"You think you can defeat me? I wield Lightning!" A man with chestnut hair gloats, sparks rising through his arm as he laughs towards another man standing in the shadows. As he is laughing, an indescribable pain comes from his leg, causing him to collapse to his knees.
"Lightning powers, not Lightning reflexes, good to know," The man from the shadows states, briefly looking at the bullet hole in the guy's leg. Before the chestnut-haired man can do anything, he's shot again and collapses in a pool of blood.
Emerging from the shadows, a young blonde-haired man, barely looking eighteen, walks out and shoots twice more in the head before removing the silencer from the pistol. He takes out a card which had the chestnut man's picture and dips it into his blood before sealing it in a small bag. He takes a quick look around to make sure no one is watching before rushing through the alley away from the body.
An hour later, after a subway trip, the blond-haired man would be in an alley bar in the basement of some rundown hotel. A few people inside were having drinks, making hushed conversation. There was always something sketchy happening in bars like this.
"Back already, Alex?" The man at the bar asked. He was a burly, bald man with a thick, brown mustache. "Here is your usual," He states, sliding over a vodka and Coke as Alex slides over the bag with the blood-covered picture.
The bartender takes the picture and looks at it, a small glow coming from his fingers before nodding. "I'll be right back," He says, walking through a door in the back. He comes out fifteen minutes later with three cards. "Here is your payment, and I know you'll ignore this, but you have to take it easy."
"You're right, I probably won't listen," Alex replies, throwing back his drink back. "You got the next set of targets?"
"I'm serious, Alex, not many people use a gun. The heroes probably have a lock on who you are, and you're drawing the attention of the higher-ups." The bartender warns.
"They're one and the same. We all know who really runs this city; the heroes are all on the payroll. As long as I keep up my work, the heroes won't look my way," Alex responds. He then sees a picture with the pay cards that the bartender slid over. "Just one, I know you had like four others that I didn't accept, did someone else actually take them?"
With a heavy sigh, the bartender looks at Alex, "This comes from someone a bit higher, as I said, you've been drawing attention, so I can't give you another contract until this one is done."
"How much is the information?" Alex asks, handing the bartender one of the cards.
The bartender shakes his head, refusing the card. "This time, the information fee has already been covered. The target isn't from this city; he's an outsider."
"An outsider that has a bounty, so he's from another organization." Alex muses over this. He doesn't say too much out loud, but wonders why a competing organization is in this city and why they are having him killed immediately.
"The name is Zane. He can shape any solid object he touches like putty. No matter what shape he turns it into, it doesn't change what the object is made from." The bartender explains.
"Can he also affect things that touch him, or is it only what his hands touch? Also, what is the pay?" Alex asks.
"Your first question, there isn't enough information on it, so I don't know, as for the second, triple what the last guy was worth." The bartender explains. He then leans in, "Look, you're still young and have great skills, I can set you up with something outside this line of work. I really don't recommend you accept the job."
"Appreciate it, but." Alex grabs the picture. "The room upstairs is still available?" He asks.
The bartender nods and slides Alex the key, "You took on the bounty, so the room is still yours." The man says, watching Alex make his way upstairs, before letting out a sigh.
The next day, as Alex took the subway to Section C, one of the areas where residential and industrial overlap. He read over the other information on the back of the picture, showing that he was last seen in a motel. A mixture of being discrete, yet nice enough that he must have some ranking back in his city.
Alex walked through the city and entered a nearby bookstore, not his first time in this part of the city. While observing the nearby motel, he scans for any fantasy novels to keep his attention. As he had visited before, coming back wouldn't arouse any suspicions, but if he was the one being hunted, having a routine would make him an easy target.
Walking to the counter and tapping one of the new cards, checking the balance on it as he sits at a desk and starts to read, skimming the pages as one eye focuses on the motel
A man matching the picture steps out half an hour later, wearing a leather jacket with a baseball cap. He is picked up by two men with brown hair and sunglasses, both looking around briefly before Zane steps into the car.
Alex sighs and watches them drive off. There were three high-priority locations Alex had learned of over the course of his work. He always visited the three in a certain order when hunting down a target, and unsurprisingly, they were at the first location. Only five blocks down from the bookstore and in an alley. From a distance, it looked like an old, but still-running factory. The entrance was locked with a PIN code, and only certain members of the organization had the PIN.
Seeing the car up close, it was some black car with tinted windows, and it was left there near the alley. Alex takes out his pistol and attaches the silencer, shooting the front tires in case they try to escape. Peaking around the corner, he could see Zane grabbing the wall and starting to use his power. Before missing his chance, Alex aimed at the three men.
Three silenced gunshots sounded out, the first two collapsed Zane's guards that were in the way, but the final shot was blocked. Zane grabbed the nearby building, stretching the wall around him like a shield. "I don't think you realize who you tried to kill," Zane hissed.
"You crossed someone you shouldn't have crossed in this city, so I'm just collecting a bounty." Alex shrugs and fires two more shots before clicking his tongue. His shots were creating cracks in the cement, as stretching an object does lower the durability, but his bullets weren't of a high enough calibre to penetrate it.
Zane continues to stretch the building's wall around himself, as if the building swallowed him. Alex could only sigh and took out his phone, clicking the emergency number, "Yeah, yeah, it's Alex, so the target got inside one of the special buildings, section C." Alex calmly stated everything to his barkeep contact; he expected someone else to take over now. He knew the boundaries not to cross, but what he heard next surprised him. "584263?" Alex repeated quietly, his blue eyes going wide as the call ended. He was just given the code to enter the building, which sent a shiver up his spine.
The fact that Alex received this number meant three things. First, he was now trapped, knowing the code meant he was now responsible. Second, for a bounty hunter to know the code meant the target was too big a threat or, for some reason, no one else was nearby. Third, the fact that he was given the code so quickly meant this could all be planned.