The Summoner: Rise Of The Night Vanguard

Chapter 2: A Man With Nothing

Adrian remained on his knees in the middle of his tiny apartment, the weight of the situation pressing down on him like an invisible mountain.

The room, which already felt small on normal days, suddenly seemed even smaller with three people crowded inside it. The air was thick with tension and the sharp scent of cigarette.

Smoke lit another one off the cigarette, took a long drag, and blew it up at the ceiling. His eyes went around the furniture, the mattress in the corner, the peeling paint, and he clicked his tongue.

"This is one small room, Adrian." Another puff.

"Feels like I'm wearing the damn thing."

The one smoking was the one doing most of the talking. His name was Smoke.

"But I didn't come here to judge your taste in housing." His voice went cold.

"I came for my money." He added and smirked.

Adrian kept his head down, staring at the floorboards, his heart slamming so hard.

Smoke crouched down until they were eye level, cigarette hanging from his mouth, just watching him.

"Three weeks past the deadline. You dodged my calls. You disappeared every time my boys came looking. And somehow you thought I'd forget about a hundred thousand dollars?"

"P-please," Adrian said, his voice barely holding.

"Just give me one more week. I'll get it, I swear."

Smoke blinked twice like he didn't believe what he'd heard, then burst out laughing, wiping a fake tear from his eye.

"You hear that?" he said turning to the giant.

"He wants another week."

The giant man by the door shook his head once and his smoker's face went cold again.

"I gave you a month already. Then three more weeks. And after all that..." he stood up slow

"...you're still asking for more?"

Adrian didn't see the kick coming.

It slammed into his stomach and threw him backward, all the air went out of him, and he curled up on the floor while another kick landed on his ribs, then another, then another, until he couldn't tell one hit from the next.

"This," Smoke said,

"is what happens when you waste my time and refuse to pay me back my money"

Smoke stooped kicking him looking at the boy currently curled on the floor. Then his eyes landed on the bag. The same bag Adrian took to Ruby's school to give her his money. He walked over, unzipped it, and his eyebrows shot up at the stacks of bills.

"So you had money this whole time and you were still lying to my face" He counted out loud and slow.

"Ten, twenty, thirty, seventy-five thousand." He whistled.

"Oh wow! Not my full payment, but I'll hold onto this."

He zipped it shut and hanged it over his shoulder, and Adrian forced himself onto one knee even though everything in him hurt.

"No, please, that's not… that's all I have"

Smoke had already stopped listening. He was looking around the rest of the room now, and that's when he saw the object hanged above the bed.

It was a Dagger and from the way the sheath was decorated, it was probably the most expensive thing in this room.

He took it down and pulled it out of the sheath, and his whole face changed.

"No fucking way." He turned it over.

"This is Nyx. The Ghost Blade." He said grinning at Adrian.

"How the hell does someone like you end up with something worth a fortune?" He asked, staring at it intensely.

Adrian didn't care about the pain anymore, he crawled forward and grabbed Smoke's leg with both hands.

“If I see this on the black market, I will make a lot of money" Smoke said still admiring the Dagger.

"Please," Adrian said, "take the money, I'll pay it all back, but not that, you can't take that..."

Smoke's boot came down really hard on his hand before he finished his words making him scream.

"You really don't know your place" Smoke said, sliding Nyx into the bag with the cash and smiling while doing that.

"Now I've got proper collateral." He nodded at the giant.

"Let's go." He told him and they both prepared to moved out.

Adrian dragged himself after him anyway, fingers around his ankle, because he wasn't letting him walk out with the one thing that was as important as his life.

"Please, you can't take it..." He started again

Smoke sighed like Adrian was the most tiring thing he'd dealt with all day.

"You really don't want to let me leave, huh?" His smile came back, meaner this time.

"Fine. I was going to give you a few more days but now I'll just beat you till you can't move." He said at Adrian looked at the giant.

"You know what to do." The he added and the giant cracked his knuckles...

After that everything came in pieces, a fist to Adrian's face that snapped his head sideways, a boot to his ribs, another kick into his side, over and over until he couldn't tell which part of him hurt anymore.

There was blood in his mouth, one eye swelling shut, and at some point he just stopped trying to cover up.

By the time they stopped, he couldn't move and he was feeling pain all over his body.

Smoke crouched next to him, lighting another cigarette like nothing had happened.

"I wanted to spare you till you finished paying," he said.

"But you've gotten troublesome."

Then Adrian heard a click and a gun was already pointed at his chest before he could react.

"I don't know what you did to piss off Mr. Damian," Smoke said,

"but he sends his regards." He added and immediately blasted five shots and since he didn't die immediately, he felt every single bullet.

The two of them walked out and shut the door behind them, more like they hadn't just killed a man in his own apartment, with his blood dripping to the floor.

Adrian stared up at the ceiling, his vision going dark at the edges, thinking about everything he'd lost in one day. Ruby, The future he'd bled himself dry for, his mother's dagger. And now, his life too.

"I really was a fool" he thought to himself.

"I trusted too easily and now I'm paying the price, If there's another life, I won't live like this again. I'll become someone nobody can trample on."

That was his last thought before his eyes closed and then darkness clouded his vision.

The next thing that was heard is a mechanical voice

Ding!

{You have been chosen by the Night Vanguard.}

{Revival in process…}