“Machu! Hurry up! We’re gonna be late!” I knocked on Machua’s door several times.

  The response I received was the tumbling of several things from inside followed by the furious tapping on a phone.

  “No, we’re not! I have time!”

  “It’s good to be early!” I yelled, knocking even faster this time.

  Today was the day. The day where everything began. It was the day that I met Carmine and Rasa and formally became a part of Galas Squad. It was the beginning of a long 4 years of Hunter service, where so many things would happen. The thought of doing it all over again was daunting, but also still a little exciting. This was my chance to do things right.

  Machua wasn’t done even after I finished reminiscing. So I began to knock even faster. I could just walk in there myself, but Machua deserved to be annoyed.

  My efforts were rewarded when Machua slammed open her door.

  “Geez, do you think it’ll take an hour to get to Dias Mall?” She asked.

  I ignored her question and looked at Machua’s outfit. She wore a casual black crop top paired with a casual looking skirt and black stockings that seemed to fit her just perfectly. By her side was a cute purse, which I remembered was a gift from mom. She had also done her hair up a little, but with how voluminous our hair was, she didn’t try much. Her makeup was also applied well. She looked pretty good, all things considered.

  “Take the makeup off,” I ordered.

  Machua made this incredulous face as she heard me. “Wah?”

  “And change your whole outfit. You’re gonna ruin those clothes.“

  “What!? We’re just meeting up with our new squad!” Machua exclaimed.

  “Most Captains like to give their entire squad a field test on their first meeting before formally taking them in. You go out in that and you’ll turn yourself into a mess by the end of the day. Your clothes will be totally ruined too,” I pointed out.

  “There’s no way…” Machua lamented, her mood visibly taking a downturn. “I spent all this effort to look cute too…”

  “You can still look cute. But you have to put function over fashion first in this business.”

  I folded my arms and gestured for her to go back in. Machua took a deep sigh before giving up and walking back in. Before she closed the door though, she took one last look back.

  “…Can I keep the skirt though?”

  “No. It’s just an accident waiting to happen.”

  “Come on. You really think one of our new squadmate’s a total perv?” She questioned.

  …Yeah. And it wasn’t Captain Galas or Rasa. They wouldn’t be interested anyway.

  “It’s…it’s for the best. Trust me.”

  Machua stared at my anguished face before just accepting it. “Oookay. But it’ll take a while before I finish picking out new clothes for this.”

  “I’ll get you some of my clothes then. Wash off your makeup first.”

  Ignoring Machua’s response, I walked back into my unit, located right next door, and searched my closet. I had a variety of options to pick through, but I wasn’t sure which one Machua would like the most. We were the same person, so we did have the same tastes, but mine had definitely changed over time. Over time, I began to prefer function over fashion, though it wasn’t as if I’d ever let myself look like a mess. Mom would never let me live it down.

  After a few seconds, I found it. An outfit that I thought Machua at her age would like.

  “Here, try this on.” I handed Machua the pile of clothes.

  Machua, having finished washing her face, took a gander at the clothes I presented to her. Having decided it seemed to look good, she responded to me.

  “Fine. But if it looks bad, we’re gonna have to go shopping to fix your closet. With you around, I can try double the amount of clothes,” Machua said with a smug smile.

  “I can guarantee it’ll look great,” I responded with confidence.

  “If it doesn’t, it’s gonna be 4 hours straight. With mami. It’ll be vengeance for what you did to me these past few days.”

  ‘You’re still not over that?’ I thought.

  These past few days I had been rigorously training her so that she could have a smoother time working as a Hunter. I know I certainly found it difficult at first, especially with Captain Galas at the helm. I had trained her primarily in the martial arts that I learned from Captain Galas, tactics and quite a few other topics. I left magic for later because she ought to reinforce her physical body first. Obviously, a few days wasn’t enough to cram all of that in her head, so I simply made her pull double time. The result was that her body was wracked in pain almost every day. Still, it wasn’t up to my standards.

  “The exercise was good and I treated you to dessert after, so I don’t think you have room to complain here.”

  “Shut up.” Machua closed the door on me.

  I couldn’t help but crack a slight smile at it. It felt a little ironic to be laughing at my own antics, but they were funny, nonetheless. Only through these past few days did I understand just how much I had grown over the past few years. The silly, whimsical Machua I had been tutoring was a far cry from the more serious and capable Machia I was.

  The door slowly opened up to reveal a newly dressed Machua. Despite what I told her, it seemed like she reapplied a little bit of makeup after washing her face. Not that that was a bad thing. A little bit of makeup was fine, I had some on too. Just a bit of foundation to cover a few things up.

  Machua was now wearing a chic shirt with and a short jacket over it. She was no longer wearing a skirt but was now wearing some shorts. There was just one thing I had an issue with, which was Machua’s shoes, but that was a problem that would have to be fixed another time. For now, they were… acceptable.

  “This actually looks pretty good, Machi. I didn’t know you had taste,” Machua said with a grin on her face, as she looked over herself.

  “That’s what you get when your mom’s the head of a fashion company.”

  Machua’s eyes flickered, not understanding what she was hearing at first. Her face changed expressions rapidly, as if she was unsure what to feel. Eventually she landed on a nervous grin. I could almost hear her brain malfunctioning.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “Right. Remind me we have to go clothes shopping later. Now that I know you have taste, it’ll go way better.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Come on. Let’s get to Dias Mall already.”

  ———————————————————————

  Dias Mall was pretty much the playground of our lives. It had everything you wanted in a mall. Air conditioning, an arcade, lots of clothing stores and a great variety of restaurants. One of which our squad captain requested us to meet at.

  “An Italian restaurant? Fancy,” Machua said.

  “It doesn’t measure up to its main branch in Sicuso though,” I mentioned. “The place is way fancier but way more expensive.”

  “Probably too rich for my taste then.”

  Machua took a deep breath in and exhaled with just as much force. She clapped her cheeks loudly, before proclaiming, “Alright! Let’s go meet our squad!”

  I smiled. “Right.”

  Together, we walked into the restaurant and looked for the people that seemed like they could be our squad. I, of course, already knew what they looked like, so my eyes were immediately drawn to where they should be.

  By the side, a man and a woman were seated opposite each other in a table that sat four. The woman was eating her plate of spaghetti and meatballs, alongside a good amount of red wine. The man, meanwhile, had his eyes closed and was listening with music through his headphones. Or at least, they should be, but I couldn’t find them.

  Which was very strange. I was good at sensing mana, and I was extremely familiar with them. I should have sensed them the moment I walked into the restaurant. But I didn’t.

  An unsettling feeling rose from my chest, and I almost wanted to panic. I ignored the quick and easy solution and looked through the crowd with my eyes alone. I passed over a couple of familiar faces, but not the ones that I was looking for. Machua would probably want to say hi to them later, so I noted where they were sitting down. Still, it was an awful coincidence they happened to be here too. Were they here in the last timeline? Maybe not, but that didn’t matter. I decided then to sense them with my mana. To confirm it once and for all. But before I was able to do that, Machua interrupted me.

  “Oh!” Machua blurted out and began waving excitedly.

  I looked over to where she was waving at and I froze.

  “Plue! Lemuel! Your new squad members are here!”

  ‘W-What…?’

  “Machu!” Plue waved back. Her father waved back too.

  “Come on, Machi, let’s go,” Machu tugged at my arm. But I wasn’t moving.

  “W-wait,” I responded weakly.

  My mind went blank, almost as if it had crashed and needed a system reset. I couldn’t, no, I refused to accept this. One of the most pivotal events of my life, something I had predicated my entire plan on, had disappeared before I knew it.

  Rasa and Carmine should have been sitting right there. My comrades, my very best friends. Rasa, who was more interested in music than other people and Carmine, who appeared proper and elegant at first but was actually a freak.

  Of course, Captain Galas should have been here too, watching to see if the 3 of us would get along without his assistance, ending up with him being horribly late for the meeting. Carmine and Rasa who had been waiting for a 3rd member of their squad for a long time would then go on to berate him for making their newbie wait. For someone who saw Captain Galas as a legend, it was the most shocking thing to the me then.

  But now, none of that was happening. I couldn’t sense Carmine or Rasa anywhere. They weren’t here, they didn’t have their 3rd squad member. And that would mean-

  “Hey! Snap out of it,” Machua snapped her fingers in front of my face.

  “Yeah,” I responded automatically.

  “What? You shocked it’s Lemuel huh?” Machua dragged me along with her.

  “Y-yeah.”

  “Is ‘yeah’ all you can say right now?” She asked.

  Before I knew it, Machua had already walked me over to Lemuel and Plue’s table. I was still in a dazed state, so Machua grabbed ahold of my shoulders and she began shaking me violently.

  “Machi!~” She said in a singsong voice.

  “Just calm down for a sec~” Machua stopped shaking me around and gestured at Lemuel.

  “Look! It’s Lemuel! The defender of Erelier! And he’s…” She trailed off, wanting me to finish her sentence.

  “Don’t say it. Don’t you dare. Not now. Leave me alone,” I stated in between short breaths.

  I pinched my nose hard, trying to assuage a headache I felt was coming. Right now, I had to focus and organise everything.

  I closed my eyes and re-centred myself. I took deep breaths and felt my brain go into overdrive. It felt as if everything around me had disappeared, and all I had left were my thoughts.

  Asking why Lemuel, and not Galas, was the person who picked us was useless. There was no point in questioning why it had happened, the most important thing to consider is what would happen from here.

  Without a 3rd member, Galas’ squad wouldn’t be able to take on the missions they should have. And if they didn’t take them on, then the timeline would…

  ‘God damn it. I can’t stop thinking why. Why why why why!? Why Lemuel and not Galas!? What happened!?’

  I couldn’t focus. The only thing set on my mind was why this happened. I knew it was useless, but I had to know. Something had to have changed. Why was it Lemuel and not Galas? Another member of Erebus Squad picking Machua? The odds of that were insanely low. What reason did Lemuel have to pick us? Galas chose me because I had recently awakened my Aspect, just like he did. He saw that I had a lot of potential and he could train me to be his premier disciple, different from Carmine and Rasa who followed their own paths. Why did Lemuel Salas, the defender of Erelier, pick Machua and Machia?

  Lemuel was Galas’ rival, from all the way back to their high school days. I didn’t know him well, other than that he was usually the person who kept Galas in check, other than his big sister. Lemuel was a popular person and it wasn’t rare to see him around Erelier, unlike the rest of Erebus Squad, so I generally knew his personality and what he was all about. He wanted to protect Erelier, his home City, where everyone he loved resided in. That was what he fought for. And another thing, I didn’t remember him having a squad in the past timeline. Why now? I could assume it was because he couldn’t find other members to fill it out.

  Typically, beginner squads were composed of a squad captain and 3 junior Hunters. Naturally, his first member was his own daughter, so perhaps the only reason why he was able to have a squad was because he found us. But why us? I assumed he didn’t have one initially because he was too busy, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Was it as simple as that Machua and I came as a package? No, that wouldn’t stop Galas from picking Machua. He would have accepted me too. A 5 man beginner squad was nothing strange. Perhaps, Lemuel was influenced by someone. If so, then who?

  … Was this Elize’s fault? Was it because I had trusted her with my identity and so she suggested to Lemuel to take me in as a part of his squad? Was this done as a ploy to keep me in check? That would mean that this was all my fau-

  “-I’m so happy I asked. I really didn’t think we had a chance, but I had to give it a shot.”

  Ah. So it was my fault after all.

  “It was no problem. After all, I couldn’t just pry Plu away from a new friend, could I?” Lemuel laughed.

  “I’m happy you’re here, Machu!” Plue chirped. She seemed really happy. Good for her.

  “But… your bro doesn’t look like he wants to be here,” Plue’s wings drooped a little.

  “Ah ha. He’s just shocked. He’ll recover eventually,” Machua tried to placate Plue.

  “I’m… fine,” I interrupted, “It’s like what Machua said. This is a big surprise. You can’t expect a normal person to be calm about this. Especially when his sister doesn’t tell him beforehand.”

  “If you knew it wouldn’t be a surprise, wouldn’t it? It’s fun, right? And besides, this will be great for us.”

  “I’m sure.”

  Lemuel cleared his throat. “Well, now that Machia has recovered, I think it’s time we get down to business.”

  Plue and Machua nodded and focused on Lemuel’s words.

  Lemuel informed, “Before we can formally call ourselves an official squad, I will have to give all of you a combat test in order to ensure this group can work cohesively. If you don’t pass the test, then, I will have no choice but to let you go.”

  The last statement only carried weight for me and Machua. It was a given Plue would always be a part of his squad. Still, she listened as attentively as she could. Machua’s face was pretty serious as well.

  “As for the details of this test, we will discuss that at our testing location. Follow me.”

  ———————————————————————

  Machua walked with a spring in her step, though the same couldn’t be said about her brother. Like usual, he seemed to be thinking too deeply about things that weren’t too important right now. Maybe they were, he probably had to do that a lot in his line of work, but this was different. This was a simple thing, just how she liked it. Do the combat test, show off how good she was at working together, and boom, now she works under one of the best Hunters ever. With such an easy way forward, she couldn’t help but be upbeat about it.

  Man, was she lucky she had a brother/clone/thing so knowledgeable about these things. If she went out in that skirt, she’d have definitely ruined it and regretted it forever. She’d never be able to show her face to her friends again.

  Speaking of friends, though, the route they were taking was a little strange. They weren’t heading outside the mall or anything like she expected. They weren’t even heading to its roof to take a helicopter or an airship out of Erelier. Instead, they seemed to be heading down. Down past the ground floor and even past the lowest basement level the mall had for visitors.

  “Ah, Lem-“ Machua caught herself. “Captain Lemuel, is our combat test gonna be in the mall?”

  Lemuel answered, “More precisely, we’re heading to a sewer entrance. Dias Mall’s manager has requested for a monster extermination, which we will use to conduct our test.”

  ‘…I wonder if she had anything to do with this then,’ Machua thought.

  Before long, the group walked into what seemed to be a restricted section of the mall. After Lemuel discussed the situation to the security guards, the group was let through. One of the guards guided them down through the restricted area, leading them to a heavy metal door.

  “Machia, from what I’ve read of your background, you didn’t grow up in Erelier,” Lemuel turned and said.

  Machia didn’t register that Lemuel was talking to him at first. He heard his name being called, but the words that came after didn’t make any sense at all. Nevertheless, he was forced to recognise it when his little sister jabbed him with her elbow.

  “That’s right,” Machia said while groaning a little bit.

  “As that’s the case, you probably don’t know the situation of Erelier’s sewers. It has a bit of a complicated history behind it, but to sum it up, Erelier was built on top of a giant monster nest.”

  “I’ve heard of it,” Machia stated. “Erelier’s founders wiped most of it out and it used to be a hotspot for criminals and monsters. Nowadays, companies harvest a lot of ore and monster material down there.”

  Machua nodded along. ‘I did not know that.’

  Machua glanced at Plue, hoping to see her similarly confused. She was not. In fact, she seemed to know a lot about it.

  “Uh-huh. There was a resurgence a while back and then Papa and his old squad cleaned up all the criminals and monsters down there. That’s why they’re Erebus Squad,” Plue explained, glowing with proudness.

  “Haha. Well, we didn’t manage to clean up everything. It may be a lot safer down there compared to before, but Hunters still have to occasionally sweep the uppermost area so no monsters escape. Because of its relative safety and closeness to Erelier, we often use it to train beginner Hunters.”

  Lemuel went to open the heavy metal door, giving everyone a chance to look inside. Behind the door was a dimly-lit corridor leading to a wide open area. Distantly, the group could hear the skittering of rodents and insects.

  “Alright! Let’s go wreck some monsters. It’ll be a cinch with Lemuel here.” Machua slammed her fist into her palm.

  “Unfortunately, I won’t be coming with. I’ll be busy with other things,” Lemuel suddenly interrupted the excited Machua.

  “Huh? Then how do you know we passed or not?”

  “That’s because I’ll be having someone else administrate the test. That someone is…”

  “Me!” Plue piped up. “On behalf of papa, I will be your administrator. I’ll check to make sure we can work together well. But just because we’re friends, I’m not gonna go easy on you, Machu.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to. But Plu, isn’t this a lot to handle?”

  Lemuel placed his hand on Machua’s shoulder. “Plue may be young, but you can trust her to hold her own in battle. She’s learned a lot from us at the EPG, so I’m confident that she’ll do a good job.”

  Machua nodded with understanding.

  “Now, I think I’ve held you up for long enough. Plue will brief you on the details once you’re inside. Follow her lead, and you’ll be fine. Good luck.”

  Lemuel waved goodbye, walking away as he did so. It was shortly thereafter he received a call on his phone, which made him speed up into a light jog.

  “He sure is busy,” Machua commented.

  “Uh huh, he always has something to do. We do too, so let’s go in already.” Plue confidently walked forward, into the dark and dank sewers.

  Machua took a few steps forward, before glancing back at her brother. Noticing the glance, Machia gave his cheeks a big clap before taking a deep breath.

  “I’m good now,” he said, giving a slight smile.

  Machua flashed a grin before running off to Plue. Machia followed suit.