The Dark Summer {DISCONTINUED}

Chapter One: Hardship ROUGH DRAFT

A/N hey! This is a book I am just beginning to write. This is all I have so far and this took me a good two weeks. I know it's not good yet but I am proud of it. If you have any criticism, please say it nicely and I might change it or add to it. Thank you -Taylor

Chapter One
Hardship
"Today we welcome a new era."
I could not begin to describe how much I hate these 'Peace assemblies.' I mean the hypocrisy of calling them peace assemblies when you sacrifice a member of a different house weekly just to please the goddesses? I have no room to talk about killing people. I take a deep breath and sigh. Time to show everyone who this fake really is.
"This era welcomes in peace," I load my bullet dipped in fae blood and start to take deep breaths to steady my heart rate. "Prosperity," I take careful aim as my body starts to hibernate. "And of course," My finger laces the trigger. "JUSTICE" the fake Queen Tsunderes says and my fellow Sumerians yell. That's my cue.
The next second, the fake president's head, splattered with purple blood, has a hole from front to back. The crowd gasps when her almost too perfect slender form turns into a tracen's awfully gruesome form. A tracen is a person with the ability to morph themselves into another person whenever they want to. Until they die. The tracen corpse falls onto Enteisleh's number one drama queen Shiki Banq which starts the chain of yells, screams, and my favorite part of my job: the recruiting. Several in the crowd raise their fists in the air and yell, "I will help the darkness consume." This signals us, The Dark Summer, to collect them, interrogate them, and possibly train them. There is probably a 1/1,000,000 chance that they will be accepted. But no civilians know this because if you are not accepted, well, you become training material. Nobody knows if you made it or not.
Only few Sumerians are known, real or assassin name. The real names known are five: Lance, Marco, Shade, Alice, and Riah. The assassin names known are 10: Virtuoso, M'Alice, Ruah, Kage, Mercury, Anima, Atlace, More, The Medic, and The Hardship. My name is, well, I never really had one. If I did, no one would speak it, in fear of me showing up. I am The Hardship. The people think my name is this because maybe I was born on a ship, or my skin is hard as iron, or that I can control water to an extent. That's a rumor, about me being born on a ship. I was born and raised as what I am today. I am a purebred assassin. In reality, my name comes from the hardships of being Enteisleh's King's daughter, cast out because of my marking, and the Assassin King of Enteisleh finding me in a royal basket in the royal streets. I guess he saw my potential and bred me as an assassin. My first kill was my father, King Harald III. My graduation exam: Killing my teacher, Assassin King of Enteisleh. My secret my foster father and I shared until I killed him with his own power: I have every house's power.
Fire, water, earth, wind, illusions, sound, teleportation, weapon body, invisibility, healing, metal bending, animal communication, manipulating feelings, shape shifting, and about 20 other powers, I have them all. I can pour someone a glass of water from my thumb while cooking someone a steak on my palm. The only downside is I have to have made some connection. Good, bad, romantic, friendly, acquaintances, stranger asking for directions. But the stronger of a relationship, the stronger my ability. Romantic relationships make my powers on their level. I have at least three romantic relationships currently in each house. But there is only one guy I like that won't fall for me. Shade.
He is probably the only person in the Sumerians that can take me on for at least a minute. His shaggy beach hair goes down to his chin, with an unmistakable scar from the bottom of his eyebrow to mid-neck. With an assassin name like Virtuoso, you would think he would be good at serenading a girl but he's not too bright with hints. He's the only person who has been an assassin for almost as long as I have. He's like my brother in a way, yet the only person I have a massive crush on. There are reasons why we can't be together, or with anyone for that matter. It has to do with your emotions as an assassin and how you have to shut off your emotions to kill someone with no regrets and... another reason. Dad, mom, sister, brother, kid, elder, teen, adult, king, or servant: doesn't matter who the target is. The efficiency and effectiveness is what really matters. But enough about the organization and people I lead. You'll learn enough about it later.
One young man in the crowd looks particularly promising. Nothing really special but enough to try recruiting. "Marco!" I yell to my comrade. He turns my direction, sees the man I spotted, and picks him up, and hops up to the balconies to go home. The man seems barely phased by everything, probably an animatra. We'll see soon enough. It seems my comrades didn't find anyone else promising enough. I better do a double check before they kill them off. After all, I am the only one that can really sense potential.I give my signal, as green smoke shoots in the air and the rest of my assassins gather themselves and head for the base. I scan the area with heat sensing magic and find three fists still raised.
Two men look unimpressive but one girl has her fist raised, eyes closed, mouth clenched, knees shaking, and aura quavering. She's terrified. As my eyes widen, my grin suddenly takes over my face and I lunge to where the girl stands, my long blonde hair whipping the wind. As the girl gets closer, my excitement grows as does her potential.  She's a unmalf, she can transform any one part of her body into a certain weapon they can't change. I can't tell what kind of weapon yet but unmalf's auras are different than other's. They don't have aura in the last body part they transformed. It's rare to see unmalfs in public because they usually stay in "house packs". This girl seems special for some reason, and I don't say that often.
My braid comes out of it's ribbon because I'm running so fast. Everytime I use my sprini powers, I get dizzy. I shake it off and continue. When I reach her, I can barely stop myself. A sickening crunch suddenly comes from my foot because of the abrupt stop.. Damn, there goes my newest model. That cost a decent amount too... I sigh deeply and the girl opens her eyes as if woken by a nightmare. She lowers her fist and looks around confused. So that's what happened. I kneel down trying to bend the metal in my automail foot with magic and say, "Sorry to say, but you were controlled by a mindurk. Do you know what happened?" She seems to completely trust me and nods her head yes almost instantly. Oh, obedience? My grin comes back as I stretch my hand for her to shake it. "How do you feel about becoming an assassin little malf?" She starts to back away a bit in shock but recovers quickly.
"I...I don't...know..." She manages to get out. My ear to ear grin is still plastered on my face with my hand still seeking hers. She stares at my hand, covered in scars, and after a moment asks "Will it be hard?"
"Definitely."
"Will it hurt?"
"Not once you get used to the pain during training."
She still looked very uncertain and asked many more questions but eventually she grabs my hand and shakes it. "As long as I can get away from those awful 'house packs' so my family can stop gawking at me all the time."
At this, my expression hardens. "Why would they gawk at you?"
She timidly brings out her hand, with a complete lack of aura. She turns her ring finger into a dagger. And? Then she turns her pointer finger into a weapon. What? Another body part? Her pointer finger turns into a whip. Wait, multiple body parts with multiple weapons? Is she like me? I just smile in return and shoot a corpse behind me with a bolt of electricity and morph myself into her. A tracen ability and an electra ability. She gasps loudly and hugs me. I look on in horror as I unmorph myself. Did she just... hug... me? She then backs away in realization and apology. She then says, "You must be... The Hardship... then...but... you're... like me?"
"I guess there are more like me then? What's your name by the way?"
"Penny"
"Penny, your new name is... Razor."
"Thank you, Hardship."
"Please, call me Cal."
We talk for what seems like minutes, about our pasts, powers, friends or colleagues in my case until Shade walks up behind me. Not one second later, I have him with his arms behind his back, ready to break them. I then see it's Shade, let him go, and feel my face get hot. "Sorry Shade."
"Nah, I should know better Cal." He cracks his shoulders and neck. Then he looks at Razor. "Yo, Cal. Who's this?"
My blush that had slightly faded away comes back again at his casualty in front of my new recruit. "Shade, this is Razor. Razor, Shade." Shade doesn't seem too impressed. I give him a look that says she's probably better than you. He gives me a look that says I love that sass. My blush grows stronger by the second. "Razor, go ahead and show him why we should recruit you."
Peggy starts to charge up her whole body, while I get ready to grab whatever handle she gets. Next thing I know, a scythe rests in my palm. I twirl it like a baton and toss it in the air, where she transforms her legs into swords, and plunges into the dirt with the swords buried deep in the ground. Shade looks shocked, then realizes what this means.
"There are more people like you?"
"I guess we all learned that today."
We all head back to the base, with Shade carrying Razor because she couldn't keep up and me because I got jealous. We get to the base in ten minutes to start the interrogation. The young man I picked up earlier might be useful depending on his house. Maybe we'll have two new recruits. Who knows? I make Shade give Razor a tour of our base while I head to the interrogation room. I didn't find pleasure in this unless my bloodlust was high. Then I enjoyed it. Greatly.
I walk in the interrogation room and see Alice has already started. Alice is really concentrating today as her nose is bleeding slightly. I've always loved her beautiful silver blood. "Hey Mal, I'll take over." M'Alice gets up from her seat and mouths a Thanks. I smile and take Alice's seat. I sigh deeply. "Well Mr. Mystery, what's your story?" I smile and start to relax in my seat as I start to read his mind. I start to slump in my seat, losing control of my body. I clench my teeth and push back. The mycynth power has always been hard to handle. Mycynths are similar to mindurks but less powerful in a way. They are very useful for reading minds. My eyes roll to the back of my head as I smirk. I'm in! Now, time to sort through the junk. The interesting thing about minds is that they are connected to everything so you have to be careful. If you cut something you're not supposed to, you can paralyze or even kill them. Also, everything are in boxes. Your personality and blood change the placement of the boxes. For example, if you are organized, the boxes will be stacked with a ladder on the side. If you are a tracen, your boxes may be different colors with each box of the same color containing memories of each person they have ever been. It's hard to memorize all of the different mindsets.  I don't know what my mind looks like, nor do I want to know. I bet it's just a giant pile of boxes with all shapes and sizes.
Mr. Mystery's mind is not uncommon. It's a library with only one book on each shelf. There are... 37 shelves. In the middle of his mind there is a vault. There is a six digit passcode needed. He is probably intelligent and remembers many things. If his mind is books and boxes, he is a animatra. They can communicate with animals. I look through about 8 books before I find the right passcode. Surprise surprise, it's his birthday. 112696. The vault opens and boxes appear. Time to do my work. I use my handy tool called a mindscraper to search for certain boxes. A box comes flying to me labeled WISHES AND DREAMS. I sort through the files in it. One catches my eye. "Become the King huh?" I laugh to myself, thinking of my father. I hear a footstep and think of the possibilities of what could be trapped in his mind. His biggest fears. I search for the box and it comes. I search frantically trying to find the source of the step. I find one file that intimidates even me. MORITAS. The goddess of death. I mark the file and search through the rest. It's not long before I find all of the gods in his biggest fears box.
"So, he's afraid of the gods, eh?"
I whirl around, needles ready to be thrown at the person trapped in his mind.
"Woah, easy Cal! It's me! Bloodlust high again? Didn't you just kill that tracen imposter though?" says a very scared Alice.
I take a deep breath and put my needles back in my hair. "Heh, so it seems. I used to be afraid of the gods before..." I don't need to finish my sentence. Alice knows me well enough to know that I'm talking about my dead ex-lover. That is the other reason Shade and I cannot be together. We know we might die at any moment. He knows I can't take anymore heartbreak. But I was a foolish young assassin.
When I was about 16, I fell in love with an assassin named Connor. He was the most handsome guy you can ever imagine. I'll leave what he looks like and his personality up to your imagination. We were stupid in love. I only took quick and easy contracts. My money was limited because I wasn't taking jobs. I was too distracted by him, and I lost my foot on one of my jobs. That was the first time anyone had even touched me, let alone maim me. I have never felt my anger and bloodlust higher. I couldn't see straight, as I was actually seeing red. I went on my first rampage. Within an hour, I had wiped out an entire city. Until I stopped at the temple. The temple made me snap out of my rampage and look around at what I had done. Houses burning, chemical gases leaking out, people paralyzed in fear, people killing themselves, people quivering in fear, people on sticks. "My.... My... Hands..." I couldn't see any skin from the tip of my middle finger to half way up my bicep. I was filthy. I was covered in blood. And worst of all, hanging from the statue of the goddess of love by his intestines, was Connor. His face was etched in utter terror and pain. His corpse, too mangled to even begin to describe. He probably came to stop me, and I thought he was attacking me. So I killed him. Killed is too weak of a word for what I did to my lover. I broke down. I crumpled to my knees and screamed. I screamed so hard for so long that I lost my voice. The assassin king of Enteisleh finally came to bring me home, but I wouldn't budge. I wanted to die for what I had done. What had I done? How many had died at my hands tonight? How many were brutally murdered by a 16 year old girl with pigtails? Why had it been Connor of all people I had to brutally murder? That night, we added a sixth tenet. Do not become emotionally attached to anyone, especially assassin, client, or target. Ever since then, I haven't been afraid of the gods. Humans can be as brutal as the gods.
Alice looks at me knowingly and kindly says, "Why don't you take the contract on the board all the guys are too scared to take? It might make Shade like you more! Plus it'll get your mind off of Conn- err- sorry I mean Sir Sanders."
I blush at the mention of Shade but frown at Connor's mention. I nod my head and perk up, thinking of how I am going to tease the guys that a girl took the big, bad contract. I exit Mr. Mysterious' mind, whose name turned out to be Adam, get up from the chair, and head for the bulletin board in the middle of the base. I reach the bulletin board as I put my hair back into it's braid from earlier. When I look for the contract on the board under the public assassinations section, I see Shade finishing up his tour with Razor. I call over Shade and he runs over immediately.
"Long time no see Cal! It's been, what, a whole hour? I can't take not seeing you for that long!" Shade gives me his adorable smile that everyone around us seems surprised to see along with the flirt in his speech. He does have the reputation of second in command here and only I get to see that amazing, gorgeous smile of his. Damn Cal! Get a grip on the situation here! Man, I really like Shade, don't I... Wait! I can't! The assassin king of EnteIsleh and I made the tenets ourselves! You cannot fall for Shade! Plus we have this whole Penny situation to take care of...
"C'mon you goof, we're going to sort out this whole Razor situation in Captain's Quarters." The crowd at the board looks more shocked than they were before. Especially when Shade turns around and gives them a big thumbs up and a wink. I laugh to myself and murmur, they don't even know the half of it.
Okay so here's the deal. I'm not going to update this for a while because I pretty much totally rewrote it on my laptop, but I thought of a new plot line I like better. Soooo imma ditch this story and rewrite it in the near future! Sorry for those of you who liked it (wow who are you an alien?) also I'm writing another book that i don't have a title for! Suggestions? Thanks!!
Mwuah Mwuah!!
~Riah