Talon winced as he slowly regained consciousness. Intense pain surged through his body, and every attempt to move resulted in more agony.
Glancing around, he deduced they were in the medical ward of the hunters.
Looking down at his body, both hands were tightly wrapped with bandages to keep them stable, as was his right leg.
'Probably broke them…fantastic,' exhaled Talon in frustration, unable to do much else at the moment.
"Damn, it hurts!" whined Rokara from the left side of Talon, on one of the beds.
Turning his head to look at her, Talon saw that her whole body was as bruised and battered as his.
She had broken three of her ribs, and her wrist was tightly bandaged, probably broke that too. Talon couldn't help but laugh at the situation.
"What's so funny, you bastard?"
"You know, for someone who challenged everyone to arm wrestle, you're the one who ended up with broken hands." Talon chuckled to himself.
Rokara managed a half-smile through her discomfort. "Yeah, yeah, laugh, you bastard. Next time, I'll beat you to a pulp." Even Rokara chuckled, then turned to Talon.
"It's a little late for an introduction, but my name is Rokara." She extended her arm, the one Talon hadn't broken for her.
She was left hanging with the handshake as Talon remained puzzled by her persistence.
"My name is Talon, but let me apologize for not being able to shake hands, thanks to you breaking my goddamn arms!"
Said Talon in the calmest way that he could possibly manage at that moment.
"Anyway, why were you even terrorizing the others?"
"What do you even mean that I was terrorizing them it was fun for all of us." Hearing this so nonchalantly from Rokara, made Talon stare at her blankly.
"Rokara… I don't know what to tell you, most of us don't really enjoy getting our bones broken." Talon tried to get up from his bed, but the pain kept him in place.
"Oh… sorry for it then." Said Rokara with a genuinely apologetic tone.
"It's not like you have to apologize to me, I beat you up quite a lot too. Say it to the others. But hey, instead of terrorizing them, wanna become sparring partners?"
"Okay, to be honest, it was fun to fight against someone with the same strength as me."
Admitted Rokara with a guilty look, as it finally dawned on her that the others did not even closely feel the same way as her. "Maybe… maybe I really did terrorize them."
"Told you so, just apologize to them. But anyway, it still hurts so goddamn much. Before you activated your gift, it was fine, it's really powerful, to say the least."
"Well, yours is equally as strong. For a moment, I was worried that you beat me."
"What the hell do you mean? I did beat you, I won there!" declared Talon.
"The hell, you didn't, it was obviously me who won there!" shouted back Rokara.
"Well, in my opinion, both of you lost!"
Suddenly, Damien appeared in the room. "Do you guys understand how much shit I had to go through with the higher-ups? I was sure they would kill me with the sheer amount of boredom I had to endure while they just talked and talked…"
Frustration was so clear in Damien's voice that the two did not even dare to mutter a greeting to him. When they thought that his grumbling stopped, he began yet again.
"Damien you dumb bastard, we told you that these street rats will bring nothing but trouble!"
"Damien, your strength doesn't make you one of us, don't ever forget that you are just a disgusting gifted!"
"Damien, you are not above the rules!"
"Damien, don't ever forget that we could execute you at a moment's notice!"
This time, it seemed like Damien's complaints were finally over so Talon mustered the courage to greet him.
"Good to see you too Damien… What did you do after hearing them, are we going to get in trouble… or executed?"
"Well, I threatened them, and thanks to that, the situation became really heated in there. So I froze everyone in the room. Get it? Heated, froze them?"
As he laughed at his own joke, the two just stared at him, not really appreciating his humor if it was even an attempt at humor.
Neither of them was really sure if he was really joking or he did that, the man before them was just too unpredictable.
"Damien, please, tell us that you are joking?" Bagged him Talon, dreading the answer that Damien would give him.
"No, I'm actually not. The guards all tried to attack me after that, but I froze them too. Neither of you has to worry, Paul will cover for us. Oh, and by the way, you two have no right to judge me. You guys almost killed that lovely chap in the barracks."
Yet again, the two could not mutter a single word.
Not only were they shocked by how nonchalantly he admitted attempted murder to them, but he also dropped another shocking piece of news by just now telling them that they almost killed that hunter when they were taken over by their gift.
"Oh, I will train both of you to keep your gift in check, but I wouldn't want to hold up the others. Talon, you still owe them an introduction."
Before he could even comprehend what Damien meant by that, he walked out of their room, as he opened the door, he let in the others of the team before waving to them one last time then disappeared.
Everyone stared at them, mostly at Rokara who shifted her gaze to the ground in shame as she apologized to them,
"Sorry for almost breaking your arms…"
The others just silently stared at them, and then the handsome blond boy walked up to her and grabbed her broken wrist, "Don't worry about it Rokara, just please, don't do it again."
Said the handsome boy as he still grasped the broken wrist of Rokara as she winced in pain.
"Quinn, please let go of my hand, it hurts too much!" Bagged Rokara to Quinn.
"Yeah, it was painful to us too, now stop whining you muscle-headed idiot." Quinn couldn't hold It in as he burst into laughter, before letting go of her hand.
"Sorry, but I had to get back at you, no hard feeling, right?" Said Quinn while he held out his hand towards Rokara for a handshake.
Rokara shook his hand with a smile on her face, then turned to Talon, "See? This is how a hatchet is buried."
"Rokara, you broke my arms, I can't shake your hands, I physically can't do it!"
Talon lashed out at Rokara which only made the others chuckle in response.
Then Quinn turned towards Talon, "I think that I speak in the name of all of us. All of us are eternally grateful to you for ending Rokara's reign of terror."
Smiled Quinn towards Talon. "My name is Quinn, it's nice to meet you!"
"Nice to meet you too, Quinn. I would shake your hands, but thanks to Rokara, I'm happy if I'll be able to move them again." Rokara just madly stared at Talon from the medical ward bed.
Before Rokara, even in her injured form, could assault Talon again, Quinn waved to someone, "Hey, brother, come here!" He shouted to the white-haired boy who was previously thrown to the ground.
"H-Hello, n-nice to meet y-you. My name is O-Orion." The stuttering boy resembled his brother closely, even their facial features were similar.
The only thing that was different between the two was their hair color. Orion's ashen white hair was nowhere close to resembling the golden blond hair of his brother, Quinn.
'Now I have to put up with two handsome bastards, perfect…' Talon thought through gritted teeth as he smiled at the brothers.
Before he could even get back to Orion, a voice rang through his mind. "Nice to meet you Talon, I'm Aria!"
Talon franticly started to look left and right, searching for the source of the voice before it rang in his mind again,
"Oh, it's me, this is my gift, this is the only way that I can communicate because I'm mute."
Waved at him a short dark-haired girl with brown eyes as she smiled at him softly.
Talon just waved back at her, the shock of hearing her voice inside of his head still lingered.
Thorn just waved at Talon as she softly gazed at his battered body, her gaze expressing the worry she felt towards him.
Before they could even begin a normal conversation, the doors burst open, revealing Paul with veins popping out of his forehead as he roared toward Talon.
"You little shit, this is the first day you are here, THE FIRST DAY! And you managed to ruin the whole barracks that were specially prepared for this team! And now I have to deal with the frozen higher-ups too, but hey, at least they won't know that the two of you almost KILLED ONE OF THEM! AND WHERE THE HELL IS DAMIEN?!"
After he screamed out the rage inside of him, he just tiredly buried his head inside his palms.
"Rokara, can you just knock me out?" Talon whispered to Rokara, but to his misfortune, Paul had a perfect hearing for his age. He started to walk slowly towards Talon.
"Don't worry you little shit, I knock you out gladly!"