On the morning of October 6th, they came. A parade of varied eye and hair colors marched down Bisomote’s main street as the citizenry looked on from their shops. Some walked from the hotel they had stayed at for the night. Others drove slowly due to the increased traffic—some in their own cars, some being dropped off by others, one in a monster truck.
Most were calm, but quite a few had eager looks, brimming with anticipation. A good amount had brought their whole lives with them in confidence: all of their belongings, and a few with pets. There were just as many who were nervous and timid who had only brought a day's worth of clothes, fully expecting to head back that night. One bold vendor was selling good luck charms which got a surprising amount of business.
Over the course of an hour, a crowd gathered around the gate of the Fiends For Hire compound. Most arrived in a large bunch, but a few more slowly trickled in over time. One overzealous applicant had camped out at the gate the night before. They were already up and ready before anyone else arrived, and were now passing out warm drinks to the first few. About 70 minutes before the gate was set to open, a news crew showed up and started interviewing anyone they could.
At exactly [350], the gates opened, and the 168 candidates swarmed inside. However, for a reason they couldn’t ascertain, the forcefield solely blocked the news crew from entering inside the estate. The road leading into the compound lit up, guiding the candidates to the Headquarters building at the center. A few of the drivers were nice enough to give rides to some of the candidates traveling on foot, but most still chose to walk, especially those with a lot of luggage.
The first visitors into the building were greeted by a smiling Deborah who was doing her best to hide her nervousness. She calmly guided the arrivals to the drop off point for their belongings, but asked the fighters among them to keep any weapons, gear, or items they used for combat.
She then directed them to the abundant tablets hanging on the walls while trying to end her guidance as quickly as possible. The tablets asked them for a few personal questions such as their name, address, species etc. before taking a fingerprint and retinal scan—the stolen medical data already proving useful in matching identities.
Once their registration was complete, a nametag with an applicant number popped out of a compartment on the wall. The numbers seemed surprisingly random, but it didn’t take too long for the candidates to realize they were given in the order that they had first arrived at the gate, meaning they’d been monitored since the start.
As the first few finished up, Deborah ushered them to the grand hall behind her that they crowded into while waiting for everyone else to finish. The hall was lavish and spacious, plenty of room for everyone, but with nowhere to sit so the applicants began to get a bit antsy over time. One or two threatened to no one in particular that they’d leave if things didn’t start soon.
Finally, the four main Fiends For Hire appeared on the balcony above. “Welcome, welcome, ye who wish to be we.” Phon Drazah greeted their applicants as a hush swept across the room. “First, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to come all the way out here. We know that this isn’t the most convenient place to visit. Hopefully by growing our numbers, we can expand our reach to help more people around the world. Now before we begin, my brother has a bit of an announcement.”
Drim Drazah stepped forward and peered over the railing. He scanned through the crowd, and it didn’t take long before his eyes started to burn. “Would applicants, 6, 40, 161, and 168 please leave the premises immediately. If you do not, you will be forcibly removed and the authorities will be called.”
A lot of murmurs started up again as everyone scanned around for the ousted. They weren’t easy to find since people weren’t exactly standing around in numerical order. Two of them left peacefully, grumbling to themselves as they passed through the main entrance. One of them, a Lesser, pulled a knife, but a hole was blasted through his brandishing hand by Xard from up on the balcony. A bit of their blood splattered on a nearby candidate, but a butler appeared from nowhere to clean it off of them before they could even react as the Lesser slunk away.
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The last holdout yelled up to the balcony, “This is unfair! What did we do?”
“You’re the worst one,” Drim replied coldly. “You know what you’ve done. Leave or be removed.” A couple more grumbles came from the candidate before they stomped towards the exit.
“Now that the riff raff is out of the way. We can…” Phon trailed off after her eyes had blinked a few times. “Oh, what’s this?” Phon quickly wrapped her ribbon around her eyes and then teleported to a seemingly inconspicuous applicant. She poked them, then teleported around them several times, poking various parts of their body from a few different angles, “What's this? What’s this? What’s this? What’s this? What’s this?” she chanted playfully as she continued to prod.
Eventually, she stopped and grabbed at the man’s face, ripping off a fake skin-mask. “I knew I’d be found out, but I didn’t expect it to be this quick.” Detective Tusmon gave a frustrated smile as his stiff body clenched even more.
“Well, nice of you to drop by. But as you can see, we’re quite busy today. So, off you go,” Phon ignored his disguise and entirely dismissed the idea of entertaining him any longer.
“I’m a Lesser,” Tusmon reminded them even though his eyes made it redundant. “And I clearly just passed Drim Drazah’s morality check. Don’t I have every right to try out for the Fiends For Hire as much as everyone else here?”
“Yeah… no…” Phon was direct. “Our interview today is all about compatibility, and you’ve been pre-disqualified. Okay bye then.” She teleported to the door and held it open for him. After a few more seconds, he reluctantly complied and headed out as Phon teleported to each additional door to make sure he left.
Back on the podium, Phon finally continued the introduction. “Now that the riffiest of raff is gone, we can finally get down to business. Today will be conducted in three parts. First, you will receive a physical examination from our resident crazy… resident, uhhh, researcher. After she checks for any anomalies and clears you as fit for duty, you’ll have a personal interview with the four of us.” She gestured to those up on the balcony with her.
“Assuming there are no issues in either of those stages, you will then proceed to our workshop where you’ll have your gear evaluated and possibly upgraded. After that, congratulations, you’re done for the day, and can head to your assigned dorm room to relax where your luggage will be waiting for you.”
“If you fail at any of these stages, you will be asked to leave immediately, and be escorted off the premises if necessary. You are also free to leave any time you like if you don’t like the questions we ask or just change your mind. No hard feelings, and you’ll still be compensated for your trouble.”
“Now then, there are honestly way more of you than we expected. At most, we expected around a third of the applicants than are here. But! We’re going to do our damnedest to get through all of you, even if it means we have to go well into the night. Because of that, any opening ceremonies we had planned will be pushed until later tomorrow after everyone’s had a chance to rest.”
“Okay, now you will be called one at a time into the examination room. You’ve all been assigned a number, but you’ll be called in a random order. Just because you may have arrived a few minutes before the rest of the crowd doesn’t make you any more special. Blame your bad luck if you’re stuck until the end.”
“Those waiting around will be provided refreshments at regular intervals and there’s a bathroom back at the front lobby. We’ll see about getting some chairs in here too, I guess. To me that’s a bit too nice, since you’re all at least Lessers you should be able to deal with some standing, but whatever.”
Phon looked like she was winding down, but suddenly perked up again. “Oh oh oh, one last whimsical notion. Some may think that you’re better than the others here, or even that you’re better than us. Believe what you want, but keep it to yourself and don’t start any trouble. Because remember-” Phon disappeared from the balcony once more.
There were gasps all round the room, rapidly one after another. Before anyone could realize what was happening, it was all over. Phon had teleported to several of the candidates and nicked their necks with her knife. Nearly half of them had a dribble of variously colored blood running down their fronts before they could clasp at it with their hands.
“-we can kill you at any time.” Phon concluded with a sinister smirk. “Actually, I wanted us to kill any applicants who failed, but apparently that’s too ‘morally reprehensible and viscerally disturbing’… Anyways, good luck!” The four Fiends up on the balcony vanished from sight and left the room in silence.
*DING* a speaker chimed from above. “Would applicant 118 please proceed to the examination room to your left.” Deborah announced the first lucky contender.