A few weeks have passed since Seth's meeting in the Commander's office, and his life has returned to a more mundane routine. Following the Commander's advice, Seth went to Eve Greene to help with the creation of his own weapon. She was more than happy to help because this was her first time working with an object that would house chi. It was slow going as Seth did not have a massive internal energy reservoir.

As per usual, Seth continued to help Jacks’s with his paperwork and any other assistance that he needed. What changed was that the other members of Squad 46 decided to take a more proactive role instructing Seth and Kong.. Hunter would take his time to instruct Seth and Kong on weapons usage. Even with his silent nature, they learned a lot just by watching his demonstrations. Dan will teach them equipment maintenance, along with information that they may need for survival.

Bertha took initiative to help them practice driving. Set can now say with confidence that he can drive most vehicles without any trouble. Just don't ask him to park the car. She also took the opportunity to practice with Kong, just once.

Needless to say, that ended in tragedy.

Another victim was created that day as Bertha had ended up collapsed on the ground retching her heart out. She had vowed to never allow Kong to get hold of the steering wheel.

Seth was perfectly fine with the normal routine, but Jacks must have noticed that Kong was getting agitated with the boring schedule. He had sent them, along with his former Squad members, to an outpost beyond the city walls.

Outposts served as extra facilities since the city that no longer had the space to accommodate them. There were many different types of outpost, such as research, farming, mining, etc. Each of them were heavily guarded, either by mercenaries or Federation soldiers, against threats such as evolved monsters or rifts.

Their current mission was to help support an outpost owned by one of the major companies involved with the city, Steele Corporation. They are most well-known for weapons production and development as majority of the weapons on the market were produced by them. They were most well-known for development of Railgun personal weapon, along with other famous Awaken. While weapons production may have been their main focus, Steele Corp. has also branched out to other markets. The outpost that they were currently heading to was a farming outpost. Almost half the amount of vegetables that Oasis City consumes came from this outpost.

Right now, their current task was to help defend the outpost against a monster swarm. The outpost may have energy shields, just like Oasis City, but it could nor be maintained indefinitely.

it had taken the group about two hours before they finally reached the outpost. As they were arriving, Seth witnessed an area copy surrounded by fences with a large energy shield encapsulating it.

“Halt!” a voice yelled out of loudspeaker when their vehicle stopped at an entranceway. “State your affiliation and business!”

“We’re the assistance that the Federation sent, “ Dan yelled back.

“ Please wait for us to check our visitation list.” After a moment of silence, the doors to the entranceway opened up, inviting them in. The same voice called out. “Enter.”

Dan drove the vehicle as Seth finally got to see what kind of outpost this was. As the vehicle drove down a pathway, Seth noticed that the path was surrounded by tilled earth with vegetables growing out of them. He saw a few machines harvesting the vegetables.

“That's their main facility,” Bertha said as their car drove into a large building and parked themselves in the hanger.

They were greeted by a skinny middle-aged man as they got off the car. ”Welcome, welcome! Thank you for coming all this way to help. I see a few faces I don't recognize.”

Dan returned the greeting and shook hands with the man. “ Manager Stell, glad to see you're doing well. These two guys are new interns for the Federation, Seth and Kong. We're just here showing them around. Guys, this is the manager of this outpost, Kevin Stell“

“You guys must be quite something if they're willing to bring you out for this mission,” The manager said, offering a handshake to the boys.

“That's what we're here to see. Got any good weapons you can sell to me?” Bertha said with a laugh.

“ You know that's not my department Bertha. What I can't do for you is treat you to a meal after the job.“

“Good enough. The stuff is in the usual place? “ Bertha asked.

“Yep. it’s all packed and ready. I'm going to head back to work. Just come find me when you're done with the job,” Manager Stell said and left.

“Will do. Come on boys, we got some stuff to pick up.” Bertha said as she led them to a pile of boxes that they needed to move to the car. With everyone working together, the job of moving the boxes was easy and only took a few minutes.

Halfway through moving the boxes, Seth felt as if someone was staring at him. However, when he looked around you could not find the source. He had thought that the feeling only a part of his imagination. It was when they were finally finished moving everything that Seth decided to give it one last try as the feeling of being stared at intensified. He didn’t feel any malice, but it did make him uncomfortable. That was when he noticed it, sticking out from the ceiling.

A head.

The head stuck out of the ceiling in a upside down fashion. The skin was pale and the hair was a black mess. Seth like to think that he was a person that did not scare easily, but the sight of the head was enough to spook any person.

“ Hey Seth, what you looking at?” Dan asked as he made his way to the driver’s seat.

Seth pointed shaky finger at the head sticking out of the ceiling.

“ Oh. I see you found Ghost.”

“ Ghost?”

“ Yep that's the person's name. He's an Awaken with the ability to go through walls and has the knack of appearing in the most disturbing ways, hence the nickname for ghost. He's part of the security force for this outpost. Don't mind him, he's probably just curious. You don't see a lot of new faces in the outpost.”

Both Dan and Seth entered the car. Seth asked ” What's in the boxes that we needed them for?”

Dan replied “Good question. You're about to find out. We got to see your abilities before, now it's our turn to show. “