Reincarnation: Origins

Chapter 10: Dry-napped

Masha was up to no good...yet again. This time, she was snooping around the new recruits' quarters. Specifically Lucien's quarters. Halfway through her rummaging, Genesis flew in with news.

"What..on earth are you doing." genesis hovered at the doorway, squinting pupil-less eyes at a very guilty-looking Masha.

"Nothing. Just..uh" Masha hid her hands behind her back. "Checking to make sure their quarters are comfortable?"

Genesis wasn't buying any of it, but dropped the matter nonetheless.

"S-so, what are you here for?"

"Here to let you know that Prince Luka has arrived, and he requires your presence."

"Ugh, I can't stand that reincarnating reckless fool." a disapproving frown appeared on her face. She pulled her hands from behind her back, slightly kicking away the piece of clothing she had been holding beneath a nearby cot.

"Let's go see what the hell the little prick wants." Masha walked out, accompanied by genesis to her office, where the unwanted visitor waited.

Luka had the looks of a prince, with the exception of his oddly heterochromic eyes: one blue and the other deep purple. His hair hung past his shoulders to the small of his back. Despite its length, Luka had somehow been able to maintain its health and shiny appearance.

Masha stood at the doorway, looking disdainfully right and left at the at-attention guards. At the sight of Masha at the doorway, a smile lit up his face.

"Ah lil' sis, so good to see you." he gushed, even going as far as to stand up and give her a bone-crushing hug.

"I swear, you're on your 16th life already." Masha whined, voice muffled against the expensive robes Luka was wearing.

"Okay, okay. That's enough." Masha shoved him away. "What do you want."

"So mean." Luka feigned wiping away a tear. "But this is about the increasingly frequent spawning of dungeons. And difficult ones at that."

The playful air between the two had disappeared just like that. Luka turned away

"I'd just sent a group of new Red String members to one." Masha furrowed her eyebrows. "We had already scouted the ruins ahead of time, and the worst that could show up is a king slime."

Luka whirled around and gripped her shoulders. "You don't understand. These dungeons are irregulars. The monsters regularly change in strength and difficulty."

"Even so, I sent 3 capable people and my trusted vice along with them." Masha smirked, proud of her intuition and foresight.

"Let's just hope that they're enough. Even a King Slime can be dangerous under the right circumstances."

Masha nodded. "But that's not all you came for is it?"

"Correct. In addition, two of the three points have lit up on the spear."

"And...what's that supposed to mean?"

"Each point signifies one of the original tri-team of World Breakers. Nature's way of a sort of.." Luka motioned his wrists in a circle. "reset And apparently, two of them have just recently appeared."

"So you're saying that there are a couple of people with powers that literally break all or most laws of--well--everything? Just wandering around doing who knows what"

"yeah pretty much." Luka confirmed nonchalantly. "...but this is pretty recent. I just noticed the change last night, and the last time I had checked was a month ago."

"We have to be the ones to find them first." Masha frowned. "But how? They could be anywhere."

Luka smirked as a shadow seemed to cover his face. "no. we let them come to us."

Masha rolled her eyes at his melodramatic act.

"With our status and this guild, it should be fairly easy anyways."

"Let's focus on the matters at hand: Saving my rookies."

---

Filomena shrieked as the slime slammed against the shield she had conjured in front of lucien. The sheer shockwave knocked Rurik away like a leaf in the wind.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Chell yelled from behind the slime, as she fired bat-shaped magic balls at the slime. The slime seemed to absorb it, glowing brighter and pulsing after each impact.

"MOVE, DAMMIT!" Tatheo roared as he sprinted at the quivering pile of slime as it repeatedly beat against the shield. A fine tendrils of fissure spread a little bit further after each hit.

For lucien, time seemed to move in especially slow motion. The yells of his fellow team mates seemed muffled and somewhat far away. His breath came out in quick puffs as his heart ran marathon after marathon in his chest.

The slime paused, a seam, which was presumed to be its mouth, opened and let out a roar like no other. It was a high pitched keen, yet deep and rumbling as it shook showers of dust from the ceiling on the tomb.

Like puppets whose strings have been cut, Filomena, Rurik, Chell, and Tatheo dropped to the ground, unable to move. It was no shock that Chell and Tatheo had not been able to resist the stun, but for Rurik and Filomena to have fallen too was new.

Only Lucien and his nearly demolished shield were left standing. The slime gave one last smash, and if the shield weren't already destroyed, it was now. It exploded in millions of shards of luminescent and sparkly...magic. Lucien seemed to be stuck in a trance when the slime struck, encasing him in folds of translucent blue.

"no.." Tatheo grunted through gritted teeth, tears threatening to fall. He struggled to regain controls of his limbs, fighting the invisible bonds to no avail. The slime gurgled before 'glancing' back to the four on the floor. Whirlpools formed where they assumed its eyes were supposed to be and its mouth opens one more time.

"Hhhre belurngsss wiiirthhh urrrss." the thing gurgled. Not sparing another glance back, the slime king seemed to melt and soak into the very ground. It had successfully bested two of the greater warriors Aiona had ever seen.

A full 5 minutes later, Rurik and Filomena were back on their feet. Tatheo and Chell could only, at best, shimmy left and right.

"what do we do. The slime took Lucien." Filomena's usual bossyness during missions was nowhere to be found. Her voice shook as she turned to Rurik for an answer. An answer that not even he, had.

"I-"

"We go after him of course." Tatheo growled from his place on the floor.

"Reality check, numbskull. Unless you can literally soak through the floor, then be my guest." Chell bit back.

"We have no choice but to.." Rurik concluded solemnly.

"HA." Chell could practically hear his smirk in his voice at his outburst.

"..head back and tell Masha, Leiah, and Sen what happened to him."

"oh."

"Minor Cleanse." The spell Filomena casted managed to remove the harmful effects of the stun on Chell and Tatheo. Tatheo wasted no time in jumping to a stand, then proceeding to stomp and cuss out the ground like it had wronged him personally.

They had walked in as 5, but walked out as 4.

A/N: *internally panicking as more and more people start reading* a bit of a shorter chapter but...laziness is a curse :(