"Did she really… Who's this Vol woman anyway?" Annie asked suspiciously. Whoever she was, she was spending a lot of time with Carl, and she wasn't being very nice to Mina, even if she seemed to have had a net positive effect on the girl.
"You don't have much time left," said the dungeon core. "Do you want to go backwards or forwards?"
Annie considered it. "Why are you doing all this anyway?" she wondered aloud for the first time. "I get that you think you'll be destroyed, but why bother to show me this?"
"You would leave otherwise, wouldn't you? With your power as a treasure, all of us are more powerful for a time," said the dungeon core. "Much more powerful. Especially Finis, who spent the past few days expanding the dungeon to cover the entire world. Underground though, since we don't want to draw attention to ourselves or Carl. Now we have the biggest dungeon in the world, which means it must be the most awesome, just like Carl wanted."
Annie didn't really get what the dungeon core meant, but it seemed like it was saying that it was following Carl's directions. She still didn't know how or why he was here, but he was still acting very much like himself from what she'd seen, and she still trusted that he was being the best Carl that he could.
"Let's keep going forward," she said. "Mina was building her new car before you started showing me all these Vol scenes. She really ruined Mina's sister's party?"
"I don't know," the dungeon core said as the images began to play. "I can't read her thoughts at all, so I know only what Carl says. Vol is the edgeless one, according to Finis. If we anger her, she will destroy us."
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"Yes! YES!" Annie cheered as she threw her arms into the air. "Great job, Mina!"
The girl continued to drive around the racetrack after her victory, her thoughts a jumble of glee, joy, and disbelief. She circled the track and got out of her car, where a woman with a microphone walked up to her.
Annie felt the same as when Sammy had won her first basketball game, and she wanted desperately to run over and give the girl a hug.
"What the…" She stared and clutched at her pillow. A giant robot was stomping towards the girl now, shaking the ground with every step. "No, no, no! Run, Mina! Run! RUN!"
There was a sudden bellow, and the robot rocked backwards.
"Carl?!" Annie exclaimed. She'd seen him throw a car that one time, but now he was picking up this giant robot? She felt her heart racing anew as she watched her husband of nearly twenty years strain with all his might to hurl the robot that was threatening this brave girl he'd spent so much time caring for and trying to help. "Yes! Get him, Carl! Wait, is that… That's the same asshole who trapped me here!" she yelled, vaguely recognizing the voice.
The image shifted, and Mina's terror flared back as she spotted her sister again.
"No!" Annie whispered. "No, you can't do this to her! Come on, not now!"
Mina bounced back again though, just like she always seemed to, tearing into her awful sister with a level of vitriol that made Annie proud.
"Yeah!" Annie cheered in response. Her stomach lurched as a strong-looking man started towards the girl, then she felt some relief when that same Vol woman magically appeared.
"What the fuck is she doing?!" Annie yelled. "She just sh…"
She watched as lightning erupted, and a towering rectangle appeared in the air for a short while containing all kinds of words and numbers that made no sense to her. Then it shrank, and after some sort of fight agreement, Vol used it to casually splatter the strong-looking man's head onto the ground when he tried to attack her.
"What…"
She kept watching, growing more and more confused, as the crowd chanted while Vol, who hadn't been killed by getting stabbed directly through the throat, now walked towards the robot that was standing with one foot holding Carl down, the woman's short hair now replaced with a long trail of sparking, coruscating lightning that fanned out and twitched behind her in every direction, curving up at the end almost like the tail of a scorpion. A bright flash of light made her squint for a moment. The robot held its hand up and fired something, but there was another, brighter flash of light, and the robot's head disappeared. Too fast to follow, the robot had moved forward, now resting motionless on its knees in front of Vol as she ripped metal off its chest.
"Who is she?" Annie asked again.
"She is Volcatia Scipio, and she is not someone we want to anger," said the dungeon core in a solemn tone. Then its voice became more upbeat. "Annie, our time together has to end now, but I just want you to know that I had fun. It was nice to have someone to talk to who was more…like me. And less…like Carl. Even though Carl is my partner, and he's a great one, sometimes it just feels good to have another woman to talk to."
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
Annie frowned down at the dungeon core that was sitting on the bed in front of her. "What do you mean, another woman?"
"Well…" The dungeon core hesitated. "It's against the rules for a dungeon core to talk about their past life with their partner, but if it's you… We've been through so much the past few days, I feel like we're friends. I used to be from Earth, just like you, before I became a dungeon core."
"What?" Annie stared at the dungeon core.
It made a sighing sound somehow. "Yes, I was a woman in your world, and now I'm a dungeon core. I try not to think about my time before this though. It was so much more depressing."
"How could anything be more depressing than having to see the thoughts of shitbags like that?"
"I owned a website for web fiction called Royal Road, and that filthy human was one of the people who read and commented on stories people were writing," the dungeon core said, sounding upset. "It was so stressful!"
"Never heard of it," said Annie. "But if that's the type of person who was using it, maybe you should've done something. Enabling people to be toxic is the same as encouraging it." She knew that all too well from her own time overseeing the little monsters that roamed the hallways of her school.
The dungeon core sighed again. "Maybe I should've," it said, sounding glum. There was a few seconds' pause. "Oh well! That's long in the past, and I never have to deal with it again. If I catch any more of them and they're filthy like that other human though, I'll make sure they get banned right away."
Annie realized again what she was talking about and had to stop from how surreal it was. "Well… That's good?" she said.
"Yes, it is," the dungeon core agreed. "Anyway, I'll miss you, and I wish I could keep you here forever, but Finis says if I don't leave now there's going to be problems, so I'm leaving now. See you around, Annie!"
The dungeon core vanished along with all the shelves of food and drink as well as the extra clothes the dungeon cores had somehow managed to get for her, leaving Annie sitting alone, on a bed, in a room she now couldn't escape because there was a wall of stone blocking the only door, on another planet.
"Wait, what the fuck!" she shouted, looking around. "You said you were gonna send me back!"
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Annie sat cross-legged on the bed, trying to meditate. Except that it's been who fucking knows how long, and I'm actually trapped here now! She sighed. I'm so fucking stupid. How did I fall for such a stupid, obvious trap? Feels like it's been hours. I can't even check what time it is anymore since my battery…
There was a sudden crash, and a hand smashed through the stone wall where the door had been.
A human hand.
Annie dove awkwardly off the opposite side of the bed and peeked over the top, her heart pounding.
"Annie, you in—Hey, we're here to rescue you," called the woman she recognized as Vol, who was methodically smashing apart the thick rock.
"Annie, are you well?" Ir'alith's voice called out. The rock suddenly dissolved, becoming mud and settling onto the ground.
"What the fuck, why didn't you do that before?" Vol grumbled.
Ir'alith pushed past the shorter woman, coming into view and looking just as she had the last time, regal and wearing her glowing armor, rather than broken and nearly-naked. "You are well!" she exclaimed, her eyes brightening.
Annie stumbled to her feet and dashed over, throwing her arms around the uncomfortable metal of the woman's green armor. "I thought you were dead!" she said. "I'm so sorry, Ir'alith!"
"Huh," said Vol.
"I am not so easily slain," Ir'alith said. She patted Annie's head gently with one hand. "I am pleased that you have endured your captivity with such strength."
"Really, I'm so sorry," Annie said, pressing her face against the cool metal. "I didn't know."
"The fault was mine in… What did you not know, Annie?" Ir'alith asked, sounding puzzled.
"Um…" Probably not something she'd want to think about now if she's already put it behind her. I know I wouldn't. "Nothing," Annie said, stepping back. "I'm just really glad you're okay is all." She smiled up at the blue-skinned woman.
Ir'alith smiled back in a disconcerting show of sharp teeth. "Your compassion is—"
"Yeah, yeah, can we go back now?" Vol interrupted.
Annie frowned. "Who are you?" she asked yet again.
Vol grinned. "I'm Vol. Carl's friend. Glad you're okay too, but I knew you would be."
Annie's face screwed up in confusion. "What?"
"Don't worry about it," Vol said, waving her hand dismissively. Her eyes dropped and studied the floor next to Ir'alith. "Yeah, just doing normal friend things."
Ir'alith's tail waved back and forth. "Friends," she said in an agreeing tone, her smile widening a little. "Annie, I will return you to your world, but I wish for you to meet those who aided your rescue. Will you delay your return for this?"
"Those who…" Annie's eyes widened. "Yes. Yes! I need to—Is Mina here? Or there? Wherever we're going?"
"She is," Ir'alith said with a small nod. "I have created a gate."
"Finally." Vol was already walking past them into the room, and as Annie's head turned, the younger woman walked through a purple-ringed portal.
Is that… Annie's breath caught as she spotted a blonde head beyond the portal. She looked back to Ir'alith, who gave her an encouraging nod, and then walked through, emerging into a lantern-lit area that reminded her of where she'd first arrived.
Her eyes focused. In front of her stood the same resilient young woman she'd watched endure horrors over and over, somehow fighting through a lifetime of pain and fear to become stronger each time. The same young woman she'd felt deep concern and worry for as she wondered how anyone could possibly continue on with her life after so many awful things had happened.
Annie cared.
Maybe she cared too much, but that was just who she was.
She was a mom, and she knew what she had to do.