It took Adam a full cycle before he recovered fully, and when he did, he had started to train as hard as he could. He got fucking lucky this time – like unbelievably, oh-my-God lucky, and that wasn’t going to happen again. A couple other runners had made it the last run because it had apparently made the hunters all emotionally compromised when they realized they were running in some...ruined district that many had emotional connections to or whatever, so chances were that they next run was going to be brutal and very hard to beat.

So he trained.

Well.

He planned on training, anyway.

Not long after he started, his sister had a very difficult birth that had led to sepsis and so he had gone to the city to be with her. He stayed there with her family and took care of her as she had taken care of him, her husband working at the mines and unable to give her the proper attention she needed. He still trained aggressively though, just in the gym in the building his sister lived in, working out while his sister and the baby rested because he kept them up with his restlessness.

Adam did not receive a summons that year as when they came to find him with his sister, as it was clear that she required more care and her daughters' needed minding after, which she insisted only her brother could offer.

Instead, seven girls and two boys from his sister’s city were chosen.

While Adam had considered in the moment during the last race that he had had the worst luck imaginable, he had been very, very wrong. As it turned out, one of the boys chosen from his sister’s city had the worst luck not only here, but in all of the colonies. Not only had poor Calder only just been recovered as the last surviving member of the colony they all thought had drowned, but now he was being sent down for the hunt when he still didn’t have his land legs back yet. When he was interviewed though, he proclaimed he was just happy to be back on solid land again, no matter where that solid land was. Zerric. The Moon. He just never wanted to be surrounded by water again.

In the papers it announced where the citizens of their city were now, what master they had, and Adam was all too relieved to see that his Number Three hunter had claimed Calder, who indeed had the worst luck in the colony, and was now with his new master far beneath the ocean on Zerric, where they would be remaining for the rest of Number Three’s service in the military.

Adam didn’t see any word on Number Four getting any trophy –

Vas-Tin, he remembered.

He actually liked that name.

Vas-Tin.

After dropping his nieces off at school, he took a turn for the cities communication building, where records were kept and whatever knowledge they were allowed by the Zerric was fed through here.

He looked up Vas-Tin to find out whatever he could on the hunter and found that he was someone to be wary of. While he had been a high-ranking officer, he retired the year before Adam first met him in the hunt, Vas-Tin now working as a mercenary.

He hunted down other Zerric for a living.

The hunter that hunted other hunters.

And Adam had beat him.

He’d beat him three times now!

A grin split his face as he thought on that, whistling to himself all the way back to his sister’s home. She found it all much less amusing than he did, but he didn’t expect her to – his sister worried. She cried every time he was picked and according to his nieces, his sister cried the entire time he was down on Zerric and was often sick from her worry.

So hearing that a top-tier hunter had set his special attention on her little brother was not good news for her to hear as she was trying to heal.

But he knew everyone back home would get a kick out of it, so he just put that little bit into his back pocket for later to share with him the next night cycle he was home and focused on bringing his sister back to fighting shape. Things were boring as fuck there because everyone back home was too old to be chosen for the run, so there had been no entertainment or new stories since he left to mind after his sister, but this would really help liven things up.

When his sister did recover a full moon cycle later and he felt she was well enough to take care of herself and her children, Adam returned home to his farm. There had been talks in the family about him bringing some of his nieces back with him to help get caught up on all the work he had neglected before the next night cycle came, but he wouldn’t tear them away from their new baby sister, and insisted they stay back to care for their mother. Maybe next year, though he knew it would probably be a few more years before they were ready to part with the chubby cheek infant.

Adam himself wasn’t a baby person, not a fan of how they smelt or all the noises they made, but even he could see the appeal of having them around when they were as good as his new baby niece was or half as cute.

When he arrived home, he was greeted by good ol’ Larry and his dogs, who informed him that a Zerric had arrived in town just a few hours earlier looking for him. When Adam asked what the Zerric looked like, Larry described Vas-Tin to a T, which worried Adam. But seeing as he hadn’t broken any laws and doubted any of his previous hunters would put a hit out on him, he couldn’t think of any reason why Vas-Tin would be here to kill him, so it must have been for something else entirely. Likely, it was to ensure somehow that he was going to run in the next hunt.

Because the Zerric fucking hated losing their trophies.

When Larry dropped Adam off at his farm, Vas-Tin was there waiting for him at his doorstep, and Adam expected no less from someone like him. It was his job to find people, and apparently, the person he wanted to find was Adam.

“Well, well, well,” Adam called out as he approached, his bag slung over his shoulder as he neared his dwelling in the hillside. “What brings an officer such as yourself to my humble abode?”

Vas-Tin didn’t give any reply other than shifting to make room for Adam to unlock the door, the human pushing it open before he gave Vas-Tin an expectant look. When remembered, a little too slowly, that the Zerric was in fact completely blind, Adam cleared his throat and entered his home, the lights flickering on automatically as he walked further inside.

“Did you enter this year's hunt?” Adam asked casually, knowing that he had.

“You didn’t,” Vas-Tin stated coolly.

Adam inhaled sharply, “No –“ He said with a sigh, not sounding or feeling particularly bothered, “My sister needed my care-”

“I’m aware,” Vas-Tin said in the same cool, hard tone.

Adam dropped his bag on his couch, twisting to hold up a hand in confusion. “Then…?” He glanced at Vas-Tin and his tense posture, frowning. He dropped his hands to tuck them into the pockets of his overalls, his frown softening. The hunter didn’t seem angry, just...determined. Adam’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “Why are you here, Vas-Tin?” He asked quietly.