It was six in the afternoon, though you couldn’t tell since Ordo was draped still in a permanent darkness. The Baptists had spent hours training underneath the Martials as planned, while Jin Tiehan kept a close eye on the spatial distortion reports with Alma and noted the ones that were said to be object-bound.

It had been a productive afternoon for everybody. Blackviper personally assisted Gul in ironing out the flaws within the Alumnus both individually and as one while Alba had their own obligations. Althea worked under Alma and Vernon became an indentured servant to Yatsar and Thunderstrike Hammer; meanwhile, Jin Tiehan had taught Leona and Alexander a new trick and they both received a [Cleansing Pill] from Catalyst.

Now, it was time to eat and refresh their energy. Shortly after their supper was the real work: delving deep into the borough to begin their investigation of the anomalous spatial distortions, which were caused by a Comet infusing them within earthly objects, turning them into bombs. Currently the two Martials were speaking with Alma, probably to formalize their plan.

“Ugh…” Victor held his head up with a hand, weakly spooning the beef ravioli MRE into his mouth.

Alexander had curry and rice. He added a bit of hot sauce because it tasted bland; times like these, you needed flavor to lift your spirits. The dumbass beside him definitely needed a picker-upper. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked, stirring his meal with a spoon. “Did Blackviper really kick your ass that hard?”

“Yeah, a lot.” Victor tried to sit upright but failed, hunching his back, weighed down by exhaustion. “You wouldn’t believe it. The first time around, she wasn’t usin’ any skills. When she introduced ‘em—God—fuck me sideways and kill me. You should see Kaiya.”

He gestured at the end of the table. Kaiya had her head flat against the wooden surface, motionless and covered in so much dirt that you’d think she was a creepy doll that’d been abandoned for years. Something straight out of a horror movie.

Beside her was Chunhua who kept making troubled glances at her, but she didn’t pester her awake this time.

“Kaiya was put through the wringer. I kinda feel bad for her,” said Victor, quieting his voice to a whisper. “It’s been three years and she is still—and this is between you and me—she’s still kinda, sorta struggling at being an esper.”

“It’s psionic shit,” Alexander replied, leaning a bit closer to him. “She has [Great Psionic Aura] too. It’s not like mana where you can drink a few potions and you'll be right as rain. It messes with your head. Too much and Kaiya will end up like you.”

“Oh fuck off. You know what I mean, man. She’s gotten better, yeah, but…” Victor shrugged. “I dunno. And I’m not tryna badmouth her or anything just so you can understand that; we all know she has the potential to take on Rend or even Hunter, but I’m just worried. Professor Hei is, but she worries ‘bout us all the time.”

“Yeah…” Alexander took a few seconds to check up on Kaiya. When she first entered Systemic Works, she was a mess. Probably one of the weakest students in Class 1 at the time. A single use of her powers had made her dizzy and gush blood from the nose, maybe the ears too. She had built up enough resilience but she couldn’t exert herself for reasons Alexander described earlier.

The main cause of her problems was the [Great Psionic Aura] she possessed: Kaiya naturally had more psionic energy than her body knew how to cope with. Tons of people be envious if your greatest problem was the fact that you had too much power, but had you seen Kaiya back then, you wouldn’t be envious at all.

Despite Kaiya's laziness, she was determined.

Like Chunhua, who had froze up during the initial invasion and led to a few casualties; according to Professor Hei, she was doing her best to make-up for her supposed cowardice—who could blame you for freezing up when your university was being attacked by giant fucking insects?—at the end of the day, though, everyone was dealing with their own shit.

Ironically that made the Baptists’ bonds stronger, knowing that everyone had the same crappy experiences.

“How you doing?” Alexander asked Victor some time after, when he had eaten a good chunk of his curry and rice.

Victor mumbled something then said, “My ravioli is fuckin’ bland, man.”

Alexander held up a packet of hot sauce and Victor took it.

“Thanks.” He tore the corner open with his teeth and began squeezing the sauce out. “I’ve been thinkin’ about Blackviper.”

“What about her?”

"It's real fuckin' crazy that we're fighting with her, right? It's kinda like, uh, it's kinda like starring in a movie with your favorite actor. You get it, right?"

"Yeah. It's not like we're underneath Seraph's direct command fighting cosmic entities from the Space Beyond. If that ever happens, then yeah, it's real fuckin' crazy."

Victor rolled his eyes. "Whatever, asshole." For a minute or so, they ate their dinners in silence. Then Victor decided to open his mouth again, "You remember those articles. Shit like, 'Ordo's Sexiest Slayers!'."

"Of course. I can't scroll for one second without seeing shit like that," replied Alexander, glancing at Leona briefly. "Fucking, what? 'Beauties Who Could Kill'?"

"'Top Ten Hottest Monster Hunters!'."

"'Slay Me, Queens!'."

"What are you guys even talking about?" Vernon flatly asked across the table, his eyes narrow with disappointment.

Victor sighed, putting on his best scowl. "Adult things. You wouldn't understand—"

"I'm nineteen."

"Well, got your cherry popped—?"

Alexander groaned. "Fucking hell, Vic—"

"I'm just askin'—look, I'm just askin'. What about you, tough guy?" he asked with the most irritating smirk that deserved to get punched in.

"What about me?"

Victor's smirk grew wider. "Are you an eunuch?"

"Of course not."

With the most satisfied laugh, Victor drummed the table with his hands. "'Of course not!' he says. Of course not, that this asshole doesn't know how to use his cock."

Alexander felt simultaneously baffled and offended. "Doesn't know how to use my—? I'm going to tear your dick off."

The three of them entered a ribald conversation befitting of young men in this line of work. Well, not really. Only Victor kept the conversation going while both Alexander and Vernon restrained themselves from throwing their friend out to the wolves.

"Alex," Victor asked him, "so you're telling me that you wouldn't fuck Zenko if she was standing right in front of you? Or just wanting to cuddle with her?"

"No, because she would bite my fucking head off, I told you!"

"But she has a big fluffy tail—"

"Jesus." Alexander took himself out of the conversation, submitting Vernon to Victor's inane questions. More shit about Zenko—Zenko happened to be Victor's favorite Slayer—and shit about other Slayers around the world.

“What are you boys talking about?” Leona cut into their conversation to their left, where she was sitting across from Professor Hei. “You're getting oddly fired up."

They definitely knew what the men were talking about. You could see it plainly in their eyes. Alexander tried not to look embarrassed, instead playing it off cool, "Nothing much.

Leona laughed, propping her elbows on the table teasingly. “Nothing much. Just guys doing guy things."

"Yeah, guess so."

Hei raised her voice, "Hey Victor! I'm glad to see you're having a productive conversation with your junior. You're passing on valuable knowledge, aren't you?"

Victor startled hearing his professor's voice and stiffened, clearing his throat. "Yeah, definitely. Yeah."

Vernon's expression showed otherwise.

"Well," began Hei, "I'm sure Blackviper would love to hear what you have to say—"

"No no, that's not necessary..."

Professor Hei continued to tease Victor, subtly threatening him with further training at the hands of Blackviper to everyone's amusement.

“Vernon,” Chunhua called after Victor was red from frustration and embarrassment, glowing positively like a bomb. “I've heard you found something interesting in the hanger.”

Vernon beamed at the mention of his new toy, his skin turning a shade brighter. “Right, yeah! I was just telling Althea ‘bout this earlier! So while I was basically a slave for Yatsar and Thunderstrike, I discovered this abandoned construct sitting in the box. Because the original owner hadn’t touched it in years, the System gave me automatic ownership and now I have a free C-Rank construct! It's independent too so I don't hafta worry about stat restrictions.

“But y’know, it’s still kinda broken and all, so I decided to fix it myself. It’s hard. Like, really hard even though I had the tools and parts I needed. It's a journey trying to figure out what-does-what and what-does-where, not to mention I don't know SystemScript all that well. Oh, that's the programming language typically used for magitech stuff.”

“Remind me,” Leona chimed, “what does it do again?”

He answered right away, “It’s a linked construct that fires the Five Greek Elements at whatever you’re firing at, basically. So let’s say I shoot, uh…” Vernon gestured to Althea. “Let’s say I shoot Althea.”

Althea put a hand over her chest. “Ow.”

“I shoot Althea, and the construct will focus its fire on her. Of course, I can give it orders through the [Construct Interface] but that’s what it does on its own.”

“So what happens when you shoot multiple people?” Victor asked.

Vernon opened his mouth to answer but stopped half-way. He took a good few seconds to think. “I have no idea. I need to do further research.”

The entire table had their own questions for Vernon: who made the construct, what was its name ([Five Ring Atlas]), how was the repair going, how was the progress on the superweapon that the two Journeys were building, stuff like that. He did his best to answer but most of his responses amounted to nothing, but despite that he had no shame or embarrassment for his ignorance.

It was the opposite, in fact: he seemed happy that he didn’t know. Each question opened his eyes a little wider and made him consider new possibilities, which fueled his desire to dissemble the [Five Ring Atlas] into its individual nuts and bolts. Nobody was as passionate as he was but they indulged him.

Practically-speaking, it was great for morale. Personally-speaking, Alexander liked it whenever Vernon could share his passion with others. Mark had positively received his brother's ambitions and pushed him to enroll into Ordo University. He was the one who initially recommended that Vernon should take a year to decide whether or not he ought to take a plunge and become a Slayer.

“Y’know,” Althea raised after the conversation about Vernon’s construct had lost its monumentum, “my day has been really enlightening. I’m not sure if I told you guys this, but Alma’s trying to find me a magical beast or spirit, whatever the word is.”

Alexander raised an eyebrow.

“Oh?” Hei chimed, interested. “What might’ve possibly gotten Alma to act on your behalf?”

Althea did a coy little dance with her shoulders, trying to act humble and all—Alexander knew her better, she was acting like a brat again. “Well, I’ve been looking into spirit infusion and summoning and all that fun stuff, and Alma volunteered to do a general constitution test and whatever it was.”

Leona, Chunhua, and Hei were now deathly focused on her.

“So it turns out I have something called the [Sovereign Spirit Beast Physique].”

And all three women exploded. Not literally, of course. Simultaneously they bombarded Althea with questions. Professor Hei and Chunhua devolved into speaking Korean and Mandarin respectively from how utterly shocked they were. They corrected themselves, said a lot of things, but all amounted to this: Do not tell anyone about her new positive condition.

Vernon whispered to Alexander and Victor, “So what’s the [Sovereign Spirit Beast Physique]? Sounds Chinese.”

“It was discovered in China. A positive condition like Kaiya's [Great Psionic Aura],” Chunhua answered, lightly shaking Kaiya awake (she picked her head up lazily). “It is the most powerful version of the [Spirit Beast Physique] that allows you to infuse your core with the strongest spirit beasts, which will allow you to adopt new powers and perhaps even increase your Growth Potential. This is a condition that should only appear once in a hundred years! And—!”

Chunhua stopped to stare at Alexander.

Alexander stared back uneasily. “Is something wrong?”

“Alexander, I believe you should meet with Alma to take the same test.”

“Ah, I don’t think there’s any need to.” Because I already know what’s wrong with me. “But congrats, Althea. You’re special now! Want a gold star?”

Althea stuck out her tongue before Chunhua and Hei pulled her into another conversation.

“I feel like this is something big but I dunno how to react,” Victor told Alexander. “Sounds powerful as hell though if they’re using ‘Sovereign’ in the name. Think you’re special too? I can give ya gold star.”

“Ha-ha, I—” Alexander stopped talking as someone approached the table. Blackviper.

Victor yelped.

She sat down at the far right end of the table, next to Vernon. Her face-mask were pulled down, the lower half of her face unceremoniously revealed. The only thing of note was the beauty mark underneath her lips.

She was eating a firm rectangular-shaped biscuits you’d get in some of the MREs.

All conversations at the table stopped once she sat down. The Baptists exchanged glances of varying emotions like they were mimes in a circus act—even Kaiya. Lots of shrugging and mouthing and aggressive gesturing, which ultimately led Hei and Alexander working out who was going to talk first.

Hei gave the floor to Alexander, who sighed.

He broke the ice: “Any updates, Blackviper?”

“Hmm?” She turned—Victor squeaked as her eyes passed him. “No. Jin Tiehan is still speaking with Alma and Shinzo, and he didn’t require my presence so he ordered me to eat. Normally, I would find someplace secluded but I thought I’d watch over you all.”

“So was that what you were doing earlier?” Alexander asked.

While everyone was acting like carnies, Blackviper was observing their surroundings. They were eating lunch outside of the mess hall in Grendel Arsenal alongside about a hundred others. Dozens trickled in and out of the hall itself. It was a lot more orderly here than the refugee centers that Alba visited.

There would always be something going on when it was lunch and dinner. Not enough food. Accusations of thief. Fighting over supplies. On military bases, they were "adequately stocked", receiving top priority over the civilian population. Still, even they weren't exempt from shortages.

Blackviper nodded, sweeping the area with her cybernetic eyes. “It pays to be situationally aware at all times. In a warzone, in a ‘safe and secure’ place, it doesn’t matter. Assume that death is lurking around the corner.”

Alexander’s lips pressed together. He wasn’t entirely comfortable staying in Grendel Arsenal but this was the most secure station he visited since Ordo University. Everything in-between were refugee centers where you had to watch your back, inside ruined businesses listening to monsters and the occasional scavenger, places where you needed to be on alert.

She had a point though.

Hangzhou taught him that even places like these could be fucked. From outside and from within.

“Does your vigilance ever rest?” Hei asked.

“Only when I’m sleeping.” Blackviper bit down hard on her biscuit, chewing. “Enough of that. Shen—Shen Jianyu, I’ve been meaning to ask: What’s the status on your fifth member, Damien Fayer?”

Immediately Alexander's stomach turned over. Seraph had told him all about Damien’s incident with the Guild Masters back in Scorcher, where he single-handedly disrupted their discussion and put everybody on edge.

“Active,” Alexander admitted after a few long, painful seconds of silence. “He’s been moved to another Baptist Team, with Problem. For the record—”

“No need for an apology. Did you know that he was inhuman?”

Everyone at the table squirmed. Kaiya and Chunhua were whispering to one another. Unlike the revelation about the Previous Earth, all of the Baptists were informed that Damien was, in fact, not human. At least not fully human.

He was part-demon, inherited it from his father. His younger brother, Latham (better known as Dawnfire), wasn’t. The same was said for his sister, Phoebe.

Alexander was friends with a half-demon for years without knowing it. He should be more surprised but at this point, so many insane fucking things happened that he lost the ability. To be fair, though, Damien had always been weird. You could have a dozen different normal explanations but none of them involved accusing your friend of being an actual demon.

“He told us after Scorcher,” Alexander said after he got his wits together. “It came as a shock but after seeing his reaction to, uh, having his arm lobbed off, everything makes sense. Like shit, now that I’m thinking about it… Hei, did you know that Damien’s a demon?”

Hei nodded. “High-rankers have a sixth sense about these things. Also knowing that Duskfire is part-demon, it didn’t take much to connect the dots. As you probably guessed, this information is meant to be a secret so we kept it hush-hush. But after what Damien told us, I feel sorry for him and his father…”

Alexander looked down at his plate of half-eaten curry and rice. “Were you in any danger of a Black Order, Viper?”

Blackviper shook her head. “Thankfully, I wasn’t. Jin Tiehan took care of most of those worries. I have to say, though, it’s the strangest thing: breaking free of mega-corporations and jumping right into the hands of an international omnipotent government. It’s hard to say which one I prefer, in theory.”

If the Global Guards knew about me being an EX-Rank, thought Alexander, then I’d surely be slapped with a Black Order. Kosmos and Seraph protected me and I didn’t even know it until now...

He sighed before something caught his attention. A uniformed man, but his fatigues were a couple sizes too big for him. The poor man shambled past the table and headed towards the mess hall, arms limp.

A sinking feeling dug a hole into Alexander’s stomach.

Kaiya, for the first time, spoke up, “Hey—“

Blackviper snapped, “Shut it.”

The entire table was staring at the man. Perhaps he had the same issue as Damien, where there was something inherently different that the high-rankers took notice. Or was it the fatigues that made him look like a homeless man—for example his shoes which were just slippers, or the scraggly and dirty beard or his paper-thin cheeks.

Or, after he had passed the table, was it the back of his neck? where his skin was pale and black veins crawled up to his scalp?

This was a man who was trying to sneak in, Alexander first thought.

This was a man who was sick and needed medical attention, he thought next.

But why did this man disturb him?

Alexander couldn’t formulate an answer before the man limped inside the roaring hall where hundreds of base personnel were.

Blackviper stood from the table. “Gul, stay put—“

A scream ripped through the air, shrill and ghastly like a crow’s last cry, louder than any noise that this base could produce.

Alexander went to stand but was caught half-way in the motions by a rippling, invisible force that threw him onto Victor, and they crashed on the hard ground.

He scrambled away, mind racing, as a crowd barreled through the doors like a mad mob, men and women being crushed and stomped on in the stampede. People were yelling—something about a bomb, something about a bomb. They looked to be right. The entire building shook and the walls moaned and it sure as hell felt like one.

But it wasn’t a bomb.

Far from it.

[SLAYER SYSTEM ALERT]

A SPATIAL DISTORTION HAS BEEN DETECTED IN THE FOLLOWING COORDINATES!

Another shockwave hit Alexander from behind, the source was near a cluster of buildings on the western end.

[SLAYER SYSTEM ALERT]

A SPATIAL DISTORTION HAS BEEN DETECTED IN THE FOLLOWING COORDINATES!

Blackviper pulled up her mask and began shouting at everyone.

[SLAYER SYSTEM ALERT]

A SPATIAL DISTORTION HAS BEEN DETECTED IN THE FOLLOWING COORDINATES!

Victor helped Alexander up.

He was getting real sick of these surprise attacks.

[SLAYER SYSTEM ALERT]

A SPATIAL DISTORTION HAS BEEN DETECTED IN THE FOLLOWING COORDINATES!

Alexander turned to his team.

[SLAYER SYSTEM ALERT]

A SPATIAL DISTORTION HAS BEEN DETECTED IN THE FOLLOWING COORDINATES!

"Fuck me," he muttered.