"Hey, jackass!" A voice shouted out. The assassin looked, only to be met with a rain of darts. He used his blade to defend himself, slashing a wave of energy to deflect the dart until-
BOOM!
The darts exploded upon impact, forcing him to fall back. They came from Wheel who snuck himself to the top of their hideout's building. Fire and shrapnel were everywhere, causing panic as they tried to find safety.
"Try getting out of this!" He shouted out, thinning down the enemy's numbers by throwing explosive darts. "Go get him!" The assassin commanded the others.
They quickly stormed the building, strategically navigating the interior to find the quickest way to him. As they made their way up, it was only a matter of time until they reached him.
Wheel laughed at how scattered they were from the explosions, "I can't believe you guys didn't consider hiding our equipment from us!"
Wing looked at him, he never expected him to be this destructive. "Wing," He turned to see that Asel called out to him. He was holding a white dart with something strapped to it.
The dart was special, it was used as a way to signal their team to retreat from a distance. Removing the thing strapped, four notes fell out with one of them having huge words scribbled on it:
Me and Frogo will handle them
RUN
Wing looked again at Wheel, knowing the meaning behind the words. "I thought I told him not to be a hero." He looked at Wheel's smile, it was a smile he never saw him wear, one where he looked like he was on top of the world.
"When has he ever listened to you?" Asel asked him. Looking at Wheel then made him smile, even with his eyes so heavy and sorrowful. "Let's not waste this chance." Wing told Asel before they used the chaos as a way to conceal their escape.
Wheel watched them as they made their way out. "Looks like they made it out fine." He told Frogo. She was sitting down, laying her back on the wall as she kept watch of the boarded up door.
"Guess this means this isn't for nothing then." She smiled, her fingers fiddling with a cigarette. "Got any regrets? Heard it's better to admit them before you pass on." She asked him, her voice weak from constantly coughing out blood.
He thought about it, his mind flashing all the memories he could recall. "I've never been called a genius, you know. Never been one of those exceptional ones or done anything that made it to the papers."
"But I never had to fake a smile, never had to put up with an annoying boss. Didn't have to deal with taxes or any of them legal problems." He kept thinking as he rambled on, trying to find anything.
Then, he smiled. "I don't think I got any." She looked at him, his expression said that he was genuine.
"What a lucky guy," She laughed, some blood escaping from her mouth. "Looks like they all went to me cause I'm full of them." Wheel noticed her expression, he had never considered what Frogo's life was like before. "Better start confessing then." Wheel joked, making her smile.
"Back when my family was poor, living on whatever we could. We were scavengers, visiting wrecks to see if there's anything we could use or eat. It was an unstable lifestyle, sometimes it took days for us to find anything to eat in this barren wasteland."
"That's why when I became a mercenary, I worked like a slave. The first paycheck got me addicted like it was a drug. Seeing how much I could earn from a single job, how could I stop then?"
Frogo took the last hit of her cigarette, then extinguished the fire in her skin. "I was on a roll back then, clearing mission after mission without fail. Each time I would send a part of it to my family, but never visit them."
"Only when the good missions ran out was when I began to think of going back. When I did, I saw all the money I had sent had been going to someone else's pockets. Turns out a group of people held them hostage, keeping them alive so that they could live like leeches."
Frogo noticed that Wheel had stopped throwing darts. He was sitting down next to her, paying close attention. "Did you manage to save them?" He asked, curious to what happened next.
She shook her head, not wanting to talk about it any further. "The only reason why I turned to a mercenary was to earn money for my family. Now that I have all the money I could ever want, there's no one left to give it to."
Loud sounds came from the barricaded door, it shook wildly each time they tried to open it with force. "Finally, It's about time they made it here." Wheel joked. They both prepared for what's to come as the door began to break down.
They waited until the door flew open, people swarming all across the room. The assassin soon walked in, his eyes on the two. "Look at you, just like cornered rats." he commented before signaling the soldiers, having them ready their guns.
"You really did cause a scene out there." The assassin told him, his grin clearly visible. "All that effort's just going to buy them an hour at best before I find them, you know?" He asked Wheel, crouching down to match his eye level.
"It was worth it, seeing you panic at the sudden change. How did it feel? The darts I threw out there were made for pain, you know. One of them had hundreds of shrapnel to dig into you after exploding, the other one was designed to scatter burning oil to close the wound right up so the shrapnel won't get out"
"Bet it feels like hell just moving," Wheel commented, seeing how he was shaking from the pain. "It would be just like hell if you were forced to move." He smirked, the grin on his face provoking the assassin.
Frogo slowly lifted her arm up, revealing a detonator. It was connected to explosives that were hidden all around the building earlier by Wheel. The look Wheel gave her was all the confirmation she needed.
Click.
Dozens of synchronized detonations roared across the building's floors like a vertical chain reaction. The structure convulsed violently as shockwaves tore through the building.
"Everyone get out! The assassin commanded as they all headed for the exit. As he sprinted away, he felt excruciating pain. The fragments inside his body slowly tore his flesh as he kept running.
"You aren't getting out that easy," Wheel said, throwing darts laced with poison at him. The assassin grimaced as they landed on his back, the poison spreading through his body.
He felt the energy in his body fade away, his vision beginning to twist. He shouted out, coughing out blood as he ran to the exit. His body began to glow, not from the skin but from inside. His power began to act as an immune system, fighting back the poison to keep him alive.
The soldiers who made it out watched as the building crumbled down. The screams that came from inside were drowned out from the peaceful melody that was playing outside. It kept those who lived nearby asleep, as if it was any other night.
The assassin jumped out from one of the floors above, crashing down on the sand. He felt his body heal from the melody, but it only caused more pain as the shrapnel stayed in his flesh.
"That's enough for today, you can all go." He told the soldiers. They all nodded before dispersing from the scene. Meanwhile, he made his way to a different building. Climbing all the way to the rooftop, he found the source of the music.
It was a girl who sat next to the piano, her fingers glided across the keys, each movement precise yet effortless. Their hands hover just above the keyboard, wrists relaxed, rising and falling in perfect harmony with the music's emotion.
She turned to see the assassin, he was worn out with burns all over his body. "Had a bad day?" She asked, her focus still on the piano.
"Worse than usual." he responded while he got out his equipment. He grabbed a scalpel and some pliers, dousing them in alcohol. "Just keep playing that song for me, alright?" he told her before taking a swig of his flask. Then, he began cutting his skin with the scalpel, just big enough for the pliers to fit in.
One by one, the pieces of shrapnel on his body were plucked out. He groaned in pain, sometimes shouting out as he quickly pulled out fragments as big as a coin.
By the time the song finished, a pile as large as a fist was extracted from his body. "Someone really did a number on you" She looked at him, his body not only burnt but also full of scars.
"Whoever did this must be dead by now. If not, soon enough. You were never one to show mercy."
"Only those who oppose the will of our God," He corrected her. "And I'm not finished yet, not satisfied with just his death."
The assassin thought of the two who had escaped from his grasp. "My revenge isn't so simple as ending in a few deaths."
He gripped his fist, thinking of ways to torture them. Their teamwork was commendable, only possible through working with each other for years. The bond they had was irreplaceable, it holds value.
Just enough to satisfy me.