"This… might not work quite as well as I thought it would," Thunder admitted, shooting him a weak grin up from the floor.

Asher stared down at Draken's head of internal security, who was currently stuck about halfway under Crush's bed. After they'd agreed to let her tag along and she called in a handful of trusted elites to take her place and guard Draken while he slept, the three of them had quietly retreated back to Crush's house to wait for an attempt on his life. Crush had gone separately, whereas Asher and Thunder had raced ahead in preparation. That way if anyone was tailing Crush all the way back from Draken's place, they wouldn't see the two of them getting into position.

At first, Asher had welcomed Thunder's presence, happy to have another capable fighter on their side to help protect Crush whenever the senior assassin actually showed up.

But then came the issue of hiding.

"I told you under the bed was a stupid idea!" Asher hissed at the struggling elite, very conscious of the fact that Crush should be arriving home any second. He'd grabbed a handful of other gang members to walk with, in the hopes that the assassin would wait until he was home and finally alone before attacking. "Come on, surely you can do better than that!"

"Hey, if you've got a better idea, I'm all ears," Thunder snapped as she struggled to free herself from under the bed.

Once they'd slipped into Crush's place, which was as difficult as Asher walking through the front door and unlocking it for Thunder, she'd come to the same conclusion he had that they should probably hide in case the assassin had some way of looking inside the house before committing to their attack. Thanks to having evolved Astral Dip, so long as he remained motionless, Asher could stand within the astral for almost fifteen minutes at a time, which meant his hiding was taken care of. No, it was the broad, electric mace-wielding elite that was proving to be the problem.

"Just get in his closet or something," Asher suggested, gesturing to the small nook filled with clothes made for a man Crush's size. "You'll fit in there!"

"I wouldn't want anyone going into my closet," Thunder huffed, finally giving up and simply teleporting herself out from under the bed with a small arc of lightning that left an afterimage in Asher's eyes.

"What, you'd be cool with someone going under your bed, though?" Asher asked, rubbing his eyes furiously. "And warn me before you do that! God, that's bright!"

"I don't keep personal stuff under the bed," Thunder said, frowning at him as she hefted her mace. "Do we really need to hide in the first place?"

"Are you serious?! Hiding was your-"

The sound of Crush opening his front door and entering his house cut them off. Asher expected him to ask them what the hell they were doing, but the large man was all business.

"Someone's following me," he nodded, tapping the bracelet Asher had lent him. "Get ready. I don't know how long we have, but I bet they'll attack sooner than later now that I'm alone."

Sure enough, almost immediately after Crush finished speaking, Asher felt his own Awareness activate, informing him that somebody was carefully observing the building he was in. He even knew their approximate location, which meant he was well aware of the fact that they were slowly getting closer.

"Forget what I said, hide!" he snapped at Thunder, who for her part, finally dove headfirst into Crush's closet without any further complaint. "Make sure you're ready to activate your defensive skills," he reminded Crush, before taking a deep breath and slipping into the astral.

Asher stood there in the center of Crush's small apartment, watching the man nod before slowly going about what Asher could only assume was his nightly routine. The world was pale and washed out, and any sound Crush made echoed and warbled through the astral, but Asher had a perfect, front seat view of everything happening within Crush's house.

Which meant he was the first person to witness the puddle of black liquid seeping in through one of the windows barely a few minutes later while Crush was in the bathroom.

Curious, Asher watched the liquid silently drip down the wall, leaving a dark stain as it pooled on the floor. The skill reminded him of Kree's weird ability that allowed him to transform his body into a living shadow, except it was clear that whatever skill this was, whoever was controlling it was definitely in a liquid form of some kind.

Without so much as a single sound, the liquid bubbled up into a pair of feet, before rising up and slowly constructing an entire body from the ground up. Within seconds, a man in tight black clothing and wearing two bandoliers filled with what looked like potions in an x across his body stood there.

[Assassin] - 2/3 Elements

Jackpot, Asher grinned, pleased that the man had shown up so soon. Crush had been holed up within Draken's manor ever since Asher had informed the gang leader of the Guild's plan, so he could only assume the assassin didn't want to waste this chance.

Hell, there was every chance Eight had asked both Leonard and this man to take Crush out to make it some sort of race, in which case this mysterious new assassin would have been stalking Crush for even longer than they'd thought.

Asher was tempted to slip out of the astral and stab the man before he even knew what hit him, but he controlled himself. As much as his heart was racing, pumping adrenaline and excitement throughout his entire system at the thought of another fight, he had to rein himself in.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

They didn't need another dead assassin. They needed answers.

Evidently, Thunder didn't quite get the memo.

In a crackling flash of light, Thunder was suddenly standing directly behind the silent intruder. Without so much as a single word or taunt, she smashed him across the back of the head with an electrified mace.

Asher stared with his mouth gaping as the man's head functionally exploded, sending black liquid splattering across half of Crush's bedroom as what remained of his body crumpled to the ground.

"Well that was easy," Thunder laughed, hefting her mace over her shoulder and grinning at Asher as he reappeared. "Sorry, didn't want you to have all the fun!"

"Get down!" he shouted, leaping forward and knocking her to the ground before some sort of spike or attack could come flying out of the splattered ink.

There wasn't any glowing sphere of shards hovering over the man's headless body, which meant the fight was far from over.

He hadn't moved a second too soon. In that same moment he pushed Thunder out of the way, a glob of the black liquid fell from where it had been splattered across the ceiling, landing on Asher's head instead of Thunder's.

And immediately covering his mouth and nose as it began to flow into his lungs and suffocate him.

Some distant part of him knew the simplest solution would just be to slip into the astral and escape, but the human body had a powerful, deeply rooted instinctual reaction to suffocation that was not an easy one to overcome.

Asher flailed as he tried to claw at his face and physically pull the goop off of him, but the more he struggled, the further down his throat it climbed. Finally, after quite possibly the most terrifying two seconds of his life, he managed to activate Comprehend's second tier ability almost more by reflex than anything.

As the world slowed down to a crawl and he dissociated from his own pounding heart as it stilled to a stop, Asher mentally sighed as he took stock of his current situation.

That's one hell of an assassination method, he thought, wondering if such a method would work with any form of liquid. There were quite a number of different liquid-based elements, including a Tea element that he was quite curious about, so there were plenty of potential options.

However, Asher had received more than a small taste as the man tried to pour himself down his throat, and he recognized the liquid almost immediately.

An Ink element, he thought, as the last of his seconds were spent and he prepared himself to be thrust back into his hormone and panic-filled body. Alright, here we go.

The world snapped back to normal speed, and Asher slipped into the astral before his panic could overtake him again. Taking a deep, shuddering breath free of ink, he glanced down at the puddle of ink that had fallen out of his lungs and splattered against the floor. He had a feeling that if he tried slipping into the astral with a lungful of water, the water would come with him, but because the ink was technically another person, they were separated without issue.

At this point, the man's headless 'corpse' had melted down into ink as well and rejoined the bit that had tried to kill him, forming one large puddle on the ground.

Asher returned to the material realm as quickly as he could and tried to shove a dagger through compressed space at the ink puddle, but the liquid easily flowed around his blade, dodging his attack effortlessly. Scowling, Asher tried to stab it a few more times, each stab doing little more than marring up Crush's wooden floor and ensuring the elite would never get his security deposit back if he got out of this alive.

How the hell do you hurt a puddle of ink?

Realizing he could at least make sure the assassin didn't get away, Asher threw up a Spatial Lock the size of Crush's bedroom, trapping the assassin inside with them. At the same time, Thunder roared and teleported behind the ink puddle before slamming her electrified mace down into it.

The ink dodged her mace just as easily as it had his daggers, but a few arcs of electricity jumped off the weapon and hit the puddle. Asher grinned, expecting the puddle to violently shake and spasm before reforming into a man, only to have his hopes dashed as the puddle seemed to shake off the attack with little effort.

"Oh, come on! I think he has an electricity resistance!" Asher complained as he wracked his brain for an idea. Now that they knew electricity was out, he didn't have the faintest idea how to fight a living puddle of liquid. Presumably the assassin would have to drop his weird, Ink Body skill sooner or later. But until then, there was little they could do.

The same couldn't be said for the assassin, however. Even if Asher could escape his attempts at suffocation, Thunder was still a viable option. The assassin must have come to the same conclusion, as it immediately exploded toward Thunder, flowing up her body and trying to pour into her mouth.

Asher watched in horror as the elite began suffocating, expecting to see the same panic in her eyes that he'd felt as the liquid invaded his mouth.

Which meant he was rather surprised when rather than freak out, Thunder only grinned. She made a gurgling noise that sounded a lot like, 'gotcha,' before a scream erupted from her throat so powerful it actually knocked Asher backwards a few steps and made him bang his head painfully into the wall behind him.

Rubbing his aching head, Asher felt warmth trickling down his ears as the battle ended and everything went silent. A quick touch revealed that he was bleeding from both ears, and Asher looked at Thunder in awe as the elite stood over the unconscious body of their would-be killer.

Whatever sonic attack she had just unleashed had been powerful enough to blow out his eardrums and physically push him backwards.

What would it have done to the assassin quite literally crawling down her throat?

"I hope you didn't kill him!" Asher said, walking up to look at the man. Or at least, he thought that's what he said. He couldn't actually hear his own voice at the moment.

"He's fine," he saw Thunder mouth, nudging the man with a foot before reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small vial, motioning for Asher to drip it into his ears.

Asher complied with a shrug, and let out a sigh of relief as his eardrums were repaired instantly and he could hear once more.

"Thanks for that," he said, handing her back the vial. "What was that, the Sound element?"

"Yep. My parents were both wandering bards, and I almost went into the family business. I had one hell of a loud childhood," Thunder grinned, putting her vial away and hefting her mace as she turned to their captive once more.

"So… How do we tie up a man made of ink?"

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