1 Humble Beginnings (Patreon)

The location was just a street away and all I could think was, it's nice to be alone for once.

Since a few years ago I had been looking forward to not having to be escorted for all of my jobs. Now that I am by myself I can finally start moving my plan beyond the theoretical.

I bump into a passer-by on the street, making us both stumble backwards. I react quickly and apologise first, smiling embarrassedly and lowering my head deferentially even as the well dressed man simply scoffs at me and moves on without a word.

I purposefully don't roll my eyes at his lacking manners and simply wipe the smile off my face and get back to moving.

He seemed to think my smile was genuine enough so I think my practice is paying off. It was surprisingly difficult to be able to fake a proper smile, but then again, I suppose that I am out of practice so it only makes sense.

I brush passed a few more people on the way as I eventually made my way to the drop off point.

It was an innocuous building, plain brick walls with a faded wooden entrance with a sign on top of the door that is barely legible. Two windows either side of the door show the interior to be a depilated take out diner with only two tables and a few chairs with bent legs.

All of the colours are muted and worn, the furniture being the colour of steel with red on the top of the table and the cushion of the chairs, the counter that separates the eating area from where they cook is made of a dark wood and looks like it's been shot multiple times.

When I walk through the door that has 'Terrys Take Out' emblazoned on it, causing a bell above the door to ring, attracting the attention of the lone worker behind the counter who had previously been leaning back on the counter and daydreaming.

Terry looks to the sound of the bell and when he sees my perfectly neutral, expressionless face walking up to him. Without a word he simply opens up the counter for me to pass with a bored expression on his face.

This isn't the first time this has happened after all.

I walk through and past Terry, who goes back to lazing around without any customers to occupy him. I keep walking, past the various ovens and such that are necessary for a legitimate business such as this.

When I get to the door at the back I open it to reveal a set of stairs going down to the basement.

After going down a flight of stairs I open yet another door which reveals exactly what I am here for.

The door opens to a room filled with half naked women attending to tables covered in stacks and stacks of white powder.

I don't so much as look at the girls cutting the cocaine and instead just walk to the same corner at the back as always.

Waiting for me there is Mike and another two guys who I don't know. All of them are armed and playing poker. They only notice me when I am a few steps away.

The first to notice me is one of the guys I don't know, who taps the other two's arms to get their attention and nods over to me with a raised eyebrow.

"There you are Jack!" Mike calls out before checking his watch, "Just on time, as always."

Naturally, I ignore him. I walk past the poker table to an area marked out with yellow tape on the floor, then I turn to look back at Mike.

"What's with the kid, Mike?" One of the other guys asks with a queer look to his face.

Mike turns back to him with a grin and ruffles my hair hard enough that I bend at the waist.

"This is Jake, he's the delivery guy."

"Isn't he a bit young to be in this kind of place?" Goon number one asks.

"Eh, he's all fucked in the head anyway so it doesn't really matter, I mean, look at him. He doesn't even speak." Mike says, slapping my face lightly one time, as if to prove his words about me.

The other two watch me a raised eyebrow as I simply keep my dead stare on Mike and don't respond to anything else.

"What's got him so fucked up?" Nobody Number Two speaks up again.

"He was one of Reave's 'till recently." Mike says, as if that explains everything.

Which, by the way the other two nod in response, it does.

With that out of the way, Mike finally says what I've been waiting for.

"Aight kid, go ahead."

With his words of confirmation a pallet of fresh cocaine appears in front of me between two blinks and without a sound I turn around and leave.

That's my power, Inventory. The ability to store anything I touch, within certain limitations, in a timeless hammerspace. Not too powerful, but certainly useful. At least, Karma certainly thinks so.

Karma is the 'organisation' that I 'work' for. Not that I really had much choice in the matter back then.

I remember when it happened.

I was only a babe at the time, not even three years old.

But I've always been abnormally smart, and my memory is far better than average.

So I remember what happened perfectly.

The sight of my father getting his brains blown out has been seared into my very soul ever since.

It was only much later that I heard the term they use for what happened.

They call it 'Supe Gambling'.

You see, some time ago, the state of the world changed.

Following a flash of Azure light across the globe, people started being born with abilities both mundane and awe inspiring.

Even after all this time we still don't know what caused this. The two biggest theories are that it was some space anomaly, a flash of radiation or something, that caused us to rapidly evolve, or connect to some nearby dimension in some manner.

The other, less scientific theory is that God died, and the Light was his power spreading over the world and becoming a part of us.

It doesn't really matter what the cause was though, all that matters is the effect it had on us.

At the start, things didn't change too much, there was only a little anarchy but society still stood. Then the first X-class being made himself known and everything changed once again.

Up until that point, people started ranking the strength of powers from E to S-class. E-class is something that is barely even noticeable, like having blue skin or something. The majority of people in the world are E-class.

On the other end of the spectrum is the S-class who can probably destroy a city with a little bit of effort.

Thankfully, there aren't many S-class people, but there are still more than is comfortable in my opinion.

After all, I'm only C-class. I don't want to face those terrifying individuals.

Now, here I am a whole decade later.

With my last job of the day done, I walk past Terry again and exit the building.

𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘰 '𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦', I think to myself as I start walking the streets once again.

It shouldn't take too long to get there but I take a few detours.

Now that I am finally allowed to go out alone I have made it a habit to spend as much time as I can walking around.

It's not like there is much to do at 'home', my time is much better spent out here, where I can be productive.

But no matter how much I delay, I have to return eventually.

The streets gradually start getting less and less crowded as I get closer to the industrial estate until I am walking alone, with only the occasional druggie or gangbanger passing me by. It's mostly the homeless that live around here, squatting in the many abandoned warehouses.

Eventually, I come across a warehouse that doesn't really look any different to the others around it, maybe a little more banged up that the rest.

It isn't really much to look at, but you know what they say, home is where the heart is.

My sarcastic thoughts accompany me as I walk up to the metal double doors of the nameless warehouse.

I knock a specific pattern and and a portion of the door is slid open at eye level, but because of my age the person on the other side and I cannot make eye contact. He can at least see the top of my head so he closes the latch and opens the door.

"You're late again Jack." Simon informs me with a stern voice, but, same as always, I only respond with a dead eyed stare and silence.

Simon sighs at that and mumbles something about wasting his effort as he steps to the side so I can go in.

The interior is much better than the battered up outside would suggest, but it still isn't exactly luxury.

Inside is a large open space cordoned off into different sections with a staircase at the side that leads to the loft.

The first half of the hall is split in half again, with the left side being a lounge area with sofas and a pair of TVs. The other side is a kitchen with many wooden cabinets filled with food and a few ovens to cook for us all.

The back half of the building however is much less homely, instead looking like a gym of sorts.

Where the first half has red carpets on the floor and some colour in the furniture, the latter half of the room is mostly the dull grey of concrete and cold steel. That half of the room is also covered in weights, benches, sandbags and even a ring to fight in.

That is where Reaver trains us.

Right now there are only two people in that half of the room, both of them only a few years older than me.

Ren and Charlie spend pretty much all of their free time training or sparring with each other, but the rest of us are split up between the lounge and the loft, where our rooms are.

In the lounge area there are nearly a dozen kids, all of them withing a few years of my age, and they are all playing some video game on the two TVs. Their attention however, is drawn to me thanks to the sound of the door opening.

However, after seeing who it is, they pretty much unanimously just go back to their games, ignoring me completely.

This serves me fine as I ignore them also and simply walk up the stairs and into the loft, not stopping until I am inside of my own room where I finally have some privacy.

My room is only a small one, barely enough space for a table and a desk. There is no colour or 'life' to the room, but that is just to better sell the picture.

I walk to the desk, disappearing my shoes as I do so, and take a seat.

In front of me, the empty desk suddenly has a pile of wallets on it. This is why I take detours.

As I start going through the wallets, taking out and sorting the cash, not bothering with anything else, I allow my thoughts to wonder.

I have never forgotten what these people did to my family, so I have been planning how to escape Karma for years now.

At first, I didn't really know how I would go about it, all I knew was that I didn't want to stay. Then I realised that it would be best if no one pays extra attention to me, if I can just blend into the background.

So I stopped speaking, or even emoting, and over time, people started to take even less notice of me. All until now, where people hardly even look at me. In their eyes, I am simply a broken kid that will do whatever I am told without a word of complaint.

But as I got a little older, I realised that I would need more than that, so I started scavenging as much money as I could. Money makes the world go around after all.

Frankly speaking, I am not entirely sure what I will be using the money for exactly, my situation isn't the greatest for education. I'm pretty much self taught and even then I don't exactly have access to a library or the internet.

But I do know that money will be incredibly helpful for anything I want to do, so I have been collecting as much as I can.

I sigh to myself once I'm done counting the cash, about two grand, and I lean back in my chair to stair at the ceiling.

I don't really know what the future holds, but surely it can be better than this.

Shaking my head clear of pointless thoughts, I return my money and wallets to my inventory and take out a book I managed to nab on the way back.

There is no rest. Only work.

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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

So, new story! This is the first chap of my first original. I'm not really sure how things will play out, but I am looking forward to it!

Advanced chapters with the links below!

pat/reon.com/user?u=41732867 (get rid of the first slash)

or

https://ko-fi.com/bored_works

Also, join the discord!

https://discord.gg/Pj3Dttwses