"You sure you want to get in this?" One man asked the other as they sat on the squeaky stools of a smoke-filled bar in one of Tharsis' crummier neighborhoods.
It's sunset already and yet there are only a few customers here and there throughout the bar and the only two who seem to be doing anything other than sleeping on a counter or table are the ones sitting in the stools at the bar-counter.
"Yeah. I'm tired of the syndicate doing whatever they want. They need to come down." The second man says, roughly exhaling some smoke from his mouth as he speaks.
He wears a long dirtied jacket that's starting to tear at the shoulder and a worn-out t-shirt and jeans. His old work-boots show that his position in the syndicate is not very high. In fact, he is only a drug-runner.
However, while someone as low as he is might not be very important to the syndicate, he is important to the other man; the undercover agent who's working on an operation to reveal the syndicate's illegal activities.
Of course, everyone knows that the only legal thing about the Red Dragon is that they didn't steal their name from another company. The Red Dragon Syndicate, officially called Red Dragon Enterprises, is involved with drug-trafficking, extortion, murder, and, their specialty, assassination.
The other man sitting on one of the stools wears a drab-green trench coat, pants and shirt with a blue tie; the attire of a lower-ranking but still prestigious position of an officer in the syndicate.
Members of the syndicate gain in rank or position depending on how well they do their jobs and their individual personalities, so the second man had enough experiences himself to technically put the syndicate away. But against a multibillion dollar "enterprise" like the Red Dragon, which could afford a whole city's-worth of lawyers, it paid to have as much evidence and witnesses as you could.
"Before I reveal any of my information though, how can I be sure you aren't just trying to expose any unfaithful members of the syndicate?" The smoker asked, turning to the undercover cop with a noticeable amount of skepticism.
The cop had been moving his glass from side to side, letting the ice move around, before he drank the whole thing.
"I have a family. My parents, my sister, my girlfriend, my children… they all live in one big house. If I were to try and take them down now they wouldn't be convicted and the house would turn into a slaughterhouse."
Despite the cliché story the cop, whom he didn't know was sincere, was giving him the smoker decided to believe him and sighed as he put out the cigarette.
"Okay, I'll help you. What can I do?"
The cop nodded, glad the man had believed him, and leaned in closer.
"You can start by saying you'll testify against them in court. We still need a few more people who'll speak up but I think we're really close."
He instinctively glanced over at the door as it opened and a man wearing a hat and a trench coat with the collar up entered. His face couldn't be seen because of how dark it was in the bar but the cop didn't notice anything overly suspicious about him so he refocused his attention on his new witness.
"We'll need you to say how many drugs you run every time, where you get them, where you take them, what your schedule is… everything."
The smoker nodded as he started to light another cigarette; however, the lighter was not responding.
At the stool behind the smoker the man with the hat could be seen sitting down and the bartender walked over to him to ask the man what he wanted.
"Damn. Crappy-ass lighters. Hey, do you have a-"
"Yeah." The cop stuck a hand in one of his pockets and started to pull his own lighter out of it when he heard the man on the other side of the smoker speak.
His voice was quiet and mature, but as sharp and emotionless as a snake's fang.
"I'll have Bloody Mary." He spoke as the cop's hand suddenly went limp and dropped the lighter onto the tiled floor.
The smoker noticed this with irritated disappointment and leaned down to pick it up himself but the stools were too high.
"What the hell was that about?" He asked grudgingly while grasping for the fallen lighter. Just as he was going to jump off the stool and get into a crawl to reach the thing an already-lit lighter came out above his head; the small torch resting in the outstretched hand of the hat-clad man.
The smoker noticed this and thanked him as he sat up and lit his cigarette on the lighter, which was snapped closed and put back into the man's coat pocket.
When the hand came back up, however, it was holding something very different from a cigarette lighter.
"Hey, what the hell's wrong with you?" The smoker asked the cop, who still hadn't moved an inch and was now covered in a cold sweat.
"Yeah," The man with the hat spoke, his grinning face now visible.
"You look like you'd just seen a snake with its head reared back."
The smoker rotated in his stool to face the man with the hat.
"Hey, isn't it supposed to be 'seen a ghost-" His question was caught in his throat as he saw what the hat-wearing man was holding.
There was a snapping sound.
And then a slicing sound.
Another.
The smoker fell forward with a gash in his neck and chest, already dead before he hit the floor. His cigarette sent up in an ascending, and then descending arc towards the ground.
It was snatched out of the air by the man's hand, which was holding the hilt of a katana at the same time, blood dripping from the tip of the blade.
He took a drag on the cigarette, his stone-sharp features temporarily illuminated by the warm orange light the end of the cigarette cast on him.
Then the cigarette was dropped to the floor and the hand holding the katana whipped towards the cop.
At the last second he managed to roll out of his stool, which had its top portion cut off as a result, and slammed into the floor, drawing out his handgun and aiming it above him.
The katana-man had already turned around and his top half jolted towards the cop.
His gun went off once, twice.
The first bullet shot over the assailant's head.
The second one hit the hat off the man's head.
But the third attack made came from the swordsman, who stabbed his blade through the cop's chest.
He dropped his gun and tried to push out the katana, in vain.
Now that the hat had fallen from his head, the man's silvery-gray hair could be seen, the abnormal hair color in theme with the man's exaggerated sadistic grin.
The cop's mouth trembled as blood flowed out of it. Eventually he managed to open the faulty thing and gurgle out a word.
"V- Vicious!"
His grin widened and he tore the katana from the cop's chest, a geyser of blood briefly erupting from the man's body before he fell completely still.
Vicious' katana was returned to its home and he turned away from the dead man.
At the counter the bartender hesitantly put down the drink.
"Your- your Bloody Mary."
Vicious kept walking.
"I already had it."
First off I don't own anything from any series this is published within. Second, the main character in this story, Vicious, is not from Devil May Cry or Blood+. So people who "alerted" my penname might not know who he is. But I intend to explain his personality and the world during the story so if you don't already know him or the series he comes from then don't worry about not understanding this story because you have no history. I know the title may seem cheesy to some but I couldn't think of anything else.
Also, for some reason this was all underlined and part of it was entirely written in italics. I don't know why that is and that isn't how the rest of the story will be. I apologize if it bothered anyone's eyes(as it did mine. heh)