[Dark Vision: Active]

  Fletcher glanced around at the gray outlines of the room he stood in. The design was that of a maze, only this one included enemies that were after him, making it a lot less fun than what he would have expected from doing a real life labyrinth.

  Cautiously, he took a step forward, his eyes peeled for any hint of movement. Surely he could make it to the end without getting caught. He really wanted to accomplish that much, or else the consequences would be unbearable.

  Nothing caught his eye. Of course, it was hard to be sure that there wasn’t anything out there given his [Dark Vision] was only at level 2, which gave him a rather dim view of the scene. That was better than any regular, non-Hexed Human would have, but among the Mixhumans and Unhumans, most would consider his ability’s level pitiful.

  Fletcher took another step, moving as quietly as he could. He wasn’t a professional at sneaking around, but he liked to believe that he was doing a good job in this exercise.

  The cold, metal walls loomed on either side, leading him to the first intersection of the maze. He went right since he had very little to go on. His only way through this was to use brute force in trial and error—assuming he didn’t get caught in the midst of it.

  He glanced around the corner, finding the coast clear. Jeric was in there somewhere, as well as Nora with a set of night vision goggles that gave her as good of sight as his low-level [Dark Vision]. Supposedly they were just here to “assist” in this exercise, but Fletcher had the feeling that he was going to be left with a lot of bruises if he did run into either of them.

  Movement flashed from up ahead.

  Someone else was there.

  He had two options.

  Option one: carefully sneak backwards acting under the assumption that they hadn’t noticed him yet.

  Option two: turn around and run, causing enough noise that everyone in the maze would most definitely know where he was at.

  He didn’t like either of them, but he trusted his running ability a lot more than his sneaking ability, even after taking a couple of bullets to the leg a month prior.

  Fletcher spun around and dashed away, back towards the original intersection. Footsteps echoed behind him, confirming that the guard he’d nearly run into was in pursuit.

  He sprinted right through the intersection, and rounded the next corner that came, his mind very much caught up on remaining ahead of the chaser. He hadn’t run this fast for this long in weeks, largely due to the bullet injury. His physical therapist told him to take things easy, but he liked the feeling of going all out in a sprint again. He took another left at the next intersection, his ears listening close to see how far behind him the other person was. As he rounded another corner, he realized that he let his mind get too distracted by the current chase.

  The outline of a large man waited before him, Human in everything except the two dog ears on top of his head.

  Jeric.

  Fletcher’s steps slowed as he searched for a way out of the situation. There weren’t any other corridors he could take, and whoever was behind was catching up. He was stuck.

  He decided to take his chance against Jeric even knowing the guy was taller and a whole lot stronger. Choosing to bank on at least being faster, Fletcher dashed forwards.

  Just as he reached Jeric, Fletcher dove to the ground, hoping to catch his friend off guard enough to bypass him completely.

  He rolled as he hit the ground, but just as he got back to his feet, something grabbed his shirt collar and pulled him backwards.

  One of Jeric’s muscular arms wrapped around his neck, putting him in a headlock.

  Fletcher bucked and jerked, but he was no match for Jeric’s strength. Not to mention the guy was a professional soldier and had years of training.

  That technically should have been the end of the exercise, but as was Jeric’s way, he decided to add some of his own “training exercises” to the scenario. He released Fletcher and raised his fists.

  Fletcher matched his friend’s form, keenly aware of just how much this was going to suck.

  Jeric lashed out in a punch, and Fletcher dodged to the side so the blow grazed him on the shoulder instead of slamming into his chest. He threw out his own attack, but Jeric batted it to the side. The only good thing about having such low-level [Dark Vision] was that he couldn’t see details, such as what he was sure was a very smug look on Jeric’s face.

  Thinking of how his friend who was part [Bloodhound] had a much higher level in [Dark Vision], Fletcher tried to keep his own face neutral. No need to give his friend more to gloat over when this was through.

  Jeric punched again, and Fletcher ducked only to discover it was a fake, and instead Jeric’s knee met Fletcher’s abdomen.

  Gasping, Fletcher fell to his knees. Of course, that didn’t stop Jeric from continuing in the fight. The half-[Bloodhound] tackled Fletcher all the way to the ground and used his legs to pin his arms to the side.

  Fletcher squirmed, getting one arm free just in time to partially block a hit going for his nose. Another slammed into his cheek. Grunting, Fletcher blindly shoved his hand up towards Jeric’s face, hoping to hit something like an eye.

  His friend grabbed his wrist and used his other hand to knock the breath from Fletcher’s chest. After that he formed a finger gun which he put to Fletcher’s temple.

  “Bang. Dead, Fletcher. Again.” Jeric released him and stood up.

  Coughing as he struggled to find air, Fletcher closed his eyes and thought a lot of not nice things about Jeric. He didn’t dare say any of them since he wasn’t in the mood for more sparring.

  “Wow. That was… embarrassing. Are you sure we’re related?” Nora asked from behind.

  Fletcher glared up at his older sister, a person he didn’t even know existed two months before. She was still just a gray outline, but he could see the blocky headgear she wore to allow her to see in the darkness.

  “Oh yeah, pouting is a good move. That will definitely keep you from getting shot again,” Nora said.

  He rolled his eyes—not that he was sure she could even see that—and stood up.

  “Lights going on,” a female voice said over the loudspeakers.

  Nora tore her headgear off, but Fletcher could do nothing to prepare besides brace himself.

  Bright lights flashed on ahead, and his eyes burned. The walls around them descended, revealing a large blank room used for training purposes.

  [Dark Vision: Inactive]

  Nora clapped his shoulder, grinning with that same stupid smirk. Her brown hair was in a ponytail, and she wore her military-issued fatigues. She was fully Human, unlike him and their mother. “That was absolutely awful, Fletcher. I hope you’re ready to be the biggest loser in military history when you go to basic.”

  “Yeah, yeah. You’re still not funny.” He brushed her hand off. “Remind me why I even did this? It was a giant waste of everyone’s time.”

  “Oh, come on. Like your time is so valuable. At twenty-six, you’re unemployed and living with your dad.” Nora shook her head.

  “I leave for basic training in three days. It’s not like I’m sitting around idly,” he pointed out.

  “All you do is read,” Nora accused him. “That’s all you’ve done for weeks now. A little exercise is good for you. Especially before training.”

  “I. Got. Shot,” Fletcher reminded her. “It’s not like I could do much else.”

  Nora muttered something under her breath, but the argument ended there as Addy walked up. While technically a Mixhuman, she could pass for a full [Elf] with her metallic colored hair and the bronze markings on her cream-colored skin. Her ears were long and pointed.

  “That was good, Fletcher,” Addy said, her voice holding a certain musical quality.

  Jeric huffed. “It’s one thing to be nice, Addy, but blatantly lying to him is a little much.” The dark military clothes blended with his brown skin, but his hair and beard were crimson red, clearly marking his [Bloodhound] heritage. The ears on the top of his head twitched, just like those of a dog.

  “Jeric.” She swatted his shoulder. “Don’t be mean.”

  “It’s fine,” Fletcher assured him. “I’m well aware that that could have gone better.”

  Addy smiled at him. “I’m glad you have a positive attitude. Part of the challenge of passive [Skills] like [Dark Vision] is that you can’t always control when it’s active or not. That’s why exercises like this are helpful since it forces you to really rely on it and give it proper practice.”

  “Yeah. I learned a lot,” Fletcher lied. “Thank you all.”

  Nora smacked the back of his head. “Stop being a jerk. We’re giving up our valuable time to come help you out.”

  “And I’m learning a lot. Thanks,” he repeated, trying really hard to sound genuine.

  “You don’t seem to be learning that much,” Jeric huffed. “Can’t even properly spar.”

  “I got shot!” Fletcher reminded the room for the millionth time.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “Excuses aren’t going to work when you’re at Hotshot training, Fletch, so don’t waste your breath on them now.” Nora grinned at him, that same old malicious glint in her eyes.

  “Yeah. Yeah. I get it. I’m going to hate my life at Hotshot training.”

  “Fifty pushups,” she ordered. “For failing in the exercise.”

  “No.” Fletcher rolled his eyes. He wasn’t at training yet, and he wasn’t about to let her start bossing him around too.

  “Come on, Fletcher. We’re only trying to help you. Trust me, you’ll appreciate this when you’re at training,” Addy urged him.

  “I’ll do twenty-five.” It wasn’t that he couldn’t do fifty, he just didn’t feel like it. But since Addy was being a little bit nice about it, he’d do what she asked.

  After the pushups, Jeric motioned to the mats leaning in one corner. “Let’s see if you can manage to learn something before training.”

  “I’ll handle it, Jeric.” Nora said. “I haven’t gotten a proper chance to work with him on his sparring.”

  “Deities kill me,” Fletcher muttered as he followed the group over to the mats and helped get them set up.

  Jeric and Addy paired up to work on fighting forms—though it looked a lot more like flirting from the glances Fletcher saw, but Nora kept him busy practicing different strikes and blocks.

  “Deities, Fletch, you are an absolute embarrassment to the Anders’ name,” she said as she corrected his blocking form for the third time.

  “I told you, don’t call me that. I don’t use that nickname anymore.” He was sweaty and exhausted, but the others showed no sign of letting up any time soon, much to his disappointment. His leg throbbed just a little, warning him that he needed a break.

  “Jeric, Addy, and Dad use it. Why can’t I? Or am I just not good enough for that?”

  “I don’t want them to use it either, Nora. Not everything is a personal attack against you. You don’t have to be so dramatic all the time.” He put his forearm up, blocking her incoming attack, repeating the same move over and over again to ensure he learned it perfectly.

  She cackled. “You’re really going to call me dramatic? That’s big coming from the guy who believed himself so special he thought he could single handedly free an entire conversion facility by himself.”

  Fletcher dropped his arms to his side and shook his head. “Deities, you really are just like her.” He turned to where Jeric and Addy were practicing. “I’m done for the day.”

  “Oh, you baby.”

  He looked back just in time to see the fist swinging towards his face, giving him no time to react. Nora’s punch landed squarely on his nose, sending him reeling backwards as bone crunched and blood gushed across his face.

  She followed it up with a kick to the stomach that he didn’t even bother defending against, his hands too busy pinching his nose to stem the bleeding. He gasped as he fell to the floor and all the air left his lungs. He curled in on himself, smearing blood from the mat onto his forehead and into his hair.

  Nora bent down close to speak with him, her voice tense and angry. “You’re not the only one who wishes you were still back in the colonies, Fletcher. Believe me, my life also got a lot worse when you showed up.”

  “Glad we’re in agreement that this whole thing was a huge mistake,” he said with a nasally voice thanks to his plugged nose.

  “Go clean up. I’ve had enough of your whining.” His sister stood up and walked away.

  Fletcher pushed himself up from the mat, one hand still at his nose, and he watched as Nora went to talk with Jeric and Addy. The latter of the two immediately came over to him and offered a hand up.

  “Don’t mind Nora. She can get a little intense sometimes.” She helped pull him to his feet.

  “A little?” He glanced around for a towel or something he could use to wipe up the mess of red covering himself and the mat.

  Addy placed a hand on his face. “Let me take a look. My [Healing] isn’t very high, but I can handle something minor like a broken nose.”

  “You can [Heal]?” Why hadn’t she used it back when she and her team first brought him in and he nearly died?

  “A tiny bit. It’s only level 5 which is good for very little beyond paper cuts and minor fractures.” She pushed his hand away from his nose, and he grimaced as more blood leaked onto his lower face.

  Addy didn’t seem to mind the gore, both her hands covering his injury. She closed her eyes and in a quiet voice said, “[Heal].”

  Just like the last time he remembered being [Healed], the site of the injury became uncomfortably warm, and he had to force himself to keep still instead of jerking from her grasp.

  The pain in his nose went away, and the blood stopped following. The warmth decreased as Addy pulled her hands away, a smile on her face.

  “That’s better. But I do think you’re right. We should call it for the day on the training side. We can do something more academic, yeah?” Her eyes remained that intense brown they’d always been, hints of a deeper metallic color inside.

  “Sure. That sounds good. Thanks.” Fletcher used his hand to wipe away the last of the fresh blood covering his mouth and walked back over to his water bottle. He was careful to avoid even looking in Nora’s direction as he cleaned up the last of the blood.

  “Thank you, Jer. Thanks, Nora. You guys can go. We’ve had enough hands-on practice for today. I’ll just go over some of the boring parts of [Skills] with him now,” Addy called out. She kept a smile on her face, seeming to be completely unperturbed by everything that just went down.

  Nora gave Fletcher a vicious glare before following Jeric out of the room.

  After they were gone, Addy motioned to one of the walls. “Wanna sit? I wouldn’t want you to push that leg too hard.”

  “Thanks.” Fletcher followed her over to it, and they both sat down with their backs against it. “And I do appreciate you trying to help me with [Skills] and everything, it’s just that…”

  “I get it. Jeric and Nora are tough enough to deal with alone, but putting them together can sometimes be too much if you’re not accustomed to it,” Addy said. She pulled out a tablet. “Normally, I wouldn’t push so hard on this stuff, but since you’re heading to training so soon and in a… unique situation, we have to make sure that you understand this stuff forwards and backwards.”

  “Yeah. Good point,” Fletcher muttered, his eyes scanning the training room. Addy wouldn’t have mentioned anything if others could hear them, right? She was cautious. Obviously, they couldn’t be too open about things, but the conversation already verged on the edge of what he was comfortable with.

  Addy handed him the tablet which displayed a list of [Skills]. A long list of [Skills].

  “This is every known [Skill]. I want you to select out every option that is available to [Vampires] like yourself,” she said.

  A lie. He wasn’t a [Vampire]. That was just the cover story they were using since [Vampires] also shared the maroon eyes Fletcher got from his Hexing. In reality, he was something far more rare. According to his dad, it was the kind of secret that might very well change everything they knew about the world but not necessarily for the better.

  Fletcher held the tablet in his hands and scrolled through the list of [Skills]. They were already categorized by the four types of [Skills]: [Magical], [Social], [Intellectual], and [Physical]. Technically each Unhuman species specialized in one of the types, drawing the majority of their [Skills] from a single branch, but every species was different as to what [Skills] in the category they could learn as well as what [Skills] outside of that were available to them.

  Under the guise of being a [Vampire], Fletcher was technically a [Physical] species, like [Bloodhounds], [Ogres], and [Undine]. Obviously [Dark Vision] was a [Skill] available to his fake species, or else the cover would be a terrible one. Each species also had a singular [Skill] that was unique to them, something no other species could ever learn. In the case of [Vampires], that was the [Life Suck], a [Skill] in which they used their fangs to take the life-energy of their victims to replenish their own.

  After adding those two to the list, he also selected [Frenzy] and [Invisibility], both [Physical Skills] he knew for a fact were available to his fake species. From there it got a little harder. Addy had drilled him on these [Skills] for weeks during his recovery, but the new headache from the fights with Jeric and Nora made it difficult to remember correctly.

  Tapping another dozen [Skills], he handed the tablet back to Addy.

  “Close. You missed a couple that should have been on the list, and added a few that shouldn’t be there. [Vampires] don’t get [Leap], and they definitely don’t get [Intuition]. Though I understand why that one might have made the list,” she said.

  Right. That was one of the [Skills] he had, not one his pretend species could learn.

  “Practice calling up your status while I reset this,” Addy suggested. “I’m going to take away the categorization so it’s harder next time.”

  “Okay. Thanks for helping me with this,” he said.

  “Of course. I’m happy to. This is part of my work,” she reminded him.

  Addy, while also a member of the military, spent most of her time working on Hex research, studying [Skills], species, and radiation. Due to her expertise and her own high level of Hexing, she sometimes got pulled for infiltration missions into Unhuman cities, which was how Fletcher went from being an educator among Humans and Unhumans to a soon-to-be soldier in an organization he’d always been taught was the equivalent of terrorists.

  One fateful night in Bren’it’p, the Unhuman city where Fletcher used to work, he’d bumped into her at a gala just before a terrorist attack which was performed by the Humans to look like it came from the Mixed. From there he’d been whisked away to a Mixed base where he met his mother who was not dead as he assumed and a general among the supposed terrorists. After enough arguments and persuading from her—including a stint in solitary confinement—he ended up agreeing to join the Mixed. It didn’t help that he didn’t have any other options after getting Hexed beyond the point of blending in with Humans.

  At ten years old, Fletcher had been Hexed to just one percent, something that was minor enough he could live a mostly normal life. An incident with a Hex Cloud and getting trapped outside led him to getting converted up to six percent, permanently changing his eye color to be maroon, a distinctly Unhuman trait.

  Sighing, Fletcher did as she suggested, and with a thought, he called up the set of white of text that constituted his status screen. It displayed over his vision, taking up just a portion of the scene.

  [Species: Demanlic]

  [Conversion Percentage: 6%]

  [Skills:]

  [Dark Vision, Level 2]

  [Read Thoughts, Level 1]

  [Intuition, Level 1]

  Both [Intuition] and [Read Thoughts] were [Skills] he gained later, doing so much easier than any normal Mixhuman ever would be able. But that was because of his species, [Demanlic], who were worshipped as gods amongst the Unhuman population. It was not supposed to be possible for Hexing to create a [Demanlic]. But Fletcher existed, proving that wrong and creating a secret he was required to take to his grave.

  One thing was missing from his status screen that every other Hexed Human and Unhuman had—aside from [Demanlics] probably, but he would never get the chance to ask.

  [Mana].

  Best that Addy could guess, [Demanlics] weren’t limited by such things, which he meant he also wasn’t limited by it. That was good when he needed to use [Skills], but bad since it was really hard to fake having a limit. And a true partial-[Vampire] would have a limit. But for now, the only [Skill] he could reveal was [Dark Vision], and that consumed very little [Mana], so he didn’t have to worry about it until he got something better.

  “Okay. Try again.” Addy handed the tablet back to him, displaying the [Skills] in a randomized order.

  Fletcher once again went through it, selecting those which applied to [Vampire]. This time he got them all right.

  “Good job. Now remember to be careful at training not to pick up any new [Skills]. You only have two more levels available, which isn’t much wiggle room,” Addy said.

  Every Hexed Human was capped in the total number of levels/[Skills] they could by their conversion percentage. Since Fletcher was six percent and his total level of [Skills] added to four, that left him two percent to utilize, but he had yet to decide how to use them. Those levels could go to a [Skill] he already had like [Dark Vision] or be used to give him a new [Skill] or two.

  “Right. I’ll be careful. Luckily basic training doesn’t include [Skill] training, so I can worry about figuring out how to use those last two levels after,” he replied. Normally, people had to work hard to gain new [Skills], but Fletcher appeared to be able to do it with ease, thus the extra need for caution.

  Addy put the tablet away and stood up. “Sounds like a plan.”

  He accepted her help to stand, though his leg hardly bothered him anymore. “Thanks again for your help.”

  “I’m happy to give it. Make sure to stretch out or else you’ll be wicked sore. I’ll see you tomorrow, Fletcher.”

  “Bye, Addy. See you.” He waved as he walked to the door and exited into the hallway of Finnack Mountain Base—his new home and probably his least favorite place on the planet.

  With nothing else to do, he returned to his quarters—technically his dad’s quarters where he just slept on the couch—and sat down with a book. He felt he earned a break, and given he left for training in only two days, this might be one of his last chances to read at all for several months, so he was intent on enjoying it.