Chapter 4 - The Meeting, History, And Training

The first thing Harry noticed when he woke was the faint sound of water, slashes and drips, and the darkness. The second thing he noticed was the feeling of metal beneath him. He instinctively fumbled around for his glasses before remembering he didn't need them, and glanced to the side, frowning when he noticed the small metal basin beside his apparent bed was filled with silvery, disfigured lumps of metal - bullets, he realized after a moment.

"Ah, it seems sleeping beauty is awake. Taylor! Tell Lucian his stray is conscious!" Harry nearly bolted when he heard the voice coming from his other side, and saw a thin old man with thinning gray hair, glasses, and dark eyes that made him feel as if he were being dissected. The man was pulling off one glove, the other apparently already removed. As the man approached, his mouth seemed to stretch into what was no doubt intended as a smile, though it made Harry's skin crawl instead. "My name is Singe. Lucian will be here soon to...talk. In case you are wondering, he also has your clothing and weapons."

With a start, Harry realized he was wearing only his boxers, which explained how he'd been able to feel the metal beneath him. Before he could open his mouth, face turning a dangerous red, Singe spoke again. "We had to remove your clothing - what was left of it - to assess the damage. I am the doctor here, though your regenerative capabilities were...fascinating." Harry shivered involuntarily as the doctor's gaze seemed to roam across his body, the cold, clinical stare deeply unsettling. "And as for who Lucian is, he is the one who brought you here. He is our leader."

At that, Harry frowned in thought, struggling to remember, and finally dredged up a memory of a man with dark hair, and a gold medallion strung around his neck. "Regardless, my job is done for now, so I will leave and allow you a moment to yourself before he arrives." With those parting words, Singe took his gloves with him and walked back into the room he had emerges from previously, though Harry glimpses a small syringe filled with a red liquid. He was unable to think on it further, however, when he heard swift, solid steps approaching.

Harry twisted slightly, and was unsurprised to see the man who had saved him, carrying a bundle under one arm. He held out his hand as the man approached. "Lucian, I take it?" He nodded, a faint smirk on his lips, or something close to it, and he set the bundle - which Harry now recognized as his clothes - in Harry's arms, after which he stood next to the bed. "Nearly all of your personal effects, weapons included, are in there. I take it guns and knives are new?"

Harry nodded, and Lucian continued. "However...there is one item I hesitated to give back, without an explanation..." At that, Lucian reached into his thick coat, and pulled out a stick - it took Harry less than a second to recognise his wand, and chills ran down his spine. "Finely crafted it seems, which is strange for a stick...unnaturally smooth and straight. Surprisingly flexible, though I didn't push too hard, of course. I get the feeling this stick is very important to you... And the smell is...odd. Most certainly bird, but it's as if...as if I were smelling a fire. Not smoke, but actual flame. I also get the feeling you are new to being a Lycan. I propose an exchange of information." Lucian held the wand out to Harry, who took it carefully. "You tell me why you are so different...I tell you the history of our race. Fair, is it not?"

It certainly sounded fair, especially if it would tell him who those men had been, but at the same time, Harry was afraid - he wasn't sure if the Ministry would find out he told about magic - but at the same time, he seemed to be a werewolf as well, if the way he had said 'our race' was anything to go by. After a few long moments, Harry nodded, and spoke.

"Do you believe in magic?"

xXx

Several hours later, both Harry and Lucian sat in that room, digesting the new world of information they had been given. Lucian had taken a seat on a chair he'd taken from the room where the strange doctor, Singe, had disappeared to, and sat with his arms crosses, head down as he thought, while Harry lay on the same bed, feeling slightly stiff, but more concerned with the new history he had been given, attempting to reconcile it with his own knowledge of werewolves and vampires.

"Well," Lucian finally said, rising from his chair. "As strange as it sounds, with your talk of magic - levitation, curses, dragons - I can't find it in myself to call you a liar. It makes a surprising amount of sense, taken with what I know, and even without such a precise understanding of genetics as the good doctor," he said as he slowly started to circle the bed. "I still have enough knowledge to form my own ideas."

He stopped circling and turned to face Harry, leaning forward slightly with his hands on the edge of the bed. "You say your knowledge, limited as it is, recognizes historical figures from several thousand years back as being part of this wizarding world. My own knowledge, learned from the daughter of one of the Elder vampires, records our origins at only half that. I will leave the precise genetics of this to Singe, but...this is extremely intriguing...I realized that the legend, that one one son was bitten by bat, one by wolf, and one left to wander the Earth, was false. I knew, but...I never imagined the magnitude of what we've been missing all these centuries. "

Throughout the Lycan rebel's speech, Harry had listened closely, and though he lacked even the understanding of Lucian, he also could see where it made sense. He still felt as though Lucian wasn't telling everything, though that was understandable - he wasn't sharing all of his thoughts either.

He was startled from his thoughts however when Lucian spoke again. "This is very interesting. You have great potential, Harry, if what I saw of your powers in the station is any indication, for you to be able to kill a Death Dealer with no experience is astonishing. Also...you are one of us. A different offshoot perhaps, but for all practical purposes, you are as much a Lycan as I am. We must stick together, or the vampires will exterminate us. Well...maybe not you, if you stay hidden, but they have extensive resources. All it will take a single mistake, and they will hunt you. We've already seen how such an encounter will be."

Harry's face turned red for a moment, frowning, but he fought the aggressive response back down as Lucian continued to speak. "Thus, I have an offer. I would like to train you, refine that raw power of yours into something you can win with." The wide smile and the savage gleam on his eyes told Harry that this training would no doubt be painful...painful, but effective. "When can we start?"

Lucian's grin only widened as he seemed to embrace the more aggressive aspects of his nature. "Now. Get dressed and follow me."

With that, the Lycan turned, coat flapping about his legs as he moved, and Harry quickly put his clothes back on, making sure the weapon holsters were properly attached.

xXx

Several minutes later found Harry and Lucian in a room, relatively smooth all around, the few empty boxes and plastic having been swept aside to make room, while also revealing this room was rarely used. They stood across from each other, half a dozen feet between them as Lucian legs bent very slightly, feet spaced apart, one behind and one in front, arms bent with his hands in front, mostly open. His body was tensed, but didn't convey any nervousness or lack of confidence; it was the body of a warrior, prepared to fight. Harry glanced for a second and, remembering his own claws and the knife he had seen shortly before losing consciousness, pulled his hoodie back off, tossing it far away, landing against one of the walls as he crouched slightly with his feet widely spaced, hands open wide in front, as if preparing to grapple. Lucian only stared, one eyebrow raised. "And what...is that?"

Harry frowned, looking down, at his stance. "I saw it in a movie once..." Lucian's eyes narrowed slightly. It was the only warning Harry had before the powerful man was leaping towards him. He just managed to bring his arms up, crossing them like an X before him as Lucian's hand smashed into Harry's arms, causing him to flinch and growl in pain as he felt his left arm - the one that had been on the outside of his guard - break, an ugly bruise already forming and fading, even as Harry watched.

"Don't ever copy a movie, all you'll find is something made up by someone who has no idea what he's doing, or something real by someone who knows exactly what he's doing because he's good at it. Either one will only get you killed right now. Listen to what I tell you, and pay attention. Understand?"

Harry grimaced in pain as the bones knitted back together, and he shook his arm out after a few moments to rid it of the pins-and-needles sensation of his regeneration, and nodded, watching as Lucian moved back to his starting point.

This was going to be very painful indeed.

xXx

Several hours later, they had paused for a brief lunch break, which consisted of a pair of Lycans, one slightly taller with dark hair, the other wiry with red hair, bringing a plate laden with several rough looking steaks, and a small stack of papers which Lucian went over while tearing into one of the steaks, eyes narrowed in a way that sent a chill down Harry's spine, even without knowing what the papers said.

Deciding against asking, Harry ate a few steaks, which satisfied his new appetite for the first time since leaving Hogwarts, and started doing push-ups while Lucian read, realizing Lucian wouldn't finish as quickly, and that he also needed to work on maintaining his body, and he wouldn't always be able to fight to do so.

Eventually, after what felt like an hour, he heard Lucian stand, and finished, standing as well. "Are you ready to continue your training?" Lucian asked. Harry nodded, and before he could do anything else, he ducked under Lucian's right hook, which wouldn't left him dazed for several seconds, just like it had the last few times he had opened with it.

Lucian grinned at him before bringing his foot up in a kick that would've sent Harry across the room if he hadn't braced himself and blocked. As it were, he stumbled a few feet, but was able to right himself quickly, bringing his right hand straight up, slapping Lucian's left jab away, over his shoulder. "You've already much improved. Your reflexes are remarkable, and your instincts are improving..."

Harry saw his opponent's fist rising up, cocked back to punch him in the face, and brought a hand up to catch it - but the blow never came. At least, not the expected blow.

A grunt of pain escaped Harry's mouth as he felt a knee in his gut, and in an instant he realized the punch was a feint. It did little good, however, when a powerful backhand caught him across the cheek, sending him stumbling to his right while spitting out a tooth. In the ensuing daze, he never stood a chance of blocking the powerful fist that buried itself on his gut, lifting him off his feet for a split second, and finally, several seconds later, a two-fisted blow from above sent him crashing to his knees.

"...But you've still only been training for a few hours. Your recovery time is too slow. I left you an opening before that last blow, but you were unable to use it." Lucian reached down and grabbed Harry's shoulder, helping him stand before releasing him.

"You need to work on your reactions, but at least you've learned to deflect instead of block. You can't always rely on your regeneration, no matter how strong. It's also a good step because it means you're learning impulse control, which is vital for us Lycans."

As he said this, Lucian walked back to his starting point, and just opened his mouth to tell Harry to come at him yet again, turning, when his sensitive ears heard the displacement of air. It was only his well honed reflexes that allowed him to duck mid-turn as Harry's open hand came thrusting above, right where his throat had previously been. He had finished his turn, crouching and tensing to launch himself at Harry, expecting him to leap backwards as these attacks usually did, and was thus surprised when the hand instead dropped rapidly, and gripped his right shoulder in a firm grip before pulling, hard, destabilizing Lucian's unsteady footing, and leaving him open to a powerful and repeated haymaker to his stomach. His long experience with enduring pain allowed him to take all four blows without a sound, barely flinching even in his surprise, before finally taking an uppercut to the chin, sending him stumbling back several feet, staring blankly at Harry, who met his gaze with a tight grin even as he dropped back a short distance, body loose, but his hands in position to counter any attack.

Slowly, a savage grin filled Lucian's face, and he let out a harsh, barking laugh, and relaxed his stance. "Well, congratulations are in order! You've demonstrated several things to me...you finally stopped waiting for me to tell you when to fight, because your enemies won't be so gracious as that. You changed your attack pattern after I'd gotten used to it, taking advantage of that natural aggression without letting it control you. You opened up with your left, which I should've noticed, so you could use your dominant right for more power. And...you knew I was underestimating you, and you used that against me."

Harry's grin widened slightly at the praise as he also relaxed and approached his mentor. "So, the student is about to surpass the master, eh?" he said with a chuckle. Lucian let out another harsh laugh, throwig his head back and clapping a hand on Harry's shoulder - and suddenly he felt a powerful kick behind his left knee, and the hand on his shoulder immediately applied more force than he knew the Lycan rebel was even capable of, and was on his knees within a second. He glanced down briefly as he felt something cold against his throat,,and glared up at a smirking Lucian. "Not hardly, brat. It just means I don't have to worry about playing with kid gloves anymore. Now you're going to receive some real training."
Harry paled slightly at the statement, which combined with the feral grin that showed his teacher's wolfish nature, told Harry he would soon regret his assault.