Chapter 42| Pulled Under
"Everyone out of the van, now," Myria snapped, already working to free herself from her seatbelt with practiced, urgent efficiency. "Whatever’s happening out there, I don’t want us caught in a metal box when it does."
They scrambled out onto the highway shoulder, the eastern sky now fully bruised violet, the air itself beginning to hum with a dense, pressurized wrongness that made the fine hairs on Allen’s arms stand on end. Other vehicles along the highway had begun pulling over as well, drivers stepping out with phones raised, entirely unaware of just how far beyond a curiosity this was about to become.
"Get those people back," Allen said sharply, already moving toward the nearest car. "Now, before—"
The rift tore open with a sound like the sky itself splitting, a jagged violet wound blooming across empty air less than a quarter mile ahead, considerably larger and more violent than any formation Allen had witnessed in his months of dungeon clears. The pressure wave that followed sent bystanders stumbling, car alarms blaring in a chaotic chorus along the highway’s shoulder.
"That’s not a normal formation," Myria shouted over the roaring wind now pulling steadily toward the tear, ice already gathering reflexively at her fingertips despite having no clear target yet. "S-rank rifts don’t open with that kind of pressure differential. Something’s actively forcing it wider."
"Civilians first," Vivian said, already moving with lethal, practiced speed toward the nearest stranded family, ushering them bodily away from the widening tear. "Worry about the physics later."
They worked fast, Irene’s flames carving a visible boundary to help herd panicked bystanders away from the rift’s pull, Everlyn’s roots surging up from the highway’s cracked shoulder to create makeshift barriers, Allen coordinating the chaotic evacuation with the same instinctive command he’d honed across a year of dungeon leadership.
It wasn’t enough.
The rift’s pull intensified without warning, the violet tear expanding in a single, violent pulse that sent a wave of raw dungeon pressure rippling outward across the entire stretch of highway. Allen felt his feet leave the ground before he’d fully processed what was happening, the world tilting sideways as an invisible, crushing force yanked him bodily toward the widening tear.
"ALLEN!"
He caught Vivian’s voice through the roaring chaos, felt her hand close around his wrist a half-second before the pull became absolute, and then the world dissolved entirely into violet light and screaming wind.
---
He hit solid ground hard enough to drive the breath from his lungs, disoriented, ears ringing, the taste of copper sharp in his mouth. For a long, terrifying moment, silence swallowed everything.
"Allen!" Vivian’s voice again, closer now, hands finding his shoulders with familiar, unerring precision even through what he could only assume was total disorientation on her end as well. "Are you hurt?"
"I’m okay," he managed, forcing himself upright, vision swimming as it adjusted to a harsh, unfamiliar light. "Where—"
He trailed off, taking in the landscape around them for the first time, and felt his stomach drop.
They stood in the center of a vast, sun-scorched wasteland, cracked red earth stretching toward a horizon broken only by jagged rock formations and the distant, skeletal remains of something massive and long-dead. The sky above burned an unnatural shade of amber, two pale moons visible even through the harsh daylight, utterly unlike anything that belonged to the world they’d left behind.
"That’s not Ohio," Irene said, stumbling upright nearby, flames flickering instinctively to life at her fingertips as she took in the alien landscape with wide, wary eyes.
"That’s not Earth," Myria said grimly, wheelchair notably absent, and Allen watched with a fresh jolt of alarm as she pushed herself upright onto legs that, judging by her own equally startled expression, hadn’t supported her weight in years. "The rift didn’t just pull us into a standard dungeon. This is a self-contained dimensional pocket. Association survey teams have theorized about formations like this, but none has ever been confirmed."
"Wait." Allen’s gaze snapped back to her. "Myria, you’re standing."
Myria looked down at her own legs as if seeing them for the first time, something raw and disbelieving flickering across her sharp features before she forced her attention back to the immediate crisis, though her hands trembled faintly at her sides. "Dimensional pockets sometimes operate under different physical laws than the origin world," she said, voice tight with contained emotion. "It’s likely temporary, tied to this specific environment. I’ll process that properly once we’re not in immediate danger."
Everlyn, kneeling nearby with her palms pressed against the cracked, alien soil, went suddenly rigid, her expression shifting into something urgent and alarmed. She grabbed for Allen’s sleeve, gesturing frantically toward the notepad she’d somehow retained through the chaotic transition.
’Something’s alive out there. A lot of somethings. And they already know we’re here.’
Vivian’s head snapped up, enhanced hearing straining against the wasteland’s alien silence. "She’s right," she confirmed grimly. "I’m picking up movement. Multiple sources, converging on our position from at least three directions."
Allen felt Guardian’s Instinct flare sharply, a cold, prickling awareness spreading across his skin as he turned slowly, taking stock of the barren landscape with fresh, wary focus.
"Formation," he said quietly, voice carrying the same steady command that had carried them through every crisis since Hegeville. "Whatever’s coming, we face it together."
The wind shifted, carrying with it a sound none of them had heard before — a deep, rhythmic pounding, like war drums beaten against stretched hide, growing steadily louder from beyond the nearest ridge of jagged red rock.
And then, silhouetted against the harsh amber sky, the first of them appeared — tall, powerfully built figures bearing crude but unmistakably purposeful weapons, painted markings across weathered skin catching the alien light, moving with the coordinated, deliberate discipline of something considerably more organized than mindless dungeon beasts.
"Myria," Allen said quietly, not taking his eyes off the approaching figures. "Tell me those aren’t what I think they are."
Myria’s expression had gone carefully, dangerously blank, the same look she wore whenever her mind was racing through every possible strategic implication at once.
"I don’t know what they are," she admitted. "But they’re not mindless. Look at their formation, Allen. That’s tactical spacing. That’s a war party."
The drums grew louder, and from atop the ridge, dozens more figures emerged into view, and Allen understood, with sudden, absolute clarity, that whatever this place was, they had just landed directly in the middle of something far larger than a simple dungeon clear.