"Well, you really never know," said Asher, and she could have punched him. 

"Yeah, yeah, I guess we can keep this piece of junk," Kalista scoffed, sliding the slip into her pocket. "A penny? Seriously? Not even a quarter?"

"I mean, at least a quarter could get us a gumball," Asher said with a straight face.

Kalista felt the urge to laugh -- such a strange feeling, a feeling that she had pushed away for so many years. It was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Cursing her own stupidity, she pushed it away and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, for me to choke you with."

They grabbed a few weapons each and peeked outside the door. The hallway seemed empty. Suddenly remembering Remy's security console, Kalista ran back and put it in her pocket. It would make for some extra weight, sure, but it was always useful and she certainly didn't want it in her enemy's hands.

"Okay, we can search this floor first," Kalista said. "Then go up to the fifth. Ready?"

"Ready," Asher whispered, and they were off.

The fourth floor was the training floor. It had their Skills classrooms, the fighting centers, and numerous rooms that trained everything from your reflexes to your balance to your coordination. Her favorite was the obstacle course. They had spent a whole month in that room, shaving seconds off of their times, and her final time had been at the top of the class.

She knew there would be a slip there.

When they entered the room, she kept her pistol cocked, listening carefully for any sign of life. There was none. "Come on, the start point is up there," she said, pointing at a platform far above.

They scaled the stairs in silence. She was painfully aware of his proximity; she could even hear his breaths in the quiet. All those years they had spent together -- they couldn't have meant nothing. She had convinced herself that they had, but now that he was here, she couldn't help but remember all of the moments she had trained herself to forget: those pieces of bread, their missions together, the late-night talks in their bunk beds, and all of the times they had watched each other's backs.

Now they had to do it one final time.

When they reached the top, they paused, and Kalista turned to him. It was a small platform, and they were only a few inches apart. She blinked and then said quietly, "It starts with a rope course. The most important thing here is to keep your balance. Pretty much all of the times I've failed have been here. It's hard to focus at the beginning, and a loss of focus costs you on these ropes. Then we'll get to the wall. You have to run up it. It's a really steep slope, kind of like--"

"Raphael's torture chamber," he finished, using the nickname that all of the Crimsons had used for their least favorite training room.

Kalista averted her eyes. "Yes, exactly. Then--"

The door opened and closed down below them, and they froze.

Kalista dropped into an instinctive crouch, and so did Asher. From below the railing around the platform, she could see three figures: two boys and a girl, what seemed to be what was left of Cohort 10. She did a quick survey of their weapons: no guns, and two knives each. The shortest one had a grenade in his back pocket.

"K, we have to go," Asher whispered.

She nodded and jumped to her feet. "Race you," she said with a slight grin. It was what they had always said before setting off on their missions.

Asher looked surprised but smiled back. "Ten bucks says I win."

She could almost hear the echo of his younger self in those words. She had always won, and he had never paid up.

"Well, you really do owe me," she muttered as she grabbed onto the nearest rope and began.

The timer was programmed to start when the first rope moved, and she could see its big red numbers in the corner of her eye. She swung expertly from one rope to the next, the movement ingrained in her muscle memory, pounded in her from hundreds of failed attempts and even more successful ones. Asher was keeping up.

Everything was going well until the first knife flew by her head.

She didn't stop, not wanting Asher to crash into her, but she did laugh. "Oh, wow, Sawyer, didn't realize you were so rusty!"

Sawyer's only response was another knife, and this one landed just a couple of centimeters away from her ankle. She picked it up in a fluid motion and spun around so that she was leaping backwards, grinning at the group of three. "Catch us if you can!"

Asher huffed. "Focus? Remember?"

"That was for you. I don't need to focus, I could do this with my eyes closed, my hands tied, backwards."

"Riiight," he shot back skeptically. "Just like I can scale Raphael's wall in a handstand."

She couldn't help herself -- she laughed as she swung to the end of the course and landed at the bottom of the wall.

"Great. Okay, so this is a 70 degree gradient. According to the random physics we learned, that means we have to approach the wall at--"

Asher rolled his eyes and sprinted ahead, scaling the wall easily.

"Thanks for the advice," he shouted from the top, and disappeared from view.

"Asshole," Kalista muttered as she threw her hands up in the air and ran up the wall. Her legs burned with that familiar ache as she pushed and pushed, working against gravity to bring herself over the edge. She relished the pain. It made her feel alive. This adrenaline, this rush... it was what she loved about the Academy.

And then another knife scraped her right ear.

She tumbled over the wall and onto the platform, hissing with pain. Grabbing the knife with one hand, she peered downward and saw the group of three coming in fast. They only had 3 knives left, but she had seen Sawyer's frightening accuracy herself during training. Any one of those three could take her life.

"Wow, maybe I really will win this time," Asher called from ahead of her.

She slid the knife into her pocket and pushed herself up. The next part consisted of a series of poles with boards. She would need to jump from one to the other to reach the end.

This was where she had failed the most. Her instinct was to analyze and strategize; she was hardly ever impulsive and couldn't bring herself to do things without thinking. Usually, this instinct served her well, but the sharp angle of the boards ensured that even the slightest moment of hesitation could cost you. For a long time, it had been nearly impossible for her to conjure up the speed needed to run the course without falling.

She had needed to learn how to stop thinking.

Taking a deep breath, she shook out her legs and leapt. The ground passed in a blur as her feet sprang off of the boards, jumping effortlessly from one to the next. She took each leap without hesitation, trusting that the next board would be there to meet her, trusting the hundreds of times she had ran the route, trusting her luck and her instinct and her skill.

In twenty seconds, she had reached the end.

Her face flushed, she let out a wide smile and searched for Asher. He was only a couple yards ahead of her and had reached the second to last part of the route: a series of hoops and bars. This was the easiest part by far, but also the longest, and it was where stamina really mattered. Asher was already swinging from one to the other with ease.

She had only made it to the third hoop when a whistling noise came from behind her, and she ducked instinctively.

The knife soared through the space where her head had just been and fell toward the ground.

"Oh, shit," she muttered, not daring to stop to look behind her. Her muscles burned from exhaustion and her stomach began to growl -- those smoothies could only last her so long. Faster, faster, faster! Her arms swung rhythmically thorough the air as she pushed herself to her maximum speed, and then even harder.

When the next knife came, she threw herself to the side and her right hand slipped, leaving her dangling by one hand. Sawyer and the others were standing on the platform, and the other two had given him all of the remaining knives. He grinned at her as the next one came, heading just between her eyes.

At the last moment, she craned her spine and watched as the knife clipped the tip of her nose.

Cursing at the bright stab of pain, she managed to swing her right hand back up and kept going. Blood was streaming down her face, dripping into her mouth, and she grimaced at its metallic taste. The last knife was coming, she knew it. She just needed to get far away enough to make it difficult for Sawyer to aim.

Suddenly, a bullet came from in front of her, and she nearly let go of the hoop.

It wasn't headed for her, however. She heard a scream as one of Sawyer's teammates was hit. Squinting ahead of her, she saw Asher hanging from one hand on a hoop, smirking. In his other hand was a gun.

"Not bad," she called out, her voice slightly muffled by the blood.

"You mean, thank you?" Asher called and fired again. This time, he hit Sawyer's right shoulder -- his throwing arm -- and Kalista sighed in relief. Her arms were beginning to burn, but the next platform was in sight, and she swung past Asher's hoop with a smug smile.

"Who's in the lead now?" she called, and covered the last few yards with ease. Landing on the platform, she turned to face Asher, raising an eyebrow. "Where's my ten bucks, huh? And the fifty oth--"

A flying object caught her eye.

The grenade.

All she could do was watch in shock as the air erupted with flames and swallowed Asher whole.