A thunderous crash jolted me awake. I must have fainted from the strain of the last few serums. The room seemed brighter now, illuminated by even more candles, casting the shadows of four people on the walls. Wait, four? There were only three when I blacked out. Before I could ponder this, a groan escaped me as pain surged through my body once more.

As I struggled to regain my bearings, my senses heightened from previous dosages of the serum. The sound of a familiar alto’s rapid speech flowed into my ears. It grew louder and more fervent as she spoke, mingling with the enraged shouts of the madman.

“You don’t understand!” The alto insisted as she continued, growing more frantic as she explained again, “Our suppliers have been compromised, Anthony. The Intergalactic Federation’s military raided those pirates you insisted on dealing with. They know of our most recent acquisition now; we are running out of time!”

“This can’t be happening, not now! We were so close to creating the perfect being. I will have to step up the pace for the current project and scrap the next one.”

The intensity in Anthony’s voice was palpable, his panic evident as he grappled with the news. Eliza’s betrayal was now unmistakable. She stood firm before him, revealing the depth of her involvement. Her words and actions were more than just a betrayal; they were a crucial tidbit of information.

I won’t lie and say the confirmation wasn’t expected at some point, but it couldn’t stop the pang of sadness in my heart either. I wanted to ask her why, why did she betray my family. Why did she bring me here? I wanted to believe she was forced, but I couldn’t delude myself. I knew she had been involved from the start.

I reached out to her slowly, each movement strained, and croaked, “Why?”

I couldn’t say more; I had pushed myself beyond my limits as an agonizing fire tore through my body again.

Eliza’s eyes flashed with shame for a moment, “I had no choice.”

Her voice was soft, guilt weighed it down as it slammed into my ears like the crashing of a wave. Her voice was barely audible over the chaos, but my enhanced hearing caught it. She turned back to my tormentor, “The Federation’s military is expected to arrive and raid this base in the next 5 hours. With our current might, we can buy another 4 as most. How many serums have been applied?”

“Ten.” Anthony’s voice was terse, his face a mask of grim determination.

Eliz’s gaze shifted back to me, her expression a mixture of regret and resignation. “We need to complete the experiment quickly, Anthony. If the federation arrives before we finish, it will all be for nothing. What’s the application rate?”

“One serum every thirty minutes. We are now on Serum eleven. There is still the implantation process of the core that must be done.”

“How soon can the implementation process be done?”

Anthony’s face hardened as he calculated. “It will take another four and a half hours for the serums, plus an additional hour to stabilize and sedate. After that, the core implantation will take thirty minutes. Recovery will require two hours before she can awaken, or three if you want her to survive the process.”

Eliza’s expression tightened, “We have exactly nine hours. The process will take that long, I will need to notify the garrison that there will be no retreat this time. Make sure you finish ASAP, do not delay. Remember your promise, she needs to live.”

Without another word, the woman left in a hurry, each footstep echoing through the hall.

Anthony glared at the space where she had been, his frustration boiling over. “Damn it, Eliza! Always pushing, always demanding more. She’s been demanding too much from me lately, and now she’s gone and made this situation worse.” He paced furiously; his anger palpable. “I knew she would come in here with her deadline, her expectations, but she doesn’t understand the pressure. She thinks this is a simple task, but we’re working against the clock here!”

Turning back to the task at hand, Anthony took a deep breath to steady himself. “But I won’t let her die,” he muttered fiercely, his resolve hardening. “She’s made mistakes, but I promised her. I won’t break that promise. We’ll get this done, even if it means pushing ourselves to the edge.”

With grim determination displacing his madness, Anthony and his two guards began the time-consuming process of administering the remaining serums. Every minute counted as they raced against the clock. He would follow through and keep up his end of the bargain.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the facility:

Prince Rikka Shu was confined in a high-security cell, a stark, cold room designed to be impenetrable. The walls were lined with energy-absorbent panels, and the locking mechanism was a technological marvel, engineered to thwart any escape attempts. Shu had a hidden asset: a Magitech watch strapped to his wrist. While it might look like an ordinary noble's watch, it was a custom-built hacking tool.

The watch was the brainchild of himself and a team of MagiTech engineers loyal to his family. He had developed a hobby for hacking ever since he was little, much to the dismay of his tutors. His family, on the other hand, had always been overly indulgent in the hobbies of their children, be they good... or bad for them.

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Shu’s empire, which he was fated to one day rule, was riddled with corruption. It was an open secret that those in power often disregarded seemingly minor issues or crimes within the nation if enough money exchanged hands. This widespread leniency had bred complacency, allowing the nation to rot from the inside out. As the crown prince, Shu was all too aware of this decay, and it weighed heavily on him. He believed himself destined to be the hero who would save his people, to root out the corruption that others chose to ignore.

This belief had driven Shu to take action many times before, often with success. But this time was different. When he learned that hundreds of children and young adults were being kidnapped, he had expected swift action from his kingdom. He had advocated fiercely for an investigation, pushing for a raid on the kidnappers’ hideouts. But his pleas fell on deaf ears. The bureaucracy was slow, the officials uninterested, and the corruption, as always, deep.

If they won’t do anything, I will. He had thought, spurred on by his growing frustration and anger to take action again. Worst case, I get kidnapped and they are forced to move. Father wouldn’t stand for their delays any further then.

It was a reckless thought borne of desperation to help his people and an overgrown hero complex. He had believed himself invincible, with his advanced tech and the fact he was a royal. He was trained in the art of war and diplomacy, where he regularly had the best of everything thrown at him. I'm pretty safe, he had reassured himself.

But that confidence had been his undoing. After jacking a royal shuttle and flying out to the last known location of a kidnapping incident, the Saint Jord Space Station, Shu encountered a band of space pirates. He was swiftly captured and sold to the very organization he sought to expose.

Now, he sat on a disheveled cot in a cold, sterile cell, the reality of his situation hitting him with full force. Or so I thought, he mused bitterly, reflecting on the grave miscalculation he had made. He had believed he was up against a common group of slave-trading thugs, but the reality was far more sinister. His desire to be the hero had led him directly into the hands of his enemies.

With him being confined to the sterile, inescapable cell. Shu had no time to dwell on his mistakes. He needed information, and he had a means to gather it.

He knew what he had to do: connect to the facility’s servers, bypass the security and firewalls, and gather as much information as possible. Every piece was crucial, not only for his own escape but for stopping the horrific experiments taking place. He needed to record everything, every bit of proof of the atrocities committed within these walls.

Taking a deep breath, Shu began the process. He activated the watch’s advanced hacking interface. The holographic display lit up in front of him. The first step was to establish a connection to the facility’s main servers. This wouldn’t be easy; the place was locked down tighter than any system he’d hacked before. But he had to try.

His fingers danced over the holographic controls, running complex algorithms and initiating multiple connection protocols. The watch’s interface responded quickly, sending out feelers to probe the network’s defenses. Shu watched as the first firewall came into view on the display, a web of intricate code designed to keep intruders out.

“Let’s see how strong you really are,” he muttered, diving into the task.

He began crafting a series of bypass codes, using his knowledge of Magitech and his own ingenuity to break through the first layer of security. The watch hummed quietly as it processed his commands, working in tandem with him. After a few tense moments, the first firewall collapsed, allowing him a glimpse into the facility’s network.

“One down,” Shu whispered, but he knew this was just the beginning.

As he moved deeper into the system, the defenses grew more complex. The firewalls were layered, each one more intricate than the last. Shu focused, pushing his limits as he worked to outmaneuver the facility’s security protocols. Sweat beaded on his forehead, but he kept going, driven by the urgency of the situation.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Shu breached the final firewall. He was in. The facility’s servers lay before him, a vast array of files and data streams just waiting to be explored.

“Now, let’s see what you’re hiding,” he said, his voice tense with determination.

He immediately set the watch to record everything it accessed, storing the data in an encrypted file. This information would be invaluable, not just to him, but to anyone who could help shut this place down. He navigated through the server’s directories, his heart pounding as he uncovered log after log of failed experiments. Each one was more horrific than the last, filled with clinical descriptions of subjects who had been twisted and broken by the procedures.

But one file caught his attention: Ongoing. Shu’s breath hitched. This was what he needed; data on the current experiment. Whatever they were working on now was clearly of the highest importance, given the amount of security measures around it.

He tried to access it, but the file was locked with advanced encryption. He attempted to crack it, but despite his best efforts, the encryption held firm. Frustrated, Shu was forced to move on, but the failure only heightened his sense of urgency. He couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever was in that file was crucial.

Turning his attention to other logs, Shu discovered a name that appeared repeatedly: Elara Vale, Code Name: #724. As he read through the entries, a sense of dread settled over him. Elara had been subjected to numerous experiments ranging from genetic modifications, and neurological reprogramming, to physical augmentations—all meticulously documented. The clinical detachment with which her suffering was recorded made his stomach turn.

“This is monstrous,” he whispered, horrified by what he had uncovered.

Elara wasn’t just another test subject. She was the centerpiece of whatever this facility was trying to accomplish. The more Shu read, the more concerned he became. What were they doing to her? And why was she so important that they kept pushing the boundaries of ethics and science to such extremes?

As he delved deeper into the data, another notification caught his eye: Supply Routes Compromised. Intrigued, Shu accessed the logs, and what he found gave him a glimmer of hope. The facility’s suppliers had been raided recently; and their operations dismantled. Whoever had been supplying the facility was no longer a threat. The terse reports indicated that the raids were part of a larger operation.

“So, they finally decided to do something,” Shu muttered, a mix of relief and bitterness in his tone. It had taken his capture to spur the empire into action, but at least they were moving now.

But this was just the beginning. The real battle lay ahead and uncovering the full extent of the horrors being conducted within this facility while finding a way to stop them before it was too late was a must. With the data streaming into his watch, Shu knew he had what he needed to expose the truth.

The only question was whether he could do it before they realized what he was up to.