Nano was the youngest of the Mage Hunters, with the lanky frame of a teenager just beginning to fill out their new height. He had light brown hair and a smattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks, but they were hardly visible in the dimly lit room. The only source of light was a small flame flickering at the edge of a stick of incense, revealing the walls and ceiling as natural stone. He sat in the cavern the Mage Hunters called home, within a stretch of cave without any of the natural light-giving stone that illuminated most of their home.

He sat cross-legged, eyes closed in quiet contemplation. Near to him, a large shadow lumbered. A figure sat across from Nano, holding the same posture but with a frame over twice the size.

That's right. Mei was meditating.

It was at the suggestion of Takt, who had seen her mounting frustration at making no progress on weapon arts. It wasn’t even that she couldn’t release a burst of Force like the others – she couldn’t even sense the basic signs that it would be possible for her to use one. According to Takt, even complete novices could start to feel twinges of energy pretty quickly, the hints that they would eventually be capable of a weapon art. But for her, nada.

What was even more frustrating was Takt’s insistence that all it took was practicing movements over and over again. As though he thought she was some untrained gorilla who had never gone through basic combat drills. And she felt quite sure she had drilled more thugs in the head than Takt. So what good would more muscle memory do? It seemed more likely to Mei that learning a weapon art would be impossible for her, what with the whole ‘other dimension’ thing.

“If that asshole Levin knew it was impossible all along, I’m gonna do my weapon art training on his face,” Mei thought to herself.

But she had to admit the technique greatly appealed to her. Even thinking it impossible, she still really wanted to learn it. Furthermore, Takt and Uki had explained that, unlike mages, a warrior’s Force comes from their body. Physical training will increase the amount of Force a warrior has, so Mei was dying to see what her bio-engineered, perfectly sculpted form would be capable of. If it didn’t literally blow everyone else away, she would be very disappointed.

So she had even been open to a suggestion as boring, tedious, and awful as meditation. But the incense made her nose scrunch, and sitting still for so long just made her itch to go spar with Takt or Miki. And besides, meditation was supposed to be an advanced technique, when a warrior wants to evolve their Force, not bring it out for the first time. Even Takt didn’t seem to genuinely think it would help; he probably just wanted Mei to calm down.

Well, it wasn’t particularly working. With a grunt of frustration, Mei stood up and stalked out of the dark chamber. Nano peeked an eye open at her as she left, but stayed still as a plant while she left. Mei figured he’d be glad to see her go.

After a few twists and turns of the cave, she found herself in an expansive chamber, the largest open space in the Hunters’ base. They had filled the space with several tables and chairs that must have been a real pain to get this far out into the wilderness. At one of them, Uki sat, poring over her notes.

“How have you been getting along with the others?” Uki asked.

Mei had been intending to go outside, but she paused. How did Uki think she was getting along with people she could barely even speak to? At least Uki herself was understandable, somehow.

“Barely know names,” Mei said, her speech broken. But without Uki’s strange ability to make the language just stick in Mei’s head, she probably wouldn’t have been able to say even that much.

Uki frowned. “I think you should try to be friends with them. All of us are close, like family. During a battle, it will be important that you can trust each other.”

Mei gave Uki a strange look. Trust them to do what? If there was a real fight, Mei didn’t expect any of those kids to be particularly helpful. And they seemed to trust her well enough, seeing as they let her live with them and all.

At the very least, she could understand the need for trust. But did Uki really ask her to make friends? Like a mom watching her kid run off to the playground? Didn’t she realize Mei was only here because their goals aligned? Mei wanted to smash in the face of Silla and his Lightning Corp, not make friends. People didn’t exactly look at Mei and think she was the friendly type.

Mei wasn’t even sure this lot truly knew what they were up against. In her time as a bounty hunter, she had seen plenty of foolish young men and women with far more passion than ability, especially in the far reaches of the galaxy where proper law enforcement had been few and far between. Those fools would challenge a villain, screaming about justice or vengeance, and get their heads blown off. Mei had stopped letting herself get attached to them ages ago.

And these Mage Hunters seemed quite similar, with their grand ideas to liberate an enslaved people. Those five youths’ weapon arts didn’t even measure up to the flames that the Lightning Corp grunts had scorched her with, and Takt had taken care at Triple Lily not to let any of them duel the Wisp rank mage. How did they plan on fighting against an army when Takt was the only one capable of beating even a single enemy soldier?

So Mei had little intention of getting friendly with these people, even after she learned enough language to properly communicate with them. Maybe if they survived this war, which Mei was quite excited for, then she’d start to consider them equals. Not in power, of course, but at least in warrior spirit.

“Do you dislike us?” Uki asked.

“No,” Mei said. “But… You all die. Soon. Think you won’t, but will.” She summed up her thoughts as eloquently as possible.

Uki sighed, but her expression softened. “I get it. It must be hard to live with people risking their lives. You never know when they’ll die, so you’ve closed your heart off to protect it.”

Mei shrugged. She didn’t think it was that dramatic of a reason. After all, she risked her own life constantly, and enjoyed it too. But she’d never go into a fight she didn’t think she could win – a tiny chance of victory was just as uninteresting as an overwhelming chance of victory.

“But Mei, everyone here knows that we’ll likely lose and die,” Uki said. “With the right strategy, we can win, but a single mistake could end it all. We know that, and push on anyway.”

Mei’s eyebrows rose in surprise as she met Uki’s steady gaze. Indeed, she could see a firm resolve there. The eyes of someone who knew exactly what the odds were, and faced them anyway.

“Then why?” Mei herself had chosen to flee after her battle with Tulimak, running away from the Lightning Corp and Silla. A duel with an equal was exhilarating – fighting an army, knowing you would die, was foolish.

“Do you have any children, Mei?” Uki asked.

Mei shook her head. Of course she’d never had any kids. It was all most people could do not to soil themselves in her presence. At least these Hunters were much better in that regard. But either way, Mei held little interest in friends, much less partners.

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“I did,” Uki said. In that moment, she seemed to age ten years as she sighed, the wrinkles on her wizened face deepening. “They were taken from this world too soon. I don’t want to see that happen to anyone else. For their sake, even if I must give my life, I will see this land made better.”

Children… and a desire to improve your home. Mei closed her eyes, thinking of her own parents, and the planet she had been born on.

Her own home planet was named Pandorium, and it was a brutal desert wildland that gobbled up life without any regard for it. She had never met her parents, never experienced any familial love, but she had also never thought herself unlucky for it. That’s just how it was on Pandorium, where raising a child means you’re that much more likely to starve yourself. She considered herself fortunate just for not starving to death before she was old enough to walk, luck that most children born there don’t get.

A scene floated to her mind, of the day she finally escaped from that dust-stricken planet. The reason she could leave occurred many years before, when she managed to swipe some drugs from a self-proclaimed mad scientist. He had loudly and foolishly bragged of his invention of a serum that could make people stronger, and that the injection would let him become the new ruler of that particular shithole. Mei was in her twenties at the time, still considered a young child, as well as having the appearance of one, by the standards of humans who could live hundreds of years.

Tired of choosing between chasing down lizards and digging through grime-filled refuse, she took a gamble, one that would mean her death if it failed but a new life if it succeeded. While the crazy old scientist fortified himself against the raiders who might steal his life’s work, he never expected an intruder as small as Mei, only a little girl and smaller than normal from a lifetime of malnourishment. She squeezed in through the tiny gaps in his defenses and stabbed him in the back while he slept, using his nearly-complete serum to alter the course of her life forever.

Bestowed with new strength, Mei didn’t have to settle for scraps anymore. Even fearsome beasts like sand gators, animals with more meat on one of them than she had eaten in her entire life, were nothing more than prey for the new Mei. Her days of eternal famine ended, and she began to make a name for herself amongst the local scavengers as someone not to be messed with. While she wasn’t eating as well as the leaders of the planet, others considered themselves lucky just to get some of Mei’s scraps. But very few got that lucky.

Many years later, an unusual group came to Pandorium. They were scientists, here to study the flora and fauna that could survive on one of the harshest yet habitable planets in the known galaxy. While there, they encountered Mei, someone whose clearly unnatural strength piqued their interest. They invited her to come with them in order to study the enhancements she had injected herself with, and she agreed without a second thought.

That day, she looked down on her fellow Pandorians with contempt, and they back at her with jealousy. These were people she had known for all her life, but on Pandorium everyone else was an enemy, not a friend. They were trapped down there on that rock, but not her, not anymore! As the ship departed the planet, Mei didn’t even look back, and she never returned to her home. Now, she wouldn't ever get the chance to.

When she thought about that, about how badly Levin wanted to return, and saw how fiercely Uki and the rest of the Mage Hunters were willing to fight for the future of their home, a melancholic feeling rose up in her chest. With it came a sense of not belonging to anywhere or anything, because she had always been focused on herself and what she could do to guarantee her own future.

And suddenly, she felt something new. It was similar to her lust for battle, but tugged at a much deeper instinct. Something that had been buried in the sands of Pandorium, a place that had molded her by necessity into a woman that cared little for others. It rose up now, teased out by the pain written on Uki’s face.

Mei had no idea what losing a child, or a loved one, might feel like. But she had met plenty who had, and it drove them to rush off and get themselves killed like Uki was doing now. And yet, something about Uki’s voice tugged on heartstrings she didn’t realize she had.

“Ever since Takt and I formed this group, I’ve been able to watch all of the youths we’ve recruited grow in mind and spirit. Did you know that Miki used to be a crybaby? I’ve comforted all of them through their grief, but only Miki would throw himself into my arms over something as little as a stubbed toe. But look at him now! He’s strong not just in body but in mind, willing to dedicate himself in the service of others,” she said, smiling fondly.

Mei nodded, still partly lost in the thoughts of her own past as she remained silent.

“The truth is, ever since I lost my own, I consider all of the younger Hunters here my children. And Mei, that includes you. You might not have been with us as long, or be from Trurok like the rest of us are, but that doesn’t make you any less a member of this group. Maybe you don’t see us the same way, but we’ve all grown to like you. I hope you can stay even after we accomplish our goals,” Uki continued, gazing warmly at the monstrous woman before her.

Mei’s heart shook at those words, and her confused emotions only became more tangled. Was that what she wanted? To belong to something? To make these people her new family, only to watch them die?

She shook her head, unable to put her thoughts into words. Even if Uki could understand Mei’s native language, Mei wasn’t sure she would be able to find the words.

“You went to Triple Lily, didn’t you? You put yourself in danger alongside the others, and even saved them from a Chimera. We all think of you as one of us, if you’ll accept us.”

”No danger to me. Ever,” Mei said. It was wrong of Uki to think she had valiantly risked her life to help them. There had been no threat to Mei at Triple Lily. “I fight because I like fight. Not to save.”

“Then if there was danger, would you leave us behind?” Uki asked gently.

Mei nearly answered that question immediately with a firm “Yes.” But then the faces of the Mage Hunters floated into her mind, the scene right after she had killed that Chimera. Even covered in blood and guts, having beat down a real monster with nothing but her fists, they had looked at her warmly, as a person and not a monster herself. Suddenly, she wasn’t sure if “yes” was her true feelings. She wasn’t sure if she wanted it to be.

***

Darkness enveloped Inuvik Academy save for the faint light cast down by two moons and the stars. Within a poorly cared for tower, inside a small room filled with a dark red light, was a small runesmithing furnace, alive with heatstones. Nearby was Levin, sweat soaking his body as he danced methodically through his room, a dark red Blade extending from his arm. The medallion hanging around his neck swung wildly with each movement.

He was determined to master hsi new technique before tomorrow, taking advantage of his ink’s cooking time to practice. Levin could feel that Blade concentrated far more Chaos energy than Wave, but in a much smaller range. He would have to become comfortable swinging this small sword around if he wished for it to become the deadly technique he knew it had the potential to be.

As the Chaos magic danced throughout his room, casting glowing red light that bathed his belongings in a sinister light, Levin couldn’t stop his mind from wandering. Every swing of his Chaos Blade, every bead of sweat that dripped from his brow, led his mind back to one person: Kirima.

She had been his first real connection in this world, his first real friendship with a person that simply enjoyed his company. Kirima had offered Levin so much knowledge, given him so many opportunities, but more than anything it was her smile he missed. The warm, fond way she had looked at him. Those simple moments, far too few, made Levin wish for what could have been.

Levin couldn’t forget her. He, one of the very few children born to a saturated Earth, had never experienced the kind of relationship Kirima offered. Earth’s population had reached maximum capacity centuries ago, and the few children born there were usually accidents. That was true for Levin as well, and though his parents had loved him, humans who had lived hundreds of years wouldn’t so quickly change their lifestyle. Levin had mostly been left in the care of robotic babysitters while his parents continued in the careers that had defined their entire lives.

With no fellow children in his neighborhood to play with, and his parents only around for what felt like brief moments, Levin devoted his life from an early age to the only thing that was around – technology. And with the glut of resources provided by a wealthy family of Earth, the proverbial center of the galaxy, Levin’s affinity for knowledge over people defined his entire life. Even Andrew had only become involved with Levin thanks to his Y-Link.

And then, Kirima.

He finally deeply felt what it was like to be human, to care for another person as much as one cares for themself. Had what he felt for her been love? He wasn’t sure. And, now, because of Amaq, he would never know.

Amaq. Amaq. As soon as that name appeared in Levin’s mind, nothing else could. So long as Amaq lived, Levin could not. Kirima, who wanted nothing more than to spread peace and happiness, was dead. And Amaq, the one who quashed her dreams, still lived and breathed.

Levin couldn’t accept this. His red Blade danced through the room with a new sort of energy, fueled by the same emotion he felt for Azaadi, but much stronger. A deep ache arose in his gut as he stimulated his Chaos magic, accompanying this emotion that he couldn’t put into words. All Levin knew was that it consumed him, compelled him to think of nothing more than driving Amaq’s face into the dirt with his own boot. If Mei were here, she could have easily told him what this feeling was. Hatred.