Scholarship students were the best targets. They were unlike their peers, having come from humble origins. Their mothers ran a tteokbokki stand or a fried chicken shop, their fathers were honest salarymen, their younger siblings looked up to them—and whatever variation of the same story they tell. Despite the endless stories and negative rumors surrounding Baekyong Academy, these students were hopeful.

  Surely, the rumors couldn’t be all bad?

  The bad press was overdramatized.

  Even if Baekyong had its flaws, it was still considered to be the best academy in Korea.

  If you wanted to be successful—if you wanted to make money—if you wanted to have a good life—if you wanted to provide for your aging parents and support your siblings—then you must go to a great school, so you could get a job.

  Stress was a natural part of life.

  If you really wanted something, you were bound to feel pain eventually.

  But it’d all be worth it in the end.

  It should be.

  That’s what they all tell themselves, Tak Hwa-yeon realized.

  “Baekyong Academy can’t be as awful as everyone says!” they said again and again. Again and again. Again and again!

  Seeing them repeat the same mantra was hilarious. Watching as they desperately try to hang onto that sole “truth” was the funniest and most ironic thing in the world. Really! It was amazing how badly people were willing to delude themselves—to drown in their own distorted psyche—even in the face of total suffering.

  It became like a game.

  What would these schizos do if pushed this way or that way? How would they react? Would they continue to scream or cry, maybe fight back, or perhaps sink further into their own upside-down reality?

  This series of actions and reactions, Hwa-yeon often visualized, was like a tower of pebbles. Every time a new stone was placed on top, however elegantly, the tower excitedly swayed back-and-forth and teased Hwa-yeon with its denouement. Yet almost every time, it remained standing. So she stacked more stones, more pebbles, seeing how far the tower would go—how far the extent of the delusions could carry.

  After all, the next stone could be the end.

  Delusions weren’t immortal. Even they had limits to their strength.

  Eventually, the final stone would be stacked.

  Their mile-long gazes would eventually shatter and their mental walls would eventually fall, leading to the most entertaining clash of reality and unreality.

  When the tower falls, Hwa-yeon is there, laughing and clapping as the happiest girl in Korea.

  She remembered Hwan Do-hee (???). The student had kneeled in a puddle of spilled booze, surrounded by her torn shirt and skirt, as she desperately tried to hide her cleavage against the exposing flash of a camera.

  She remembered Pil Si-hyun (???). The student had broken down in tears in front of his older brother’s hospital bed, after the brother foolishly decided to “take revenge” against her.

  She remembered Kim Mu-young (???). The student had been forcibly pulled from Baekyong Academy, when during one simulated expedition, he’d clawed his arms to the point of profuse bleeding.

  Three scholarship students. One semester. Gone. And the best part? Chungmu didn’t care. To him, the students were too weak-willed to survive in Baekyong anyway.

  Thanks to his philosophy, Hwa-yeon learned a lot from her experiments, and beginning the second semester, she’d hoped Dorothea Zhang would provide a better insight into the human condition.

  She was a foreigner from the United States, supposedly recommended by Hwarang, and the most unorthodox student to grace Baekyong yet. She was silly, viewing the world through a comical lens, but clearly unfit for the ruthless, competitive environment. As with all transfers, though, they were different from ordinary students. In some way, they were special. Perhaps powerful, perhaps unique, but special nonetheless.

  That led to some interesting questions: Was Zhang really the weak girl she made herself appear as? Was she really that stupid? Who was she?

  To get answers, all Hwa-yeon had to do was break her mask.

  But Zhang refused to show a hint of real weakness.

  No matter the harassment, no matter the constant vandalism, she shrugged her shoulders and carried on with her day. Trying to reach her family and friends was obviously out of the question, and she didn’t have any social media presence either.

  What an annoyingly resilient girl, but that made Hwa-yeon more interested. How could she break her mask in a single, powerful swing?

  The answer came through a rumor: on her first day in Baekyong, Zhang needed the housing staff to move in all of her belongings.

  So Hwa-yeon enacted her plan, and it worked!

  The silly, airheaded Dorothea Zhang finally showed her fangs!

  She decided to fight—they all do at first—six against one!

  It should be a simple affair.

  It should’ve been.

   Hwa-yeon harshly blinked at the blinding sun, her eyes stinging with a warm liquid. She could barely move her body. Her [Loadout] was soaked in something. There was a blanket of numbing pain across every inch of her nerves.

  What…happened…? Hwa-yeon gasped, her fingers twitching for her needles. Why am I on the ground…?

  She tried using her elbows to sit up, but her arms refused to cooperate. My body… I can’t move my body… Where—?

  Something fell to her right and caused her to gasp in shock. It was Gong Kwang-hoon, one of the boys who’d volunteered to “feel Zhang up.” Hwa-yeon knew him for his lecherous smiles and comments, yet his expression was stretched wide and thin from the invisible fingers of terror.

  Kwang-hoon raised his bloody hand, crawling backwards with the other, shaking his head with terrified eyes.

  A sharp, electric snap rippled through the air. The sound and sensation sent shivers through Hwa-yeon’s skin, then she smelled a foul scent. Burning flesh, accompanied by a coarse, almost mortal scream.

  Kwang-hoon was clutching onto his right knee, the fabric blown open, as smoke hissed from his red-and-black kneecap. He rolled onto his side and the sheer pain brought tears. A shadow eclipsed his pitiful face, and barely he saw her.

  A boot stomped on the charred knee, and Kwang-hoon’s screams didn’t sound human anymore. The boot stomped again, but the rough and thick sole pressed against the open wound like snuffing out a lit cigarette butt.

  Kwang-hoon was between begging and crying, his breaths rising in pitch with the pressure on his knee, until his throat was screamed dry and all that left him were defeated whimpers.

  Hwa-yeon’s heart thumped.

  This had to be a dream, right?

  She had to be suffering from sleep paralysis.

  All she had to do was wake up—just wake up!—and everything would be better.

  But no matter how many times she blinked, she was still trapped in the real world.

   Hwa-yeon gasped for air, finally seeing the culprit for herself.

  A girl—no, a demon—stood bloodily before five incapacitated and brutalized bodies. Her warm, heavily modified energy pistol had burned cotton and scorched flesh and fouled the air, and the victims were blessed that the output wasn’t turned a setting higher. Her combat long-knife, more blood than steel, had ripped shallow, long cuts everywhere that weren't vital: arms, thighs and behind the thighs, knees, so they could lay there and stew and rot.

  They were. They were barely moving. They were groaning. They were holding onto their bloody limbs as best as possible and squeaking like live pigs on hooks.

  The girl was hunched, her figure casting a grand darkness over the makeshift arena and over the breathing corpses as if the darkness were great wings belonging to a demoness. Everything was brought into her suffocating malevolence. The witnesses, dozens and building, were stuffed silent as the aroma of bloodlust and hatred overpowered their wills. Many had clamped their mouths shut or closed their eyes. Some had turned away altogether.

  No one could bear the silver glow of her eyes.

  No one was helping Hwa-yeon. No one would help her.

  Dorothea Zhang turned toward the fallen Gold, and slowly, she holstered her weapons.

  A shimmer of steel flashed on Hwa-yeon’s left. Her needle!

  Strength surged in her blood, and in a painful grab, she grabbed her needle and thrusted it forward—!

  Zhang caught her by the hand, and her grip crushed Hwa-yeon’s fingers. Why... Why was she so strong?

   Hwa-yeon squeezed her eyes, gasping, as her hand felt like it was burning.

   Zhang used two hands to control Hwa-yeon’s wrist completely.

  The needle was turned inward, the sharp point aimed toward Hwa-yeon. She started shaking her head.

   Zhang leaned her head closer.

  Zhang pushed the needle.

  A high squeak left the Gold.

  Zhang punched the needle closer, the tip nearly scratching Hwa-yeon’s cheek.

  The tip was poking her.

  It pierced through the skin, and tears fell.

  The needle sunk deeper into Hwa-yeon’s cheek, and the girl screamed.

  One shove, and the needle was through. Hwa-yeon could taste her own blood and steel using her tongue.

  Zhang drove the long needle through the other cheek. The tip showed on the opposite end. Hwa-yeon cried, her sobs broken and muffled because of the foreign object impaled through her mouth.

   Zhang reached inside and hooked two fingers around the bloody needle. She tugged, causing Hwa-yeon to cry louder.

  Hwa-yeon weakly reached up and clawed at the tough fabric of Zhang’s bodysuit. It didn’t work. The pain didn’t stop. It won’t stop. It hurts.

  Zhang walked, dragging Hwa-yeon with the needle and two fingers. The needle was pulled against the webbing of her mouth, threatening to tear the holes wider.

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  And everyone watched it happen.

  The walk lasted for a few agonizing steps, as Hwa-yeon felt her cheeks ripping open with every heavy stomp.

  Zhang threw her onto the pile of ruined clothes—the same clothes that Hwa-yeon remembered tossing out of her drawers and cabinets—and reached for her holster.

  Hwa-yeon whined, trying to beg through her bloody mouth—

  An energy pistol was pressed against her head.

  Her pupils shrunk into points.

   Hwa-yeon muttered.

  Zhang wrapped a finger around the trigger.

  I’m going to die—! I’m going to die—! I’m going to die—!

  Another hand grabbed the pistol and shoved Zhang’s arm toward the sky. “THAT’S ENOUGH!”

  Hwa-yeon saw magenta hair and a doctor’s coat. It was that British doctor… She saved her…

  She…

  [ALERT]

  INCAPACITATED: Tak Hwa-yeon

  ***

  Dorothea Zhang.

  Lynn Asche clicked her pen.

  American. Ordoian.

  She clicked it again.

  She was raised with intense weapons training.

  Click.

  She’s a spy.

  Click!

  “I feel like I’m so close…” Lynn chewed on the end of her pen, her sharp teeth trying to extract the ink like sucking out blood. “Was it really a coincidence that Ali called me the day after I met her? He said he was working with Angels Guild, so what about Alex and—?”

  Her door burst open.

  “Christ!” Lynn was startled out of her chair, turning around and facing the damned intruder.

  Intruders, actually.

  Yo-han and Elaine were there. Elaine was practically carrying the boy, who was sweating worse than a fat man in a sauna, while she herself had a twinge of stress on her face. For Elaine, who’d rarely use her facial muscles for emotion, it meant this was bad.

   Yo-han coughed.

  Elaine lightly slapped his cheek.

  An irrational thought crossed Lynn’s mind: Those kids are dead.

  Lynn was already out the door, sprinting down the halls faster than any regular human could achieve and leaving her darlings in the dust. If she was smarter, she’d at least wait until Elaine told her where the Duel was. Fortunately, that wasn’t necessary. As soon as the horrendous, stinging sunlight touched her skin, several students were running toward the dormitory section of campus.

  She caught up and ran past them.

  Soon, she saw a crowd gathered around the presumed Duel outside one of the first-year dormitories. The ground was decorated with a young woman’s wardrobe and her hobbies, everything broken and tainted. So that’s why. Tak Hwa-yeon had decided to cross a line that even the Academy forbade, and Zhang did what anyone normally would.

  Yet…

  Who was capable of this amount of violence?

  Lynn had broken through the crowd and witnessed the “Duel” for herself.

  Dorothea Zhang expertly cleaved through her opponents with brutal efficiency, wielding a combat dagger in one hand and a pistol in the other. Every single attack was not meant to incapacitate or kill, but to inflict as much pain as possible. To hurt. She didn’t attack randomly either, as if wildly swinging in a mad haze; she struck intentionally, purposefully, not letting her blade cut too deeply or nick a vital region.

  To most of the kids here, they only saw her brutality and received the surface-level message: she was not to be fucked with. Yet for Lynn, the true messages—hidden beneath the blood and screams—were much, much scarier.

  Zhang chose to punish them like this.

  Everything she did, she did it willfully without remorse.

  As a highly-trained fighter, specialized in one thing and one thing only: killing people, killing Slayers.

  <—a demon,> said the boy beside Lynn. Kim Min-jae.

  You may be right… Lynn thought, eyes wide.

  Subconsciously, Lynn had placed herself in the girl’s position. If she had to brutalize her opponents, what would she do differently? Nothing at all. Zhang’s movements were Lynn’s, and Lynn’s movements were Zhang’s. They possessed the same specialty, the same training, the same tactics and philosophy—that of Alistair Romanos, the most dangerous man alive.

  "Why...?" Lynn lifted her head.

  Althea continued her rampage. Why did your uncle let you attend Baekyong?

  Blood sprayed over the pavement. What is Angels Guild making you do?

  Although her days of warfare were behind her, a familiar rage boiled within Lynn’s stomach. Toward what? She didn’t know, but…

  “THAT’S ENOUGH!” she screamed, finding herself with Althea’s arm to the air. “YOU’VE DONE ENOUGH!”

  Thea glared at her, the blood of six students streaked across her hands and cheeks. “These fuckers—!”

  “Do not fucking test me, darling.” Lynn dragged Thea closer. “You are done.”

  Thea held her head high, rebellion burning brightly, yet she knew better than to fight further. To fight against her. Underneath the weight of Lynn’s piercing gaze, she flinched first and broke. The silver glow of her eyes faded. Her shoulders slacked, and the energy pistol clattered onto the blood-streaked pavement.

  Lynn snatched the pistol, flicked the safety on, and tucked it inside her coat.

  Around them, six incapped kids squirmed on the ground as clothes and destroyed property surrounded them, and a crowd of young and silent witnesses were rooted in place, now freshly traumatized to start the next semester.

  What a mess.

  Lynn did her best to not break into tears. Breathe. Just breathe. Just…

  Someone put a hand on her shoulder.

  Elaine—Instructor Sung—announced, Amongst the crowd, she found familiar faces: Kim Min-jae and the rest of their section Golds—each of them shocked in their own way.

  Yo-han broke through the crowd alongside peers from his section, and they went to work.

  Lee Yoon-ho stepped forward, nodding.

  Eun Chang-min joined him, pale in the face.

  Instructor Sung found Kim Min-jae and looked at him in particular.

  Min-jae solemnly nodded.

   Instructor Sung turned around, facing Lynn and Thea. She whispered in English, “Take the girl out of here, Lynn. I have this covered.”

  Lynn had an arm around Thea’s shoulder. “Alright… Thank you—”

  “Just get her out.”

  “I will.” Lynn held tightly onto Althea, and quickly, she dragged her away. “Let’s go. Let’s go…”

  ***

  How was I gonna explain this to Rector and Overseer? “Yeah, I kinda got a little angry and went berserk on six students, including one of the Golds! My bad! I drew too much attention to myself! But hey, didn’t we already expect this?”

  Yeah, not gonna work. Rector would prolly raise questions about my “psychological wellness” or whatever corporate-slash-military buzzword he had cooked up, but let’s face it. Of everyone in the Special Task Force, who else could take my spot? Only Rei, and like hell they were gonna throw him into the swamp. That left me, only me, who was smart, capable, and fucking crazy enough to accomplish the mission objectives.

  As much as I respected the people-in-charge, I would bite their fuckin’ hands if they tried pulling me out now.

  Not when I knew Lynn was here.

  Not when I established myself in the hierarchy.

  Not when I could touch Taeyang right now.

  I—

  The door opened. Didn’t need to turn around to figure out who was visiting me. It was the same warden that’d locked me inside a clinical treatment room for “my safety,” which was a roundabout way of saying, “We can’t have you attacking more kids.” Heh, I wasn’t stupid enough to make an enemy of my entire section. Not like Kim Min-jae, but that was besides the point.

  Since Lynn had locked me inside, I’d freshened up. My [Loadout] was either in thick plastic bags waiting to be sanitized or they were drying off on two layers of clean (now pink) white towels. Gladly, I’d helped myself to a thorough shower to wash off the blood of rich kids, then slapped plain-clothes on afterwards. Nothing special. Just some sweatpants and a t-shirt from a random anime.

  Now I was a cute girl again, standing at the window.

  Through the reflection on the glass, I watched as Lynn carefully entered without makin’ much of a sound, holding a bag of presumably new clothes. She opened a panel beside the door and flicked a few levers. Machines and mechanisms whined above our heads, then an isolation bubble was formed over the room. Good. I knew this conversation was coming a mile away, and shamefully my wordplay sucked compared to my brother’s. I would’ve accidentally revealed the operation for the whole fucking clinic to hear.

  “Thea,” Lynn finally said, putting the bag on the counter. I wished she said my name with honey instead of disappointment. “I… I have so many questions, darling. What’s happening with Angels Guild? Where’s your brother? Why the hell are you even in Baekyong in the first place? I… I can get those answers later, but…”

  I smirked and continued to stand like a super-villain; unfortunately, the clinic wasn’t a skyscraper so I was pretty close to the ground relatively-speaking. “What, you’re not gonna hug me and say how much you missed us?”

  “Althea, you turned six kids into mist!” Lynn raised her voice and although it startled me, I tried to not show my fear. Prolly was a good thing that I had my back turned toward her. “I… Knowing Chungmu, you’ll escape without punishment, but you’re here on the behalf of Angels! Of the Demonic Cult! Whatever your mission is—”

  “We’re taking down Taeyang.”

  “Brilliant! All of you are mad!” Lynn threw her arms up and paced around the room. “This is by far the most nonsense you’ve involved yourself in, and this is your family! What, should I expect that you’re the pretty little gnome laying charm and seduction on Lee Yoon-ho?”

  I shrugged and tilted my head side-to-side.

  “Lord Almighty.”

  “I just gotta be his friend.”

  “Right after you skewered Hwa-yeon’s cheek through-and-through—?” (“I eliminated competition.”) “Bloody fucking Christ, Althea! There’s being ruthless and there’s whatever demon crawled up your rear—!”

  “There’s no demon!” I found myself shouting back, and I finally was brave enough to look at her.

  My hero. My savior. The coolest woman alive.

  And she looked afraid.

  My throat went dry, but y’know what? I kept yapping. “There’s no demon. There’s just me! Were you expecting an apology, Lynn? A lil’ remorse? Sure! I am fucking ashamed that you saw me like that, and it’s a real fucking shame that they passed out before I was finished with ‘em!”

  “Althea—”

  “No no no, I’m not done!” (“Althea!”) “I’m not fuckin’ done! They deserved it! Every single motherfucker outside my dorm, culprit and witness! They’re the demons, them! They destroy, humiliate, assault, spit—this is what they do! You can’t show ‘em mercy because they won’t give you any. Can’t show ‘em sympathy because they don’t have any! They’ll rip your moral code in your face and laugh, so why shouldn’t I do the same thing?

  “I—FUCK!” I kicked a chair over because I was a bitch like that. “I’m not chasin’ after retribution or revenge, Lynn! Not like Min-jae. I’m going a layer deeper. I’m going for extinction. And I’ll do anything to achieve it. Lie, manipulate, blackmail, extortion, assault and murder—our golf clubs in our caddy. I’ll act a clown, act sweet, act stupid, I’ll even kiss Yoon-ho. Nothing’s sacred, Lynn, ‘cause these fuckers lost the definition a long time ago. It’s their battleground, and they’ll sleep in it.”

  Lynn—the supersoldier, one of the strongest humans on the planet—was scared stiff from a small weak girl like me. Imagine that?

  I was only a low-ranker in an academy of prodigies; now that I’d revealed the psycho underneath, I became an immediate threat to everybody’s safety. Good. They should feel afraid. They should cower whenever I was walking by. It was a taste of what they inflicted on the rest of us. On the common people.

  “Is this…” Lynn gulped. “Is this about High Home? Oasis?”

  I half-smiled. “What d’you think, Lynn?”

  “I…” She sniffled. “Darling, I—”

  While her eyes were down, I came in for the hug I’d been itching for. Lynn gasped but I made sure she couldn’t pull away without hurting me. I… I really wanted to hug her since we’d first met, and while this was a fucked-up time to do it, there actually wasn’t a better time.

  I needed to stay in the operation. I needed to stay in Baekyong. Most of all, I needed Lynn.

  She loved me—loved our family—and I loved her. In previous cases, she’d dropped everything and helped us. While what I said and did today might shake her loyalty in me, this hug acted as a gentle reminder that we were still family. Regardless of our sins and wrongdoings, we always were acting towards the greater good.

  And after all, she didn’t wanna see her precious girl get hurt.

  Lynn returned the hug.

  I smiled.

  Good. This was the first step.

  I wasn’t worried about Rector and Uncle anymore.

  Yet we had bigger fish to fry. From this point onwards, I was the idol of my section. I would be targeted in ways I couldn’t imagine, but that was no matter.

  In Baekyong Academy, everyone was wealthy and influential; thus, money and power couldn’t help you here.

  It was the battle of the strongest.

  Of them all, I was the strongest.