When Aki left the mess hall, she saw the guy she was familiar with waiting for her. The other three people weren’t with him. She walked up to him slowly, her nerves tense and ready to react to a possible ambush.
The guy’s frown deepened when he noticed her alertness. He turned and began to walk off, and Aki quickened her steps to keep up.
“Let’s go to a meeting room and talk. I've sent my teammates ahead.” He sounded displeased, but it didn’t make his deep voice sound any less pleasant.
After confirming that the others really were not nearby, Aki relaxed slightly.
She finally couldn’t help but ask, “Are you from the squad I’m supposed to join?”
The guy threw her a dubious look, clearly not believing that she didn’t know. He nodded.
“I’m the team leader, Kay.” He glared at a couple of Enhanced they passed after they looked at them in curiosity.
Aki supposed they made quite the sight. Squad nine was the team with the best performance and everyone respected them. Although Aki wasn’t friends with any of the Enhanced, it didn’t mean she knew nothing about what was going on. She would catch snippets of conversations, and the squad rankings were public for all to see. Meanwhile, her notoriety didn’t need to be mentioned. It wasn’t surprising that people kept staring at the unlikely pair.
“Although letting you join was an order I can’t disobey, I won’t allow a liability to endanger the safety of my teammates.” Kay spoke in a serious manner. They entered one of the guild buildings and walked along the corridor towards the meeting rooms.
“So I need to know what you’re capable of. I don’t want you to join our fights and mess up our cooperation. But I need to know your level of skill, so I can be assured that you won’t die on our watch. I don’t want to get into trouble with the RRC.” Kay’s words were very blunt and straightforward, but Aki appreciated it. She rather knew where she stood, instead of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Alright,” Aki agreed without any fuss. It was a relief to know that the squad she would join seemed like a tightly-knit group that cared for each other. She didn’t want to work with people that took each other’s lives lightly. While they all had a common enemy, growing up on the Redwell Grounds could make anyone become twisted.
Kay opened the door and went in first. Aki followed, closing the door behind here.
Greeting her was a moderately sized room with a blackboard, a long rectangular table with some chairs, and the familiar glares of her new teammates.
“Take a seat.” Kay motioned for her, and she chose one that had the most space between herself and the next person. Which turned out to be the single chair at the head end of the table. Kay had taken the seat opposite her. The only girl of their group sat on his right and two guys on his left.
“Let’s do a quick introduction,” Kay began.
“This is Rae,” he said, pointing his chin at the pretty looking woman with a braid. Aki flashed her a quick two finger greeting, and Rae’s glare intensified.
“That’s Caden, and his brother Aiden.” Kay said, pointing at the two people sitting to his left in turn.
Aki had already noted in the mess hall that the two must be twins. It was a miracle that they both survived the enhancement. There was a small surge of envy erupting inside her. Maybe in a different life, Aki and Maya could take on the world side by side as well.
While both men didn’t seem too pleased about meeting her, Aki noticed that Aiden seemed more mild-mannered and didn’t display his distaste like a statement.
“I’m Aki.”
“We fucking know,” Rae snarled and pursed her lips.
There was a dull and quiet thud from beneath the table. Rae looked slightly affronted. Aki guessed that Rae had probably got a quick reminder to behave herself.
“You already know my abilities,” Kay said, “so it’s only fair that you tell us a bit about yours.”
Aki translated it as don’t make a fuss about it because you think it is unfair.
She hummed in agreement and pondered shortly. She couldn’t reveal too much, or it would lead to trouble.
“I was enhanced with a plant, so my senses aren’t as keen as yours.”
Kay’s brows twitched in a quick display of surprise. The others looked similarly astonished by the statement. Their reaction wasn’t unexpected. As far as they were aware, all Enhanced were created with blood crystals. And those crystals had to be refined with blood, as the name implied. It was almost always with the blood of ordinary animals. The use of mutated animals or monsters would mostly result in failure. As for using plants to refine blood crystals. The idea hadn’t even occurred to them.
“What sort of plant?” Kay asked, eyes narrowed. Aki saw the others becoming more alert, sniffing the air to try and figure out if she was poisonous.
Aki hesitated for a second. She didn’t want to lie, but the truth wasn’t very reassuring. Aki saw them visibly grow more tense when she didn’t reply straight away.
Aki knew they couldn’t glean any sort of information from her smell. Unlike Maya, she didn’t exude the smell of her base plant. The only thing she emitted was a sort of relaxing energy. It worked well on ordinary people. If used on Enhanced, it only led to them putting up their guard around her. Training had taught them that things trying to make you feel at ease were likely to go for your jugular next.
“I’m not toxic.” Aki tried to assure, but nobody relaxed. After struggling with herself for another moment, Aki finally decided that not saying it would do more harm than good. Moreover, the others seemed seconds away from losing their last remaining shred of patience.
“The big magnolia behind the research facility is my base plant.”
As expected, they all appeared even more on guard now. Aki couldn’t fault them for it. The mutated magnolia was as infamous and dangerous as it was beautiful.
“That damn man-eating tree?” Rae asked rhetorically.
It wasn’t per se a man-eating tree. The magnolia would simply pierce and drain all living creatures in range of their blood and life essence when its blossoms grew pale and innocent. The magnolia wasn’t a picky eater. It didn’t have a preference for humans. Anything with a heartbeat would do when it required nutrients.
The Redwell Research Center would regularly order the Enhanced to catch animals or monsters and then drive them in range of the waiting tree. The resulting spectacle would be a gruesome sight.
When the tree was satiated and its blossoms as red as the blood it had just spilled, the Enhanced had to go and clean up the remaining carcasses. Everyone was relieved that a single round of feeding would suffice for around half a year.
Aki shook her head, saying, “I can’t drain someone of their life essence during a fight or through simple body contact.”
Kay quickly found the crux of the matter and asked, “But you can consume the life essence of a person. How?”
Aki pursed her lips and frowned at him. She wasn’t inclined to answer that.
“Rest assured that I would need to be in prolonged contact with someone. I can't consume someone life essence during a fight. I've never actually used my ability, and I also can’t use it to attack someone when I want."
The people in the room looked at her, seeming everything but reassured.
"You might say that, but how are we supposed to know whether you're telling the truth?” Caden commented.
“I can only tell you the truth. Whether you believe me or not, I can’t do anything about that.” Aki shrugged.
The room grew quiet as everyone digested the information she had just revealed. She let them calm down a bit before continuing to speak.
“My main ability is space affinity.”
“Space? I didn’t know the RRC could actually attune people to it.” Caden looked eager to know more about the topic. Everyone had a space ring of their own, but they also knew that the space element and living creatures did not go well together. If you tried to put something living inside a space ring, it would die. The same went for using space runes. They could be used for transporting goods, but travelling with them was impossible. Unless you didn’t mind arriving as a corpse.
“It’s usually impossible, but because of my base plant, there are some special circumstances.” Aki decided that saying this much wouldn’t pose a problem. It was better to reveal a bit than to remain tight-lipped.
“But is that actually useful? We all know that having affinity with an element doesn’t allow you to control it.” Rae sounded sceptical, but then paused.
“Well, I guess our captain is one of the exceptions.”
“Water is one of the elements that are easier to control,” Aiden interjected. “Most places have a high enough humidity that there is always enough supply. Combined with the malleable nature of water–”
“Let’s get back on topic,” Kay interrupted Aiden’s lecture, and Aiden looked slightly embarrassed.
“Is it helpful for scouting, like earth affinity?”
Aki shook her head and said, “I can do space jumps within a limited range. In a fight, it means that I can always ambush an enemy from behind.”
“Can you do it now?” Caden piped up, caught between his dislike for her and curiosity about her mention of space jump.
Aki didn’t think much about it and went to acquiesce his request. She pushed herself up from the chair and then vanished from the four’s sight. A heartbeat later, she reappeared behind the other end of the table.
Kay shot up, whirling around to face her. He had grabbed the back of the chair, ready to swing it at her. Rae’s nails had left deep marks on the table, while Caden’s mouth hung slightly agape. Although at some point a knife had appeared in his hand. Aiden seemed the calmest of the group, though he had similarly got up. His stance was flexible, ready to face whatever Aki threw at them.
Ah, Aki thought, maybe I should’ve given them a warning.
Notes:
Author: well, that talk could’ve gone better
Kay:...
Aki: i would’ve preferred a zoom meeting
