A week ago, Jason had expected a plethora of things when he went to Cloudstrider Industries. Another assassination attempt; a classroom where he learned what all the crazy symbols he kept seeing were; or maybe a round-robin where he fought the Calderone's Delvers until he learned how to do what they did. To put it simply, Jason was filled with both expectations and trepidation to his new role as someone else's Hunting Hound.
He supposed, as he lay on the white tiled floors bleeding out, that his current situation was close to an assassination attempt.
"Stop whining, big baby. Get up!"
Jason turned to the homeless reject that was Luciano, giving the man an annoyed glare. The black-haired man raised his hands, and Jason eyed the bloody knife still in Luciano's grip.
"Oh, get over yourself, kid." Luciano said, stowing away the knife in his animal leather jacket. "None of those wounds are even lethal. Just take your lumps."
Jason huffed, continuing to ignore his supposed trainer. He stretched out his limbs on the floor, wincing as the many cuts across his torso and arms throbbed. Like Luciano had said, they weren't that dangerous; they were like paper cuts to Jason. At most, the cuts bled like crazy and stained the floor of their training grounds.
Still, that didn't make things better. The teen only had to look at the multiple other blood stains that littered the cubical, white-tiled training room to remember all the other times Luciano had said those same words before the man literally stabbed him in the back.
It was because of this that Jason knew he couldn't get up or else their impromptu torture would continue. Instead, the teen lay on the floor, looking around the bare room and finding traces of their previous beatdowns. The smell of sweat clung to the air like a persistent stain. Broken tiles from when he moved too fast, or small spatters of blood that hadn't been cleaned let the teen recall those unpleasant memories.
If Balakrishna humbled Jason in his fighting skills, then Luciano taught him how Balakrishna was not the exception.
Jason's trip through memory lane was interrupted as his gaze trailed up the side of one wall. Projected onto the white tiles was a giant, digital clock, and below that, was other miscellaneous information like air temperature in smaller fonts. All of it was meaningless to Jason other than the time, which read that his stipulated "shift" was now over.
The teen sat up, but he halted as a hand pressed into his shoulder. Jason paused and looked over to Luciano, seeing the man holding his Holo to his face and reading something.
"What?"
Luciano's lips pulled into a playful smile. "What? Don't leave too soon."
"And have you torture me again? No thanks. My shift–"
"Exists because we let it. Now, sit back down."
Jason blew a sigh through his nose, complying. At his action, Luciano gave an amused snort.
"I know you wanna leave soon, but your results came back, so we gotta run you through them before you leave."
"My results?"
Luciano nodded, gesturing to his Holo. Jason craned his neck to see the screen, and the older man displayed a hologram into the air above his wrist. On it Jason found a crude painting of some pigeon-winged, humanoid creature with what looked like snakes grasped in its hands. The teen pursed his lips, looking at Luciano in confusion.
"We had some of our historians look into where your Dragon Eater Innate talent came from, and while there weren't that many records, we were able to locate some texts that referenced them." Luciano explained, swiping his hands across his Holo to display more old pictures. Jason frowned as more pictures of winged humanoids were displayed; each one was fighting a snake-like being or kneeling to a man wearing a crown.
"So uh… what does this even do for me?"
Luciano looked like he was going to insult him before he stopped. "My bad. I forgot your knowledge on Delver information is shit."
"That's because you spend all these days stabbing me!"
"Nonetheless–"
"Don't just ignore that!"
"Would you give training to a dog without some insurance to keep it from biting you?" Luciano asked, staring at Jason till the teen grew silent. The older man nodded. "As I was saying, you passed our final checks, and the don decided to speed up your training. I'm sure you saw that dragon heart that Halo was advertising; he wants it to go to you, but there has been pushback by the other dons who want it."
"I… don't understand. I thought– nevermind."
"Thought what, huh?" Luciano asked with a smile.
"That uh, that the Hunting Hounds were not associated with certain familias or something. I've–"
"I'm gonna stop ya right there. Its not the job of a dog to question matters of the dons." Luciano raised his hand and stopped Jason from thinking over the topic more. "I will tell you that the Calderone Familia was the one who sponsored your involvement in my little pack of Hounds, so he holds most of your leash. On any other territory within the mafia's ground you would be beholden to the don in charge, but here, you and I will answer to the Calderones. Nonetheless, it seems like we got off topic."
"The pigeon wing guys? How are they more important?"
"They're important because I say they are, brat. Now, stop interrupting me. Firstly, Delver's Innate talents are normally based on something, and the specific planet they awaken on heavily influences the direction of those talents. You don't need to know the specifics, but for those who awaken on Alter-Khan they tend to have Innate talents that are copied from the species that live or have once lived on the planet. You, my newest pup, have a species that is now extinct."
"So, I'm going to grow wings?" Jason asked, but at the back of his mind, he remembered what Balakrishna had told him before punching a hole in his gut. When he talked about mana he described it as: "if you are directionless, it will define you."
Simply copying the species' abilities only seemed like half of what Luciano was trying to explain.
"Don't play dumb with me, brat. If you didn't grow wings on the initial awakening, you will never grow them. At the same time, this tells us that the wings are not necessary for a Dragon Eater, and since they are extinct, we can't exactly know all the associated specialties of the species."
"Okay, I'm following this explanation, but what does this have to do with anything?"
Luciano smacked Jason hard enough for the teen to hit the ground. Jason glared at the black-haired man, growing incensed as he saw Luciano light a cigarette with a snap of his fingers. Smoke puffed from the man's lips as he returned a glare at Jason, shaking his fist.
"Damn, brat, anyone ever tell you that you're hard headed? And stop glaring at me; I already told you not to interrupt me. This is important because, to properly raise you into a respectable Hunting Hound, we need to know how to best train you. You ain't going to give someone with fire element mana the release hand signs for metal element mana, but your case is a bit different because of your Innate talent."
"Element?" Jason asked, perking up.
Luciano raised a fist before he lowered it with a sigh. "Yeah, element. The first Transcendent, Venerable Lifeless, created the system of five elements based on his culture. These five elements are what a majority of Delvers will use: fire, water, earth, wood, and metal. Each of them supports and restricts each other in different ways, so its important to–"
The man tapped his Holo for a couple seconds, and in the corner of the room, Jason's own Holo buzzed with a message. "Its important to read that when you get the time because I don't want to explain it."
Jason sighed. "Will it at least explain rudimentary mana domains? Or something cool? Or are we just going to continue the mindless stabbings?"
"Oh, shut it. Stabbings build character, and besides, you heal from those cuts within the day."
"Yeah but…" Jason said, gesturing to the blood on the floor. "Is this really how you trained other people?"
"Not really, Dragon Eaters are something we're trying to figure out as well, so I'm just testing a couple things."
"By stabbing me multiple times?"
"Geez kid, will you drop it already? Just read the Dragon Eater primer I sent you as well. They found early on that the extinct species grew to resist environmental factors like extreme heat or cold, so I was checking if there would be something different if I stabbed you a bunch."
Jason paused his next insult. He knew that Luciano was trying to see if he grew more resistant to cuts, but the teen wanted to know why he didn't just use a less bloody method?
"And?" Jason finally asked.
"And what?"
"Did you find anything?"
Luciano shrugged. "Your body is abnormal."
"... that's it?"
"Why don't you read the stuff I sent you? I ain't here to spoon feed you every little thing."
"Fine," Jason finished, crossing his bleeding arms over his chest. "I got magic homework or whatever. Can I leave now?"
"Ah, don't be in such a hurry. Remember what I said at the start? How the don wanted you to take the dragon heart."
"Yeah? What about it?" Jason asked, leaning closer. He wanted to say he was uninterested in the topic, but he was intrigued about the only dragon heart not currently being used by some massive corporation.
"You're not going to Earth, if that's what you're thinking."
Jason clicked his tongue.
Luciano chuckled. "You can't believe we'd send an untrained pup into that warzone, yeah? And it's because of this that the Calderone Familia is getting pushback from the others since they're sending in our elites to have a chance to grab the heart. What makes you worthy of something just because your Innate talent is a little unique?"
"I don't get it."
"Is it really that hard for you to get? You figured stuff out so easily in the thick of things, though…" Luciano trailed off, frowning and shaking his head. "Nonetheless, what I mean for you is that you need achievements. You want to get the treat, but you have to do the tricks first."
"So…" Jason paused, forcing down the indignation at the description of his circumstances. "I just got to impress a bunch of old guys?"
"That is… one way to say that, yes. Just don't say it around the executives or the dons."
"Gotcha. So, how do I…" Jason waved his hand around. "You know, do that?"
"Dear gods above, its like pulling teeth." Luciano whispered to himself before he turned to Jason with a glare. "Missions! Patrolling! Literally doing things for the Familias that are nearby! Its not like I'm telling you to solve the Abyss; all you need to do is be a good Hound and listen to orders!"
Jason kept his lips sealed, waiting for Luciano to calm down. The older man hissed out a few breaths through his teeth, grinding out his lit cigarette with his fingers. Eventually, Luciano calmed down and pinched the bridge of his nose. Jason heard the man count backwards from ten under his breath.
"He's an investment. Don't let the Innate talent influence you. He's an investment."
Jason felt a chill spread down his spine as he listened to the man's mumbles. He realized he had pushed a little too much, and even if he was annoyed at his treatment, he couldn't continue to press his luck. The teen decided he was lucky to be able to speak freely most of the time.
"Get out of here, brat. I'm done with today's training; go to the front desk for more information about missions and the like." Luciano said, turning around to leave. He paused on his way to the door. "And when you check over the mana notes remember that a fight with normal people is measured in skill and time, but for Delvers it is a fight for space."
"O–" Jason started but Luciano had already left. "Okay… What's with him?"
Jason grumbled over Luciano's mood swings, going over their previous conversation in his head. He gathered his things as he thought about what happened. Luciano had, in pretty much every conversation, reacted positively to Jason's talent and attitude. However, Jason noticed that the man paid more attention to when Jason did not grasp certain things.
The teen noted this down mentally as he slapped his Holo on his wrist and found the information Luciano had sent him. He would figure things out slowly, and Jason knew not to push the people around him too much. There was no telling if he would send some psycho after his family accidentally.
At the same time, Jason realized how much of a boon his current circumstances were. So long as he seemed to be on the side of the mafia, he would get their support in the form of Bits and well-needed Delver information. He would have never thought that Innate talents originated from some form of existing information, but it was something he kept close to his heart.
And from Luciano's words, Jason knew that Delvers from Alter-Khan had Innate talents that were derived from the animals that lived on it, which meant he needed to pick his dad's brain of various monsters. He planned to look for those that used fire element mana like Luciano and Cecilia, and then he would figure things out from there.
As Jason walked through the familiar corridors of Cloudstrider Industries' main branch, he continued to think of his plans to escape from the Calderone Familia. A couple of cogs in suits gave him a wide berth when they caught the leather jacket on his shoulders, but Jason ignored them when they bowed out of his way. It wasn't long until he left through the main doors, arriving at the spacious front entrance to the branch building.
Unlike the undecorated corridors he had passed through, the front entrance was painted in a hazy blue. Holographic clouds drifted above his head, turning into moving images when they collided with the walls. He paid little attention to the various occupants at the couple of small tables and large couches that were set up in the corners of the room, and he only spared a familiar nod to a bulky man who meditated on one of the couches. Jason's destination was at the front was a semi-circular desk where Jason heard the consistent clack of keyboards from the secretaries.
When he reached the desk, his nose twitched as a familiar perfume lingered in the air. The teen smiled down at the brown-haired woman seated in the desk, and the woman wordlessly nodded to him.
"Please present your access information." The woman said and brought up a small crystal with wires attached to it.
Jason nodded, raising his Holo and a red beam shot out from the device. The beam connected to the crystal, and Jason's Holo buzzed. When he got the information packet, Jason had turned to leave, but he paused when he saw there was only one message in it.
"Is there something wrong, honored Delver?"
Jason pursed his lips, smelling sweat mixed with something earthy. Fear. He regarded the secretary's professional smile, returning it and finding the smell of fear easing up. A part of him wanted to ask why there was only one mission, but he knew that Luciano definitely had a hand in this.
He skimmed over the details of the mission, and then let out an aggrieved groan. Jason wondered how he was going to convince his parents that he could go to the first and second floors again. A feat that might be greater than actually escaping the Calderone Familia.