"How I envy the dead…."

Ed turned his head, spitting blood and took an elegant step backwards as the handle of an AMT F.A.N.G. and the blade of a stiletto glinted past his face for a second time; leaving behind the clean scent of stainless steel, gun power and his own blood. He neatly spun away from his opponent his fingers curling around the handles of the dirks sheathed across his back, concealed beneath the silk of his Armani suit.

"they are free from this while I am still condemned to this prison, forced into this arena, oppressed to kill…"

The slim blades flashed in Ed's hands arching in a brumal blur leaving behind thin threads of silver. With graceful ease he swept around his adversary moving in a tight circle not allowing him to get a clean shot with his F.A.N.G., or use his stiletto. Seeking an opening he relentlessly pushed the other novice across the glistening marble floor, streaks of argentite blazing in the moonlight as he forced his opponent to waltz in deadly pirouettes of honed steel.

"I was promised vengeance, I was told I was going to be the saving grace to my family name…I was their heir….,"

Looming above them, watching the dance of death with silent, eager attentions were the patrons of the guilds. Like the ensanguined emperors of ancient Rome they held the positions of final judgment, of dissolution and life. Reticent and cruel neither offering encouragement nor denunciation each was rapacious to witness bloodshed and swift death. On this night one prentice would have the honor of becoming an assassin and would join the ranks of the ancient brotherhood, while the other would be slain for his failure.

"but I was deceived, I became an heir to a life seeped in carnage and slaughter, full of shadows and screams…..,"

Beneath their malevolent stares Ed's rival was becoming desperate. The elegant grace with which his opponent moved was unsettling and every attempt he had taken to put a bullet between those gelided, ruthless eyes had ended with blood running down his wrists from sliced fingers. His hands were beginning to ache from constantly having to hinder Ed's blades from cleaving across his throat. He took a pace back narrowly avoiding a dirk that sought to sever his upper arm. The weapon thrust harmlessly past him, leaving Ed exposed to a high profile shot. The F.A.N.G flared in the starlight as he brought it forward his finger already curling around the trigger.

"I was told that I couldn't flee from what I was…."

It was fatal mistake, in a motion that was so lithe and swift many of the guilds patriarchs were not certain that they had seen it. Ed's blade seared across their vision clashing against the gun as the shot was fired. In the same vulpine movement he moved forward grasping the hand that held the stiletto and wrenched it around. There was the delicate sound of tendons being torn from broken bone; mingling with a shattered scream that was severed as Ed slammed the hilt on his dirk into his rival's throat.

"that I was to embrace my family trade as my father had done, as my predecessors before me had done….,"

The spell woven by fleet hands and the deadly song of blades had finally ended punctuated by a faint stuttering gasp succeeded by the peal of metal striking stone.

The heralding footsteps of death drew nearer…

Ed's opponent lay prone at his feet, blood dripping from his mouth, his arm twisted at an impossible angle. There was the scrape of metal sliding across marble as Ed skillfully flicked his weapons away far from his reach. Gritting his teeth in anguish he stared up into the impassive malachite eyes of his executioner. There was the soft whisper of a long slide being drawn back and he suddenly was faced with the obsidian gaze of a Ballista.

"I was to be sculpted into a killer….,"

Resigned to his fate the fallen youth turned his face away from his rival, who would soon take his life, and bear the title of assassin. But the swift death he was expecting didn't come; the whisper of a bullet shorn of its hellish roar didn't slam into his chest. He turned his stare back up and those jade eyes that had been so soulless during their battle but now seemed alive with the seething fires of grief…and mercy?

"Kill him Edward!"

A patron, an archangel, screamed from his place on the balcony, the feral wrath in his voice consuming and blood hungry. Edward's eyes snap towards the voice and pity shifted into smoldering hatred.

"to be an elite…"

The Ballista clattered to the floor.

"to kill without mercy,"

And Hell was unleashed.

It stole upon them with the loping grace of a predator, and in the time it took to draw breath the shadows seemed to move and they both were suddenly flanked on all sides by their brothers of the trade.

Ed tensed knowing what the next few moments would hold.

A memory stirred and Gin's voice came to him, swirling from the mists of time.

"They are like wolves Ed,"

"Wolves in the darkness ready to rip your guts out on the whim of their masters."

The scent of cigar smoke and stale blood drifted to his nose and he watched as the ranks of assassins surrounding him parted allowing the three patriarchs to pass though. He felt their vindictive eyes flicking across his body swift as quicksilver; accusing him of sacrilege against his creed and contravening a patriarch's request.

"too take orders …."

"Why do you stay your hand young novice?"

Ed clenched his jaw as the lurid voice spilled into his ears wincing as the movement caused licks of pain to crawl down the side of his face. His voice was thick was disdain for the man who stood tauntingly in front him, and as he spoke he suppressed the urge to stride forward and open the guild leaders throat in a bloody smile.

"Patron Corbellot* Erastus has been defeated by my hand, disarmed and lays surmounted at my feet; he has suffered the humiliation of having the patriarchs of his craft bear witness to his failure and the shame of losing his weapons. That should be penance enough,"

This was greeted with soft laughter and Ed found his attention captured by eyes the ashen color of the cowls of archangels, their depths brimming with mirth.

"Edward…while your words are rousing you are in no position to decide if his life is meritorious, that rests with me. He has failed his criterion to become an assassin and has defiled the name of his guild in his defeat and therefore his life is forfeit."

A jeering grin crept across his face,

"Since you seemed to have had difficulty with my first request I will repeat it in the form order….Kill him Edward rid the earth of this pitiful filth!"

"without hesitation…."

"I refuse,"

The smile still graced the patriarch's features,

"As you wish,"

Ed heard the vicious murmur of the Scourge as the thin whip cleaved the air in twain and struck him across the face. Blood arched in the moonlight, and filled his mouth as his teeth cut into the soft flesh of his mouth. Stunned he was forced to his knees, and felt the cold kiss of a knife as it blazed along his spine sheering his jacket in half. His sheaths were torn from his back along with his shirt and his wrists were hoisted above his head and bound with fiber wire. The lash rose again flaying open his back creating fresh gashes against the etching of old scars that had been inflicted for his past insolence. Strong fingers gripped his hair and pulled his head back forcing him to look upon his damned fellow novitiate.

"and walk in the bloody footprints of my ancestors,"

The sound of his Ballista sliced though the agony prancing in threads of fire along his back. Bone fragments and warm gore spattered across his face and he watched the broken corpse pitch forward from the momentum of the bullet ripping though its eye socket.

The ranting, taunting voice of Corbellot assaulted his ears, carving though the rage that snarled though Ed's blood.

"to become an assassin."

"You see Edward…you see! That is how you become an assassin learn it well my young killer!"

Ed screamed in wrath and revulsion writhing against his bonds until the fiber wire bit into his wrists and blood dripped down his arms. Curses spilled from his mouth even as the lash rose and fell across his shoulders again and again until the floor beneath him was slick with blood. Heedless of the flesh being peeled from his ribs and ravaged back he threw himself at Corbellot.

The patron took a step back smirking as Ed slipped and fell. Blessed darkness swept over him as he was forced back in a knelt position, delivered him from his waking nightmare into the merciful depths of unconsciousness.

"how I envy the dead…for they are free."