The Harmony Guardians continued rushing through the laboratory. They only saw one other experiment currently ongoing, but this one was very different from the first. Instead of a subject that was already delirious with the tattoo on its neck, they found someone who had yet to be branded by the Human experiment. The Triton they saved was still in awful shape. He was battered and bruised, malnourished, and struggling just to move, but he was still able to do so.
Unfortunately, the group was unable to bring him along. Instead, they found a small storage room and let him stay there with a bottle of water. The man thanked them and found a corner to hide in until they could return to bring him outside.
It very much looked like there was no one around, only the two people they had fought while working on the experiments. It was strange to think that people had their individual labs, even when they had that massive open surgery theater. But no one was truly interested in understanding why these monsters were acting the way they were. Any hope of finding common ground with the people involved in the Soldier of Strength project was long gone.
The mere sight of the operation rooms they left behind only made their blood boil even more. Nothing could prepare them for how cruel the procedures actually were. Everyone had a loose understanding of it, and they had all seen the victims who were able to survive. But just looking at the implements used to brand people with the tattoo, and the amount of blood that covered every single surgery room, almost made even the strongest among them throw up.
It was, frankly, amazing. Every time they believed the humans couldn’t get any worse, couldn’t do something even more cruel, they were surprised by their creativity.
And the room they had just entered was no different. It wasn’t a surgery room or a place where the experiments actually happened. Instead, it was a meeting room with a large whiteboard and a table, where people could write down notes and discuss whatever they needed to.
But what was written on that whiteboard was the most horrifying notion they had ever seen.
There were a few options for what would be the next step in the Soldier of Strength program. Ideas ranged from creating animals and monsters that could be controlled by a specific person to the development of weapons bound to the daemons. That idea was even marked as “promising” and had some resources allocated to it.
However, it wasn’t the project with the most resources available. That honor went to Stage 2 of the Soldiers of Strength, ominously called Children of Strength.
It was hard to understand the specifics, as the whiteboard only had bullet points. But it seemed the humans intended to make the new version truly new. The plans were split between two options: orphans and fetuses.
For orphans, which was the option crossed out, the benefits were listed as: quantity, less prone to escape, no one will miss them, and easily manipulated. The cons included: poor quality of product, subpar genetic origin, and tendency to become attached to its creator.
On the side of the fetuses, the cons were listed as: dealing with the mother, resource-intensive, screening required, and “18-year plan.” That last con was crossed out and replaced by “accelerated aging, reduced to 6 years.”
On the pro list for fetuses were: genetic manipulation, better adaptability, can be psychologically programmed, in-house production, and harder to track.
Apparently, they had chosen the second option: creating the Soldiers of Strength out of unborn children. They were even discussing the methods they could use to make those children. The words “breeding facility” and “artificial womb” were scrawled to the side of the list.
No one said a thing as they stared at the whiteboard. They all just hoped that if they stared long enough, the words would somehow change and prove that things were not as bad as they seemed. But reality wasn’t so kind.
After what felt like a lifetime for every single member of the team, Blade called over one of Hera’s snakes and made sure to record every single sentence that was written on the board.
"This is crossing a line," Flint shook his head. "I know they already crossed many, but this… this is…" He couldn’t find the words.
"Sickening," Iris replied.
"That feels like an understatement, but it’s as good a word as any," the dwarf sighed.
"I don’t even want to think about what this means," Neria gestured toward the words under the fetus column.
"Me neither," Skyler shook her head.
"This should be all. Let’s keep going," Blade said as she turned around and left the room.
She didn’t have to say it twice for the rest of the group to follow. No one wanted to stay there any longer.
Not long after, they arrived at another massive door. According to the layout of the facility, behind the door would be the cells. They tried to open it with the control panel or by pressing the button in the middle, but nothing worked.
Without wasting any more time, Blade turned to Grimm. "Want to blow something up?"
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The dwarf grinned from ear to ear. "Always."
He quickly pulled something from his pouch that looked very much like putty—a strange blue mixture he could mold with his hands. Using some manner of tool, he crafted another component and placed it in the middle. It was essentially a mix between a gummy worm and a dynamite stick.
"Door, meet Beatrice," Grimm smiled.
"Beatrice is a long, soft red thing?" Vash asked.
"It was her drag name. And trust me, the original could do much more damage when she wanted to," Grimm replied, placing the compound along the edge of the door.
Since it was such a large structure, he was only able to form a small L-shape in the bottom-left corner. They picked that specific location because the closest cell was supposed to be on the other side of the wall.
Once the explosive was set up, everybody rushed back to a nearby room and took cover. Grimm held onto a small line he had connected to the explosive.
"On your mark, boss."
Blade glanced back, making sure everybody was in position before saying, "Do it."
"Now spank me and call me your little soldier," Grimm said.
"What?" Blade blinked, hoping she had heard it wrong.
"Wasn’t talking to you," Grimm replied just before he pulled the line.
"He was talking to the explosive," Iris and Ivy added, but their voices were drowned out by the sound of a large explosion. Smoke and ash rushed through the hallway as an immense pressure surged in all directions.
Blade quickly closed the door to make sure they wouldn’t be dragged by the air current.
"Did you mess something up?" she gasped.
"No, my explosion didn’t do that," Grimm protested.
"Then what did?" Blade asked.
"The only thing that could make something like that happen is if the ambient pressure was different between here and the cells," Skyler said with a frown.
"Are you saying the humans are keeping our people in a low-atmosphere environment?" Iris asked.
"Maybe. For the air to rush like that, that’s what makes sense. And that would explain why people don’t rebel. I mean, they’re not grabbing just random people off the street. As far as everybody knows, the humans are targeting people who are somewhat strong. It’s strange that we haven’t heard anything about people escaping or fighting back. But if they’re being kept in a jail that forces them to use everything they have just to survive, that explains it," Skyler added.
Everyone paused, and Roan turned back to the door. "At this point, I’m not even surprised anymore. Let’s go help our people."
He opened the door with confidence, as his hearing told him that the rush of wind had stopped. The corridor beyond was now empty, without any debris or smoke, all of it had been dragged inside the jail.
Inside, they saw over a hundred different cells, each holding at least three people. Everyone looked tired, beaten, and malnourished. But there were people from all different species of the Alliance: Tritons, dwarves, harpies, elves, beastmen, and more.
Most of them didn’t even look up as the group walked through the jail. It was as if they were so numb that it didn’t matter who appeared, they simply didn’t care. But a few reached out, a glimmer of hope crossing their eyes, only to retreat when they realized this new group of people was not going to take them out of there.
The Harmony Guardians wanted to stop and start opening the cells, but they knew this was not their goal, not right now. First, they had to record everything. It hurt, but that was the plan. In this war, evidence was more important than the lives of anyone. Even so, everybody silently vowed to come back soon to help these people.
According to the blueprints, the last cell was different. It was wider and had extra protections inside, which made them imagine that something important was held there.
The actual cell was closed off from the rest of the facility. You couldn’t even see what was happening inside. As a result, Grimm had to use another explosive to open the door. This time, he went with a weaker one, something he called "Jessy," which was apparently named after an old high school crush that never came to be.
Once the door was open, the entire group walked inside, just in case the cell contained some sort of experiment gone wrong. Which, in a way, it did.
Trapped inside the cell was a rotting centaur, missing its legs and arms. It was suspended by various chains that weren’t simply wrapped around its body but hooked into its very skin. The centaur’s entire body was covered in tattoos, many of them early versions of the ones used by the Soldiers of Strength. But there were others, too. It seemed this centaur was patient zero, the first experiment that suffered at the hands of the humans.
"What the—?" Before Neria could finish her sentence, the centaur moved, causing everyone to jump back.
This rotting corpse in front of them was actually alive. It was a living creature, mid-decomposition. It had no eyes, no tongue, and maggots crawled over its head. Yet something was keeping it alive.
They watched as it opened its mouth, trying to speak, but there was nothing, only an empty void where its tongue should have been.
"The fuck is the matter with these people?" Flint gasped.
"Beautiful, is it not?" a voice came from behind them, making the entire group spin on their heels.
Outside the cell stood a very muscular woman with short blue hair and armor with a black-and-white motif.
"Frostbite!" Blade’s voice was full of venom.
"Hi, traitor. I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of hearing your name from my voice."
"Don’t worry. I’m going to make sure you never say anything ever again," Blade snarled, pulling her sword.
"Why are you doing this?" Neria asked, gesturing toward the centaur.
"That? Oh, that was an advanced scout, the first centaur that came into contact with us. Since no one had ever seen anything like it in the MAZE, we needed to understand how it ticked. What was the best way to kill it? Things like that. After we figured that part out, we couldn’t exactly let him go back, you know? It would’ve been very hard to explain to his people why he went through so much. So, we decided to recycle him into a new project. One that I assume you’re all too familiar with," Frostbite said with a smile, her gloves already glistening with ice.
"I don’t care about whatever fucking story you have to tell. I’m ending this, and I’m ending you!" Blade lunged forward.
The entire team jumped out of the cell, only to find a group of Soldiers of Strength already waiting for them. But no one cared about the danger. As long as they could kill Frostbite, destroy this laboratory, and end the horrors it had created, nothing else mattered.