Hunted

Chapter 3 - Mission Ready

Training from dawn to really late at night is brutal. Trust me. In the past few weeks, I've figured that out. I'm three days away from leaving, and I'm beginning my final briefs and preparations today.

I've trained harder than I ever have in my life. I fought everybody there is to fight in ParaCo, and they all wanted to fight the girl who is going to attend Hawthorne Hill. I beat them all by miles, thank God.

But still, I don't feel ready. It feels like I'm being set up, or sent to a trap or something. A school of Hunters. Even I hesitate to do this, and I've done some really really brave shit. Although many would argue that it was dumb, but then they aren't ParaCo's top assassin, now are they?

Going to Studies again sucked too. At first it was so boring. We just went over basics about Hunter anatomy, powers, etc. Which would be great except I've known all this stuff for years. It's basic knowledge. You have to know all about your opponent in order to find their weak spots and destroy them.

Basically, a Hunter just has, like, enhanced speed, strength, intelligence, hearing, eyesight, and smelling, or whatever. They can also jump pretty high, and they have these glowy tattoos that contact other Hunters in the area if said Hunter is in danger.

Unluckily for the Hunters, these tattoos don't magically show up. A Hunter is required to get one between the ages of eight and ten if they are to attend a Hunter school or get a job as a Hunter. Hunters who don't get the tattoo will just have to live their lives as a better-than-average human, and pretend to be normal.

And it's not just Hunter elders being bitchy about rules. A Hunter literally can't get the tattoos after age ten, or before age eight. Before a Hunter turns eight, the skin is too vulnerable and breakable to lock in the tattoo, and the tattoo may cause permanent scarring.

After age ten, the skin hardens up and is very difficult to puncture with weaker objects, such as a dull knife or a needle. So in a way, Hunters have this weak natural armor on them. Point is, after the skin hardens, it becomes very difficult for the tattoo needles to puncture the skin and inject the ink.

If someone is forced to get the tattoos after age ten, it will cause excruciating pain and permanent scarring. So I guess the lesson is, don't be a Hunter because it sucks.

Elder Hunters are super annoying. One time I was assigned to kill one, and that battle lasted three times as long as it would a regular Hunter. See, the older a Hunter gets, the more fine-tuned all their skills become. Suddenly, they can hear your every movement, and they can watch every telltale sign of a lie. They are also super fast and strong, and their armor thickens as they grow older.

Hunters also have an increased lifespan. The average lifespan of a Paranormal is about five hundred to eight hundred years, but that isn't true for all species. Some have way shorter lifespans, and a few species are immortal. For a Hunter, it's about three hundred.

As a dragon shifter, I get to be immortal. Lucky me. When I turn twenty-one, I'll stop aging until I die. And it won't be of natural causes. I'm immune to all sicknesses, and no poison can kill me.

Also, you know those stories about the knight fighting the dragon? Yeah, that was almost certainly a dragon shifter and a Hunter. And the term "knight in shining armor" came from that, too. As a Hunter gets really old, near the end of his or her lifespan, their skin turns silvery and very very difficult to penetrate.

Another fun fact about dragon shifters? They can only be killed at the hands of a Hunter. The dragon shifters are the Hunters oldest enemies, and we're linked. Thing about living forever, you get bored, from what I've heard. Worst part? You can't die. Seems obvious, but here's the thing: even if you wanted to die, you couldn't.

You can't kill yourself, but you can bleed until death and then pop back to life. I did that once. I don't mean kill myself, I mean bleed to death and then live again. But that's another story for another time.

Unless you have a Hunter buddy that you can call when you're ready to kick it, you're pretty much stuck in the mud. Frozen in time. Forever. It's not as glamorous as it sounds.

So I re-learned all that, and I'd train for all sorts of situations. One time, they locked me laying in a coffin and put be in handcuffs and locked a collar around my neck that was bolted to the floor of the coffin. If I didn't get out in sixty seconds, a thousand pounds of sand would drop on me, killing me instantly. That's another thing that sucks about being immortal: your trainers don't care whether you live or die. They will kill you to teach you a lesson, knowing you'll wake up just fine in a minute or two.

Another time, they interrogated me and tortured me. They reminded me that this is what would happen if anybody at Hawthorne Hill found out I was a shifter. As long as I didn't give in, I'd pass the test. If I passed all the tests, they knew I was ready. I was.

Here I am. Three days.

I strut through ParaCo town square towards the main office building, ready to begin my final briefings and training. As I open the heavy metal doors, two elf guards stand at attention right inside the entryway.

Despite what the humans think, elves aren't some midgets who have pointy ears and shoes. They're actually tall, with powers over the earth and plants. The only thing the humans got right is that they do have pointy ears, but lots of Paranormal species have pointy ears. Like faeries, for example.

Faeries aren't tiny fluttering girls who grant wishes and poop glitter, I don't know where humans got those ideas. Most faeries look like tall, lanky, athletic humans. Of course, the have wings and pointy ears. Most faerie wings are butterfly wings, but there are some moth wings, dragonfly wings, or the ladybug wings.

Anyways, I walk through the marble halls, and stopped at a large oak wood door, which opened by itself.

Enchanted buildings are awesome.
"Ah, Miss Swan. Here is the room you will be spending the next three days in. You will receive more direct training and briefings about hunters and Hawthorne Hill." said an old mage, sitting in a squat brown leather chair.
He looks like he belonged in a human cartoon or something. He had a white beard that was a perfect triangle, and ended in a point near his potbelly.

His robe wasn't decorated with shiny stars or moons, but he did have a pointy hat on his head. Unfortunately, mages don't need wands, so my perfect "wizard cartoon come to life" image was not complete.

"Let's begin. So you know that Paranormals all walk with grace, and they are never clumsy. However, since Hunters are basically enhanced humans, they lack this grace. If you are to masquerade as a Hunter, you need to be able to mimic their clumsy, ungrateful movements. Today, we will cover walking, running, eating, and fighting."

"But shouldn't I be the best while fighting, and not have to worry that my movements aren't human like?" I asked.

"No, no, I meant when you are training. If you are fighting Hunters for real, that means they'll know what you are, so it won't matter anymore." he said.

"Okay. So what will we be covering tomorrow and the last day?"

"We will mostly just be doing final preparations. So now let's get started with the walking. To walk like a Hunter, you must lose your natural grace. Slap your feet on the floor. Slouch a little. If you are carrying books, you should drop them every once and a while."

I nodded and tried to walk that way, slouching and slapping my feet.

"No, no, no, no, no. That's all wrong. Less slouching, and try to not pick your feet up so much. You aren't going to be in a marching band."

This was going to be a long three days.

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Hey guys! Rose here. Sorry for the slow updates.... I had finals and stuff at school. Hope you're enjoying it so far!