The four women—Arike, Lena, Maya, and Hind—took a welcome detour from the harsh realities of their lives. The atmosphere of the bustling market, with its vibrant chaos and singing trinkets, was a soothing balm. Hind, fully recovered due to the rapid-healing properties of her suppressed rage powers, was surprisingly energetic. They admired jewelry and picked up cheap, charming keychains.
As they wandered down a cobbled side street, their lighthearted moodvanished. In a dark alley, three hefty men, clearly Faucets[1] were savagely beating a much smaller guy.
"That's enough," Arike commanded, her voice slicing through the alley.
The Faucets stopped, turning to face the interruption. "Stay out of it, ladies," one sneered, his eyes glazed with mild VETRA-induced mania. "This little maggot owes us for his last supply."
Lena stepped forward, a cool determination hardening her features. "How much?"
The Faucets, surprised, named an exorbitant sum. The girls exchanged a look. They paid the debt, tossing the currency onto the dirty pavement. The dealers moved to leave, pocketing the cash.
"Wait," Maya called out, her tone sweet but carrying the weight of a forge hammer. "We paid your debt, but we're not paying for drugs. We'll take our money back."
The Faucets erupted in laughter, thinking the women were fools. The amusement died instantly when Hind, her eyes blazing with a nascent inner light, moved.
The fight that followed was less a battle and more a performance of overwhelming skill. The four women toyed with the dealers.
Arike moved first, executing a fluid, spinning kick that was a dancer's dream and a knockout artist's blow, snapping the largest Faucet's head back. Lena utilized her speed, darting in with precise, focused strikes to pressure points, making her targets buckle without external signs of injury. Maya, using her raw physical strength honed by years in the forge, simply blocked a clumsy punch and delivered a single, calculated palm strike to a chest, winding the dealer instantly. Hind, still recovering her technique, relied on pure, explosive momentum, hitting her target with a shoulder barge that sent him sprawling and unconscious against a refuse bin.
In less than a minute, the three Faucets were unconscious piles of muscle.
"Now, let's talk to the boy," Arike said, turning to comfort the victim.
But the alley was empty. The boy, swift and silent, was gone.
"My purse is lighter!" Lena exclaimed, checking her belt.
The boy hadn't been a victim; he was a skilled thief.
"He stole the money we just used to save him!" Maya groaned in disbelief.
"He's fast, but he's not faster than Rage," Hind muttered, a flicker of dark humor touching her lips. "Let's go get our money."
The four women, their collective pride wounded, gave chase. The boy was an expert runner, moving with swift, smooth evasion through the city's underbelly—scaling low walls, slipping through narrow corners, and vaulting over fire escapes like a skilled runaway.
Their chase led them down a set of stairs and into a vast, cavernous basement—a hidden den filled with dozens of Vetra addicts. The air was stale, thick with the scent of sickness and the drug's noxious fumes. The addicts, their eyes crazed and vacant, their limbs twitching uncontrollably, lay or stumbled everywhere.
The girls moved with disciplined silence, picking their way carefully through the sick and the insane. They found their mark hiding behind a stack of rusted pipes. The boy was shivering, clearly in the throes of withdrawal. They quickly retrieved their money, plus interest.
As they turned to leave, the rumble of heavy vehicles shook the ceiling. The sounds of shouts and armored boots followed. Recruited Scavengers, the Syndicate's hired muscle for cleaning the streets, were raiding the den.
The scavengers poured in, weapons drawn. Before the women could move, they were surrounded.
"You're coming with us!" a scavenger barked, tossing heavy restraints.
"Wait! We're not addicts or Faucets! We just came for our purse!" Lena protested, holding up the retrieved money.
"That's what they all say," the scavenger replied, his eyes cold and uninterested in the details.
The four ladies, despite their protests, were hauled onto a caged bus with the addicts.
The bus dropped them off at a hot, imposing structure that resembled a brutalist Colosseum—the Syndicate's testing grounds. They were taken to a central interrogation area where a Supervisor Evangelist, draped in severe black armor, waited.
The Evangelist's questions were relentless. Realizing their situation was dire—and seeing a chance to get inside—Arike spoke.
"We want to be recruited," she stated, her voice even. "We're not scum; we're better than the trash you just rounded up."
The Evangelist sneered. "A likely story. Faucets and whores always say they want a better life before we dissolve them and teach them their place."
He ordered them to be taken to the ring. If they wanted in, they would earn their license in blood.
The test began. The Evangelist chose four formidable Recruits—hulking, seasoned scavengers—to test the women.
Arike was first. The opponent charged, relying on brute force. Arike simply flowed. She let the man's momentum carry him past, using his own weight against him. A series of blindingly fast jabs struck his solar plexus, leaving him gasping for air before she delivered a clean, focused roundhouse kick to the temple. The man dropped, knocked out before he hit the dirt.
Maya faced a man twice her size. She didn't rely on strength; she relied on speed and precision. She moved really fast, avoiding every heavy punch. Her attack was a fast: a low kick to the knee to destabilize him, followed by a three-strike combo to the throat, jaw, and ear. The man staggered, lost his balance, and collapsed.
Lena was deceptively strong. Her opponent was fast, but Maya was an immovable object. She let him test her guard for a moment, absorbing the blows, before catching his fist in an iron grip. She didn't break his arm; she twisted the wrist inward, a sharp maneuver that sent blinding pain up his arm, forcing him to his knees. A simple, hard chop to the base of the neck secured the win.
Hind was last, facing a woman who was fast and relentless. Hind's movements were still slightly rough, but her rage power gave her ungodly resilience. She took two punches that would have shattered a normal jaw, but merely shook her head. Her counter was a straight line of pure punch force: a double-fisted punch delivered to the chest. The sound of air being violently forced from the opponents lungs was sickening. The woman was unconscious before her body crumpled.
The Evangelist watched, his eyes gleaming. "License secured. Welcome to the fold, Scavengers."
For the four women, it was a major victory. They had secured their access. They could gather information on the Syndicate, find the maker of VETRA and shut down its distribution, and perhaps even make a little money doing so.
*********
Meanwhile, the boys—Jog-Jog, Kai, and Markas—were having their own version of a respite. In a busy street tavern, they were betting and drinking. Markas was a strange prodigy at arm wrestling, his quiet strength reeling in a steady stream of currency.
The fun stopped when a drunken patron at a nearby table loudly joked about the recent deaths of people in a region just outside the city walls—a region one of the Syndicate's ruling entities was supposed to be managing.
The boys exchanged a look. This was more than bar talk. They stopped the betting and asked for details. The information was vague but concerning.
They decided to head back to the hotel to report to Orion and Jex. As they left the tavern and turned down the main street, they saw the distinctive caged bus of the Scavenger raid pulling away. They spotted the familiar faces of Arike, Lena, Maya, and Hind inside.
"The girls!" Kai exclaimed.
Without hesitation, they took a detour, following the bus. Using their enhanced abilities, they easily climbed onto the roof of a nearby building and watched as the vehicle pulled into the Colosseum complex.
"They just got themselves a recruitment license," Jog-Jog deduced with a groan.
I want a license too!!! Kai mockingly complained.
"Well, if that's the war zone, we're going in, too," Markas said, suddenly energized.
The boys retreated, changed clothes, and donned the rough, generic rags of potential recruits. They, too, were heading to the Colosseum, seeking a job with the raid party.
[1] small-time dealers of the psychoactive drug, VETRA.