Ashryn knew exactly what she was doing.

Going to the canteen— well, the Fuze, on her first day was a way for her to scope out the other agents, and to show them she was confident.

Going alone?
Even better.

She could feel eyes on her, but she made a point not to look at them.
She continued walking, scanning the area to observe the agents, though it was under the guise of trying to find a seat.

She felt a hand tap her shoulder.
"Hiya, are you lost?
I can show you how everything works if you like?"

Ashryn turned to see a young woman with brunette hair that reached her belly button, and a front fringe that sat on her eyebrows.
She had a warm smile, and kind, expressive eyes.

'Damm*t', she thought.

The plan was for her to go up to someone else, not for them to see her as a damsel in distress, or the new kid in school, and help her out.

Ashryn's mood turned sour.
"I'm fine."

"Are you sure?
Wait, you're one of the trainees, aren't you?
You look about my age, and
I'd recognise anyone here that was my age", she asked.

"Yeah, so what if I am?"

The young woman was stunned at Ashryn's attitude, but quickly smiled again.
"You've got a great team of trainers. Well, look, there are signs around the room to help you guys navigate your way around this place."

Ashryn felt her blood boil.
This woman was definitely taunting her, right?

"I don't need stupid signs, thank you very much", she snapped.

The young woman's eyes widened.
"Oh, I didn't mean to off—"

But it was too late.

Ashryn had already walked away.

The young woman called after her.
"My name's Sophia, by the way!"

★★★

Rhiannon and Makoto frantically wiped the crumbs off of the bed, aware that they had less than five minutes to make it to their combat class.

Makoto contemplated telling Rhiannon about their combat fears.
They watched as she put all her wrappers into a paper bag, seemingly to put in her rubbish bin.

No.
They only just met her.
No, they should just stick to lunch dates.

"Oh!
Found the last mini brownie!", exclaimed Rhiannon.
When Makoto's eyes lit up, Rhiannon giggled.
"Here", she said, before throwing the brownie.

Makoto caught it and quickly popped it in their mouth. "Mmmthisbrowniesogood!"

★★★

Makoto and Rhiannon got to the room with two minutes to spare, but Ashryn was already there.

"D*mn, did you teleport?", remarked Rhiannon.

Ashryn just rolled her eyes, still reeling from the failure that was lunch.
"It's called making a good impression."

"Oh!
Yeah, totally, I wasn't—"

"Ahhh!", screamed Makoto.

Rhiannon and Ashryn looked to the side, and saw that an incredibly muscly man had Makoto in a chokehold.

"Oh f*ck, Makoto!", yelled Rhiannon, running towards them.

She tried to pry him off them, but he wouldn't budge.

"Release them!", shouted Rhiannon.

"He's a two hundred and thirty pound tank, he's not gonna listen to reason!", replied Ashryn.

"Tuck your chin into their arm!", instructed Ashryn.

Makoto did as they were told, but he didn't move.

"Um, he's not moving!"

"Of course not, idiot.
Now you need to use your hands and pull their arm down.
As hard as you can!"

Makoto did what Ashryn said, managing to loosen the grip around their neck.

Ashryn rushed forward and kicked their rib, as hard as she could.
The man toppled over, falling to the ground.

Rhiannon held her hand out, and Makoto ran to her, collapsing in their arms.

The man got up and turned around, before nodding his head at Ashryn. "You did good, kid."

Ashryn knew he couldn't be much older than her, and although she liked to test authority at times, she wasn't stupid. She knew when to just bite her tongue.

"I'm impressed", said a young woman.
She emerged from the shadows, her low voice drawing the trainees to her.

Her double helix curls reached just above her hip, and her makeup—  black eyeliner in her waterline, and a smidge of matte magenta lipstick, was perfectly placed.

She looked at Ashryn.
"Finian's very strong, and you knew that.
Most people would've just tried to tackle him straight away, but you knew that you had to play it another way."

Ashryn shrugged.
"It's obvious.
It doesn't matter how much training you've had, if your opponent is physically stronger than you, you have to find other ways."

Imelda smiled.
"Exactly."

"You were terrible", said Finian, looking at Makoto.
"What if your fellow trainees weren't there?"

"In my defense, Sir, I didn't know you'd attack me", said Makoto.

"Surprise attacks are his thing", said Imelda, a small smirk appearing on her face.

Finian held her gaze, but no one thought anything of it.
Except for Makoto, who noticed Imelda's smirk.

"You never know who's going to attack you", said Finian.
"What if you're helping some villagers? You're split off from the rest of your group, and only you can defend them. What would you do?"

Makoto blinked, trying to think of what the right answer would be.
"I–I don't, I..."

"You don't know, do you?
You'll need to do better than that", said Finian.

Imelda pointed to Rhiannon.
"You went in blindly, attacking with everything you got."

Rhiannon smiled at this, but frowned when Imelda shook her head.

"That's not a good thing.
You got good spirit, I'll give you that. But without honing your craft, you won't be fighting smartly.
Just blindly."

Rhiannon couldn't argue with what she was saying.
She could defend herself in a fight, but she tended to rush in head first if people were in danger.

"Shouldn't there be one more of you?"

The trio looked at each other.
Makoto and Rhiannon knew Raphael was fast asleep, but how would that look to their trainers?

Rhiannon may not like Raphael, but she took what Agent Arden said, about being a team, to heart.
And she wasn't about to rat out her teammate.

Makoto didn't want to upset Raphael either.
They wanted to keep the peace as much as they could, so they would most definitely be keeping quiet.

Ashryn shrugged.
"I haven't seen him since our fitness session."

Imelda looked at Finian, who nodded.
It seemed like they had said all that they needed to say.

"Right.
Well, let's just get to work then", said Imelda.
"We'll start off simple, just because not all of you are here.
We're going to teach you the chokehold. After that, you'll partner up.
Hendrix, you're with Mizuno.
Williams, you'll be graced with my presence."

A playful smile appeared on Ashryn's face.
"Just don't hold me back, ok?"

Imelda's eyes widened, Ashryn's words taking her off guard.
After a few seconds, she laughed loudly.
"This one's got sass, huh?
I like her."

Ashryn just shrugged, but she couldn't hide the small smile that was on her face.

★★★

After training, Ashryn approached Rhiannon.
"Where's Raphael?"

"Oh, I found him asleep in his room.
I think fitness must've tired him out, bless him.
Don't tell the trainers though.
He'll get into so much trouble."

"I won't, don't worry."

Ashryn fell back, letting Rhiannon catch up to Makoto.
She turned around, smiling to herself when she saw Imelda and Finian chatting.

She walked over to them, making a point to look worried.
"Um, Imelda, Finian?"

"What is it?", asked Imelda.

"It's probably nothing but... I'm worried about Raphael."

"Why?", asked Finian.

"Well... no, I'm sorry.
I'm probably overreacting."

"If there's a problem, we need to know", said Finian.
"That's the only way we can help."

Ashryn sighed.
"I guess... ok.
Raph didn't come to the session because he was sleeping."

Imelda's eyes widened.
"Sorry, he was asleep?"

"He was probably tired from the first session!
He worked really hard, but I thought I'd tell you in case it's a regular thing, you know?"

"You did the right thing", said Finian.

Imelda nodded.
"We'll sort this.
And don't worry, this stays between us."

Ashryn nodded, before turning around. As she walked away, she smiled triumphantly.

★★★

The group were on their way to their tech session, with a refreshed Raphael in tow.
Ashryn noticed Rhiannon and Makoto talking, so used the opportunity to get Raphael alone.

"Hey, we missed you at combat.
Where were you?", she asked.

"I must've fallen asleep.
I can't have missed too much though", he said.

"Oh you didn't, don't worry. Rhiannon said something about seeing you asleep but I wanted to ask you", she said.

"Oh.
Well, tech is much more my forte, so I suggest you watch out."

Ashryn smirked.
"Well, maybe I have a few surprises up my sleeve, Robo Boy."

Raphael raised an eyebrow at this, but maintained eye contact with her.
He edged closer, a smile creeping on his lips.

"What kind of surprises?"

Ashryn inched closer to him, seemingly giving him the attention he was hoping to get.
She playfully rolled her eyes, before laughing.

"You're going to have to try harder than that.
Egotistical inventor boys aren't my type."

"Oh, well that is truly heartbreaking", he replied, his voice dripping in sarcasm.

Rhiannon leaned closer to Makoto.
"Do you think they'll stop making out with their eyes long enough to pay some attention to us?"

Makoto shrugged.
"I think they're just messing around. There's no way they like each other."

"How do you know?"

"I'm just good at reading people, I guess. They're definitely just using each other."

"Wow.
Where were you during my last few breakups?"

★★★

A girl with shiny black hair, that was braided so the front pieces weren't touching her face, looked up from her computer.

"Oh!
Right!
The new trainees.
You're... much bigger than I thought."

"We're not spiders", said Ashryn.

An older man squeezed her arm gently, a warm and reassuring smile on his face.

Minerva nodded, taking a quick breath before turning to the trainees again. "Hi.
I'm Agent Ghimire, but you can call me Minerva."

"Are we going to be learning how to hack?", asked Makoto.

Minerva shook her head.
"No.
These sessions are mainly about teaching you how to use our different gadgets."

"Agoraville is a primarily agricultural place, and they don't have things like technology there, or atleast not like ours.
So learning to hack would be useless for this mission", added Knox.

His voice, as well as his general presence demanded the trainees' attention.

"I'm Knox.
The real trainer here is Minerva, but I've been in the business for a long time, so I know a few things."

Raphael was staring at Minerva like he was a shark, and Minerva was a lonely fish unknowingly swimming closer and closer to him.

"Minerva Ghimire", he said.

Minerva nervously smiled.
"Yes?"

"Renowned inventor, Minerva Ghimire", he said.

"I–I don't know about—"

"I do", said Knox.
"Yes, she is a renowned inventor, and you're about to be plastered to the wall if you keep that up."

Raphael was taken aback by how defensive Knox was.
No one had ever been that defensive in regards to him.

Picking on the young inventor was fair game when he was younger.

"Sorry.
I've just heard a lot about you and your work", he said.

"Oh.
Thank you?
Um, well, I'm not the only person that works on the gadgets.
We have a dedicated team—"

"But you're the brains behind it, right?"

Minerva just stared at her hands.

"She is", said Knox.
"Now stand back and let us show you one of the gadgets that you'll be getting pretty familiar with."

Knox gestured to Minerva, who pointed to a small black box that was attacked to the pocket of her uniform.

"This is a device that's built in to every agent's uniform.
You can unclip it and place it on your trouser pocket, but it needs your fingerprint to be able to unclip", she said.

"Fascinating...", whispered Raphael.
He specialised in bigger, more extravagant work meant for entertainment, but he was still drawn to this small piece of magic he saw before him.

"What does it do?", asked Makoto.

"When an agent goes on a mission, they need to press a button on the machine, and it alerts their team back here that they're on the move.
If they stop moving for more than two minutes, a light on their machine flashes red five times, which sends a signal to their fellow agents, who's machine's also start flashing red.
You can also type another agent's code on it and communicate with them."

"That's really useful in field work", said Rhiannon.

"Wait, you mentioned a code?", asked Makoto.
"We didn't get a code."

"You will soon", said Knox.

Raphael glanced at Minerva's desk, his eyes fixated on a deep blue ear piece that looked familiar.

"Is that a X Triple Morgon SW Detector?", he asked.

Minerva looked at her ear piece, quickly slamming her hand over it. "Oh!
That's not for the—"

"No, no, but that is what it is right?
I was actually invited to a tour of the lab where they were looking at the prototype for it", he gushed.

Minerva's eyes widened.
"Really?
That's so cool!
We were able to modify it so that it works better for our spy work."

Raphael looked like she slapped him across the face.
"Modif–you modified it?
It was already a high tech thing of beauty!
It was perfect for putting on spy plays for children!"

"Well, I... spy work isn't fun and games. We use tech seriously here", said Minerva.

Raphael's face contorted, as if he had been sucking on a lemon.
"Seriously?
What kind of an inventor, are you?"

"A d*mn good one", replied Knox, stopping any chance Raphael had of fighting Minerva.

The rest of the session went by relatively smoothly, aside from Ashryn trying to use the Freezum Ray on Raphael.

★★★

Raphael jumped onto his bed, a big smile appearing on his face when he hugged the duvet tightly.
His phone vibrated, and he quickly checked it.

COMBAT SESSION RE-SCHEDULED.
New time— Tomorrow at 6 AM.

Raphael momentarily forgot how to breathe when he the message.
As much as he didn't want to go, not showing a united front this early could damage people's perception of him, and he needed people on side if he was going to use them for his own needs later.

_____________________

This one was a long chapter, I'm sorry!

I'd like to say that, please do not take what the combat/fitness/tech tips seriously. I did research into it, but I always recommend doing your own research and checking with multiple reliable sources.
What I'm getting at is please don't use the Ashryn method for helping someone out of a chokehold😂

Some chapters will just feature the trainers, but I'm hoping to spread them out, so they're more like palate cleansers.

Sophia made a very brief appearance here! She'll be involved more after the next couple chapters.

I also want to know, is one chapter a day too much? I don't want you to feel overwhelmed with the updates, so I'd really appreciate your feedback!

Ashryn seems to have her priorities straight. Are you interested to see more of her, and her interactions with Raphael?

What do you think of Ashryn stirring the pot?

Rhiannon and Makoto's bond is still going strong! Do you think they could keep it up?

What do Imelda and Finian have in store for Raphael?

I'd really appreciate feedback on my description skills, if that's ok! I'm going to work on improving them.

What are your thoughts on this chapter?

DoodleYeet

LeMystical-Puffle

ruesbennett

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