{Content warning: this chapter contains a fair bit of gore, if you aren’t comfortable with that please feel free to skip it.}

“Now hasn’t this been fun. Let’s work together again in a few days, the equipment here is rather lacking.”

A woman with red hair and a bloodied lab coat said to the crying girl that was covering her eyes with the contraption keeping her hands together.

She tried to resist, she really did. She thought that maybe she would be able to escape since she wasn’t tied to anything but she was wrong. The red-haired scientist only had to press a button on a receiver she had in her coat for all the energy to suddenly leave Amelia’s body. Making her incapable of moving on her own volition.

When Amelia finally regained control of her body she had already lost her will to resist. She was huddled up in the corner shaking, hiding her face. Only an hour had passed yet she was afraid, very, very afraid.

When she moved the contraption away from her eyes it became clear what might’ve happened in this short hour to make her react in this way. A large, bloodied hole was now where her left eye once was. Blood seeping from it into the ground. It looked terrifying, as it had bloodied half of her face as well.

Other than this, her left arm also looked terrible. Pieces of skin were cut off of her arms causing massive open wounds to be seen. Yet all of this was done in a way skillful enough so that she wouldn’t die. Even though she bled, the amount was very little compared to the wounds they came from.

Amelia kept shaking, she thought the other three must’ve been subjected to the same fate as her. There was no hope in her remaining eye, all she saw was fear and despair.

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At this time, Rein and Kayley had finally finished their preparations as they had both saved their spells.

The group was ready to go at last. All of them were somewhat afraid but they also felt determined to get out of here.

Just as they nodded at each other and prepared to open the door, they heard a muffled voice from the other side of the door.

“Get her in the truck and to the main facility to the west. A spot should be opening up there soon. As for the three others, their powers don’t seem to have focused yet, the seeker barely even detects them. It is likely they are newly awakened, sent them to the facility to the east, it is best if we let them grow for a bit before working on them. Go administer some gas to make sure they stay under.”

“Yes ma’am.”

The three of them all heard the voices. The first speaker seemed to be female while the second one was male. They heard clear footsteps going away from their direction for a bit before the footsteps of a different person walked to the door.

The trio immediately went to stand in front of the door, prepared to send whoever came through the door back out of it with their spells.

And just like that, the door opened. As soon as it did the trio fired off their spells. The soldier that was still wearing his full gear was shocked and wasn’t able to respond in time.

Rein’s spell arrived first, it was the same one he sent at the briefcases the previous time, and this time it headed straight for the soldier’s chest. Yet when it hit the black armor the streak seemed to simply bounce off of it as it now headed for one of the walls.

Luckily Kayley and Villin were also casting. Kayley pointed at the floor just behind the soldier, the wooden boards immediately changed into spikes. This in itself didn’t seem to do anything but then Kayley suddenly moved her wand downward and the spikes followed, they hit the back of the soldier’s feet causing him to fall backward.

But he had only just started falling when Villin’s spell arrived. A blue streak hit the bottom half of the soldier’s face. The now drowsy soldier wasn’t able to stop himself from falling at all. And as soon as he landed onto the ground, Rein had already prepared and cast another spell. He didn’t have a large number of different spells so he opted to use the same spell again the red streak went right for the unexposed neck of the now fallen soldier.

Immediately a hold appeared in the front part of the soldier’s neck. But he still wasn’t dead. He tried to gasp for air as he grabbed the rifle that was hanging on his chest. His first hand had just reacher there when another Drowse spell hit the struggling soldier. The soldier who was already struggling to retain his consciousness promptly fell asleep when the spell hit him, and a few seconds later his breathing stopped.

The trio stared at the body before them frozen for a moment. This was real life, these were real people. None of them had truly realized the situation they were in previously but now that they could stare death in the face they realized.

Kayley was the first to get out of her stupor, she crouched down and started searching the soldier. Rein looked as if he was going to puke and Villin didn’t really know what to feel. He was afraid, but right now he wasn’t afraid because of the situation, he was afraid because he didn’t care that they just killed someone.

He didn’t feel regret at all, nor did he feel sorry for the man. After a few seconds, Kayley got up with a small key. The key was promptly used to fully unlock all of their handcuffs. Villin also figured out his emotions and decided to see his disregard for life currently as a good thing. He quickly thought of what to do. They hadn’t made much sound in the interaction at all, the soldier hadn’t screamed and none of their spells were super loud. It did make some sound when Kayley transformed some of the floor into spikes but it was limited, they should be somewhat okay for the moment.

Villin quickly grabbed the soldier’s arms and dragged him into the room they were in. Then he pointed at the puddle of blood and cast the cleaning spell he knew, causing it to seep into the floorboards and then the earth underneath. The only damage that could be seen was that some of the floorboards were broken but there was nothing they could do about that.

Kayley and Rein both looked at Villin now, he seemed to at least somewhat know what he was doing so they decided to listen to him.