I fell face-first on the ground through an open doorway as a heavy metal press smashed into the ground behind me. I was out of breath as I struggled to push myself to my knees. These traps were starting to get on my nerves.

“Great job dodging that one!” Kura, the ghost waifu, happily chirped while floating over my head. I didn’t have the energy to retort. Instead, I stood up and began my walk down the hallway.

I hobbled my way to the next doorway and stopped. I swallowed and leaned out through the open passage. The hallway beyond the door turned 90 degrees and went down a long staircase. I was unable to see the bottom, but I’m sure it would lead to trouble. I pressed my back against the wall and slid down to a seated position.

“Just take a moment to rest….” I muttered.

“You’re talking to yourself again.”

“I don’t want to hear anything from you….”

Kura shrugged and floated into the hallway that was my next destination. She was gone a moment. I could only presume that she was checking out what was coming up on this adventure we had found ourselves in.

The ghost waifu came flying back in a rush.

“Tai! Tai!” she happily yelled to me.

“What is it? I’m trying to rest here.”

The waifus they are in the room just down the stairs!” She was practically yelling.

Kura didn’t have to tell me twice. I jumped up to my feet and began my descent down the stairs. Not too long after I faded into darkness, I found myself reaching a large metal door. It felt cold to the touch, and I could see the light from beyond the cracks between it and the wall. I pushed the door open with all my might.

It swung surprisingly well. Before I could stop it, the door escaped my grip and made a loud clang against the wall. The sound echoed across the room, capturing the attention of everyone in it.

The room was a large open space with several desks laid out. It looked as one would expect any workplace to look; each desk was arranged with a computer and monitor. There were some fake plants set against the wall next to a water cooler and promotional posters for Waifu Labs plastered on some of the walls. There were two other metal doors on the walls adjacent to the one we had come through.

At the opposite wall of the room where we stood, one desk was turned perpendicular compared to the others. In the chair of that desk sat Marigold. She had rope tying her to the chair but otherwise looked perfectly fine. Next to her stood Vicky, who glared at me upon my entry, and a waifu I hadn’t seen before.

The new waifu wore a black shirt and pants that were partially covered by a pure white lab coat. She had tangled brown hair with a pair of large round glasses on her face. On top of her head, she wore large safety glasses that looked just slightly big enough to cover her already giant glasses. This waifu turned away from us by looking at her feet.

“You sure are a glutton for punishment, coming down here. Although, it looks like you already got beat up on the way here,” Vicky shouted across the room to us.

She was probably right. I had to imagine I looked terrible after my run-in with all those traps.

“There were a few traps, but nothing I couldn’t handle,” I shouted back.

“What are you talking about? You were cursing those deadly traps not that long ago,” Kura unnecessarily interjected.

“Deadly!” the waifu in a labcoat exclaimed. She turned to a computer on the desk that Marigold sat behind and began typing. Only the sound of her fingers banging the keys echoed through the room for a moment. She gasped and put her hand to her mouth. “Oh no, I accidentally turned on the traps with an 80% survival rate!”

“What, what if some random people wandered down here!” Vicky shouted.

“I’m really sorry!” The labcoat waifu said to us with a polite bow before frantically typing on the computer.

Vicky just put her hand to her forehead and shook her head.

“So, are you willing to give Marigold back?” I decided to change the subject.

Vicky began to chuckle and flashed a smile at me.

“Sorry, but since you came all this way, I’ll be having you join her.”

She was across the room in the blink of an eye. A few loose papers from the desks that she passed were violently thrown in the air as she was suddenly standing in front of me and towering over me. I looked up at the intimidating vampire waifu as she gently but firmly put her hand on my shoulder.

I turned to Kura and made a pleading look for help; she just shook her head while throwing her hands up in the air. I wish my Dad had sent a better waifu….

“Any chance you could-” I started to say, but I was cut off. Vicky scooped me up and began to carry me across the room to the desk in her arms.

“Let him go!” Kura said while frantically flying around Vicky. The vampire tried to bat the ghost away, but her hand harmlessly passed through her. To do so, she released one arm from me. I didn’t waste any time. I began to struggle until I was released from her grip. I fell to the floor and broke out into a sprint across the room. Kura continued to float around Vicky’s head like an annoying fly.

I found myself diving behind a desk and peering out at the tall vampire. She was still swinging at Kura, but she was slowly making her way to me.

I had to think. I had been forced to binge a whole show with her character at Tanaka-san’s house just before the tournament arc. Surely there was something in there that I could use to win this fight? At the very least, I needed something to let me get away from here.

She was a vampire with all the typical attributes of one. She sucks blood, has inhumane strength, hates garlic, etc. She could also use magic where she manipulated her blood into weapons. Though, I probably wouldn’t have to worry about her using such measures against someone like me.

As I lacked garlic, I didn’t have a counter to her vampiric abilities. Perhaps there was something in her personality? She was usually a stoic badass type character; she liked cute things but wouldn’t show it; however, she did get shy around lewd things.

“Is this what Tanaka-san feels like knowing about waifus?” I said aloud as I pressed the on button for the computer at the desk I was currently hiding behind.

I was going to take a gamble. Please let this be the one computer where the employee downloaded inappropriate stuff!

The computer booted up in no time, and there was no password to get in. I was lucky. The wallpaper came up… and I saw a family picture of some kind. It was a husband and wife with two kids. There was text at the top that said, ‘I love my family.’ I didn’t give up. I opened up the files and began frantically clicking on anything that didn’t look work-related. There were family trip photos, wedding photos, pet photos, etc.

I banged on the desk.

“Damn, It’s wholesome.”

“What exactly are you trying to do?” Vicky was standing next to the desk, looking down at me. Kura was still trying to get her attention, but she was now being ignored.

I grabbed a stapler off the desk and chucked it at Vicky as I sprinted in the opposite direction. I think I heard it make contact, but it was not going to hurt her in any way. All I could do was run.

I found myself running into a person. I stopped suddenly and took a couple of steps back. Vicky had gotten in front of me in a flash. She just shook her head disapprovingly.

“Just stop resisting and give up. I’m only going to tie you up.” She didn’t give me much of an option, and before I knew it, I was lifted off the ground again. Kura tried to get Vicky’s attention again, but this time it didn’t work.

“Hey, let him go. If I could make physical contact, I’d give you the old one-two,” she yelled at the vampire.

“Chemist-chan, can you do something about this gnat,” Vicky yelled to the other waifu.

“Yes, I just finished the code.” The waifu made an exaggerated press on the enter key. Kura suddenly crashed into an invisible wall.

“Hey, what is this!” she shouted as she banged against the wall. She tried to go around but found herself colliding with other walls until it was clear that she had been contained in a cube.

“The barrier system, we made a small cube around where you were floating,” Chemist-chan shyly explained to the desk she stood at.

“How did you get the ability to create a barrier!” the ghost waifu exclaimed.

“None of your concern,” the vampire said.

I felt flopped onto the desk in front of Marigold. Vicky’s hand kept me from getting up or sliding off by pressing firmly on my chest.

“Why did you come here?” the blonde Waifu Service member asked with a concerned look.

“I came with Kioshi to save you?”

“Why did you say it like a question?”

“Enough with your banter! Chemist-chan, get me some rope!”

“Ah, right away!”

The waifu in a labcoat began to open the desk drawers in the desk I was lying on. She frantically opened and closed each door until she found the rope in the final drawer.

Just as Chemist-chan was about to hand the rope to Vicky, the sound of a banging door came from one of the sides of the room. We all turned our heads to the source of the sound.

Estouls was standing awkwardly in the doorway, looking at the situation in front of him.

“Don’t you people know how to open a door without slamming it into the wall?” Vicky said solemnly while shaking her head. Estouls wasted no breath before his lance and shield appeared in his hands.

“Sorry to disappoint you…” he paused to think a moment, “Tai-kun, is there something cool I could say right now?”

“Just help us!” I shouted back.

Another bang came from the door behind us. We turned to see that Kioshi had come through the last entry.

“Ah, Kioshi! I was wondering where you got to!” Estouls chirped. Kioshi didn’t respond. Instead, he rolled back his sleeves, and the armor underneath began to hum for a few seconds. It sounded soft from where I was, but I still heard it from halfway across the room with no problem.

Vicky let go of me and began walking to Estouls.

“Chemist-chan, you take care of the other one.”

“eh, eh! But Vicky-”

“No buts! I won’t be able to fight them both.”

Chemist-chan let her head hang down for a moment. Then she took a deep breath and looked up at Kioshi. She awkwardly strode across the room; it looked like she was trying to step with confidence but instead came across as clunky until she was about a meter from him.

“I have to warn you; I am very dangerous,” she said to the waifu service member.

Kioshi leaned over so that he could see Marigold and me.

I will take care of her quickly, hold on, you two, the note he held up said.

“Hey! Are you underestimating me!” Chemist-chan was suddenly fired up. She reached into her lab coat. Kioshi became on guard and took a slight step back.

The labcoat waifu suddenly poured a liquid all over the floor in front of Kioshi. He took a full step back to avoid getting wet. The liquid spread across the floor, forming a broad line between the two. When she was done, she tossed aside a small lab beaker. It smashed on the floor and dissolved into particles of light. Chemist-chan put her hands on her hips.

“How do you like that? I just coated the floor with a mixture of hydrocarbons, it is highly viscous, so if you try to walk over here, you are bound to slip!” she proudly declared.

Kioshi jumped over the liquid and landed next to Chemist-chan. He gently patted her head and began walking over to us. Chemist-chan puffed out her cheeks while making a frown. She waved her hand, and the liquid on the floor suddenly flew up into the air and collected into a spherical, swirling shape.

The sphere shot at Kioshi while changing into a serpentine shape. Kioshi ducked as the attack flew over his head. The liquid snaked around and continued to attempt striking at Kioshi. The Waifu Service kept dodging each attack as they narrowly missed him.

Meanwhile, Vicky had begun to attack Estouls. She smashed her fist into the ground where he had just been standing. Estouls attempted to strike her with his lance before she was able to move her fist. He tried to, but she grabbed the lance with her other hand as she slowly stood up.

“Nice try, but it’s going to take more than that to defeat me.”

“I still have a few tricks left.”

Estouls let go of his lance and ran in for a tackle, except he held his shield up for the strike. Vicky let go and tried to back up, but the pink-haired husbando was able to close the distance in a flash. He slammed into the vampire before the lance was anywhere close to hitting the ground.

She bounced off the shield and went flying into the wall. She slammed into it and slid down into a seated position, with swirls in her eyes.

Chemist-chan continued to strike at Kioshi.

“Ah, come on. Just let me hit you!”

That seems like a bad idea.

“When do you write all those notes!”

Who can say.

The two opponents were engaged in a conversation as Chemist-chan continued her attacks. Estouls’ lance flying across the room ended it.

The lance was on a course to fly past Kioshi and directly hit Chemist-chan. She let out a cry but didn’t flinch. Instead, she flipped open her lab coat so that it swayed in the air. Reaching into the space under the coat, she produced two beakers that she chucked at the lance. The beakers shattered while flying through the air, leaving their liquids behind. The liquids began to combine as they reached the lance.

Suddenly they exploded. The blast was enough to knock Kioshi down and shake the rest of the room. Estouls’ spear harmlessly fell to the floor as a burnt crisp.

Chemist-chan made a motion like she was wiping sweat from her forehead.

“That sure was close,” she said.

I took a survey of the room. Kioshi was down for the count. Estouls was standing with a shock with his hand still outstretched from throwing the spear. Some of the desks where the explosion had occurred were ruined, and my ears were ringing.

Behind Chemist-chan, the liquid she had been attacking Kioshi with had collected back into a sphere.

The labcoat waifu spun around exaggeratedly, her lab coat flapping in the air behind her as she moved. She pulled out a match and ignited it. The liquid caught fire as soon as the match touched it.

She looked back to Estouls and pointed to him. The ball of fire took off with aim at the pink-haired husbando.

Estouls held up his shield to block it. The flame almost appeared like it was sucked into the shield. The gem glowed a red light before fading in color. Both Estouls and Chemist-chan looked at the shield in surprise.

“Tai-kun! I’ll hold her off; you need to escape!” Estouls yelled as he began to run across the room at his opponent. He didn’t have to tell me twice. I slid off the desk and began to fiddle with the rope holding Marigold.

We had to be quick about it; I knew for a fact they still had Kaeru somewhere. She was probably the most trouble of all of them.

Marigold’s ropes came undone easily, at least. I saw them drop down to the floor, and she was quickly up.

“Get out of here as fast as you can,” she said to me before running over to Kioshi. She began to shake him to bring him back to consciences.

“Don’t forget about me!” Kura yelled from her invisible cube in the middle of the room.

“I won’t; just give me a minute!” I shouted back.

I had completely forgotten about her until she said something.

I started to type on the computer that Chemist-chan had used to trap her. The screen lit up with an odd application I had never seen before. There were a number of gages and sliders. In the bottom right of the screen, a cube was showing. I started clicking and frantically typing. The cube in the screen suddenly turned into a sphere and compressed.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

I turned to Kura, who had shouted. She was contorted in a form that could not be comfortable as she was contained in what was apparently an invisible sphere now.

I looked back at the computer. I had no idea how to run this software. I could try messing around in it more and risk crushing the ghost waifu, or I could try something else. Can ghosts even be crushed? I probably shouldn’t risk it.

There was only one thing I felt confident in taking a risk in. The one method for any computer issue, at least as much as I had been told.

I opened the computer’s control window and clicked restart. The computer went to a screen with a spinning wheel before going black. After a moment, it began to boot back up.

Kura suddenly flew up behind me and tried to smack me in the back. It phased right through.

“Way to go! I was about to get a cramp in my back if I had to stay like that any longer.”

“Do ghosts even get back cramps?”

She might have replied, but I ignored it. Across the room, Chemist-chan was slowly backing away from Estouls.

“If you don’t want to fight me, could you at least tell me what you are planning here?” Estouls asked her. She didn’t reply. Instead, she reached into her lab coat and created a sphere of a transparent liquid from a beaker. The liquid stretched into a long-pointed shape.

“Dihydrogen monoxide spear!” she shouted as the attack shot at Estouls.

With a sigh, Estouls batted the attack away with a swing of his shield. The liquid’s form fell apart and was sucked into the shield as he swung his arm through the air.

Chemist-chan fell to her knees. Estouls awkwardly rubbed his hand on the back of his head as he looked at me.

“I think we won, but what should we do?”

I shrugged. Sure, we won, but with Kioshi out cold, we didn’t have anyone who could restrain them. Vicky would have to be carried at this rate, and I’m sure she wouldn’t be cooperative if she woke up.

“Looks like you are in a dilemma,” a new voice said. Shards of colored glass appeared in the room and began to assemble in a form. It took the shape of a person; then, two wings appeared on the back. An angel form suddenly became clear from the constructed stained glass then with a flap of her wings; the stained-glass effect disappeared in a particle effect burst. She landed on the ground and turned to me.

She had large white, feathered wings, and a robe-like dress. White hair flowed down to her wings, and she wore a bright yellow gaucho hat.

“Jefischa!” Chemist-chan cried out. Estouls held up his shield as if he was ready for a strike. Kioshi finally woke up as well and slowly sat up. He rubbed his eyes before taking a look at the new opponent.

The angel surveyed the room and sighed.

“I guess we will have to change our base, no matter.”

She didn’t give us a chance to reply. Suddenly, her form took a glassy look and shattered. Chemist-chan and Vicky followed suit. The shards disappeared, and all our opponents were gone.

“They got away….” Marigold said quietly.