The first sound she remembered ever hearing in her new life was the tap of fingers on the glass of her container pod. The second was a voice, she didn't know if it was a man or a woman, warped by the thick liquid she was suspended in.

 

She could not see anything but black, unless it was touching the crystal.

 

"You are going to be something incredible. Our salvation." Said the stranger as they put a hand against the glass, close enough to her field of vision that she could see a tattoo on their palm of some sort of horned animal with a weird tree growing out of their back. It looked kind of like a deformed goat.

She moved her own hand and put it against theirs, seeking human connection.

 

"Subject is ready. Commence Core grafting process."

 

The third thing she ever heard was the muffled sound of her own screams.

 

There was a burning ball of pain inside her chest. Something was inside her that was not supposed to be there.

"The grafting process has begun."

 

"Core grafting at 27% and rising."

 

"Pain receptors nominal. Pain response at acceptable levels."

 

She felt a long tube connected to her chest, digging inside her flesh like a parasite with hungry teeth. Only it wasn't taking, but pumping something into her. Pure pain.

Every single cell in her body burned cold. Her screams of agony caused bubbles in the dark liquid, making her realize that she was breathing it like air.

Pushing against the thick liquid, she took hold of the tube and started to pull it out of herself.

"Subject is attempting to disconnect."

 

"Core grafting at 62%. It's rising fast."

 

"Increase mana input by 200%. Charge her up."

 

"But that is..."

 

"Do it. If she dies, there's always the next. But she won't, not this time. I can feel it. This is the one."

 

A surge of power, like an electrical current, directly to the essence of her being, shocked her into submission. Her muscles stopped responding all at once, paralyzed by such an extreme amount of energy that her body didn't know what to do with it.

 

She was a dam about to break, far too full to hold. If she didn't find a way to expend that power, it would destroy her. But there was a hunger. A drain in the bottom of the dam that only needed to be opened.

 

There was nowhere else for the power to go, so she forced that pathway to open with every fiber of her being. She could feel something hungry inside her, asking to be fed. So she did.

 

"Amazing... She is still alive!"

 

"Subject is absorbing the mana into the Core Graft. Integration is over 89%!"

 

"I knew it, you really are perfect. Raise mana input to 300%."

 

The power was too much. She was barely holding on, keeping the flow of energy inside her from breaking the dam and redirecting it into the drain instead, flooding the ball of pain in her chest. But they would keep hurting her, giving her more and more without rest.

 

The moment the flow into her suddenly increased, her screams turned into howls. Not only was her body breaking, but her mind was shattering by the searing pain, madness enticing her into its embrace to not care about anything anymore.

 

But she refused. She hated them. She wanted them gone. The people who were doing this to her. No, the monsters.

 

She wanted them DEAD.

 

The power found another way out as she howled a maddened command, sending a crashing wave over the dam and into those that kept filling it.

 

"It's too much! Mana is overflowing from the subject!"

 

"Keep going! Maintain grafting process and raise mana input to 400%!"

 

"But...!"

 

"Something is happening in the facility! There's an intruder!"

 

"We are getting signals from the other test subjects, they are...!"

The fourth new sound she ever heard in her second life was that of a door being torn open. She couldn't see it, but heavy crashes and the screams of her torturers, accompanied by growls and a completely inhuman howl, painted a picture. Something monstrous was killing the people in there.

 

Everything around her shook wildly, like an earthquake, as an artificial voice spoke, the human ones that weren't screaming for their lives, now silenced. "Core Grafting paused at 98%. Subject mana output is unstable. Security compromised. Test deemed a failure. Proceeding to purge subject..."

 

The pain was still there, but it was now manageable without the constant pumping of power into her. Most of it had been expelled in that last wave, thankfully. She was trying once more to get the tube in her chest and all the other smaller ones and cables they had put in her out of her body. She managed to tear the smaller ones out and moved to put all her effort into the main one, when a big impact of a heavy body with a deep growl against the glass of her tube took her attention. Like a spiderweb, the cracking of the glass grew, filtering outside light into the darkness, but also the growling of a monstrous being that was awaiting at the other side.

Either the machine would kill her now that her usefulness was over, or the horror that killed the people who did this to her would.
There was a bang. Then another and another, followed by a heavy thud of a body falling to the floor. Another bang soon after marked the final push needed, and her glass prison exploded.

 

She fell to the ground, carried by the slosh of dark liquid and shards of broken glass, but a firm arm caught her before she was cut, holding her into a warm and safe embrace. Her vision was blurry, her head was in a red mist of dull pain. She coughed, trying to keep breathing the dark liquid that wasn't around her anymore but still filled her lungs, blocking her from oxygen.

Each gasp found no hold, the dark substance refusing to let go of her prey. She was losing consciousness fast.

"...the...!" A female voice was calling to her as she was drowning. "...breathe! Come on, baby girl, don't do this to me! You must breathe!"

The woman cut the tube in her chest with a knife and injected her with something. She could feel a sharp needle go into her skin and a cold liquid thrust into her veins.

 

There was a strange sensation in her chest as the woman put her hand inside her and touched the ball of pain directly.

 

"Dark milk of the mother, I beseech you. Release this seedling so she may grow. She is weak and young, but I'm strong. Feed of my essence instead and let her BREATHE!"

 

The pain subsided, and she felt nauseous. With a fit of cough, she puked the dark substance out. The woman got her hand out of the hole in her torso and put another sharp needle into her chest. She could feel the skin and muscle close, knitting itself and leaving only a circular mark, barely a scar.

 

She looked at the woman who had saved her life. She had curly platinum hair and cracked olive skin contrasted by intense amber eyes that betrayed the appearance of her advanced age, marked by old scars and complicated tattoos that peeked out from inside her black leather jacket. Her saviour was holding a still-smoking strange gun in one hand, aimed firmly at the entrance of the room without giving so much as a glance in that direction, even with the horrible screams and monstrous sounds that came from outside.

Her other hand was covered in dark liquid and blood, with pulsing dark veins that crept up her arm to her elbow.

 

"You are okay, baby girl. You are okay. Just breathe. Breathe. Please."

 

The old woman pleaded, to which she was more than eager to comply. Breathing in the sterile air stinking of blood and death was far from a pleasing feeling, but it was still her first true breath in freedom.

 

"Who... are you?" She asked, grateful but confused.

 

Before she could answer, a man, or what was once a man, tumbled into the room. His white coat was torn, and dark stains covered it. His body had gone through a terrible metamorphosis, its flesh twisted into long, branch-like limbs while big metal horns grew out of his mouth, what remained of his broken glasses dangling from a still growing bone protusion coming from where his left eye once was.

 

Without even looking, the old woman shot three times with her gun. There was no click of a trigger, nor the flash of combustion, just three bangs as bullets not made of metal, but silvery smoke shot out against the monster. The moment the smoke bullets impacted on it, the monster, which was already lunging towards them with an enormous maw of hundreds of crooked teeth opening in its engorged belly, underwent a fast change.

 

Its flesh disappeared, sublimated into puffs of brownish green smoke the color of old vomit. The disintegration quickly extended, and by the time it reached them on the lab floor, a cloud of smoke smelling of rotten eggs and a pair of broken glasses, cluttering on the metal floor, were the only things left of it.

 

She was losing consciousness as the old woman smiled at her, breathing into the gun as her own breath filled its chambers with new silvery bullets.

 

"Starting today, little sapling, you can call me Mama Anima. From this moment onwards, you are my daughter, and no one is going to hurt you again on my watch. Now sleep. You are safe with me."

 

When she awoke, she was in the arms of the old woman. They were outside, under a bright sky, in front of a building of red bricks.

 

"This is going to be our new home, little one. We'll make a place where all lost children can be safe from the evils of this world. Oh! That gives me an idea." She smiled at her, the warmth of her wrinkly face joined by mischievous eyes that shone like fresh honey under the golden sun. "I need something to call you, don't I? What about...?"

 

Time passed, as it always inevitably does. And with the coming of the years, as children grow, comes the clarity of understanding that our parents, as much as we wish them to be, are not invincible.

 

It wasn't a bright day like the one when she became her daughter, but a full moon night when she would cease to be. But the silver rays of the moon didn't bless their most sacred place of love, nor could it be seen up in the night sky, covered as it was in dark clouds of smoke.

Mama Anima's Orphanage was burning.

 

"...Evelyn." Said a monstrous voice. gargling each syllable through wet dark bubbles.

 

Evelyn Anima stood amidst the blazing ruins of the home they'd built for almost seven years. at her feet, the mutilated and disemboweled remains of the children she had called her little brothers and sisters. Those that weren't in pieces or incinerated and had managed to escape would soon find themselves in a far worse fate as their bodies mutated uncontrollably outside, no doubt spreading the corruption to the neighbours that had come towards the orphanage, already awakened by the screams of the murdered children and the smell of smoke and burning flesh.

 

Warning sirens could be heard all around District Zero, trying to save their people from the inevitable demise of the monster breach coming from what they had believed to be safe. Because, as they had thought back when Evelyn first came to live there in the midst of the last disaster, what could even be the chances of a monster surge happening twice in the same area of Neo Vorath City in the same decade?

 

"CITIZENS BEWARE. MONSTER BREACH ALERT. CITIZENS BEWARE. MONSTER BREACH ALERT."

 

The message would keep repeating until the slowly reacting authorities came to act, but it would be far too late.

 

The Day of Ruin had begun, and it would end with the desolation of District Zero.

 

She felt a tremendous pain, barely counteracted by the adrenaline that was now coursing through her veins. Her own left arm was somewhere among the limbs of her dead siblings. Mama Anima's precious mana gun, the metal of its barrel red hot, had cauterized the wound enough for her to not bleed out, even though she had already lost too much blood for any normal person to survive.

But its work was not done, as Evelyn pointed the symbol of her protector with the hand she had left towards the face of the monster that she had failed to save from the workings of a dark fate.

 

Her hand was trembling, tears falling from her eyes, teeth clutching in denial to having to be an agent of such cruel fate.

The monster raised its grotesque claw towards her, an unholy amalgamation of engorged bloody flesh and twisted crimson metal, dripping in black ooze that filtered through every crack in the floor.

Evelyn flinched, accepting her end as a deserved punishment for what she had allowed to happen, but instead of death, the claw brought a deeper pain.

Ever so delicately, careful not to cut her with its sharp blades, it held her hand firm as the monster pushed its grotesque body across the floor towards her, putting its face closer to the gun's barrel.

 

The monster smiled at her with a crooked, enormous mouth, only half of its face still barely recognizable as human, the rest a shapeless mass of tumorized, darkened flesh where horns and teeth had grown over. Too many pairs of terrible eyes looked at Evelyn from places where no eye should be, but she only cared about the eye with an amber iris in what remained of her mother's face.

 

"When facing monsters.... deep breaths and eyes... open..." Said Mama Anima, giving her one last lesson. "Now do for me as I did for you. Free me." The woman who had given her a life and a mother's love activated her Skill one last time. "[Sublimazer]" She breathed into the gun, charging it with one silver cloud bullet for her, before the light faded from her eye, the person she had been now gone. The wraith she had transformed into now completely took over her body as it growled at Evelyn, all eyes opened and filled with mad hatred and endless hunger. Not one of them gave any sign of recognizing her own daughter anymore.

 

As the creature was coming to its own new existence, outside the warning sirens gave place to a different kind of message.

 

"REJOICE. THE RETURNED FOUR HAD DEEMED US WORTHY OF THEIR PRESENCE. ALL HAIL OUR HEROIC SAVIOURS. SALVATION IS COMING."

 

Evelyn screamed in defiance and sorrow as she pushed her own mana into the gun, blasting the last of her mother's power into the monster before her.

 

BANG.

 

A single shot, more powerful than she had ever seen before, echoed through flame, darkness, blood, and memory.

 

As the blast of her own powerful Skill obliterated what had once been her mother, she held onto the gun, feet firm in the ground to endure the recoil, as its barrel melted and shattered with the enormous amount of mana it had accumulated in its long years of service.

 

"PRAISE BE THE FOUR IN THEIR GLORY. MAY THEIR HAND NOT STAIN IN OUR DELIVERANCE."

 

Evelyn looked into the sky, where four figures floated enveloped in the pure iridescence light of mana, their silhouettes four featureless shadows marked by their visible auras.

"Help!!" She screamed, a flicker of hope lighting her heart. "DOWN HERE! PLEASE! YOU CAN STILL SAVE HER! PLEASE!"

 

Evelyn felt their sights turn in her direction. A palpable pressure put force on her, as if the air itself suddenly weighed a ton. It was like she was nothing more than an ant to them, and they considered her too insignificant to bother stomping down.

They were no heroes. They wouldn't help her. They wouldn't help anybody. They stood there, floating, and watched as people died. As her whole world crumbled.

 

Four demigods with all the power in the world let a little girl kill her own mother as they looked her in the eyes.

"Why?! Why won't you do anything? Save her! Save us! DO SOMETHING!"

If they heard her or if they cared at all, they gave no response. They just watched.

 

But as death came to all that she loved, caused by her own hand, Evelyn swore this would never happen again.
The Returned Four would answer for their crimes.

For all that was wrong in their damned city, in that whole cursed world.

Her solemn vow of hatred would become a dark seed sown in fertile ground, watered in the blood of the innocent they had failed. One that would grow and grow, its final aspect unknown.

 

The moment Mama Anima was gone, something changed in Evelyn. Memories came flooding back, faded but real. From another life before this one. One lived on a world named Earth.

She could have been a hero, too. Like they may have been once, long ago, when they too first arrived at their second lives after Earth. Before something broke in them, turning the heroes into golden tyrants. If only she hadn't arrived at the wrong time. More than 200 years too late.

 

Then she could've had the power to change things. She could have been with them up there and saved her family.

 

A bright interface appeared in front of her, crackling with interference.

 

[Compatible User found. Attempting Overseer synchronization...]
[ERROR - Unknown Type Core detected at 98% integration]
[Warning! Core unstable]
[Warning! Mana leak detected]

[ERROR - Class creation unavailable]

[Returned spirit detected]
[Admin privileges denied]
[Remote Admin access detected]
[Granting limited Overseer Access...]

[Inventory activated]
[Congratulations! You have defeated Corrupted Classer Eva Anima - Tier ??? - Wraith ??? of ??? ]

[You have obtained [???]]

[Integrating [???] into Unknown Type Core until Class creation]

 

The disgusting giddiness of this so-called Overseer at her act of desperate matricide revolted her to the depths of her heart, but the true horror came from the line that confirmed what her memories told her.

 

She was a Returned.

 

The realization broke her. With the gun's Skill finally expended along with the last remnants of her mother's mana, her mind shattered as her body gave up, a pair of strong hands grabbing her before she fell into the raging hell below her.

 

"Don't you dare die on me. You don't get that right anymore." Said the smoke-gruffled voice of a boy that the tragedy before him had forced too soon to become a man, his face covered in ash.

 

Everything trembled around them, and Evelyn saw up in the sky how the Returned Four slowly raised their arms towards them, their auras shining brighter and enveloping the blazing orphanage. A net to catch their prey.

 

"Hurry..." Softly whispered Evelyn, trying to warn him of the impending doom he couldn't see.

 

"Hold on tight!" He screamed as he cradled her and jumped out of the burning building. They were going to crash against their aura, but something inside her utterly refused. Her Core shined a black light, surprising the young man. As they touched the barrier that would see them trapped and burn to death, a hole opened around them, the golden aura unraveled like torn fabric.

 

The black light shielded them like a cocoon, slowing their descent into the street. No time to celebrate their escape, Evelyn was carried out of the flames and into the chaos of a dying city full of monsters.

 

Monsters that ignored them as they ran through the growing horde, screams of pain and fear around them of those that couldn't be saved.

The young man looked at her, both his face and voice fading away as the world was losing its focus, as he decided to forever brand her heart with a question to haunt her forever.

 

"What are you?"

 

And then all that was left was black.