Wolfgang rubbed at his sore jaw as he hid in the darkness near the ceiling, holding on to four knives he had jammed in the walls to keep him up there.
Most of his injuries had toned down after a few days, though it still hurt all over. A few more minutes saw Wolfgang’s mouth curve into a smile. Below him, Pressure Point had returned to the hideout, walking under his position without noticing him.
Ho ho… This time I’ll get the better of you, Pressure.
Wolfgang let go of his knives and hopped off the ones he was standing on, directing his body straight for the other killer below. He landed on her with a whump, his weight pushing her to the ground in an instant.
“Ow!” Pressure shouted as her head hit the ground. “Wolfgang? What gives?!”
“What gives, she says?” Wolfgang pretended to talk to someone beside him. “She doesn’t know why I’m sitting on her?”
“Yeah, I don’t. You mind telling me why?”
“Don’t act dumb, Pressure,” Wolfgang snarled and pulled out his switchblade. “You very well know why. Time for payback!”
Wolfgang hurriedly stuck his blade up under her arm, through the ribs. He smiled to himself as she screamed in pain and thrashed around, trying to get him off. He held firm, pressing the blade deeper as Pressure began to cough up blood.
“Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha!” he cheered to himself as Pressure soon leaned back against the ground and stopped breathing.
He heard the door to the hideout slam open. It was the Witch of Manehattan, Mirror Match.
“What the hay is going on here?”
“Oh nothing much,” Wolfgang smiled and grabbed for Pressure’s face. “I just settled a score with this woman who was supposed to be my partner.”
“Really?” Mirror peered down at the dead body of Pressure Point with curiosity. “What did she do?”
“What, you don’t know?” Wolfgang pushed apart Pressure’s lips and looked down her mouth. “And here I thought you were one of the smarter ones. She betrayed my trust the other day. She did this to me.” Wolfgang opened his mouth and showed Mirror the teeth that he didn’t have anymore.
“Doesn’t look like she put up much of a fight,” Mirror observed.
“No she did not. No fight, in fact.” Wolfgang got to work in digging his blade into the other killer’s gums, trying to pry out her teeth. “Now I’m just going to do to her what she did to me.”
Mirror watched him for a while. About when Wolfgang got to the molars, he heard the sound of someone trying to hide snickering behind him.
“What so funny?”
“Nothing! Nothing at all. It’s just that… it takes a lot of force to knock someone’s teeth out. You’d usually bruise your knuckles doing so.”
“Glad to know. That’s why I use a knife anyway,” he replied as he dug out one of Pressure’s molars.
Mirror nudged Pressure Point’s hand. “I wonder how they are? Her knuckles, I mean. She usually uses a weapon, right?”
“Throwing knives? Yeah.” Wolfgang turned around to face Mirror. “Why are you still here? Can’t you see I’m busy?” He rubbed at his cheek before returning to dislodging the rest of the killer’s teeth.
Mirror bowed apologetically. “To be honest, I wanted to ask if I could use your medicine cabinet. The one in the staff room is missing the item I need, and yours was the closest. May I?”
“Why?” Wolfgang’s voice raised a pitch with the question. “I need what supplies I have here. Why don’t you go ask someone else?”
“I only need one tube of cream,” Mirror persuaded. “Come on, the sooner I get it, the sooner you can go back to your, er, work in peace.”
Wolfgang sighed but got up after sticking his knife in Pressure Point’s eye before proceeding to the cabinet. “Which cream do you want.”
Mirror pointed to a barely-used green and blue marked box.
“That one, please.”
Wolfgang pulled a tube from out of the box and tossed it to the agent before squatting back down over Pressure’s body. “There. Now, go away, thank you.”
“You’re very kind, Wolfey.” Mirror winked at him and breezed out of the room before he could retort.
“Yeah, just run!” he shouted at the door. He really hated it when people called him ‘Wolfey’. He continued carving Pressure into a perfect image of what she had done to him the other day. After finishing up with her other eye, Wolfgang realized he didn’t check what he had given Mirror. It might have been something important or something he needed, so he headed back to the cabinet to have a look at the box.
It read: “Iron Will’s Extra-Strength Muscle Rub - For reducing those aches, cramps, and bruises!”
One by one, all the pieces fell into place. Tearing his eyes from box, Wolfgang knelt down next to Pressure Point and examined her knuckles. No signs of bruising whatsoever, and no sign of any cream for that matter. Come to think of it, this woman probably wouldn’t have had the physique to give him a prolonged beating anyway… which only left one possibility.
“That witch…” Wolfgang crushed the box in his fist and threw it as hard as he could at the wall. “She played me like a fiddle! Again!”
In the dark of the night, High Noon was tossing and turning. Since getting into bed, he hadn’t gotten any sleep at all. All he could think about was Windy, lying in the medic wing, a big hole blown through the middle of her life. High Noon couldn’t understand why Mirror had to shoot his apprentice. Windy was the most innocent of them all. She hadn’t killed a single soul in her whole life, and why was she the one to die instead of him?
The cowboy couldn’t take it anymore. He flipped his bed sheets off of his form and crept out the door, heading down to Patch’s clinic. He needed to know how Windy was doing. It pained him to think about it, but he just couldn’t get her out of his mind. He had to know for sure that she was doing fine.
Noon crept past Pierce’s room when he began to hear voices inside. “Are you sure there’s been no sighting of this queen of hers?”
“No.” It was Frigid Night’s voice. “I’ve searched. I’ve followed up leads on everything Mirror had said and done. The Templars don’t seem to have a queen amongst them. Only their Grand Master, Mahogany Wood.”
“This is puzzling,” the hacker said. High Noon continued past the room, but heard one more line. “What if this queen is all a figment of her imagination? Let’s be honest, Frigid. Mirror doesn’t seem to be operating on the same kind of rules and logic that we are.”
High Noon scoffed at that comment as he headed down the stairs. If the queen was all an imagination, then many of the Assassins would have been killed for nothing. Windy would’ve been hurt for nothing. High Noon didn’t want to accept it, even if it meant there was someone dangerous of that status out there. He just didn’t like the thought of Windy getting hurt so badly because Mirror was delusional.
He arrived and stood just outside the medic wing. Light shone from under the door, meaning someone was awake in there, most likely Patch herself. The cowboy slowly pushed the door open and peeked in, searching the room for the doctor.
The pink haired doctor was sitting around the corner, facing Windy’s bed, wiping at her eyes as she sat there.
No. Please, no…
High Noon quickly pushed the rest of the door open and ran in, his heavy footsteps getting the medic’s attention.
“High Noon. I was going to tell you in the morning… I’m sorry. I did my best, but she just lost too much blood.”
Noon’s mouth became dry as he turned around the corner to look at his apprentice. She was just lying there, her eyes closed, but she wasn’t breathing and her skin had paled.
The cowboy stood as long as he could until his legs gave out under him, sending him sprawling to his knees. A new waterfall of tears spilled out of his eyes, the cowboy unable to control it. He sat next to Windy and wept, letting all his emotions inside flow out with his tears.
“Noon, I’m so sorry…” Patch slid her chair beside him. “I’m a doctor. It’s my job to save people, but… I couldn’t do anything. Broadside, Frenzy, Sparkplug, Windy… I’m sorry I couldn’t save any of you…”
Patch herself began crying, leaning down to her knees and covering her face with a hand.
High Noon’s worst fears had come true. Now his apprentice was gone and he had lost all the remaining time he had with her. He had wanted more. Hoped for it, but it just wasn’t meant to be. It was Mirror. It was all that witch’s fault. Besides sadness, there was also anger in High Noon’s heart. The next time he met that traitor, he was going to give her a piece of his mind, even if it killed him.
One week later
“Chairman!” Wolfgang shouted as he pushed through the wooden doors to Mahogany’s office.
It was so immediate that Crescent Wing pulled out a saber and pointed its tip towards the killer as he approached the Grand Master.
“What is it, Wolfgang?” Mahogany frowned as he looked at the oncoming killer. He made no attempt to flee, having complete trust in his bodyguard. “There better be a good reason for this. I have a meeting with the principal of Fillydelphia State School in a few minutes. I don’t want you here for that.”
“It’s that witch, chairman!” Wolfgang stopped before Crescent’s blade and stomped his foot. “She beat me up and made me think she was Pressure Point! Then laughed at me after I killed Pressure Point!”
“You what? You killed an asset?” Mahogany just wanted to have the wild man killed, but he was still useful, so he held in that order. “And you claim Mirror Match pretended to be the other killer and beat you up? How do you suppose she did that?”
“She-She…” Wolfgang stopped to think. “She… Dressed up! That’s right! I know she did! Pressure Point wouldn’t beat me up for nothing, whereas Mirror Match has been at my throat for the last few months!”
Mahogany sighed and clutched at his head with a hand. This psychologically-problematic killer had been coming to him so many times, always to complain about Mirror Match, one of his top agents, and how she always messed up his plans and took his kills. Now here he was, saying she beat him up as someone else.
“Wolfgang, what evidence do you have? How can you prove it was her?”
Wolfgang pulled at his lip and opened his mouth, revealing a few missing teeth in his gums. “Look-a-dissh! She did dissh!”
“Wolfgang, anyone could’ve done that. How would it be her?” The phone on his desk began ringing, distracting the occupants in the room to the black vibrating object. He gave the killer a watchful eye as he picked it up. “Yes, this is Chairman Wood.”
The voice on the other end seemed distressed. “Brother, it’s Timber. We’ve got a big situation. Bigger than the last time. There’s… Someone, or something in the vault with the Apple.”
“What?!” Mahogany slammed a palm on the desk and stood up. “How? Get the guards on it immediately. I’m heading over. Get Talon over there as well, tell him to bring his men!”
Mahogany put the phone down and straightened his beige suit. “We’ll talk another time, Wolfgang. There’s an emergency at the artifact. Crescent, call off my meeting with Principal Frost. This is more important.”
The Templars swiftly left the room with Wolfgang following behind. The killer wanted to see what all the commotion was about. Anything that made the chairman angry was something worth seeing.