Aiko's POV:
*Bang*
*Bang*
"Just give up, your highness, and this will all be over!" The gross looking guy said as he whipped me again.
I'm not sure how long it's been since I got captured, but I think I've started putting some of the pieces together. These people are after my family's inheritance and have been trying to make me spill what I know. At first, they tried to force it out of me with torture, like tearing out my fingernails, whipping me, poking me with a burning hot iron spike, and so on. However, it's nothing compared to being hit with the pain stick, and even if that wasn't the case, I'm pretty sure I already experienced worse torture methods back at the academy.
It's both surprising and terrifying how creative the boss got with some of those. I still remember how the others reacted to the water drop thing. Kenji made fun of it, and Shinji suspected the water dropping down was actually acid, five minutes later Kenji was screaming for help, while Shinji had gone from his acid theory to lava, because of how much it hurt. Turns out, it was just regular water being dropped on us, and the pain was just all in our heads. Wait, what was I talking about again?
*Bang*
Oh right, the interrogation. Ever since I took in all those souls, my thoughts have been all over the place. After they did nearly everything, they gave up on torture and tried to use drugs instead, or I think they were. It's kind of hard to tell, because my current state of mind is already kind of trippy. So, from my perspective, nothing really happened after they force-fed me those pills, aside from maybe getting a bit tired.
*Rumble*
"I'm hungry."
*Bang*
"Is there anything to eat?" I asked in between the whipping.
So, yeah, after a few more drugging attempts, they just went back to torture.
"Hey! Is it weird that I'm starting to get bored in this situation?"
*Bang*
"What?!"
"Before, I'd imagine that getting tortured in a creepy dark dungeon would have been, I don't know, scarier? But this is kind of tame!"
"You cocky little bitch!" The torture guy said as he went as red as a tomato.
"Sorry, did that offend you? I'm not trying to be rude, it's just that I'm so bored, it's somehow worse than the pain! Could you maybe try something new?"
I was being completely honest here, but for some reason the guy only seemed to get angrier.
"Oh, so your bored, are you? THEN MAYBE IF I SAW OFF YOUR LEGS AND STICK MY-!"
*Creak*
"MINORU!!!"
Coming into the dungeon was some monocle guy in fancy armor. It makes me think of the boss back when he used to rock one of those as a professor. Maybe I should get one of those.
"AH! YES! I WASN'T DOING ANYTHING!" The torture guy whose name I already forgot said, as he suddenly went from angry to anxious.
"It's good that you're not angry anymore. Turning red like that can't be good for your heart. Or is it?" I said, before trying to recall what little I remember from the biology class.
"Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure Shiro Academy doesn't offer classes on biology, or stealth, or-! Actually, there were a lot of classes that shouldn't have been an option! So, did boss make those up for us?"
"What are you even talking about?" The torture guy asked.
"Oh, just reminiscing on the good old days! HEY, SHINJI! DID THE ACADEMY OFFER ANY CLASSES ON BIOLOGY?" I shouted, as the question was nagging at me.
"Shinji? Hehe! I see!"
"Whose she?" Shinji asked for some reason.
"HEY! HEY, SHINJI! HEY, WHY ARE YOU IGNORING ME! Okay fine! I'll just ask Kenji! HEY, KENJI! DID THE ACADEMY HAVE A BIOLOGY CLASS, OR WAS THAT THE BOSS DOING HER OWN THING WITHOUT PERMITION AGAIN?" I shouted at the two of them as they were walking into the cells next door, making us neighbors, or maybe roommates.
"…"
"WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT? HEY, COULD SOMEONE HANG UP A CURTAIN! I THINK THEY WANT SOME ALONE TIME! OR MAYBE, OH, wait! Are you guys here to rescue me?" I asked, as I finally remembered that this was a prison.
"…"
"Pft! Minoru! So, how much have you been able to get out of her highness thus far?" The monocle guy asked torture guy.
"Uh! Well, I! It's proving difficult without my normal method!"
*Sigh*
"Even if she is a prisoner, she is still of royal blood! Lay a finger on her in that way, and you will lose more than your head!" The monocle guy said in a scary tone.
"Y-Yes Sir!"
"HEY, MONOCLE GUY! HEY!"
Seeing he was about to turn to leave, I shouted out to the monocle man.
"Hm? What is it?"
"CAN I HAVE YOUR MONOCLE?"
Having this amusing look on his face, he entered my cell and dangled the thing in front of my face, making me kind of sleepy.
"You want this?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah! Can I have it?"
"Then what do I get in return?"
"I got a loogie you can have! I'm also willing to trade one of the boys' toes!"
"HEY, YOU CAN'T DO THAT!" Kenji shouted.
"Hush! He doesn't know that! He is stupid!" I said to Kenji, as I tried to cheat this sucker out of his sweet monocle.
"Hmph! How about I trade you this for the location of your grandfather's golems! Sounds fair?"
"Hm? How do I know this isn't a trick! Give me the monocle first, then we'll talk!" I said.
Stupid guy thinks he can fool me with fake promises of sweet accessories. What an idiot.
"Hehe! You seriously had trouble with this lass?" The monocle tease said to the torture guy.
"Uh, well! I uh!"
*sigh*
The monocle tease only looked disappointedly at the torture guy, before turning back to me.
"Very well then, here you g-!"
*Bang*
*Shatter*
Just as he was about to put the monocle on my face, I got out of my chains, and headbutted the monocle into his eyes so hard, pieces of it ended up stuck under his eyelid.
Thing is, I have already been working on my own escape plan since day one. Fortunately, the boss made sure all of us knew how to lockpick, so my restraints were never a major issue. However, the reason why I have been stuck up until now, was because I lacked the muscle to force my way out of here afterwords, but now that the others are here, that's not an issue anymore.
"Haha! Got you bitch!" I said, as blood was running down my face, as a circular imprint of the monocle was dented into my forehead.
"UGH!"
"WHAT ARE YOU-!"
*Bang*
*Thud*
*high-pitched shriek*
I then kicked the torture guy in between the legs as he tried to grab me. I then snatched the keys to the prison cells and threw them through the bars into Shinji's cell, right before one of the prison guards pushed me down.
*Thud*
*Thud*
The moment Shinji grabbed the key, he proceeded to grab on to the helmets of the guards right outside his cell and used his aura to kill them, before unlocking his cell. Walking out as the white flames enveloped their bodies completely before they had time to become spooky ghost. He then threw the keys to Kenji who caught them with his teeth as his arms were busy choking a guard with the chains around his arms.
*Thud*
"Hehe! HAHAHAHA! Ah, I'll admit, I was not expecting that! But, I think that will be it for you today!" The de-monocled guy said as he stood up and glared at me with his pink eye.
He then started glowing with a lot of stinky black farts for some reason as all the remaining guards fell to the floor.
"Hm? Why aren't you collapsing?" The guy said, as Shinji was clumsily stumbling behind him for whatever reason.
"Take this! Fires of-!"
*Bang*
Just as Shinji was about to hit him with his white fire thing, the pink eye guy, turned around and socked him straight through the bars of my cell, and right into Kenji who just managed to open the door to his cell.
"Too bad! I told you that you should have paid more attention in stealth class!"
"*Cough* No! *Wheeze* You didn't!" he replied
"Well, I thought it! Anyways, let's hit the road!" I said, as I threw some of the whatever this murky substance staining the floor was, into the eyes of the guard holding me down.
"What? GET HER, AND KILL THOSE TWO!" The pink eye said shouted at the hoards of guards rushing towards us from down the hallway of prison cells.
"Hey, pink eye!"
"YOU?! WHOA!"
*Thud*
"Your pants are down!" I said, as he tripped over his own pants.
Shinji, despite half-assing the stealth class, managed to become the best pickpocket out of all of us. Which is kind of weird, since being all sneaky is kind of part of the whole thief thing, but anyways. When he tried to sneak up on pink eye, the attack he did was more of a decoy, as he was in the middle of removing the guy's belt, and just barely managed to take it with him as he flew through the metal bars. Resulting in pink eye tripping over his own pants in this comedic skit, and Shinji getting the keys to their cuffs.
*Clank*
*Clank*
"Ah! That's so much better! Who knew there were handcuffs that could restrain qi like that!"
"Yeah, yeah! I'll take care of the guards, you take the big guy, and make it quick, we don't have long until the rest of the palace notice something is up!" Shinji said, as he created a wall of white fire that he pushed down the corridor.
"Will do!" Kenji said as he cracked his fists.
"You honestly think a mere red core can-!"
"Fires of War!"
*BOOM*
*Swoosh*
In an instant, Kenji suddenly flashed red, before disappearing from where he stood, and suddenly the pink eyed guy was in the wall behind me, while where he stood before was Kenji, but two his lower teeth had grown into tusks, his eyes, eyebrows and hair had suddenly turned into red flames, while some of that same flame enveloped his fist. His usual relaxed and cheerful demeaner was gone completely, and unbridled rage and bloodlust oozed off of him. Meanwhile, the guy in the wall looked like he had just taken an explosion to the chest, as his chest plate had been blown open, and a black scorch mark oozing with blood was seen on his torso.
Then, Kenji began to take deep and heavy breaths, letting out large amounts of smoke with each one, until he slowly returned to normal.
"I'm all done over here! How about you guys?" Shinji asked, as he limped his way back to us.
"That was awesome Kenji! How'd you do that! Can you teach it to me?" I said, getting all up in his face.
"Whoa! Hey, personal space Aiko! Geeze! Since when were you this full of energy!" he said as he backed away from me.
"They probably doped her with something! Anyways! We probably don't have long until the next hoard of idiots show up, so any ideas for how to get out of here?" Shinji said.
"Oh, I do! I do!" I said as I raised my arm.
"Okay, just say it quick, and then we'll decide!" Shinji said, giving me a doubtful expression for some reason.
I then explained my plan to them.
"Do you think that could work?" Kenji asked Shinji.
"Well, maybe, but it's a bit too risky!"
And just as Shinji said that, an ominous laughter echoed throughout the creepy dungeon, making the others go pale.
"Hey, Shinji! You did get all of them? We're the only ones left down here, right?"
"Yeah?"
"What about other prisoners?"
"No, there weren't any! There are only us, those two we knocked out, and a bunch of corpses left!"
*Gulp*
"If we just stay here and do nothing, we'll get killed anyways, right? So, let's just go with Aiko's plan!" Kenji said with a frightened expression.
"Hehe! You afraid of ghosts? Even after what we learned at summer camp?" Shinji mocked.
"Hey, Shinji! Why are your legs shaking? You need to use the bathroom?" I asked, before losing interest and went to go look through the locked closet of the torture guy, next to the entrance.