Atrophic Assassins
Chapter 1
In the city of Defuncte there was always crime, always corruption. There was no end to it in any way or form because as long as there was still people willing to pay there was no end to the suppliers. But in this high-tech city of crime and minimal law there was one form of law that was feared by many…at least, feared by those who couldn't afford it.
A dark long alley-way littered the streets of Defuncte, rain dripped from numerous ladders and metal stands built into the sides of the walls. A peaceful pool of murky water reflected the city lights. The heavy sound of breathing and running echoed throughout the narrow urban hallway, the puddle was disturbed by the shoes of a lone figure…as the pool settled still there was a reflection of a tail passing over the rooftops.
The target was running away from a hidden force of nature, a deadly enemy to anyone who couldn't afford: the assassins. They ruled the city to a certain degree and took out anyone if they were paid to do so; in a sense they were the city's law enforcers…as well as other unknown positions.
The tabby cat had been a listed target for months but the hit had finally been ordered tonight and he was running for dear life. If he made it outside the city limits then he would be safe.
A dark figure was in hot pursuit from the rooftops. She had been training for months for her first mission and now that she had finally been selected, it wouldn't do her good if she failed. Failure was not an option.
The tabby cat only had a couple kilometers more to go before he had it outside the city. The assassin picked up her pace and began to leap rooftops faster. She ran along the side of one wall and jumped off of it, heading herself towards a drainage pipe where she held on for dear life while sliding down.
Her padded feet hit the soggy ground softly and then she was off in a burst of adrenaline. The tabby cat looked behind him to check if she was still following him…for a second he saw nothing, then there was a small shadow forming in the dark. He turned back around and began running faster, fear flowing in his veins. As he ran past some barrels he kicked them over, effectively blocking the pursuer's path. She heard the clanging of the empty gasoline barrels and charged up her pace slightly. Just before she ran into the barrels she went at an angle to the left, running across the wall and then landing on the other side of the barrels without breaking her consistent pace. The alleyway ended here and now it joined into a street…somewhere off in the front she could make out the dim form of her target running away.
She exited the alleyway and then took a right, running up a wall and then grabbing onto a metal pole that was jutting out from the wall. She swung herself back and forth until she gained enough momentum to swing herself near another drainage pipe. She let go and then grabbed the pipe with her paws and feet before scampering up onto the roof. She ran past air vents and hopped over a fence. She soon came to the edge of the roof where she looked down and saw her target flying down the stairs into the main subway. She noticed a large metal support line going from the roof down to the support pillars near the subway and grabbed onto it, sliding down. She jumped on the stair rails and slide down to the bottom where she jumped off and began her brisk pace once more.
She saw pillar after pillar of metal spaced every couple meters in the long subway hallway. On the other side there were the same evenly spaced pillars as well as another stairways leading up to the urban world. In the middle there was a large space to accompany the rails and the train, but currently unoccupied. She took her time to examine the area before hearing the blaring of a train signal echoing throughout the carved-in tunnel next to her. At that same moment her target compromised his location by running down the hallway; the assassin followed in hot pursuit.
He saw that there was a dead end at the other side with nowhere to go but back or over the rails. He made a quick decision to jump down and run across to the other side just as the train came rushing in. The train narrowly missed him as he scrambled onto the other side.
The assassin wasted no time and ran at one of the metal pillars. She jumped at it and then propelled herself off of it using her feet while landing on top of the still moving train. She fell onto her back and then rolled sideways off the train, breaking her fall by continuously rolling onto her shoulder on the other side. She got back up without so much as a scratch and ran once again.
The tabby was running up the stairways to the surface once more and then it wouldn't be long before he made it to the outer gates. As he ran up he knocked over some trashcans. The assassin jumped over them and used the railing to propel herself over rolling trashcans. At the mouth of the entrance he took a sharp left and willed himself to break his fourth wind. He ran past some fences and cut the curb at the end, taking another left.
The assassin noticed the fence to her left and jumped over it, she found herself in a junkyard of some sort. A dangerous shortcut, especially if she landed on an unstable or loose piece of metal which could make her fall into a sharp deathtrap. She ran up some small piles of metal detritus and then jumped off at the top, landing on the hood of a rusted old antique car. The metal groaned and dented but didn't give way so she was grateful for that. She then ran up the larger pile of debris and looked down, she was slightly ahead of the tabby cat but she would never make it in time to the fence below because of all the metal obstacles standing in the way. She looked down and saw a thick metal sheet lying at her feet, it looked like it was once a part of a construction project but she guessed that the size or material wasn't right so the contractor probably scraped it. It was perfect.
She set it down and then stepped on top of it, then she leaned forward and began to slowly slide forward. Then gravity did the rest and dragged her makeshift metal sled down the mountain of trash, protecting her from any sharp objects sticking up from the sides. Of course, she still had to angle her sled to avoid the larger pieces of metal sticking up but he didn't have much problem with the larger parts. As soon as she landed at the bottom she jumped off and then propelled herself over the fence.
The tabby cat ran past the curb and didn't look back. He only needed to run for a bit longer before he made it to the exit. He took a fraction of a second to check behind him, but when he saw no one pursuing him he felt more fearful of where she had gone. Suddenly there was a loud crashing noise to his left and he turned back around to feel something crash into the side of his head.
The assassin ha expertly angled her body over the fence so that she would be able to kick his head in the process. She landed on her feet as the tabby cat landed on his face. The tabby cat was stunned but he blindly stumbled to his feet, still trying to run away. The assassin ran up to him and then hit the back of his neck while twisting his arm away from him, thus breaking it in two places.
He yowled in pain and felt his body flip over onto the black asphalt, stars flying above his head. He coughed up blood from the assault to the back of his neck and then propped himself up against the wall of some building.
The assassin stared down at him as she raised her hood and revealed her features to him completely. He stared into the purple irises of a beautiful lynx.
"So it ends here, eh? The cat finally got the mouse."
She only replied, "Im'a lynx…and you're the cat."
"Since I'm going to die anyways…tell me your name young assassin."
She paused for a second before rationalizing that since he was going to be dead in a matter of seconds it wouldn't compromise her identity if she revealed only her name.
"The name's Miyu."
"Miyu eh? What a beautiful name for a beautiful gal like you…please, if anything, just make it end quickly."
She picked him up from the collar of his shirt and then slammed her knee into his stomach, knocking the air out of his lungs before slamming her elbow down on his exposed back, effectively breaking his spine. She let the body slump to the ground before searching his pockets for anything of any use…nothing. He must have known that he wasn't going to make it out of the city; why else would he carry nothing but the clothes of his back?
Miyu shook all thoughts from her head, pulled up her hood, and then climbed a pipe in a nearby alleyway, heading for the rooftops once more.
Miyu had passed her first mission, her first test. Even though Miyu was a full-fledged assassin now, she was still only 17 years old. She wouldn't earn the title of Stalker, or otherwise known as S-rank, until she assassinated for 2 years straight, and then after that she wouldn't earn the title of Shadow-Stalker until after 5 more years.
The assassin's nest was hidden deep within the confines of the urban sewers. Nobody dared to venture in the sewage systems alone unless they had a good reason, and the only good reason for anyone to be lurking down there was for business. Even then, with business privileges, most people wouldn't stray past the first level. There were rumors of people who had gone down to the second levels and had been killed by the assassins. Contrary to the rumors, anybody who did venture lower than the first levels either got lost within the maze of pipes and raw sewage or slipped down a deathtrap sewage container. The assassins wouldn't harm anyone roaming about and minding their own business until they got to the third level where the entrance to the assassin's nest was, but nobody was worried about anyone making it past the second level much less finding the entrance by accident.
Miyu hopped down a manhole and landed on solid concrete. The first level was fairly dry because most of the sewage runoff had made its way into the second, third, and fourth levels. She hurried along near the sides of the tunnel, taking special care to try and blend in with her surroundings. She went further along until the tunnel became shrouded in darkness. It was pitch black but she had been through here so many times that she never paused to gain her bearings, she just kept on moving along. She finally came across some puddles in the ground and stopped immediately. She reached in her pouch that hung from her waist and pulled out a reusable flare. She ignited the flare and the small torch blazed to life, lighting the area around her. She had come to a fallen area of the tunnel where the ceiling had collapsed on itself, but she grabbed one of the rubble pieces and lifted it up. Five other rubble pieces were stuck to the one that she picked up but it was almost as if the six rocks weighed like a feather to her. Underneath the fake rocks there was a hole that would drop her in a safe part of the second level. She stepped into the hole and held onto the rocks upside down, and then she nudged the rest of her body through the hole while the fake rocks covered up the hole once more.
She expertly weaved her way around the confusing maze of pipes and fallen cement boulders that littered the area. The second level had more sewage and more holes to plunge through, though none of the holes would lead her to the nest. After a couple minutes of climbing, jumping, and running Miyu finally found a hole that had a dead skeleton sitting by it and a ladder sticking out the middle. She grabbed the ladder and then slid all the way down.
This time when she landed, the sewage water came up to her knees. The third level was probably the most dangerous level out of the other three, partially because this level had plenty of traps set up around areas that seemed safe. The best way to survive in the third level was to take the most dangerous paths. So Miyu began wading in the opposite direction of the shallow waters, the sewage now coming up to her chest. She began to trudge slowly through the waste and filth for about another couple minutes until the water began to get shallower and cleaner. Up ahead there were two different paths: one path had jagged metal sticking up from the sides and cracks everywhere, the other path had clear water with an open easy-going path. Not surprisingly, Miyu picked the first path. Unbeknownst to anyone who didn't travel back and forth down here regularly, the cracks in the floor weren't actually dangerous. The path that Miyu was taking looked very weak, but in reality there were hidden support beams located under the path. Miyu took this path for a short while until she reached a dead end and a large hole to her right. The wall looked very brittle and old but Miyu knew better than to mess with it, instead she jumped down the hole and fell for a couple seconds before she hit water. This water was different from the sewage water up above. Her people had made sure that this water was purer, pure enough to swim in. She swam forward, past the old wall above her, and soon came across some stairs leading up to a pressure door. Miyu walked up to the door and then turned the handle back and forth like one would turn a combination lock. A few seconds later the handle turned by itself and the door swung inward. As soon as she walked inside the door slammed shut and she proceeded to disrobe. When she had removed all of her clothing and was bare naked she put her belongings in a small compartment before pulling a lever that washed away any remaining filth that had clung to her. After she was done she dried herself using a fan built on both sides and clothed herself once more. She waited a moment longer before the small shower room shook violently, a moment later it hit something and then stopped still. She opened the door again and stepped inside her home: the nest.
Numerous assassins were walking across the main floor, a couple of them were sparring in a corner, some others were reading a book, and still others were haggling over some item. Miyu stepped out and the elevator/shower rose back to the third level once more.
This was the fourth level...
This was the assassin's nest.
