"Why is this boy taking so long!" A stout five feet three-inch-tall woman exclaimed. The sunbeams shone on her rich brown skin giving them an almost coffee bean colour. She knocked on the door again this time harder before screaming, "JOHAN! Tètè wá, ọmọkùnrin!" suddenly the door opened causing her to stumble forward directly into Johan's bare, muscular chest.
"Yes Akeelah?" Johan asked with baritone, Akeelah blushed slightly before pushing off his chest.
"I've been knocking for the past half hour, at least come out with a shirt on!" she spoke exasperated. She looked at him before sighing and turning around, "The commander is calling for you." Johan's eyes widen and he began slightly shaking.
"I'll be right there." He said quickly.
"Also make sure you take a bath; you're drenched in sweat." Akeelah said walking away.
Johan quickly returned to his room and threw himself into his bath. His mind wandered as he recalled the previous day's events. 'What did she mean by her son, she can't possibly mean…" Johan's eyes widened, and the room began to spin, he tried to brace against the wall, but he slipped on the wet floor. He took heavy breaths trying to calm himself down, 'She's here in Baria! No that can't be!' Johan's thoughts raced, as he closed his eyes to calm himself, 'Let's think logically here. Mira is a pathological liar she most likely was trying to get into my head. But how would she know about my mother, my information isn't public knowledge as far as I know. Dammit, I'm getting nowhere thinking about this! I also need to meet Sigmund.' He sighed before finishing his bath.
Johan exited his room and began walking down the indistinguishable black, stone brick hallways of the Milita base. 'Haven't I passed this room already' he thought looking to his right. He sighed before looking towards a nearby wall and saying, "Mela, I need to see Sigmund, now! I don't have time for games!"
Suddenly a few bricks began shifting out of place and a head of straight, ginger hair popped out. The face associated with the hair was that of a girl of similar age to Johan, with fiery brown eyes.
"You're no fun!" Mela said pouting, crossing her arms. She then rose her right hand and swiped the air leftward, suddenly loud groans echoed, and dust fell from the ceiling as rooms, doors and stairs suddenly moved forming a seemingly endless corridor with a large cedar double door at the end. "Hey Johan, before you go, if you see Dela tell her to meet me please, thank you!" before Johan could respond, the bricks returned to their original position and Mela disappeared like a mere apparition.
"She always does this." Johan sighed before moving across the hallway to a window. He saw tiny specs of green, assumedly trees and other alchemists walking, but most importantly he saw Vorst's ever-present smog. "I'm really on the tenth floor, look at you prodigy." Johan whistled, before walking toward the double door and gingerly opening it into a circular room. The centrepiece of the room was a large circular window, almost shaped like an eye, allowing the sun's rays to penetrate the room. The light fell on a small, simple table cluttered with books and various documents, and numerous bookshelves around the room making it feel larger than it was. In the centre of the eye-shaped window was a man of average height with a black trench coat looking down on the city below. The Milita base was an obelisk-like structure, built entirely of blackened stone bricks constantly surrounded by smog, in the epicentre of the Vorst district a glorified shantytown.
"Do you know the story of Sir. Thwane, Johan?" he asked the bass in his voice reverberating throughout Johan's body.
"Wasn't he a great Beranian warrior, who single handedly stopped the Orthodox invasion? Isn't that only a myth?" Johan asked hesitantly.
"It is history, our history." He responded, "It has been relegated to myth to not tarnish Sir. Thwane's legacy because in his death he became an enemy of Beran." Johan's eyes widened upon hearing this. "He was summoned by the King at the time, Alexander the fourth, and he took seven days to make his way to the king. When he presented himself before the king he stunk of beer. He was executed on the spot." The man then turned around to face Johan, his hollow, white eyes looking deep into his soul. "So, tell me Johan, should I just kill you now."
Johan fell on one knee and looked straight at the ground, before saying with a shaky voice, "I humbly apologize, leader Sigmund!"
"Lift your head, time is of the essence" Sigmund said before taking two small pictures from his table and walking toward the kneeling Johan. "Look at this." He said showing him the first picture. It contained a group of four men, three of whom had a brown trench coat with the alchemic symbol on their left sleeve interacting in a location that seemed like a bar. Johan analysed the photo for a few moments, paying particular interest to an old man in the centre of the photo.
"Isn't that John Cramlin!" Johan exclaimed in disbelief, "Why is he with Milita members, don't those Reversionists hate us?"
"That is precisely what we want to know." Sigmund replied. "Your mission is as follows: You are to make contact with our informant in the Reversionist party at midnight tonight, he will be at 'The Ovoline' bar. Those alchemists will definitely be there, as I believe they are growing suspicious of our informant." He then took the second picture and gave it to Johan. He saw a short man with a large grey beard and several pronounced wrinkles that spoke stories each their own novel. He had a simple, light grey two-piece suit and pitch-black dress shoes, he had his left hand around a woman with a small gold ring around his ring finger.
"This is him?" Johan asked raising an eyebrow.
"Yes, until recently he was only a low-ranking member. However, he recently started climbing the ranks at an unprecedented rate. One day he entered an Imperium meeting and told one of the higher-ups that he wished to give information on the Reversionists. So, from that point they made it my issue." Sigmund replied, "His name is Montgomery Peniu and he is Vorst's spokesman"
"This will be a bit tricky. I can hide my alchemic mark with gloves but if those alchemists are Milita, they will know my face." Johan said rubbing his bare chin.
"Hence why you have permission to use full force." "I want you to wipe those traitors off the face of the earth." When Johan saw Sigmund's hollow eyes he began to sweat profusely, until Sigmund turned around and returned to his window.
"When you return, I will give you the details for the second part of the mission."
"Yes, Leader!" "Actually, Leader do you know if-" before he could finish, he remembered Sigmund's eyes and began to shiver. "Never mind, it isn't important."
Leaving the room, silence taking his place. Sigmund looked upon Vorst, the district decrepit and smog filled, it was his city, his home. Its ceaseless poverty the womb that birth him, its trash filled streets his nursery, the whores his caretakers, the criminals his playmates. He would not hand it over to anyone. Suddenly, he was standing in a void of darkness.
"You came here quickly Bureau scum. But sending someone of your level was foolish on Malcom's part." he replied to no one. Suddenly a hooded figure slinked through the inky darkness, his knife ready to devour Sigmund's blood. 'Die!' the assassin thought to himself before he felt a sharp pain in his neck and the world began to spin. Suddenly the darkness receded, and Sigmund had not moved an inch, yet the assassin somehow was being suspended in the air, merely seeing Sigmund's back, his breathing becoming extremely difficult.
"Eat, sleep, reproduce and die. Eat, sleep, reproduce and die. Eat, sleep, reproduce and die! Go to war and make war, kill and be killed. What is the purpose? What is the ideal? No one can answer that why. That is the epitome of human nature, and it disgusts me." Sigmund now turned to face the assassin, his hollow eyes staring directly into the assassin's black eyes and pale face. 'I can't breathe!' he thought, he tried lifting his arms to remove the terrible blockage in his throat but he couldn't feel them, he couldn't feel anything. Suddenly, memories of his life began flashing in his mind, only to disappear into nothing. He tried to move, to grasp at his memories before they disappeared, hold them, cherish them. But he couldn't move, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't think. All he could think of the eyes of Sigmund, he didn't see him as a threat much less a human being. It wasn't pity, or disgust, he didn't see him at all to Sigmund he wasn't important enough to even observe. His eyes frantically darted around, until he landed on a body without a head, his body, blood pooling out of where his neck should be. "D-ddevil." The assassin said weakly drawing his final breath.
"Do you believe I will look like that way when I die Dela?" Sigmund asked the woman who held the assassin's head in her right hand and a long-curved dagger, drenched in blood in her left hand. Her pale, white face was dotted with droplets of blood not her own, as her empty black eyes stared at Sigmund.
"No master, there is no creature on this earth who can kill you, you are Sigmund Agustus." Dela said prostrating before Sigmund, who simply turned his head and continued looking upon his city.
"Remember Dela, one's life is only fulfilled with death." He said before motioning his hand causing Dela to throw the assassin's head on top of his body. She then took a lighter from her trench coat pocket and threw it on the body, engulfing it in flames. The light illuminating her black hair, and alchemic mark tattooed on her neck