Her family didn’t spare her the freedom of choice whether to take the mission or not. She would rather leave it, to be honest. Spying into the stronghold of superheroes? An exciting challenge. It would even give her the opportunity to meet Void in person for the first time ever. The problem was it would hold her back from ever finishing her quota this year.

Raven glanced at the largest hologram at the center of stacked computer screens. The glaring number of an enlarged ‘60%’ made her eyes twitch.

It was October for heaven’s sake! Two months before the impending deadline, and yet she hadn’t managed to collect at least 3/4 of the annual goal. And her family had to put her up in some spying expedition just to dig deeper into Ghost’s identity. Her identity!

Sure, she could just tell them the corpse was not worth pursuing since it wasn’t even human. She had no proof to show though. And she couldn’t just take a picture of her vegetative-state clones. That would be like screaming to the world that she was Ghost.

Cramming it is.

She sighed heavily, plopping down into her white office chair, which squeaked from her weight. It was the middle of the night and she did not want to return to her dorm after storming out of it just five hours ago. Her haven beneath the woods was the only place she could crash in.

Raven lifelessly slammed a hand over the touch-screen interface on the large semi-circle table. The screen interface turned green before a certain compartment on the white floor rose to reveal a metallic pillar with the shape of a stake.

She slowly twirled around in her comfy chair and faced the direction of her most priced secret, crossing her foot over the other.

The metallic pillar with a sharp pyramidic tip was balancing a rock, which was apparently levitating over the obelisk. In a sixty percent rate, the black vesicular rock was the size of her fist. By now, it should have been the size of a human head.

Meteoros. The origin of all Supers. Or, more like, the origin of their superpowers.

A century ago, Meteoros with the size of a cow, hit the Earth. The largest yet that ever fell according to scientists’ historical records that had actual eyewitnesses.

The capital of a certain country was the sweet spot of Meteoros, destroying a good part of a sports stadium. Surprisingly enough, Meteoros disappeared as soon as it hit the ground. A mystery that scientists couldn’t explain until the people in the capital began to manifest strange and abnormal abilities.

Presently, scientists concluded that the meteorite ignited a strange phenomenon that affected 0.001% of the capital’s population. Nobody had ever suspected that the meteorite turned into vapor, spreading all over the city. Those who had the greatest compatibility with the rock’s unexplainable constituent had turned Super.

And Raven’s out to retrieve those tiny pieces of ‘Meteoros’, -which she conveniently named- before the owner comes to take back what was his. Or was she supposed to call the owner ‘it’?

Raven wasn’t sure what to call an entity from outer space since she wasn’t sure if the human pronouns were even applicable to the entity. But for her own sake, she’d decided with ‘him’.

She even took the liberty to name him Cosmo. The humanoid entity had a body that seemed to be made out of the universe. Like stars and galaxies swimming within his bluish-indigo body. Like the clear night sky in a full moon, completely showcasing the heavens in a human’s puny perspective.

She would have died without Cosmo’s help the night she was stripped of her childhood memories and perhaps even her own supernatural ability, which she couldn’t remember. Amanda always told her she had one, but her sister would never tell her what it was.

All she could remember was a hazy image of Cosmo making a deal with her in that dusty hallway where she lied there bleeding, half-dead. And a heavy sense to do something, to protect, kill, and fix. Whatever transpired before any of that happened was lost on her.

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Cosmo saved her in exchange for her full loyalty and service to the entity until his goal was fulfilled on Earth. And as a generous reward, he might bring back all those she'd lost.

She had been given ten years. Ten years to kill the 0.001% of the population. Those who had been affected and were now called Supers, may they be good or evil. For it was the only way to extract the tiny particles of Meteoros.

Raven had once asked Cosmo what would happen if she failed. Through visions, he’d shown her. The ending result was a greater loss she couldn’t even begin to fathom. Her drive to do his bidding changed a notch, even disregarding the fact that she had to kill her own kin to fulfill Cosmo’s wishes.

“C3, have you traced the 2,000 Supers left?”

“Yes, Master.” C3’s mechanical voice came from the computers behind her.

“How many Supers are there in the BHI?” she asked as she stared at the rock a distance away from her. “Excluding Void that is.”

“1,877 Supers living within the BHI headquarters in Liberty Island. 500 out-of-duty Supers. 165 Supers currently out of the country for the joint missions offered by foreign countries.”

“1,877 Supers…” Raven narrowed her eyes. “Calculate the rate of success of taking them down in their own base.”

“Calculating possibilities.”

Raven could see the lights from the computers flashing and reflecting against the white floor as numbers streamed down like torrents of rain.

“1% possibility of successful elimination of the 1,877 Supers.”

“Factors of the very low percentage?”

“Surrounding body of water is filled with invisible light and sonic radars that could sense any foreign objects heading towards the island. Supers compatible with the water element lives underwater full-time, and hydrothermal weapons are ready at the first sign of danger.”

Raven made a face at the thought of living in the sea for the rest of their working days.

“Air domain. Sealed by a barrier which burns anything that touches it into ashes, projected by a tower machine at the heart of Liberty Island.”

“Interesting…”

“If in the possibility of a successful infiltration, sudden paralysis will occur. Void has wrapped his energy over Liberty Island. This can be triggered if Void’s energy does not recognize a certain individual or non-living entity in the case of robots and cyborgs.”

“I say it’s 0%. Nobody can defeat Void, I tell you.” Raven pointed out before asking her AI a question, which she knew the answer to it. “How about you, C3, can you infiltrate the island?”

“If Master wishes it, it’s not impossible.”

Raven grinned. “You have my permission then. Try getting into BHI’s mother security networks before next week.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Also, we’re sticking with the original plan of the 2,000 Super targets. The BHI Supers are not to be touched yet. Without them, the whole villainous empire hiding in the dark will try to take over the world, and there’ll be war and too much chaos if such scenario ever happens.” Raven stood up and stretched her arms over her head, bending to the sides to catch the cracking sounds from her joints. “Too messy.”

Raven would have to completely rely on her contractors in reaching the quota by the end of the year. And hopefully, none of them would screw up just like Third. Supervising them would be impossible. She would be too busy being an intern.

An intern dropped in the open maw of her natural enemies. The Good Guys. There was nothing to fear from being found out as one of the Ballevereon descendants. Someone from the main family at that because Amanda’s meticulous way of eradicating any records of Raven’s existence as a Ballevereon would back her up.

Raven fished out her phone and dialed her sister.

“Tell grandfather I’m delighted to be of use to the family.”

“Do you want to talk to him? I can put you in speaker for everyone to hear.”

“Do it and you will never hear from me again.”

Raven could hear a classic piano score being played in the background and the clinking of glasses and subdued voices.

“Hm? What’s that? Sorry, some lowly cousin tried to start a conversation with me.”

Raven rolled her eyes. “What does grandfather want me to do in the BHI exactly?”

“You only need to know who Ghost is and then your job is done. Once the mission is accomplished, you just have to go with the flow and be a normal intern of the BHI. Doesn’t sound too hard is it?”

Easy for you to say.

It was funny how Raven was the real Ghost, out in the open, just right under their nose. And they were pushing her to sneak into the BHI, just to find out about her own machination’s identity. A useless, waste of time mission she might ever have as Raven Ballevereon.

“And how am I going to let you know about it when all employees are mandated to live on the island with no contact from the outside unless if it’s for official business?”

“A Ballevereon’s strongest point is patience,” Amanda replied, reciting one of their grandfather’s favorite words.

In simple terms, they were going to wait for Raven to be released after finishing her internship. She ended the call with her eyes twitching uncontrollably. Her internship would end at the same time as her annual goal’s deadline.

"C3, do I still have a stock of beer?"

She felt like getting wasted tonight.