Chris looked at me, confused. “What?”
“Gambit, do the thing,” Tina said. “Aim us 3 yards in front of the Metro entrance next to the Gold Apple Bank.”
“You’ve got it!” I obeyed.
“The Metro?” Chris asked, starting to back away.
I hopped forward and grabbed onto his arm. Nina had said we needed this guy to find Bee, so I wasn’t going to let him run.
“Steve! Get over here!” I called the Birthday Brat.
“Are we doing the thing again?” he asked, dismayed.
“Don’t make me repeat myself,” I warned him.
He quickly ran over, with Tina coming close as well.
“Please let me go,” Chris said. Then he locked eyes with Steve and said, “Happy birthday.”
I smiled.
“hole.Worm( )!”
The ground under us grew a sudden black shadow, before it started rumbling. The two survivors of Chris’ group quickly backed away. Then the maw of the Transportation Worm flew up and out of the pavement, swallowing all four of us whole. We were pulled along for the ride as it fell back down into the ground again.
Even though we’d been close together as it swallowed us, its interior was like a flexible tube tall enough for me to stand without my hair touching the ceiling and long enough for none of us to bump into each other. There were weird bean-bag-like seats, which Tina and Steve both plopped themselves down onto, while Chris looked around in confusion.
“What just happened?”
“It’s an ability of mine,” I said. “It’s taking us towards the Metro.”
“We can’t go in there. Everyone says there’s a giant monster that’ll eat you…”
“They’re planning for us to get eaten,” Steve said with a defeated tone in his voice.
Tina smiled as though she was having a lovely day. “I haven’t been inside the Metro in a loooong time.”
“Why am I coming along for the ride…?” the Backstabber wondered.
“You’re going to help us find a Wayward Minor.”
“A wayward—? Wait, you know where my brother is??”
“He’s in the Temple,” Tina said cheerfully. “The Metro will take us there.”
“I thought he disappeared like all the other children,” Chris replied. “But you’re saying he’s still out there?”
“Seems that way,” I said.
“He must be inside a dungeon if the Ants can’t find him,” Panda guessed.
“Panda says he’s inside a dungeon most likely,” I repeated.
“Panda?” he asked. “Who’s that?”
“How is this guy still sane?” Steve complained.
“He’s got a good mindset about things,” I replied as though it was obvious.
Suddenly the whole interior of the worm started to become narrower, before all four of us were squeezed out of the end and arrived three yards in front of the Metro entrance.
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“That was fast,” Chris muttered.
“Convenient, right?” I asked, beaming at the fact that I’d picked a great transport ability.
A second after our arrival, an angel with a yellow raincoat and a red mask passed right in front of us, barely missing us before continuing ahead.
I looked to Tina. She’d apparently predicted this hence her very specific instructions for where we were heading.
“I think that was Matthew Twine with his new Red Pawn Role,” Panda commented.
“That thieving bastard! He probably still has my loot!” I grumbled.
“Ignore him. Let’s focus on saving Bee instead.”
I narrowed my eyes but knew he was right.
Tina was the first to go down the escalator, which still operated as normal. Chris followed right behind her, clearly interested in saving his brother, while I came third, dragging Steve behind me.
I briefly spotted some kind of weird golden statue that had a giant apple instead of a head and was walking out of the nearby bank, which seemed to be a dungeon. Then the reflective grey stone tiles of the Metro Station filled my vision. I shifted my gaze down to the end of the escalator, where a ticket barrier awaited us.
As we all reached the bottom, Panda pointed towards a nearby machine to buy tickets. As I went over a screen hit me:
Castleburg-Madeville Metro Line:
One-Way Ticket: 100 Coins
Return Ticket: 180 Coins
Day Pass: 320 Coins
Week Pass: 1800 Coins
THOSE WITHOUT TICKETS WILL PERISH!
“That’s expensive,” Steve said.
“You’re just poor,” I replied.
“Do we really need tickets?”
“The World-Eater accepts only those that hold Rite of Passage.”
Chris and Steve gave Nina a weird look.
“She means ‘Yes’,” I translated.
“It sounds like you’ll get free passage to Madeville,” Panda muttered.
“I doubt it’s that simple.”
“Meow,” Lordie remarked.
“What’d he say?” Panda asked.
“He said it smells like death down here.”
[まもなく、お客様方はわたしの中に入ります。逃げるのはおやめください。]
“Let’s hurry up and get those tickets,” Chris urged.
I bought a one-way ticket, as did Tina and him, while Steve just stood there, looking out of place.
“Can someone spot me 100 Coins?”
We all shared a glance, but I ended up being the one to buy it for him, much to my dismay. He didn’t need to come along, but he owed me, and while this just made his debt to me grow, I couldn’t rightly ask the other two to pay for him.
I looked at the ticket in my hand.
‘C-M Metro One-Way Ticket’ x
This ticket allows you to board the Metro Train between Castleburg and Madeville.
Ticket is consumed upon use.
Weight: 0.01 Pandas
image [https://i.imgur.com/axsRil1.png]
Tina took hers and inserted it into the ticket barrier, which lit up green and then opened for her. Since it was one-way, the machine didn’t spit it out at the other end.
The rest of us followed suit and then walked out onto the narrow platform. There was only one track and before the Great Game, there’d only ever been two trains on the line, with some middle-point between the cities allowing them to pass by each other on separate tracks. It meant that usual wait times were about twenty minutes, which was pretty inefficient for a metro.
There was a screen where normally a timetable would’ve been visible, but it was just flickering and showing split-second jumpscare images of a twisted grinning face.
A bing-bong sound suddenly filled the entire platform, before the voice of Chika Hitokui announced:
[まもなく、カスルバルグ。カスルバルグです。ご注意ください。]
“Anyone know what it’s saying?” I asked.
“I don’t speak Chinese,” Steve replied.
“It’s Japanese,” Chris corrected him.
“Do you speak it?” I asked.
“No.”
“I wish Bee was here,” I complained. “You guys are useless.”
“You’re the one who brought us!” Steve argued.
“Beggars can’t be choosers, Steve.”
Tina ignored the conversation and walked up to the edge of the platform, just as a rush of air flowed out of the tunnel and two massive hands appeared, dragging behind them a giant body with the large cyclopean face of the Metro Monster popping out first.
“Fucking hell!!” Steve blasphemed.
I gasped.
“Oh my God, Steve just cursed!”