phased by the attack, and merely resumed her own strikes, coming in at different angles to the Hound's. Before she realised it, The Hunter was countering their attacks, her blade turning in circles like the edge of a screw. It flowed from block to block, adjusting to strike when she could. None of them ever made it through, all being turned aside by the two opponents.

The Hound and his Mistress sped up their own strikes in an attempt to match, but neither could change the current equilibrium of the battle. The Hunter's strikes became clumsy, and the few times the Mistress managed to strike, her blows were so weak they barely grazed the Hunter's patchwork armour.

However, she did have one ace up her sleeve. She ripped the lining of her jacket with her free hand and pulled a small, steel dagger from it. The bluish tubes wrapped over the crossguard, and the poison groove cut into the blade, let the Hunter immediately guess its identity. It was another of Ratigan's toys, a modified blade designed to fill any wounds it caused with a paralytic agent. Her muscles would freeze in an instance, and she'd be unable to resist.

They were still aiming to take her alive.

She resumed her strikes, this time with two blades. Faced with three weapons to her one, the Hunter's defences began to falter. Even she wasn't quick enough to have her sword block three attacks at once. So instead, she concentrated on the dagger. If that struck her, it was all over.

More and more strikes began to pierce her defences. She still blocked more than she took, but the numbers were closing quickly. She'd need to do something to change the battle, or she would lose.

The Mistress and her Hound both struck high, cutting down towards the Hunter's neck and shoulders. She twisted her blade in answer, managing to hold all three blades above her.

In answering frustration, the Mistress twisted the dagger, attempting to break through the Hunter's guard. She grinned wolfishly, pleasure evident on her face that this chase might finally be over.

The Hunter's blade flickered, releasing the other two blades and, catching the strike on the crossguard, held it barely an inch from her side. She kicked out at the Hound once again, pushing him back. The Mistress growled, angry at this sudden turn, and tried to push her dagger down harder.

The Hunter's expression never changed and the dagger never moved.

The Mistress pulled back from the stand-off as The Hound pressed in from the other side. The Hunter switched her attention as easily as she had blocked the dagger.

The Hound found himself on the receiving end of a renewed barrage of attacks as the Hunter struck him with everything she had. Surprisingly, the Hound managed to block all her strikes. The Mistress quickly rejoined him, and they pressed the Hunter back.

While The Hunter could not angle the tip of her blade for a killing thrust, she could, and did, punch out with the hilt, connecting solidly with the Hound's face, sending him staggering backward. She spun her blade and slapped the Mistress' wrist, forcing her to drop her blade, then planted her foot in the woman's stomach and pushed her back. The Mistress landed on her Hound, sending them back to the other side of the bridge in a tangle of limbs.

Seeing her chance, and that the panther was waiting behind her at their exit, she turned and ran. At the exit, she slowed, the haze of battle falling far enough for her to think.

If she ran, they would follow her, even to the surface. She couldn't kill them, not yet. Even now she knew they were standing, finding their weapons, and rushing back toward her. So, she'd have to make sure they couldn't follow her.

A quick assessment revealed a weakness. Her training hadn't included much architectural technique or design, but while she had no idea how to create a structure, she knew exactly how to bring one down. She slammed the hilt of her sword into the rock of the archway, smiling as it started to crumble. The Hound and his Mistress were aware of her aim, both only halfway across the bridge, but they weren't close enough to stop her.

She slammed the sword into the cracks again and again and again, her grin growing along with the fracture. When the arch showed signs of giving way, she dived forward, only narrowly avoiding being crushed by falling rock.


The Hunter walked for many days after the fight, quietly pondering the next steps, and possible end, of her long journey. The panther was her only reassurance, her constant and unjudging companion throughout. Whether through coincidence, or the kindness of fate, the days and miles passed without note. The denizens of the vast network of caverns seemed to see fit to leave her be.

The incline of the path ahead started to angle upwards steadily. The Hunter kept on, eyes flickering around as she realised she was close to the end of her journey. The barest mote of hope sprouted,

She stopped. The air around them had lightened, almost imperceptibly. Old memories ran through her, the air on her face, wind blowing past her...

She was almost out!

They ran forward, Panther and Hunter, anxiously expecting a way out to be around every bend. Eventually, they reached a small cave, wholely unremarkable except for one thing; The small arched opening, where the darkness ahead was lighter than the darkness behind.

The Hunter stopped, took a breath. She hadn't seen the surface in... she didn't know how long it had been. Weeks? Months? Years?

She didn't know if she could do it. The caves were dangerous, but they were predictable, familiar.

She looked down at the Panther, who looked up at her, eyes wide and unblinking. She smiled. Together, then.

They walked out of the cave, emerging onto a high plateau. They were high-up, perched on the side of a mountain, looking out over a series of islands.

The cold wind howled through the hills around her, causing a shiver she barely noticed as she drank in her surroundings. Stars twinkled in the sky above, their light shining through the clouds. The bright-silver light of the moon gave the rolling fields and forests of the island an ethereal quality that captivated her.

She was free.