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This article, A Purple Spark, is property of Zicoihno. |
Moonlight Assassin[]
“I’m telling you, you should have seen the boss’ face. He almost lost it when I yanked his leg about losing the money.”
An older man burst into laughter with a companion as they bounced laughs off one another. Both were clad in fine, tailored black suits with white shirts fitted with jet black ties. They walked in step down an ornately decorated corridor to a pair of double doors, wide smiles across their faces. It was a good night for business.
The door opened into a dimly lit room with massage beds and other therapeutic furniture scattered about. At the center of the doorway was a purple-haired young woman with a seductive smile on her face and the figure to match. Their grins grew wider as she ushered them into the room.
“Jimmy did well this time around, what’s your name, babe?”
She smiled, “Whatever you want it to be, handsome.”
“Definitely a good choice,” the other man said with a laugh as she shot him a quick wink. “The auction starts in half an hour, you better make this quick, Bruno,” he added with a nod.
“Yea, yea, don’t worry,” Bruno said throwing off his jacket and beginning to unbutton his shirt while pulling away his tie. “Say Marco, I heard there’s supposed to be more there than just art and jewels this time around.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Marco said, pulling up a chair not too far from Bruno. “I heard one of the dons has his eye on something called the Jewel of Alterra, some sort of enchanted thing, like magic.”
Bruno scoffed, “The dons have a mage’s taste after all.”
The woman began to rub oils across Bruno’s back slowly but smoothly. Her eyes narrowed at the comment.
“And that’s just the tip of the iceberg apparently,” Marco said with a knowing look.
When Richard had been tipped off of a black market auction in the border town of Kuja, he didn't pay it much mind. It was a matter for the local law enforcement, not the council, magic was their domain. That was until the council alerted him of the nature of some of the items to be sold at the auction house tonight.
Doma insisted he go this one alone without any mission support and infiltrate the auction house. He was to keep a low profile, which would have been complicated in Fiore, but worked here quite well as long as he didn’t use any of his more….definitive magic. The objective was to gather intel on the buyers and have the Rune Knights' regular forces follow the trail from there.
Though, if his cover were blown, Richard had been instructed to abandon the mission immediately. The warning had caught him off guard at the time; he was the last person that needed a lecture on dealing with a failed reconnaissance mission. Then he learned the mafia had a presence there or was expected to—not just any mafia family, the mafia. Such mobsters made things a bit more difficult for him to say the least, but he could manage.
He weaved his way through the crowed, nighttime streets of the city towards the auction house’s location at the bend of Pullman Street. The auction aside, the city was bustling. This could play to Richard’s advantage if he has to pull off an escape without doing anything flashy, he prefer more earthy approaches to reconnaissance and surveillance missions, though that usually pertained to dark guilds not black market auctions.
There was a full moon out and it was in full view as he neared the court house. Richard narrowed his eyes to see the carriages pulling up to the building and some magical vehicles were in tow no less. There were also enough guards at the front entrance to guard a king. He saw a wide alley way to the right of the building that would allow him a more subtle entrance. From there, a quick transformation spell would do the trick if everything goes according to plan.
“Mobsters, jewels, and magical artifacts, my idea of a Saturday night,” Richard said shaking his head. ///////// “A little to the left, sweetheart,” Bruno said, “Get my shoulders, ah, thanks.”
Marco grinned, “We’ve got twenty minutes before the auction starts. Done with your spa date yet?”
“Soon enough,” Bruno said through a smirk. “Anyway, what was that cloak you were talking about?” “A shroud, dumbass,” his companion said quickly. “And anyway, it had a weird name. Something like Ukaria’s Shroud or Ukarai’s, or something with Uka in it. Damn, it was something important, Ukan—“
“Ukanaria’s Shroud, you buffoons.”
They both looked in shock to the supposed attendant. The deepening in her voice and the chill that filled the air threw into a fury, both made a move for their weapons. Marco shot to his foot with a thick hunting knife in hand and the cock of Bruno’s gun echoed in their ears.
“Any funny moves and you’re dead, you conniving bitch,” Bruno shouted, taking to his feet from the massage bed. In his left hand was his gun held high, engraved with small jewels and golden molding, while his right hand held up his falling pants by the girth of his loosened, black belt.
“Please don’t point such dangerous things at me, Bruno Cicero,” she said throwing to hand up with only two fingers extended, the move earned a questionable look from both me. The woman smiled, “Reverse.”
A glittering shroud of light covered her body as her hair fell down to her shoulders. Papers blew up into the air in that moment. What was a mere few seconds felt like far more for the two men as beads of sweat ran down their brows. As the light dissipated, the woman was clad in a skimpy, bluish one piece that left the entirety of her legs exposed save for the similar colored cloth strips that covered them sparingly. Around her wide waist was a blood red sash and her slender arms were shrouded in cut off, tube sleeves from far under her shoulder to her wrists.
Marco met her eyes, her dark blue eyes and felt the ocean sweep across him, or so it felt. He couldn’t move, no, the wrong move could mean death. Was she going to kill them, anyway? Who was this woman? The questions shot through his mind in cycles, there were too many possibilities and too many ways this could end terribly. However, his friend had yet to falter in this presence.
“You think you can just come in here and fuck with the mafia, with our family?” He shouted hysterically, his pistol hand was shaking, struggling to stay up as if it were nothing but a toy before this enemy. “You think because none of the captains are here, you can sully this auction, sully this night?”
“And you can imagine my surprise when I was fielded for such a low level black market auction as this,” she said, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “Mobsters sure do move in strange ways, the scum that you are.”
“Die, bitch!”
As he pulled the trigger, before his companion could register it, the woman was behind them and a splash of blood splattered the wall in an instant. Bruno tumbled to the ground lifeless, his last breath gone before his face met the wooden floors beneath them.
Marco screamed in horror as he took several steps back, swaying his knife slowly with her in his hands. “A made man dies on his feet,” he shouted. “Don’t fuck with me!”
“I do like it when a man has a backbone.”
A pair of cats weaved their way past Richard as he made his way down the alleyway under the moon’s gaze. A filthy mess as expected, it was always that way, well, almost always. He hadn't caught anyone’s attention just yet, all there was to do was take out the guy at the door and from there, begin the primary objective.
Doma had better give him overtime pay for this, Richard mused, a solo mission on the last minute for a few artifacts. Their files better have not been exaggerated. One could never forget the weakness of that Lullaby flute; he had heard it had only taken three mages mere minutes to down the demonic beast. Though, there were probably some details he was forgetting with that one.
Suddenly, the shattering of glass echoed through the alley way. Richard gazed up to see figure leaping through the air. Against the moonlight, it was like they were floating. As he focused, Richard made out a female figure, one to behold. He watched on the woman shot from the auction’s house’s window to the other building’s roof.
“What the hell?” Richard thought. He looked back at the building and then up again only to see her gone in that moment. With things weighed on a scale, this sort of development could hinder his mission. He had to follow this woman and find out who and what she was. The whole building would have to be on high alert now.
Richard leapt in the air and proceeded to scale the side of the building. He flipped onto the roof and caught the figure in the distance. He gritted his teeth, time to get a move on. Richard shot across the rooftops, his feet skidding about the concrete with a rage. He flipped and twirled over laundry lines and other obstacles.
She had a caught a glance of him, no doubt, as she picked up the pace. As he closed in on her, he could feel a number of other presences appear one by one in the distance. Backup? So, she wasn’t working alone, which ruled out any sort of lone wolf thief trying to pull one over the mafia.
“Hey!”
“Stop!”
He shouted, but got nothing in return as he raced after her from rooftop to rooftop. All that he could get were the occasional glances over the shoulder. But enough to meet her eye to eye. This had gone on long enough; the bottoms of his feet began to glow as Richard catapulting himself over her head with a single bound.
He landed firmly on the ledge of a building, some cracks splintering across the bricks under him. Richard’s glare met hers as the mysterious woman came to a halt. Upon closer inspection, her deep blue eyes merely topped off her beauty and striking figure.
“You sure do make a simple conversation a complicated affair,” Richard said with a huff. “What were you doing in there?”
She remained silent for a moment, studying Richard’s face and form with a dead look in her eyes. It was awkward to say the least, at least to Richard, this could be problematic.
“That’s none of your concern.”
Richard sighed, “Look I don’t know who the hell you are, but I’ll give you another chance to answer my question."
“Inquire as many times as you desire,” she said, “The answer will remain the same.”
It was time to pull out his badge, Richard figured. The presences he sensed before had vanished some moments before. Teleportation or some sort of sensory jamming spell had to be at work, or this woman’s magic gave her ability to craft false magic signatures to fool her enemy’s senses at her discretion. No doubt, the last possibility would both be the most troublesome yet interesting one.
Richard leaped off the ledge and took a few steps towards the woman; her blue hair almost glowed with the moonlight. It was hard not to just take it all in, but there were more serious matters at hand.
“Okay, let’s do this another way then,” Richard threw up his hands innocently. “I really shouldn’t be saying this, but I’m with the council and I need to know what you—"
“Richard Aria, the council’s most powerful asset,” she said quickly. “I’m well aware of whom you are, your name may not resound given the nature of your work, but it is enough to be kept in mind by any of us.”
He arched an eyebrow, “Us?”
“Razeena-sama!”
“Shit,” Richard cursed as the presences suddenly appeared again right near him. Several figures clad in blackish armored clothing and skulls masks landed before this woman, this strange woman know apparently as Razeena. Not a name familiar to this side of the continent.
“You’re in the way,” Razeena said, turning his attention to the newest arrivals. “Remedy that.”
“Forgive me, ma’am, but we had to remind you that the window closes in but a few minutes,” one of her comrades said.
“I’ve been around for a bit and I’ve seen quite a bit,” Richard said, rubbing a temple. “But, you are who again?”
“We’ve been compromised in our exit,” Razeena said slowly. “I can explain later.”
“Razeena, is it?” Richard asked, taking another few steps forward.
The two locked gazes for a few moments. She quickly looked away, escaping his glare. “You may think you know all about the world, Aria, but there are still some things left to learn—for you and the Golden Lion.”
“Sanjo?” He thought, gritting his teeth. He couldn’t let this one go. Richard sighed, “I had heard bare details of some old society of assassins, but I had assumed it was some extinct cult from a different era….”
“We dance with shadows,” Razeena said.” It is best you don’t come near the league, not even you. Forget what you saw here and forget me.”
A flash of light caught Richard off guard and as he regained his sight, they were gone. He looked around, not a shred of magical power in the immediate area. Hollering could be heard from down the street. Richard figured the mafia decided to scrap the auction and evacuate, they were always a careful bunch, set apart from the rest. As he took in all that had happened, more questions continued to pop into his mind. For once in his mature life, the young mage was in the dark.
“What the hell is going on?”
The Shadow League[]
Magic Council Archives, Era.
“Clearance level: Omega.”
Richard fished out a black card from his pocket and watched a pair of bookcases open before him. Towards the back of the central library at the council's headquarters was a special archive few had access to. A place where the most classified of documents, redacted from common eyes, were present and guarded. The young mage stepped through a dark corridor, it slanted down as a ramp into an airy, wood paneled room. About a dozen guards were scattered about the room in total silence.
It wasn't so much a secret, but a luxury few would ever see in the council. Besides the actual councilmen, a few amongst the rune knight's elite were granted the privelege to use this room's resources and access sensitive knowledge. After the events months ago with Olympic Code, he had been cleared to Omega level clearance.
"What is it you seek, Master Aria?"
Richard turned to see an elderly women walking towards him. She was one of the keepers of this secret archive and had been part of the council before his own parents had even met, Ersa, though he couldn't recall her surname. He sought one thing and hoped red tape wouldn't get in his way.
He smiled, "Tell me about this league that dances with the shadows."
Ersa's soft face hardened as the words rolled off Richard's tongue. She nodded to her desk towards the back of the room and Richard followed in suit.
"Imagine my surprise knowing that I, the leader of the council's covert operations, had no knowledge of a faction brave enough to go killing off mafia men," Richard said taking a seat across from the librarian. "It's fascinating at best."
"In all fairness, I hear you're busying yourself with that Vista brat's affairs rather than that of the council," she said sternly.
"Exia was hardly his or any one person's affair and more a matter of national security," Richard crossed his legs, "and don't change the subject."
She smiled, "The league is something of a need-to-know basis situation...."
"I had heard of a group of assassins the council dealt with years back," Richard interjected," But I had figured the bunch were put down, what I saw that night was a group unafraid to mess with one of the most ruthless entities in the continent. If the mafia gets riled up, that could spell trouble for our assets keeping tabs on their movements and nearby civilians."
"They were not put down, it's just we have no clashed with those snakes in decades," Ersa said, pulling a folder from a drawer in her desk. "The only one amongst your bosses with any experience with them is Org-sama, not even Doma has had any experience with this lot. Yajima isn't around anymore, so that leaves him out."
Richard took the thin folder from her hands and opened it, flipping through pages to scan its' contents. It was light on detail and didn't give much. "What are these people, for our intelligence to have so little on them," he noted with his finger gliding down the page.
"They are masters of their trade, to be caught alive and fail to escape is sinful for their kind," she said with a worried look. "Where was this, anyway?"
"Kuja, a popular border town in Seven, I had been assigned to recover certain artifacts." Richard arched an eyebrow, "Don't take this the wrong way, but you look like you've seen a ghost."
"You need to bring this to Doma's attention, boy," she said, rising to her feet. "It's always been their rule to shy away from Fiore and the region surrounded here, Era, it is troubling if their forces are nearing either areas. If you don't, I will."
"I will, but I don't make bold claims to my superiors without substantiating them with some hard evidence," Richard said calmly. "It's why they haven't fired me yet."
"And that entails what exactly?" she asked.
Richard smirked, "I'm going on a hunt."
End.