//------------------------------// // Wolf's End // Story: Leap of Faith // by A bag of plums //------------------------------// Velvet Breeze eyed the Board of Education headquarters from afar, hidden behind a cluster of clouds, her magical glowing wings keeping her afloat. She could see them all. All the Templars visible within the building, red and grey alike, but there was no sign of the gold she was looking for. The young Assassin contemplated her choices, but she had already decided the moment she arrived at the Board. She clenched a fist around the shard and watched as her veins pulsed within her hand. She didn’t need to do this stealthily. All she had to do was find Wolfgang and eliminate him. No one else was going to be able to stop her. Folding her wings back, Velvet Breeze dived down, whistling through the air as she broke her cloud cover, her destination the building’s rooftop. Her glow was sure to attract unwanted attention, but Velvet didn’t care. To her, all they would be, was flies. The Assassin tucked in her legs and wings and spun once before landing in a crouch, this time as quietly as a church mouse. Like the tongue of a frog, Velvet was by the rooftop door in an instant, ripping it off its hinges as she made her way down the stairs. Two men down in the stairwell looked up immediately, shock all over their faces as Velvet approached them. One of them, a fairly chubby man with blonde hair, ran as soon as Velvet got close, tripping and tumbling down the steps while the first man whipped a pistol from his holster, firing two bullets at the young Assassin. Velvet folded her wings in front of herself, the bullets pinging harmlessly off them until she got close, upon which she backhanded the shooter with her wing hard enough to throw him into the wall. He never got back up. Turning downstairs, Velvet stalked after the chubby Templar, each step bringing herself closer to him as he struggled to get off the floor, but it was as if the concrete below him had turned to ice. He slipped and slid, continuously falling down to his knees as he made for the lower floor’s door. “Wolfgang,” the Assassin growled. “Where is he?” The man didn’t reply. He reached for the door handle, but Velvet pulled him away, slamming him against the brick wall. “I don’t want to repeat myself. Where. Is. Wolfgang?” She slammed a fist into the wall beside the Templar’s fat face, leaving a sizeable dent in it. “I-I-I don’t know!” he squirmed under Velvet’s grip. “H-He may be on t-the lowest floor! That’s where h-his hideout is! I s-swear, I haven’t seen him today!” Smirking at the corner of her mouth, Velvet Breeze turned and tossed the man down the next flight of stairs before going down herself, heading all the way down until she reached the bottom. Drawing a foot back, she kicked the door open, startling a group of men and women, who were sitting at their desks, typing at their computers. “Who are you?” a man with a moustache stood and asked her. Velvet lifted a hand, causing the man to be lifted in a golden aura. His coworkers screamed and ran as Velvet closed the distance between them, her grip on the man getting tighter. “I have no bone to pick with you. Just Wolfgang.” Then she tossed him over his cubicle and into the next with a crash. Proceeding on, Velvet levitated to a row of doors, kicking them all open to check what was behind them. The first two were storerooms, but the third one led down a dark set of steps. Velvet was unable to see the bottom, but she could only guess what would be down there. “I’m coming for you, Wolfgang…” Velvet floated down, not making a single sound on the staircase, her golden aura illuminating the way ahead. She arrived down in a dark room, with only a single lightbulb lighting the center of the room, which held a round table and four chairs, with a small refrigerator to the side. “Hold it right there!” a voice yelled behind the girl as she walked over to inspect the table. Slightly turning her head, Velvet noticed a troop of Templar guards standing against the wall behind her, submachine guns in their hands. The sound of footsteps echoed out above the stairwell, as more guards entered the room, training their guns and laser sights at the young Assassin’s chest. “Surrender and come quietly and maybe we won’t have to kill you,” one guard barked at her. Velvet looked around, assessing her situation. There were at least twenty guards here, and perhaps more were still on their way. Using her enhanced eagle vision, she noticed that this room was indeed Wolfgang’s; she could still see his residue aura by a chair and the refrigerator, along with a golden path leading out a door at the far end, bolted down by two bars; he had only left recently. “No,” Velvet said grimly. She held out her hand and a ghostly sword blade materialized in it. “You surrender.” Velvet rushed forward at the same time the first bullets flew. With superhuman reflexes, she raised her sword and deflected the first volley before closing the distance between her and the guards. She plunged her sword into the closest guard’s chest, cutting clean through his bulletproof vest, following through on the strike by scything it through the legs of another man. Velvet turned, slashing with her wingtips at anyone who was foolish enough to stand in her way. Bits of human body parts littered the area as Templars lost their arms, legs, and for some, even their heads, which rolled around on the floor, kicked out of the way by the Templars falling back. In no time at all, ten guards lay dead and the others were retreating down the hallway. Velvet wasn’t having any of it. She held out her free hand, golden light gathering at her palm before a bright, golden beam of light shot out, vaporizing the remaining guards on the spot, leaving nothing but ashy outlines on the floor. Velvet staggered slightly, feeling the drain on her strength from using the shard’s power. Just a little more, she thought blearily. I just need to hold out until I find Wolfgang. Help me. Help me protect my friends. Velvet took heavy steps towards the back door, slashing the bars in two with her sword. She pushed it open and immediately felt the winds blow against her, now slightly colder as part of her strength faded. The door led up a short flight of stairs, heading up some kind of secret door to the side of the building, just behind a row of planted trees outside the Board building. Velvet didn’t need her eagle vision to see the multitude of footprints left in the snow, leading away to the pavement. Only after the trail ended at the road did Velvet need to use her eagle vision again, following the faint golden trail again, watching as it disappeared into the darkness on the other side of the street. The young Assassin spread her wings and took to the sky, following it from a decent height, turning along the road as the trail did so. Eventually, she came to an apartment complex. It was rundown and dilapidated, but this was where the trail led.   Here you are, Wolfgang… Velvet landed by the main doors of the building, whipping her wings down, releasing a gust of wind that blew the doors open. Stepping inside, the young Assassin was glad to be out of the cold weather. Her strength and consciousness was slowly slipping, but she willed herself to go on, at least until Wolfgang had finally paid for his deeds. The insides of the apartment building were in ruins, likely untouched in the last year or two. Cobwebs were strung across the ceiling and walls, but surprisingly, the stairs leading up weren’t. There were footsteps in the dust below, likely a troop of guards along with her target. “So that’s where you’ve gone…” Velvet narrowed her eyes and headed up. The girl had only taken the first step up when an explosion ripped through the doorway on her left, pushing her against the wall as splinters and fire engulfed her and the bottom half of the staircase. Her wings instinctively folded around her person, shielding her from the blast as the flames roared and swirled around her. As soon as it died down, Velvet unfolded her wings are glared at the offending doorway. Three Dragon Unit soldiers stood at the fiery doorway, their motorbike-like helmets reflecting Velvet’s angry face. She raised her hand at them, picking them up in her telekinetic aura before closing her fist, crushing them together in a spray of blood and bone. Velvet dropped their mangled bodies and proceeded up the remains of the staircase, searching for the man she came to find. Just on the second floor, the Assassin met another group of Dragon Unit soldiers, each of them holding a rifle in their hands. “Now!” the one to the right yelled, as each of them fired a disc of sorts at the walls around Velvet. As soon as they touched, they connected in electricity and sparked around her like a crazy fly zapper. “Out of my way!” Velvet shouted, flapping down with her wings, creating a shockwave that blasted out, knocking the soldiers over, at the same time, destroying all the little shock discs they had fired. Rearing back up, the Templar soldiers fired their regular bullets at the girl, but like everything else, they failed to halt Velvet as she dashed through them, two already falling in half as her wings cut clean through them. Spinning in an arc, Velvet Breeze cut down another two soldiers before deflecting the rest of their bullets in the air, dropping back down with a punch, destroying the wooden floor and sending the remaining soldiers falling to the floor below. Wasting no time, Velvet made her way up again, encountering yet another group of soldiers. Materializing a sword in her hand again, she slashed and stabbed, dismembering and mutilating the Templars as they tried to engage her, their bullets and daggers uselessly bouncing off her magical wings. “Retreat! Fall back!” one yelled before half his head was splattered against the wall with a blast of energy, leaving only his lower jaw. The other soldiers tossed down smoke grenades as they opened a silver door, rushing in as quickly as they could. Velvet blew the smoke away with her wings, just in time to see the silver door close, locking a single soldier outside with her. “Hey, let me in!” he bashed a fist on the door, but it remained closed. “Let me in! Hurry!” Velvet loomed over the lone soldier, her eyes burning like two golden spotlights. “Oh shi-” the soldier managed to spit out before Velvet launched him across the room with a punch. Not hard enough to kill, but hard enough to put him down for a few hours. Velvet growled, stretching out her hands. The golden light spun around her fingertips until there were inch long claws made of energy protruding from the ends of her fingers. Gripping the doorframe, she pulled. The door may have been made of solid steel, but the surrounding wall was made of brick and mortar and Velvet was soon able to pull the door right off the wall. Velvet looked at the last few soldiers, trembling before her, their rifles trained on her chest as she tossed the door down with a loud resounding clang. Behind them all, stood a grey-skinned man with blue hair, half standing behind a desk, a pistol in his hand. “Velvet Breeze…” he mumbled. “You just couldn’t stay dead, huh? I should’ve known it was you who was looking for me after what I did to your friends. But how unfortunate that you have found me in this safehouse. I was hoping to get away and kill more Assassins.” “Not this time,” Velvet clenched a fist. The effect was immediate, as the first guard began to fold like a tin can, his screams turning into gurgling as blood dripped from his mouth and eyes before Velvet let his body fall. “Do you all wish to fight me?” The Templars remained unsure, some taking steps back and away from their fallen comrade. “What are you waiting for?” Wolfgang bellowed behind them. “Shoot her! Shoot her!” One soldier began shooting first, allowing the rest to pick up their courage and open fire at the Assassin girl. Velvet brought up her wings and covered herself, their bullets pinging off uselessly like all the previous times. Bringing a hand up, Velvet Breeze released a blast of energy, so strong that the first row of soldiers instantly blew up in a spray of blood, bones and brains, all across the room’s walls, while the rest, including Wolfgang, fell back a few feet. One more Templar soldier had hit his head against the side of the table, likely breaking his neck as he fell to the ground; his head was bent at an impossible angle. Two Templars fired at the Assassin from the ground, hoping to catch her off guard, but Velvet had already been ready for them, thanks to her enhanced eagle vision. Her magical wings protected her before she released two feathers from each wing, the astral projections thudding into the soldiers’ heads, spearing their eyes. They cried out for a second, but fell flat to the ground as the feathers punctured their brains. Blood dribbled out of their eyes as the feathers dissipated. “You fools, what are you doing?” Wolfgang cursed at his men. “That’s not how you kill her! Try harder!” One more man got up and plucked a round object from his belt, pulling the pin and tossing it at Velvet. Watching it fall towards her, Velvet Breeze lifted a hand and stopped the grenade in mid air, holding it for a second before sending it back to its owner. The soldiers only had a second to gasp before the grenade went off in front of their faces, rocking the building with a series of explosions as the other grenades on their belts went off, forcing Velvet back out of the room as the entire floor collapsed, including a portion of the ceiling above them. When the smoke cleared, Velvet floated back to the room, looking down at the ruins and scattered body parts of the Dragon Unit soldiers. Fire had caught across the walls, slowly spreading as Velvet descended down to the rubble below, kicking a soldier’s arm out of the way as she searched for her target. Then she saw him, crawling out from under a wooden support, holding his shoulder as he shuffled to safety. “Wolfgang,” Velvet called out, standing before him atop a pile of rubble. The Templar growled and turned to look at her. Blood was trailing down the side of his head, mixed with the dust and dirt of the debris. Just the sight of the man enraged her, but then the aura around Velvet began to flicker, her strength fading after the light show she put up to get here. No, not now, not yet… “Oh?” Wolfgang put on an amused face. “Are you finally running out of juice?” “Not yet, Wolfgang…” Velvet walked down the debris, her wings completely fading behind her. The man raised his pistol at her, but Velvet kicked it out of his hands before punching him across the face, sending him to the dusty ground. Wolfgang reached for one of his knives, but faster than he believed possible, Velvet was as his side, stomping down on his arm. Something snapped and Wolfgang howled in pain before the Assassin lifted a knee, hitting the man in the nose, sending him falling back again. The golden glow in her eyes flared and she lifted Wolfgang up by the neck, his legs kicking harmlessly beneath him. “Wolfgang…” Velvet growled, her voice sounding as though two people were speaking at once, her own and an older woman’s. She threw Wolfgang to the floor and the light spun back into a pair of claws around Velvet’s fingers. The magic made her lightheaded, but she fought against the fatigue with only one thing on her mind. Please, give me the strength to finish this, Emerald. I’m so close. Velvet stalked behind the downed Wolfgang, pushing her claws down into his back, tearing through his clothes and skin, feeling them stir at his organs within. The Templar coughed and yelled in pain as Velvet dug around other parts of his body. “Don’t worry,” Velvet said slowly, removing her claws and kicking Wolfgang in the head. “I’m not going to kill you. Not yet.” She hauled Wolfgang to his feet and punched him in the gut, sending him flying against the wall before collapsing onto the ground. “First, I’m going to make you suffer.” Velvet closed in on Wolfgang and the night was rent with the sound of screaming.