They rushed into the circular lobby of the Arbeau. Rue had to stop; he was far faster than the other two.

  He turned to see Ben and Fruer struggling to run as they dragged two rats' bodies each. Behind both men, an acid hydra lurched forward like a snake. It opened its mouth, and the usual green sheen of the acid colored the dark tunnel as it kept going toward Fruer and Ben’s back.

  This might be troublesome.

  Rue ran back, dropping his rats and daggers. Both military men were panting, and Rue reached out, grabbed their shirts, and shouted. “Just drop it!”

  They did so. With a heave, and his system-granted strength, Rue hurled both into the tunnel’s entrance. Their bodies went rolling across with hysterical screams, but Rue did not have time to check on them.

  He briskly whirred around, aiming his wand toward the hydra. Frost Blast was building by his wand’s tip, but Rue’s Mana barely recovered. He held the spell back; the tip of his Ashwood Wand shone with bright blue.

  The Acid Hydra grew smaller and smaller as it kept receding toward him. Soon, it was barely the size of Rue’s head.

  Now!

  Rue blasted his frost forward. A small explosion of blue frost discharged, splitting apart the Hydra’s head. His spell was not powerful enough to freeze it, but now it should—

  “Watch out!” Fruer shouted.

  The Hydra burst apart into a small explosion of water, then formed into small needles that hung in the air.

  What the hell?

  Hundreds of green death descended upon Rue. He raised his hand, trying to summon his sword, but his mana did not respond. His well was empty.

  “Catch!”

  Rue's head snapped to his left, and two bodies of Drip rats flew at him.

  He reached sideways, abandoning his defense. With both hands, he managed to clutch one of the Drip rat’s heads and swung it at the charging acid needles. The rat’s body shielded his body, but as it smashed into the left wall of the tunnel, Rue’s right side was undefended and leftover acid about ten needles stabbed into him.

  He suppressed a scream, tightening his jaw as a hiss of corrosive burn churned out from his right shoulder. His doctor’s coat melted, and the acid did not spare his scrubs either. As they sped into Rue’s skin, they began to melt it away. Rue’s heart throbbed in his chest as his skin turned green. A green twist bent his skin apart, and they began to come off. His vision began to distort. Rue fell on his knees.

  “Lad! Lad!”

  Ben’s voice melted away.

  The Acid kept going until it made something—a resistance.

  Cold flushed out the poison through his body. His blood pierced like a winter sword, freezing the poison's acidic nature and nullifying it.

  Where green blight of skin had taken across Rue’s shoulder, dark blue frost crept in like a distant wound, but with the color of darkish ocean.

  “What is this? How did you do this? None of us ever survives even one of those,” Fruer demanded.

  Rue did not answer; he clutched his healing wound and began walking into the lobby.

  “Walk,” Rue told Ben and Fruer. “And the answer to your question is magic. If you want it, then follow me, and trust me, you need it.”

  “James Lisbon,” Fruer stopped once they entered the lobby. “What do you need?”

  “A freezer, a human-sized freezer that works. Put me in it, and gather people. Explain everything to them, both of you. Explain how we’re going to charge in.”

  “Understood, Ben, you go and direct the watch squad, watch for any sign of the Elephant Rat. If any are spotted, then send a detachment to delay.”

  “That is suicide,” Ben said, shrugging.

  “I know. Now, mind explaining why you want to be in a freezer?”

  “Magic stuff.”

  “Sure, I will take that.”

  --

  Ein pulled both of these green daggers off the already dead rat. He carefully lifted his blades. Green acid shone brightly, even dripping down to the Arbeau third floor, and sent a hiss of smoke up. He almost flinched. Steadying his breath, he awkwardly gripped it, making sure his hand was well behind the dagger’s guard, clasped hard to the bone handle.

  “I actually killed it,” Edna said, still breathing harshly. They’d found a Drip rat, weak and on its last leg. Their mission had been to absorb more acid into their daggers, and now they had more than ten, thanks to Rue Hazard and now Ein, tasked with filling two of them. Their second mission was this rat's body.

  “Come on then, let’s do it quickly,” Ein said, using one of the daggers to skin the rat. His hand still shook profusely, that was until Edna gripped his wrist and softly said:

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Just let the blade do the job, Ein. You’re not the one who will get close to the acid; it's the blade.” She began to hold the rat down to stop it from twitching and peeled its skin away. She made it look almost so easy.

  His eyes still had to do a double-take. No matter what kind of bullet they threw, it always bounced off them. But a dagger did the job? Well, this was by no means a normal dagger, but still…

  “Ein! Careful with those.” A new voice shouted, a familiar voice he heard so often—

  “Oh, you gotta be kidding me,” Edna grumbled under her breath as she tried to focus.

  Before Ein could even turn, a warm figure hugged him, her hair smelled of a slight floral scent from the… His mind snapped.

  “Penelope! What are you doing here!” he hissed.

  “We saw the Elephant Rat taken down…” she said, her chest heaving up and down. “I—We saw the entire fight, Ein. He slaughtered all of them. We should be fine now, right? He is here after all.”

  “Are you here alone?” Ein gripped her shoulder, not answering her question. When she winced, Ein slackened his grip and mumbled. “Sorry, I just.”

  “It’s fine,” she snuggled her head to his chest. “No, I’m not alone, I just ran out when I saw your back, look,” she motioned to her back, where five people carefully jogged toward them.

  “Dammit, Penelope,” he sighed, ruffling her head.

  “Look, Romeo, Juliet, we don’t have time for this,” Edna said.

  Penelope would usually blush hard at any kind of teasing, but instead, she jolted upright. “What? What happened? Is he well?”

  “He is injured,” Ein said.

  “Injured? What are we going to do then? Where is he? I already met with father, and he is not treated in…”

  “He is in the kitchen,” Edna answered. “And with these, everything should be ready.” She added the rat skin to the nine others they had already found dead.

  “We met our quota then,” Ein said, standing, helping Penelope up. “You shouldn’t have come, Penelope. Come on, to the kitchen where everyone gathers.”

  They were lucky.

  Ein had feared that leading an eight-man team would be outright impossible. There was a damn good reason he and Edna went with only two of them. Even with the advantage of security cameras, they didn't exactly have a tablet to show the feed; he had to settle for the radio pressed to his ear.

  “To the right, Ein, you have to take a detour. Don’t use the second stair, go for the fifth, it’s a narrow window, so approach fast.”

  “Got it,” Ein said, motioning for all of them to follow.

  He noticed that three of them, including Penelope, did not have proper training, causing Ein to stay back to make sure their steps would not be too loud.

  After descending the Arbeau’s infamous crescent stairs, they crossed into four large intersecting hallways where groups of convenience stores were lined next to each other.

  “Cross,” Ein ordered. “Keep your head below the cashier counter.”

  That was perhaps unnecessary since he didn't spot any of the Man-rat. Only the normal rats wandering around as their mind slowly faded away. They looked so weak.

  “Do we need more skin?” Ein asked.

  “No, we are about to execute the operation, so get back quickly.”

  Operation?

  Ein tapped the radio once, and they safely skulked around straight into the kitchen located at the very end of the branched hallway. It was a conjoined kitchen meant for all the stores’ employees, so it was quite large with a freezer that was pretty much a freezing warehouse.

  Finally, Ein let his shoulder slacken as he pushed over the double door. Inside, he was instantly greeted by more than a thousand faces. He recognized a couple of hundred military and police in the middle of the room, surrounding a figure—Fruer. The rest were nervous citizens with some teenagers mixed in.

  This does not look good.

  He and Edna stacked their rats’ skin atop a metallic table where every kitchen utensil had been cleared. Across a large open space were those who were sewing the rat skin into various objects like small tables, woks, and even chairs.

  It did not take a genius to figure out the plan.

  “So we are not running then,” Ein concluded.

  “Look, they are arguing about it,” Penelope said, right hand clutching her left shoulder.

  “Fruer, this is madness! I don’t know why you take this nonsense about magic and all! Half of us are teenagers and children, for god’s sake!” One man screamed, earning nods from most of the room.

  “Madness is not accepting what we saw with our own eyes, Rick,” Fruer said, leaning against a cabinet.

  Cries of complaint rushed at the old commander, and Fruer massaged his head. Still, the commander was fair; he answered the questions one by one, even though those were clearly questions born of desperation and human nature to escape instead of fight.

  “Come on, let's take a better look,” Edna said, leading him and Penelope around. They tried to get inside the crowd, having to edge across the kitchen in front of the freezer sealed by a double door. There was just no way in.

  “Penelope! Penelope!”

  Penelope froze, and at once a sheepish face appeared on her face.

  Perez waded through the crowd, running to his daughter, almost stumbling. The doctor’s bald head shone in the fluorescent kitchen light. His doctor’s coat was marred with blood. Noticing this, Perez hesitated to hug his daughter.

  Instead, Penelope pulled him. “I’m here, dad. I’m fine.”

  “Yes, you are,” he blinked a tear. “Why did you run off… My princ—” His eyes settled on Ein, and they burned.

  Ein respected the man quite a lot. However, one thing that always got on his nerves was that when it came to Penelope, Perez refused to blame her for anything and instead pointed to those around her. And his first target was, of course, Ein, her boyfriend.

  “Perez, let’s all come down, not the time for this—” Edna tried.

  Perez bristled forward, lightly letting Penelope go. “You! Sneaking out with my daughter in a warzone is not enough!?”

  “Dad—”

  By now, the room's attention shifted to them thanks to Perez's anger.

  Ein had to steady his chest as he had been through this situation many times.

  He smiled. “Perez, you misunderstand—”

  “Misunderstand! What is there to misunderstand? She left because of you! Had I not told you to bring her back if she followed you!”

  “She snuck in! I did not know until—”

  “Reasons!” Perez snapped.

  “Stop this, Dad! Come on!” Penelope dragged Perez’s arm, but he kept going, clenching his other hand into a fist.

  “I should have known you’re bad news from the very start! Like father, like son!”

  Ein flinched, his body locked down. Deep down, he knew Perez did not mean it. The man was loving and had taken him fishing every week available, and they would talk about Penelope until sunset.

  To compare him to his father…

  His hand clenched.

  Just take it. He is angry. This is an unreasonable situation. People lash out when they are angry and emotional. That’s right, just… don’t make it worse, Ein.

  “Everyone has priority, if you can't prioritize her even after my blessing—”

  Penelope’s eyes widened, her eyes watered, and Ein bit his cheek. It was supposed to be a surprise.

  “I will never allow you to—”

  The freezer door flew open.

  Cold rushed forward like an unbidden winter, and a half-helmeted figure tapped his hand on Ein’s shoulder.

  Rue Hazard’s face was still covered, but once again, Ein knew he was smiling.

  Rue formed a fist and pulled it.

  Ein was about to tackle him and stop him, but at the last second, he let it happen.

  The Hazard slammed his fist straight into Perez’s nose. Blood splurted. The doctor's body collapsed with a sickening thud.

  “James Lisbon,” Rue Hazard introduced himself to the silent kitchen. “A pleasure, everyone. Now, I will be spearheading the negotiation with the rats. And, no, this is not up for discussion.”

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