Hyrule Adventures 2

As the day passes, a lone figure can be seen in the distance, coming from the direction of the North Castle. A black cape bearing the crimson symbol of the Sheikah envelops him completely, and his face is hidden away by the shadows of the hood over his head. He makes no sound as he walks across the South Greens, apparently heading towards the Deku Woods.

In fact, Alpha is going back to Master Zaris and Shada's cave dwelling when he spots the girl. About his own age, she appears to be just standing in the same spot, waiting and looking for something or someone with eyes the color of a calm lake. He raises an eyebrow as he realizes she is also a Sheikah.

Alpha stops for a second, looking straight at her from beneath his hood, though he positions his body so that she would not realize it. Long, shining blond hair, deep blue eyes, a beautiful face and body...it takes Alpha only a second to come to a decision about her. 'Pretty,' he thinks, as he immediately begins moving again, not giving her a second glance.

Why does her charm not affect him? Well, for one thing, Alpha has never allowed himself to chase after a woman just because of her looks. More than once has he met women who, though beautiful, are cold-blooded, manipulative witches. Two, he has always been too focused on training and staying alive to allow himself to like a girl. The fact that he has acknowledged Andrea as pretty is a big step for him.

And that shining blue scar might have something to do with it as well...

Andrea was pleased with Alpha's resistance. Normally her work was done in a matter of minutes, but this Sheikah had managed to shield himself from her persuasive air. Definitely not a desired target, but a challenge nonetheless. She dearly wished that Feris had been here; her first challenging target seemed to be some kind of omen, and the Zora would be prepared with an extensive reading of the outcome of this match. As it was, her psychic comrade was also facing a challenging query, and Andrea was left to her target, unable to decide if her methods would have any effect on the passing Sheikah. The fight would be lost if that were the case.

Seeing that Alpha had not approached or acted in the usual way her targets normally did, the beautiful female Sheikah decided on one of her most powerful weapons: small talk. She turned to face Alpha, giving him a faint smile and showing obvious infatuation; a feigned "love at first sight." Little did she realize, Alpha and her had the greatest thing in common. They were both greatly skilled assassins, able to use shadow to their advantage to deliver a stealthy kill without anyone knowing. Andrea walked towards him, expressing the obvious - yet false - desire she directed unto him. To put it quite simply, she was flirting with him. Attempting to make him feel as though he were great enough for her love, something common in most first unions of love. She was no psychic, but he knew he had at least acknowledged her beauty. Yes, pretty, she thought, realizing that she was not just a beautiful woman to this man. Perhaps this man, unlike many, looks at a woman for personality as attraction. A shame he must die; his type is so rare. Her thoughts ended abruptly as she spoke. "Hey, there. Are you lost, too? I haven't been to this country for so long, maybe you can help me out. I'm Andrea. What's your name?"

OOC: Wow, sub-par, I know. It's kinda difficult to narrate for the opposite sex I'll be glad when the action begins; the small talk could become just that: a string of small posts

OOC: Yeah, I know. It's always a challenge for me to make Shada into a believable character...

IC:
Alpha had wanted to just leave the girl alone and continue on his way to Master Zaris and Shada's cave dwelling. However, when the girl approaches him, he realizes that she's not going to give up on him. He unconsciously reaches up and strokes his glowing scar, then turns to face this 'Andrea'. 'What's her game...?' he thinks to himself.

So he decides to just try and get away from her. Rudeness always seems to annoy Shada into leaving him alone - though he has never tried being purposefully rude - so...

"No, I'm not lost. I have somewhere I need to be right now. Goodbye."

He abruptly turns away and begins walking away, glad that his cape is completely enshrouding him, and his hood hiding his face. Otherwise Andrea would see how tense he is, ready to intercept and halt any offensive thing she attempts to do next.

Realizing her game is up, and her alluring motions and gestures have failed her for the first time, Andrea begins to panic inside. She has never been graced by the misfortune of a resistance like Alpha's, and is dumbfounded by his rudeness. She almost finds him to be extraneously stupid, but realizes that resistance is a talent, not a disability. She can think of little else to do; the moment had come.

Silently, a minuscule dagger slips out of her sleeve and into her right hand. The Fair Maiden's Hand, as her unit had once called it. In those days, her life had still been unfulfilled. The lovelorn Sheikah refused to admit that all she truly wanted from life was to be loved in return, as a woman. Her choice to exterminate all who showed signs of infatuation was a strange one. Her Fair Maiden's Hand was not as fair as the name implied; it alone had been the sole obstructor of her targets' lives. Now, poisoned dagger in hand, Andrea prepares to kill again.

She aims the blade at Alpha's back, smiling knowingly as she recognizes her dagger's potent ability. One Hit Kill. Another of her units old phrases; a glorious maneuver capable of killing instantly. This dagger was among the few powers still capable of this feat. Martir's landslides had the same effect, but boulders are hardly a weapon. She had the perfect opportunity to throw the blade. And yet she could not. An unexplainable force held her hand at bay.

It's for the good of the unit! she told herself, fighting the restrain that was forcing her to keep Alpha alive. He must die! Andrea had fallen prey to her own methods. Infatuation was a powerful force, especially for one so unloved as this Sheikah. Her life's work flashed before her eyes, and she recalled countless adversaries that she felt no lost love for. And now, faced by one of the only men that she had ever felt truly drawn to, she hesitated. She had already been rejected. The sting was more powerful than her own poison, although not lethal. It caused her twice the pain the toxins could cause Alpha. Finally, she threw it.

OOC: Blank, you may not be good at narrating, but you look like you've got the feelings down pretty well.

IC:
Alpha senses everything that happens behind his back. Andrea's shock is obviously clouding her judgment; otherwise, as a fellow Sheikah, she would remember that a trained warrior can map out his area by the vibrations of the air. While the picture the airwaves paint is never very clear, it is always painfully obvious when something is coming at you at a very high velocity.

Alpha's form immediately lurches around. His hand twitches in a familiar pattern, one that he has only used once in the past five years, and a needle shoots out from beneath his sleeves. He uses the momentum that his spinning around provides to sling his own weapon of choice right back at his attacker. His left hand reaches up and grabs Andrea’s dagger in midair, and as the sides barely slice into his skin he realizes that it’s a poison dagger!

He twirls it around in his hand as he senses his body destroying the poison that has failed to killed him, let alone harm him. He had gained a resistance to almost every intoxicant known to man and beast during his time as Wraith, and his extensive knowledge into the subject gives him some sort of respect for the woman. They both seemed to prefer the same method for execution, both were Sheikah, both about the same age…had their lives been drastically altered, Alpha could have seen the two of them being fine friends, or perhaps something more.

‘Whatever. Is she asleep yet?’ His attention reverts back to Andrea, looking to see if his needle struck home like it normally did. The needle he had chosen was not full of a fatal poison, but rather a substance that was meant to knock its victum out cold for several hours. Alpha had questions for her...

OOC: Whaddya mean not a very good narrator? Okay, not very good compared to you. But far better than the average human being, you must admit?
IC:

Andrea realized what was happening as soon as the dart came at her. She was not well accustomed to her target being able to resist her charm, and she was especially surprised when her secondary technique was used against her. She groaned sadly as she eyed Alpha's needle-like projectile, feeling as though her time had reached its stop. However, she had no intention of being defeated now. Her unit was at stake, and she had vowed to never die until true love had been found.

As an expert assassin, she knew of reversal techniques very well. She was prepared, but was still shaky from the surprise of having to resort to the methods for the first time. Her body seemed to become one with the air as she narrowly avoided the dart, and she was glad that it had missed. It is not time for me to die yet, thought the young Sheikah as she dodged the projectile and landed on the ground with a soft thud. She sprang upwards, dusting grass and dirt off her cloak and remaining fascinated with her quick movement. Alpha's sleeper dart had failed, and Andrea retained her consciousness.

Her look of shock was then replaced by a knowing smile, like a child that had just placed the final piece in a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle. She raised her hands above her head, signalling that she was unarmed, and spoke to the only challenging target softer than a leaf striking the ground in autumn. I have waited a long time to meet you, Wraith.

OOC: Hey, you said you weren't good at narrating girls' parts. Come on, you can understand that that's what I mean even if I don't add 'for girls', right? Right?

Or am I just giving you too much credit?

IC:
'Darn it, I missed,' Alpha thinks as he watches Andrea complete her acrobatic stunt. 'Well, she'll certainly be difficult to hit...but that's fine.' Since all his needles have been imbuded with magical properties that speed up the transfer of the agent by at least 100 times, all he needs is for her skin to brush up against any part of the needle, and she'll be out in a split second.

She then does a very odd thing - she raises her hands above her head, the symbol of one's surrender. 'Is she giving up?' He refuses to let his guard drop, especially after her words reach him on the wind.

I have waited a long time to meet you, Wraith.

"Oh really?" he says just as softly. Her Sheikah hearing can pick up his words, but no one else would be aware of the fact that he is even talking. "And how do you know I am this 'Wraith' you speak of?"

Andrea retained her beautiful smile, not believing Alpha's attempt at pretending that she may have been mistaken. She knew she was correct. Some of her favoured techniques were based on what she knew of the Sheikah assassin known as Wraith. She recalled old time spent years ago in a library in Calatia that only few had access to. Assassins and politicians.

"The darts, the speed, the race, the attitude. Wraith is not a well-known name. Look at how I tried to end you just now. Poison. Speed. A fast dose of silent death. This technique is not my own; I modeled it after yours. How could you expect an assassin like myself to not know about you? Calatia keeps tabs on everyone. You'd be surprised what they know about you. Of course, I had no idea my target was to be the greatest of assassins to walk the planet; Wraith. Someone in the higher places is clearly doing their job wrong. I'm no rookie, and I am, in fact, regarded as one of the better assassins this world has to offer. But what idiot would compare my skills to yours?"

Andrea continued.

"I can understand any concern you might have, knowing that there is a large file on your entire life being recorded in a safe building in a different kingdom. They will never be released. I did not peer into your history, of course. Just your techniques. An intriguing concept, I must say." Andrea's arms had dropped to her side by this point.

Alpha lets out a slow sigh as he turns away from Andrea. "A history of my life? ...that could be trouble...well, as long as no one ever actually looks at it, then I suppose that will minimize the number of people that need die."

He turns so he can look at the Sheikah woman out of the corner of his left eye. As he does so, his hand flexes, bringing another needle into his hand. He hasn't done this very often, and it requires a great deal of concentration, but it can be done. He closes his right eye as his scar changes colors so as to block out the dark-purplish light it now emits. "So," he says loudly, attempting to gain a grasp over all of her attention, "are you simply going to give up now?"

As he does this, a small portion of Andrea's shadow takes on an odd color, as if it has become a portal to another world...which it has. Alpha's arm slowly rises out the Void, holding another sleeper needle in its grasp. It takes a good deal of focus to transport only a portion of his body by the Void, but what Alpha intends to do is not complicated at all. The arm slowly stretches out in an attempt to merely touch Andrea with the needle. Alpha sees no reason to kill her, but also has no reason to stick around any longer. Plus, the fact that he ceased being Wraith long before he had discovered the Void means that Andrea probably won't be expecting such a technique.

He turns away, slowly pushing his arm through the portal he's opened beneath his cape and out of the one in Andrea's shadow, hoping that she doesn't move and cause him to miss the ankle he has aimed for.

Andrea had not been lieing when she told Alpha that she had gazed over his assassin portfolio only. She had never witnessed, read of or even heard of this "Void" that Alpha possessed the power to manipulate. One could imagine the shock on her face as the mage's needle struck her in its intended target; Andrea gazed at the dart sticking into her ankle, her smile vanishing and being replaced by a look of shock. But she had not died yet, and was willing to bet that Alpha had used a sleeper dart. Her only question was "Why?"

As the female Sheikah slumped to the ground, the only words she could manage to mumble were somewhere along the lines of "Well Played." Although her smile had disappeared when the dart struck home, it reappeared just as the slumber overtook her. Andrea had fallen asleep from the needle's potent mechanisms, whatever they may have been. She could do nothing but lay on the soft grass of Hyrule's South Greens. The assassin had planned to get a good rest after killing her target, but never had she expected to be "privileged" with a nap so early.

Alpha turns back to face the now-sleeping Sheikah, and lets a small grin come over his face. "Well played yourself," he says softly. He retracts his arm from the Void and watches as the light from his scar fades away. He walks over to her and retrieves the two needles that he has used during the fight. The first still has a bit of the drug in it, so he stores it in his stash again. And he already has an idea as to how to use the second.

Now that he thinks back, the name 'Andrea' does have some meaning to him. It was the name of one of the group of assassins that he had spied on a while back. He had only heard that they were planning to target Waddles, but it came as no surprise that Alpha himself, being an associate of Waddles, would also be need to be taken out.
With this in mind, he makes a few preparations for when Andrea wakes up. The sleep should last for several hours; but if one is well-versed in poisonous techniques, then it is possible that they will be able to cut that time down to about thirty minutes.

It takes only five to complete his plan. When the Sheikah departs several minutes later, he leaves the needle stuck in the ground in front of Andrea's face. It pierces through a note that he has left for her.

'Andrea,

You are a victim of bad information. Trust me, I know what this is like...I still regret to this day that I did not have the correct info on my true employer. Fortunately for you, this instance has not resulted in your death, as it should have.

Your technique is very efficient. You have learned from my example well, and I applaud you for having mastered such a difficult art as poisoning. Doubtless your looks are something you rely a bit too much on, but I suppose that most men would fall to your beauty even if you weren't attempting to use it. One uses the weapons she has at her disposal...

Tell your organization that I am not one they have any desire to hunt. Should any of your number attempt to assassinate me or my friends again, I can promise you that they shall not walk away from the confrontation. I have shown mercy to you once; it shall not happen again.

-Alpha

And do not tell anyone who I am. Should you, my life could end...and I would ensure that yours ended first.'

Andrea awoke in the twenty-five minutes following Alpha's departure. It had started to rain, and the female assassin could scarcely find a trace of her target's direction of travel. She sighed, standing and brushing wet grass off of her cloak as she proceeded to pull the comforting hood over her soaked blond hair. It was then that she looked directly below her to notice Alpha's message. Andrea was not easy to surprise, but an escaped target had left her a taunting note, and even she was forced to admit that this was a surprising thing.

She sighed again as she read over the note. Reading the first paragraph, she cursed inwardly at the man that had pitted herself against an assassin far out of her league. The Boss had proven unreliable, and at this moment Andrea truly lost faith in the prospect of her unit's return. She understood that her dear friends had also been set up against associates of Wraith, and would probably find themselves as overwhelmed as she had thirty minutes ago. One thought haunted her mind: Daemon, Sloan, Martir, Barlum, Larson and Feris were dead. Naturally, the tears fled openly down her drenched face. Her only proof over the rain that she was weeping was the intense depression she had felt.

The rain began to let up. Andrea remembered something horrible: other than being connected to Alpha in a predator-prey relationship, there was another organization that demanded some form of unity between the two Sheikah assassins. Carock's Apostles. Alpha had become the newest member of the secret renegade alliance, and no doubt had no idea that Andrea was a member as well. She contemplated how she could ever function in the alliance in constant fear that Alpha might be nearby; that he may believe she had followed him and would kill her then. Again she wept for her fallen comrades, all of whom had also been members.

Andrea would be forced to comply with one option. She would remain in the organization. Solstrem Maverick was a very forgiving man, and would likely forgive her. No information had been forwarded to Calatia yet; Killtactic Assassination had failed their undercover operations. Andrea had found friendship in the alliance, and had grown attached to the motives of the group. She could not run away from it now. Alpha would have to be dealt with at a point later on. With this thought in mind, Andrea trudged towards Parapa Desert, weeping for her departed allies, and keeping the dart as a souvenir of her first lost battle.