One quick Scar assisted flight, and a hop through the Heaven's gate later, Daisy was back in the nameless facility where she was supposed to be.

She had no issues with the fishy gate guards that were, well, guarding the Heaven's Gate as their name would imply. Not only did they know her face enough by now, but part of her runs into the city for supplies included bribery for them.

For reasons she couldn't understand, they were very fond of different oils and polishes, which they used to make their scales glimmer and shine. They did try to explain it to her, but such details of fishy fornication was something that simply went over her head.

Such was the blissful ignorance of children.

Unfortunately Alexandra, who was accompanying Daisy to make sure she didn't get into any trouble, understood every word. She tried, desperately, to get them to stop, but the girl just kept asking more questions in an attempt to understand.

It was only on their second rendition of their lesson on fish-man procreation techniques, that Alexandra finally managed to get Daisy to go through the gate.

She quickly made her rounds deliveriing what she had been sent out to get. Sweet treats, new clothes and even letters for those without a communication gift were amongst such items. But there were also less personal and more official items, such as mutated beast parts and metals for forging as well as various plants or seeds for those focused on medicinal studies.

For a long time, far longer than anyone had had their abilities, the scientists within this facility had been studying what could be called magic. Although they didn't know how to measure it or properly harness it, they still managed to create weapons that mimicked the properties of mana.

Although, they were very poor mimicries, just the fact they could function was impressive enough. But now they not only have access to it, but a much greater understanding of it alongside countless materials to perform various studies and experiments with.

No longer was their research restricted to what they could procure from a single specimen and his long lost technology that they could barely understand. They were like a genius who crafted a revolutionary suit in a cave, with nothing but scraps, only for him to come home into a world of cutting edge technology to aid in his endeavours.

Their boundaries were non-existent, their potential limitless.

It also meant that they tended to be a little ADHD about some of their projects, leading to countless half finished prototypes or ideas abandoned before they could be completed. Scientist 18 was no different, but was simply more focused on one specific type of project.

While the general subject stayed the same, she still made dozens of prototypes, some of them completed while others were mainly to test if an idea she had was functional while she compiled it into her Magnum Opus.

Those prototypes were exactly what Daisy had her eye on.

The young ghost girl sauntered innocently down the corridor, without the faintest hint of mischievous thought clinging to her. She made sure everyone know that, by taking long steps as she whistled in the most innocent way and made sure that she told everyone she passed her cover story, so it was cemented in their minds.

"Don't mind us! Just taking this big strong woman to the training room, no need to worry about us! Carry on with your work."

Daisy grinned to herself as she saw how amazingly her plan was working. Absolutely no one suspected a thing!

Alexandra desperately resisted the urge to face palm, but after Daisy espoused the same line to another random person who walked passed them, a person who was busy focusing on the papers in their hand and didn't even look at them funny never mind ask what they were doing... She just couldn't help herself any longer.

Her hand slapped firmly against her face and a low groan escaped her lips. Everyone knew that they were up to something. Even if they didn't before, they did as soon as they saw how obviously suspicious Daisy was acting.

Every single person gave them odd, suspicious looks. But thankfully, the childish nature that was getting them into this mess was also helping them stay out of the darkest depths of the mess.

The most that she could figure, they thought that Daisy was either playing some new game, which she was prone to do, or was up to something harmlessly naughty. Like stealing extra treats from her supply run stash or sneaking a friend in to show off.

It wasn't even close to the first time either of those had happened. So after a brief second of strange looks, most simply shook off the feeling and carried on with their work, while others simply laughed at her antics and played along by giving cheesy, over acted replies themselves.

By the time that they reached Scientist 18's storage area, there were thankfully no people nearby for Daisy to alert to their presence. At least, not at the moment.

With that thought at the forefront of her mind, Alexandra suddenly felt a surge of urgency as she pressed her hand against the door, and it utterly refused to budge.

Naturally, she could have punched a hole through it or tore it off of its hinges, but that didn't exactly scream stealthy operation. When the subject of stealing a prototype was raised, Alexandra had been quick to ask why they even had to steal it in the first place.

Seth, or Scar or... Whatever. That inconsiderate prick owned this place, somehow, so of course she asked him why they couldn't just tell the people to hand it over.

But apparently he needed this identity to 'remain a secret' and 'not exist in the eyes of the general population'. Whatever... If that's how he wanted to play it, fine. She would play along, only for as long as it didn't get Cynthia hurt.

Looking over the door briefly, Alexandra spotted a very obvious keypad to the side. She hurried over, examining the numbers in hopes that there was some kind of smudging or wear, but no such luck. She quickly turned to the young girl, who was still whistling away and looking around for more people to tell her story to.

"Well? What's the code for the door?"

Daisy turned to her with a blank expression, tilting her head in a way that looked like a flower was ready to sprout from the top of her head.

"Huh? Door code? I don't know that. Why would I need to know that?"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T-"

Alexandra's temper flared for a brief moment as she shouted in utter disbelief, before cutting herself off. She took a deep breathe, centering herself so she didn't lose her temper again at the child, and put on her sweetest smile and most maternal voice as she said.

"Sweetie, how can we get into the storage room if we don't know the door code? You know I can't break it down, right?"

"Duh-doy, I know that! If you wanted to go in now, why didn't you say so. I'm on it!"

Her hand slapped against her forehead in a salute, before her eyes rolled into the back of her head. In an instant, all life left her body and she went completely limp. Alexandra had to leap forwards to catch her before she hit the ground.

She turned the girl over it her arms, gently patting her cheek to try to wake her up. But before she could even begin to ask what was going on, she felt the ground shuddering beneath her feet.

Then another, and another. One after the other, in the distinct pattern of heavy footsteps of something big.

The next moment, the door let out a monotonous beep as its locked clunked open. It let out a long hiss of air being released before swinging open with a sound that almost made it seem like it was sighing in relief.

The room inside was dark as Alexandra turned towards it. The lights only flickered to life as she walked inside, Daisies lifeless body still in her arms.

As the lights flickered on and Alexandra finally saw what 18 was actually storing, she couldn't help but let out a soft gasp of surprise as her eyes widened with awe.

A deep, reverberating voice sounded from beside her, although there were still hints of childish glee and excitement in its tone.

"Hehe, they're cool right? So which one do you think we should take? I'm pretty sure she only uses this for prototypes, so she'll never notice anything is missing. We'll be fine."

***

Hours later, Scientist 18 was softly singing a classic 80s bop to herself as she inputted the code for her storage room.

She had been recently struggling with the transportation of her project. Getting it to fold down into convenient size was the easy part, relatively speaking, but weight was the most difficult part to solve so she shelved it.

However she recently realised that... such thinking belonged to the old world. So what if it weighed more than a tonnes? For most people in this world, that was nothing to carry.

So it was time to improve her baby some more, maybe even shrink it down further without having to worry about the weight. It was going to be perfect! It was going to be her best work yet. It was going to be... w-where was it?

Where was her Magnum Opus?! Where was her precious baby!

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