┏━━━༻☆༺━━━┓
𝚁𝚎𝚗
┗━━━༻☆༺━━━┛
𝘛𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘕𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵
Ren strolled up to the entrance of The Happenstance, a local restaurant known for its loyalty to the Verita Aser.
He paused to look at the building, not as a Verita establishment but as a ritzy piece of architecture dedicated to the culinary arts. No expense was spared for this work of beauty.
It was so sparkly that he couldn't take his eyes off it. Ren wondered if he would ever have enough money for a place like that someday, after the war ended. It had chandeliers and everything, just like the high-end restaurants he saw on old TV reruns.
"Your invitation, Ma'am—er, I mean Sir." An intimidating bouncer with dark skin peered at him, monitoring with contempt.
He wanted, oh so badly, to yell that he didn't have an invitation, and ask the misgendering arsehole what he was going to do about it.
However, voicing his true opinion would put the mission in jeopardy. Ren said what was expected of him, biting his indiscreet tongue for the sake of the mission. Luckily, Mitsan had texted him the verbal invitation.
"All Hail the Veritas, our Mission, and our Queen." The words tasted foul in his mouth, like sour wine. Still, he dipped his hat to the man in greeting.
There was nothing he disagreed with more. The heinous mantra of the Verita Aser.
"Damn the Veritas, their unpalatable Mission, and their pompous Queen..." Ren murmured as he was admitted into the Verita sanctum.
Who needed a flashy, militaristic mantra anyway?
The Crimson Syndicate had no need for a motto when their actions spoke volumes about their cause and their mission.
Ren gazed up at the elaborate glass panel ceiling. How foolish the Veritas were, enraptured with a false sense of security. He imagined firing a bullet between the eyes of the Verita Aser Queen. She was on the back wall, an oil portrait begging to be torn to shreds. It was dated around seventeen years ago, a few years after the war had first begun.
The artist had painted her almost like a saint, singling out her pale hair and the regal twist of her lips as the focus of the piece. Ren had to resist pointing finger guns at it. After all, when the Syndicate finally located the Verita Queen, he would be one of the first to get a crack at her.
Ren adjusted his eyes to survey a podium in the distance, one that would soon be stained with blue Verita blood.
And the red blood of the Crimsons would be spared. As was the righteous order of the world.
So said his leader, Mitsan. Ren believed in their cause, whether it was morally right or not didn't matter to him. If Ren could be himself, left to his own devices and dreams, Mitsan's utopian society was something worth pursuing.
With a sniper's intuition and a chef's sense of smell, Ren Ryker surveyed the surrounding area, his rumbling stomach fuelling his search.
Finally, he spotted it. The glorious snack bar. He sniffed the air.
His mouth watered as he spotted the word "takoyaki" among the options at the refreshment centre. He quickly grabbed a plate to hold his fried octopus balls, feeling a surge of disgust as he remembered the Veritas' twisted logic. They believed that consuming Japanese cuisine would somehow give them an edge over the Syndicate, who shared Japanese ancestry with the food.
He rolled his eyes at their foolishness and bigotry.
Before Ren could journey to the expansive spread, Abyss, a younger Syndicate member interrupted him and pressed a picture of Wade Carson into the sniper's hand face down.
He bore a striking resemblance to the florist who had sold him Trixcia's flowers, only aged. It was possible that they were related, even though the shop bore the name Kendrick. Perhaps it was his father or an uncle. Ren stuffed that information in the back of his mind to focus on the cadet in front of him.
"You're wanted in position in forty," the sixteen-year-old said and disappeared into the crowd after flashing a small grin.
The sniper also harboured a smile. After all, it was time to dig in.
Ren made his way to the long-awaited table, a spring in his step as he reached for his first meal since breakfast.
Unsurprisingly, he received a scowl from a filthy rich Verita, hair a shade of blond as dirty as his wealth. Freckles blanketed the average-looking face as if trying to add to the pollution.
Ren shot the swish an artificial smile, running his fingers through his hair for an apologetic effect. "Sorry, mate. I was just trying to grab some Takoyaki, thank goodness catering decided to go all out on its assortment. Mind if I squeeze past you?"
The young man with chartreuse eyes shrugged in a casual manner, very unlike that of a typical deep-pocketed asshole.
Ren sensed a distinct quality about him. Something that made him different from other people he'd seen in passing. He might have been the one Ren bought flowers from earlier that day. Or it could be that the blond had a sharp resemblance to tonight's target. It was funny, how seconds prior he had been thinking about him, and suddenly he was here, standing in front of him.
Either way, he wouldn't think twice about crippling him if he grabbed all the Takoyaki right before his eyes.
The hot-headed sniper took a Takoyaki boat and watched his 'new friend' snatch the last of the croquettes—which rested next to the Takoyaki—and then vanish into the crowd.
Ren rolled his eyes and munched on the deep-fried octopus in a nearby alcove, absorbing himself in the flavours of the dish.
He savoured the freshness of the green onion, but he found the Tenkasu slightly undercooked. The Takoyaki sauce had a familiar flavour, reminiscent of the special one he had bought from the Asian cuisine store downtown. But he didn't mind, he enjoyed the dish immensely. He made a mental note to improve his recipe when he had the opportunity.
But that was not his priority at the moment, he had an assassination to complete. And nothing could get him more excited than Japanese cuisine.
He pondered over his options for killing the target. There were so many possibilities: the heart, the brain, even the nervous system. Ren could even pierce his lungs; he hadn't done that in a while.
"Hey handsome, do you want to share a drink with me, maybe discuss a... partnership?" a lilting voice called out to Ren, waving an impressive fan of Euros in front of herself, causing the static air to swirl around the pair.
"Go away! Can't you see I'm eating?" Ren barked at the plump woman, his voice rising slightly.
She hurried away, her expression full of disgusted horror.
He despised such wealthy and sumptuous fools. They assumed they could have anything they desired merely by fanning a pile of Euros like a treat set before a coveted pet.
Ren pulled his brown hat lower over his now-black hair, darkened with a can of temporary hair dye.
He had finished his job, which was to eat, but Mitsan hadn't given him the signal yet. He felt the pills losing their effect, he needed to arrange his refill as soon as possible. Not to mention, Ren wanted to burn some time.
"Where's that number..." he muttered, scrolling through the contacts in his burner phone. When he found it, he typed an address and time into his phone and pressed send. The phone was separate from his personal cell specifically so Trixcia couldn't expose him and his dealings.
That was the last thing he needed to be controlled.
Message from: 1354-0986-7782:
Yes, I'm available, but it'll have to be quick.
Ren set out to cross the ballroom to retrieve his jacket from the front door and noticed a familiar woman with two-toned hair.
And then she had her eyes on him, just when he was in a good mood.
Ren observed, fuming, as Trixcia's blond companion abandoned her. She turned, the many layers of black and purple cloth swirling around her like shimmering galaxies. Trixcia sauntered up to Ren—attempting to hide her limp—and intercepted his path to the exit.
He knew Trix well enough to guess that her outfit had drained her monthly wages.
The sniper couldn't claim to be any wiser with his own earnings, as he was spending most of them on medication, and the rest he was saving for surgery.
"I'm so close, just a few more weeks..." Ren murmured as he turned to face Trix, unpleasantly surprised.
"Trixcia. You're not supposed to be here," he said, lips creased downwards with obvious discontent, stomach coiling as she appeared.
"But Ren, I came of my own accord. How was I supposed to know your mission was also here?" Trixcia Delavare smirked and graced him with her signature twisted smile.
He scoffed at her, wishing that she would stop following him and go annoy someone else.
His hopes that she would die from her gunshot wound were in vain. To his dismay, the hospital across the street from the hideout had been her salvation.
"I'm not here to listen to your banter, Trix. It should be physically impossible for you to stand, let alone walk."
"Oh, Ren." she grinned. "I'm not only walking, but I'm also doing your job better than you ever could."
Ren chose to stay silent and prayed inaudibly for her to leave.
He prayed that, if there was a god, they would get this woman away from him. He didn't have the patience to spare her life. She had learned too much about him, his secrets.
"You know the blond over there? He's the spawn of your target. I'm nearly incapacitated, but still serving the Syndicate as best I can. Being high on pain relievers does that to you," Trixcia hissed at Ren, her eyes catlike slits as she leaned closer to him. "And it's all your fault."
He registered that she was referencing the guy from earlier, from the refreshment table.
"Is that so?" Ren studied Trix one last time, noting her flawlessly applied makeup that distracted him from her tempting beige eyes. Eyes that he once gazed at with burning desire.
Eyes that he would deny once again. "I don't care. And I never will."
Ren disregarded the swish of Trix's giant Victorian-style dress as her medication slowly wore off and she collapsed, writhing in pain.
It wasn't until he heard the clink of metal on the cold tile floor that Ren stopped in his tracks. He shook his head, convinced that he was hallucinating, that he was imagining things.
Trixcia wouldn't have sacrificed her leg for a chance to ruin him, right?
Either way, she was never getting him back.
━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━
𝐆𝐨𝐭 𝐚 𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐠𝐨 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫? 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 --->