“Hey.” Lera shuffled through the cages as the other girls looked on at her with a stunning look. Ita blinked a few times, processing the familiar-sounding voice, “Ita Leodora, the leader of the Ville college.”

“…Lera?” Ita murmured, glancing straight back into her grey eyes, “What are you doing here? I thought you were from Varous…”

“Well…it’s complicated.” Lera shrugged.

“Was that Wu distracting at the front?” Ita asked with a hint of hope in her voice, and Lera nodded before Ita smiled lightly.

“So…what’s the deal here? Why are you being captured?” Lera asked.

“We are all girls from the Leodora clan.” Ita said quietly, glancing all around the prison Cast before she gestured that Lera’s an ally, “We are here to set the Valkyries free.”

“Well…that’s nice.” Lera looked at her, “After all that happened in Fang city.”

“It’s…not as simple as that.” Ita sighed, “My house, Leodora, is in opposition to the house running the Polar Prison, Tigris. This is also partially to undermine their image in the public, but I knew there is something deeper about this...something far worse coming...”

“Yet, you are still leading the charge for this…?” Lera asked, and Ita nodded before lowering her head, examining the prison far out in the distance.

“In Talonia, being selected as a Valkyrie is the most glorious of honors…I will be lying to say if I hadn’t dreamed of becoming one.” Ita said as the chariot slowly started to decelerate and glide towards its destination.

“Every girl dreamed of it.” Another girl from the house of Leodora added while the rest nodded, “Everyone.”

“And to see that dream being torn down by…Descendants of Winter…I can't imagine what they must be going through...” Ita ground her teeth together.

Lera looked at her, and the chariot stopped at the gate before she could say anything more. The soldiers rounded out each and every girl before breaking them up, stripping them, and taking them into the individual sections of the prison.

The interior of the Polar Prison was divided into individual levels based on the strength of the prisoners, and the stronger the individuals, the lower level they were assigned to. They also were given less food and time outside in comparison while taking on heavier labor as a means of control.

Each of them was placed under the influence of a Wave suppressing Cast that was locked around their neck. It’s nowhere near the level of power like the King’s Palace or Void Domain, and it simply induced pain whenever the threshold for Wave usage was exceeded.

Lera did her fair share of exploring and pushing the boundaries, but Ita, who was assigned to the same starting area as her, was focused on making her way around the prison and going down in levels. The male and female prisoners were separated into the Eastern and Western halves of the prison, though they do share a common courtyard where fights happen all the time bewteen the gangs.

"You ready?" Lera asked, raising her fist and looking at Ita.

"Yeah." Ita smirked, "I have been looking forward to this, in a way."

Then, Lera and Ita got into an absolutely brutal fist fight as Lera subtly deactivated the Wave-suppressing Casts on both of them with her own Void Domain. The guards initially watched on with interest, but when Ita and Lera powered up their attacks, they immediately jumped in to stop them from damaging the facilities before tossing them down into the lower levels.

With the sunlights being taken away from them and the fresh smell of the air replaced with that of piss and grime in the lower levels, Ita and Lera sat back into their individual cells before they quickly regrouped with the other girls from house Leodora, who individually made their ways down here by starting fights or pissing off the guards.

“Ouch…” Lera rubbed her jaw where Ita had clubbed squarely at the start of the fight, “The punches felt a little…personal there.”

“Maybe just a little bit~” Ita smirked, “That’s for taking Wu away from me.”

“Yeah yeah…” Lera turned her attention forward before one of the guards came around and opened the gates on the metallic bars. The locks chimed as the gates swung open, and he walked in on Lera as she stared blankly at him.

“I was expecting you to look a little more scared…” Wu’s voice came through the cover, “But…”

“Your presence in the Wave was unmissable.” Lera said, “There is nothing as empty as…you, in a good way, I guess?”

“I have heard weirder compliments.” Wu said, turning towards the next cage, “Nice to see you again, Ita.”

“Wu!” Ita jumped up before she hugged onto Wu from the other cage before he set her free too, “Always the savior, aren’t you?”

“I would hope so.” Wu said, ushering the two of them on, “I heard the Valkyries are all kept at the lowest level. Let’s get going then. The guards will eventually figure out what had happened to their...companion."

Leaving the rest of the girls from Leodora on guard duty at this level, Wu, Ita, and Lera made their way down the winding stairs that lead all the way underground, when the corridors were barely lit by the occasional light Casts.

None of them knew what to expect, though something felt wrong about the deadly silence at this level.

“I sense…only one individual here…” Lera murmured as Ita looked on with concern.

“Shit. My intelligence was that all of the Valkyries are kept here!” Ita cursed, turning the slow walk into a quick run as Wu and Lera chased after her.

There was not a single guard down at this level, instead, a single Valkyrie was chained against the wall of what looked like a torture room with rusty tools and rolled up paper all over the floor. She looked up upon hearing the footsteps of the approaching individuals and giggled excitedly. She had long black hair that partially covered her face, but from the brief glimpses underneath whenever she tilted her head to the side,scars crossing both of her eyes vertically revealed themselves as her eyelids flopped over the deep purple eyes. Her blue and white uniform had turned fully brown with patches of blood creating big red circles over it.

“Aha…visitors from the world above…” She cracked a smile before tilting her head almost horizontally, her dry and dirty hair stuck against her dirty pale skin as she grumbled, “Visitors from the living world…very nice…”

“Is she supposed to be a…”

“Yeah.” Ita said, approaching her slowly when the girl growled and tried to bite her face off. Ita shot backward, her arms at the ready as the Valkyrie laughed, “That’s the Valkyrie’s uniform all right…but what has happened to this one…”

“The same thing that happens to all Valkyries by the end of their life cycle, hehehe…” The girl said, her teeth clicking loudly and rapidly before she leaned forward and tried to bite Ita again, her shoulders on the verge of self-inflicted dislocation as she enjoyed the tension, “Once you are deemed unfit, you are disgarded.”

“Where are the others?” Ita asked.

“They were all taken away for the upgrades.”

“That’s nonsensical.”

“Yeah?”

“The Valkyries are already the best of the best that Talonia has produced.” Ita said, marching closer until she stopped just outside of the Valkyrie's reach, “What other upgrades are there?”

“I see…another girl bewitched by the glorious lies…” The Valkyrie yanked herself back as one side of her face lit up with joy while the left side twitched with sorrow. Then, she leaned forward with her voice lowered, “Then…allow me to show you the truth. Everything you ever knew about the Valkyrie’s…it’s all a big shitty lie to bring the girls in.”

The Valkyrie’s program, a program to help develop Wave users at least at the Earth-quaking level, capable of fighting as generals of other countries when grouped up or even individually. However, like the harsh Talonia winter which takes much more than it offers, the program offered quality Wave users in exchange for the quantity of people being fed into the program.

Like the solutions that were eventually found by the desperate people of Necrovia, the man behind the predecessor Valkyrie’s program realized that truth too. However, unlike the cannibalistic Necrovian method, the Talonia method instead utilized brutal competition and non-stop selection mixed in with enhancements to get the same job done.

“You’d think, once you enter the program, you simply train to become the greatest of Valkyries and perform the dangerous missions…hehehe…How foolish of us all.” The girl giggled as Wu and Lera watched with anticipation and Ita’s face became shrouded in darkness, “No…far from it. If you don't have it in you, you won't make it. You won't make it out, and you won't make it back. ”

The Valkyries will start by going through brutal rounds of basic training on general and individual Wave abilities. During their downtime, special teas were offered them each meal so slowly poisoned their mind and drown out the unnecessary thoughts. At the same time, the body parts deemed unnecessary were also removed shortly and replaced with ones driven by artificial Casts.

“You would go out there, beat your designated pal to death, then heal up another random partner, take a sip of the god awful tea, and rinse and repeat.” The girl glared towards Ita before she squinted, “While you waste your days at the Academy, we were sent along the outskirts to perform our kill missions to graduate from the first stage, princess. Now...tell me, do you still think we are the glorious protectors of Talonia?”

“How is any of this…allowed…?”

“With a combination of robbed emotions, mind and body control, gratitude for surviving the program, absolute blind obedience to our superiors, and a glorious propaganda to boot.” The girl cracked an ugly smile, as she cackled, her wrist becoming white as it tensioned against the chains, “Those that made it out became walking statues. A few lost their mind, yours truly, though I'd argue I am the one that's truly liberated. Those idiots...they are all trapped like cage animals.”

“But…the guards just left you here?” Lera asked, reaching over to weaken the Cast when Ita put her hand up.

“Shit. You are right. Guess I am a cage animal too! Just one too broken to be upgraded...oh no! I am being left behind again...” The girl cursed before she started to panic and spoke quicker and quicker, “The older generations will be converted and wiped clean. It’s going to be over! No more girls! No more suffering! Only transformation! Only processing! Much much stronger! Oh my god...I am getting left behind again...she's going to abandon me again...I...I want to do it! I want to transform! I want to be stronger! I want to be a demon! Either we all become demons, or nobody does! HAHAHAHAH!”

Ita stood silently like a statue, and her mouths repeated the same words only through its shapes. She clenched her fist despite her entire body shaking, and Wu watched her closely as her lips started turning purple.

There’s no way…there’s no way…Wu read from her lips.

“What are you saying...wait...guess I am not the only one that’s lost her mind?!” The girl laughed, “Kiss your fairy tales good night! Hahaha! If you let me out, we can become converts together!”

“Ita…?” Wu asked, placing a hand on Ita’s shoulders who instead swiped his hands away, then she carried on the momentum and crushed the chains around the Valkyrie’s body. She flopped onto the ground, and she slowly pressed herself up despite the look of fatigue and weakness.

"Do you accept my proposition?" She asked with great excitement in her eyes, "Or do you have a better idea!

“This needs to be stopped.” Ita said, wiping something from her eye while turning around, “…All of this. Starting from the Valkyrie’s program.”

“Which one~” The girl giggled, “If you are going to burn it all down, then I’m also in. Condition! I get one wish at the end of it all!”

“All of them. The old...the new...if it has a human cost, it will have to go.” Ita said firmly, turning and reaching a hand towards the Valkyrie, “What’s your name?”

“Shadow.” She said, patches of black forming over her skin, “I was trained to operate in the shadows, and I kill from the shadows! Pleased to be of your acquaintance, little girl!”

“Very well, Shadow.” Ita continued, “Let us get you out of here.”

“Yeah, should be easy…” Wu glanced up before preparing to direct them out when suddenly, sounds of footsteps filled the corridors.

“Welp, see ya~ Damn! It feels good to abandon someone!” Shadow said, her right eye pulsating with a dark pattern as she disappeared into a patch of darkness as squad-full of guards that were completely battered up showed up at the end of the corridors, ready to attack the three of them.

“Should we fight?” Lera asked quickly, when Ita offered her response, channeling Wave through her entire body and charging ahead. Her long hairs swinging like massive blades before it cleanly cut through the floors above, sinking down unaware guards before Wu and Lera leaped onto the upper level.

With a single spin, Wu launched dozens of Wave blasts, blowing the individual locks to pieces as chunks of rusty metal clanked onto the ground. The inmates stopped their bickering before turning when one eventually pushed the gates open.

“Let the prison break begin~” Wu said, giving a clap of his hand before tossing his guard outfit to the side as the crowds erupted from all around them.