Chapter 1

They call it the City of Adventure for a Reason

Decker City, not the most elegant name to give a place. And an even less dignified place to live, the pier was empty like it always was, so not a single soul heard the splashes in the water next to the wooden deck. Like some dolphin, or maybe salmon someone came jumping out of the water dripping wet.

"Blegh, that took way longer than I thought," the teen whipped his hair as he sighed. His gaze shifted towards the distance, large buildings and neon lights flashed in his eyes. He smiled as he took a step forward, he didn't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing that he came during the night. Either way, he was happy to see the sights.

"Man, I'm glad I swam all the way here now..." he placed his hand on his jean jacket and took a deep breath. That instant all the water was drained from his clothing into a large orb floating above his hand. He threw it back into the ocean as he stretched slightly. He looked around, of course, no one would be at a pier at night as he started to make his way to the first street.

Despite the sights he had seen earlier, the street he was on was rather dirty and deserted. A stark contrast to the hustle and bustle of the lights in the distance, he crossed his arms and let out a sigh. "Damn it, despite me being all excited to come here, I didn't line anything up huh?" He shoved one of his hands into his sweatpants and scratched his head full of black hair.

He took out a small wallet as well as a few dollars. Twenty to be exact. "I...probably should have brought more than 20$ and a water bottle with me," he sighed and looked around. He didn't know if he was in the abandoned part of town or what. The only signs of life were the occasional homeless person sleeping on the trash.

He took another step, traveling through what he assumed to be the bowels of the city. He grumbled, he was pretty sure nothing else could go wrong as he casually walked into a back-alley. Not really looking or caring where he was going. He then stopped and grumbled, this wasn't a very exciting start to his first day in the so-called city of adventure.

"What do we have here?" The teen twitched as he heard a voice creeping from behind him.

He turned around to see a single person male. A bit lanky, the best way to describe him would be like a human snake. Even his clothes were sleazy, consisting mostly of leather and chains.

The teen frowned slightly as he scratched his head, "Listen, you're looking at no one important...why don't we just go our separate ways? With any luck we will never see each other again," his voice was gruff as the man's eye twitched.

"You little brat! Don't you know I'm apart of the Blade Gang?"

"Is it because of your sharp personality?"

Another insult as the man chuckled, "you must be new here kid..." He then pulled out a few knives, well less like a few and more like half a dozen as the teen sighed taking out his water-bottle.

"I'll show just how scary the Blade Gang can be!" the man lowered himself preparing to throw his knives as the teen squeezed the bottom of his water-bottle, pointing the cap directly at his attacker.

The moment the knife thrower lifted his arms it was over. The sound of jetting water was heard as he instantly dropped his knives. The man slowly looked at his arm. The palm of his hand and his elbow had a capsize hole in it. I flinched as blood slowly poured out of his wounds.

"Holy shit that worked? Er, I mean just as planned..."He smirked as he started to walk up to the man. The gang member was now rolling on the alleyway ground holding his arm. He most likely thought he was going to bleed out. At least, that was why he was screaming.

"Ugh...stop crying you baby," the teen sighed as one of his fingers split open. A long stream of blood ejected out of his hand as the man flinched. The steam of blood flowed towards the palm and elbow of the main. After a few seconds, the bleeding had stopped. Leaving only two scabs where the wounds should have been.

The man crawled on his back, trying his best to gain distance.

"Y-you're one of those psychics aren't you?!" The man pointed as the teen sighed.

"You know I have a name, it's Allister Janik...but I guess that doesn't matter now," Allister scratched his head. "Still, even if you are apart of a gang, picking fights is pretty bad right? Everyone needs to be careful on nights like this, 'Victim A' might not be as weak as they look,"

The man staggered to his feet as backed away. "If you think I'll forget this you have another thing coming! I'm going to tell my boss about this!" The man walked away or rather ran away as Allister sighed.

"Man, not even an hour into this city and someone try to mug me..." He continued down the alleyway before finally coming out the other side.

It was as if someone flipped the switch on the world. There was no longer any dirty abandoned streets; rather it was closer to the bustling city that Allister had seen when he first arrived. He looked around and gave a great big grin, people were walking around and talking, cars traveled streets. It was far closer to a living city he had heard about.

He smiled, but that didn't solve his problem. Even worse he was out of the water now, no money no food and no job.

Before he could let his thoughts wander, he noticed the sound of car horns blowing as he flinched. He looked around; he was pretty sure he was on the sidewalk, so it wasn't for him. He looked towards the street as his heart skipped a beat, there was just a small girl with a hood on. She looked like a tiny witch, walking in the middle of the road, not caring for traffic at all.

Allister froze for a moment as he looked around, most people were just staring as he grumbled. He took a deep breath as he dashed into the middle of the road, scooping up the hooded girl and throwing her onto the sidewalk.

"O-ouch! What the heck mister!" The girl snapped as she rubbed her head. She had long brown hair in twin braids as Allister grumbled.

"Don't be stupid, you shouldn't just stand in the middle of the street like that!"

The girl tilted her head, "golly, you should follow your advice mister..."

Allister then examined where he was standing. He was so worried about getting the girl to safety he completely forgot he was standing in the middle of the street. He was prepared to move as a strange sound entered his ears. He only had time to turn his head before he was hit by a rather fancy looking vehicle

He was flung back a few feet as he landed harshly on the pavement. He let out a harsh groan; he wasn't going to walk that off, not anytime soon as he felt his vision started to fade slowly. He was going to black out, and there was nothing he could do about it, he didn't even know if he was going to wake up.

"Whatever, I'll sleep before I do so I will have to wake up..." At that moment, he passed out.

Was it darkness? No doubt it was, Allister wondered a simple thing, was he dead? Did his fleshy prison cease to function? He could feel her limbs, but there was nothing but darkness perhaps. If he were dead now would be the time to recount the events of her life.

"Wow...by life fucking sucked," his eyes then slowly opened as he stared at the ceiling. To much of his surprise it looked quite beautiful, not something you would expect from a hospital. Well, that is where Allister assumed he was. He finally sat up as he took a deep breath. The room seemed to belong to some rich person or something. Expensive vases lined the walls as he slowly got out of the bed.

"So you are finally awake?" A female voice as Allister turned and faced the woman. She was tall, with long black hair and tanned skin. She was wearing what appeared to be a large fur coat with stockings both of which looked very expensive.

"Um yeah, I guess you're the one that helped me huh? Thanks,"

The woman quickly shook her head and gave a nervous smile. "No need to thank me, after all, I was the one driving the vehicle that struck you. I am just ecstatic that you are awake, well I do suppose it would not matter if you awoke or not..."

Allister laughed slightly; he noticed she had a way of using a lot of works to say something rather simple.

The woman then scanned Allister before she tapped her lip. "Hmm, you are not from around here are you?"

"Is it that easy to tell? Where am I anyway?"

The woman scoffed as she ran her fingers through her hair. "You are in the largest building in Downtown as well as my home. You are currently in the Foscarota mini manor, and you are in the presence of Ciclista Foscarota!"

It seemed she also was rather proud of her family name. Though, one thing that Alistair noticed was that her complexion didn't match her name, or maybe he was noticing something pointless. "So you own this place?"

Ciclista nodded.

"Well, can I ask you one more question, why didn't you take me to the hospital?"

"Oh simple, I only wanted to see if you were going to open your eyes! After all, if I had taken you to the hospital and you died there, I could have been charged with man-slaughter. This way if you had died, I would have simply disposed of your body in the nearby pier or maybe sewer..."

Allister simply looked at Ciclista; he didn't know if it was a joke or if she was serious. "You have a way with words, a scary way with words..."

"W-wait, perhaps that was too blunt, I apologize..."

Allister scratched his head; she was an awkward person to say the least. Well regardless of the situation he was in, perhaps fortune had smiled upon him,

"Hey, you're loaded, do you know where I could get a job,"

"I do not, unfortunately, not in Downtown at least. Outside some...organization leaders, if you are poor and living in Downtown, the chances are you are going to stay there. However, there is a particular kind of jobs you could do for me...if you don't mind that is,"

Allister perked up; it seemed he did catch a break.

"Sweet, what kind of jobs are we talking about?"

Ciclista coughed slightly before she started to explain. "Listen, this...organization, may not be the...kindest you have ever seen, and the jobs that revolve around this organization may not always be on the up and up. However, the organization leader is always looking for new members! Even better if they are psychics!"

The more Allister heard about this organization, the more weary he became. So, he realized that it might be best just to be blunt with his next question.

"Is this 'organization' a gang?"

"Yes," the woman gave a huge sigh. It seemed that she was glad she no longer had to keep up a rather pointless lie as Allister slumped her shoulders once again the woman just stated something bluntly.

"You know, you should be more careful about that, I mean I might have been an undercover cop or something, but that's besides the point. Are you offering me a spot in your gang, a person you just met a place? I mean I might be awful at this," Allister eyes narrowed, he hadn't decided if he was going to accept the offer or not. After all, there is the certain risk with being in a gang, like being arrested or killed by another rival gang.

"Well, you don't have to if you don't want to...you can leave, I mean it was just a suggestion,"

It was awkward, really awkward, the conversation was just odd, from how it started to how it was going. If Allister didn't know any better, he would have thought it was a dream, but that wasn't the case. He was in a fancy house, in front of a gang member being asked if he wanted to join.

"You know what, sure why not," Allister was already there, and it wasn't like he had some obligation not to join a gang.

The woman's eyes widened, she was shocked at the casual statement. Then again, this was the first time the woman recruited someone to the gang; the fact it was so easy was probably the strangest part of the whole thing.

"W-well, I...hmm I guess that is fine since you're apart of the gang now I suppose I should tell you to want you're getting into," Ciclista then whispered something to herself as she motioned Alister towards the door to the room. Once they both exited, a large hallway stretched forward, it seemed the building had a lot of rooms and places. Allister was still confused about why the building was so big, as Ciclista started to walk. Allister was walking right next to her.

It was around this moment Allister realized something about the woman, she was tall, not just tall for a woman, but just really, really tall. Taller than most men he had seen actually.

"Wow you're tall,"

The woman froze at Allister comment as the woman bit his thumb; it seemed that she didn't like being reminded on how tall she was. "Could you please not say that I dislike it immensely. Anyway I did not think when I hit you with Speed Chart No.1 I would be hiring you,"

"Speed...Chart?" Allistirwords was enough to allow the woman to explain further.

"The name of my car, I call it No.1 because it's the fastest vehicle in the manor the other two are called Speed Chart No.2 and No.3," The woman pointed that fact out as Allister nodded his head.

"Is this place a manor?" Allister looked around, but all the doors were either closed or empty as Ciclista simply gave a small chuckle.

"We call it an manor, but it was originally an inn...not that its been used in such a way for awhile. When the surrounding area grew more dangerous, the inn lost clients and was sold off. My mother bought the building after the gang started to earn a lot of money. Right now it's my home as well as a place where we hold meetings to plan on what we are going to do next,"

"Oh...so your mom is the leader of the gang, and you two live here?" The building was rather large, especially for two people as.

"Yes...but my mother is, no longer with us,"

Allister winced, before trying to give a false smile and probably say the most cliché line in his mental inventory.

"Sorry to hear,"

The woman nodded before continuing, "Yes, it happened about four weeks ago...she went on vacation spouting something along the lines 'I can't have a young lass following around, you could take all the young men I could seduce!' so she went to the beach without me..."

Allister eye twitched, but he was somewhat relieved. At least, he didn't say anything completely insensitive. "Um, so what do we do in this gang?"

"Hmm, well, usually we just steal stuff from warehouses and sell it at a higher price. However, recently gang activity have been at an all time low, and we've been losing members rather rapidly. It seems that even the poor don't want to risk being arrested or don't even bother with that sort of thing. I mean, I and my mother will be fine since she's been doing it for years and have enough money saved for three lifetimes. But other members just enough and got...normal jobs!"

She said those last two words with a surprising amount of disdain as Allister scratched the back of his head.

"Well, how many members are still a part of the gang,"

"As of this moment, there are currently two members of the Heavy Flame gang, you and me!" Ciclista said those words as if it wasn't a problem as Allister bit his lip.

"That's not a gang! That is barely a get-together!" A two person gang seemed rather silly as Ciclista pouted slightly.

"That is only for the moment, once we start getting the money we should make new members in no time...in fact, I have a job that I want to be done tonight!"

Allister merely looked at her for a moment, "already?"

"Why yes, before it would have been impossible to do alone, but with two psychics it is a rather simple matter,"

"Oh, she is a Psychic too? I guess I'll make a mental note of that,"

"What's the job?"

"We will be stealing a few crates worth of items from a nearby Briskit Company warehouse..."

That seemed simple enough, plus it seemed like the kind of job that no one would get hurt doing.

"Sure, what do we need?"

"Funny you should ask that," Ciclista chuckled darkly, for some reason Allister had a feeling he was going to regret asking.