The evening had come and two young, pretty ladies were sitting on the edge of a fountain in the school’s courtyard.

Xena and Yarah, those were their names. They had been guarding the student council president ever since he was elected by the student body, under their protection, he had never been injured.

That was, until today. They had been shocked, embarrassed, an entire myriad of feelings filled them because of their failure.

Yarah, along with Gus, had been easily defeated by the woman called Fox. They had lost so quickly, Yarah was ashamed to even call herself a member of the senior Myth class. She remembered waking up in the infirmary next to Xaltiq, whose entire body was covered in bandages that were stained with blood.

Horror had seized her heart and a multitude of thoughts flew through her mind.

Maybe if they had been there, perhaps the president wouldn’t have gotten those injuries, maybe he wouldn’t have been put under that stress.

Yarah clenched her fist. No, even if they had been there, they would have just been in the way, even worse, they would have been killed.

Swiftly.

“There’s nothing we could have done,” Xena told the young girl she considered to be her best friend. “We’re far too weak... even after the experiments, we could never properly protect Xaltiq.”

“That’s very true,” an unfamiliar voice said from behind the girls. “Your strength is hardly enough to qualify you to be worthy opponents of mine. But alas, orders are orders.”

“What!” Xena whipped around, unsheathing the saber that she carried at her side. As a member of the disciplinary committee, she was allowed to be armed on campus at all times. “You are... you’re Vyne? The new freshman.”

The man smiled, it was such a captivating smile that Xena’s and Farah’s heart both skipped a beat. “Yes, that’s who I am.”

“What did you mean earlier? Did you hear what we said?”

Vyne nodded his head. “Mhmm. Indeed, I did. Experiments, how interesting. It would seem that my Lord was right on the mark with his suspicions.”

Yarah also drew her rapier, she couldn’t allow him to just walk away. “What do you want?”

“Hah... nothing that you have to worry about. Now,「 Sleep」.”

Yarah and Xena both hit the ground, their skulls made a sick sound when they cracked against the rock, but Vyne paid it no mind. In the first place, he didn’t care about their lives or their safety. So, when their blood started to leak from the gashes in their foreheads, Vyne simply picked their bodies up and tossed them over his shoulders then used a spell that turned the blood into dust that was blown away in the breeze.

He made his way back to where he had the other two bodies and dumped Yarah and Xena with them. Vyne cracked his neck and sent a message for Dark Mist to come to where he was.

Within a matter of moments, a horse created from the shadows appeared, it had eight legs that seemed to have a fire lit on them as the black lights flicked back and forth. On top of the shadow horse was a man wearing a dark, crimson robe that completely hid his face in darkness.

“Hello, Vyne, long time no see,” Dark Mist said while leaping off of the horse. “There are two more people than I was expecting?”

Vyne nodded his head. “Lord Erebus told me to bring these two girls along also. They’re still alive along with the dark-haired guard, I used「Sleep」 on them, so none of them should be awake by the time you get back to the castle.”

“I see...” Dark Mist pulled out two, small dolls that had absolutely no detail on them or any indication of what gender they’d be. “These are the doppelgangers, they’re tired so they took the forms of some of Lilian’s unfinished dolls.”

The dolls, incapable of speech, simply turned their heads around as they looked at their surroundings.

Vyne pointed to Xena and Yarah. “Transform into them, do a full body transformation so that you may retain all of their information about them.”

The dolls walked over on their plushy feet and touched one of the girls. Their bodies began to morph and distort, creating a rather gruesome visage as hair sprouted out of their heads and there was the sound of bones cracking and popping.

Soon enough, Xena and Yarah stood in front of Vyne. “Our mission is to continue protecting the one named Xaltiq?” the doppelgangers spoke in unison. When Vyne nodded, the doppelgangers said,“We have finished our scan. All of their memories are now in our mind, we will behave accordingly.”

“That’s good. Go on then.”

The doppelgangers nodded and then ran off.

“Gah, they’re so creepy,” Dark Mist complained. “I rode in silence that entire time, sometimes they’d crawl out of my sack and do strange movements, it was so weird...”

“Get over it,” Vyne said.

Dark Mist only pouted his lips as he threw the bodies on top of each other like sacks of grain and then tied them together. “That should be good enough, I’ll deliver them to Mae. I don’t want to go to her room... it stinks.”

Vyne had no words as he watched Dark Mist climb back onto Sleipnir and disappear into the nighttime.

...

Inside a room that reeked of alcohol, like Dark Mist had said, a scantily clad woman was running around, looking inside of beakers and flasks that all contained different types of mana stones and some strange solution she had concocted.

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In her hand, there was a half-empty flask of booze that she would occasionally bring to her lips and take a swig.

Needless to say, the woman who deserved the Rays of Modesty to shine across her was Mae. She had completely transformed the bedroom given to her into her own lab.

The bedroom now stank of alcohol and the plant she smoked for “inspiration”. This scent nearly immobilized anyone who walked in there. It had gotten to the point where no one came to her room unless they absolutely had to. The maids had stopped coming by to clean it ever since one maid got a secondhand hi--strike of inspiration from the pungent substance in Mae’s pipe.

Since Mae was used to this scent, she paid it no mind as she continued to bustle around.

“I have to have everything prepared for my test subjects~” she sung in a scratchy voice.

Someone knocked on Mae’s door and she nearly tripped over her feet when she ran to get it. “Who is it, nya?” she asked coyly, only cracking the door so she could peek her head through.

Her visitor was Dark Mist who was pinching his nose. He spoke to her in a nasal voice, “Lord Erebus had Vyne get the two guards who had indeed been resurrected along with two humans who probably had high exposure to the corrupted mana.”

“Nyaha all right, bring them in, bring them in, I’ll clear out some space. Yahoo~” Mae spun around and began to remove the items haphazardly placed on a long table where her bed used to be. “Nya put the two guards on this and leave the girls by the door, I’ll get to them later.”

Dark Mist nodded, dragging the bodies to their proper location. “One guard will be waking up soon along with the two girls, are you capable of using「 Sleep」?”

“Nya, don’t worry about that. It’s better when they’re conscious when people sleep, their mana processing plummets, you know?”

“Oh, all right.” Dark Mist suddenly remembered Vyne who kept his “patients” alive for his own amusement, because of this deep scar in his soul, he looked at Mae apprehensively.

“Nya? What are you giving me that look for? I’m going to give them anesthesia, I’m not cruel, nya!”

Dark Mist wrinkled his pinched nose before turning to leave, the noxious stench was making him feel wrong.

Mae waved goodbye to the man before spinning around on her heels and facing her new subjects. “I’ll be gentle,” she purred. “Nya, Erebus really knows how to treat a girl by sending her such wonderful specimen!” Her clawed hand stroked the corpse’s face as if she was a mother watching her own children sleep. “I can’t wait to cut into you and see what secrets you’ll reveal to me, nya...” A sick smile spread across her face, her black eyes glittered with excitement.

Mae removed the clothing from the body before proceeding to mark the sections where she was going cut.

“Nya, I’ll find out all your dirty little secrets,” she whispered, picking up a scalpel. “I’m interested to see what mana stones are doing to your body, nya.”

Just as she placed her scalpel against his chest, a soft moan sounded, drawing her attention to the golden-haired female known as Xena. “Nya? Did she wake up already? I’m not ready for her yet, nya!”

Xena’s blurry eyes focused in on the figure of Mae, who was looming over a naked man holding what she thought was a knife. “What are you doing! Step away from him,” she shouted, about to jump up. But she found out that her entire body was incapable of movement, she didn’t see ropes on her body, yet, she couldn’t even wiggle her toes. “What...”

Her heart began to pump wildly as if she just realized what type of situation she was in. At some point in time, Xena had been knocked out, disarmed, and transported to a stinking room.

Mae licked her lips to wetten them. “Nya, calm down.” Her tail flicked in annoyance. “Nya, you humans are always so dramatic,「Command Magic: Silence 」.”

Xena’s mouth clamped shut as if it had been stitched that way.

“Now then, where was I? Nya, I have to focus all over again.” Mae angrily stabbed her scalpel into the wooden table, embedding the blade deeply inside.

Her hand was trembling as she attempted to calm down. If there was one thing Mae hated the most in the world, it was being interrupted.

The moment her concentration broke, she couldn’t focus again for quite a while. Meaning her precious examination would be delayed.

Mae opened her mouth and screeched loudly, digging her nails into her face and stomping her feet.

Mae spun around and kicked the wall, her foot easily breaking through the stone and sticking through the other side. “Dammit, dammit, dammit!” she shrieked, grasping at her shoulder-length hair and tugging it.

Damn that little girl! She was going to treat them both gently, but now that one would have to suffer for disrupting her. Mae had planned on keeping them both alive, but, she only needed one to continue conducting investigations. For the other, she could see what happened when they died again.

After a few more minutes of her tantrum, Mae was finally calm, her chest heaving. Once again, a blissful smile crossed her face. “I should get started, Erebus has been so kind enough to give me this many specimens, I have to work hard.”

She yanked the scalpel out of the wood and pressed it against the chest of the dead man once again.