Tony White didn't have many friends. Just one more reason to hate school, in his mind. He was walking through the hall towards the back exit, routine for him after school. He exited, feeling refreshed immediately as the sun beat down on him and the breeze caught in his hair.
Tony turned and jogged past the football fields, past the soccer fields, and across the empty lot behind the school, just looking to get his blood moving before work. This was Tony's life in his small city, school in the mornings, then a quick jog before work.
Tony's run led him to an older building that had seen better days, windows grimy and a sad looking door, hanging loosely on its hinges. Checking nobody was around, he went inside. The only thing in the building appeared to be an old desk. But Tony knew better. Pulling open one of the drawers, he pulled out a short, wooden rod. Walking over to the back wall, he located a small hole in the wood, and inserted the stick. He then pulled down with all his strength, and the wall just to his left slid sideways to reveal a hidden stairway.
It went down into a small basement, the walls and floor bare concrete. The far wall was, however, partially covered in a rack, adorning several weapons: a dagger, a short row of throwing knives, a sword, a tomahawk, a bow, arrows, a small cross bow, five bolts for it, and two bracers. In the center of the room was a stand with a mannequin covered in black robes with a red interior and an assortment of light, leather armor underneath with a few thicker pieces across his chest and shoulders, mostly covered by more black fabric to act as camouflage at night.
Tony smiled; it was time to suit up. The hooded cloak went on first, the leather armor followed, covering him and giving decent protection against knives and switch blades. The particularly thick pieces followed, lightly protecting his shoulders and the organs behind his ribcage, while leaving his stomach exposed to keep his mobility at a maximum. The multiple sheaths for his choice weapons would go on next, followed by the weapons themselves. When he had finished, Tony looked like someone out of a centuries old European city. His armor and weapon straps held the cloak tight against his body, allowing only the split back of the cape to move. His pointed hood came over his head, and hid his face in shadow; he was ready for whatever the night would throw at him.
Later, crouched on a rooftop overlooking the city, Tony smiled; the night air was perfect, cool and sweet, carrying the sounds of the small city up to him. His smile suddenly disappeared; too bad someone had to die that night.
That was why he was on the roof, dressed in the traditional but bad-ass looking robes of the Creed. This was his job, and life. Endless training; in blade work, hand-to-hand combat, marksmanship, stealth and movement.
He looked for tonight's target, a middle-aged man who was of negative interest to the Creed, having knowingly antagonized them. Tony's job was to remove him from the picture entirely.
Tony spotted his target. The man dressed in a disheveled black suit, tie askew and a bottle of strong whiskey in one hand, the other wrapped around one of his friends for support. Tony hated alcohol, it made people act like idiots and threw off their judgment, this would be too easy.
The drunk and staggering man fell face first onto the asphalt and stayed there, laughing the whole time just as Tony's silent feet touched the ground. His black robes keeping him concealed and nearly invisible in the shadow he crouched in. His target tried and failed to get up several times before his equally drunk friends hoisted him to his feet and they all moved on. Tony followed close behind, looking for a good ambush spot, smiling when he realized where the party was headed. One of the group walked into a corner as his body tried to reject the whiskey. He threw up while his friends laughed at him and walked on, expecting him to follow. He would have, had Tony not intercepted him. A brief flash of black and red robes was all the warning the poor, unsuspecting man got before a vicious strike to the jaw knocked him out, cold.
Three left, including the man of interest. They all turned a corner, down a stereotypically dark alley. Tony was waiting.
They never knew what hit them. Tony jumped, and with a quick movement of his hand, a blade extended from the bracer wrapped around his wrist. Tony knew they would be staggering all over the place, which is why he had jumped to the left, the side the drunkard was favoring. The man fell over again, and Tony adjusted in the air, turning to land sideways and angling down slightly. Having jumped off his left foot his right was the front most of his limbs, meaning it connected with the back of the laughing fools head trying to hoist the fallen one off the ground. The blade connected next, burying itself in his targets heart, stunning him.
Tony let his head droop as the man drew his last, shaky breath, and died; "Resquiate en Pace" Tony whispered solemnly, 'May you rest in peace' in Latin, traditional and somewhat fitting for the solemn situations it was meant for.
Tony stood to face the last member of the group, who had his head cocked and a hostile look on his face, "You killed Darin. I'll kill you." He said in a dark, somewhat sinister voice as he pulled out a gun.
Tony tensed, his eyes widening slightly, though the new threat couldn't see his shadowed face; a gun. He hoped this guy had drunk himself nearly unconscious earlier, because it would be hard to miss him at nearly point blank range.
A shot was fired. Tony dropped, spun and dove for a small crate, sailing over it, and taking stock of the situation. The shot had missed, but not by much, the guy still had fairly good aim. He was pinned, with no support in the area; the only cover other than the flimsy wooden crate he was currently using was ten yards away. Straight up. The gun went off again, the round smashing through the thin wood inches from his head. More than one man would have to die tonight, it seemed. Tony pulled a knife from a sheath under his arm, concealed by his robe when he wasn't moving. He gripped the blade loosely for a moment, and jumped straight up.
Time seemed to slow, Tony watched as the man brought the gun up, and his knife left his hand. The gun went off twice, muzzle flash lighting up the alley and glinting off the still moving blade as it rapidly approached its target. Tony watched with satisfaction as the weapon struck and traveled through its targeted spot, the man's sternum.
Time returned to normal for Tony as he retrieved his knife, and stabbed the man again, ending his suffering and once again uttering the words in Latin.
He sheathed his weapon, unhappy at the fact that further bloodshed couldn't have been avoided, and ran straight at the crate he had been hiding behind not fifteen seconds before. He jumped off and grabbed a fire escape, then jumped for a loose brick, pulling it out of place and dropping it, then using the void he had created as a hand hold to climb higher. When he reached the roof, he noticed a warm spot on his side. He touched it, and his fingers were dark and shiny when he looked at them.
Tony quickly pulled the fabric back, and saw what he considered far too much blood saturating his clothes. He adjusted his weapons, and pulled the cloak material away from his bleeding side. He began bandaging it quickly; beginning to shake and feel pain shoot through him every time he turned his body the slightest inch. As the adrenalin left his system, he felt the extent of his injury. He'd been shot, only one round had hit him and it had passed clean through, but it hurt badly.
Tony had never been shot before, only cut and scraped during sword and knife training, but it was something he was prepared to deal with. He wrapped the bandage tight over the wound before covering it with his weapons and cloak again. He knew he had lost a lot of blood; he was shaking, and felt far too cold for something not to be wrong.
He started running, now heavily favoring his uninjured right side. Every step on his left leg sent agony coursing through him and he winced with every step. He had to make it back, had to find a fellow assassin before he passed out or jumped to his death, his coordination now off and reflexes startlingly slower than normal. He remembered running and jumping over and alley, the distance seemed to suddenly double, then triple, and his momentum exhausted itself. Tony knew he was falling and he knew he was a long way up, but the familiar sense of weightlessness that came with a long fall never overtook him. He didn't feel himself land, didn't feel the grass that suddenly covered the ground, or the branches fall on him from above as he lay under the tree he had just fallen through. His last coherent thought involved something about how the city had suddenly become a park and how this made no sense at all, but it was all lost as he blacked out.