We arrived at the intake sector of the first level, the precise zone where I would be stripped of my civilian life and processed into a common prisoner. Because I was a new arrival and the Citadel strictly managed the risk of spreading outside diseases or plagues into the cells, several guards wearing thick, ominous hazmat suits stepped forward. They didn't say a word, immediately dousing me from head to toe with a harsh, chemical disinfectant spray. The cold mist stung my bruised skin, but it wasn't anything too weird for a high-security lockdown procedure.
Then, the lead processing guard stepped forward, tapping his baton against his palm.
"We're doing a full body inspection. Strip off your clothes. All of them."
My face instantly flushed a deep, burning red. Panic flared in my chest. This was only the second time in my entire career that I had to act like a man, and the psychological whiplash hit me hard. I am a girl trapped in a boy's body right now, completely unprepared for the raw, anatomical reality of this disguise.
Seeing my hesitation and the sudden heat rushing to my face, the guard let out a harsh, mocking laugh.
"Look at him! You're blushing like a virgin, kid. Strip off, you little girl!" The surrounding guards joined in, loudly mocking my apparent cowardice and fragility.
Forced to maintain the act of the broken street rat, I reluctantly reached for the buttons of my ruined blazer. I stripped away the navy attire piece by piece, dropping the wet, stained fabric onto the cold stone floor until I was left standing entirely naked in the center of the intake room.
As I looked down to ensure my physical transformation as Keane Leon was structurally flawless, my eyes caught a sight that made my brain momentarily freeze. It was my very first time seeing male genitalia up close, and it was attached to my own borrowed body. The sheer, bizarre absurdity of the situation was overwhelming, but I forced my expression to go completely blank, steeling my mind for the inspection. I am Eirene, an S-rank infiltrator. If I have to navigate the awkwardness of a stolen male body to conquer this prison, then so be it.
The lead guard sneered and threw a bundle of fabric at my chest. It was the standard, fluorescent orange prisoner uniform. They didn't bother giving me any underwear, and as I caught the uniform, a rancid, suffocating stench hit my nostrils. It smelled utterly foul, exactly like it had been peeled off a rotting, weeks-old dead body and lazily thrown into a wash bin.
Before I could pull the fabric over my head to hide my burning face, the guard stepped closer, tapping his baton against his boot.
"Don't wear it just yet, you little girl. Spread your booty up. I'm inspecting."
I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted copper, forcing down the absolute urge to shatter his jaw. Maintaining the pathetic, trembling demeanor of the street rat Keane, I bent forward and let the guards conduct their invasive, humiliating physical inspection. They let out a few more crude, mocking chuckles before the lead guard stepped back and picked up a heavy, glowing metal wand from the processing desk.
"Alright, stand straight, we're doing a magnetic and mana-resonance scan."
My entire body froze. My heart skipped a violent beat, and cold sweat broke out across my back. The three paperclips. They were sitting directly inside my stomach. If that high-powered military magnet pulled against the metal in my gut, it would tear my stomach lining apart, expose my hidden lockpicks, and end this entire infiltration before it even began. It would be absolute game over.
I held my breath, bracing for the agony and the exposure as the guard brought the scanning wand close to my skin. He began rubbing the sensor across my chest, then down toward my abdomen. I closed my eyes, preparing for the worst, desperately counting the seconds as I faced the reality of losing my only method of escaping the magic-dampening chains.
But a miracle happened.
The wand glided smoothly over my stomach. The indicator lights remained a steady, dull green. No alarms blared, and there was absolutely no painful tugging inside my abdomen. The guard gave a bored grunt, turned the device off, and tossed it back onto the table.
As I stood there shaking, I momentarily wondered if my highly acidic, enhanced vampiric stomach acid had somehow dissolved the metal overnight. But as I subtly focused on my inner senses, I could still feel the distinct, hard weight of the three clips resting safely in my gut.
A wave of profound, giddy relief washed over me as the truth clicked. The cheap paperclips I had purchased back at the market weren't made of standard iron or steel at all, they were made of brass. Brass is a non-ferrous metal. It is completely non-magnetic.
"Hurry up and get dressed, trash," the guard muttered, completely oblivious to the fact that his high-tech security check had just been entirely bypassed by cheap stationery.
I quickly pulled the foul-smelling orange jumpsuit over my limbs, the coarse fabric scratching against my skin. My makeshift keys were safe. My disguise was intact. I was officially processed, clothed, and ready to enter the main population. It was time to find the cell blocks and take over this prison.
I pulled the coarse, foul-smelling orange fabric up over my shoulders and zipped the jumpsuit closed, adjusting to the alien fit of the garment. Now that I was fully clothed, I couldn't help but reflect on the bizarre anatomical discovery I had just made during the strip search.
"Damn, what a disappointment." I thought
As a girl inhabiting a stolen male body, I had expected something... more. But the real Keane Leon's biology was an absolute tragedy. To be brutally honest, his manhood was unbelievably short, barely scraping three inches. It was a massive disappointment for any woman to behold, and more importantly, a dangerous liability in a maximum-security prison. In a place like this, any perceived physical inadequacy immediately marks you as weak, transforming you into a prime target for the rest of the inmates. No wonder the processing guard had taken one look during the inspection and mocked me, calling me "pencil-sized." Keane really was a pathetic specimen on every conceivable level.
The lead guard stepped forward, slamming a heavy ink stamp onto my processing paperwork before looking me dead in the eye.
"Listen up, rat, you are not Keane Leon here. That name means absolutely nothing to us. From this moment until the day you die or rot, you are now Inmate 345."
I glanced down at my chest. Sure enough, a thick, crudely stitched white patch was stamped across the left side of the orange jumpsuit, boldly displaying the numbers 345. I reached around to feel my upper back, tracing the coarse texture of a matching label emblazoned across my shoulders. Keane Leon was officially erased. I was now just a number in the system.
"Alright, 345, keep moving," another guard barked, delivering a sharp nudge to my back with the tip of his baton.
Flanked by two heavily armed knights, their mana-spears humming with a faint, threatening light, I was marched out of the processing room and down a sprawling, subterranean corridor. The heavy iron chains around my wrists rattled against my orange jumpsuit with every step, the sound bouncing off the oppressive stone arches.
We descended a winding flight of stairs, leaving the intake sector behind as the faint, chaotic roar of shouting voices, clanking metal, and distant jeering began to grow louder. We were approaching the main cell blocks of the first level. The guards led me down the tier, past rows of rusted iron bars where shadowy figures pressed their faces against the metal, catcalling and laughing at the new arrival.
Finally, the guards halted in front of a heavy, solid iron cell door. A key turned in the lock with a deafening, clack, and the door groaned open. It was time to enter my cage and meet the population I was destined to conquer.