The letter is a little on the short side, but what it says is… stunning. Never did I expect something like this to come my way. Even when someone jokingly made a comment about it when I was younger, I dismissed it.

Mister Kieran Wolf,

You are probably wondering how I got this envelope into your mailbox. The answer is quite simple: a Sivalshi Guardian picked the lock and stuck it in there after being given the envelope and the instructions to deliver it to you.

As you are likely guessing, I am the Patron of Sivalshi City. Recently, I have begun to see the need of a teleporter more and more, and as you are well aware, you possess the ability to teleport, even if there are limitations to it.

Therefore, I would like to extend an offer to you. I am asking that you become one of my Sivalshi Guardians, to help protect the city against threats to the overall peace.

If you accept this offer, then you may use the money to pay your bills for the next month, feed yourself, and find yourself a place to train your power and your abilities. Be advised that you will need combat training and the willingness to kill when necessary.

If you decline this offer, then put the cash, earpiece, and this letter back into the envelope, then stick the envelope back into your mailbox.

If you accept, then in thirty days, I will assess your progress in your training, Kieran. Should it be sufficient, then I will contact you for your first mission and you will become my employee, with a payment for each job which you perform. Should your abilities not be sufficient, then I will expect a full refund of what I have expended on you for this within six months.

Patron of Sivalshi City

After finishing reading through the letter the first time, I read through it a second time. I have to, just to process what I read. If this is true, then the Patron has contacted me and wants me as a Sivalshi Guardian. There's a chance it's someone screwing with me, but with the fresh bills, the expensive-looking earpiece, and their ability to find out that I'm able to walk through shadows… I don't think it could be anyone but the Patron.

Does the power of teleportation really hold that much value to the Patron? Is it really so rare that he'd have to use someone who hasn't used it since the panicked discovery of it when I was five?

My power isn't teleportation per se, but shadow-walking. I can step into one shadow and come out of another. However, only my body travels through them, no clothes as well. It traumatized my five-year-old self when this power was discovered because of that.

Though that particular trauma is gone, I've never used the ability again. I've done just fine without it.

Yet now the Patron is asking me to use it for him, telling me that I can earn money with it. Why? Shouldn't there be someone with a much better version of this ability? An actual teleporter, for example? There are twelve million people in the city, and one percent of the population has powers. That's a hundred and twenty thousand people the Patron could pull from.

Looking at the stack of bills, I reach over and grab it, counting through. My bills for each month total up to fifteen hundred, and that's with skimping on food and supplies. There are twenty-two bills, each one valued at one hundred dollars.

Enough money to pay my bills for the month, buy some better food, and money leftover to find a place that can help me train my power and possibly a place to train in martial arts, as lesser as my skills will be after just a month.

At least, that's true when factoring in the money I've already earned for this month's bill so far. Without that, I'd probably barely be able to afford a place to train my powers and not a place to train in combat. If I hadn't already bought some food and saved some money for the bills this month, would the Patron have sent me more money? Or would I have to make do with this as some sort of test to see what I manage without good resources?

While there's the issue of me losing my clothes every time I shadow-walk, I can probably talk with the staff at whatever place I find and see what they say about that. I don't have a spellsuit tailored to my power, but if I become a Sivalshi Guardian, I'm pretty sure the Patron would supply one. It's probably not possible to rent a spellsuit, though.

If I wanted one outside of the ones the Patron supplies to his warriors, I'd have to pay tens of thousands of dollars and have it tailored for my power. There's no way a place just has one of those sitting around, waiting for someone to rent it.

Running through the cash again, I pull out seven bills and stuff them into my pocket, then grab my shoes and pull them back on. There's no reason not to start looking now.

While I'm a bit iffy on the job needing me to kill people, the Patron chose me over all other possible candidates for a reason that I'm sure I'll one day learn if I work for him long enough. Though I'd rather stay with the temp jobs or find something more long-term but not as risky, something about the offer appeals to me. I support the Patron, and if he wants me to help him keep the peace in the city, then I'll do that, no matter what it takes, no matter the risk to myself.

So I leave my apartment and make my way out of the apartment building. I know of a place for power users to train their abilities in, a bit further away from my apartment than comfortable, but still worth checking out. Hopefully, it's not too expensive.

The facility takes me almost forty minutes to reach, and when I arrive, I look at it. It's fairly large, though not a high-rise like most residential or work buildings. Standing as a business by itself, it even has its own parking lot. Both of those are rare enough on their own. From what I know, it's about four stories tall and has a lot of facilities inside to help people with powers train them. However, those 'stories' take up more than four normal stories, as it's four stories where two of them together roughly equal the height of a basketball court.

Its walls are a bland grey, and there are several cars in the lot. Most of its windows are high up, probably to avoid having people try to break them for whatever reason. Some people like to do that to standalone centers like this.

Walking inside, I take in the polished tile floors, the functional lights, the polished reception desk, the glass in the doors, the cushioned seats without any damage to them, and all the other signs of a place that's probably actually pretty expensive. What's this place doing here in the lower districts?

"Hello," one of the two ladies sitting behind the desk greets me when I approach it. "How can I help you today, sir?"

"I was wondering what a membership cost?" I ask.

"A month-to-month membership," she says. "Costs three hundred dollars. A yearly membership is two-fifty a month, set as a contract for twelve months. There's a sign-up fee of one hundred dollars for each. With it comes full use of our facilities. If you want a membership with a trainer, it's an additional hundred per month for the monthly and extra seventy-five per month for the yearly.

"The standard membership," she tells me. "Does allow you one free training session with a trainer per month. The trainer membership grants you access to a trainer anytime you're in here, and you're also able to request to work with specific trainers."

Overall, this is cheaper than I was expecting. By a few hundred dollars. And I wasn't even expecting them to offer trainers, too, not with them being in a lower district. How do they fund all of this and still manage to keep the place maintained?

"Before I give you the paperwork to look over," she says. "I do need to ask if you're a power user. This facility is catered to helping them train their abilities, so it's not that suited for someone looking for a fitness program."

I suppose it makes sense that they'd want to check that first, for the reason she stated. Someone might come in thinking it's a normal fitness place and then get put off by the lack of normal equipment or by the presence of people training powers around them.

There's no point in hiding my ability, either. Not when they'll probably discover it as I train it, anyway. It would be hard to get a personal trainer to help me if I don't tell them, and still probably unlikely if I do tell them. This power is pretty rare, and I knew that even before the Patron's letter.

"I'm a power user," I nod. "My power is shadow-walking. I've never used it except the time I discovered it, so I'm pretty, well, bad with it. I figure it's time that I learned how to use it properly. Do you have someone able to help me with that?"

"We do," she smiles. "Surprisingly enough. Such abilities are pretty rare, but one of our staff members is a light-walker, the inverse of your power."

Instead of moving through shadows, he moves through light. I just happen to go somewhere that has someone like that? What are the odds of that?

"If you'd like a free, two-hour consultation with him," she says. "It's only ten dollars. He's here right now, so we can set that up now if you want. He can give you a tour of our facilities, some lessons on your ability, and figure out a training plan for optimal results for you."

Ten dollars seems kind of cheap for all of that, so I pull out my wallet and pull out two of the five-dollar bills in it, then fill out the paperwork she gives me. Once I finish and pay, she picks up her walkie.

"Luke, come on up," she says. "We've got someone who needs a consultation, and you're the best trainer for him."

"Auntie Tabby, what have we talked about?"

Auntie Tabby?

"Lucas," she says. "Please come on up."

"Be there in a second, Tabitha," he says.

I suppose he dislikes the nickname.

"He'll be here shortly," Tabitha smiles at me.

"He's your nephew?" I ask.

"A few of us here are related," she informs me. "My father owns the place, and he inherited it from his father. Dad and Lucas are the only ones who inherited the light-walking power. Most of us can't do much, but my sister – his mother – married a man who could manipulate light as well, so Lucas had a higher chance of inheriting more."

Inheriting more? People can have more than one ability? Someone with two parents with similar powers can inherit more than them, too?

"I see," I say.

"Ah," she seems to remember something. "You don't have an issue working privately with a gay guy, do you? If so, we can arrange for someone else. I'd forgotten that some people react rather negatively, and he's wearing a bracelet that causes most people to assume it immediately."

So my trainer is gay? Is he cute?

"No, that's fine," I tell her.

"OWOWOWOWOWOWOW!"

We all look over to find a very hot guy who looks about my age walking towards us, dragging someone twice our age by the ear and looking rather stern. The guy our age has blond hair and bright green eyes, and is dressed in a grey polo tucked into dark blue pants and is wearing black and grey sneakers. That polo fits him rather nicely, showing off his lean build.

There's a walkie fixed to the black, leather-looking belt, a rainbow silicon bracelet and a black and blue watch on his left wrist. Hanging around his neck is a silver necklace, though it's tucked under his shirt, so I can't see if there's something hanging from it or not.

The man he's dragging has brown hair streaked through with grey, brown eyes, and is dressed in rather thin clothes, a bit like me. He's also a bit dirty.

"How many times," the blond guy says. "Do I have to kick you out before you stay out?"

"Please," the guy begs. "I'll do anything, just-"

"No," comes the stern response. "You were banned from here ten years ago, Eric. I catch you here again and so help me, I'll put your ass in the ground. Got it?"

The twink-looking guy drags the guy outside, then quite literally kicks his ass hard enough to send the guy to the ground.

"Where was he this time?" Tabitha asks.

"In one of the ball rooms," the twink-looking guy answers. "Caught him before he managed to do anything."

The twink-looking guy suddenly turns and approaches the doors, performing a roundhouse kick to the air. There's a scream, then Eric materializes, crashing to the ground. So the trespasser can turn invisible, then? And the twink-looking guy can detect him anyway.

"That's it," the twink-looking guy grabs him by the arm and pins him to the ground, then grabs his walkie. "Thomas, get your ass down to the lobby and keep hold of Eric. Get the authorities on the way. I'm tired of dealing with his shit."

"On my way," a man responds through the walkie.

"Is that Lucas?" I ask Tabitha.

"Yep," she smiles. "The best of our family at detecting invisible people. That particular ability is a form of light manipulation, so to someone who can sense light? Rather easy to notice."

Lucas is hot, though the look on his face is a bit concerning. Will I have to worry about him being sadistic during the consultation? Is that why they allow such things, to see if we'll actually get along?

A minute passes before an older-looking version of Lucas shows up and walks over to Eric, grabbing him and pulling him to his feet as Lucas steps away. He's dressed in the same outfit as Lucas, minus the chain and bracelet, though he's wearing a black and green watch on his left wrist.

"They'll be here in about twenty minutes," Thomas tells Lucas. "You can be absolutely certain I won't be letting him escape."

"Thanks," Lucas responds, then lets out a heavy breath before approaching and giving Tabitha a friendly smile. "So! This him?"

That's an attitude change.

"Yep," she says. "Kieran, this is Lucas. Lucas, this is Kieran. Lucas, Kieran's ability is shadow-walking, and he's interested in getting some training here."

"Okay," Lucas turns to me. "So, Kieran. Let's start walking and talking, shall we?"