**Two days ago. Tartarus**
Far north of the continent was a place that was widely accepted to be the edge of the world.
It was a place with harsh living conditions, frequent snowstorms, below freezing air. No life. Even Graded beasts dared not occupy and call this place home, lest they wanted to be considered a decoration to the frozen landscape.
Deep within these parts was a hidden base; a lone black cube in the distance that stood contrast to the white terrain.
As a group of W.M.A. officers sent here for station strode along on a speeding sled-like vehicle, even as bundled as they were, the cold seeped through their clothing, freezing their sweat as the wind bit their faces unendingly.
One of them was noticeably female as her legs held close to herself, wearing only sheer black tights under her thick W.M.A. jacket.
Another one of the officers spoke to her. "Are you not freezing deathly?" he said; a hint of tease found in his tone.
"Are you staring at my legs again, lieutenant?" Her voice was dipped in desire.
The other officers chuckled at him after she said this.
"Hard to look away when your legs may as well be bare out in this barren cold."
"So, you are staring… And what were you expecting me to say 'Oh yes, lieutenant! I'm so cold… would you please come closer and lend me your warmth?'" she said seductively, which made the officer blush.
The other officers continued to chuckle, and some nervously as they gave it some thought.
"You boys are so naughty! Ganging up on a gal like me… I can read your minds you know…"
They all gulped and were silent for but a moment.
"I'm just kidding. I can't read minds. However, the way you're all undressing me with your eyes right now is oh so obvious. Is this how you treat all your new female recruits?" she teased, and they all looked away afterward.
She had short black hair, and was fairly attractive. Her eyes pierced a humble blue through the blur of snow that passed by them on this sled vehicle.
"Enjoy the banter while it lasts," another more serious officer said from the front. He was the one driving the godawful thing. "Because once we arrive, you're going to wish you had more of it. You're also going to wish you were stationed elsewhere. Rules are strict here. Any act of friendliness is seen as an act of conspiracy, and will not be treated lightly."
The rest of the officers with him were silent. It was through that silence, he ended with, "You just don't know what these fucks could do… They're in there for a reason. If any one of them escapes, especially the ones on the lower floors… everything will go to fucking hell."
"And it's not already?" another male officer asked. "The Apostles just declared war on all the Kingdoms."
"Key words – 'the Kingdoms'. Not the W.M.A., not the Maven Lords. You can thank the Maven Lords for that. They may be a dangerous group, but they seem reasonable to negotiations. Unlike these fucks."
No words were said. Only the biting nips of cold on each of their exposed skins.
The girl changed her expression, holding a solemn look mixed with one of amusement. She seemed unfazed by the words of the leading officer.
"Anyway. We're here."
When they arrived, a giant black block in the middle of this ice baren wasteland came into view.
It was as large as a castle from a Kingdom, towering beyond the storms above, and was protected by various barriers—all of which they were granted clearance to as they neared.
[BARRIER Z: DEACTIVATED… REACTIVATED… BARRIER Y DEACTIVATED… REACTIVATED… BARRIER X…]
So on and so forth. Deactivating and reactivating upon their entry.
When they finally arrived to the enormous cube, they had passed through a total of twenty-six barriers.
"Keeper… these are all Kingdom level barriers… how many does this place need?" an officer asked.
The lead officer didn't face him as he slowed down and eventually stopped the vehicle, "If you're asking me… the place doesn't have enough of them."
"Welcome to Tartarus," another male commented with sarcastic eagerness.
Right then the snowcapped ground below them shifted and the shape of a large square traced upon it, taking them down to a lower level. One of the many hidden elevators of this advanced, eerie location. And the only entrances and exits around, for that matter.
They all observed the place as they entered from above ground. The elevator descended them into what seemed like a completely different world altogether.
From the snow wasteland above to a mechanical city below, the difference was night and day.
The gears and pipes of the place stretched out for miles underneath with no end, glowing a haunting yellow and orange hue amidst it.
"Who knew all this was under this Keeperforsaken place…" an officer commented.
The girl observed silently along with them, intently noting everything she was seeing.
They descended for what seemed like forty-five or so minutes as the sounds of grinding gears, flurries of metal groaning, and the popping of endless steam continued to sound off in their ears.
"Don't worry," that same male officer implied to the girl, flirting. "If you stick close, I'll not only warm you, I'll keep you safe as well."
She looked at him with deviant eyes as she replied, "Ooo… chivalrous."
He snickered as they neared their destination. "I didn't catch your name…" he asked, implying she should tell him.
She tilted her head and unzipped her jacket; underneath she was wearing a black cropped mock neck that exposed her porcelain, off-white shoulders and a sliver of her tight waist, her high waisted short shorts, and those sheer tights behind them. "It's Lilith," she said like a whisper to him, and he turned red.
The elevator finally reached their destination. They weren't even at the bottom as it seemed this thing could descend even lower than where they had stopped…
"The six of you were chosen to assist in station of the fifty-fifth floor because of your mana aptitudes. Not many mages can withstand the mana pressure past floors thirty and onward." The lead officer said as they all stepped out of the vehicle and walked over to a check in station with W.M.A. guards, armed to the teeth.
They scanned his badge and checked him thoroughly before he spoke again, "We will need you to change into your designated uniforms before proceeding from here, but first we need to scan your badges."
"Didn't you already scan our badges before we took the trip?" an officer asked.
"I told you. Rules are strict here. Even I was no exception. This isn't even the start of it." The lead turned around to face the one that spoke out. "If you have anything else to say, aside from 'aye, sir' we won't deport you"—a group of armed W.M.A. charged their mana infused rifles, and aimed them at the one who spoke out; and the lead put on his officer's cap at the same time—"we will just end you here."
The officer winced and was about to speak again but held his tongue. He understood instantly the situation he was now in.
"Aye, sir" was all he said, and the other stationed officers lowered their rifles.
The lead officer nodded, and they all proceeded to take out their badges with the watch of the other W.M.A. officers. They made their way single filed as the lead officer scanned their badges and they passed through, escorted past an extended bridge to their changing stations.
When the lead officer scanned the girl, Lilith's badge, he looked at her a bit longer than the others as he flipped her badge all the while…
She said nothing as she peered into his eyes with her easy blues, waiting patiently.
"At ease," he said. "Just curious of your track record in the W.M.A. Your badge says you were stationed in the Sky Kingdom, but you willingly signed up to be in Tartarus… do you have a death wish?"
"I heard the men here are a different breed," she said with a voice pleasing to the ears.
"The soldiers or the criminals?" the lead asked with hidden sarcasm.
"Mmm… I thought you said rules are strict, commander? You sure we should be talking so casually here?"
He gave her a stern look. His face was cut with edge and decorated by faint scars. No emotion found in his eyes.
"Proceed."
She blinked with a cute expression. "You're not going to pat me down, commander?" she questioned as she effortlessly showed off her shapely features.
"I prefer to still have a marriage after today. Besides… Your attire is all too revealing already. Just make sure you change fully into uniform past the bridge."
"Aye, sir," she said, her words lingering as he handed back her badge.
When she passed the bridge and proceeded to her changing quarters, her silhouette through the curtains of her station was all the other new recruits could see as she became noticeably naked behind it, and was sprayed down from the inside just as they.
"Eyes to yourselves," the lead officer ordered. "Keeper. I get you're all new recruits, but I didn't expect you all to act like a bunch of swooning teens."
By the time they were dressed. They were all fully armed just like the officers who greeted them. They stood single filed once again as they entered another station and were handed weaponry. Two knives, a retractable long blade on the hip, and a rifle across their chests. All dressed in tactical black with the symbol of the W.M.A on one of their shoulders and back.
They made their way to another elevator, or rather, a platform that maneuvered sideways instead of up and down.
The platform shielded them with a glowing yellow glass on all sides, locking them in with gravity magic as it sped swiftly across the mechanical dungeon.
At different parts of the place there were similar stations like the one they had come from. It looked as if they weren't the only new recruits to have been stationed here. Each as strict, if not more, as the one they came.
BANG!
A shot rang from a nearby station. As the officers quickly cleaned up the mess and picked up the corpse of a W.M.A new recruit.
In an instant, a digital screen appeared in front of them all from the tactical suits they wore with the name and face of the officer who was put down:
[ATTEMPTED CLANDESTINE ACT OF FOREIGN OBJECT. OBJECT: NECKLACE.]
One of the officers next to Lilith was sweating when he read that.
No one spoke when they witnessed this, and the digital screens blinked out. Even the lead officer held only a stern face forward as they proceeded to their next station.
When they made it, the next platform did the same as the one they came from but went down at an increasing speed.
They descended for another twenty minutes until the mechanical pipes and steam yawned upward and they were now in a vast, wide open blue space. If the place above was like another mechanical world, the floor they had entered was like another dimension.
They could not even tell where the walls were as they looked beyond.
Other platforms like theirs descended at different times, filled to the brim with soldiers.
And then faintly they descended past a floating cube. And then another. And then another.
They kept on until they were filled with clusters of them, all floating in random places, each a blur from the outside.
Then one of the officers near Lilith gasped as something from within one of the cubes startled him.
The cube lit up and what was inside was a hideous man with enough muscle on him to end them all with a single swing. He laughed heinously as they passed by and his cube shook.
On that same level, as if standing in midair, a group of soldiers surrounded the cube and pointed their rifles at him, igniting the inside with raging flames. The prisoner yelled as the group proceeded to descend.
"At ease," the lead officer said to them.
"W-What level are we in, sir?" one of them asked.
He was silent as they entered a different zone, and they were met with pitch black.
"We haven't even reached floor thirty yet… We just passed floor twenty-six."
"Seriously?"
No response.
And then Lilith spoke, "How many floors are there here in Tartarus?"
The lead officer glanced over to her and said, "Seventy-one."
As he said this, the pitch black began emitting scatters of colors all around them. The colors brightened and then went out one by one.
One of the officers looked intently at what they were and without him hearing a single thing, he saw that they were fires of gunshots all around them.
"This floor is for the prisoners that cannot be contained in cells. It's a wide open pitch black space that messes with your sense of direction. For all they know, up is down and down is sideways. Only stealth type W.M.A. can operate here in this level, and even then, they still need their tactical suits to just operate normally."
A prisoner shot out at them as they inclined and hung on to the wall of the descending platform. His wild hair fluttered from his intense speed, and then, with no sound, a shot fired, blasting him off the platform and the prisoner turned into liquid.
They witnessed the officer who shot him, walking on the other side of their descending platform like he was on one of his own, remaining on that same level.
When they looked back at the prisoner who became liquid, he pieced himself together until it was a distorted form of what he had once been. "No! Please, not again! I'm sorry! I won't do it agai—"
Another silent shot fired, filling the pitch black with the sounds of his painful screams and sparks of light as they proceeded deeper below.
"The floor was made specifically for the Full-Bodies. With them being able to escape from cells and Nullifying magic designated for the real threats below, a space where you can sense nothing is the place they are to be."
"Do officers stationed in this level ever get attacked?"
No response.
"What do you think, numbnuts?" another officer whispered.
He shuddered as they arrived at yet another lower level.
When they passed through, what seemed like never-ending darkness, the place lit up into another vast mechanical area. At least here, they could see the structures of the place, welcoming them within its towering edifices and intense heat…
"Welcome to the fortieth floor. We call this place the Upper Trenches."
"We're at the fortieth already?"
"Upper?" another uttered, near sarcastically.
"Aye. Each area has anywhere from ten to twenty floors between. So if you're wondering why we would have an open floor for the Full-bodies in the second area, it's because they are separated by about eighteen floors. Not only that, but if one were to try and escape and reach the floor above it with the floating cubes, there is a barrier as thick as two Kingdom barriers they cannot pass through even with their abilities."
A pause.
"A barrier that will also electrocute them to death regardless of their resistances to the electric attribute."
Lilith stretched her collar from the intense heat of this area. When she looked around there were pools and waterfalls of lava that filled the entire place. There were only a few places where one could stand, if at all… and upon them were free roaming prisoners doing blacksmith work.
"Where are the officers stationed here?" one of them asked.
The lead merely pointed and there was a higher level they did not see where many W.M.A. officers were stationed. On the outer layers of this area, they kept watch over the prisoners below as they made weapons and machinery of all kinds.
"Seems easy. Wish I was stationed here."
"I can always transfer you if you're not cut out for the fifty-fifth floor."
"You can, sir?"
"You're too eager. Look closely."
As the officer observed the others stationed here, they looked sluggish despite their attempts to remain vigilant.
"You may not have to face many encounters, but if you lack the aptitude, the heat will get you before any of the prisoners will."
He gulped and said nothing after.
The lead remained silent, as well sensing his understanding of being in this area.
They passed ten more floors as they descended deeper past the lava filled place.
Unlike the area above, this place was a frozen baren much like the very outside of Tartarus.
"The fifty-fifth floor is somewhere in this area."
"From the cold up top to back in it? You've got to be joking," one of the officers commented.
"As I said, I'm more than happy to station you to the upper levels if you prefer?"
They all shook their heads.
And then Lilith asked, "What does one do to earn a spot on the lower floors?"
A curious question. And the lead faced her completely as they descended into the cold. "Unless you were approved for lower level duty before your acceptance into Tartarus, then there is no way."
"Ah, so upper levels only then… Okay," she replied a little too casually.
"Do you regret willingly coming to Tartarus now, lieutenant Lilith?" The lead officer asked.
"Mmm… we'll see. Perhaps another opportunity will present itself…"
Their platform hovered down into intersecting tubes amidst the frozen area as they landed. These tubes were windowed halls that allowed for easy access for W.M.A officers stationed on these floors, each leading to a higher plane, but none leading below to the next floor.
"Be grateful. This is the floor everyone else wants to be stationed at."
"I'd rather be stationed to the first area," an officer said.
"Says the one who jumped from the first prisoner who startled him in those floating cubes," another one jabbed.
"No more banter from here on out, or you will be shot upon the act. You will each be stationed to a section here and will rotate out. Make sure you keep moving. For if you stay still for even a few minutes…"
He turned his head to a few officers on this floor hauling another one of their own out on a stretcher. The one within, frozen entirely. And when the lead lifted his hand to them, it was already frozen as well.
He ignited it with magic from his gloves, and the ice melted.
When the officers saw all of this, they instantly began moving so as to not freeze in place. But Lilith hardly moved… Like she was not afraid of the cold.
The lead watched her intently all the while. "I see why you were chosen for this floor… your aptitude to the cold is nothing to pass up," he commented.
"I thought there's no more banter from here on out, sir?"
He huffed once and carried on. There was a group of already stationed officers here, ready to receive orders; and he stopped just in front of them, turning back around.
"You will be accompanied by your fellow officers behind me, they will show you the ropes. Your duty is simple: Keep the prisoners on this floor at bay… and don't freeze to death."
They saluted and were split up, two new recruits each to an already designated officer in this floor. When they looked around, there were a mixture of frozen prisoners outside the windowed halls and some, surprisingly, who were not…
"These walls are for our protection but that does not, by any means mean that they can fully protect you from the prisoners in this level," a tenured officer addressed to Lilith and the other male who was flirting with her earlier.
He looked at her and rolled his eyes, trying to play it cool. She merely gave him a closed-eyed, dimpled smile in response.
"For example…" the officer continued as a prisoner ran toward them from the outside of these halls.
"This one can melt through the walls if you give him enough time." He stuck his rifle through the window, and it morphed over it like it was elastic, layering his weapon into something more beyond into the frozen fields.
The prisoner ran vehemently at them, burning the ice with each step he made, and when he was within range of the officer's shot…
BANG!
It fired, and a barrier formed around the running prisoner as if he was frozen in time within it.
"Guys like him can't freeze in a place like this, and they can withstand the floors from above. They're also dangerous to be close to, so in here is the safest place to keep them at bay. These rounds fire temporary time barriers. When you shoot, they trap them for as long as a day. If you're lucky, you'll only ever have to do this to a couple of these bastards on the day to day."
"If we're lucky…" the new male recruit said.
"It may not seem like it, but this is the best place you could ever be stationed at compared to the other levels."
"Have you been to the lower levels before?" Lilith asked.
The officer paused for a bit, walked off ahead of them and said without turning around, "I've been as far as the sixty-ninth floor and after that… let's just say, I missed the fifty-fifth floor quicker than my relapses. The aura down there with those prisoners is no joke. I don't know what it is, but if you even pass out down there, they have to escort you out, and the ones that make it out are left in a coma for months on end. The lower levels are no joke."
"Mmm…" was all Lilith said before looking at the prisoner that was trapped in the 'time capsule' shot.
They continued these rounds until they were able to freely roam within the halls and monitor the prisoners. At this point they had scouted all ten floors of the Keeperforsaken place.
"Such a boring floor…" the male new recruit said to her.
"I'm with ya there," she said, looking intently to him. "Say, wanna warm up?"
"You serious? There's no way we could—"
"You asked me earlier if I was freezing deathly, right? Well, I'm in some desperate need of some body heat…"
Quicker than the male could think, they found themselves in a secluded area on the floor. One they passed by that seemed to be a storage room of sorts. Keeping their body heats risen, they began to take off their clothes, making out with each other all the while. And the cameras on this floor distorted as they did by some force of magic…
"Shh…" Lilith crooned as she unzipped her tactical suit and revealed her chest to him. Doing the same, the male quickly undressed, and they had to be in there for a few minutes at best.
Up till this point, the cameras remained malfunctioned, still…
When she exited the storage room, the male was on the floor, foaming to no end. He emitted a type of 'scent' as he did.
"Thanks for the good time. Despite you finishing a bit too quick…" Lilith said as she snapped her fingers, and the cameras around the place resumed as normal, changing her facial expression simultaneously to that of horror.
She then sounded off on her attached comm on her shoulder, "Officer down. Officer down. Requesting back up at section 1E immediately!"
After she said this, the alarm rang, and another officer responded, "back up is on the way. Your condition?"
"Critical…"
Suddenly, groups upon groups of prisoners swarmed the area she was in, scraping and piling over each other like a horde mad zombies. It was as if they were drawn to something that attracted them there. A scent of sorts that was driving them all insane like animals in heat.
She did something to malfunction the comm, then merely stood there as a horde had breached the walls far behind, and began raging toward her.
"Good boys and girls… Follow mommy…" she spoke as they burst through, letting the freezing cold and snow in.
She turned a corner, pretending to limp as the cameras remained on her and the breached prisoners.
A group of W.M.A. officers rushed past her, beginning to shoot and subdue them.
"How did this happen? These walls are supposed to be impenetrable especially from the outside!" one of them shouted as she limped by.
"Not in these clusters apparently," she said as shots continued to fire toward the opposite way. "Also, one of the new recruits are in there, and they're emitting a strange scent… I think its driving them all mad."
As she made it past them, she found herself at the platform area where they had all arrived earlier. And when it descended from above, the lead officer was there…
"Slick as a rat…" she said.
"Loyal as a dog." The lead officer replied to her without hesitation, "That was quite a distraction, Lilith…"
"What else did you expect me to do, Arthur? This was your idea after all," she replied, losing her fake limp to shrug. "Anyway, is the platform ready for him?"
"Aye. All he needs is to hear the lock."
As Lilith joined the lead officer—Arthur—on the platform, he placed his hands onto it and chanted, "Obey."
And the platform descended at a rapid pace.
From above and below, more platforms began to enter the fiftieth and fifty-fifth floor.
"Tell me why it had to be this floor again, Arthur?" Lilith asked as she stripped naked and pulled her original clothes out from her 'badge' which had been turned into a magic concealing item by Arthur earlier. A metallic tail that had been attached to her whipped from behind, becoming visible after once being translucent.
"Because unlike the other areas, these prisoners can withstand the forty-ninth through the fortieth floors and even pose a threat to the silent area from the thirty-ninth and thirtieth floors. Therefore, it is imperative that they remain, even if it means stationing out units from the floors above and below…"
As he said this, other platforms began to ascend past them. They had now entered an ocean-like area—the fifty-sixth through the sixty-fifth floor.
"This means, there will be less security from here on out—easier for us to infiltrate. Once he is free, all else is nothing at his wake."
"Mmm… makes sense, also…" Lilith tilted her head and asked Arthur a curious question, "Are you really married?"
He was silent for a long time before replying, "I was."
She said nothing more as they sank through what seemed like water all around them, plunging deeper and deeper below this never ending prison. There were even Grade 2 and up beasts that swam in these parts, stalking and intimidating the prisoners in cages here.
When they finally arrived at the lowest level—floors sixty-five to floors seventy-one, the place was like a blank space. There was nothing but white as far as the eyes could see.
The pressure, however, made them both stagger, both grunting and falling to a knee upon entry.
"How can one even stand here, let alone breathe? My lungs feel like they're about to burst," Lilith said stiffly.
"Endure it for a moment, he should already be out."
When they landed in the blank, white space, the air only got thicker. Neither could even raise their heads as they remained, permanently bowed to the figure ahead of them, who had subdued all the high ranking officers here in this place.
He stood in all white prisoners clothing, and had gray hair.
When she saw him, Lilith was elated. "Master Wrath!" she called with such desire in her tone, like he was some long lost lover.
But he had sensed the two coming before they arrived, ready for this moment at any given chance.
He turned his head slowly as he acknowledged them at last, eyes like that of a crimson sea,
"Such a pleasure to see you both, Lilith, Arthur. My devout followers… and fellow Riot Gang Head Officers."