The two soldiers each seized one of my arms with an iron grip as I was dragged away from the rickety wooden table. The cold steel gauntlets bit into my skin and would no doubt leave a bruise, but despite that, I still smiled at General Izmos. I then glanced at General Halott.

General Halott cleared his throat as he turned to the other general. “I think I would like to question this one personally. I think she knows more than she is telling us. Whatever General Arthur is planning, it will happen soon and we need to be ready. I will leave you to assign my men to posts within the fortress. I trust you can do that much at least without starting another war.”

General Izmos waved his hand dismissively as he slumped back in his chair. The red slowly faded from his face as he let out a sigh. “Yes, yes, yes, I will have them all inside before lights out. See what you can learn. I will prepare for the battle to come.”

General Halott then nodded at the two soldiers. “Lead us to the dungeons.”

The soldiers saluted and I was roughly dragged out of the room. my feet left the floor as I was practically thrown out of the room. I cursed under my breath as I picked myself off the floor. Before I could even stand up, another soldier grabbed my hair and yanked me to my feet. I suppressed a hiss of pain as I glared at the soldier, memorizing his face for later.

I was dragged through the halls of the base, collecting more than a dozen new bruises before we finally reached a heavy iron door that led to a staircase leading underground. After nearly getting thrown down the stairs, we were in a large circular chamber filled with more than a hundred cages. All of the prison cells had a perfect view of the center of the room. It was a gruesome sight, even by my standards. The centerpiece that everyone was forced to see was almost a hundred different torture devices, dissection tables, and tools to cause pain and mutilation. Everything was covered in blood. More than a few corpses were left hanging from shackles or stepped to a table. Many of them were missing limbs or had their organs spilled onto the floor.

Most of the surrounding prison cells were empty, but there were a few that caught my eye. There were nearly thirty muscular men with old battle scars that were probably captured soldiers or maybe mercenaries. A couple of prisoners were dressed in much finer clothes than anything that belonged in these cells. They were probably merchants that tried to sneak through the pass or did something to get themselves detained. Most importantly, there was a single prison cell off to the side that held the small hunched form of a boy.

Donte, I had found him. He was sleeping on the hard stone floor right now and had not noticed me enter yet. From what I could see he was not seriously injured. At least there were no missing limbs or horrible wounds. It looked like a war had taken place in his cell. There were the telltale scars and destruction of Donte’s innate everywhere as well as a severed arm that was definitely not Donte’s. It seemed the boy had done well fighting back against his captors since he arrived here, however, he had definitely taken more than a few beatings in return. He was covered in small cuts and bruises and one of his hands… were missing their fingernails.

I clenched my fists unconsciously as a murderous rage built up inside me. I wanted nothing more right now than to burn the entire fortress to the ground. I took a deep breath. It took all my self-control not to lash out at the nearby soldiers.

“Quite a sight, isn’t it?” one of the soldiers remarked as he pushed me towards the center of the room. “You are going to have a lot of fun here kid. We will make sure of that.”

General Halott placed a hand on the soldier’s shoulder. “I want to spend some time questioning her alone. You men can leave for now.”

The soldier grinned and before saluting. “Just leave something for the rest of us to torment later general. We still have a job to do after all.”

I could not help but grimace as I made an obscene gesture as the soldiers marched out of the dungeon. There was a moment of silence in the bloody hall as the general moved to stand in front of me. There was no hesitation as he knelt down in front of me.

“My lady, it is my honor to serve you,” he said as he pressed his hand to his chest.

I nodded with disinterest as a scanned the surrounding cells carefully. Most of the people in them had barely been paying attention to us when we entered the room, but now we had become the center of attention. In a few of those eyes, I saw a spark that could not be extinguished by torture.

I ignored those eyes for now as I walked towards the reason I was here personally in the first place. Placing my hands on my hips, I glared down at the bettered and beaten Donte. “Time to wake up Donte. We have work to do.”

Donte stirred slightly as his eyes blinked open. Or more correctly, one eye blinked open. The other was swollen shut from a nasty bruise on his face. It took him a moment before he spoke.

“W-Wren?” he whispered in confusion.

“Not quite,” I replied with a cold stare.

Donte suddenly found his energy as he leapt to his feet. He was practically tripping over himself in panic as he shouted, “What are you doing here? You have to leave, now! If any of the soldiers find you…” Donte froze as he stared at the torture instruments in the middle of the room. “I do not know how you got in here, but you have to get out!”

I grinned as my eyes glowed with a bright green light. “Relax, everything is under my control.”

“Wren… are you ok? You seem different…”

“Wren is still asleep,” I replied with a sigh, “Now, are you going to help me, or should I leave you in this cage to miss out on the fun.”

“A-Aurielle,” Donte whispered. He grew quiet for a minute before nodding, “I want out of course, but how are we going to escape the fortress?”

“Escape?” I replied with a chuckle, “Why would we want to escape? This is my fortress now.”

“What? How?”

“Just wait,” I replied confidently, “In less than twenty hours, this fortress will have surrendered, or crumbled to dust. Either way, I win.”

“You… there are thousands of soldiers outside.”

“They are not important,” I said with a shrug. I motioned towards General Halott, who grabbed a set of keys off the wall. As I unlocked Donte's cell, a few of the surrounding prisoners started shouting for their own release.

I was especially drawn to the group of battle-hardened soldiers that filled many of the cells. Based on what remained of their uniforms, it looked like they were all from the same unit. out of everyone here, they looked the most alive and energetic. I walked past their cages. The keys dangling from my fingers as I kept them just out of reach.

“Tell me, why should I free any of you?” I said with a small smile. I ran my finger across one of the torture devices as passed by another cell.

The men immediately went silent as one of them stood up, cracking his neck as he slowly advanced towards the bars of the cell. He was a burly man with a large scar on his forehead, and a second on his cheek. He reminded me of a cat when he walked, completely calm despite his circumstances. With an accent I was not quite able to place, the man said, “I am Esben Odjur, leader of this merry band of mercenaries. If you are starting a fight, you will want out help. Any one of us is stronger than ten normal soldiers. Free us and not only will I help you kill the cowards hiding in this fortress, but I will also accept any single mission free of charge, no matter the difficulty.”

I spun the keys quietly while I examined Esben and his men. Going by just looks alone, he was not lying about their battle prowess. The way they moved, how they stood, and how their eyes carefully examined their surroundings, all practically screamed that they were experienced killers. That was not even considering the hundreds of scars that littered their skin like a bad painting.

With a shrug, I tossed the keys to the captain. “You can come with me, but you have to listen to my orders. There is still a day before my plan really starts, and I do not want you messing it up, understood?”

Esben grinned as he picked up the keys. “You will not regret this.”

Donte walked on shaky legs as he moved next to me. He tugged on my shirt slightly as he whispered, “You should be careful around them… The soldiers called that man a monster. He is the only one that never screamed when tortured. It was like he could not feel pain.”

I eyed the men as Esben walked over to me while stretching his arms. “Now, tell me, who do we kill first? I am itching to add another body to the Great Demise.”

“Great Demise?” Donte asked.

I pointed towards the door out of the prison. “A couple soldiers are waiting outside the door. This will be your first test. Get rid of them before they can call for reinforcements.”

“Too easy,” Esben replied, cracking his knuckles in anticipation. I watched as his eyes began to glow with a dark blue heugh. His skin looked like it was bubbling as he melted into a grotesque blob of flesh before reforming into something new. I was surprised to see the new form look exactly like General Halott. Even the clothes were exactly the same.

“Now that is a useful talent,” I mumbled as I watched Esben walk towards the door out of the dungeon.

Esben threw open the door with a big grin, surprising the soldiers that stood outside. The soldiers habitually saluted the general followed by a moment of confusion as they saw the rest of us standing in the dungeon, including a second General Halott. Before either soldier could shout, Esben grabbed the heads of the two soldiers. His arms once again bubbled and deformed as a mass of molten flesh closed around the two heads. Muffled screams could barely be heard through the strange liquid flesh. Esben’s two molten arms began to constrict smaller. The soldiers flailed their arms and legs wildly as they clawed at the liquid flesh. There was a sickening sound of cracking followed by two pops, and the soldiers fell still. Two corpses collapsed to the ground. Their heads were a flattened pulp of blood, bone, and brain.

Esben morphed back into his normal form as he sauntered back towards me with a satisfied smile. “Now you know what I can do. Do I pass your test?”

“Can you transform into anyone?” I asked curiously.

Esben’s smile faded as his skin began to melt and bubble again. A few seconds later, a mirror image of myself stood in front of me. It even spoke with my own voice when he talked. “This is about as small as I can go. You are tiny, though not tiny enough to fit through the bars of our cell, unfortunately. Otherwise, I would have already freed myself a long time ago. With my Innate Talent, I can copy any form I have seen before and maintain it for about an hour, animals included. I can also modify the form if I want to experiment a bit, though it does cost quite a bit more energy and is harder to maintain.”

The skin began to bubble again as the mirror of me started to grow bigger, older, and… curvier. It took a bit longer this time, but in less than a minute a grown woman that looked strikingly similar to Wren’s mom stood in front of me and struck an embarrassing pose.

There was another embarrassing pose, followed by a stifled laugh from nearby. I scowled, stomping on Donte’s foot. He yelped as he jumped back in surprise. “What did I do?” he complained.

“Wren would have wanted me to do that. You know what you were about to say,” I replied. Crossing my arms, I turned back towards Esben. “Change back to normal before I decide to test if your transformations can protect you from stab wounds.”

Esben immediately started to deform again until he was back to being the stocky man from before. “It does not. Though, I can shift my vital organs out of the way when I am attacked.”

“I will make sure to stab you twice then,” I said, walking towards the door out of the dungeon. "If you are coming then hurry. Gather your soldiers and stash these bodies somewhere. Given the state of this room, I do not think we need to clean up the blood but remove their armor. Make them look like dead prisoners or something. You have fifteen minutes. I want to be gone before the next patrol passes by here.”

With a command from Esben, the soldiers quickly gathered the bodies as Donte stood next to me shifting nervously. “Where are we going? There are soldiers everywhere. If we get caught…” He paused as he looked back to the torture devices again. I saw him shudder, his hand leaving white marks on his arm. “I don’t ever want to be back here.”

“Do not worry. You will never have to enter this room again. I promise,” I replied, “for now, we are heading down to the basement level of the fortress. It is mostly storage down there, so nobody enters very often”

“The basement? Why are we going there?”

I smiled as I patted Donte on the shoulder. “We are going there to meet a few friends.”