Dungeon Wreckers 68: Ulysses

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His friends were alive and awake. 

Matthew’s sense of relief when Florence invited him, Amélia, and the other visitors into the hospital room was palpable. The Doc had just finished operating on John to rewire his Blue-scrambled brain and align his neurons back in a way that didn’t cause him to pass out from the pain, while confirming Kari didn’t suffer from lingering spell effects. Maggie’s previously burned face now looked almost back to normal, although her nose was a bit smaller than before. She was the only one out of bed, stretching her legs near the window. 

As for Charlie, he had been transferred to some back alley doctor’s care to avoid identification; but hardly anybody cared much about him anyway. 

“Hi, everyone…” Kari said kindly upon waving at her guests, a bandage wrapped around her forehead. “How are you?”

“Girl, we should be the ones asking you that!” Sasha replied upon sitting at her bedside. “How are you feeling?”

“A bit dizzy,” Kari confessed. “But Florence said I would be out by the day’s end.”

“I personally feel quite good, all things considered, like surviving cancer after one last round of chemo,” John deadpanned with a snort. “It sucks, but it could have been worse.”

“This is no joking matter, John,” the Doc said. “A neural shock of that magnitude could have given you a stroke or worse. You dodged a bullet.”

If John has enough energy for cracking a joke, then he has recovered, Matthew thought. He glanced at Maggie, who held his gaze. She didn’t bother with pleasantries and went straight to business. 

“What happened to Jack?” she asked, her hand tightening into a fist. “Is he out?”

“I killed him,” Matthew replied without emotion or hesitation. He almost added ‘like I killed Perse,’ but held his tongue. He intended to come clean with Maggie another way.  

A tense silence followed his statement, though it felt less heavy than the stares Matthew received from his friends. Word of what happened had only spread to the Doc and Florence. Kari and John were shocked speechless, while the rest lacked the context to understand. 

“It was self-defense, Matthew,” the Doc said immediately, partly for everyone’s sake, but mostly for his student’s own. 

“That doesn’t make it untrue,” Matthew replied. 

“You’ve… killed someone?” Sasha asked in utter disbelief. 

“He was a monster who murdered dozens of people,” Matthew replied. He mourned his lost friend, but not the fiend he had become. 

“Good,” Maggie finally said, a scowl of anger on her face. If she felt any sorrow for the loss of her sibling, she buried it very deep. “Good.”

John was the first to catch on. “He’s the one who put you here, isn’t he?”

“That and worse.” Maggie spat on the hospital floor. “He burned our cat alive.”

Gasps of horror spread across the room, and Matthew’s jaw clenched on its own. He recalled how Jack boasted that he had killed animals, but didn’t find the courage to move on to humans until Matthew inspired him to…

“I could never prove it and Mom never cared, but I knew it was him,” Maggie insisted. “I thought that if that dickhead could do that to an animal… he was capable of anything.”

John scowled. “Then it had to be done.”

“Yeah.” Maggie nodded sharply. “It was him or us.”

A chill traveled down Matthew’s spine. Jack had said the exact same thing in Tarantulas’ nest when talking about Perse. He guessed the two siblings had a few things in common, however much Maggie might have hated it. 

Amélia noticed his unease and took his hand into her own, squeezing it. Sasha opened her mouth to ask for details, but a glance from Petro dissuaded her.  

“Matthew…” Kari stared at him with sorrow and empathy. “I’m… I’m so sorry, I… I knew there was something wrong with that creep, but I never imagined–”

“It’s okay,” Matthew replied. “I was blind too.”

“He lied like he breathed,” Maggie spat. 

“What of the Mall?” John asked, the mere word ringing like a curse in the hospital room. “Is it contained?”

The Doc clearly hesitated to answer that question for fear of disturbing his students’ recovery, but so terrible was the situation that he couldn’t hold his tongue. “Crypto will hold an emergency meeting this weekend. Considering its rate of absorption of other local Dungeons, we are considering another raid.”

“I… I see,” Kari said. She shifted uneasily in her bed, unsure of what to say. 

“A raid?” Matthew clenched his fists. “Numbers won’t help much against Durge, Doc.”

“We still gotta try,” Maggie insisted, a dark scowl on her face. “You can count on me.”

“Tarantulas is willing to assist us too,” the Doc replied. “Its ability to infiltrate Dungeons and the Mall’s single-minded attempts to assimilate the floors of others offer us a unique opportunity to bypass its normal defenses.”

John quickly caught on. “You think the newly assimilated floors will connect to another layer than the first?”

“Exactly, which might let us bypass Durge and reach the core… in theory at least.” The Doc shook his head. “We’ll discuss our options this weekend. Until then, you should focus on your recovery.”

Matthew held his tongue. A raid meant that most, if not all, of the Association would be deployed into the Mall in an attempt to slay all opposition and reach the core. Bypassing the first floor wouldn’t prevent the place from dispatching Durge after them. It would be a massacre, even if they managed to reach the core and destroy it.

People would inevitably die. 

His gaze lingered on his bed-bound teammates. They looked both healed enough to return to their Crawlers’ duties and determined enough to do so. They had nearly died barely a day ago and would gladly risk their life again for the sake of Evermarsh.

He couldn’t let them die. 

“Is… is something wrong, Matthew?” Kari asked. Her Key must have picked up on his microexpressions, or the signs that his Flux was going haywire. “You look… sad.” 

“Don’t tell me you’re worried about us?” John asked with a scoff.

“You wish,” Matthew replied with a false smile. “You’re too mean to die.”

He could feel the Doc’s gaze weighing on his back. 

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The rest of the visit happened without incident, though Matthew sensed Kari’s gaze on him for its entire duration. Did she suspect something? No matter. By the time they figured things out, the Mall problem would have been solved and they could move on with their lives. The Doc stayed with his patients—though not before forcing Matthew to swear that they would continue their earlier talk this evening after he was done with their check ups—so Petro proposed to drive the rest of them back to school. 

“Can you drop me off somewhere else?” Matthew asked.

Sasha raised an eyebrow. “You’re not returning to school with us?” 

“There’s someone I have to meet with first.” Matthew had one last thing left to do. “I’ll return to the dorm in the evening and face the music.”

It was another lie, but it would ensure the others didn’t suspect a thing or disturb him. Matthew had been tempted to leave a hole in their memories, to make the transition smoother, but he figured all traces of his existence would eventually fade away on its own. Reality had sought to rid itself of him for years after all. 

Petro stared at him in the rearview glass for a while, but didn’t object since the house he wanted to visit was on the way to school. They passed by an empty spot where Matthew’s own home used to be, then parked nearby. 

“Amy?” Matthew presented his girlfriend with his notebook. “Can you keep this for me until tomorrow?”

“You want me to keep your notebook?” she asked with a frown. “But why?”

“I want to see if Articat can survive on somebody else’s Flux for a long period of time, in case it can help other Crawler teams with a free scout,” Matthew explained. “Just call me if he gets sick and I’ll come pick him up early.”

“Oh… alright, sure.” Amélia took the notebook with a big smile. “I’ll take good care of him.”

“Thanks,” Matthew replied kindly before kissing her on the cheek. Amélia blushed a little, which lifted his heart a little. “See you soon.”

It was odd. Giving away his material possessions made him feel lighter than air instead of regretful. 

Petro was onto him, however. He glanced at the house and then back at Matthew, seemingly figuring out what he had in mind.  

“He won’t do it, you know,” he suddenly said. 

Matthew flinched. That perceptive bastard… “You don’t know that.”

“If he didn’t do it back then, he won’t do it now,” Petro insisted with a shrug. “It’s your choice, but I wouldn’t do it.”

“Do what?” Sasha asked.

“Something stupid,” Matthew replied while scratching his head. “Don’t worry, I’ll survive.”

“Yeah,” Petro said with a knowing glance. “Yeah, you will.”

Matthew waved at his friends as they drove away, a sinking feeling growing in his stomach. So much suspicion pointed at him. He didn’t have much time to act before they acted upon it. 

No matter. Matthew walked up to the white house with the red painted door, then hit the doorbell once, twice, three times in a row. Viviane Werner was working at this hour, so no one answered… but Matthew knew Ulysses was there. He hadn’t left his home in years, and he had the gut feeling that someone watched him from somewhere unseen. 

So Matthew simply opened a hole in the keyhole and entered the house. 

The living room had barely changed over the years. Still the same peaceful place with potted flowers and mushrooms lined up near the shoe rack and shelves filled with a mix of botany books, new age philosophy grimoires Viviane collected in her spare time, and American comics. The only change Matthew spotted was the stair lift leading upstairs. Matthew climbed it up without hesitation until he reached the upper floor and the locked door leading to Ulysses’ bedroom. He could hear faint techno music on the other side. 

Matthew knocked. The song stopped abruptly, but no one answered.  

“It’s me,” Matthew said, only to be met with silence. It wasn’t the first time this happened. He recalled breaking in during their early years, begging Ulysses to open the door and let him in. Each time he had given up when met with his old friend’s silence. 

Not today. 

Matthew waved his hand, made a hole in the door, and stepped inside. 

The first thing that spooked him was the smell. Matthew didn’t recall Ulysses opening his bedroom’s window in years, and the musty stench at least indicated it had been weeks since he tried. Potted mushrooms of various sizes and colors—some of which were abnormally enlarged by Ulysses’ own Key—occupied shelves taking up half the room’s space. The rest was split between a small bed and a large desk holding a computer that would make Crypto whistle. 

Ulysses sat on the chair, glaring at his intruder.

Matthew had only seen a few glimpses of his old friend through the window, so facing him in the flesh was quite the shock. He had let himself go, wearing a black shirt and baggy pants too big for him and letting his blond hair grow so long that it reached his shoulders. He remained handsome in his own way, but still breathed a certain basement dweller energy. His hands gripped his chair’s armrests with all of his frustration and silent rage. 

“Hey, Ulysses,” Matthew said. “It’s been a while.” 

His Doom Sense stirred in the back of his mind. The source of the feeling came from the mushrooms on the shelves, which tensed like poles and prepared to explode into spores at the first sign of aggression. Matthew had seen Ulysses dissolve monsters alive with his creations, and years of homegrown practice had probably only reinforced their lethality.  

“You’ve got some guts coming here,” Ulysses said, his tone reeking with more hostility than Maggie ever mustered. 

Matthew faced his old friend and gathered his breath. He had rehearsed this conversation in his mind a thousand times, and here he was struggling to find his words. 

“Jack’s dead,” Matthew said. “I figured you should know.”

Ulysses blinked in surprise, his jaw clenching the second he recovered. “Did you kill him too?”

The question would have hurt once. Not anymore. “Yes.”

Ulysses’ grip on the armrests tightened, and Doom Sense’s warnings flared up in the back of Matthew’s mind. “You’re here to blow my brains out like my sister? You’re here to silence me?” he spat at Matthew. “You just pretend nothing happened for years, and then what, you finally mustered the nerve to finish the set?”

“Something like that.” Matthew scowled, then opened his school bag. He sensed his Doom Sense sharpen when he brought out a handgun, which he then put on the desk within Ulysses’ reach. “Here.”

“What’s this?” Ulysses asked, Green Flux flowing through his hands. 

“A friend’s backup gun,” Matthew replied. He must have taken it from John’s room before going to school, though he didn’t remember doing it. He had found the weapon there when he opened his school bag this morning. 

His subconscious probably guided his hand. 

Ulysses observed the weapon for a moment before asking very carefully, “What is it for?”

Matthew pointed at his forehead. 

A tense silence followed, as Ulysses stared back at him. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not,” Matthew replied. “I’m going to end it all anyway, but I figured you deserved to take the first shot if you wanted to.”

Ulysses glanced at him, then back at the gun, then back at Matthew. He grabbed the weapon and checked the magazine, his cheeks paling. 

“It’s loaded,” Ulysses muttered. “You’re serious.”

Matthew pointed at his head again and closed his eye. His Doom Sense sharpened further as Ulysses clearly hesitated to point the gun and pull the trigger. Part of Matthew expected him to, even craved it. 

But his hopes were in vain. His Doom Sense started to weaken to nothing, and when he opened his eye again he found the gun back on the desk and Ulysses looking away. 

“I see,” Matthew muttered. “Can’t bring yourself to do it, even after everything?”

Ulysses answered him with a glare. “It’s not what she would have wanted, dickhead.” 

The words felt like a slap to the face, but they were true. Matthew accepted his friend’s decision with a nod. “Keep the bag then,” he said. “There’s a letter inside, for Maggie.”

“Maggie?” Ulysses repeated. From his tone, he hadn’t uttered the name in years. “Why?”

“It’s a confession. Give it to her once it’s done.” It also included a note for Florence and the Doc to heal Ulysses’ spine. He hoped that his old friend would finally move on from his trauma once everyone involved in his sister’s death was gone. “The two of you should reconnect. Each of you staying in your own hole is unhealthy.”

“What are you planning?” Ulysses asked, his voice hardly more than a whisper. 

Was that a hint of concern Matthew picked up in his tone? Or just his imagination? He hesitated to tell Ulysses the truth, before figuring out that he of all people deserved to know his sister would soon rest in peace. 

“I’m going to avenge her,” Matthew replied. “I’m going to destroy the Mall, that thing inside, the Hydra, and all the Dungeons. I’m going to wipe them all out.”

He would drag them all into the Black with him. 

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A/N: we're fast approaching the final confrontation, and I now confirm that the story will conclude in May (probably around chapter 75). I hope you've been enjoying this novel so far :)