Ballistic Coefficient

For three days, Pale trekked through the underground, all but dragging Kayla's unconscious body along with her as she went. She didn't dare stop to even sleep; Kayla's condition had continued to deteriorate over time, and there was no telling how much longer she had before the spider venom finally killed her.

And so, Pale had gotten to walking as fast as she could go. Needless to say, it was slow going; the journey would have taken them a day even if they'd both been healthy, but now, with Kayla out of commission? Pale knew she would have to double-time it in order to make it.

To make matters worse, during her trip through the forest, Pale wasn't able to encounter any of the other initiates. Normally, that would have been problematic, as they were still missing a tome; for now, though, it could wait.

Kayla desperately needed medical attention.

Finally, on the evening of the final day, Pale crested over a small hill and saw it – a large doorway carved into a cliffside. Her heart about skipped a beat at the sight of it, and she turned towards Kayla.

"Just a bit further," she urged. "Hang on for me, Kayla."

Kayla said nothing in response. Pale, for her part, simply redoubled her efforts, marching towards the doorway.

It took her the better part of fifteen minutes to get there, and when she finally did, she raised a hand and pounded on the door.

"Whoever's in there, open up!" she called. "I've got someone who needs medical attention now!"

For a moment, there was nothing but silence. Out of desperation, Pale reached for her rifle, intending to blow the lock off the door, but just as her hand closed around the weapon's grip, the door was unlocked and opened. The scarred professor from a few days ago stared at her for a moment, but then his gaze traveled down to Kayla, still unconscious and leaned against Pale's shoulder, and his eyes widened.

"In here, now," he commanded. "Be quick about it; she doesn't have much time left."

He stepped aside, allowing Pale entry. She didn't even bother to look around and get a bearing on her surroundings, so focused was she on getting Kayla medical treatment. The professor stepped in front of her and motioned for her to follow him into a nearby room.

"This way," he urged. "We have medical staff on standby. We'll get her fixed right up."

Pale breathed a small sigh of relief. She followed after him, stepping into the room. And immediately, she was taken aback at the sheer breadth of what awaited her.

There had to be around twenty students here, all of them wounded somehow. Several of them had large claw and bite marks across their bodies; a few were bleeding from open wounds, while others had limbs wrapped in bandages. Two or three of them also appeared to be afflicted by some kind of sickness, though Pale couldn't tell what it was.

"What…?" she muttered. "What happened to them?"

The scarred professor's eyes narrowed. "Let's just say that initiation was far more dangerous than we'd suspected it would be. Set your friend down here."

He motioned to the floor, where a large blanket had been laid out. Pale obliged, carefully placing onto it. The moment she had, a few healers rushed over and began to examine her.

"Mana spiders," one of them said. "I've got the counterspell ready."

"Do it," another one said.

"Okay. Three, two, one…"

There was a flash of bright light; Pale blinked, suddenly forced to clear her vision. Once she was able to see again, she stared down at Kayla, and to her surprise, her friend's uneven breathing had become much more steady. She was also sweating less, and looked far less clammy and sickly than she had even just a few seconds ago.

Someone put a hand on her shoulder, and Pale immediately whipped around to face them, her fingers curling around the grip of her pistol. But it was just the same professor who'd let her in, giving her a reassuring look.

"Your friend will be fine," he explained. "You got her here just in time. There's nothing to worry about, though – ultimately, Mana spiders can be dangerous, but a quick application of the counterspell is all it takes to disperse their venom from the victim's system."

Pale relaxed slightly at that. "So she'll be okay? There won't be any kind of long-term after-effects?"

"She'll have a killer headache when she wakes up, and she'll likely feel dizzy over the next day as her sjel replenishes its Mana, but past that, she'll be perfectly fine. Now, I suggest you go join the other uninjured students; I imagine some of them have probably been looking for you, and your friend needs to rest."

With that, he removed his hand from Pale's shoulder, then turned and left. Pale spared one final glance down at Kayla, then pursed her lips before heading the opposite direction.

Time to see who else had made it.

"Pale! Hey, Pale! Over here!"

Pale had to bite back a wince as Cal's voice hit her from across the room she'd just entered. She pretended not to hear him, instead looking around the room to try and get a bead on where she'd ended up. As far as she could tell, they were all in some kind of massive underground fort; she gotten to explore a few of the rooms before finally ending up in what appeared to be the barracks, if the lines of beds all around her were any indication.

The sound of footsteps hit her ears, and Pale was unable to hold back her wince. Apparently, Cal had gotten fed up with waiting for her to come to him and had taken it upon himself to rush over. Naturally, he'd dragged Cynthia along with him; the two of them stopped a few feet away.

"You made it!" Cal greeted with a wide smirk, only for it to falter when he realized she was alone. "Hey, where's-"

"She's in the infirmary," Pale reported. "We got swarmed by mana spiders and one bit her. Apparently, it almost killed her. I didn't ask how much longer she still had left, but I can tell I wouldn't have liked the answer."

"Mana spiders…?" Cynthia echoed, giving a small shudder. "That's awful!"

"She'll be okay, at least; she just needs to rest right now." Pale looked around the room once more, frowning as she did so. "This is it? This is all that have made it?"

Cal nodded. "Yeah… counting us, there's maybe just over thirty people."

"And by my count, there's around another twenty in the infirmary."

Cynthia's eyes widened. "Only around fifty people…? But I thought the initial number-"

"Was somewhere around 200," Pale finished the thought for her. "Around a quarter of the initial applicants are here… what happened out there?"

"No idea," Cal informed her. "But everyone's got a similar story – the moment they made it to the forest, they started getting attacked by monsters. I mean, I think we all figured that'd happen, but from what they're saying… these were something else; way tougher than they had any right to be. Even those mana spiders you mentioned… they don't normally group up in swarms like that."

"And then there's the Amalgamation," Pale reminded him.

Cal nodded. "That thing in particular has everybody spooked. Apparently, lots of people saw it stalking them; a few were even attacked by it and barely managed to escape with their lives."

"Then they'll be happy to know it's dead."

"Uh… yeah, about that…" Cal's face flushed red. "You and Kayla might be minor celebrities among the other initiates."

Pale blinked, then tilted her head, confused. "Come again?"

"Cynthia and I have kinda been talking you both up, since you two killed the thing. Apparently, nobody else was even able to scratch it, or at least, none of the people who fought it and lived were able to. Anyone who got away was only able to do so because they had someone else to help them out, or because they just got lucky somehow. I'm sure there's a story there with them all, but I didn't think it was right to try and dig deeply into it, given how terrified everyone was."

"Probably a good move," Pale reluctantly conceded, even though she desperately wanted to know more.

"Oh!" Cynthia said, a thought suddenly crossing into her mind. "Did you get your tomes, by any chance?"

Pale grimaced, then shook her head. "No."

Cal and Cynthia exchanged a worried glance with each other. "Then… you're still one short," Cal surmised.

"We are. Don't remind me of it." Pale let out a tired sigh, running a hand through her hair as she did so. "We've got enough for one of us to get in. I was hoping we'd be able to set up outside the entrance and pick someone off, but Kayla getting attacked by spiders put a damper on that. So now we're one short of another full set."

"Then… what does that mean for you both?" Cynthia questioned.

Pale was silent. Truthfully, she didn't know. Logic dictated that one of them accept the set and use it to gain entry this year; that was a no-brainer. The only question was which of them it should be.

Pale had her reasons for wanting to get in, of course, and they made sense in a vacuum, she had to admit. But the more she thought about it, the more it became apparent that going in alone was going to be incredibly difficult. Kayla wouldn't be there to guide her at all, for one, plus she'd be making that decision without consulting her first, which would be a huge betrayal considering Kayla had just as much a claim to entering the Luminarium as she did.

And even then, no matter what she picked, they'd both still be separated.

The thought caused a pit to form in her stomach. Whether she accepted entry or not, she'd still be alone. Normally, Pale wasn't one to care about such things… but part of her had grown attached to Kayla over the months, both as an ally… and as a friend. It was going to be lonely without her there. But all the same, there were lives at stake, and Pale couldn't risk losing more of them over something as frivolous as a friendship.

Besides, it wasn't like Kayla would want to be her friend anymore if Pale betrayed her like she was thinking.

At that thought, Pale winced. It was one thing to end their friendship naturally, but something like this? For some reason, it bothered her.

"Pale," Cal asked, interrupting her thoughts. "What are you going to do?"

Pale turned towards him, completely unsure how to respond. Not that it would have mattered if she could; a door on the other end of the room opened, and the bearded man from a few days ago, Professor Tomas, stepped inside. Immediately, all the students fell silent as he cleared his throat.

"This is… unprecedented," Tomas admitted as he stared out at the crowd before him. "In all my years proctoring these exams, I don't think I've ever seen a prospective class take as many casualties as you all have. Needless to say, this shouldn't have happened."

"What's he talking about?" Cal asked Cynthia. She quietly shushed him, and they all continued to listen in as Tomas began to pace around the room.

"I've heard what some of you have been saying," he reported. "About how monsters lurked in the forest, including one in particular that apparently killed several dozen of you on its own. I don't think I need to tell you all that this was not the intention; we wanted to test you, not slaughter you all like hogs. Each of you has our sincerest apologies for what you've gone through."

That made Pale's eyes widen with surprise. So initiation had gone awry, after all. She'd suspected as much after seeing exactly how many people the Amalgamation had killed, but to hear it confirmed was unnerving.

Whatever they'd planned for initiation, clearly something had gone horribly wrong with it. Unfortunately, as much as Pale wanted to learn more, it seemed she wouldn't get the chance.

"Now then, we've already collected tomes from most of you," Tomas said. "And so far, everyone has the required number. If anyone does not, I ask that you speak up now."

Pale felt a lump form in her throat. Here it was – the chance for her to claim her rightful spot. It would be so easy to throw Kayla under the bus and gain entry for herself. On a certain level, it was even required of her. All she had to do was speak up.

"Nobody?" Tomas asked as the seconds ticked by. "Everyone has the required number?"

"I don't, sir."

Everyone turned to look at Pale, her words hanging in the air around her. The entire room stared at her in surprise, as if they couldn't believe what they'd just heard. Pale couldn't blame them; it was just as surprising to her.

"You don't?" Tomas questioned. He began to step over to her, though once he was halfway there, he stopped, his eyes widening. "Hang on… the others have been talking about you, as well as your friend. You're the one who killed the creature that had been hunting down the other initiates."

Pale clenched her fists. "Not just me," she amended. "My friend did just as much to help, if not more than what I did."

"I see, I see… and, if you don't mind me asking, how many tomes do you have?"

"She has a full set. I'm short by one."

Tomas thought for a moment, then looked around. The other students were deathly silent; nobody dared to make a sound. Finally, he gave a small nod.

"Very well," he said.

And with that, he turned and left the room the way he'd come. Pale watched her go for a second, her heart pounding in her chest.

Just like that, she'd sealed her fate, along with the fate of countless other people in her home solar system.

And yet somehow, it didn't feel nearly as hollow as she thought it would.