Chapter 1: Chapter 1: <Red Flowers>
N/A:
"... C-12... What is a man like you down in the communication hall?"
A hooded, slim man with average features solemnly gazed for a few seconds, before slipping a packaged letter onto a table on the side.
"Be a little nicer will you? Keep talking like that to your superiors, and you'll be killed soon... The guys here aren't like your normal victims... D-518" The man nonchalantly responded, staring at the back of a leather chair; his face barely being distinguishable from the rest of the room.
It was dark like the nights in the arctic, except there weren't any stars gazing from above; no ancestors displaying their support.
The chair finally turned around in a smooth swing, and a short, brown hair man hopped off as he swiped the white envelop; grazing his shoulder against the infamous C-12 as he exited the room without a sound.
"Damn you. Your arrogance was the death of you after all."
C-12's grey eyes hysterically laughed in the sweet taste of retribution; the savoury scent of betrayal wafted across his nose, but for some reason, it just didn't seem as tempting as before.
The end was finally here, along with Christmas.
...
The clacks of his hard heels hallowed down the rectangular hallway like it had always done; in an infinite ring, without a sense of time.
His pace was relatively calm as his eyes gazed down the oak doors, stationed from each other like college dorms. The painfully awful, mustard wallpaper with brown splotches, with what seems to be flowers, were printed on the under half of the white walls, while a marble lining cased the meeting of the two designs.
The idea was there, but something had gone awry; it looked like a failure of an aspiring architect's imagination.
It wasn't bad, but the construction itself had made it look like crap; uneven wallpapers, unlined prints with each door... It was just terrible.
The person who had done the job itself, also just as guilty, much less more unforgivable; the word drunk was written all over the choppy, unsymmetrical corridors. Probably worse than the hair cut you got at your local plaza, that your mom had chosen; the mushroom cut, the bowl cut, the "I-slay-it-long" cut, pretty much everything that made you look like a cantaloupe.
D-518 was his name, but it was considered more of a codename than anything; according to his colleagues.
He didn't know how old he was, nor who his parents were.
All he remembered was the day, when the blazing sun stopped peeling his skin with it's rays, shading it with a shadow, while callous-filled hands reached out towards his. Though his memory wasn't the best, and clumsy to a barely manageable degree, that day a decade ago still plays itself fresh, more so than a stainless CD.
Someone took advantage of his innocence, and wagered him on a game he never intended to gamble on; but a promise was still a promise, and he still lived.
D-518 slightly shook his head, trying to not reminisce too much about unnecessary matters and took a sharp right turn.
As he entered into another corridor, the mustard print once-again impaled his eyes, and he silently snarled; no matter how many times he looked at that thing, he wasn't able to accept that it looked "good."
Even with the sense of nostalgia.
Ironically, an organization that illegally had an income of several hundred millions, had their headquarters looking like a badly-renovated warehouse, with décor aimlessly splattered at every corner to make it look "homely."
Yeah, like that warehouse going for $200, in the shady corner of your neighborhood.
He'd never tell his boss, but frankly the fake cactuses, and modern clay pots did not go well together; at all, and will never go together.
Not with brown flowers that looked like fingerprints from a toddler; and depending how you looked at it...-
To put it bluntly, it looked like turds of...
YEah.
Most importantly, never with the that shade of yellow; it seriously makes you lose your appetite when you head to lunch, and it wasn't like the food was good anyways.
D-518, this time, shook his head a bit more violently, and continued walking down the empty, quiet hallway. He passed, by who knows how many unlabeled, wooden paneled doors, until the letter in his tempted hands finally was opened.
Good afternoon,
D-518, I trust that you understand the purpose of this sudden letter.
Unfortunately, time has been limited, and thus we shall end here.
I hope to see you in the room.
Many thanks,
Z. 3r0
D-518's cold, dulled eyes flinched with a sense of surprise, but later rested back to their normal ways; he kept walking, seemingly unfazed by the contents of the letter.
"It's come faster than I predicted." He whispered, hiding behind the pounding of his leather boots, hoping that his words would be small enough that no one would hear. His fingers, nails chipped with malnutrition, gently folded the paper back into the envelop, before he folded down the latch and placed it in his jean pockets.
Maybe it was because of the swirling premonition inside of him, but he started to acknowledge things he's never noticed before; the harsh, baggy material of his pants scraping his flesh, the cheesy Christmas decorations, and the prominent of all: the smell of death.
Black mail was his forte, and not much more.
Unlike the rookies, he wasn't talented in coding, or anything more complicated.
The only thing that prevented them from stealing his place as rep, was that he majored in business; yes, exactly that.
Just answer his question like a stranger, and he'll find where you live, what you fear, and most of all; what you don't know. Everything would be interpreted into something, tell him how you're feeling, and with another sequence of conversations, you'll be already caged without return.
He's never smelled it before, since he's never had to stain his hands with blood, and coarse his lungs with rotting corpses; but he could still smell it.
Rather strange, right?
.
.
.
"You hear that melancholic heel sound? My little brother's coming~"
"D-518 sure is early aye?"
"That's a load of crap coming from you."
"What'd you say? Huh?"
"...The dumb brothers are starting again..."
"Wow, like why? You guys argue like there's no tomorrow. Like, just quiet down you boogers."
"I agree B-1... They... Forget it... Boss make them silent..."
"Mm, but like why is boss-guy not saying anything?"
"Well, B-1, it's because he's not here."
"Um, yeah. I know that."
.
.
.
"Sorry, I've come late." D-518 said, swinging open the wooden door with a "woosh."
.
.
.
"Awe, D-518-y (read as "D, five eighteeny"), you're finally here?~" A rather attractive man, with strawberry blond hair spanning to his shoulders, teased in a sheepish manner.
"Come closer, sit next to your big brother, mhm~" He wisped, pulling the chair beside him back, before patting onto the seat, containing eye contact with D-518.
"I've reserved you a nice seat~"
"So~... Come here, mhm!~"
"Thank you A-715." D-518 quietly expressed; slowly bowing his head as he made his away around the table; walked towards the flirtatious A-715 with his stone-like expression again, before slowly sitting into the velvet-cushioned seat.
As he wiggled to get comfortable, setting his elbows on the table, he uncomfortably looked up to find 4 intimidating stares; each of them holding some sort of intention in their depths.
The pair of coloured pupils seemed to float over the clean lilac tablecloth like old, bearded overseers; analyzing your every detail for capitalization, with a blade-like resolve.
He ignored their eyes, and relocated his focus onto the room; extremely curious as to why this one didn't have that ugly wallpaper, and instead had a classy marron shade upon the smooth walls.
He couldn't hear the conversation properly, but the sound of laughter resumed, and he gladly continued to satisfy his curiosity.
Several empty shelves attached to the room itself didn't seem have an ounce of dust, nor any hint of "suspicious" activity; it just looked normal, like a well cared-for parlor you'd expect Laura Ingalls Wilder to have.
One thing that did catch his attention however, were the red poinsettia flowers around the room; every one of them planted in an equally red pot.
D-518 didn't really like poinsettia flowers; every year Z. 3r0 would buy them and distribute them to the halls, but they just looked like two layers of leaves: one red, and one green.
To be fair, it had become symbolic now, thus he didn't really mind it anymore, but with the flower in a pot, that looked like a stereotypical Chinese takeout box?
Yeah... Probably just a bit better than the mustard walls...
He's decided now; his boss is official blind!
...
That's just how much the years of being let-down had done to him.
The four flimsy corners stuck out like sore thumbs against the emerald green leaves, but camouflaged perfectly with the single flower on top.
There were six of them; one behind every chair, and barely visible from the front.
It did look a little bit dubious, since there were exactly 6, and exactly behind each seat; as if intentionally put with a motive.
D-518 would've express his concern, but as his flirtatious seatmate A-715 had not spoken a word, he logically believed that there was nothing to be wary about.
After all, through his "enticing" personality, laid a pair of instincts keener than anyone present; A-715 had arrived earlier than he had to the organization, and all he's ever seen, was the image of a crimson dress flowing into the creases of his equipment.
Then considering he's the chief representative from the assassination hall, gives enough evidence to relax about traps, or death just in general; a prodigy, he was.
Thus, D-518 naturally had no reasons to doubt his judgement, and opted to stay silent, listening to the rest of the group chatter away, while occasionally answering some of A-715's small talk.
.
.
.
"B-1, you seriously need to chill."
"Yeah sure, but you guys need to like calm down too. It's not that of a big deal that, dumb brother one, has a girlfriend. I mean, like a lot of rookies have a boyfriend or something."
"C-145 has a boyfriend. Get that through your heads numbskulls."
"That's a lot coming from you C-7."
"Wha-. Why do you keep targeting me?!"
"C-7, and C-145... The dumb brothers... Are... Really... Stupid..."
"Shut up, will-ya A-39?"
"..."
"A-39's strangely obedient today, ya' savvy?"
"Not at all, like C-145, stop acting like a thug."
"We are criminals though."
...
"That's true."
"A-39?"
"..."
D-518 along with everyone else, disconnected from the conversation, and jolted their heads towards the quiet, A-39's seat; dumbfounded by her unresponsive replies.
But, unlike what they'd expected, such as her dozing off to nap like usual; she wasn't there.
She was gone.
Strangely enough, her chair was left untouched, tucked beneath the table as if she was never there.
"A... A-39?"
"Did she leave?"
"B-1, you should know... She was sitting right beside you!"
"I didn't hear her leave. Like at all."
None of those present said anything; it wasn't that they didn't believe the words of B-1, and treated them as lies. But because they knew there was no other possibility. Don't misunderstand, they didn't take part in something as feasible as trust, but instead rationality; there was no chance for A-39, a representative from the treasure hall to escape the senses of a renowned killer; not now, and never in a thousand years.
B-1's skills were pretty much unparalleled, well, with the exception of A-715.
.
.
.
"That is, unless she had hidden her skills."
"However, if she had skills that great, A-39 would definitely have smuggled into headquarters with a greater motive; she wouldn't have wasted all those years and effort just to achieve some miniscule."
After all, the longer the ladder, the bigger the apple.
"Secondly though, no one would be foolish enough to leave with such a display of power; it brings too much dangers, and just seems unnecessary to do."
"With A-39's exceptional intelligence, she would be the last person to do so... Even if it was a façade, she wouldn't have to keep up the act with her finalizing move."
"So... Obviously... She was taken... By someone stronger than her..."
"D-518 looked at B-1, and A-175 (who obviously winked the second they met eyes); the two most disreputable suspects; but the others are just as suspicious."
"If A-175 is working with someone, then no body would ever bring up any hints, or anything until it's too late. It's the same with B-1..."
.
.
.
"This room is the closest to the communications hall..."
"If it was someone in this room, then they would've been in here before."
"... A-39 is sitting right in front of the door, and across from her is C-7..."
"The assassination hall is the farthest..."
"Considering the condition of the room...-"
"..."
"Hah..."
"So, that's why..."
"I'm seriously so dumb..."
.
.
.
"Just five poinsettia flowers left to go then..."
.
.
.
"Hah... now there are ten..."
.
.
.
"... Looks like it's eleven now..."
Then, finally twelve.
But all that remained was zero.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone