Wolf

Aidan Hunter has been my best friend ever since elementary school, but he went out of state after high school to attend a military college in Texas and we haven’t talked very much ever since due to our shared dislike of talking over the phone.

“It is you!” he shouts at me with a large grin before motioning for me to walk over to him.

Why was he back in Colorado?

I take a moment to study the people in between us before making my way towards him.

The same man from earlier watches me leave my family for a second before he rushes towards me whilst morphing his fingers into metal blades.

Is he trying to use me as a hostage to get mom's sword? Or is he just mad at us and wants to take it out on me?

It is interesting to see another person with the ability to change their body into blades at least.

I shift my weight the moment he reaches me before grabbing his elbow and spinning around to use his own weight to push him onto the floor.

Too bad for him he doesn’t know how to use it properly.

Before he can struggle against me, I pull out one of my knives and smack him on the back of the head with the handle to knock him out before getting back up and continuing my way towards Aidan.

The people around me immediately begin to clear a path after seeing my display.

I glance at my knife before putting it back in my pocket with a frown.

It would be nice to have a military knife instead of this crappy kitchen knife. It’s not very easy to knock someone out with a kitchen knife.

I ignore the fearful looks being sent my way by the crowd as I pass through to reach Aidan, who isn’t surprised in the least by my display.

And why would he be surprised?

He already knows that my parents raised my sister and I with the belief that we would become assassins one day.

That is, until they decided to retire from the business after their last job.

I grimace at the thought before focusing on Aidan again as he nods his head and says, “It’s good to see you again.”

I return his nod as I reach him before sending a glance back at my family. Mom and dad both nod for me to continue, meanwhile Katie just looks like she wants to run over here herself.

She really needs to confess to him already. It’s honestly starting to get a little sad considering how long she has had feelings for him.

I ignore her pleading look as I follow Aidan back into the alley between a couple of huts.

We walk in silence for a while before he turns a corner and walks behind a hut.

“So?” I hear a familiar voice as I turn the corner of the hut. "What was the commotion about?"

What the hell?!

She's here too?!

“Okay, how is it that both of you just happened to be in town again on the day of the initialization?” I ask Aidan and Lexi with my arms crossed in front of my chest.

Lexi shoots up from the ground in surprise when she hears my voice.

Ignoring her for a second, I glance around at the little setup they have here.

They have a campfire with a few logs scattered several meters away from it, most likely for seating, along with a wolf skin hung up on the hut behind them.

I wonder why they don't just try going inside of the hut?

"I can tell that you are curious about the hut, so I will just tell you about that first,” Aidan says, guessing at my thoughts. “Most of the huts around the safe zone have already been taken by the adults and older people who were transported here, so the rest of us were left to camp outside like this."

Before he can continue to answer my original question, I sidestep as Lexi suddenly jumps at me for a hug, prompting her to fall face first into the snow on the ground.

“Oh, come on!” she shouts, not appearing fazed at all by the faceplant, “we haven't seen each other for over a year! Couldn’t I at least have one hug?!”

I cross my arms with a frown, “As I have said before; I don't do hugs. Now would you please just answer my question?”

Aidan and I met Lexi in middle school and have been friends ever since, but for some reason she ended up developing feelings for me at some point despite learning about my parents' time as assassins. I have no interest in relationships though, so I turned her down without a second thought.

Despite that, my rejection didn't even phase her as she just continued to act as normal. Like I hadn’t said anything at all.

“We were actually coming to pay you a surprise visit for the winter break,” Aidan answers my question with a shrug.

I glance at Lexi before raising a brow and saying, “Together?”

Aidan scratches the back of his head and chuckles as he says, “We had actually both planned to come visit separately, when we somehow ran into each other at the airport.”

“Really?” I ask, not lowering my brow.

That’s some weird coincidence.

I finally take the time to look at the two of them as I ask, “How have you two been doing?”

Aidan is wearing a light blue jacket and jeans, matching his blue eyes to a tee, with a knitted hat covering his short black hair. Lexi on the other hand, is – for some strange reason – wearing a knee length skirt and a blouse. The skirt itself is black with white polka dots, while the blouse is just straight up black. She is also wearing a similar knitted hat while her long black hair reaches her mid back.

Did she grow her hair out since the last time I saw her?

Also, why is she wearing a skirt during the winter?

“We have been doing okay so far,” Lexi says as she takes a wolf corpse out of her inventory. “We even went out to go hunt and managed to take down a few wolves that were separated from their packs.”

My eyes widen in surprise as I exclaim, “You two hunted alone?”

Lexi smirks before a strange blue sphere suddenly appears next to her.

She then covers her mouth and whisper-shouts, “Yep! We used our abilities!”

At least she knows not to go around shouting about her ability.

“What does it-“

I am interrupted before I can finish my question as Aidan throws a rock into the sphere, to which it immediately bounces off before smashing into the ground at a much faster speed than when he threw it.

“Oh,” I mutter as Lexi starts giggling at what must be a stunned look on my face.

“It’s not just that either, watch this!” Aidan says with a grin as he points his hand at the ground and a wave of flames comes out of his hand, quickly melting a large patch of snow.

Those are some pretty good abilities.

I look down as I scratch my chin in thought.

“Aw, don’t worry. If your ability isn’t up to snuff, then we can protect you!” Lexi says in a playful tone.

I look up at her before freezing the moisture in the air around me, causing mist to suddenly begin falling to the ground and building up around me feet. After that, I create several daggers of ice before having them float in an arc around my head.

Both of them gape at me in stunned silence.

“So, who is going to be protecting who?” I ask with a grin before having the ice daggers dissipate into mist.

Aidan recovers first as he jokingly says, “Well, you always did have a strange obsession with the cold.”

His joke makes Lexi break out of her shock into a round of giggles.

I click my tongue at his joke, “I do not have an obsession with the cold.”

Another voice suddenly joins our conversation from around the corner, “Yes, you do.”

I turn around to see my family turning the corner with smirks all over their faces.

Seriously?

Aidan and Lexi both laugh at my families’ unexpected intrusion into our conversation.

“You’re one to talk, Katie. After all, you-“ I begin before Katie runs over to me and covers my mouth with her hands, not even hiding the nervous look she is sending towards Aidan.

“No you don’t!” she whispers in a rush as my parents watch our actions with a smile.

I push her hands off my mouth before turning back to Aidan and Lexi, only to find them watching our interaction with a sad smile on their faces.

Shit!

I didn’t think about it before, but they are probably worried about their own families right now!

“Are you okay?” I quietly ask them, furrowing my brows a little in worry.

Katie goes quiet when she notices my change.

“I think so,” Lexi says in a small voice as Aidan nods his head in agreement.

“There isn’t anything we can do right now except to fight monsters and get stronger. That way we can find our families as quickly as possible,” Aidan says with a determined look on his face.

Lexi looks at him for a moment before slapping both of her cheeks to snap herself out of it, quickly replacing her sad look with one of determination to match Aidan’s.

I smile at this sight.

It’s good that they aren’t giving up.

I turn to my parents and ask, “So, what happened after I left?”

“It’s kind of surprising really, but the mayor turned out to be in our safe zone. He was apparently healing someone next to a hut when everything went down, so he smoothed things out with the others as soon as he got back, shortly after you left with these two,” dad explains to me with a strange look on his face. “After hearing the mayor out, the other people finally calmed down and stopped paying attention to us. Some of them even thanked us after we offered to give them some of our spare wolf carcasses for food.”

I wince at the thought of wolves being used for food.

Dad looks past me and says, “You two are welcome to come with us if you want.”

I turn back to Aidan and Lexi as I wait for their answer.

They both look at each other for a second before smiling.

“Sure!” they both say in unison.

“We’re glad to have you,” I say with a smile.

Mom suddenly speaks up, “We should set up for the night.”

“Right,” dad says as he takes the firewood we found in the forest out of his inventory.

“I’ll go on watch first,” I tell them as I sit down whilst pulling out a wolf carcass to skin it for its fur.

“Sure,” mom calls over her shoulder as she helps dad add the firewood to Aidan and Lexi's fire.

I feel someone shaking me as I wake up.

“Get ready, we’re going back to the forest to hunt after we check out the totem,” I hear dad say as I open my eyes to find him standing next to my makeshift bed.

I sit up on the bed before stretching.

“What the hell is that!” Katie shouts while pointing at my makeshift bed with a shaky finger.

I glance at her before looking down at my bed and saying, “An ice bed.”

While it isn’t anywhere near as comfortable as a real bed, it’s still a lot more comfortable than sleeping on the snow, or on a log. It was also rather simple to make. All I had to do was create a large block of ice before covering it with the skinned fur that I got from that wolf.

Worked pretty well if you ask me. I slept like a log last night.

Katie just groans before muttering, “That ability is unfair.”

Mom snorts in amusement as she puts out the fire.

“Life is unfair,” I retort before getting up and putting the fur back into my inventory.

Aidan wakes up to see Katie sticking her tongue out at me.

“What did he do this time?” He asks her as if I am some sort of troublemaker.

Seriously?!

I glare at the two of them before walking over to dad as they snicker behind me.

“Are we going to hunt more wolves today?” I ask him out of curiosity as he practices using his ability.

He sends me a brief glance before continuing without pause as he says, “Yeah, but we might also try to find a bear, if possible. It’s possible that one might be a higher level than the wolves. Before we start hunting though, I would like to check out that totem.”

A bear?

That could be interesting.

“I wonder when we will actually start to run into real monsters, and not just animals,” I mutter as I watch him slowly manipulate a glowing blue dagger.

“I doubt it will take very long,” dad says before the dagger vanishes.

He then turns around to yell, “It’s time to head out!”

“Yes, sir!” Everyone says in unison before we begin following dad back to the center of the safe zone.

Inside of a certain Administrator’s office located several galaxies away from the Milky Way

“Please explain to us why you initiated that galaxy,” I ask the idiot currently sitting in his office chair with his feet up on his desk.

The man has crimson eyes that radiate a faint red light, bright red hair, and two large red and gray wings stretching out from behind him as he smirks with a look that makes me want to slap him.

Astaroth suddenly teleports a drink into his hand from who knows where and says, “Why, for the money, of course!”

“Cut the crap, Astaroth!” Tiamat suddenly says from her standing position next to the office door, looking ever imposing as her raven-black hair falls over her shoulder, and faint wisps of purple light leak from her mouth and eyes as she speaks, followed by a light flap of her black and purple wings. “We all know you only did it to amuse yourself!”

Astaroth takes his feet off of the desk and spins his chair around in a circle as he says, “Why, whatever could you mean? I would never do something like that!”

Tiamat clicks her tongue in annoyance at the obvious lie.

I sigh at the absurdity of the situation.

Astaroth has always been an idiot.

Ever since I can remember, he has always done whatever is most amusing to him. Nothing more, nothing less.

How this idiot ever became an Administrator in the first place, I will never know.

“You should think before you do stuff like this! What if one of the new initiates becomes-“ I shout, only to pause as he cuts me off.

“I know, I know. You’re worried about one of the one thousand becoming an Administrator, right? Well, you shouldn’t! None of the competitors in the past three galaxies have been able to survive the Administrator Dungeon! What makes you think that will change now, Talroth?” Astaroth says before taking a sip of who knows what.

“You are too reckless, Astaroth. It’s going to be the end of you one of these days,” Tiamat says with a cold glare before vanishing into a dark hole that appears out of nowhere below her feet.

I stare at where she was just seconds ago before sighing again and saying one last thing before teleporting myself out of the office.

“Try not to do anything stupid during this initialization.”