...into the Abyss, then...

Rhett let his lip curl in disgust as Murdock finally stopped clenching his teeth together, and a wide smile stretched his unattractive features. It was a distinctly unpleasant smile, openly cruel and vindictive.

He ran a hand through his dyed hair, absently questioning again why he ever thought blonde was a good choice. It wasn’t that he cared about the cruelty, he couldn’t give the slightest fuck about that. It was how obviously it was displayed. Every little thing showed on his pudgy face, and if that didn’t give him away, the body language would. Not even an ounce of tact or discretion to be found in the man.

Rhett scoffed lightly at that thought. Of course there wasn’t. Why the fuck would he have to have handlers if he had any self-preservation instincts? For all his bitching, Rhett could admit that the man was an asset to their operation. Skillsets like his were certainly rare enough.

He couldn’t remember the briefing exactly, but the specific way the man did his mind fuckery was extra useful? Something about subconscious cooperation? Whatever it was, it apparently wasn’t rare enough to make him act with any caution.

He still hadn’t moved, even though the kid’s features had gone slack. A slight grimace crossed Rhett’s face. For all of his bullshit to frighten the kid, he had to admit that he found this distasteful.

The fear tactics were precisely that. Tactics. According to his info pack, frightening the target opened their mind and made it easier for Murdock Fuckface to get things done. He cast his eyes over the kid for a moment, allowing himself the small weakness.

A messily kept head of light brown hair, monumentally average features, and none of the usual hallmarks that Rhett looked for in a target, the signs that they knew how to handle themselves. The only hint of anything dangerous was the aura readings, but the complete lack of any shielding might as well have been a neon sign declaring either ineptitude or innocence.

In fact, with his expression slack and his eyes closed, he was… uncomfortably young-looking. His skin was an unhealthy shade of pale, like Rhett usually only saw when they stopped at the factories. The gangly limbs without any real muscle on them, not even the bare minimum for the average teenager, showed a frame that was shockingly fragile for the information they had provided about him.

Doubt crept into the merc’s thoughts. According to the briefing based on shitty footage, the target was able to break their factory chair restraints, **** one guy barehanded by crushing his face in, then get stabbed and use the knife from his gut to kill the second. Not to mention the rescue operation got the PKs involved as well as the Order.

Rhett had been able to taste the fear in the building when it got around that Eion had gotten involved. Almost two fucking decades of quiet, dancing the line with the PKs to keep them steady, only for the big guy to personally take down a shithouse factory. And what for? This kid? It was difficult to believe.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t being paid to make that call.

“Are we fucking done?” he snapped at the idiot he was stuck managing, his tolerance eroded.

Rhett had been doing this job for a long while now, and learned his lessons the hard way too many times to ignore the strange uncertainty building. He’d missed something, or made a mistake. There was a threat he hadn’t accounted for. Some flaw in the plan. He could feel it in his gut.

The only problem was that he didn’t know exactly what was causing that feeling.

He skimmed the plan in his head. It had all gone exactly right. Leave the office as a dummy location to draw the heat, and jump here at first contact. Let the low grade muscle distract the Order forces whilst the assets team gathered at the pagoda. If the target was at the office, grab him and jump, otherwise let the harpy guy bring him to the command point. Turn on the shield, locking everything from passing through, and buy Murdock time to do his thing.

Everything went to plan. So, why did he want to drop a smokescreen for cover and run like hell?

Ignorant to Rhett’s internal monologue, Murdock stood upright and looked over at him, the smile dropping into a nasty little smirk instead. “I believe so. Wiped the slate, so give it a moment and we should have ourselves a pet-”

His words suddenly cut off as a hand clamped around his throat and choked anything else he was going to say.

Rhett stared, with the same stunned shock Murdock showed, at the gangly teenager on the ground. He’d moved to one knee, and his arm was outstretched to where he was holding his throat.

Something was really fucking wrong.

This wasn’t the same kid. He had the face, and the hair, and even the body. But the movement was suddenly wrong. There was none of the clumsy uncertainty, like a puppy yet to grow into his paws. This person moved with the absolute certainty in their body, as if it was a weapon itself, that Rhett had only seen in professionals and elites with decades of experience under their belt. The unhealthy skinniness had vanished, the empty space now subtly rippling with corded muscle hidden beneath the surface of skin.

The kid’s head rose, eyes burning into Murdock, and it cemented it in Rhett’s mind. He had missed something. Something very, very fucking important. Something unexpected, rare even, and so incongruous with the previous image of the kid that he never would have realised it.

Those eyes weren’t the chocolatey brown he’d seen before, full of defiance and panic. They were dark, almost black, and utterly devoid of anything human. Those eyes blazed with a rage so deep that a mere look was a threat.

The kid spoke, each word slowly ground out as if it was difficult for him to speak, “You wanted a monster?” An involuntary shiver hit Rhett’s spine at the uncontrolled fury that broke through, more madness than man.

The kid was an untrained berserker, and Murdock had just tried to turn off everything except emotion.

He needed to get the fuck out of here before-

Rhett paled in realisation. He couldn’t get out. None of them could. The shield kept any rescuers from getting to the kid… but it also locked them in.

He felt strangely dissociated from reality as he watched. Murdock’s face was turning purple, his thick fingers scrabbling at the grip on his throat, short fingernails scratching lightly. Small rivulets of blood formed, and dripped to the ground. The kid didn’t seem to notice and pulled the psionic violator’s face closer to stare into his eyes.

“You found one.”

A loud crack echoed.

The berserker’s hand tightened with the resistance gone. Murdock’s body fell limp. The hand opened, and the body dropped to the ground with a series of sickening thuds.

That furious darkness turned towards Rhett, and the shadows rolled outwards from the figure. Waves of thick, fog-like darkness spread outwards, rapidly passing from the pagoda, coiling around them.

Rhett looked into eyes the shade of dried blood and saw the end.

Somehow, the only thought he could muster was, ‘I knew I missed something important.’