Xet woke up some time later, and that’s when the fireworks started.

“How the hell did they find out? It’s not like I ever took you to the guild hall, we never had personal requests, so how the hell?” Xet raged for the third or fourth time.

I sighed, she was going to be on this same topic for hours I just knew it. I decided to kill some time while she did so by cooking dinner. The one really nice part of this job was learning to cook and experimenting in the kitchen. As an assassin, we didn’t really cook a lot of fancy things… mostly just meat, often cooked and dried for later consumption, with some variety of roots or tubers and herbs. I found cooking to be soothing, and experimenting with food was definitely something I could enjoy without directly killing anything.

I ended up making something close to a shepherd’s pie, so I guess I wasn’t too far from my roots just yet. But it was nice to have something better than soup or dried meats, so I didn’t feel defeated. Too bad it didn’t stop Xet from keeping on her tirade.

“They’re gonna send some jerk who thinks he’s too good for us and it’ll give the bastards on the licensing board a fake reason to disbar me. Not to mention you’ll be outta a job too.” She went on the entire time she was stuffing her face.

“Not if we make them vanish.” I muttered between bites.

“That’s it!” Xet exclaimed, pointing at me with her fork. “We just have to kill them!”

I hung my head, that’s not what I meant…

It was only after Xet had consumed her third bowl that she calmed down. “Well, they didn’t say we couldn’t keep operating as we do while we wait for the guy to show. And if memory serves, there’s only three or four ‘field instructors’ in the world. It’ll likely be a while before they show up, so why don’t we just keep doing what we’ve been doing… except now I should probably take you in to show you how to do bounty forms and stuff.”

I looked at her across the table, “Are you teaching me because I need to know this, or is it so you don’t have to do it yourself?”

Xet shifted her eyes before she answered. “Both.”

I sighed and stood up, gathering dishes and getting ready to clean up. Xet stood up and wandered off to the gym on the second floor. I knew she was headed there because she always went there after eating when she was irritated. It left me to my thoughts as I washed up, which was nice in and of itself. I wondered a bit about who these instructors were, and what type of stuff I’d have to deal with when they arrived. I figured I could handle any of the physical tasks, and maybe most of the mental work when it came to strategizing… I don’t know about paperwork though.

I was just feeling like I’d gotten away with the “training accident” I’d had out back as I was finishing up with the last of the dishes, but then…

“BEX! WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THE WAREHOUSE?” Came Xet’s voice, her stomping on the steps as she ran down to investigate told me how serious she thought things were.

She rounded the corner into the kitchen about a second later, her face showing the confusion and fear that was no doubt playing around her mind. She was sweaty, panicked, and… her shirt was nearly translucent with how wet it was. I had no idea how to address her when she was in such a state of disarray.

I turned away from her before speaking, “Just a minor training accident. Totally nothing worth worrying about. I’m certain if the warehouse burns down the rest of the way nobody will even know.”

I felt her hand on my head, forcibly turning my head to meet hers. “Explain, now.”

“Well… um… I have a new power? It’s a bit more powerful than anything else I’ve had… and um… I don’t have a lot of control over it yet.”

“Get. Control. Or. Never. Use. It. Again.” Xet broke her words up enough to inspire fear.

“What about those weird rocks we got a few weeks back? Those ones that can store magic. What if I put some in one of those? Then we have the equivalent of a magic grenade.” I hadn’t thought about it until just then, but that would be the safest use for this new ability. I mean it’s not like we were using those weird rocks for anything else, and if we just let them lay about and collect dust… well it just didn’t sit right with me.

I guess this is a moment I should expand upon; within the last two years engineers had developed a proto-explosive, it ignited when the vial inside broke on impact and the chemicals inside mixed. About eight months later, an engineer with magical aptitude discovered an unknown mineral one day when poking about some cave system that was previously uncharted, and they noticed the mineral held the magic he used and… released it when it impacted on the ground OR when it got hit with enough force by a small object, think a bullet or a speeding rock. And while it’s all still too unstable to manufacture, there were enough people trading the raw form of the rocks to make it a commodity for bounty hunters and slayers. Surprisingly, one of our clients used them as payment for us to eliminate a pack of wild shifters almost a month ago, and we’d not had any reason to use them yet.

“That… actually isn’t a bad idea. I mean it looks like it took out a third of the building’s roof, so I imagine a small amount would do impressive damage in grenade form.” Xet said, her face taking on a ponderous form. “Go ahead and load a few up, but make sure any more ‘practice’ is done somewhere private and out of sight of others.”

We came to an agreement, determined a schedule to have me work on this new power, and we definitely did not burn down the warehouse… that happened all on its own, and we’re sticking to that.

~

Almost a year passed as we waited for the instructor to arrive, and during that time we spent our free moments gathering resources and preparing for the worst. Knocking out eighteen different hunts, setting aside 20% of the pay-off from each hunt, and then refitting the extra rooms in the house to accommodate another person, and blacking out one of them in case the instructor was a nocturnal person was just the beginning of our trials. But what neither of us expected was, exactly what kind of “person” the instructor would turn out to be.

We had just chased down a young revenant, a creature of undeath that had been terrorizing the locals, when out of the blue its head exploded in a ball of gore. The remains of a bullet slammed into the ground next to me, kicking a swathe of dirt into the air. The surprise took me for a second and then I glanced up along the projected path of the bullet and locked eyes with an abysspyre.

The moonlight glinted off her yellow-purple eyes, the barrel of her pistol reflected the dim streetlamps around us, and her all black ensemble seemed designed specifically to accent her awe-inspiring pale skin. A part of me wanted desperately to kill this creature before me, but more important than that was the part that screamed for the injustice of her stealing MY bounty.

“You wanna come down here and explain to me why you think it’s fine to steal another person’s meal ticket?” I called up, letting the irritation I felt color my speech.

“For a hunter, that was sloppy. Do you really expect to pass with such unrefined ability? Xet must be losing her touch.” The woman responded, her voice an emotionless void.

Wait, did she say… She knows Xet? So then that must mean-

The sound of hurried footsteps slapping atop pavement snapped me out of my thoughts. I turned to look just as Xet rounded the corner behind me. She looked out of breath and I could almost see… fear? What has her scared?

“Bex, high level reaction on the radar, powerful abysspyre, we need to go!” Xet panted.

“Yeah,” I said, pointing up toward the abysspyre in question, “and it sounds like you two have a history.”

Xet followed my finger and finally noticed the woman on the rooftop. She blinked as a wave of recognition hit her. First she seemed slightly happy, then kind of upset, and then she put on a mask of apathy. That must be one hell of a complicated story.

“Vinnia, what a surprise. You’re a field instructor now? I wouldn’t have pegged you for a teacher.” Xet called up, her tone was flat but sharp.

The abysspyre smiled, not lowering her weapon, and spoke again. “And I never expected you to take an apprentice. Or allow yourself to get this sloppy. I remember when you left the academy the association was singing high praises of the genius girl hunter, what happened? And where is Lyle? I thought you an-“

“Don’t you dare speak his name!” Xet roared, her anger was so overpowering that even I was blown away.

“But of course, I wouldn’t want to step on any toes this early.” Vinnia said, the grin on her face echoed by her tone.

“Bex, collect whatever we need for the bounty and take it to the lodge. We’ll meet you back home. Vinnia and I need to establish some ground rules.” Xet all but growled at me.

I decided it was better to not make a fuss right now, not while I was standing between two powder kegs… I mean women. I knew enough not to get between battling women. So I grabbed the heartcase contained in the chest of the revenant, the core that had to be handed off to be disposed of by the association, and I made my way to the local guild hall.