Stormblade [Skill Merge Portal Break] (B1 Complete)

Nearly nine seconds.

Enough time to walk from my apartment door to Tara's and knock on it.

An eternity in combat.

That delay didn't necessarily prove anything. Andrew could have gotten tripped up. The archer who kept head-checking Zeke and me could have been shooting a lizard. Any number of things could have kept the string mage from getting involved, including that he didn't want to accidentally kill us with his spells.

But something about it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

If they were trying to get Zeke and me killed, then I'd deal with that. And if they tried to kill us themselves, there wasn't anything I could do about four D-Rankers. The best play, for now, was to keep my head down and wait—and keep on my toes.

So, as Zeke and I fell in behind Andrew's team, I went back to listening to Zeke's never-ending stories about his family.

"So, yeah, Dad's a big deal in agriculture. Everyone knows who he is, because everyone needs his water."

"My sister's at Scottsdale College. She's going to be a bioengineer, but that's a long way out."

"I didn't really have a plan after high school. Delving is perfect, and being a support is even better, because I still don't have to have a plan. Dad thinks I do, though."

And the whole time he talked, I kept an eye on Andrew and the archer.

I wasn't worried about the team's second fighter. He hadn't done anything yet. And the string mage's aura was weak. He'd have to save his Mana for the boss, unless Andrew planned on smashing that to death with his axe alone. But Andrew and the archer were both…off.

"Alright, let's keep moving. We've got another portal lined up in an hour and a half, so I want this cleared in the next forty-five. Faster is better," Andrew said. He broke into a jog, the rest of his team following. "Rich kid, switch back to movement speed. Your E-Rank buddy's healed enough."

Zeke stopped mid-ramble. "Yes, sir!" He saluted awkwardly, and my healing slowed, then all but stopped. We all started moving faster a moment later.

I didn't see Andrew's eye roll, but I felt it.

The next group of portal monsters wasn't properly alive. They were more like walking mounds of icicles that threw themselves at Andrew and the other fighter in an attempt to impale them. My first instinct was to pile in and help them—especially when they struggled more than I thought they would. But even though the battle trance wanted to take me, I fought it.

But what was exceptionally weird was that only Andrew and the team's second fighter had engaged. The mage sitting out made sense. He looked unhappy about it, but his aura was still regenerating. I couldn't see any reason for the archer to ignore the fight, though. She had plenty of arrows, and yet…she hadn't shot a single icicle monster. That meant…something. But she hadn't been watching us, either. It felt almost like she was covering for the fighters.

When the fight finally wrapped up, Andrew rolled his eyes. "Pete, that was pathetic. You've got to do better."

"I know, boss." The other fighter shrugged. "Neither of us is built to handle elementals. Wrong weapons."

"Keep going. We'll heal these off later," Andrew said. I couldn't help it; I relaxed a little, knowing he was planning on keeping the scrapes and tiny punctures that dotted his skin. They weren't anything massive—not like a dislocated hip—but they looked like they hurt. He was serious about getting this portal cleared fast.

The next three groups of enemies were more of the same.

Andrew and the other fighter ripped through lizard men, a pair of the trolls, and even a massive monolith of ice that didn't move but did blast the room with freezing-cold bursts of air. For a moment, I thought it was the boss, but it died too fast. And the string mage and archer never once engaged with any of them.

Neither did Zeke and I.

Zeke wasn't a fighter, and he knew it. He rotated between his three buffs as best he could, although Andrew kept him on movement speed most of the time, and my leg still ached. But other than that, his job wasn't to contribute to the kill. His job was to stay out of the way and talk my ear off.

And I was getting more and more sure that something was up. I wanted every scrap of Stamina and Mana I could muster for when it did.

When it happened, it happened in a dead-end, of all places.

The icy tunnel branched into a dozen different tubes that looked as if they'd been carved out of the snow by a boring machine. Icicles hung from some of them, and piles of snow loomed suspiciously in others. But there was no way to know which way the boss was.

"You two, check out the left path. Kim, Pete, you've got the middle two. We'll take the right of these three. If you find a dead end, come back here and wait. If not, come back here, and we'll take your path. We search all of them," Andrew said. "Go. Fast."

Zeke nodded and took off down our left-hand path. I already knew it wouldn't go anywhere; the air smelled stale, and water dripped into a pool from the ceiling. But it was an opportunity to talk to the support about what I suspected, so as we navigated the steep, icy slope toward the bottom of the tunnel, I cleared my throat.

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"Don't you think it's a little suspicious that they took so long to help me?" I asked.

Zeke's eyes went wide. 'I hadn't thought about…do you think…how fast does a D-Ranker move?" he asked, speaking a little too loudly for comfort.

I put a finger to my lips. "Haven't you been to a GC center? You'd know if you had been. A D-Rank fighter's going to be faster than me, even with my wind Script. With your buff, it shouldn't have taken long to react. Was Andrew fighting anything when the Ice Troll attacked?"

"No. He was just leading. No one was fighting except you."

"And the archer? What's she been up to?" I already knew, but I wanted Zeke to figure it out.

"What do you mean?"

"Has she taken a shot? Done anything to speed up the run? Helped in any way?"

Zeke went quiet. Blessedly, blessedly quiet.

"Exactly," I said. "An archer should be piling in on every fight. They're the best, safest sustained damage-dealers out there. There's only one reason for her to be holding shots. She's not here to fight. She's here to keep an eye on us."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"I don't think so."

We reached the pool of icy-cold water. It was half-frozen, but perfectly clear; I couldn't tell if it was a foot deep, or fifty. We poked around for a minute before Zeke looked at me. "What do we do?"

"We play it cool, try to get through this portal alive, and count our blessings when we're done," I said.

A rumbling, roaring sound filled the air. "Brace yourself!" I shouted as the air filled with ice and snow.

The avalanche hit us a moment later.

Ice and snow battered my body; my hip sent waves of agony up my spine and down my leg as its half-healed tendons ripped apart again. I unsummoned the Stormsteel rapier and tried desperately to swim against the tide of freezing debris pushing me down the tunnel.

Then I hit the ice-covered pool, and the avalanche pushed my head under.

It felt like being punched in the stomach. Like being stabbed everywhere. The cold rushed inside my shirt and pants, under my armor, in my shoes. It filled every crack between my toes, and I gasped for air. I got only water and slush. Every muscle in my body tightened, and I tried to force myself up through the churning water even as the avalanche forced me down.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't see which way was up. All I could do was guess.

Then something grabbed my wrist and pulled. Hard. I tried to yell, but all that came out was bubbles as more water rushed into my lungs. It pulled me away from the cascade of ice and snow, deeper into the water.

I summoned the Stormsteel rapier; I couldn't electrify it here for fear of hurting myself, but it was still sharp. Then I stabbed blindly into the water around me, hoping to find something. It didn't help. The grip only tightened painfully when I did make contact, and bubbles erupted from near me.

And then it was over. I was on solid ground—or at least, solid ice.

"What the heck?" Zeke asked, lying next to me. He had a hand wrapped around my wrist and a puncture wound in his leg. I'd done that, I realized. Somehow, he'd found another exit from the water, swam to it, and dragged me to safety—all while being stabbed. "I save you, and this is how you repay me?"

"I didn't—" I coughed up water and slush, rolled to the side, and vomited onto the tunnel floor. Zeke might've been pissed, but his skill had already changed to healing, and he hadn't written me out of it. The freezing-cold feeling slowly faded, and I could think again. "Turn it off!"

"What? But it's helping you," Zeke said.

"I know. Shut it off. All the way off." Then I threw myself into the water again. There'd been something else in the avalanche. It hadn't been natural, and I was going to find the proof.

It took three dives before I did—a cable of silk. It wasn't sharp like the ones the string mage had shredded the lizard-men with, but it was there, and it was tied to a few large chunks of ice like they'd frozen around it. I emerged, shivering and carrying my prize.

"Oh. Oh crap," Zeke said. "What do we do?"

I breathed and shook, trying to warm up. My skin felt like a dozen daggers were being pushed into it, burning hot and freezing cold all at the same time, and my fingers were turning blue. "Keep it turned off," I chattered. "First, can you write them out of your skill? We need them to think the avalanche killed us."

"Yep. But why? Why would they—"

"Doesn't matter. We'll figure it out if we can, but for now, our main goal is surviving. Cut them out, then use the health regeneration one on us both."

My skin prickled as Zeke's Unique skill started to slowly warm my skin. The cold counted as damage—the beginnings of frostbite—and his passive health regeneration was enough to counter it—but not much more than that. He shrugged apologetically. "I think it gets better the more friends I have, and right now, you're the only one. But what do we do?"

My fists balled, and I had to work hard to stop myself from digging furrows of anger in my palms. The battle trance wanted to fight. And so did I. I didn't know what to do, exactly, but I did know that I still needed that boss core—and that the moment I got a chance, I was going to make them pay.

Kim watched the avalanche crash down the tunnel, one eyebrow raised, and chewed a piece of gum. The loud one had been driving her insane—he never shut up—and she was glad Andrew had finally pulled the trigger.

Another minute or two, and she'd have shot that one herself.

The rumbling slowed. The speed buff she'd been enjoying faded, was replaced by a warm sensation that felt like healing, and then cut off.

It was done.

Kim had been working with Andrew for a while. She'd almost been on the receiving end of what had just happened, but she'd figured it out—and demanded to be cut in, instead of being cut out. Ever since then, they'd been bringing in a good profit by running the D-Ranks they could easily clear with three, or even four, losing their tag-alongs on the way, and making it look natural.

It wasn't anything personal, but it was a tough world—and the portal worlds were tougher. Eat or be eaten.

"I guess that's that," Andrew said. A bit of snow and ice settled as Henry Mulder pulled his silk strings back in. The string mage stared at the ripped end of one cable, then shrugged and looped it around his arm like a gauntlet.

Kim couldn't tear her eyes away from the pile of snow and ice. It'd been the perfect set-up; the tunnel was long enough that even the loud kid's voice had stopped carrying up, steep enough that the weak ice overhead wouldn't stop rolling, and narrow enough that there was nowhere to go. But something about it didn't seem right. The other boy. He was a problem, and until she knew he was dead, she couldn't really call this finished.

If either of them made it out of the portal—and if either of them suspected what had happened—she'd be screwed. The GC would come down on them like a hundred-ton trip-hammer in the steel plant she'd worked at before awakening.

She activated Pulse-Tracker. Nothing, but that might be the distance.

"Your turn for the core, Kim," Andrew continued. He headed down the second tunnel from the right; Kim's skill had picked up something large that way earlier, and they were pretty sure it was the portal boss. "Let's go. I want out of here and in my jacuzzi."

"Can you three handle the boss?" Kim asked. "I've got a feeling."

"Why? The kid's skill shut off. He's dead. For sure."

"Yeah." She started walking, then stopped. "No. I'm going to check things out, see if there was a way out for them. No loose ends, right?"

Then she turned and disappeared into a dark, narrow tunnel. The others could deal with the boss. If they were alive, she'd fix that oversight.