CH.2 THE HOSPITAL

I woke up in heaven…or was it? Yeah no it wasn't, I was in a hospital and in incredible pain. Both my legs broke, my right arm was broken too. On top of that I had 6 broken ribs, and a major concussion. The doctors said I’m lucky to even walk again. My parents were sitting near me, and trying to talk with me, but I couldn’t even understand one word they said. I guess a concussion does its job. About a month into my hospital stay when I was finally starting to feel better, the man who saved me came in. “Hey kid! How do you feel now? You were pretty brave out there and I noticed you have a Brand.” He said. “Ummm thank you I feel better now, but who the heck even are you?” I responded. “Well I’m Hunter, and I am a Brand user of the Hunter Brand.” He said, while taking off his mask revealing a man in his late 20s with a brown not short, not too long haircut. The most weird part was that his Brand mark was around his eye. It was a red crosshair.

“Well I’m Isaiah Blade.” I replied. “Nice to meet you!” He said, “Do you have any idea why that man was after you?”, “Umm, I don’t really know why he was in the school. But when he saw my mark he said something about how his boss was going to be happy. He started running towards me and you know the rest.” I answered. “Hmm. . . Interesting. Any other details?”, “Well he said that he won’t kill me because his boss needs me alive, before starting to beat the sh*t out of me. Do you know what he was talking about?” I asked. “Recently there was a huge growth of cases with kids between ages 11-14 with Brands being kidnapped. We are still figuring out the reason for all this. But the boss you told me about is very interesting, because now I know that they do all this for their boss. You are lucky that I arrived there in time.” Answered Hunter. “Yeah, thanks again for saving my useless ass.” I replied. “Hey why are you talking about yourself like that?” Asked Hunter, “Well because I’m weak.” I said looking at my broken arm. “ You know what, recently a school program opened for kids with Brands to help them protect themselves and help others. We need more brave people like you. It would be nice if you wanted to join us.” He finished. “How can I? I can’t even use my powers.” I replied. “Don’t worry about that, I'll train you!”, “Wait really?” I asked. “Yep” answered Hunter. “I’m not sure about all this, what will my family say?”, “I already talked to your parents, they are not against it.”, “And what if I don’t want to?”, “Your loss. If you choose to join, I'll see you at the beach after one month at 10 am sharp." He said getting ready to leave. I thought for a second and said, "Wait what exact date?”, but he was already gone.

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The month has passed and I found myself at the beach, all of my injuries have almost fully healed. The Hunter approached me. “Thank goodness, I didn’t mess up with the date.” I said almost out loud. He was wearing basketball shorts and a t-shirt that read “Eat, game, sleep, repeat!” and a big backpack with a bunch of pockets. “Alright glad to see you here,” he said as he poured out the contents of the bag. There were a bunch of metal pieces and a few rocks. “I did some reading up on the Forge Brand,” he started. “What's that?” I interrupted. “The name of your Brand”, he replied. “After a Brand user dies, their Brand most of the time goes back into the circulation and get’s given to a newborn right at the moment the previous user died. Forge Brand is more common, so there are a bunch of records of previous Forge Brand users. They have almost a whole instruction to help you.”, “Wait, how did I not know that?” I asked. “Oh right, this is actually confidential information that only the Brand association has. Since I’m part of the organization I can take this freely.” Replied Hunter. “Oh ok, I got it.”, “Okay so, Forge Brand is riiiight here, yeah found it. So it says mostly your abilities are creating weapons and controlling metal. For the most part this ties to practice but also to your physical strength. you have probably noticed that you are significantly faster, stronger and more durable than the average person”, he said. “Yeah, maybe. I am the best in my P.E. class.” I replied, “That's because most of the Brands basically remove your upper limit for how fast, strong or durable you can get as long as you put effort into your training,” He said.

“Ok I think I understand what you mean. How should we start this?” I asked. “Start by trying to lift one of these metal pieces.” Said Hunter. “Alright, here I go,” I said nervously. I struggled a lot to just lift it a meter up, the metal piece was shaking and was almost about to fall. But Hunter was believing in me, so I focused as hard as I could and eventually brought the metal piece to my hand. “So now what?” I said catching my breath. “Try forming it into a weapon, something simple like a sword.” Replied Hunter incredibly focused. “Just envision it being forged by a master swordsmith, that should work.”, “I shut my eyes and imagined a man smashing the molten steel with a hammer until he finished his masterpiece. I opened my eyes to see a jumbled up metal mess. “HAHAHA! Damn you were really focused huh, well at least you tried.” Said Hunter still laughing. “How am I supposed to get into this school now?" I asked defeatedly. “Don't worry kid! You have the rest of the school year until the school is finished being built and the first group is admitted to the school. So let's get to Work!”