123 5.1

[Jordan's POV]

As I appeared within our new mission world, I felt a little strange. I couldn't put my finger on what exactly was wrong, but the instincts I had awakened with the activation of the First Genetic Constraint told me there was something amiss.

However, as it was currently closed, I couldn't delve deeper into the feeling, and could only look around with a frown on my face.

We were in what seemed to be an old, 19th century clinic, and the room was quite crowded. According to my research, we should be within Iosefka's Clinic. I made a quick headcount, and my eyes widened as I realized there were 20 of us.

But after a second look, my eyes settled on two additional people that shouldn't have been here. Shizuka and Lee, the two human creations of Sarah and Jonathan.

They were standing next to us, although they were sleeping, like the newbies were. How had they entered with us?

Although I hadn't been paying any particular attention on them, I still feel like I should have remembered if either of them had been in the beams. Had they been forcefully teleported then?

I was about to look at Alexander, when Helena asked aloud, "Where are Mary and Alexander?"

We all froze, before looking at each other, and finally realizing what was wrong.

We had two people missing.

---

[Mary's POV]

I tried to resist God's numbing as he took us to our new mission, but the force proved to be too strong for me as even my psychic enhancement was overwhelmed.

However, as I started waking up, I immediately felt there was something amiss as although this was only my second mission, I had been told entrance within mission worlds was always the same.

We wouldn't really be put to sleep, but instead our brains were slowed down and our spirit numbed, and only regain consciousness as we arrived. Regaining consciousness was supposed to be nearly instantaneous, however.

Now, I still felt the numbness, and it wasn't going away. I tried to open my eyes, but my surroundings we blurry. I could hear some shuffling around, but I couldn't really pinpoint on what was happening.

Automatically shifting to my Psychic energy, I was shocked to not find it. This triggered my mind, and I tried to feel my body, and while my senses were extremely blurred, I could still feel that there was something wrong with my body.

I was exactly the same as I was at the start of the last mission, which was my first. In other words, I had lost my psychic energy.

This… this felt like one of our old training sessions. They would pump us full of drugs and have us resist them as long as possible. This not only increased our resistance to drugs and poisons, but also taught us to still be able to act even under such circumstances.

Being one of the few who had reached the end of that training, I had been injected with some of the world's strongest drugs, yet even those felt like child's play in comparison to the one currently coursing through my body.

I tried to resist, but the moment I started shuffling around, I heard some unintelligible voices around me, and several hands press me down. My struggling intensified, but they were too strong as I felt a prickle on my arm, and instantly understood they were injecting something within me.

The moment it was injected, they let go of me, and while I first thought it was a stronger dosage of the drug I already had in my body, I immediately felt something was amiss.

I had a much keener sense of my own body than most people, developed through years of training, and it was thanks to it that I could feel this was different.

It traveled through my bloodstream to my brain, but I didn't feel it affect my body in the slightest. Instead, my spiritual energy, which I normally wasn't able to feel, reacted to the product, and confirmed my doubts.

First, my Beta Psychic Mutation had somehow been erased, leaving me with my natural spiritual energy. And second, it wasn't a simple drug, as it was directly attacking my spiritual energy, clutching onto it, almost like a parasite.

The sensation was extremely unsettling and uncomfortable, and but since I was able to get a slight level of control over my spiritual energy, I followed what I had learned with my erased enhancement and fought back.

Unfortunately, I could feel my efforts were pointless as all I did was slow down the foreign energy.

Yet, as I felt the foreign energy was about to take over my mind, a wave of an even much stronger spiritual energy swept over my mind, and pushed the foreign energy off my mind. I recognized it as Alexander's.

The problem wasn't completely solved as the foreign energy was still there, but using the scant control I currently had over my spiritual energy, I managed to trap it in place. A few seconds later, I felt a hand land on my forehead, and the foreign energy was as if sucked out of my body.

I was about to move, when I felt something sharp pierce my chest, directly reaching my heart. My years of experience and training made me panic for a moment, before I remembered Alexander's peculiar healing technique.

And sure enough, even with something going through my heart, I did not die, and instead felt the drugs be eliminated from my body.

After several minutes, the operation was done, and Alexander took his sword out of my body, giving me back control over it.

Opening my eyes as I sat up, the first thing I saw was Alexander, with blood on his chest and face, although it obviously wasn't his.

However, as I looked around, I was shocked and alarmed by what I saw. We were in a large room, mostly filled with operation tables. There were 22 of them, but what was shocking, was that they were all empty, except for the one I was on that is.

There was only Alexander, myself, and some corpses of what looked like doctors in this room, the rest of our team nowhere in sight.

Anxiety rising within me as I couldn't find Helena, I inadvertently let some of it slip into my voice as I asked Alexander, "What happened?"