Having successfully shown that they could clear an H-rank dungeon by themselves and wanting to keep their momentum, Team 0’s members agreed to ask for a new mission before the end of the week.
They were beaten to the punch by Miss Walker, who one Thursday morning informed them that they would be going back to the sewers, in Manhattan this time, to clear up a newly spawned dungeon.
To say that they weren’t particularly enthusiastic about going back into the smelly bowels of New York City was an understatement. “Is there really no dungeon available that doesn’t involve holding my breath for hours?” Lauren complained. She had spent the two days following the rat dungeon run grumbling about the smell sticking to her hair.
Miss Walker just gave them a wan eye-smile, shattering their hopes. “I already had difficulty finding you guys a dungeon within your capabilities that wouldn’t require you to camp out in the wilderness, so no, there is nothing else.”
Having quickly stamped down their complaints, the masked woman went on to send everyone the file she had compiled with what was known about the dungeon. Since it was in Manhattan’s sewers, despite being new, there was already a wealth of information.
“It’s only crocodiles, as far as we know. Mostly swarms of smaller ones, since they must be newly hatched, so it shouldn’t be too hard to deal with, but you shouldn’t underestimate them. Can anyone tell me why?”
Maria sighed, immediately picking up on the subtext. “Unlike the rats, these crocs will probably stay in the water for the most part, so it’ll be tough for me to deal any damage.”
Miss Walker nodded but was seemingly still not satisfied. When she gave James an insistent look, he acquiesced “It’ll be difficult to deal melee damage as well. If they stay in the waters, we will be hampered, and even if they come out, crocodiles are known for their tough scales.”
Their teacher hummed “Then why would I pick this dungeon for you? It seems like the perfect counter to your abilities.”
By now, they were all used to her methods. Miss Walker enjoyed giving them just enough information that they could get to the answer by themselves. That meant she must have already given them sufficient hints.
“Probably because we won’t always be able to choose our battles, and getting used to fighting at a disadvantage now, against a new dungeon that hasn’t been able to grow enough to truly threaten us, means we won’t get as surprised in the future.” James finally answered, feeling quite confident in his understanding of his teacher.
“That’s absolutely correct. If you want to be spoon-fed easy matchups all your career while ignoring the real dangers to society, you should have gone to a Guild. We don’t shy away from any challenge here at the AA.”
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With its beautiful arches and Garibaldi statue, Washington Square Park was always teeming with life, being so close to NYU.
On a dreary Friday morning, dawn had just broken and Team 0 was greeted with absolute stillness. The alert had gone off the night before, after one two foot long crocodile had crawled out of the sewer cover and tried to take a bite of a dog.
Luckily, a police officer had been nearby and, with a couple of well placed shots, had dealt with the monster. Unfortunately, that meant panic spread quickly, and law enforcement had to declare the park a no-go zone until the appointed AA team could reach it.
Considering its closeness to important institutions and centrality to the city, the Mayor's office sent a note requesting they deal with the problem as soon as possible.
That meant James and his teammates had been thrown off their beds while the stars still twinkled merrily, were taken to the AA building where they changed into their suits and were bustled off to deal with the problem before more attention could be drawn to it.
“This sucks. Nobody told me I would have to work this early.” A yawning Ezekiel grumbled, surprisingly not being a morning person despite his usual peppiness.
“At least they had the decency to buy us breakfast.” Daniel shrugged, a Starbucks blueberry muffin and latte sitting next to him at the bench they had requisitioned.
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James quickly glanced at their two female teammates, only to find that they were still in their non-verbal state, though color was starting to return to them as they savored the warm brews. “As far as the police know, no new monster has crawled out of the sewers since the last one yesterday evening.” He commented, reading the report one overly excited officer had handed him.
Daniel hummed around his muffin, slowly chewing as he considered the information “That’s good, at least. It means they haven’t expanded their territory that much yet.”
“We might be able to clean this up relatively soon.” Ezekiel agreed, throwing his empty cup and dirty napkins in the trashcan. “We might even be able to get some sleep before lunchtime.”
At that, as if a magic word had been said, Lauren stood up, suddenly looking very determined “Let’s go. My bed is waiting for me, and I don’t intend to leave it hanging for too long.”
Maria gave her a long look before sighing “Alright, let’s get this over with.”
Seeing that everyone was done, James threw back the last of his coffee, very happy that his higher stats made scalding his tongue a thing of the past, and threw the cup in the trashcan, brushing a few crumbs off his skin-tight black and green suit “We’ll do it like last time, Daniel and me first, and when we call it clear, you can join us. Let’s make sure we don’t do anything stupid, and we’ll go back home before we know it.”
After his little speech, James bent down and opened the sewer cover, gesturing for Ezekiel to come closer. “Make me some light, will you?”
The younger boy agreed, and the Manhattan sewers were quickly unveiled as the white in-built torches of the suits sent the shadows scattering. Nothing seemed to be moving, so James lowered himself, keeping Thakinetic Awareness active.
He was shortly joined by Daniel, and when they had ensured nothing was hiding in ambush, he called the all clear “Come down. There is surprisingly little smell. Well, my nose might have been burned by the rat dungeon, but at least this way I don’t have to suffer.”
Everyone gave a sigh of relief at that. Though they had been taught that they should always expect hostile environmental effects like that, being able to breathe freely was still a great source of comfort.
The team quickly started exploring the sewers, noticing it wasn’t too different from the stretch they had already visited. “Well, in Coney Island we were close to the depurators, which means a lot of dirty things were accumulating. Here, we’re far enough that it’s still dispersed. Also, most Manhattan skyscrapers have internal cleaning systems, which means most of the job is already done.” Ezekiel commented, getting weird looks from everyone.
“Hey, I’m just curious. There are a ton of YouTube videos on this kind of thing, don’t you know?” He defended himself.
Before anyone could respond, James lifted a hand “Incoming, a dozen little ones. Prepare!”
All the levity in the atmosphere immediately dropped, and they took their positions. A few seconds later, movement in the waters became visible even to those without sensory skills, as a swarm of three foot long crocodiles made their way toward them hungrily.
They were a bit bigger than the one that had sent Washington Square Park into a frenzy, but still not fully grown. As soon as they left the safety of the water, Daniel planted himself before them, an unmovable rock that forced the monsters to go around him.
Taking advantage of that, James and Lauren dispatched most of the swarm quickly while Ezekiel empowered himself and Maria enough that their knives could end the little monsters with no trouble. James’ punches broke their skulls easily enough and they had no defense against blades.
“Well, this was easier than expected.” Lauren commented, flicking the blood away from her own weapon.
“They are too young to do much to us. But if they were allowed to keep growing unchecked, I don’t doubt this dungeon would become a real problem.” James said, considering one of the corpses before him.
They are weak enough that a single empowered punch to the skull kills them, but an adult version of these could probably tank several of them. We need to be careful with the Boss, as it might have already grown to be a threat.
He relayed his thoughts to his teammates, who all agreed not to lower their guard. Even if the first fight was easy enough that no one had gotten much closer to the next level, it still paid not to be caught unprepared.
A couple of minutes later, they encountered another similar swarm, which they dispatched with little effort. One of the crocodiles had seemingly decided to pit its jaws against Daniel’s shield and had been dogged enough that Daniel had been forced to bash it across the head, almost breaking the formation, but he had been quick enough to come back that nothing had happened.
Soon after the fight, they found something which shook them to their core. Team 0 used small, resistant torches built into their suits to illuminate the way. Their light reached from the floor to the ceiling, uncovering any secret that might be hidden.
But when James saw the thing, he didn’t want to believe what his eyes were telling him. “Ez, could you please shine some of your light over here? I think the torches are making me see things.”
Hesitantly, the boy complied. White healing light illuminated the surroundings and James could see that no, he had not been mistaken. It was indeed a foot sticking out of the water that he had seen.
Horrified gasps came from everyone as they finally saw what he had been so concerned by, and they gathered around it. “Do you think it’s a trap?” Lauren asked, her knives held tight before her.
James shook his head “I can’t feel anything living here. Unless the crocs have suddenly become smart enough to start building things, we might have just found the remains of their dinner.”
With some hesitation, he reached toward the foot, grabbing it with two hands. James braced himself and pulled, surprised at how light the weight was.
The reason for that, it turned out, was that it was connected to a leg that went up only to the mid thigh, where the bone was sticking out, and the muscle was almost entirely gone, chewed up by whatever had killed the poor victim.
All five Awakeners looked at each other in disgust and worry. Finally, Ezekiel asked “Do you think we have to go look for the rest of that poor man?”
“No, once we have cleared the dungeon of monsters, we can leave that to the proper authorities. What worries me the most is that unless this person was exceptionally drunk or under substances, he should have been able to run away from the little crocs.” James answered, laying the solitary limb to the side of the tunnel, looking at his gloved hands in distaste.
“Which means something big and strong enough to kill a grown man is here.” Lauren concluded, looking into the darkness ahead of them grimly.