Shade was supposed to be dead.
Running through the early morning streets still wet from rain, his lungs burned and his leg hurt as he fled from his pursuers.
The decision had been made by his bosses without his knowing. He had completed the hit perfectly, kidnapped the president of Venezuela, having the country wake up leaderless.
He knew too much and had done too much over the years. An assassin with a perfect record was not an asset. They were evidence that needed to be buried.
20 minutes age he was standing under the rain, meeting his handler at the rendezvous point, he stood tall, 6ft of lean muscle forged from necessity. Wearing his black assassin's outfit and a plain mask, he donned the attire with the infamous duffel bag he carried around.
His body was aching from the old wounds that hadn't healed, plus the ones acquired on the mission.
This was supposed to be the final job to buy out of the Underworld that had chained him all his life.
He had taken on the most dangerous missions, with a 0% chance of survival, in order to be free. This resulted in him acquiring grievous wounds that had piled up over time. He wondered how he was still standing in contrast to his exhausted state.
Waiting patiently, he nursed the shoulder he had fallen onto while escaping. Five minutes later, the handler Harold arrived in the most common locking sedan. Coming to a stop beside him, Harold wound down the window and stared at him.
Harold burst out laughing, "Well, it's true what they said about you being a roach, can't fucking die. You outdid yourself this time. Extraction wasn't something I thought you could pull off."
Shade kept quiet as he stared blankly at Harold. Harold cleared his throat, "Either way, your wish has been granted. This is your last ever mission."
Shade could barely contain his excitement as Harold kept talking, he had finally gotten free from the Underworld.
Harold handed him a fat brown envelope and continued, "This contains your new identity, passport, the location of the fishing boat taking you to Asia leaving tonight at the east side of the docks. If you miss it, it's not my problem, and it's definitely not theirs.
There's cash, and it came out of your pay, we aren't running a charity here. The second half will be dropped automatically into your account by 12 midnight. After tonight, we don't know you, you don't know us, comprendé?"
"You can also get some surgery going, fix whatever you have going on under there. Hell, maybe a new leg, this one looks like it wants to fall apart."
Shade looked down at his left prosthetic leg; he had lost it in an explosion by stepping on a mine. But that wasn't a problem, now he could replace his leg.
Shade, in the midst of this excitement, realized something was off. Harold was monologuing. Harold talked, but not this much. He reached into the envelope and opened it, only to see that it was filled with blank paper.
Hearing an all-too-familiar click, he looked up to see Harold pointing a gun at him. "Sorry kid, it's just business. You know too much."
Before he could process what was happening, he instinctively dodged and shifted Harold's hand, leading to himself getting shot in the side. Pain shot up his body like a knife as he felt himself bleeding.
Acting quickly, he broke Harold's hand, reached into his belt, dropped a grenade into the car, and started running. He heard Harold panicking, trying to unbuckle himself and escape.
Harold began screaming, "SHOOT THAT BASTARD, KILL HIM!"
Gunfire roared as he was shot at, familiar faces suddenly hostile, allies turning into shadows with rifles. The car erupted with a bang into a ball of flames, while he kept running as another bullet tore through his arm.
Shade ran anyway, blood-soaked clothes sticking to him as he kept his breathing steady. His expression bored.
"Well, that was disappointing," he muttered, voice calm, almost amused, "Even after the gang-bang jumping, they couldn't kill me. Skill issue."
Muttering to himself in the most disappointed tone, he cut through alleyways, vaulted fences, without breaking stride. Checking his current location, he selected his destination, Olympus Academy.
The most prestigious school in the country, taking over a hectare of land. It was a school for the créme de la créme, you could only get in through a massive donation and connections. Shade always wanted to attend it. The best part was it was currently empty, exams were over, summer holidays.
This was the perfect place to lose his pursuers. There were buildings for each subject, large and white, surrounded by the most prim and trimmed lawns with flowers. It looked like a city in a utopia.
Shade stopped admiring the scenery and headed for the lab building. He had done enough research during his free time on the school that he knew it like the back of his hand.
The only people he would run into were bored security guards, janitors, and a few students for any other reason. Shade slipped through, dodging cameras as he entered the lab building and moved upward, choosing height and distance over speed.
His pursuers would not expect him to hide in a school. Even if they did, there were a thousand ways he could escape.
On the fourth floor, he ducked into an empty chemistry lab and locked the door.
Rummaging through cabinets, he brought out hydrogen peroxide, spirits, acids, and smelling salts as he lit a Bunsen burner. He sat, back against the wall, and patched the wound in his side while smiling at the memory of Harold's terrified face. He reached into his duffel, bringing out his first aid kit. He reached in with tweezers and pulled out the bullet.
Then he heated a conductor rod in the lab before putting it into his wound. He gritted his teeth in pain as the wound sizzled and cauterized. He then poured and wiped around the wound with spirit before pouring hydrogen peroxide. He had been injured worse.
He had a total of seven fingers, four on his left and three on his right. Left pinkie cut off during torture when he was caught during a mission, his middle and ring finger gone from catching a shotgun.
Shade sighed and reached for his duffel, started changing his clothes. Scars littered his body, ranging from 3rd-degree burns to cuts, stabs, gunshot wounds, and healed gashes. Taking off his mask, he felt his face, where most of his left side was missing, a result of an explosion to the face. Burnt off half of his skin, his ear, and barely taking his eye.
The explosion was as greedy as Mr Krabbs and took part of his throat. Side effects made him sound like Frankenstein after giving more head than Bonnie Blue, and he could only eat liquid food.
A grotesque sight to see, Shade muttered to himself, "I should get a coin." He switched to a plain black hoodie and joggers as he stared at his missing family jewels, taken as a punishment for trying to run away when he was younger.
Good thing he had prepared for the fact he could be betrayed. A man who sleeps with a machete is a fool on all nights but one.
Trashing all evidence of his arrival down the waste chute, putting the acids and smelling salts into his bag, he prepared to leave, only to retreat as he opened the door and heard unfamiliar voices heading his way.