My first true assignment came at the age of 15, though I had only two years of training before being given official orders by the Gambino Crime family, I was not allowed to go on missions without a chaperon, if case something should go wrong. This babysitting would happen for five years, and though I hated it at the time it was a valuable learning experience. If only I had listen to her advise more often, but we don't always learn our lesson until we are make a mistake.
The order was simple enough, it seemed that a local had been seen stealing from some of the Gambino owned stores on the Island. More importantly he had been accused by store owner of stealing several thousands worth of gold from the register and safe at Gambino's hat Rack. Say what you will about Gambino, he is a gentlemen and when the beautiful Ruby had felt violated by the theft the burglar needed to die. This was my assignment, one that I happily took. I've always had a thing for the gorgeous Ruby. They are.....I mean she's beautiful.
It took me about a week or so to track down the target's whereabouts, it seemed that he was a careful one and had not spend the money all at once, in fact he made no significantly large purchases since stealing the gold, it was pretty obvious at that moment that I was dealing with a professional and I knew I had to be careful. My most valuable piece of information came from a young man at a local bar, a place called the Black Sand Bar, a bar located on a small island isolated from the rest of the Gaia mainlands. It seemd that the target very rarely left the sanctity of a local forest, right outside Durem. When he did it was only at night, and only to drink. Never spoke much to anyone, and there were rumors that he wasn't altogether human. "Well I would be more surprised if he was." I said to the young, who had the strangest pink hair I'd ever seen, almost as if he never combed it and he had a permanent case of bed head.
"Yeah, I'd advise you to be careful boy, Gambino family or not you're only 15." unfortunately at that age I was much more prone to acts of rage, I shot the man point black in the head for the comment. He had served his purpose, I knew where to find my target, and in the morning he too would be dead. I should have listen to his advice.
The forest in question lay 15 miles or so away from Durem, beyond even the reclamation center which had grown in to a popular fishing center. Not sure as the nature of the target, I purchased a long range automatic sniper rifle, the muzzle had been slightly modified so it would not damage the softer metal of the silver bullets that I would use in case normal ammunition didn't bring him down. When I entered the forest, I quickly made my way to the treetops, hoping to avert the noisy forest floor and so that the thick foliage of the canopy would hide my form. I picked a spot near a lake, hoping that the target would require sustenance and knowing that a watering hole would be the ample place to acquire it, I I set up my equipment and waited.
Unluckily for me I didn't have long to wait before the target made its presence known to me. It was as I had guessed he was living in the forest and was using the lake as a mean to acquire food. It looked like this was going to be a fairly straight forward and easy assignment, I waited until he knelled down near the river and aimed my weapon at his head, smirking slightly at the side of his shaven head. Adjusting the weapon slightly for air movement, I slowly squeezed the trigger and let the bullet fly. Even before the bullet slammed violently into the ground I knew I had been shooting at nothing more then a illusion. "s**t" I said out loud as I dropped the riffle and removed a pair of 9mm guns at my side, I had been discovered. How long had he known I was there?
"It's not polite to enter a man's domain without permission young one." the voice sounded like it was right next to me, and in a moment of genuine fear I spun around and shot at the empty air behind me. The ******** was obviously toying with me. "You son of a b***h, how long have you known?" I screamed at the empty forest.
His response was quick. "I've known since the second you're stepped into my forest." No matter how hard I tried I couldn't figure out where the voice was coming from, I was starting to panic, this guy was more then good, he was a professional if I didn't relax I was going to die in that damn forest. And so jumping down to the canopy floor I knelled guns in hand and listened to the noises of the forest around me. He was bound to make a move and I was going to be ready for him.
I was right, he attacked almost instantly and I knew where he was coming from. But it was one thing to move, it was another completely to react fast enough. I spun around and fired 3 shots from each gun in rappid succession, into the underbelly of the massive cat that had lunged at me throat, though my bullets had managed to redirect his attack he still was able to inflct damage, removing a massive amout of flesh as his mouth dug into my shoulder blade and his back paws dug deeply into the flesh of my thighs. The pain was so overwhelming that I dropped my guns and screamed, I wasn't good enough I was going to die. In the jaws of a stupid beast no less. I could feel the blood oozing out from my body, mixing with the blood of the animal I had just killed, the creatures blood oozed into the opened gash in my should from his mouth. Before I passed out from the pain and the blood loss, I could have sworn I was the damn thing smile. Well at least one of us was going to die happy.
I have no way of knowing how long I was out cold, it could have been a few hours or a few days. But when I did awake nothing made sense at first, the beast that I had killed was gone instead there was the target massive bullet wounds in his stomach. Could he have been a werecat? Aside from that why wasn't I dead? Ther trauma that I had should have killed me, but instead there was no wounds, only caked blood where the would should have been. Something wasn't right, but I didn't have the luxury and sitting there and pondering it for too long. If the target was indeed a werecat, then I needed to get out of the forest, there might a pack of them somewhere and so burying the body I made my way back to Durem, to report to my superiors as to the success of the mission.
Though I had walked into that forest a young man, I was walking out a completely different creature altogether, I just had not figured it out yet.
