Joan was on a mission today. A mission she had accepted from Dr. Mabuz, the local mad scientist. She had a cup of lime juice and dressed up, getting the request paper and folding it. It was a saturday, which was perfect for this kind of job. She assumed Dr. Mabuz wanted all the attention he could get to show off his invention. Joan began walking to the private laboratory. She caught some people curiously watching her as she got out of the guild. She assumed they thought she was a new person in the guild, so she ignored them. She pushed her ring so that it would not fall off. It was a habit now and she did it even though it was not feeling loose, ever since she bought it. It was no ordinary ring though. What it could do was it could turn Joan into a raven. This was pretty useful for a lot of situations. The ring even looked like a raven, which she thought was cool. After a while of walking, Joan had arrived at Dr. Mabuz’s place. As she pushed the door open and entered, she was greeted by the smell you would get at a hospital or a clinic. Well, this was probably because she was in a lab.

Dr. Mabuz greeted her and asked for her name, which she responded by saying ‘Joan’. He looked at her funny like she saw a ghost or something. “Do I know you?” he would ask.

“Maybe,” said Joan, and the doctor just gave her an odd laugh before jumping straight into the subject. After all, that was what she was here for. She was never a fan of wasting time. The mad scientist had worked on a chemical that would modify the animals’ something so that would do something. Although Joan was paying attention, she could not really understand exactly everything that she was being told because the scientist was speaking in...well, the scientists’ language. There were a lot of terms she was not familiar with, but she was not really interested in finding out at the moment. He then handed her a sheet and told her it was his rough sketch of the blueprints of the zoo. Joan took a quick look before folding it and kept it in her pocket where the request paper was as well. It seemed she was ready to start the mission. Dr. Mabuz had finished his part with explaining and so Joan left the lab. She had to go to the zoo now, which is one of the places - if not the only one - that she had never been to in the town that her guild was in. She was pretty familiar with every place in this town. She knew where the zoo was. She had just never been there. She would’ve to walk about ten minutes to get there though, but she was fine with it. Using a carriage wasn’t an option because she was broke.

[ 500 / 3,000 ]

As she walked out of the lab and in the direction of the zoo, she noticed that there were not a lot of people in the streets, but she could see that the war news was spreading like wildfire. Well, at this point it was pretty much the talk of Fiore obviously because it involved the king and everything. People were saying that the war was pretty much over and that whoever was opposing seemed to have won. Joan was not very interested in all of this at the moment. She was more interested in her own guild. Whoever took over the throne could not be as bad as the man they took it from, or so she would think. Not many people liked his lazy ass anyways. As the vampyress came to a turn, she bumped into someone who was reading something while walking. The book dropped to the ground as the boy turned upwards to face Joan, who would give him a very irritated look. “Tch.” Stepping on the book that was on the ground, she continued walking at her own pace. The kid was probably in his teenage years. At this point she could see the zoo now, and people were also entering it. Perfect. It was also because of the fact that this day was a saturday. She expected people - and a lot of children - to be there. It was just perfect for the objectives of her mission. She rubbed the ring on her index finger with a small smile.

Joan walked into the bushes that were beside the zoo. She did not think turning into a raven in plain sight was a good idea. There was quite a lot of people around the entrance and a long queue of people trying to buy tickets to enter the zoo. Once she had made sure that she was out of plain sight, she used a tiny bit of her mana to transform into a raven. She loved how she looked as a raven. Her feathers were so black and shiny, it was beautiful. However, she did not have time to spare to admire herself. So she flew out of the bush and into the zoo, quite easily. Of course she did not fly right in through the entrance. She flew around it so that she could get to where she was supposed to work quickly. It was at the back, according to the blueprints that she had memorized in Dr. Mabuz’s lab. The mad scientist had marked an X at the spot where she was supposed to enter through. If not for that, she probably would not have known where to get in from because that was the one thing Dr. Mabuz actually forgot to mention and just gave an indication of it on the map he drew. Once she was far back and a great distance from the entrance, she finally saw it. If it was not for the bright red door, she wouldn’t have known.

[ 1,000 / 3,000 ]

The door was locked, but it was possible to open it with a key. She took a deep breath and threw one powerful kick at the door, but it did not do anything. Frowning she stared at the undented door. This material was tough. She needed to use something else for this. She gently pulled out a bobby pin from her hair. It was one of those that was holding stray strands of hair together, so it did not really change the way she was wearing her hair and instead just let loose some wild strands of hair that could not be tamed. She straightened out the bobby pin and started to pick at the lock with it. She did not worry about time since she was really good with picking locks and this was just a chance for her to show off such skills. A few seconds later, she could hear a click, and so she kept the bobby pin and entered the building. There was no one near the door, she gently closed it behind her. There was no one and she could not hear any activity, so she kept walking, being extremely cautious while doing so. After she came to the end of a long corridor, she noticed one of the zoo staff, just doing his job, giving her his back. The blood sorceress walked up behind him and put a blood spear through him. He would not have been able to hear her because she was of the vampyre race.

Joan put his body under a table after stealing his clothes. She tucked her hair in the back of the shirt. It was not so important to successfully hide his body because she was going to finish this job soon and even if someone found him, it was not a problem for Joan. She continued walking along another corridor, pulling out the blueprints paper to make sure she was going the right way, although she had already memorized it. If the sketch that Dr. Mabuz provided her with was accurate, she basically knew where everything was in the zoo. So after stealing clothes to disguise herself, her next objective was to look for where the animals were locked up in cages. The mad scientist should have marked that spot with an X as well, but unfortunately Joan was to look for it herself this time. It had to be somewhere far from the entrance. She imagined herself in the position of the person who built this place. Where would they have put the most important part of it all? And so she walked in the direction in which she assumed the room was. There was no one along the way, so she was safe from other staff noticing her and getting suspicious. She was not sure if women also worked here, and if they did, she was not sure if they wore the same uniform that the male staff did. Then she came to the room.

[ 1,500 / 3,000 ]

Unfortunately, this was the part where things got a bit trickier. She was greeted by a fingerprint scanner beside the door that would lead her to the cages animals. She tucked the sketch paper back into her pocket and folded her arms. Now how was she going to get past a door that was heavily protected like this? Bobby pins were hopeless in this situations. She wondered if she should cut the thumb of the man she had just killed. She wondered if he even had access to this place. If there were only a few people who had access, there was no point in doing that. Soon, another man wearing the same outfit as she was came along, stopping in front of her with a questioning look. He asked what she was doing here and she thought of something to say immediately. “Ah yes, perfect timing! I need someone to give me access to this room. I’m one of the new trainees so I don’t have my fingerprint registered yet,” she said. The man gave her a very suspicious look. He obviously was not buying it.

“Since when did we get new trainees?” was the dumb ass question. Joan did not respond. Instead she gave him a look that could be interpreted as ‘I don’t know, why don’t you figure that out yourself you stupid monkey?’ It did not take long for him to be convinced and he brushed his thumb over the scanner. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know the way, so...don’t break anything, just do what you’re told to and get out,” said the man.

Joan nodded and entered the room. The door shut automatically behind her and she was all alone with a bunch of animals locked up in cages. The man did not stick around to find out what she was up to. He was probably busy or something. She could not believe how easily he was convinced, though. This place was supposed to be heavily guarded and he allowed someone he did not even know to get through. He was either really stupid, or he did not care at all. And he did not even bother to find out what she was here to do. She could not really decide which it was. Stupid or not caring? Either way, her little excuse had worked and she was here now. The animals made a lot of noise which was pretty annoying, but she was going to finish the job and leave soon anyways, so she could tolerate this to an extent. She brought out the chemical that Dr. Mabuz had already prepared for her in a syringe. All she had to do now was inject it into the animals and get the hell out of this place. It was supposed to mutate the animals, although Joan did not really understand. She assumed she would find out once she had finished her part. Joan walked towards the first cage from the far end.

[ 2,000 / 3,000 ]

The syringe was fairly big. She popped off the plastic cap and began. The first animal was a rat and she basically just reached in to grab it and inject the chemical. They were sorted by size so the further she got the bigger the animal was. Some of them were a real pain to deal with. They struggled and resisted, but Joan was determined so it did not hinder her progress. She hoped the chemical did not take effect immediately, otherwise she would get caught up in this mess as well and she did not want that. She was also interested to see what was going to happen to the animals, and how wrecked the zoo was going to be. The bigger the chaos, the better. She had to make sure she did not inject too much into a single animal because she had limited supply and she had to use it on at least fifteen animals. The mad scientist did not really specify a number for her, she just thought it would be appropriate to have fifteen animals causing havoc in the zoo, and if possible, outside of the zoo as well. It seemed she had come to the last drop and that would be injected into a huge white bird. She quickly grabbed it firmly so it could not struggle and then jabbed the needle into its body, injecting the chemical before detaching the syringe from its body as it shrieked unbearably. If someone heard this noise, it was going to be trouble for Joan.

She immediately left the room after she was finished and hurried back the way she came to this room. She was not going to get caught after having done this much. Even if she was, she would kill whoever saw her, but the mad scientist did not exactly allow her to murder more than one person - and the one person was to steal their clothes. Since she was working under his terms, she decided to lay low for now and get out of the zoo. She saw that the body of the man she had just killed was still lying there under the table. No one had noticed it yet. This zoo was basically hopeless. Passing by the dead man’s body just confirmed her thoughts. She was wondering if it was safe to leave after the same door she came in through since there was a dead man not more than 5 or 10 meters away from it. Since no one had noticed the dead man, everything was the same. So Joan headed out of the door. It was possible to open it from the inside, so she did not need to bring out her bobby pin tricks again. Once she got outside, she immediately used her ring to transform into a raven again. She was safe now. No one would catch her, and she was done with her job. Now it was time to see how effective Dr. Mabuz’s invention was.

[ 2,500 / 3,000 ]

Joan flew across the zoo territory until she was outside, landing on a branch of a really old, really big tree. She turned back to the zoo, eyes focused on the building that she was just in to see if anything was happening yet. Apparently not. She decided she would go and get something to eat and drink first before she checked on it again. She made sure she was still in the area of the zoo. Without breakfast, she definitely still could survive, but it did give her a tiny amount of energy. After everything that had happened, Joan had gone back to feeding as usual of course. She was not going to let herself go into a coma for a second time. That was so much time (and memories) wasted. Joan has yet to find out about things that had happened during her stay at the hospital. Especially because she was in a coma, there was no way she could remember if anyone even came to see her. The nurses did not tell her anything because they were too scared of the entity that was in Joan’s hospital room five days a week. That was all information that Joan could not find out on her own. She would need someone to guide her, and hopefully there was someone who would do that for her.

While she sat in the cafe eating her breakfast, suddenly everyone’s attention turned to the lacrima screen that was displaying breaking news. Checking to see how many people were watching, the sorceress also focused on the screen that now showed the mutated animals ruining the entire zoo, as well as injuring a bunch of people who were visiting. Joan smiled as she took a sip of her coffee. Mission accomplished. Everyone looked pretty stunned to see this kind of thing. It was not everyday that you could witness something like this on the news, so they should be thankful to Joan for providing entertainment and excitement into their lives. She finished her breakfast and coffee quickly before paying and leaving. All that was left was to collect her money from Dr. Mabuz. She walked back to the mad scientist’s lab from the cafe, watching the people of Oak Town nervously talking about the incident at the zoo. Nobody would know that it was all the doctor’s doing. Well the execution was Joan’s part, but the planning and the chemical were all Dr. Mabuz. Upon arriving at the lab, the scientist greeted her with a triumphant shout. He thanked Joan and rewarded her. As she was about to leave, he asked, “Have we worked together before?” Joan nodded her head.

“I am Joan, from Phantom Lord. I have worked with you many times before,” she said, blowing the mad scientist’s mind to bits. He could not remember working with anyone called Joan. Her face did not ring a bell in his head as well. But something about her was so very familiar. And so simply smiled and the vampyress left.

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