I laid back in my chair as I watched the being systematically go from room to room massacring anybody each researched with the occasional defensive turret “Pamela…be realistic with me…what losses are we looking at?...” I asked my assistant without looking away, “We can no longer provide results to our employers…in turn we have little to show to turn the diplomats, Sir…what will we do?...Forget that demon…the government will give us the death penalty and nobody will step up for the school…” I glanced at her as she trembled. I began to caress my beard “How many clones have been successfully transported and how long have they been estimated for completion?” she raises her phone and stares at it “Three thousand have successfully arrived, we estimate their completion to stage one in nine years. If we only had another year of the factories running…we’d have had seventy thousand…That” she glances up at the monitors just as the last one’s feed is cut “was the last factory”, rage takes over as I rise up and trash the monitor off my desk as I shouted “To hell with everything!” I turn and glare at her. “Prepare the students for injection of the THH-6 compound” her expression immediately turns to surprise, I raise my right hand and point at her “We have no other choice! GO! Get the Cerberii ready for defence of the lab too! Now!”. She nods and rushes out of the office “We have…no other choice…results…must be produced…” I wipe the sweat off my bald head and sit back down on my chair, I sink my head in my hands and proceed to calming myself down. Suddenly a ringing sound fills the room which makes me tense up “Wha…”, I look up at my desk where the phone that was connected to the assistant’s office was going off “That’s on the first floor…” (“She isn’t that fast?”) I cautiously press the screen on the phone “Yes?”.

“SIR WE’RE UNDER A…UG….” Multiple crunching sounds are heard and I rise from my chair “What in the world…” I agitatedly grab hold of the phone and call the security desk “Jacobs what the hell is going on!?”, nobody answered for a couple moments then suddenly a woman’s voice came through “Huh? Who?...” followed by a voice that made my heart sink “It’s called a phone Risa, back away”. Every bone in my body began to tremble as the cracking sounds of the phone being destroyed sound before the call is dropped, “Who…who would attack…” I couldn’t believe it “Humus is…only south of DC…Who’s mad enough to attack so close to Olympus City…”. I glance at the monitors and remember the voice “No…no no no…Kal is in Alabama…there is no way…there are no teleporters to…”, I rush over to the remote and playback the camera recordings then check the date and time setting in the menu “No…we’ve been had…”. The attack on Kal had happened yesterday “I’m surrounded by fools…”, I turn towards the window and slowly walk over as fear quickly took over “but the walls…the guards…” I look out the window searching for the night watch guards but see no torch lights or even Mechas moving. I spin around and change the channel on the monitors to the school’s security system “Gods…” most of the cameras on the first and second floor are already gone, I fiddle with the remote looking through the cameras on my floor and the remaining second floor ones. I sigh in relief when I see nothing on the cameras out of the ordinary except for my assistant running down the staircase to the first floor…”Fuck…” she was taking them straight to the underground lab, I drop the remote and rush for the door “Shit...no…no!” but the moment I step out I feel a piercing pain in the back of my neck “What the…” my body quickly went numb as I fell face first into the floor and passed out.

---

Matthew’s POV

The mission was going perfectly until Risa blew our cover by freezing to me brutally beheading a guard as another guard ran inside a room “There goes our element of stealth, I’ll take care of him” , I abandoned the halberd I was using to silently melee the guards and merged with Ember to enter snake’s skin “Stay cloaked”. As I was now merged with Ember I could call upon Wayne as a weapon, the two pistols appeared in my hands and I dashed into the room with both held up. “SIR WE’RE UNDER A” I shot the guard in the head to make sure no other words came out then shot the phone he was using, “Back to the second floor, the director’s office should be at the very top. Also don’t lose yourself to bloodlust again like that, you’re useless just standing there”. I rushed out of the room and took two lefts then dashed up the stairs “I can’t help it…It feels…Sorry…” Risa’s voice along with some bloodlust comes from somewhere behind me as she followed me while staying in cloak, we quickly reached the second floor and I noticed a sign on the wall to my right “This way”. I rushed to the security office and raised both pistols while momentarily taking in everything inside, three guards had been arming themselves but weren’t close to being ready for me. I pulled the trigger three times and three guards fell to the ground with missing body parts which might have included a head or two, suddenly a voice sounded off from the desk “Jacobs what the hell is going on!?” I silently stalked over to the phone but “Huh? Who?” Risa spoke with a confused tone. I sighed “It’s called a phone, Risa back away” I raised my pistol at it and shot it twice, once to destroy it and a second time to relieve some frustration. “Take the other floors, don’t kill anybody unarmed. Paralyse them and tie them up for later” I turn my head to the left wall and my mouth curves into a grin “Ignore the woman coming down now, go!”, (“Lucky…I won’t have to blow a hole in the ground now…”) I sensed as the woman ran down the stairs and as Risa sneaked around her.

“If the alarm hasn’t gone off yet…I might still have a chance” I released Ember’s snakeskin and Wayne from pistol form then walked out of the room, I heard the hurried steps of the woman rushing down the stairs (“Is she the Academy’s director? Guess I’ll test a theory on her and just how terrifying it must look…”). The woman went down another floor to the ground floor, I stalked behind her by clinging to walls as she ran through to the far left wing (“The generator room? I guess no student would go there either but…still too unsecure…”) . She had gone inside the generator room so I slyly followed, the door took to a short stair case that could be seen from the whole room so I peeked around the doorway and looked downstairs. The woman was messing with a control panel at the far right of the room behind the generator itself, (“Perfect, she’s too busy to notice yet”) suddenly I sensed mana flowing through the wall next to her so I took action. I went inside the room and locked the door behind me, I focused on my aura and retrieved it all (“Ember, Wayne, with me”) I began walking down the stairs making sure to take loud steps as my body started to react. “Wha…” the woman turned away from the panel and looked up the stair case, the room was dimly lit by greenish lights and gave the whole thing an eerie feel. I felt as the mana in my body raged and twisted while my body itself change, my skin began to crack and white scales formed while three large scaly black spikes grew out of my elbows and shoulders each. I felt my legs grow slightly longer as my toes and fingers turned into claws, off my back I felt other limbs grow as a long white tail formed along with a pair of pitch black wyvern like wings. Unable to take the pressure my clothes faded away as my aura was completely released onto the woman, her eyes went unnaturally wide as she fell to her knees trembling, weeping, and squeaking.

“Puny human…poor…little…filthy…human” a low pitched raspy voice exited my lips, the voice of a monster, the voice of purer breed of what my spirits were, the voice of a dragon. I reached the end of the steps and began walking towards her (“Hopefully she won’t break completely due to fear, I still need her to be capable of speech after all.”) she began shaking her head while continuing to cry and tremble, I reached her but she never moved. As she kneeled frozen on the ground I lowered myself to somewhat her eye level, while staring into her eyes I saw the reflection of the burning white light my eyes were emitting. “You will not answer every question I will pose, if you refuse…” my tail slitters from behind me and lightly touches her chin making her squeak, “And if you lie…” my tail moved lower until it reached her chest and formed a spear then I put some pressure until blood dripped from where her heart was. She weakly nodded “Good girl…” I continued to pressure her with my aura “Who holds the inject switch for the Cerberii collars?” I decreased the pressure allowing her to speak, “G…gua…guards…b….beh…behind….do…door…” she pointed at the wall behind her that had been pushed back slightly from the mechanism around it. I then increased the pressure back to full “Name every government official behind this” she stared blankly at me so I decreased the pressure but she still didn’t speak, “Remember now…” I moved in closer and closer until my head was right next to hers and then let my fork like black tongue snake its way up her cheek and to her eye ball. She began to cry louder as she lost control over her breathing “The…w…wes….west…wi…wings…a…all….them….a….and….the…t…t…the…” I retrieved my tongue and made my tail pierce into the floor next to us, she jumped back and hit the wall with her head “Tellers! The…Te…Tellers…”.

I began to chuckle (“Fear works wonders…sometimes better than torture…”) I rose to my feet and momentarily stared down at her, “Thank you…” then lashed out with my tail and beheaded her but instead of being cleanly cut off most of it shattered. Blood splattered all over the floor and wall along with bone, hair, flesh and brain tissue. I looked away from the corpse and at the indentation on the wall, I cleared away a patch of hair and ran my claws on the wall then firmly laid my palm on it. Wayne’s aspects left my body leaving only Ember’s (“I still have no combat use for that form…”) reality swirled around my chest as shadows engulfed my body forming clothes followed by a denser black mist that separated into two and formed a pistol in my left hand while the second floated around my right, I pushed the wall and a mechanism clicked making the whole thing open upwards while the second mist settled in my hand and finally formed the second pistol. Before the hidden door fully opened I ducked under and rushed inside, the room was small with a second door opposite of the entrance and two guards standing to each side of it. They both fired immediately as they saw me but I had expected such, the projectiles went straight through my misty body as not a moment later I was standing right between them with a pistol pointed at each of their heads. I pulled both triggers once then proceeded to kick open the door, I stepped through and into the colossal warehouse. With my enhanced senses I counted eight armed guards, two Mechs , five non-combatants and a single above average presence. “Douglas take them to the back! Kell , Jean get those Mechs u…” the guard fell to the ground headless before his subordinates knew what had happened, each guard cursed and raised their weapons to fire but another three where already dead by the time they began pulling triggers. My form became a dark mist and disappeared, I re appeared at the entrance and calmly walked back into the warehouse while firing two more shots each killing another guard.

One of the Mech pilots had successfully entered the bulking machine and activated it’s shields “YOU SON OF A BITCH!”, the bi pedal cubed war machine turned towards me as it’s four mana chain-guns roared alive and began spewing hundreds of magic projectiles at my location. The flurry of projectiles raised hell around me making a cloud of dust cover the whole area, “Not bad, but you missed” I had retrieved Wayne and merged with him which empowered his abilities. I had activated shadow rebound at twice the usual speed and appeared at the Mech’s legs, I raised my right arm and a fiery white pole appeared in my hands while a moment later its blades formed. “The hell!?” the Mech took a step back and began to lower its sights but was much too slow, the halberd’s axe grew to twice it’s normal size while the spike and blade shrunk, I cleaved sideways with the giant axe cutting the Mech’s legs clean off while running underneath it. I stopped a couple steps behind it as it fell to the ground “Slow”, the axe quickly shrunk while the spike grew to spear size then I spun the pole around and stabbed backwards making the mana shield shatter and the spike pierce right through the metal. I began walking forward with the bloody halberd being dragged out of the Mech behind me, the blades and spike returned to normal as I spun it back around and rested it on my shoulders while holding the pole with both hands. I closed in my aura on the six survivors just as one of them tried to make a break for the second Mech, she apparently lost all feeling in her legs along with another four as they fell to the ground or in her case tripped “Don’t make this even more unpleasant than it already is “Doctors”” I said the last word with a sarcastic tone as I glared at the only one who held their footing. The man had sleek blonde hair, blue eyes and looked to be around his thirties, “What do you want monster?” his aura momentarily clashed with mine until he surrounded himself with it to protect his mind “Ah…A sorcerer, I was wondering why you aren’t grovelling on the floor already”.

Embers hovered around him as he called upon his magic “You little…” annoyance showed clearly on his face as he summoned a giant blaze per arm and sent them spiralling towards me, the large balls of fire flew straight at me as they quickly shrunk when suddenly they both exploded in a blast of hot air that sent each researcher spiralling into a wall or desk. His eyes went wide with shock as he rose back to his feet “H…how…” I began walking towards him as I chuckled “The element of fire is the bending of heat, where one can increase the temperature…one can also…” the temperature quickly dropped till frost formed on most surfaces in the room, the man closed his eyes and began to speak incantations but I wasn’t about to just stand there. My body lost its form till only a misty after image remained when I reappeared clutching his neck and holding him a foot in the air, “You’ll replenish me quite nicely” I lowered my left arm along with the halberd and placed its spike inside the ground for it to stay still then let go. “Massstter…Let me….” Ember’s serpentine voice spoke from the halberd which only escalated the fear in everyone else’s expressions “Go ahead” I let go of his neck making him fall to the ground, he rushed to his feet and began running to the opposite direction but was much too slow. A pillar of fire blazed alive beneath him and engulfed his position in a storm of embers, he screamed in agony as the fire devoured his body until all that was left fell to the ground as a carcass of smouldering flesh. “Anybody else wishes to be burned?” I glanced at each of their terrified expressions then walked over to the carcass, “You’re a resilient one, I’ll give you that” the man was still clinging on to life as his chest weakly rose and fell. I kneeled down and raised my left arm “But you’re no use to me alive” I sunk my left hand into his chest and grabbed hold of his heart, “Oh lord…” one of the researchers who was closest turned away and heaved his stomach onto the floor as I pulled the muscle out then rose up. I threw it backwards and it landed with a squelch next to the woman who tripped earlier “Don’t try to be a hero, this is what happens to them” she stared at it as tears began to stream down her cheeks.

“Who has the trigger for the Cerberii’s kill switch? The first to answer gets to live” a couple seconds passed as they all processed my question, “The…ch…chief…” one of the researchers pointed to his left “chief…researcher…Klein…”, I glanced at the door he was pointing at then walked back to Ember and rested the halberd to my right shoulder. I breathed deep and raised my right arm towards the charred carcass then absorbed the man’s remaining mana. I then glanced around the whole warehouse finally taking in everything as thin pillars of fire pierced through each of the researchers, “I never said how long you’d live” I said as the last one fell dead to the ground. I took note of each tubular bathe in the warehouse (“I’ll destroy those too but first…”) I was looking for any other entrance or exit to the warehouse but saw no others, so I then turned to the last door and began walking towards it. I released Ember’s halberd form and began to shift Wayne out then merged with Ember as Wayne took pistol forms again, I reached the door and raised my left pistol to the knob then fired. The door swung open letting me walk into the office like room “It was open…”, the old woman was laid back in her chair with a gun to her head and a wristwatch like object in her left hand “This is what you want right?” she shook the watch and her eyes drifted away to another door in the room. “Don’t think you’re holding that correctly, the gun not the watch” I took a step towards her as I activated shadow rebound “As if I’d let you torture me, or have t…” I appeared behind her and shot her left shoulder while grabbing the wristwatch with my now free left hand, she bent forwards and stifled a scream “They aren’t yours to have in the first place, secondly you may do what you wish with your own life old wench. I won’t stop you”. A gunshot echoed through the room followed by a static blast and she fell dead to the floor, “Sly” she had tried to bend her arm around and shoot me but I was much too quick for her. I momentarily waited but no mana was released from her corpse “Manaless…explains why I did not sense her”, I relaxed and unmerged from Ember (“back there huh?...”).

I glanced at the steel door (“I don’t know what I should…say…”) I stood there frozen staring at the door, “You won’t be saying anything if you just stand there Matt” Saya changed from her mask form and shrunk down into a pair of goggles that fit around my hat. “Yeah…I know…” I summoned Ember’s halberd and walked up to the door, the spike grew as the other two blades shrunk “Devour it” I stabbed the door and the metal melted instantly on touching the spear like blade. Suddenly a blazing fire grew out from the pole, the magic devoured the door along with the doorway and some of the floor. Inside was an empty space with the walls being made of glass, on the other side of the glass walls were three other rooms each having their own glass door. I looked through each glass wall, the first held a brown short haired male leaning onto the glass wall with a long sheathed sword strapped to his waist, the second held a brown short haired female who was staring at me with wide eyes while holding a snow white bow in her right hand and in the third was a blonde long haired male sitting in the corner of the room also staring at me in surprise. I raised the wristwatch for all three of them to see and their expressions darkened “Come out”, reluctantly all three moved to the glass doors and walked through them as if they were liquid. I looked them up and down noticing they all wore the same outfit, plain white shoes, pants and shirt with a thin metallic collar around their neck. The two brunettes looked around their late teens while also having very similar facial features while the blonde one looked to be still in his early teens, “Your captors are all dead or tied up, your torturers punished and your freedom assured” I lowered the wristwatch and walked over to the youngest “What matters now is what you do with your freedom” he took a step back so I stopped moving. I sighed “I won’t hurt you, let me take off those damn things from around your neck” I kneeled and raised the wristwatch towards him, he momentarily stared into my eyes but then slowly moved forward until he was within reach.

I raised the watch to the green pearl like sphere on the front of the collar and did what I saw guards do years ago to retrieved corpses, I pressed one of the three buttons and the collar broke into two sections then fell to the floor. “You’re free” I rose up as he reached up to his own neck and felt his skin “Tha…than…” tears streamed down his eyes as he stumbled backwards into sitting, I turned to the girl’s gasp as she also cried then walked over and did the same to her while she closed her eyes “Who…are you?...” she asked but I wasn’t sure how to answer if to answer at all. I turned to the last one as he stared at the roof with tears falling around his ears “I…use to be one of you” I took off his collar and stepped back to see all three of them, “You three have been wronged beyond compare, I do not need to recount what has been done to you. I will ask of you this though, what do you wish to do now?” all three lay frozen in their positions thinking my question over. “Did…everyone know?...that we…were here…” with rage in his voice the male twin turned his gaze to me “that we were…being kept here…even after…fighting…dyeing…so many…”, I shook my head “No, the only ones that knew are the researchers, guards, school staff and a certain governmental party. All the researchers are dead, some of the guards may still be alive while the school staff should be mostly tied up”. The female twin took a deep breath “What about the government, are they still just running free?... ” her voice gained a layer of frost as she spoke, I felt their auras lash out at the surroundings as their hatred rose “Yes but with your statements the death sentence will be the last of their problems”. Off the corner of my eyes I saw the male twin reach for his sword “Statements? You think we’re going to pursue them through the system? No…” ,embers began to form around him “We’re going to make them feel what we have been forced to feel…the torture…the mind games…the constant reminder of death…” .

The female twin nodded “They’ll pay….” The twin’s killing intent filled the room but the young one stayed quiet, I raised the halberd and stomped the ground “Then what? Will revenge fulfil you?” I released Ember from her weapon form and began merging with her and Wayne. “Trust me, vengeance…only…leaves you…Hollow”, I took a step back and opened my arms wide as I took my most bestial form “This is what I have become by choosing my path without falling for hatred or the thirst for vengeance, I may no longer be human but I am also not a mindless beast which is what each of you will become if you pursue revenge. You want them dead? Then let others do the bloody work, you’ve wet your hands enough with blood and death. If you pursue hatred it will eat you up from inside and leave nothing behind, you’ll feel pointless, empty, like nothing matters anymore. But please, if that is truly what you wish…” I turned and stepped back “The door is right there…”. Each of them had been staring at me but once I pointed out the exit they all stared at it with a longing expression “You are free now, nobody will chain you down ever again, but that doesn’t mean that nobody will hurt you. Life outside is not the war we are used to, things have changed and if we want to makes those changes for the better then make them last we must proceed carefully.”, I fully faced the exit “But I do not fault your blood lust, you are still human after all. Now listen closely for I will not repeat myself, will you choose the path of freedom or that of revenge?”. I waited for their answer expecting one of the twins to reply first “Free…dom…I want…to live…free…” but the youngest was the one to reply instead, the other two relaxed after hearing his answer “Fine…you are right…” the male twin grudgingly agreed while the female stayed quiet. “Good choice, what are your names?” I began unmerging from Ember and Wayne while turning around, “Clyde, I’m Clyde” the male twin responded first followed by his sister “Natasha…we’re twins…”. I glanced at the blonde one as he rose to his feet “What about you? What’s your name?” but Natasha answered instead “He doesn’t have one, he’s the son of one of the researchers and as far as we know he doesn’t have a name”.

I walked over to the boy then rested my right arm on his head “Well then what would you like to be called? You’re free now, you make your own choices now and a name is as important as a choice can get”, he shook his head “I don’t…know…” then looked up at me “Could you…pick one for…me?”. His answer caught me by surprise (“Saya?...Ember?...Wayne?...Help?...”) I asked the three of them for help but all I could hear in my head was the ever increasing laughter of Wayne at my current predicament, I shut Wayne off until he calmed himself down (“All you master…I don’t know either…”) Ember also declined to help. The boy kept his gaze frozen on me as I thought (“Saya?...”) but she also seemed to be holding back her amusement, I inwardly sighed then began listing the names I knew of (“Ken, Kazuto, Kurt, Ky…”) the name I wanted to abandon, I decided I’d instead pass it down. “Kyle, how does that sound?” his eyes lit up and he nodded “Yeah…Kyle…I think I like it…”.