Deoti made shushing sounds, hand held firmly over David Swan's mouth.

You're not trying to kill him, she reminded herself.

Naymond said that they needed information about the Romanians. Melmarc's mother, Madness' wife, agreed. They had many different options, methods they could draw these pieces of information out of him.

Deoti had chosen this one for herself, fought for it. Naymond had been hesitant.

"There are more reasonable ways," he had said.

Deoti cared nothing for reasonable. The Oath of War would've agreed with the [Sage]. Deoti had never been so glad to find herself in a conversation with a mother not an Oath. Melmarc's mother had agreed with her.

"Don't kill him," she had said. "But make him suffer."

She had done the one thing she had never done to gather information as an Oath of War: she had approved torture.

"Careful, Swan," Deoti said in a cooing voice as tears streamed down the man's cheeks. She would rather die than call him David. Filth like him did not deserve to share a name with Madness. "If you cry too much, you'll lose moisture. You need to conserve all the liquid in your body since we'll be here a while."

Panic pierced through the man's haze of pain. It showed in the widening of his eyes, the reignited struggling. The horror.

With her hand over his mouth, pinning his head back against the chair, the man would be going nowhere. Deoti was sure of it.

In a room above, Naymond was probably explaining to the detective that had been in charge of Melmarc why there was nothing she could do and why she could do nothing. She had no idea what he would be telling the man.

In fact, she wondered why they had even brought them.

After a while, Swan's struggles settled. He stopped fighting back. His head bobbed from the sobs that filled him, but there was nothing else.

Deoti took her hand from his mouth and stepped back.

"There we go," she said simply, checking on him.

He still bled from the stab wound to the back of his knee, but it would be a while before he died from bloodloss. The Gifted, even one as low ranked as a D, took more damage than a normal human being. A stab wound was only as dangerous as how long it was left to bleed.

Attacks from a Gifted that would send an E-rank flying and bleeding from their mouth would likely kill a non-Gifted instantly. Weak as the low ranks were, they could take more punishment than ordinary humans.

"Now, here's what's going to happen," Deoti said. "Nod if you understand."

Swan nodded. It was more of a twitch or a spasm, but Deoti accepted it.

She made a show of placing the bloodied knife on the chair behind her, made sure that he watched it. Manic eyes tracked the weapon until it was free of her hand.

"What just happened happened for two reasons," she continued. "The first is because I have a problem with you. The second is to avoid the bullshit of you thinking that I won't resort to torture."

Wide eyes stared at her as Swan shook his head in panic.

"Good." She folded her arms over her chest, ignoring the blood stain. "Now, my question. Where are the Romanians currently operating in America?"

Swan's head paused, stilled. He hesitated. He opened his mouth, closed it, thought about it.

Deoti sighed. She turned and picked the knife back up.

"I don't know!" Swan answered quickly, sobbing again. "I swear, I don't know."

"That's not the answer, Swan."

She walked up to him and slapped him. It was a simple blow. But it was also vicious. The sound of the impact reverberated through the house. The blow itself rocked his head back.

"Here's the trick about being tortured for information," she said, stepping back. "My aim as the torturer, is to get information that I consider useful out of you. Your aim as the tortured, is not just to tell me the truth. It is to give me information that I will believe. Information I can either verify to be true or not verify at all. Ultimately, your job is to make me believe."

She picked the knife back up and tossed it in his lap. "Can you make me believe, Swan?"

The man was shaking, his entire body trembling. He looked from her to the knife and back. He did it again.

"Yes," he sobbed, nodding quickly. "I can."

Deoti rewarded him with a smile. "Good. Now, let's try it again. Tell me something I believe or I'm taking your fingernail next. You see, we have time." She gestured to the house with a raised hand. "This place is designed in a way that nobody is coming for you. So, where is the Romanian operating in America?"

"The marina," he said quickly.

Deoti nodded, not really caring. All she was interested in was making him suffer, then killing him.

"Which one, Swan?" She walked up to him and squatted down so that she looked up at him. "Which of the marinas?"

He paused, eyes tilting up and to the left. Deoti cocked her head to the side, waited for him to make a story up.

"The one close to sixteenth Boulevard," he said, scrambling for his words. "The black rock marina."

Deoti was silent for a moment. She allowed him to think that she was considering it, thinking about it. She couldn't care less where the Romanians were.

"Alright," she said after a while. "Next question. The Romanians. What did they want with children?"

"Children?"

Deoti hated this game. She picked the knife from his laps and drove it into his thigh.

Swan yelled in pain, screaming like a child. Tears spilled down his cheeks and he thrashed against his bindings. She had half-expected him to swear and curse in his pain but he did not.

She left the knife there as his screams subsided and his head lulled forward. His eyes closed. With a shake of her head, she reached up and patted him on the cheek.

[You have used skill Elemental Magic-Lightning]

She sent a small jolt of electricity through Swan. It was a little charge, enough to get him back on his feet. The man bucked as electricity flowed through him. His eyes shot open. He was wide awake.

With consciousness came pain once more. His eyes widened slowly until they looked as if they were going to pop. His mouth emulated them, slowly opening until his jaws hung down in a silent scream.

"Keep it in," she told him. "If you make a sound, I'll give you another reason to make a sound."

Swan made a sound and choked on it.

"Let's try that again," she said. "Not too long ago, a child fell into a portal. You found out the class of that child before the child fell into the portal, and you told the Romanian with you at the time about the child's class."

Wide eyes stared at her as if waiting for more.

"Why?" Deoti asked, giving him the more that he wanted. "Why did you share that information?"

"Because… because…" Swan sniffled, snot rolling down his nostrils. "Because he wanted children."

Deoti rewarded him with a smile. "That's good, Mr. Swan. You're doing okay. Now, why did he want children?"

Swan's lips quivered. He hesitated.

Deoti sighed and reached for the handle of the knife still in his lap.

"Because he wanted to experiment on them," Swan answered quickly. "He wanted to experiment on them."

She let her hand hover an inch away from the knife. "The Romanians are experimenting on children now?"

The man bobbed his head quickly. "He wants children with agility-type classes," he sobbed. "He wants to revolutionize the world."

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Deoti chuckled. There was always some fool somewhere trying to do the impossible. She let her head hang down as she laughed. Why were people stupid?

The world already had portals to deal with, and Chaos Runs to handle, yet they continued to fight against each other, stealing children. Not just children, but the children that would help to ensure the world's continued safety when the adults were dead and gone.

"And do you know what this experiment is supposed to do?" she asked, putting a hand in her pocket.

Swan shook his head.

Deoti pulled a pill out of her pocket and held it up. It was capsulated. "Are you saying that this is not it?"

New panic filled Swan's eyes. "How did you…"

"Please." Deoti rolled her eyes. "Who would capture and tie up a person without searching them, too. Why is it so important that it has been on you for so long."

"Please, no," Swan's voice was panicked, terrified. "Please. It's not safe. I keep it on me because I don't want my girlfriend's children accidentally finding it and doing what they aren't supposed to…" his words trailed off. "My girlfriend," he said suddenly, more panic filling his face. "My girl and her kids." He jerked forward, screaming in pain as the action aggravated the knife still in his thigh. "My girlfriend and her kids…" more tears streamed down his cheek. "Please tell me they are alright. I'm begging you. They have no idea about this. Don't hurt them. I'll tell you everything you need to know. Please."

Deoti made a face. It took him a while to remember them. Then again, he was the one in danger, and the kids weren't really his. All in all, she would say it was a healthy period of forgetfulness.

"If you want nothing done to them," she shook the pill, "then tell me more about this."

Swan's gaze followed the pill.

"What is it for? Heart palpitations? Erectile dysfunction?" she gave him a look as she spoke. It was designed to let him know that she already knew what it was in case his brain was in a state that did not pick up on sarcasm quickly. "What does the pill do, Swan?"

"It's still in its experimental stages," he said, panicked. "The Romanian gave it to me. He said I could test and see what it does. He said not on myself, though. It won't kill me, but he said that the effects are…" he looked away, not shy but scared. "Painful," he finished.

"Painful," Deoti mused, turning the pill one way, then the other. "And did he say what it was supposed to do?"

Swan nodded slowly. "I want proof that my girlfriend is alright. Her kids, too."

Deoti's brows shot up in surprise.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"My girl and her kids," he answered, stuttering slightly in fear. "I want to see them."

Deoti shrugged. "No."

He opened his mouth to say something, but she silenced him with a hand on the knife. She didn't pull it out or push it in or twist it. She just held it. It was threat enough.

It told him that he had none of the power here. Even the information that he was giving her didn't give him any power or leverage. She wasn't the police. There were no rules to what she could and could not do. Violence for her was an option.

"The drug, Swan," she repeated. "What does it do?"

"It…" he looked at the pill intently. Then he dropped his head in defeat. "It resets all status effects and reallocates skill mastery."

"No," Deoti said in disbelief, looking at the pill. "That's impossible."

"I've been telling myself the same thing." Swan's voice was weak now, defeated.

"And all it costs is pain?"

Swan hesitated. "No."

"Oh, there's more." She smiled, looking up at him. "You've been keeping secrets, Swan. What other side effects are there?"

"Apart from the pain?" He hesitated again. He was doing a lot of that lately. "The pain is bad. That's what he told me. Like having your bones broken and drawing pictures on your brain with a needle."

He was wasting her time. The question was why?

"What's the other side effect?"

"Your interface," Swan answered. "You can't pull it up privately for… a month? At least a month." He breathed heavily, chest rising and falling. "He said a month. And your class and rank is displayed to everyone at all times."

"At the cost of children's lives?" Deoti shook her head. "That isn't very believable."

"He sounded believable."

Deoti got up with a sigh. "I guess there's only one way to find out."

Swan's eyes widened in horror as he realized what she was about to do. She grabbed him by the head with one hand and pulled his head back.

"You can swallow," she said. "Or I can make you swallow."

Then she shoved the pill down his throat.

Swan swallowed immediately.

It didn't take long before he started thrashing against the chair and his binds like someone with a seizure. With each passing second it grew more violent. One leg of the chair broke and the chair tilted one way.

Deoti stepped back, gave the man some space.

The knife in his thigh, moved, sliding up and out of him. It clattered to the ground, bloody. The wound it left behind did not bleed.

In fact, Swan's blood loss had stopped completely.

That is impressive.

Swan fell to the side, hit the ground. His shaking did not stop. It grew more violent. He frothed at the mouth.

A slight worry touched Deoti. She wanted him dead, but not like this. It wasn't the right amount of suffering. This was too easy.

Still, she stood where she was, watching him, waiting. She doubted he would die. At least, he didn't believe that he would die, if not even with her threat, he wouldn't have swallowed the pill so quickly.

His shirt ripped suddenly. Beneath the tear, Deoti noted some level of musculature that the man had not had when they'd brought him in. the shirt tore further. His pants followed soon after.

The wires she had used to bind him strained under the pressure of his growing size. She heard them snap.

She watched him grow.

Definitely impressive, she thought.

Then he stopped growing. He had increased in height and size. He breathed heavily. It was loud, like a monster in hiding in a horror movie, breaths coming like grunts.

He moved, picking himself off the ground in an unsteady gait. It wasn't long before he was standing in front of her, seven feet tall and built like a tank.

Deoti wondered who was taller now, him or Madness.

Probably Madness.

In a matter of time, Swan was standing in front of her. his clothes had been ripped so that they now barely hung off his body. His pants were completely gone, having nothing to hang on to.

Tattered pieces of his shirt hanging from his shoulders, he was nude from the waist down.

At least he had been telling one truth in his sea of lies.

A notification hovered over his head.

[David Lee Swanda (Wild Basher)(S)]

That was impressive, though. The pill had moved him from an E-rank [Crafter] to an S-rank [Basher].

There was no way that was healthy, though. The side-effects definitely had to be more than pain.

"Do you believe everything you hear, lady?" Swan asked. His voice was like gravel, and he didn't enunciate his words properly. It sounded the way large and dumb characters in movies were portrayed.

Deoti almost chuckled. "Definitely didn't believe the part about the girl and children," she said. "I found eight houses with women and children waiting for you to come back home. Safe houses, I think they were supposed to be." She rolled her eyes. "I also knew that the pill was supposed to change you somehow. I just didn't know how. I'm not new to this, Lee Swanda. You are."

They already had an idea of what the drug could do. Naymond had made his speculations which were most often correct. They just had to see the drug in action, to see what it could do.

Swan's eyes narrowed in suspicion. Then he seemed to discard whatever suspicions those were.

"It does not matter," he grunted out, words slow, as if he was losing some level of brain power. "You will not make it out of here."

Deoti sighed. Why did everyone think that S-rank was the pinnacle of ranks. And why did they think that just because you were an S-rank, you were suddenly peers with an S-rank [Mage].

People needed to stop underestimating the [Mage] class.

"You know," she said, holding her arms out to her side. "Fuck it. Let's get this over with."

[You have used skill Elemental Casting]

…

[You have cast Lightning]

…

[You have cast Ice]

…

Ariadne sat at the edge of the living room. The boy, Melmarc, had found some wires from some random appliance in the kitchen and had bound her hands behind her. She wasn't sure what worried her more, that he knew how to bind someone properly or that he had done it with no expression on his face while his eyes kept moving around as if he was listening to people talk.

The latter, she decided. Definitely the latter.

Now, he was seated on one of the couches in the living room, leaning forward to rest his hands on his knees while he kept his head buried between his hands. It had been thirty minutes since her and the house guardian that Naymond had employed, Anji, had lost to the boy.

Thirty minutes she had been bound and sitting in a corner.

Every now and again, Melmarc would take his head from between his hands, look at her broken ankle, walk up to her and check on it.

She had tried talking to him, tried speaking to him. She'd tried telling him that he'd gone from a petty quarrel between former housemates to kidnapping.

Appealing to his conscience was another strategy she had tried. He was a child simply pushed a little too far. She understood it. But the boy had no conscience. At least none that she could reach.

Three times now, he had approached her, checked on her ankle, confirmed it was still broken, then returned to sit down, head back in his hands.

Something was significantly wrong with the boy and she knew it.

He'd been lost in a portal for a while, she thought, knowing the story.

It had cracked him somehow, broken his mind.

And she had pushed him.

Melmarc ran a hand through his hair, reached into his pocket, and brought out a phone.

He dialed something and put the phone to his ear.

It did not ring long.

Cradling the phone to his ear, he said with a terrifyingly emotionless voice, "Mom, I need help."

He put the phone down beside him, placing it gently on the couch. Then he raised his legs and hugged them against his body. On any other child, Ariadne would've said that they were scared.

Melmarc did not look scared. With his legs hugged against his chest, he did not rock himself in an attempt to calm down. He simply sat that way, still. Eyes fixed firmly on her.

Ariadne saw purpose in them. Intent. The boy had plans he had either just set into motion or was about to set into motion.

He changed his sitting position, moved from hugging his legs to his chest to stretching them out in front of him. He lounged on the couch, posed like an overconfident frat boy. Ariadne would've said there was something perverted about it if not for his eyes.

They were empty. Hollow. He stared at nothing, looked at nothing. His face was completely out of place with his posture. It was as if she wasn't even here.

Her friends in the streets had always told her that one day her petty bullying of innocent people would get her in trouble. Each time she had laughed it off. Simple people only brought simple problems. And simple problems were problems that she could handle.

Melmarc was not a simple person.

Ariadne's behavior had comfortably placed her in a problem that was not simple.

A problem that she could not handle.

Please, she pleaded in her head, save me, Naymond.

…

"Mom," Melmarc spoke into the phone. His voice was hollow even in his own ears. It was better than the alternative.

"Yes, hun?" his mother's voice came in from the other end. "What's up?"

"I need help."

It was all he could say before dropping the phone back down. His legs drawn up to his chest was no longer a comfortable position. He needed to change it. He needed something to distract him.

He stretched his legs out, spreading them in a manner teachers had always hated back in school. It was a little more comfortable. His arm placements completed the look of nonchalance and arrogance.

It worked, but only for a while.

He could not hold out much longer. Melmarc prayed that his mother would make it here before he failed. She knew where he was, after all.

SHAVE HER HEAD!

SHE SINNED! SHE'LL SIN AGAIN!

CRUSH HER SPINE!

PUNISHMENT IS FOR CHANGE! SHE WILL NOT CHANGE!

ANOTHER VICTIM COMES!

PROTECT HER! SHE BECOMES A VICTIM!

The voices were loud. They were also his own. He demanded things of himself. It was his duty. He had to put her in her place. He had to leave her with something that would ensure she never bullied another person ever again.

A new idea took shape in his head.

Melmarc froze.

KILL HER!

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