Sorry for the late update, didn't feel up to it yesterday and didn't want this chapter to feel forced.
Traxis' P.O.V
I sat in my leather recliner and worked on removing bullets from my body with a knife and a lot of booze. Umbra lay on the couch with her robes folded on the floor. She wasn't naked mind you, but I needed to access all of her injuries. it felt weird referring to her as a her.
She had a head of short orange hair and a small freckled face. Her cross-dressing setup was pretty thorough, she had padded her robes to compensate for her feminine figure. Under the robes (head. out. Of. Gutter) she was very well built, par for the course as an assassin.
Her iconic mask sat on the table next to a pile of bottles and gauze. I had a chunk of wood between my teeth and had nearly chewed it to pieces. A small grunt escaped my lips and Umbra shifted on the sofa. I put the knife down and wrapped the rest of my wounds.
I stood up and slipped my bloodstained undershirt on. I picked the mask up and walked over to the couch. My jostling about the room had finished waking the sleeping beauty. She opened her eyes and winced as she tried moving. I whistled to catch her attention.
"what happened" she spoke in her male voice, apparently forgetting that I knew. I held the mask up in her view. A wave of shock crossed her face as she reached for where her mask should have been. "you were captured, I… rescued you." She nodded as if remembering.
Then she seemed to remember something bad. Her eyes shot to me and she tried to move farther away from me. I bit my lip and shook my head "that… thing, wasn't me." I kneeled down so I was eye level with her. "but that beast did save you, the least you could do is show a little gratitude"
The terror started to slip from her eyes and she returned to the stone slate expression I expected. "why" she simply said, no longer bothering to disguise her voice. "why was that 'thing' controlling you and not you?". I sighed, the question was inevitable but I still hoped it wouldn't be asked.
I sat cross-legged in front of the couch and took a deep breath. "it was a few years back, I was a corporal in the military. My men and I were a scouting party into enemy territory. On the third night, all was quiet, that is, until a small squad of enemy soldiers snuck into the camp and started killing us in our sleep.
My tent was near the edge of the camp so I could have escaped. I was still awake, reading, I saw the slaughter and wanted to fight, but the weapons were all together, away from the tents. The only weapons I had were a gift from my father, a pair of matched combat knives made from Damascus steel and tungsten.
I picked up the blades and something came over me. It felt like static electricity and I looked outside. A lone soldier was checking the outlying tents. I slit his throat and felt the blood splash my skin. Bloodlust overpowered common sense as I killed more and more men.
The enemy had caught on and were firing on me, but that nowhere near stopped me. I began experimenting, how hard do I have to pull to tear limbs? What hurts more, lost arms, or lost legs? I drifted quickly into madness.
When all were dead but me and their leader, he begged for his life. His arm was missing and he was crying. I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to the medical tent. I strapped him to a cot and proceeded to dissect him while he was alive and screaming.
By the end of it, I was long gone. Manic cackling and a bloody grin replaced all that was me. I was sent to an asylum for a year to straighten me out. I spent all of my time sealing that demon inside my brain. But it got out, when I took the test to become an assassin."
She lay staring into my eyes. Horror mixed with curiosity painted every feature. She realized this and shook her head. "where are we?" I glanced around the room. "my apartment, you said to avoid the brotherhood."
She nodded "time for me to tell a story"
Cliffhanger, nice job me.