A bead of sweat dripped down Asher’s face as he put the finishing touches on the bowl of ramen he was making. He brought it to the customer who was eagerly waiting for their order.

“Thanks man, the only time I can get my ramen fix is when you guys are near this part of town,” the man said as he walked to one of the foldable tables set up outside the van.

“No problem, and don’t forget to tell your friends about the Miso Horny food truck! Enjoy!” Asher smiled back at the customer. He turned around and sat at one of the chairs inside the food truck taking a slight break.

“Looks like that wraps up the lunch rush huh?” Todd chuckled.

“Looks like it man.”

“Hey Ash, why do you do all these jobs? Weren’t you a college graduate?” Todd raised an eyebrow at him. Asher looked around the food truck, then peered out the service window of the truck, finally putting his hands behind his head.

“Yeah, I graduated top of my class with a degree in military history and tactics. Not many fields to go into with a degree like that, plus I like doing different kinds of work. Nothing ever feels too stagnant–”

“One…”

“One…”

“ONE!” Asher woke up to a boy roughly the same size as him shaking him back and forth. He felt an excruciating pain radiating from his midsection,his head was throbbing like crazy. He lifted up his shirt revealing an assortment of bruises all over his stomach and ribs. He took a moment to poke and prod, and to his surprise found that nothing was broken. He looked back at the boy.

“Who - Who are you? Where are we?”

“We’re in the Recruit’s Barracks, One. I’m a teammate of yours, my name is Seventeen.” The boy extended his hand out to Asher offering him help out of bed. Asher looked around the room to see that all of the children were getting out of bed too.

“Teammate? What do you mean teammate?”

“Well while you were knocked out, Master Revenant split us up into five teams of four. Come on, hurry. I was told to wake you up since it’s our first training session. I don’t even want to think about what happens to kids that are late after seeing what he did to you yesterday.”

They both got up and Seventeen led Asher down a series of corridors until the two arrived at another large open area. All the kids were beginning to gather up and split off into their respective teams. The room itself was very interesting. It was rather large and lined with more of the magical torches Asher had seen in Bartholomew’s tunnel giving the room a very faint blue hue. The floor was also made of a different type of material than the rest of The Underpass that he had seen so far. He looked up to see the man that had beaten him to a pulp, Master Revenant, standing there relaxed and calm as if nothing had ever happened the day before.

“Welcome to your first day of training recruits,” the man looked out at the wriggling crowd of children. “Ahh if it isn’t my favorite recruit, how are you feeling One?” he looked straight into Asher’s eyes. Some of the children let out a giggle, Asher had noticed the boy he had fought with yesterday was one of the children laughing the hardest.

“F-Fine sir. Better than expected, to be honest.”

“That’s good to hear, I hope we won’t have any more mishaps during your training period.” The man then looked back to the crowd of children as a whole “Now all of you pay attention.”

Master Revenant snapped his fingers and a hooded figure walked into the area and stood next to him. The two then faced one another and and Master Revenant proceeded to gently bump into the figure and walk past him for a few steps. Master Revenant then turned back towards the kids. “What did you see?” The kids began mumbling among themselves and to their teammates.

“It looks like he just bumped into them..” Seventeen whispered towards Asher. Two other boys made their way to the two of them and quickly introduced themselves as Four and Five.

“We didn’t notice anything either,” The two said in unison.

Master Revenant began tapping his foot impatiently waiting for the children to speak up.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“You bumped into him!” one of the kids off in another group blurted out. Master Revenant nodded at the figure which in turn began walking towards the boy. “Very observant, very observant” Master Revenant said, as soon as the figure got close enough to the boy, they immediately delivered a punch to the boy’s stomach. The boy fell to the ground and began vomiting. “Try again, and use your heads. What. Did. You. See.”

The figure nonchalantly strolled back to Master Revenant’s side and stood there at parade rest.

“Nothing, we didn’t see anything,” Asher said out loud as the figure began walking towards him, ready to deliver a blow to his already battered midsection. “But you definitely picked his pocket.”

Master Revenant raised an eyebrow and smiled, the cloaked figure stopped walking towards him and almost seemed to teleport back to Master Revenant’s side with their speed.

“Good, good.”

Pickpockets weren’t uncommon in Asher’s homeworld, but to be honest, he’d only ever seen the move performed on various forms of media, or as a magic trick. The place where he lived wasn’t exactly impoverished so the crime levels were relatively low. Plus, it was easier to just mug someone with a knife or gun rather than risk being caught digging in someone’s pockets.

“The move you have just seen is a staple in our line of work. It is also a foundational building block for the various skills I will be teaching you. Misdirection, sleight of hand, dexterity, and most importantly,” Master Revenant pointed towards his temple “Using your brain.” He produced the coin purse he had taken from the figure and tossed it back towards them.

“The misdirection” Master Revenant slowly bumped into the cloaked figure “Starts here.”

“People in general navigate through the world using their senses. Sense of touch being one of the two that dominates our perception of things. You bump into them so they don’t feel you pilfering the pockets. Draw their eyesight away from your work but don’t ever make eye contact. A person has an easier time remembering someone’s face once they’ve looked into their eyes.

Master Revenant slowly walked through the entire process, exaggerating all the motions for the children to see.

“All of these motions combined together should present you with the opportunity to make some money of your own, and for The Syndicate. None of these things are relevant if you don’t use your brain. Pick your marks well, don’t aim for the extremely rich or royal, and NEVER pick the pockets of the poor. Begin your practice.”

The cloaked figure walked out of the area and returned a few moments later carrying a chest. Inside the chest were coin purses filled with pebbles to simulate the weight of the average coin purse. The children then lined up each receiving their own coin purse and spreading out in the training area. Asher found himself paired up with Seventeen, while Four and Five paired together.

“You can go first,” Asher said to the boy.

“Okay, I’ll give it a shot.” Seventeen replied as they began walking towards each other. The boy bumped into him a little aggressively. Asher could feel the boy’s fingers dig down into his pockets and fumbling about. Asher immediately pushed the boy back.

“I felt everything. The bump seemed like it would start a fight too, I think it’s supposed to be more subtle, like an accident.” Asher said to Seventeen.

“Okay Mr. Expert, you try it then. It isn’t as easy as Master Revenant made it seem. We’re both moving, I was afraid you’d walk away too quickly then everyone would see my hand in your pocket.”

Asher took in everything Seventeen said and tried to remember every little detail Master Revenant showed them. The two boys began walking towards each other and Asher gave him a slight bump, just enough to knock the boy off his trail and pause him in his tracks for a moment. In the very brief moment the two of them paused, Asher glanced towards the boy’s face and put a hand on his shoulder, “Sorry.”

*Jack of Everything Activated*

Asher quickly slid his fingers into Seventeen’s pocket and managed to pinch it between the tips of his forefinger and middle finger. He went to pull the purse out of the boy’s pocket, but managed to fumble the extraction and the coin purse dropped down onto the ground as Asher kept walking past Seventeen.

The two boys paused and turned to face each other.

“Damn, I messed it up..” aggravation oozing into Asher’s voice.

“That was crazy good! I didn’t even feel your hand in my pocket and I knew it was going to happen! How did you do that?” Seventeen exclaimed.

“It's just like Master Revenant showed us, you have to try and get the purse or wallet and pinch it between the tips of your forefinger and middle finger,” Asher said as he mimicked the motion that Master Revenant had shown them all earlier.

Revenant had kept his eyes on One since the first day he laid eyes on the boy. The Guild Master had never recommended anyone other than his own son to join the guild for obvious reasons. The man’s standards were high and he wanted his son to follow along in his footsteps, hopefully to continue the family business once his inevitable retirement occurred. Revenant had also heard that this boy, One, was The Master’s newly adopted son. Everything about this boy was curious, being the Master’s son, being recommended by the Master, and his obvious aptitude and ability. The very first time he had laid eyes on the boy, he had quickly disabled and took down an opponent much larger than himself. The boy had also managed to track Revenant’s motions when he initially lunged at him to discipline him and send a message to the other recruits, he couldn’t react, but simply being able to track him with his eyes was an impressive feat on its own. Now Revenant sees that on his first attempt, the boy managed to almost pull off the bump. It was a little rough but the execution overall was extremely impressive for the boy’s first time.

“What kind of little monster did you deliver to me Master?” Revenant thought to himself as he looked among the crowd of children fumbling about and bumping into each other.

The bump was a work of art that combined multiple sets of skills and subtle manipulation. As Revenant looked at all the children, some of them were doing well, others had no hope, none showed the same level of understanding the move as One demonstrated. As Revenant looked at One and Seventeen practice he noticed something that was a little off-putting. Each time the boys practiced the move, One was getting better and better. The changes were extremely subtle, but to someone with the level of expertise Revenant had, the changes were striking.

He crossed his arms and continued his oversight of the training.”A little monster indeed..” he chuckled under his breath.

Asher and Seventeen turned around to face each other, beads of sweat forming and dripping down their face after hours of repetitious practice. They took a second to breathe and nodded at each other.

“Again..” Asher said as they began walking towards each other. With each time they did the move, it felt like another piece of the puzzle was falling into place. His understanding of the move grew deeper and if he was being honest, the Jack of Everything feat was overpowered. He also noticed that Seventeen was grasping the move faster than the other children with the help of all the tips Asher was giving him throughout their practice. Asher was chasing after perfection while Seventeen was aiming for Success, the pair would no doubt reach their goals in due time. The two looked at eachother.

“Again..”