~~~Stanley~~~

Stanley felt Zeke's soul flinch behind him—the only one among them—but the kid didn't say or do anything more.

Pink... or Sam? Whatever her name was, she didn't move either. She only fumed silently while staring at the man her magic had impaled through the chest. Magic, which was now the only thing holding him upright.

Most of her people had already arrived after her yell, and not one of them reacted visibly to the execution. They all stood ramrod straight, even as the dying man gurgled and blood bubbled from between his lips. They continued not moving as his hands flailed weakly and uselessly against the impaling streak of light.

Only one person made a sound as he slowly died in front of them. His ex-wife. When she started crying...

Stanley resisted the urge to drop the crazy woman and instead set her and her daughter down gently. At least the gag was muffling her sobs... So, of course, Caffeine immediately kicked his way free of Stanley's lap and bounded over to whimper over the injured mother and daughter.

cut

Her crying about the dead man pissed Stanley off... but he gave Caffeine what the pug wanted and freed them from their bonds before sending all three over into Zeke's aura. He probably should have done that earlier... especially for the kid. None of this was her fault.

Then he watched the executioner and waited to see what the furious woman would do next. She still had a lot to explain. Like what the hell had happened with the undead?

It took a relatively long time for the idiot to die because E-grade humans didn't die as fast as they used to. Losing your heart was still a death sentence on its own, though someone like Zeke or Adrian could have saved the man. Of course, she could have ended it a lot faster by going for the head... but whatever. She was obviously trying to make a statement.

Stanley was fairly confident that he could recover on his own from a heart strike like she'd almost landed on him... but it might leave him helpless for a time. Far too long of a time if he was in an actual fight. Luckily, he had Caffeine to watch his back.

Not that he had any intention of letting things get to that point.

The man died. Eventually. His soul faded and his core started condensing.

Her pink light vanished, and the corpse plopped to the ground. Then she took a deep breath while leveling a fierce look at the surrounding people. "This is my house!" Her voice boomed throughout the stadium. "My rules! If you don't like it, then get the hell out!"

No one protested. Or left. Though maybe Nate could steal some of her soldiers, considering how scared they were. Assuming any of them were worth stealing...

Her glare eventually worked its way around to him, as if this were somehow his fault, and Stanley returned it with a glare of his own. "Don't blame me for your shit. This is your fucking house, isn't it?"

She audibly growled at him, then spun away to look down at the dead man. She rolled the body over with a nudge of her foot and bent to retrieve the glowing core.

"Caw!" The crow didn't even disappear from his shoulder, but somehow it snatched the core ahead of her reaching finger and then dropped it in Stanley's lap. "Caw!"

Stanley smiled when he touched it.

Momentum Strike (Rare)

Run like the wind. Strike like a storm.

Allows the user to transfer all of their momentum into a single strike...

"Better than the last one, but you're going to need something actually useful if you want to bribe me."

"That core belongs to me," Sam said in a deceptively calm voice, her gaze flicking rapidly over the others behind him. Meanwhile, her soul felt like she was weighing the odds and preparing for a fight.

Would she really fight him for a single core? Fight all of them?

Instead of handing over the core, Stanley looked over at the woman and her daughter. She'd finally stopped crying about a waste of life, probably because of Zeke's aura, and her kid was petting Caffeine with a small smile on her face. "Why is she still F-grade? Why are all of them still F-grade?"

Sam eyed him, then the core he was spinning above his hand. "I let them live here if they follow the rules, but me and mine come first."

So maybe she would fight over a core. "You," Stanley said toward the F-grade. "Uh, woman!"

"It’s Martha," Sam said, frowning and still eyeing the core. "And her daughter, Jean. That is my..."

"Martha," Stanley called, ignoring Sam's glare. She knew their names and still didn’t spare a handful of cores to protect them? What a bitch. "If I give you this core, will you fight?"

The woman just stared blankly. Until Zeke pulled free of his sister's grasp and laid hands on her, giving her the full dose of his golden light. Then she started crying again...

Stanley wanted to scream at her but he didn't. She wasn't crying over the dead man this time. It was... something else. Zeke's power had done something to the woman; it had broken open a dam inside her, and now everything was spilling out. His golden light was powerful like that.

Besides, this wasn't her fault. Probably. Her ex-husband might have kept her at F-grade so she couldn't fight back. People were the worst.

Stanley would give her a chance before passing judgment. One chance to prove this wasn't her fault. Well, after she stopped crying...

Sam was still tense as she eyed the shard, but her soul seemed to be leaning toward not fighting. Smart. Especially over a shitty, rare skill. Or... did she think it was something else? Something better? Had the dead man been carrying a skill she wanted?

Eventually, she sighed and asked, "What's the skill?"

Stanley tossed it to her, and she confirmed his theory about better skills when she cursed vehemently. "You worthless bastard!"

She kicked the corpse in the ribs with a wet crunch. "Worthless, dick-brained fuck!" She kicked him again and sent the body sliding as it split open in a spray of gore. "You absolute waste of a skill, asshole!"

"What was the skill you wanted?" Stanley asked, curious now.

She sighed, her head back and a blank look on her face as she stared into the sky. "Did you see his sword?"

"The black light-looking one?"

Sam sighed again. "That black light could cut through anything, and I mean anything. I even saw him split a core in half once."

That didn't sound very special. Caffeine chewed up cores all the time... Was he not supposed to?

"What a fucking waste." She threw the core at him. "Keep it. Give it to his ex. I don't care." She pointed at the dead guy. "And somebody clean that shit up!"

A handful of her lackeys leapt into action to do just that.

"The rest of you get back to your posts! I'll deal with..." She eyed Stanley and the others again. "Our guests."

Nate must have decided that was his cue, because he strolled forward and offered his hand. "Sam, was it? I'm Nathaniel, but please call me Nate."

She looked dubiously at his hand but still accepted the handshake. "Sam, because my parents thought Samantha wasn't a terrible name."

Stanley couldn't help his flinch at hearing that name, and Nate noticed. "I think it's a good name. Stanley had a friend named Samantha. She was a hero."

Had. Was. As in, not anymore. As in, she's dead. Besides, Nate shouldn't be saying that. Stanley hadn't been her friend. Not really. Not until it was too late...

Caffeine whined, and Stanley shook off the memories when he saw the pug watching him while the little girl's hands sat frozen mid-pet. At least until Caffeine turned and licked her face, then she giggled and kept petting him.

Good boy, Stanley thought, and found Saman... Sam, just Sam watching him when he looked back again.

"Condolences," she said without really meaning it.

Stanley didn't care about her lack of caring. That was just what people said. Empty platitudes instead of awkward silence. The little white lies that held society together.

"So," Nate said. "I couldn't help overhearing what you said about the invaders. Myself, and I'm sure all of us here would like very much to know the details of your... meeting?"

Her gaze trailed over everyone, and Stanley felt the same recognition in her soul when she looked at Zeke. She already knew about him as well.

"It wasn't much," she finally said. "One of them showed up here to pitch me on joining the undead team. It made lots of grand promises about how I'd be more powerful and then offered me a race change shard. Obviously, I declined the offer."

Nate was as skeptical as Stanley, if not more so. "I haven't met anyone who... had a choice in the matter."

She didn't reply to the not-quite question, but she knew something. Stanley could feel it.

"What are you hiding?" he growled. "Spit it out!"

"You think you won, don't you?" she asked instead. "You think I gave up because I couldn't beat you? No, I stopped because I realized who you were and that it was pointless for us to fight. So don't go thinking you can threaten me with another temper..."

"Seriously?" Stanley laughed. "You're powerful, maybe even the strongest other person I've met, but you were dead if you hadn't backed off."

"Who says you saw all of my abilities?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

Stanley couldn't tell if she was bluffing—not that it mattered. "You are only alive because Caffeine wanted you alive."

It really was that simple, even if she didn't believe him. "You've seen Caffeine before, haven't you?" Except... her soul told him she hadn't. "So you've only heard about him, then?"

She narrowed her eyes. But it didn't matter; he was right. She'd only heard about Caffeine secondhand. Which meant she had no idea how lucky she was that the pug was a benevolent lord. Maybe too benevolent...

"Can you really look at people's souls?" she asked.

Stanley hesitated briefly before nodding. He’d kind of given himself away right there. Besides, it was pretty much common knowledge already, with the only question being, How had she heard about it way out here?

"They really hate that you got that skill."

"Who hates it?" Stanley asked. Though there were probably plenty of people who didn’t like getting blasted by his soul whenever he used the skill.

"The invaders. They call you an amateur who's bastardizing their higher magic with your weak flesh."

"How!?" Stanley exclaimed. "How the hell would you know that!? Did you sit down for a heart to fucking heart with those monsters?"

She smirked, but the smile faded when she glanced at Nate.

Did she have soul skills too? Or was she just better at reading body language? Because while he looked outwardly calm to Stanley's eyes, Nate's soul was a heartbeat away from violence. Deadly violence. He didn't know what was going on anymore than Stanley did, but he was ready to kill her if things went the wrong way. Not that Stanley thought he could win against the woman, though he appreciated the preparedness.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Whatever she saw, it must have had an impact because she sighed and said, "Fine. I have a... source. On the inside."

Stanley had to wonder at her use of the word source, but the undead definitely knew he had it. If she was talking to them, there was no reason she wouldn't know as well. Hell, she might even know more about it than he did.

"What does that mean?" Nate asked.

"We were friends before... all this, and they... didn't reject the offer."

"I've met some of their... recruits," Nate said, still tense but easing up. "None of them were very... talkative. Not to that point."

"You've met the conscripts," Sam said, a sneer on her lips. "My friend joined willingly." The sneer faded and a touch of sorrow appeared in her soul as she added, "Eagerly even."

"Can..."

"Where are the invaders hiding?" Stanley demanded, interrupting Nate to ask the only real question that mattered. This was huge! Caffeine was a goddamned hero for keeping her alive. Now he could kill the bastards and finally escape from this dungeon! He could finally get back to Lee!

"No idea."

She wasn't lying, but... "Your source knows!"

"Probably. I don't."

"You could find out!"

She shook her head. "I don't want to know."

This bitch! "I want to know! I need to kill those fucks so I can get out of this damn prison!"

"We all have problems. What makes yours more important?"

"Because I'll fucking..."

"You'll what? Kill me?" She smirked. "Even if you could, what then? You think that'll get you what you want?"

Stanley couldn't believe it. This was their chance. How could she do this? She had the key to his escape, and she... she... His hands throbbed and shook, but he couldn't unclench them. He didn't want to! He wanted to kill this fucking...

Caffeine whined, and everything became a lot... calmer. Stanley relaxed his aching hands, his pounding heart slowed, and his breathing settled down as he studied the woman before him. Strangely, she seemed far more taken aback by his newfound calm than she had by his anger.

"What the hell was that!?" she exclaimed and started taking a step back.

Stanley ignored her question. She was a problem, and not one he could solve by killing. She knew something, or knew someone who did, but refused to give him the information. Could he torture it out of her?

Mind Over Matter would probably allow him to inflict pain without actual damage. Though keeping her restrained during the process might be difficult. But not insurmountable.

Except Caffeine wouldn't like it... and that would be a serious problem.

Or he could bring her to Harem. Or Harem to her. The man could force her to divulge the information. Either with his sway ability or by dominating her mind. She'd be essentially dead after that second option, but Stanley was okay with that, and Caffeine wouldn't know what was happening in time to stop it.

That might get him to her source, but it still left them with the question of how to get the invader's location out of her source. Presumably it was another undead. Which meant Harem might not be able to control them. Though they had yet to test it on a more... sapient undead. It might work.

Sam finally finished stepping back and asked, "Is he schizophrenic?"

An issue with that plan was that Harem might not wish to go along with it. But the man was weak. Soft. Torture might not work well on Sam, but it should work on him. A backup option if he balked.

Though he might have to distract Caffeine for that... which shouldn't be too hard. He could leave him with Barbie and the kids; Caffeine would play with them for long enough before he came looking.

Another option was to kill Harem and hope he dropped the skill. It would be the best option if he could guarantee the right skill shard...

"Not... exactly," Nate said while watching Stanley with a touch of wariness. Pointless wariness. He had nothing to worry about. His skills weren't useful to Stanley. Besides, he already didn't trust Harem. It shouldn't be a big deal to him if Stanley killed the man. Or tortured him.

The risk of losing the skill was very real, though, so he would try diplomacy first. Then threats. His pushes to get the man to use the skill on him hadn't worked, but maybe this plan would if Harem knew the alternative was death.

Move

Stanley shot into the air and almost fell out of the sky when Caffeine canceled Still Mind.

"God damn it!" He glared down at Caffeine but couldn't stay angry with the pug. So he turned his anger back to where it belonged.

"Holy shit, he really is a total schizo..."

"He's not," Nate said, still wary. "What are you thinking, Stanley?"

"Seriously," Sam said. "What the hell was that? He straight up turned into a different person for a second there!"

Stanley eyed both of them before saying one word to Nate. "Harem."

Nate understood immediately, and his soul bounced through a lot of different emotions before settling mostly on thoughtfulness as he turned his gaze back to Sam. "Maybe."

She had some good self-preservation instincts, because she also took to the air and backed away from both of them. Not too far, though. Maybe she'd learned something from their fight? "Don't do anything stupid. I will kill you. All of you."

Arrogant bitch. She would die screaming! Though it might be difficult to protect everyone else from her, primarily Zeke, if her little cheating death ability lasted too long...

"We don't want to fight," Nate said with a placating gesture.

"Bullshit! I know when someone is scheming right in front of me. You and the schizo are obviously plotting something." Her hands lit up with pink light as she spoke. "What's harem mean?"

Stanley said nothing and only watched Nate.

While his emotionless self didn't care about doing whatever it took, he was disappointed to realize that he found the plan he'd cooked up... unsavory. Harem was an asshole, and Sam was a bitch that would allow the undead to kill everyone rather than help. Why should he give a flying fuck about either of them!?

His squeamishness was a weakness. One he couldn't afford. Lee was counting on him! He had to do whatever was necessary. No matter what. Even if it sucked.

Of course, the entire plan would become immeasurably more difficult if Nate wasn't on board, and while his other self would probably go right to eliminating Nate if it came to that... Stanley really didn't want to do that. Not because it was wrong or a betrayal. But because he... cared about the man. He cared about more than just Nate. He cared about Zeke. Shit, he cared about all the people surrounding Zeke.

Eve included.

It wasn't a completely new realization. He already cared about... some people. No, the terrible revelation digging slowly but inexorably into his mind was far worse.

He wasn't willing to sacrifice any of them. Not even if it meant he could escape the dungeon. Not even to save his own life, or more importantly, Lee's. The very idea left a sick feeling in his stomach...

Fuck.

Somewhere along the way, he'd gone soft. He'd made... friends? Is that what they were? Why would he do that? How could he make such a stupid mistake? I'm sorry, Lee. I fucked up real bad this time.

Caffeine hit him like a missile, and only Stanley's domain allowed him to catch the pug in time. Then he just bent his head and held on while Caffeine's frantic noises of equal worry and joy drowned out the world.

They were all Caffeine’s friends too... and Caffeine would never sacrifice a friend.

Fuck me.

Stanley was screwed. This feeling was a weakness that might cost him everything, but... he didn't want to be rid of it. He cared. He fucking wanted to care!

Why? Why would he want that, and why did caring have to hurt so much? Why did it feel like a knife was being driven into his heart? Why did picturing their stupid smiling faces make him want to throw up? Why?

Except he knew why it hurt. Because he also carried the burden of too much terrible knowledge. He knew exactly how weak they all were.

Stanley recalled seeing Zeke laughing about something the day before. He'd been so happy at that moment. None of the fears or worries that normally lurked inside him. Completely in the moment and completely happy. Eve had been there as well, watching her brother as he laughed, and Stanley had felt her truckload of anxieties ease at the sight. He'd felt the love she held for her brother and it reminded him of his own.

Her and Zeke. Him and Lee. They were two small families, both teetering on the edge of oblivion, and all it would take was one tiny slip. Stanley and Lee would almost certainly die if the other twin fell, and he was okay with that; death was a far brighter prospect than facing this nightmare world alone.

He could feel the siblings behind him now, one of whom was far more nervous about the current situation. As she should be. Zeke wasn't totally oblivious, but he liked to put on a brave face. Him and his ridiculous faith...

The boy's protectors were a mix of emotions, with the new guy being the worst. He wasn't worried at all. Which meant he was an idiot. Or did he somehow have more faith in Nate than James did?

Nate always acted as if he had everything under control. Him and his damn intuition. It gave the man far too much confidence. More than he should ever have with such a questionable power.

Meanwhile, James liked to pretend he had Nate's level of confidence, but it was all an act. He knew the stakes. He might even worry more than Eve did. Of course, he tempered that fear with a fanatical faith in Nate. A dubious faith, and one he might think twice about if he could feel the man's soul. Or maybe not. Faith was stupid like that.

Serenity and Olivia flanked the siblings on either side, despite Serenity's role as a healer being almost entirely pointless with Zeke here. She knew that fact all too well. There was jealousy deep in her soul, and it peeked its ugly head out occasionally when she watched the boy effortlessly heal terrible injuries. In spite of that, she loved Zeke as if he were her own child, and Stanley knew she would do anything to protect him.

Olivia was the only one smiling as she tried to lighten the mood with what sounded like a terrible joke. She'd come out of her shell a lot since those early days, and now she was the most likely to light up a room... with laughter and smiles. Not her lasers.

Of course, Silas laughed at her joke, but that was only because he was secretly in love with the laser-shooting woman. Those feelings might become a liability if it ever came down to him having to choose between saving Zeke or her, but Nate probably knew about it, right?

Stanley sat there, listening to their voices and souls, as he struggled with the knowledge that he honestly and truly cared about them. He cared about their fragile lives, which could all be torn away from him in one terrible heartbeat.

How was he supposed to live like that? He could barely stand the idea of Caffeine fighting for him, and his pug was the goddamned beast lord! How could he ever bear the burden of more lives counting on his strength for their survival?

Fuck!

At least the pug had stopped whining by the time Stanley opened his eyes and was now contenting himself with some gentle face licks instead, all while his little soul radiated out a constant and unshakable faith in his human.

Caffeine was a fool to place his trust in him, but Stanley clutched onto it anyway. Caffeine believed in him. Caffeine believed he could do anything.

No, that wasn't right. Not quite. Caffeine didn't think he could do anything. He knew Stanley was fallible. He'd seen all the mistakes and fuckups. He didn't ask for or expect perfection. He only wanted Stanley to try. That was enough.

The proof was right there, in his status. Big Enough. Strong Enough. Fast Enough. Tough Enough.

Those weren't system-granted skills because they weren't adding to his non-class skill limit. Which meant that Caffeine must have created those skills?

Or maybe he was reading more into it than was there. Caffeine was a dog—the best dog, to be sure—but he didn't tend toward deep thinking. He liked his pleasures simple, and that was enough.

"Good boy," Stanley whispered, then smiled when he saw Caffeine’s tail wag back and forth. "I’ll protect your friends—our family—and I’ll get us all out of this place. Okay?"

Stanley's smile faded as the enormous weight of the task ahead settled on his shoulders. His little moment of introspection still left him with basically the same problem. The best way to protect himself and his brother also happened to be the best way to protect his friends as well.

The undead were an existential threat to literally everyone he cared about. Almost anything was on the table, if it meant keeping them safe. Anything. Even if it made him a monster. Even if his newly realized friends hated him for it. The bastards had made him care about them. Now they would have to live with the consequences.

"I'm sorry, Caff," he whispered. "Please keep them safe." Then he dropped the pug out of his lap and moved.

Sam was still wary but had settled down a little while Stanley... pulled himself together, and she was chatting with Nate about something. She never should have let her guard down.

That was her first mistake. The second mistake was not seeing him coming for her until the last instant, far too late for her to escape.

Not that he would have let her.

Stanley didn't kill her. He didn't even try. That was never the plan, and he wasn't sure if he even could or how long it might take.

Instead, he took her away.

She was incredibly dangerous, and he couldn't risk fighting her anywhere near the others. Nate might have a chance, but Stanley still wasn't sure if the man could block her light, and the others were nothing but liabilities.

So he moved her right along with him. Offensive mobility.

It wasn't easy. Nothing like moving himself or his friends. No, Sam fought him ruthlessly for every mile he forced her away, and he fought her right back, staying in her face the entire time.

He had to stay close. To keep her in his domain. It was the only way he could ensure she didn't escape, because he hadn't forgotten her little dig about him not knowing all her abilities. If she hadn't been bluffing, then he couldn't risk letting her out of his reach. She was fast in the air, almost as fast as him, and if she had something else up her sleeve... well, he wouldn't let her take a shot at anyone else.

She didn't. But she took more than enough shots at him. It turned out that her pink light didn't have to come from her hands. She could launch it from anywhere on her body. And she did. Luckily, it remained connected to her, and similar to how it broke when she teleported, it also moved if she did.

Which meant that if he turned her around, flipped her over, or, especially important, if he broke her concentration, the spell missed its target. The latter of which he accomplished by punching her repeatedly in the head.

Not physical punches. That probably would have done nothing more than break his hand. Instead, he used a sort of mental strike. A psionic punch.

It was his best option, more so because it didn't trigger her teleport. He'd suspected she couldn't trigger it manually and now confirmed it. As long as he didn't go for a lethal shot, she didn't get teleported away. It helped keep her within range as he forced her further and further away from his friends.

He couldn't stop her entirely. He'd tried that, and while it slowed her down, it also made it harder to drag her away. So he settled for the punching and took her hits in return. At least the ones he couldn't avoid entirely—nothing that would incapacitate him, only a few flesh wounds here and there. Minor stuff.

It was strange. He wasn't truly angry as he dragged her across the sky. Not like he had been so many times before. This was something else. He felt... focused, but with a strange sort of... determination? It felt simultaneously familiar and alien. A sort of cold anger, but mixed with something else. It honestly reminded him of those few moments when his and his twin's lives had hung in the balance. A different type of anger, one borne of the desire to preserve rather than destroy.

He liked it. There was a strength to it. Less than when he raged out, but enough to get the job done. It was enough.

Stanley forced her northeast across the countryside, over Boston itself, and then out over the ocean. He never relented, not until her back slammed up against the wall of the dungeon itself.

[Dungeon Perimeter] No Dungeon Entities may cross until All Invaders or Defenders are Defeated.