A living phantom.

Merlin's description was odd, and the words conflicted with each other.

Phantoms are terms usually used on the souls of the dead, which avoided dissipation and retained their spiritual form, and existence in the world under catalytic mana.

There were many types of phantoms.

From the most common stone tapes, wraiths who've lost their minds, to the rare ghosts who retained their rationality and memories, even emotions.

Lastly were the rarest holy spirits that could have energy form and were full of positive energy.

But there wasn't a single phantom that could be called 'alive'.

The 'alive' Merlin spoke of were creatures that had lifeforce he could see through his second sight.

But phantoms do not have lifeforce.

Merlin aerosolizes and brings Hill into the 10-meter deep blast crater, the place looked like a mysterious sinkhole when looking up from below.

The blast wave caused by the explosion had decimated nearly all the infrastructure of the lab, but Merlin could sense that among the rubble, some things were still intact and were emitting faint energy.

"The explosion may not have destroyed all of Elihas Starr's experimental devices.

Merlin says to Hill:

"Some things may have survived."

"I'm more worried about the 'living phantom' you spoke of."

Agent Hill stands by the shadow of the crater and occasionally looks back behind her, she had an anxious expression as she held her gun loaded with holy silver bullets in one hand and the Giger counter in the other.

She tells Merlin:

"Have you not discovered it? Sir."

"No."

Merlin answers with a frown, his dark senses had been spread out to enshroud the entirety of the crater, but the flash of lifeforce he had sensed before was like it had truly disappeared.

The crater was so quiet Merlin had to wonder if he had an imagination just now.

He maintains his wariness and tells Hill:

"Let's go check out the devices that are still operating. They must be what Fury is looking for."

"Alright."

Hill responds and follows behind Merlin as they head for the remnants of the lab that had survived the explosion. And perhaps it was an imagination, or an odd feeling caused by Merlin's words, Hill felt as though something was following them from behind.

The feeling was a terrible experience for the girl who was afraid of ghosts.

But thankfully, there was a senior supernatural specialist officer next to her, she couldn't help but fasten her pace and get closer to Merlin, this gave agent Hill a slight sense of security in her fear. 

The rubble of the lab that had miraculously survived the explosion was not large, a few minutes later, Merlin and Hill find the machinery that was emitting faint energy,

It was an odd divide that was half-buried in the rubble.

It looked like an odd experimental chamber made of metal and glass, the glass seal seemed to have melted in the blast; the main metal structure had become distorted and torn, but one could still see the interior of said chamber.

It was like an enlarged bee's nest, there were hexagonal shapes on the inner metal wall, and it reflected a golden glow under Hill's flashlight.

And from the remnants of the burnt wires and devices in the interior of the chamber, this must've been a part of the delicate machinery Professor Elihas Starr used to conduct the quantum experiments.

But neither Merlin nor Hill understood much about these technologies. They did not know what this hive chamber was used for.

"It's down."

Merlin places his finger on the gap of the distorted metal chamber and says without looking back:

"But it's still emitting some kind of energy I'd never seen before, it's strange...we should bring this back, perhaps SHIELD's scientists can tell us what this thing is for."

He retracts his finger and looks back at Hill, and as he looked back, the faint lifeforce he had sensed before reappears right next to Hill.

"Get away!"

Merlin shouts so and storms at Hill in his black fog, the latter reacted quickly as she rolled to the side almost instantly. The threshing black fog narrowly misses her as it storms into the shadow behind her; there, a young girl seemed to be terrified.

It looked like a young girl in a skirt that was emitting a strange glow.

She let out a hasty scream and disappeared just before Merlin catches her.

Merlin's black fog misses its mark and he reappears at where the phantom-like girl was staying, he then looks around with a frown.

There are no signs of life in his dark senses, but that figure back then was real! Merlin was certain that it wasn't a phantom, but a real, living young girl; but what exactly is up with her strange hiding ability?

"Sir, what...was that?"

Hill caught a glimpse of the white girl standing behind her, that odd form caused Hill's expression to become pale as she recalls many bad memories.

She looks around and asks in a low tone:

"Is that really a phantom?"

"No, she's not."

Merlin closes his eyes, strengthens his dark senses, and says in a low tone:

"You're a normal human, Hill, you are unable to see phantoms. If you can see her, that means she is not a phantom."

"So you're saying that it's a child?"

Hearing Merlin deny her speculation of a phantom, Hill's expression eases up; as long as it isn't something mystical, she isn't afraid of it.

She holds the handgun and walks up to Merlin, and contemplates the surroundings as an elite agent should.

A few minutes later, Merlin opens his eyes and shakes his head:

"No, nothing. That child is odd...it's like she's playing hide and seek with us."

"If it is a child, sir."

Hill thinks briefly, keeps her gun, and tells Merlin:

"Perhaps she's terrified, I'll handle this."

Hill stands in the shadow and takes a deep breath to calm herself. Moments later, she uses her most gentle tone to speak to the empty darkness:

"Child, we know you're here. Come out, we won't harm you...we're here to help."

Hill kept calling to persuade the young girl who could not be seen.

Merlin stands next to her and lets out his most gentle expression, but he did not lose focus, as his dark senses enshrouded the rubble like a radar, catching any bit of movement.

"Hurts..."

As Hill let out her third call, a weak voice resounds from behind them.

Merlin and Hill both look back and find a young girl with black hair and a white skirt curled up in the corner of the metal chamber they discovered before.

As if terrified, she squatted there and held her shoulders, looking at Merlin and Hill with a pitiful gaze that yearned for help.

She had a painful expression as she said in a low tone:

"It hurts...help me."

The young girl's form was very unreal, she felt like a phantom that had no physical form.

But she truly does exist.

Merlin saw the wavering lifeforce within her when she showed herself. Wavering between existence and non-existence, her lifeforce was as weak as candlelight that could be extinguished any time, yet it was tough, as it maintained its existence in turbulence.

"Don't fret, child."

Hill extends her hand and shows that she means no harm. She slowly approaches the girl, and as she watched, Hill squatted down before her; she extends her hand in an attempt to stroke the poor girl's hair.

But as she reaches out her hand, it 'passes' through the young girl's head in an odd way.

It was like what existed before her was a very life-like projection.

"This..."

Hill quickly retracts her hand and looks back at Merlin in a panic, Merlin stands next to the girl and observes her closely. Moments later, he says:

"Her cells are in a constant loop of being torn apart as new cells are being made. Her physical existence has been erased, but the production of new cells means that she is still 'alive', incredible...an odd condition transitioning between life and death."

Merlin squats down and looks at the young girl who was constantly in pain, asking softly:

"Child, tell me, what is your name? And how did you become like this?"

"Ava, Ava Starr."

The young girl looks at Merlin and says softly with a painful expression:

"I...came to see dad's experiment. He told me and mom that his experiment was a success and that he wanted to celebrate it...but in the lab, sparks flew out of that big machine, pretty and bright sparks...dad and the other uncles were terrified."

The young girl recalls her memories and continues:

"Dad told mom to take me away, but I didn't want to leave dad alone. Mom and I ran back, and dad let me hide in the glasshouse."

She points at the distorted, beehive-like metal chamber, and says:

"I saw...fire burst from the machine, fire as bright and hot as the sun, it illuminated the entire lab...a loud bang, like a massive explosion."

"And when I woke up..."

Young Ava raises her hands as her fingers flicker between existence and illusion, one could tell that the young girl was also curious and fearful of her current condition; she says:

"I became...like this. Mom and dad, the other uncles and aunties; they're all gone...the lab is gone too. It hurts...everywhere."

Young Ava held herself in pain like a child being brushed by the winter wind, she raises her head, looks at Merlin and Hill with hopeful eyes, and says:

"Brother, sister, can you help me? It hurts...it hurts so much."

"We're here to help you, child."

Merlin reaches out and strokes Ava's hair, he says to the poor girl who had just experienced a catastrophe:

"You must be tired, right? Do you want to rest?"

"Mmm, I'm tired, brother."

Young Ava looks at Merlin tearfully and says:

"But I can't sleep, it hurts."

"Then let me show you a magic trick."

Like he was cheering up the child, Merlin takes out the crimson wand from his waist, and as he charged it with mana, a crimson red glow intertwines on the tip of the wand, illuminating the surrounding area.

This scene immediately attracts young Ava's attention, as she's still a child, after all.

She looked at Merlin with astonishment as he waved his wand, the wand makes a circle in the air, and a light glow is shot out from the tip and is cast onto her.

Young Ava, who had been in a state of constant pain since her awakening, immediately felt a strong urge to sleep as she is struck by the spell.

She yawns and instinctively closes her eyes, then, she falls into a deep sleep.

As young Ava falls asleep, the illusory feeling of young Ava's body quickly solidifies like she had returned to physical form from her incorporeal form.

But Hill still could not come in contact with Ava's body.

The solid-looking physical form is but an illusion, this child still could not be touched.

"Wingardium Leviosa!"

Merlin waves his wand and casts a levitating spell on the twisted metal chamber Ava was lying in, he brings the metal wreckage left from the experiment along with young Ava in the air, he then says to the quiet Hill next to him:

"It's clear that Elihas Starr failed his quantum entanglement experiment, but it wasn't a complete failure. I may not understand much about a scientific term like quantum entanglement, but young Ava's condition..."

Merlin looks at the sleeping girl and says softly:

"She's always in a state of existence and un-existence, perhaps she has yet the ability to control it freely due to the short time, but I trust that she can shift between physical and incorporeal forms."

"That mad scientist, he killed himself and his wife, even implicating his daughter into this state...damn it!"

Merlin looks back at the crater with disdain and tells Hill:

"Let's go, there's nothing left to see in this sinful place."

"Sigh, poor girl."

Hill looked at young Ava with a pitiful gaze and says:

"Are we bringing her back like this?"

"We found her, we have to cure her."

Merlin says without hesitation:

"Since this is caused by quantum entanglement..."

"Then Hank Pym, who successfully harnessed quantum energy, should have a way to fix this."