Mila

"What do you think about the recruits this year Mila? Any caught your fancy?" Abby asked, flinging her beautiful long red hair to lay over her seat. Her plump curves and fawn brown eyes drew a few looks from the female audience members as she moved.

Glancing at her sister, Mila waved dismissively, continuing to look through the files of new recruits.

"Oh, come on, sis, there has to be someone who catches your eye this year, right?" Abby teasingly said as she walked toward her younger sister.

Mila stuck her nose in the air. "They are not good enough for me," her haughty tone signaling the end of the conversation.

Abby leaned close to Mila, brushed aside her auburn hair, and whispered, "Or are you waiting for him, the one that saved you."

Jerking away from Abby's hot breath and teasing words, Mila's cheeks turned scarlet as she stuttered, "N-No, I am not! And I don't want to talk about that again."

Mila peeked around to make sure no one was listening. Not wanting to meet Abby's eyes, she nuzzled up to her neck and whispered, "And even if I was, you are not to speak of him here!"

Seeing her usually haughty sister act so bashful made Abby even more eager to tease Mila.

Unfortunately, her teasing was interrupted by a gasp from Mila. "This recruit got B rank in quality!"

Showing her sister the file, Mila felt more enraged at the enhancer who came in "first" place.

The heavens were ruthless when giving rankings, and being born with a B rank in one of the three categories was easily 1 in 10,000.

Normally getting an A- in a category would stir up a storm when first entering the academy, but after seeing the name Anthony Dire, the classified, and "cannot be determined" messages that appeared when the top 5 enhancers were announced. Everyone knew the truth. That man was a fraud.

Nobles were notorious for forcing their sons to become enhancers, which was totally acceptable and accepted as a privilege of the higher class.

However, did the fraud enhancer really believe he could use his mother's power to fake his speed test and get the others redacted? He even had the gull to hide behind the name Anthony Dire. Pathetic!

Mila didn't know which house the brat came from, but she was sure as hell going to find out.

Although the students right now might think the brat was going to get away with it, that man had another thing coming.

She was going to strip any chance he had to get into a faction.

Although the other faction leaders must have come to a similar conclusion as her, especially after his pathetic attempt to hide his name, they might pick him in an attempt to curry favor with his backer.

Having her own powerful backers, she felt confident that her fellow faction leaders would drop him if she asked them.

Everyone knew it wasn't a worthwhile trade to offend a backer in exchange for a favor, as one carried a lot more weight than the other.

If Mila could successfully keep the fraud from joining a faction, she would stunt his growth by a large margin.

===

Ryan sat backstage. Even though he couldn't move and talk, he had a sense of awareness of his surroundings. He knew that Marcus and Austin sheepishly ran away after their talk with him. He remembered falling on the chair and now couldn't move. And he knew that a tunnel of knowledge was forming in his subconscious, trying to make its way to his conscious thoughts.

The puzzle was beginning to fit together and the facts were sliding into place. His quest to uncover the truth was becoming less hazy.

He realized that he had fallen into a trance-like state, and it had cleared his mind of the fog that had plagued him since he first arrived in this new world.

While in this trance-like state, he could hear the outside chatter of the new enhancers that were milling around backstage, as well as a few murmurings from the audience from the auditorium.

Ryan felt as though he could have a thousand conversations at once, but he couldn't talk. So all he did was listen to the girls chatter allowing the constant hum to lull him through his trance.

Little pings of conversation were zeroing in to his consciousness, allowing him to hear and somewhat process what these girls were saying.

"Don't you think that Anthony Dire is cute?" one girl giggled.

"You do realize that Anthony isn't his real name, right?" another voice responded. "He's an orphan."

"Huh?" the first girl sounded very confused.

The second girl said in a low voice. "All Alissa's and Anthony Dires are orphans. They are unidentifiable people."

"Well he's still cute!" The first girl giggled again. "I'd smash that in a minute!"

"You may want him for a minute, but he's not a keeper. Orphans are the dregs of society. They are trained for all the dirty jobs, and a few unlucky ones even get traded as slaves," the second girl responded. "Yuck!"

A third voice chimed in. "You know that enhancers, once they are as a ranked member of the military, they get a female slave to practice their techniques on," the girl groaned, "I need a slave to practice my techniques on too! Lucky dogs!"

Another voice, sounding a little closer than the first set of girls chimed in, "There are tons of paid slaves here on Ravier," she explained, "I've heard that people willing become paid slaves and sign a slave contract with their master for a period of time in return for a predetermined amount of money."

The first girl giggled again, "Oooh, service, practice, and pay. How fun! But don't they have a slave seal?"

The third voice sounding confinent in her knowledge responded, "No, they would be treated the same as other slaves, except that they don't have a slave seal. Their empire, not their owners determine their treatment."