Anita walked the halls by herself with her slender hands pressing on the skimpy bodysuit. Her head followed the ground until it turned to a door on the left, and with a smirk, she went along and entered the dark room.

"I know you're in here." She said, locking the door behind her. "If you think you can take me two-on-one you are surely mistaken."

Though her sight bared not as well in the darkness, she could tell the room by the intrusive smell of chemicals and rubber. It was a laboratory class. The doorway led to the classroom part, where rows of desks lined up to a chalkboard with chemical closets against the walls. Behind the last row was the back of a tall cabinet leaving space on both sides to the science lab. It housed the equipment, testing grounds, and the more dangerous chemicals. it was also where Aston and Martin hid, trapped without any way out.

"How did she find us?" Aston whispered, leaning against the cabinet.

"Because you smell," Anita sneered in their direction.

Aston covered his mouth. Martin looked over at him with shock. Her senses were remarkably sharp. Perhaps it was a good coincidence that they happened to walk into the laboratory class where their scent would fade into the background.

While fighting in the dark would not be a problem, Anita preferred that her opponents could not surprise her. Her hand searched the walls around the door for the light switch, only to find it broken into a thousand pieces.

"Fine then," She sighed. "I can find you either way."

Her eyes picked up a clinking sound from ahead. Soon her eyes picked up something coming her way. A bottle flew straight at her, but she could easily dodge it. The glass bottle broke against the wall and released its contents. It took only one whiff for her nose to curl up and close shut. The foul odor of ammonia left Anita gasping for breaths.

"You bastards!" She covered her mouth.

"Now, before the gas spreads!" Martin said.

Anita noticed something in the distance lit up. A small flame danced like a single candle. Before she could rush toward it, instead the fire came to her. It was no candle at all, but a gas burner. She jumped forth and grabbed the burner before it could reach the gas.

"Hah, nice try!" She celebrated.

It was a bit soon, as her nose could not pick it up, but her ears noticed a whistling sound coming from the burner. A small hole in the canister let out the burning gas. Before she could throw it away, the gas and flame connected. The room lit up for a moment with red and orange in a loud bang, leaving only trailing flames. Anita was down, with her black bodysuit tattered and burning away.

"Nice one!" Aston raised his hand for a high five.

Martin slapped it with a smile. "We got her!"

Their small celebration was broken by the sudden rummaging from the other side. Bottles and glass breaking, desks being flipped and flown around the room. It was as if a wild animal was trashing the place. Some chemicals spilled onto the floor and tables, where they met the lingering flames and lit up in noxious flames. Those colorful flames gave light to a prominent figure hulking in the center. Aston and Martin, though terrified, could not hold their curiosity and peeked around the cabinet. With the last strips of her bodysuit stretched to its limit, Anita's body morphed into a hulking muscle mass.

"Oh gods, she's a werewolf!" Aston screamed at her.

"No, I'm not, you idiots!" She turned around. Her eyes were bloodshot red, with hulking veins covering every inch of her burnt-up face. "This is my spell: Hyper Trophy! And you can now forget about getting out here alive!"

The burns around her skin healed, or rather new layers of skin grew underneath. Her body responded by toughening up on the spot for the bleeding until it stopped. It was nothing like Ándras' healing factor, but the end effect was practically the same.

"Transmutation on your own body," Martin realized in shock. "And to such extent..."

"Stop ogling at her and let's get out of here!" Aston tugged him.

"But how are we going to get past her?" He pointed at the exit.

"Do you have anything good saved up?"

"Well, I still got that saved up."

"The last resort, huh?" Aston paused to think. "We are almost out of options."

"What are you blabbering about there?" Anita asked while making her way to the two.

A flash of light lit up the room. Anita had to squint her eyes from the source. Her face only riled up more. It came from the other side.

"You are not getting me with another trick!" She threw a desk, toppling the cabinet, and rushed to the scene. She lifted it out of the way, only to find no one underneath, but a large hole in the concrete floor. It had crumbled away as if it had wasted away hundreds of years. Aston and Martin tumbled down the hole, hastily gathered themselves, and ran like the wind.

"That took more out of me than I thought!" Aston heaved. "But why didn't you use it?"

"I panicked!" Martin said with fear in his eyes.

"Just to be clear; Gamestation, we are still in the game area?" Aston made the thing appear next to him.

"You guys are familiar with this building! Indeed, 'the second floor is only a colloquial term for the Paradis portion of Atlas and it actually consists of several floors! Since it was not specified, I will count all of them as the second floor!"

"Good, now, go away." He nodded.

"Right'o!" It puffed into a magical mist and disappeared.

"Just so you know, I am not going to try to fight that thing barehanded. I would very much like to keep these," Aston hugged his hands.

"Alright, alright! I will try!"

A loud thumb set their backs straight. There was no mistaking it, less after loud steps started following them. The two ran faster than they had ever in their entire lives, throats wheezing like clogged flutes.

"You're it!" Anita pointed her swollen finger at the two and rushed after them.

"Two hiders have been caught!" Gamestation announced.

"What?" Emil turned to his copy. "Aston and Martin?"

"Yup!" Its glossy eyes turned to him.

"Damn it!" He gritted his teeth.

"Wait, that just means that someone pointed at them, right?" Hortensia realized.

"That's right!" The Gamestation nodded.

"Then they could still be alright," She tried to calm Emil down.

"But that only leaves us remaining." He turned to the machine. "How much time is left?"

"Eighteen minutes!"

"Still that much..." Emil bit his lip.

The small squeak of the door echoed within the room.

"There's someone here!" Hortensia searched around with her eyes. They locked onto a weird figure on the top of the stairs. It downed the same black and turquoise suit and cape, but on its head was a large, iron globe with a hole pattern. Though they could not know it, they did remember the person from the list of players. The silent Talon agent, Griffon had found them.

The two hid backstage, listening closely as Griffon went down the steps.

"There is no use in hiding," He said, echoing inside his mask.

A small buzzing sound reached Hortensia's ears. She looked up and found a small dragonfly hovering above them. Her hand went and swatted it out, only to find it dispersed into mana.

"This is useless. Come out without resisting."

"What do we do, Emil?" Hortensia whispered.

Emil clutched the deck of cards on his waist. "There is no other choice." He drew a card from the top.

Flipping it over, text and symbols drew on the blank slate. The card turned vibrant, flaring red with a number on the bottom, which Emil begrudgingly accepted.

"This won't be pretty," He took a deep breath. "Lucky Draw number 19..." He chanted and threw the card from around the corner toward his adversary.

Griffon was on his guard, with his insects flying around him. He could sense the large amount of mana in the card, but nothing could have prepared him for what happened next.

"...The sun!" Emil covered his and Hortensia's eyes and took cover.

The card burnt away midair, leaving a small yet blindingly bright ball of energy. Within a blink, it expanded like an explosion into a giant red fireball, swallowing up most of the stairs. It caught the wooden desks, fabric-covered walls, curtains, and much of the stage on fire. It lasted only a moment, leaving a large hole in the middle of the room, having melted even the concrete floor. Smoke and ash filled the air and lungs of everyone inside as the flames raged on. The fire alarm went off as water poured down from the sprinklers.

"Quickly, let's get out of here!" Emil grabbed Hortensia's hand and ran around the hole to the lower exit.

"You are going nowhere." The sinister voice echoed again.

The two turned their heads in disbelief toward the burning hole. A black, squirming mass persisted at its bottom. The ball collapsed into hundreds of thousands of beetles, centipedes, and other bugs with hard shells, all burned away into a smoking mass. Griffon stood in the middle unfazed with a perfectly preserved floor underneath him.

"He's still alive?!" Hortensia's eyes squirmed to make sense of the situation.

"That was one of the big ones," Emil watched on the verge of despair.

"We can still use the smoke as cover!" Hortensia went to the exit door.

"Do not think that you can escape," Griffon raised his arm. "Buzzkill: Flesh Wall."

Hundreds of bugs squirmed out of his sleeves and trousers, even the holes in his mask, and rushed toward the door like a living rug. Before Hortensia could grab a hold of the doorknob, they ran to the wall and covered the whole door. She stopped herself as they clattered their mandibles together, reaching for her arm in a frenzy.

"Watch out, those things might be venomous!" Emil shouted.

"I already got that!" Hortensia snapped back. "How are we going to get out?"

"Move aside," Emil drew another card.

The card turned golden with a flat scale in the center as he laid eyes upon it.

"Finally, a good one," He smiled. "Lucky Draw number 12: Justice!"

The card glowed with yellow light as it melted into Emil's body. He took one confident look at the door and reached his hand for the knob.

"What are you doing? You're going to get bit!" Hortensia screamed out.

"Don't worry. I got this." Emil pushed the hand into the mass of bugs.

They immediately started biting his hand. Some burrowed their fangs into him, delivering venom to his veins, while others grasped tight and cut deep into his flesh.

"What a fool," Griffon shook his head. "I hope you are prepared for the agony that is to come-"

Griffon stopped in the middle of his sentence to deliver a sharp scream. An immense amount of pain radiated through his right arm. Lifting it, he saw it full of bite marks, with pieces cut and ripped off.

"What is this?" He finally raised his voice. "Did he reverse his damage back to me?"

He instinctually ordered his bugs to cease their actions, which Emil was already betting on.

"Now!" He pushed the door open, scattering the insects from it.

The two escaped down to the lower floors, but Griffon stayed in his place. His mind was still processing what happened. He had to process everything in order before moving on, a habit he could not break no matter the situation.

"Odd. That effect was nothing like the previous one. But no one can have more than one spell, even if they belong in the same category. Those two effects have nothing in common, so they cannot possibly be appliances of the same spell," Griffon scratched his shining dome. "Could he be an enchanter? That would explain the variety of effects. What a strange magic item to create." He noticed his surroundings. "Oh, right, they are already gone. I will have to pursue them."

A layer of bugs lifted him from the floor and scuttled forward like a magic carpet. He sat down to a squat to think for himself with only a single thought in his mind.

"Just you wait, trespasser. I will not have you pull any more tricks on me."

Adler stood tall with glimpses of a seething glare flashing between the dark threads of his hat.

"I seem to have underestimated you," He clenched his fist and stepped forward. "I will have to take you out first."

"Per Aspera Ad Astra!" Orel instinctually chanted.

This time Adler was wary. Attacking would have been too risky. He prompted Orel to cast the spell on purpose to figure it out. The glimmers of light appeared around Orel, of which he grabbed one and they disappeared. Adler was sure of it now. Grasping those sparks was a mandatory part of the spell's activation. Now all he had to do was to see what would happen. For whatever reason the spell made a physical object appear, which in the wrong moment would become a problem for him.

"Don't forget about me! I still have a working arm!" Diarmuid readied another punch.

Adler's eyes turned to him with cold menace. "Then I just have to break that one as well!"

He made sure to not focus too much on Diarmuid, barely enough to deliver a disabling blow. All he had to be was faster than his opponent could react and precision did not matter.

Surely enough, Adler struck Diarmuid's forearm with his prosthesis. He could feel the strike landing, but not enough to break the bone. Diarmuid recoiled away without an opinion. Adler's concentration heightened as he had no other distractions.

Unfortunately for him, it was already too late. Adler could not sense it in time even for such a little distraction. The spell had already hit him by that time. He could only catch a glimpse of it. A brawny hand struck him to his chin from underneath, coming out of a small rift. The fist glowed red with runes, delivering a strong blow that left him stumbling. Just as he recovered, the hand was gone along the rift.

Adler thought to himself. "That hand, there is no mistaking it. It belonged to that druid. But what was that portal it came from? Could it have been his spell? Was the boy just a distraction?"

"Was that my hand?" Diarmuid blinked twice.

"Did you do that, Orel?" Ándras asked.

"I guess?" Orel looked at his hand.

"That reaction seemed genuine. Using portals like that...Could that boy be...No, I shouldn't make hasty conclusions. In any case, that spell is a bad matchup with me. I need to eliminate him before he becomes proficient with it."

"Oh, are you alright?" Orel looked over to Ándras.

"Getting better," He patted his chest. "Still a bit tipsy, though."

"Okay. If we work together, we can take him down," Orel nodded.

"It seems I have failed to show you your place, trash," Adler closed his eyes to concentrate. "For that, I need to release my restrictions. The doctor will not be pleased, but I will accept her punishment as well." He took a deep breath and gritted his teeth. "Activate mana booster!"

Adler's veins from fingers to his eyes bulged and began glowing with a soft, blue light. Soon enough, a trail of it started flowing from his nose. "Guh, Heart reinforcement!" A faint red glow emerged from underneath his shirt. It helped to stop the bleeding, but his face was still in pain. "Limb strengthening!" His arms and leg muscles bulged against his clothes. "Brain Acceleration!" He barely managed to keep his composure and finish the process. "Divina Machina, complete!"

The air around him was completely different from before. It turned from a cold feeling of dread to danger blasting from him and prickling everyone around like hot needles. His mere presence was enough to stifle any hope of defeating him.

"With the surge of mana from my extra magic organ, I can use all of my enchantments and mystic mutations on full power for five minutes. I call this state Divina Machina. Of course, it will drain most of my mana and I will face dire drawbacks from it later."

"And by explaining that, you increase its power and effectiveness even further." Diarmuid pointed out.

"Correct. With the explanation, the time limit is closer to nine minutes." Adler's bulging eyes turned back to Orel. His face had not changed, still staring him down with his bright, grey eyes.

"Still foolish enough to face me?" He asked.

"I have a great spirit to beat." Orel gripped his fists and faced him with a stern expression. "I have no time to get scared of you."

The brimming resolution on his face was equal to the dark shadow that Adler cast, a sight which only made him grow more bitter.

"The lack of fear is not confidence but madness." His curly brows contorted. "I will be the one to put a stop to this blind determination."

Orel did not have the time to blink. Only a whiff of air remained of Adler. Working on pure instinct and reflexes, he began chanting.

"Per Aspera Ad Ast-"

The next thing he knew, his body lay on the floor. He found himself unable to so much a whisper. His throat was utterly crushed without even seeing it happen, and his suffering was silent yet intensively visible. Even without words, Orel poured his magic out to complete the spell. With it, he managed to conjure a single, small spark. His hand grasped for it, yet, in vain. Just as his throat, Orel merely realized it after the fact, which was his hand being dislocated. For how much he tried to scream, nothing came out. All he could do was squirm on the floor. Diarmuid had barely time to process what just happened. Just as he did his neck felt a lightning-fast jab. His mind turned blank instantly. He fell to the ground next to Orel, who could only watch in horror. Ándras flared up and burst into flames. Before his rampage could even begin, Adler appeared before him, with his heart, still beating, in the palm of his hand. Ándras fell the same as the two with the last bits of his flames simmering out. Adler brushed the blood off from his hands with eight and a half minutes to spare.

"Those who wish for sun should prepare for the storm." He walked over to Orel and lifted him by his hair. "Be happy that it was merely your arm and throat. If you were to cause any more trouble, I would have killed you on the spot." '

His grip loosened, dropping Orel back to the floor. "Though we do not use capital punishment in public, that does not include us."

Adler watched Orel's labored tries of standing up, only to kick him back down. "Your friends might have a different hell waiting for them. Especially the healing one. MIB and Atlas would love such a test subject. The other one seems to know how to make runes. Hephaistos district always needs new smiths." He waltzed around Orel with a light step. "I am sure my team is also moments away from catching those other intruders. There is no need for me to intrude." His cruel smile slipped to his lips. "It was a mistake to crush your throat. Now I cannot press you for more information."

Orel could only listen to those nasty words as he struggled to breathe. He wanted to desperately beat him up, but even standing up was a hurdle. He could not take support with his other hand and there seemed to be almost no point in trying with Adler watching over him.

"There is no use for me to keep you alive," He watched down to him like a predator. "Your existence ends here along with your crimes. Let this be an example for any future intruders. In the name of justice, I will end you, right here."

A loud bang broke the scene. It was the sound of boxes and shelves falling from the storage room. Adler turned slowly turned his head toward the sound as if it merely bothered his ears.

"So you have finally recovered, wolf." He said with a frown. "You should have stayed down. I will finish your execution this time." His eyes glanced at Orel. "Consider your death sentence postponed. Use these few moments to make peace with yourself."

An unknown voice answered him from the shadows. "It has been a while, Cooper."

Adler stopped with a grimace of confusion written all over his face. "How do you know that name? Who are you?"

"I can't blame you. I forgot for the longest time. Perhaps it hurt too much. You remember it too, don't you?"

"Remember what?" Adler raised his brow.

"The AMMO program."

A flash of hellish memories surged in Adler's mind. The grueling training, the cruel experiments, the inhumane treatment, and the direct yet hope-inspiring manipulation had been seared into his soul. AMMO, the Artificial Mystic Mutation Officer program was a secret MIB project to test how much a human body could tolerate mystic mutation implants and enchantments and a way to test the effectiveness of artificial mystic mutations developed by Atlas. It used both willing and gathered test subjects with varying degrees of magic ability in hopes of finding a way to improve human adaptability to mystic mutations. the MIB also used the project as a means to create better agents for itself and possible investors. It was discontinued after twenty years only producing a handful of successful attempts and costing too much money to keep maintained and secret. Of all human subjects, Adler was the closest the program got to achieving its goals.

"It can't be. There was never a zou in the program, and I know for sure that no one ever managed to escape. Who are you and where did you learn that information?!"

Adler flashed into the room, searching from floor to ceiling for Catori. Yet, even his eyes found nothing besides his sword and an old trail of blood.

"But there were a lot of deaths," The voice echoed around the room. "Even during field training."

"No, wait," Adler remembered.

It was during his time under the previous Adler. It was nothing special. A sweep in the ghetto district. There were three of them, but only two came back. A radical wolfman attacked them and killed one of the young agents. Their senior finished the beast off, but the situation turned dire. It had started a fire, which forced them to flee. They could never recover the body. The memory never left him, it merely faded into obscurity.

The name escaped Adler's lips. "Slip?"

The rattling of the air vent drew Adler's attention, but it was already gone by then.

"I knew you would remember me," The thing's voice echoed away in the vent.

Adler pressed the side of his neck. The implant was for emergencies only. What he witnessed was a matter of state security.

"Calling Talon squad four! Our current object has changed! We are to immediately focus our attention on terminating a previously unknown escapee of AMMO! Rendezvous at the great stairs! The order is effective immediately! Adler out!"