I materialized my sidearm and jumped to Jax’s position. “Matty! I need you to focus! We’re surrounded here!” I looked down and saw that Jax was still alive but wasn’t in good shape. His right arm was useless, lying limply on the ground. He was spitting blood, and it didn’t look good, but he was alive. Jax struggled to raise his head and point his left hand at his brother. “G…Get your head in the fight, ugh…and go…go get those SOBs,” he gurgled to his brother through a mouth full of blood.

  The two Lycoans Jax and Matty had engaged were now regrouping. They smelled blood, literally and figuratively, and now they wanted to finish it. “Hey, why not just give up and let us finish this cleanly, human?” the Commander shouted. The Commander and the other two mercenaries were hanging back now. They figured that two trained Lycoan mercenaries could take out two humans, and they would have a little fun watching. One of the mercenaries standing with the commander nudged the other with a grunt. “Five credits say it takes less than a minute.” The other laughed low, “I’ll take that bet,” the Lycoan said with a chuckle. “I’m gonna give the monkeys a little more credit, though. I say they last a minute and a half.” The Commander just stared unmoving; lips curled around his gruesome black snout, his yellow eyes focused on me intently. “Remember, it’s not personal,” he said as he turned his hands and long clawed fingers up and shrugged innocently.

  I dismissed my sidearm and slowly raised my hands. “Any chance you guys are taking prisoners?” Matty looked at me with disgust and disappointment gripping his weapon with white knuckles. “What the fuck are you doing, Cap?” As we stood there, the two Lycoans, with their guns trained on Matty and me, laughed. The Commander raised his rifle, and the other two mercenaries flanking him on either side lowered their weapons. They knew this fight was over. “Sorry, Human. No surrender is allowed. We need your key, and since you’re the designated faction leader, we are just going to have to finish you off.” He looked side to side, grinning at his lackeys. “As for the other two, we’re just going to kill them for fun.” He aimed his weapon directly at my head, preparing to fire. The mercenary directly behind me slammed the butt of his rifle into my back between the shoulders. I went down to one knee with a grunt, and my health bar dropped slightly, signifying that I had received a bit of damage. I shook my head and stood back up, looking at the Commander, “Uhh, you might wanna check your six.”

  Tiff materialized directly behind the Commander; her right fist outstretched in a punching motion. As she appeared, her fist materialized inside the commander’s chest. She leaned forward and whispered in the Commander’s ear, “It’s not personal, commander, but unfortunately, two bodies can’t occupy the same space; it’s just physics.” She ripped her fist back through the commander’s body as he fell without a sound. As soon as the Lycoan Commander hit the ground, a message hit my interface:

  Level 9 Lycoan commander defeated by a member of your party.

  Shared experience earned!

  I made a mental note of the fact that I would gain experience not just from my own kills but from any kills members of my party made as well. This was going to allow me to level fairly quickly, hopefully. Dismissing the notification, I refocused on the remaining Lycoans, who had panicked at the sight of their leader dying. I raised my daggers and threw the left one straight into the head of the mercenary that flanked Tiff from the right as she engaged the one on the left.

  Level 8 Lycoan Mercenary Defeated.

  Experience Earned!

  Level up! You have reached level 7!

  I dismissed the notifications again. I could catch up on my status if we survived these damn Lycoans. For now, we had work to do. Matty went to work immediately, raising his weapon and tactically advancing toward the two Lycoans on our rear.

  I dismissed my armor and jumped, doing a backflip into the air. Based on how my armor had reacted earlier, I had an idea. The Coeus told me I would have more control over the armor once I accepted the responsibility of wearing The Gift, as they had called it. I had become too reliant on my armor, and it was time to see if the gift would respond to my direction. I landed behind the Lycoan mercenary that stood directly to my rear. He had raised his weapon and fired wildly, trying to follow the trajectory of my impossible jump. As I landed, I dismissed my remaining dagger and drove my new augmented arms forward, willing them to become long spikes. It worked; the arms morphed into long black spikes, impaling the mercenary from behind. I raised his body into the air and threw him at the Lycoan that Tiff was currently fighting as I willed the spikes to form back into arms.

  I looked up at Matty standing over his opponent, pistol in hand. The Lycoan was on the ground on all fours, bleeding and panting. Matty turned, looked back at Jax lying on the ground behind us, then leaned down beside the injured Lycoan mercenary. “I guess someone owes me five credits,” he said as he stood and pushed the barrel of the sidearm against the back of the Lycoan’s head and pulled the trigger, splattering blood and gore all over the ground as the Lycoan fell limply to the ground. Matty turned and walked back to his injured brother silently.

  Tiff finished the remaining mercenary quickly. After being pummeled by the body of his fellow mercenary, he lay dazed on the ground and knew the fight was over. Tiff walked over, pulled a dagger from her boot, and slit his throat. The fight was over.

  Tiff looked up at me, “How is Jax?”

  “We need to get him into the HAB and get Claire back here as soon as possible. Tiff, can you do anything for him in the meantime?” Matty was now sitting with his brother’s head on his lap, trying to keep pressure on the large open wound. “We have some first aid supplies,” Tiff said, walking over to inspect the wound. “I can staunch the blood flow for now, but we need Claire to heal him.”

  As Tiff and Matty worked to get Jax back to the Hab, I got a message from Tiff’s primary body. “We are currently engaging the Blemian faction. They were en route to our base camp when the Pup flew over them. Red advanced on them in the Rover, and CJ manned the turret while we did repeated flyovers. We took about 7 of them out before they could find any cover. I’m landing the Pup now, so Loren and I can help finish off the last three. Once we’re done, we will return to the HAB.” It was still hard to comprehend that Tiff could be in two places at once, operating completely independently of each other. I decided I decided to start calling them Tiff and Tiff two, or T.T. for short during combat situations to limit confusion. I looked at T.T. as she helped carry Matty into the HAB and identified her.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Tiffantrimore Clarivox

  AI Guardian

  *Level 10

  *This guardian’s level has been capped at 10 for the duration of this dungeon.

  That was weird. Tiff was normally Level 50. I assumed the Coeus capped levels to create some sort of level playing field. Otherwise, every faction would just bring in high-level combatants to cheese the dungeon. It made sense, but Tiff was going to have to be careful even against lower-level enemies. I would need to talk to her about it later; now wasn’t the time. “Captain, you need to go loot those bodies. One will have their faction key, but the rest may have items of value. We can’t afford to overlook valuable loot,” T.T. said as she continued to work on Jax’s wounds. Matty wasn’t leaving Jax’s side, and I couldn’t blame him. I hadn’t seen my brothers in years, but if I were in his shoes, I would be right there with my brother until I knew he was going to be okay.

  I walked toward the exit to go loot the corpses. “T.T., make sure you do everything you can. Jax is part of our crew, and he doesn’t deserve to die in the God-forsaken place.”

  T.T. looked up at me with a raised eyebrow. “T.T.?”

  “Yeah, It means Tiff two. I need a way to communicate with your primary and secondary bodies. Calling you both, Tiff, while both bodies are active will be confusing. Just go with it for now. We can think of something else to call you later if you want.” I said. Tiff grinned and wiped blood from her face with the back of her hand. “No, I like it. It makes sense.” I turned and walked out to loot the corpses, which is a weird thing to say, but this would be the first time I could loot anything. Tiff had mentioned it before, but so far, other than the tutorial, I had only fought mechs and spiders and they didn’t drop any loot.

  I got to the two mercenaries I hit with my Pulsar blast first. Their heads were completely hairless and burned to a crisp. The ability wasn’t necessarily meant to be offensive, but against biological lifeforms, the blast was devastatingly effective. They were still unconscious, so I pulled my pistol and put a round in each one of their heads. I leaned over to loot the first corpse. I assumed I would just go through their pockets or something; I wasn’t really sure how this worked.

  When I identified the mercenary, my interface read:

  Deceased Lycoan mercenary

  Level 7 – Lootable corpse.

  Loot corpse? Y/N

  I selected yes, and a handy visual aid popped up, showing the loot the corpse held.

  Superior Health stim x 2

  Lycoan Field rations x 5

  Inferior land mine x 1

  I took the stims and the land mine. I wasn’t sure how to use the mine, but it was worth keeping. When I selected what I wanted to take, it disappeared from the lootable inventory, and a new tab popped up in my interface that read:

  Personal Storage

  By this point, I was very familiar with my interface, but this was new. I would ask Tiff, but I assumed that anything I looted would go into personal storage. “Handy,” I said to myself as I selected the personal storage tab and mentally selected the superior stim. The stim appeared in my hand just like that. I had no idea how it worked, but it was there. I quickly ran back to the HAB to see if the stim would help Jax.

  “T.T., I looted this superior health stim from one of the dead Lycoans. Will it help Jax?” I asked, holding the small glass vial out toward T.T. Tiff greedily snatched the vial from my hand. “That was a lucky find! Yes, it will help close and heal the wound from the inside out. It will still take some time, and Claire will need to put on the finishing touches, but you may have just saved his life, Captain.”

  I left the HAB feeling some of the stress melt away after finding out Jax would be okay. I walked back to the Lycoan corpses and got back to the task at hand, looting the rest of the mercenaries. None of them had anything of great value: a couple more land mines and some regular health stims. They also had plenty of rations, but I was sure I didn’t want to try eating alien food, although the food Elvis had made for us couldn’t be much better. I moved to the Commander next, and he held a surprise when I pulled up his loot.

  Lycoan Faction Key x 1

  Area map – Partial

  Interstellar Vacuum tube x 1

  Lycoan field rations x 5

  “Well, I guess I hit the jackpot,” I said, as I looted it all. After looting everything, there was an announcement on my interface:

  Attention participants: The Lycoan Faction has been eliminated. The Human Faction now holds the Lycoan Faction Key. The Human F action now leads all factions with two keys. Reminder: The first faction to hold five keys will gain access to the Coeus Relay Station.

  “Well, so much for the element of surprise,” I said, shaking my head in disgust. I took a minute to look at the Commander’s loot. The first thing I pulled out and inspected was the Interstellar Vacuum Tube.

  Interstellar Vacuum Tube – Upon arming and detonating, this tube will violently suck everything within a 10-yard radius toward it. The tube will be active for 20 seconds and, much like the vacuum of space, will continue to suck until the time expires. 5-second delay upon activation. Use with caution.

  Next, I pulled out the key and inspected it.

  Lycoan Faction Key – With the addition of this key, your faction now holds two keys. Retrieve three more to gain access to the Coeus Relay Station.

  “Seems simple enough,” I shrugged. Lastly, I pulled out the map.

  Area Map - Partial – This map will show a detailed topographical map of the battle arena, locations of enemy factions, or loot locations. Three partial maps will make a whole map.

  “That explains the Interstellar Vacuum tube.” I said, inspecting the map. This section of the map showed loot locations in the area. It didn’t specify what the loot was; there were just little icons on the map that looked like treasure chests. Yes, treasure chests. I’m not sure if the super-advanced Coeus AI was trying to dumb things down or not, but honestly, I had a chuckle at that.

  “We’re Headed back to base camp, scratch 10 Blemians. Red and Loren are looting the corpses now, and then we’re heading back. This seemed way too easy, Captain,” Tiff said over the Comms.

  Attention participants: The Blemian Faction has been eliminated. The Human faction now holds the Blemian Faction Key. The Human Faction now leads all factions with three keys. Reminder: The first faction to hold five keys will gain access to the Coeus Relay Station.

  “Alright, Tiff, make it fast. I found a few interesting items on the Lycoans that we can discuss when you all get back. Jax is stable, but Claire will need to do some work on him to get him combat-effective,” I said as I started making my way back to base camp. “I don’t think we should expect the dungeon to be this easy moving forward, Captain. We got lucky here and surprised the Blemians. Most of the factions sent their transport ships back to orbit rather than take a chance of getting stranded. We took a chance and kept the Pup down here, and it has paid off for now. Let’s all regroup back at the HAB and try to build a sustainable plan to get those last two keys,” Tiff said. I thought for a second before responding, “Agreed, Tiff. We need a better plan of attack, but we’re not going to sit back and wait for everyone else to come after us. It’s time to take the fight to them.”