I do not own Familia Myth or any of the characters.
History
"Five years ago, my Familia, the Astraea Familia, was caught in a trap by the dark faction, Evilus," Ryu said as they walked through the dungeon. "We fought them and managed to escape, but in the battle, a great deal of damage was done to the Dungeon. As were preparing to counterattack, the Dungeon suddenly shook, and there was this roar. Something appeared and attacked us. We didn't even know what was happening at first. It killed most of my Familia within moments. It was the Juggernaut. I tried to attack it, but it was too fast. I couldn't touch it. It tried to kill me, but another member, Kaguya, sacrificed her arm to save me. Seconds after, it had killed four more, and ate one of them. Alise, our Familia's captain, decided to ensure I would survive. She told two of the last four of us to sacrifice their lives trying to weaken the Juggernaut, and they did. Then, she did the same and ordered me to cast my spell at her and it both. My spell killed her, but it managed to finally drive the Juggernaut off as well.
"After the battle was over, I went back to the surface to recover, and then went on a rampage against Evilus, blaming them for my Familia's deaths. After, Fels contacted me and threatened me to make me swear to secrecy about it."
Ethan nodded. "I'll be careful from now on. I promise."
"Thank you," Ryu said. "I don't want to lose you, but if the Juggernaut is spawned, there's no way we'll be able to stop it."
"Okay," Ethan nodded. "Then we'll never let it spawn."
Ryu nodded and smiled, giving him a quick kiss before they continued walking. After a few more minutes, they walked onto the Eighteenth Floor and stopped, finding dozens of human corpses lying around them, along with a couple that Ethan recognized as being from the Ikelos Familia. Ethan walked over to one of the Ikelos Familia, one who was still alive, and lifted him by the front of his shirt.
"Where did the intelligent monsters go?" Ethan asked.
"Why should I tell you?" the man asked, smirking wickedly. "You mean to save them, right? So why would I help you?"
Ethan narrowed his eyes and drove a finger into one of the man's wounds. The man shouted in pain, and Ethan continued to dig his finger into the wound for a few seconds before pulling it out.
"You should really tell us," Ryu said. "If you do, we'll make your death painless. If you don't, we're going to continue to hurt you until you talk."
"Okay!" the man said, teeth clenched in pain. "There's a door on the Eastern Edge!"
"Thank you," Ethan said, stabbing the man in the abdomen, puncturing several organs and knocking an artery and two veins.
The man screamed in agony.
"You'll be dead in about three minutes," Ethan said. "Until then, the pain will be unbearable. Consider it repayment for what you did to that Siren."
He stood, walking away, Ryu walking at his side.
"You were more generous than I would have been," Ryu said.
Ethan shrugged. "I chose not to repay him for everything else."
Ryu nodded and they began to run, passing through the trees covering the Eighteenth Floor rapidly. After a few minutes, they skidded to a stop as a couple dozen adventurers emerged from the trees off to the right, Ethan recognizing a couple of them from the Ganesha Familia, and the Xenos running toward the door skidding to a stop on the opposite side. The woman in front of the adventurers, one wearing an orange dress and a gold circlet in her blue hair, was the captain of the Ganesha Familia, Shakti. The adventurers all stopped instantly, a few grabbing their weapons.
"Guardian!" Shakti shouted. "Gale! We've been instructed to take you to into company if we find you!"
"Keep going," Ethan instructed the Xenos calmly.
"Don't let them-" Shakti stepped forward, only to leap backward as Ethan sent a barrage of Light Blades into the ground in front of her.
"I'm sorry, but I can't allow you to fight them," Ethan said. "They are as intelligent and sentient as the species that live on the surface. They don't want to fight a war against humans. The only reason they attacked Rivira was because the Ikelos Familia tried to capture several of their kin, including a child, in order to torture, rape, and smuggle them. The Ikelos Familia are their targets, and we're not going to allow you to hurt them, but if we can, and you allow us to leave peacefully, we're going to try and stop the Xenos from attacking peacefully so that the Guild can deal with them."
"I'm sorry, Ethan," Shakti said. "We have our orders. Come quietly so that we can avoid any unnecessary injuries."
"If you attack us, we'll crush you all," Ryu warned.
"We'll see," Shakti said.
"This is your last warning, Shakti," Ethan said. "We won't be held responsible. We won't kill any of you, but I can't promise you won't lose limbs."
Some of the adventurers behind Shakti shifted nervously, but no one moved yet.
"Get them," Shakti finally ordered.
Everyone drew their weapons and charged, so Ethan drew his sword and Ryu drew Alf's Lumina. The two of them charged forward to meet the adventurers, and the moment they reached them, they both tore into them. Shakti used a whip, the Vice-Captain, Ilta, a red-haired Amazoness, fought with her fists, and most of the others fought with swords. Ethan and Ryu tried to avoid doing any irreparable damage, and dropped everyone as fast as they could.
Ethan deflected a sword and slammed the flat of his blade into the adventurer's face, then spun around Ilta. He slammed a kick into her back, hurling her into several more adventurers, then spun just as Shakti's whip wrapped around his arm. She spun, swinging him around, and slammed him into a tree before flicking her whip and pulled it back to herself. Ethan pushed himself up, picking up his sword just as half of the remaining adventurers charged. Before they could reach him, however, a barrage of white feathers crashed into the ground in front of them before Lyd charged down the line of them, shouldering them out of the way, knocking them all to the ground.
"Lyd, Ray, what the fu-" Ethan stopped, swearing harshly and ducking as Shakti's whip flashed over him, wrapping around the tree Ethan had crashed into before before ripping it out of the ground.
"We didn't feel right letting you fight for us on your own again!" Ranye said, scrambling out of the trees and launching webbing out of her thorax and caught Ilta with it, swinging her around into Shakti, sending both bouncing across the small clearing. "Wiene's safe!"
"She'd better be!" Ethan growled.
"She is!" Lyd promised, using his tail to bat an adventurer aside just as a unicorn charged out of the trees, ramming Ilta as she was standing and knocking her over, but not hurting her. "Four's with her! We're going to help you here!"
Ethan nodded just as a Supporter in a grey cloak with a large pack shot past him, Ethan catching a glimpse of white gauntlets with red spherical crystals on the backs of his hands. His eyes widened before he turned back to the fight, watching the chaos continue to unfold. Just as he did, Shakti managed to catch Ray around the waist with her whip, throwing her, only for Anya to catch her and set her on her feet.
"Ryu, stay here and help the Xenos," Ethan said, Ryu nodding once before continuing to tear through the adventurers, many of which were unconscious already. "Xenos, no killing!"
"We won't!" Ray said. "Help the others!"
"On it!" Ethan shouted, then raised his left hand, catching a small white sphere with a gold latticework on one side around a red, stylized "D" with a red eye in the center.
He looked over to Ryu, who had thrown it, and nodded, then turned and sprinted after Bell. He glanced back as he left the clearing, seeing the fight was rapidly deteriorating for the adventurers. Then, he turned back to the front, catching up with Bell after a few seconds.
"What happened?" Bell asked.
"The Ikelos Familia ambushed us," Ethan said. "They killed Orde, the War Shadow wearing the black armor. Ryu and I managed to help the others get away, and took down a bunch of them, but Gros was furious and attacked the Eighteenth Floor to try and find the Ikelos Familia. They found their hideout up ahead, but it's probably a trap. We have to help them. And if we can, we have to stop them from fighting at all. We need to convince them to show the group you came in with that they're not monsters. That they're different."
Bell nodded. "But we do have to stop the Ikelos Familia."
"The Guild can handle them, if we can get the Guild's sights off of the Xenos," Ethan said. "If not, Ryu and I can handle the Ikelos Familia personally."
Bell nodded, and they both slowed to a stop in front of a cliff on the far eastern border of the Eighteenth Floor. As they did, the sphere Ryu had given Ethan began to glow. He raised it just as Fels stepped out of the trees.
"There you are," Fels said.
"Beat it, Fels," Ethan said. "We have work to do."
He held the sphere up against the face of the cliff and the stone glowed red for a moment before shattering and blowing past them, revealing a massive, man-made passageway. Ethan narrowed his eyes and turned to Fels.
"What is this?" Ethan asked.
"I do not know," Fels said, walking into the passageway with them, trailing his hand over the wall. "This is Orichalcum. It is the strongest refined metal, surpassing even Adamantite. If this is true, then even with magic, it is impossible to break it, but..."
They reached a dead end and Ethan held out the sphere, which shone. The wall ahead of them glowed red and rose into the ceiling, opening the passageway.
"I cannot believe it," Fels said. "To think something like this existed in the Dungeon."
Ethan slipped the sphere into his pocket and stepped inside before stopping and staring at a name inscribed on the wall. Daedalus.
"Daedalus Street," Ethan said. "This is how they transported the monsters without anyone knowing."
"It would seem so," Fels said.
"Maybe they have a hideout inside of here," Bell said.
"We need to hurry," Ethan said, beginning to run again, the others following suit.
After a few minutes, they heard Gros's voice up ahead.
"You evil..." Gros shouted.
"Well, to be specific, it's not 'me,'" Dix's voice said. "It's 'us.,' you see?"
"Gros!" Ethan shouted, sprinting into a large chamber with a set of stairs leading up to a line of passageways at the top, then two passages on the lower level to either side of the stairs, where dozens of Ikelos Familia members were flooding out of, all of them armed and ready.
Ethan looked around as he ran in, seeing that there were dozens of cages, all of them stained with blood, and the Xenos were all holding about a dozen that Ethan had never seen, all of them bloody and wounded, bearing clear signs of torture and some of them still wearing broken chains and collars. Some of them even bore signs of rape.
"What are you doing here!?" Gros demanded.
"Hey, Gran!" Dix shouted, I don't remember telling you to invite a rabbit!"
Ethan stepped past Gros, drawing his xiphos in his free hand, his entire body trembling as his sclerae darkened rapidly. "We came to stop you from making any more of a mistake by attacking humans and making it harder to coexist with humans. But seeing this, seeing what they've done to your kin..." his irises flared crimson and his voice became an enraged snarl. "I'm going to help you rip them limb from limb!"
"Ethan-" Bell began.
"Make your choice, Bell," Ethan snarled. "Help the Xenos by fighting humans, or stand by and watch, and allow things to remain the same."
Bell swallowed hard. "This fight doesn't have to happen."
"Yes, it does," Ethan and Gros both snarled.
"How did you get in, Guardian, Little Rookie?" Dix asked.
Ethan held up the sphere.
"A key!" Gran gasped.
Dix laughed. "That explains it, then. For crying out loud. What idiot let it get taken?"
"That doesn't matter," Ethan said. "Because you'll be dead before you have time to worry about it."
"Will I?" Dix smirked, swinging his spear down off his shoulder and spinning it before trapping it under his arm. "You think having a few monsters helping you will make any difference?"
"Hazer," Fels said. "Dix Perdix. Are you the one behind this incident?"
"And you, you're a mage, right?" Dix asked. "Setting aside the Little Rookie and Guardian, I'm wondering what connection you have to the monsters, huh?"
"This man-made dungeon is the work of Daedalus, is it not?" Fels asked. "What are all of you doing in such a place?"
"Doing?" Dix scoffed. "Nothing! This fine project has been forced on generation after generation. As I am a descendant, you have no right to complain what I do with it."
"Generations?" Bell asked. "Descendant?"
"What, you don't believe me?" Dix asked. "Fine, I'll show you. This is what shows you're from the Daedalus line. The proof!"
He lifted up his goggles, exposing a small scar under his left eye, as well as his red irises with slit pupils. However, as soon as the goggles were up, a crimson "D" appeared in his irises, glowing brightly.
"Every human who shares the blood of our scumbag ancestor is always born with these eyes!" Dix said.
"A blood curse," Ethan said. "A will so powerful that it's passed through generations of descendants. You're driven to continue building this place, aren't you? You're using monster smuggling to distract yourself from Daedalus's will."
"That's right," Dix said. "Daedalus was among the first to receive the blessing of the gods. He helped build Orario and Babel, but he took one look at the opus laid beneath your feet and went mad!"
"The opus?" Bell asked.
"The Dungeon," Ethan said.
"That's right!" Dix grinned. "He believed it exceeded human imagination! He was driven mad! Broken! Haunted and obsessed!"
"Once praised as an artist, his words and deeds grew strange," Fels said. "He was labeled a freak. One day, he disappeared. What was the reason for it?"
"You're standing in it," Ethan guessed. "He disappeared because he was building this place. He was trying to prove that he could build something as amazing as the Dungeon."
"Wrong!" Dix said, pointing the spear at him. "An opus that would surpass the Dungeon! He wanted to build it with his own two hands! It is the man-made labyrinth, Knossos!"
"Knossos?" Bell breathed.
"Daedalus's legacy," Fels said. "This, where we are now, is..."
"Well, it isn't finished, though," Dix said. "The human lifespan is too short to complete this in a single lifetime."
"Which is where the blood curse comes in," Ethan said. "Every generation continues to build it according to the will forced on them by Daedalus's blood."
"That's right!" Dix grinned wickedly. "For a thousand years, the descendants of Daedalus have continued to build this place! But after a thousand years, we've still only reached the Dungeon's middle levels! It takes too much time and money to build something like this!"
"Then capturing Xenos and selling them was just one way of raising funds?" Fels asked.
"Yeah," Dix said. "In the beginning, at least."
"That is enough talk!" Gros snapped finally. "You violated our kin! You attacked Ranye and the others! This does not change that! You will face the consequences!"
Several of the Ikelos Familia members fired arrows at the Xenos, but Ethan and Bell shot forward, blocking the arrows. Ethan slipped the key to Knossos into the small leather pouch on his belt, then drew his xiphos as his irises flared crimson again, brighter than before.
"Dix, tell me something," Ethan growled. "If you had captured the Vouivre, would she have been raped?"
"Oh yes," Dix sneered. "Something rare like a Vouivre? She would have been very popular in the Ikelos Familia. And once we finish this battle, your pretty elf friend will be very popular as well."
Ethan narrowed his eyes as all of the Xenos around them roared in rage.
"No need to be stingy here," Dix smirked, pointing out at the Xenos as they all charged, Ethan stalking forward at a slow walk, blades out to his sides. "Guess I'll use it right away."
"Get behind me!" Fels shouted in warning.
"Lose your way in an unending illusion," Dix said, the tip of his finger shining with crimson light. "Phobetor Daedalus!"
Suddenly, the chamber around them went dark as pitch black lightning with a red aura exploded from his finger, arcing around the room rapidly.
All of the Xenos stopped as their eyes shone purple. Then, they began to attack one another. Ethan snarled angrily. It was a curse. One which seemed to cause a rampage. Ethan walked calmly through the throng of battling Xenos, seeing Dix watching him interestedly.
"There's some people it didn't work on," Dix mused. "Not that it matters. You can go get eaten by monsters!"
"Bell, keep them from hurting each other!" Ethan ordered.
"How are you unaffected?" Fels asked. "My cloak protected me and those behind me, but what about you?"
"No petty tricks are going to shift my rage," Ethan snarled, just as Gros roared and leapt at him.
Ethan drove his sword into the ground then slammed the back of his fist into Gros's head, hurling him backward before ripping his sword out of the ground again.
"Oh, you're stronger now," Dix grinned. "Get him."
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