Mr. Robertson was ecstatic.

Cheering me on as I allowed magic to flow through my skill. All the surrounding vegetation grew and transformed as the ethereal waves washed over them. Moss growing thicker and more pronounced while seeds sprouted and anchored themselves to the cement. Cracking right through it in search of soft earth beneath. Roots grew gnarled and twisted. Thick tendrils enveloping the fragmented concrete and breaking down the stones into smaller pebbles before assimilating them into the developing stems.

I... felt the call. Their call. Tiny voices becoming more pronounced. Their will to live mirroring my own.

The skills were, still odd to use.

Feeling like muscles that hadn't grown in until recently.

Strong emotions flared up whenever I flexed them. A blistering anger rising to the surface. Making me more aggressive towards threats, real or imagined.

Coach Russell, for instance, seemed scarier whenever I was channeling this new power. His posture coming across as dangerous and provocative, when it was anything but.

I knew it had to be my mind playing tricks on me. If someone like him wanted to hurt me, there would be precious little I could do about it. Maybe, I don't know. Bleed on his shirt in a vicious manner?

Nah.

He could just grab a rock and flick it in my general direction. It had been enough to vaporize the boss monster on the sixth floor. It would certainly be enough to kill me ten times over.

It was a hopeless prospect. Something I knew and accepted. Yet, the rage refused to be dispelled. Regardless of how bleak the odds appeared to be.

While the flow of magic appeared to be uniform in nature, further focus revealed distinct differences

[Spawn] felt like separating part of myself. Like drawing a portion of the ephemeral glowing warmth within me and sending it out. The section-off energy became plant matter, or was otherwise absorbed by those organisms that already existed.

'That's only because I'm limiting myself though. I think. No. I know, I could make other things. Like the mosquitoes I drained on the sixth or like the jellyfish boss. Come to think of it; did I apply my skill to the spear? It kind of felt like it. Even though I didn't have the full skill at that time. Weird. I guess it was more of a gradual change instead of a sudden one like in games.'

Meanwhile, [Transform] served to further enhance my creations. Endowing them with more mass and shapes that did not come naturally to plants. That, and a lesser manner of sentience, as well as instructions on how to behave. Alongside with a healthy does of blind hatred towards anything that wasn't me. Sort of. It was hard to tell, but I could have sworn I heard them cursing me once or twice.

'Mr. Robertson is right. I need to get a handle on the magic or it'll get me killed one of these days. Coach Russell will hold back if I lunge at him, but a monster at his level won't have such courtesies.'

I recalled the jellyfish and how close the fight had been. It would have definitely killed us if it wasn't for the Spitters. The same was probably true of the tree I faced on the sixth floor. I had felt invincible while tearing chunks off it, but the reality was much different in hindsight.

I had been running on fumes by then. Having spent nearly all the stamina I'd had on draining the other monsters around the swamp.

It would have worn me down and torn me limb from limb in a few minutes if coach Russell hadn't intervened.

I grimaced. Forcing my attention away from the recent memories and into the new plants. The vegetation had spread to all the corners of the chamber and had begun to gouge chunks of masonry off the walls. Squeezing into gaps they should have had no business infiltrating or otherwise making their own alcoves from which to lounge.

I felt my vision start to blur and wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. Only then did I notice how much sweat had gathered. How much the process had taken out of me in a few minutes.

"I... I think I need to lay down." I told them.

"That's fine." Mr. Robertson assured me. "Casper should be coming down with the first group soon, so we can leave it at that."

"But I haven't made any monsters?"

Him and coach Russell guffawed. As if I'd just told them that polar bears made for great pets.

"You've laid the groundwork, Cecil. These little guys are big and healthy and mean as rattlesnakes. I can feel their killing intent on my skin. Now we proceed with the second step."

Coach Russell pulled on the sack he'd been carrying. Loosening a few strings so that its contents fell on the floor.

The things that fell were shiny and small. Reflecting the light of our lanterns like diamonds under a summer sun.

I gaped at them. Counting at least a hundred.

Watching with morbid fascination as the plants I'd recently sown bent over backwards to get at the pile. Some grew purple thorns that dripped liquid death onto the ground. Some became a paler shade of green so that they resembled dried-up weeds rather than the very healthy and very deadly variants they actually were. Some others grew bigger. And bigger. And bigger.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Reaching the ceiling and puncturing right through it as if it were made of carboard, only to retreat back into themselves once I hastily ordered them to do so. I pushed more magic into them. Commanding them to entangle around themselves and assume the shapes of apes and bears, until such patterns began to repeat themselves up and down the hall we were occupying.

"Won't that make them too strong for normal people?"

"Depends. Normal people with melee weapons? Yes. Normal people armed to the teeth with revolvers, shotguns and flamethrowers? No. This is Alaska mind you. Most civilians I've had the pleasure of meeting carry enough ammo to put down a wandering T-Rex. They'll be fine."

"Won't that ruin the plan? I thought they were supposed to get cores of their own."

"Oh, they will. They'll run out of ammo eventually and go for the aforementioned hammers and axes. But they'll have been exposed to plenty of magic by that point. These cheap cores won't make the monsters too strong, but they will triple the amount of juices they leak. Anyone who puts up even a modicum of effort is getting at least a tenth of a point. And since we'll be making hundreds of these, those gains will start to add up real quick. Carlyle here will use his skills to temper the monster's natural bloodlust so that they don't actually kill anyone. Its not a sustainable training method, and it certainly won't be as effective as what we do back in Dunstonberry. Yet it'll give these guys the edge they need to make it through the apocalypse when it does come down. Plus, they'll have a neat magic-resistant garden to grow potatoes or whatever else they might want."

"A garden, in the sewers?" I pointed out.

He shrugged.

"The vegetation will spread topside. They'll figure it out."

He looked at the piles once more and nodded.

"That should be enough to get a quarter of the town to the point where they'll get stage one cores. At the very least."

I followed his gaze. Taking in the last remaining monster cores about to be consumed by my creations.

"Aren't those cores, worth a lot?"

"Not really." Mr. Robertson said. "These monster cores are all from the second or third floors. So, they're quite useless to us."

"But, you pay us? I've made something like, five hundred dollars over the past month..."

They both looked at me as if I were mentally impaired.

Coach Russell even went so far as to stifle a giggle.

"It's adorable that you think that's a lot of money Cecil. We at the company still pay you kids when you turn them in as a form of positive re-enforcement. We give you money because more money will make you train harder so you can delve deeper later in life and get the really valuable stuff when you're stronger. We really can't use them for anything other than fuel though. Even then, a single core from the fourth or fifth floor gives off ten times the energy and does it twice as fast."

Mr. Robertson meandered over and helped me to my feet. Picking me up as easily as a child would a ragdoll in spite of his thin frame and advanced age.

"That reminds me. I don't think we've discussed the matter of your compensation yet. How silly of me to forget. Tell me, what do you think about mansions? Would you mind if yours were to be constructed, below ground level?"

"I already live in a mansion that's mostly below ground level." I informed him.

"Pish posh!" He said, waving the statement away. "That's just another standard habitation bunker. We built tens of thousands of them when we first founded the town. Back before we had a solid plan for how to develop the place. Earth and metal magic practically lets us vomit the stuff. Why, it doesn't even have a jacuzzi! Or a home theatre for that matter."

Coach Russell wrapped an arm around my shoulder.

"Trust me, you'll be wanting a jacuzzi. I use mine all the time. All. The. Time. Its like being kissed by hundreds of angels."

"How do you people afford this stuff? I thought the world was ending?"

"It is! That's exactly why we can afford it. The price of daily necessities keeps going up but the prices for luxury goods keeps going down, since, you know, no one is buying giant TVs when they can barely make rent and buy food at the same time. Heck, I've got four different Joystations at home. The latest ones. Two for my kids, one for my room and one for my hot tub. Its great."

Mr. Robertson spoke up from my right.

"Also, we're still making money hand over fist. Remember those power plants we opened up all over Europe and East Asia last year? The ones we said were nuclear? Monster cores. All of them. We can afford to sell energy at dirt-cheap prices while also making a tidy profit. We literally ran our competition all over the Americas into the ground last decade."

"But there's tons of companies out there providing energy."

They both chortled.

Coach Russel especially so.

"Well duh. We register them under different families and pretend they're locally owned. Come on Cecil, you know Casper and his family all have the [Space] core. I used to spend half my time teleporting between Chile and Brazil before I took over your training. Here, watch this...."

He pulled an obviously fake mustache from his pocket. His entire face and complexion changed as soon as he put it on, so that he resembled an overweight man in his fifties.

"Hola compadre! Yo soy el senor Juanito! Owner of Juanito y Juanito electricity! Yo soy muy rico y me gustan mucho las brazilenas!"

I gaped at him. At both of them. I mean, I knew this whole thing was a conspiracy, but face-changing?

"I... is that true?"

Coach Russell looked abashed.

"Yeah, I've had a couple of kids in Brazil. Me and my first wife split up because of it. There's just something different about the girls there, you know?"

"No! I don't know. You ass. I was talking about the fact that you lot secretly own the world!"

Mr. Robertson snorted.

"I wish kid. This whole, saving-the-human race business would be infinitely easier if we did. There are way, way scarier monopolies and interest groups out there. People whose private business would make your skin crawl. We're literally planting monsters beneath a sleepy mountain town and we're practically saints compared to them. I could write fifteen books on the many, many assassination attempts I've survived this year alone. Do you know what cyanide tastes like?"

"No." I deadpanned.

"Well I've tasted so much of the stuff that I've developed a bit of a craving. Those Frey bastards don't know when to give up. And they think I'm only operating in North America. I can't even imagine what they'd try if they knew about all our branching operations. Probably send a cruise missile or something."

Part of me was certain he was messing with me.

Unfortunately, another part of me was starting to believe that was well within the realm of possibility.

After all, I'd been a normal teenager just last month and here I was. Growing monsters in a sewer system.

I was about to ask for more details on this, Frey family, when the air around us shimmered.

A burst of displaced air washed over me then. An empty section of the room having been occupied by a short man wearing a thick brown trench coat paired with black sunglasses and an even thicker balaclava.

"The cops are on their way. There aren't many of them, but all the bystanders are strapped. I mean, jeez. They've got rocket launchers. What are a bunch of townies doing with rocket launchers?"

"Blowing up stuff for fun?" Coach Russell offered.

"Of course you'd think that. Shit. I'm surrounded by psychopaths."

"Hey! I'm not a psychopath!"

It took every ounce of self control in my entire being to keep quiet after that comment.

"Excellent." Mr. Robertson exclaimed. Apparently not too focused on the ensuing argument. "This is it lads. One little Dungeon break to start it all. Three whole years ahead of schedule."

The smile that had blossomed on his face was manic. Bathed in a deep dark longing.

"Let's get this show on the road boys." He turned around to face us. "Let's save the world."