Stella did not know how she managed to get back to the dorm. Her brain was on auto-pilot, mechanically receiving instructions, getting name tags, filling up forms, dragging her legs across the sun-lit passage of Goldham Hall - one of the higher end dormitories in the city campus. She searched through a series of door plates while trying to avoid the whole commotion of students rushing back and forth, getting used to their new lives. The budding youths running about in the Academy's official crimson shade somehow overlapped with the latest image she saw of V. It was the classic 'he didn't look anything like his photos' conundrum. Stella was expecting someone who appeared more sinister, whose presence itself could dampen the mood of a whole room, whose corporeal body had difficulties containing the rottenness that couldn't wait to erupt from within.

But so far, the kid didn't look like he had committed any crime, well, besides being so handsome himself.

Stella took a deep breath and made her way into the dorm room, only to find a platinum blondie sitting cross-legged on top of her luggage, waiting for her to come back.

What a dramatic way to make an appearance. Thought Stella, fingers kneading her temples. The chick looked like she had been in this twisted position for ages.

"I see that you have arrived, sister." The blonde rushed over to give her a half-hearted hug. "I am so glad that you managed to get here safely. Is Daddy around? I haven't seen him since he dropped me and mom off Alegore."

Maria Whitlocks, 20, Earth. Stella analyzed the facial report in front of her. Judging from the girl's attitude, our assassin somehow managed to figure out the kind of power dynamic that existed behind the walls at Whitlock Manor.

"Father is busy as always. I came here alone."

"But what a pity, you have worked sooo hard to get admitted." Maria fondled her near-white wavy hair. This had been the Whitlock family's trademark for centuries, probably one of the reasons why Stellaris had always been left out despite being the legitimate daughter. She mostly took after her mother's Eastern Asian features, dark brown eyes with a black, silky mane. "But fret not! I'm pretty sure he finally approves of you now. You are after all the Second Born that cost him a fortune to keep."

The apparently preferred Whitlock child seemed to get the kicks from tormenting her younger step-sister. But today our assassin didn't have the mental capacity to deal with their petty conflicts. She sneered. "According to the One Child Regulation, I was supposed to be the First Born, no? Wasn't it strange that a natural child could even make it to the list, let alone into the family like you did?"

Maria was taken aback, her pompous grin froze. Stellaris had never had the gut to even look at her in the eye, let alone retaliate. "What did you just say?"

"You heard what I said." Stella moved towards the other Whitlock child and reached to the back of her hair, pulling the silky ponytail down before the girl had time to react. She caressed Maria's chin and gave her pinkish face a condescending glance. "Now wriggle back to where you came from before I rip these curls off your scalp, sister."

Stella let the girl go and she faltered. "Set your filthy foot into my room again, and I'll make sure you won't be able to sleep in the next few years at the Academy."

Maria looked at her step-sister in disbelief before floundering off the room, nearly bumping into another figure that had already been waiting by the door.

"Family?"

"Baggage." Our assassin groaned.

"Even more than what you've got here?" The short-haired girl glanced over the pile of trunks in the middle of the room. She then strutted in with her tiny suitcase and satchel.

"I'm Stella, by the way."

"Petra, Ghinfield." She grinned at her prospective roommate. "Now that girl and you don't look all that alike."

"Praise the Lords for that." Now that she had seen Maria, Stella was relieved she didn't get reincarnated with a smug face like that.

"Are you even from around here?" Petra raised the thick brows that complimented her androgenous set-up. "You don't look like an Earthean girl."

Sharp brat. Stella thought. "They sent me out to live on Mars for a few years. My father didn't have the license for a second kid, that white pawn over there was illegitimate."

Stella could feel the pulsating veins on her forehead as she kept up with the act. "You been to other planets?"

"Yeah, Orisis. My parents have been mining minerals and crystals up there for years." Petra took out a bunch of rocks from her scruffy suitcases. "Take whatever you like, they all have special properties. The blue one might be able to keep you calm before the E3. Have you registered your test subjects?"

Stella nodded. Before her arrival, she had chosen to be assessed in Mathematics, Hyperspace Physics, Engineering, Survival, and Hand-to-Hand Combat. The first 2 were question-based exams which shouldn't pose a concern for Stella. She was after all 50 years ahead of the current era in terms of knowledge and technological advancement. Our assassin just had to reach top 3 in any of the later assessments before proceeding to the next stage.

"Are you aiming to work for the Fleet? Sounds like you plan to apply for Commander School." Petra's eyes gleamed with a sense of predetermination. "It is my dream to become a Fleet Medic, but I need to be in class A before having any real chance to enroll in Medical School. That's like, almost full marks in all the tests. Have you gone through any mock exam? What's your predicted score?"

Stella didn't know how to answer her roommate's questions, she hadn't been thinking at all of a future within this timeline. Unlike Petra who could talk for hours about her own dream and aspiration and what test to take upon getting here, the E3 subjects had been singled out in Stella's favor so that she could better approach her assassination target.

Stella did have high hopes for the future, just not in this entangled timeline of vengeance and grief. Her end goal was simply to retire far away from all this blight. Preferably on Earth or any other new blue planet, in a time that was detached from war, killing, or from the human race itself.

After what Stella considered a few hours of dreadful small-talk, in which she managed to dodge any substantial questions that could compromise her identity, the girls gave each other personal time to focus on their game plans for the next few days. The following morning they would be sent to different sites for their chosen assessments, Petra was to be tested on Chemistry, Herbology and Extraterrestrial Biology, so she needed to reach the campus' West City before 8 AM. On the other side, Stella signed up for her knowledge exams and finished them both within a day. She was, however, not confident to be in the top 3 due to the open-ended format of these tests; the girl had been trained to be an assassin, not a theoretical physicist after all.

Then came the long-awaited Engineering exam, in which she had more chances to score well due to her past as a scavenger. Stella stepped into the designated venue where the assessment would take place. The waiting room was a large dome constructed to maximize the presence of natural light. Its supporting structure held the look of steels that had been molded into tendril-like arrangements. The delicate yet durable foundation crawled its way up and joined one another at multiple points on the glass dome, as if they were tentacles finding an escape upon coming across the limit of knowledge.

"Engineering is the new Art." A modulated voice echoed off the ornate walls. The rowdy crowd turned silent as the youngsters began to search for the origin of such a ludicrous statement. "Design something and it will tell your story, your motives, your characters."

"My name is Dan Yamashita and I am the head of the R&D department. First, I would like to welcome you all to the Intergalactic Academy." The man had been observing the crowd from the second floor's balcony all this while, he then stepped down the stairs that spiraled around the room and opened the large door facing the main entrance."Now follow me, I've got something to show you."

Stella sighed, making an entrance seemed to be the people's forte in this particular era.

The opening led the students into another chamber, in which several piles of what looked like space debris laid await. "4 quadrillions tons. Every year this planet alone expels 4 quadrillions tons of mechanical trash into our waste stations. Needless to say, this behavior has deprived Earth half of its habitable land in the past, and yet one thousand years later, we are still doing the same thing. This time, on an even larger scale."

-Are they making us solve their waste management issues?- The crowd murmured.

-How did they even get this much trash?-

-Hey Namjoon, isn't that the girl we saw on the dock the other day?- A familiar sound crept up to our assassin. She quickly evaded the area, it was no time to reunite with old allies.

"You will have 36 hours to recycle and create a functional structure that could solve one personal problem." Yamashita smiled with satisfaction as the students looked around, unable to believe in the difficulty level of his assessment. "Look into yourself first before even think about improving other people's lives."

Stella was ahead of everyone else. She had already been analyzing the pile of crap to search for usable components, her wandering days fixing ships out of scavenged parts might finally be of use here. 

"Think about your character arc and write it in the mechanism and the codes of your creation. Scores will be given based on the functionality and the degree of self-expression in your work. So do get raw."

"I will see you all back here at 8 PM tomorrow. Now get your ass to work!"

The crowd of students swarmed the area, reminding Stella of the ants' colony found capitalizing on her leftovers this morning. She dashed across the room and headbutted the kid reaching over a defunct cyborg body she had been eyeing in the pile of trash. Stella had already devised a plan for these components in her head, she wouldn't let anyone or anything stop her from getting the parts.

She stretched forward to clutch the cold, hard mechanical chunk that peeked out from the rubble. Another contestant was doing the same so she ended up grabbing his warm, delicate hand instead. Stella quickly turned her glare around and met eyes with a handsome young man, whose dark, curly locks puffed up on one side as if he had just gotten out of bed minutes ago. The facial recognition program gave her a red alert.

Kim Taehyung

Age: 19

Birthright: Earth

Stella croaked a little, letting her hand go, almost falling behind before the hand she had been grabbing grabbed her back. The boy let out a nasal voice. "Careful...You can have the parts if you want."

Taehyung then pulled her towards him so she could stand straight again before walking away, still yawning.

Stella was static for a good five minutes, she was in such a state of shock she didn't even notice that the sought-after robotic part had been snatched away by another student. What just happened? Stella's brain restarted again as if it had just run into some unknown bug. Our assassin had long dreamt of the day when she finally managed to sneak up to V and surprised him with a knife into his back. Yet in the actual field of work, she couldn't even deliver a proper response being in contact with her target.

As suspected, the Admiral's power was out of this world. Stella tapped her flushing cheeks, reassuring herself that there would be more opportunities for paybacks in the future, she just had to focus on the assignment at hand.

Though on the topic of hands. There was such a reassuring warmth to the boy's grip that made Stella wonder if she had identified the wrong person all along. Legend had it that the Admiral possessed a chilly aura that could bring down the temperature of every room he walked in...

But that is beyond the point! 

Stella frantically looked around the room for spare parts to distract herself from the catastrophic thoughts and self-doubts caused by her target's disturbing force. From the raided mess she then found what seemed to be a modern Fabergé. Unlike its ornate counterpart from the past, the new-age egg now resembled a child's toy with its sleek design and the ability to open up to a myriad of hidden compartments. This could turn into a great assassination device, Stella chuckled, she got worked up and deviated from her original plan, not knowing that this wouldn't be the last time her contrived schemes were to be disregarded, again and again.