“Home sweet home.”

Lucian bit back at chuckle at the mocking lilt in Julia’s voice. Nevertheless, an involuntary sigh of relief still escaped his mouth after hearing her proclamation, tense shoulders relaxing in tandem without him being consciously aware.

Ferocious, howling winds from the brewing storm whipped at his hoodie’s sleeves, only for the faded gold fabric to settle back down moments after he re-entered Galaxia.

Like before, the veritable carpet of inanimate spines and skull fragments covered the marble floor, all of the ebony bone pieces dimly glimmering with an orangey sheen from the blazing sconces.

With the group having traversed through the hallway only recently, he wasn't overly concerned about encountering a hostile. Consequently, it only took the six-person party half the time exiting from Galaxia, to begin with, to return back to the main part of the third floor…

Only to be welcomed by stillness and silence; all of those who had rebuffed Julia having left for places unknown while the party was off and exploring.

With initial explorations done for the meantime, the party, having been solely formed for such a purpose, broke off to do their own things for now.

Lucian silently watched as Diamonddust and Cherub disappeared out of sight up the winding staircase; former leaving without a backwards glance while the latter waved goodbye for a last time before doing so.

Though the brown-clad man had disclosed he was heading for the expansive walk-in closet, the effeminate blond had remained surprisingly reticent on the matter. He could have asked but hadn’t really felt like it; given the quarrelsome blond’s… disagreeable disposition, to put it mildly.

“If you’re done…?” Shortly after the two men disappeared, soft footfall's heralded someone's approach; Transient Cardinal announcing herself moments after.

“Yeah I am. Anyway,” Lucian paused while turning to face his white-haired partner, before waving a hand in Julia's direction, “Queen’s going to join us when we go downstairs right?”

“Yup~!” The white-haired waif popped the ‘p’ while nodding, her eyes flicking in the buxom blonde’s rough direction for the briefest of moments. “Julia’s just tying up some loose ends first.”

He cocked his head, not bothering to follow her line of sight; knowing what she was looking at. “So you know her name as well, huh?”

“Mm-hmm.” She confirmed. “I overheard the two of you when you were talking in Starburst.”

“Mind telling me your name then?” Light brown eyes pointedly stared into captivating pale blues even as the question was asked, one that instantly caused the white-haired waif to flinch away as if she had been struck.

“I-I’m sorry.” She stammered after taking a moment to compose herself. “I-I’m still not co-comfortable sharing it. Forgive me?”

While the raven-haired man was initially tempted to pursue the issue, a look at the discomfort writ clearly across the young woman’s anxious visage, as well as her last two pleading words, got him to forcibly choke down the urge.

“Sorry for making you both wait for so long! It took me longer than I expected to hammer things out with Bo – did I… miss something?” Julia declared with an apologetic smile as she abruptly joined the two; one that died on her lips when she took note of the awkward air between them.

Transient Cardinal immediately took advantage of the honey blonde’s arrival with both proverbial hands. “Nope~! No need to worry! How’d your talk with the big lug go?”

Even as Julia responded, she sent Lucian a side-eyed look, obviously asking for more information. Before thinking about the odd response himself, he offered the honey blonde a noncommittal shrug; telling her he had no idea, himself, before tuning out the conversation thereafter.

Besides simple mistrust, he couldn't really understand his white-pared partner's reason for being so evasive about her actual name. He'd like to think a modicum of trust—no matter how small—had already been built between himself and her after getting into fights together. For fuck's sake, he knew Julia's name, yet he'd met her a fair bit later than Transient Cardinal.

…

Who knew how a woman’s mind worked though? Because he sure didn't.

A brief pang of—bittersweetness-regret-inadequacy—complicated emotions rose in his chest at that thought; a cocktail he ignored, not wanting to unpack it right now.

Lucian focused back on the here and now after his emotions quieted, tuning back into the ongoing conversation. It quickly became clear he hadn't missed much.

“—not sure why the big lug isn’t interested in exploring with us, but whatever floats his boat I guess.” Transient Cardinal said exasperatedly.

Julia nodded energetically. “Right? I tried asking why, but he refused to say. I got him to meet us in the foyer half an hour from now, at least.”

“Do you even know when exactly half an hour from now is?” Lucian piped up, feeling it was a good time to jump in.

Transient Cardinal turned to face him and answered before Julia could, the topic clearly being one they had already tread. “Nope~! Thereabouts is good enough though, no?”

“What she said.” Julia finally responded, before waving her glass-studded table leg at the stairs. “Anyway. Now that you’re back with us Lucian, let’s head on down.”

While the honey blonde's voice lacked any reproach, Lucian still felt some heat come to his cheeks. Even if brief, it was as clear as day the two had noticed his inattentiveness.

Turning away, he chose to gloss over it and swept his free arm out in an exaggeratedly grand gesture, right at the stairs. “Ladies first.”

----------------------------------------

Even before the trio stepped foot on Galaxia's second floor proper, they knew exploration wasn't going to be as easy as they had hoped. While going downstairs, Julia had told the other two about the three red skulls hovering in front of three out of the four off-shoot hallways on the floor. The sole silver lining, if it could be considered that, was the fact none of the skulls glowed as brightly as the two on the floor above.

After a quick discussion, they decided to proceed down the hallway positioned exactly below the one they had earlier traversed to exit Galaxia.

The initial trek proved to be peaceful, contrary to their expectations. However, about halfway in, soft, almost inaudible sounds started emitting from the unseen depths deeper in. As they got closer, the teeny sounds became clearer and clearer until…

“Wait a minute… is that an arcade?” Disbelief dripped like honey from Transient Cardinal’s voice, the question seeming to have slipped out without any conscious input.

Lucian looked at her with an arched, sceptical brow. “We’ll know soon.”

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Julia twisted her neck, right verdant eye peering at them over her shoulder. “Shh. We should be arriving at the end of the hallway in a moment.”

The raven-haired man offered her a two-fingered salute before miming his lips being zipped shut. At the same time, the white-haired waif nodded in acknowledgement while saying not a word; the honey blonde facing back forward, satisfied.

It was a good thing too, as moments later, the hallway opened up into a space none of them—even Transient Cardinal, judging from her gasp of surprise—had expected.

While nowhere near as mind-bogglingly massive as the walk-in closet, the room was still a damn sight bigger than any of the others Lucian had seen thus far.

To the right was a row of curtained off booths, colourful lights and cheerful beeps and boops managing to break past the gaps in the thick velvet. Straight ahead were numerous oblong tables, each ones’ surface varying notably; ranging from tightly woven green wool to smooth plastic polished to a mirror sheen.

A bank of floor to ceiling windows made from colourful, translucent fractals stretched across the room’s entire length in place of a back wall. Last but not least, off to the left were row upon row of gunmetal grey lockers, each one about half a metre wide and standing twice as tall; more than twenty, easily, lined up in neat columns and rows.

“Look out! Danger’s incomi—.”

CLANG!

Lucian nearly jumped out of his skin as Transient Cardinal’s half-shouted warning was drowned out by a loud, metallic crash.

His eyes immediately darted back over to the row of lockers…

Clang! CLANGCLANG!!

Only to witness two of the doors rattle noticeably even as more metallic crashes tore through the air.

“Wanna bet Closet Horrors are in there?” Transient Cardinal quipped dryly, apprehension clouding her pale blue eyes and twisting her plush lips into a frown.

Lucian opened his mouth, retort on the tip of his tongue, when a rapid series of ear-piercing crashes sliced through the air like a particularly rusty meat cleaver; the rattling of three more lockers adding to the initial cacophony.

CLANG! CLANGCLANGCLANG!! CLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANG!!!

“did you really have to jinx it Cardinal?” Julia asked exasperatedly as she spun to face the multiple—thankfully still contained—threats.

Lucian grunted out an agreement, but didn’t take his eyes off the rattling lockers. Unsure whether to be proactive or reactive, he hesitated; only for the choice to be ripped out of his hands a moment later.

CLANGCLANGCLANG! BANGBANGBANG!

With a resounding, triple-toned slam, three of the five lockers rocketed open and disgorged their living contents onto the richly carpeted floor.

While Lucian had expected the row of serrated teeth, the slanted yellow eyes, and the black as pitch flesh, he hadn’t expected all those features to be attached to three spherical creatures without any limbs. He felt laughter bubble up his throat at the goofy sight, something that died after feeling phantom pains from the line of burning agony one of its kind had left behind to remember it by.

Anger replaced any amusement in a flash; the raven-haired man's legs propelling him towards the three Closet Horrors without any conscious input.

Glimpsing Julia and Transient Cardinal doing likewise to his left and right, respectively, he beelined towards the centremost Closet Horror and left the two to their own devices.

While they lacked any limbs, it was clear they had some other method of locomotion as all three zoomed forward, without a sound, once they’d recovered from spilling out of the lockers.

Unsure what to expect, Lucian’s legs tensed up, ready to juke sideways even as he sped towards his target.

Matching his pace almost exactly, the Closet Horror met him, with maw agape, halfway between the tables and the lockers.

Instead of taking a swing at the far shorter creature, Lucian abruptly pushed off the carpet and vaulted over it, the toes of his brown boots barely grazing its smooth, rounded top.

The instant his left foot came back down on the carpet, he pivoted on the balls of said foot and whipped back around, end table carving a full circle around his body and swinging for its exposed back.

One of the Closet Horror’s eyes had only just rotated back around into his sights when circular wood thundered into spherical flesh. The end table nearly flew from his grip when the spherical creature was punted away in a shallow arc, having expected a smidgen more resistance.

At the same time, a thin spray of toxic essence came jettisoning out from where his blow impacted; all of it splattering against the carpet and staining the plush black wool yellow.

Lucian gave the unsightly splatter a wide berth as he raced after the creature, unwilling to give it any time to recover and fire back with its last resort ball of congealed acid.

Luckily for the raven-haired man, nothing as stupidly cliché as tripping over his own feet occurred while he closed on the soaring ball; plush carpet moonlighting as reliable footholds.

By the time he was close to striking range, the Closet Horror had only just spun back around to face him once more, eyes narrowed into thin, malicious slits as it glared back at him. He raised the end table overhead, ready to bring it down and flatten the monstrosity into a pancake, but aborted and sprung to the left when it abruptly sucked in air and ballooned up in an honestly cartoonish manner.

Less than a second later, its body deflated rapidly as it spat out a pitch black orb of condensed slime. The disgusting projectile zipped right by Lucian's side, a mere inch away if that, before loudly splattering against one of the metal lockers behind him.

A strange, sibilant hissing emitted from behind, but the raven-haired man didn’t waste any time to turn around and take a peek; eyes intently focused on the exhausted looking creature as he continued his aborted sprint.

The moment he was back in range, he brought the end table down on the unresisting creature's noggin, smashing it flat even as he abandoned the improvised mace, pushed off the carpet as hard as he could, and jumped back in a large backward leap; a geyser of toxic essence erupting from the pancaked corpse like a freshly unearthed wellspring.

Instead of lingering on the aftermath of his Kill, Lucian whipped around to check on the two ladies…

Just in time to watch Transient Cardinal plunge both her table legs into a deflated Closet Horror’s eyes before tearing upwards, the jagged and rounded wood slicing clean through its body and out its top in an arcing, neon yellow spray.

He blinked, impressed. Looking over at Julia, he wasn’t even sure how to react – the creature already having been reduced to a yellow-stained mess of shredded black flesh.

Aforenamed woman gave him a cheery wave when she noticed his attention was on her, the yellow ichor coating her glass-embedded table leg glinting under the ceiling’s fluorescent light strips. “Congrats on the kill! You took a teensy-weensy bit longer than I was expecting but still. Good job!”

Lucian appreciated the compliment, but twitched a bit at its backhandedness. Unwilling to pursue the potential slight, he quickly bobbed his head in thanks before bringing up a different topic altogether. .

“Slow but steady, yeah? Anyway, did the other two Closet Horrors not appear? I could’ve sworn five lockers were rattling, not just three.”

Julia shrugged, confusion writ plain on her face. “I’m… not sure? By the time I dispatched mine, the other two had long stopped shaking.”

“And I’m not interested in opening up the lockers, by the by!” Transient Cardinal chimed in out of the blue, the white-haired young woman having sidled up without either noticing.

“I see you’ve managed to retrieve your table legs.” He turned to face her without missing a beat. “Good kill, by the way. It looked damn impressive.”

His comment caused a rosy pink hue to dust her cheeks, sharply contrasting with the gore-coated table legs comfortably hanging by her sides.

“Thank you for the compliment~!” She acknowledged with a cheery smile, before gesturing at something over his shoulder with one of her table legs. “On a different note, what happened there?”

Lucian cocked his head and turned around, but Julia provided an answer before he caught sight of whatever she was referring to.

“That's what happens when a Closet Horror’s last-ditch attack lands on metal.”

He felt surprised by such a proclamation, but understood moments later. One of the closed locker’s gunmetal grey doors had acquired a new pattern of deep pockmarks and crisscrossing crevices; thin trails of white steam wafting from the clearly acidic damage.

At least now he knew the source of the earlier hissing sound.

While the sight was interesting, Lucian felt like bringing up the previous issue, unwilling to leave it alone in case something decided to ambush them at an inopportune moment. “I don’t think we should leave the two other lockers alone, just like that.”

Snapping his fingers on the last three words, the raven-haired man winced slightly at the resultant dull pulsation of pain radiating up from his hand.

Zeroing in on his wince, Transient Cardinal took a quick couple of steps forward, casually invaded his personal space, and grabbed his left wrist before bringing it up to her eye level for a closer inspection; non-jagged table leg falling from her grip like yesterday’s trash.

Lucian flinched slightly but didn't wrench his hand back, well aware of the young woman’s penchant for providing first aid by now. Much like himself, Julia didn't say anything except send an amused smirk the white-haired waif's way before starting to speak again. “I think it’s fine to leave them alone. I've already figured out why Closet Horrors aren't jumping out at us.”

He glanced at her at those words, only for the honey blonde to wordlessly direct his gaze elsewhere with an extended, slender finger.

“Ahh.”

It took an embarrassingly long moment, but he soon realised what she was pointing towards; a pair of heavy duty padlocks, each one securely locking up their respective locker.

If he was recalling things correctly, said lockers were the exact same ones that had first started rattling when they’d entered the tricked out rec room. Quickly sweeping his eyes over the others, he found most of them sported a similar setup.

“Besides. We have more important things to worry about.”

At that, Lucian swivelled back and faced Julia, a light of curiosity gleaming in his eyes. “And what’s that?”

“Remember my Perception implant?” Only once he’d nodded did Julia continue – though not before directing his eyes to the curtained off booths. “There’s a whole bunch of glimmering emerald exclamation marks hovering above each of those.”

“Seriously?” Transient Cardinal’s question came as a bit of a shock; the other two having forgotten about her when she was so absorbed in her task. “Oh and Knight? your palm should be fine. The bandaging is a bit sloppy, but it’ll do in a pinch.”

“Thanks.” He gave her a nod, before aiming his question at the honey blonde. “And yeah, what she said. Seriously?”

Julia sharply flicked her wrist, splattering the yellow ichor coating her weapon’s embedded glass to the side before turning on a heel and marching for the matt black booths. “Follow me and you’ll find out, won't you?”

Trading a quick look with Transient Cardinal, Lucian shrugged before striding after the buxom beauty; white-haired waif hot on his booted heels.

By the time both caught up to Julia, she had already thrown open one of the crimson velvet curtains and was peering in, a disco ball’s worth of colours playing merrily over her features while cheery, teeny music blasted out. From the stunned look on her face, it was clear whatever lay inside was startling, if nothing else.

The raven-haired man came to a stop next to the honey blonde, leaving enough space in between for his white-haired partner to slip in, and squinted at the prismatic riot of LED lights bordering a somewhat staticky, slightly slanted screen.

…

…

…

Light brown eyes kept on enlarging as Lucian digested more and more of the screen's contents; for if what he was seeing were true, then they had just struck gold and stumbled upon a way to finally get some definitive answers.

Flickering on the staticky screen was a crude caricature of a parchment map, one displaying a top-down view of the Dormitories’ grounds.

At the top, where the North would be under normal circumstances, was a roughly drawn three dimensional rectangle; the word, ‘Galaxia’, proudly emblazoned over it.

To the left, right, and bottom of the screen were three other similar rectangles – titled Chariot, Starburst, and Weaver, respectively, each one connected via a thin, arcing line.

Six concentric circles lay within the four rectangles, each one split into quadrants, even more lines linking up the layers at irregular intervals.

But most striking of all was the miniature tower positioned at the epicentre of the parchment map, titled Heavenly Constellation Spire, and the solitary, bright golden star, superimposed over the concentric circles and blinking on and off right in between the quadrant stretching from Galaxia to Starburst.

…

A person really needn’t be a genius to figure out where they should head next.

< End of Nightmare Two: Shadowy Halls. >