"So, this is the new Herald Slayer title holder." Adriana Tan said aloud.

A woman walked around from behind her and handed her a tablet. The woman was an older lady, her hair tied in a neat bun, her eyes tired but sharp.

"Jagger Ashton, eighteen, he was in his last year of high school, coming within the top 10 percent in the nation, a bright future ahead of him," The older lady said, her voice calm and measured. "He was also a promising athlete, excelling in track and field."

"Have we cross-referenced the school data with the national database?" Adriana asked, her fingers tapping a rhythm on the polished surface of her desk.

"Of course," The older lady, whom Adriana addressed as Director Ng, replied, swiping through the tablet. "His academic records are clean. No behavioral issues. No prior affiliations with any activist groups or extremist organizations. He was, for all intents and purposes, a model student."

"After his intake and evaluation, call inactive Herald Slayers to the training grounds. All of them," Adriana smiled, "Let’s put our new hunter to the test."

"Are you sure that’s wise, Commander?" Director Ng said.

"The world isn’t going to wait for him to get comfortable, Director," Adriana said, her smile not reaching her eyes. "Neither will we."

Director Ng cleared her throat. "One more thing, about his family we got one hit on the database, I think you will like this."

-

"Please follow me this way." The ground crewman said to Jagger.

Jagger glanced at the Valkyrie squad. Chase gave him a lazy two-fingered salute. Ulna gave a single, stiff nod. Jace just watched him, arms crossed, her expression unreadable.

"Move along, little assassin," Chase called out. "Don’t want to keep the nice people waiting."

Jagger ignored him and followed the crewman.

The Hunter Intake and Evaluation Annex rose out of Sector Zero like a sterilized fortress built inside a war zone. From the road, it had looked like a simple black-steel facility attached to the larger district, but up close it was far bigger than that first impression allowed. The main structure stretched back in layered rectangular blocks of white composite plating and reinforced glass, with entire upper sections stacked over the lower ones like modular medical wings added one after another over the years of expansion. Thick support columns anchored the outer corners, broad overhead walkways linked adjoining sections, and long bands of dark observation windows ran across the upper floors where staff silhouettes moved behind the glass. One side of the building extended into a lower emergency wing where armored ambulances were being unloaded beneath a covered bay. In contrast, the opposite end disappeared into a sealed corridor network feeding directly into the deeper parts of Sector Zero. It looked less like a clinic and more like a buried hospital complex made for processing soldiers, hunters, and the broken remains of both.

Inside, the place was colder than the road outside.

The corridor beyond the security doors was bright enough to make Jagger narrow his eyes. The floor was spotless, polished to a dull shine that reflected boots, stretchers, and the quick movement of white-coated staff. The air smelled of antiseptic, metal, and recycled air, clean in a way that made the blood still dried on his clothes feel louder somehow. Doctors moved through the halls with fast, clipped purpose, some pushing carts loaded with sealed instruments, others walking beside wounded hunters while reading data off floating screens clipped to their wrists. One medic was barking at a soldier to stop bleeding on her floor while two others rolled a half-conscious man past them with his chest wrapped in something black and pulsing. Further down, a pair of technicians in dark-blue coats was arguing over the calibration of a mana scanner while an armed guard stood between them and a handcuffed patient whose eyes glowed faintly red. Another room lay open just long enough for Jagger to glimpse a row of cots, soldiers being stitched up, and one poor bastard vomiting into a metal bin. At the same time, a nurse held his shoulders and told him to "either die properly or stop making a mess."

"Busy place," Jagger muttered.

The crewman didn’t look back. "This is a slow night."

’Charming,’ Ophilia said dryly. ’I already dislike all of them.’

They passed through two more checkpoints, one with armed soldiers in black combat armor and another with a full-body decontamination arch that hissed as it scanned them. Then the crewman stopped outside a door marked INTAKE ROOM 3 and swiped his access card again.

The room beyond was large, white, and painfully functional. A diagnostic bed sat in the center under a suspended scanning arm. Along the walls stood sealed cabinets, instrument trays, and a series of upright scanning pods with dark glass fronts. A broad observation window dominated one side of the room, though from this angle, the glass was blacked out. Three people were already waiting inside.

The first was a doctor in her late thirties with short dark hair and a face that looked too tired to waste expressions. The second was a younger male technician adjusting something on a tablet with the nervous intensity of someone who didn’t want to be blamed later. The third was a soldier in light tactical armor with a rifle slung across his chest, standing near the door with the kind of stillness that meant he wasn’t decorative.

The doctor looked Jagger up and down once. Bloodstained clothes. Torn shirt. Dried soot. Old cuts. New healing.

"Hunter Jagger Ashton?" she asked.

"Depends who’s asking."

"Doctor Meilin Tham. You can be difficult after I make sure you’re not about to contaminate, mutate, explode, or kill anybody in this room."

Jagger paused. "Fair enough."

She pointed to a steel table by the wall. "Weapons of all kinds on the table. Other items send them to your inventory."

He stared at her.

She stared back.

Jagger exhaled through his nose and began setting things down. Jane’s Bowie knife. Bone Rattlers. Scavenger Fang. Hikaru’s Talwar. He sent the Vambraces and Scavenger Band to the inventory.

The technician’s eyebrows rose higher with each piece.

"So many blades?" the technician asked quietly.

"Don’t encourage conversation," Doctor Tham said.

Then she looked at Jagger and pointed at a curtained side section. "Strip."

Jagger blinked. "What?"

"Strip," she repeated. "Clothes off. Everything. We need a full-body scan, contamination check, a complete physiological workup, and an internal trauma review. Unless you’d prefer, I guess."

He looked at the soldier by the door. "He staying?"

"Yes," said the soldier.

"No," said Jagger.

"Yes," Doctor Tham repeated.

’Oh, this is delightful,’ Ophilia said. ’Be shy, guardian angel. It suits you.’

Jagger dragged a hand down his face. "You people move quick."

"We live underground under a monster apocalypse," Doctor Tham said. "Modesty is losing badly to efficiency."

Five minutes later, Jagger stood barefoot in a pair of gray medical underwear that looked like they had been designed by someone who hated dignity. The technician was trying very hard not to look at him while pretending to focus on the tablet.

"This is ridiculous," Jagger said.

"You are covered in blood. Is it yours or someone else’s?" Doctor Tham questioned, looking at her own tablet. "Stand on the markers."

He stepped onto the circular platform in the center of the room. "Not sure." The suspended scanner above him hummed to life and began moving down in slow passes, bands of pale light sweeping over his body from head to toe.

The scanner passed once over his head and shoulders, then again more slowly down his chest, abdomen, and legs. Pale lines flickered across his skin as the machine mapped every old scar, fresh tear, and patch of recently healed flesh. Jagger stood still on the markers, jaw tight, while the room filled with the low mechanical hum of active diagnostics.

The technician moved around him quickly, all nervous energy and trained routine. A retractable arm unfolded from the side console and pressed against the inside of Jagger’s elbow with a soft click. He barely had time to look at it before a fine needle slid in and three glass vials filled in fast succession, dark red against sterile white.

"Blood draw complete," the technician muttered, more to the tablet than to anyone else.

Another panel lit up near Doctor Tham. She tapped through a series of readings without comment, her expression flattening further with each new set of data that appeared in front of her. She stepped closer and shone a narrow penlight into Jagger’s eyes.

"Follow the light."

He did.

Left. Right. Up. Down.

The beam lingered a fraction too long when it caught the faint shift behind his pupils, but she said nothing. Instead, she pressed two fingers lightly against the side of his neck, then to his wrist, counting under her breath while the scanner continued its sweep.

Her fingers lingered there for a moment longer before she stepped back.

"Breathe in."

Jagger obeyed.

"Hold."

The scanner arm rotated around him with a sharper whine, projecting a lattice of pale blue lines across his ribs, spine, and throat. On the far wall, a dozen translucent panes blinked to life in quick succession, each one filling with diagrams, waveform spikes, and scrolling biometric data too fast to read. The technician moved between them, both hands flying over the tablet, tagging markers, syncing the blood draw, and feeding the system fresh inputs as the machine continued mapping Jagger from the inside out.

"Breathe out."

He did, slower this time.

Another articulated arm unfolded and pressed cold metal briefly against his sternum, then against his abdomen, then the side of his neck where the werewolf’s claws had torn through him not long ago. Jagger felt a faint vibration under the skin, followed by a pulse of heat that passed through him and vanished.

Doctor Tham watched the screens without comment. "Any nausea."

"No."

"Dizziness."

"Not right now."

"Blackouts."

Jagger hesitated just long enough to notice the technician glance up.

"Sometimes."

Doctor Tham tapped something once. "Auditory hallucinations."

Jagger’s eyes shifted to her. "That’s your professional term for voices?"

"It is if you want me to remain polite."

Before he could answer, one of the panes on the wall flickered.

Not a normal glitch.

Two more brainwave signals flickered in tandem over Jagger’s primary reading.