Interwoven ✔️

40~ Baddie

[Warning: Scenes of Alcohol Use]

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Getting drunk was certainly not what I'd even remotely imagined would be happening my first night at the Capital Base.

The Capital Base was one massive, sprawling structure of steel surrounded by a high-voltage chainlink fence that stretched dozens of feet in the air. I couldn't decide if it was magnificent or ugly to look at with its flat topped roofs and dull grey metal exterior. Perhaps both.

There were apparently close to thirty levels of this base, both above and under ground. Inside was a maze of uniform polished hallways and numerous doorways that all looked the same. An overwhelming sense of dizziness had washed over me when I first entered the building.

Going off of what Jimin had said, as a trainee I was expected to sleep with the other trainees in four-bed sleeping quarters. I'd met my roommates, three other girls. Two of them were Outworlders, the other a human like me. Tzuyu and Irene were both Outworlders: Tzuyu with lovely midnight violet Marks and Irene with soft baby pink Marks. Krystal was the energy-packed human and had immediately loosened the awkwardness of meeting each other for the first time.

After brief introductions, we'd changed into our standard trainee gray uniforms and skedaddled to the training rooms that was ten levels below us— and trainees weren't allowed to use the elevators in the building because we needed to get exercise in "at all times possible".

The training had been brutal, making me realize just how easy Jimin and Yoongi had been going on me. Nevertheless, because I had been training intensely the past month, I'd performed much better than a lot of the other trainees.

It was the first training session and specially named the Initiation session and it lasted from noon to eight in the evening; full 8 hours of practically nonstop workouts. What made it particularly significant was that any trainees who broke or failed in the Initiation session was immediately signed incompetent and sent home. No second chances, no further punishment. Just signed off and alavida bye-bye.

There had been thirty-two other initial trainees in my temporary training unit. At the end of the training, twenty-four trainees remained.

I'd been aching all over and was painfully dragging myself back up the stairs to my room. I'd made it four levels before Krystal appeared out of nowhere, somehow still filled with energy, and whisked me away into a maze of hallways and through several side doors which lead to more doorways.

Maybe if I hadn't been so exhausted and sore I might've stopped her or at least considered if she was planning to murder me.

As it was, I'd allowed her to pull me deep within the base and finally into what appeared to have been once a large sleeping area with abandoned old cots sprawled everywhere. Except at the moment, it wasn't abandoned.

I gaped as no less than a hundred trainees lounged around on the ground or on the cots. I didn't know if I was more shocked because of the large number of people hiding in this secret part of the base, or because of all the alcohol and bottles lying everywhere and being passed around.

"What is this?" I slowly turned to Krystal who was grinning like she won the lottery.

"It's a tradition." She swept her arm about. "It's to... salute the trainees who've passed the first training. The senior trainees bring in the bottles and spread the word. I thought you heard about it?"

I shook my head. "I didn't hear anything about this." A clearly tipsy girl fell into an equally intoxicated girls' lap, giggling. I quickly looked away as the two began to cuddle and kiss.  "Do... the trainers know about this?"