Warning: there is violence in this one.

Quick name reference: Zima=Sonya, Istina=Anna, Gummy=Lada, Leto=Rosalind, Rosa=Natalya, Absinthe=Zoya, Carrion=Mikhail (the OC)


See you in hell

The two interrogators exited the building half an hour later. There was blood in their clothes, but not theirs. Zima picked a cloth and cleaned her axe. Carrion showed up with a bruised face, which immediately caught Absinthe's attention.

"It's my fault." The redhead explained as the rest of their group gathered near the entrance to the town. "I got careless and the prisoner almost killed me. Zima saved my life, though my mistake resulted in that guy's death."

The savior kept her blue eyes furious and resentful, which wasn't anything out of the ordinary when Carrion was involved, but Istina sniffed the scent of conspiracy.

"Are you okay, Zima?" Gummy asked while holding her hands.

"Yeah…" She sighed, relaxing her glare and showing a smile to her friend. "We got a new location."

"Let's hope he gave you the good one this time." Istina mumbled, making their team share a collective sigh.

"If he wasn't lying this time around, this mission might turn harder than we initially thought." The brunette ursus added, worried about the words she was about to share. "There's a clock tower in the other side of town. In there, we will find a secret entrance to a hideout."

"Is that where the children are?" Gummy wondered.

"That guy said as much."

"Secret entrances? The plot thickens!" Leto laughed.

Rosa pressed a hand against her chest and made a worried face. "Let's just wait we are not too late to save them…"

A student pointed out Absinthe's staring and Click sneaked next to her. "Zoya, what's wrong? You're making a scary face."

"Is she?" Mikhail noticed.

When that happened, the two of them would rub one cheek each to make her relax, but the police officer looked too angry to welcome their affection. The target of her glare decided to stop ignoring her and stuck out her chest with authority.

"If you have anything to say, do it to my face."

"Zima, there's no need to…"

Gummy's intervention was interrupted by Istina's arm. As important as it was to keep things civilized between allies, if an unresolved dispute resurged in the middle of battle, the consequences would be terrible.

The police officer clenched her fists and felt tempted to grab her gun, but her temperance won that fight. Before her anger took the better of her, she glanced at the bruised redhead again and breathed out her exasperation.

"What are your orders? The sooner we complete this mission, the better."

"Hah! I was thinking the exact same thing." Zima retorted, her voice as taunting as ever. "Okay, listen up! We'll go towards the target location in two separate groups. I will lead the vanguard. Leto, Gummy. You're with me. Carrion, you as well."

"Understood. Squire, with us. Use this chance to see how a pro vanguard does it."

"Aye!"

"What about me, what about me?" The elafia of black dress asked while jumping up and down. Carrion ignored her question and prompted the leader to keep giving orders.

"Rosa, you will lead the rearguard team with Istina. Click can babysit the other operators or whatever. I don't care. Just don't get in our way."

The instructor refrained from bursting out his complaints in the middle of the meeting, but a vein almost popped in his forehead. "Click, you will be our eyes in the sky. If you detect any suspicious movement, you tell us."

"Leave it to me! Even without the Doctor or PRTS, you will have a perfect understanding of the area with my drone!"

"Salvager, you're a liberator. You already know what to do. Don't panic. Keep thinking. It's what you do best. You've got this."

"That I do!"

"Cannon, I told you to move fast, but don't forget to be flexible and adapt to the situation. As a rearguard operator, you must contemplate the bigger picture while you fight."

"I'll try."

Absinthe stood next to Carrion, her hand resting onto her gun's handle. Zima tensed up by the cop's defiant attitude. "A caster in the frontline? Don't make me laugh."

"Laugh if you want. I will still go."

Salvager and Squire hugged each other, trembling in fear to the pressure surrounding the ursus girls. Istina sighed and approached her leader. "Operator Absinthe is more capable in the frontline than you give her credit for. Don't be bratty and take her with you."

"Tsk."

"Yo! I can also vouch for Zoya! She's full of surprises!" Leto chimed in, oblivious to the silent hostilities between the two.

Enduring the responsibilities of leadership, Zima sighed and gave her the okay. The brawler grabbed Absinthe and Gummy by the arms and chased after her rival, excited to resume the operation. Carrion called Squire and turned to look at Istina.

"I'm sorry things got this tense. It's my fault…"

The blue-haired girl approached him and poked his bruised face. "This is Zima's doing." It wasn't a question. It was a fact.

"I didn't want to cause unnecessary drama for no reason…"

"Well, that's what I call a spectacular failure, dear Mikhail." Rosa joined. "The only ones who fell for your story were Leto and maybe your students. Did she hit you too hard?"

"…I'll survive. And I deserved it, so don't blame her, okay?"

"Teach! They're going without us!"

"…please, get along with my girls. They should be able to learn a lot from you."

With those as his parting words, the instructor patted Squire on the back and the both of them ran behind the spearheading group. Istina and Rosa sighed at the same time, exchanged looks and then introduced themselves to the novice operators. Click rested a hand on her chest and frowned as the other group moved deeper into the ghost town. For some reason, she hated watching Carrion go away.


The faster they returned those kids to their families, the better.

Zima agreed wholeheartedly with such a sentiment. Gummy just got over her habits! They were meant to be celebrating the occasion, not clashing with that jerk's entourage. Why couldn't it have been Nearl's team who found them? Had it been anybody else, they would be already done with the mission! She even went so far as to personally request the Doctor that her team was never paired with Carrion…

So why? Why did she have to be the villain when it was all Mikhail's fault? Zima had been trying hard enough to cooperate as it was, but Absinthe's defiance was making her lose her mind. To make matter worse, the kuranta of knight armor and fluttering banners tied to his limbs studied her with so much passion that it got on her nerves.

"And what do you want?" She asked when her patience reached its limit.

The brown-haired boy untied one of his banners and offered it to Zima. Unlike the others, that one wasn't a knight team flag, but a white cloth with things written on it.

"Can I have your sign? Please! It would be my honor to have General Zima join my banner!"

"Hoooh? You have a good eye despite being that guy's minion. Give that here."

The leader observed the other names gathered in there and was surprised by what she saw. Her hand hesitated when she picked the pen. She was about to add her name to the banner shared by so many other operators she respected and admired. Ever since she became and operator and started getting promoted, she still didn't get the feeling that she had grown strong enough. Sonya never expected that realization to occur in such a simple manner.

"Thank you, miss! I have gained yet another reason not to be defeated in combat!"

"Heh, I don't hate your guts, kiddo. What was your codename?"

"Squire!"

"Stay close to me, Squire. As vanguards, it is our duty to be the first ones in every battle. Our goal is not so far anymore. We don't know if we'll walking right into an ambush or not, but we must always trail as if that were the case."

"Ooooh!"

"What's your fighting style? What can you do?"

The flag bearer chirped some weird sound and started coughing, searching for a way out of that explanation. Following the vanguards, the rest of the frontlines operators were able to breathe a little bit easier. Gummy opened her thermic box and handed over some cookies.

"People can't fight on an empty stomach, though Gummy hopes it doesn't come down to that."

"Hey, have you told Carrion about your achievement yet?" Leto asked.

"That's right! I overcame one of my habits!"

"What? The one-two-three thing? Wow, con-" Carrion was about to raise his voice to congratulate her, but he halted in time. The wall. "I'm so happy for you, Gummy. Does that mean what I think it means?"

Absinthe stopped glaring at Zima's back so much and rose a brow. Leto rose hers as well. The cook giggled and bobbed her bandaged head.

The redhead patted her back and smiled to the one who helped him so much throughout the last year with his taste disorder. "I wish you the best, Lada. If you ever need anything, don't hesitate to ask."

Gummy checked that Zima was busy boasting about her power and her axe before turning around to give him a hug.

"Yoo! Group hu-" Before Leto could sell them out, Absinthe covered her mouth with a headlock. The cop might be a caster, but she knew how to reduce her opponents hand to hand as well.

The four ursus returned to normal in time to evade Zima's suspicious glance. Leto didn't let things go, though, and hung her arm around her punching bag's neck. "Hey, hey, hey! Is this what I think it is? Are you two lovebirds together?"

"W-We're not!" The blond bear rushed to explain, worried that Absinthe would misunderstand. "Hmph! Don't tease Gummy like that, Rosalind!"

"I just had to make sure, hahaha! If this guy had a thing for you, then we'd have a problem. A really big one."

Absinthe begun oozing a deadly aura while staring into the brawler's short-haired head, questioning whether yet another rival was entering the fray or not. Gummy couldn't catch a breath.

"She doesn't mean it like that, Zoya. She's talking about… about Sonya."

Mikhail felt all energy abandoning him. As much fun as he was having, his existence would always be a source for conflict whenever Sonya was involved. His sad blue eyes found the aforementioned getting all boastful trying to impress his student.

"Let's drop the topic." He sighed. "Hey, Gummy. Do tell me when you decide on a date."

Sweating bullets again, the blond ursus girl resigned herself to clear yet another misunderstanding. As she explained her plans to go look for her parents, they ended up catching up with the vanguards, who had stopped.

They were about to reach their destination.


The clock tower was built next to a spacious area where three streets met: the ideal spot for an ambush. The buildings had many possible hiding spots and vantage points for long-ranged foes. The lack of cover in itself was a deathtrap. Before risking to go any further, the operators looked up and watched a lonely drone moving around the sky. The drone descended and inspected some buildings through the windows.

"The coast looks clear. Advance carefully."

The rearguard team climbed a nearby building and took positions at different floors. Ordering the advance, Zima and Squire entered the plaza. No movements were detected. The pair of vanguards made it to the other side and pressed their backs onto the tower. After confirming that the entrance looked clear, Zima signaled the others to catch up.

For some reason, Squire remembered W's sadistic cackles.

One and two explosions shook the town. The plaza started collapsing down into some kind of underground passage. Then a third explosion destroyed a building's exterior pillars, making the entire thing fall over the street to its right, cutting that path from retreat. From inside the other buildings, bounty hunters revealed themselves and entered the soon-to-be battlefield. Their numbers would easily overwhelm them, but they waited until the explosion aftereffects resolved before moving.

Squire tackled Zima just in time to push her away of the collapsing ground. However, the other members of the vanguard group disappeared without a trace under the rubble and the dust cloud. Zima yelled some names, but her breath was cut short as a pair of sword wielding bounty hunters lunged their weapons at her.

"Rrrwaaaaaaaahh!"

Her ursus roar was the gong to that fight's start. Zima parried the attacks with her axe and Squire body-tanked the hits she couldn't take. When too much aggro was gathered around the ursus warrior, the kuranta squire raised his own voice to taunt the enemies.

Meanwhile, Click sneaked through the cracks in the floors to rescue the rearguard team from the rubble of the collapsing building. Cannon helped herself out of the rubble through sheer strength, but Istina required some more help. She had slowed down the fall of the entire building with her arts, which was why the structure remained in one piece still. When they moved to the higher floors to find Rosa, she was nowhere to be seen. When the explosion took place, the sniper was thrown through a window from the initial recoil, plummeting her to a nasty fall. The aristocrat, however, aimed her landship siege gun to another building and fired a cable bolt, swinging herself to the safety of a nearby veranda.

"Zima is in trouble!" Istina warned as her heart continued to work hastily.

Rosa targeted the tower's wall and fired another cable bolt, piercing the stone before opening a few dents. Activating the retracting engine, she pulled and tore the wall clean off the tower, dragging it over a pair of heavy assailants that were about to overwhelm the vanguards.

Click and Istina casted their arts to provide further assistance. Just as Cannon readied her heavy weapon to fire at an incoming group of fighters, Salvager pulled her arm and forced her to go along with her. While everybody fought, nobody was looking for the missing operators. If the explosion got them, they would be injured and in dire need of medical assistance. The forte didn't need further explanations to agree with her plan. They lost almost all their front-liners in the ambush. If they could rescue them and regroup, they might just tip the scales in their favor.

Sharp pain and an obtuse beeping. That's all Leto could feel at the moment. Her leg got trapped beneath some rubble too heavy for her to remove. Panicking by the increasing yells of battle, the ursus searched for the others and found them in a similar predicament to hers. Except for Carrion, whose long skirt got caught onto a pipe and allowed him an easy exit by knifing it free. The instructor hurried to help Gummy out, who got her head trapped under the rocks and was asphyxiating. Absinthe took out her gun and aided Carrion by shooting some arts shots to chip away at the rubble he was trying to lift.

As the little cub coughed for air, the redhead reached for a mask from his skirt resources and put it over Gummy. Absinthe repeated her actions onto herself, but her aiming was so much bolder that she hurt herself in the process in exchange of retrieving her freedom faster.

Coughing and wheezing for air, the bloodshot-eyed cop raised the alarm. The thugs had noticed them and changed their targets. A few arrow bolts flew past them and one bounced against Gummy's shield. Carrion helped Leto out as well, but when the boxer retrieved her leg, they grew pale. An iron pipe had pierced her limb, just above the ankles.

"Help me up! I can still fight on one foot!"

The instructor didn't obey and picked her up in his arms. He tried jumping through the ruins to make it out of the hole they were in, but a new group of foes took over the only exit and pushed them back.

Without any other choice, the gasping group of operators were forced to move deeper into the underground tunnels, separated from their other allies. Leto kept protesting, but it only took one shout from Gummy to make her realize how bad the situation was. The defender banged her shield against the fiercest enemies, but there was just no end to them. She blocked so many attacks that her shield arm was becoming numb. The caster kept firing her gun to slow them down, while she also made sure they didn't accidentally get themselves cornered into a dead-end. Mikhail tried the radio over and over, but the enemy even begun jamming the signal.

Each step they took into those sewer-like dungeons, their group was one step further from the closest reinforcements… and there was nothing they could do about it. If only they had the Doctor to lead them to victory…

Just as they were about to be overwhelmed by a party of seven foes, a cannon ball exploded in between them. Before they could get up, a nimble elafia picked some metallic plate up and knocked them out one after the other.

"Salvager and Cannon to the rescue!" The young operator sang while saluting.

Another wave of yells silenced their voices and they turned to look at the hole they fell from. The operators outside had started managing to repel the attack, but that only meant bad news for them. The injured and the cowards picked each other up and retreated through the tunnel.

"We can't stay here! We must go deeper!" Absinthe ordered, pulling her allies behind as she opened the path forward.

Cannon lagged behind a bit as she tried reloading her heavy weapon, but her partner pulled her arm to keep going and her ammunition fell to the ground. At least one or two hostiles tripped from stepping onto the cannonballs.


"These runts are too strong!"

"We still tore a hole in the formation! Keep fighting!"

"N-No… That chick will kill me!"

"I'll kill you if you don't fight!"

"Rrrwaaaaarrgh! Victory is near!" Zima's roar spread through the battlefield, stunning her enemies momentarily. Her axe kept swinging from side to side; sometimes chopping air, other times splitting bones.

"Eeeeek! Retreat! The platoon leader is down!"

"Say what?!"

"We need to regroup! Back to the tunnels! NOW!"

Sweat dropping from her chin, Istina exerted herself to cast yet another slowing area near Zima's closest targets. Rosa skewered a few foes together, but her ammunition was running low. Squire's armor had seen better days, yet he remained the healthiest of them all, somehow. As their opponents dragged each other back into the tunnel, Click's drone chased after them, shooting its small laser as it rushed deeper into the tunnel.

"Found them!" The drone-caster announced. "Absinthe and the others are being pushed into their lair! We need to get them out of there!"

As the rearguard operators descended from their vantage positions, Zima finished removing her axe from her last target. Squire had seen his fair share of violence back in Kazimierz, but real-life combat was so much more uncivilized that he felt nauseous and about to puke. Istina approached the aristocrat and brought attention to the arrow piercing her abdomen. The sniper had been so focused loading her bolts and shooting that she didn't even notice.

"Damn it! It was a trap all along! How did they know?!" The leader cursed while glaring at the fallen foes. "Click!"

"Eeek! Y-Yes?"

"…forget it. No point in looking for culprits now." Zima sighed. "Istina, how's Rosa?"

"I'll be fine, leader. I can still fight. Hhgnn!"

Istina pulled out the arrow and applied disinfectant spray right afterwards. She had been doubling as a medic so many times she started considering widening her scope of skills. When the emergency medic looked at her leader, her eyes expressed the bad news on their own.

"She can fight, but a besiege sniper wouldn't really accomplish much in those tunnels."

"Right. Click, stay with Rosa out here and go hide somewhere."

"…okay!" The zalak confirmed some seconds later. She had been focusing so hard controlling her drone to aid the other group that it was difficult to listen.

"Istina, we're going after them."

"A-And me?"

The young Squire who didn't even fight back against a single enemy.

Zima briefly considered bringing him as well as a meat shield, which was his only real use, but that didn't sit right with her. Time was gold and their group wasn't exactly rich. Zima grabbed her junior's shoulder and looked him in eyes.

"Are you fast?"

"Not Pinus Silvestris fast, but pretty much."

"Then I want you to go back to Rhodes Island and report our status."

"You're sending me away from the battlefield? But I-"

Zima hardened her grip on him. "Squire, you're the only one who can do this right now. We don't have batteries and no way to contact HQ for reinforcements. We have no medics either. If you don't, we're dead. It's as simple as that. Now go! Our lives are in your hands!"

Tasked with a heavy responsibility, the knight removed all his armor and his banners. Before Zima could give further instructions, the kuranta operator had already departed.

"Heh, that's a shonen power-up if I've ever seen one, Squire." She mumbled with a grin. It would still take him a long time to reach the landship, but it was better than nothing.

"Zima. We have to go."

"Right!"


Battle behind, battle ahead.

Cannon managed to fire a few projectiles to slow down their pursuers. Gummy alternated between the front to the rear of their group, tackling with her shield to protect their backs or open up the path forward. Absinthe yelled her orders so that everyone would know what to do at all times despite the confusion, the darkness and the chaos. Salvager studied the pipes of the tunnel and found a valve to release a barrier of steam that bought them some time. Carrion measured distances between them and their opponents, swinging his whip towards their ankles to make them trip and block the path. Leto tried moving on her own, but her leg was in such a sorry state that she was unable to walk. Cursing under her breath, Leto fought back against the tears and desperately sought some way to make herself useful. But it was too painful. The last time she felt so helpless, it was at Chernobog.

When the redhead picked her up again, he gave her the radio and told her to keep trying to get in contact with the others. Their lives practically depended on it.

"There's the exit! Just a little more!" Gummy announced, the hope in her voice giving the group the strength they needed to keep struggling.

But that place wasn't the exit. The tunnel connected with a big room that doubled as a storeroom and a nucleus of the hostile's hideout. The exit was higher than the ground level, gangplanks and metallic stairs connecting the different levels. At the base floor, there were only a few shady adversaries, but their pursuers were about to catch up.

"Whatdowedowhatdowedowhatdowedo?!"

"Salvager! Don't panic! Think!" Carrion ordered, advancing to the front to survey the room for some kind of emergency exit.

Cannon's latest fire hit the edge of the tunnel, which crumbled down and purchased them a few seconds. Salvager received Leto from her instructor and he jumped down over the gangplank, landing onto a puddle. He hoped to catch the pair of thugs by surprise, but they were already getting the jump on him as he landed. He parried a heavy club with the handle of his whip and readied himself to receive a nasty cut from that other swordsman.

"Not on my watch!" Absinthe grunted while firing her gun again. And again. And again. Until the second opponent was crushed into the ground.

The guard operator noticed the gap in his enemy's focus and deflected the clash to one side, forwarding a flurry of knee hits into his stomach. A hidden third foe appeared from behind a few crates and lunged at him with a knife, stabbing his hand. The police officer pushed the assailant back with her arts. Carrion swung his whip towards his neck and pulled him for the greatest punch of his life.

"Ghnn! Blyat! Note to self. Never punch someone again with a knife piercing your fist."

During Carrion's fight, the other operators descended through the side stairs. Absinthe, who remained in place to give some support fire, jumped down just in time to avoid the swing of another sword, but she messed her landing and twisted her ankle.

"Hey there! We're messed-ankles-buddies now! Hahaha!"

"This is no time for jokes, miss Leto!" Salvager gasped while supporting the laughing brawler.

"A little madness goes a long way in battle." The instructor replied as he picked Absinthe up and lent her his good shoulder.

They were trapped. Just as the pursuers reached the gangplanks they descended, the doors to the other tunnels were closed by the press of a switch. The one holding the remote was a female sarkaz that, despite the norm, didn't wear a mercenary's outfit. She was a scientist. Her dark hair was long, which contrasted with her short sarkaz horns.

"Welcome, little lambs! Did you enjoy the fireworks?" The scientist teased as she adjusted her glasses from the safety of a higher platform.

It seemed as though the mercenaries under her command wouldn't move until she gave the order, so Carrion accepted the chance to buy as much time as possible.

"A noisy welcome. We just wanted to pay you a surprise visit, you see? How did you know of our arrival?"

"When you have such a big house as ours, you tend to notice when someone moves around your garden. But you're just in time! We were running out of test subjects…"

Absinthe studied their numbers and winced at their hopeless situation. "Test subjects? Are you just another crazed researcher gone mad?"

"Not just any crazed researcher, little ones. I am the Mastermind."

"Pfft! Should we call you by that name? Isn't that a little weird? Owowowow, my leg…"

Leto wanted to teased the voluminous lady who had full control of their destiny some more, but pain made it difficult to be witty about things.

"You did a number on my bodyguards." Mastermind observed.

"Well, you did a number on our guard's… body. OkayI'llbequietnowI'msorry." Salvager shrunk, blushing hard from telling the worst pun at the worst possible time ever. Leto still found it humorous, but laughing only made it more painful.

The Mastermind rested her arms onto the platform's railing. "Why are you here?"

"We're looking for a pair of missing children." Carrion explained, fearing that if the conversation ended, that would be it. "You have them here, don't you? What did you do to them?"

"…you seriously think I will fall for that?" Mastermind's anger made her raised a hand, causing a crossbowman to shoot an arrow through Cannon's arm. "Why are you-"

"It's the truth!" The redhead persisted. "Our team was given the task to investigate the case of a town's missing children, so we followed the tracks all the way to here!"

The evil lady squinted her eyes and noticed the identification cards hanging from some of their necks. She took off her glasses to rub her eyes. "You're from Rhodes Island… … …Of course you are."

"A-And what if we are?" Gummy asked, holding her door-shield higher to protect the group from other snipers.

The villain remained silent for some seconds until one of her hooded minions called for her. She was indeed called Mastermind. The sarkaz returned her glasses to their rightful place and gave the operators a stern look.

"What am I going to do with you?"

"Let us go?"

The scientist chuckled, her red eyes glowing with affliction. "Kill them."

There were around thirty opponents glaring from the only way out and only six of them plus a drone. The group of intruders moved back against the other wall to avoid the thugs raining from above. The operators struggled as hard as they could, but they eventually started sustaining more and more injuries.

Leto fought on one foot, but it only took one moment of balance lost for her enemies to land a heavy kick on her, which stole her of air. Cannon threw her weapon at the closest foe and started throwing punches. Even if she trained to be a sniper, few people from Kjerag would go down in a fight without bleeding their fists first. Gummy had not recovered yet from the cloud of dust she inhaled, but she toughed it out despite the coughing. She repelled the thugs with her shield once and twice. The third time, she sent a few of them flying. The situation was so desperate she couldn't afford to limit her raw power. However, displaying her might painted a target on her back and the snipers from above practiced their aim, limiting her following actions dramatically.

The laser shooting drone got pummeled by a bat and ceased working, making the Click on the other end grew desperate. Absinthe's gun was removed from her hands from an attack, but that didn't stop her. The injured enemies before had many weaknesses she could exploit, but her own wounds became targets. Out of nowhere, a flying club got the back of her head, putting her out of combat. Carrion's whip was unsuited for close combat, so he dropped it, pulled a pair of knifes and removed his skirt by throwing it at his enemies. As the healthiest operator in their group, he pushed himself the hardest, but it wasn't long until a few hits in the head left him stunned and completely defenseless.

Their ability to fend of themselves completely crushed, all that was left for the shady villains to do was slitting some throats.

"Grrrwaaaaaaaarrrgh!"

After dispatching the three crossbowmen at the gangplanks with single swing of her axe, Zima jumped into the sea of thugs as a ferocious war god. The few who reacted in time were suddenly slowed down by Istina's arts, allowing the vanguard to land safely and cut down some more opponents.

The reinforcement's entrance was the chance they had been waiting for. The operators pushed through the pain and stood up to resume the fight. They were literally on their last breath.

"If you value her life, stop where you are!"

The Mastermind herself had descended into the battlefield and held an ursus girl hostage by pressing a knife against her neck.

"Zoya!"

The cop could barely remain conscious, let alone struggle. The thugs that still drew breath got up and moved away from the dangerous individuals. The operators froze in shock, but only one of them was about to freak out. Carrion took a step closer after dropping his weapons and raising his arms.

"Take me instead, please. I make a better hostage."

"Do you?"

"Instructor, no!" Salvager cried, reaching out before Cannon held her in place.

"Convincing, but no deal." The sarkaz rejected. "Step back. I said step back!"

However, Carrion didn't budge. "Everyone! Do not move until I give you the order!"

Zima almost snapped at him that she was the one giving the orders, but Istina acknowledged the order loudly to go along with his plan. The redhead approached his trampled skirt, found some handcuffs and asked Zima to bind him.

"What the heck are you doing this time?" She hissed at him.

Mikhail looked her in the eyes. "The idiot."

The idiot returned next to the scientist holding the hostage and tried again requesting the exchange.

The sarkaz studied him with suspicion in her eyes. "Why should I trust you?"

"Honestly, I can't think of a single reason." He shrugged, showing his most pathetic and desperate smile. "Pretty please?"

Gummy picked Absinthe from the dirty floor and dragged back to their safety of their barely holding formation. Carrion had felt the touch of a knife on his neck a few times already, but it was the first time it awakened so much relief. "Thanks, Mastermind."

"Okay, leader boy. What's your name?"

"Carrion."

"I said your name."

"…Mikhail."

"Listen up, Mikhail. This is what we're going to do now. You will order your minions to go back to Rhodes Island without you. You will stay with us, of course, as our guarantee that they won't return with reinforcements any time soon." Then she pointed her knife at the operators. "I get to see your mugs ever again? Mikhail dies. This is not a deal. It's a promise."

The operators kept alternating their eyes between them and Zima. Mastermind suddenly realized who the true leader was and prepared herself to dispatch the hostage if they tried any funny business. The vanguard gripped her axe tightly and send at violent glare to the remaining bounty hunters. Absinthe pushed through her exhaustion to beg them not to leave Mikhail behind, but her tears weren't enough to cast miracles.

Zima looked hard into the redhead held at knifepoint and ground her teeth.

"See you in hell, Mikhail. Retreat! I said retreat!"

Gummy and the students protested against the decision, but the blue-haired ursus shook her head. "As harsh as it is, the situation at hand is rather simple. We either stay and watch how Mastermind kills him or we abandon him to his luck."

From that point forward, the operators were unable to fight Zima's order and forced themselves to follow their true leader. The only one who still fought against the idea was also the only one who couldn't even stay concious.

As Absinthe disappeared after the group took a turn through the tunnels, Carrion couldn't keep it together anymore and started crying. He had been trying his hardest not to lose his composure that whole time, but he was beyond screwed. Would that be the last time he ever saw any of them?

The Mastermind pushed him to the ground as she begun salvaging the whole disaster as best as she could.

"Come on, ladies. There's not too much time."

"W-What for, ma'am?"

The scientist glared at the redhead and his uniform. "Rhodes Island is onto us. We cannot let them find out what we're doing no matter what. We'll exhaust our test subjects overnight."

"Shall I prepare the new argent?"

"Yes, please. Send my assistants to treat the injured that can still be saved. The rest of you, start packing everything. We move out tomorrow."

"What about the hostage?"

"…search him for secret tools. I don't want any surprises. Then 'help' him with his mission." The sarkaz pressed her heel against Mikhail's head, grinding with annoyance. "You've found the missing children. Congrats."