Stella frowned as light poured into the room and shone upon her face. Her eyelid flickered, trying to get used to the sun's radiance. Golden. Glowing. Had light always been this beautiful in the past? She peaked through the gaps between her fingers, before coming to a halt at the sight of a soft, supple pair of hands.

Thick calluses from years of fighting were nowhere in sight, so was the macabre setting, the incantation, the gloomy future with red skies and coarse air. Stella woke up from a real mattress topped with satin bed sheets. Her heart beat faster as she brushed her fingers against the embroidered details on the duvet cover. [How wasteful.] She thought, her hand admired the complexity of the texture.

Suddenly, a loud bang broke through what could have otherwise been a fine morning. Stella studied the room now imbued with the cult's omnipresence, her glare fixated on the nearest CCTV, giving the surveillance officers behind their monitors the chills.

A middle-aged man rushed past the door. The sides of his well-trimmed mustache bent up a quizzical curve when he gasped. 

In response to Stella's stare, he stuttered. 

"You...are you..not"

Stella nodded. The girl sitting on the bed possessed a foreign air that did not belong to this place, nor this era.

The man stood in awe before signaling his varlets to step away from their post. He collected his composure. "I am Frank Whitlock, a disciple of the Ancient Oversights." His voice lowered. "I assume... that you are expecting to... a-assume the role of my d-daughter."

Our assassin suppressed the snarky remark that was about to roll off her tongue. After all, his daughter, Stellaris Whitlock had been chosen as the vessel carrying our assassin's consciousness. 

Be nice to the beaver, Stella. She whispered to herself. 

"Frank Whitlock is it?" Stella's voice cracked as she tried to speak in her usual tone.

"You will address me as 'father' from now on." He straightened his back in a desperate effort to exert authority, only to shrink again at a glimpse of the dark, sunken aura emitted from his new 'daughter'.

"About the mission..."

"I'm afraid that I am not in a position to speak to you or hear about the assignment, I am merely a low-level member, while we do obtain knowledge from Them..." Frank looked up to the sky and made an obscured gesture before continuing. "...as remuneration for our services, knowing too much of the future would put the timeline and our family in jeopardy."

Frank himself looked surprised he didn't even stutter.

Poor girl, Stella thought, the younger Whitlock seemed to worth no more than a handful of trade secrets.

"What a fine line y'all be threading here. Sending me all the way back just to take out a kid. Doesn't look like you have much respect for whatever timeline we have, no?." Stella chuckles. "and as for your family..."

A menacing grin stretched across the dark-haired girl's face. "Would you be able to show me around the estate? Fa-ther?"

Frank took a step back. He just came to terms with the fact that his sheepish daughter had gone for good, and now what remained of her housed the soul of an estranged demon, a temperamental one to boot.

"If-if you would follow me." He led her out of the room into a sunlit hallway. As they walked past portraits of older Whitlock figures, Frank muttered. "Your...transfer itself is a top-secret project even within our organization. Only my trusted butler and I have been informed..."

They passed through many rooms without stopping. It was as if the homeowner didn't actually want to give his guest a tour.

"As for Stellar. She was indeed an unfortunate child. Her mother died at such a young age and she had been a shut-in ever since. Assuming her role wouldn't be too difficult. She didn't have that many friends or acquaintances." He handed her a notebook-sized screen. "You will find all the necessary information in our encrypted intranet. I don't suppose you care for our family's name, but I must highlight that time enforcement will show up at the slightest deviation from our original timeline..."

"Fret not father, I won't tarnish the name of our most cherished family." She stood still by the window, mesmerized by the endless blue sky and its luscious counterpart below. "The assignment will not compromise the reputation of our members. The Whitlock family has always been a valuable asset to the org, I will make sure it remains this way."

She resumed her walk to explore the place, leaving a flushed Frank Whitlock behind. Her words must have switched on some trigger within him, easing the man off a little. Stella failed to mention that the estate and its occupants would perish with Earth 3 decades from now. Frank was right, the people from this side of time shouldn't have the slightest idea of what was to come.

The now gleeful homeowner took her to the estate's gym upon request. He then gave Stella the much-needed personal space to catch up with current affairs and well, her new physique.

The Manor's gym was a large hall equipped with the latest fitness technologies. The machines were pristine, mostly unused, which made sense in consideration of Frank Whitelock's figure. Stella walked to the fridge near the room's end, behind its transparent door were rows of colorful energy drinks and protein substances. Her eyes shifted to the bottommost shelf and found what she was looking for, a rack of serum lined up neatly under a syringe set.

Approaching and getting rid of a student shouldn't have been a complicated task, that was until Stella woke up without an ounce of usable muscles on her body and with arms as strong as a frosted twig. This frail vessel wouldn't be able to last through a quarter of her daily routine. She drew the liquid into the all-glass syringe. These off-the-shelf solutions shouldn't be turning her into a super-soldier but they would provide the energy and the accelerated healing she needed. Stella forced the needle through her skin. She then connected the info-tablet to the master sound system, subsequently, enrollment details were put on audible as Stella began her work out.

The Enrollment Ceremony was to start in 3 days, in which elite undergrads from all known galaxies would gather to receive the most prestigious education the known galaxies had to offer. The admission rate for non-Eartheans was abysmal. Only the top 500 were admitted among millions of hopefuls coming from the other Great planets.

There were roughly 3000 freshmen to be onboarded annually, but the fight for excellency didn't end right there. The most anticipated event of each year came right after the Ceremony. An assessment known as the Entrance Evaluation Exam, or E3 in short, would take place to establish an academic hierarchy. The caste system was a matter of life and death for some, as kids in the top 2 tiers could always secure a permanent residency on Earth upon graduation. After all, the planet had been the most sought-after place before its demise, especially for the exiled Sapiens still wandering about the Universe, waiting to get home.

Stella had not understood what the fuss surrounding Earth was all about. Not until she began to wake up to the sound of non-predatory birds every morning and basked in the abundance of warmth everywhere she went. And when she picked up an apple on her jogging path, it was ripe and large and filled with the juice of life. It was clear why people 50 years from now would not stop rambling on about the good ol' planet Earth, at which the concept of such a life was so far detached from hers, it felt more like a bedtime story than a place that once existed.

She took a break from her morning routine as gravity wore her down. Everything seemed to weigh more on this planet, and with which Stella's mission grew heavier every time Earth completely rolled over.

Her target, the Great Admiral V had always been portrayed as a psychopathic genius. In a few days, he would be passing his Simulated flight exam with flying colors and earning a place in the top class of his cohort. During the E3, each student would be given a choice to pick out 5 tests and have their scores collected for ranking purposes. Despite being part of a legendary cohort, V would manage to come seventh in S-class, placing him well within the top 1% of the school's academic and social hierarchy. The ranking system was the reason Stella had gotten any education at all back in the future, she needed to place no less than A, the next 9%, to stay in close proximity with the Admiral, especially within this mammoth size of a school.

The strategy here was not to excel in all 5 exams but to reach the top 3 in any of them. The maximum score for each assessment was 100 points and the best scorer would receive an additional 100 points. Runner-ups would accumulate half of that score and likewise, the second runner-ups an extra 25 points.

Soon enough it was time for Stella to travel across the globe for her enrollment. The family's aerial vehicle took off early in the morning and managed to land in one of the Academy's sky piers just before noon. To prevent overcrowding, the drop-off point had been located right outside the city of Alegore, a region bustling with academic pursuers and space-travel hopefuls.

She was within the last batch of students to arrive at the school's stadium. Most Earthean kids had arrived with their families way before the Ceremony and were well-settled in by now. The docks were intended to be a transit point for outer space students, or those traveling from other eras such as our assassin over here. Stella was trying to catch some sleep before the automated door gave way to a group of youngsters rushing in. The stuffy scent of space began to fill the air, reminding her of a time long gone, a past life stuck within one confined cabin after another, floating aimlessly across the galaxies. 

"Woh, Namjoon, look at the view from here."

An elevated voice traveled across the room. She squinted her eyes, Stella's contact lenses zoomed in on the culprit responsible for her disrupted train of thought. The Whitlock facial recognition program failed to provide the identity of this tall, slender boy, but her memories could. Jung Hosek, runner-up in the Simulated Flight and Engineering E3, was now pressing his body against the pier's large panes of glass to get a better view. He would soon rank 9th out of 3000 aspirants in this year's ceremonial process. Later known as J-Hope, or humanity's beacon of hope, he was destined to become one of the best spacecraft pilots in history, just before sacrificing his life in the Second GonAie War up against Admiral V and his alien navy.

"Save some face for Hephae will you?"

Behind him stood Kim Namjoon, soon-to-be called RM, Valedictorian for the class of 3018. Both of them came from Hephae, the solar system's first artificial planet and home to the Galaxies' most renowned Engineers. The taller boy was to rank first in S-class with perfect E3 scores in Mathematics, Hyperspace Physics, and Engineering. Several decades from now, RM would lead the Galileo Fleet into war defending Earth against the GonAie warriors, in which he was to suffer the same fate as his compatriots. 

To think that history's most beloved heroes and despised villains were all in the same cohort, let alone the same class, Stella chuckled at the twisted hand of fate. She then caught J-Hope's glance before her focus was removed from the boys. Luckily, the flybus arrived right on schedule and without a doubt, she ran away from the situation as quickly as possible. Our assassin was not ready to start a conversation with these walking specters. J-Hope still gave her quizzical look every now and then, but Stella was spared as he showed more interest towards the view outside the vehicle than the one within.

The atmosphere in the bus grew rowdy again the moment their destination came into sight. The Academy's semi-indoor stadium looked like a ball of glass settling next to a myriad of pseudo-Art Nouveau structures that were the city campus. The peeps on Earth must have been pretty fed up with all the latest spacy aesthetics when they laid the first stone on this place. Either that or ivy walls were more reminiscent of academic excellence than the excess of glass panels and dark, cold, stainless steels.

The iridescent sphere grew larger as the flybus came close to a full stop. The students were rushed into the venue and split into zones reserved for their respective home planets. The cohort was a relatively small crowd in comparison to the stadium's actual capacity; the majority of Eartheans were spread across the furthest area facing the stage, closer rows were reserved for kids coming from other planets, starting from Terraformed Mars, then Hephae, Orisis, 1204 Veloria Prima, Z273J, to rows saved for students from smaller, lesser-known planets. The Board sat right in front of the main stage alongside diplomats, professors, guests of Honours and Legacies. Blood cells began to sprint through Stella's pulsating veins, rumours had it that V's parents were fabled alumni of the Academy. She reached into her pocket and activated a fly-size EEG drone, which was then sent to approach our target among the crowd of Legacies.

Suddenly, the stadium was imbued with flashing lights bouncing off and from its reflective ceilings. Briefly after, from the main stage erected a holographic figure, which disorientated the audience - including Stella and her espionage friend. The headmaster began to announce the commencement of the Ceremony and with that, came a brand new year full of hope and excellence. Or so she heard. His voice muffled as Stella dedicated her full attention to navigate the small device through the storming sea of special effects. Just when she had managed to penetrate the VIP zone, the transmission halted abruptly at the sight of a hand swinging by. Someone must have crushed her friendly bug, Stella cursed out loud, yet it wasn't audible for the crowd's attention had been captivated by the next speaker on stage.

"Greetings fellow student." A towering, blonde figure appeared on the omnipresent projection. "My name is Jin and I am from a planet not too far away from your solar system, 1204 Veloria Prima."

Another familiar face, she sighed. Stella almost forgot that there even was an alien prince within this tumultuous cohort. 

"It is my greatest honor and pleasure to be here, selected to become a component in the most relentless mechanism we have spearheading toward progress..."

The monarch stood unswayed amidst the cheering crowd, giving his speech. The prince's silky smooth, shoulder-length blonde hair had been tucked strategically behind his left pointed ear, allowing him to radiate an exotic aura without coming across as jarringly different. Stella could feel an evoked desire emanating from the crowd, yet could not pay any mind to the tear-jerking, inspirational talk happening on the stage. She was frantically looking for one single person. 

As Jin's speech came closer to an end, the stage's recorder panned out to feature footage from the VIP section. The rear screens began to display even more recognizable faces, specters conjured from the scattered dust of time, waiting to live through this madness all over again if she ever failed them. Violently, Stella's contact lenses zoomed onto the fresh faces that belonged to this year's withering hopefuls. And then all of a sudden, the frenzied movements came to a halt. Our assassin held her breath as the system slowly scanned through a name highlighted in red.

Kim Taehyung

Age: 19

Birthright: Earth

Stella turned off the recognition program and marked the screens with her own eyes. Without a breath, her shoulder dropped, her spin slid down the back of the chair. She found him. She finally caught sight of the man who had tormented humanity all this while. The most horrendous being, the monster in bedtime stories, the devil's incarnation himself.

And yet all she could see was a young boy who looked back at the camera with gleaming eyes and an inculpable grin.