Alchemical Assasin

The city was never quiet, even in the dead of the night, but Wayne found his peace in other ways. When he wasn’t in his workshop, he often found himself atop the roof of nearby buildings, watching the passage of people go by as the days dragged on. Though It did get boring he had to admit.

And so he had taken up a hobby. All around the bustling capitol city were boards proclaiming wanted criminals, alongside their rewards and the preference of their capture. People often made their entire lifestyles around these boards, calling themselves ‘bounty hunters’. Wayne just considered it more interesting than making the same alchemical solutions over and over.

As his mind wandered, he noticed someone who stood out in the crowd below him, walking right by the building Wayne was perched on rather precariously. The roof was slanted awkwardly, and it was rather difficult to stay balanced on the metal sheeting.

“Found ya…” Wayne muttered to himself, hands planted firmly in his jacket’s pocket. With that, he bent at the knees before leaping to the rough cobbles below him, landing in a crouch, hands still never leaving his pockets.

A few of the people he landed around stumbled back, muttering abuses at him, but he ignored them as he straightened, attempting to blend into the crowd around him. With the way this city worked, everyone having a place to be and seemingly little time to get there, he quickly fell into step with the hivemind of the early day’s traffic.

Wayne’s target, however, whipped his head around, and Wayne got a glimpse of eyebrows tucked neatly together in concentration, or possibly, paranoia. He figured it was the latter, considering he had enough money riding on his head to purchase a small home in the nicer part of town.

The man turned back forward, pace speeding up. Wayne followed for a good few minutes before the man abruptly turned off into an alley, a tight affair just wide enough for two people to walk side by side, shoulders hugging. Wayne followed.

As he turned into the cramped, dark interior of the alley himself, he scanned the surroundings. Old brick walls surrounded him, moss and other slight vegetation gathering there the brick met the now rougher cobbles of the ground. Identical to a hundred other alleys.

As he mused on this topic, he delved deeper before finally emerging into a relatively open and large gap between a few buildings, shaped roughly like a square. Despite its relative size, it was still cut off on all sides by buildings, each of varying materials, though one thing stood out, certainly not ordinary.

The ground was littered in boxes, old stools, bottles, garbage, and a collection of other random items indicating this was a frequented location, but above it all was a large pen, that of which took up about half the space. The enclosed area was made up of a cobbled together combination of metal wiring and wooden slats, yet it looked surprisingly sturdy.

“Nice place.” Wayne said, taking it all in in an instant. “Visit back-alley fighting rings often, or is this just a coincidence?”

His target, Ronan Booth, scowled at him.

“Been here once or twice. What’s a rich boy doing following me anyway? Hope to get a hold of that bounty do you?”

“You could put it that way.” Wayne replied, shrugging. In the motion, the clinking of glass could be heard.

“Whatcha got under that coat of yours?” Asked the man, lifting a burly hand to gesture at him. He was solidly built, black and raggedy hair and beard covering his face like a mask.

“Just a few trinkets.” Wayne replied, before finally removing his hands from his pockets. In the same motion, he deftly pulled off his formless, pale red jacket to reveal his supply.

All across his body, vials, bottles and other such containers glowing with a rainbow of colors sat, tightly strapped in. A bandolier acrost his chest that melted seamlessly into his belt had dozens of these identical vials, where as his waist contained most of the more oddly shaped containers and bottles.

Hands freed, he grabbed one of the small bottles from his waist, a pale blue liquid sloshing inside, popping the cork on the top with his thumb for show. He took a sip, grimacing a little at the taste.

“Man. Wish I could flavor these better… Too bad anything I try reacts too violently for the end product to be stable…” Wayne said, replacing the not half empty bottle to his waist through a leather loop, regrettably picking back up the cork from the ground, pushing it back into place.

As he spoke, he felt the liquid take effect.

A cold chill passed all the way through his body, like an autumn breeze blowing off a pond and into his lungs. Along with the icy wave was a sense of power, a strength his body wouldn’t be able to reveal without the help it was being offered now. Wayne took a deep breath as the stillwater took effect, reveling in his success at brewing it.

“Alchemical bottles..?” Booth asked, pointing the question at no one in particular.

Wayne walked forward, jumping the four-foot fence and into the makeshift arena, opposite his target. Ronan took a step back, reaching a hand into his dirty pants pocket.

While he waited for whatever his opponent was preparing, Wayne ran a hand through his bone-white hair, the result of a failed alchemical experiment in his youth. It often annoyed him, as people saw him as a relatively healthy old man from a distance. He was hardly halfway into his twenties, let alone old enough to be someone’s grandparent.

Along the same vein, his face was unusually pale, eyes a stark red, not much unlike an albino animal. His false albinism was far from natural, though, and his appearance had earned him the nickname of Wraith among colleagues, bounty hunters and alchemists alike.. The nickname was bolstered by hi favorite fighting method as well.

Wayne took a step forward, his motion fluid, balance perfect. In that one step, he traveled the majority of the ring, a foot in front of his target. Booth, who had just jabbed a needle into his arm, took a stumbling step back, twitching. The needle fell from him, shattering the glass of the injection chamber as it struck the ground.

Where it struck, a faint residue of metallic silver seeped into the stones, a solution Wayne recognized from his darker years as an alchemist, long before he had joined up with the government. It was a relatively uncommon drug by the name of quicksilver, named after the element it so closely resembled.

“Now this is interesting!” Wayne said, almost delightedly as he threw a punch. Air seemed to distort as his fist flashed forward, but his target just barely slipped under it.

“Ha! Catch me now, pretty boy!” Booth shouted, dashing to the wall of the alley in a few quick steps.

Quicksilver was notorious for the abilities it grants it’s user, a power much like the stillwater extract Wayne tended to use, though the wind root in the extract held a far smaller risk of both addiction, and total organ failure.

If Booths a junky, this might just be a time game at this point… Wayne thought wryly, tracking his target with his crimson eyes. With his concoction fully settling into his body, he could see the world in a whole new light, like someone had just pulled a rag from over his eyes. While he wouldn’t call it addicted, Wayne had to admit that it was pretty liberating to have one of his potions work so well.

But it wasn’t the only thing in his arsenal. Not even close.

He lifted his right arm, metal and painted materials shining in what little light made it into the large alley. As he did so, his left hand deftly slipped a vial from his chest, both ends sealed off entirely with thin glass as if the only way of opening it involved shattering the vial.

The liquid inside the vial was a shimmering white like pearls, and he slipped it into a small hole on the thin machine, locking it into place with the flick of a lever. He hadn’t quite made it himself, but he was still proud of this little piece of work. He had designed it after all, and the science within worked in perfect harmony.

Wayne whipped his arm up, lining up his shot. With his target perfectly locked in his mind he triggered the arm-mounted contraption with a movement of his middle-most finger, and a loud bang comparable to the slamming of a door ensued, quickly followed by a quiet vwip sound. A burst of pressurized air burst from the end of his contraption, the main method of propulsion.

The capsule of pearl-white liquid launched from his wrist, impacting the stone directly in front of where Booth was heading. As the glass shattered, an explosion of what looked like white spider webbing erupted on the ground, Wayne’s target running smack into the thick of it.

The webs held tight to every part of the man, almost wrapping him in his entirety. That was, of course, until he ripped through it like it was a thin veil of cotton.

“Ah, drats.” Wayne managed to say before Booth lunged at him, a dagger appearing from under his dirty coat.

Ducking right, Wayne threw another punch, this one connecting with a satisfying crunch in the opposing man’s ribs. Booth stumbled back, knife still gripped firmly in his hand. Wayne, in turn, put his hands up in a mockery of a professional boxer, even throwing a few punches to really throw the insult at the other man.

It had worked.

With a growl that fell into a guttural cry of rage, Booth rushed forward again, knife flying towards Wayne at lighting speeds. With his heightened senses, he moved his head left, the knife never finding its target. With another punch, Wayne broke his opponent’s wrist.

Booth stumbled back with a cry of pain, dropping the knife to the cold stone beneath him. Without a second to consider his broken limb, he charged again like a raging bull. With that thought Wayne dove aside, coming to a crouch several dozen feet from where Booth had ended his charge.

He stood, and in the same motion loaded a new capsule into the now empty chamber on his wrist. This one was a sickly green, and seemed to have orange candle-lights floating around within. After locking the capsule into place, he aimed, firing just as he straightened his back. He had practiced loading his launcher so many times he was sure he could do it in his sleep.

Another loud bang followed by a vwip warned Booth, and he attempted a leap to the side. Something Wayne had long since anticipated.

The capsule struck home, directly at his target’s feet. A split second of silence after the glass shattered was followed by an eruption of noise and green fire, both billowing outwards. Wayne raised an arm to his eyes, shielding them from the heat. Even with the quicksilver in his blood, Booth was surely disabled or dead now.

To prove his point, after the smoke and debris had settled, Wayne confirmed Ronan was either unconscious or dead, but either way, not getting up anytime in the near future.

The criminals clothing was singed and burned, though not completely off. His skin held the same markings, every exposed patch of skin covered in soot and surely burns. His body laid near one of the walls of the makeshift arena, this portion now desecrated, and a little on fire.

“Well that was eventful.” Wayne said to himself, cheerily. “Gods, I could use a drink right about now…”

With that, he turned towards the exit to the alley. He would have to report the body to a guard once he was back into the streets, but that was something to worry about later. For now, he-

His thoughts were cut off as he heard a shuffle behind him, and he whipped around, only to be met by a crossbow bolt imbedding itself into his shoulder with a loud thwack. The pain set in immediately, and it was all he could do to not scream.

Wayne’s mouth fell open in shock as Booth’s arm fell, now limp, a small crossbow tumbling from his hand. Where had he gotten that, let alone the strength to load it?

The truth clicked into place, an absent thought about a hidden weapon for the gladiator ring, just before he realized something.

The bolt had hit his shoulder, or more accurately, a vial attached to his bandolier.

A silver cloud erupted from the wound, the vial that was destroyed reacting with the oxygen around him, just like every other one of his solutions.

Wayne hacked and coughed, his lungs immediately filled with the silver smoke. The gas had no true ill effect, in the short term at least, but he still stumbled out of the smoke screen, waving his un-injured arm in front of his face in a vain attempt at clearing the smoke. That completely obscured his vision.

That, he thought, is very convenient. If the bolt had struck just an inch over, he would have literally dissolved.

Keeping the thought at bay, Wayne finally breached the smoke, eyes watering. It took him a few moments, but he finally worked up the courage to rip the bolt free from his shoulder, something you weren’t supposed to do unless you could immediately dress the wound. Luckily enough, he didn’t need wrappings.

As blood spurted from his fresh wound, pain coming in waves, he grabbed a feathery green vial, this one capped with cork, from off his waist. Deftly popping the cork off with his teeth, he poured it over his wound, sighing in relief as a wave of cool calm settled over him, the hole in his shoulder knitting over. He gave the joint an experimental wiggle after a few moments, and found himself satisfied.

All’s well that ends well… Even if death knocked on my door a little harder than usual today.

End.