Jameson Bacardi was a swindler.
Even before he became a beyonder, lying and deceiving was like second nature to him. This resulted in him eventually destroying most of his good relationships in life, even the one with his wife.
Rejected and forsaken by the world and its people, he decided to not care about the wordly matters any more, and left his home, Trier, to travel the sea.
Working as a luggage carrier, or as a tourist guide, he swindled and scammed people of their money every other day of his life.
Lying and deceiving, he manipulated maidens into sinning with him every other month. And once he'd destroyed some of the most precious things to those people, he would leave the place and run away.
It was on one such island in the Fog sea, that he was scouted into a loose circle of pirates, and given the Marauder potion.
He, who had a bounty of 200 pounds on his head despite not being a beyonder, was a welcoming surprise to the Red Skull pirates. It was only natural that they would have him join them.
Of course, he had swindled them too. Those savage pillagers.
Jameson was a swindler, not a barbarian. He loved destroying people's precious things, but he had a style, he liked being subtle, he liked savouring it. That was also why it took him so long to grasp the Marauder potion. It took him two years, until one day when he felt like his body was completely in tune with the potion, and he could advance. It was instinctive.
Ever since he became a Swindler, though, Jameson's progress was astronomical. He who had empirically figured out the acting method with such little data was already on the verge of completely digesting his Sequence 8 potion.
Indeed, he was a born swindler. And when he became a Swindler, the qualitative change brought by the potion made him unstoppable. He was scamming people hundreds of pounds here, he was breaking beautiful relationships and marriages there.
He, who was forsaken and rejected by the world, was now bringing retribution on the same cruel world that didn't want him. He was giving them as was deserved, serving justice to the injustice that was dealt to him. Indeed, he was only doing what was right and fair.
And today was a good day. After weeks of gathering money, and preparing, he had finally found some real clues to the beyonder ingredients of his Sequence 7 potion.
He was happy, he was excited, and he was content. For now. As he read the paper that Bernardo had bought in the beyonder gathering, Jameson was overjoyed.
It had been a good decision after all, to invest in a baboon who only knew to do what was told. He had been that way with the Red Skulls, he was that way with him. A simpleton and idiot with no brain, who only knew to thirst after women, money, and food. The only difference was that Jameson knew how to actually put such a person to use. As long as he fed him, he would do his work like a dog.
"Blaze"
Smiling to himself, Jameson, who was looking forward to a more eventful life, suddenly felt a chill down his spine as the single word resounded in his surroundings out of nowhere. His spiritual intuition went haywire, firing warnings at him to dodge, move, and get away.
Not delaying, he exerted his body's strength to duck and roll away from the spot he was standing at.
"Get away!"
He had shouted for his dog to move too, after all, he could always come of use in a battle situation where he needed to create a scapegoat to run away.
Unfortunately, unlike what he had hoped, his assistant was too slow, too stupid, and too brainless to heed such a simple command in time, and was now roaring in pain and suffering, as a bright, golden spear made of flames had hit him on the shoulder, burning away at his body and soul.
Before Jameson even had a chance to think of his next move, he watched as three projectiles flew at his assistant, who was trying to run away and extinguish the flames roaring on his body. His body fell the next instant, silent and still, as it kept on burning with no disturbance any more.
"Fu*k! Sh*t! What the fu*k!"
He cursed as he realised that he was in shit too deep to handle all by himself. To kill a man in one single blow, that too, a Sequence 9 Marauder who had experienced supernatural qualitative changes in his physique with a single blow had to be a force at Sequence 7 at least.
Fearing for his life, Jameson flared his spirituality, and used Superior Observation to find the location of any items with spirituality around him. That was when he saw, a man hiding in the shadows, as if he'd melted to become one with them. As if he was one of them, squirming in delight at his suffering and hungry at the chance to eat his existence.
Without any hesitance, he threw several knives that he carried at the man in the shadows. One after another, each at the target, yet somehow the man was able to dodge them all by a hair's breadth.
...
I, who had murdered four men in the span of nine days, was now trying to murder my fifth.
Although the act of ending lives brought me a sense of melancholy, it did nothing to change the sense of absolution I felt for myself as I put an end to one bad person after another. Men, that had no remorse for what they did, and no desire to change their ways.
As adrenaline rushed through my body, I saw the Swindler, Jameson Bacardi, run towards me.
Not giving him any chance to attack, I pulled out the revolver from my shoulder holster.
However, before I could shoot, my thoughts stopped for a moment and I forgot what I was about to do. It was only a moment, and only an instant, that I lost focus for, but it was enough for Jameson to run out of the building.
A Swindler's Mental Disruption!
And Thought Misdirection!
A natural-born Swindler can accomplish thought misdirection naturally, without even using any extraordinary ability, but in this case, Jameson had used Mental Disruption to distract me with a hallucination of him running towards me!
He had run away instead!
Not taking any risks, I quickly mixed with the shadows, and followed him out. I moved with all my power, as the distance between us gradually shortened.
Without giving him any chance, I threw one of the two remaining knives on my person at him. Somehow, he dodged to the side with a skid and kept running. I threw the last remaining needle on me, and it being less harmful and smaller, finally landed on his person, hitting him on the back of his right shoulder.
But that only slowed him down a bit as he plucked the needle off and kept running.
As the distance between us shortened, I who was running tried to aim at him.
Bang! Bang!
I used two bullets, both of them missing because the moment I fired shots, because Jameson had come to a stop, and had turned around, resulting in my predicted bullet trajectory overshooting.
Because of my momentum, it took me several steps to stop, resulting in me coming in a much closer range to Jameson than I'd have liked.
Suddenly, Jameson, who'd turned around, smiled cruelly at me, as he whirled his arm at me and spat out a word like it was a curse.
"Blaze!"
He'd used Theft to steal my charm when the distance between us was shortened...
An inexplicable sense of horror gripped my soul as I scrambled to get away, move away, and shift away from the spot I was standing against.
I tried to morph into the shadows, but the blazing light from the fiery spear that was heading towards me made it impossible.
As the thought of burning to death rose up in my mind, I used all of my spirituality to morph my body into an extension of my last knife, which I threw straight at Jameson for a Mighty Blow.
If you can't dodge away from them, dodge into them.
The knife that was targeting Jameson's feet flew at him at an incredible speed, and at its back was my body altered to be its extension for a mere moment.
As the knife passed from under the Blazing Spear, I felt an indescribable sense of burning pain fill my head, and proliferate throughout my entire body.
The Mighty Blow unravelled, and my body turned back into its original state. Although I had avoided the brunt of the spear, it still did a good amount of harm to my physical body, and my spirituality.
The knife that I had thrown had fallen at Jameson's feet. My body that was singed and overwhelmed with pain had fallen two metres before Jameson's feet.
My eyes were blurred and painful, as I watched the inverted image of Jameson pick up the knife at his feet, and start the motion of throwing it at me.
Feeling an inexplicable sense of dread, I channelled the last bit of my spirituality to clear my eyes and look at Jameson. I raised my right hand, pointing it at him. In my fingers and my fist was held a medium barrel revolver made of steel. It had a brown wooden grip, that was comfortable to hold.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
I fired the three remaining bullets in the cylinder, as I saw the look of horror that had covered Jameson's face at the last moment. His blonde hair was tattered and dirty, his green eyes were wide like saucers, and on his forehead, his cheek, and his neck, were a single bullet hole each.
He, who was mentally fast enough to make the decision to move away when seeing the gun in my hand, was not physically fast enough to actually move, after having been hit by my one needle. He, who had been in a state of retreat, did not have enough time to disrupt my instinctive thoughts to shoot at him.
Clink!
The knife fell from his raised hand... followed by his body.
Thud!
As the adrenaline and spirituality drained from my body, I felt my eyes closing and my consciousness fading.
I, who was still not out of danger, tried to stand up, and get away from the location. I tried to get back up on my feet, but stumbled the next instant, as weakness and injuries took over me.
As I looked at the fading stars in the sky, gentle footsteps gradually entered my ears.
"You did well. Now rest."
A sonorous chuckle resounded, as a familiar, soft voice filled my world.
As I forced my eyes to open, I found my sight graced by the face of an angel. An angel wearing beige pants, black tall boots, a grey linen shirt, and a dark blue coat that covered it all. The top of her head was adorned with a pirate hat, covering her fiery orange hair, as her warm red eyes looked down at me with a soft smile.
In my spiritual perception, I felt something rumble and dissolve, dissipating and truly becoming a part of me. I had completely digested the Assassin potion.
Finally, relieved and safe, my eyes closed and my vision darkened as I lost consciousness, no longer able to hold on.