‘’ means speaking in sign language.

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  Remember how I compared this place to a sarlacc? I was starting to think that comparison may have been more apt than I first thought.

  Yeah, sure, it wasn't organic in any way, shape, or form. But it was big. Maybe an ant hill or termite mound would be a more apt comparison.

  And like with such structures, the place might as well be crawling head to toe in Raptures. Seemingly very stupid Raptures, given how many we'd killed so far.

  It was like they didn't even notice our presence in the first place. Had they not expected an infiltration? Or was this some sort of prolonged confusion tactic? Not helping was that we kept finding another pile of destroyed Raptures.

  Thankfully, Matis's handiwork was not easy to miss. All the high tech equipment made it impossible to mistake as anything else. Less thankfully?

  The fact we occasionally ran into Rapture debris that we couldn't identify? Either there was a third squad running around, or there were very, very concerning things going on.

  This being a possible Rapture the size of several buildings was not something I could dismiss outright. And that had all sorts of other implications that I did not like. Sadly, I was not expecting to have to deal with Labyrinth level bullshit today. Or any day, for that matter.

  It was telling that despite the fact I knew Raptures were far smarter than most of humanity thought they were, they could still throw me for a loop. Not the most welcome surprise, given that we were more or less in the belly of the beast.

  At least the wreckage pointed us roughly in the right direction. The problem was getting to them despite the quite possibly hostile architecture.

  Thankfully, any attempt at sniping and arguing had largely tapered off. One could say we were in hostile territory before. Now? It was doubly so. For all we knew, we could have been in hostile territories damn intestinal track. With everything that implied.

  Still, the sooner we regrouped, the better off we would be.

  That, and there was another problem. One very, very, concerning problem. Quite possibly related to all this crap.

  The signal was back. It'd been back since we entered this place. Which was almost enough to make me shit my pants as it was. Until I listened a bit closer. It was like whatever allowed me to detect Chatterbox. But at the same time, it sounded different. Still like an almost static at the back of my mind.

  But at the same time? It was sharper. Harsher. Almost, and I don't like the term choices I had, but more, cruel. As if whatever the source was would take a great deal of pleasure of gutting me while I was still conscious to feel it.

  Don't know why, but that was enough for me to call it bad news. But was I going to tell Absolute that? No. Ingrid kept the whole Chatterbox stuff under wraps in the first place, and for good reason.

  The fact there was something else that did the same thing as Chatterbox? That was going in the report I gave Johnson, Ingrid, and Anderson. Given how the Heretic fragments were our target? It meant that a Rapture of similar caliber was sulking about the place. On paper.

  In practice? The signal wasn't moving at all. What else could be here that was high enough in the Rapture hierarchy that also would be completely stationary?

  The most concerning answer was said Heretic fragments. Chatterbox had defaulted to Marian, or at least viewed her as his superior. I could detect Chatterbox, but not Marian. But I hadn't run into a Tyrant class I could also sense, either. So to say something was scuffed here was an understatement. But I wasn't going to say anything.

  I had nothing to go off of but my mental snowball. Things were bad enough right now without throwing anymore fuel onto any potential fires.

  A single gesture from Eunhwa was enough to bring us to a halt. Instead of the mechanical tapping or hovering hums of another Rapture patrol, it was instead the sound of human voices.

  We took up position, using the hallway to mask our presence. Something that ideally, wouldn't be necessary. But it was nice to see some taking what I said about Raptures seriously. Just because Chatterbox was the only one that could speak, didn't mean others couldn't develop mimicry.

  Thankfully, that was not the case. Instead, it was Matis, Rapi, and Johnson.

  “Commander!” The swift contact with his body very much confirmed that he was very much not a hologram or some form of projection. What was I going to do if that was the case? Half a dozen things, really.

  What was important was despite my tackle hug, Johnson was still standing despite how much I weighed. He stumbled a bit, sure, but he was otherwise mostly fine.

  “Because she's a flirt,” I know Anis was responding to something or another that Eunhwa had said, but that didn't change the heat that began to swiftly rise in my face.

  “I'm not flirting!” I protested, heat rising from my face. But despite said strong protests, I don't think anyone believed what I was saying. I was being completely honest, I don't know why anyone wouldn't believe me!

  Letting go, I took a brief assessment of everyone else. Nobody worked particularly worse for wear. Bits of dirt and dust smeared on clothing here, barely noticeable scratches there.

  “That makes everyone accounted for,” Shifty's voice came through. Good. If there was a jammer, they'd have gotten rid of it. That was another concern. Would mission control have enough signal to even reach this far in the first place? We were underground, and surrounded by metal to boot.

  But it seemed like whatever the Ark used was made of considerably sterner stuff than what I was used to.

  “I'm sorry. I really put my foot in my mouth this time,” an apology? Out of Laplace? Wow, that was a sign of the world ending.

  “Yes, you really opened your foot and inserted your mouth, again,” I mumbled, letting go of Johnson completely. The big part of that was again. Once I could forgive. Twice? Twice meant there was far more than just twice.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Is that even physically possible?” Anis gave me a confused look as I shrugged. It very much wasn't possible, but it was still a horrifying mental image.

  “Wow! I would really like to see either!” That was Neon. That was again, something I was going to be dealing with later. Ideally never, but I digress.

  “Be quiet, you idiots. We're behind enemy lines,” like we weren't already? Seriously? Eunhwa, we've been behind enemy lines since the jump!

  “I'll guide you to the location of the fragments,” Shifty spoke before we could get in a word edgewise.

  “Did you encounter anything on the way, besides the obvious,” Eunhwa asked, which was a good thing to clarify. There was the big Tyrant class, and the few piles of Raptures. But that was the easily noticeable stuff.

  “We were ambushed by tentacles,” Rapi started. They popped out of the ground. Laplace and Darke were the only two injured. If their size was anything to go by, they belonged to a Tyrant class.”

  “Was it the same one we found dead uptop?” That was a pretty sizable one, even by Tyrant class standards. I hadn't seen many particularly bigger in my experience.

  “I don't know,” out of all the ways Rapi could have answered that, that was the answer I least wanted. If that wasn't it, then what was? Size wasn't power, that wasn't entirely how Raptures worked in my experience. But what else could it have been?

  Besides the very obvious and concerning idea that there was another Tyrant class Rapture skulking about. Not something unheard of, and while the place was massive the corridors were too small for most Tyrant class Raptures.

  Well, so long as we keep our guards up, we should be fine.

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  This was, not great. I hated it when I was right. At this point? The rooms really were moving around us. Meaning something Rapture related was trying to mess with us.

  “It isn't some labyrinth. Either the entire place is being controlled by a Rapture, or it is one,” one way or another, God had found a way to shit in my dinner.

  “Is such a thing even possible?” That was a good question. The answer? We had no idea. There were cases of Raptures getting big. Kraken was a Rapture that humanity hadn't encountered since the first war, and the beast was large enough to put its mythological namesake to shame.

  The less said about some old data reports, ones I found mostly corrupted, speaking of a Rapture codenamed Gluttony? The better. You didn't get named after one of the Seven deadly sins without having done something spooky. Even if a tenth of that information was correct, it earned that title.

  “But why? Creating a place this big, just hoping that some Nikke’s stumble along? That doesn't seem efficient to me,” Anis scowled. She wasn't wrong. It didn't seem efficient. That being said? We also had no idea of what the goal was here.

  “There's something we aren't seeing here. The Raptures wouldn't be doing this for no reason,” Maxwell scratched her chin, frowning. “The question is, what are they doing?”

  And we had no way of knowing. We could only base information on what we observed. The bigger question was the one a lot of people didn't like asking when it came to Raptures.

  Why. Why were they doing this?

  Didn't have an answer for that one, and I doubt I'd like the answer I got.

  “I've got a bad feeling about this,” Anis hissed through her teeth. Her face was tense. “For all we know, we could be in the beast's belly right now.”

  “Fear not! We can tear our way out of its stomach!” Laplace shouted, sounding about as heroic as expected. Though she did bring up a good point.

  “If it's a Rapture, then it's a simple matter of killing it,” Vesti spoke, her voice more firm than it normally was. “We shouldn't have anything to worry about.”

  “That's very reassuring,” Anis rolled her eyes, sarcasm taking over.

  “It comes with being the best. I have it too,” Neon beamed as I tried to bite back a chuckle. “Pride in yourself is a thing only the strong possess.”

  I would disagree with that. There were plenty of proud people I would consider weak. Confidence might be a better word, but there were plenty of weak people that had that too. Strength for me spoke for itself. The strong didn't need to showboat, for they were assured in their own strength.

  “It helps that they're right. If it's being controlled by a Rapture, killing what controls it slays the beast. And if it's just a big Rapture?” I shrugged, though hopefully the casualness of the movement didn't detract from what I was saying. “Then we can punch our way out through a weak point. Robot equivalent of an asshole or otherwise.”

  “Elen, that's kinda gross.”

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  “That way?” I was far from the one looking where Laplace had pointed.

  “The writhing one?” Maxwell looked just as confused as I was. I know I said we could escape and punch out through its hypothetical asshole if need be. But Laplace deciding to take the idea and run with it was not my idea of a good time. “I don't know if that's a good idea.”

  It wasn't. I don't know why, okay, I knew exactly why, but that damn pathway just screamed trap vibes.

  “What about you, Drake?” Maxwell turned to her other teammate, hoping to find further counter to the insanity, only for Drake to be nodding her head.

  “Yes! I feel it too!” The self described villain declared with glee, leaving Maxwell pinching her brow and muttering. I'm not sure what she was expecting.

  “You really expect me to believe a bunch of idiots who would betray us at any moment?” Eunhwa glared at them, despite how Matis was at least somewhat divided.

  I mean, some lead was better than none, and if it brought us closer? Then so be it. But at the same time? Every instinct I had said was a trap. But at the same time? That might be the only play. I don't like the idea of having to spring a trap, but that might be the only card we had left.

  Eunhwa looked like she was about to continue her verbal assault, only for Emma to tap her on the shoulder. She whispered something into Eunhwa's ear. Despite Eunhwa's words growing quiet, whatever Emma told her only made Ehnhwa tense up.

  “Fine. But Matis will take the lead,” Eunhwa said at last, fingers gripping her rifle tightly. Laplace and Drake accepted the posting with little fanfare.

  “Fine. But I do expect not to be shot in the back,” Maxwell was a bit more reluctant, but she still listened. I tried asking her earlier about what had happened during the argument between Ingrid and Syuen. My questions may have intimidated her just a tad.

  “Matis, let's move,” for a sniper, Eunhwa did not have much in the way of patience.

  “Let the hero's journey begin!” Laplace led the way with the same smile as always. Pointing out that the hero's journey for us would have started the first time we left the Ark would have probably been lost on her.

  Besides, I had more important things to worry about. The signal was getting stronger. Was it getting closer to us? Or were we getting closer to it?

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  That's it, I was going to need to talk to somebody about this. That signal was getting closer. Shifty said that we were coming up on the Heretic Fragments.

  But I didn’t want to bring that up. Matis may have been facing the front, but Eunhwa and the rest of Absolute weren't. Even if Rapi was signing with Eunhwa and Emma about something.

  Still, it was my best opportunity to talk without being noticed. So I lightly tapped the back of Johnson’s hand, before raising my fingers to my mouth. Like what librarians used to do. Thankfully, he got the message.

  ‘I've been picking up on a signal since we got down here,’ I rapidly signed. To his credit, his eyes widened a bit, but he stayed silent.

  ‘Chatterbox?’ Was all I got back, but it was enough to tell what he meant.

  ‘It feels different than his. I can pick it up, yes, but it's not the same,’ I signed back. This really didn't seem like the bastard. The feeling was wrong.

  ‘You detect Heretics?’ Clunky, but again, serviceable. It didn't seem to extend to other Tyrant Class Raptures outside of Chatterbox. Not until today.

  ‘I don't know. The question then becomes whether or not Chatterbox is a Heretic then,’ that was a question. Chatterbox made it very clear. He. Unless he was some extremely old model, back before they started to only convert women into Nikke's, somehow predating the first known Heretic?

  The look on Johnson's face told me exactly what he was thinking when it came to that sort of thing. That it wasn't particularly likely that would be the case. The odds that Chatterbox was a Heretic were pretty damn low. And it wasn't like I could detect Marian in the first place. Though it wasn't like that didn't raise more questions. It it wasn't the Heretic, and it wasn't Chatterbox.

  Then what the hell was it?

  “Target reached. Procees with the mission,” Shifty said over the coms, reminding me of her presence. Hopefully, she didn't see or understand any of that. Looking at the room, I found myself pretty underwhelmed. The room was blank, nothing of note or interest.

  Made me trust it less than I already did.

  The sound of gunshots was enough to snap me out of my thoughts, watching Drake and Laplace slum forward like puppets with cut stings.

  “What the hell was that for!” Maxwell whipped around, finger on the trigger of her laser rifle.

  “Corruption,” the single word that left Rapi's mouth was enough to send a chill up my spine. Corruption? When? Where? How?

  “Here. Here. Here.”

  “This way! This way! This way!”

  Despite their bodies unable to move, they were still talking, sounding more like broken records than people. It was enough to make my blood run cold like ice.

  “When?” Johnson asked, looking at them. He didn't look particularly happy right now.

  “Not sure, but it would have to be after they met up with us. It became clear once we got here. If I had to guess, the tentacles played a role,” Emma explained. Fucking christ. “Eye movements and facial tics are common giveaways.”

  Great information to know, I guess. Looking over to Maxwell only made my heart hurt more. Frankly, I didn't care for Matis much at all. Their loyalty to a person who tortured me was a bridge that wouldn't be crossed anytime soon. But they deserve far better than this.

  “If we can get them back to Ark in three hours, then they can be fixed,” Maxwell said, loud enough to be heard. For once, I didn't ask. Whether or not it was true was irrelevant for the moment. She was already in a lot of pain, grasping at straws. If she was right? Great.

  If she was wrong? Then this was the worst time to call it out as such.

  “That is essentially correct,” Rapi's voice told me that there was way more to it than just that. But Maxwell didn't push, and I think even Rapi realized now was the time for some damn tact.

  “So the reason they know the way,” Johnson said, a frown crossing across his features. There was more to that statement, but the pain on his face made it clear he didn't want to finish it.

  “Yes, they were trying to lure us here. Just like with Marian,” Rapi finished for him. Fuck. Fuck us up the ass. With a cactus.

  That ambush was just a Blacksmith class. What the hell was this going to be?

  “High energy spike within one meter!” Shifty's voice suddenly rang out. “Tyrant class! No, higher!”

  Oh, so they decided the cactus was too gentle. Wonderful. The entire room shifted, panels flipping over, parts emerging from the ceiling and floor. What could only be the main body emerged from the ceiling, looking almost like an upside down woman. Four mechanical arms framed its body, tentacles surging forward.

  I quickly began taking shots, sending rounds into the tendrils. Each no doubt carries corruption. They were fragile, brought down with a single shot, even as a blue field flickered to life.

  “The entire room is a Rapture!”

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  I hope everyone had a good holiday season! I think three to four more chapters will wrap up this overall story arc.