I stood and stretched, determined to change the subject, "So, what's the plan, man?"

  She sat back down in her Hammock, "In the depths of this facility, lower even than the sewers, lies a massive metal labyrinth made to contain a dragon!"

  I blinked hard, "A Dragon?"

  She nodded, "As in giant quadrupedal reptile with huge wings, the talking intelligent type dragon." There was this evil gleam in her eyes I hadn't seen before, it entranced me.

  I coughed a bit, having inhaled some of my own spit on accident, "And your plan is what?" I asked, attempting course correction after that embarrassing shit.

  She leaped out of the hammock and rushed up to me, placing two hands on my chest with incredible enthusiasm, "We get down there and reason with it! Then we free it and use it to escape!"

  A split second of "GOOD IDEA!" turned into the realization that THIS was probably not such a good plan, "Won't that let the thing escape?"

  Desirè crossed her arms, "I thought of that, and I have a solution! This facility is armed with 4 nuclear warheads rigged to go off if the AI deems that it has failed in its mission to contain the threats presented to it, effectively scrubbing everything in the general vicinity and freeing us from any actual responsibility!"

  I raised my voice for the first time in a while, "AND OUR CORPOREAL FORMS! WELL, DONE! YOUR IDEA IS TO KILL US! BUT THAT'S TRUE FREEDOM, ISN'T IT?!"

  Desirè sighed and slumped, "I thought you were smarter than that, we're regenerators! if we're blown up, we'll just wait a bit and we'll be fine!"

  I rubbed my eyes with my hands, "Look here, lady, I know what I can endure, BUT I'm not so FUCKING sure that nuclear hellfire is survivable!"

  She socked me right in the face, it didn't hurt much, but it woke Green up, "You're gonna chicken out on me now!?"

  Suddenly Green seized control and wrapped our hands around Desirè's throat, squeezing as hard as he could while the look of surprise on her face was compounded by Green snarling, "FUCKING PUNCH ME!? YOU PUTRID CUNT!?"

  We were killing her; I couldn't fucking stop him, and he was going to shatter this alliance I'd just forged!

  Finally Green let go and dropped her as the memories from earlier rushed back to him, he remembered everything I remembered, "WAIT, sorry...I... this is gonna take some explaining."

  Before Green could say anything else, Desirè jumped to her feet and planted two super-fast kicks into our side, then one upside our head, Green staggered, "shit..." he clutched at our face, "this bitch can fight..."

  "OK, who're you!? Because you sure as hell aren't the kid I was just talking to!" Asked Desirè in an accusatory tone, to which Green responded, "You don't have someone crawling around inside your head?"

  Desirè finally caught on, "So you're two people in one, a soldier and then there's..."

  "Him, yea, the kid.'

  Hey, fuck you, Green!

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  "Well, he said no to my request for help in freeing the dragon, will you stand with me?"

  Green no, could you not?

  "I'm in, but if it gets mad, I reserve the right to slay it!"

  God damn it!

  The next part of her plan seemed like it wouldn't work, to be honest.

  "You see that pipe?" She pointed to the broken pipe waterfall, "that is only one of four clean water pipes that run through the facility, two run through here but the second one is connected in part to the septic tank, if we flood the water system with septic water, the AI will initiate a system reset to fix the problem, which will temporarily unlock all doors in the lower levels."

  Green blinked, "I'm guessing you've done this before?"

  She nodded, "Once before I found this room, I lived in a curved hallway next to the crank that controls the septic tank, after I was chased, I found the labyrinth and the dragon chased me out, that's how I know all this."

  Green looked at the tank he suspected was the septic tank, "what do you want me to do?"

  She points to a lever just above the tank, at least three feet out of her reach, "I've laid hands on that lever, but I can't turn that valve."

  "You what?"

  "No, I'm serious, it's rusted shut! I need some brute strength to prize this bitch open."

  This seemed like it was too simple, a rusty lever, you Might as well ask me to open a jar of pickles!

  However as Green and I soon found out, the lever was SECURELY rusted in position.

  Tugging devolved into hitting devolved into doing pull-ups on it devolved into screaming at it devolved into finally, FINALLY turning it, flooding the water lines with septic matter!

  There was the sound of more skittering, Desirè looked up at the vent in horror to see an army of tiny drones scuttling through the fucking vent that was the only entrance or exit!

  In response, Green pulled a grenade and lobbed it at the mechanical bugs! The grenade landed amongst the swarm, and they immediately gave back, Green then took that opportunity to get the fuck out of dodge! Grabbing Desirè and scrambling through the vent!

  The grenade going off shook the vent and made us deaf, but it seemed to have shaken the swarm of mini drones. Desirè steered us through the ducts to the entrance to the Dragon's labyrinth!

  We got out of another floor level vent into an open hallway area to see the door at the end of the hall was open wide, Desirè pointed at it and waved frantically!

  "Yea, yea I get it." Green chuckled, taking a step forward, only to come up short when he saw what was at the end of the hall.

  The slime monster guy strode into the hall from a hallway at the end where the door was, he was blocking the door.

  Desirè looked confused as she saw him, "who're you?"

  It was then, for the first time that I heard the grinning abomination speak, "JAB-88888, Agent Onyx, I'm here to take you home." His voice was like sandpaper on a chalkboard, i cringed just hearing his voice.

  "No."

  For once the smile adorning the thing's ugly head turned into a rather nasty snarl, "excuse me?"

  Desirè took my hand in hers as she stood tall, "I've been promised my freedom."

  The monster laughed, an even more uncomfortable and unnatural sound, it stretched out one of its overlong droopy arms, "You don't have a choice, Agent Mercy."

  She puffed up angrily, "MY NAME IS DESIRè!"

  The thing began to slog towards us, not even moving its legs as it burned a black slug trail into the concrete of the chamber!

  I pushed Desirè out of the way and braced myself when I suddenly felt something appear in my hand, I looked down and saw BLASPHEMY! It was HERE!?"

  The sword whispered as I raised it, I had no clue why it was here, but I was sure as hell going to use it!"

  The slime thing stopped in the hall as it saw us advancing at a similar speed, "I thought you'd learned your lesson, Green."

  "GIVE RIPPER BACK YOU BLOTCHY ASSHOLE!"

  Green charged at him with Blasphemy leveled in his direction, our arm curled into a coiled forward spring, ready to impale this fuck with everything we had!

  All my zeal vanished when I saw him recede back into the blackness of the open door, that sickening slimy grin shining down into the darkness, "gonna have to catch me first asshole!"

  I stopped and looked back at Desirè, "So... shall we?"

  She rushed up to me and pointed to my sword, "That was up your sleeve this whole time?"

  Green shrugged, "it keeps vanishing and reappearing, ah well, gives me something to slay the dragon with."

  With a sword on our side and two monsters dwelling down there in the darkness now, we marched down the stairs into the blackness...of the labyrinth...