Familiar Places (open to assassins)

There was nothing to see in the blackness of the cold coffee in his cup. It was like looking through the abyss, but this time the abyss never looked back at him. It stayed still in silence and so did he. His eyes were transfixed at the nothingness, his mind buzzing with words, a scrabble game with no clear sentences. Hours passed since he last made a movement of any kind, not an inch and not a sound.

The comm device on his ear went off, relaying a new message along with some static noises. It interrupted him from his musing, pulling him back to the reality that was countryside Ireland, or more precisely Carlingford. Hargreeves took a sip of his coffee, looked around for a bit, then pressed the button on his comm device to answer.

There was a hint of enthusiasm from the man's voice, one with a darker intent. Hargreeves could also hear sheets of paper being thrown around, it was as if the man was searching for something in a hurry. This went on for a few seconds, a scuffle. Before finally, there was a reply.

The man made squeaky noises with his mouth as he mumbled to himself. "Let's see, let's see now... AH! Ava Doncaster, quite a looker. About the same age as you Jack 1."

Hargreeves snarled in response.

A small drive was given to Hargreeves before his departure, he had no idea what it was for nor did he want to. He took it out from his coat pocket and examined it. It was a fairly small drive colored in jet black with purple outlines, all in all very odd looking.

Hargreeves remembered the first time he got into contact with one of Sir Jack King's fear toxins. He was an initiate at the time and if it wasn't for his unorthodox mind, he would've surely died. But that was a trial that he must face and thanks to it, he was now truly free from fear.

And with that, Hargreeves disappeared. Only his empty cup of coffee and some money remained on his table. The trial had begun.

The moonlight gave rise to a silhouette in the distance. To the common observer, Hargreeves looked like the personification of a demon. Large red eyes, wide black wings, long sharp claws, a terrifying figure. In truth, he was just wearing his Spring-Heeled Jack outfit. From on top of a Church, he sat perched near the edges of the roof. A gargoyle keeping watch in the shadows. His goggles calibrating, zooming in on a particular house about a few blocks away. It was the house of Ava Doncaster.

Hargreeves observed the house carefully, meticulously studying the schematics as he scanned it. A 3D model appeared on the screen of his goggles. It gave a detailed look on the layout of the house. There was nothing particularly unique in it, but it was in the middle of a large plot of land. Perfect for a horse breeder. He watched as the family inside finished their dinner, what a naive bunch. Laughing in the safety of their comfort zones, unaware of the suffering that the world has to offer. Well, those laughs weren't going to last very long anyway. It was time.

Minutes passed before they had finally finished their meal. Most of them went to bed, yet oddly enough, Ava was not. Instead, she went outside wearing her robe. Must've been a remnant from her days with the creed. Foolish girl, she should've just went to bed like the rest of her family. It seemed like she was cautious of the danger from having new Assassin technology in her household, which meant that the element of surprise was out of the question. Hargreeves stood up and with a click of his boots, he jumped.

The spring mechanism on his boots allowed him to jump two stories high, making travel much easier and faster. They're also laced with a very special 'rubber' material that could absorb kinetic energy, therefore he was able to land with minimum sound. Hargreeves leaped along the roofs of nearby houses, athletically avoiding obstacles along the way. When Ava was in sight, he leaped once again, facing away from the moon above.

This maneuver was intended to keep the enemy's eyes focused on Hargreeves silhouette. From her position, she shouldn't be able to see him reaching for the knives on his belt. Once in hand, he threw the knives right at her in midair, and only the glints coming from the reflections of the moonlight on the metals were visible. They were aiming for three different parts of her: one was aimed at the achilles tendon, another at her right eye, while the last one was aimed straight at her heart.

In the off chance that they miss, Hargreeves was already aiming his hook claws at her. He just needs to be ready for her next movement and with one push of a button he could, in theory, end her right then and there.

The knives hit with deadly accuracy, however, there was no screech of pain nor was there blood coming out from his target's wounds. As he fell closer to the roof of the stable, he was disappointed to see that Ava was not there. It was only a cheap mannequin in the guise of her, nothing but a decoy. This could only mean one thing: a surprise attack was coming.

Hargreeves readjusted his body as soon as he heard a sound from his flank. Sure enough, a kick was heading his way. He barely managed to shield his body with his metal hook claw before having to dodge another one that was aimed right at his kidney. Unfortunately, he couldn't move his body fast enough so the second kick went in. His fall changed momentum and he ended up hitting one of the wooden pillars that was holding up the stable's canopy. The pillar split in two due to the force of the impact, it would've been a fatal blow if he wasn't wearing any armor.

A small part of the canopy fell on him, the weight of it forcing him to stay down in the dirt. At this moment, Hargreeves' mind went into overdrive. It was said that the speed of thought was faster than the speed of light, and he had experienced this too many times to know that it was true. Every neuron in his brain were firing rapidly at random intervals, a bullet ricocheting off tin walls. In this state, his senses were abnormally sharper and his body was more durable than the average human. He had lost control.

Hargreeves rose up from the debris as if they were nothing. His body slouched forward while his arms were unnervingly swaying from side to side. He was limping as he walked forward towards Ava, but he felt no pain at all. The darkness had swallowed him, it was the after effect of the Spring-Heeled Jacks training regiment, one that he will always carry.

He sung, his voice hollow and cold.

Beneath the mask he was grinning menacingly, he couldn't help himself.

When the distance between him and Ava was just about two meters away, he stopped.

And with that he rushed at her with amazing speed, jumping at the last second and flipped over her head. In mid air, he detached his hook claw and aimed it at her back. The fiber lines attaching the claws and his glove screeching as the metals slid through the openings. When the claws were inches away from their target, he pulled out a few smoke pellets from his belt and crushed them with his free hand. As the smoke covered him, he shrieked loudly at Ava. A madman declaring his name.

There was no elegance in the way she moved. She needed to understand that there were people out there who had honed every muscle in their bodies, people like Hargreeves. Who had the control, though not entirely, and the deliberation. His first language was body language, and he remembered the first time that he watched a ballet recital. Those dancers he saw weren't speaking in the ugly guttural dialect of violence, they were using their bodies to sing. To create rhythm and poetry and to express the full spectrum of human emotion.

Hargreeves had never understood the purpose of art before that very day. He wished that he could create it on his own. Use his first language and be understood properly. From time to time, he will steal a move from the dancers. A way to see if he could change the nature of the fight through a kind of grace, a message hidden in the brutality and wickedness. But it would often go unheard. Violence was much louder than art, and it was necessary.

Two small objects rolled into the smoke screen, unleashing a bright flash of light that would stun most men. It was a futile attempt. There was no man hiding behind the mask, only a shell of him. This demon that had taken over did not need his vision to fight. The more it fought, the easier it gets. It can hear, feel, smell a hundred ways to kill its enemy and it would go down to Hargreeves to choose the strikes that won't. But the man, the voice of reason, was not there. He could only see the action unfold through the prison cell of his own mind.

Even then, the demonic persona that calls himself Jack, was tracing the sound of Ava's movements. The woman moved across the smoke and into his flank. She was going to do the same thing twice, but not entirely. Jack postured himself in a defensive stance, waiting for the exact moment that she would attack. Gently he moved inches to the side just as her spinning kick was about to hit his head. Then when the second kick came his way, he extended his right arm long enough to reduce the impact of her kick by holding her ankle in place when it wasn't at its full momentum, barely avoiding the hidden blade peeking out of the tip of her boot. It was only a few centimeters apart from his kidney.

"So which one is it going to be?"

Jack asked nonchalantly, tilting his head a bit to taunt her.

"Your ankle..."

He compressed the joints in her ankle with his hand. The endgame being skeletal failure and cracking in the navicular or talus.

"Or your life?"

His free hand reached out for the Springfield XD on his belt and pointed it at her head. This was the defining moment, both Hargreeves and Jack were looking forward to her answer. A test to prove if she was worthy enough to live, whether or not she was free from the shackles of fear. If she answered correctly, then there was no need for him to shoot.

The demon, Jack, resigned from the control of the body's consciousness. His mission was done, the trial was over. Deep within the mindscape of his mind, he went back to his cage, letting Hargreeves out into the driver's seat of his own individual self. Both of them were satisfied with the answer that Ava had given. She deserved to live.

"You have chosen the right answer."

Hargreeves loosened his grip on her ankle, letting it go entirely as he puts his gun back to its holster. It would've been much easier to just kill her right there, to pull the trigger and let the bullet penetrate her skull and go through her brain, to paint the green grass below with blood red, but no. She understood. To have a full life one must not be afraid of death. Her chains were already broken, and he suspected that that was the case from a very long time.

"Prometheus. Change of plans."

He pressed the button on the right side of his mask, activating the comm device.

"Change of plans? What do you mean change of plans? Just shoot her and be done with it. We need to get that drive inside their system, that is an order Jack 1."

The man from the other side sounded agitated, it seemed that this has happened quite a lot. For a long time now, the two have worked together with a low chance of failure. Their contrasting personalities and traits were oddly one of the main reasons they were able to do so. But this, this was the reason why they experience failure at all. Not because any of the missions were too hard, not because they were incompetent, but because Hargreeves had a flawed philosophy that drove him.

"You will find another one for me. Next time, I will get the job done. She deserves to live Prometheus but she will have to die if I were to go near the animus. I cannot do that. She understands. She understands us."

A long sigh can be heard alongside a bit of static. There was no way around it, the mission has to be delayed. But nevertheless, success was pretty much guaranteed when the two of them were handling it. Prometheus knew this. The only thing that they've lost today was time, but time's a plenty. He began typing codes on his keyboard. Accessing protected sites, navigating through the endless web called the internet, looking for another shipping of the new state-of-the-art Animus. A few hours was all he needed.

"Very well. But Jack my boy, the next time we do this, make sure you finish it. Cause you understand the consequences that we have to face if we don't finish this job right? Mister King does not tolerate failure, remember that."

A 'beep' sound rang as the lights on Hargreeves' comm device went out. Prometheus was offline. The night was still very young, it was only a few minutes after midnight. He needed to go back to his safe house, he needed to think of a better strategy, next time he will make sure that he plants the drive first before facing off against any other opponent. The mechanics on his boots were activated, he was about jump out off the area. With his back now turned against Ava, he awaits for them to be fully functional.

Sparks of electricity burst out of his boots as the cables in the mechanics were torn apart. Prometheus really needed to upgrade them, they needed a faster time to properly function. Hargreeves wanted to ignore Ava, he knew better than to give the Creed more information about his organization. But then again, there was no use in being silent also. He was a psychopath with charisma, he'll find a way around this.

"Clearly you need to read up more on your Creed's history. I am the follower of Sir Jack King, I'm sure that name must sound very familiar to you."

He turned around facing her. His answers needed to be as vague and cryptic as they could possibly be. He will not allow her to dig into him more than she needed to.

"I do not want the Animus. I have no interest in it whatsoever. I only want to show you and your new recruits the way to pure freedom."

He pulled out the drive from his coat pocket and showed it to her.

"Once all of you know what this drive has in store, then I will know those who are truly living and those who are just wasting their lives away."

Hargreeves put the drive back in its place. All of the things that he said weren't lies, they were merely half-truths. Now it was time to wait for her response. Hopefully, there would be no need for more fighting.