Five years later

As the morning sun would gently touch the grass of the field with her bright rays, soldiers running laps were already up and going for several hours. Same was true for the group of new cadets, fresh out of their initial military training, who were now part of a very special organization within the country.

The very few who would call themselves the Specialists of VAULT. Though it would sometimes give off the vibe of a private military agency, it was in fact a proper part of the army, led by the man who had lent his name to the very building they had walked through on their first day: J.T. Brennan, one of only six Five-Star Generals in all of the U.S. army, who was in charge of the entirety of VAULT as an organization.

Having the chance to walk these halls meant that one was supposed to do great things – that was what they had told them in school and regurgitated over and over on the news, ever since they were capable of understanding human speech.

The atmosphere in the large room was thick enough to cut into, as the recruits stood in front of their drill Sergeant, Staff Sergeant Raymond Bell. The tall, dark skinned man appeared to be as strict as they came, looking down at them with scolding eyes.

"You were slow," he pointed out their faults, "if you're going to be this slow, you won't make it on the battlefield. This isn't a picnic, you understand?"

His loud voice made some of them flinch, as they stood there with their hands behind their backs. "Sir, yes, Sir!" they answered as if they were one.

"Teambuilding, loyalty, discipline," he called out to them again, looking at none of them directly while staring ahead, just like they stared ahead without looking at him, "all of those were instilled in you during your training. Do you think that's enough to be here? Do you think I will call you Specialists, just because you have a bit of talent in Mana?"

"Sir, no, Sir!" they replied once more.

"So, what are you missing?"

Afraid to spout nonsense, they kept their mouths shut this time. What were they missing? Experience in fighting the enemy they swore to hunt and decimate, the Visitors? They had barely ever seen one, that much was true.

'But there's no way I can't beat it, I've faced one of those monsters in order to get here,' Dan, one particularly sturdy looking youngster, thought as he tensed his taught muscles, 'even if he's a Staff Sergeant, he can't even go to the battlefield; he's just a supervisor. Enforcers come when everything is over.'

And his thoughts weren't so wrong. Most people in charge at VAULT were not members used on the battlefields they specifically sought out. "Visitor Apprehension Unit for Lustrative Tasks" – or in other words: V.A.U.L.T. That's what they did and what they were meant to do.

Someone who couldn't handle Mana was of no use to them in a fight; in one of their fights. So what would he know about what they were lacking?

As nobody seemed to answer, the Sergeant laughed. "Well, well," Bell said, as he looked to the side, watching someone enter the hall without an ounce of care, as if she owned the place, "just who I was thinking of."

At that moment, a young girl of fourteen years was walking in, headphones in her ears, as she dried off her sweaty forehead. She had a day off, but meditating and running laps would still be something she couldn't risk to miss out on.

As she pulled out her phone, that had a large spider web across the screen, she unlocked it and started recording a video. She didn't remember when she had started doing this, but now it felt completely natural to her.

"Diary entry of the fourth of august, 2023," Celia Smith said as her feet reached a bench at the other side of the training room, where their drill Sergeant was busy shaping up the members of their platoon once again, "I just finished training. I feel like I might be reaching a threshold, but I'm not sure yet. And I don't know what's behind it, once I've reached and overcome it."

"Hey, maybe you're going to become Superwoman," a male voice hijacked her diary entry, making Celia pull out the headphones that had started tangling with her curly brown hair again.

She would always cut it down, but she still had to pull it into a ponytail every time she trained or fought. Alternatively, she knew she could cut it down a lot further, instead of keeping it at shoulder length. However something inside of her didn't want to let go of that stupid, little thing she had left, as she looked at her arms riddled with fine webbings of scars, similar to the screen on her phone, and the way her puberty didn't seem to do anything for her either.

Suddenly, something weighed down on her right shoulder. "Oh, what's that noise?" a girl with long, coarse black hair intruded alongside the guy from before.

Lenny Rivers looked at her with an arched bro and amusement clear on his features. "You mean the sound of your brainwaves flat lining, Harlot?"

Of course, the black haired teenager wouldn't let that slide. "No, you idiot, I meant the sound of newbies getting whacked," Abby replied in an annoyed tone.

"What else can you do?" he added in a nonchalant tone as he looked at them from as far as the large hall would allow him, "Take youngsters fresh out of the academy – the VAULT candidate position as garnish; simply the hottest shit they had over there – with a pinch of real good families to back most of them up, and this is what you get."

"You mean arrogant little cum stains?" Abby mused with pursed lips.

Meanwhile, the third member of the trio was just shaking her head, while looking at her phone, which was still recording, catching the moment their instructor walked over to their small gathering.

They immediately straightened up their posture, cellphone vanishing behind Celia's back, waiting for what he wanted from them. It was essentially their free day, as they had been on a long running mission until they had just returned the night before.

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"Smith, I'm glad you're here," he addressed her, ignoring the other two, while they still stood at attention without questioning his attitude towards them, "sorry to disturb your free time."

"It's an honor, Sir," Celia replied strictly without directly looking at Bell.

"You wouldn't want me to tell you what you are lacking, would you?" their Sergeant bellowed at the new recruits from behind them, "That's why I won't be the one to show you."

He gave Celia a reassuring pat on the shoulder and gestured her to follow him. She handed her phone over to Abby, as she was the one standing closest to her. As her roommate, she was also the only one besides Lenny who knew about her video diaries.

Of course, Abby would immediately start recording the scene, after giving a brief greeting to the camera next to Lenny.

"What now? Is he having her crush their spirit this time?" Abby gathered from the events unfolding in front of them.

"It seems like it. Maybe the last ones were too soft. You saw what happened out there. Completely useless."

They both reminisced at Lenny's words, thinking of how they had to put up with a bunch of kids that were still wet behind their ears. There were too many things they just weren't ready for and too much egotism to boot.

"Everybody wants to make an achievement; everybody wants to be the MVP," the girl with the long black hair spoke in a world weary tone, "until they realize there is no such thing on a battlefield, because we're all in this together. Leave your ego at the door, or at least don't be a bother if you can't be of any help."

"Spoken with true wisdom," Lenny mocked, but there was no amusement on his sad expression, "when I first entered, I got the 'you're Specialists, but that doesn't make you special' speech."

"I guess that doesn't cut it anymore, nowadays." Times were changing fast, but people outside of VAULT still held those antiquated thoughts on what Mana or Magic were supposed to be.

Even with the internet, at information was worth real lives and thus, real money, there wasn't that much known about how it's used or how it worked. Stories about Magic being capable of any and all miracles would flood bookstores and only very few touched on the topic of their actual enemies in the field. Instead, they told stories about vampires, and werewolves, and all the things Visitors would inspire them to, imagining worlds in which those creatures were living, breathing races of fantastical beings, sometimes even living among humanity.

'As if that would ever work out,' Lenny thought to himself, 'we barely manage to live with those things just dropping in on us now and then.'

Shaking his head, he saw Celia still talking to the Sergeant, as she started to put on knuckle gloves, while the biggest, tallest of the newbies was getting himself some protective gear. He exuded an air of self-confidence, almost bullish, and laden with disappointment as he looked over at Celia on the training mat in front of the recruits.

"So that's my opponent?" he mused with an arrogant smile on his face, some of the newbies snickering behind him.

"Oh, gee," Abby commented on their behavior, "what a bunch we got here again."

"We called it," Lenny chimed in.

Bell smiled brightly at it, not even berating them for showing a reaction at all, when they were supposed to stand at attention. It must have looked hilarious to them indeed.

Unlike regular people, they were Spellkeepers, so they knew how to handle Mana and knew what it meant for one to use it. It wasn't as miraculous as some people thought, it relied on the person handling it and enhanced their already existing physicality. In other words, there was no way a person like Celia could ever stand a chance against a guy like Dan.

But even he didn't know what people on the front lines were aware of. 'Spellkeepers think so highly of themselves,' she remembered, thinking back to her own days at the academy, 'they are far beyond that of what is humanly possible, only to get a reality check, seeing what it truly means.'

Because there were people above and beyond anything that seemed humanly possible and one of them was Celia Smith. Her rank was that of a First Sergeant, but everyone knew it meant she was an Executor.

Of course, that wasn't something one could see with the naked eye. She looked like a child, she was short, lean and didn't have much of a stature in any other way either.

There was nothing that Mana could work with on that one, so he knew he would have a field day, no matter how much more experience she could have. Dan was about four times Celia's size.

He looked over to the two clowns constantly talking rubbish among themselves, where his opponent had walked out from.

"What about her? She looks like she could put up a fight," the hunk said and laughed again.

Abby Harlot was not much of a tall woman, but her shoulders were broad and she looked strong. However she was in fact someone with the ability of Manifestation. She was a support on the platoon, capable of manifesting walls made out of rock for protection. Obviously, that meant she wasn't a fighter at all; she was a soldier who had a static field position and needed to be covered by the people in front of her.

"Trust me, I'm not the better choice, if a fight is what you want," she commented as Dan kept looking over to her.

A laugh echoed through the hall. "I know what you think. She's a five foot nothing and doesn't look very intimidating, eh?" Sergeant Bell said with a cheeky smile on his face, "That doesn't mean she can't be terrifying when she rips out your guts, so you better be respectful to your platoon leader." He didn't have to say any more, as the recruit was already sure of his win.

'That's the platoon leader?' He realized she wasn't wearing her uniform, so it must be a day off, but a Specialist shouldn't be a Platoon leader.

"Get in position," Bell commanded and so they succumbed to their fate.

He stood there, fully aware of his opponent, channeling his Mana to fight, prepared for any and all circumstances. Celia simply drew a breath, adjusting her right glove, as there was something on it that pricked her skin annoyingly.

Dan made his move, she took a step back, leaped forward and whacked his nape in one swift motion. No way he could have seen her coming; no way for him to stop her from executing such a simple move on him. He slumped to the ground without ever getting to put up any resistance.

"That's what you are lacking," Bell said, as the hall had fallen awfully quiet for a couple of seconds, "humility. You have to understand that what you have seen and felt to this day is nothing compared to what you will soon be seeing and feeling. You should take this seriously, if you don't feel like failing this gloriously when the time comes."

He thanked Celia for her help with a squeeze on her shoulder, as they had known each other for a few years now. He had always been her instructor as well, after all.

As nobody dared saying a word and the two other old members were busy holding their breaths as to not burst into laughter, the door opening felt very loud to everyone standing there. A man came in, walking a fast pace in their direction.

"Smith!" he barked, "the Major wants to see you."

"Alright," Celia replied, taking off her gloves and walking over, as Abby called out to her.

"Hey, what about your phone?"

"Keep it for me."

Without another word, she followed the man who had called her out of the hall, walking a long way to the one they called their Major. There were many things that were going through her head – at the same time, she felt tired.

Whatever could they want from her? And on her day off as well.

As she stood at attention in the office she was led into, there was a moment of silence. "First Sergeant Smith," the Major said, pointing the guy who had walked her over to a document lying on his desk, "there is something we are glad to finally tell you."

The man took the inconspicuous yellow document folder and handed it over to Celia, though it seemed that only the Major knew what was in it. With a nod of his head, the Major silently told him to leave after he had done his job.

"Rejoice, Sergeant, we have finally found your family," was all he said as she had opened the folder, looking at a picture of herself, with two adult next to her in it, "or at least whatever is left of it."