She was daydreaming when the strike came, it was a precise hit right in the centre of her forehead that took

her down from the chair.

“Pay attention señorita, I might not be as ruthless as our leader but learning of your abilities is as important as getting in shape or learning to fight and kill” Cadem began complaining before going into an incomprehensible speech to himself entirely in Zibish.

He was a good teacher and was passionate about the subject, however, he was way too weird looking to pay complete attention.

Today he was wearing what looked like a female teacher formal attire, it consisted of a knee-high skirt and a navy-blue blazer with mate gold buttons; the weird part was he never used shoes or anything under the blazer.

Even if his body was too ‘macho’, his words not hers, he always managed to look good in anything he tried. Normally he would cross dress, except when Jacob was around, maybe having his boss looking made him nervous. In any case he felt really comfortable with his body, something she was never able to do.

“Come on maestro” Astrid responded as she rose and sat back up grabbing the iron ball that was thrown at her, she knew he loved been called ‘maestro’.

“I am just tired from this morning; Jacob is increasing the intensity of the training faster than I can keep up. Maybe if I was able to eat something sweet with you, I could concentrate way better in class.”

Cadem stopped what he was writing and striking a pose responded with,

“Fine, I’ll get you some quesadillas but that is it, if Jacob finds out I am breaking his diet plan, Dios mio, ambos you and me will be electrocuted to death” And so he continued to write some theory on the board.

The days where strictly organized and every single person in the facility worked and lived as a cog in a machine with up to the last minute of the day planed.

For her, the day was divided into training and study; she woke every day at four thirty in the morning having only thirty minutes to arrive to training with Jacob. The training was hard and he was a ruthless trainer; before her arriving here she had close to no fiscal activity so even what could be considered an ordinary training was like a marathon for her.

In a normal situation, as she got in shape the training would feel easier and she could feel stronger, in here however Jacob maintained the training just hard enough for her to feel like dying.

The training was divided into warm up, weight training, form training and at the end cardio. No matter the day, by nine am her lungs felt like she was inhaling embers and her muscles betrayed her as she collapsed on the training grounds; If she passed Jacob's criteria, she could take a shower and rest, if not she had to continue or face some punishment.

She complained every day but little by little she was getting stronger; her arms where visually bigger and she could feel the solid muscle building on her legs as she massaged them every day after training.

The water was cold on the training ground showers, the facility had hot water available but only on the living quarters and she had no time to go there to shower as she had only half hour before she had to arrive on her first class of the day.

Her change of clothes was given to her as uniform. Seven sets of sport attires consisting on a blue and white tight shirt, shorts and white socks used only for training, as she left the training ground, she left them in the corresponding basket for cleaning.

For the rest of the day, she was given five sets of formal uniform with a white long sleeve shirt and black knee-high skirt along with dark grey thigh high socks and a short black cloak covering down to her elbow that contained a white family crest over the left breast.

The weekend's uniform was more casual maintaining the cloak but with a white shirt, black pants and white socks; shoes were only used on the training grounds and on the outside of the facility so she was only given two sets of training shoes and one of leather working boots.

The rest of the morning was a boring routine, she had to attend classes for cultural knowledge and languages, starting with Zibish and Momonian, with the nightmarish reminder of Venian looming in the horizon. She was horrible at learning anything that did not involve numbers.

Her teacher was a tall lean woman with pearly white skin, she tied her jet-black hair into a tight bun and had a single blond stripe that originated on forehead, left side of her head, and ran all the way into the bun.

Her nose was long and hooked giving a classic witch resemblance; she used the same style of long drees of luxury dark fabrics, one for each day of the week each of a different colour. She spoke seventeen different languages and not one hair was out of place in this woman’s head.

This contrasted greatly with her study where she teaches her classes which was a mess, books all over the floor and in every other surface. Astrid arrived alone each morning and had an hour-long session in etiquette before others joined for language class, there was no speaking among students in or off the class so she knew not if her competition was among them.

At half past noon she was realized from class; this was the part of the day she enjoyed the most. Breakfast.

Jacob had placed her on a fasting diet; she ate two meals a day, the first after language class and the second one four hours later after class with Cadem.

This diet was the worst part about all this assassin business; she felt hungry almost all day, her mind always focusing on her next meal, her temper building up her hunger grew. It was supposed to help her focus, food being only for sustenance and not the luxury she was accustomed to.

The only good thing about this was her stomach was close to empty during training which avoided any vomiting from her part. After a good solid protein-based meal given by some world class chefs that lived in the facility she continued to where she was right now, freak class with Cadem.

The classes were taken in what seemed like a camp or a small town. All buildings in the outside looked like one floored wood shacks arranged in two lines making a road in the centre.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

In reality the whole complex was composed by only one building underground that connected to the shacks on the surface. It had close to ten thousand square meters divided into ten underground floors and the shacks above.

This was so if any stranger came close, they saw only an abandoned village. All the terrain even the lake close to the village was property of the boss, but he seemed to be paranoid of discovery from anyone. To Astrid this was overkill even for a criminal organization but she could not complain, the installation was amazing.

In terms of training at first, she was more interested in the theory of power given by Cadem than by the fiscal training forced by Jacob, but as time passed by the theory became dull. It was obvious they knew next to nothing on the matter and everyone even Cadem who was the most enthusiastic about these abilities were too scared to look further or research the matter.

This are criminals after all, no intellectuals among them to analyse the data and decipher the how or why of the abilities; even if someone did most people seemed terrified of anyone that could use them.

Most of the theory was given during the first month during which Cadem had talked about the different categories of abilities and how to identify people able to use them. It was actually pretty simple.

The abilities are divided into four broad categories Fire and Ice, Electricity, metal, and Time. For the first three where given a whole week to explain and included examples for each, the last took about an hour as they knew nothing more than stories and myths.

Electricity was first and was the most in depth as both Jacob and Cadem used it, in different ways but worked for the best as it showed Astrid how the abilities were independent to each individual. Electric users tend to be the most useful due to the raw power they possess. However, no one could do it all, Jacob had pure electricity, Cadem made sure she understood the rarity of his abilities as it was the most practical and lethal.

His ability was simple; generate, store and guide electric current at will, he trained for years so he had the control to even turn on any number of torches from across the room. However, he took much more pride in an indiscriminate discharge of energy in which he looked like an octopus made of lightning.

In terms of raw power, he was literary the most powerful assassin of the bunch as many on them had subtler abilities catered for each one of them individually.

Cadem on the other hand was the magnetic type, not personality wise but in his power. He is able to infuse any kind of steel or iron with its own magnetic field and produce one himself and so he used his ability for practical example.

Each category is flexible and useful in its own right but as with any other technique or ability it depends on the person’s talent, training and dedication. In his case he was kind of a sharpshooter, he used metal spheres and knives giving them their magnetic field and as he releases them, he produced his own sending the projectile at almost supersonic speeds. He explained that given the right circumstances he could be able to kill a target at two kilometres.

However, he is not restricted to sniper duty, magnetism gives him other possible uses during a job, if need be, he can raise the temperature of any ferromagnetic material, but that is not how he decided to train his technique meaning that to be able to accomplish this he would require insane concentration and he would feel exhausted after the fact.

The second week was focused on the Metal category, in this one; people that can control the shape and characteristics of any kind of metal are included. This one was Bartolomeo’s category making Astrid kind of defensive and angry at Cadem when he praised the ability of that scumbag. Her mind running away from picturing him.

“That guy was a total pendejo, there is no discussion about that, but you’ve got to recognize when someone has talent” He scolded Astrid when he saw her face frowning at the sound of his name.

“He used to carry a block of aluminium anywhere he went, he said it was ten kilos but I give it a maximum of four; anyway, he usually was able to pass it as different objects, be it jewellery, games and even a bust of Emperor Julianus on a job we did as merchants” He gave a girlish giggle that somehow was not out of character.

“I know how he used that thing; he tided me up and tried to torture me” Astrid interrupted as she rose in anger.

She felt the strike before she saw it. One in the stomach two on the left shoulder and she was on the ground. It was a warning, first came between one to three strikes, if she continued to disobey or ignore her superiors she would be punished harshly, from beatings to electrocution she had felt it all and learned to provoke them only to their individual breaking points; sitting back up she looked directly into Cadem’s eyes and said “Continue” between her teeth.

“Bartolomeo was a great example of a metal user, he only tided up his victims when he wanted and was able to have some fun with them; when instructed correctly he was very professional and as long as he had contact with that aluminium piece, he was able to recreate any shape and any type of death by trauma; stabbing, choking, you name it. That bastardo was a psychopath that enjoyed making his victims suffer, it was erotic to him, but he was one hell of an assassin”

Finally, the third week they began her area, fire and ice. She knew it was hers due to the events when she was Joan but even with that, she never saw any flame and was never in control of the power.

She was expecting an in-depth analysis on this class as it was hers and she would be needing all the help she could get to beat the other participants of this underworld job interview, to her disappointment there was not much Cadem could tell her.

He did know that this category was a little laxer in terms of restrictions compared with the other two. There were no distinctions between fire and ice as there was with pure electricity and magnetism; and there was no material restriction like on the metal category, however it was the one with the most devastating possibilities including fires that could consume entire blocks from a city or to freeze to death all the living beings of a structure during winter (to make it look like a heating failure).

But apart from several intricate ways to kill someone and to make it look like an accident there was not much else she could learn about her power or how to control it.

“Hey maestro, I don’t want this to sound rude but; even if it is awesome to learn that I one day may be able to rise the temperature of a pool cooking the guy inside; what I expected to learn was theory on how to control it, how can I activate it” She interrupted sounding as motivated as possible to convince Cadem to tell her.

“No idea” Was his response. “I mean I can give you all the information I can talk about this poderes that we are born with but apart from that, you will have to figure it on your own. It is after all an ability given to YOU, you don’t explain to a niño how to use his arms, he develops his ability and what he does with it alone”

“But you can teach the kid how to draw or instruct them on how they hold and use a fork, can’t you?” She was beginning to feel nervous.

“Well, you can, if you know how to draw. Mira niña If you could use magnetism, I would teach you the basics, same goes for Jacob and his electricity but neither of us will be able to teach something we don’t know. Sorry querida but you have to do that on your own time. For now, let’s go back to our assassination classroom” His way to tell her felt like a normal conversation, like this was always the case, as if she should know this already.

As the She left the room and started to walk towards the kitchen she began to panic.

For almost a month She had been training hard on her body, she knew she was going to be the one that needed the most training due to the fact she lived a sedentary and not at all balanced life.

However, she was expecting the theory classes to transform into a sort of ability class where she would be instructed in how to use her power and emphasize in the best combat method for her.

Now she felt she lost all that time studying how every kind fights instead of trying to burn things with her mind; that would be much more helpful in getting rid of her targets.

After lunch at four-thirty pm Astrid came to the armoury for weapon training. Normally this was her favourite part of the day, today she was preoccupied with controlling her ability or the lack there of.

As she opened the door, she heard Jacob call her.

“Get your lazy ass moving, today we are going to choose the weapon you are going to use the day you die.”