Assassin - Blog Posts

パジャマパーティー by 浅月のりと

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アサミヤさ～ん、こっち来て先輩に挨拶して～～！  by Yuko.

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Fire, Death, Light, Dark. There are many such abilities beholden to the Awakened. Those powerful souls who can command a fundamental force of nature with their will alone. There are thousands of us, an underground society operating even to this day, under the guise of governmental organizations and secret agents. Some of us are hired guns, sought out to bring down oppressive regimes – at least on paper. Many hone their abilities through such work. Others try their hardest to help those who need it. Some of us, though, hunt down our fellows who break the laws of the Covenant, an ancient document made by the First Council of the Awakened, to bind us all and keep us secret. Those hunters are called the Vyadha

I’m one of the latter; day to day, I’m a private investigator in sunny Miami, but once in a while, a next-to-unused fax machine (which is unlisted and even unplugged) will spring to life and print out my next target. A picture, a name, and some basic information will be printed out and I’m to hunt them down, wherever they be, all costs assured. Who finds out what they did, who sends the commands, no one knows. It’s the job of the Vyadha to hunt them down, and to recruit other Awakened to serve as Vyadha; once they take the oath, they are bound to hunt down all who break the laws until they lay dying. Those who fail become the hunted.

It was one boring Tuesday in the middle of November when the fax machine did just what it does, printed out the face of an attractive twenty-something boy. Long, unkempt but clean blonde hair, blue eyes, a well-defined jawline, and dressed in some combination of black and leather. The name and aliases read as follows.

ALEKSANDER KUZNETSOV

“The Bright One, Sunspot, The Light of God”

Twenty-two, Russian origin, currently hiding out in Crimea. You know what to do.

I looked at his face again. I didn’t know him, but then again, I didn’t need to, to know what he was. I looked closely at his face, and I saw it in his eyes. He wasn’t just one of the hired soldiers, he was one of the “Razbudili Rebenka”, the child soldiers that saw use in the latter days of the Soviet Union, whose use continued into the late twentieth century by the disenfranchised pieces of the disbanded country. When their use became a risk to secrecy, they were killed by their handlers, soldiers who were unawakened. Even against the powers of nature, a single bullet can take our lives just as easily.

I’d guess he probably killed his handler. I wonder if he had even met one of his own kind. I wondered if it would have made a difference. Probably not; it was too late for him, regardless.

Getting up from my seat, I picked up my overcoat and put it on, looking in a mirror. An aged face looked back. I’d been at this for a long time. I was born in 1973, a child of a poor German-Jewish immigrant, whose parents had moved here to avoid the Nazis, and a black woman, and for the first fifteen years of my life I was happy enough. Then, they came.

The Erwechter Henker, a sect of Awakened Neonazis who sought to kill all awakened bloodlines from ‘lesser races’. They tracked down my father and struck. An awakened whose powers were to control fire burned our house down, killing my father, asleep in bed, my mother taking me and running outside. The awakened who had burned down the house was waiting outside with a group of unawakened. They took pleasure in beating me and my mother until I lay dying and my mother dead. That was when it happened, my powers awakened, the bloodline coming alive like fire devouring my blood.

My power is a rare one; the ability to affect matter with my mind. I can agitate it, move it, pressurize it, among other things. Within seconds I’d boiled the unawakened’s brains within their skulls, and shattered the bones in the awakened’s arms and legs. Unable to move, and therein unable to use his abilities, I took my pleasure slowly forcing all his blood into his head until it popped like an overripe cherry. I was sixteen years old.

I’m not ashamed of what I did that night; swearing to never let this kind of man do what he did ever again, I buried my family and left that night, to hunt down the rest of the Erwechter. Thanks to my efforts, their sect will never take root in America ever again. That took a decade and a half to do. By the end of it, I had burned every bridge in my life. I had no family; fascists had taken all that from me. It was then that he came to me, a Vyadha calling himself Jack the Reaper. His power, to control darkness, was used to hunt down Nazis across South America, to inspire terror in them before they died. He was near ninety when he came to me.

It was night, and I was drunk, aimlessly wandering around the streets in the dark, when he approached. He was dressed in a suit and overcoat, looking every bit the sophisticate. I looked like a vagrant, mostly because I was. I had no money, no goals – I had done everything I’d sought out to do.

“You are lost,” he spoke, his voice overlaid with a subtle German accent. “You are better than this, herr Abner.”

I looked at him closely, wondering if he was a spy of some sort. “Are you one of them?”

He shook his head at this. “Do not ever mistake me for one of those shizcoff.”

“Then who-“

“I am like you. I am Erwecht, Awakened,” he interrupted me. “I have spent my life hunting down the scum that have robbed us of our families, and I knew your grandfather and father before they came to America. I had heard he had a son.”

I nodded to this, it making sense even in my relatively inebriated state.

“He was a good man. I am sorry to hear what happened to him. I’m sorry that this is the fate that has befallen you; your vengeance was justified, but it should not have cost you the life you could have lived.”

I nodded again, accepting his statement. I’d have been lying if I had not thought the same thing, many times.

“I am here to offer you a chance at a new life; I am Vyadha, of the ancient order of hunters who destroy those who would break our laws. One such as the Erwechter Henker, and many such groups across the world. I have come to offer you the oath to join. It is a lifelong commitment, and should not be taken lightly.”

Here he paused, thinking for a moment. “I do not have much time left, myself. I have spent my years hunting much the same chaff as you, sending them to whatever awaits them. You can continue my work.”

From there, he handed me a piece of paper with a phone number on it, as well as a cell-phone, something somewhat rarer at the time.

I did not call right away. I continued to wander, the thought never leaving my mind.

But, one night, that changed. Two weeks later, I was taking the subway downtown, and came across a scene. Two muggers assaulting a black woman, calling her several slurs along the way. What charming fellows, with Celtic crosses and swastikas tattooed on their necks and the backs of their heads. I shouted at them, and one of them turned to me, drawing a gun. “What do you want, shitskin?” he asked, pointing the gun at my head.

“Leave her alone.” I stated, calmly. It wasn’t the first time a neonazi had pointed a gun at me. Wasn’t even the dozenth, or even the dozenth dozen.

He laughed, drawing back the hammer on the pistol. “Nah, I think I’ll kill you. Then-“ he gestured at the woman, “Me and my friend will do what we want to her.”

“No, I don’t think you will,” I said, this time cracking a smile.

“And why’s that, you n-“ he stopped as I broke his hand with my mind, dragging it down, and causing the gun to discharge into his foot. Screaming in pain, I picked him up by the throat with one hand, and threw him bodily into his friend. I nod with my head, indicating the woman to leave the station, as I did what I always do to Nazis. Leaving behind quite the gory mess, I pulled the phone out, and dialed the number. The voice on the other end was familiar. “Have you made your decision?”

Looking down at the corpses of my attempted murderers, I answered, “Yeah, I think I have.”

Two days later, I met him in central park. “I used my connections to get the investigations against you to stop,” said Jack, holding a lit cigarette. “Two men dead to gang-related activities, I am afraid.”

We both stop to laugh a little. “What do I need to do?”

He tossed me a silver knife and a piece of parchment with writing on it. “Cut your hand and say the words aloud. That is all that need be done.”

Drawing the blade across my hand, I read the paper.

“I swear on the Powers that Be to honor the first covenant, to hunt down the enemies of life itself, and to keep the secrets of the First Council. I swear this on my life, on the lives of my ancestors, and the power passed through blood. On this day, until my last day, I swear.”

I felt something change – like my awakening, but stronger. Pain, yes, but almost in a good way. Like a cleansing. “It is good to meet another Vyadha,” said Jack, “Welcome, brother Abner.”

That all seemed so long ago. Jack took me under his wing for a few years, introducing me to his contacts and other awakened, like us. But in 2006, at the age of 95, he died peacefully in his sleep, and I made sure he was buried with his dead family in Germany.

He left me a tidy sum, secret bank accounts holding liquid assets nearing a half a million dollars. Funds stolen from Nazis he had hunted.

Now, in the present, I boarded the first plane I could get to Ukraine, calling in favors from some of my contacts for information on the target. He was indeed of the Rebenka, and had indeed killed his handler. He was famous for his abilities, to channel light into his body and out through his hands. The effect could be anything from creating fire to blowing apart a building, depending on the strength of the light and his own desires.

I rued the fact that Jack had died so long ago, his ability to extinguish light would have come in handy in this venture. But, there are other ways to handle this.

Arriving in Ukraine, I was met by one of my contacts, an elderly woman who had lived through worse regimes than the modern Russians and had been a friend to Jack. She brought me to her son, a mechanic who had helped me and Jack in the past. War-torn countries are often havens for Awakened seeking to escape world governments. He gave me a vehicle, I took out a fake passport – one that claimed I was a reporter from the states – and set out for Crimea.

Within a day’s drive, I was in Crimea, and trying to figure out where Aleksander was. I hoped he’d been making a scene, but, as I knew was likely, he’d gone underground. It took a week of searching before I even heard of someone matching his description.

He’d fallen in with a gang in Sevastopol, who had protected him in exchange for his services as a ‘peacekeeper’, an enforcer who hunted down rival gangs. I tracked him to a club, called P’yana Svolota, and kept a close eye on the door, before following him into the club, wearing a thick hood and gloves. A black man in Crimea would stand out like a sore thumb. And there he was – dressed in the leather he seemed to like so much, attempting to woo a dancer – and by woo, I mean he was snorting coke out of her bra. He was laughing and chatting up a couple of suspicious-looking gents in suits in Russian. I couldn’t make a scene, killing him here. I’d probably kill him before he could do anything, but I’d most likely get shot for my trouble. I listened to their conversation.

“I want my salary doubled,” he said, sniffling a little.

“You’re already the highest-paid employer in our service,” said one of the men in suits. “We can’t justify paying you more – despite your valued service.”

Laughing, Aleksander brushed his blonde hair away from his face, and began again, “I don’t think you understand, I’m not asking – I’m telling you what I want, and you give it to me, or I drop more bodies than just your enemies.”

“The boss will hear about this,” said the other man, “You can’t just go making threats like this –“

“I can and I will, you mat’ shlyukhoy,”

The two men in suits stood up and walked out, and I watched as he pushed the dancer away roughly and got up, going to the bathroom. I followed.

Inside the dingy, graffiti-laden bathroom, I stood a couple urinals away from him and when he went to wash his hands at the pair of sinks, and I joined him at the other.

“Hey, man,” I said in English.

“What do you want?” he responded in an accent-laden English.

I turned to him and used my powers to throw him into the wall.

“Sukin syn!” he exclaimed, followed by a stream of likewise vulgar slurs.

Aiming a hand towards me, I dodged out of the way as a burst of flame went from his hand to the far wall, nearly taking me out. Using my abilities, I pinned his arms against the wall, and he responded by shooting light out of every bare bit of skin he had – brighter than a flashbang. Losing my concentration, he dropped to the floor, diving towards me while I was blinded. Recovering quickly, I used my abilities to turn off the lights in the room.

Remembering what Jack had taught me about fighting in the dark. Guard on all sides. Use your other senses, he had told me, be prepared for a strike from any side, but if both you and your opponent are on equal footing, make sure to face wherever they are coming from.

I drew from my pocket a switchblade that I had bought on the trip here, knowing telekinesis would be less than useless without my sight to guide it. I heard his footsteps as he ran towards me, and threw myself forward in a tackle.

Unfortunately, I dropped my knife. We grappled on the floor, and I heard sounds from outside, shouting. As I pinned Aleksander, the door slammed open, spilling light into the room. I rolled off of Aleksander as he blasted a beam of light from his bare hands, at what would have been me, but striking the ceiling. Finding the knife, I crouched as he rolled backwards, throwing himself forward into a standing position. Firing blast after blast at me as I dodged as fast as I could, I got closer and closer to him. A blast grazed my arm, melting cloth and burning flesh, painful but survivable.

Finally, I stabbed the knife through his right hand, causing him to scream in pain. Though he was trained in hand-to-hand, he was mostly a ranged opponent and was unused to physical pain in combat. Pulling the knife out quickly as he tried to blast me again, I drove the knife home, slicing through leather and into his right lung. A scream becoming a gurgling gasp as the lung collapsed, I knocked him off his feet, and finished the job, slicing across his throat. I turned and saw the man standing in the doorway, trying to draw his gun, but it was already too late. I threw him out of the doorway with my mind, ran outside and got back into my loaned truck, and drove.

It took me a week, three cars and a couple thousand dollars, but I made it back to the States, and to my house. Taking a beer from the fridge, I relaxed into my chair, and turned on the television. A rerun of Friends was playing. Taking a sip, I closed my eyes and let out a groan. My bandaged arm still hurt like hell. Then, the fax machine in the corner began to beep and print again.

There are many types of Mages in the world. Fire, Ice, Wind, Water, Death, Darkness, to name a few. But in this world, every type of mage is treated as equal. Everyone can be a good guy, no matter how dark your power. And anyone could be a bad guy, no matter how beautiful their ability…

So this is the beginning of a story I wrote. I wanted it to be more visible so I’m posting it here. Art will eventually be posted with it. It has been edited.

So I present to you,

Demons and Drag.

The flickering lights of their crappy agency was annoying the demon who was gazing at her reflection in the dirty mirror as she applied her lipstick.

"Surri, hurry up. Boss said he wants this job done before midnight," her brother called into the room while passing by.

"Yeah, yeah, Anitri. I'll be right there." She called back.

She brushed her fingers along her foxish ears, making sure there hairs were all facing the same direction, and arose from her seat. She walked out of the room, hips swaying with her tail, the way any sucubus in this industry would.

"Ready?" She asks her brother.

"Always," he answered, his fangs showing with his sly smile.

***

"Lemme get this straight," Jem said, in full drag attire. "You want me, to let you, someone who has no experience, go up on my stage and sing your pretty little heart out because your 'daddy' will pay me to?"

The girl nodded, insistently.

Jem sighed, placing a manicured hand to their face.

"Listen darling, that's not how it works here. We have people who have been doing this for years performing, and if they're new we've screened them, they've auditioned, and we've scheduled their performance. We don't just let anyone who wants to perform on a whim on my stage. If you want to perform on my stage, we can discuss this later but right now I've got a show to start." They finish and turn to take to the stage.

Dress billowing, Coco Rose stands center stage and starts the night.

"Welcome all you morally ambiguous people!"

***

"We're here," Anitri said, glancing at his phone.  "Target is Dr. Nano Gunther. Has been proven to overdose patients with mal intention, forcing patients to add him into their will then killing them off, purposefully botching surgeries, this guys a sicko. And he's all yours."

Surri glares at him, his smirk still on his face when she faces the door.

"Piece of cake," she says as she strides into the club in her short black dress.

She walks right up to the bar and takes a seat, glancing the stage where a bubbly drag queen was preforming a rather childish song. When she returned her attention to the bar another queen was to be seen, mixing drinks. She had on a rosy dress that poofed out from the waist down.

"What can I get you, darling?" they asked.

"A glass of wine would be marvelous," Surri said sweetly.

"Coming right up, sugar" the queen said.

While the queen was working on getting the wine and glass, Surri's eyes scanned the club for her target.

"Who you lookin for?" The queen asked, pushing the wine towards Surri.

"Oh no one, I just like to people watch."

"Well, people round here are pretty interesting, I'm Coco Rose."

"Surri, Surri Turazora."

"Nice to meet you, Surri."

"Likewise."

Coco leaned over the bar and whispered, "You shouldn't leave your phone on, he's in the third booth from the bathrooms."

Surri's eyes widened and she quickly turned off her phone, then her eyes watched Coco Rose to see what their reaction was but they were cleaning glasses a few feet over.

Surri got out of her seat and walked away, shaking her head at the interaction.

She found the booth and walked by with her head held high, her hip out and her tail a-swaying. She can feel the Doctor's eyes on her as she heads to small table by the stage. She spots her brother in the corner of her eye, talking to Coco Rose, the drag queen from earlier.

After a few minutes, the doctor slides into the chair across from Surri.

"Hey, babygirl," he said, trying to seem attractive.

He was thin and tall, with short black hair and dull blue eyes. The only interesting thing about him was the scar that was on his jaw.

"Hiya handsome, come here often," Surri asked, in her sweetest voice.

"From time to time, you here alone?"

Red flag.

"Oh yeah, I was scouting the place out for my friends bachelorette party."

"Good," he said, sliding closer to her.

She cringed internally, he's just like most of her marks. A totally creep, who wouldn't know how to except a no if it kicked him in the nuts.

He chats her up a bit while the drag queen finishes her song and asks her if she wants to come with him somewhere a bit more private.

Spotting her opening she agrees and goes along with him, trying not to gag as his arm wraps around her waist.

They head to one of the private rooms that he apparently rented out.

'This is it,' Surri thought to herself as the Doctor sat in a chair, legs apart, patting his lap.

She walked up to him, placed her hand on his shoulder and sat in his lap.

He leaned close to her.

His sudden intake of breath was heard clearly through the room. He pushed her off of him and clutched his side.

She flicked her dagger to get some of the blood off it before turning her gaze back towards him.

"But I thought you were into pain, Sir," she said, knowing full and well that he wanted to correct her but as her poisoned laced dagger had made its mark, he knew it was a fruitless effort.

"Why," he breathed out as he crumbled to the floor.

"Because you are a disgusting creature that no one deserves to encounter."

And with that she stabbed him through his head.

...

Jem is watching the entrance to one of their private rooms that they saw that Surri chick head through with that creep. They let out a very soft sigh when they saw her leave the room, unharmed, but alone.

Jem watched Surri approach that tall, lanky fellow they meet earlier. Anitri. They look similar, twins perhaps?

They left after a few words.

Jem slide out from behind the bar, signaling for Delphine Lulu to take over.

They walked over to the room and opened the door slowly, hand ready to grab their pepper spray from their skirt if necessary, only to be shocked at the sight.

The creep lay crumpled on the floor, head twisted, two stab wounds; both of which were green and foaming.

Dead.

"Now I have to replace the carpet again," Jem muttered.

...

"Anitri, are you sure about this?" Surri asked him as they entered the lobby of the apartment building. They were going to meet with a person who was looking for some new roommates.

They stood in the elevator, Anitri swaying along to the music while he fiddled with the sleeves of his crimson sweater. Surri just picked at her nails, she had got blood on them the other night and it wouldn't come out, so she just made a design out of it.

The door opened and the walked a ways down the hall and knocked on the door.

The person to open the door had short black hair that faded to a vibrant green. They were taller than Surri but shorter than Anitri and had dark brown skin with a blotchy pinkish birthmark on their left shoulder. They looked unimpressed.

They stared the twins down for a second before they spoke.

"Oh, your the ones who murdered that guy at my bar."

Grumrak from the "Voice of Time"