*ching* ching* The slender black knife continued to scrape against its master's armour as it danced around between her fingers, its sharpened age screaming for flesh to be offered, yet being continuously denied. Not for the first time tonight, Clementine's cat-like pupils wandered longingly towards the unconscious body being carried off to her side. Just a small cut on the cheek, just one fingernail, that's all she was asking. But orders were orders, so she would refrain from playing with her new toy. For now, at least.

Thankfully, her patience wasn't going to be tested for much longer, as the empty streets soon gave way to a high-raised, ageing wall, beyond which laid the macabre sight that was their destination. Twisted, hollow woods, scattered around without rhyme nor reason, their only purpose to keep company to the old, greyish stone tombs that littered the place. The graveyard meant as a resting place for the dead seemed itself to be rotting along with the corpses it was harbouring, cobwebs and mould eating their way through the burial sights unheeded. The only signs that the place hadn't been abandoned were the illumination spells that were haphazardly thrown around, offering the barest of visibility even on a good evening. With clouds hovering over the sky and a light fog beginning to set in, this night was anything but.

Clementine herself didn't share her associates' fascinations with places like these. Trying to uncover the secrets that lay behind the boundary of death had never aroused any sort of emotion out of her except for mild curiosity. There was no meaning in stillness, no purpose behind the darkness. No, what she truly appreciated was life. For only when someone was alive, they could experience the joy of depriving another soul of that right. When she looked down on them as that clear, beautiful liquid slowly poured out from their bodies, when the terror begins to cloud their eyes as the light in them slowly fades away, nothing more than a dream and nothing less than a reality. That ephemeral moment when life became death; ever since she could remember there had been no sight that could ever capture her heart quite like that.

After walking for a short while through the weary, slightly muddy path, they arrived at what looked like a regular unassuming shrine. Nobody would believe that underneath the shoddy, clumsily patched arching roofs and darkened wooden pillars that rain and wind had battered away at for far too long, laid an underground see ret room, their organization's base in E-Rantel. Well, their former organization, she supposed.

Along with the three-foot soldiers that were accompanying her, there were also over a dozen waiting for them in front of the building. She personally thought that so many people for a mission like this was more detrimental than beneficial. When moving along inconspicuously was the goal, having a party size too wide endangered them to come onto the radar of the big players around the capital, like the Eight Fingers. Such issues didn't concern her too much though. As long as she got to play around as much as she wanted, she didn't care about anything else. This assignment had been proven to be a real snooze so far, so she was just roaring to go for some action.

From behind the faceless men clad in dark robes with skull motifs, came the person she was actually here to meet. An elderly, sickly man that you could mistake for a corpse if you weren't paying attention. He was dressed in all red, in what could most ironically be considered priest attire. He seemed to not even notice he, as his eyes barreled towards their hostage with almost as much hunger as she had.

"Is this the one?" Even when he spoke, his voice was like an irritating whistling terribly off-key.

"One scrawny pharmacist, same-day delivery." she joyfully reported, snagging away the boy by the back of his shirt. "Are you sure he's the one? It'd be a real letdown if I wasted all that time scurrying like a rat around the city for nothing."

"Do you dare doubt me, woman?" he bit back. "Nothing more than a dog on a leash, what right do you have to question my work, the pinnacle of Zurerrnorn's hundred years of tireless research?" The woman's response was an amused giggle, that only seemed to rile him up further. "What is it, wench?"

"Nothing, nothing." She replied, her grin larger than ever. "I was just thinking of how cute it is for you of all people to call me a leashed animal. It's a bit of dramatic irony, isn't it? After all, didn't this whole operation get going in the first place because you kept wiggling your tail in front of your new master, begging to be let out to do your little magic experiment?"

Clementine happily took in the sight of the mand's wrinkles, already really pronounced, threatening to burst out of his face. She was struggling to compare him to anything but an oversized dried grape.

"YOU..." the woman nodded, prompting him to continue, but with an annoyed growl, he bit his tongue and approached the boy instead. As expected, prideful as he may be, she had spoken nothing but the truth. To be honest, after being taken over, the current cult was but a mere shadow of its former self. There was no longer any sense of grandiose purpose, the unbridled foreboding of killing and massacre that had long ago enticed her to join in. Zurerrnorn, as it was now, was just a pitiful gathering of desperate people, refusing to accept that their time had passed; desperately clinging to any drop of relevancy they were offered. It was pitiful to look at, she would have left long ago if not for his current employer. Now that was a man who knew what she wanted and could give it to her.

"Take him inside *cough*! he told her after he finished inspecting him. "According to my predictions, the moon shall become visible once again in about half an hour. We must be ready to begin the ritual until that time."

"Aye aye sir!" she responded, preparing to toss the kid like a sack of potatoes to the nearest cultist.

"And DON'T damage the subject!" he interrupted her. She had to admit it was a good thing that he did because that particular cultist had been too busy handling a sudden coughing fit and would have probably dropped him.

*cough*

"Oh come on! A bruise or two won't make a difference at this point!" she complained, feeling the knife stashed at her belt call to her once more. "Neither would a missing finger or two, in fact."

"Absolutely not!" came the exasperated response. "Until the Crown is on his head and *cough cough* the ritual is finished, not a single hair of his hair should be startled."

"A killjoy like always I see" she sighed, looking up in an effort to alleviate her boredom. "Hey, are you sure the moon will be visible? The fog is only getting thicker as the night goes on. Soon enough, you won't even be able to see past your hand!"

*cough*

"Nonsense, the weather conditions have no reason to change so drastically. It will clear up soon enough, I'm sure of it."

*cough*

"If you say so," She said, her voice drenched with uninterest. The idea of turning the capital into an undead city sounded appealing, but at the end of the day, it made no difference to her. She had, after all, a different mission she will soon need to take care of. Licking her lips in anticipation, she watched pensively as the ground slowly gave way to a set of hidden stairs.

"Let's *cough* get *cough* going inside *cough cough* ." The old man managed to stammer out, his body convulsing violently. He tried to take a step forward, only for his knees to fail him and for him to stumble onto the ground, forced to prompt himself on his hands to sustain his body. Clementine suddenly tensed, a feeling of foreboding suddenly assaulting her from every direction as she hurriedly took out her weapons. Something was wrong.

*cough**cough**cough**cough**cough**cough**cough*

The sound now resounded all around her, that sickly, dreary choking wails, as if all airflow had suddenly halted, refusing to be inhaled any longer. She watched with prying eyes while everyone around her started collapsing, furiously rolling around on the ground in a blind frenzy as their bodies brutally contracted over and over, desperately protesting the lack of oxygen. She could even make out the faint metallic smell of blood as she caught ruby-like fluid pouring out of their mouths and staining their hands. 'It's the mist' she realised.

Now that she started paying attention to it, she noticed that the fog was getting thicker by the second. People around her became nothing more than blurry shapes as the world became hazier and hazier, bleaching everything around her until only she and the still unconscious boy in her arms remained in the sea of white. Trying to hold her breath, she warily tried to take a step forward, only to recoil in pure pain as a sliver of the dreadful smog still managed to find its way into her lungs. Clementine could do nothing but grab onto her throat as she felt like the insides of her body were boiling alive, the vile smell and taste of ash and soot assaulting her sense, a disgustingly repugnant aroma that her body resented to its very core. It was something that violated nature itself, a perversion of the natural state in a way that even the most deprived of magics could never even dream of accomplishing. Her mind was suddenly filled with foreign images, of great steel-grey deformities in which the great flame of progress burned, leaving only ash and dust in its wake. And from the long tube-like objects installed at the top, the smoke emerged.

Her body retracted on pure instinct. The crazed woman was surprised to find that the mist didn't follow her. Instead, it floated all around her, circling and twisting around like it was given life. Stalking her like a predator, but unable to attack. A sudden idea popped into her head. She took the boy in her hands and offered him forward. Instead of eagerly pouncing onto its new prey, the fog recoiled, forming a new pocket of air in which the kid was safe from harm. Seeing this, Clementine could feel her Chesire-like smile finding its way back on her lips. Her new toy had just become a hostage.

"This is a mighty cool trick you got there!" she shouted out loud. Her declaration was met with silence, but she wasn't discouraged in the slightest. "I know you can hear me, you have to have some sort of tracking capabilities of everything in this spell of yours, otherwise your pal here would have suffocated along with the rest of the circus."

More silence, but Clementine had the feeling that the poisonous cloud encircling her grew even more agitated. Good.

"How about this: you call off your little magic and the kid is safely returned to you. A pretty generous offer, don't you think?"

"You tried to hurt Mister Bangs." The voice seemed to come out from the mist itself, the eerie sound of multiple high-pitched voices echoing in her ears from every direction. Like a choir of kids. Clementine felt genuine shivers down her spine, for perhaps the first time in a long while. "We were told what to do with bad people like you. We are free to hurt and stab all we want." An innocent tone of delightment as they revelled in cruelty, the woman couldn't help but wonder if her victims had heard a similar voice at the moment of their deaths.

"It's these guys that wanted the brat, not me," she shouted in response. She couldn't see other cultists sprawled on the ground, so she just pointed in a random direction. At the back of her mind, she noticed that the cries and wailings have stopped for a while now, the land descending back into unnerving quietness. At this point, it was hard to imagine anything even existed anymore beyond her small patch of grass. All that she could see was white. "I was just tagging along for a different mission. I was supposed to 'scout out the competition' then to kill all of these guys after they were down with their ritual." she continued. "I gotta admit, I'm a bit pissed you snatched up my prey, but I'm ready to let bygones be bygones. So, what do you say?"

"We don't like you. Don't try to interrupt our playtime." the formless voice said with a tinge of annoyance.

"So I guess you don't care what happens to him?" she bit back, her dagger resting on the boy's neck in order to articulate her point.

In the next moment, a glint of silver gleamed out from the void. Clementine could only widen her eyes in surprise as what looked like a surgical knife stabbed into her hand, knocking her weapon away. Ignoring the pain, she quickly circled around, trying to catch a glimpse of the assailant. The next attack came, the only indication of it being the feeling of cold steel as it slashed into her back. A shallow wound, by no means a mistake. Her opponent was toying with her, and she knew he had every reason to. Sound, movement, killing intent, she couldn't pick out any of that. Their difference in strength didn't matter, not when she was practically blind against them.

"You can't tell us what to do. We decide how we play." the voice giggled behind her, only in the same heartbeat to cut into her cheek.

The paid assassin didn't realize she was biting her lip until the blood dripping out joined together with the one from her freshest wound. She knew there were opponents that could fight on at least equal ground with her, but only the likes of Gazeff Stronoof or Brain Unglaus were on that level. Did a monster that could mess around with her in such a manner really exist? Was this the enemy in the Kingdom she was supposed to be scouting out? If so, then it appears she had been used as a sacrificial pawn.

The weight at her belt suddenly became more apparent. She eyed the black flask swinging around with her, and the slimy viscous substance that she knew resided inside. 'A final resort' she had been told. Apparently, it was supposed to be very dangerous, but it would all but guarantee her victory. With a mad cackle, her hand started opening the cork. The one who was going to have the last laugh was her.

"S-SUMMON: SKELETAL DRAGON!" but before she could down the bottle, a weak voice next to her managed to rise above the sinful fog. Apparently, the old coot had been a bit more resilient than she thought.

With a great trump, the earth beneath them began to shake. An odd rattling sound, one that she knew was that of bones clashing against each other, seemed to drown out the spark of death dwelling in the air. Even through the veiled curtain of chalk white, she could begin to make out the giant creature forming in front of her eyes. Not that she would hang around for it to be done, in the next moment she was gone like the wind, the unconscious body of the boy slumped over her shoulders.

Even if it had probably been an act of desperation, it looked like Badantel had managed to help her out. No matter how ridiculous of an enemy, nobody could just shrug off that giant creature of his. Even if they managed to defeat it, which considering what she's seen of their capabilities was very likely, she would be long gone by then.

The only problem she was left with facing was navigating through the cemetery, effectively blind. Even though the mist parted to make way for her, it still didn't allow her to make out anything past a couple of meters forward. Sometimes a rogue gravestone and even a whole building would suddenly just appear in front of her, forcing her to abruptly change directions lest she slammed into them. She was running aimlessly, hoping that by keeping as straight of a path as possible, she would soon reach the outer walls of the graveyard, and from there she was all but saved. She couldn't imagine that whoever attacked her would unleash the ability into the city streets just to track her down. And at the end of all of that, she still got the hostage. Not an ideal situation, but it could've gone worse.

'I must be getting close' she joyfully thought as she zipped across the damp earth beneath her feet. She thought maybe it had been a trick of the mind, but it seemed the fog really was slowly beginning the fade. She could only make out some vague things, small shapes and shadows, but it was already better than nothing. And with the roar of the skeletal dragon still reaching her even from this distance, it looked like she hadn't been pursued yet. With every step forward the shapes became clearer and clearer, and her heart became lighter and lighter. She could even begin to make out a bit of their colour, at the beginning the dull grey made her think of more graves, but she soon realised they were more like- NO.

Strange buildings now surrounded her, unlike every city or settlement she had ever laid eyes on before. They were made of hard granite and cast iron, giving off a rough and unwelcoming feeling. She was now longer in a forest, instead, she was running over a dark, filthy road. There was no smell, but she could feel her stomach churning at the sight of the garbage and misery that painted the sidewalk. She wasn't alone anymore, faint outlines of carriages with no riders and faceless people dressed strangely surrounded her all of the sudden. They seemed to pay her no attention as they went about their daily lives, dissipating into the surroundings once they got too far away from her. Next to the road, she could make out what looked like a large river, its water the same muddy brown and grey that coloured this world that she stumbled into. And she knew the reason why. It was the smoke of those giant atrocities- factories- that huddled greedily into the sky, showering the land in the accursed dark snow.

Clementine blocked out all needless thoughts. She didn't understand what was happening, and she didn't need to. All she had to do was escape, her mind single-focused on reaching the small, phantom light in the distance, the only source of illumination she could find. Not even the nearby lamposts had been lit, even though it was night. So she ran past the streets of starving, homeless children. And she ran past the drowning faces peeking out of the river. And she ran past the corpses of the scantily clothed women. And finally, she was back in the graveyard once more, face to face with a small, silver-haired child, with a scar across her cheek and a shining lantern in her hand.

"We know what you did!" the small girl told her. There was only one voice this time. "We can tell."

Sweat dripping down her face and a glint of panic in her eyes, the woman ran away in a different direction. Something about that child unnerved her, in a way that not even that ghostly town ever could.

"We can smell it" this time, a different child appeared, carrying the same lantern. Once more she changed course.

"You are one of them." Another one, this time with chestnut hair and bright blue eyes.

"Just like the fake mothers who abandoned us." A girl in a ponytail, covered in rags.

"We would have been happy in the womb, but you pulled us away" a small boy, barely a toddler.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" Clementine finally burst up, fed up with all the running. Her small remaining hand lashed out to cut apart the child in front of her, only to disappear into mist at her touch.

"Bad mother."Bad mother."Bad mother."Bad mother."Bad mother."

A hundred different pairs of eyes, all of them shining out from the veil of the mist. The vengeful wrath of a hundred different children, who had been denied everything in life, even death.

The small babe in her arms had finally calmed down, his crying snuffed out by the gentle, rhythmic swinging of her arms, a hypnotic illusion of safety as he slowly succumbed to a peaceful slumber. Her crimson pupils bore into him intensively, refusing to let him out of their sight for even a second. This little creature was not something she would have ever imagined she would have wanted, but now she realised she couldn't wipe the smile off her face. The father was now but a faint memory, the only thing that stuck to her mind was that peaceful expression he bore as her knife danced across his neck, ending his life in his sleep before departing before sunrise. When she found out about the mark he had left inside of her, she considered getting rid of it, but she was glad she didn't. Nothing could compare with the feeling of pure ecstasy she was experiencing right now.

Careful not to wake him up, she slowly lowered the child into the wooden crib next to her. Naturally, the room she was in right now, one perfectly decorated and furnished for a family expecting a newborn, did not belong to her. It wasn't like the real owners would have much need for it anymore, plus she felt the need for proper decorum. The woman was content with watching over the sleeping baby for a while, not muttering a single word, unable to process what she was feeling right now. Her own flesh and blood lying beside her, an image so foreign to her that at the same time felt so right. She brought herself closer, her hand gently grabbing the small, doll-like hand as she sweetly whispered into his ear.

"Goodnight, my beautiful little child."

Then the dagger came out from within her robes, and soon the whole house was engulfed by deranged, mad-like laughter.

"AAAAAAAH!"

Now only seeing red, the body of the long-haired boy long forgotten, Clementine launched herself into the fog. She no longer paid any heed to the infernal gas ravaging the insides of her body. All semblance of thought and rationale were discarded, the only thing remaining was pure, unfiltered instinct, one that has been trained and polished over a long career as an assassin. Nobody knew death better than her, and nobody could wield it with the same ease as she did. Yet no matter how much she tried, her blades could not strike anything but empty air.

"Hell is starting.

We are flames, rain, power...

Let there be a slaughter..."

Sensing her incoming demise, the short-haired woman once more hurried for the strange flask on her person. But it was far too late, for all the conditions had been met. Even after centuries have passed, the legend of the great monster whose name resounded throughout all of London and became synonymous with terror, was very much still alive. So it didn't matter if the one burrowing his power was the real deal or not, for tonight Jack the Ripper would roam the empty streets once more, his newest victim already in his clutches, waiting to be claimed.

"Maria the Ripper!"

In the next moment, a multitude of old rusted knives burst out of her chest, vivisecting her flesh, her innards forced out of her body as a result. Her corpse collapsed to the ground, claimed by the fog, which would soon dissipate along with the morning sun, leaving behind a fresh batch of bodies to be claimed by the old graveyard.