Vance was hyperventilating, his breath rattling like dry leaves as his cold, slick fingers frantically mashed the brass-plated terminal in a sheer, blundering panic, like a blind monkey trying to defuse a bomb. The sour, metallic stench of panic-sweat rolled off him in suffocating, hot waves. Failing to maintain a shred of dignity, he slammed his palm onto the biometric scanner with a desperate, wet sob. The crimson emergency lights flickered, shifted, and blinked emerald green with a sarcastic, high-pitched ding!
The void-iron shutters hissed open, blasting us with a stale, frigid gust of subterranean air smelling of wet limestone and ancient dust. Instantly, the searing rush of unsuppressed magic flooded back into my veins like liquid lightning. My cells threw a full-blown rave. Silver spatial energy crackled across my fingertips with the sharp, metallic tang of ozone, projecting a bone-chilling spiritual aura that made the air so thick and coppery I could taste it on the back of my tongue.
Spatial manipulation, hyper-regeneration, shadow-weaving, thermal control, and sovereign spiritual manifestation. Being an elite syndicate assassin in my past life was cool, but whoever designed this new chassis stuffed me with a Swiss Army knife of game-breaking cheat codes.
I leaned over Vance, my eyes wild with sadistic glee as I smiled terrifyingly cheerfully, my icy breath blooming in the cold room. “Thanks, Headmaster. You’ve been a real peach. A squishy, cowardly peach.”
Before he could whimper, I tapped my thumb to his clammy temple. A tiny, burning pulse of biological manipulation scrambled his neural pathways and violently unplugged his brain. He slumped onto the dark mahogany with the heavy, wet thud of a dropped sack of flour, immediately launching into a chainsaw-level snore.
The original Tiara snatched a heavy mag-rifle off the wall rack, her movements brimming with cold, practiced efficiency as the steel clicked with a sharp, oily click-clack. “The Catacombs,” she muttered, her glowing ruby eyes scanning the flickering holographic screen with fierce, narrow intensity. “That’s where they’re holding the remaining fourteen nerds in an underground ossuary.”
“Let’s go spring some plumbing leaks in the local tyranny,” I replied, rolling my shoulders with a cocky, eager stretch. I folded space and wrapped us in a cloak of shadow that felt like plunging headfirst into an ice-cold mist.
We bypassed three full floors of security in a single, violently nauseating heartbeat, materializing directly inside the damp, skull-lined tunnels of the Catacombs. The suffocating reek of wet mold, ancient lime, and crumbling marrow slapped us right in the face.
Rows of reinforced glass cells lined the mossy walls, housing bewildered teenagers and adults—transmigrants ripped from their air-conditioned lives on Earth to star in a low-budget magical reality show.
Alarms blared, red light strobing as automated defense turrets dropped from the vaulted ceiling with the screech of rusted, grinding gears, hovering like angry metal spiders among the ancient skulls.
“Left one’s mine,” original Tiara deadpanned, a dangerous spark of aggression lighting up her face.
She didn't wait. Driven by pure combat adrenaline, she vaulted off a crumbling pillar of femurs, dry bones crunching like potato chips under her boots. She grabbed a turret’s scorching-hot barrel with her bare hands, ripped it straight out of the masonry with a violent, ruthless jerk, and punted it across the corridor where it smashed into the far wall with a deafening CRASH.
I snapped my fingers. Space twisted violently, folding an incoming laser blast right back into the second turret’s cooling core. BOOM. Simultaneously, with a smug, effortless flex of will, I unleashed a pulse of raw psychic weight—the third turret's internal circuits sputtered and fried under my spiritual pressure, collapsing into a smoking pile of melted scrap.
The prisoners stared, jaws dragging on the dusty floor. A guy in a faded cat shirt pressed his clammy hands against the smudged glass, his eyes wide with frantic desperation.
Stepping up beside him was Kevin—a silver-haired mercenary transmigrant and former digital infiltrator, smelling faintly of ozone and stale coffee as he casually leaned his hip against the glass with unflappable, amused composure. Beside him stood Lyra—a sharp-tongued vanguard knight in battle-worn plate, the faint scent of leather and iron wafting off her armor as she kept order with a fierce, protective glare.
Kevin raised an eyebrow, a dry, teasing smirk touching his lips. “Took you long enough. We were about to remodel this dump ourselves.”
Lyra crossed her armored arms, her gauntlets clinking softly while her eyes flashed with fiery, bloodthirsty approval. “I like your style, assassins. You break doors with the kind of enthusiasm I can get behind.”
I strolled up to their cell, smelling the electric sizzle of the magnetic lock, and smiled with swaggering confidence. I didn't even touch the keypad. I warped the space inside the mechanism, crushing the microchips into a fine metallic powder. The heavy iron door swung open with a polite little chime.
“We’re the professional extermination crew,” I told them, trading a lingering, charged glance with Kevin and a sharp, appreciative wink with Lyra, feeling a sudden, thrilling flutter in my chest. Between Kevin's snark and Lyra's raw muscle, my polyamorous heart realized our upcoming hit squad was going to be dangerously distracting. “And you two are officially off the hook.”
The original Tiara grinned predatorily, her fingers dancing with wicked anticipation as a steel needle spun between her knuckles with a soft whir. “The facility is on fire, the exit is wide open, and management is taking a nap. Grab some hardware. We’ve got a polycule to build and Grand Arbiters to slaughter.”
A collective, feral grin spread across the crowd as a wave of vengeful excitement swept through the cells. When you drag professional assassins, snarky mercenaries, and deadly vanguard knights out of their normal lives, steal their Wi-Fi, and treat them like lab rats, you don't create victims. You create an elite hit squad with a remarkably chaotic dating pool.
I looked down the skull-lined tunnel toward the main altar. Hyper-regeneration thrummed pleasantly under my skin, thermal frost danced across my knuckles, and spatial energy hummed at my fingertips like a live wire—flanked by two very distracting, very lethal partners.
I turned to my alternate self with a hungry, unhinged smirk. “Ready to retire upper management permanently?”
She racked the slide of her shotgun with a vicious, satisfying jerk, her ruby eyes blazing with pure, unadulterated homicidal joy. “Born ready, partner. Let's go body some bureaucrats.”