Shine observed the screens for a few seconds, processing the chaos unfolding before her eyes. Prisoners running through corridors, guards being subdued, alarms echoing through the penitentiary's sound system. She turned to Kel with an expression of confusion and concern.
"What is this, Kel? Why are you monitoring the prison's security cameras?"
Blood Night crossed his arms, assuming a defensive posture that clearly indicated he saw no problem with his actions.
"Exactly! Explain, kid. And you still come tell me what I just did. What did you just do, kid?"
Kel opened his mouth to respond, but Shine interrupted him with a hand gesture. There was an urgency in her movements that cut off any possibility of immediate explanation.
"You can explain everything to us later."
She looked directly at Blood Night, her eyes already beginning to glow slightly with rainbow energy.
"We need to go."
The three left the underground laboratory in tense silence. The elevator seemed to take an eternity to reach street level, and when they finally emerged in Kel's apparently ordinary house, the reality of the situation began to weigh on all of them.
On the sidewalk, Shine waved to a passing taxi. The driver, a middle-aged man with a graying mustache, stopped reluctantly. When Blood Night approached the vehicle, the taxi driver observed him through the glass with evident discomfort.
"Where to?" he asked, but his eyes remained fixed on Blood Night's masked figure.
"Ralow Prison," Shine responded, getting into the back seat.
The taxi driver swallowed hard. His hands trembled slightly on the steering wheel as Blood Night and Kel settled into the vehicle. Throughout the entire twenty-minute drive, he continued casting nervous glances through the rearview mirror, clearly recognizing Blood Night from news reports or street rumors.
Traffic seemed to conspire against them. Every red light, every minor congestion, increased the tension inside the taxi. Blood Night tapped his fingers impatiently on the worn leather seat, while Kel constantly checked his portable communicator, monitoring the rapidly deteriorating situation.
When they finally arrived at the gates of Ralow Prison, chaos was visible even from outside. Police sirens echoed in the distance, helicopters circled the penitentiary complex, and emergency teams positioned themselves around the perimeter.
They got out of the taxi. The driver didn't even wait for payment - he accelerated immediately, disappearing in the opposite direction with tires squealing on the asphalt.
The main entrance to the prison was partially blocked by police vehicles, but there was clearly a breach in security. Guards ran from one side to another, shouting contradictory orders at each other. The internal communication system had apparently failed, creating a cacophony of noise and confusion.
They entered the complex through a side door that had been broken from the inside. The main corridor stretched ahead of them like a nightmare tunnel. Bodies of unconscious guards were scattered across the concrete floor, some moaning weakly, others completely motionless.
Prisoners wandered freely through the corridors, some carrying improvised objects as weapons - broken chair legs, pieces of metal torn from cells, even torn uniforms of defeated guards. The sound of breaking glass echoed from various directions, along with victory shouts and animalistic roars of unleashed violence.
Blood Night observed the scene with almost academic interest. Some of the prisoners wore blue bracelets on their wrists - devices that blinked intermittently with LED lights. He had no idea what they meant, but there was something about them that seemed important.
"Stop, stop!"
His voice echoed through the corridor with absolute authority. Several prisoners turned in their direction, temporarily interrupting their destructive activities.
"Time to go back to the cage, bunch of weaklings!"
The reaction was instantaneous and predictable. Sarcastic laughter echoed off the concrete walls. One of the prisoners, a tall man with tattoos covering his entire neck, spat on the ground near Blood Night's feet.
"Who are you, clown?"
Kel's voice came clear through the communicator Blood Night wore in his ear:
"Knock them all unconscious and throw them inside the cells. I'll close the doors from here."
It was a simple plan, but one that would require precise execution. There were at least twenty visible prisoners in that corridor, and probably dozens of others scattered throughout the complex.
The prisoners began moving toward them like a human wave of contained violence. Some brandished pieces of metal, others simply advanced with clenched fists and murderous expressions.
Shine immediately launched into the air, her body beginning to radiate rainbow energy. She flew toward the nearest group of prisoners, hitting the first with an uppercut that lifted him completely off the ground. Before he could fall, she grabbed him by the shoulders and carried him flying directly to an open cell.
The metallic sound of the door closing automatically echoed through the corridor - Kel was fulfilling his part of the plan.
Blood Night watched Shine in action for a moment, then looked at the remaining prisoners advancing toward him.
"I'm going to beat the crap out of all of you without using my power or my sword. Just martial arts."
Among the approaching prisoners, two clearly stood out from the rest. One was a gentleman with red painted hair - not naturally red, but artificially dyed in a vibrant red that contrasted strangely with his pale, wrinkled skin. He was thin, but there was a feline agility in his movements that suggested combat experience.
The other was a completely bald man, his head covered by an intricate network of tattoos that extended to the nape of his neck and disappeared under the collar of his orange prisoner uniform. Like many others, he wore one of the blue bracelets that blinked regularly.
Most of the prisoners rushed at Blood Night simultaneously. The first to reach him brandished a piece of rusty iron like an improvised hammer. Blood Night dodged to the left, grabbed the man's wrist, and spun him with enough force to dislocate his shoulder.
The sound of the bone coming out of place was audible even over the general noise of chaos. The prisoner let out a high-pitched scream and fell to his knees, holding his damaged arm.
A second attacker tried to grab Blood Night from behind, but he quickly crouched and hit the man in the stomach with a devastating uppercut. The impact completely knocked the breath out of the prisoner, who doubled over himself and fell to the ground, struggling to breathe.
Blood Night moved with a fluidity that demonstrated real hand-to-hand combat training. His punches were precise and economical in movement, each blow calculated to cause maximum damage with minimum effort.
Shine continued her aerial work, picking up the prisoners Blood Night knocked out and quickly transporting them to empty cells. It was an efficient system - he defeated them, she removed them, Kel closed the doors.
Small robotic insects the size of bees began appearing in the air, buzzing in precise patterns. They were Kel's creations, each equipped with small needles loaded with sedatives. They headed specifically for prisoners with blue bracelets, quickly stinging them on the neck or exposed arms.
The effect of the sedatives was almost instantaneous. The affected prisoners wavered for a few seconds, then collapsed unconscious on the floor.
Blood Night was dealing with three simultaneous attackers when the gentleman with red hair approached from behind. In his hands was a heavy iron bar, apparently torn from some prison structure.
Blood Night noticed the peripheral movement and began to turn, but wasn't fast enough. The iron bar connected with the side of his head with a dry, brutal sound that echoed through the corridor.
Stars exploded in his vision. He staggered to the side, trying to maintain balance, but at that same instant the bald man emerged from his left brandishing a second iron bar.
The second blow hit Blood Night on the opposite temple. This time, he fell to his knees, holding his head with both hands as waves of pain pulsed through his skull.
"My sweet writer," he murmured, his hand instinctively moving to the sword on his back. "Sorry, but I'm not going to ask permission to eliminate you from my narrative."
He rose slowly, pulling the blade from its sheath in a fluid movement. The metal gleamed under the fluorescent lights of the corridor.
Gripping the sword's hilt tightly, Blood Night moved with lethal speed. The blade cut through the air in a perfect arc, meeting the red-haired man's neck before he could react.
The head separated from the body with surgical efficiency. Blood gushed from the severed artery, splashing the concrete walls and creating a pool that spread quickly across the floor.
The bald man was close enough for his companion's blood to splash on his face. Red drops ran down his cheeks and dripped from his chin.
His eyes widened with absolute horror. He bit his own lips so hard that he also began to bleed. Tears sprouted from his eyes and began mixing with the blood on his face.
"Meisy," he whispered, his voice broken by pain.
He looked at Blood Night with a fury that transcended anything human. His hands trembled violently as he repeated, louder and louder:
"What did you do? What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO?"
Shine landed near them, looking horrified at the decapitated body.
"Hey, why did you kill the guy?"
Blood Night spun his sword, cleaning the blood on his own clothes, preparing to respond. But before any words could leave his mouth, he felt something changing in the air around him.
A red glow began emerging from where the bald man was standing. At first it was weak, almost imperceptible, but it grew rapidly in intensity.
The bald man's eyes glowed with solid red light, as if burning embers had replaced his pupils. The same red glow began pulsing through the visible veins in his arms and neck.
The blue bracelet on his wrist began emitting a high-pitched alert sound. Cracks appeared on the device's surface, and finally it shattered completely, the pieces falling to the ground like electronic confetti.
The red glow that had been contained now hovered freely around the man's entire body. It radiated perceptible heat, and the air near him began to distort as if it were over hot asphalt.
Blood Night observed the transformation with genuine surprise.
"You've got to be kidding."
**[M.L.P - Multiverse: Forbidden Legacy]**