It was a nice change of pace.

Thought Alex about the time she spent with Sugar yesterday. It had lifted her mood to keep pushing herself, since today was cold weapons training. Although she was sore as fuck, bruised, and battered, she would give it her all for the first day of cold weapons training, hoping it would be simple.

That all changed when she walked in and saw Spada standing at the middle platform, holding her sword chained to her scabbard. She still wore her iconic black cloth over her eyes, but the morning clothes were replaced by a sports top showing off her chiseled arms and eight pack.

When everyone, except for those still being treated for yesterday's fiasco, entered, Spada began talking.

“Today I’ll be teaching you on the methods of cold weapon combat. You will be the first to learn, come and choose your weapon.”

Raising her sword with a faint smile on her lips, she pointed straight at Alex.

Why does she fucking hate me so much?

Exasperated, she was already winded from this morning's training with Moka and Sial that she just wanted to lay down and rest her sore body. But now, this bitch was already targeting her right from the gate.

What did I do to deserve this?

“Stop stalling, girl! Or I’ll send you to punishment.”

Gritting her teeth in anger, Alex went up and grabbed a training staff from the weapons rack and headed to the stage, where Spada awaited to beat her.

“The first strike is yours, make it good.” Taunted Spada casually, as she placed her sword on her shoulder and motioned with her other hand to come hither.

Alex tried to use the numbers to find an opening, only to find a field of 0’s and the voice she hadn’t heard in a while rang in her head.

Assessment: Hopeless

Advisement: Turn into a magical girl or flee.

When I need you the most, you are useless.

With an inward sigh, Alex resigned herself to fate, and charged the wall that is Spada head-on with a war cry. The outcome was obvious, as Spada called out each of her blocks and strikes. And she was brutal in not allowing Alex to fall, aiming her strikes to be as painful as possible.

The crowd watched with glee, as Alex was brutally beaten, since she had extorted most of them for her own gain. Bruises and welts built upon her body, and her bones felt like they were breaking. Her legs were shaking like a newborn dear as the blows kept coming.

It didn’t end until Spada smashed her scabbard into Alex's stomach, causing her to lose her breath and, unable to hold her stomach in, made her vomit all over the ground.

Even that still missed Spada, who dodged out of the way with grace.

As Alex started falling downwards into her own vomit, she heard Spada snort, “That’ll show you not to turn up exhausted to my class. Someone like you who doesn’t put in effort needs to become a proper young lady.”

The Rage that was building up in Alex up to that point seemed to snap, as the numbers began to flow in her mind. Time slowed down to a crawl, and within that moment, a line of projection appeared of one percent.

One out of one hundred? I’ll fucking take it.

And so, with sheer willpower, Alex grabbed her staff tightly and stabbed it into the vomit pile. Using the last of her strength, she lifted her body into the air and lunged at Spada, screaming bloody mary. Spada, who thought she had beaten and humiliated Alex, wasn’t expecting the last-ditch attack and was slugged across the face with a foot.

“Take that, you bitch…” Coughing her lungs out Alex weakly gave her the middle finger before her consciousness faded.

Meanwhile, Spada, who had been kicked in the face, spat out some blood on the fallen Alex.

Not bad, little one. I guess you do have something after all.

As she thought so, she kicked Alex off the platform with enough force to crack a rib, making the girls down below wince.

“Automation, take her and go get her patched up. But remember, only a patch up. Consider it a punishment for cursing at me. Dumb bitch.”

How petty! Thought the crowd, as they watched the robots start to drag her away.

“Wait!”

Could she be having second thoughts?

“Drag that dumb bitch through her vomit. How dare she spill her lunch on this sacred ground. Use her hair to mob some of it up as well. Then clean the rest of it up.”

She really is petty!

After that little fiasco and the platform cleaned, Spada then turned to the girls and pointed towards her next victim.

“My blood is now boiling. Your next, maggot.”

Fei cried inwardly as she cursed at Alex for awakening the demon.

…

Hours later, Alex awoke from her coma full of pain.

The numbers told her that she had a few cracked ribs and massive bruising over her body.

With a groan, Alex tried to raise herself out of the bed, to find out she was strapped to the bead.

“Finally come, have you? My, my... Spada did a number on you.”

Turning her head sideways, Alex could see Hema writing on her notepad. Wearing a white set of doctor clothes instead of red, changing her look dramatically.

“Normally, I’d heal your ribs for free, but since someone else got charged an arm and a leg to make you pay, I’m gonna need payment. Also, aside from that payment, you also need to pay me for washing your body of vomit. The total comes to eight high-quality snow tears.”

Inwardly, Alex gashed her teeth in anger, That bitch dragged me through my vomit? One day I’ll pay back this disgrace ten times over. And someone is fucking with me?!

Alex outwardly looked at her tiredly, “Which bitch had the balls to make such a deal.”

“That information, since you're part of my gang, will only cost you one high-quality snow tear.”

“Deal, heal me fully first, and I’ll pay you tomorrow. I’ll sign a contract with you if you want.”

“No need, I know where you live, so if you try to dip out of the bill, I’ll just never heal you again and blacklist you from all the other healers. Now that you agreed with the payment, close your eyes and I’ll treat your ribs.”

“I said full heal.”

“Tsk, fine. Pay me all the mortal drugs you made as well.”

“You fiend, do you not have a heart?”

“Money, drugs and deals make the world go round, honey. I’m just a senior teaching her cute little junior how the world works. Now, do you want a full healing or not.”

Holding back her rage, Alex forced a reply, “Deal… You demon.”

Hema just smiled, “Thank you for the kind words, now try to not bite your tongue. This’ll hurt a bit.”

In horror, Alex watched as Hema's hands twisted and turned into various needles and, without warning, started poking in various parts of her body. She tried to scream from the sight, only to have a gag placed in her mouth, as needle after needle shot burning liquid throughout her body.

…

Expressionless, Alex, all bandaged up, walked out of the clinic as if she lost her soul. She didn’t know what to feel after going through that.

She… she felt great now, the best in weeks in fact, but at the cost of all those needles and tentacles… She wondered if it was even worth it.

And so, as she tried to find the answer, she made her way to her dorm unmolested. She went up the steps and into her dorm section, where she could hear groans of pain all around her. As she walked along, she looked at a bed in the room and made a note to herself.

You’ll get what’s coming to you, just wait until rank advancement class. Guess you didn’t learn your lesson after the gun incident. Don’t worry, Mally, I’ll be paying you back.

Alex had learned a lot from Hema that Mally made the deal and was an underling of Gia, who was part of the Morderca Gang that was based in Poland.

They were well known for their assassin work, and an old ally to the alliance. But it seems that they and the Black Card Gang had a little bad blood between each other after a certain incident. It seemed that one of the people higher up in the ranks not directly related to the Morderca gang was pulling some strings on the next rank up advancement on Black Card Blanks.

But most of the focus would be on her, to make an example out of those who dare to drag the Morderca face through the mud. This also included Sugar and Loka as priority targets, to make them fall through the ranks.

Falling onto her bed, Alex covered herself in her blanket. Although her eyes were heavy, her mind was flashing with thoughts.

If it isn’t one thing it’s another. I can’t have one day of peace without someone trying to fuck with me. This unknown party wants to throw down, then we can throw down. I guess I’ll be changing some of my plans for Rank advancement. God, I miss the simple days.

‘But isn’t this what you wanted? To have an exciting life. To be something more? If you wanna give up, I’ll be more than happy to take over.’ Xel, after being quiet for some time, had reared her ugly head once again.

Alex just rolled her eyes, Shut up, Xel. I’m trying to think. I doubt you have anything meaningful to say, so just can it.

Not willing to listen to anything Xel said, Alex began singing show tunes in her head in an attempt to silence her other ego.

‘HISSS! STOP THAT INFERNAL NOISE OF SHIT, I HAVE AN IDEA IN HOW YOU CAN EASILY GET REVENGE ON THE ONE YOU CALL… MALLY!’

Oh, this’ll be good. Tell me, oh pitiful one. What harebrained scheme did you come up with? Bet it has something to do with taking over my body for a bit. If so, I’m not interested. Rather, I will go to sleep.

‘You already know what the rank up advancement is going to be, right? Then if you do this… and this… we could do this and…’

At first, Alex was not interested in what Xel was saying, but the more she listened, the more her lips curved into a smile. But to be sure, she decided to run the numbers to figure out the probability of it working, and the numbers she saw made her feel confident about it.

‘Well, what do you think? As the smartest of the two of us, I think the plan is great. It makes me wish I could do it personally! Muhahahaha!’

Alex rolled her eyes, I don’t think you are the smartest out of us.

Why you! After I have given this master plan, this is how you tr-’

But.

‘But what? I’m the greatest.’

I have a few ways. We can greatly improve the plan.

‘Oh? How could you think of anything better than what I can come up with?’

Shut up and listen. You see, we change this to… and we move this to that… finally, we finish up with this instead of that.

After Alex had finished explaining to Xel the changes to the plan, she grew quiet, until finally replied.

‘And I thought I was the evil one. Kukuku. Alex, you make the great me proud, when I take over this body, I guess I won’t destroy your spirit and merely torment it.’

Get over yourself, I’m not evil. And you taking me over is wishful thinking.

‘Are you sure about that?

Yes, and if I wanted to be evil, I could’ve done this, this, and this… also that.

And so the two went on talking for a bit more, before they got tired and headed to sleep.