The Chameleon Loop

32nd amendment to the United States Constitution.

Approved and Ratified by all 54 states.

Homo Sapiens with the sequence of chromosomal abnormalities known as the “Venatorus Gene Cluster” can no longer be considered human beings. Due to their physical potency and seemingly mystical powers. They cannot obtain citizenship, nor do extant legal protections apply to these subjects, hereby denoted as ‘Homo Venatorus”.

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From birthdays to pregnancy tests Nox hated surprises. Absolutely detesting anything unexpected, be it the portal sealing behind him and slicing through his shoe, to the glowing geodes that cracked open Jesus’ skull.

Nox loathed everything in this funhouse of a dungeon.

Blood dripped from his severed thigh, waves of pain pulsated in tune with the beating of his heart. While Jesus’ body lay beside him, a torso sized boulder resting where his head should be. Proof positive that surprises reciprocated his feelings and hated Nox in equal proportions. One of those surprises, a twenty five foot tall minotaur with white fur, cocked its head at Nox, curious as to his defiant gaze. Interested in Nox the minotaur decided that he had no more use for the woman in his hands. So his refrigerator sized hands tightened around Ashley.

CRUNCH

POP

Ashley’s spine, ribs, pelvis, and shoulders were all shattered by the boss monster, with his mighty strength eclipsing any force Nox had ever known. Blood and viscera geysered from her mouth, splashing across the minotaur’s forearm.

“Don’t- let her go!” Gasped Nox, Ashley was a healer, given enough mana she might be able to recover–

The minotaur tossed Ashley’s body into the air, like she was a frisbee. And just like a frisbee he caught her by clapping both hands together. Flattening her head like a watermelon in a plane crash. Nox’s sister was dead, and he would follow along shortly.

Stooping low the minotaur reached for his single intact limb, intentions clear. Nox lashed out with all his might, leg flopping harmlessly against the monster’s fist. Though they were both flesh and blood, the minotaur may as well be made of marble flesh and titanium skin.

“Hu hu hu hu.” Said the Minotaur.

Nox blinked numbly. His mind foggy from blood loss. Was the minotaur… Laughing? What was funny-

oh…

The hand caught his leg, pinning his one remaining limb against the unfeeling stone. If Nox still had arms, he would have punched and hit the minotaur, but as he was all he could manage was a half sit up before his muscles failed. Pain beat down his will to survive. Everything ached, crippling him just as much as his missing limbs. Wet steel glistened in the light of a glow stone, ready to hack through the minotaur’s continued chortling.

“Laugh it up beefbreath, if we traded places, I’d kill you a hundred times out of a hundred attempts!” Gasped Nox, his vision tunneling.

“Hu hu hu hu.”

Bloodloss stole reality, bringing out Nox’s more jovial side.

“Think that’s funny do ya, you’re right, therapy hunters can barely breath in here. Tell ya what, for the low-low price of a do-over, you can stay in your body. Give me a tenth of your power- no one hundredth your raw abilities and I'll crush you ten times in a row.” Growled Nox.

Steel fell, hacking through Nox’s femur and smashing the tiles beneath into marble powder. Nox howled, writhing in agony as he lost his last limb. Four ragged stumps pounded stone, spilling precious drops of his remaining blood. While hooves scraped against marble as the minotaur headed towards a pair of dying wyverns, snapping their tree-trunk necks like popsicle sticks and leaving Nox to bleed out. Further painting the white marble labyrinth with the kill team’s blood.

Ashley’s mashed body lay ten feet from Nox’s face, forever haunting his life. Her blood pooled towards him, accusing him. “Didn’t you promise mom that we would come home safe? That we’d stay together? That this was an easy raid?” Is what it seemed to say.

If only I wasn’t a worthless therapy hunter. If only I had been born a blood hunter like her! WHY?! It’s not fair! Footsteps tip-tapped across stone. A refreshing noise in the silence of the maze.

“You humans are all the same. Always running into danger you have zero chance of defeating and then blaming it on something else. Luck, your weak allies, or some divine twist of fate. Do you really think you could have beaten my minotaur even once?” Said an unfamiliar voice.

Nox’s vision was fading fast, unlike his manners. Which were already gone.

“Eat a dick or heal me. Of course we could have beaten one musclehead with an axe. It’s not some dragon, or a lich that cannot be killed!” Snapped Nox.

He recalled the voice saying ‘my minotaur’. Something in that statement annoyed Nox, made him want to spit another insult before he died. Trying to sit up he extended his arm stubs, pushing against stone. Pain shot through his ragged triceps and shoulders, sending him tumbling. But also moving him forward, just enough to aim his frown at the speaker.

A man with jet black hair and pale skin stood five feet away from him, dark miasma leaking from his ears. When he spoke black mist drooled between his teeth in puffs. As if he was vaping sins. Those same sins wrapped themselves around Nox’s stumps, tightening into tourniquets.

“I need you intelligible for this.” Said the demon, pouring raw mana into Nox’s veins to replace any blood lost.

Cognition had never hurt so badly. Each though, every second was unthinkable clarity and infinite pain. As if time stood still so Nox could enjoy twenty pounds of adderall before the lava he was sitting on engulfed him. Strong fingers grasped his skull, clawing their way through his very thoughts to peruse his memories.

“Do you think defiance alone could ever be enough? Look around you!” Said the demon, waving his hand across the fallen members of Nox’s kill team.

Nearly a dozen evolved humans –known as Homo Venatorus– lay in pools of their own blood. Defeated one by one until Nox lay limbless. Like a creeping worm, unfit to endure anything wholesome, not even the light of day. He gasped as the demon dug through his mind, reliving Nox’s entire life in a few flutters.

“Humanity has become two races? Interesting… My oh my, Homo Venatorus, how… Stupid. From smart pigs to hunting pigs? Bwahaha! And here you are, claiming to be evolved. Yet you slaughter each other and enslave the strong to mewl before the endless masses. They’ll condemn you to dungeon woodchipers to save themselves, trading their own evolution and their children’s future for your deaths. All to preserve their worthless skins. Even I would willingly enter Hell’s gate if it meant the perseverance of my race. Our ilk would never bicker over something so trivial as a few deaths… Hmmm… Nuclear weapons… I would like to see those in action. Why not call yourselves Venators- oh- I see. Someone has already tampered with your memories, someone powerful. Now they are a creature I wish to meet…” Said the demon, continuing to babble on in languages and words that Nox could never understand.

“Defiance is only the will to resist. To protect the ones I love! Had I activated as a Venatorus and not relied on the gene therapy, we could have killed your minotaur and then come for your head.” Snarled Nox.

“Killed me? BWAHAHAHAHAHA! What an excellent cover, but we both know it isn’t love that drives you.” Said the man, a smile unzipping past his earlobes as he leaned in, almost kissing Nox.

Wet miasma poured from the man’s unhinged jaw, rolling over Nox’s dismantled body. Pain fading as laughter ground all to ruin.

“I can taste the hatred within your soul boy. Hatred of the homo sapiens who intend to kill you, hatred of your weak pitiful self, hatred of your inability to change. But most of all, hatred of the country that promised you the world, safety, prosperity, kinship, and love only to enslave you. To steal everything you ever had and replace it with death. Yes… Your hatred is deliciously bitter. We have a deal hunter Nox Hawke. Take as many tries as you like, gather all the power you can, bring your nukes, your Venators, bring all of humanity for all I care. Do whatever it takes, just kill my minotaur ten times in a row and I shall help you right every wrong that has been done to you. Solve my maze and you may take the strength to dominate your country, and then the world. Haha! Take as many tries as you like but don’t give up!” Hooted the man, neck extending and twisting one hundred and eighty degrees in a horrendous corkscrew as he spoke.

“Why would I ever deal with a devil like you?” Shouted Nox, wondering if he could spit in the being’s eye before he died.

The answer was no. since he was already dizzy, and his vision clouded by crystalline cataracts. A sign of terminal mana poisoning.

“Defiance is just the start. Isn’t that what you said? Will you surrender now and die? Let me win? Or will you remain your defiant, hateful, loathesome self?” Asked the devil.

“One day humanity will kill you. Even if I die here.” Answered Nox.

“Hehehe, Defy me today, or defy me tomorrow, you must accept my deal to live. Give up and I'll let you rest in peace.” He cackled.

“Screw.. off…” Said Nox, and the tourniquets fell free, draining what little vitality remained in the evolved human’s body.

Nox died as he lived, unable to muster the will or strength to alter his future.

—

Slender hands landed on Nox’s shoulders, not so gently shaking him. Sunlight, yellow, radiant, painful filled his vision.

“We’re almost there! Stop spacing out you stupid honker! When did you take your last dose?”

Where am I? Thought Nox. How did I get here– wait, honker? Only my sister –Ashley– calls me that. All cause that stupid time when I picked her friend, Nora, up from school, instead of Ashley… I honked and Nora got in, but Ashley didn’t. Then I managed to drive all the way home without realizing the mistake. Well, not until after mom said “Hi Nora, where’s Ash?”

Nox’s eyes finally adjusted to the sudden shift in his vision. Gone was the dungeon, minotaur, and miasma demon. As well as Jesus’s corpse. Instead he was pressed against the window of a Hunter Corps humvee, squished against steel by Nora’s thicc hips and worthless armor. Heavy rucksacks wedged the three of them in place, preventing any lateral movement.

Fingers flicked his nose, “Oow!” Snapped Nox. Pushing past his rucksack to find his dead sister Ashley. Jaw going slack as he stared at her nose until she took a breath. “You’re alive?” Muttered Nox, inhaling her image.

Her long brown hair was pulled into a high ponytail, one that would protrude over her standard-issued rucksack and stay out of her face during the dungeon raid. Their mother’s dented half-breastplate covered her torso, yet left her sides and shoulders free to flex.

“I’m alive? Well obviously, now quit drooling over Nora’s jugs and answer me–” Began Ashley.

Tires screeched an interruption as their driver jerked the wheel, causing the humvee’s rear tires to slip off the exit ramp. Dirt squished under the drifting humvee, digging a furrow on the soft shoulder and granting additional traction that forced the car back onto the road. But the rear bounced, launching all three dungeon hunters into the roof. Skulls encountered steel, and bent to their augmented bodies, though they would have been concussed had they been humans.

“Oh whoops. Had to swerve to avoid a couple putas. Crazy, they just ran onto the road! Like they wanted to die.” Said Sergeant Jimenez, the US Army Ranger who’d been assigned to escort their kill team of hunters.

Nox rubbed his head, poking pain through his scalp that made his eyes water. “Ahhh.” He groaned, looking through the steel grating that separated the front driver’s row from the rear passenger section. Jimenez’s smile came peeking back to him, revealing the truth of his sloppy driving. He was being a dick, and this wasn’t the first stunt Jimenez had pulled. For some reason the sapien ranger always went out of his way to aggravate hunters. The very people he was assigned to protect, and who would be in ultimate command during combined sapien / hunter raids.

“Don’t worry about them sarge, don’t you know, homo venatorus have thicker skulls. Mutants probably dented the roof.” Said the ranger in the front passenger seat.

Who raised a luminesing blue PMAG and stuffed it into his MK-18 short barreled carbine, yanking on the charging handle to load one of the mana crystal enhanced bullets into the chamber. The rifle made Nox jealous, since all he currently carried was an Mbar knife, the only mana crystal enhanced weapon that the Corps provided for free, so long as you returned with a mana crystal. A MK-18 complete with flashlight, red dot, suppressor, and laser signaling unit would cost more than Nox made in three months, and each bullet was worth its weight in diamonds. Though the laser signaling unit and red dot would be hopelessly distorted within a dungeon.

Before he could fixate further, the dungeon portal came into view. It swirled within the Wallyworld parking lot already surrounded by national guard response units who had isolated the gate to an otherworldly dungeon by deploying eight layers of three-foot-high cement dividers. Tripping hazards that would give the nearby army reserves time to pivot and open fire with machine guns or launch their purpose built SRHY (Short Range High Yield) RPGs at anything stupid enough to breach the dungeon. Thankfully the barriers looked clean, meaning this gate lacked the obligatory excess mana to eject monsters. Good, nothing has breached it… yet.

“Alright, time to get off your asses and earn your keep.” Said Jimenez, slamming on the brakes and skidding to a stop.

They really should have seen it coming, and the girls did. But Nox wasn’t watching the muscle bound sergeant, and slammed face first into the metal grating. Nose broaching a diamond hole to twice its original size before bouncing off. Ashley winced at the enlarged hole, probably wishing she could snap Jimenez’ neck. They weren’t here because the pay was good –cause it wasn’t– or for honour or glory. Nox and Ashley were here because they’d been drafted, forced into a ‘hunting camp’ by the great old US of A. To act as sacrifices to shield the unevolved sapiens.

The second ranger, a recent replacement for the high casualty rangers, yanked open the door to their compartment, holding the door for them to exit the humvee. But he was careful to keep his MK-18 at the low ready, pointed towards their feet rather than their chests. As if they were wild animals covered in leprosy and gangrene. Which wasn’t entirely unfair.

The trio exited the armored humvee, eager to escape Jimenez’ leering gaze. He is just trying to provoke us, what an idiot. Thought Nox, trying not to lunge at the man when Nora bent over and he whistled. The open disrespect made Nox’s blood boil, but hunters, Homo Venatorus, lacked the rights to act. Sure, they could file a complaint back on base, but even in cases of coordinated sexual assault, no judge or courtmarshal had ever sided with a hunter. Even excusing attempted murder as self defense. And if the hunter had the ‘audacity’ to defend themselves, well, then it was off to the penal legion with them. A force of hunters who were thrown into dungeons –irrespective of hunter or dungeon rank– without any support from the Hunter Corps or any assistance from military assets. In short, a death sentence where your only question was if today was the day you went into an overleveled dungeon, or if it would be tomorrow.

Ashley dragged Nox away from the humvee, scowling at his silence, or maybe from Jimenez’ earlier stunt.

“LIAM!” She shouted.

“Sorry! I uh, was thinking. Last dose… uhm… I forget, ah!”

The steel toe of Ashley’s combat boot landed in the soft side of Nox’s thigh, making him yelp in pain. Holding up both hands, palms forward, Nox surrendered, retreating towards a nearby national guard humvee with a red cross shouted across its doors and cargo hatch. Across the street, a line of Protesters held signs alongside the nearest road, backs turned towards the portal and mobile fortifications.

“What am I going to do if you die?” She growled.

“Ow! Okay, okay! I’m sorry, I'm going to get one now.”

“You better!” Grumbled Ashley, folding her arms. When she thought he was out of earshot she muttered under her breath. “Idiot, how could you forget? Without that sapien therapy you're just another human. A weakling I can’t protect. Stop making me worry about you.” She prayed.

Nox knew she meant well, and hadn’t intended on him overhearing her, but this current batch of Gene Therapy seemed to sharpen his senses. An incredible perk but one that made living in a one room tent with three women extremely uncomfortable. Given that he could now decipher their lunar cycle on scent alone. He shuddered at the thought, inhaling the smog of a Wallyworld parking lot with zeal.

Several familiar hunters stood near the portal, loitering closer to it than any ranger or guardsman dared. Two refrigerator trucks sat off to the side, not quite blocking out the distant line of anti-venator protestors loitering beyond the national guard’s cordon. Look at the asshole, they strip our rights, draft us, watch us die for them, and then show up to protest our very existence. What psychopathic fools. That kind of lethal schizophrenic logic is how civil wars start.

The medical humvee was just ahead, but Nox froze, looking back at the familiar silhouettes of hunters whom had died only moments ago. Questioning their reality, Nox pinched his stomach, wishing he had a six pack of abs instead of the saggy keg between his fingers. It hurt, and was unpleasantly real. How am I even alive? How is anyone alive? Glancing backwards he noted Jesus’s receding hairline, shining in the sunlight, and surprisingly intact. A jarring contrast to ten minutes ago when a rock decided to relocate his gray matter. Inner turmoil boiled within Nox in equal measures. He was deeply pleased to see his friend once again, and equally annoyed at the unexpected surprise. But it wasn’t just Jesus, the entire kill team had come back. Ashley, the hoplite Jamal, rich kid Taylor, absurdly gifted Mary-sue, the source of the ‘honker’ moniker Nora, and other hunters he had only met in passing, Lala, Zoe, Jon, and Ruby were all back.

How the f–

–Nox shook his head, recalling an old hunter’s motto ‘keep your mind flexible, it helps when the walls start talking with the voices of your dead children. Oh, and stay focused on the goal, dungeons are another reality, but not entirely. They’ll try to confuse you, twist things like a churro, but a spiral road is often straighter than an Oklahoman highway. If you keep your eyes and heart on the goal’.

“Flexible minds…” Muttered Nox.