"You do? Why?" Goku questioned.
"The info says that Brandon last was checking a hole before he went offline." Irene explained, having realized the same thing I did. She crouched down, peering into the hole. "He must have gone down here."
"So either somehow this hole blocked communications, or something happened to him in there." Irene determined.
"Well, I'd say I agree then." Goku replied, looking towards the hole.
Bianca clenched her fist, not happy with either of Irene's deductions. Being in the dark was dangerous, not able to contact for help. And obviously she doesn't want something to happen to him.
Aoi patted Bianca on the shoulder. These two have somehow become best friends in the short span of a couple hours, from when I freed Aoi to now.
"Alright, we've got about four hours left." Goku stated, checking the time. "And it took an hour to get to here, walking. If we are going to check this hole, then we need to come back when we have an hour left so we can make it back to the rift."
"What happens if we don't make it back?" Erica asked, even though we all already knew the answer.
"We'll be stuck here." Goku bluntly stated, saying the words none of us wanted to hear.
We stood in a silence, glancing at the hole. You couldn't see the bottom, or anything inside the hole. For all we knew it was a bottomless pit.
And then I had an idea.
Loki, you can shapeshift. But how much can you change yourself?
"What do you mean by that?" Loki curiously asked.
Like, if I were to turn you into a chain, how long would you be able to become?
"Well, forever-long in my prime." Loki stated. "But now as an Arcana...with your power, it'd still be quite a far amount."
Any approximates?
"5 miles?" Loki guessed.
Holy shit, that's far. You kidding me?
"Nope." Loki replied nonchalantly, popping the p.
That should be plenty then...
I summoned Loki, morphing him into a chain about a couple feet long. I handed one edge to Goku, who looked at me confused while I wrapped the other side around my waist.
I also summoned my armor for extra measure, in case I run into some sort of monster.
"Uhh, what's this?" Goku questioned.
"We don't know how far down it is, so I'll just have to find out." I stated. "You'll slowly descend me down the hole. I'll tug the chain if I need you to pull me back up."
"Smart." Goku grinned. "But this chain isn't long enough."
"Oh don't worry." I smirked. "It grows."
I started to climb down the side of the hole, the sharp fingers of my armored gauntlets stabbing into the material of the wall, whatever it was.
Slowly I started to descend, the chain Loki getting longer and longer. I let go of the wall with one hand, igniting it on fire to light up the darkness around me. I could still safely descend with one arm and two legs.
As I continued working my way down the seemingly endless hole, I didn't see anything different. The only thing that the fire illuminated was the other sides of the hole.
I continued downwards, with no end in sight. The fire only illuminated the area a couple feet around me, so I couldn't really see anything below.
And then finally the fire illuminated something. Under me was a black floor with little hairs. But I'm pretty sure that floors aren't supposed to have hairs...
The floor shifted, moving so that right red eyes stared at me and the light which was being emitted. The floor started to move as I realized that it definitely wasn't a floor.
Imagine a spider, but with large bat wings that can completely cover it's body. And then imagine that it's the size of a car. Oh, and then also imagine that it doesn't shoot webs, but acid.
That's a B Rank Arachius. One that's currently trying to turn me into molten liquid with it's acidic spit.
I violently tugged on the chain, hoping that Goku felt that so I didn't end up becoming a pile of goo.
I aimed my hands at the Arachius, shooting it with fire. It hissed as the fire stung it's skin. It glared at me as it started to climb up the hole.
Good news, the hole wasn't large enough for it to fly. Bad news, it was small enough for the Arachius to use it's spider legs to crawl towards me.
I felt myself being tugged upwards as I was being pulled back to the surface. I continued to shoot fireballs at the Arachius, my only way of combat considering that Loki is currently a chain wrapped around my waist.
"This...isn't good." Loki commented.
I know!
As I shot the fireballs at the Arachius, it twisted its body to dodge some of them. As the fireballs fell past it, I noticed that I was almost at the end of the hole.
The fire illuminated the floor before it was extinguished, and this time the floor wasn't black and hairy. I could also fairly make out a tunnel leading from the bottom of the hole.
I also would have been able to see better if there wasn't an Arachius taking up most of the space under me.
It started to get close to me, going faster than the speed at which I was being pulled up. It spat a stream of acid at me, making me swing off of the wall to dodge it.
The Arachius got closer, dangerously close to my leg. I slammed down my foot on it's face, causing it to stagger.
I glanced upwards, seeing I was getting close to the surface. I continued to dodge the acid from the Arachius' mouth as we got close to the top.
I was pulled out of the hole, rolling across the ground. Looking upwards, I was met with the worried looks of the others.
"Are you alright?!" They worriedly asked.
"About that..." Before I could continue, the Arachius flew out of the hole, now having the space to use it's bat wings.
"Great, an Arachius." Goku cursed. "Watch out for their acid."
The Arachius sped towards us, ready for a crash landing. We jumped out of the way as it slammed into the ground.
Irene quickly approached the Arachius and slammed her hammer into it, sending it flying. Aoi's blue flames blasted towards the Arachius, but similarly to mine they didn't do much damage.
Arachius shot a line of acid, making us dodge the spray. I've been burnt by fire, and I've heard that acid hurts worse. I would rather not learn why.
Now that Loki was no longer being used to drag me up the side of a hole, I could finally use him. I morphed Loki into his axe form, clutching it in my hand.
"Being turned into a chain was more embarrassing than I thought it would be..." Loki sweatdropped. "I mean, I'm an extremely powerful weapon..."
Erica got her blade ready to send a water strike, but the water wouldn't appear on her blade. She quickly dodged some acid before charging a holy strike, sending it towards the Arachius.
The Arachius dodged, using it's bat wings to levitate it slightly off the ground. However, it left it's back exposed to me.
I chucked Loki, running after him as the axe implanted itself into the back of the Arachius. The Arachius screeched in pain.
Before it could fly away, I blasted fire under my feet to rocket myself through the air, landing onto the Arachius. I ripped Loki out as the Arachius flew through the air, trying to throw me off.
I climbed on it's body, moving towards it's head. I slammed my axe down through it's head, killing it.
It flew down into the ground, crashing in a explosion of dust and smoke. As I got off of the monster, it started to fade away.
"You alright?!" Erica worriedly asked.
"I'm fine." I replied, brushing the dust off of myself.
"So, what did you find?" Goku asked. "Otherwise than the Arachius, I mean."
"I almost made it to the bottom. There's some sort of tunnel down there. I couldn't get a good enough look though since that Arachius was trying to burn my face off." I replied.
"Think it's worth it?" Goku asked us.
"I do believe that whatever has happened to Brandon, it happened down there." Irene stated. "I don't think we will find anything else up here."
"Agreed." Aoi added.
"...yes." Bianca nodded.
"Let's do it." I said.
"Alright then. We'll need a quicker way down." Goku stated, before grinning. "Let's race!"
Goku ran towards the hole before jumping down into it.
"What?!" Erica exclaimed worriedly, running over.
As we looked down into the hole, we saw Goku was descending down the side of hole by stabbing his shotgun into the side of the wall with some sort of blade that had popped out under the barrel.
He slid down the wall, a lot quicker than when I was descending with Loki as a chain. This would work.
At least, for Erica, Bianca, and I. Aoi's scythe was too awkward of a shape and Irene's hammer wasn't sharp enough.
"Bianca, you help Aoi." I stated. "Irene, you're with me."
I opened my arm, so that Irene could slide inbetween my body and my arm. I wrapped my arm around her waist, before jumping down and morphing Loki into a sword.
I stabbed Loki into the side of the hole, using him to slide our way down as I held Irene with my other arm.
A small blush developed on Irene's face. "Ken..." She muttered, before nuzzling her head in my neck.
Now's not the time...
Bianca followed my lead, wrapping her arm around Aoi and jumping down with us. Erica shortly followed, using her own sword for her descent.
We slid down before landing onto the ground of the hole. In front of us was a dark tunnel which led to who knows where.
"Alright then. Let's go in." Goku stated.
Fire danced around his palm. It was time to explore.