Everstone(old)

Chapter 3:New Recruit

I creep behind my target, keeping quiet. I swiftly leap at them and make their soul come out. It's weird, and never pleasant. I then drag their dead body back to my employer's shack, dumping the corpse into their figurative hands. Now that that's been dealt with, I might as well leave, I think. As I walk away, I hear somebody whispering to someone else. I turn to face the sound, and spot the person, who's holding a walkie talkie to their mouth. Glaring at them, I start walking in their direction. They spot me, and look frantic. Suddenly, something appears to dawn on them, and they smirk. They run at me, sword in hand. I go to grab the blade, and I do so successfully. That being said, I'm immediately being ambushed by a teenager with long pink hair. They only have a rope with them, and they wrapped it around my shoulders rather than my neck. I elbow them, and they back off, uttering a small cry of pain. The original attacker then jabs at my gut, screaming about demons and the colour purple and unfairness and so on. The pink-haired lady runs away, leaving me, with my knees buckling, with my enraged attacker. They put a bag over me, and I prepare to wake up with my clothes de-bloodied and the hole in my gut healed, even if it means I'll be in some random place I know nothing about. If I'm completely honest, it happens more than you would think.

...

Opening my eyes, I hear a collective gasp. I sit up, and grin. "Didn't expect me to survive a sword through the gut, huh?" My vision is fairly normal, with everything kind of unclear in the darkness, meaning I look like a normal human-or at least, as normal as an Asian with bright violet eyes can look. A young girl runs up to me and lifts my shirt a bit, looking at my scarred stomach, then at my shirt. She runs back, yelling that my shirt isn't ripped at all. Then, I hear someone behind me sigh softly, possibly because of the child's naivety. Before I have time to turn around, a menacing looking woman thumps toward me. "Welcome to the Purple team. You weren't originally planned as a new recruit, but you were brought here with a stab wound, for some reason, and you ended up surviving it somehow, so I decided that you'd make a good member. Definitely more helpful than Little Miss Sighsalot back there." I turn to where she's pointing, and see a girl around my age--14--with long, turquoise hair, a black headband and a black band around her eyes. She looks familiar, and she quickly exhales and exclaims, "Piper? You're here, in Purple?" I gasp. "Amelia? Oh, of course! 'Welcome to Purple, kiddo'? That was this team?" She weakly smiles. "Yep, I can't believe you survived two stab wounds, both by members of Purple!" I grin. "Guess you could say I'm... unstabbable." Amelia stares at me for a moment, then smiles back and replies, "Oh, like unstoppable but with stabbing instead of stopping!" Her smile turns into a smirk. "Piper, that pun sucked." Suddenly, the buff lady clears her throat. I turn to see her scowling, which stands out on her orange-tinted tan. To be honest, she looks like a big buff Cheeto puff, which just so happened to rhyme. "As I was saying, you with the black hair are being offered a place here in the Purple Team. What position would you like? No, wait.This is private. Sighsalot, everyone else, you're dismissed." Amelia and the others started to file out, leaving me alone with the Cheeto lady. "Alright, so as I was saying, you can choose your job. That girl you knew is our defense against the other teams and those stupid enough to come around trying to dismantle the team system. She's quite good at ending people and holding her own for a miserable little girl who can't see. What would you like?" I think for a bit, and then remember what I did before getting kidnapped. "Well, when your agent or whatever found me, I was working as an assassin for hire. I've never failed my recruiters so far, and I tend not to take very long at all. I can eliminate your competition, if you want." Her mouth forms a broad smile. "Deal. I expect great things from you, Piper." We shake hands, and then I get guided to my cylindrical sleeping area, which happens to be right by Amelia's. I go sit on top, and then talk to Amelia for at least an hour catching up on each other's lives, but I left out some of mine, considering that I mainly just killed a bunch of people for most of those six years.

...

Piper seemed pretty dead back when we entered the game, especially with the whole "sword wound through the gut" thing, and now she's in Purple, with another healed sword-wound. Now that I think about it, her pulse was practically nonexistent when I checked after she was brought here, I think. Also, didn't that person mention red hair when Piper was taken out of that bag? I look at Piper, who's sleeping on her cylinder. I hop over, and check her pulse again. It's still much slower than most people's, but definitely faster than before. After holding her wrist for a little while, trying to figure out why it's so slow, Piper suddenly sits up and stares at me. "Oh my gog, Amelia! Stop breathing so heavily as you check my pulse!" I let go, and back up a bit, but I don't go far before my wrist is suddenly grabbed. "Amelia, you don't have to back off of my cylinder-thing just because I got annoyed!" Piper hisses. "Oh, sorry. I forgot how small it is. Also, I was breathing loudly because that's how I know where everything is--you know, like a bat." I look at her, and she stares at me for a moment, then bursts out laughing, but quickly muffles it. "Oh, sorry. I probably shouldn't laugh, since I've done weirder things. You know, like surviving two sword wounds." I stare at Piper. "Piper, how did you do that? Also, what was that person saying about red hair before you woke up? I know you didn't hear, but is there any truth behind that story? It seemed to be aimed at you." Piper sighs, then the next thing I know, she's pulling up my blindfold. I squint at the sudden lightness of everything, despite how dark it actually is. "Amelia, before I answer, that lady who's the head of this team mentioned something to me about you being 'good at ending people.' What was that about?" Piper seems concerned, and I quickly pull my blindfold back down. Panicking, I pull out the memory film that I first used back when I first got here, in Everstone. I contemplate the possibility of ripping her memories, but decide against it because I know that would certainly kill her. Instead, I look at her memories. They have lots of death, both her and others. And yet, here she is alive. Whenever she gets stabbed or shot, she blacks out for about thirty minutes before coming back. Looking even closer, I see that some parts are crystal clear, and others are normal 20/20 vision. Occasionally, during the crystal sight sections some red hair will fall in front of her face, but whenever her vision is normal, her hair is black. I make a mental note to ask her about it later.

...

Let me just tell you right now that getting your memories ripped out of you, then examined is not fun. At all. And yet, here I am, getting that done to me simply because I asked the wrong question. In case you're wondering, you feel like someone's ripping your soul out if your body, and then once that feeling dies out, you just feel like you're floating, as you see your memories sifted through. I notice Amelia pausing at the parts where I attack my targets, and when my vision goes "50/50," as I've started calling it. Eventually, she lets me have my memories back, and as I come back to reality I feel as if the initial pain had always been there, I just stopped noticing it. As I try to regather myself, I notice that Amelia's tearing up. I decide to go over and try to comfort her, but she starts to back away again. "Amelia, just because I did stuff doesn't mean I'm heartless! I can guarantee that my wounds weren't through the heart, if it helps." She sniffles, then replies, "S-sorry. I don't usually have to see people dying. So, what was with the red hair? You never did answer me." I grin. "I'll tell you what was with that amazing vision of mine too, while I'm at it." She smiles a bit at that comment. "So, this is a secret between us, but back when we first got the game, I was annoyed at my mom for making me wait until the evening to play, and I was annoyed at my dad for not being there for me, so I entered a code my babysitter, Tessa, gave me. Apparently it's called the Konami code? But basically, in this game that code made my mom half demon, half Stoni, and my dad full demon. I didn't know it at the time, though! All I knew was that it changed something about them. I found out what it did after they took you. So that's what the red hair and 50/50 vision is caused by. Now, about my question..." Amelia looks at me a bit weird, but then replies, "It's what I did to you, only with me ripping the memories. I-I'm sorry, I panicked when you asked." I smile at her, then hold out my hand. "Well, how about I keep your secret, and you keep mine? I mean, I don't think yours was a very well kept one, but mine wasn't really, either. So, deal?" She hesitates a bit, but then shakes my hand.
"Deal."