Silent Stalker was used to the oddities of Gehrman, so she knew perhaps better than her own mother that this would not be a simple mission. Still, it was a necessary one. These bastards had taken family, and they would pay with blood.
She had long anticipated hidden dangers, but she considered herself strong enough to overcome anything the Workshop had.
The only thing that concerned her was Honor Fell, but he was dealing with something dreadful in the Waking World. In truth, they had been ready to launch this attack for weeks, but they had decided to plan around the disappearance of Caster.
At the moment, he would be containing a Category 4 Gate. It was an incredibly rare and deadly happening, but it was not the first. Since the three had originally formed in the Battle of Black Skull, there had been two others. Both had been contained by the Government Saints.
It stood to reason that when the next one appeared, they would be the ones to respond once more.
The three other ones would have to be distracted by Mordret, and he had long since agreed to do so.
Which meant that Caster would have to be taken care of by her. In truth, she was not looking forward to it. If she got the jump on him, then she was about 50% sure she could kill him. However, if he survived the initial ambush…
She gritted her teeth. She didn't like to admit it, but out of all the Saints in the world, there were only five she did not want to fight under any circumstances. Gehrman, Changing Star, Mordret, Soul Reaper, and Caster.
Silent Stalker was even willing to go after Raised by Wolves and Nightingale. She would fight Madoc or Morgan.
Those five though, there was an extra something about them that made them unnatural. Their Aspects were obviously absurd, but each also held an individual edge to them. There was a quality of unpredictability and raw talent.
It was that intangible trait that her bestial instincts had picked up on when she saw the raining lightning down on her mothers corpses. She recognized him vaguely as one of the people who had been at Shan's wedding, a personal guest of Gehrman.
They had done only a brief research into him. There were signs of abnormality, the fact he was so young when he Awakened was alarming, but other than that he seemed more of a personal charity case from Gehrman. A victim of trauma that he had resonated with.
Now though, she knew that Song had been foolish to write him off. That Aspect of his was just as insane and odd as those other five, and he had that quality too, the one that made even her unsettled.
The sky itself was filled with what looked like paint, and then all at once it fell. It covered a wide enough area that there was no dodging it. Silent Stalker quickly broke down the wall of a nearby building, hiding under the cover of it.
What happened next made her skin crawl. In an instant, the world flashed white. Everything took on a dream-like quality as the ceiling and walls started abruptly took on the appearance of paper, the dimensions looked as if they were drawn in pencil.
…Then the rain of paint she had avoided seeped through the building. Falling all at once. There was still a bit pouring outside still, and the trap was clear. Whatever this was, there was no escaping it.
She let it fall, bracing for a corrosion attack. Instead though, the neutral colored paint splotched onto her. The spots instantly changed though, turning into a storm of loud radial patterns.
She was painted in darker grey and a menagerie of blues.
Silent Stalker seethed, partly because of the ugly design, but mostly because of what it represented. The entire city had been turned into a paper-white hellscape, and she stood out like a sore thumb against it.
She had been marked.
The assassin of Song snarled. It was not a physical attack, instead a purely strategic one. She had been outplayed by a damn kid. Her thoughts sharpened. That newly Transcended Vassal named Arus had heightened her ability to process information to a radical degree.
So in less than a second she came to a decision. Readying her already summoned bow and slotting a prepared Supreme arrow, she strafed back outside, and fired a deadly attack at the painter.
A headshot, a deathblow, streaked across the vertical city. Against the white background, the dark line looked as if a painter had violently brought his brush clean across a blank canvas. The power of the shot caused several breaks in the sound barrier, and the buildings around her shuddered.
The fact that they didn't collapse surprised her, but not as much as what happened next.
No Ascended was able to react to such an attack, no Saints – besides Gehrman – could have dodged it either. Indeed, the arrow met its mark, but instead of obliterating his head and killing the Master, it stalled.
A screeching sound echoed throughout New Yharnam as her attack was met with some kind of invisible shield. After a second, it broke through. However, that was enough time for him to dodge slightly.
A part of his face was torn off, the bone of his jaws was revealed and cracked. Even from here, it looked like a ghastly wound. It should have immediately caused him to fall to the ground, paralyzed by pain.
…the boy did not blink. He stood as though completely unbothered. His pupils were swallowed by the swirling rainbow colors that now filled his eyes completely. Blood poured from them, only they two were dyed a mix of fantastical colors.
If Silent Stalker wasn't so hardened from decades of experience, she may very well have flinched at the gaze he returned to her.
She knocked another arrow instead. Whatever that was, it had been a one-time protection.
Before she could fire again though, a nasally, scratchy voice sounded behind her.
"Good gods, that was an expensive Component you know? It belonged to a hardy Corrupted Tyrant, but even Caster wasn't able to break through its hide. Since he can sever Great creatures easily I thought it could hold against anything. Guess you're just that scary."
Stalker turned, her predatory gaze falling on a lanky and hunched form. His thin brown hair and slightly sunken eyes were unbefitting of a Master, though she knew that's exactly what he was.
"Eye of Bedlam," she muttered as a way of greeting.
"Silent Stalker, I presume?" he returned the True Name with a fiendish grin, baring his teeth. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"You killed one of our own, did you think that just because we are at war that we would let your pathetic cabal go unpunished?"
She expected him to try to play it off. Perhaps to make a joke, he seemed the unserious type. Instead, his eyes became utterly and totally jubilant.
Stalker suppressed a flinch at the mad joy in his eyes.
"Ah…Ha! Right!? We fuckin killed a Saint! One from a Great Clan too!" He palmed his face and turned his head skyward, laughing like a lunatic.
Silent Stalker fired another arrow. He was far too close to dodge, and indeed he didn't. Instead, the arrow simply pierced him, shattering him into chunks of flesh and blood.
"Damn, you really are scary."
Stalker turned, slight surprise registering on her face. Standing on a different roof…was the Eye of Bedlam.
"That one came from a Corrupted Terror who caused some damn annoying illusions. You must not have a very potent mental resistance enchantment active. Dumb. There were a bunch of fuckers like that Terror pouring out from Babel. Where were you during that whole shit show? Oh right, reaping the benefits of Gehrman's aid. The guy was practically handing you Citadels, as I recall. You got a funny way of showing thanks."
"Are you seriously trying to make it seem like you aren't the perpetrator of this crime? That you didn't strike first?" Silent Stalker seethed.
"Sure. After all, we didn't. Gehrman wanted nothing more than to play ball with you assholes. He gave up running the Workshop. I know you probably think he was still secretly in charge, but no, he legitimately gave it up to be your Prince," his voice was now the one full of venom.
"So imagine my surprise when he reaches out, tells me how ol' Ki Song is getting more and more cruel. How she's losing her shit, and that she may try to strip him of his freedom soon. Now, I thought there was no way. Even if she went insane she wouldn't do something that idiotic. Let me tell you a secret though…I was hoping and praying that she would." His eyes took on one of pure and old resentment.
"You can't imagine the sheer fucking joy I felt when he gave us the go-ahead. Seeing how you cruel Legacy bastards flailed about. All our other guys stationed throughout your Citadels had to scramble after you sent the hounds after anyone related to the New Workshop, but you know what? You didn't even get them all! We're still in position to take out half your Saints."
A chill ran through Silent Stalkers blood. This man was crazy. Truly worthy of the title "Bedlam". She had seen his type before, one that thrived on chaos. Though the whole schtick of the New Workshop was analysis, planning, brutal and total hunting, their leader was someone who grew stronger when all that went out the window.
It was evident that even in this position, he was stronger and more confident than he ever had been.
He was fueled by the madness in a different way than Gehrman, and yet, it was obvious then that he had it too. That quality that put her on edge, that had her instincts flaring.
"You're stalling, trying to buy time for Honor Fell to return. However, he will be occupied for a long while. By the time he returns, he will find nothing but ash and six Saints waiting for him."
"That a fact? Cause I get the feeling all I gotta do is hold out for 5 minutes."
It was an absurd notion, but still, Silent Staker couldn't help but mentally start the timer in her head. This guy had already pulled out things she hadn't thought possible. Plus, they had developed a system to instantly communicate across long distances based on Memory destruction. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility that their sole Saint had already been notified.
Still, one could not abandon a fight with a Great Gate Guardian so easily. The Call from the blossomed Seed would distort his tether, making it impossible to travel back immediately. Nor would he abandon the other Government forces in order to do so.
"How could you possibly hope to survive for even that long?" Stalker taunted. It wasn't in her nature to play with her food like this, but this man had struck a nerve…or rather, he had repeatedly stabbed it.
So she resolved to make him feel despair. The pressure of her Transcendent aura flared, crushing and deadly. It was not anything like the Will, but it was enough to make even other Masters to tense a bit.
Eye of Bedlam just smiled, easy and cruel. He summoned a Memory, a storm of pale purple sparks appeared, and from them manifested one of their strange trick weapons.
Hungry.
The thought came unabated. A ravenous hunger filled her, and she quickly identified the source. The Memory was inexplicably powerful. A Supreme one of a decent Tier. Based on the color of the sparks, it had been a gift from Gehrman.
"It's not really my style to fight up front and fair, but for a weapon like this, I'll bend my principles to satisfy it."
He spoke as if the odd gun-bayonet-thing had a mind of its own, and indeed, she felt that though it had no thoughts, the weapon carried with it a nascent Will.
Silent Stalker growled and activated her Transcendent Ability. A humongous black panther appeared, its claws and fangs held sharpness that were undoubtedly the peak of Transcendent materials.
Silent Stalkers senses were instantly dialed to eleven, her nostrils flared.
He made it seem like that illusion was a one-and-done thing, but this isn't the true "him" either. Her eyes turned to slits, as the smokey scent of the Master standing before her trailed off all the way to the castle.