Post #2741303 in Assassin's Pledge: Devastation, a roleplay on RPG

Marcel was beaten, pierced by not a weapon drawn, but by a single finger. He had been shoved to the ground before he had even hurdled over his disbelief, falling onto his back in painful shock. He twisted his head to look at Shiver in a panic, only to see her hilt and a short, jagged glimmer of her blade. His thumb ran over the worn leather binding, imprinted by his hands after almost a decade of being wielded. The squeezing in his chest was much more painful than the digit-sized hole.

"Ha," he said weakly.

"You and Lady Duzelle are not our intended targets, little mouse. And yes. To answer the unspoken question running through your head, we know very well who she is.”

Marcel struggled to his knee as he listened to the assassin, his mouth turning dry and sweat beginning to prick his forehead as they brought up Quinn. That the Te'i Sai would deem Quinn's identity worth knowing was unsettling news. The implications that they had been watching her chilled Marcel's blood. If she knew...

"I'll give you one chance to keep your head. Go now, and catch up to the others. When you do, be prepared to hand the jester and her companion over to us. Do that, and I will spare you and Lady Duzelle the deaths you both deserve."

As the assassins gathered and began removing their masks, Marcel slowly came to his feet, eyeing them warily. He would have to be delusional to think this was a show of respect. What a joke. The opponents he had thought would finally give him a challenge outclassed him by lengths that should have been impossible. He scanned each of their faces, meeting every pair of souless eyes fixed on him. His death was reflected in each one. His teeth clenched as he nodded, walking towards the alley they blocked. They parted for him as he made his way through, while he kept his gaze fixed straight ahead. Shiver's hilt clattered to the ground before Marcel took off sprinting, following the trail of Quinn's blood. Soon, he heard the assassins of Te'i Sai on the rooftops, making their own pursuit and keeping a watchful eye over his.

Especially since it’s my fault that-

Especially since it’s my fault that-

Especially since it’s my fault that-

The sound of light footsteps from her right had Quinn twirling in a flurry and aiming one of her pistols at the pursuer. A sharp gasp slipped from her lips as she whipped her arm up into the air, finger squeezed on the trigger and pistol aimed at the sky. Her lowering arm trembled as she backed away from Jeanne's and Marcus's joyous reunion. Gods, she nearly shot him. She simply gave Marcus a nod, trying to still her heart.

"We don't have time for this," she hissed, to which Jeanne responded by releasing Marcus and sprinting ahead. Quinn refocused her pistols at the rooftops, running alongside Marcus in her small heels. She listened to Jeanne and Marcus in silence as she looked out for pursuers, while her adrenaline-pumped brain picked apart every word they said for answers.

"Call them."

She had. She had cried out to her companions as the assassin had asked and her usefulness was revoked the moment she did. The stinging cut on her neck was a sign that she should have been dead - if they wanted her to be. The thought that Marcel wasn't there because he was their target had come to mind, but she didn't accept that. Not since -

Especially since it’s my fault that-

They were running through the residential area, people gathering and watching them sprint by, when Quinn slowed her pace to fall behind Marcus.

"You knew they were after you," she breathed, her words barely heard over her panting. The image of Jeanne playing with the kids while she watched the shadows during the trip on Chancey's caravan flickered in her mind. Every figure she thought she saw move while the family slept - no. No, no, no. The sharp points of the pearl lily in her pocket had scratched through the fabric while she ran and was digging into her thigh. There was a very simple way to fix this mess for her, one that she had enacted countless times before. With a deep breath, Quinn lowered her guns from the rooftops and trained them on her companion's backs.

In the second it took for Quinn to pull her triggers, she remembered something. Small, chubby hands clasping over a pretty glass bottle. A pat on her golden head. And a command, a simple two word command, "Use this." Just two words and a delivery not unlike the assassin's while he held her at knifepoint, "Call -"

Bang!

Two gunshots fired simultaneously. Quinn stopped in her tracks, the barrels of her pistols smoking and lowered by her sides. Birds flocked from the rooftops in a panicked flurry. She looked at Jeanne and Marcus, a twisted mixture of shock, fear and the painful knowledge that she had fucked up displayed on her face. Two smoking holes were on either side of her, blood dripping from her calves from where shards of stone from the blast had been embedded. There wasn't much time before the Te'i Sai closed in on the sound of the gunshots and Quinn didn't want to be near Jeanne and Marcus unless she was standing over their corpses, which... wasn't an option, apparently. She twisted her head around, saw a splatter of blood on the cobblestone dropped from her wound, and made up her mind.

"Go," she blurted urgently, putting her warm guns back into their holsters and moving to snatch her umbrella back from Jeanne. Her words that followed were quick and as drained of emotion as she could force, "Leave this city and don't you dare give me a hint where you're going. I don't want any information that they can take from me. Don't try to find me and never so much as utter my name again." She pointed her umbrella to the sky, "They will hear it."

She turned from them, yanking off one of her gloves with her mouth and throwing it to the ground. Gritting her teeth, she gouged at the wound near her neck with her bare hand, foiling its attempts to clot. Blood dripped to the ground as she leaned over and she let out a small yelp of pain before she drew her bloody hand away. Wihtout looking back, she sprinted away from the duo and off into a side road, smearing her blood against the wall of a building. She had been told once that the Te'i Sai could smell blood, that an open wound might as well be a death sentence. They tracked their victims like animals on the hunt. Quinn didn't entirely believe in such tales, but she did know she had been leaving that blood trail the entire time she'd been running. It was time to use it to her benefit.

She flicked bloodied fingers at the ground and left red prints on the walls. Quinn fought against dizziness as she sprinted off deeper into the maze of metropolis, losing her way and occasionally, her footing. Once she was satisfied with her trail she collapsed to the ground and waited.

Snippet #2741303

located in Cre' Est, a part of Assassin's Pledge: Devastation, one of the many universes on RPG.

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