They took him to a secluded training field, far away from the rest. The air was different today. The people had expectations. Lucy, Brigid and the rest of the team that had recovered him from the abandoned mall. Their expectation rankled like trash odor from their stony faces.

“Adam, tell us about your Talent.”

“So you figured out.” He stated, unsurprised. “When?”

“We had an inkling when your berserk form dodged our attacks.” Lucy said. “The reason why we haven’t brought it up before this is because, well, it wasn’t that relevant to your training.”

“More specifically, we wanted you to get the basics down.” Brigid said. “Now that you have, it’s time to more onto the next stage.”

“Fine, try to kill me.” Adam said.

“Huh?” Saria exclaimed. “You dumb, or what? We told you to—”

“It’ll only work if I’m in mortal danger.” Adam said. “So, just—”

The beam of light blasted from Brigid’s finger tips, piercing his chest. He fell, like the strings of life that held him up had been severed…

He rolled to the side. The beam blasted past him and hit the grass behind him. A smoking hole, the diameter of a finger, was produced.

“What the fuck!” He cried. “Warn me first!”

“That purple light again…” One of the bystanders murmured. “It’s true.”

“Oh, very good.” Brigid commented. “Not many can dodge that—without warning, of course.”

“Yeah, that’s it.” Adam said, grumbling. His hands were still shaking. This woman was terrifying. “When I’m about to die, I see an image of the death beforehand. It lets me dodge.”

“Can you activate it on will?”

“No. It also doesn’t work if I don’t have my pendant.”

“We can work on that.” Lucy remarked. “You have a better control over your soul energy now.”

“Right…so how does this work with my Pactbearer stuff?”

“Activate it.”

Adam concentrated, tried to dig deep into his soul. To sift past the threads of cherry-red and find the strands of gold that saved him from the brink of death. He grabbed onto them, pulled up out with much effort and forced them out of his self. His right hand began to glow gold.

Saria stared at her own palm and recalled the memory of that day.

“Hold on, I have to go.”

“Saria, wait!”

Saria ignored her friend and ran outside the shopping mall. This was such a major breach of protocol, but at that moment she didn’t care. Her body felt electric. This wasn’t the noxious, suffocating sensation of the red. It buzzed through her system like liquid hope.

It reminded her of her first day, when she knelt in front of the altar and let the hands of the Goddess touch her forehead.

Her steps quickened. She clenched her teeth. If this worked, if this was real, then it could change everything.

She found a few vagrants milling down the road. These weren’t part of the horde and must have naturally wandered over.

“Over here!” She shouted. “Come and get me!”

The vagrants raised their heads, moaned and charged at her. Her eye electrified. Parts of her brain, once sealed shut, flooded with energy. She blinked and saw the weak points of the vagrants as blue spots, as her Talent usually did.

Then, one of the vagrants moved. She saw a shadow ahead of it, moving through the future. It was a prediction.

She aimed and fired at the spot. A second later, the vagrant moved to fill it. Her bullet made contact.

She tried it again. She let the vagrants move close to her and their future shadows closer. The rate at which she blasted their heads off would’ve made the sniper squad back home turn their heads. It was like taking candy from a baby. The vagrants didn’t even get a chance.

Standing among the husks, she imagined what this newfound Pactbearer’s power could do for her. For Lucy, Brigid, West Junction and the rest of her comrades from Astraea.

“With this, we can finally…” She dared not say it. They had to be patient. Make sure Adam was in with the plan.

“Through the bond, the Pactbearer and Exile mutually share their talents.” Brigid explained. “Saria has already received hers. What about you, Adam?”

“Hell if I know, I’m the guy from the place without magic. Aren’t you guys supposed to know about this?”

“Information about Pactbearer is rare.” Lucy said. “Most we have to go so far are rumors.”

“Let us work on the bond itself. Saria, you will be partnering with Adam for the near future.”

“What! Why?”

“It should be obvious.”

“Fine.” Saria said, pouting.

It was not actually fine.

When Brigid said Saria was his partner, it meant in a lot of ways. They were forced to eat, perform guard duty and train together. Lucy had left the picture, leaving behind a hole in her presence and Saria was finding Adam wanting.

If it wasn’t the snide remarks, it was the time that they got legitimately angry at each other. Never before had Adam found a woman this rude. Why hadn’t he pacted with Lucy instead? She seemed like the more reasonable of the lot.

West Junction performed all sorts of experiments on him, calling them training exercises. He soon became acquainted with Brigid’s Talent to fire rays of light at him. His pendant flashed like it the signals from a lighthouse. The image of his death replayed himself out over and over again.

He could tell he was improving. Sometimes, the images moved. They were miniature movie clips, of the goriest show in the world. His reactions were getting better. He had become acquainted with Saria’s blows like they were the wind itself, and could now deflect and even counter them. He still had yet to beat her.

“Let’s play a game.” Brigid had said one day. “Adam and Saria will partner up, as usual. You will both work together to avoid our attacks. Getting hit will accumulate points—for your partner, that is. You both will win if both of you have a low amount of points. There must not be a great disparity between the two.”

And so came the great hail of light beams, rocks and blades.

It was a complete shitshow. Saria was used to it. She charged ahead, dodging the projectiles and blocking any that came that her way. Adam was not so competent. The projectiles tore through his clothes and left him a bleeding mess.

“I can do it myself!” He said to a Lucy frantically patching him up.

This repeated over the following week. Saria went from somewhat hopeful to growing more and more frustrated with Adam as the days went by.

“Are you even trying?” She demanded, after one particular training session. The stench of the red was high across the field. It was a cloudy day, the red orb in the sky mingling with fog and vapor.

“Yes I am, damn it!”

“Because it sure as hell doesn’t look like you are!” Saria yelled. “I can only watch you fail to dodge so many times before I want to rip my own hair out!”

“Maybe not everyone is as good as you, ever thought about that?”

“What would your family say, if they could see you now?”

Adam paused. His world fell silent.

“What did you say?” he said in a quiet voice.

“Saria…” Lucy warned. Her words went unheard.

“I said, what would your mother or sister, say if they could see you now?”

It was like a switch had been flipped. Adam charged at Saria, his punching catching off guard and knocking her into the dirt. The red clouded his vision, egging him on. He was a furnace that overheated and the flames were the fists he swung down at her.

Nobody insulted his sister. Nobody, not even the girls. Not even God itself.

“Take that back. Take that back!”

Saria, of course, defended herself. She attacked with the wrath of a maiden of Astraea. The two ended up brawling on the ground, uncaring of whoever was watching, or what was happening. A howl rose from Adam’s throat. He twisted around, flailed, thrashed…anything to teach this infuriating blonde a lesson about making light of his family!

Her strike pierced his neck and tore through the bone. He died within seconds. Saria didn’t even look sorry…

“Both of you, stop!” Lucy cried. She ran into the fray and forced her body, separating them.

“Get away from him, Lucy!” Saria hissed. “I’ve had enough of his idleness!”

Adam just spat and charged back in for another bout.

In the end, Brigid rushed in and broke up the fight.

Solitary confinement. He was trapped in an underground cell, with a single light coming from in a shaft in the wall. Wasn’t the first time this had happened. The police back home loved to catch him and shove him into their confinement chambers. He had made a game out of escaping when young. As he grew older, he learned not to bother, preferring to outright avoid them instead.

The door cell opened. Lucy stepped in. In her hands was a tray of food.

“Hi, Adam.” She said. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Alright.” He said. His wounds still hurt from the brawl. “Thanks for the food.”

At least down here, his meals were the same. Lucy watched silently as he ate. Not that he was in the mood to talk, anyway.

“Hey Adam.” She ended up saying. “Can we talk about Saria?”