Red

"Welcome, recruits. You have been carefully selected based on your various skills to do valuable work here. You will each train hard, each day being pushed to and beyond your limits. One sign of weakness and you will be terminated. We don't—"

Suddenly, the door to the stark white classroom-like setting opens and a woman walks in.

"I'm back from— Oh. Hey." She looks around at the seven seated men as well as the older gentleman standing at the front of the room. "Forgot you had recruits coming in. Just wanted to let you know I'm back," she casually shrugs.

The seven men widen their eyes at the sight in front of them. The woman is small-framed, probably only 5'2" with fiery red hair pulled into a ponytail. She is wearing a black tank top and black ripped skinny jeans and has black combat boots on. She is completely drenched in blood and has an obvious gunshot wound to her shoulder but she seems unaffected.

"Damn it, you're supposed to go to the infirmary when you're hurt. You're getting blood everywhere," the older man snaps at her.

"You told me to tell you when I returned. I've returned," she shrugs. She glances at the seven men who are staring at her, completely shocked at her calm demeanor despite looking like she just came back from war. Her eyes are gray, and they look so cold. So emotionless. One of the boys instinctively stands up, tentatively taking a step towards the woman.

"Are you... okay...?" the broad-shouldered man murmurs cautiously, realizing his heart rate has increased since she's locked those cold eyes on his.

"Peachy," she says, slightly frowning at him.

"Mission report," the older man says authoritatively, making the woman look back at him.

"Success. There were more than I anticipated, probably about 20 or so and obviously I wasn't as fast as I should've been but I handled it."

"Go to the infirmary now," he waves her away and she turns to leave, giving one last look at the seven men who couldn't take their eyes off of the mysterious girl.

"Don't start with them until I get back. I'm gonna be training them, so I want to know about them," she says before walking away casually, still dripping blood from her shoulder.

The man looks at the white floor in disgust as he sees the puddle of blood the woman left behind, so he pulls out his phone and dials a number.

"Janitor to the recruitment room please," he snaps and hangs up.

After a moment of tense silence, the man speaks again, this time to the seated men.

"You can call me D. One by one, give your name and given skills once she returns. Questions?"

The man who stood up to check on the woman earlier tentatively raises his hand, patiently waiting for D to allow him to speak.

He points at the man, motioning him to ask his question.

He clears his throat. "Who is she?"

"Our best weapon. She's going to train you in hand to hand combat, as well as combat with weapons. She's the best of the best," D explains patiently. "Just..." he adds tentatively, glancing at the door she came and left in, "...be careful with her. She's not known for her empathy and she has a bit of a temper."

He jumps slightly when the door opens again, but it's just the janitor he summoned a few minutes before.

After the blood is gone, the janitor leaves and the eight men are left alone again.

"Any more questions? Better ask while you can," D says, leaning back against the wall.

"Which other skills will we be trained in?" asks one of the younger boys.

"Hacking skills, foreign languages, torture skills, how to escape from restraints, bomb making, poison making... things like that," he replies.

The door opens then and the red-haired woman comes back into the room wearing a clean but similar-looking outfit of a simple black tank top, jeans & combat boots but with a white bandage covering the front and back of her shoulder.

"Through and through. Easy fix," she shrugs when D glances up at her. She grabs a chair from one of the empty desks and pulls it to the front of the room, sitting gracefully in it. The men notice a holster around her thigh with a dagger attached to it. A couple of them shift uncomfortably in their seats, wondering why the woman has a knife with her right now and why her cold eyes lock on each of theirs for a second, an unreadable expression on her face.

"Names please," she says, smirking at how these seven grown men are nearly cowering at her small frame. Just how she wants to make them feel.