I found my trump card in the deeper parts of the Tower. In the basement, where even the Rot hadn't dared spread... -89.8 Seconds Post-Integration.

  "What the heck-in-some-shet was THAT?!" Theo yelled as the team waded into combat.

  Blades drawn, staves at the ready, bucklers ready to block, Clark's Work Detail met the enemy head on alongside their Containment co-workers.

  "I have no idea!" he shouted.

  "I don't either," Hera confirmed. "But I have a feeling that's what we're here for!"

  The engagement did not last long. Between the hundreds of Containment Guards on hand, plus a couple dozen Leaguers, and the war-machines which weren't toppled, the upsurge of large Noir Slimes and Airhearts were quickly defeated.

  "Is that all of them?" he asked, twisting his head, trying to get a view of the battlefield.

  Around them, the chaos died down. Though a new surge of troops rushed into the embattled store fronts to handle the monster stragglers.

  "I think it is," Hera conjectured. "We should find your contact. Oh, one last thing: Clark," Hera's voice grew low as she whispered into his ear. "I did some thinking on your financial matters. I cannot in good conscious give you a loan. That said, I will give you what I can without expectation of repayment. I set the funds on an auto-transfer so it should be in your banking account soon."

  "Thank you so much, Hera. I appreciate it!"

  "I know you do. This is something important so don't think anything of it."

  Clark and Company, on edge, sought out a highly ranked individual. They approached anyone who appeared to be giving orders.

  "Excuse me, sir?" Hera asked for the group. "Do you happen to know where this captain is?"

  Though the man they approached didn't want to give them the time of day, he scoffed an answer for them anyway. "Down by the first store block. That old codger rope you into some bullshet? Sorry sap..."

  Hera didn't listen to the man's whole grievance. She thanked him and led the group toward the area indicated. "That must be him. Tall fellow."

  Clark took the lead from Hera and approached the man. "Captain Carrot Lee?"

  The man turned to look at him. "Aye. And who are you, boy? Ma'am? This isn't any place for weaklings."

  "We're no weaklings, sir. We're looking for a man. Hubert Hermes? Supposedly here on a special mission. We have need for him and agreed to help." Clark explained and hoped there wouldn't be further issue.

  "Oh... him," the captain's voice suddenly deflated. "You will find him somewhere in the third store block. Last I checked, anyway. By now, he could be anywhere."

  "Thank you for your help, sir!" Clark kept his tone respectful. "One last thing: could you say anything of why he is here?"

  "Why? He's hunting some nasty beast. Now, if you're done badgering me, we each have our own suicide missions to get to."

  The team was about to enter the store block indicated by Captain Carrot when Clark brought everyone to a standstill. "Do you think he was being real?"

  "The whole 'suicide mission' thing, you mean?" Theo asked.

  "Yeah..."

  "If he was, he's in it with us, evidently. That must make you feel a little better, right?"

  A search of his feelings revealed that, no, it didn't make him feel any better. "If anything, it makes me more annoyed. There's always danger."

  "You are the Dungeon Champion," Theo quipped.

  "I can't argue there..."

  "Enough you two. We should prepare for whatever is in that store block. Clearly, we will encounter both allies and enemies beyond. Let's prepare ourselves in Dandies." Hera started drinking some of her own dandies and he and Theo did likewise.

  With his blood full of mana granting him boons from Defense to Manipulation, Clark led his team forward. "Once more into that breach," he whispered and stepped forward.

  "And that's the tenth!" A drop of his blade ended the existence of yet another Noir Slime.

  Theo and Hera finished off their own adversaries.

  "At least they're easy," Theo mentioned, his daggers digging into two slimes then a third in quick succession. It was hard for Clark not to admire such a boy. The way Theo so effortlessly (yet violently!) killed slimes just... made him feel a certain way.

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  "That's not my objection," he said.

  By now, the team had spent two hours in the field. Two hours of asking every Containment Guard group they came across if they heard of a 'Hubert Hermes' and if so, where they could find them. Yet to their disappointment, no one had seen anything.

  "Seriously," he continued. "Do we even know if the seller is here? I think we've gone up and down this whole place two times over!"

  "Captain Carrot did say the seller could be anywhere. He was on a special mission." Hera talked while scanning the aisles up and down.

  Clark thought about what they knew about their outing. Not much, sure... only the seller was tasked with hunting down a monster in the area; before that, some big monster or thing had disrupted a ton of war equipment in the connecting zone. Hera most likely was right -- that whatever they had seen in the connecting zone was what they were hunting. Yet now, there wasn't any sight of that monster. Which seemed odd to him that a creature of that size wouldn't be picked out right away. What were they missing?

  "Was that rubble there before?" Hera pointed at a pile of canned goods.

  Theo looked where Hera indicated. "I dunno... why does it matter? It's a battlefield. There's crap everywhere."

  Yet Hera looked on with a hard look in her eye. He looked to where Hera was concerned. He saw a pile of cans but that was it.

  "It looks like cans... hmmm... we should resume our search."

  And they did -- they encountered more monsters, including a small swarm of Airhearts, but with allies nearby, they easily took them out.

  "I say we move onto another of the store blocks. It looks like the Containment Guards have recaptured this block anywhere," he said.

  Theo agreed. "We shouldn't waste our time when there are still three more--"

  "Guys!" Hera shouted. "Look -- the same pile of cans!"

  Both he and Theo swerved around on instinct to glance at Hera's alert. "Cans? Hera, I don't understand..."

  Hera calmed herself and said, "Look very carefully, you two. The cans are not normal cans. Look!"

  Against his own incredulity, Clark knelt down to examine the cans. What he found surprised him; the can pile was alien to the store. It was as though someone tried to copy the basic design of an Augustford canned product without understanding the language or aesthetic design. The words were intelligible mumbo-jumbo while the design itself irrational, random, even with shapes and colors without regard for how the eye would receive such designs in the store.

  Theo knelt and examined the can pile, too. "What on earth is this?" he asked, picking up on the absurd spelling and design faster than he.

  Hera crossed her arms. "See what I mean? What. Is. This?"

  "Is there any more of these cans?" he asked.

  The team looked around.

  "There! Another pile!" Hera called and rushed off to investigate. "And another beyond."

  "Each pile is seemingly more at random than the last." Clark reviewed all the places they found the odd canned goods. "In the middle of a walkway, an aisle, on top of debris... they're randomly strewn about."

  Theo exhaled roughly. "Okay. Now what? Weird cans aside, this isn't leading us to the seller."

  Clark clicked his tongue, something he did when he was at a loss. "I have to agree with Theo. Weird as this is, it -- wait, that pile is moving!"

  Hera whirled around to see. "Shet! What's is happening?!"

  The can pile, as one, was moving. Slowly, but moving all the same. Glancing toward the other piles they found, Clark noticed other piles were also inching away. "They're moving in tandem with each other."

  "We need to follow!" Hera put into action her suggestion before Clark could confirm it as leader. Not that he had an objection; whatever was happening, it was the closest thing to 'progress' since coming into the battered store block.

  He and his mates followed the mobile can pile throughout the store. They kept glued to the cans movements as they slowly gained speed. "Any ideas what these things are? I take it they're not normal cans. SIMP? All ears!"

  Beep: "I do not know, Clark."

  SIMP's ignorance annoyed him. "Honestly, SIMP, I figured you would have an idea! I thought you had high-leveled monsters all figured out!"

  Although he expected SIMP to have a sharp rejoinder for him, they did not.

  With SIMP as ignorant as they, Clark and friends could only keep themselves glued to the inching cans in hope they would take them somewhere relevant. And not too dangerous, but that last part was always negotiable.

  Right as their following of the Weird Cans was getting stale, the situation changed.

  As the Weird Cans shuffled into an open space in what used to be a clothing department, they were suddenly joined by dozens of other Weird Can piles. The cans picked up speed and massed together into groups. As if that wasn't enough, the clothing racks near the piles began to shift and shutter.

  "What on the Gods green rock is happening?!" Theo yelled as he dug down into a defensive stance.

  The clothes detached from their racks and flung toward some invisible center where they melded together into a ball before flattening out.

  On the floor, the cans did the same, except they formed a single-layered sheet. Not unlike scales upon a lizard...

  Overhead, the lights flickered, then swung back and forth, a force compelling them toward the chaos below. The lights put up a strong front for a while but eventually detached from their hinges and fell toward the chaotic mass underneath.

  Moment-by-moment, the situation worsened as pieces of the floor, rug, the debris, and other associated matter from around the store block came into the vortex. Clark couldn't tell if what the vortex took in was 'mock goods,' in the same vein as the Weird Cans, or pure matter. Likely, it was a combination of both.

  Having led his team toward a safe position on the edge of the vortex, they watched the phenomena unfold. Though he wanted to do something to counter the strange unfolding before him, that was hard to do from a position of total ignorance. So, he did the next best thing -- he watched.

  When the vortex finally ceased, all those commodities and debris which the vortex had sucked in, fell to the ground with a clatter.

  But that was not the end of it.

  The debris shot up, then fell back to the ground.

  Then shot up again before falling to the ground.

  Moving with heartbeat-like pulsations, the debris shot up and down, organizing itself through each pulse; each up-down pulsation an attempt to reorganize the stolen matter by incremental movements. Not for the first time that day Clark asked himself what was going on.

  Ding: "Clark! Get out of there! I sense a massive power surge!" SIMP's warning fell on deaf ears.

  Before he could do anything, the Weird Debris shot up high into the air and spread itself wide, like a bird-of-prey.

  "Holy shet!" Theo cursed alongside Hera.

  Cursing was appropriate. Nothing they encountered could describe what they saw before them. Whatever the entity was, it had scales made from canned goods; wings made from curtains and plastic sheets; talons made from kitchen knives, fangs made from similar material; meat, sausage, and all manner of deli goods made up its innards; while, hardly perceptible to them, home maintenance devices, such as leaf blowers and seated lawnmowers, forged part of its propulsion means. Covering its entire body in a thin but recognizable goop, were Noir Slimes, which gave the whole creature a dark sheen.

  The creature hovered in the air before them for a moment before taking off in a blast of flame. While it hovered, Clark and Company witnessed the Weird Debris for what it was. It's form, its features, everything about it the unmistakable visage of a dragon.

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