The Mysterious C

Thank goodness things hadn’t gotten out of hand; she hadn’t been certain how things were going to turn out considering the history her brother had with this assassin. She just hoped they had made the right choice, maybe if they had risked the ambush they could have fended them off and gotten the ferry boat, whether the Lunarite assassin was willing to give it up or not.

It no longer mattered for even if that option had once existed, it was no longer possible for they now found themselves at the mouth of the immense forest of temptations. No one had ventured near the forest of temptations in decades, in reasonable fear of dying or falling victim to the powerful effect the forest had on people.

It was rumored that in the forest no one was your friend, not even the ones people trusted the most. As everyone knew, no one knew what a person truly wanted in the inside, buried underneath all their good intentions, and if they were tempted to get it, there could be trouble.

Looking it over she found it to be quite sinister looking, black trees instead of the usual brown or even white, even the shapes were unnaturally bent and formed into strange monsters with ferocious faces and extra deformed limbs. She looked up as the sun began to turn rosy, sun lowering to its resting place, “ Kotani, the sun will be gone as will our vast advantage over the lunarites. We should establish a strong defense before its too late, because they sure won’t waste time waiting for us to get ready.”

All looking over the sky, admiring the beauty of it and yet knowing it meant major trouble, Kotani pointed into the forest, “We can rest in the forest, even that silver assassin won’t dare follow us there.”

He seemed very confident in his words, it was this confidence that made him such a great team leader, always making the team feel like everything was under his control. However, she highly doubted a simple fable would ward off the assassin that had single handedly taken down the entire sunarite defense. All she could do was go with the flow, hope for the best but prepare for the worse.

***

They’d been ready for hours, Charlie had coordinated the ambush to perfection, every action was pre-planned and would heighten the chances of success. Having forty Lunarite assassins under his command, Charlie seen no reason why anything should go wrong, it was night and they had the element of surprise.

Crouched in an attack ready position, his attention was taken away as the sound of light footsteps and rustling leaves on the path could be heard. Getting out of his attack position he walked unto the path, tilting his head curiously as all forty Lunarite assassins stood there, weapons drawn, glaring at him with the look of power thirst in their eyes.

Not intimidated in the least by them, he ordered in his habitual superior tone, “What do you think your all doing! Get into your ambush zones!” Not even moving an inch they simply kept on glaring, unsheathing both his swords he raised his voice, “That’s an order! You fuck this up and it will be your lives to pay!”

Rather than obeying they began to advance upon him in an attack formation, one of the more elite assassins saying, “Sorry boss, we have decided we don’t want you in charge anymore, we want to be in charge so you have to go.”

This was such an atrocious sight, what had gotten into these highly trained assassins to turn on him like this, they’d been loyal to him all this time and now this? That’s when they began to attack; completely surrounded he moved his swords into a circular motion, parrying over a dozen blades at once he did a back flip, landing far from the group.

He fought them all off, killing some as he parried attack after attack, but they were pure lunarite where he was only a hybrid, they had both the advantage of purity and numbers and after smiting half of them he was captured. The newly appointed leader of the assassins turned to the others, “Bring him to the fortress, we will live in this forest from now on but he cannot be permitted to leave or he will inform Lunarite, and then we will be punished.”

As he began to be dragged away he seen the assassins getting into new ambush zones, the new leader walking up to him smiled greedily, grabbing his mask he threw it to the ground, returning into his own attack place Charlie watched as he was dragged away, he would get out and he would get his revenge.

***

The forest was a dark place indeed, much darker and sinister than it had been on the outside. Yet nothing seemed out of the ordinary, as Newman had thought, nothing but superstition keeping people from traveling. Suddenly they all froze, confused Newman walked ahead beside Kotani to see the disgusting spectacle of over twenty lunarite assassin corpses, laying all over the forest with blood creating a large puddle.

So there had been an ambush set after all, yet something had gone completely wrong and they had died. Suddenly they drew their weapons as Lunarite assassins jumped out of the forest, swords drawn surrounding the small group. Eyes glowing yellow there was at least twenty of them, “Drop your weapons and surrender and we will not kill you!”

Things kept on getting more and more mysterious, if there was indeed an ambush what was with the Lunarite corpses, was that part of their plan or had they encountered an enemy they had not expected to meet, which meant they could all be in grave danger.

Looking over the others he seen that they had decided to listen to the console of their captors, it was night and they were far outnumbered, it was the only reasonable thing to do. Just as things were going to be fine, all surrendering Jetslam broke the silence, “Where’s your boss, the one with the brains and the silver hair?”

Looking over Jetslam the tallest among the assassins, garbed in dark green armor and wearing the same mask of silver as the leader walked up to him, “ Change of command.” Turning to the other assassins he shouted out, “Bring them to the fortress, looks like we have a good stock of slaves already!”

Shackling them all Newman only hoped Kotani had a plan out of this mess, they had been trying to avoid an ambush and in the process they had stepped right into one, they had never even seen it coming. So much stuff was going wrong, all the dead Lunarites and a change of command, it couldn’t be a coincidence.

***

Sounded like there was company, the sound footsteps of arrogant traitors thinking they are completely safe approaching accompanied by defiant prisoners who would jump at any chance they could get at escaping. Laying back on the nearly hard as stone mattress he watched as the doors screeched open and in came Newman and his band of warriors.

Looking over him they looked utterly confused, waving with two fingers he said, “Ola, your late.” Escorting them to their cell Kotani walked up to the wall beside him, not even looking in his direction he said passively, “They turned on me, I guess this forest is true to its name. They were tempted to rule and so they did, so here I am in this raggedy end of the world cell.”

So it was true, the forest did indeed have influence over people, yet he had not felt the effect of it yet. Pushing that aside he examined the assassin, eyes glowing bright yellow in the form of a half moon he looked very familiar, like he had met him once but could not place the face to a name anymore.

He was in remarkable shape that was for certain, his armor and weaponry kept on the wall opposite in mean to taunt him also displayed he was greatly skilled, his train of thought was broken as Kotani said spitefully, “I so don’t feel sorry for ya mate, you had it coming, simple as that.”

For the first time turning to face them he looked as cold as ever, which was worse than looking angry, “Give me a break, why would I want your pity? At least they did their job, you were so stupid you fell right for my trap and voila, here we are, jail mates and soon we will all escape.”

This was a strange turn of events, why would he want to help them, “That makes no sense, you try to trap us, but you get trapped yourself and then when we are trapped as well you decided you want to help us after you so deliberately led us into this trap in the first place?”

Shrugging his shoulders he looked outside the window, “That’s the gist of it, but we’ll want to wait for the morning before we do anything. It will help us escape, I will overpower them easily and you all, well you’re of the sun, you should do fine. I’ll get the doors open, I could have escaped hours ago but I was waiting for morning.”

Putting his palm up facing his weapons they began to levitate toward him, placing them back he smiled coyly, “Magic is an easy concept really, and most assassins don’t have it. So they assumed I didn’t either, and this does make sense because I am tempted to kill every last one of them and I need backup to do it, sleep because we need all the energy we can muster.”

***

The sun shone brightly in the sky, Kotani had meditated all night rather than sleeping for he found that meditation was best before such a venture they were about to partake. The assassin had not slept all night; he had simply sat there eyeing his weapons and the sky, aware of everything around him.

He never would have foreseen this, working with the one that put them in the mess in the first place, the one who had destroyed their wall. He didn’t trust him in the least but the assassin had been right, morning was the best time to strike indeed, the others were just waking up when the door slammed open.

Two assassins walking in, eyeing the prisoners suspiciously pointed at the assassin. Smiling he watched as one of them fumbled with the keys, not even rising to his feet he raised his palm and both assassins were pulled against the bars.

Struggling to get free the assassin simply his other hand, weapons unsheathing themselves and getting off the wall he nodded his head and both swords plunged into their backs. Blood coming out of their mouths he let go of the hold, corpses dropping to the ground he pulled the swords out.

His blades must have been very sharp because he cut right through the bars as though a hot knife through butter, walking out he looked over the others, “See, here I could let you all rot in jail and escape. But I need you, and you need me so…” cell door unlocking, door swinging open he finished, “Voila, and you can call me C, now get your weapons from the wall and let’s get the ball rolling.”

Simple name he had to admit, obviously an alias but at least he had another name other than assassin, “So C, after we get out of here do you intend on turning on us and killing us in turn, returning to Lunarite and saying that your mission was a complete success?”

Chuckling at this C answered, “Believe it or not, this will be seen as a betrayal, punishable by death. Lunarite knew this would happen, he set me up and now he’s going to die. The only means to do that is to ensure your mission is a success, and you obviously can’t do it by yourself so…”

Pulling him back C looked him straight in the eyes, now a normal opaque blue, “You think you intimidate me C, with your cold stare and your fighting prowess? Well you sort of do, but don’t insult us by saying we’re incompetent. Do you forget who won the last war between our people, it was at night and we still vanquished Lunarite’s army.”

Shrugging once more C simply said, “That’s because I wasn’t around at the time, if I had been things might have gone a wee bit different. Now do you want any more heart to heart moments or can we get out of this stinking place?”

As much as he angered him, C was right; they had to keep on going despite their history. Taking the lead once more C put his hand up, all freezing he did a motion for them to draw their weapons. Turning back he drew one of the swords from his back, handing it over to Newman he said mockingly, “Sharp edge goes out, don’t you dare stab me in the back.”

Hearing the scuffling steps of assassin’s boots against the cold cement floor C turned to them, hiding in the unlocked doors Kotani watched slack jawed as C simply jumped high to the ceiling, using his legs to brace himself between two support beams over ten meters up.

Turning so he could face the hallway Kotani tensed up as five guards walked through the doorway. Chattering up about some sort of sport he watched as C watched them go by, looking down to look him in the eyes he nodded his head, it was time to move.

Motioning for the others to strike they moved in quickly, before the assassins could react Jetsam and Gabriel had two of them down, Korina struggling with one, Kotani feared the alarm would be launched. That’s when C moved into action, landing on the two remaining assassins blades came out of his heels, stabbing them in the foreheads he did a front flip.

Sending them crashing face first toward the ground he used the momentum to launch himself mid flip, grabbing the assassin fighting Korina on his way he landed firmly on the ground, giving him a good twist he was satisfied by the familiar cracking noise of broken bones. Newman looking at all this from the doorway, he reminded himself to train him or he would end up being nothing but baggage.

To his surprise C did not take charge, standing aside he waited for Kotani to give the instructions. Taking his chance he walked to them, “Sorry C but we can’t focus on revenge right now, we have to escape yesterday, do you know this fortress well enough to know a shortcut?”

Shaking his head he smiled slyly, “No, but when you don’t know the shortcuts you create one yourself. Forewarning, once we do get our opening we have to move faster than fast, that includes you Newman, I will leave you behind.”

It made sense, but Kotani had a duty to protect Newman since he was the one that had dragged him into this dangerous quest in the first place, he was responsible for his life and if he died he was certain the gods would curse him forever.

All nodding in approval C smiled even larger, showing sinister pleasure as he looked outside the window to make sure they were at the right place, “ So we head for the entrance, we’ll use the ferry and avoid the forest altogether. No, there was no ambush there at all, it was a trick to make you think you’d dodged an ambush, clever don’t you think?”

That son of a bitch was smarter than he looked, he’d known they would see an ambush there and avoid it altogether, all the while walking into the ambush they were trying to avoid in the first place. Suddenly C placed his palms together, pointing at the wall he fired a large explosive burst, sending a large part of the wall flying into the forest.

Not even waiting for the debris to clear he unsheathed both swords and dived forward like one diving into water, jumping between large chunks of the broken wall Kotani was stunned as the blocks crushed great many assassins patrolling, the remaining assassins C did quick work of, decapitating them all with ease.

Using their weapons to slide down the wall C motioned for them to run ahead, looking back he seen the few guards remaining retreating quickly. It seemed like C had scared them off, he didn’t trust him but he sure was glad he wasn’t the one hunting them or they would be in trouble.

Finally clearing the forest C turned to them, “Now that we’re out, I really need to clarify something. How did you resist the effects, all my assassins were stone hard and yet succumbed, you are not but a warrior and yet you did not succumb.”

Walking on the path to the ferry boat Kotani smiled in his turn, “That C, is because unlike your kind of people, we have a thing called a conscious that keeps us in check, you should look into it. So I guess we’re friends now? You take our defense down and now you want to bring Lunarite to his knees as well, seem to me like your playing sides.”

Reaching the ferry, nothing more than a simple wooden boat with an orb engine at the but of it C turned to face him, “I suppose I am, but now I think I got what I needed from the other side, and I think they’ve had too much time and its about time we level the play board, consider me your unexpected friend.”