Bad Religion [Job]

What a holy Sunday it was. Vana was heading for the church in Clover Town in order to taint the holy water inside. It was a job that she was tasked with for some unknown reason. She herself didn’t mind religions, although she did not believe in any God. But she understood that people had their own different beliefs and she was in no place to stop them from having them. Maybe her client was holding a grudge against someone from the church. She knew of the people who worked in the church. There were the priests, the nuns, the altar boys and what else. She didn’t know each and every one of them so she was probably missing some others, but she had the general idea, you know. Vana chose to complete this task late at night because she didn’t want to get caught in the middle of her mission.

The dark of the night gave her perfect cover to get inside the church unnoticed. There was no one in the area that she could see. Everyone was probably asleep at this time. She took a glance at the church clock, it was a few minutes past midnight. Soon it would be dead silent in the area, not even the sound of tires on the road in the far distance would fill the empty night.

There was one thing that filled the otherwise soundless night and it was the sound of a choir of crickets making music somewhere Vana couldn’t see. She had successfully slipped into the church, now waiting to see if anyone might come here, although it was a bit late for anyone to be up and active. She had to make sure that no one heard or saw her so that she could continue with doing what she came for. It wasn’t as if she was scared to make some noise, but it was in the job description that she should even silence anyone who saw her so that they couldn’t report back to their mighty Magic Council. What fun. She wasn’t the silent killer type, but if needed, she wouldn’t have a problem with it. After all, she was a killing machine. It didn’t matter what method she had to use, she could still do it. Vana soundlessly stepped onto the altar, circling the table at the center. What was this table for? She had never been to church before, so she didn’t know. Did the priest put the bible on here and read it to the crowd? What did they even do in church ceremonies? With her brows knitted together in concentration, she scanned over the contents strewn across the table. There was goblet like cup, what was this for? In case the priests got thirsty while reading the bible? She wouldn’t know. So she picked it up and studied it closely.

Vana took a close look at pretty much everything on the table at the center of the altar. Once she was done, she decided to take some pages off the only book on the table that she thought was probably the bible. There were some lines that she liked that she wanted to keep so she stuffed the folded pages into her pocket while she looked under the table and all around the altar. Where was the holy water? Surely had to be on the altar? She even broke open the little cabinet behind the altar that was secure by a rusty lock. Still nothing. In fact, she found something interesting inside. Another goblet, this time bigger and shiner, filled with little white circles. She picked one out, sniffed it and then studied it carefully. It was made of flour. What was this? Food for the priests? Were they limited to this diet or something? She put the pieces back into the goblet and put the goblet back into the cabinet, closing it before dusting her hands and looking around once again. It was so silent now, like meditation silent. She could just sit down and fold her legs, shut her eyes and focus on her breathing and nothing would disrupt this. Unless of course some animal decided to. From the windows at the top of the walls, Vana could see the vast sea of stars. It would have been a peaceful night, if none of the following events occurred. In fact, it would have been a peaceful night if Vana didn’t decide to taint the holy water.

The sound of distant footsteps made Vana halt in her actions. The silhouette of a man dressed in what looked like robes passed by the entrance door. She hid behind the table, peeking from the side of it, her line of sight focused on the double doors that would lead into the church. The silhouette hopefully didn’t belong to someone who was coming into the church, or one of the priests, or altar boys, or nuns. The shadow of a man she thought she saw did not even stop for a moment and left as fast as it came. Maybe it was just a passerby.

Relieved by this realisation, Vana came out of hiding and walked over to the podium that was on the right of the altar if you were looking from the audience. Obviously the holy water wasn’t going to be here, but she just felt like making sure. The dead of night made her act all the more careful since a single mistake could lead to who knows what kind of consequences. It was a public building after all. Someone could literally show up in the middle of the night because they wanted to pray. Even a homeless person could slip in to take refuge for the night. If any of the mentioned possibilities actually happened, Vana wouldn’t hesitate to remove them, as they were nothing more than hindrances in her mission.

“Where the hell is all the holy water at?” she mumbled to herself in frustration. She wouldn’t have to be having this silly problem if she had asked her client where the holy water was in the first place. Her client probably thought that she would know, but being an atheist who didn’t show much interest in religions, that was not the case. The only reasons she knew the things she knew about some religions were because she either read them in books or she heard about them from various sources.

The various sources included the news, random people talking about it and maybe her guildmates talking about it sometimes. Speaking of, Vana barely went back to her guild. Even though she took some kind of pledge or whatever that is called, she cared more about herself that about her guild or her guildmates. What do you expect from a dark wizard like her? Tilting her head upwards, Vana tried to remember the last time she set foot in her guild’s territory. It had been long, that was for sure. Her guildmaster had probably forgotten about her, but that was also a good thing. In the case that she decided to leave the guild eventually, having the guildmaster forget about her meant less danger on her journey ahead. She could traverse Earthland without a single worry, pursuing her goals and making a mark in the world. Even if her past came back to haunt her, she wasn’t scared to face it. She wasn’t a child, some emo scared of pretty much anything - well not anymore. She had matured over the time between her childish years and now. She was only sixteen still, but age did not define maturity and Vana was the perfect example.

The fact that she couldn’t locate the holy water storage was starting to get on her nerves at this point. After all, she had a hot temper. A simple something not going her way could ruin her mood entirely. So now that she was frustrated with the current situation, she decided to grab a snack before continuing this. It was easy getting into the church so she wouldn’t have to worry about any difficulties when doing it again after snacking. It was pretty late at night but there were still the twenty four hour shops, those were real lifesavers. So she slipped into the shadows casted by the pale moonlight, traveling to the nearest shop trying to be as unnoticeable as possible. The nearest shop was actually pretty close. Although not too close for people who came to the shop to notice any odd activity at the church, it was walking distance.

Everyone in the shop saw her as just an ordinary teenager who liked to have highlights in her hair. That wasn’t true though. She neither liked nor disliked her highlights. She was born with them. That doesn’t mean she came out of her mother’s womb with hair right on her head already, but when her hair did grow, the highlights were already there. Shocked her parents, they did. But it wasn’t something she could get rid of later. They wouldn’t go away. Her mother tried to dye her hair completely black, but the highlights came back. She tried to bleach it again, but it didn’t work again, just the normal parts of her hair were left bleached. The highlights came back as usual. But her mother was embarrassed about this. She didn’t want anyone to see that her daughter was one of those hippie girls that she saw in the streets doing things like smoking - which was actually something Vana did now anyways. Her mother went to the lengths of putting a hat on or wrapping her daughter’s head in a large piece of cloth so that people didn’t judge or criticize her. It wasn’t long until she didn’t need to do that anymore, though.

Vana bought a pack of cigs and a lighter since she didn’t bring hers. She would probably dispose of both said purchases after a quick smoke. Then she bought a pack of crisps and left the shop, walking to the nearby bus stop and taking a seat at the vacant bench. It was past midnight, nobody was here to take a bus. So she crossed her legs and made herself feel comfy before lighting one of her cigs and ripping open the pack of crisps. After a while she began to feel thirsty, so she tossed the finished cig to the ground and stepped on it with her foot and headed back to the shop to get herself a bottle of iced lemon tea. She didn’t care if any hiding hobos stole the stuff she left at the bus stop. She was pretty much done with them. But when she came back she saw that they were all still there. Looks like there were no hiding hobos here. So she decided to light another cig after drinking some of the lemon tea. She was actually enjoying herself right now. The occasional hoot of an owl in one of the trees behind the bench would punctuate the silence of the night.

Twenty minutes later she had finished four cigs altogether and felt like it was time to get back to work. It was late, but she wasn’t sleepy. She wasn’t stupid as to come unprepared. She had chugged two cups of coffee before coming here, so she was feeling pretty active. The lemon tea only made her feel more refreshed, taking away the faint fatigue that drinking coffee usually came with. Disposing the pack of cigs, the lighter, crisps and the bottle of lemon tea that was now empty, Vana headed back in the direction of the church. It was a bit chilly outside so she had to fold her arms over her chest to hopefully keep warm. The icy breeze that sliced through the street made it even worse but she would be at the church soon and it was warmer inside. She hoped that the last days of winter would be soon. Otherwise she would be mad.

On her way back to the church, she spotted two silhouettes this time inside the building. From a distance, she couldn’t tell if they were female or male even, so she stealthily approached the establishment, making sure her footsteps didn’t give her away. Were they here to taint the holy water as well? That was highly unlikely. She didn’t think that her client would ask more than one wizard to do the job. It was a pretty simple job anyway. Well, if the wizard knew where the goddamned holy water was. Vana, however, had no clue where it was and had not bothered to research it beforehand, so she was actually in deep shit. Since she didn’t know the level of importance of holy water in the church, she couldn’t tell whether or not it would be super hidden, or just hidden, or not hidden at all. She was freaking out earlier about it, but now was not the time to be freaking out. The two silhouettes were still. She could tell they were either on or near the altar, because she had studied the entire church. It was shaped like a cross and the altar was near the intersection. She herself was on the altar a while ago, so she could pretty much pinpoint where it was from outside. She hid in the shadow of a nearby tree in case they were looking outside in her direction. The tree would give her perfect cover as long as she stood in the umbra of its shadow.

The silhouettes stayed unmoving. This made Vana wonder if they were statues she hadn’t noticed that were already there? That couldn’t be. She wasn’t short of memory. Vana had in fact almost taken a photograph of the whole place with her eyes. She remembered what it looked like. Well, what it looked like the last time she saw it anyway. Could it be that someone had brought statues into the church? At this time? Impossible. Maybe they were standing and speaking, possibly talking about her? Maybe they had found some evidence that someone had intruded the church. It wasn’t locked anyways, so basically anyone could come in. There was no time to waste trying to figure out the purpose of these two figures. She could tell they were men, now, she could see that they had short hair and had masculine structure. They were pretty much hindering her mission, and she didn’t feel like wasting time so with a flick of her wrist, she transformed into Sagittarius, a bow and arrow in their appropriate places as she climbed the tree so she could look through the glass of one of the huge windows. If they had good eyesight and were facing in her direction, they would probably see her since her bow and arrows would be glowing. It was easier to take them out before they had time to notice her and evade her shots.

Vana brought out two arrow from her quiver, aiming for the heads and then took a quick shot. Her aim was always accurate, so it would only be a matter of time before the two bodies fell dead on the altar. She could see that she was right; they were on the altar. The only sound that would break the silence of the night was the crack of the glass window that she shot her arrows through. Of course the piercing ability of her arrows was far beyond average, so the window was no hindrance in their path and instead shattered away like sugar glass. Vana returned inside the church, still in her Sagittarius form and studied the bodies. They were wearing robes, like priests. She didn’t know there were more than one priest in a church. She could have been wrong. The arrows went through their heads as expected, making perfect holes in their foreheads before dissipating. The arrows (and the bow as well) were all made of light, after all. No one seemed to notice the sound of the glass cracking, so nobody came to see what had happened. The street outside was deserted, and the entire area was dead silent. No sirens blaring, no curious passerbys.

Now then, she was back to looking for the holy water. A lot of different options ran through her mind, concerning where to look for the holy water. She started again at the altar. Maybe a secret compartment under the wooden flooring? She ripped up the carpet over the wood using the tip of her arrow, but nothing was there. What the hell? Was she ever going to find the holy water? All she needed to do was taint it and it was a job done, but nope the holy water was not there. “Fuck this,” she said to herself in a hushed tone, floating about the altar in search for the holy water. She knew there was no reason for it to be elsewhere, but was she right?

Vana was so distracted by finding the holy water that she almost forgot to watch herself. Four boys randomly came into the church looking all offended and ready to fight. One of them yelled at her, asking who she was and why she was here. The heavenly body mage gave them all one look, the look that would send their souls flying out of their bodies, but being careless, young boys, they put up brave faces and all of them got in this battle stance like they knew Vana was the enemy already and they were going to have to fight her. A crazy smile appeared upon the sorceress’s face as she raised her hands and said, “Oh forgive me Father for I have sinned,” then turned to the boys who had their full attention on her. “And I will sin again,” she said, preparing to fight these kids. The bravest of them came charging forward, reading a spell that was of the light element. This was going to hurt Vana?

Not a chance. Sagittarius was ready with her bow, drawing three arrows against it, but was stopped by Vana for a bit as she was amused by the magic that the boys were using. Light magic was clearly going to do nothing against her, but she wanted to see what they were trying to do. “Props for the effort,” she said with a sly smile and gave Sagittarius the signal to go. She fired three shots one after another, and then drew another arrow from her quiver, making the last shot aimed at the remaining boy. All of them ate the arrows almost willingly and fell on their knees, groaning and screaming as they struggled to remove the arrows from their chests. It was almost like target practice, but this time the targets were moving, living human boys. They were bad at evading, Vana did not even notice an attempt to try and evade Sagi’s arrows. Amazing how slow they were. They just made things easier for her and Sagittarius. After a while of squirming and wriggling on the ground while groaning like dying animals, they became completely still, which put a small smile on Vana’s face. She continued to search for the holy water. Either she was being damn stupid or it was really nicely hidden. She knew it was something special, so of course there was no doubt they would try to hide it properly so that not anybody could just come into the church and steal it or do something bad to it.

“This is quite pathetic, don’t you think?” asked Vana, the question more to herself than to Sagittarius who nodded anyways, agreeing with her statement. After a while of looking around the church, she let out a very frustrated groan and threw her head back. It was tiring, but she was going to find it. She had come so far. She had killed four boys and some priests. She would kill more, if it was necessary, but for now she walked down from the altar to the boys that were laying down on the church floor, all of them passed out. Or so she thought. When she got closer to their still bodies, she noticed that one of them was conscious and trying to form words with his mouth while his lips trembled, no sound being produced even though she could see he was trying so hard. “What are you trying to say?” she asked, an eyebrow raised in question. The only sound that was coming out of his mouth was a soft croaking, as if he had not drank a single drop of water in the past month or so. “Do you know where the holy water is?” she tested and the boy stopped trying to speak, and instead gave her a very shocked look. Maybe only then he discovered what she was here for. She wondered what he thought she was here at first. Maybe just a bored church destroyer or satan’s worshipper.

The boy continued to croak annoyingly and choke on his own saliva. With a slight grimace, Vana rose to her feet and stared down at the boy who started wriggling and coughing blood. Useless, she thought. Fucking useless. He probably knew where the holy water was, but he seemed to be the kind to defend that kind of information with his life. Plus he could barely speak. He was simply croaking like a dying frog and coughing up so much blood, Vana moved back a few steps so that she did not get stained by the blood. The grimace lingered on her facial features as she turned to Sagittarius who looked at the boys with equal disgust, just that her grimace was not as noticeable. Vana coughed a little and turned away from the boy, who let out one last, really loud croak before his slightly lifted head fell onto the cold hard floor with a muffled thud. Vana decided to take a rest for a while and maybe try to think of places they might have stored the holy water instead of tiring herself by walking around the church looking for it. Could there be a storage building? She doubted they stored holy water like maple syrup or something, but she had to look. Getting up as she got the idea, she gestured for Sagi to follow her. “Hopefully I’ve got the right idea,” she muttered mostly to herself and went outside of the church from the back door.

Sagi followed right behind her master, looking out for any more dangers in case there were any lurking. You could not tell if there were more silly boys who were beginner light mages hiding in the bushes or something to ambush Vana. Or any priests watching from afar and waiting for the perfect moment to sneak attack. That would not work anyways, because of how alert Sagi was, and not to mention Vana herself. They kept their guard up as they ventured out into the shadowed area behind the church. At the moment, they were under the shadow of the church building, and barely visible. Their footsteps were not too loud either, so unless like mentioned before, there were priests and boys hiding around no one would notice them around here. Vana walked around to search for any other buildings, or even small shacks, though she highly doubted she would find holy water in small shacks. She chose not to speak the whole time, finally entering the one and only building other than the church building itself. She did not know what it was called, but when she approached the door, she noticed a huge lock on it. So it was here all along? All she had to do was break the long, and do her job. She turned to Sagi with a smile as if they had accomplished something very big, with Sagi returning a similar smile. “Seek and you shall find,” she said and found something lying around to break the lock with.

With a sly smile on each of their faces, they began to attempt destroying the lock. Well, Sagi was doing that and Vana was just watching with her arms folded. She had no weapons, so she relied on Sagi to do that part while she kept watch of the area to take care of any of the hiding enemies, as mentioned. For the time being, she could hear nothing out of the ordinary, so they were safe. Sagi fidgeted with the lock for like five minutes before they both heard a click. Not to confuse you, but both Sagi and Nirvana were in the same body, but with different minds, it seemed like they were separated into two. So it was actually Vana who broke the lock, but it would be said that Sagi did that instead of Vana. As soon as the lock was destroyed, she backed up and prepared her bow and arrow, ready to shoot if any enemies were hiding inside. And sure enough, as soon as the door sprung wide open, two priests charged at her while yelling strange things, probably panicking after seeing what she had done with their previous friend who were now dead and gone. Drawing two arrows from her quiver at the speed of light and aiming for the both of them, she released, both arrows homing straight into their hearts as if their paths were curved. Once the arrows connected, both of the priests fell to the hard ground on their faces, pushing the arrows further through their bodies. “Ouch,” said Nirvana mockingly.

Thinking that there were no more enemies left in the whole damned place, Nirvana adjusted her quiver strap and pushed open the doors. It was dark inside, so she took slow steps as she tried to listen if there were any more enemies inside. She flipped her hair back, once she heard no sound, and then proceeded further into the establishment. She walked around the first room, searching for the same damn thing she had been searching for for quite a while now - the holy water. She walked around in circles, looking in every corner of the first room before she knocked down the door to the next room out of anger and strode in. Instead of finding the holy water, she found another priest, who stood in a battle ready stance, looking all heroic as if he was going to defeat Nirvana. She stared at him for a while, and he remained in that stance, giving her a sort of ‘I’m warning you’ look. The first thing she said was, “Are you going to tell me where the holy water is? If not I don’t need you, and if you’re going to get in the way, it’s not going to end pretty for you.” The priest gave her a questioning look, and then stood normally. He thought for a bit before replying to her, saying that the holy water was everywhere, she just needed to be smart with finding it. That was not very useful, but at least she got him to talk. She drew her arrow and aimed at him while he finished his sentence, punctuated by a frightened gulp. “You’re going to die anyway,” she said and released. The priest was too scared to react so he dropped in one shot.

Sagittarius was gone and now she was back to herself, just Vana. After all, she had defeated who seemed to be the head priest or something. He wore a bigger headpiece than the other priests and seemed to show more courage. He actually spoke to her, but it was the end for him. She wondered now where she should start looking for the holy water, all fucking over again. To be honest, she did take what he said a bit seriously, about it being everywhere. Maybe it was hidden, perhaps underneath the church? After one thorough look around the building behind the church, Nirvana walked out of it, skipping over the dead bodies of the priests she had killed. That reminded her of the phrase ‘over my dead body’ that people used a lot. With a slight chuckle, she proceeded into the church, back into the place where she could find even more dead bodies - dead bodies of the altar boys. After having successfully killed all the enemies that could possibly be there, she started to look for the holy water without caring about anyone else attacking her. It was not because she was certainly sure that she would not find any more enemies, but it was more like her instincts telling her that. After entering the church she walked along the sides, looking at corners to see if there was anything out of the ordinary, like if she could find any clue. Fortunately, she noticed some pipes running along the sides of the church.

Following the pipes, she arrived at a little fountain just at the entrance of the church. To be honest, it was not really a fountain, but it looked like one, so that was what it was - a fountain. Nirvana wondered if this was the holy water? If so, she wondered why it was in a fountain. It probably was not what she was looking for. So she headed back inside. And only then, from the entrance back inside, on the way back did she notice the holy water. She almost destroyed the little shelf like cup things they were put inside. She immediately spat into it, both of them actually, then went outside to pick up some dirt and then put the dirt in it, then spat in it some more. She was really pissed off because of it, so she could not help but do that. With a grunt, she clapped the dust off her hands and left the church. Her job was done here. And she was not bothered to try and hide the bodies. In fact, let them see the bodies.