Transubstantion (OPEN)

[NekoButcher]

“When I wake up in the morning, I first look at the only picture I still have my son. I miss him, and every time I miss him, I want to kill someone. It’s what keeps me going. Without hatred, I don’t know what I would be. I’ve heard about cat people that can go feral, I used to be able to, but now, I think there is no difference between me as a beast and me in my more sentient form. They’ve mixed together to the point where I’m hardly a feline anymore.

I’m just a monster.

This is my confession. I’ve killed, and I will kill again. One time, I shot an entire family of dark elves while they were out for a picnic, and I didn’t care. I thought it was funny, especially when their twelve year old boy began sucking his thumb as he slowly bled to death. I suppose part of me was supposed to feel guilty, but not after what they had done to my son.

The rest of the cat people can stay naïve. It doesn’t bother me. I hardly consider myself one of them now. If there was a way to change my race to match my personality, I would have taken it. I wondered what I would be. None of the so-called dominant races would have wanted me. They frown upon murder. Even the vampires don’t kill their own. That’s how I’m different. I just kill.”

That was the confession that Pounder had uttered in the cathedral in St. Denebriel. He had gone there desperately three years ago, searching for an answer, searching for some kind of pathway that didn’t end with him lying in a pool of blood somewhere in Alerar, unloved and uncared for. However, the cat man couldn’t get his son’s dying image out of his head. As long as he remembered his son, he would kill.

He opened his butcher’s shop at eight that morning, promptly. He scowled as the sunlight shone in his eyes, his nighttime adventures had often left him too tired to open the shop. Pounder’s greatest regret was that his family had been forced to take care of the shop now to support him. The only thing that the hitman ever did for his shop any more was bring supplies, and even then, his supply was too erratic to be depended on.

A high elf was his first visitor of the day. Pounder was surprised to see a high elf in Alerar. Not that cat people were particularly common either, but they had their place somewhere in the city, even though the government chose to ignore them. Before Pounder could take the high elf’s order, the stranger spoke.

“They are after you,” the high elf said.

Though he only spoke three words, Pounder knew exactly what to do. He thanked the high elf briefly and then grabbed the crossbow and dagger he kept back behind the shelf with his normal butcher’s tools. If the police were coming for him now, he was going to make sure they remembered his son.

[Synful_Blood]

She was back in Alerar, and she was wanted. This came as no surprise to Syn Nydel; after all, she'd only murdered countless numbers of the tainted Dark Elves in cold blood. Their blood cried out for vengeance, but not nearly as loudly as the detested half-blood's did.

She was an expert in avoiding detection by the local law enforcement, however, and found herself watching the street for easy targets. It didn't matter to her, who she killed. She'd tear open a baby with as little sympathy as she would its mother or an armed patrolman, so long as their skin was dark and their ears were pointed.

True, she matched that description herself, but she was only half Alerean. Only half damned. She'd kill as many as she could before they killed her, or she'd kill them all and then kill herself. She knew, though, that they were a taint, a blight upon the land. A blight that needed eliminating.

She had the cowl of her duster pulled up, hiding the trademark black and white hair as she crouched in the gloomy murk of an alley. No one looked in there to see her. They preferred the light, the openness of the streets. How ironic she found it that they would walk their streets as though they were the equals of Raiaeran Elves, rather than scurrying through alleys like the vermin they were.

A sound caught her attention, and the skeletal half-blood glanced up. Of all the strange sights, a native of Raiaera had entered a little butcher's shop on the street. Why would a High Elf even be so far into the borders of so hostile a nation? Why would he so much as sully his nostrils with its foul air? She was there because she belonged among the tainted, but him...?

She skulked deeper into the shadows as the shopkeeper left his store, causing the Elf to glance in her direction. She doubted she'd be seen...but she feared his gaze more than she would have feared a Dark Elf's. He would despise them for being what they were. He would hate her for being part his race. She needed to not be seen.

Fortunately, soon enough he, too, left the shop, without having seen her. A minute later, and she heard heavy footsteps as a patrol unit came around. It was early, and they were ending their shift. They'd be tired, slow, and easy prey.

As they passed her alley, she slid out, a silent shade on the new-dawn street. She had her dagger out as she approached them from behind, and they didn't look at her because they had already passed her and seen nothing.

The first one fell silently, her dagger crunching into the place where his spinal cord met his brain. The second turned, a scream forming on his lips as he gazed into the blood-red eyes of a cold-blooded killer.

The scream never made it past his lips, as she slashed across his throat. Blood spattered all over the street, the buildings, and her clothes and face. She could taste the metallic tang of it on her lips and that only widened the skeleton's grin that had formed itself on her face. The taste was sweet. So incredibly sweet.

She found herself laughing, harsh barks that would send a chill down nearby ears. This was what made her existence worthwhile. She'd keep it up until forced to leave Alerar or killed.

It was good to be back.

[NekoButcher]

Pounder could hear the heavy footsteps of the patrol. They sounded louder on the pavement than they had any time before, their steps matching time with the beat of his heart. The older cat man gathered his things carefully and tried not to fidget too much as he placed his dagger in its sheath and loaded his crossbow. Weapons weren’t allowed on the streets of Alerar ever since the assassination of the Queen, but since he was already in trouble enough, Pounder could care less if he was going to be charged with another crime. He doubted that Alerar could do much more than punish him for his over fifty murders.

The cat man moved towards the back of his shop, hoping that he could move undetected out into the alley, disappearing once the patrol rounded the corner. Pounder wondered why the high elf had been so free with his information, and the only thing he could guess was that it was Raiaeran intelligence, and that they appreciated what he did to weaken their mutual foe.

As Pounder looked out into the alleyway, he noticed a pleasant surprise. There was a woman, dark elven herself, taking care of the patrol for him. With a smile, he thought of how deliciously ironic it would have been to shoot her, while her attention had been focused on the police. Yet, he hesitated. If she killed Alerarian police, then he figured that she could be useful.

“She probably has some kind of a grudge of her own,” Pounder thought. He envisioned his escape with her barreling into squadrons of policemen as he made his escape. It sounded much easier, especially considering his wounded knee.

Pounder held his crossbow at his side as he exited from his shop and made no indication that he would use it on the dark elf. He still held the weapon ready, just in case he needed to reconsider.

“I don’t know who you are, or what you’re doing, but you just did me a favor,” he said. “I don’t you, and don’t know your angle, but if you’d like to kill more patrols then come with me. We’ll make this place flood…”

[Synful_Blood]

She saw him standing there, admiring her workmanship, the art of death that she had so gracefully mastered. He saw the beautiful red droplets that stained the walls lit by the early-morning sun and the rivulets that ran through the cracks in the street, all of it beautiful like the last, wretched gasps her victims made as they were finally overcome in their battle for life.

She heard him speak, hurried, hassled, soft and inviting, asking him to join her, which she understood more by his posture and gestures than by the strange words of a language she didn't understand. She saw no reason why she should. She had no reason why she should trust him, and he no reason to trust her. Which might have been the best thing for both of them.

She was going to laugh in his face when a gasp of terror sounded from down the street. A woman with a child had spotted her, and recongnized her. She'd scream, and then Syn would be known and searched for.

That was all the fun, the game had just begun. It might be entertaining to see how this neko played the game. He had, after all, said the two words she'd recognize in any language: "kill" and "patrol."

She licked the blood from her stained blade so that the Drow woman could see, savoring its bittersweet tang on her tongue. Then she stepped into the fetid darkness of Pounder's alleyway, pointing toward the exit.

"Alu." She was ordering him to get moving.

[NekoButcher]

Pounder grinned. He wasn’t fluent in Drow, he considered it one of his more passive forms of resistance that he had never bothered to master the dominant tongue of Alerar, but he had learned enough to serve his dark elven customers. Alu was also a word he had heard many times after shooting a crossbow bolt into a crowded area.

Still, even if he understood her, Pounder realized that the girl next to him probably didn’t speak much Tradespeak. He had seen the blank way that she had stared at him until they had been interrupted. For a moment, he considered shooting the woman, but her scream was off far before he could have managed to aim his crossbow. He looked her in the eyes, as if hatefully scorning her for her betrayal. Pounder hated the way that citizens always seemed to take it upon themselves to help the police. He never knew if the citizens were just that spiteful towards him, or if they were really that naïve. Either way, he knew he had to start running.

His crossbow was already aimed at the screaming woman, so he fired it anyways. It was a revenge killing, just like all the others, but this time, Pounder wouldn’t be able to take the body into his shop and sell it as food. He began to run, moving particularly quickly on his older legs to catch up with the girl. He wondered just how long she had been on the run from the police, and how her stamina would compare to him. Pounder feared that if one of them were to be left behind, it would be him. He had shorter legs and was probably at least ten years older, at least in as much as ages counted with dark elves.

There was one thing that Pounder had that he hoped would make him useful enough to the dark elven woman to keep. While she might have had the advantage of youth, the older hitman knew he had experience on his side. Experience and an elaborate knowledge of the streets in which he had avoided the Kyorl and Mazzra for so long, so much so that it had seemed that the names of the Alerarian armed forces changed more often than he did.

“Quick, here…” he said, repeating himself in the dark elven language as he reached out to tug at the drow girl’s shirt. The alleyway was mostly dark and dingy, with buildings on both sides, but there was a slight crack between two buildings that Pounder knew could lead them out into a busier area of the Ettermire bazaars. There would be more police there, but there would also be more thieves. While the police dealt with their property crimes, the serial murderer knew he’d be able to escape.

Pounder truly hoped that the police had not seen him just yet. Even if they had entered the alley, it would have been too dark for them to have seen much in front of them. Here, Pounder also knew that the smells of stale mosquito infested waters would keep the police from tracking him, even if they did possess a sense of smell equal to his.

“One step closer to out of here,” Pounder thought, pleased with what he had managed so far.

[Synful_Blood]

He thought that he could duck into a bustling marketplace alongside someone drenched in blood? Even though to Syn, it was only a matter of short time before the cold blackness of death embraced her, she wanted to take as many of the damned ones with her as possible, and that meant living beyond the next few seconds, when someone would notice and raise the alarm.

"Nau," she told the feline, touching him lightly on the shoulder. The alley was littered with crumbling old boxes, and she didn't really weigh enough to hasten their destruction, so as the clamor of the bustling street beyond hid the noise she made, she hopped disinterestedly up until she was standing on a rooftop.

She'd been an assassin and murderess for long enough to know that people might look into a dark alley...but that they would never look up. Even the most experienced watchman of the Kyorl would only look up if he absolutely had to. Here, high above the heads of the crowd, she was safe. The only drawback was the harsh and hated sun which here had nothing to break it. The very thought of its life-giving rays made her long-empty stomach turn, and she wanted to press the cool edge of her razor to her arm to soothe herself.

Naut quin. Since she couldn't do as she pleased just yet, she yanked her cowl as far over her eyes as possible to protect them from the annoyance that was sunlight.

"Doer," she said to the black feline below with a gesture. "Doer, udos orn elgg mzil mzild yallt."

To a fellow assassin and murderer, the promise of more death would be incredibly tempting. Unless, of course, he was a member of the Mazzra that had been hired to kill her...but if he was, she'd just kill him. Drow were her preferred targets, but anyone who got in her way could be considered a member of that foul race.

Translations:

"No," >>>Not yet<<< "Come, come we will kill many more today."

[NekoButcher]

Pounder smiled. He wasn’t particularly fluent in dark elven, but he knew exactly what the girl was suggesting. There were certain things that transcended all language barriers and killing was one of them. He had faith that his partner of convenience could handle herself. Not only had he seen the efficient way that she had killed in the alley, but there was a confidence brimming from her.

With that, Pounder stepped out of the darkness and into the bazaar. He knew the drowess, covered with blood, was going to make people frightened, but he didn’t care. Armed with his crossbow and cruelly eyeing all the people around him, he dared them to step up to him. Just for dramatic emphasis, he shot a dark elf whose only sin had been to move closer to a shop selling daggers.

“No one needs to get hurt!” Pounder said, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to keep a lid on the commotion that had erupted in the bazaar. He only said it ironically, knowing that the more he insisted that people didn’t panic, the more they would. Eagerly, he watched as chaos began to set into the bazaar district. A group of police came running, but Pounder wasn’t too frightened. He knew they would have to move quickly, but in the mess of people that had congregated, he held the advantage. Most Alerar police officers were vain and conceited, and fancied themselves far too much as swordsmen. Now, faced with a panicking mob running for their lives, they were practically an open target for the fiendish cat man who could easily pick out their helmets amidst the worried crowd.

“Kill anyone you want,” Pounder said, certain that the drowess didn’t need his permission to act.

He knew now, one way or another, he would be able to escape. The girl he was with had no off switch. She wasn’t just a murderer like him, she was the kind of person who loved the act in and of itself, the kind of person who made the greatest ally for a conniving killer like himself. Pounder could sense the difference between the two of them even in the way that the drowess spoke; killing itself was an ideology to her.

If necessary, Pounder knew she’d provide him with the cover he needed for his getaway without even knowing it. For the moment however, the middle aged murderer was content just to reload his weapon and keep firing. It wasn’t every day that he could stand in the middle of the bazaar district and open fire on strangers.

[Synful_Blood]

He went and opened fire into a huge throng of Drow without so much as considering that he'd be seen and caught. What good would it be to go out killing a dozen or a score when she could pick off one at a time and have more dead within a week? Did he really think she was going to help him commit suicide? She didn't care that much, and didn't care enough to commit suicide over him.

Weal.

He was a killer and nothing more, crude and unrefined. Point and shoot. She was a murderess, she pounced on her victims in the dark of night, cut them open and watched the life drain out of them.

Already the panicked crowds were scattering, running for their pitiful lives while the Mazzara and the Kyorl swarmed in, prepared to kill the feline whose antics were more than slightly inconvenient for the citizens who had been using the bazaar.

Shaking her head, Syn started ambling away over the rooftop. She wondered idly if she'd get to kill any more people before the sunset, or if she just ought to lay low during the day and sleep until it was time to hunt. Blood marked her nights, and silence her days, and until she'd killed every last dark elf, it would be good enough for her.