[The Blacks!]

The building that we just entered stood out from its various counterparts on the planet. The outside of the building seemed like pure white marble, there seemed to be no windows on the building just vents dotting its surface. The atmosphere inside was a different matter entirely. The transition from a brown wasteland to a square hall, with pure white walls, ceilings, and the floor, was amazing to watch. There was a blue film-like surface, that had little arcs of current traveling along with its surface, which was once mentioned during lectures. Although this technology is a little old and not particularly next-gen it is still used in most places that are too dry and sandy to separate two different environments.

"Everyone get back to the base! Mike come with me." Alex seemed to be a man of few words as the other dispersed quickly and went left from the reception desk.

'Talking about reception desk, hot...' the lady on duty seemed to be the reincarnation of Aphrodite. She stood at 5'10, had a perfect hourglass figure, perfect D-cup breasts that provided a very nice view for me to gaze at. 'Inspect...'

[D-cup, 87cms]

'Wait what! You mean I had all this power and you didn't tell me, Zoey you and I are gonna have a serious talk...'

"New recruit meeting!"

'That's it...you are just gonna say that without even looking up...okay why are you looking at me now...am not weird go away...' The hot-lady, 'yeah, am gonna call her that...', typed something on her terminal then nodded towards Alex. Alex then motions towards me as to follow, and started to walk towards the lift.

'Why can't you speak mate...' I look at the Hot-lady one last time before entering the lift with him and we silently rode the elevator to the 19th floor. The elevator arrived with a *ding* and I just followed Alex like a little lost lamb walking towards the wolf den.

'Well, technically I am a wolf in sheep's clothing...hehe you saw that pun, didn't you…*sigh* I need friends...' Alex knocked 3 times on an office door and after a muffled "come in" we entered the room.

The first thing that hit me was the transition of room design. While till now the HQ was pure white, from the marble covering it outside to the white tiles inside the building. The office was decorated in various shades of grey, the lights were adjusted in specific places so that as soon as you enter all you can see was a desk hidden behind the shadow of various objects in the room and a dull green terminal screen floating on top of it. Alex just walked into the room ignoring all the chills the setup gave me and I reluctantly walked inside the room.

"I found a new recruit for my team!" The same old boring and dull voice said…

"Hmmm...you want someone for your team, not sent for general training…? Is it that kid behind you?" the man speaking was an old man who looked like he was in his 40's, but probably was a lot older… 'You know, those serums from the frost family are not the only genetic serums available in the market. So the average age of humanity has passed a century, long ago.' The man had Asian features and seemed to share some resemblance with Alex.

'Inspect'

[Name: Axel Black]

[Ability: Assassin Vision (A+): Pinpoint the weak points of an opponent and have a reflex time of 0.005s]

[Level: 78]

[HP: 7800/7800]

[Str: 85]

[Int: 105]

[Con:55]

[Dex:85]

'...strong almost at the peak of humanity...'

As I was analyzing Axel, he seemed to be looking at me with a critical eye, he then looked back towards Alex with a raised eyebrow.

Alex just sighed and said, "Mike can you tell me what your actual ability is and not what is written on paper?"

*gulp*

I looked between Alex and Axel and realizing that I am not gonna get away with repeating the original ability of the body sighed visibly then replied.

"Space Manipulation"

'Hehe...got you now'

Alex's expression finally changed as one of the rare ability types was mentioned, seeing two disbelieving stares leveled at me I went up to the table and picked up a pen from it. I threw the pen in my inventory and seeing the pen disappear from right in front of their eyes shook both of them awake. Alex seemed to be still on the way to process the ability that I just revealed while Axel leaned forward and asked, "What are you doing here?"

"I was on the way to The Silver Ring to look for job opportunities when Alex here pulled me aside with the promise of a job, I guess that's what you meant…?" I looked at Alex with a questioning look…

"I was just going to invite you to go to general training because you were B-ranked on paper, but then on the ship, you used your space ability to vanish your weapon and that intrigued me, along with several other team leaders. And during the attack, your combat ability is too good for someone your age. By the way, did you use space manipulation to move that fast?"

"Yes"

'...'

"How many items can you store using space manipulation." Axel straight away asked the most important feature of my preassumed ability for him.

"Ummm...about 100 sq meters of space..."

"..."

"Alex, there is a change of plans for your next mission."

"What?"

"Don't worry just know that you will be deployed in 3 days and get Mike up to speed..."

"Ok"

'Kind of reminds me of Dad, are all fathers like this??'

'Food for thought...'

"Come with me!" That was Alex by the way, he just turned and left. This father-son duo have a strange dynamic between them. I could feel some tension but as the owner of a big mercenary force, I guess he needs to demand absolute respect.

I followed Alex through another albino labyrinth as we finally arrived at what seemed to be a combat room. The rest of the team was already there. Jenny and Stan were having a spar with hand to hand combat while Jack was just recovering. As soon as Alex entered the rest stopped what they were doing and gathered around. Alex turned towards me and indicated towards the combat course, "Everyone in the team needs to know what you are capable of, we saw you can hold off against 2 B-ranked, but we need to know the limits to what you are capable of, so there are not any problems."

I just shrugged and said okay as I went to the combat room…

[Strength:48.23]

[Speed:241.35]

[Shooting Accuracy:40%]

[Resilience: 52.48]

That was the first time I saw Alex smile, and everyone was equally weirded out by that fact.

"Well, time for some team bonding..." Upon hearing Alex's words almost everyone groaned and Jack looked at me with hate in his eyes…

'...'

'...not getting the vibes here team.'