Disclaimer: All parts written in the [KILL THE HERO] are non-canon to The Evil Within's Till my last Breath, however The Evil Within could possibly use elements mentioned in this snippets for their own writing if they so wish.
Hero Killers United
Meghan looked over fellow reincarnated souls brought to this fantasy world, each one wholly unique from each other.
She was not impressed with her peers.
One was incredibly skinny, almost looking malnourished, as he talked to himself under his breath as he seemed to be carving something out of wood. He wore brown pants with a white shirt under a blacksmith's apron and a white coat with dirt near the bottom, Meghan couldn't see his eyes as the messy brunette locks were blocking her line of sight.
Besides the muttering carpenter was a person in large heavy armor with baggy clothes over top of the armour and a cloak, they didn't say anything but just sat away from everyone. Meghan didn't want to go near them due to the smell coming from them, even more so as it brought back memories of her one and only mission in a sewer.
She made sure to get double pay for that one.
Meghan looked around the out of the way clearing her employer marked for their meet up, hard to miss a couple of fallen tree trunks in the middle of a plain with no other noticeable landmark for a mile.
Meghan frowned as she saw her potential allies and looked around hoping to find anymore somehow hiding, clicking her tongue she stepped forward "So, I don't suppose there are anymore of you coming?"
"Heck if I know, got nothing planned for the day so I'm cool with just sitting here" the giant in armour said, a deep echoing male voice from beneath the hood. He turned to Meghan giving her the chance to see the orange visor beneath "You here to get in on this 'Holy Crusade'?"
Meghan could feel the air quotes "You could say that" Meghan searched her mind for the speech she's supposed to give to prove she's the one with the info.
She decided to wait an hour to see if anymore reincarnated heroes would appear, an hour spent with small talk and the crafting guy ignoring everyone to focus on his wooden gear cog.
Finally the silence was broken with a new arrival.
From the skies descended a tiny horse with wings and a horn on its head, a black coat with wings of blood red feathers with a mane to match. It's large blue eyes stares at the group.
"The heck is that?" the giant asked in a confused tone "looks like a recolour of a toy my little sister played with"
The crafting kid looked up from his work equally confused "Is that a unicorn or a pegasus?"
"Whatever it is, it isn't a regular animal. Too much intelligence in those eyes" Meghan muttered to herself, stepping forward "Were you summoned here as well?"
The small horse stared at Meghan.
Meghan waited a moment before nodding "I see, can't speak. Two clop for yes, one clop for no"
The unknown horse looked offended for a moment before realization struck them, regaining a faux air of royalty the creature hit the ground with one of its front hooves twice.
"Freaking seriously, we have to work with this thing. Why the heck did you make your cheat a freaking horse!?" the giant armored individual shouted as they got to their feet, the horse got into what seemed to be a fighting stance while crafting kid dove behind the tree trunks.
"Enough" Meghan got between the two "We need to work together on this, because I know for a fact there's no way in hell we're pulling this mission off on our own"
"Um, am I interrupting something?"
Four sets of eyes turn to look at a young man in blue armour carrying a large sword.
The young swordsman looked unsettled by the people staring at him and took a step back "Uh, sorry. I think I have the wrong place"
"Nah, I'm guessing you're in the right spot. Divine mission from up high, am I right?" the large cloak person said, pointing skyward as they do so.
Meghan let out a long sigh "Alright, there's five of us now so there should be enough to pull this off. Ahem" Meghan jumped up onto one of the tree trunks and turned to address everyone "In the name of the most high Goddess Saili, we have been gathered here to correct a cruel distortion of all worlds. To right a wrong that the Heavens themselves can not overlook"
"Is this going to take long?" Crafting kid asked from behind the tree trunk "I've been out here with the guy that smells like death, so is it cool we cut to the chase"
"Sure, the flowery language junk is a pain in the ass"
"Hold up!" the young swordmaster said raising his hand as he did so "Didn't this goddess Saili prepare this introduction for us-"
Meghan interrupted the swordmaster "Yeah, problem is we're working on a time limit and the longer this takes the harder it's going to be. So, introductions" Meghan lowered her hood to show them her more frequently used human appearance "I am Meghan and my cheat ability is a DnD character build my older brother made for 3.5, whatever the heck that means. I'll level with you. I chose this because my brother was proud of it and it, and I am quoting him here, 'broke ten campaigns and overthrew twelve pantheons of gods'. Other then that I was the first brought on for this quest and politely informed our bosses this was too much for someone to do it on their own"
The sword master raised his sword "I am Mitsurugi Kyouya, and my gift of the gods is the cursed sword-!" Kyouya blinked as he realized what Meghan just said "Wait, overthrew twelve pantheons?"
Meghan shrugged "I don't know dude, it's what my brother told me before he locked up his old character sheets and lore before he went of to work in New York with his new husband"
"Alright, alright. Save the backstory for later" the giant armored figure lowered their hood to reveal a dirty futuristic helmet, crafting kid letting an excited squeal at the sight "Name's Butch, my cheat item is this armor from Halo. problem is I died in the damn thing the minute I got here" Butch lifted his helmet to reveal a rotted neck stump with the spine on full display, he quickly resealed the suit before continuing "Since then, I've been a spirit puppeting this thing around. Toughest non magic armor from what I've seen"
"The Mark IV Mjolnir armor!" The crafting kid ran up to Butch, overcoming the smell to get a closer look at the science fiction Armor made real "Oh~ The things I could make with you~" he stopped when he noticed all the weird stares everyone was giving him, taking a step back he cleared his throat "Sorry for my outburst. I am Kyle and I plan to usher in a new age with my cheat ability Tech Tree, with it the total knowledge of civilizations are at my finger tips!"
"Cool" Meghan said before taking out a crystal "Now, for the details of the job"
"Wait a minute" Kyle called out, stopping Meghan's speech.
Meghan snapped her fingers "Alright, I should check" Meghan turned to the small horse "If you have anyway to talk to us, anything we can call you or will Shadow do?"
Shadow tapped their hoof on the ground twice.
Meghan nodded "Right then, back to the details of the job" Kyle frown and crossed his arms as the crystal ball projected an image "The purpose of this mission is assassination, we need to kill a lich that has taken up residence in Axel"
In the picture were various pictures of Izuku with other people with a notes of details being collected on one side.
"Name, Izuku. Current class Lich, former class Hero. His stats ranged from 85 at the highest to 35 at the lowest when he first gained his adventurer card, likely will have increased after his massacre of the nearby toad population and he and his students single handily stopping the cabbage migration" the image of Izuku began to spin around "So far, he hasn't used any weapons as he fights bare handed with devastating use of bones and-"
"Stop!" Kyouya called out as he jumped to his feet "I'm sorry, I thought I misheard you. For a second there I thought you said his former class was Hero"
"It is" Meghan stated matter of fact, she looked around everyone to gauge their reactions "And, to be clear here, this isn't some fallen hero step up. The kid was a hero, died, and is now a lich due to some mishap with the admin part in heaven"
"Is, is he doing something bad without realizing it?" Kyouya asked weakly, his eyes gaining a glint of desperation in them.
Meghan looked through the notes she had gathered "Not really. I mean, the toads around Axel are no longer an issue for ten years at minimal and several other towns aren't getting to take part in the cabbage migration this year so, aside from depriving adventurers easy money and exp he hasn't done anything wrong. Set up a school to train heroes and it's proving successful so far"
"If the kid is doing good why is heaven contracting us to whack him?" Butch asked, Shadow let out horses noises which cause Butch to point at them "See, even MacEdgy here agrees with me"
"Because he's a Hero who has yet to fulfill his destiny" Meghan put the crystal ball away "He isn't like us, this Izuku is an integral part of his World's fate. Name me a famous figure from history?"
"Uh, Abraham Lincoln" Butch said.
"Nikola Tesla" Kyle said.
"Uh, Nobunaga Oda"
*Horse Noises*
"Good, now, think of the world if those people never existed or died before they could do anything. This is the situation we're dealing with; this Izuku isn't another face in the crowd that could disappear one day and the world will move on without care, with him gone things are going to go to shit unless we act fast"
"Did you just insult as just now by saying we're just another face in the crowd?" Kyle asked.
Meghan rolled her eyes "No, and grow thicker skin. Point is we need to kill the heroic lich before 6 months have pass or he grows too powerful for us to stop"
"What happens after 6 months?" a deflated Kyouya asked.
"After 6 months Heaven won't be able to undo his death the moment it happened, by that point the shit show will start within 24 hours and things will go down hill fast" Meghan answered Kyouya, she looked the young man over "You holding up alright?"
"I, I don't think I can do this" Kyouya said, looking over the others as he did so.
"Me neither. I mean, this seems like something my skill set wouldn't be right for" Kyle said, collecting his things as he looked ready to leave.
"So I suppose our payment will not peak any interest" Meghan asked, gaining everyone's attention "The Goddess Saili is very generous with our payment, one extra cheat item or ability for each of us if we kill Izuku to send him home. I mean, we'd be indirectly saving his world so it seems perfectly reasonable"
"Bitch, you better not be playing with us?" Butch said, marching up to Meghan who met the gaze of his orange visor "This, this is legit?"
Meghan nodded "Indeed"
Butch was silent for a long moment before he began laughing "Oh Hell ya, Doom Slayer here I come"
"I can get a work force to build all of this stuff, no. I could go full civilization on this shit!" Kyle said to himself.
*Happy Horse noises*
Kyouya looked among his fellow reincarnated peers before he focused on Meghan with a lost expression "Are, are we the bad guys?"
Meghan gave Kyouya a sympathetic smile as she shook her head "No my friend, we're the goddess sent Anti-Heroes" Meghan took out a stack of papers "So, since I take it your all in I've prepared some notes on our target and those close to him. Thanks to the courtesy of a perverted adventurer and a crazy Axis cultist we have info on our target and a large supply of holy water I purchased for cheap"
"Two questions, was the crazy Axis cultist a zealot member of those dickheads or was this person crazy and a member of the cult?" Butch asked before raising two fingers "And why are they helping you?"
"Because the crazy chick thought she was the Goddess Aqua" Meghan said before a dark smirk spread across her face "And, a lot of adventurers are pissed at the idea of losing easy money and exp. Meaning we have no shortage of collaborator willingly to 'knock the new guy down a peg or two', so long as we keep quiet about killing him we should have no issues"