It was already Saturday. After the call, I hung out with Luna and her girls just for a little bit more before heading back home to sleep--sleep which turned out to be rather difficult to attain; my whole body was buzzing and my mind was racing just thinking about the perilousness of an intermediate strength hive.

I’d never been in a hive of such strength before; how was it different? It was medium in size rather than large so I expected something similar to the hive where we found the strange guy eating a heart--just remembering that scene continues to send shivers down my spin--roughly warehouse size but it might be different.

A bit strangely but size specifications of a hive weren’t actually based off the size of the hive; they were rather based on how long it took to get through it, or so I had heard at the G.U.G. I guessed that the fact we had to take a break in the school but not any of the others was the defining feature that categorised the school as large rather than medium.

If so, then if all goes well, the hive we’d be tackling shouldn’t take that long to clear.

But, then again, being intermediate rather than weak suggests it’d be more dangerous--the monsters, at the very least. Just how will it be more dangerous?

I tossed and turned in my sleep, ruminating over many different possibilities, probable outcomes. Maybe my System Specialisation was imbuing a bad habit of overthinking in me.

Eventually, however, I managed to succumb to slumber and woke up early.

I informed my grandparents that I was going out with a friend for today and that I’d be staying over the night with them. They seemed apprehensive at first but once I elucidated that it was Luna, they reluctantly gave their permission for me to do so. Not that I needed their permission, anyway.

From there, I met up with Luna at her place (not that we had planned a location to meet, though we really should’ve, in hindsight) and left for the G.U.G.

Whereas, we met with Jonathon’s team somewhere private and commercial, this larger team, being necessarily more involved with the G.U.G.’s organisational structure and having a larger roster, meant that the meeting was taking place in the G.U.G. itself. At least, that’s what Luna had told me.

Conveniently, it was by our natures that both Luna and I were early risers and as we were walking about the town, the sun had begun cresting over the horizon, illuminating the streets with streaks of golden orange, the warmth showering down on us in this slightly chilly weather.

However, what that meant was by the time we had made it to the G.U.G., it was before the team had arrived themselves. Consequently of having to manage multiple individuals, the time to meet up that we were given was two hours after we had arrived.

Not one to be perturbed by the wait, however, we settled down into the large, spacious hall that we were in the day before and just talked. Some of it was inane but some pertinent to the hive itself.

“Do you remember what I told you yesterday?” Luna asked in a cheeky fashion, using an intentionally provocative tone with me.

“Yep,” I replied laconically.

“Oh, well aren’t you impressive?” She drew out her words slowly but didn’t say anything else. Silence began to reign.

“That’s it? Not going to check if I’m lying?” I asked once it began clear there wasn’t going to be a follow-up question.

“No? Why would I? I trust you,” She responded, acting genuinely confused and slightly hurt by my implicit insinuation.

“Oh. I thought it was like a test. Or something,” I replied, uncertain, and slightly mumbled. A smile drew upon Luna’s lips.

“Ah, don’t cry, Charlotte. We all make mistakes,” Her voice sounded with sincere affection but all I could hear was a mocking tone.

I glared at her without saying anything.

“Alright, then. Let’s have an actual test; have many members, do the Wayward Gloves have?”

“Seven?” My answer was uncertain not because I wasn’t confident in my knowledge but I suspected Luna was going to do something.

“Correct! Well done,” She reached out across the table and patted my head patronisingly, like I was a dog. I was unsure what to do, and too uncomfortable with the gesture to speak out. I ended up just ignoring it, and hoping she wouldn’t do it again.

“Next,” She continued, “What’s the leader’s name?” She asked, eyes sharp and staring at me.

“I-You didn’t tell me,” I answered, thoroughly unexpecting that question. She tutted at me once the words left my mouth.

“That just won’t do; you should be aware of something as simple as the name of the person you’re working with. Do your research.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Good, well, onto the next question; what’s the spec of the Manifestation?”

My first instinct upon hearing that question was to reply exactly what Luna had said yesterday--that the Manifestation is believed to have telekinetic abilities--but knowing Luna, I doubted that was what she wanted.

I began to think about it.

Luna is a utilitarian at heart; she thinks in terms of what’s practical, mostly. Therefore, simply saying telekinetic doesn’t really tell us much so perhaps I should answer in terms of capabilities?

“The manifestation is a telekinetic so they’d most likely use ranged attacks and may even lift control people,” I gave her my thoughts on it.

“Hmm. Well, all of that is a possibility but there’s a major assumption you’re making there,” Luna replied.

“Which is?” I was genuinely curious. I made my answer vague and it conformed with the basic knowledge of telekinesis that I had.

“The intelligence of the creature,” She answered matter-of-factly.

“...How does that impact my answer?”

“Think about ranged attacks; animals fight with their bodies, not weapons. If the Manifestation has the standard intelligence of a wild animal then it might fling rubble at us as a distraction or to hurt us but it would try to kill us primarily with its body.

“However, it may be even stupider than that! It probably wouldn’t know all the ways it could use telekinesis effectively and so may be limited to like one or two different implementations. It may cover itself with rocks to protect itself, for instance, rather than throwing them.”

Now and then, I found myself admiring Charlotte’s way of thinking. Her insightful views on the whole hearts and hives business was unlike anything I had encountered before, and her incisive way of picking out useful information and thinking it through portrayed genuine intelligence.

“I-I hadn’t thought about it in that way.”

“And that’s dangerous,” She urged. “Let’s say that it uses telekinesis to cover itself with a rock armour. If you prepared by assuming it’d be using its spec to make attacks from a distance, you’d likely use ranged attacks yourself. That would be arming people with a bow. Would an arrow be able to break through solid stone? Or, rather, bricks and stuff?”

“I don’t think so?” I honestly didn’t know what an arrow could or could not do. At the very least, my instinct was that a slim piece of wood with a small metal tip probably couldn’t break through brick.

“Exactly. Especially for someone inexperienced like yourself, you can’t make assumptions on what a Manifestation would be able to do. Instead, the best course of action would be acting in generalities; make sure you have a way to break through tough material as well as a way to protect yourself.”

“And that would best be done by having a large group of different users,” I said, gaining insight into why stronger hives demanded larger arrangements. It was a general rule that everyone knew but I hadn’t yet understood the reasoning for it beyond ‘the group with the bigger army wins’.

“Good. Any question?” Luna asked, smiling at me, seemingly happy with what I took away from the conversation.

“Yes; is that the end of the test?” I suspected this whole facade was just to impress that point--or, rather, paradigm of thinking--into my head.

“Pretty much,” She replied casually.

What followed after that was much of the same; fun chats about any topic that took our fancy.

However, a sudden and abrupt ringing from my pocket silenced us as I took out my phone.

“You should probably put that somewhere safe. Like your bag,” Luna suggested as I brought my phone up to my ear.

I answered the call and waited for the other party to speak.

I was slightly on edge, not recognising the number and not expecting someone to personally call me, but it turned out fine once I realised it was actually just a member of the Wayward Gloves.

He was simply calling to make sure we were at the G.U.G. and in the meeting hall. Once he confirmed that, he inquired into the colour of our clothes and who we were with, to make sure he’d be able to spot us. He seemed slightly taken aback at hearing that there was five of us in total but didn’t question it.

After all of that, he hung up.

“That the Gloves?” Luna asked.

“Yeah. Making sure we’re here”

“How responsible of them.”

I did what Luna said and carefully and securely put my phone into my bag.

I do not want to lose that somewhere in a hive.

From there, a slow trickle of people began to wander into the hall and make their way to where we were situated over the next hour.

Eventually, there were now eleven of us in total, having met up with the Wayward Gloves.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the first person to have arrived was the leader himself. He was wearing a pure white, stainless suit as well as a form fitting, white mask over his entire face. There was no decoration nor change in hue over his entire outfit--even his hands were covered with white gloves.

He aptly introduced himself as ‘The Hand’, a rather odd name in my opinion.

Maybe users just universally have a terrible naming sense? S1 this, The Hand that. At least Jonathon was a normal name. And Owen.

Once I heard his voice, I realised that he was the one I had talked to on the phone. 

The first thing I said once we met was how he came to know about us. It unnerved me that a strange man who I never met before knew both of our names and that we were users. It even got me to thinking about adopting a user persona just like him but that line of thought was too embarrassing to continue with.

Apparently, he explained, a member of his team was browsing a common forum for users and came upon a post about a group of four where half of them had precognitive abilities. 

Precog abilities are rare, sure, but simply existing or being apart of a group didn’t necessitate interest but, apparently, after the last hive they were in, the Gloves were interested about hiring some precogs to join them on the next hive, and potentially full time if they believed such an ability was worth the investment.

The available information online was one post where the poster enthusiastically endorsed hiring a precog if you’re able after having experienced what would’ve been certain death without one.

The public availability of that information was disconcerting to me but, apparently, there were no names mentioned in the post; the Gloves only found out who we were when that member privately messaged the poster asking about us.

And even then, only after the Glove had proven that they were a Glove did the poster give out our information--namely, Luna’s and my name.

We should probably officially form a team so people use the team name rather than my own.

Once The Hand had explained all that, he had questions of his own. The first one was actually who C1 was, since she wasn’t mentioned by the previous poster.

Luna explained that she was a summoned servant who could fight. However, The Hand didn’t seem to happy about that, primarily because he was concerned that we would demand a larger proportion of the profits due to having an additional member.

Luna assuaged that concern gracefully by explaining how none of the servants legally qualified as users and so we wouldn’t request a cut proportioned for the number of people we were giving.

That aggravated me slightly, how we were practically offering free labour, but Luna didn’t seem to mind. Perhaps she agreed with the G.U.G. and how the servants, not technically human, didn’t have to be paid for the service, or perhaps she didn’t feel arguing about the issue would’ve been productive--I didn’t know.

After that, appropriately, came the negotiations on payment. Luna held stated her most preferential position of getting the heart as the payment but that was immediately shot down by The Hand, which both Luna and I expected.

Proportionally, one could argue that of the eight eligible people who were clearing the hive, us bring two meant we should get paid two eights of the what was made from this activity but we had the power in this negotiation, here.

Precognition was a highly desirable and sought after ability. As such, precogs had set a precedent where they demanded high payments for their efforts. Honestly, I felt that even though I classified as a precog, I was nowhere as useful as someone like C1, for instance, even though if C1 was a user, I’d have more weight in negotiations.

Eventually, Luna and The Hand had settled upon paying us thirty percent. It wasn’t particularly a hard-fought deal and once The Hand had given us an estimation on what we could expect, both of us were pleasantly surprised and subsequently content with that deal.

With the rest of the Wayward Gloves, once that had arrived, we introduced ourselves, got short descriptions of each of their System Specialisations and went over preparations.

Honestly, our equipment and gear looked down-right primitive in comparison to the Gloves. For one, five out of six of their members (apparently, one of them couldn’t make it today) were dressed in outfits and assumed monikers rather than their actual names. Furthermore, two of them had guns!

And not a small gun like Owen had but large, automatic rifles. Just being near them was scary; I felt my heart pumping and was very conscious over my sweat for as long I was in the presence of those firearms.

As much as the guns were making me uncomfortable, however, that didn’t mean I underestimated their impact. After the last hive, I saw first-hand how the monsters my arrows couldn’t penetrate deeply were easily taken out by a simple pistol.

As such, I turned towards the closest Glove to me--a woman dressed in a really perplexing garb; her clothes were roughly comprised of triangles but the triangles had pure black and white stripes all going in incongruent directions. Just looking at her made her feel… Unreal. Like she wasn’t actually in front of me. She went by the name of ‘Manifold’.

I asked her where people can get their hands on guns. After explaining that I was interested since I currently used a bow, she explained that, in actuality, the G.U.G. has an armory where one can buy weapons.

As it turns out, gun laws were relaxed on users compared to the average civilian. It was decided apparently that the previous route to registration for a gun license was an unnecessary obstacle for users and impeded their ability to protect the country from hives. Therefore, as long as one is registered as a user under the G.U.G. with a rating of E or higher, they are automatically given the equivalent of a gun license.

It was interesting information, and perhaps useable in the future, but I didn’t have enough time to make a detour to buy myself a gun--not to mention that I certainly didn’t have the capital to pay for it, either.

As such, it was merely my interest that was sated and nothing else.

The only thing that was left to do, now, was a plan and then to go to the hive itself.