The Ring Of Fire || L.S ✔

1. Departure

Keep your eyes open. And do not be deceived.
Words of spiders are after all easily conceived

Outskirts of Valencia, Spain

Mid- September, 2022

Two men stood inside the softly glowing room, contemplating their next move.

"Well... we can send it for dry cleaning. They do say they remove all kinds of stains. And that definitely falls under all kinds of stains." The blue-eyed man scratched the back of his neck.

"Seriously?!" Liam glared at his partner. Their mission was simple. Eliminate the mercenary and leave no trace behind. Killing Diego went fine. But unfortunately...

"C'mon!!! It's not that bad!" Louis protested as swatted away the annoying mosquitoes... "I mean-"

Both men again looked around the thrashed expensive room. Shattered glass shimmered on the floor. Outside on the veranda, the marble railing was sightly caved in. Various broken and raged porcelain vases stood proudly across the expensive suite. And right at its center, atop the expensive 13th century Rajputana carpet, laid the lifeless body of Diego Caravera.

But none of this was the problem. No, the main issue was oval shaped crimson stain on the said Rajputana antique smiling back smugly at the two Arachnia agents.

"It's blood and grey mater fluid. It's that bad!" Liam growled. "How are we supposed to remove evidence? And don't you dare bring up dry cleaning again!"

Louis pouted a he texted their backup. "Don't be like that Payne. Just because your giraffe pajamas got shredded-"

Liam smacked the back of his head. "It was a limited-edition cheetah print Gucci blazer! I deserve the right to complain! And don't you dare side track! It's because of you we're in this mess! Now get us out of here!"

Louis' smart messenger beeped with confirmation and the agent quickly read through it before attaching it to his belt. "Technically, it was the mosquitoes' fault. I swear they were mutated or something."

"Dude!?" Liam's right eyes twitched.

Their plan had been simple. Get to the roof. Swing down to the veranda quietly while the rest of the agents delt with the outer security. Enter the Diego's suite. Immobilize him and inject the untraceable poison to put a full stop to his existence. And get out quietly after removing any lose ends to detect their presence.

What they had not accounted for were the shitload of mosquitoes which bit through their vests. And although Louis wanted to kill each and every bugger, he refrained.

But while the pair were swinging down the rope, one idiot flier had kamikazed straight into Louis's eyes. This had caused him to lose balance and gracelessly tumble into the elegant veranda. The said verandas outer fence was apparently not designed to handle people falling off the roof and gave in to the pressure, effectivity losing its elegance.

Meanwhile inside the suit, dear Mr. Caravera was not in fact slumbering but instead...... you guessed it, trying to kill mosquitoes. Seriously, hadn't the infamous mercenary ever heard of mosquito repellants? (Louis guessed he wasn't really in a position to complain)

Anyways, Caravera had received the shock of his life upon seeing Louis's stunning colaboración con la gravedad. Caravera was quick to show him a warm welcome by grabbing a 22-calibre pistol from his Hello Kitty pajama pocket and firing without prejudice.