She pulled the knife out of the rapidly cooling body on the floor. Blood sluiced down the blade, pooling around the small, razor-sharp barbs at the hilt.  She needed to clean this up quickly, but decades of experience had taught her not to rush. Rushing caused mistakes, and mistakes were something she did not tolerate.

She reached into her coat and pulled out her vial of nanites. These beauties were of her own design. They had one purpose, and they did it with brutal efficiency…flesh decomposition and dispersal. A slight grin emerged on her face as she emptied the vial over the body’s feet. She often thought of these little devouring machines as her children, and she was always a proud parent watching them work. Quickly, the body began to be broken down, the flesh disappearing as small clouds of methane and ammonia were released.

While her nanites did their work, she cleaned the room of all signs of struggle, not that there was much of one. When the time came for the kill, she was, as in all things, quick, stealthy, and efficient. Her target had no idea what was going to happen until the knife was already deeply embedded in her heart, life stopping suddenly, with no time for a sound or a struggle.

Once the room was cleaned, she turned her attention back to the nanite's work. They had already almost reached the body’s neck, so she used these last moments to study the corpse’s face one last time. While this dead woman’s body closely resembled her own, her face was different, and she wanted to make sure she had one last chance to get the small details down. This was important if she were to mimic it for the foreseeable future correctly.

The facial cloaking tech, embedded in her collarbones, she had also had in hand designing, and while it would use nanomanipulation to alter her facial appearance to fool not only digital capture but also the human eye, she still needed to mimic this dead woman’s mannerisms and movements. After all, the devil is in the details. This was why she spent such a long time researching her target on this mission. Not only did she need to find the right person to help her achieve her end goal logistically, but she also had to be confident that she could take over the person’s life and appearance effectively enough and long enough to complete her goals. The target had to be single with no serious romantic attachments or children. She could fake a person in public, over a vid call or even in a crowded boardroom. But an intimate relationship would get too close to be fooled and have to be eliminated. And while she had no ethical qualms about killing, she also knew that each death on the job was just one more added risk. And in her unique line of work, minimizing risk was essential.

Grymlyn was the call sign she went by. And no one, not even her comrades in the Under Dark, knew what her real name was. The Under Dark. This shadowy collection of creatures from all over the known universe was the closest thing to family that she had ever had. The Under Dark’s ultimate goals were cloudy even to Grymlyn. Still, enough of their vision and values matched her own that she joined and became a highly integral part of some of their most significant operations. Her role in the Under Dark was fairly unique. Unlike the terrifying Necroborgs that oversaw the grand picture of conquest and destruction or the foot soldiers that devastated enemy military, her job was a much subtler. Research, infiltration, assassination, and corruption from within were her areas of expertise. Using a Mech-ripping Orc legion to attack an enemy might work, but the cost and risk were high. However, if she was called in to research that enemy’s culture and government, find its weak spots, and then infiltrate it and undermine it from the inside, by the time she was done, resistance was so light or scattered that a dozen Orc rippers were all that was needed to achieve the mission goals.

This particular mission was a fairly standard one for Grymlyn. This planet, E40-XAT, known as New Haven by the Earth-installed government, had formerly been known as Maabet Marhu. The race of creatures native to this world had lived there for millenniums. Hundreds of generations ago, they had worked through their regional differences, formed a world tribe and lived in relative harmony.

The planet was home to a unique algae, one that grew in almost every biome of the planet, needed very little resources to flourish, and, most importantly, was extremely high in nutrients. Not only was it an ideal source of nutrition, but its medicinal properties were so versatile that it alleviated the need for synthetic medicines. This algae singlehandedly solved the world hunger problem that almost all planets faced at some point in their development and was instrumental in aiding the uniting of the various cultures planetwide. When you have a consistent solution to hunger and sickness, many of the reasons to kill your neighbors dry up.

This was all well and good until about 50 years ago when the Earth’s government caught wind of this planet and its unique food and medicine source. The Earth’s diplomatic core was sent to negotiate with the planet’s World Tribal leaders. Promises were made to the tribal leaders, and an agreement was made to share small amounts of the algae with the humans to see if the algae could be grown on other planets to help other cultures thrive. In return, Earth would help the World Tribe to develop technology that would eventually allow them to evolve into a widespread space-faring culture, ramping up their small space travel technology into fleets of vessels capable of faster-than-light travel.  Small human outposts and labs were allowed to be built on the planet to harvest and test the algae.

However, the humans had no intention of honoring this agreement.

In typical fashion, the physical appearance of the native culture (they resembled the fictional Goblins of human myth) allowed the human leadership to villainize the planet back on the human’s core planets and rally support for a full Mechanized Marine invasion and conquest of the planet. The human technological superiority and deceit led to a swift and bloody victory. The World Tribe members were either killed, enslaved to harvest Algae, or fled the planet to a life off-world. Human settlements quickly took over the most temperate region of the planet, and prefabbed city grids were shipped in from nearby human-controlled planets to build a capital city. A human government was installed, planetary defenses were set up, and an entire processing and shipping infrastructure was developed to boost algae production and ship it to human settlements across the planetary grid.

This was not an uncommon outcome for a planet naïve enough to try and deal with humanity and all its greed and xenophobia. And it was an incident that caught the attention of the Under Dark. The Under Dark had many goals in the universe, some beneficial to others, some not. But one of the main motivations of this nebulous organization was to check and undo the viral spread of humanity across the stars. And the fate of Maabet Marhu’s World Tribe most certainly fell under this goal.

Since the conquest of the planet, the exiled tribe members had spread out among the neighboring planets. Tribal leaders had congregated on the moon of a neighboring planet, working brutal labor jobs and doing their best to scratch out an existence. The Under Dark got involved, slowly, over several decades, uniting the scattered denizens of Maabet Marhu and setting up connections with the enslaved people left on their planet. Once the time and conditions were right, Grymlyn was activated.

She used her tech skills to hack into the ship manifest of an Algae transport, putting herself in the system as a loading tech, thus booking passage to Maabet Marhu. Once planet side, she melted into the bustle of the Capitol City, securing a small living cube, and started her research. She navigated the government’s files on the net; her first goal was to identify any potential weaknesses in the planetary defense systems. At first, it seemed there were none. She started her approach with a technological search, as usually, this was the quickest way to find a breach. However, in this case, the human government saw the Algae as such a beneficial resource to their colonization efforts that they had spared no expense in creating a robust and deadly defense system to safeguard the Algae processing operation from what was initially feared would be an effort of the exiled World Tribe to retake the planet.

She next turned her attention to one of humanity’s most prevalent attributes, greed. And as it so often did, this led her to an opening. She found that there was a faction within the government that saw the opportunity to double the production of algae, thus increasing their profits and influence in the galaxy. But to achieve the required growth in infrastructure, they needed a large reallotment of government funds. Planetary Defense Systems, especially ones as robust as Maabet Marhu employed, cost an astronomical amount of money to maintain. There had not been a single assault on the planet since the colonization and attempted genocide that had occurred there. Therefore, with all its greed and arrogance, this faction had been lobbying to deactivate the defense system and, instead, rely on the battalions of Mechanized Marines stationed there to protect the planet.

The faction had gained some traction within the government, but they were still a dozen votes shy of achieving their goal. Without interference, those final votes were not going to be acquired. And there was the opportunity that Grymlyn had been searching for. 

This led her to her next task: finding someone whose life she could take over for long enough to achieve her mission goals. As luck would have it, the body cooling in the other room had belonged to an actual government member. Not one who could directly vote on the defense spending but one who worked in the city planning department, another stroke of luck.

There were 12 votes needed. Grymlyn took stock of the methods to acquire these votes at her disposal. Blackmail, bribery, intimidation, trickery, torture, and, of course, good old-fashioned murder were the ones that topped her list.  Next, she began extensive research into the 150 council members who had voted to uphold the defense system to see which 12 would be most vulnerable to her methods of…persuasion. This was an extremely involved process that consisted of accessing restricted personnel files, tracking past voting patterns, digging into their finances, physically spying on them to ascertain any vices that would render them vulnerable, and socializing with some to gain their trust and get behind their professional walls and buffers.

This is where Grymlyn shined. Her research and intelligence-gathering skills were otherworldly. She just had an instinct when looking at data that told her which paths to follow and which would be dead ends. She saw patterns in the information that told a story and pointed to the murkier details of a person’s life and habits. To her, it was like following a dimly lit trail of clues, and if she had the time to focus on the trail fully, there was rarely a detail she couldn’t uncover.

However, her skillset was hardly limited to the digital acquisition of data. Her street-level investigation prowess was unmatched in the Under Dark, which made her such an invaluable part of missions such as these. She could blend into any crowd, from boardroom meetings to cyber club revelers. From blue-collar laborers to academics at the highest institutions of learning. She had learned how to fit into any situation and had the social skillset to gain people’s trust and friendship at an alarming rate.

And lastly, there was the violence. When it came to violence, Grymlyn was acutely equipped. She was small and lacked the brute, violent force of some of her larger Under Dark comrades. But as in all things, she played to her strengths. And in the case of violence, she had many. She had developed a preternatural ability in stealth. Not just moving silently, although she did that with expertise, but also blending into the environment so she essentially disappeared. She achieved this at times in the literal sense of creative and site-specific camouflage, but often times, it was more a matter of understanding what clothing and behavior would have the best odds of rendering her unremarkable and unmemorable to those passing by her. In this way, most times, the victims of her violence weren’t even aware of the impending threat until it was far too late to do anything to protect themselves.

When her opponents were aware of her threat, it was her complete lack of hesitation to act, the efficiency of her violence and the overwhelming brutality she employed that ended confrontations swiftly. She was keenly aware of the level of underestimation she engendered due to her size and beauty, and she exploited it. When it was time for violence, she did not wait; she did not waver. Her mind had accepted that violence was part of her mission success from the start, and she knew that revaluating that in the moment was the quickest way to death she could tread.

Brutality, she had found, offered multiple benefits. An efficient kill was ideal. It was quick and lessened the risks of both injury to herself and catching the attention of those nearby. But sometimes an efficient kill was not an option for her. When faced with a much larger, highly trained opponent who was aware of her and ready to engage, sometimes closing the distance for a single kill shot was too risky. This was where brutality played its role. Slowly hacking apart opponents attacking limbs, delivering maiming shots to the head, eyes, and groin, breaking bones, and tearing skin…all of these techniques furthered an enemy down the path towards death, but they also sucked their will and confidence away. The horror of watching such a small opponent slowly and savagely wreak havoc upon your body was at worst distracting and at best debilitating. Once an enemy started to panic and seek escape, the fight was won.

She had trained in all manner of weaponry and hand-to-hand combat. She could use blades, hammers, guns, and almost any weapon she found in the field.  But she did have her favorites. Two long, thin, blackened machete-like blades were her preferred tools during open combat. They were light and razor sharp and she wielded them like a dervish of death and pain. When weapons couldn’t be visible, she opted for a pair of small, sharp knives that could easily be concealed in all manner of dress. Grymlyn rarely carried projectile weapons on her as they made too much noise, and she found that if she ever needed one, she could easily take one off of an enemy combatant.

This part of the mission was a long process. Swaying the votes needed took time, scheming, coordinating, and subtle action. But Grymlyn was patient. For five months, she made the small strategic moves she needed to line her 12 marks up and knock them down like dominoes. It was a beautiful game to her, looking at the situation from above, probing and prodding to see what she could work loose. The cause and effect of peoples’ greed, anger and fear was like poetry to her. The reliability and predictability of people’s reactions were comforting and, of course, beneficial to her work.

But the rare few that surprised her were the ones she truly relished. She was headed towards one such individual now, easing through the streets one shadow at a time. This was the last vote she needed, the last holdout. In many ways, this would be the riskiest vote she would obtain. Usually, the avoidance of risk was of the highest priority for her. She was a professional and took great pride in her consistent success. But sometimes great risk was unavoidable and to obtain this last vote, it was something she couldn’t avoid. And to be honest, the thought of a bit of elevated danger, did put a bit of a spring in her step.

Over the past five months, she had acquired the other eleven votes by various means.

The first four were the quickest and easiest. Greed is always an easy in, and this was no exception. Four of the councilmen whose votes she needed owned development consortiums on and off-planet. With her stolen identity’s job at the city planning department, she guaranteed them the contracts to build all the infrastructure for the proposed upgraded algae industry the extra money from the decommissioned defensive system would buy. Within the span of a 3-hour lunch meeting, she had already obtained 1/3 of the votes she needed without spilling a drop of blood or putting herself at any risk. It was so easy it almost wasn’t any fun.

She was nearing this last target, a prominent, influential councilman. He lived in a tall mansion at the edge of the city center. He was a political creature on the rise within government and his wealth came from very shady dealings off world. Which meant he had robust security at his home. Grymlyn had already spent a week scoping it out and had a very good idea of what she was walking into.

The fifth vote she obtained within a few weeks. She had overheard a councilman talking at a cocktail party about how much he hated living on this planet. He had come here hoping to improve his political standing on such a profitable world, and parlay that into a post on one of the big HUB planets. But one thing they didn’t talk much about regarding the Algae that grew here was its smell. It was not subtle or pleasant. And after five years of living here, it had become unbearable for him. All it took for Grymlyn was a few forged vid messages and a fake government contact on a HUB planet, and she had purchased the councilman’s vote with the promise of a director of commerce position on a lush planet with beaches and a temperate climate.

As she approached the mansion, she eased around to the side where she had discovered the councilman’s emergency egress panel a few weeks ago. A man with as many enemies as he had found the benefit of having a few hidden escape routes in and out of his home. She hacked into the camouflaged access panel and disengaged the alarm and the anti-personnel defense system. She quickly pried the panel open, slipped in, and shut it behind her, sliding into the darkened passageway.

Vote six was a classic case of good old-fashioned blackmail. She had been monitoring the council members' correspondence through their work texts and vids and by hacking into their personal texts and vids. And it was through this monitoring, along with her data tracking of all the council members’ finances, that she found something to work with. She had been looking for both irregularities and patterns. And she found both. Periodically, one member would message his wife about having to work late. That alone didn’t raise any red flags until Grymlyn had tagged him for physical surveillance. He wasn't there when she arrived at his work to set up the tail. This wasn’t completely out of the ordinary either, but when it happened again a week later, her curiosity was peaked.  She dove into the network and tracked back over the last year, marking all the dates he had corresponded with his wife about working late. When she brought up his finances, there it was a 550 credit transfer that aligned with those exact dates. The transfer was always the same amount and always initiated at the same time in the evening. All that was left was to plant a tracking nanite on him, set an alert whenever he texted his wife, and follow him the next night he “worked late”. Grymlyn wasn’t surprised when she followed him to a brothel in the algae production part of town. She was surprised to learn that the brothel specialized in providing enslaved members of the World Tribe for the sexual pleasure of those who could pay. After recording his foul actions through a window, she confronted him and, through his pleas and tears, got his agreement to vote her way if he spared his wife and kids the video footage. As a bonus, she chained him in the lobby and made him watch as she slaughtered everyone that ran the brothel, freed the World Tribe members, and contacted another Under Dark agent planet side to get them and take them off world. She then burned the brothel to the ground and fed the Sentinels an anonymous tip that a rival brothel enforcer had been seen starting the blaze.

She really did love her job.

The secret passage into the mansion bypassed the main security checkpoint into the house. They assumed no one would ever find it, so why bother posting a guard? They did have a digital surveillance system in the passageway, but Grymlyn had hacked into it before she left, and it was playing a loop of emptiness to anyone who bothered to check.  The passage led up from the street level, bypassed the first two floors where the servants lived and worked, and opened on the third floor, where the councilman’s entertaining areas were located. The panel popped open in a large closet used to store his many guests’ jackets when hosting parties or business gatherings. The closet was empty, as Grymlyn had picked a night without engagement on the councilman’s social calendar. The only meeting this evening was a one-on-one business meeting with the councilman’s main rival in government. This meeting was happening on the fifth and topmost floor. Grymlyn slid her two daggers from her concealed calf holsters, pulled her black balaclava over her face, and slid out of the closet, thus beginning her blood-soaked journey to the 5th floor.

Locking down votes 7 and 8 required a little bit of trickery. Two councilwomen ran extremely profitable on and off-world companies. One was a medical firm that provided organ transplants to various species and specialized in high-tech implants and cyber enhancements for the body and the mind. The other was a weapons firm that sold arms and replacement parts for all manner of warships and in-orbit attack craft. While the products they both sold were on the up and up, how they obtained them was a tad bit shadier.

It turns out they were both war profiteers who used military conflicts all over the universe to harvest all the organs, implants, and weaponry they could sell. Both council women had slowly and quietly raised their own mercenary armies that would hire out their services for the right price. Through carefully cultivated relationships within both the Mechanized Marine Corp, and dozens of human governments on various planets, they had become the first two merc units called when looking for outside muscle.  Not only did they get all their product for free, but they also got paid by the Marines to obtain it. Grymlyn had to admit that she admired the council women and their closed-loop of profitability.

All it took to sway their votes were a few leaked documents and correspondence, in sources she knew the councilwomen had surveilled, hinting that a sizeable but poorly trained force had been plotting an attack on Maabet Marhu to take over the Algae operations but were getting close to moving on to another target as they could not find a way to penetrate the planetary defenses. Then, a well-placed bribe to a greedy little man who acted as advisor, who planted the idea that if they were able to shut down the planetary defenses and encourage this attack, they could leak false intelligence to the Mechanized Marines that the invading force was much larger and better trained that it actually was.  In the meantime, they would have stationed their Mercenary armies on a nearby moon for “training exercises.”  This planet had enough value in the Algae trade that the Mechanized Marines would immediately send out the call for their assistance, and the two councilwomen would have an easy and local score of fresh profits.

Votes acquired.

Grymlyn approached the large curving stairwell to floor four, waiting around the corner to assess. One guard stood at the bottom of the stairs, and she knew there would be another at the top, around the curve of the staircase. The cameras pointing all along the stairs were hacked into and rendered useless, like the cameras in the secret entryway and all other surveillance from floor three and up. She peeked around the corner at the guard; she was lightly armored, with body armor only on her torso. The guards on the first three floors were heavily armored in case of a major home invasion by rival political factions or one of the many groups the councilman had wronged over the years. But from floor three and up, where he did his social gatherings and business meetings, the guards were as much to impress as to protect. Their main concern would be a drunken rival or offended partygoer trying to lunge at the councilman out of anger or desperation. This would make Grymlyn’s work significantly easier tonight.

She waited till the guard wandered near the corner she was hiding behind and, in one swift and silent movement, swung out from the corner, catching the guard through the throat with one of her knives. She left the knife lodged in her windpipe, dragged her around the corner, and then ripped the knife sideways, nearly decapitating her as a spray of blood washed across her face. Under her balaclava, she grinned. Now, the real fun had begun.

She sheathed her knives, moved back to the staircase, and jumped up, grabbing onto the outside of the steps, the part extending beyond the railing. She then slowly ascended, hand over hand, up the stairway, climbing along the exterior of the stairs, hidden from view from the guard at the top. Upon reaching the top, she hung silently, peering up through the railing at the guard’s feet. Her muscles were slightly shaking from the exertion of the climb, but she knew she had a few minutes more in this position before they would begin to hinder her. Before too long, she saw the guard’s feet move as he turned and walked towards the other side of the grand stairway. The moment he had taken a half dozen steps away, she pulled herself up, got her feet purchased on the outside of the stairs, and vaulted over the railing, landing in a noiseless crouch at the top of the landing. She rose to her feet while simultaneously drawing her knife from her right calf. Five long, swift, leaping strides brought her to the guard, where she stabbed her knife directly through the base of his neck, severing his spine and dropping him like a stone.

Votes 9, 10, and 11 were a little tricky to obtain. She had been running into a lot of dead ends as the remaining council members were dug in on the vote. To their credit, having a planetary defense system was a good idea, and she was hardly surprised that flipping these votes was taking a lot of creative problem-solving. She hadn’t found anymore openings to employ blackmail or bribery, and she had been getting some pressure from Shrike, the Necroborg leading the overall mission. Her time was running thin to move the votes and deactivate the defense system. So, with her other options dried up, she turned to an old reliable. 

Murder.

The government on this planet had adopted an older system of council rule. Every elected councilor had a junior councilor who mentored underneath them.  When a standing council member could no longer rule due to retirement, a vote of no confidence, illness, or death, the junior councilor stood in for them while an election happened for their replacement. The process that had most captured Grymlyn’s attention when she had studied this government's inner workings was that if a vote was scheduled, and a standing councilor was unable to serve, their junior councilor would vote in their stead if an election could not be finalized in time for the vote. Most council members had junior councilors who shared all of their political views. But on a rare occasion, a junior member with differing or opposing views was picked. Sometimes, this was done by arrogant council members who thought they could sway the junior councilors to their political party. Sometimes, it was a way to garner favor with a wealthy family that wanted their son or daughter to get a junior councilor term on their resume but had no plans to pursue a political career. No matter the reason, in her research of all the sitting council men and women, she found three who had juniors who would vote against the planetary defenses being continued.

Once she identified those three council members, it was an easy matter to gather them all for a business dinner at one of the high-end restaurants in the city center. It was an even easier matter to lock them into their private dining room and start the fire.

Three more votes obtained, only one to go.

Down the corridor was a second stairwell that led to the fifth and top floor. It was unguarded, so she made her way up the stairs quickly. From here, she headed to the back of the house. There was a soundproofed room in the back, and it was here that the councilman held his business meetings. She had one more stealthy kill on the way, a knife through the eye of a guard around the corner from the meeting room. Now, all that stood between her and the meeting room were 4 guards standing outside the meeting room, bored and waiting for the meeting to finish. She slid her knives away and slowly withdrew the slender machetes from her back sheathes. The time for stealth was over.

She rounded the corner at full speed, completely surprising the guards. She dropped to her knees as she approached, gliding between the two closest guards and hacking at both of their knees as she slid past. They dropped, screaming and clutching their legs, as she launched herself to her feet. The remaining two guards barely had time to register what was happening, and they both hastily reached for their guns. She targeted the one she saw swinging an SMG around from a shoulder harness, swinging her machete down hard into his neck while pivoting herself behind him, blocking the last guard’s line of site. She left her machete buried in the dying guard’s almost severed neck as she spun around his body, dropping low and swinging out with her second blade, catching the remaining guard’s belly as he tried to lower his pistol down at her. She felt the satisfying slice as she opened his guts, his intestines hitting the floor mere seconds after his pistol did. She walked over and with two clear arcs of her machete, ended the lives of the guards still clutching their destroyed knees.

It all happened in the span of 8 seconds. Four guards down, three dead, one bleeding out so fast he wouldn’t last more than a few minutes. Blood and screams of pain and fear filled the space as Grymlyn retrieved her first machete from the dead guard’s neck. She didn't bother wiping the blood from her blades or herself. It added to the intimidation factor, and she would need that. As she approached the meeting room, the councilman and his rival stared out at her. The councilman was an imposing figure. He stood at over 6 feet, heavily muscled, and the look on his face made it clear he was angry and annoyed but not afraid. She wasn’t surprised by this as she had learned much about him while researching his background.

The councilman had come to politics not through the usual political path, but through an accomplished military career. As a youth in the Mechanized Marines, he had started out as a front-line grunt. But he had quickly captured the notice of his superiors by his brutality and efficiency on the battlefield. A meteoric rise through the ranks led him from battle to battle, promotions piling up as quickly as dead combatants before him. Soon, he was leading battalions of his own into conflicts. It was his skill at command and his utter hatred of all creatures not human that made him such a revered leader in the human military machine. It’s also what made him such a threat and enemy to the Under Dark.  His advisors had convinced him that he could accomplish more in the political arena than on the battlefield, so he eventually ran for office. It was a landslide victory when he ran for councilman. His military career had been legendary, and his brutal tactics to further human advancement in the stars were wildly popular.

Finding him on this planet had been a big bonus for the Under Dark. And killing him was going to be a special treat for Grymlyn. But she knew this one wasn’t going to be easy.

She slowly walked over to the heavy glass door of the meeting room and tapped it with the tip of her machete, grinning at the men under her mask. Furious, the councilman slammed his hand down on the button at his table, unlocking the door and allowing Grymlyn entry. 

“And just who the fuck are you, you pathetic mite?!” he roared.

She walked a few paces into the room and stopped, glancing over at the councilman’s main political rival. He chuckled, holding up his hand. “Okay, okay, I’m going. Impressive. Very impressive” He began to walk out towards the entry. “I'm assuming all the cameras are off, and the records of my entry tonight erased?”

Grymlyn nodded once, eyes focused back on the councilman.

“Then you have my vote! It’s a pleasure doing business with you”, he said.

The councilman looked at his rival and snarled “You fucking coward. You think this pathetic assassination attempt will work? I’ve chopped down guild assassins 3 times this one’s size. And when I’m done gutting this one, I’m going to split you in half.”

The rival glanced back, “Best of luck old friend. I admit you are fair with a blade so who knows, maybe you will live through the night. And maybe I won’t. But from what I just saw, I wouldn’t bet on it. And with you finally out of my way, this council will be mine.” With that, he walked out of the room, carefully skirting the rapidly growing lake of blood on the floor, and disappeared around the corner.

Grymlyn stood at the ready, both machetes drawn. To call the councilman fair with a blade was quite an understatement.  His political career was very demanding of his time, but throughout the years, he had always kept up with fitness and his sword training. Once a soldier, always a soldier. This would be a real fight, and Grymlyn knew there was a risk that she could lose.

But after all, she was allowed to have some fun on these missions.

The councilman stood up and walked out from behind the table. He moved over to the wall where his coat and weapons hung. His sword, a large double-edged hunk of steel, hung on a post. Its edges were razor sharp and the hilt had a wicked spike embedded in the end. This thing looked impressive and well crafted and was clearly a sword built for combat. Next to it, his top-of-the-line polymer gun hung in its holster. He glanced at it, then back at Grymlyn. She smiled. She had done her research. His arrogance and confidence wouldn’t let him miss this opportunity to prove his prowess.

“Confident little fucker eh? Fine then” His hand moved past his gun and gripped the steel hilt of his sword, lifting it off the post and throwing the sheath to the ground. The blade was large, easily twice the length of her machetes. Intricate scrollwork along the blade glowed slightly, giving away that this sword was a “stagger blade”. Stagger blades had an internal power source that caused the metal to slightly vibrate at a very high frequency. This meant that she couldn’t count on any consistency in the rebound direction of his sword when their blades met. It also meant that her own blades would be thrown off in unexpected directions. Masters of stagger blades became quite adept at reacting to these sudden changes in direction, putting them at a distinct advantage in combat. However, she knew this was his blade of choice and was already prepared with an attack strategy to minimize this advantage. Speed and elusiveness would be her counter. If their blades didn’t touch, then the advantage was nullified.

Speed, elusiveness, and brutality. She wanted to break him before she killed him.

“So what is it, huh? What pathetic little cause do your masters champion that caused them to send you to your death? What sad little plan do they have that needs me out of their way?” he growled at her.

Grymlyn stood completely still as the councilman strode confidently from behind the desk, stepping towards the center of the room where she waited.

“Big talker I see”, he smirked as he approached. “Well, maybe when I stick your head out on my front gate, your bosses will scurry back into whatever shit hole they came from. Or maybe they will send another pathetic runt like you, and I’ll start a collection of skulls on the fencing out front. The grounds are due for an updated design.”

Grymlyn smiled again, stretching her mask tight. This was becoming more fun by the minute.

He stopped walking when he got a few feet in front of her. He stared down at her with obvious hate and loathing in his eyes. The way he moved and stood made it clear he was used to this sort of fighting. He was a large and powerful but moved with an experienced fighter's efficiency. He might be making light of the situation with his words, but his movement spoke differently. He had come up in violence and understood its inherent chaotic nature. Anything can happen in a fight, and as confident as he was, he was not taking any chances in underestimating her.

They stood this way, still and silent, staring at each other for almost a full minute. Each seeing what the other might do. The coppery smell of blood filled Grymlyn’s nose from her previous kills, making her excited and itching to start. But her plan to minimize his size and strength, as well as the stagger blade, was to counter. So, she stifled the blood lust and waited.

Finally, he sighed, took a deep breath, and quietly muttered, “fuck it, let’s get this over with”. With that, he lunged forward, swinging his blade up in a diagonal arc meant to open her up from her left hip to her right shoulder.  She knew he would be fast, but even being prepared for it, she was impressed by his speed.  He was fast, faster than a person his size should be. But she was faster.

She pivoted on her right leg, lifting her left knee up to her waist as she spun to the right, rotating around out of the way of the sword arc. She could hear the low hum of the stagger blade as it passed by her, inches from opening her up. She continued her pivoting, spinning all the way around, left leg raised and chambered so that as she finished her 360-degree spin, she shot out a kick that caught the councilman square in the face. He staggered back, surprised, blood immediately running from his now broken nose.

Her kick delivered, she set her foot back down, settled into the same stance, and waited, watching him.

He stumbled back, his free hand touching his face. He stared down at the blood on his hand, looked up at her with rage-filled eyes, and said, “You little fucker. I see you aren’t as useless as some of the meat bags sent my way. Well, good for you. It’s still not going to save you.”

He thrust his sword straight out at her neck, closing the distance between them in an instant, and she just managed to swivel her body out of the way. He used his momentum to turn the thrust into a downward diagonal cut, pivoting his body to the left while cutting down to the right and closing the distance even more. He had gotten closer to her than she had intended, and not only did she have to take a leap back to avoid the cut, but she had to use her right machete to deflect the blade. The moment the blades touched, her machete skipped off the vibrating blade, bouncing dangerously close to her own face. His blade careened off back towards him and he deftly used that energy to swing the blade fully around in a vertical arc into a cut up towards her from the ground.

She was still recovering her right machete, so she was a split second slow in continuing her backward movement, and his blade just barely grazed the light armor on her left thigh. Her armor was nano designed and as light and flexible as cloth. It was designed to stop grazes like these from cutting into her flesh while allowing her maximum movement. However, it was not designed with stagger blades in mind. The vibrating blade hit lightly, but the blade movement was enough to tear the armor, cutting into her leg, blood welling up immediately. The blade continued its arc up, while she leapt several feet away, landing and assessing the damage. The armor and her movement had done their jobs, minimizing the cut. It bled, but she was in no danger, and it would not hinder her mobility. However, she needed to be more careful. He had wrested the momentum from her, and that couldn’t happen again.

He grinned at her, looking at her leg and then back at her eyes. “I suppose that makes us even then, eh?”

She needed to slow him down and take his confidence. His blade was an advantage, but if she could undermine his belief in it, she could start to minimize its effectiveness. And what is the best way to counter an opponent with his size, strength, speed, and reach?

The death of a thousand cuts.

Pressing his recent success, he stepped forward with a feinted thrust that turned into an overhead swing down and to his left. She angled forward towards him, stepping off the centerline to her left. As she angled past his cut, she lifted her right machete slightly to catch his downward swinging sword arm on the underside of his forearm. She let his momentum to the cutting, not moving her blade into his arm, but sliding it along the bone. She didn’t want to sever it, just open a wound and get his blood flowing.

He gasped as her blade opened his flesh and he spun away, grabbing the wound with his other hand. Anger flared in his eyes as he brought his sword up to his right side and swung a horizontal cut to the left at her chest. She took a quick step forward while dropping to her right knee, lunging underneath his swing and drawing her blade across his right thigh as she passed. Bright blood blossomed on his thigh as her machete opened another long cut, and he staggered forward. On her way back to her feet, she pivoted to her right, straightened her arm and landed a slice across his back. Again, not with the intent to kill, but simply to open him up.

He yelled in pain and surprise and whirled around to face her, teeth bared and sword already swinging to catch her in the face. But his sword found only empty air as she continued her spin to the right, closing the distance and ending up right next to him, his sword extending far away. She caught his head with a spinning elbow, causing him to stumble to the left as she slashed at the back of his left leg, tearing a wound at the back of his thigh.

As he retreated, trying to turn and face her again, she continued to pivot around him, keeping him in front of her, and landing more slashes to the backs of his arms and calves. He bellowed in rage, turning again, but finding only emptiness as she whirled and spun, always behind him, always a step ahead. A slash across his lower back, then along his upper spine. Slash and move, cut and spin, always behind him, always out of reach of his sword. This dance of pain continued around the room a few moments more when finally, she broke off, leaping back as he again swung blindly at where she was.

He stood, panting, swearing and bleeding. Sweat ran into his eyes as he wiped it away. The look of confidence and arrogance was now gone from his eyes, replaced by rage and fear.

Grymlyn stood calmly across from him, assessing her handiwork. Cuts bled on every part of the councilman, long shallow slices mapping out the path of her machetes. He was hurt and surprised. He was losing enough blood that it would become an issue in a few minutes. She knew he was aware of that, so he would want to end this quickly. That meant a level of recklessness that she was hoping for.

“Fuck you, you coward”, he gasped. “Quit twirling around and fight me! You think these little love bites are going to stop me?!”

The rage was palpable in his voice. Good. That was also going to affect his attacks.

Now came the brutality that she so craved.

Again, he lunged forward, aiming a downward strike that would split a tree in half. But unlike his initial lighting strikes, this one was overpowered and desperate. His fear was showing through it. She angled to the right, letting the strike fly past her as she aimed a cut at his non-sword arm. But this time, instead of a gentle rake to open the skin, she swung down and let her machete bite deep into his forearm, severing tendon and breaking bone.

He yelled out in pain and shock, pulling his injured arm into his body reflexively.  She spun behind him and aimed her next strike at his left hamstring, cutting into the back of his leg, and dropping him to his knees.

To his credit, even in this state, he spun on his knees, striking out with his sword. She arced her legs back, allowing the blade to pass harmlessly in front of her, then stepped in and buried her blade into his left collarbone. She left it there, stuck in his bone, and stepped back. His entire left side now useless.

Still, he threw out a feeble cut with his sword, the fire of hatred in his eyes. Instead of evading or blocking the cut, she met his swing with her own. However, her cut was thrown above his, and her machete angled down. She caught his wrist with the blade, severing it, his sword and hand sent skittering across the floor.

For a moment, he stared at his wrist, blood pumping furiously from it, as if it belonged to someone else. Then, the reality of what had happened hit him. He looked up at her, his eyes now full of fear and panic, and he begged. “Enough! Whatever you want…whatever they want, you can have it. I’ll sign anything, I’ll step down, please. There is an auto doc in the next room, just let me get my hand and get in there and you can have whatever it is you need!”

There it was. The moment she relished so very much. She had broken him.

“Please”, he continued to plead as she stepped towards him. “You can have anything you want”

“Well”, she finally spoke, “there is one thing I’d like.”

“Yes, yes! Anything!” he cried.

She swung her arm back and then forward, severing his head in one savage swing of her machete. She watched it drop, hitting the floor quickly, followed by his lifeless body. She bent over and picked the head up, blood still draining from his severed neck.

She had secured all the votes she needed, and it was now time to leave this planet and help the Under Dark forces prepare for their assault once the planetary defenses were voted out of commission. Battalions of Orc rippers would lead the now highly trained members of the World Tribe in retaking this planet. And she would provide essential intel on the resistance they would meet.

She had a ship waiting for her near the commercial district. She had already faked her flight credentials and access to launch later this day. All evidence of her mission has been cleaned up and erased, she didn’t like loose ends. There was just one more thing she needed to do, and she could leave.

She retraced her steps back downstairs, into the third-floor closet, and back out the secret passage. But instead of heading down the side street, she headed to the front gate. Once she got to the gate, she hefted the councilman’s head onto one of the fence spikes. She agreed that starting a collection here would have been lovely, but she had to go. She would leave the additional skulls to the Orcs that would soon rain down on this planet once it was vulnerable.

She quickly melted into the shadows of the street as alarm bells began to sound in the mansion. It wasn’t a far walk to her ship, and the route she had planned would avoid the paths the sentinels would take to respond to the alarms. In a few hours she would be back off-planet and on her way to the Under Dark forces. A hot shower, some good food and a long nap beckoned, and she intended to indulge in all three.