by 
Lucius Foss ☺ Guildless ☺ C-Rank
Y o u c o u l d b e t h e c o r p s e a n d I c o u l d b e t h e k i l l e r
As per request of an anonymous company of scientists, the young assassin was hired to kill their rivals and take their research. Like any mercenary, he was used to not knowing anything but the information that was viable to his mission. Everything was ‘need to know’, and majority of the time, he didn’t need to know. All he knew was the stuff mentioned above and that all of this was illegal, well you could probably assume that when they hired an assassin. Walking through the streets of the port city, he glanced around, everything was so familiar, from when Black Rose was in this city and not Rose Garden. Good for him that it was no longer in this city, because this is where his job takes place, well not that specific spot. Actually it was a large warehouse at the edge of town, by some unused docks, as the boy was told by his employers. They gave him a map, but told him there had to be no physical evidence of the map, so he had to memorize the coordinates. Which was fine by him, he probably would’ve done so anyways, he always has had a knack for memorizing things. Even if those things weren’t relevant to the teenager.
The sky was quite overcast, like it usually seemed to be within the port city. And he wasn’t really bothered when slight sprinkles started to fall from the grey clouds. He wore all black as he always did, skinny jeans, t-shirt underneath a hoodie, black lace up combat boots, and lastly a hat. All was normal wear for the young adult, it was odd to see him in anything else. His shoes made no noise as expected from those type of shoes, but considering he was a highly trained assassin. Which if you didn’t know, are most of the time for hire killers, who do everything in secret. So it should be expected of him to be trained not to make any noise, and though it was once hard, he became rather second nature to the boy. Walking the back streets, nobody was really around, only some faces showed up here and there. But thankfully they were just a social as Lucius, and didn’t try to make random conversation if you looked at them. No questions asked, no bothering other people, it’s not your business. He was glad this city was usually like that, it made his life a whole lot easier. Though he was still cautious and made sure he wasn’t followed. And if he thought he might’ve been, he would loop around a few blocks until whoever might’ve been following him was lost.
So after having to do that a few times, he made it to the warehouse, the sound of the now pouring rain could be heard rather well. Especially upon the steel roof which the building of which the man would now be entering for the sake of him job. From the outside it seemed abandoned, all the windows were boarded up in a very thorough way so you could not see through them. With wood, steel and cloth, and to be expected the door was locked also. Good this lock picking was in the list of his many talents, but he was very cautious, watching out for traps and such as he stepped in certain spots and started to unlock the door. Traps to be expected if this is some top secret organization working on illegal things. He was now soaked, but he didn’t let it really bother him, he would just have to change later, he highly doubt he was even keep these clothes after purging this building anyways.
Click, the door was unlocked, slowly he stood up, straightening his long legs he grabbed the doorknob. Slowly he turned it, that’s when he heard a slight snap, something was triggered. He shoved the door open all the way the hugged the outside wall as what appeared to be a turret, shot at where he was previously standing. Though it stopped when the sensors for the weapon noticed nothing was there. The boy released a sigh, looked ahead of him were the turret bullets landed. The building a few yards away from this one was now riddled in bullet holes. But it was abandoned, and nobody was around to even hear any of what just happened. Taking his time he turned around, with lightning fast reflexes he yanked one of his disposable knives from his pocket and hit the sensor. The turret would now never be able to know if an enemy was around, good, and it’s not like it would need to after this. Because then it would no longer have anything to protect. He then snuck in, still well aware of the cameras that were searching around for anybody who may be intruders. The boy, would’ve, with much more difficulty got through it on his own. But the organisation for which he is doing this job for, somehow got a hold of the building layout along with all of the camera’s and such. Another thing he needed to memorize then destroy. Then gaining this information was probably the reason they hired an assassin in the first place. Someone who could destroy their rivals and get their wanted information with no questions asked.
Though the warehouse looked abandoned from the outside, it clearly wasn’t on the inside. High tech you name it was everywhere. Everything was white with red outlining, the white and the industrial lighting made the rooms to bright hit hurt Lucius’ eyes to an extreme amount. Gladly he took his sunglasses with him, which he slid onto his pale complexion a little after entering this space. Though he now had some protection over his eyes, it still hurt a lot. The boy tried to ignore the throbbing pain, so he just concentrated on getting through the building. The entrance room was big, but the second room which he peered into was bigger, and a lot more populated. Seven scientists rushed about, beeps and clicks from the equipment could be heard, along with a lot of inaudible dialogue. Though even if he could hear what they were saying, he would most likely understand none of it. Yeah he was a genius, but a genius in everything he tried. So he would have to still be knowledgeable in everything they were talking about, so it would still be as much gibberish to him as it is for you of me.
Scanning the room with his throbbing blue/green eyes, no traps could be seen, but who know. With how high tech these things were, they could probably just press a button to vaporize him. And he didn’t really want to be vaporized, not right this second at least. So how would he deal with this, the boy wondered for a few moments and couldn’t come up with anything. Until one of the scientists made his way over to where Lucius was. With his quick reflexes and when nobody was watching he subdued the man, finishing him off with a stab to the throat. He laid him down out of view of the cameras, and then stood back at the doorway. That was just a lucky coincidence, an idea came to his head, though it might be stupid he didn’t really have any other better ones. He grabbed his gun, a fully loaded pistol complete with a silencer for stealth jobs such as this one. Though of course there was a limited number of shots that the silencer would work, but he didn’t have to worry about this at the moment.
Looking at the bottom of the doorway he saw a very thin white thread, it was almost next to impossible to see it. Cleverly hidden tripwire, lucky he saw it, who knew what would’ve happened if he triggered it. That got him thinking, he couldn’t see if there was any guns, was it an explosion? If so then maybe he could trigger it when one or more was close by, worse case scenario, that isn’t what it is. But here’s hoping. He backed away, cutting the wires of one of the more annoying before conducting his plan. Listening closely, waiting until he heard footsteps near the targeted area. It felt like a long time, but he heard multiple footsteps approaching. He threw a cleverly aimed knife, hopefully the supposed explosion wouldn’t affect him from that far away. Also hoping it wouldn’t trigger an alarm, but then again the turret didn’t, so maybe. It wasn’t the most sneakiest idea, especially since he was an assassin. But he would have to deal.
Good news, it was an explosion. Bad news, it was bigger than anticipated. Shrapnel had made it’s way into his skin, and he was blown back slightly. Ringing flooded his hearing and his eyes were blurred. Blinking away some of the fog from his gaze he could see the damage, and it was quite the damage. I guess they had it so it was big enough to destroy the one room and slightly the entrance room. And also kill any person in the destroyed room, he thought this rather smart. Any information in the room would then be burned to a crisp, and the people would be killed and unable to give any information if captured and interrogated. Trying to ignore the pain from where the metal had made it’s way into his skin, he walked into the other room. He cursed himself for failing part of his job, he was supposed to get all information, but whatever was here was gone. Hopefully they didn’t expect him to get everything. Though he expected the worse, a deduction from his paycheck. Taking a deep breath he scavenged around the wreckage, there was only a few papers and a usb drive that survived because they were blocked by the body of a person. Sticking the things in the bag given to him by his employers, he moved on.
Though it was a large warehouse, it appeared to be separated into four rooms. The entrance room, the one that he accidentally destroyed, another study room with double the amount of scientists and the attic. The attic was said, on the layout that his employers found, to have the most valuable thing, their entire research. So Lucius guessed that if he destroyed all of this on accident also, at least he would have back up in the attic of the building. This doorway was closed off, and somehow survived the explosion, was probably built like it is just in case that explosion ever went off. How would he open this door then? Well he didn’t really have to worry about that to long because somebody opened it. When he heard it start to open he hid against the wall. Then he did a takedown like he did at the previous doorway, the man didn’t have enough time to be shocked about the charred room. His neck was snapped then he was tossed aside, the door started to close, and Lucius figured this was his only chance. Pulling out his gun and filled the betweens of his fingers with disposable knives and he dived through the closing door.
In seconds he landed the four knives that he hand in one hand, in four different guy’s foreheads. And with his gun he shot the rest in vital areas until he ran out of bullets. And with that, there was only one guy left, terror on his face. He back up to his desk and reached for a button. Security maybe, no matter, the assassin wouldn’t let him. The boy darted towards him, hopping on top of the large table filling most of the middle of the room. Ran across it and jumped on top of the scientist, the impact of the teenager jumping into him made him hit his head against the desk and crumple to the ground.
Though he wasn’t knocked out, he now had a nasty looked bump on his head. Though slightly dazed, he looked up at Lucius in fear. The boy in response to seeing the terror upon his face, was just his usual malicious grin. Leaning down he tossed his gun aside and pulled out his switchblade and stabbed it within the man’s gut. Also using one of the abilities that it has to make the target bleed more than normal, so it would be only a matter of minutes before this man passed on to the other side. ”So, where might I find the switch to open the attack?” the boy asked, his twisted grin still upon his pale complexion. Yanking the knife out the man screamed, and after a minute he struggled but with pain contorting his face spoke, splatter some blood as he did so ”Don’t do it, it’s unstable” many questions flooded into Lucius’ brain after the man spoke, but the man’s gaze drifted over to a large lever as he breathed for the last time.
The young dark mage just rolled his eyes as he stood to his feet, whipping the blood off of the knife he folded it and placed it back in his pocket. He started to walk over to the lever, but stopped to get over the sharp pains in his body. He would need to go to a doctor soon so the shrapnel wouldn’t damage any important organs. Walking again he placed himself before the lever. Reaching over it he placed his hand on it and tugged it down. When he did so, the place where he stood, a circle two and a half feet in diameter raised an inch making him stumble slightly. Then and a circle the same diameter pushed itself from the ceiling and moved to the side, then a tube came down around the circle. Rather claustrophobic if you ask me, but it wasn’t like he was in it long. In a matter of seconds it shot him up, retracting the tube and putting the platforms back when he stumbled off.
As he looked around, the lights for the room came on, practically blinding the teenager. He cringed in pain, looked down at the floor until the throbbing decreased slightly. Then he looked at the thing, whatever it was, taking up the entire room, and the room was huge. This thing didn’t even fit in it properly, it was taken apart into different pieces. The majority was bright red, and glinted brightly with the light shining down on it ”What is this?” the young assassin thought aloud to himself, then suddenly, what he later realized was eyes blinked orange. Slowly it stopped blinking and stayed bright. Then it spoke in a robotic and ambiguous sounding voice, though it’s mouth didn’t move. ”Voice unrecognized, must destroy” that is when the boy started to have second thoughts and got ready to bolt. That’s when the roof opened, very loudly with some screeching sounds that was most likely the steel roof scraping up against itself. Then the robot parts started to raise up into the air, and coming from the head shot out orange whip like beams that attached to every other part of the body and connected itself together. When it was fully assembled, Lucius wondered how it ever fit in the building, because it was so much bigger then it.Holding two large blades in it’s hands, his bright gaze glued itself to the assassin, and he knew he was in trouble.
As the robot slammed the blade down, the young adult barely jumped out of the way, but it didn’t go without any damage to the building. Slicing it in half with little to no effort. Then the building started to fall apart, the stabbing and slicing feeling of the bits of metal in his body didn’t even seem to matter at the moment. Even if it did hurt like hell, he could worry about that, he had to concentrate on not getting killed by this over twenty story robot. Somehow he made his way out of the building, hopping across bits of rubble as it rained down into the water. Thankfully he fell in no to high up as to not get crushed when impacting the water, but his heavy layers weighed him down, so it took a lot of effort for him to push himself up to the surface. He pulled himself onto the docks, water pouring off of him, his hair sticking to his face and body. He lost his sunglasses and hat in the water and they were floating a ways away from him, so now he could even see that far away from. Well wasn’t this going to be fun?
He pulled his combat boots off of his feet and the socks along with it and tossed them away, water flying out of them as he threw them. Then he ripped off his hoodie and tossed that aside too. No use wearing things that are going to weigh him down, and he had a feeling he was going to end up in the water a lot more, which was going to be difficult. He wasn’t even sure if he can defeat this thing. But hopefully, since the scientist said it was unstable, it was also weaker than it would if completed, so there was some hope. Rather unlike the boy, he was sure doing a lot of hoping today.
Though he wasn’t able to sit for long because the large mechanical weapon pinpointed the assassin again, raising its sword again to slash the teenager. Though at the time he wasn’t able to think this, he was glad that the robot was slow enough for him to survive. The blade slashed down on the pavement, and he was able to dive into the water just in time. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to keep this up much longer, he needed to fight back. He dove deeper into the water, wanting to lose the gaze of the red beast. Then he knew he didn’t when two extremely bright orange beams shown down into the waters of which he swam. Trying to locate him. The light was painful to look at so he didn’t, then he started to hear a loud buzzing. Like something was charging up, and as it got louder the water got warmer, and he knew he had to get out. He pushed himself to the surface and the beams followed him as he swam to shore. He pulled himself up, his eyes trying to force themselves closed because of how painful the light was. But he kept them open and he ran and ducked behind a building. Then a few seconds after the beams of light shot lazers of pure white-hot flames. Charring the side of the building and damaging it majorly that it started to fall apart.
Lucius didn’t stay there long, he stood up and he ran as fast as he could, through the mostly abandoned part of Lavanitir. And though it was usually abandoned, people started to come over, noticing what was going on. Great, now people were going to get in his way, he didn’t have time for this. Not that he cared for them losing their lives or anything like that, they were just going to start screaming and running around like the stupid little ants they are. And that was going to be troublesome, especially when the authorities arrived to deal with the situation. So he decided, to prevent any of that from happening, he had to get out of the city. Not that he really wanted to take to the water because it would be really bad if he was stranded out there alone. But unlike himself he ignored his rational thinking, and he ran for where some boats were docked.
Making it there he hopped on a motor boat and he started it up, ignoring the shouts from the owner of the vessel. He steered it away from shore and rode out as far and fast as he could. His eyes throbbing still, and even more so when the orange beams found him again. Great, there goes that plan, the dark mage thought. But he guess it wasn’t as smart as it should be, because it didn’t shoot him with its white beams of death. The only reason he is even still alive is because the robot is slow and not that intelligent. But instead, it landed harshly into the water, causing a rather large splash. Sending Lucius farther away from it and flooding the shore. Slowly, it kept its gaze on the boy, and started to walk towards him. Shaking the earth beneath it as it did so. When it got closer it raised both of its blade and slammed them down towards the wizard. Though, of course as I said before, not as smart. And the boy easily got in between both of the blades, only being affected by the water that tidal waved upon the dual blades impacts upon it. Though it crashed over him, it somehow didn’t make him capsize, he would thank the almighty god if he wasn’t an atheist. He drove the boat forward, and thought this a time as any to try and attack back, though he was unsure if anything would even work.
Who knew how durable the mecha was. Though he didn’t really have a choice, if he was going to die, he was going to die fighting the damn thing. He cursed himself for thinking something so cheesy as he pulled out his gun and reloaded it. Taking as deep breath he got ready to activate his magic, though an itching feeling told him not to, that something was going to go wrong. But again he pushed that away, treating like any other voice in his head and he activated his magic. The whites of his eyes turning black and then spreading the same colored branch like veins across his face. But they spread farther than they would normally, practically engulfing his entire face and partially his neck. And when it pulsed like it normally did, it hurt even worse than it normally did. Now he was for sure that something was bad, and he had a feeling he knew what was going to happen. But he tried to ignore the pain as he activated a spell. Additum Damnum, adding more damage to attacks that he does bare handed and with weapons. So it added a bit more damage to the bullets that he shot at the chinks in the mecha’s armor. All of them hit due to the robot being rather slow to move, and unaware of the word ‘dodge’.
The robot shuddered slightly, and were he shot the bullets made it’s armor start to loosen. A slight smirk appeared on his face due to an idea sparking in his mind, a way to defeat this thing. He then pushed to boat to it’s limit, making it go as fast as it could go. Making the robot chase after him at a slow pace, but with very large strides. Only a couple more and he would be all caught up with him, not something that he wanted, but he had his plans. The boy assured himself that it would work, because if he thought for a moment that it wouldn’t, well he would probably die. And that would be the end of Lucius Foss. Though he couldn’t see off in the distance, he assumed he wouldn’t be able to even see the port city of which he was previously at.
Like he wanted, the robot sliced it’s sword down again, and the assassin made the boat do a sharp turn to the left. The waves shoving him farther away because of the blade. He watched as the robot shuddered, where the arm was connected started to make rather unpleasant noises. Though to the boy it was good, he was glad this robot was all offence no defence, because otherwise some simple lead bullets wouldn’t have harmed it like it has. Then it worked, the arm was knocked out of it’s metal sockets due to the shock of it hitting the ground so harshly. Not only because of the mecha’s strength, but because of the momentum of it falling to the ground, attempting to hit Lucius. The boy watched as the arm crashed into the water, causing quite the effect. A large tidal wave was made from it, good for the assassin that he was far enough away for it to only slightly flood the motor boat.
The robot slowly turned it’s head to look at the damage done, and when it tried to lift his other arm of which the sword was the only thing keeping him balanced. He started to fall over, and the stupid thing couldn’t figure out what happened to them. He figured this would be the only safe time to approach, though he was aware that he would be screwed if it used it’s white ray of death again. But for now he had to end this robot, if he could. He speedily maneuvered the boat towards the robot, and went towards it as fast as he could. Pulling his switchblade from his pocket, he knew he had one left from his earlier casted spell, Additum Damnum. Turning it into a scythe, he lifted it and stabbed it into the neck of the mecha. Which with a lot of noise, detached from the rest of the body. It was going good until he felt the beam on his skin, and the loud buzzing of the robot charging it’s attack. Only a short amount of time before it was shot. Quickly he stabbed one eye from the boat, but it exploded upon impact and shot him off of the boat.
That’s when his magic deactivated for some reason, without him doing it on his own. He plunged into the waves, unable to swim due to the sudden shock of the explosion. His eyes blinked a couple of times, able to see that the eye that he stabbed was no longer working. This made his smirk slightly, but then he realized that the other was still going to shoot. Another bad thing, extreme pain, beyond anything that Lucius has ever felt before. Stuck him in his eyes, he tried to scream but being underwater, the sound was never heard. And when he opened his eyes for but a moment, the beam shot, straight into his eyes.
Let me recap for what just happened, his dark magic was slowly making his eyes less and less susceptible to light, and after using his magic right then. So his eyes was filled with immense amounts of pain, then the white beam of death shot at him. The fiery part of it was for the most part extinguished, but did bring that part to over a boiling temperature for a little bit. But the darkness which had damaged his eyes, was then shot out by an almost point blank range beam of pure light and fire magic. Though maybe at a farther distance he would’ve been okay, but that close. Well there was no preventing him from now permanent eye damage. To sum it up, he is blind and it can’t be fixed.
On the verge of passing out and possibly never waking, he laid atop the motor boat. He felt a hand touch his head, and hair fall onto his face. ”Who…….?” he spoke with a very gravelly tone, then whatever it was spoke. It was like the robot’s voice, yet not as loud and threatening. More feminine and more human like, though it was still similar. ”I apologize for what the rabid AI did to you, though as humans would say. Thank you” a slight pause with more petting on his throbbing head ”I shall download myself into your cellular device so I may explain to you what knowledge you may require. Then you may delete me. But for now sleep until more humans arrive for help. Because you won’t be able to see this form ever again, and not because of your state. Due to you destroying my outer shell you also destroyed what sustained me.” another pause, then what Lucius assumed to be a robot resumed ”Though I thank you, and do sleep well” then, he passed out. Though he wasn’t exactly sure as to how, because of how much pain he was in. Mostly his eyes. But no matter, he slept, unaware of the troubles that follow.
W o r d C o u n t:
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