We left the church and made our way to the bus stop just a few blocks over, the ride to the inner city took about forty minutes do to traffic.
We got out and walked about ten blocks north, we eventually made it to a three store building that looked pretty run down.
"This is the place?"
I asked.
Billy gave a nod.
"Yep, this here's the place where an alchemist buddy of mine lives."
"But I thought that arc-craft and alchemy were one and the same?"
Lisa spoke up.
"Arc-craft came from alchemy, and in many ways is superior to alchemy. But arc-craft also needs alchemists in order to implement Arc-circuits into a hunters body. Alchemy and arc-craft go hand in hand I soppose. Without alchemy there is no arc-craft."
"I see..."
"Let's go kids." Sed billy as he lead us into the building.
We walked in and made our way past an old fat Chinese man and a Mexican dude smoking cigarettes and drinking what I assumed was scotch or whiskey or something, while playing a game of poker.
A dog sitting on the floor next to them, as we past them a guy came running out of his apartment and threw up on the floor. He barely acknowledged us and moved on.
"Eww..." Lisa winced.
We quickly moved along.
We made it to an elevator, Billy pressed the button and we entered. He pulled out a key and shoved it into a hidden key hole that seemed to blend in with all the rusted metal that the rest of the buttens were on the bored.
After turning the key, the sound of gears and switching tracks could be heard from the walls of the elevator. Suddenly instead of going down. The elevator moved to the side.
"Wha-" Lisa and Billy both have a slight chuckle to my reaction.
I was pretty disoriented by the movement, but then as soon as it stopped it began to move down like normal.
It took about three minutes, but we eventually made it to the bottom of the shaft, The door opened. We entered a dimly lit room, similar to that of a foyer, the walls were old and stained. It was completely made of cement and the lights on the wall looked as if they were gonna burn out at any moment.
It gave the impression that this place was abandoned. But clearly not, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
There in front of us was a white mettle door, Billy walked up to it and gave it a knock.
"Luca... "
Knock knock
"Luca it's me Bill..."
Suddenly there came a shout from behind the door. "Sonova-"
Bang! Boom! Crash!
"Get back here ya little-"
Kathud! Bang! Brooooom!
Suddenly there was an inhuman screetch, followed by a slure of cusswords that shouldn't be told here, but I will do my best to create a family friendly alternative to what the man sed. "Ya blasted! Motha'lovin runt! I'll kill ye!" There was a lot more but honestly I don't know how to make the rest family friendly at all.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Then there was a wimper, Then a silence.
Then the man, who clearly had an Irish accent let out a victory yell. "Yeah! That's what ye get for messin' with Luca McGregor!"
"Luca-" called Billy.
"Oh... I'm comm'n I'm comm'n-"
After hearing about ten locks being undone from the other side of the door, it opened. Revealing a smelly red headed man with pale skin and a long Beard wearing a red shirt and shorts. He looked like he hadn't taken a bath in about three days.
"Hiya Bill." He sed having a big grin on his face.
He noticed lisa. "Why little Lisa! Is that you lass? I haven't seen you sense you got bonded." He put his hands on his hips and sed fondly.
"Hi there Luca. It's nice to see you."
She smiled at him.
"Oh and how's yer-" he stopped himself.
"Sorry lass... I didn't mean to-"
Lisa stopped him. "It's alright. No need to apologize."
The bearded man scratched his head and looked back at Billy. "So house the church?"
"It's alright, though attendence is vary low. As usual. You know how hard it is to get people in the sanctuary without smoke machines and strobe lights and a rock band."
He shook his head. "I know Bill, I know."
Bill Crossed his arms and took a step forward. "Luca. We've come for something important"
"Go on, anything I can do to help Im in"
He grabbed me by my shoulders and moved me in front of him. "This here, is Jack turner. He's an apprentice of mine. We began his training today..."
"Oh I see." He extended his hand and gave me a worm smile. "Luca McGregor at your service."
I shook his hand.
"Nice to meet you."
"Nice ta' meet ya to lad."
Billy continued.
"We have a bit of an issue with building his resistance to arc-energy."
"Oh, is it too much for him, because I could get you an orb with a smaller amount of arc-metel in it-"
"No, that's not it... He... He's... Well it seems he's already resistant to it. And he's never been exposed to arc-metel before."
He looked at Billy and blinked.
"... What?"
"He's already resistant."
"But that's not possible... Unless."
He looked at me. "Boy, do you mind if we run some tests on ya?"
I shook my head. "Go on. I wanna find out what's happening too. But, if I'm already resistant. Isn't that a good thing?"
Bill spoke up.
"Well, here's the thing... It's vary rare that someone already has resistance. And the reason might be something that might... Hinder your arc-craft training."
"Really?"
Billy looked at Luca.
"Luca... There's one more thing. He has a seal."
Luca's eye's widened.
"The boy has a seal! What the-"
He got close to billy.
"Listen, listen, listen... The last time a member had a seal it was-"
"I know-"
Billy cut him off.
"What kind of seal is it?"
"That I don't know."
Bill sed calmly.
"Have you seen it?"
Billy gave a nod.
"He came to me the night he got it."
Luca pinched the space between his eyebrows. "Billy, do you know what this could mean for-"
"For what?" I finally spoke up.
"What are you guy's talking about? What about the seal?... Tell me."
They both looked at each other, then looked at me.
"Listen... There's a lot of things that are going on here that for now you shouldn't know about, for your own sake Jack. And besides that we don't know what kind of seal you have. It's probably something that you don't need to worry about."
Luca spoke up. "But we still need to find out."
"Right."
This was suspicious, what were they hiding?
I looked down at the back of my left hand, what was the seal? Why were they acting this way? And what did it have to do with me using arc-craft?
"Come on boy." Sed Luca.
"Let's go and do some tests."
Billy walked in and so did Luca. I hesitated to enter. Only Lisa stayed out.
"Jack." She called my name in a quiet voice.
"Listen. I don't know what's going on with your left hand, but I know one thing. You can trust Bill, he's taken care of me ever sense my mom left to take my Father's place at the seminary.. he's a good man, and he has your best interest in mind. If he's not telling you everything then there's a good reason."
I looked at her and studied her face, she seamed genuine. Maybe I was a fool, or a simp. Or both. But I trusted her. So...
"Ok... If you say he's alright. I'll trust him."
She smiled.
"Good."
She walked in front of me.
"Come on... "
I followed her, but she stopped and looked back at me and smirked "And by the way, I caught you earlier checking me out at the church."
"H-huh?!"
"Ehehe~ your such a pervert. I bet you like being called that too, don't you? pervert boy."
"I- i- i- I wasn't- i.... Ok. I'm sorry." I let my shoulders slump in defeat, my face pink. Lisa blushed, still smirking.
"It's ok... Your a growing boy, you probably can't help but to ogle beautiful girls such as myself. It's only natural, I can't blame you.
I might actually be flattered really." She winked.
"What?"
'is she messing with me?'
My brain raced with about a thousand different thoughts at the same time.
She walked up to me and fixed my coller, then pinched my cheek, surprisingly not too hard. "Just try to keep your perverted ways down to a minimum when we're handling important business, Be a good boy and keep it professional. Ok darling?"
And I melted like Ice cream.
'She called me a good boy! And darling too!!!!' My entire face went from pink to blood red in three seconds, I folded like a chair in one moment. And all I could muster out was-
"Y-yes ma'am."
She grinned and gave me a headpat.
"Good boy." And with that she walked in, And I followed after her.
* * *
The two entered the bunker, it took a few seconds for Jack to snap out of his flustered state. However, once he made it to the room at the end of the hall. He was able to get a grip.
There Billy and Luca were waiting on him.
The room was filled with chemistry equipment, machines that looked somehow both futuristic and medieval at the same time, and large computers and CRT monitors
Stacked on top of each other, as if it were sucked right out of a 90's cyberpunk movie.
In the corner of the room was cages filled with many different kinds of animals and creatures Jack had never even seen before.
One in particular seemed to be a cross between a few different kinds of creatures.
It has the body of a monkey, a reptilian face with teeth that were long enough to point out of its lips, a nose it seemed to be shaped as if it were chopped off it still had nostrils and eyes like a fish.
"What the heck is that?"
The boy asked as he gazed at the cage.
The creature took notice of him and immediately let a screech out then leaped at the bars, trying to rip them off. Jack instinctively flinched.
"Oh, that's just one of my experiments boy-o." The Irish man sed nonchalantly.
"Don't worry, those bars won't be able to brake... I think. And if worse comes to worse I'll have to put him down like his brother."
Jack wanted to ask more but he decided not to press the issue.
Luca walked over to a computer and pressed a few buttons, suddenly a trapdoor opened in the middle of the floor and what came out of it was a hospital chair that had multiple machine parts attached to it.
They're also seemed to be a strange attachment to the right and left arms of the chair that had hundreds of needles on it.
"Alright lad. Come and sit, this will only be a minute... "
Jack hesitated for a moment, but Lisa gave him a reassuring smile. "Don't worry. It'll be alright, Trust me... "
Jack let out a sigh and walked over and sat in the chair. Luca pressed a few more bottons, then after a few more seconds the bearded man came over and strapped his left hand to the arm of the chair.
"Alright... Let's begin, Drink this." He handed the boy a shot of strange looking blue liquid.
With his right hand the boy drank it down quickly, it tasted like cough syrup and pills.
"Now-" Luca came back to his computer.
"Scan begining in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1-"
Beeeep!
Suddenly a green light began to glow around jacks left arm, his eyes widened as he saw what was happening.
Luca and Billy were both fixated on the screen. "Do ya' see that bill?"
"I do."
Meanwhile Lisa's eyes never left Jack for a moment, while she might not have sed anything. She indeed was worried for him.
She just didn't want him to worry himself, though she did trust Billy. She herself wanted to know what exactly was going on with Jack. Hopefully Billy would reveal the what he knew about the seal after this was done.
"Oh my... Bill. This is- this is-"
Luca couldn't believe his eyes.
"If the scans are correct, then this boy ya got here could-"
"That's enough... Turn off the machine."
Luca took a few seconds, but then did as he asked. Billy stepped away from Luca and the computer and took a deep breath in.
"Bill-" Lisa walked up to him, his back turned towards her. "What is it?"
He turned back to her and had an unreadable expression. "..."
"Tell me." Lisa's protective instincts we're kicking in, unknown to Jack she always had been rather protective of him. After all, he was her hero. She wanted to protect him like he tried to for her.
And once again. while she did trust Billy, he was acting suspicious. What was he hiding?
"Lisa... Listen."
He stepped forward. "I can't tell you, or him what's going on. Not now, I have to contact 'the church' first. But I promise you... Once they advise me on what to do going forward I will explain everything."
"..." Lisa's eyes darted back and forth in her head, her eyebrows knitted together.
"Is... Is it bad?... "
"I... I can't say. What I can say is that the seal on Jack's hand means something big, really big..."
She simply starred at the old man,
Jack looked at him.
"What about me using arc-craft?"
Jack asked.
Luca sighed and stood up, he unstrapped the boy and rubbed his face. "Your not going to be able to lad."
"What?" Jack sat up.
"Why?"
"The seal." He sed point blank.
"What do you mean?"
Billy Walked over. "We can't really explain it, we need to show you... Put your hand out."
Jack did as he asked.
Suddenly Billy's hand began to glow, he raised it up and suddenly water began to manifest in his palm and floated upward.
"!" Jack was amazed.
"Watch."
He created a water ball, and hovered it above jacks left hand. "Normally your hand would be soaked once it touches your palm. But..."
The ball dropped.
the instant it made contact with the boys Palm his hand burst into white flames, the back of his hand glowed golden with Hebrew letters then in less then a second the ball completely and totally evaporated. Or more like the essence of the water ball was destroyed.
"!"
"Wha-!" Lisa flinched the second it happened. Jack did as well, same for Luca.
However Billy, the old cowboy was stoic.
"What was that!?" Lisa exclaimed.
"That is the power that God has given Jack. He has the ability to destroy arc-craft... Not just that. But supernatural phenomena as well... Luca. Can I have those cards?"
"Your don't mean... Bill those cards contain-"
"Just hand me the deck."
Luca hesitated, after a few seconds though he Got up and went into another room. He came back with a box. He sat it on the counter and opened it.
He pulled out a brown deck of cards, he gave it to Bill. He gave him a nod and turned to the boy. "These cards belonged to a sorcerer who was planning on using them to unleash a plague that could wipe out an entire country...
There that dangerous, we've kept them safe for now, we were planning on turning it over to the church so they could destroy them.
But Jack, I have a feeling all you need to do is touch them."
The old man extended his hand to the boy, Jack hesitated but... He reached out and grabbed the deck. Once again his hand burst into white flames. A demonic screetch could be heard from within the deck, then the cards were devoured by the flames and disappeared entirely.
"What the-"
"This is the gift God has given you." The flames faded, the symbol disappeared.
Everyone in the room was silent.
"So... What... What does this mean?"
Jack asked.
"One thing for sure for now, Jack we won't be able to teach you arc-craft. However... You'll still be able to be a hunter. I promise you that. We'll just have to focus on two things, combat and your knowledge on the supernatural."
He walked over to Lisa. Who has simply been starring in shock. "Lisa, your combat skills are better then mine... I think that you should teach him how to fight."
"W-what? Me? But Bill I'm no master."
"That may be so, but I think it would be good for you to grow as a hunter. I'll still be teaching him what he needs to know about monster's, magic, the church. But you'll be the one training him. Besides. I'm no Martial artist. I'm just an old man who only knows arc-craft, That's why your father was better then me. He had trained himself to his peak in everything, arc-craft, alchemy, combat, theology. Everything. And your a chip off the old block Lisa. If anyone can teach him it's you." He placed his hand on her shoulder.
She looked at Billy, then Jack. Suddenly she had a feeling it responsibility come open her.
Not just for Jack but to her father as well.
"Alright. Jack, do you want me to train you?"
Jack stood up and walked over to her.
"Yeah... Lisa. Your amazing, if I can become half as good as you I'd be alright. So teach me whatever you can. I'm willing to put in the work."
She smiled at him. "Good. Because I expect you to put in your one hundred and ten percent. No slacking off got it?"
Jack smiled back. "You got it."
"Jack, Lisa. You too get going... I need to speak with Luca alone for a bit. Lisa, you train Jack tomorrow. I'll get him the next day. That's how we'll do it from now on. I'll teach him Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. You get him the rest of the week until Sunday. Got it?"
She gave a nod.
"Alright... I'll see you too later."
The pair left the bunker and rode the buss home after that, they got home as the sun was setting.