Chapter 25

The next morning Jack was looking at his shredded combat trousers and the sleeves of his favourite hoodie that he’d worn the night before, they were covered in blood and beyond saving. Likewise his flak jacket was looking a little battered but still serviceable. He looked at his arms and legs, by all rights he should be in the hospital needing stitches and more blood probably, but instead the numerous cuts had already scabbed over. His face also looked a bit of a mess, several long scabbed over cuts were visible and he could feel them on his scalp too, Jack really hoped they wouldn’t scar. Now he knew why people were giving such weird looks as he walked home last night.

This told him one very important thing, he needed more armour, or at the very least a helmet.

He took one last regretful look at his favourite and most comfortable hoodie he’d ever worn and threw it into the bin. He put on a tee shirt and jeans and headed out to the hunters guild headquarters.

Once he’d arrived he was directed by the girl manning the front desk to head up the stairs to the first floor to conference room two. He thanked her and headed up. He found it quickly and saw that it looked like a glass walled conference room with a long table surrounded by comfortable looking swivel chairs.

Nobody else was in there so he let himself in and sat at the head of the table. It was ten o’clock but no one else was there, so Jack did the natural thing and began spinning around in his chair as fast as he could. Naturally this is when someone decided to walk in.

“Hello Mr Errant? Sorry we’re a bit…….late?” A guy in a suit walked in followed by a young woman in a pantsuit and then Russell who had to turn slightly to get his bulk through the door.

Jack stopped spinning, he quickly turned to face them and dizzily got up, but unfortunately he immediately lost his balance, he put his hand out to balance himself but succeeded only in grasping the woman’s chest. She yelped in surprise and jumped back, shielding herself with a touchpad, Jack managed to steady himself on the table. They all looked at each other awkwardly for a few seconds, Jack reflected that as far as first impressions went, immediately groping one of your interviewers was probably not the way to go about things.

After a few seconds Jack decided to break the stalemate. “Er yeah, I’m Jack Errant, here for the promotion hunt review thingy.” He said to the group before turning to the annoyed looking brunette. “Um, sorry I touched your boobs.” He tried to look ashamed but the slight upturn in his mouth probably didn’t help him sell it, surely she would find it a little funny like he did.

The thinning lips and frown on her face told him that no, she didn’t find it amusing at all. She frowned at him silently. The man in the suit clearly decided to move things along.

“Right right, never-mind, accidents happen. Shall we get to it then?” He sat down in a chair and looked down at his touchpad, everyone else sat down too, the young woman silently followed suit after one last look of contempt at Jack.

“Now then, let's see here.” The man continued, scrolling through his screen. “Jack Errant, G rank, lighting element.” The woman snorted. “Applying for F rank promotion, successful promotion hunt yesterday, extermination of giant Pipistrelles. Everything appears in order, we just need your supervisor's approval and you’re all set.” He looked back up at Jack with a smile.

Everyone turned to Russell who was leaning back in his chair, looking out the window, not looking like he was paying attention in the slightest. The suit cleared his throat loudly and Russell looked over to them and saw everyone looking at him, he was unfazed.

“Yeah?”

“Er, do you think you could provide us with your assessment of Mr Errant’s performance on last night's hunt? And whether he should be promoted?” The man nervously asked.

Russell was quiet for a few seconds as he regarded Jack. Then he spoke. “Jack is a good fighter, he’ll be perfectly fine taking F rank hunts.” Russell said simply.

They all waited for a few seconds but he didn’t elaborate.

“Um, ok, well then I think that concludes today's assessment, thank you everyone for your time. Mr Errant your application for promotion to F rank is approved.” The suit tapped something on his touchpad and Jack's pager buzzed, he took it out and saw a message saying he was now F rank. Both suits got up and walked out. And that was that.

Jack sat still for a few seconds, slightly confused, that was it? He looked to Russell, who didn’t seem to be in a hurry to go either, just sat leaning back in his chair, looking through his pager.

Jack shrugged and got up to go. “Thanks Russell, see ya later.”

“Wait a second Jack.” Russell spoke up. Jack halted just as he was opening the door.

“What's up?”

“I’m giving you my assessment now.” He said.

“What? Then what was that just now?” Jack replied in confusion.

“That was just box ticking, there's a hell of a lot of bureaucracy in an organisation like this and it only gets worse as you rank up, especially when you get to B rank, it's why I’m not looking forward to my own promotion to A rank.” Russell shrugged with a deep regretful sigh.

“Uh…” Jack didn’t know how to reply.

“Anyway, you don’t need to worry about that. Like I said, I'm giving you my assessment now.”

“Right, let's hear it then.” Jack leaned forward, suddenly a little nervous.

“You are a good up close fighter, you use that spear and axe properly and your lightning element seems to mesh well with any melee weapon. But, you won’t be able to progress any further in this organisation beyond F rank and I’m going to have to make that recommendation to the director.” Russell explained.

“What? What do you mean?” Jack asked with his stomach feeling like it was dropping slightly.

“Last night you immediately plunged directly into a monster nest and allowed yourself to get surrounded, you managed to fight your way free because those giant bats go down easily to a solid hit. But what about if the monsters that surround you aren't so weak and it takes more than one hit to take them down?”

“Erm, well I….I….I dunno.”

“What I'm saying is that you need a ranged attack, you can’t just keep charging straight into a monster's face.”

“Can’t I just use a gun?” Jack asked.

Russell sighed. “Guns are fine for F rank and some E rank monsters, but after that monsters tend to have tough natural armour or they’re too fast for you to aim at, if all you’ve got is a gun in your hands when a Night Mannequin closes the gap then you’re completely fucked.”

They were both silent for a few seconds. Before Jack smiled and shrugged feeling relieved, it was just a matter of his element then. “Is that all? That's ok then, I just need to keep developing my abilities til I get a ranged attack, I feel like I’m close already.”

Now it was Russells turn to be confused. “Er, I thought you were a lightning element? How are you going to develop your abilities when……..oh…..oh, that explains some things.” Russells eyes widened. This might have been the first emotional reaction Jack had ever seen in Russell. “You can cultivate can’t you?” Russell asked.

Jack leaned back in his chair and nodded smugly. Informing another person was probably not advisable but Russell seemed like a trustworthy solid guy.

“Well that changes some things I suppose, who else knows?” Russell asked.

“I would also like to know that too.” The glass door opened and in walked a cheerful director Welts followed by Cheryl. “Hello Russell, hello Jack, hope you're both well today.” He said with a friendly smile.

“Uh, director Welts I…” Russell straightens in his chair.

“They know, apparently.” Jack said, pointing to them.

“Ah, sorry to just barge in Jack but I’ve been meaning to have this conversation with you for a little while now, discreetly. Now seemed like the best time.” Welts said.

“Yeah, Cheryl said you knew, it's fine I suppose.” Jack said with a shrug.

“Excellent! Now then, can I ask who else who knows that you can actually cultivate the lightning element?” Welts seemed serious but at the same time managed to maintain his friendly demeanour, he’s good at this.

“Um, you guys plus Stacey and the guy who supplies me with armour and weapons, Gary from Gary’s Monstrous Alloys. Oh and Rachael and Zack probably too.” Jack said.

“Don’t worry I already had a talk with Zack and Rachael, and is that Stacey Fairchild?” Welts looked to Cheryl who nodded. “That's fine then, I heard she’s a sensible one and as a hunter she’s already signed the standard non disclosure agreement for this sort of thing, in any case if you could have a talk with her Cheryl?” He asked Cheryl who nodded again.

“Although I’m not familiar with Gary’s Monstrous Alloys.” He continued. “I’ll have to find where that is and visit it for myself. Is it in hunters plaza?”

“No, it's over on the high street, I can go there too.” Cheryl said.

“Ah, brilliant thanks Cheryl. Now then Jack, you yourself have limited the number of people you told about this matter, we have our own reasons for not wanting too many people to know about this just yet. For now though, well, you're actually not obliged to tell us this if you don’t want to, but how exactly do you cultivate the lightning element?” At this Cheryl looked at him intently and Russell actually showed interest and leaned forward in his chair, the director steepled his fingers and looked at Jack calmly.

“Um, well, I tried all the usual stuff you know, batteries, remote controls, old phones, anything with a bit of electricity in them.” Jack explained and Welts nodded in understanding. “But that never worked, I’d always get this sudden rush of uncontrollable energy and it would just feel like I was electrocuting myself. So later on I tried my hand at monster hunting and I learnt about how to attune a monster corpse when you want to harvest something from it.” At this both Cheryl and Welts leaned forward and Cheryl gained a triumphant gleam in her eye.

“Er yeah, so anyway I killed this lizard monster thingy and tried to see if I could attune it, turns out I could, but then I thought the energy I felt inside the monster felt similar to electricity so I tried pulling the energy back in. And that was when I cultivated, I pulled in a whole bunch of lightning energy, far more than what I’d put in.” Jack sat back and looked expectantly at the others.

They stared at him for a few seconds before Welts spoke up. “And why do you think you're able to cultivate from monsters and not other sources?”

“Well that's sort of for the same reason I’ve been trying not to tell anyone else.”

“Oh? Do tell.”

“I think the best explanation is that I can cultivate from anything that has a nervous system, or cells that can conduct a charge, something that has charged ions like sodium and calcium, electrolytes and things like that maybe.” Jack explained.

“Ahh, yes, now that could explain it, hmm yes, but why not share your findings, it's common practice for cultivators to share details of their successes online these days.” Welts said

“Yeah I thought of that, but….this technique is…..well….dangerous, telling other lightning elements to go out and kill monsters, they could get killed themselves, I didn’t really want that on me. Then I thought it's probably not just monsters I can use to cultivate but any living thing really. I don’t mind getting my hands dirty on a hunt, but what about other lightning elements? What are they gonna use? Animals? Other people? Everyone's going to look at lightning elements like we’re all potential serial killers or predators or vampires or whatever, I mean, what if I want to adopt a cat or something?”

Everyone looked uncomfortable at that before Welts spoke again. “What about you Jack, have you tried it on anything else? Or someone-”

“No.” Jack cut him off. “I haven’t tried it on anything or anyone else, only the monsters and mutated animals I’ve killed on official hunts.”

“Hmm, well then, I commend your sense of ethics and discretion. It appears we need to keep as few people in the know about this as possible for the time being and decide what to do later, can’t have this coming out too soon. It could get…..messy.”

“That's what I said!” Jack explained.

“And Russell, I’m sure we can count on your own discretion?” Welts asked.

“Yeah, but you won’t be able to hide it forever.” He warned. “I saw something was up in the apartment building with the goblins, his axe was practically glowing, streaked with electricity, he was cutting up gobins like they were made out of butter.”

“Don’t worry, I have some people I use to cover up things like this.” Welts assured him.

That sounded vaguely sinister to Jack before he remembered the hunt for Pixie the mutated dalmatian.

“Pixie! That was you!” He exclaimed, as if that explained anything.

Director Welts just looked confused. “Pardon me?”

Cheryl spoke up. “Jack hunted that mutated dalmatian for us a little while ago, I believe its name was Pixie. Before we realised it was Jack taking the hunt, another pickup team had been assigned to collect the corpse. I got there with our team a short time after they arrived, fortunately they didn’t see anything so I don’t think they suspect anything.”

“That was your cover up team!” Jack said. Cheryl just nodded smugly. “Oooh, very men in black of you.”