(A/N: some names in this chapther may be different and hard to read, as Fiamma's clan have a very strong African, Brazilian and indigenous cultures. The same logic is present in the Elfic Empire ones, as they have a greek language and similar culture. The reason for the clan's name being an Italian will be revealed later in the story ☺.)
__________ / _____ / __________
Alice was a half-elf, and on her case, a result between an elf and a human.
She never met her parents, and since orphans were used to all kinds of experiments and canon folder in case of war, she faced a kind fate in comparison: since a young age, she was raised by the Empire to be a future spy and assassin, called the Shadows Squads. They were focused to learn about assassination methods, melee and long distance combats, as well as countless languages, psychology and other race's physical and magical weaknesses.
But the most important thing that they learned was to control their emotion to a surgical level, even receiving drugs that blocked the brain's production of substances that gave birth to emotions. It helped them to make their jobs without questions and avoided acts of treason, as it made them believe, with the help from the long years of brainwashing, that the Empire was their benefactor and work for it's expansion was the right thing to do for the world.
They had a purpose to stealthly help the increase of lands in the Empire, stealing informations before battles, following targets suspected of treason and collect their data or killing, if necessary. It was a dangerous job, so almost all of them died even before a normal human would gain their first white hair.
But Alice was different.
She lived on the streets before the Empire started to take care of her and educate her. They only asked her loyalty and services in return, so she never questioned them and gave her all to always complete her missions with the best possible outcome. She never failed once and the team mates that were designated with her always came back alive, giving all the credits to her. After just a couple years on the active, she became a Captain of her own Shadow Squad, Squad 10.
Her squad was the only that never had a casuality and never failed, even with the passing of decades. She was so focused on her job that neglected her life completely, never having friends or creating a family, and she was happy about it.
But everything changed when she was designated at the age of eighty to a dangerous mission in the Fiamma Clan.
Them and the Elfic Empire were at war since before she was born, and she had a duty to weaken their enemy indirectly by killing one of the two female heirs and also the yougest one, Iruna.
Being a woman in a Matriarchal clan made her an important figure, and since her older sister was missing and even the Elves couldn't find her, the High Escalons chose Iruna to be the target; she was barely fourteen at the time, so they provided the data of the Fiamma main branch to Alice's squad.
In that day, Alice was training her resistance running around a big white building that was her quarters, and a magical file just appeared out of nowhere in front of her. She stopped running imediatly, used to this kind of occurance, and calmly grabbed the pages and started to read about the type of mission, the target and the data.
Iruna was the youngest of ten children, the result of a happy marriage of the Matriarch Alika and her cousin Bomani, that was already dead when Iruna was a kid. Since they loved each other so much, they had a sequence of kids in eight years, the first seven all being boys and the last of the bach, a girl. Then, after five years, they had their last two.
The siblings were all alive, and made a name for themselves on the battlefield. The order of birth of all children was Bandile, Bruno, Borges, Beto, Biara, Apoema, Acir, the older girl Amara, the last boy Ayo and finnally, Iruna.
They had a maternal aunt also called Amara, but she was already on her sixties and was a Councelor of Healing, so she was not a good candidate for an heir and even tough she had an important position at the clan as a Councelor and strong fighter, killing her was a waste of time since they would immediatly replace her with someone younger. Elfs had the luxury to wait for someone to get older, so they could kill them easily on the battlefield. As such, her squad didn't had her as a target.
Alice agreed to all the file's observations and notes, and even if she didn't, she would obey the Empire anyway, even if it cost her life.
She whistled with her index and thumb fingers and waited. In just two seconds, five fast and blurry figures exited the white quarter and arrived in front of her, alligned perfectly in a sideway line.
They were four man and one woman, all using magical clothes that right now had a white color, and changed accordingly of the user's desire, to blend itself on the surroundings. The long hood helped in this effect, as someone could lower their head and be gone almost completely.
Three of the four men were tall, one of the three having a muscular build and the tallest, while the other two were almost identical. The last man was small, even smaller than the woman beside him. She was a litlle bit smaller than Alice, stocks of long white hair escaping from the hood.
When all of them arrived togueter, they pulled out their hoods and saluted Alice with an united voice:
- At your orders, Captain Ímisy!
When someone was adopted by the Empire, they gave them names according to their races, origins or caracteristics, to make identifications easy as well as getting difficult to create a self identity. She was called Ímisy at the time, wich meant simply "half", evidencing her half-elf nature.
The five of them were togueter since she was designated as their leader, more than fifty years ago. All of them were considered an inferior kind of elf .
The muscular one was an orphan like Ímicy and was also the older between them, with more than five hundred years old and looking as he was barely thirty, as he was a half-elf with Orc blood. He had brown hair and pointed ears growing upwards like a High Elf, but their size and brute form were of an Orc; His eyes were brown like his hair and his skin was white with a subtle green tone, and his four canines were a little bigger than normal: his name was gifted by the Empire as Vrómiko, that meant "dirty" in Elvish; it was probably because the High Elves despised the Orcs almost as much as humans, as his higiene always seemed normal. He used as a weapon an enchanted battle axe made of silver, ideal to melee and medium distance combat.
The identical pair of men looked to still be in their mid-twenties and were even yonger than Ímicy, with seventy years old. They were twins and also normal High Elves, but their parents sold the two kids to pay for their crimes of treason against the Empire. As such, they were renamed by the Elfic Empire as Atimía and Prodótis, that meant "dishonor" and "traitor" in Elvish. Atímia was a skinny but in shape man, with a long blond hair and blue eyes. Prodótis had an identical shape, but his hair was short and his eyes were brown. Atímia used to fight with a bow and arrow, and Prodótis preferred a spear, both made of enchanted gold.
The short man was called Mikró, that meant "little" in elvish. He was a half-elf with short and golden hair, matching with his gold-like eyes; his ears also seemed like a High-Elf's, but his small and muscular build, as well as his marble-like skin gave away his dwarf blood. He told them once that his mother was a sexual slave of an noble High Elf, and he offered himself to become a Shadow in exchange of her freedom. He used twin warhammers that could change their size and were made of enchanted marble.
And lastly, the other woman of the group. She had white hair and white skin, as well as gray eyes, almost white. This gave away her full Dark Elf blood, and because of it, her name gifted by the Empire was Áspro, that meant "White". Dark Elves were rare in this continent, coming here generally to run away to the Simnthary Republic, but she never really told anyone about her reason to be in the Empire instead of the Republic. Her weapon was an enchanted rapier made of White Iron from the Dwarves as an engagement gift from Mikró.
Ímicy was dressed like them, and also used hood. She wasn't much different from her appearence nowadays except her clothes and much stricter look. She had a lot of trowing knives well hidden along her body, but her main weapon seemed to be a simple whip made of enchanted leather.
- At ease, everyone.
When she said that, everyone relaxed and assumed their usual posture. Before they started to ask anything, she handed the copies she received, one for each member. When they were done reading the reports, the first to break the silence was Vrómiko, that bent the files and put them on a space-enchanted pocket, a device capable of storing objects at an almost ilimited space.
- When we are going to depart?
- Right now, if everyone is ready- replied Ímicy - Any more questions?
The twin with long hair, Atímia, started talking without reserves.
- Is her mother hot?
Everyone stared at him in disbelief, except Ímicy that just looked at him calmly, without answering.
- She meant a question about the mission, you dumbass. - the other twin, Prodótis, sllaped his backhead while talking.
- Ouch! That hurts, man! That's why you almost never dated. Girls don't like violent guys, relax bro!
- Girls also don't like perverts, Atímia. - spoke up the short guy, Mikró - follow my advices, I am the only one engaged here.
- Áspro doesn't count, she is a introvert weirdo. Besides, what can a half-elf so ugly like you understand the hardships of a beauty like me?
- I understand that you are a idiot, and the fact that you look more like a girl with this long hair, doesn't help you to get a girlfriend.
- Oh yeah? At least I have a smooth hair, what about this bird nest on your head? Also, I am only looking for the prettiest girl to the prettiest guy, you should do the same and look for a magical female lizard or something like that to match you.
- I think you are so obsessed about beauty because you are trying to compensate something.
- Shut up you little fuc...
While they were having one more of their usual discussions, the other members encircled Ímicy and asked questions relating the mission.
- What will be the assassination method this time? - Áspro said for the first time
- Whe will scope the surroundings instead of doing it right away. I will need your assistance to infiltrate in the clan, as well as Mikró and Atímia. Tell both about it later, I will give more details after it.
- Captain, where are we going to meet the target? - said Vrómiko, their second in comand
- Outside their manor, on a secluded place away from the populated areas. We will desguise ourselves as humans and one of us four from the infiltration team will turn themselves into the target's aunt, Amara. The other three at the infiltration must certificate that the true Amara stay away from her and kill whoever comes close to the ambush.
- And what am I going to do outside the mission with Vrómiko, Captain? - asked Prodótis with a respectful tone, but Ímisy could see the annoyance in his eyes.
She just looked at him calmly before answering:
- I know you always do missions at your brother's side, but your battle style and magic are too flashy for the infiltration team and your brother has a more subtle approach. Besides, your magic combined with Vrómiko may be a good distraction in case we need to escape fast or defeat a group of people. I hope you understand.
Prodótis, unlike his brother, had a mastery over the Lightning variation, which coupled with the powerful Fire ability of Vrómiko created a area of effect destructive and flashy enough for both occasions.
The High Elf bit his lips but accepted, and this topic seemed resolved until the half-orc raised his hand. When Ímicy let him proceed, he said:
- Then switch me with Atímia and let the twins outside the infiltrations, Captain.
Ímicy didn't like people questioning her reasons, but as she trusted his abilities, she gave him the benefit of the doubt.
- Why do you think that? Care to elaborate it for me?
- Mikró and Atímia never work well togueter, especially after they fight. In this kind of mission we can't let these distractions affect the result, and the same applies to his brother.
If Prodótis is anxious about his brother's safety, he can make a mistake; also, their powers of air and lightning also can produce the same effects as fire and lightning, or even better as it doesn't burn the plants surrounding our escape route.
And lastly, my Fire and Light power is stronger than yours, Captain, so I can be the one to mimic the Councelor's powers better.
She couldn't refute to his logic. Aside from the two, no one had a Fire affinity, and this could kill a lot of birds with one stone.
She agreed, happy to have listened him. She still wasn't better than him at preventing disasters based on emotions, so she admired him with his greater experience.
At the end of the mission's discussions, the two arguing before were already punching and kicking each other hard, and as usual, the rest of the squad had to get the two to stop.
After everything was explained to the two fighters, they started to travel on foot, as this time Ímicy didn't had her Space magic yet.
They were at the southest part of the Empire before the Frontiers, so they would need three days to reach the last city and more two to reach the Frontiers, equaling five days.
Little did Ímicy knew, it was the last time she would put foot on the Empire as a Shadow.