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Ascending into hell hadn’t been in Nathalie’s day planner, yet she found herself resigned to it's depths like a sinner in chains.
It was fitting, really, that someone like her would finally find themselves in the position for divine punishment. If anything, Nathalie expected the time to come sooner (previous near death experience notwithstanding). Her second chance at life had been long squandered and reflected much the same as her first; the data, an anomaly among other survivors of near death experiences.
However;
She never expected the literal manifestation of a demon to be the very thing that came to collect her, hand in tainted hand. The sounds echoing around her could only be described as demonic, and every terrible glimpse afforded to her blurry vision promised worst.
Nathalie held a hand to her bloodied temple while sucking in a breath, that same hand then flying down to clamp the sound back into her throat before it traveled any further. Iron painted her lips and filled her tongue, but she knew better than to cough. She had been the general, and her team, the soldiers; the enemy moved in without warning, and now they were all prisoners of war.
That is, if war was the deepest recesses of a complex solution cave system.
In the sudden ambush, the strap of her helmet had been slashed and the accessory clattered to the wayside. Nathalie had been forced to the defensive until she was pitched backwards down one of the multiple shoots attached to the large cave they had, unknowingly, disturbed.
Luckily for her, the burst of noise had distracted the attacker, who growled and tackled the helmet with dimly illuminated hands that looked too fleshy and grey to comprehend.
The uneven feel of limestone on her back alongside the wetness that permeated the cave told her nothing of her relative location, and the welling panic inside made her mistrustful of an approximation. The entire ambush happened so fast that she had created random distance on reflex, her fight or flight senses set to overdrive. Nathalie had no idea which direction she fled in, only that the way back up was too slick to climb without making a racket.
Deeper in the cave, one of her men called out in desperation.
In response, something that had been lurking outside of her perception scuffled swiftly towards the sound, as mute as a predator. Nathalie grimaced but made no move to help him; as of now, sound and light posed the greatest threat for herself. Six individuals were now scattered like the drip of water that invaded this cave, directionless and no longer in control of their surroundings.
As if on cue, the torch in her hand flickered treacherously, likely damaged in the tumble. Nathalie tensed up, straining her ears for any incoming noise and readied herself for yet another fight, but no assailant came forward to investigate. In fact, there was a handful of torches scattered around the space that the mystery attackers seemed to ignore.
Interesting.
She clipped the torch, which was thin and sleek in design, to her chest pocket. Quietly, she tapped the battery casing and tightened the screw, deigning to keep it on. Perhaps it was only sound that tipped off whatever was hunting their team. Plus, there was no use in fumbling around in the pitch dark whilst being totally defenseless when faced with the enemy.
Afterall, human eyes were not suited for night vision.
Whatever lurked beyond the beam, well. It moved as though vision was no hindrance in a hunt.
Against her systematic logic, Nathalie suspected something not quite human had been stalking them down here; she initially ignored the tingle of paranoia, as no man could have possibly escaped her immaculate notice. Whatever it was, there were multiple, and they were adept at climbing through the cave system without inherent human slowness. Inhumane beings were not so implausible, if the creations of the peacock Miraculous held up as evidence in a world where magic existed.
A cave. Why in the world did it have to be in a cave. She thought tiredly, closing her eyes whilst noting the blood beginning to crust her lashes.
Nathalie deftly switched her pack to her lap, unearthing gauze and a swell of bandages. If they were up against predators, a blood trail would be too noticeable. First, she needed to bandage the wound and then—
The metal carabineer on her pack scraped the pocket of rock exposed in the crisscross of her legs.
Goosebumps raced up her spine.
Nathalie worked the bandage faster around her head, tearing it off and pinning it expertly. Her ears perked to a sound somewhere in the wet darkness, which felt like it was seeping closer. Nathalie seeped in the opposite direction, covertly inching her way using the wall as a guide.
Truth was, she had felt permanently watched after the team breached a peculiar passage that had been decorated in rudimentary symbols from what she had surmised to be early man. The cave art held no warning for them, instead depicting nonsensical religious practices that escaped her cognition. It had initially excited her to the possibility of finding the artefact that The Kingdom had sent them down to the states to uncover.
Now, Nathalie had a sinking feeling that they were sent here without any plans for a successful return.
It was truly strange that Lila Rossi, previously Chrysalis and deemed a pathological liar by a team of psychiatrists, had been retrieved from the special ward The Kingdom locked her up in for the foreseeable future. The Scepter explained to Nathalie that Lila had been specifically trained in subterranean exploration, which built on her time spent living in the catacombs of Paris. Lila was perfectly withdrawn and untrustworthy, he had noted, which made her perfect in a situation that called for self-preservation reliant on the whole team’s success. Lila was very aware of this fact, too, still sharp despite the dulled humanity. She had been very reluctant to follow them down after each belay was set, hand wavering as she removed the bolts behind her like picking up breadcrumbs from a trail.
Something gurgled a distance away, and water sloshed with unidentified footsteps.
Shit.
The younger woman may have known from the start that the team wasn’t making it back to the surface.
Lila had also stared at her with something akin to pity, Nathalie catching her gaze once or twice until the latter flicked it away in renewed neutrality. Had there ever been an artifact? Had The Kingdom been aware of the danger down here and saw it as an opportunity to quietly, and credibly, dispose of the people who were now too big of a liability?
Her entire team had been a bunch of loose ends, which Nathalie picked up upon meeting with them for preparation training. She had been unaware of the possibility that The Kingdom would lump her into the same category.
The dark made a noise, too close and still just far enough for Nathalie to spring a hail Mary.
Nathalie fumbled with her satellite watch, the technology so far advanced that she could still send messages underground. It bathed her in luminescent green, clicking with every press of the keyboard. A. Agreste materialized on the tinny screen, and Nathalie worked to cover the message from company detection, praying to anything that it wouldn’t be intercepted.
A hiss came from ten paces away.
Nathalie typed faster, approximating that she only had time for two messages until she was compromised. One held a location, and the other held a distress call. Adrien was a clever man, who pulled from his mother’s intuition and his father’s tenacity. She then undid the watch and set it aside, fingertips alighting on a rocky alcove at the base of the wall behind her.
Adrien. Nathalie smiled as his face drifted to the forefront of her mind, an image of his wife and daughter collecting around him in a family photo.
No sooner had she placed the watch in its resting place did a figure leap towards her from the shadows, her eyes catching a glimpse of muddied teeth before being pinned to the earth with a scream.