An unexpectedly warm welcome.

John walked down the stairs of the bunker. His mind was sharp, focused on his goal: to save Rave. One after another the elemental girls materialized, having free access to his mana. Gnome appeared first, “Finally we are back,” she said with a smile, “let’s hope what we did will pay off, and don’t lose your patience down there.” “I won’t,” John promised. The stone elemental hesitated for a moment and then kissed him on the cheek, blushing and then quickly retreating to the rear of the group.

“Man, I remember bathing this staircase in fire,” Salamander said as she suddenly started floating next to his head, lying in the air, arms folded behind her head. “Sadly that wasn’t very effective then,” she complained, “but now we will reduce that bloody bitch to cinders.” “I want to hear her story first,” John told Salamander, “maybe she does have a good reason after all.” “You do you, I am just ready to do what I want to do,” Salamander cackled and then made room for the next on the list.

Sylph flew around his head a couple of times, “last few weeks were great. I got sex; I got gummy bears, I am now a concubine. I'm really strong, and even faster, like, all is super dandy,” she blabbered, “I really hope you won’t let it end here, I want to have a lot more fun, and unlike Sally, I really think that maybe we can find a fun solution.” “I hope so too,” John agreed.

Undine finally appeared at his side, and they walked (or flowed) side by side. The mending elemental had no words for John, only the determination that matched his: To do what they needed to do.

“This is what we trained for, master,” Aclysia said, “are you feeling ready?” “Not really, no,” John said. “Maybe you should have trained more,” Mono’s voice came from the back, “instead of fucking every night.” “Mono!” Aclysia reprimanded, “master is a real pervert, he needs that, or he will have a hard time concentrating.” “If you say so, sister,” Mono gave in, “I, however, find it awkward.”

John sighed, she wasn’t exactly wrong, probably, but Aclysia spoke the truth. They all shut their mouth as from below there was a soft cackling to be heard. After a month’s worth of training, John planted his foot one the fateful red carpet and entered the main hall of the former Bloodfallen base.

He was surprised to find out how little of the vision the Fear Eater had shown him was true. There was only a single corpse around; every other one had been removed from the bloodstained carpet. The room had been mostly cleaned from human innards or other such disgusting things. Even the walls had been scrubbed clean.

The one corpse that was around, however, lay right next to Thana. John mustered the body, it was a man of sturdy build in a military uniform of brown, with red lines along the edges. He even wore a fitting hat, the soviet star in the middle. ‘Guess I know who that guy belonged to,’ John thought and turned his attention to Thana.

The pale girl was giggling incisively, “there you are, there you fucking are,” she said, “I would applaud you, but I need one of my hands to **** this bitch.” Thana, wearing one of the Bloodfallen’s black cloaks, was sitting in a relaxed position on top of Rave, one of her small hands on the light bearer's throat.

John felt his calm compromise when he saw his girlfriend. The four scars on her neck were not even the grimmest reminder of the pain she must have gone through these last couple of days. Her body was covered in blemishes, surprisingly slight all things considered, her hair had gone from its usual bright pink to an almost washed out grey. Nevertheless, her blue eyes were wide open and alive, despite the obvious pain she was in they seemed to beg John to save himself.

“These did a good job,” Thana said and tossed John the Gloves of Rejuvenation, they were torn to the point that John couldn’t even get a sensible information out of Observe. “For the longest time anyway, they ripped apart in our, what was the fucking number, pinky?” Thana asked rhetorically with a giggle, “15th fight? Got to hand it to her, she is a fighter thanks to her not dying I am here and not a brain-dead vegetable.”

“I thought you wanted to fight me?” John said while keeping his eyes locked on her. The shattered glass of her iris slowly shifted as the golden dots inside slowly rotated. The girl's light blue hair shook as she burst out laughing, “of course I wanna do that, you knuckle fucker, but I am not quite ready yet.” She opened the black robe at the front and revealed her naked body underneath, tapping twice on one of the black dots that disfigured her clean skin. “Remove these,” she told him, “she wouldn’t do it because I didn’t have a hostage. EVEN THOUGH!” Thana screamed at Rave, her perfect white teeth reflecting the white of the chandelier above, “I TOLD HER FUCKING REPEATEDLY THAT IT WON’T EVEN MAKE ME STRONGER!”

“You will have to excuse us if we don’t believe you after killing our allies,” John dryly said but stepped closer, he would obey. Carefully he kneeled down next to Thana. “Oh, give me a break, you moral fuckwit. I was in jolly old agony for about 2,270,592,000 Seconds, and YES I fucking counted that, because I could – do – nothing – else. EXCUSE me if I was A BIT LIVID after getting my pale ass out of the agony chamber,” Thana shouted him down, then started coughing into her hand. John spied drops of blood oozing out between her fingers. ‘Maybe I can…’ John prepared to strike.

The blood turned into a stream that cut the air. Quicker than John could react it grew towards and stopped dead in front of Rave’s eyes. The thin streak just hovered there while Thana kept coughing. Finally, she stopped and giggled as she said, “don’t even try, I hold the cards here you dumbass,” drops of blood that ran down her chin followed an unnatural path all the way to the tip of her fingers were they became part of her fingernails and vanished. “Whew, constantly bleeding into my lung is great fun, I tell you,” her wide smile turned sour, her voice into a growl, “want to try too?”

“Why aren’t you removing these things yourself?” John changed the topic. “Oh, wow, what great fucking insight, CAUSE I CANT YOU SKULLFUCKING FUDGEFACE!” Thana seemed to want to say more, but she was stopped by a random outburst, “I DON’T KNOW WHO ELIZA IS NOW SHUT THE FUCK UP, EVERYONE!” “Who are you talking too?” “Just the faces all around the floor, ignore me, instead, listen to me and pull these fucking nails out,” the manic girl started out warmly but ended the sentence with a pissed off tone.

“Why can’t you remove them yourself though?” John probed further, he not only wanted to wait as long as possible for the fight to happen but was also genuinely curious. “I have a thing in my head that keeps me from doing it.” “You can’t do it because you are insane?” “NO, you smug dick, I have a literal something in my brain that messes with my body,” Thana visibly resisted the urge to gouge John’s eyes out. Her face was a grimace of pure anger, then it relaxed, and she cackled, “Khehehe, but what the fuck would you know, just pull these things out please and start with this one,” she pointed at one left of her collarbone.

John inspected what was now under his fingers, it was a flat piece of metal, like the head of a nail. Which was mostly due to the fact that it was the head of a nail, as John, with shock and disgust, realized when he gently pulled at it and saw the bloody metal that was rammed into Thana’s body. He kept pulling, but the thing wouldn’t be removed, “oh for fuck's sake JUST RIP IT OUT! Can’t be worse than the pain it causes while being IN,” Thana said. John hesitated until the bloodmage sighed and strengthened her grip on Rave’s throat, “do – it.” John took a deep breath and entered the calm state of mind that he had lost when he had seen Rave. He exhaled and at the same moment ripped the nail out.

There was a spray of blood, “DUPA! KURWA!” Thana cursed and bit into her own hand until that bled as well, apparently that pain was not as bad as the one caused by the disgusting wound that ripping out the nail had caused. John looked at the thing in his hand. The nail was a disgusting tool, ten centimeters long and covered in barbs.

“That’s a good pain,” Thana giggled while John was staring at the item description. This explained why he couldn’t Observe her; it created another question, however. Joseph Mengele, that wasn’t at all a Soviet, that was the mad-scientist that had conducted experiments on humans in the concentration camp of Auschwitz. “Who made you?” John asked.

“No-hoho, you answer one of my questions for a change,” Thana said, the hole in her chest now quickly closing, “did you really think selling me to the Period of the Proletariat would work?” “It was an accident; I looked for people that would help and told them your name. How they found out you were here is not clear to me,” John truthfully said. “Okay,” Thana shrugged it off, “oh well, more for the slaughter, worked out for me in the end.”

“Why are you that bent on killing people in your last days?” John asked and moved onto the second nail. She had a dozen of those in her body; the pain must have been incredible. “Cause, John Birdbrain, I cannot FEEL unless I do and I want to die feeling SOMETHING, even if it is just regret,” Thana told him. John was about to ask another question when Thana groaned, “shut the fuck up, I will just tell you everything. Not like I have anything better to do right now, you just be a good little nail puller, and I will tell you the story of my life. Sound good?!”

“Sure,” John agreed, “could you let Jane go?” “No, if I don’t hurt something I become a vegetable unless we are fighting, but this is part of this trainfuck of a clusterwreck anyhow. Get ready for cruelty and a lot of blood, through which I will GREATLY enjoy your dumbass face taking all sorts of sorry expressions,” Thana started with a wide grin.

“My first memory is inside a blank chamber. The walls in front of me were just black, grey stone. I couldn’t turn as I was bound by arms and feet to the ceiling and floor. I could barely move my head thanks to the shackle around my neck. The only thing that broke the monotony of the silent room was the steel door at the edge of my vision and the constant pain.

"The pain that tore apart my soul as I was left alone as voices filled my mind. The pain of the tube rammed into my throat that occasionally **** food into me. The pain of the rusty shackles that chafed open my skin. The pain of not being able to sit. The pain of being alone for a year.

There were all kinds of pain, which pretty much just set the stage for the rest of my life.”