In the corner of a dark alley, the shadows gathered. They coalesced into the figure of a man before solidifying. The man wore a mask that fully obscured his face, and a long jacket. "Why are shadow teleports always so uncomfortable?" he mumbled under his breath before walking forward. "I really need to find a way to use my own magic to travel."

He made his way out onto a larger street while carefully checking around himself. The street was entirely devoid of anyone, and was lined with empty buildings. Despite the quiet, he felt like he was being watched. He just couldn't be sure by what.

All of a sudden he felt a presence behind him. He span to face it with his weapon drawn, but immediately recognised who it was. It was one of his coworkers. He had never really talked with her before, but she was known to be one of the most experienced in the organisation. She looked to be in her early thirties with long, dark hair that was tied back. She was also wearing a similar jacket to him, but her's was adorned with badges on the sleeve.

"It looks like we've landed ourselves on the same mission," she said.

"So it seems," he said, before turning and continuing up the street alongside her.

"Have you found anything yet?"

"Not yet, but I've had this feeling of being watched ever since I came onto this street."

"That doesn't sound too good. By the way, I don't think we've ever met before. I'm Edith Menenger."

"Alphie."

"Just Alphie? Do you not have a surname?"

"I do, I just don't usually share my surname. It usually causes more trouble than it's worth. That's the same reason why I wear this mask."

"Is that also why your such a lone wolf?"

"I act alone most of the time because I don't usually need any assistance. This mission was marked as strictly two person, which is the only reason that I ever work in a team."

'No wonder he's climbing through the ranks so quickly if he completes most of his missions solo,' she thought to herself. "Okay then. By the way, I use fire magic to fight. Just so that you're aware"

"Thanks for letting me know."

They continued on for a short while until they heard a sound coming from one of the side passages. It sounded like claws scrabbling on cobbles. The two of them looked at each other and immediately knew that they had found their target. They only had a brief moment to prepare themselves before a beast charged out into the street. It looked like a giant bear with massive, curved horns. It also had long jagged claws that glowed with sinister energy.

They immediately charged towards the beast, both attacking from different sides. The man started chanting as he approached it, and his coworker's sword began to glow with flames. She reached the beast first and managed to put a scorching gash into its side. He then completed his spell and pointed his palms out toward the monster. It seemed to weaken and its glowing claw's faded momentarily. Edith took this opertunity to put another fiery gash along its back. Once the monster had recovered, it slashed out towards her and struck the stone street. An explosion of rock chips and dust burst forth from the impact.

The woman continued to fight against the monster for a while, but was unable to deal a fatal blow. Just then, another spell was cast towards the monster. This time the beast almost immediately fell to the ground. It seemed to be unable to get up, so while it was still struggling, the man rushed forward and plunged his sword into it's back. It let out a guttural, howling screech. Before the sword embedded in its body brought its life to an end.

"Took you long enough," she said, while panting for breath.

"I needed time to figure out what spells would work to defeat it, it didn't respond the way I expected it to. Also, considering the power of your magic, I'm surprised that you didn't manage to take it out on your own."

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"It seemed unusually strong for a beast of its type. And did you see those glowing red claws? It looked like it had some sort of magic strengthening them."

"Hm...Now that I think about it, when it hit the ground earlier with those claws it created a small crater." he said, while pointing to a part in the road that looked like a giant hammer had smashed a hole in it. "If I didn't know any better, I would have said that someone, or something, had used magic to strengthen it."

"What makes you think that it's so unlikely?"

"Because its body would instinctually reject the foreign energy, even if it was intended to strengthen it. You need a pretty large amount of power and control in order to circumvent that limitation. In addition, forcing it can cause more harm than good. Although, there are some monsters that have the ability to strengthen other monsters."

"You seem pretty knowledgeable about this stuff."

"My magic works on a similar principle, just in reverse. It's just that it's much easier to damage something than to repair or strengthen it."

"I guess that's true enough. Anyway, we should get this thing back to base." She said, while gesturing towards the monster's body.

Together they dragged it over to a dimly lit corner of the street. They then both pulled from their pockets, identical palm sized metal disks. The discs had carved markings on them that delicately covered their entire surface. They both held the discs in one hand, and firmly grasped a section of the monster with the other. They then channeled mana into the discs, and the they began to glow. After a moment, the shadows seemed to gather around them until they were completely obscured. The swirling darkness then cleared away, and the street was left empty apart from the debris and remnants from their fight.

***

Inside of a large room there were three men sat at their desks. On the floor in the center of the room was a large circle drawn with intricate patterns within it. All of a sudden the circle began to glow. The three men jumped up and stood around the circle. They all pointed their hands in toward the center of the circle, and began to cast a spell.

The shadows in the room gathered, and soon there were two people in the middle of the room along with a large monster corpse.

The two of them helped each other to move the body to the side of the room. "Thanks for the teleport guys," Edith said.

"You sure did manage to bring in a big one this time," said one of the shadow mages.

"Yeah, it was one of the tougher ones I've fought."

Just then three more people came in the room. They came over and took the monster corpse into another room. "This is a bit of an unusual specimen you got here, I don't think I've ever seen one of these so big before"

"It seemed like it had been magically strengthened somehow," said Alphie.

"That could explain it, but if that's the case. That could mean that something far worse is going to show up sometime soon."

"I really hope not, but it does seem kinda likely."

"We'll make sure and properly examine it. We might be able to find out what's caused this," the mage said while seeming to contemplate something.

Alphie and Edith then left the teleportation room, and walked out through the organisation headquarters to the tavern area. The tavern was the main publicly accessible section of the building. It was also where the service desks were, where you could submit a monster hunting request. They were also where you went to select your next mission if you were a hunter. That naturally meant that it was one of the busiest sections of the building.

They quickly moved through the sea of people and tables and made their way to the exit.

"Thanks for the assistance today," Alphie said once they were outside.

"I thought you said that you never usually need assistance?" she responded.

"I don't, but it's polite to thank someone for their help."

"Right. Well, your welcome I guess. I'll see you around."

"Yeah."

They then went their separate ways. Alphie headed up the street towards his his accommodations. His trip only took him about five minutes thanks to the close proximity to the hunters guild. That was the main reason they he'd picked this place specifically. That fact did mean that it was more expensive than an equivalent place further out of town, but that didn't matter to him very much.

He unlocked the door and made to step inside, but he noticed that there was a letter for him. He picked it up and immediately recognised who's handwriting it was. It was unmistakably the neat and scrawling hand of his mother.

With slight apprehension he opened the letter and read it through. The letter read:

Dear Alphonse,

Your brother has finally manged to find time to come home to visit after moving to the capital. I just wanted to let you know in case you wanted to see him.

Kindest regards.

Angelina

His immediate reaction was one of enthusiasm. But the more he thought about it, the more he wasn't so sure. He would have loved to see his brother, but he wasn't quite as sure that he wanted to see his father again quite so soon. In the end he decided to write a letter back saying that he was too busy with work. He also sent a second letter that was addressed to his brother. That one said that he was sorry that he couldn't make it, and that he also felt like he wasn't quite ready to face his father's scrutiny.

After finishing with that he decided to head off to bed for the night. He had ended up coming in quite late and he doubted that he was going to get any less busy over the next while.