Asher sniffles and wipes his sleeve with his nose, he might be getting sick, again. The moon shines above him, as if convinced he needs to be cooled down, it's freezing enough though. The stars welcome him though.
He was grew up in an orphanage from age 2. He left at age 18 and has been on his own in the physically and figuratively, cold world. But he did find a friend, Raegan, she's the coolest woman alive! Hah! He's so lucky to have her as a friend, Asher's so happy she got married, he's a great guy, they managed to get off the street and build a life that's semi decent, so far, until it gets better.
She knows people and hooked him up, a garage on Gaves' river next to the East side of the Green Bridge.
He walks down the concrete sidewalk and down along the bridge, next to it until he reaches the garage.
He stops and his eyes widen as he sees a figure walking to the front door.
"Raegan!" He says in surprise,
She jumps and turns to look at him, she clutched her chest and sighs, "You scared the crap out of me!" She laughs,
He hurries over and hugs her. She giggles and hugs him back.
"I wanted to be here when you arrived."
"You're the best."
"Like you."
He rolls his eyes and grins, "I can't believe you have done this for me."
"Come on, not a lot but I want to see your face."
She unlocks the small man door and they walk in. It's a large, tall garage with two, large car doors, one centered in the front, one in the back closest to the river.
Asher's eyes grow wide, as does his smile. Raegan watches him carefully and smiles, "It's not much I know."
"It's perfect Raegan."
"Like I said, not much, couch, bed, fridge, dresser, shower and bathroom are through that door, there is hot water."
Asher makes a hurt face, "tsk...any other couches?"
She gives a playfully frustrated smile and softly punches his shoulder, he grins.
"Raegan, I love you and your wonderfulness."
She grins, "You kill me."
She tells him that she hacked an actor's account but that he was so rich that, so long as Asher didn't over use the utilities, the guy probably wouldn't notice. The actor was a manipulative jerk who stole and owed a lot of money to the public anyway.
"I'll leave you to it, have a good night Asher."
He hugs her again and says goodnight. He plops on his couch and sighs happily, it's so warm in this garage, it's so nice.
He turns on a tv and smiles as he watches the news. He flips through a few channels before stopping on one news station with a big headline.
Titan's Death
"-ll we do know is that the intruder snuck into the room and murdered Mr. Palmer in his sleep. Authorities have looked up his next of kin-"
"Sucks to be you." Asher scoffs,
The upper class people deserve it, all they care about is themselves and their money. They don't care that middle class has to pay big taxes and that lower class practically is homeless all around.
Asher gets to his feet walks to the fridge. He looks at a note on the fridge from Raegan and smiles.
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'You're a cool bean.'
He opens the fridge, only to have one of the glass windows on the garage car door shatter, he yells in pain and pulls back, he falls back to the floor and groans. He stares at the underside of his forearm in horror, a small hole has torn itself into existence.
He shakes horribly with fear, suddenly bullets begin tearing through the walls.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
He gasps and tries to cover his head and screams from the pain from his arm again,
He grabs a spare shirt that Raegan left him on the couch and wraps his arm tight, he puts pressure on it and jumps to his feet, he bolts for the man door and throws it open. He sprints out and looks back and around him.
Not seeing any threats in sight, but knowing they are there, he turns and continues running. He runs up to the road and starts running along it, waving to drivers, but they keep on driving.
Bang!
Asher ducks and looks back, a figure coming from the direction that Asher just fled from.
Asher hurries down the sidewalk but he quickly crosses the street, glass windows and windshields on cars explode from the bullets.
His heart is pounding a thousand miles an hour. His mind is racing so fast that he can't keep a single thought or command in his head for his body to listen to.
Cars skid to a stop, Asher runs as fast as he can down the sidewalk, he turns the corner as soon as he reaches it, a few seconds after turning the corner he runs into a parking garage, it's huge and tall. Maybe he can lose them in there.
He runs to the nearest elevator and slaps the button, immediately the elevator dings, the doors start to open, he jumps and forces himself in as soon as he can.
She slaps the highest button he can reach as he awkwardly throws his hand back and repeatedly smashes the close door button with an intense fury. Bullets spray the exterior of the elevator, Asher yells and falls to his knees and covers his head with his arms. But weirdly he hears people scream outside the elevator, like they are being attacked, police maybe? That can't be right, that's waaaaaaay too fast.
The doors finish closing and the elevator starts to rise to the seventh of 8 floors. What the hell man!?
Intense, searing pain shoots through his entire arm. It seems like forever but finally the elevator stops, the doors open and he runs out, he's about to start making his way down, it's all he can think of to do, but he stops so abruptly that he almost trips and falls,
Three men with rifles round the corner, Asher turns and runs back and dives behind a pillar as they begin firing their rifles at him, bullets shale the entire pillar and chunks of concrete explode off the pillar.
Tires squeal below him, a car squeaks to a stop, to his right just before a stairway door. Three men with machine guns jump out and position themselves. Asher's heart seems to stop, chills run through his body. The only thing that pops into his head is a swear.
Just then the stair door behind them bursts open, a figure is swinging out from a horizontal bar protruding from the wall above the door. The figure throws their feet into the back of one of the men, pulls the trigger on their pistol, getting a headshot on their right, a sword in the figure's left hand slices the shoulder/chest of the turning gunman on the figure's left.
The figure pushes the center gunman to the floor with their feet, the figure swings their sword and thrusts down, stabbing the gunman. The other gunman the figure had cut first with their sword, he groans and rolls over, the figure stabs them in the chest, rips out the blade.
The black blade then turns into a cylinder, its a cane with a silver hawk head for the handle with a blue jewel for the eye. The black metal sinks into itself, shrinking until its all fallen into the handle.
The figure latches it on a belt loop as they sprints over to Asher, the figure wears a white mask with wide but sharp eye holes covered by some black cloth, a purple number 9 is painted on the left cheek bone down to just above the jaw. The female figure wears a black button up shirt with black pants tucked into her boots, a purple tie clipped to her shirt and white gloves to hide her hands.
She drops forward, somersaults forward to a knee, holding her gun out, she fires four times, dropping the last gunmen.
Asher is hyperventilating, he tries to step away and trips, falling to his butt. This female assassin rises to her feet and looks over at him, she hides her gun in her suit coat. Asher's too mortified to close his eyes, he's so sick to his stomach from it that he can't get up and run.
The woman sinks to a knee in front of him and looks at him for a moment. She reaches into her front pants pocket and pulls a note, she holds it up to him.
'Can you sign?'
Asher doesn't even register it. She sighs and rests her hand on his shoulder. She shakes him slightly and he flinches softly, but not enough to shake off her hand.
She holds up the note again. He shakily nods. She then crumples the note and shoves it in her pocket.
She then moves her hands to begin signing. 'What's your name?'
She has to ask again and grips his shoulder a little tighter.
"I-I uh....A-Asher."
'Last name?'
"I...I'm an orphan."
The woman stares for a moment and signs again.
'You need to come with me, I'll explain later.'
"W-why? Who were they!? What did I do!? I don't-"
The woman covers his mouth with her hand. Asher gasps and stops, but he's still shaking terribly.
'If you don't come with me now, others will come and we will have to do this again. Do you want me to explain later? Or do you want to kill more hitmen first?'
Asher's throat seems to have grown tight from the terror and anxiety. He takes a deep shaky breath and nods.
"O-ok-kay."