The Assassin

Chapter 20

The lightly snow-covered ground crunches under Ari's feet as he walked through the deserted part of the city he goes through after his training with Alex. The training session ended later than usual so it was quite late as he was headed home. The car wasn't able to go down the deserted city streets as the land was quite rough. He likely wished that wasn't the case, as today's first official day of winter and it sure felt like winter. It had snowed earlier in the morning the sun melted some of it but a light layer of snow remains along the ground, but as it turned to night the temperature dropped. As Ari let out a breath of air a cloud of mist left his mouth. He likely wished to have some kind of winter gear at the time as it was in the temperature was negatives tonight and bone-chilling with the damp air.

The moon was full tonight so it was easy to see what was in front of you without street lights, despite this Ari was very tense as the area was oddly quiet. Suddenly Ari could feel the hairs on the back of his neck begin to stand up, which was followed by the sound of crunching snow from behind him and was rushing towards him. Ari plunged his hand into his pocket and spun around catching the incoming blade with a small dagger holding the cover in the other hand. The light of the night's full moon showed off the attacker's masked face. The mask covered most of the face except for a quarter of the bottom of the face showing off their grin of pure excitement. The force of the attacker's attack caused Ari to fall backwards onto the snow-covered ground.

Ari's arms begun to shake against the other person's blade. He positioned his legs to kicked the attacker off him before he got back onto his feet. With that Ari sprinted off down the road, but it wasn't long as Ari was knocked down to the ground. "You don't think that we'd let you get away did you?"

Ari looked up in front of him to see another figure that was blocking his escape. "A real good time for you to be on a break," Ari muttered grabbing some snow, before throwing the snow at their face.

"Nice try but too bad for you that I have eye protection so your attempt to blind me failed." They chuckled as they looked down at Ari, he likely had lost hope at that point but suddenly the sound of a gunshot rang out in the air and the figure grasped their arm. "Damn it."

"Missed damn, but I gave you a few minutes." Alex huffed as she looked up from the scope of her sniper. "I'm on it Cat Thief." Roy replied as he jumped out from the shadow and grabbed Ari.

"There's two of them so pick up the pace Imitator." The figure growled into their communicator. "Worry not Bloody, don't forget we have that lovely lab experiment." Imitator laughed with a grin. "They won't get away."

"You are really lucky we were in the middle of a switch. Cause you've also managed to get two attackers." Roy growled as he dropped Ari to the ground. Alex jumped down and landed beside them.

"We are not out of this mess yet. They are on our tail and I have a feeling they have something up their sleeves." Alex sighed as she landed and Ari got up to his feet. Ari shivered slightly as he's gotten quite wet from the ground.

"As perceptive as ever Cat Thief. I'm probably right to assume that you are the reason for that shot earlier." Bloody remarked as they and the Imitator walked out in front of them. The Imitator stood beside Bloody with a smirk as they locked their eyes on their target.

"Bloody. Of course, it had to be you."

"It's of little surprise to see you once more Imitator."

"Night, I see you're still alive. How annoying. I haven't heard anything on the Assassin in some time. Have they finally kicked the bucket?"

Roy let out a low growl as he reached to his side and pulled out a sword. "Get out of here while we hold them off." Alex told Ari as she pulled out her weapon.

Bloody smirked as they pulled out a weapon, "well that's not about to happen. We have someone for Ari here to face off against." With a snap of Bloody's fingers, the ground began to shake slightly as a large figure came into view. With the head and body of a lion, wings of a bat, tail of a scorpion, and with most of its fur as hard as a rock, the large body of the chimaera came into view. Ari's face went pale at the sight of a monstrous abomination created by mad science.

Roy race forward to fight the chimera but the Imitator blocked his path. "Ah ah ah! I'm your opponent." Imitator exclaimed as they caught Roy's blade locking them together. "You annoying cockroach." Roy growled before he freed his blade and begun fighting the Imitator.

"You don't honestly expect me to fight this thing?"

"No of course not."

Bloody then raced over to attack Alex who appeared to be distracted. Alex reacted quickly to catch Bloody's blade. "But that's the point, Ari. You're meant to die!" Bloody exclaimed with a laugh.

With both Roy and Alex busy fighting Bloody and Imitator, Ari was face-to-face with the chimaera. Ari was probably scared out of his mind. The very idea of a fight against this monster the one that destroyed his home was impossible. The monster was ready to attack with its claws out watching Ari closely ready to attack the moment he moves.

Ari looked around a bit before racing off, the chimaera then sprinted off after him. Noticing this after a minute he spun around and slid under the chimaera. The wet snow-covered ground the chimaera went over Ari before it could turn around. This gave Ari a larger gap between them as he continued off in the other direction, but it didn't take too long for the chimaera to close that gap. Ari was aware of this and acted the moment he realized the chimaera was only a few hundred meters away.

"Guess I got no other choice." Ari muttered as he spun around. With his right hand out in front of him, he begun to concentrate and then from the ground vines shot up and wrapped around the chimaera whited caused it to stop in its tracks. "It worked-" he sighed but cut himself off as the chimaera began to struggle.

It was taking a large amount of energy to hold the chimaera like this to stop the chimaera's violent movements from causing the vines to brake. But it didn't last long before were the vines broken, and before Ari even had a chance to flee the chimaera attacked. It slashed with its claws, the chimaera's long sharp claws got Ari's side and the strength of the hit caused him to fly back. Ari screamed out in pain as he held his side to try and stop the bleeding.

The chimaera walked over to Ari well aware there was no chance of his escape. When the chimaera was right over him Ari used the knife from earlier to stab it into its leg. But the blade didn't even make so much as a scratch due to the strength of its fur. With Ari's lack of strength, there was no way he could cause injury or pain to the monster.

Ari closed his eyes ready from the end as the chimaera went in for the kill.

"Now."

Suddenly a roar broke the near silence of the air and a large black figure rushed by as it slammed into the chimaera throwing it away from Ari and the nearby vicinity. Bloody and Imitator looked back for a moment, Bloody clicked their tongue in frustration.

"Time for plan B. Take the target down." Bloody muttered, Alex quickly realized what that meant there was still at least one other person here. Alex slashed Bloody on the arm before she kicked them back.

"Ari move now! There's more of them!"

Bloody took this chance and slashed Alex across the shoulder. Both Alex and Bloody had been fighting each other being daily matched with Alex only having a slight advantage, as she is not allowed to use her powers. Roy in a similar situation with Imitator, all four of them covered in slight wounds and fighting start to takes its toll as they've been fighting all out. Alex while still locked in battle with Bloody had no way of getting Ari out of that spot. Roy being tide up with the Imitator also had no chance to go in and block the coming attack.

Ari tried to scramble to his feet but with his injury, he couldn't get to his feet that quick. Bloody looked back and saw Ari still alive was confused and annoyed. "What are you waiting for shoot him!" Bloody growled at their back-up.