[Tucson, Arizona]
"No! I'm not doing it!" Josue Alvarez, a young man with sun-kissed skin, medium-length black hair, and hazel eyes, almost shouted as he erratically waved his hands in the air.
"Mijo, come on." The man's mother said with a calm face. "This is really important."
"Then get someone else to do it! I'm busy!"
"Unfortunately, we don't have anyone else available." Edgar Avalrez, Josue's older brother, chimed in from his spot in the chair on the far side of the office. "Besides, you two are the same age, and you both go to the same school. Having you do it just makes the most sense."
"What's so important about this chick anyway?"
Chief Agent Sonya Alvarez let out a sigh before she decided to respond. The woman, who had long black hair, a soft-featured face, and eyes that matched her son's, felt like this was the third time she had to explain the situation to the young agent. Then again, he did have a robust track record of never listening to her when she spoke.
Right now, the three members of the infamous Alvarez family, one of the Nine Families of American sorcerer society, were sitting in the woman's office discussing a matter of business that needed to be dealt with. It had been a pretty slow day for the Tucson station, also known as Station Thirty-Five, since there wasn't any confirmed cryptid activity at the moment. So, the woman thought that now was a good time to take care of some additional housekeeping on behalf of their family.
"She's the daughter of the woman who's more than likely about to become our next Governor. We're trying to build a good relationship with her mother, and one of the ways that we can do that is by having you make friends with her."
"So, you want me to spend the next five days of my life chauffeuring this broad around the city just so that you can curry favor with some loser politician?" Josue looked at his mother with indignation.
Edgar was quick to jump in. The elder agent bore a resemblance to his brother, except he was a few inches taller. "Pretty much. Everyone knows that Rebecca's mother is going to win the upcoming election. Now's our best time to do it."
"Ni madres!" Josue shouted in response. "Why the hell should I have to waste my valuable time hanging out with some fucking mongrel who can't even use mana-"
*SLAP!*
The sound of Sonya Alvarez's magically charged hand colliding with her son's face echoed across the entire office. The impact was so strong that it immediately left a light bruise on the young agent's face. Before Josue could even attempt to get a word out, his mother cut him off with a look of pure anger on her face.
"First of all, this will be the last time I'll tell you about spewing out any more of that sorcerer-supremacist bullshit! Do it again and I guarantee that you'll spend the next week in a holding cell!"
"Fine, sorry...." The young man replied, albeit a bit sarcastically.
"Secondly, you are going to do this! As far as we're aware, Congresswoman Hubbel is in the dark about sorcerer society. When she becomes Governor, she'll have to be brought up to speed on who we are and what we do. And I'd like for us to already have a good relationship with her by the time she enters office. Your grandfather is the one who set up this little vacation of yours, thanks to some of his connections. He wants this done to keep operations running smoothly for us, and I agree with him."
"Dad also helped put this together." Edgar interjected with a slight smirk on his face. "And you know he doesn't waste time on things unless they're worth it."
Josue took a moment to absorb those words. To be honest, the young man still wanted to argue against all of this. Spending the next few days of his life being forced to hang out with some shitty politician's daughter was not how he wanted to spend his time. There were many more productive things that he could be doing that didn't involve him having to subject himself to being around some useless human.
So what if they were the same age and just happened to go to the same school? There were plenty of other nineteen-year-olds in their family who would be great for something like this. Granted, none of them were currently going to school like he was. But even so, that just meant that they would be more available for a task like this.
"What exactly do I have to do?" The young 'dark magic' user then asked, hoping that it wouldn't be too much. "What do you want me to do with this girl the whole time?"
"Whatever the hell she wants." Sonya replied. The woman was still very much angry, and it showed. "You'll do whatever the fuck that ugly little pig-faced cunt wants for the next week, and you'll do it without a single complaint. If she wants to go to the movies, you'll take her. If she wants to eat at a fancy restaurant, you'll do it. If she wants to take a tour of the Grand Canyon, you'll make sure it happens. Hell, if she wants to fuck you, you'll do it with a happy smile on your face. Whatever she wants, she's going to get!"
'Jesus Christ...' Edgar internally cringed. He already knew that their mother wasn't exactly known for her pristine and eloquent vocabulary, but even he had to admit that the way she spoke sometimes made him uncomfortable. How his father was able to put up with this for so long was a complete mystery to him.
'Tch...as if I would ever touch one of those useless creatures.' Josue thought to himself.
The room was silent for a brief few seconds before Josue decided to speak up again. "So, when am I doing this?"
"Rebecca Hubbel will be flying into town this Sunday. Her classes don't start until late next week, so that'll give you plenty of time to make a good impression on her." The Chief Agent replied.
"And all I have to do is make sure that she has fun so that she'll go back to her mother and tell her how awesome our family is? That's it?"
"Yes."
Edgar spoke up once again. "On the bright side, we'll also be giving you a nice chunk of cash to make sure that you don't run out! The money from my last hit job just came in. And since I'm such a generous big brother, I've decided to donate some of my earnings to help you wow your target."
"Oh yeah, that's why you were gone all of last week." Josue rubbed the bruised side of his face as he spoke. "How many jobs have you done in the last two months, anyway?"
"Three." The elder Alvarez sibling held up a matching number of fingers. "And I took all of them to make sure this little plan of ours goes smoothly. Thank me later."
"Fine...whatever...I'll do it."
"Good!" Sonya leaned back in her large, leather chair. "I'll give you more details later before the end of the day. Now go away, I'm tired of looking at you."
Josue didn't bother to respond before turning on his heels and walking out of the room. Nor did he even attempt to acknowledge the other two agents who were currently waiting outside the door to his mother's office as he walked past them.
To be perfectly frank, the young 'dark magic' user was absolutely pissed about all of this. This new "mission" of his basically meant that he wasn't going to be able to do what originally planned for later this week. A few days from now, he was supposed to join his oldest brother, Fernando, on what was supposed to be his first actual hit job. It was something that he had been looking forward to for well over a month. And now, all of that extra training he had done might as well have been tossed down the drain.
As was common knowledge, the Alvarez family was the premier group of sorcerer assassins in the country. Hell, probably even the world. Thanks to their mastery over the 'dark magic' attribute, they were able to perform some of the best work in the business. People from all over the world hired their family for their services whenever they needed to make someone disappear. And they always made sure to perform their duties flawlessly. It was why everyone from big-time CEOs to even the President herself hired them to do their dirty work.
Like everyone else in his family, Josue had been training for this ever since he first awakened his powers. Hours upon hours were spent learning about the best way to drop a body in any given situation. And numerous practice runs were done to make sure that he knew what he was doing. Now that he was an agent, he finally had the clearance to go on hit jobs with some of the others.
Now, all of that effort had gone to waste. Josue had no clue when the next opportunity to pop his cherry would come up. Scoring a contract was already hard enough as it was, since his grandfather was usually the one to dish them out. And most of the time, they were only given out to some of his more experienced cousins and other relatives.
All of this was because he now had to go on some stupid date with some politician's offspring.
Josue took a moment to let out a deep sigh while he pulled out his phone en route to one of the empty training rooms. Not his regular phone, though, the secured one that everyone in his family used to discuss business. The young man quickly scrolled through his contacts list before pressing the green button and holding the device up to his ear.
"Hello?" Fernando Alvarez, the young agent's other brother, said on the other side of the line.
"Hey, it's me. You got a minute?"
"I do, what's up?"
"Bad news. I won't be able to join you on your next job."
"What? Why?" The elder 'dark magic' user asked. His voice did nothing to hide his confusion.
"Mom and Abuelo are making me escort some human bitch around town so that our family can suck up to our soon-to-be Governor. Since we're the same age and go to the same school, they're making me do it since I have the best chance of making us look good, or whatever."
"Are you fucking serious?! We've been planning this for weeks! Does Dad know about this?!"
"Yes..."
"Damn...." Fernando cursed.
Not too long ago, Fernando had been personally requested for a hit job to take out some human singer/model the day after some big award show that was going to take place in California this weekend. Apparently, he knew the person who made the request, and they trusted him enough to make sure that their demands would be met.
From what Josue was told, the job was to make it look like the target had overdosed on drugs in her hotel room the day after the award show. The woman had a well-documented history of recreational drug use, so they were going to use that to sneak into her room and pump her full of enough narcotics to put down a fully grown horse. It was a simple, medium-risk job that was a perfect first-time run for someone like Josue. The kind of job that would allow him to get his feet wet and get some valuable experience under his belt.
"Well, this sucks." Fernando then said. "This was going to be a good chance for you to show the Boss what you can do."
"I know, right!" Josue replied after closing the door to the training room to give himself some privacy. Even though everyone in the building knew that he was on the assassination squad, it was still good manners not to discuss this kind of thing out in the open. "I even perfected my shadow walking ability just for this job! This shit sucks!"
"Eh, you could still use a bit of work on that. You got halfway stuck in your own shadow the last time we practiced it together."
"I just lost my focus, okay! That was it!"
The older agent waved off the comment before speaking again. "Anyways...I'll let the Boss know that the plan's changed and that I'll be going in solo now. Don't worry, though. You'll get another chance to prove yourself in the future. Iznana always has someone that they need to get rid of, so don't stress about it."
"Claro, lo que sea...."
"Well, good luck with your little date or whatever. I hope you have fun. I'm sure that this is super important. Then again, I don't know why they picked you of all people to do it. It's not like you've ever had a girlfriend before. Carlos would've been a much better choice, in my opinion."
"Fuck you!"
With that, the two Alvarez siblings ended the conversation, leaving Josue to stew in his own misery for the next few minutes. The young man was still pissed that he would miss his chance to officially join Iznana and show what he could do, but there was nothing that he could do about it now. He would simply have to wait for the next opportunity to come up. Until then, all the young 'dark magic' user could do was train and hope that a cryptid popped up on the radar that he could take care of.
There hadn't been any activity in the Grand Canyon over the last few days, but he was sure that would change soon. And when it did, he was going to be the first one to volunteer the deal with whatever monster decided to show its ugly face in their world.
'Alright, let's do this. Shadow Walk!' The young man thought as he activated his mana and began to sink into his own shadow, allowing the void of darkness to swallow him whole before disappearing into nothingness beneath the bright lights of the training room.