The sweater wearing clone peeled off with flaming feet. For once, it looked like it was actually trying to go as fast as it could with its desperate, arm pumping sprint. Alex followed through the stone hallway where dozens of gashapon had been smashed apart while making sure he had a good hold on the horn. Techno music thumped ahead, and the wails of Skills and weapons meeting flesh and bone could be heard above the beat. Alex spotted a torn red bandana on the floor. Once he saw clone was a good twenty meters ahead he activated the teleport over.

POP

"Come on!" He yelled over his shoulder at the gang as he slammed into his clone's place while skidding into the reception area. Looking frantically around, Vrshkeuc the gremlin was nowhere to be seen. Her name plate, however, had been ripped in half and thrown onto the floor. The sound of fighting with the music, along with what had been done to the two doors, revealed where he ought to go.

Giat's side had been sealed shut with thick black metal poles welded directly into the frame. Snu's wooden door had been kicked clean off its hinges. From within, the beat rose, rising towards a brutal drop. Alex took off toward Snu's side while the gang huffed and tried to catch up. The beat crested, then dropped.

"RAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! YOU WILL JOIN THE OTHERS!"

The scream tore through the hall like broken glass squeezed in a palm over the drop. Alex knew that transformed voice from just a short while ago when he was legging as fast as he could to get away. It was Britanii, warped, practically feral, full of vinegar's ugly cousin, but definitely her. Her scream roared with corrupted power and something within it felt rotten and wrong. Then came two more voices, rising together like a viciously beautiful hurricane.

One was Snu, sultry and angry and full of righteous wrath. The other was deeper, more viscous, but clipped into Alex's boy brain in its own monstrous way. The two voices harmonized, one high and clear, the other deep, angry, and throaty. Their sound ripped a melodic scream that drowned out the yell of Britanii. Together, they roared against the raiding party led by Alex's ex.

The air pressure shifted a second before Alex felt it. The Dungeon Boss screams whipped through the walls, lifted him off his feet for a blink, and then threw him back spinning towards the door.

WHAM

He crashed into the doorframe and landed face first onto his stomach. "Ouf," he groaned and wheezed. Had it not been for the [Scarpetta Buff], he might have broken his back. Laying there for a second to roll around and moan, the rest of the gang caught up. Zippy led and hovered over Alex's prone body to examine him, Beepy made sure to flip and scan the area for enemies, and Mary and Jemin dropped down next to him together.

"Alex," Mary snapped her knuckle duster covered fingers over his eyes as he got it together.

"ALEX!"

His lungs finally figured out how to suck air, and he sat up with a spinning head and ringing ears.

"You idiot," Jemin growled, crouching beside him. "You can't just sprint off like that." He glanced around the corridor, tail twitching. "We're here together, dammit." From deeper in the Dungeon, the battle raged on.

Jemin helped Alex to his shaky feet beore immediately dropping back to one knee and rummaging through his duffle bag of death. From his crouched positon, he snapped, "Use your damn Relics, man. Think! THINK!". The lizard man then pulled out a bunch of small black walnut looking things and hefted his pack. Alex [Investigated] them.

[Void Grenade]

Beepy shadowboxed beside Alex with light feet. He looked like he wanted to launch himself into the Dungeon. Mary stood back, without a snarky comment, and had her head tilted in that familiar angle Alex had seen a hundred times before. She was watching through Zippy, who hovered just agent and unconsciously slashed his paring knife.

"Never been in a Dungeon," Mary said seriously. "Probably best to use everything we've got, eh?" She nodded towards Alex's hands. "Use 'em. Now."

Alex looked down at what he was holding and immediately wanted to smack himself in the face.

Guess a Buff can't totally fix stupid. It was a heroic move to sprint in there without thinking first. Right?

Zippy had his new knife that could cut through anything. Beepy had his [Volt Whip] and his flair. Mary had her rusty dusters and a belly full of natural rage. Jemin had a duffle bag filled with delightful goodies.

"And I have my speed and some seriously sick loot." Alex said aloud.

"What?" Mary asked like he'd just said the stupidest thing on Earth.

"Uhh…nothing. Nothing,"

He cleared his throat and held up the [Screening Banshee Horn]. Immediately, he didn't want to squeeze it. He knew what it could do. If the horn worked as advertised, Emilio and the Gnomes would come. They would all join in the fight and help Alex in any cause. Gravewhistle had confirmed that much. But the idea of his luggage sized cat getting hurt made him want to drop it and throw himself into the battle solo.

"You realize Emilio is a lightning gnome cat god or something now, yeah?" Mary said flatly.

"Oh. Oh yeah!"

"HE IS VERY COOL." Beepy added.

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So Alex squeezed the [Screeching Banshee Horn], and the little brass bicycle horn Relic made a war cry of its own.

HONK.

Just the one honk came. "What, that's it?" Alex asked. Then the horn turned red hot and his hand. "AH-shit!" he yelled and dropped it onto the floor behind them at the door's entrance. Between them and the Dungeon exit lay the red hot brass horn.

The little Relic trembled, and the rubber squeeze ball at the end swelled, inflating and inflating, until it ballooned up to the size of a giant watermelon. Then it really honked.

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK!

It did not sound like it did before. The sound that came out was like an animatronic banshee and a cat had birthed a brass horn to scream in a offtune major key chord. The rubber balloon end stared honking itself.

HONK. HONK. HONK HONK. HONK!

Each was louder and more piercing than the last, and they were just getting louder. Alex and the group staggered back, all of them except for the bots holding their hands over their ears.

HONK-HONKHONKHONKHONK!!!

The Dungeon fight ahead went a bit quieter, as the honking horn was just getting louder and louder and collided with the techno house thumping. The thud of Glimps and Skills and some Dungeon Bosses battling paused just long enough for someone to yell from inside.

"WHAT IS THAT? MORE? CAN'T TAKE US YOURSELF? NEED TO ENSLAVE ANOTHER BOSS AND CALL FOR REINFORCEMENTS?" It was no question it was Snu. Her voice was angry and booming, and her succubus scream made his knees go a bit weak. Mary had her arms clamped over her ears, and blood was beginning to run between her fingers.

"MAKE IT STOP!" she yelled and kept backing up further and further into the Dungeon as Beepy and Zippy ran over to comfort her. The horn did not stop. It just kept honking and honking louder. Nothing was happening though. No System sign, no Gnome tunnel erupting in the middle of the Dungeon. Just loud honking while Snu and presumably Giat was attacked by Britanii deeper in the Dungeon. And now Mary was leaking out of her head with the horn cutting them off from the reception area. There was no way Alex was going to drag her over and closer to the sonic booms that the horn was honking.

Did it break!?

Alex, with covered ears from the banshee horn screeching and blocking their exit, looked at Beepy and Zippy trying to comfort Mary while Jemin looked extremely concerned. His lizard friend met Alex's eyes and he saw the old rage in his sockets. The look he recognized back when Jemin was tearing through sadistic street rats to protect both himself and the youngsters that couldn't look after themselves. Mr. Mystical and his ghostly help was nowhere to be seen, the horn was having a panic attack and glitching, and his girlfriend was up ahead being attacked by his psychotic ex, her gang of goons, and probably a zombified Lord Loopy. There wasn't much choice. He had two bots, a blind roommate, and an old friend by his side though.

"We have to go in deeper!" He yelled over the battle, music, and horn as he jogged over to Mary. Guiding her away from the horn, they got far enough away that it wasn't rupturing their ear drums. The horn did, however, continue to pump and squawk at the door. "I'm going in." Alex reached into his pant pockets, rummaged around Snu's underwear, and pulled out his Stone Sword. He shot a little Essence into it and it extended in his hand.

"Keep up if you can," he turned to Zippy and Beepy. "Zippy, that knife can apparently cut through anything. Use it. The leash if you can get it," The hovering bot whizzed the knife, and Beepy struck a boxing pose while igniting his hand in electric energy. "Beepy, you can fight now. So fight." Beepy vented steam. He turned to Jemin. "Do what you do best with Relics," Jemin smiled viciously with a grenade laden hand thrown around Mary's shoulders. Finally he turned to Mary. "You…uh…you go full rage mode. And be safe."

"RAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Britanii screamed from deeper in the Dungeon and they could hear Snu and Giat get hit with something from their yells. "NOW! LOOPY! GET THEM! KRUSHERS! ATTACK!!!"

That confirmed it. Over the house music Alex could hear animatronic sobs and the whirrs of servos far larger than Beepy or Zippys. It sounded like something massive and shambling was shuffling while crying. That also did it for Alex. He sprinted off deeper in the Dungeon and yelled over his shoulder at his friends. "I'm going in!"

"Wait!!!" Mary yelled from behind him, but Alex ignored her. He needed to get to Snu to help in any way he could.

The horn kept blaring, the music kept beating, the battle kept raging, and his friends huffed to keep up. Flames erupted under his feet, and Alex used [Phantom Step] after [Phantom Step] over wet socks, hacked Glimp bodies, and broken toys through the Dungeon.

Through the Dungeon Alex sped, ignoring all safety for himself, to get to the big room where he just knew the battle was happening. There was no way in hell he was just going to let Britanii get that Familiar Skill onto Snu or Giat. His legs pumped faster and faster, and he zipped through the empty halls and rooms of the Dungeon in record time. His Core was humming, and he was running on pure adrenaline.

Finally, he reached the giant room where the battle was.

He saw a Giantess transformed and battered Snu sprawled on the floor. He also saw thirty Krushers, a mutated and horrid version of Britanii holding a rusted chain that went around her neck, a horde of Dungeon monsters including Glimps, a hacked apart but still moving Ass Monster, the Hentai Monster, and a dozen sinister Nuns.

It was also the first time he lay eyes on Snu's sister, Giat, and the monstrous hunched form of a Familiarized Lord Loopy. The Wonderland Dungeon Boss had his own leash that connected with Britanii's, and behind the pair, a moridly fat Krusher held on for dear life to a third chain connected down the middle.

"That's all you got?" Snu's sister, Giat, said coldly as she floated above them all. The way she looked confused the hell out of Alex.

Is she...what?

He skidded, panting angrily, and took in the scene. From behind him, he could hear the the gang catching up. And it was at that exact moment that the blaring horn stopped and a voice sounded from somewhere into Alex's brain.

"Ahhhhh," Petal Gravewhistle's exaggerated voice chuckled. "We have heard your call." There was a pause from the Gnome, an extremely deep breath, and then the Gnome continued slowly as Snu picked herself up off the ground to stand next to her sister.

"By root and bloom, by flame and rain, By thorn and tune, by vows once made,

By shade we march, by dirt we crawl,

By dirt we come, by dirt they fall."

Gravewhistle then boomed, and Alex could hear it in his head as if it was yelled aloud.

"SOUND THE CHARGE, BRETHREN AND SISTERS. THE RULER OF SUN AND SHADE CALLS!"

From somewhere way behind Alex, a deep roar of a meow boomed through the walls of the Leather Spires, went over Alex's body, and into the battle. It cut through the music, the yells, the moans, and the Skills so sharply that everyone in the room, including the horridly transformed Britanii, froze and turned towards where Alex stood and from where the sound had come.

"Meow." Emilio roared from the entrance of the Leather Spires.

"ALEX?!" Britanii shrieked and lifted her rotten, fetid hand towards him.

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