One month later

  Demeteria’s guard captain carefully looked over the new recruits. The line of men and women shifted nervously where they stood. Many of them were desperate for employment, and Demeteria was one of Bastion’s foremost employers with all of its continental greenhouses in the vicinity. Still, you could occasionally find gems in the rough, and that was what he was here for.

  Talent.

  “Listen up. I’m sure plenty of you are rearing at the opportunity to enter our ghostslayer program, but those positions are reserved for our very best. Today is a very important day. We’ll be assessing your potential, and your performance today will follow you for the rest of your time at Demeteria.”

  Guard Captain Harold gave them an evil grin.

  “Pair up. On the double.”

  “Yessir!” the guard recruits cried. Harold’s military background was showing, and it was clear that he would be rigorously testing them to determine their future assignment. Whether you were assigned to the dumpsters behind Demeteria’s corporate headquarters, or to the Volatile greenhouses where the most important experiments were carried out would be determined today.

  “Want to partner up with me, sweetheart?” Evantra heard from behind her. She turned, watching as a giant of a man ambled over with a grin, before licking his lips. She quickly saw other recruits begin to ask her to partner with them.

  “No, pick me!”

  It looked like they were all eager to pick the weakest looking sparring partner as possible.

  “Sure,” she said with a polite smile, taking position opposite the giant.

  “Begin!”

  “It’ll be over in a second,” her opponent said with a smirk.

  The hulking man charged. His arms were outstretched, leaving her no room to manoeuvre. It was the equivalent of being in the path of a charging wyvern.

  Evantra let out a sigh.

  ***

  One month prior - the day of the briefing

  “Demeteria’s head of operations, Harold Dragos. Served in the Romanian military when Bucharest came under siege by bloodspawn. A mythic veilsurge opened in the proximity of the city.”

  “He sounds impressive,” Evantra said as Uriel paced in front of them. They were seated in her apartment, where the bulk of the planning of their infiltration was taking place. Benjamin was seated to her right, while Noelle and Jack munched nonchalantly on some chips.

  Uriel’s right eyebrow twitched as she cast a withering glance towards her Australian colleague, who simply grinned.

  “Dragos is a scumbag. He ascended through the ranks using duplicity and actively selects for people who use similar underhanded tactics as him. It also makes him very good at countering those tactics, which is why Demeteria hasn’t booted him from his position.”

  “The Guard Captain is a fan of one-on-one fights; he believes it reveals a lot about the participants. If you’re to be assigned to the Mars facility… you’re going to have to make an impression.”

  Uriel clicked the device in her hand, moving it to the next slide.

  “This is David Bromberg. Your first obstacle during Dragos’ trial.”

  Together, they stared at a mountain of a man. Muscles bulging against the shirt he was wearing, and Evantra was confident that he would have given Galahad a run for his money. The cocky grin on his mug spoke for itself when it came to the matter of the man’s self-assurance.

  “Of all of your potential matchups, this one is your weakest.”

  “Wraith… will all due respect. You’re… what is the word, Amitabha?” Benjamin said, snapping his fingers as he pondered.

  “‘Fucked’ I think it is, mate,” Jack helpfully offered while munching on his crisps.

  “Thank you, Jack.”

  “No worries!”

  This time, Evantra joined Uriel as she glared at them, watching as Jack offered the bag of crisps to Benjamin, who gingerly extracted one.

  Uriel halted, golden eyes boring into Evantra’s own.

  “He’s taller than you and stronger than you. Taking him on in a conventional spar would be a death sentence. Usually, when you fight someone larger and taller than you while complying with typical sparring conventions, this is what I would recommend.”

  Uriel executed a series of blurringly fast low kicks.

  “Low kicks, kicks to the knee, and calf kicks to keep him out of range. You’re going to either have to stay out of his range or dance right in. If you move close, use body attacks with quick lateral movements. By fighting right up in his range, you’re going to be leveraging your strengths and minimising his own,” Uriel continued, demonstrating a dirty boxing and clinch fighting technique.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “Woah,” Noelle whispered, taking another bite of crisps. “She’s good, huh?”

  Jack nodded at her with a grin.

  “Yeah, nah. Wouldn’t ever want to get in a spar with her. Crowned champion of the Purgatory fights in Elsecaller City.”

  “You three.”

  Uriel graced them with a serene smile.

  “Another word and I’ll be demonstrating the techniques on you.”

  “Easy there, mate. Just admiring your form!”

  Getting to know Uriel and Jack in person was strangely humanising. Evantra realised that the pair of them shared a level of trust uncommon between slayers. It seemed like they were not only close friends, but truly united in their stated goals to bring back the magical girls and guardians.

  In other circumstances, their banter would have been a heartwarming scene.

  In these?

  Evantra let out a groan as she stared at her would be opponent’s smug face and immense physique.

  “But… those techniques are useless when you’re given limited space to play around with. More so when you aren’t bowing to conventional rules, and where everything goes. They become practically useless. And that’s why leveraging Dragos’ eccentricities will come in handy,” Uriel said, finally breaking into a devilish smile of her own.

  ***

  David’s arms wrapped around torso, immediately limiting her movement. She could feel the air beginning to be pressed out of her lungs as her opponent clutched her to his chest, attempting to squeeze her into submission.

  He was overconfident, not even bothering to go for a more reliable lock.

  Then, the giant began to convulse. David locked up, twitching aggressively, his arms gradually loosening around Evantra, allowing her to step away with the taser in her hands. She stared at the twitching mess that was David Bromberg, as the rest of her opponents paused in their spars to stare at her in sheer astonishment.

  Evantra simply looked over at Guard Captain Harold.

  “You didn’t say there was a rule against weapons,” she said with a shrug, raising the taser in her grip. “Sir,” she added as an afterthought.

  Harold gave her a vicious grin.

  “Excellent. You’ll need to use everything at your disposal to execute the tasks that we set you. But please, I wouldn’t want to interrupt,” he said with a cruel grin.

  Evantra watched David begin to climb to his feet, a look of pure rage in his eyes as he bared his teeth at her.

  This time, when he charged, Evantra was sure that mere incapacitation wasn’t his goal. Still twitching from the voltage that she had driven into his body, Evantra smoothly slipped under his grip before landing a firm kick to the man’s right knee. She heard a snap, and she knew that she had struck true. The man’s leg buckled under his immense weight, and Evantra let his downward momentum do the work as she positioned her palm at the base of his nose and drove it upwards, crushing it into a bloody mess.

  The onlookers looked on in sheer horror, even as Harold’s chuckles grew into laughter at the display of brutality. But her opponent was hardly done. If anything, all her injuries had achieved was to make him even more enraged.

  But this time, when he charged, the giant was limping, off-balance and disoriented. Her ‘tricks’ had bought her the opportunity she needed to show her stuff. Evantra skilfully danced into and out of his range, avoiding his sluggish attempts to grab her, while peppering him with body shots to the liver and kidneys in an impressive display of technique that Uriel had drilled into her.

  When the giant reeled backwards, on the edge of consciousness, Evantra hooked her left hand around his neck and brought her right elbow upwards to smash it into the front plane of his face.

  She winced as it came away bloody, some of the man’s teeth falling free.

  Finally, her opponent collapsed in a bloody mess.

  Her entire body burned with fatigue. It felt like every muscle fibre in her arms, legs and torso were screaming at her, protesting and begging for rest.

  Evantra released [recovery].

  Instantly, she felt a cool sensation wash over her body, wiping her fatigue away, returning it almost to the state before she activated the skill. Over the past month, she had trained with [recovery] relentlessly, and could now use it while walking, running and during combat. Not only had it drastically increased her stamina, it now reached the point where it could grant her a second wind on demand, so long as she was capable of carrying out the required physical activity while the skill was active.

  By gradually increasing her threshold, Evantra could now call on second winds during her fights.

  Evantra smoothly turned to her peers around her, gracing them with one of Uriel’s signature smiles of serenity.

  “Who’s next?”

  ***

  “An impressive display. You knew that there was no way you could out-fight him at close range without another strategy. Bringing along your own weapons for the assessment and smuggling them in under our noses? Great initiative. Just what we’re looking for here at Demeteria,” Harold said to Evantra after the assessments were over.

  “But most of all… excellent stamina. You hardly needed to spar with the other candidates, but it seemed like you were eager to prove that you weren’t a one-hit wonder. You were able to perform consistently at a high level without getting fatigued. Just the candidate I’ve been looking for.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Evantra watched as the man referred to the background checks that he had ordered.

  Courtesy of Seraphim corporation.

  They must be desperate for new blood if they are outsourcing checks for the Gaia facility.

  That means they have a very high turnover rate.

  “Millie Anderson. No conflicts of interest or anything of concern. You’re a prime candidate. We’ll be sending you to the Gaia facility. Await further instructions once you arrive.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Evantra rose, leaving the Guard Captain’s office. She tried her best to avoid the glares that her fellow candidates shot her as she picked up her belongings, heading towards the transport.

  She hadn’t made any friends, but her goal had been achieved.

  ***

  The transport vehicle came to a stop. Twin metal doors gradually began to open, reminding her of the gate to the lost territories at Wisptown’s border. A rhythmic yellow light was flashing, along with a steady blaring that signalled that the gate was opening.

  “Not what you were expecting, huh?”

  A Demeteria operative at the head of the transport grinned at them. Only half of his face was visible under his visor. They were being driven further into the continental greenhouses, much further than they had ventured during their bounty.

  “Nezha’s going to make a killing with this one. At least… until we’re able to reverse engineer it. No space travel for you lot, we’ll be getting to Mars another way.”

  Evantra shot a quick glance towards the other people assigned to the Mars facility. Her eyes passed over both Noelle and Benjamin, both of whom were sequestered amongst their peers. The employees were bustling to catch a glimpse of the opening gate, and what awaited them within.

  Evantra’s eyes widened as Uriel’s words were confirmed.

  She stared at the familiar scene.

  The black tear in reality within the room cordoned off by thick, steel doors.

  A veilsurge leading to their destination.

  The Gaia facility.

  Mars.