A short time later, Lani came out of the small bathroom of the bus and sat back down loudly at her seat to try and wake up Imogen. She was dressed in her new uniform. She had been right about the fabric. The uniform itself wasn’t too different in design from some sweats, but the fabric was beyond her knowledge. Some of the Ascendants who specialized in intelligence and had powers that meshed in that field had obviously come up with it. The uniform was one of the most comfortable outfits she had worn, but it also felt like it was as tough as thick leather, and it even had pockets. It was truly a marvel of engineering.

She actually had two of the uniforms in the bag, but she hoped that she would be able to get a couple more once she arrived. Doing laundry every day seemed like it would quickly become a dreaded chore. She could go a few days without cleaning her clothes, one didn’t survive in the slums without that ability, but she didn’t want to be the smelly person in the group.

It had been quite some time since Lani had worn anything close to that nice. The cost of these clothes was more than most people in the slums could scrounge up in a lifetime. Even in some of the nicer areas, finding the money to buy clothes this nice would be out of the question. Lani wondered what the more prominent members of the Ascendant Army had if these were the clothes they gave to the trainees.

Thankfully, in the bag with the hygiene items, there was a hair tie. They had taken hers when she was arrested and they never gave her another one. Her hair was getting so out of hand, that she actually considered cutting it. This was something she had never even thought of before. Sure, she had it trimmed when she was younger before her parents died and they could afford it, but she would never actually cut it short. Besides loving her dark curls that reminded her of her mother, she would look ridiculous with it short as it would never do what she wished. Her hair was currently tied back in a neat ponytail, and after splashing some water from the bathroom on her face, she almost felt like a new person.

Imogen still hadn’t woken up and she thought of waking the girl but decided to put her shoes on first. She reached into her bag and pulled them out. To her, they looked like a regular pair of all-black running shoes, but she was sure they had something special about them. She could probably walk on nails or something like that with them on.

Although, with a Green Core, I might be able to walk on nails anyway. I need to find out what I’m capable of and fast. If I’m already higher in ability than the Ascendant at the exit of the Monolith, then…I don’t even know what then. I just need to make sure no one finds out how powerful I am, that will garner too much attention.

“Hey get up. You need to get ready,” Lani said to Imogen. The girl didn’t respond so Lani gently shook her so she didn’t get startled. Lani probably would have screamed with any type of movement, but Imogen didn’t seem to care.

Imogen came to and she just stared at Lani for a few minutes in confusion. It must have taken her a few seconds to un-muddle her mind because Lani could see as Imogen realized where she was and who Lani was.

“Lani!” Imogen practically squeaked. “I’m so glad you made it. I was getting worried.”

“You were,” Lani replied. “Why?”

“Well, who else would I have to talk to?” She asked stretching her arms in a wide Y. “Not those two back there, that’s for sure,” Imogen pointed her thumb to the back of the bus. “You have to tell me all about what happened to you. What took you so long? What was your Monolith trial?”

“Hold on,” Lani interrupted the talkative girl before she got going.” We’re almost to the city, you should go get cleaned up and changed first. It won’t take long to get to the compound and I have a feeling we’ll need to make a good first impression.”

Imogen looked forward out of the window. The city walls were looming large in the encroaching distance. Lani figured the bus would slow when they got closer to the wall, but it wouldn’t slow down soon. Imogen didn’t seem to be worried about the time she had left.

“I’ll get ready in a couple of minutes,” Imogen said flatly. Lani expected the girl to start pestering her again with questions, but she just kept looking out of the window silently. Lani thought about asking her about her experiences in the Monolith but knew that all that information would be revealed, but whatever happened, it seemed to snuff out a little of the light from Imogen’s personality.

“When do you think we’ll get there?” Imogen asked. She didn’t look away from the window and Lani could sense some sadness in her question. Lani wondered once again what happened to her in the Monolith and decided to ask.

“Are you okay?”

“Huh,” Imogen asked finally turning to Lani. “Yeah, I’m fine. I was just wondering what life was going to be like now, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.”

The hover bus zipped through the city in what seemed like record time and arrived in the Optima Compound, the training base for the Ascendants. The compound was located on the far side of the city close to the more affluent zone. The Entire Ascendant compound circled the Ascendant King’s residence, which was more of a castle than anything. The point was to ensure the safety of the king and so he had quick access to his army. It was a ridiculous setup as far as Lani was concerned since the king was the strongest person in the city. He should be protecting it, not the other way around.

The Optima training compound was located at the edge of the Ascendant’s area of control. The buses stopped outside the gate to be let in and Lani peered out to see. The gate was large wrought iron with arching tops surrounded by razor wire. The fence line running away from the gate was almost as tall as the gate but equally topped with razor wire. The gate, fence, and razor wire weren’t made out of anything special. There was no need for it to repel monsters of the wild. These barriers were to prevent the average citizens from gaining access.

Next to the gate was a small building where a guard walked out and scanned something along the sides of the buses. Then he lazily walked back into the hut and a moment later the gates swung open inward. The self-driving hover bus they were in moved forward once more.

It was a straight line to their destination, and the bus stopped in a large courtyard. The building on three of the sides of the courtyard all looked the same being made out of a drab grey brick color.

Before the buses stopped, Lani saw an Ascendant standing in the middle of the courtyard. He was a short and bald man clad in the non-trainee Ascendant uniform, although he lacked the cloak that most wore. As soon as the buses stopped he walked swiftly to the first one. As the door to the bus opened, he went inside.

He was only in the bus for a few seconds, before he stepped back out and all the trainees filed out after him. Lani started to get out of her seat and collect her things as the Ascendant made his way to their bus.

The door opened and he walked in. It appeared that he was going to say something, but when he saw the lack of people on the bus he stopped dead in his tracks and then looked around for a moment.

“This is everybody?” He asked.

“Yes, sir,” Lani replied. She wasn’t sure how they wanted to be addressed, but she felt that was a good start.

“Why are there only four of you on this bus?”

“Sir, we were told that this is the bus for convicts.” Lani didn’t see any point in lying. She hoped that it would get that other boy in trouble anyway.

The Ascendant looked at everyone in turn. His visage was covered in a scowl as soon as she told him that they were the bus of convicts. Lani thought that she could see his face getting redder as he stared.

“Grab your gear and get off the bus,” was all he barked before turning away and leaving the bus.

Imogen looked over the Lani. “He looks pissed,” she whispered, “I hope he takes it out on all those other assholes.”

The four prior convicts quickly got off the bus as instructed and as soon as they were all off, the Ascendant yelled and waived over to them. All four start to walk over to where the rest of the group were standing in a formation, all lined up in four neat rows.

“Hurry up,” bellowed the Ascendant.

The group started to run to the back of the formation, but seeing their angle, the Ascendant yelled again.

“Oh, no you don’t! Over here! Upfront! Line up here!”

The group did as they were told and lined up in front of all the others while facing them.

“Now, you might be asking yourselves,” the Ascendant started while pacing back and forth. “What is going on? You might also be asking, Instructor Zam, why did you line up these trainees in front of our formation? Well, I’ll tell you why,” he held up a finger and shook it. “And keep this in mind, because I’ll only say this once.”

Lani looked up into the faces of all the trainees standing in front of them. Most of them were looking away, either to the side or down.

Instructor Zam, as he was apparently called, began berating the bunch. He went on about teamwork and working together interspersed with a healthy smattering of swears and threats for another five minutes.

A couple of the trainees actually looked remorseful for the position they were all in. But one boy made eye contact with her. It was the same boy who stopped her from getting on the bus with everyone else. He had the same sneer on his face that he had when he denied her entrance. Lani merely ignored him to continue listening to the instructor’s rant. The whole time the boy glared daggers at her, she could tell that the words were having zero impact.

“If I ever find out that your little shitheads excluded these people again, I will personally spit down your necks until you drown!” The last part actually came out in a yell with a fair amount of spittle flying from the instructor’s mouth. Since she wasn’t aware of his power, Lani thought that there was a chance that it wasn’t an empty threat.

"What matters the most,” he seemed to be finishing. "Is that you are all now, Ascendant Trainees. It doesn’t matter if they were a vagrant,” he pointed to the boy at the end of her line, “or thieves,” he pointed to the next boy and Imogen. “And it definitely doesn’t matter if they were vandals with parents who were traitors.”

Lani’s heart stopped beating for a moment.

What the hell just happened? He knows about my parents? Of, course he knows. All the Ascendants probably know. Then why did they give me this opportunity? Why would he mention that to all the trainees though?

Lani was thoroughly confused after the instructor's statement. She did her best to hide her shock and confusion, but she felt that it was plain to see. Many of the other trainees started to look up when the instructor started calling them out. When he got to Lani, she noticed their eyes growing wide. One face, in particular, turned into a malicious grin.

“And just so you know, you might want to think real hard about everything that I just said, because you will be broken down into five-person squads and one of these people will be on your team,” the instructor gestured to the group. “Go get in the back of the formation you four.”

With the addition of Lani and the other three into the group, the formation consisted of four evenly spaced rows. She did the math really quick and while she didn’t know how many survived, Lani was shocked to realize that only sixteen of them survived the Monolith.

“Alright,” instructor Zam interrupted her thoughts. “Now that we have all that other unpleasantness out of the way. On behalf of his majesty, the Ascendant King, I would like to congratulate you all on surviving the Monolith and welcome you to the Ascendant Army. This will be your home for the next three months, so I urge you to make the best of it. As I said before, I am instructor Zam and I will be your primary liaison during your time here.

“I will facilitate your training for the next few months and help you shore up any deficiencies. Your time here will consist of a lot of physical training, knowledge of squad tactics, monster fighting and we will be evaluating you for placement on teams once you leave. We will go over everything a little more in-depth later, for right now we are going to head over to the barracks, get you all situated, then meet back here. Fall out and follow me.”

Instructor Zam turned to his left and started walking to the nearest building.