The next morning, when she woke up, the air carried a chill that bit at her bare skin. Despite the early hour, the training ground buzzed with activity.
Little Seven stood at the far edge of the open terrain, which was a bit dusty, wide, and marked with obstacle lanes, sparring zones, and a punishing hill climb trail.
She familiarized herself with the training grounds as she watched her comrades arrive. Today's drill, according to Vince, was weighted endurance training.
Each trainee wore a vest strapped with sandbags and metal plates. They were to run up the steep incline and back ten times without collapsing.
She ignored the murderous glare she felt on her back and adjusted the straps on her shoulders, gritting her teeth.
"Move!" came Vince's sharp command, his arms crossed as he stood on the slope, his expression unreadable. "If you want to survive in the field, your body must obey even when your mind begs it to stop!"
They bolted forward, heavy packs slamming against their backs with each step. Little Seven staggered at first under the weight, her body still aching from the forest mission the day before. But she forced herself forward, breathing through her nose, her eyes locked on the hill as she tried to adjust to the weight on her back.
She wouldn't be the last, she couldn't be. Her short legs kept moving forward even though her body was already torn.
Halfway through the drill, several recruits from other teams were already wheezing, dropping to their knees. But not her, especially when she could see her big brother Seko deliberately slowing down to match her pace.
Little Seven's legs shook, her lungs burned, but she ran. Again and again, and on her ninth round, Vince walked beside her, barely keeping pace and watching the little girl.
"Your balance is weak on turns," he said. "You'll get killed if you expose your back like that. Adjust your center of gravity." She gave no reply but only nodded and ran faster.
On the final round, as the others dragged themselves back, she sprinted the last few meters with her face soaked in sweat, her breath sharp, and her heart pounding with a quiet kind of triumph. She dropped to the ground and fainted only after crossing the finish line. Yakama, who was observing, murmured "weak" under his breath as CJ, Hawk, and Seko ran to pick her up and take her to the medical lab.
From a distance, Professor Jane observed silently, her arms folded. "Now that was interesting; she's improving so fast," she remarked to her husband, Johnson, who stood beside her near the elevated watch area.
"She's more than that," Professor Johnson replied. "You saw the file, batch 01. She's one of the only two survivors. The boy is also a good seedling."
Jane's eyes narrowed. "The other one was Seko, wasn't it?"
Professor Johnson nodded.
"I altered their bodies and strengthened them, but that was at the cost of their childhood. The experiment was a success, but I guess they'll never know their real identity. They were just files on my desk, now they're weapons in the making."
"Living weapons," Jane murmured. "But look at her… She's not hardened like the others yet. There's still some part of her fighting to live, not just survive."
She turned to Johnson. "I want to observe her more closely. And if she can survive for the next two weeks, I'll go and request Zain to let me adopt her."
"Be careful, Jane; you know that this is the first successful experiment. If that old man allows you to randomly take her away, the sun will rise from the west," Professor Johnson warned his wife.
"Oh, hush! I have something on him; he kind of owes me a big favor. He won't throw a tantrum just because I snatched one of his toys," Jane replied with a chuckle.
Later that afternoon, as the sun scorched the sand, Captain Vince moved through the lined-up members of his team with slow, intimidating steps.
"Knowing how to kill is easy," he said, stopping in front of a table lined with body diagrams, human silhouettes drawn over dummies, red circles marking arteries, pressure points, and kill zones. "Knowing where to kill is the difference between a clean mission and a corpse that screams."
He picked up a thin steel knife and drove it into the dummy's neck. The blade landed exactly where the carotid artery would be.
"One clean strike," he said. "You hit nerves or bones, you hesitate, you die."
Then he turned. "Number 07, step forward."