Chapter 1: Evac.

Three mechanical drills burst through the caves ceiling, dropping to the floor and embedding themselves into the ground. Steam emitted from the sides of the metal pods before their front hatch burst open allowing the occupants to jump into the dimly lit room. Three soldiers in total, 2 men and 1 woman dressed in metal armor and weapons drawn they glanced around the room.

“Holy hell…” One of the said, moving towards the pile of corpses littering the ground and poking the orc’s corpse with his sword.

“Catherine!” The other soldier yelled as soon as he saw his fallen comrade laying on the ground across the room. He ran towards her, inspecting the unconscious women and checking for a pulse by removing his gloves to place a finger on her neck. He laughed, relief washing over him “she’s alive!”

The last solder that remained by the pods smiled and placed a hand up to her ear “Captain, evac team reporting in.” She glanced around the room “Package secured, alive. Appears to have been knocked out by something.”

The bigger male solder who had been previously poking the orc with his sword looked up, then gave a hearty laugh and pointed his sword towards the core above Catherine. “What ever it was that knocked her out Isn’t an issue anymore!” He walked over to the core and slapped the sword that was sticking out of it “Madlass went for the all or nothin!” he then bent down and put his hand on his partner “How is she, Roc?”

“She’s fine, took a huge hit to the forehead and her suit is a bit scratched here and there but it she will live” The man called Roc answered before glancing back to his Partner on the radio “You catch all that Rose?”

The women nodded “Reported, Dolan don’t remove the sword. There is still mana in the room and we don’t want it waking up and spawning what ever it was that knocked her out.” She walked over to the center of the room, reaching back to her pouch and dropping a flat silver square on the ground “see if you can wake her Roc. Dolan gather up the drops and I’ll get the pod set up.”

“”Roger”” They both said, Dolan standing up before moving to the corpse and raising his sword “open up big guy!” he then slammed the sword into its chest “hrm?” He noted the lack of blood but began cutting “feels stiff”

Rose glanced back, by now she was at Catherine’s original pod, messing with an open panel on the side “what’s that?”

“It feels stiff and there is no blood!” Dolan shouted, arms deep into the chest cavity of the monster, then cursed “The fucking thing is empty too!” He slammed his fist into the orc.

“Check the others!” Rose said “maybe Catherine picked them up, Check her pouch roc! And hurry up and get her up!”

Dolan cursed, moving to the wolf ‘Jesus, heads blown clean off’ he thought before going to work on it.

Roc brushed Catherine’s cheek, still relived she was alive. The communications being cut really scared him but was glad she was fine and managed to clear the dungeon. “Sorry about the invasion of privacy..” he said under his breath before opening up her pouch and looking threw it. ‘Pens, few daggers….Shes clean!” he yelled. Moving his hand to a latch on the side of her suit. Right when he was about to touch the latch a hand caught his, he jumped and looked up towards Catherine seeing her awake and staring at him “Unlatch the armor and Ill kill you.” She glared.

Roc calmed down and sighed “Gods, you scared us you know that?” He watched Catherine sit up, putting a hand on her head “What the hell happened?”

Catherine looked around the room, groaning she shook her head “I don’t want to talk about it.” She said, trying to stand up but quickly falling back into Roc’s arms. Rolland approached them “careful there, Roc says you took a big hit to the head yeah? “

Catherine groaned “You can say that, feels like I spent the night at the ships bar for a week…” she gave a defeated laugh then looked towards Rose “Careful with the pod, It got banged up entering the room”

Rose stood up and faced them, slamming a fist into the control panel. The machine spewed out steam before extending itself higher up into the air, the drill splitting into four sperate legs that it used to stand up and balance on before walking over to the middle of the room, trampling over any corpses in its way and positioning itself over the square “Seems fine to me” Nodding at a job well done. Another burst of steam and the top of the pod split and a antenna extended into the air. Then the machine slammed into the ground again and gave a light beep.

“So, what happened Catherine, captain is going to want to know whats going on and Dolan didn’t have any luck with the corpses” She glanced at Dolan who just raised his hands up in a shrug.

“not even one had a core crystal and all of them were stiff, blood drained.”

Roc glanced at them then back at Catherine, who looked away “Blood Demon, hid behind my pod and attacked me after I was done clearing most of the room” She gripped her head “Fucker was going down then it started draining the blood from corpses and healed itself” She cursed under her breath

“And the crystals? Did it get those too?” Rose asked and Catherine nodded “Bastard started draining me too, that’s when I called for help but, I panicked and stabbed the core.”

Rose stared at her. “Really?”

“Really, fucking hurt like hell.”

Rose brought her hand to her ear “Get all that?” She asked, turning away and going back to the pod “yeah, core appears damaged, but it is still gathering mana, albeit slowly according to the pods reading. We will get something out of this but…”

Dolan hit Catherine’s back “Did bloody good! Lucky we are getting anything from this mess. “

“Captain is going to chew you out for not checking the room before you engaged, however” Roc added “Still have the return pad?”

Catherine nodded, reaching into her suit and pulling out a mechanical blue ball. “Help me up?” she asked, the two guys looking at each other and smiled, picking the poor girl up. And helping her over to Rose

“Mana is being transmitted, jobs done here and ships in orbit. “Rose turned to them “Ready to go?” All 3 nodded “Ready to get out of this nightmare… Not looking forward to being yelled at again” Catherine said.

“your fault for going in balls deep!” Dolan laughed. Catherine glared at him “I swear once I get better I am going to wipe that stupid look off your face” “Try it! I will be waiting.”

“Ok you, Catherine, if you would” Rose motioned towards Catherine who nodded, squeezing the ball in her hand causing it too beep, she then let it fall from her hands and land on the ground. Once it landed with a bounce and stayed midair, spinning rapidly before a field of energy burst from it, engulfing the group and beaming them upwards, the beam navigating to an open hole in the roof and flying out into space.

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The beam did not need to travel far before It arrived at a metal ship where it wrapped around and hit the top of and open deck, expanding and then dissipating revealing the group who were previously located in the dungeon. “Uh-oh, welcoming party” Dolan laughed, looking towards the entrance of the ship where a man in a suit stood surrounded by knights in full metal armor. The man approached them, halting in front of them and giving a salute, the others minus Catherine give a salute, Catherine trying her best but instead just raising a hand.

“Howdy captain” She said with a light smirk.

The man glanced at her briefly before looking Rose “Scout team leader Rose, reports from the pod say we are getting, how much mana from this new dungeon?” The man asked. “2,000 mana a day, sir” The man glanced at Catherine then focused back to Rose “And that is, how much of max possible from a clean capture?” “Less then 10%...but sir there was a-“The man held up a hand, stopping her “Less then 10%? Eh? And correct me if I am wrong but this task should have been a quick, clean, and easy capture? Correct? The dungeon wasn’t even a week old from our scan, it did not even have an entrance yet!”

“Sir there was a bl-“ “ANSWER, the question team leader.” Rose tried to defend her team but was interrupted, she straightened herself out and replied “Yes…sir.”

The man chuckled “So, how in whoever gods name did you fuck up this extremely valuable and easy mission, Catherine.” He then directed his attention to the girl being propped up “Well, as Rose said there was a blo-“

**SLAP**

“I have heard the reports Catherine” The man said, waving his hand then fixing his glove, dismissing the murderous look from Catherine.

“Sir with all due respect!” Roc started but stopped when the captain raised his hand “Please, you mean to tell me in this weak dungeon a demon was spawned? A blood! Demon no less?” He laughed, facing Catherine again “you are going to have to come up with a better lie then that.”

Catherine glared “You and I both know that isn’t possible, sir” She said behind gritted teeth prompting the man to laugh “What, because of these?” he said grabbing one of the girls pointed ears and giving them a tug, causing Catherine to yelp in pain.

“Sir, I suggest you stop,” Dolan, the giant of a man said, leaning forward towards him. “Bah!” The captain scoffed, backing away with a wave of his hand “Fine, fine.” He groaned and continued to take a few steps back and turning away “I will document this little ‘fuck up’ in the report to HQ, and hope they will be satisfied with this, passive source.” He shook his head “honestly, you are lucky I don’t throw you out into space on this very deck.”

Suddenly, the captain felt a chill run down his spine, his face paled and he turned around and faced what he sensed to be the source of it, Catherine, who smirked seeing his face. “Problem sir?” she asked.

The captain cleared his throat with a cough “Uhm, *ahem* no, carry on.” He then quickly made his way towards the entryway to the ship, which opened automatically for him “Men! We will remain in orbit for a few days around this asteroid cluster to see if anything changes, dismissed!” He then walked inside followed by most of the knights in armor.

“Prick” Catherine as the door shut “Think I’m good now guys.” She said, stepping away from the group and towards the edge of the deck, the other three staring at her worryingly.

Roc was the first to speak up “You ok?” he asked wincing as Catherine spit a wad of snot off the side of the ship and towards the asteroid below. “Now I am, my ear still hurts like hell but I’m fine.”

Rose Looked towards the entrance “Sorry Catherine, tried to lighten the load but he was more pissed at this then I thought.”

Catherine shrugged “Was a major loss and I bet he is going to be chewed out later by his boss for not sending a bigger group “

“Grabbing your ear was going too far, I know how you elves feel about that…” Dolan said.

Catherine turned to him, walking over and giving him a light punch on his suit “Hey, don’t worry about it. If you can get me security footage of the captain getting yelled at by his boss, it will make me feel better” She smirked.

The giant man laughed “you got it, Rose, help me out with this yeah?” He faced towards Rose, who rolled her eyes and gave him a thumbs up.

Roc stared at Catherine “Are you sure you are alright?” He asked glancing towards the red mark left by the slap, and her swollen, throbbing ear.

“It fucking hurts but I have been threw worse. Waaaay worse” she said, winking at him before she started to walk towards the entry hatch “Do we just want to stay out here feeling bad about ourselves staring at the stars and rocks. Or get something to eat and celebrate me not dying?” She asked with a laugh, waving them inside.

“Celebrate!” Dolan cheered, running towards the now open hatch and giving her a high five on the way in.

“Dolan I swear to…urgh.” Rose shrugged “celebrate it is, meet you inside and in the mess hall after you get ready, take a shower first you kind of smell.” Rose put her hand on Catherine’s armored shoulder, giving it a pat before heading inside.

“hey screw you, I almost died!” She laughed before looking towards Roc, who was besides her now. “I am glad I didn’t lose you…” he said, leaning in and giving her a kiss “don’t know what I would of done…”

The two nights standing at attention behind them chuckled, Catherine flicking them off before returning the kiss. “Yeah, close call. “she smiled giving him a hug before spinning around and lightly pushing him towards the entrance.

“H-hey!” Roc said, stumbling to keep his balance “go ahead and go inside, Ill meet you latter” Catherine said, waving him off. Roc sighed, nodding and headed inside. Catherine took a glance around her, taking everything in.

Stars in the far distance, a huge green planet ‘close’ to them and a smaller planet further off that she could currently see, but right now they were located parked above the asteroid that was apart of the ring that wrapped around the green planet. “This will never get old.” She chuckled. Heading inside herself.

Entering the ship she saw a plaque on the wall that read “The Sky Skipper” The she brushed with her hands as she passed by. She navigated the wallways, humming a tune as she made her way to the crew quarters. On her way she passed several different facilities, a gym, the mess hall, library, tv room, game room, combat training, and even a pool which she stopped Infront of for a brief moment to admire before continuing her tune and headed to what she remembered to be her room.

Entering in a code on the side panel allowed the door to slide open and she stepped inside and took note of everything inside. Empty trash can, clothes neatly put away, a lot of plants and a stocked bookshelf…ah.

She walked over to a panel on the wall and pushed her back towards it, instantly her suit popped open “Woah!” she yelled in surprise as she fell forward out of the suit, which closed and the entire section of the wall spun around, hiding the suit from view. She huffed, crossing her arms over her chest and taking note of another door, remembering that was the way to the bathroom she started to head towards it when she heard a knock at the door.

With a groan she opened it, showing a now casual clothed Roc behind it who immediately flushed a bright red “I-I guess you were expecting me…” He gulped.

Catherine raised an eyebrow “What are you…” She glanced down “oh, um, yeah.” She quickly glanced around and then pulled him inside, the door clasping shut.

A few minutes passed and Dolan came walking down the hall humming a party tune with drink in hand, as he was about to knock on Catherine’s door he stopped “oh ho ho?” He chuckled, leaning in closer. Judging by the sounds being made he smiled “Don’t worry you two~ ill drink enough for all of us, have fun!” he gave a hearty laugh and started heading back to the mess hall.

A few moments later Catherine stood up from the bed, a quick glance to the door she laughed “They are making this too easy” she said “Really have to thank this races apparent inability to lie.” She chuckled. She had to wonder how that worked but she decided not to dwell on it, being born just a few hours ago and with little to no information on this world she decided to roll with it and gain knowledge as she went.

Already with the small number of memories she had gotten from this *Catherine* proved to be useful, along with the blind trust her companions took in her. At that thought she glanced back to the bed, smiling to herself and remembering their panicked faces as they found her laying there in the dungeon. “Too bad my darling, your Catherine is no more, but I’ll still use the name as a form of thanks for giving me my… first taste of identity.”

Catherine smiled, patting herself down and making herself look presentable, forming a new layer of clean clothes over her body with her slime. “Now I believe a full course meal has been prepared for me darling so I must go.” She said, walking to the door “oh no, don’t bother getting up, I’ll just tell them you were exhausted after our little bout and you are taking a nap.” She opened the door, taking one quick glance to the lifeless corpse on her bed “I certainly cannot miss my own survival party, everyone was so happy to have me come back after all. We had our own little party so I am sure they will understand, they are such good friends after all!”

Catherine stepped outside of the door. “sleep tight honey, and don’t let the bed bugs bite.” She said in a happy voice as the door slammed shut and the lights flickered off, leaving the cold corpse alone in the dark.