After the unexpected announcement, we all turned and looked at each other. Everyone stopped what they were doing and just stood there in shock. We thought we would have a few days to prepare before we were thrown into chaos, but now we seemingly had only four hours and no idea what to do next.

  I looked at Tiff. “What is happening? Why are they starting the dungeon early?”

  Tiff Placed a calming hand on my shoulder, “This is no surprise. I can only assume that the planning phase has been cut short because all factions arrived early. There is no reason for the Coeus to delay activation of the dungeon once everyone is here.

  “Is this normal?” I asked.

  “It’s not. This has to somehow be tied to the vision you had. The Coeus are planning something at this dungeon site, but I still can’t see what it is,” Tiff was doing her pacing back and forth thing, trying to piece this together. “Captain, there were probably thousands of humans in the different tutorials. We were all there, and those tutorials were created specifically to make you fail. The odds were weighted against humanity from the start. My best guess is that hundreds still made it through the tutorial. That is an expected outcome, but something has been bothering me. Red and the rest of the new crew said that their guardian disappeared at the end of the tutorial, which should not have happened. At first, I brushed it off as a coincidence; there have been cases of AI containment facilities going offline unexpectedly. Meteorites or other natural phenomena have been known to incapacitate those facilities in the past. After you told me about your vision, I began to suspect something else, however. The Coeus have been the dungeon architects for millennia. Nobody knows much about them and just assumed that they were willing participants, but I don’t think that is the case anymore.” I crossed my arms and nodded, “Go on Tiff, what do you think is happening here? If you have any insight, it is needed now more than ever.” She looked down in thought. I could tell she was piecing this together on the fly. “Captain, I think someone tampered with the system. If the Lacertines or the Council were purposely taking out guardians to weigh the outcome more heavily in their favor, it could have caused the Coeus to react.” She stepped closer to me and looked me directly in the eyes, “If the Coeus have decided to rebel, there will be nothing anyone can do to stop them, Captain.” I took a deep breath at the thought of some entity tampering with the death contest we found ourselves in. “Well, that’s a good thing, right?” Tiff scowled and shook her head. “The Coeus aren’t known for being empathetic to the causes of other life forms. Their version of rebellion could help us, but it could just as easily put every life form in the universe at risk. They can literally bend the fabric of space-time to their will. They can merge dimensions; they can erase dimensions. They are extremely dangerous.”

  I took another deep breath and tried to grasp the situation. “I understand, Tiff, but they have taken an interest in me, and they seemed to want to avoid getting directly involved right now. I don’t know what is happening out there. The one thing I do know for sure is that we have less than four hours to prepare our team and get ready to face whatever comes next.” Unexpectedly, I saw fear in Tiff’s eyes, and honestly, I couldn’t blame her. She knew more about the politics of the galaxy than I did. She understood the implications of a Coeus rebellion. I had the luxury of being ignorant to all of that right now. I just needed to get myself and my team through this dungeon, and then we could worry about what would happen next.

  “Everyone gather round. I know this was unexpected, but what we need to do now is prepare ourselves as best we can,” I said, “Elvis, can you assist during the dungeon?”

  “No, Captain, the message stated that orbital support will not be allowed. I will not be able to function on the surface once the dungeon initiates.”

  “What about CJ? Will he still be able to help us?”

  “To be safe, I will need to bring the Pup back to the Bloodhound and transport SR-CJ to the surface. This will put him at greater risk, but he can stay onboard the Pup and pilot his suit remotely,” Elvis said. “Understood. Get it done fast, Elvis. We will need the Pup back down here ASAP. CJ, load any extra munitions onto the Pup before you come. I don’t want you down here, but we are going to need the extra manpower,” I said.

  “No problem, Andy. Elvis has a portable control station for my suit, so I can use it from the Pup. I’ll see you in an hour,” CJ responded.

  I looked at the team as they stood around me, waiting for direction. “Okay, team, we have a little less than four hours to finish prepping the FOB. I have to believe they are going to come at us hard and fast. We are a small team, and coming after our key first makes sense. I need ideas, and I need them fast.” Jax stepped closer. “I say we let them come, Cap. We have plenty of munitions available. Just to preface, my suggestion is a little crazy, but I think it can work.” I grinned at the burly New York native, “Alright Jax, let’s hear it.”

  Five hours later, I was sitting in the FOB alone, double checking the prep checklist, when Tiff walked in the front door.

  “They are closing in now,” she said.

  “Which faction?” I asked without looking up.

  “It is the Lycoan faction, approximately 10 of them. They are closing fast, Captain.”

  “Okay, let them come,” I said, powering down my table and standing up to start preparing for battle. With that, Tiff disappeared as she deactivated her secondary body. I walked over to my footlocker and took a second to take stock of my weapons and ammo. I had a plasma rifle from the armory and a couple of grenades as well. Honestly, as I got more used to my armor, these other weapons were less appealing to me. I looked at the lower half of my arms. It was still an odd sensation; the black metallic forearms felt as If they had never been injured. I felt my muscles tighten. I could see my hands shaking a bit as the nervousness and anxiety of my current situation took hold. I took a breath to calm myself before addressing the crew. “Okay, everyone, hold position until you see the signal.” I took a deep breath and started making my way out of the HAB; once outside, I climbed onto the roof of the structure. I wanted to be sure the Lycoans saw me. Once I got to the top, I spun, trying to get a visual on them. The hair on my neck stood up when I gained a visual of the approaching Lycoans. “Holy shit…you didn’t say they were a pack of damn werewolves, Tiff?!”

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  “Ugh…did you say werewolves?” CJ asked.

  “Comms discipline, guys!” Matty said, scolding both CJ and myself. There was no other way to describe them, the Lycoans were huge werewolves. Now I know that sounds weird, but I don’t know how else to describe them. They were werewolves with combat armor on. They carried rifles strapped to their backs and were currently surrounding the HAB about two hundred yards out. They were approaching from all directions and running on all fours. It…was….terrifying.

  “On your signal, Cap,” Matty said.

  I knelt and activated my armor. This was the first time I had activated my armor since the vision, and I immediately noticed that something felt different. I couldn’t put my finger on it as I knelt on the roof of the HAB, but it felt like I had more control; like the armor was responding to me fully now.

  The Lycoans roared in unison as they rushed the HAB, now within 100 yards of my position. I shot my arms out to the side and summoned my daggers. When I looked up, my vision was filled with huge wolf-like aliens, teeth bared, tongues glistening with saliva, leaping directly at me. Their clawed hands reached and stretched toward me, ready to rip me to shreds. With no hesitation, I activated Pulsar Blast. The beams shot out of my hands as I pointed at two of the Lycoans leaping in my direction. Interestingly, I didn’t have to dismiss my daggers as the blast simply shot out of them as if they were an extension of my hands. As the blast hit the two closest Lycoans, it seared the flesh on their faces and disarmed them completely, ripping the weapons off their back to stick to the roof of the HAB at my feet with a thud. The two Lycoans dropped to the ground, unconscious. I was now locked in place for ten seconds while the shield portion of the ability activated. “Now, move now!” I shouted over the comms.

  Zzzippp, zzziiipp, the heads of two more Lycoans exploded in a fountain of blood and gore as Jax and Matty sniped from half a kilometer away. They had both selected the Interstellar Assassin class, and at Level 5, they had unlocked a Gilly suit ability that allowed them to blend into their surroundings. The other feature of the ability is that they would be invisible to most sensors as long as they didn’t move. The Lycoans had probably run right past them and didn’t know it.

  Jax confirmed the kills over the comms: “Two muts down.”

  “I’ve got six seconds left on my shield, and there are six angry Lycoans staring at me right now!” I said, still unable to move due to the shield and forced cool down from Pulsar Blast. Just when I started to panic a bit, the Pup roared past overhead, creating a cloud of red dust all around me as it flew. The plan was to purposely draw the enemy in. As they advanced on my location, Jax and Matty would take out as many as they could from a distance. Once I used my Pulsar Blast ability, the Pup would return to provide reinforcements. Our hope was that anyone watching our group would assume that the Pup was returning to orbit after dropping personnel and equipment off on the surface. Tiff was the only one of us who could currently pilot the Pup since Elvis could not assist from orbit due to the dungeon rules. It wasn’t wise to jeopardize our only drop ship, but we needed an edge, and this would provide it in the short term.

  “There is a group of Lacertine troopers approaching from the East. We are going to take the Pup and engage; you are going to have to hold that group on your own for now, Captain. Jax and Matty, can you provide support?” Tiff asked, grunting as she worked to quickly bank the Pup and engage the Lacertine Troopers. “We are hoofing it to the captain’s location now. ETA 45 seconds,” Jax said. “Get here fast! My shield is almost done, and I have to engage. Two are down but not dead. Six more are just waiting for my shield to disengage.” I had taken time to identify the Lycoans while they stood waiting to pounce. “They range in level from 7 to 9. I am gonna have my hands full here, guys,”

  With those words, my shield broke. I leapt up into the air as the remaining Lycoans roared in unison. I flipped to the rear of the pack and landed, impaling a Level 7 Lycoan mercenary on each side of its neck, forcing my blades down between its shoulders and collarbones; the Blackhole dagger’s special ability timer started as the Lycoan howled in agony. 3…2…1.. The Lycoan imploded in on himself, bones breaking, flesh and gore exploding inward on itself in a gruesome display of the dagger’s powers. The rest of the pack howled in anger and moved to surround me. I identified the one directly in front of me. Level 9 Lycoan Commander flashed on my interface as I did the same to the two on each side of the level 9 commander. They identified as Level 8 mercenaries, and they were trying to flank me. The Commander held up his hands to halt his team. He looked at me and tilted his head as he snarled in a surprisingly human-sounding voice, “This isn’t personal, human. We have been where you are. Understand that we will be taking your key, and we will do whatever is necessary to retrieve it.”

  I stood, prepared to fight, now surrounded by five Lycoan mercenaries. The plan had gone to shit, and now I needed to buy about 30 more seconds before Jax and Matty got to me. My only other option was to try and take down all five by myself. I re-summoned my daggers to my hands as I stood there. “Ya know, it’s funny; we were hoping you guys would underestimate us, and sure enough, it looks like you did. You guys coming to us saves us the trouble of having to hunt you down for your key. I mean, I hate to kill you before I even get to know you, but honestly, you guys are really freaking ugly, so it’s not a huge disappointment.” The two Lycoans on my left lunged for me. As they jumped, the Commander raised his weapon and fired several rounds directly at my center mass. Instinctively, I held up my arms to block the rounds, but I knew at this distance they had me for sure.

  I closed my eyes and waited for the rounds to impact, but as the sounds of gunfire rang out, I was surprised to feel nothing. No rounds had hit me. How was that even possible? At the same moment Jax and Matty arrived, they exploded toward the two mercenaries that had leaped at me, knocking them both away from the group until they rolled to a stop and jumped back up, looking for their assailants. That’s when I noticed my arms. They had morphed into a large black diamond-shaped shield that protected me from the close-range weapons’ fire. I hadn’t knowingly made the transformation; the Armor just responded to my need and formed a shield. Well, that’s new…I thought to myself as I watched the shield morph back into my arms.

  The Lycoan Commander looked at me and snarled, “You have tricks, human, but it’s time to end this.” He raised his rifle again, this time aiming at Jax, who was engaged with one of the mercenaries. He fired, and Jax dropped to his knees, a hole in his torso as Matty screamed, watching his brother fall to the ground, holding the gaping wound in his torso.