Lady Fortune’s Demise
In a war, everyone has a role to play, and I am no exception. My work is something that is looked down by many people since they don’t approve of what I do, calling me a cold-hearted bastard who doesn‘t value the life of another. To be perfectly honest though, I could care less about what they think, this is what I do. I’m a professional assassin and my role is to ensure that the people who are considered a threat are properly dealt with swiftly. I can’t say I fully enjoy taking the life of another man, but when you’re in the middle of a war and have orders, you don’t have much choice in the saying.
I used to be a freelance gun for hire until that one fateful night when I had finished my latest kill. I walked into my house with my mom making supper and my father polishing his medals, and in the middle of the room, I can see my little sister, about ten years old reading a book. “Yay! Big Brother is home!” She said as she rushed over and hugged me. I got on my knee to hug her back, “So brother, did you kill any bad people?” “Of course I did, I have to keep the world save you know.” She giggled as she skipped back to get dad as I walked over to the table and placed my rifle off to the side. “You shouldn’t be out this late young man,” my mom said as she poured a warm bowl of chicken soup. “I know, but with this war going on, there are too many jobs and so much money going around,. Now that dad is retired from the assassin business, I have to continue the family job.” “I wish you wouldn’t say that. You know he only did it to ensure that you and your sister wouldn’t have to grow up to be assassins like him.” As she continued her speech, I looked over to see all of my father’s medals and newspaper clippings. My father was an amazing assassin back in the day; he could be able to take out a 25-man platoon with a magnum and a hunting knife without being shot at once. It was too bad that age had caught up with him and that he had to retire, but he did make sure that my little sister and I could be able to grow up and get a good education or at least my little sister anyway. I wanted to be like my old man and contribute to the war anyway I could, I may not be as good as him, but I’m still one of the best marksman today.
As we sat down and said our prayers, we suddenly begin to hear a loud rumbling sound. We begin to wonder if the army was just passing by, but suddenly the rumbling sound got louder and louder until it came to a dead silence. Father knew something was wrong, he quickly grabbed my little sister and yelled, “Get away from the walls!” Almost the moment he said that, a big explosion ripped a hole into the wall, throwing the table off into the den area and most of us flying into different directions. As the smoke begun to clear, I could see that our dining room was torn apart and I looked around to see if I could find anyone. I saw that my little sister was knocked out cold from the blast, but she was still breathing and dad was alright, but mom sadly got caught in the blast. “Damn it, were you followed?” Dad asked while carrying my sister. “Of course not, I took the route you told me to take. There would be no way they could had followed me all the way back here without passing the army outpost first.” As we try to make sense as to what happened, a loud sound begun to erupt from the direction where the shot was taken. “We know you are still alive. Come out quietly, you are under arrest!” I had begun to panic as I tried to make sense of the situation. Suddenly, dad takes out a rifle from his case and throws me a handgun. “We need to hold them off until help can arrive.” “Right…” I whispered in my head as we closed off the other doors to the house. After 15 minutes past, we watched the enemy troops slowly gather together and marched towards the house, it was obvious that no one was coming to save us. We could also see that the blast had started a fire and we weren’t going to be able to stay in the house for long. Suddenly, Dad puts my sister in my arms. “I don’t know if we are going to make it. Take your sister and run to the outpost, you’ll be safe there.” “Dad, you can’t be serious! You want me to leave you here to die!?” “This is no time to put up an argument. I know I don’t have much time, but you and your sister still have your lifes to live. At least get your sister to safety.” I stared at my dad, and I could tell he was ready to die to protect us. “Alright… Good bye, Dad.” He kissed my sister on the head as he runs towards the hole in the wall. As he was getting ready to start his last stand, a female assassin with orange hair dashed in, and kicked the gun out his hand. My dad stood there in disbelief as the orange haired assassin said a few words and shot him in the head. The next image was something I could never get out of my mind; she turned her head towards me, looking at me with a cold stare with her green eyes. She knew that I couldn’t defend myself since I was carrying my sister in my arms; I thought that we were going to die right then and there. However, but all she does is put her gun away and just smile as she walks away as away. As I stared in dumbfounded, I saw that the roof collapsed in, and our house with all our possessions was destroyed. I didn’t have time to grief, since I knew that once the dust settled, they would come after me and my sister; I begin to run through the alleyways, and avoid the main streets as I made my way to the outpost.
After running nonstop for 30 minutes, I finally arrived at the outpost. I collapsed at the gate, with my sister landing on top of me, still out cold. When I came to a few days later, I saw that I was in the medical wing, laying down being treated for exhaustion. As I was recollecting my thoughts, I suddenly realized that my sister was nowhere to be seen. I quickly jumped out of the bed, panicking and screaming, “Where’s my sister?! Where is she!?” It took three doctors to hold me down before a nurse walked into the room. She had told me that my sister had suffered from a hit to the head when the wall was blasted. I ran to her room to see her there, laying on the bed in a coma. I was thankful that she didn’t die, but for her to be in this state, it was terrible. I started to slam on the table next to her screaming, “God Damn It! Why did this have to happen?! It should have been me!” The nurse walked over and gave me a hug as I cried my sorrows. In one night, everything was taken from me; my home, my family, and almost my sister. After that day, I fell into a deep mental state where I couldn’t do anything except stare blindly, eat and sleep. I didn’t say a single word or even more out of the room they put me in. It wasn’t until a few weeks later after the attack, that I had a visitor, a man who was good friends with my father. “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to come sooner. How are you feeling?” He put his arm around me, but I had no response. “I see you are still affected by everything that happened, I don’t blame you. At the time your family was attacked, we were defending a different part of the city, and by the time we found out of the attack, we discovered that they had already left and you had collapsed by the gate. I heard about your sister’s condition for the doctors; they said that if she didn’t arrive at the time she did, she probably would have died. She is very lucky to have an older brother like you.” Still I just sat there with no change in my expression. “We what we found out from the reports, this was an organized attack. They knew where you were living for some time now and they were waiting for the right time to attack. The reports also showed that the attack lead by one general. A lady with long orange hair and green eyes.” The moment he said the color of her eyes, my heart skipped a beat as color I muttered those two words, “Green… Eyes…” “Indeed. No one knew her name, but she was known simply as Lady Fortune. It is a miracle how you were able to go up against her and live. Most people who fight her would be dead by now.” As he continued explaining the situation, I continued to say those two words, green eyes over and over again as he leaned over and whispered in my ears, “What if I told you that I can help you get your revenge?” Suddenly, my mindless muttering stopped as I turned my head slowly and looked at him in the eyes, “Revenge?” “Yes, you see, I need men like you to help me win this war. If you serve under me, I promise you that we will bring Lady Fortune to justice. It may not be anytime soon, but I promise you that we will get her. I don’t want to force this on you, but please consider it. After all, it would be a shame if you were discharged from the hospital when your sister hasn’t fully recovered. So think it out for the next few days and call me.” With that, he walked out of my room and closed the door. This was the first time in the last few weeks that I have been able to have clear thoughts about something. Soon two doctors and the nurse came in, thrilled to know that I have moved and spoke and believed that I was finally recovering from the trauma that I had received. It only took me two days for me to walk into his office and to agree to work under him as one of his soldiers. From that day forward, I had a new goal in life; I would take my revenge on her and when I did, I will show her no mercy, as she did with my family.
The war had proceeded for another five years and I decided to join a special task force whose specializes in assassinations. I had killed countless men during those five years, and at no time did I have any remorse. Each day, I would go to the hospital where my sister was placed at, watching her, sitting next to her, and waiting to see if she would wake up, but to no avail. All that I waited for was that one mission, to get even with the bitch that had almost killed my family. Just as I was beginning to lose hope again, I finally got my wish. I walked into the briefing room; I can see a few other men from my platoon who had already taken their seats. I could tell by their faces that they were getting excited; they knew that this next mission was going to be their best one yet. After everyone sat down, our commanding officer walked into the room, holding a rolled up poster in his hand. “Good Afternoon Gentlemen. As you know, this war has gone on for too long and both sides have suffered many losses because of it. However we just received intelligence from our spies that could help bring the war to a quicker end.” He unrolled the poster and posted it onto the wall to reveal a young girl who looked like she was in her mid 20s. She had long orange hair with a skinny body figure and green eyes. There were one or two whistles from the table as my eyes widened in anger and I clinched my fist. “This is the enemy’s 2nd in Command General Strategist. No one knows her true name, but she is simply known as ‘Lady Fortune’ for her commanding victories on the battlefield are considered to have been won by luck, even though the victories have been situations that could never be explained. For too long she has been the one person who has blocked our every move from taking over the enemy’s capital city and she is considered to be more valuable than the leader himself and needs to be taken out.”
As soon as he said that, the room came to a dead silence with many men in disbelief. This young beautiful lady was considered to be the biggest threat against them? A lot of the men found it very hard to believe this and a few of them were in protest about killing a young girl just because of a few successful campaigns. The commanding officer slammed the back wall with his fist to regain the attention of the men. “I know that it is hard to believe, but the facts do not lie about this girl. Like it or not, she is the biggest threat against us and needs to be taken care of. She is going to attend an opera in a neighboring town tonight and she has her army waiting in a different location. We will circle the Opera House and have a sniper on standby. Your mission is to locate Lady Fortune and eliminate her. The operation begins in six hours. Good Luck Gentlemen.”
The sun begins to set, the troops begun to quietly move into the city by foot and into position surrounding the Old Opera House while I took my position from a hotel room on the 10th floor across the way from the building. I take out my sniper rifle from a briefcase and start putting it together with a silencer attachment to it to make the gun blast less noisy. After my sniper rifle was set, I loaded a round in the chamber and turned the lights off in the room as I begin to wait for her to come out. As it starts to get later into the night, the troops around the opera house continue to watch all the exits as the opera begins to come to its close. After hours of waiting, people begin to leave the Opera House; very excited from the performance they had witnessed on stage. After the last of spectators left the Old Opera House, there was still no sign of Lady Fortune anywhere. Could it be that she knows of the many men outside the building ready to attack? Did she exit out of some secret passageway? Is she even inside the building at all? As I begin to question what exactly happened to her, a group of men walk out of the Opera house, forming two lines from the door, and then she finally walks out. I see that she almost looks the exact same as the picture on the poster, she was wearing an elegant white dress with earrings a diamond bracelet, the works. It was hard to believe that it is this one person who has caused the most problems for us, she doesn’t even look like the general type at all from what I can see. Still though, orders were orders, and I wasn’t going to give it a second thought as I begin to line up my shot. She continues to walk to her escort car with her guards walking right next to her; it was almost as though she was completely unaware that she was able to be killed, but looked at peace with no emotions coming from her. As I get ready to shoot, she begins to walk more slowly as she suddenly turns her head and stares directly right at me. The words ‘What the hell?!’ flashed through my head in that one moment as I pull the trigger, firing a round. Almost in that same moment, Lady Fortune suddenly stops and trips one of her guards right in front of her to take the shot.
As the bullet hits the man, the other guards begin to circle around her to form a shield to prevent anymore shots to be fired at her, but she continues to keep staring at me with her piercing green eyes. I didn’t know what just happened, did she save her life by mistake or was she actually aware that I was about to shoot her and managed to trip the guy at just the right time? As I took a few moments to think of that, I hear one word from my radio, attack. Soon the streets were flooded by our troops as they open fire on Lady Fortune. While the gun fight was happening on the ground, I begin to reload the sniper rifle as a troop member bursts into the room. “Sir! We have just received reports that the enemy is coming our way!” I stare at him in disbelief, as I accidentally dropped the round to the floor. “The enemy is coming?!” I said, “Didn’t the reports state that they were no where nearby the area?” The man started to panic almost as though he thought I was going to kill him for what he just said, “That’s what we thought, but we intercepted a radio transmission from Lady Fortune calling for backup and that they are heading this wa-.” Suddenly a sniper shoot goes off from the old opera house as it manages to fly right past my head and hit the man in the room next to me. I jumped out of the room to avoid getting fired at more and proceeded to run down the stairs of the emergency escape. As I continue running down, I hear one announcement from the radio from a feminine voice, “The sniper has fled from the 10th story room and is escaping through the emergency exit, cut him off.” I stop in my tracks as I heard that, it was Lady Fortune who was making that announcement. “How did she know where I was specifically if she was just outside a second ago?” I thought to myself, “She maybe is a Masterful Strategist, but that still doesn’t explain how she was able to know where I was at from the distance between us, let alone the specific room I was in.” I wasn’t going to question it anymore as I continued to run down the stairs and out the exit to join the others in combat. As I got to the opera house, I saw that there were dead bodies of a few of my friends and a the guards of Lady Fortune. I took one of the handguns from the ground and lead the attack inside the Old Opera House with the few remaining men who were left.
Inside the Old Opera House, it had an interior that mimics a 15th century theater with giant stone pillars, beautiful paintings and giant elegant crimson red drapes that hang on the walls. We proceeded slowly in the halls since there could still be guards in the opera house still protecting her. As we walked into a small reception room, Lady Fortune walks out with both hands behind her back, almost as though she was concealing something behind. “Just so you know boys, I have seen your future and I know that from some of you, this will be your grave.” As she leans back against a pillar, one man in the group begins to hesitate a bit as he holds out his gun and points it at her. He suddenly pulls the trigger and she suddenly jumps out of the way, leaving a stick of TNT on the wall. Before any of us had figured out what happened, the bullet came into contact with the TNT and caused an explosion that took out the lower part of the pillar. Without the support of the pillar, the roof begins to crash down around us in an unstable fashion. Each of us were trying desperately to avoid getting hit by the pieces of the roof, but one by one someone got hit and was killed from the falling debris. As we got out of the way of the falling roof, I noticed that there were about three guys left while the others actually met the demise that was predicted by Lady Fortune. The few remaining men near me started to panic because of what just transpired and I was also starting to get shaken up from this since this was the 2nd time she had outsmart us. The chances of that bullet hitting that explosive in just the right place was almost next to impossible, I was beginning to think that this had nothing to do with luck.
As we begin to near the upper levels of the opera house, every man wasn’t sure if they were going to make it. I could see in their eyes that they were terrified, almost as if they had seen a ghost and I wasn‘t doing too well either from the experiences I had ran into myself with her and how she had been manipulating the things around her to her advantage. We got to the top of the catwalk platforms as we begin to look around to see if she had fled to. I didn’t want to lose anymore men, so I went out first as the other three followed closely behind. I overheard a small clank on the platform and ran towards the sound thinking that she was there. As I slowly move around another pillar, she fires a round at me trying to throw me off the catwalk. I quickly get behind the pillar again as I signal the others to move in slowly. “You should just give up while you still have the chance, it is just you and me after all.” She mockingly announces as though she had already won the fight. Little did she know that I still had three more guys behind me, ready to take her out at any moment. At the moment I thought of that, I hear a loud crashing sound followed by screams. I looked over the side and saw that part of the catwalk had fallen off and the last three guys that were with me had fallen to their doom. Now I was alone, stuck with this witch who has manipulated everything around her ever since the operation started.
“It seems that we have reach our Great Finale” she announces to me. “I’m sorry that it has to end this way, but there is one last prediction I see.” I started to breathe heavily as I try to make sense of what she is talking about. Did she set up one more explosive under me? Is she going to shoot me in the head? Is that army she was talking about earlier going to start firing upwards? Too many questions popped into my head at that moment, I started to go insane and made one final attempt to take her out. As she reaches behind for something her, I jumped out from behind the pillar fired two shots. The first shot hit her on the side of her chest as the other hit her right hand, causing her to drop her gun. This was the moment I was waiting for, I ran in and in one fell swoop, kicked the gun off the catwalk.
She stares at me directly as I continue to point the gun at her. She wraps her right hand around her dress to slow the bleeding. “It seems my last prediction came true after all.” She jokingly says. “Your last prediction?” I said in concern. “Yes, my last prediction was, my death” She begins to laugh a bit as she begins to cough up blood a bit. “Your death? If you knew that you were going to die tonight, then why did you come?” She slowly got up as she started to walk towards me. As she gets next to me, she collapses in my arms and whispers her final words, “To put the war… to the end...” then by using the last of her strength, she suddenly grabs me as she throws the both of us off the catwalk. As both of us fall to our doom, I grab on to one of the giant drapes to slow my fall while I watch as Lady Fortune falls to her death. As I fall to the stage as well, there was only one memory that was going through my mind, and was not being able to tell my sister that I loved her. My final memories from that night as I begun to blackout was seeing shadowy figure hover over me, their words blurred as I passed out.
That night, it was announced in the news that Lady Fortune had been killed by a drop of militia at the opera house. A few months after her death, the tide of battle tipped in our favor without their strategist that was able to predict the future, they would soon fall. The event that happened that night had left me forever changed too. A few days later after that night, I woke up in a hospital and found out that I couldn‘t move my legs. I was told that the fall broke my legs and I won’t be able to walk for a few months and that I was discharged from my unit with honors since I was probably going to be out of commission for the remaining portion of the war. I was happy to hear that I was able to finish the job, even though now I’m not going to be able to move for a while. I was just told to relax and to rest for now due to the previous events that happened. As I begun to fall back asleep, I see a hand reach over to hold my hand. I saw my little sister, with her beautiful green eyes.
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