Starting A/N: A new concept, striding away from the Medieval era and into the 21st century! Ha... Yeah, hopefully you readers will enjoy this.
Disclaimer: As always, I do not own Fire Emblem.
Enjoy!
The Definition of a 'Human'
"Marisa," Saleh's voice sounded over her earpiece. "To your left are the security guards."
She eyed the two security guards carefully, taking notice of their big stature. They were as any standard bodyguards should be; muscles, muscles and more muscles. They both wore black tuxedo suits and black sunglasses to hide their observant eyes. Despite their overall appearance, they didn't intimidate Marisa as she knew size didn't matter.
She stood by the reception desk as people hurried past her to get to their rooms and check in. She had occupied herself in reading a pamphlet of the hotel she was currently in, only that she was glancing at the security guards every second word or so.
She did not need to know of the hotel's glamorous decor and ancient history; Saleh did his job to inform of her of that.
"C'mon Rennac, how long does it take to kill one person? A girl no less," Colm's voice whined through her earpiece.
"Hey now, one does not simply assassinate a person," Gerik responded in his usual laid back tone. Marisa could almost hear the others' eyes roll in response to the emphasized word in his sentence.
He always liked to use the, in his words, "proper termination" for just what they did.
Being the boss of an assassination company, Marisa had always thought Gerik didn't take his role too seriously. Of course, she learned this particular role wasn't his first choice. 'The Company', the name of their little group, was a family business started long ago by Gerik's ancestors. After his father's passing, it was written in his will for Gerik to take over. He was hesitant at first, but because of a sense of obligation and "keeping tradition", he complied.
It turned out Gerik wasn't too bad at his job: he mostly handled the finances, phone calls, information distribution and monitoring, rarely would he come out on a mission.
"I can't see anything from here. the curtains are in the way!" Exclaimed Neimi. Her job as a sniper was not only to take out people below with her trusted rifle, but to spy down below from high rise buildings.
"Rennac?" Gerik called out.
There was no answer.
"Marisa, go check up on him." He ordered with a bit of urgency in his voice.
"Kay," Marisa responded softly into her microphone, which was a small device planted in her mouth in the shape of a molar. She carried with her a brown messenger bag, which hid her weapon of choice: twin daggers, the very same daggers she had used to slain many others before.
On any particular mission, a target is assigned to one person in The Company, and as one of The Company's few rules:
Always bring an accomplice.
Whether to assist you on a mission and be a lookout.
Who else better for Rennac to choose than Marisa? Although there were no official track records, everyone knew she was the best in their little group. She had been in The Company the longest (besides Gerik) and she had a flawless record. It was no doubt to Rennac and the others that she was paid the most, and although money was not a big issue to some of them, they had suspected Gerik and her had a romantic relationship, therefore he favoured her more. That wasn't the case at all as Marisa kept her work strictly professional and she knew it was Tethys that Gerik favoured more.
Tethys. The lethal beauty as everyone liked to call her. She worked mostly undercover from a waitress to an exotic dancer or the all too well "pretty lady." Her style was interesting; she would lure the target in, obtaining alone time with them and then offer them "the drink". The drink would be poisoned with deadly sedatives composed by Knoll. It was perfect, the job would be done and no one would discover the body only till morning after.
Someone like Tethys would be better off with a normal career; she was outgoing, insightful and beautiful. But because the only family she had was her younger brother, Ewan (who had no idea what his big sister does), naturally she would want the best and finest for him and doing what she does now would be the fastest and easiest way to accomplish just that.
Only the best was recruited into the company, but Rennac was easily deemed as a lazy and self centered person. He was also what Marisa considered a long-time friend. A couple of months after Marisa joined 5 years ago, Rennac was recruited. He was a professional in pick-pocketing, lock-picking, stealing, and anything to do with deceiving and receiving. Amongst all that, he was also an assassin, not as good as Marisa, but he always got the job done. Rennac quite enjoyed this career because of the easy money and the casual schedule.
He was the only person Marisa knew who stayed the longest in The Company besides her. The Company mostly served to contract work: freelance assassins came to Gerik to look for work and they only worked for a certain amount of time. People always came and go except for her and Rennac, Gerik made an exception for them as Marisa was quite skilled and Rennac was… Well, whatever Gerik saw in him, he wanted him to stay.
Another one of The Company's rules:
Never kill anyone other than the target, unless they pose a threat.
It had never come to that for Marisa. All of her targets were slain swiftly and silently, the same can't be said for the others though.
There was an incident involving Colm, another of The Company, where he was assigned to assassinate the head leader of a drug dealing group. He ended up blowing up their warehouse along with the many members of the group. In his defense, Colm was only best at espionage work. Since the incident, Gerik only assigned easy targets to him.
Where there was Colm, there was Neimi, his childhood friend and whose father had adopted him when he was young orphan. Coincidently, her father was at one time an assassin for The Company. When he killed in an accident years ago, Colm decided to take his place. Neimi protested greatly against the decision, but no amount of tears could have changed his mind, so Neimi joined at first to solely watch over Colm. That gradually transitioned to becoming an assassin as she was not a bad shot with a gun and no one would have guessed a kind, sensitive person like herself would be an assassin.
The last rule of The Company was:
Never question why.
That is, never question why the target was being targeted. Gerik, being the boss would knew why. Along with Saleh, who researched everything that has to do with the target of the mission. Everything from when they were born to where they were going in the future. It had always astonished Marisa how quickly he was able to research such information in day's span. His quickest, an hour.
Saleh was Gerik's colleague, who was offered the position as a researcher years after Marisa joined. Little did he know, it was for an assassin company, but because of their long lasting friendship, Saleh ended up joining. His researching job slowly transitioned to the mission's organizer and head of anything technical. Although he wasn't an assassin himself, it was obvious he was the hardest working person in the company.
Along with Saleh, there was Knoll, another colleague of both Gerik and Saleh. Like Saleh, when he offered a position on the company, he had no idea it was in the "killing" business. He was a timid man compared to the other men in the company, so he was more reluctant at first than Saleh was. Fortunately, because he was a quiet man, Gerik and Saleh were able to persuade him. Knoll assisted Saleh in all the technical area. He build and constructed most of the company's devices, weapons and chemicals such as their ear and mouth pieces, bombs, spy cameras, and sedatives.
Although in some missions, there would be obvious signs as to why why a person was to be assassinated. They have come across criminals, gang leaders, cheaters, business competition and jealousy, even innocent ones. It was better they did not know why people had to be killed, otherwise sympathy or personal sentimental beliefs would get in the way of getting the job done.
Simply put, your job goes before your emotions, conscious and values.
"Room card?" asked one of the security guard in a deep gravelling voice.
Marisa took out the card she had swiped from the front desk and showed it to them.
The two men nodded at her to signal she was good to pass through.
"Remember, it's on the 6th floor, take the elevator." Saleh informed.
"I know." Marisa murmured as she walked through the lavishing marble halls of the hotel. She came to the empty elevator lobby and pushed the up button. She waited for an elevator to come and when it finally did, in there was Rennac. He appeared in his usual appeal of a brown leather jacket, underneath, a black hoodie and a pair of dark skinny jeans cuffed into black boots.
"Hey," he greeted casually as he stepped out.
"Done?" She asked.
"Yeap, let's go." He tugged at her arm.
"Why didn't you respond before?"
"Hm, I don't know. Maybe it's because I was in the middle of something," Rennac responded with great sarcasm that had always irritated Marisa. "Now let's go," he gritted the last three words through his teeth. She could tell he was in a hurry and she couldn't blame him, he had just assassinated a princess.
There was a loud rumble heard above them followed by a small quake. Marisa put two and two together and realized he had just set off a bomb.
"You-!" Marisa began but was cutted off by Rennac as he grabbed her arm.
"C'mon, through the back exit!" He ran down the hall to an emergency exit door.
"Cormag, pick us up in the back alley." Rennac ordered as Marisa quickly followed behind him.
"Gotcha." Cormag responded.
Their heavy boots pounded against the marble floor and pavement as they got outside. Surely enough, the white van was there.
The door was opened by Colm inside.
"Get in!" He shouted over the heavy rain. Rennac and Marisa rushed their way into the van. Once they got in, Cormag stepped on the gas pedal and sped out the alley and out onto the busy streets on Renais.
"Why the hell did you set an explosion?" Saleh shouted from the passenger seat, a laptop on his lap, which screened several camera footages from within the hotel.
In the driver seat, was Cormag. In the back of the van was a bolted table, with several other computers and laptops, seated in front was Knoll. Across from the table sat Colm and Neimi. It had always baffled Marisa how quickly Neimi is able to grapple down a building in seconds. From where she was positioned only 5 minutes before, it was the 20nd floor of a nearby building.
"A bomb wasn't in the plan," Saleh began to scold.
"Hey," Rennac said casually as he sat beside Colm and ran a hand through his damped brown hair. "That L'Arachel was a fussy one. Along with that body guard, Dolza. I had no choice," He merely shrugged.
"Well, you couldn't have done it in a less attracting way?" Colm asked annoyingly as three police cruisers whizzed by them.
"Don't worry, I cleaned up after myself. I've set it off so it looked like a gas leak or something," Rennac responded.
"Rennac... I've designed that explosion to set off for several people. Not just two," Knoll commented quietly as he turned around in his chair.
"Their suite was huge! No one was harm, I bet." Rennac countered.
"Alright, alright, what matters is it's done. Let's go home now," Cormag interjected. He was always the peacemaker whenever there was tension amongst the group. That tension, mostly centered around Rennac.
Lastly in Gerik's company, was Cormag, their transporter. Before he joined, he did some illegal car racing on the streets of Elibe. His winning streaks caught the attention of Gerik and he was quickly recruited for a long term service. He was also trained in properly using an armed weapon and has done minor assassinating jobs. Marisa didn't know much about the man as he was recruited recently except that he was very interested in cars. He had managed to persuade Marisa in purchasing a Porshe or whatever it was called, though Marisa hardly drove it.
The group rode in silence for a while before Knoll's cell phone rang.
"Hello? Oh yes." He switched it to speakerphone.
"Hey." It was Gerik. "So uh, good job. Except, Rennac..."
"Oh brother." Rennac sighed in disbelief as he knew what the boss had to say.
"Next time, try to not bring so much attention. Detectives are gonna be on the scene like bees to a hive. Haha!"
The group remained silent, apathetic to his joke.
"What? I thought that was pretty funny... Ahem, anyways. The money's been distributed into your bank accounts. I'll see you guys tomorrow."
The group drove silently as they removed their ear and mouth pieces, and any wire on them.
"Alright, Marisa's place." Cormag announced as he halted the car to a stop. Marisa got up, and swung her bag over her shoulder as she slid the van door open.
"Bye Marisa!" Cried the group.
"See ya." She jumped out of the van and slammed the door shut. She watched as the van drove away.
Marisa let out a sigh as she looked up at the building of her apartment, rain splattering on her face as she gazed. She then looked down at the watch she wore on her right wrist.
11:37 pm.
Like after every mission, she headed over to the pub across from her apartment. She looked both ways for incoming traffic before she dashed across the street. As she entered the pub, she shook her head to dry her long lavishing pink hair. After she did, she made her way to the usual stool she always sat at.
Dumping her bag to the stool nearby, she met eyes with the bartender, and nodded her head at him while tapping her finger on the counter.
She waited for the old man to fill the glass up with beer. While she waited, she gazed around the room. The pub never had too many people. There were usually people like her; drinking away to themselves, and occasionally a group of people playing a game of pool. But other than that, it was a quiet place.
But Marisa didn't mind, she preferred this place to ones at those up beat bars. She didn't like human interaction too much.
The bartender, named Sid, walked over to her and placed the mug of beer down. "Long day again?" He asked as he wiped at the counter with a ragged cloth.
"Hm," was all Marisa said as she raised the mug to her lips.
Because Marisa frequently visited the place, she got to know the old bartender, about how his family used to run the place and how it used to be the "it" place back in the day. But now, nicely put, it wasn't doing well.
But in turn, Marisa had to make up lies about herself to the man. He believed she was a teacher at an all exclusive private school for the gifted. Even though it was a lie, Marisa laughed at this. She could never imagine herself working with children and quite frankly, no one could as well.
Her relationship with Sid was pretty distant: they didn't talk all too much but both didn't mind. After a simple greeting, he would leave her alone.
This was her life.
After finishing up a mission, she would come down to the pub to unwind herself with a glass of beer. It was her way of reflecting on her day. Not too many people can sit down and reminiscent back on killing a human being. That would make them cruel, sadistic, cold-hearted... Almost not human.
Marisa pressed her lips tightly together at the thought.
She didn't feel any different from everyone else other than the fact that she killed, no, assassinated for a living.
But what separated her from everyone else in the Company was that they had other goals and plans.
Saleh and Knoll worked daytime as college professors who only joined 2 years ago. Neimi attended the very same college in the architectural program (her many scaling alongside buildings had inspired her to go into architecture). Colm even enrolled himself in a computer science class Saleh taught because of interest and because Saleh would have to give him free marks to burden him with schoolwork while he worked on missions. Both, to Marisa's knowledge were only in The Company for 2 years with their first year coming up. Cormag worked as a car mechanic and had been with them for half a year, and Tethys worked part time as a waitress. She was a contract worker with more year left of her three years.
When they weren't working in The Company, they were living out normal lives, even the permanent workers, Saleh, Knoll and Cormag.
What did Marisa do? Nothing.
Though, she couldn't speak for Gerik, it seemed like he would be running The Company for a long time, unless he had someone in his family who wanted to take over. But he was always so cheerful about it his job. And Rennac did nothing all day, but lounge around in his mansion, flaunt his money and hook up with multiple women.
It seemed like her and Rennac were the only ones without a bright future ahead of them, though Rennac didn't seem to mind.
Hardly did Marisa ever show it, she was scared.
Marisa had more money in her account than everyone else. She could easily quit and live a normal life... Easier said than done.
She knew she was good at what she did and not much else. The process was proven in various situations from working a computer to cooking a basic meal. She nearly burned her apartment down. Even with the help from her fellow co-workers, it seemed she incompetent in some of everyday basic activities.
She wanted to try something new and different, but such a thing required time and energy and a lot of energy at that.
Marisa sighed heavily as she ran her fingers through her damped hair.
"I can't be thinking like this," she thought as she sipped on her cool beer.
On a much positive note, Marisa knew one thing: despite being an assassin, she was still human. She still ate, drank, breathed, and clothed like a normal person.
And that was all it took to be considered a human being.
Right?