I woke up to a loud sound followed by an eerie silence, more loud, vaguely animal-like sounds, and cold ground, which should have been the first clue to where I wasn’t. I took a breath of air. It was dusty. The walls were covered in vines, and torches lit up the room; it had the classic castle dungeon look to it, plus the floor was as rough as sandpaper.

The only things from where I actually went to sleep were my sleeping bag, my leg, and my gauntlets, which were by my foot. I put them on and took a look around. Was this a memory? No, I still felt like me, and I still had my gauntlets. Why was I here? Was this the team-choosing thing that was so hyped up?

“Bingo, you’re on the money. You better start moving; a still target makes easy prey for Beowolves.”

I pulled myself up from the ground and followed the left wall just in case Matt was more accurate than he originally released. Judging by the vines and moss alone, he had seemingly guessed the dungeon thing right.

“Remember you do have powers, you can test them out by scouting ahead,” Edward reminded me.

In less than a second, I arrived in a clearing and to a fight already going on. I leaned against the wall to balance myself. Purple light and runes filled the room, illuminating a Shade known as a Nope. It had the distorted head of a snake with its mouth stretching unnaturally, eight thin needle-like spider legs and exposed beetle wings with bone armour making a flame pattern covering the main part of the body and crown on top of the abomination’s head, all aspects combined slightly awkwardly.

The Nope’s body was covered head to toe in oily black glistening scales, peaking through its solid bone armour. The thing had poison dripping from razor fangs that were hanging out its mouth, and its body was at least three times my size, filling up most of the clearing. You could tell why this Shade was called the Nope.

“Tom! Thank the gods you are here,” Matthew exclaimed while fighting the abomination. “Distract this thing while I heal up! Kill it with fire!”

The monster, anchored to the ground by its legs to try and absorb the shock, moved only a couple of inches from the blast spell, dragging up dirt. Dust clouds rose behind it, kicked up by the impact. Matthew seemed to brace the recoil from his spell for a second and yelled another spell, which formed a metallic shield in front of him with the same symbols engraved into it. The shield sang in a sort of weird melody.

Immediately, I activated my power and dashed behind the beast and, after stopping for a couple of precious seconds to regain balance, used my gauntlets to shoot at one of the Nope’s eight leg sockets to rip it from its body, releasing black sludge blood from the open wound. That drew its attention.

It spun away from Matt and gave its full attention to me. Its rotten almond-smelling breath washed over me, and I gagged from the smell. I had a full view of its serpent-arachnid features and its mandibles. Its eyes had no pupils; they were just blank and beady. This should have made it blind because this stolen adaptation was not designed for a creature this large. Light acting differently at this scale, but due to a weird fluke of nature, or indeed the lack of it, gave the Nope superb night vision.

At that moment, I realised that I had not thought through a plan; I was mainly acting on impulse, not thought.

“Um, is there any chance I could call a time-out to think?” I asked half-heartedly. In answer, the Shade just shrieked in my face. “I guess that is a no on that; good to know.” Suddenly, everything froze, or more accurately, slowed down so much that nothing was moving significantly.

“Here’s your time-out. I know what to do, Kid; this isn’t my first rodeo. Here’s what you do: use the thing’s leg to bash its fangs back into its jaw. If you hit enough times, the fangs might gain enough force and go through the bastard’s skull or whatever the equivalent is for a Nope. That should kill it. If not, shoot it with your gauntlets until you run out of ammo. I hope Matt over there has something a little stronger than some blast spell in case you need help.”

I held the leg like a cricket bat and swung it at the exposed fangs; about four hits in the fang broke. I could see the bone fracture in front of my eyes as I hit it more and more to build more momentum, making it into a projectile. Edward corrected my aim as I hit it in the direction I wanted it to go, making sure the fang hit the softest part of its pallet to cause the most damage.

Regular time took back over, and the fang exploded out, and all the kinetic energy I had built into it was released. The Nope collapsed with a giant gaping hole in its head where the fangs exited the Nope’s skull. To be thorough, I gave it a couple more complementary shots with my gauntlets.

The Nope disintegrated back into shadows, leaving me standing there holding the air where the leg had been in both hands. The evidence of battle being the eight lines into the ground and the smell, which was going to be difficult to get out. What wasn’t difficult to get out of, though, was the clearing, as the previously blocked exit was now clear.

Matthew practically appeared beside me and said, “How were you able to kill that thing in a matter of seconds? It took me at least ten minutes to move it an inch. And how were you able to even cut it?”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Um… speed?” I shrugged.

“Anyway, let’s get out of this maze thing,” Matthew said, clearly annoyed at my prowess in the battle and me outshining him and definitely not just satisfied with my answer, as it would make sense for a speedster type to be quicker. However, the comparison between us was a little unfair, as I had an experienced mentor and two Legacies on my side. “So, left or right?”

“Go left.”

“Er… left? Yeah, left.” I answered, taking Edward’s advice as he seemed to know what he was doing.

I led the way out of the clearing, with the minor Shade boss defeated and one companion acquired to my party. We turned left and immediately ran into a dead end. It turns out Edward wasn’t always as helpful as he could have been.

“Right, it is then.” I backtracked with Edward sniggering in my mind at his ‘joke’. This was not going to be as easy as it probably should have been, with the ‘help’ not being any help.

***

The only problems we encountered after the Nope were a couple of Beowolves, which we tried to go around as they weren’t blocking the exit. That plan did not work, as without even seeing us, they seemed to sense where we were and pursued us. I had to run past them carrying Matt over my shoulder, which certainly was not easy in the slightest. There was still the trouble of not falling over every time I ran because I had practically no balance. I honestly was expecting to run into a Bonegrinder as Matthew’s ‘Dumb Answer’ had predicted way too much already. What was his Legacy? Being a medium?

“I’d say I’m more of a large,” Mathew joked when I asked. “I’m actually a mage type, which is good because I don’t actually want to be more correct than I already am. I'd heard they'd do an entrance exam, but I didn’t expect this.”

Luckily, there were no Bonegriders to be seen.

When we arrived at the end of the maze-dungeon-thing and reached a waiting room of sorts, we found out that none of the other students were there yet; we were the first to finish. Miss Fortune and Washington were waiting, watching everyone else fight and complete the challenge. We weren’t the only people to be blocked by Shades, as I could see Oliver and Alex from the ship fighting a Griffin and other pairs also fighting their own Shades. We may not have been the only pair to be put up against a Shade, but we definitely won the prize for the most tears and blood stains on our clothes.

My jeans had frayed due to friction, and my t-shirt was split down the middle as it had clearly gotten caught on something during the fight without me noticing and was drenched in dirt and Shade gunk. The teachers, on the other hand, had no such problems; they even seemed to have a good night’s sleep, seeing as they did not have grey bags under their eyes. We had no such luxury. With the adrenaline wearing off and my aura depleted, I slumped down on a chair that was conveniently placed there, and Matt did the same. It took a couple of moments for the teachers to register we were even there, as they clearly weren’t expecting us this soon.

Miss Fortune seemed surprised since most of the other students were still far from finishing, though some were closer than others. There was a clear divide between those who had unlocked their Legacy and those who didn’t, as powers just gave a large advantage. There were some clear outliers, though, as some clearly met a bad match and had probably been too reliant on their legacy than they should have been. Washington was not surprised as the only acknowledgement we received from him was a head nod in our direction.

“Huh, there are quite a few more people with unlocked Legacys this year,” Edward commented, slouching in the chair next to me, a slight bit of annoyance present in his town. “It clearly is a lot easier with them; killing Shades is not as hard if you can evade them with ease or pick them up with your mind.”

“You didn’t have your Legacy?” I asked him. Fighting the Shades with super speed was hard enough. Doing so without it seemed like an impossible task.

“Nope, just regular weapons and my wit. Don’t you remember? I gained my Legacy after becoming captured. Which was quite a bit after I had to do this.” I remembered that memory like it was my own. Luckily, I didn’t have to relive it again for him.

I decided that I deserved a nap as I had not had as much sleep as I needed; being transported into a dungeon in your sleep can do that. It also may have been due to using my Legacy so much in such a short amount of time and depleting my aura.

***

It took about an hour for the rest of the students to finish their dungeon crawling, which was enough time for me to wake back up again. This annoyed a lot of the new students, who thought very highly of themselves and were not expecting someone to have finished before them, let alone have the audacity to take a nap. They did seem to take slight gratification in the sorry state of my clothing.

After a set amount of time, the students who were not able to reach the end were saved by the teachers, and while this meant they’d failed, they were just glad to be done with the ordeal.I recognised Alex and Oliver, and they sat next to us. They looked like they went through more Shades than Matt and I did. At least Alex did, though he had a huge grin and looked like he could do it twice over if you ignored the dirt and tears in his clothes. Oliver, on the other hand, only had bags under his eyes and a small amount of dirt on his t-shirt. His clothes were even intact!

I went up to them and said through a yawn, “Hey guys, how did you enjoy surprise dungeon exploring? Beowolves are really fun, aren’t they?”

“So, you completed the dungeon first and way before anyone else? Interesting.” Alex replied, ignoring my completely serious question.

“You heard about that? I would have been quicker, but I wanted a lie in.”

“Anyway, I think we have to get going. They are picking the different teams right now. I’m sure you’ll get a good one, considering how you did. See you,” he said, turning to go.

“You should go to that; it’s up the stairs and to the right. It’s the room everyone is going to; just follow them.” Edward suggested, pointing to the stairs.

I followed them out of the lower parts of the school, leaving the Shades in their maze. Maybe there'll be food; I was starving.