The full moon shines in the clear night sky, as the wind blows furiously, but the hundreds of armored soldiers guarded the fortress built as a ancient Japanese castle, a perfect cut stone in the middle of a artificial lake. The men were silent, and heavy armed mechs painted in red scanned the area searching for intruders. Inside the castle, an old man watched over his scared master:
-Master, the defenses are in place. Now this fortress is inexpugnable, so please rest.
-Quiet you old fart! Damn… Why I accepted making part of that foolish plan? “attack from north while we move from south, then we will take the land of Ord
-Master, there is no proof of that, and even if he did so, there is no guarantee the Blades would accept such task… Also the regular troops and the mercenary we hired are now watching the perimeter.
-Silence you stupid goat! That arkharian viper, Mariz wouldn’t waste the opportunity… As long war is declared, the assassin guilds can kill nobles without fearing prosecution… she would take the job for free, just for the taste of my blood! If I knew those morons would get slay so easily I would never enter this enterprise!!! Damn… my only chance is to negotiate a truce with Ord and suspend the war state… then the assassin guilds won’t be able to touch a nobleman like myself… You! Why I have no news of my messenger??
-Master, we dispatch several diplomatic messengers, but none return. Ord’s troops don’t let anyone leave his feud…
-That fat bastard!! He wants to see me dead? Then take my land? I have no choice than draft the commoners and try a surprise attack. Even if they all die, I can cause damage enough to force peace talks…
Suddenly an alarm sounds.
-What is this? Is an attack? Go check it! Now!! And call some guards to my room!
The old man leaves in a hurry as the feudal lord thrown books and paper weights at his heels.
Then the sound of gunfire and explosions fill the air, as a battle starts outside the castle. Too afraid to leave the room alone, he grabs a elegant energy pistol and touch a large crystal ball that lay over his table. It project a hologram with images of several security spheres around the premises. Smoke, confusion, gunfire everywhere, shadow figures moving too fast to be tracked, but none inside the castle, yet. They all are gathered at the main gate, fools!
-Guards! Ardann! Come here now! Is time to leave! Bring a squadron!
He touch a hidden button, and a wall opens, revealing a vault, full of treasures, gold, jewels, a feast to eyes, which the feudal lord try to fit inside leather bags and travel trunks.
-Where are Ardann and my guards? I will punish that old fart for making me wait like that…
-Ardann is dead, like the guards on this floor.
The voice, feminine, strong, cold but with a little drop of spite came from behind him, and he recognized it instantly.
-M… Mariz! It…it’s you!
He stuttered as his shivering hand slid discreetly to the pistol grip.
-Mariz, my dear… Please, don’t do anything rash, see all this gold? I’m sure I can outbid anything Orb offered you for my head… Let’s talk…
Quick as a snake he took his pistol and shot at the shadows, but she wasn’t there anymore.
-Don’t call me “dear”.
Her fist, wrapped on solid leather hit his jaw, as her feet kicked the pistol away, without effort.
-And above all, don’t forget: You don’t own me. Not anymore.
Her big green eyes shined like jade, filled with hatred.
- Ahh! Please Mariz! Forgive me for what I did before, I was just a boy!!! Look, now I am serious, take everything, as an apology! Just… don’t kill me!
Her cold face didn’t warned him about the kick she gave in his guts, and his cries didn’t made her stop kicking him after his fall.
-I remember. You had fifteen. I had eight, my sisters had six and four. You remember them? Alirah and Tabatha? And our mother, Neptunia? I bet you do.
He tried to crawl away like a maggot, just to be hit on his lower back. A snapping sound and a terrible pain were followed by the numbness of his legs.
-My mother wasn’t your doing… Your father killed her. I remember him, grabbing her neck, after the guards finished beating her, like she was some kind of broken toy.
-Sorry! Please let me go!!! It’s not my fault!
A soft “click” was the only indicator that she pulled the trigger of the energy pistol, hitting his hand, which burst in flames like paper in a furnace. His left hand had disappeared, leaving nothing below his elbow.
- I will never forget, me and my sisters, we watched it all. But it wasn’t over yet. He slowly stabbed her, just bellow the ribs, and waited her die in his hands, before throwing her dead body at our feet. You looked impressed.
-It was my father fault, everything! He was a sick man! I hated him too!!! Believe me when I say I tried to help!
She kick the back of his head, and he hit the floor with his teeth, that brake soaking him with blood.
-Shut up. Help us? Like when your father asked if he should “give something to the dogs to play”? Oh I remember well that you smiled like a devil and said that the dogs would love to play with… Tabatha.
She kicked him again, several times, until he was covered in wounds. He cried and beg, but she wouldn’t stop.
-She was only four, and you feed her to war dogs, laughed as she cried and screamed, while your beasts ripped her to shreds! It was you way to help us?!
-… Please!!!
-But it didn’t end. No, as your father leaved, drunk, to his prostitutes and little boys, you challenged your brother, Despain, to some night shooting practice.
-I was drunk! I didn’t want to! I swear!!!
She punched until he stop moving and laid still on the floor, crying.
-You were drunk… But still had a gun and two girls. Alirah wasn’t your type, I recall you saying she was thin as a stick, not the type of girl to take as a prize.
-Please…
He cried as she took her sword of the sheath.
-You were pretty good with a rifle, better than Despain. I remember that killing that inbreed pig was like crushing a maggot. A maggot like you. If I recall you won that night, first hit her in the leg, let her crawling in the mood and finally burst her head with a beam of energy. You let her body there, to rot in the middle of nowhere. For the next two years you told that tale to everyone, how you won a little slut in a bet against your brother. You would always say “she screamed like a hog, so annoying, that I decided to blow her head of”. Two years in your hands, chained, tortured, raped, humiliated in everyway possible way, as you would mock me over the death of my family, and how easy was to take this land from my father.
-You…You want the land back? I give it to you! Right now! Take it please!!!
-I want to see you dead, like the rest of your wretched family. I killed every single one of them, now only you are left.
-You, you WHORE! YOU CAN’T KILL ME, I AM A NOBLE MAN!!! I AM THE LORD OF THIS LAND!! YOU CAN’T KILL ME!
-Oh, true. Noblemen can only be killed during war time, accordingly to the war rules. Was difficult to be the first to get the war-time jobs I needed to kill your family. I had to sleep with many filthy men, kill some good people, pay off important politicians, and above all, lie to many, many nobles. Oh was so hard to plant false information good enough to make you and your allies attack Ord. But I could always count on your greed, isn’t true?
-You...You set me up! You started a war so you could kill me!!
-I started nothing. I am one of the Blades. We just finish things. Things and people.
Her sword cut his head of swiftly, and his two last beats gushed blood over the once precious treasure. Everything on that room disgust her. How many times she tried to kill him, to kill herself, just to fail and to be tortured even more horribly.
If she wasn’t left behind in the battle field during one of the many failed military attacks of the Drepain… Only the gods knew what would be of her. She armed incendiary charges inside the vault and in the damned bed, pick his head and wrapped it on a thermo blanket to preserve it and leaved. On the door of the master bedroom, the Blades mark: A long dark steel dagger. That part of her life was finally over, she finished her businesses there.
Without looking back, she disappeared in the shadows, not Mariz, not anymore. Now she was finally one of them. Her name, Rouge of the Blades.
She managed to leave the castle without be seen or heard. Like a ghost, she avoided the confuse soldiers, and planted discrete energy bombs. As she entered the cold waters, s the pressed a small button on her discrete wrist-computer, and the entire castle was engulfed in a huge ball of fire. The men outside the castle panic, mercenary, knights, samurai, professional soldiers, they all started to run around like insects. Some would fall to friendly fire, others would be killed by a sniper from the Blades, one of her team mates.
One hour later they were reunited, hidden in the dense woods, close to the border between Ord’s and Drepain’s feuds. They were in five, and one of them, older and with red cybernetic eyes talked first:
-Give me your reports, first you, Stonehands.
A muscular man, bald and in his twenties smiled, he have a ordinary face, and could pass easily as a commoner.
-Yesh! Mister Wireblade! My assignment was to track down and kill a rich weapon trader called Mori Gaspent, Drepain supplier, destroy the guns and ammunitions he would supply to Drepain forces, and plant virtual evidences that he was murdered by his younger brother, Adrani. The mission was a success! I caught him with his favorite prostitute, no guards. Killed both – The man make a movement with his hands, like he was snapping a stick –Too bad about the girl. The weapons were a far cleaner job, made it explode in the river harbor, investigations will show that a malfunction on the fuel lines of the barge made the entire thing explode! Was beautiful!
-Good. Next, you Lionant.
A man with a face covered with scars bow down respectfully and spoke in a cold tone:
-Sir. My mission was to sabotage the West Gate bridge, destroying both, the bridge and a convoy with supplies and reinforcements. The bridge is no more. I used a patrol boat as a Trojan horse, filled with directional charges. When they figured something was wrong, was already too late. The bridge and anything in a two hundred meter radius was destroyed, and all reinforcements killed.
-Very good. Now you two, Crowfeather and Rouge, spoke.
Rouge had a calm look, but the young Crowfeather, a energetic girl tall as her sniper rifle, took the lead and narrated the attack to the castle:
-Was a piece of cake! Was a show, I killed 85 foot soldiers, 41 mercenaries, 9 knights and even took down four mechs, and Rouge made her part while I distracted them! Show them what you got, Rouge!
Crowfeather’s hazel eyes shinned, but Rouge was at best, bored. She unwrapped the feudal lord’s head and offered it to the leader.
-The last… The only one in the Drepain bloodline. Now all his samurai are ronin, his knights are homeless and his land vacant. This war is practically over.
-Excellent. Tonight the blades did well. In two of three jobs, our mark was left, so they will know our strength. Now we split again. Crowfeather, you will come with me to the frontline, where we will meet Ord’s generals. Stonehands, Lionant, in this self destructive letters you will find each one a new mission. Rougeblade, the feudal lord Ord asked you to deliver Drepain’s head to him, and to describe his death in details.
-Yes, will be a pleasure.
The woman get up grabbed the morbid package and left, looking annoyed. Stonehands scratched his muscular neck and spoke one last thing before they all went their separated ways.
-Ehh, she just made an excellent job, and still can’t smile… I wish I was assigned good jobs like killing feudal lords… !
