"Okay, your team is cleared to proceed, Delver Carlson," the Governing Council rep said from the shadows around the blazing yellow portal that had appeared inside Chase Field. The old baseball stadium hadn't housed a professional game in twenty years, and it had fallen into disrepair, but the portal still needed to be cleared; the last thing we needed was a bunch of hobgoblins fortifying it and sending out raids from inside Phoenix.

"Got it," Jeff said. "Alright, the plan's for me, Kade, and Levi to do most of the killing, the double supports to keep everyone buffed up and powerful, and Ellen to wait for opportunities to hit hard. Let's go."

"My dad's gonna be so proud of this," Zeke said. I winced again just looking at him; his dad had bought him a new set of gear. It wasn't the plate he'd been wearing last time, though the sword was the same. Instead, this one was D-Ranked chainmail. The whole set. It was the kind of armor that Yasmin probably longed to wear. It'd keep Zeke safe from just about anything in the D-Rank portal we were in.

He stepped into the portal, but before I could follow, Ellen's hand grabbed me from behind. "I think I hate him already," she hissed.

"Just wait until he really starts talking," I replied. "Let's get this job done. Keep an eye on him and note anything weird."

"Got it." Ellen fished out a sticky note pad and palmed it. Then she nodded. "Let's go."

I stepped through, and Ellen followed me.

Our feet clacked on a dungeon floor that reminded me a little of the trap-filled rampart we'd fought across. Jeff was already fighting, so I summoned Tallas's Dueling Sword and the Stormsteel breastplate, then concentrated a little harder. A new Stormsteel framework rippled up my arm: a space each along the outside of my bicep, around my elbow, and covering the back of my forearm and wrist. Then they filled with swirling maelstroms of wind and rain. The Stormsteel Core had grown, and with it, so had my armor.

I could just about sustain the Mana consumption from the gauntlet and pauldron, breastplate, and sword. It'd mean basically no Mana regeneration, though, so I'd have to drop parts of it when I could. But for now, I needed to strain my Mana pool if I wanted to keep building it to the D-Rank cap, and I needed the protection for the fight ahead.

Whatever Jeff was fighting, they'd once been human…or at least humanoid. Now they were just strung-together skeletons being propelled by magic. The bits of flesh crudely stitched onto them weren't enough to provide power; the rest was skeletal frame and dark, purplish magic. It reminded me of the Blood Orc Revitalists' magic. None of them had hands; instead, cleavers had been grafted directly to the bone like a twisted half-human and half-mantis.

Experiment Thirteen: C-Rank

"Undead!" Jeff yelled as he hacked at a seven-foot-tall skeleton and blocked the incoming attacks on his shield.

Ellen repositioned, but held off casting. "We're probably looking at an Abattoir world. Butchery, traps, and undead enemies. At C-Rank, we'll probably encounter the ones doing the reanimation and butchery, too."

"What the hell?" Zeke asked. He activated his skill as I finished applying my Scripts. "Extra damage incoming!"

I rushed the experiment Jeff was fighting; he'd blocked the hallway in front of us, limiting the number of enemies that could attack, but as we finished readying ourselves, he'd stepped back to allow the fighter and me to attack.

I took advantage of the space. The dueling blade came up in a two-handed grip. Three slashes to the monster's right side. Its arm hung from a stubborn piece of tendon, but it was already healing. Then another strike, this time a thrust to the chest. Its left cleaver cut across my shoulder. I pushed Stamina at the wound and ignored it. The dueling sword flashed across its neck. That should have been a lethal blow, but against the undead experiment, it did nothing.

Experiment Thirteen rounded on me. I stepped back and shifted to my defensive stance as its wounded arm knitted back together with a sucking sound. Zeke retched behind me. "What the hell?" he asked again.

I ignored him. Both cleavers rocketed toward me. I used Flashstep to avoid them and landed behind the monster. My dueling sword burned another cut across Experiment Thirteen's face. It wasn't enough, though—it kept coming.

"Abattoir monsters have some of the most Health out there," Ellen called.

I nodded and parried the next cleaver stroke, then the next. Then I stepped back again. My shoulder wound wasn't bad, but I couldn't afford to take hits, not even weak ones. And I couldn't—or more accurately, didn't want to—use my magic. A blow glanced off the Stormsteel gauntlet, scraping from wrist to elbow.

The cleaver was pitted and notched when it pulled away.

We traded blows, Experiment Thirteen healing everything I threw at it while I blocked and dodged its attacks. Then it screamed, a howl like a banshee filling the air. It cut off; a glowing spear tip erupted from its neck, blowing through the mostly-healed wound I'd put there.

"Thanks," I said. Then I cut and hacked at the monster until it stopped moving altogether. It took almost thirty seconds for it to finally die. By that point, Jeff and Ellen had killed the other Experiment Thirteen.

When the fight was over, everyone was breathing hard. "Zeke, healing aura, please," I said.

The aura switched, and my cuts slowly scabbed over. Yasmin started handing out Scripts, and I finally got a chance to look around.

The brickwork wasn't red. It was a deep gray color that made it almost impossible to see more than fifty feet ahead down the corridor in front of us. Even inside that range, the faint light coming from the rusted grating high overhead washed out details. Worse, Abattoir worlds were usually trapped. Wall spears, collapsing floors and ceilings, and occasional blade-based ones.

And even worse was what Ellen had said about the ones doing the butchery and reanimation. The undead constructs we'd fought were one thing. Mindless killing machines. Easy to manage. But thinking, planning enemies were always harder to deal with.

"Kade, you're on point. Focus on that danger sense," Jeff said.

"Got it," I muttered. I extinguished my gauntlet and breastplate—I could summon them in a heartbeat if I needed them, and I wanted the Mana back—and readied Tallas's Dueling Sword. Then I pushed into the semidarkness ahead.

We'd fought nothing but a single Experiment Thirteen in almost ten minutes. With the six of us, it had died relatively quickly. It felt off. Too easy. Like the portal was holding out on us, saving its power. But that didn't make sense. This portal's behavior was odd, but it didn't have any of the markings of a trap portal. We could leave any time; the glow of the portal behind us was proof of that.

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Even more suspicious, though, was the distinct lack of traps.

"Did someone already clear this place out?" Zeke asked.

Jeff shook his head. "No. The GC was on this portal within ten minutes of it appearing. We're the first team in. Ellen, you're sure this is an Abattoir?"

"I thought I was, but I'm not anymore. I don't know what else it could be, though. Most of the common portal types are—"

Zeke cleared his throat. "My dad says the Wickenberg portal has to get cleared out periodically. The boss inside is a stitcher, and it keeps rebuilding the monsters inside. No traps, dark halls, undead enemies, but less necromancy and more, uh, vivisection and body-building. Not the muscles kind, either. His stories remind me of this."

Ellen reddened. Her eyes narrowed at Zeke, and I put a hand on her shoulder as she glared. Then she looked away. "If it's not an Abattoir, I have no idea what it is. You seem to, though. Do you know anything else about Wickenberg?"

"No. Dad never let me come to work with him, and even if he had, he didn't operate near the portal itself."

Something kept tickling the back of my mind. I opened my mouth, but Zeke caught my eye and shook his head slightly. "Anyway, we need to keep moving no matter what, right?"

"Right," Jeff said. "Kade, after you."

I stepped forward, still on alert for traps, but much less than I had been. If Zeke was right, what I needed to be on guard for wasn't the portal at all. It was him.

The Wickenberg portal was full of water. Everyone who'd looked into it knew that, and if Zeke was really the son of the guy in charge of it, he'd know that, too. Nothing about Zeke added up. Nothing at all. Until I figured out what he was trying to hide—and whether he was bad at hiding it or doing it on purpose—I couldn't trust him. I'd made a mistake bringing him in on this, but I hadn't had a choice if I wanted the skill ranks. The only choice I had was in how I handled it.

That was why Cheddar and Pepperoni were both in their dimensional spaces instead of out and about. We'd pull them out in an emergency, but we'd handled everything well so far. No point in giving everything away—not that Zeke couldn't figure it all out with a quick dive into the public registries. Ellen had managed to get our familiars registered as 'snakes' instead of winged serpent monsters, but that'd only work until the GC—or a guild—saw them.

As we pushed deeper into the C-Rank portal world, it got less and less Abattoir-like. The dark stone was hardly blood-covered at all, and according to Ellen, the smells were all wrong—Formadehyde and acid, not blood and sweat.

I stepped into a circular room filled with bubbling glass containers against every wall, each with Experiments inside. A huge, rusted grate covered the floor, and a second, matching one hung twenty feet overhead—more than enough room to maneuver in three dimensions. "Hold up. This is a trap."

"It's not an Abattoir, though?" Zeke asked.

I held up my hand, silencing him—or trying to. It took a second or three for him to catch on. "No. This is the kind of trap that uses monsters. We're going to trigger it when we go in. Get ready."

Then I waved everyone into position. Jeff, the spear-fighter, and I each took a corner of a squat diamond around Ellen and Yasmin. Zeke stared for a moment before I gestured him into position at the fourth point. "You've got the second-best armor in here."

"Oh, right." He sounded nervous, but he took his post closest to our entrance.

We moved into the center of the room in formation. As we did, the first tank ruptured, and an alarm went off.

Experiment Twenty-Three: D-Rank

It was…or had been…humanoid. Just like Experiment Thirteen. But unlike the armed, partial flesh golems we'd been fighting, this one was little more than a roughly torso-shaped sack of meat. It squirmed toward us across the ground limblessly, and I readied myself.

Stamina: 203/300, Mana: 320/400

Then I used Slicing Bolt.

A wave of wind surged toward Experiment Twenty-Three, electricity sparking against the ground as it ripped through the air at knee level. It impacted the monster as it squirmed toward us, wind cutting into its stitched flesh before the lightning passed and cauterized the wound. It started to heal, but I followed up with a strong, committed lunge. My back foot stayed in position at my corner of the diamond, but the dueling sword bit a chunk out of the monster's chest. A single Wind Charge appeared.

It went still. I readied myself as the rest of the tanks exploded. Glass and reeking fluid spewed across the room. Most of it sank through the grate—foul-smelling fumes filled the air—but a little splashed toward us.

Then it was fighting.

Dozens of Experiments lurched toward us. I fired Ariette's Zephyrs toward five of them. The wind bolts punched against their bodies like they were sacks full of Jell-O. Zeke retched again. His sword flashed as he tried to fight one of the monsters. Jeff taunted, and it shifted onto him. Ellen dropped a Shadow Box across several; they burst as holes appeared in their taut, stitched skin.

It stank. I swallowed bile. Fetid blood and embalming fluid splashed across my arm, burning, and I summoned the Stormsteel gauntlet. Then I used Howling Gale. Wind blades ripped into the monsters closest to me. A pocket of space appeared, and the formation slid into it, pivoting so Jeff faced the monsters head-on.

My sword lashed out twice, quick as lightning. Charred, scorched wounds appeared on an Experiment. Then a third strike hit it, and it died. Acid splashed across the room, and we backpedaled; the corpses' fluids were draining into the grate. My stomach dropped as I watched it. That couldn't be good. "The door! Get to the door!" I yelled.

Our formation broke. The room filled with fumes as we sprinted. I slashed and hacked at the mass of Experiments, adding more fuel to whatever was happening below. Ellen and Yasmin ducked through, then Zeke. I followed the fighter, and Jeff slammed his visor down and raised his shield. "I'll hold the—"

The room erupted in front of him.

He dropped a Split-Second Shield in front of him, and we watched all hell break loose in the experiment room.

Acid from the monsters' bodies and whatever was below turned to foam and rocketed upward through the grate in a hundred filthy, burning fountains. Everywhere it touched, it scoured clean; within seconds, there was nothing left inside the laboratory. The tanks vaporized. Flesh melted and dripped away, triggering even more explosions.

It took only fifteen seconds before everything was dead and the room was completely clear, right down to the now rust-free grates both above and below.

"See?" I said. "It was a trap."

Jeff and Ellen only shook their heads at me as we stepped back into the scoured room, but Zeke couldn't stop staring. He retched again. This time, it sounded a little half-hearted. What was he up to?

Zeke wouldn't survive this portal. Ezekiel Elwood would, but 'Zeke' would be dead.

He'd planned it with Terrel Young the moment Kade Noelstra had hung up on him. The kid was too smart for his own good. He already suspected Zeke wasn't who he claimed to be. So, instead of trying to play his role, Ezekiel was going to break character.

A lot.

He didn't like it one bit. But then again, he didn't have to. According to Terrel—who, admittedly, had been almost as tipsy as Ezekiel that night—the kid wasn't just a madman in D-Rank portals. Terrel had seen him step out of an S-Rank portal at E-Rank. No one up-ran portals like that; even Ezekiel had only cleared a handful of A-Rank portals, and even then, only safely behind Terrel.

The kid was, by far, the highest-value target Ezekiel had ever encountered, and he had an in with him. But only if he came clean.

Ezekiel's goal was simple. Give Kade just enough to help him confirm his suspicions, then come clean with him. The lie didn't help the Portal Tyrants anymore, and from the guild's profiling of him, Kade wouldn't go public. Even if he did, the only things he'd know was that the Portal Tyrants had a recruiter who could down-power his skills, had an aura-based support Unique, and went by either Ezekiel or Zeke.

That was already common knowledge if you knew where to look. The GC reps, for example, all knew just by looking at his status.

"My sister would love this place," 'Zeke' said queasily. "She's going to be a bioengineer, so there's no way she'd turn down a chance to tear this lab apart. Do you think we could turn it over to one of the guilds instead of clearing it? They could keep her safe or bring out tech for her to check out."

"It's not tech," Jeff said. "It's magic. She wouldn't be able to learn anything from this unless she's a delver with a very specific build."

Ellen nodded. "Besides, this kind of portal world's definitely been explored before, right?"

Ezekiel forced himself to flush red. One nice thing about his acting training before all of this was that he was very, very good at body control, so turning red or crying on command wasn't a problem for him. "Yeah, you're right, guys. Sorry."

"You're okay," Ellen said. She didn't sound like she thought he was okay, but 'Zeke' wouldn't know that. 'Zeke' was clueless.

So, he nodded, went back to talking about his mom and dad, and fell in behind Yasmin, the other support. He was mostly a half-built healer in this group, and that was fine. He was currently operating at D-Rank, and that was enough.

Right now, he didn't need to heal or support. That was all happening automatically.

Right now, he needed to get Kade alone.

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