Other assassins should be on the planet by now; Anastasia could only see EMP charges in the main city district, at least according to the holographic map from her visor. Even with her high-speed running capabilities, Anastasia discovered that simply walking would arouse the least suspicion.
Although, it would be somewhat suspicious to find any creature worshipping this architectural Zudrian vomit. She’d expect Zudrian workers to keep their heads down instead of strolling through some upper-class artist’s compiled narcissism, so acting like she belonged would be easy. Just like them, she had places to be. Besides, the sight was painful; sparkling gold and platinum building spires produced light glares that attacked her eyes and made her want to break out in streams of swears any time she made the error of looking up.
"Assassin Queen, come in!"
A grand, domed structure glowed ahead. From the spires came searchlights, which bathed the sky in white luminosity, swaying left and right as if her eyes weren’t molten enough. Unlike the rest of the town, this structure thankfully lacked the neon strobe lights, instead opting for orange colors that called back to branding, a hot iron burned onto the bodies of selected slaves. One step forward for losing the neon. Twenty steps back for crimes against sentient life.
Anastasia’s stomach tossed her lunch halfway up her throat.
"Auction Party, Bid for Best Value Slaves! 5000 Credits Starting Bid!!! ½ A Person Added to Your Property Value for every family of slaves!"- the orange text read.
"Calm down, Anastasia," she had to say to herself. She needed to calm down, but her blades' hilts clenched in her fists, "they'll be free soon, and those responsible are going to hell even sooner. You're part of the end, the solution. Don't-" Her knives lifted from their pockets, gleaming in the cold night. "-worry!"
"Anastasia," #5173's voice said through her radio, "you're going to have to make entry into that stadium."
She scoffed. "And get myself instantly spotted?"
Watcher #5173 sighed, saying nothing substantial for a few seconds. Waiting patiently for a response, Anastasia looked to her right, making out a store with… some dresses marketed in the interior.
"Wanting to go to the Auction? Well, come look snazzy!" a neon advertisement cheered, making Anastasia roll her eyes at the notion of how preppy the Auction really was. "We've got suits for the males… and absolutely sexy dresses for the females!"
"Of course, the female sex is meant to be a doll." Anastasia snarled to herself.
"Have you found a way to get in?"
Watcher #5173's voice shot through Anastasia's thought processes. A way to get into the Auction, something entirely feasible for her since her suit was made for camouflage and other stealth forms, but her goal was to avoid detection.
Using her exoskeleton’s abilities would have to be a last resort. Unfortunately enough, the dress was the Assassin Queen’s ticket into a slave auction.
“Assassin Queen? Come in. Assassin Queen!” Watcher #5173 shouted.
Clearing her throat, Anastasia entertained the person on her radio intercoms. “Watcher?” She gave a glance toward the shop once again, eyes settling on an immaculate, white dress that absorbed the neon colors of city lights just outside a display window.
A car moved by the clothing shop, throwing scraps of food and paper into the air nearby.
Anastasia smirked. “I may have found my way in.”
She made a run for the shadow of the store, using only a tiny amount of spirit energy to accelerate her legs to a velocity of fifty kilometers per hour. This speed was not much, nor was it significant enough to cause sonic waves that would render her detected.
It was just right.
Getting into the store was the easy part; the owner probably thought himself a genius, having bought an interconnected lock on the doors and windows as a countermeasure to street thieves. Of course, this was linked to the local military police, and they were long breached by the tachyon communicator. Thus, Anastasia only had to enter three lines of code into the device and the door swung wide open.
Her intercom came to life again, this time from Solares’s channel.
“Excellent job exploiting the best of Zudrian security measures,” Solares exaggerated, “surely no one could have expected the password to be ‘Hail Zudra’.”
“It might as well have been, Matty.” she smiled.
The owner was foolish enough to not buy any motion sensors, a useful tool that Zudrian lords used to prevent pirates and bandits from stealing their goods and exiting gung-ho. Again, he was an idiot, just like his entire country.
Takes a creature to know a creature to get anywhere in Zudra. Anastasia thought to herself while her knife made tiny incisions into the white dress’s display window. Glass casing would work against thieves, but against people like her it was a sitting fowl. Each cut, twist, and turn moved only with an arm guiding a dagger’s shank while the Assassin Queen looked outside.
Her heart nigh jumped when a Zudrian police vehicle hovered across the road, lights blaring across the streets. When they shone on her, Anastasia stilled every muscle, even her lungs, and made a mannequin out of her own body. The vehicle had stopped for a short time, and the Assassin Queen believed that she may have had to modify her plans to be bloodier.
Fortunately, they left.
For their own good and hers.
The dress fell off the model that once held it, flying into Anastasia’s hands as she ran to the bathroom. The second she entered, her own smell filled the room and assailed her nostrils, reminding her of the recent foray through feces and sewage. Her nose wrinkled at the putridness of the sulfur and urine she dunked herself into just for cover. That was when she once again learned that all choices had consequences.
“Shower,” Anastasia whispered, “I need a fucking shower!”
Thankfully, some Zudrian shops offered it as an extra service to the customers buying their clothing. A glass door, a small cubicle, and a shower head were all to her left. Anastasia beamed brighter than she did when her late father brought home meat.
“Alright suit,” she commanded her exoskeleton, “Body Armor Coating, disassemble!”
Thread by thread, her suit began peeling off, and even those peeled threads began coming apart. Ever so slowly, the Assassin Queen’s armor dissipated, leaving her only in undergarments. Had she any less clothing, then some noble would be bidding with her as the product.
“I would sell for quite the high price,” Anastasia said as she looked herself over, “they would go bankrupt just to get me. Hope they have a murder fetish.”
The shower was hot, just the way she liked it. Oftentimes, warm water held more of a preference to a person who had no uses for fire in battle. Once upon a time, Anastasia thought Solares liked sweltering heat, until they went to some glacier for calm meditation.
“Hothead,” she said to herself, “of course he would need ice.”
The Assassin Queen left the shower satisfied with her own odor. The exoskeleton, though disassembled, had nanites that still clung to her body, so the thing had better be clean. Now, for the dress, better known as the Zudrian take on female fashion.
It should have been as easy as throwing one’s feet in and pulling up the straps. Of course, Anastasia had quickly done that. But this one was manufactured to be tight around the waist, chest, and posterior. Maybe the Zudrians designed the abomination to tear because she was jumping and tripping over herself to get it on. Even throwing the thing over her head failed to deliver. Whatever the reason, the Assassin Queen found herself fighting a piece of white lace and fabric.
This was embarrassing.
Yanking the damned annoying straps upwards, Anastasia furiously continued her struggle, attempting to fit the dress onto her body. Cursing to herself and jumping on one foot, she fought the accursed fabric for the right to sit still. The seams pulled against her chest so much that breathing felt like running. Such an experience was as terrible as a war crime committed by Zudrian soldiers.
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Her radio was mumbling static as she struggled with the dress. A deep voice talked, and Anastasia knew just who.
"Matthias," she hissed through clenched teeth, "I swear to the Almighty, if you're laughing at me again, I will tie you upside down!" Solares got to laugh at her as she swam through the sewage, but laughing as she put a dress on? That was a declaration of war.
She'd fuck him up, King of Demons, brother or not.
"Calm your daggers," Solares replied, "by the Almighty, aren't you cantankerous?"
"Uh-huh, Maybe, I am cantankerous, especially since I'm trying to get a stupid dress on!" she furiously whispered. At this very moment, the dress decided that the time had come to fit. When the garment did, Anastasia was immediately itching. How her body could tolerate this choking device existed beyond her comprehension.
She looked at herself in the mirror, seeing the choking dress firmly clamped against her poor body. Was the dress curvy enough to attract eyes? Yes, and it punished the wearer with unabated wrath. Zudrian fashion at its finest.
The Assassin Queen could have excelled in seduction in other ways, but this dress made her look upper caste enough to blend in, even with her Nashiyegan grey skin tone. And as painful as it was to wear, she could not deny that such a dress would do most of the job for her. All she had to do was simply exist and appear as innocuous as possible. With each and every physical aspect of her put on display, and her deadlier aspects diminished, Anastasia reminded herself of a succubus; succubi were beautiful, irresistible, and they baited weak creatures over for the possibility of mating…
Death came to their victims.
Instant death.
She eyed herself again, though she did not want to waste too much time. Honestly, if she weren't so smothered by the seams, she'd have felt like a goddess, a demonic goddess. King of Demons, Solares had better move over, for the Assassin Queen was coming.
"Succubus…" Anastasia said to her reflection, "I am a succubus…"
None could resist her. The Zudrians would forget her race and opt to woo her instead.
Fools they'd be.
Dead fools…
Satisfied with her physical allure, Anastasia marched toward the makeup section of this surprisingly all-in-one shop. Her greedy hands seized powder, lashes, and red lipstick, a favorite of hers – fortunate that such would become useful during this mission – and ran off to the dressing room yet again.
Delicately and intricately, she tended to her lashes, applied powder on her cheeks, gave herself the right amount of blush (at least enough on grey skin), and licked her lips.
The finished result was Anastasia herself, but applied with many extras added. Should she ever go to a dance, this style, one of white dresses and red facial aesthetic, would be a best bet.
The succubus was ready.
"Are you moving in, Anastasia?"
Solares decided to show himself, just in time for the next phases of her undisclosed strategy. The other assassins had their presences elsewhere on Corona Eternus; she had the main event, and she would make hers spectacular.
"Just about to," she said with cold eyes, "I am ready to move into the stadium, oh, one thing I need from you before we go in-" Reclining against the makeup chair, Anastasia rested her arms upon the armrests and tried to relax. Adrenaline was running through her veins, slave lives were at risk, for if she failed the casualties would be enormous; the rebel assault would implode, innocents would perish, and the war against Zudrian imperialists would suffer a devastating setback.
"This planet will be ours, Ana," Solares said to her. Somehow he could always tell when she was stressed, “calm your nerves. A risk for too many, yes, but you are the Assassin Queen, are you not? And I am the Solares.”
“Yes,” she exhaled, “I know what we are, I know what I am! But what if today we aren’t enough, Matty? What if the slaves fall, what if I fall, what if you fall-?”
“And we will not, want to know why? Because no creature has managed to knock the Assassin Queen and Demon King from their thrones. And no one, ever will. We will be fine, baby sister. What was it you were saying you needed from me?”
He was right again, not even angry precursors or the Zudrian military brought her or Solares down. So, who was she to think that this time would be the end? Difficult, yes, but the tests always made the warrior.
Always.
Then came ecstasy, a strange pleasure that she routinely felt before a mission. Anastasia did not know how, but somehow Solares’s typical stupidity managed to revive her inner war machine.
"You’re doing great, Solares. All I need you to do now is stand back and stand by," she stated, her voice regaining its unwavering force, "I will be using my wiles to lure the nobility to their deaths.
Particularly, my target is Fabio Incardriss."
"Incardriss?"
"You heard me right. Incardriss. I will let him have his way with me-" the Assassin Queen continued, "so we can have our way with the entire planet. Ready, Matty?"
"You just desire for me to sloth around?"
She belly laughed without a need to care about who was outside. "I know, I know; it's been a while since the Assassin Queen and Demon King brought hell together. But wait just a little while longer, we’ll have our chance, and we can fight whatever abomination of the week you want."
“We?”
“Don’t you dare bring your frail ego into this!”
“I do not wish for you to die. If it’s abominations we are after, I am the shield of this family.”
“And I am the sword, so sit down and shut your mouth!”
“It is a relief to see you back to yourself.”
“Thanks for bringing me back, Matty,” Anastasia winked, “now, I'll be dancing with Fabio, and then I'll stab him in the back; when I call you, that is when the destruction commences, and the slaves are freed."
A grunt from Solares, which was a confirmation sign, forged a grin on the Succubus’s lips.
Her bloody red, hungry lips.
The Assassin Queen left the store in silence, walking across the street with the coliseum in her periphery. The world wasn't so mum, lights streaked across skies, fireworks popped and cracked in the atmosphere, but up ahead and near the coliseum, a swarm of police vehicles were crowding around. At instinct’s behest, Anastasia activated her visor; if enemies were nearby, then she needed to see them.
Circles and blinking red dots, more than her visor could cover in standard view, lit up the holographic screen. The planet had a mess of rings converging above the coliseum’s location on the map, the work of several arrays of low orbit satellites. As if the military police couldn’t be any more warlike, they used those satellites to watch for targets, often detecting whichever criminals used spirit energy in their escapades. Anastasia was just beginning to think that the planet's default modem was full scale militarization. This was a touch of sarcasm though; any Zudrian planet was in a constant state of war.
She held her breath, moving down a wide, open avenue densely populated with not only police vans, but military units. Black tanks, again with the camouflaging armor, barreled cannons longer than a person lying flat on the ground, pointing upwards. It was a humorous picture; the Zudrian military was pointing their guns straight at the clouds. Knowing Zudra, anything outside of their control was an enemy of the state.
“But would they win? The clouds have logistical advantages.” Anastasia mumbled.
Then came the troops, with each and every one of them armed to the literal teeth, which even had mouth guards on them. In the palms of their hands were rifles, dark as the sky and equipped with flashlights, and they were marching briskly on sidewalks.
Not a bit of spirit energy was in sight, indicating these troops to be standard basic grunts from Zudra itself. The crown and sword insignia, ripped from the flag of Zudra proper, adorned close to their heart rather than their forehead. Forehead markings were reserved for the most esteemed troops, who were supposedly distinguished in merit.
"When Zudra sent their troops," Anastasia said, "they didn't send their best."
A few of the army personnel shot her a look before going on to mutter amongst themselves. Anastasia narrowed her eyes, but not so much to make herself look worthy of suspicion.
She could kill all of these troops, and fairly quickly. Even the tanks went down, they took a little bit of work, but they stood still, sluggishly moving whilst she was the polar opposite; with a close enough pass and a fast enough run, a sonic boom would follow her footsteps, disable their systems and armor.
The Assassin Queen wouldn’t get the honor of disposing of this army, however. That work went to someone else, her ally, partner, and brother, the King of Demons, Solares himself. Every time the Zudrians dealt with him, they’d see their grand armies and policemen reduced to slag or molecules. Even with their grandiose cannons, the military police hadn’t the slightest clue as to just what kind of reckoning the Demon King would bring.
That was for later, though.
Blend in.
"Hey, you!"
A burly Zudrian, with blue skin that cracked open white blisters, called to her from a toll booth. His girth was wide enough to swallow Anastasia whole and make her feel like a twig. With his hand on a pork belly that fought wars against suit buttons, the Zudrian placed his hand on an aged gray beard that looked as cold as subzero ice.
"You," he pointed at Anastasia, making her freeze in place, "aren't you lovely for a greyback?"
His voice lisped, words sliding down his tongue with drool appearing on his lips. Whether he licked them or not wouldn't have been a surprise. The toll worker's eyes, a crispy cream color, made themselves visible.
Anastasia approached them, giving the toll worker as much of her attention as she possibly could. If information was necessary, then the worker could get the mission closer to the coliseum, or even further the operation. His pupils looked down, left, right, and then up.
She already knew that he was undressing her with his eyes, but it still made the skin crawl.
"Come here, doll," the worker leered, "whichever noble is showing you off as a concubine tonight is a lucky creature..."
Don't lose your cool, Anastasia. You can do this. It's all part of the plan.
Her breath shook within her throat, and she caved.
She walked to the toll worker, holding her breath with an awareness she had never felt in her life.
"There is the little doll," he was laughing at her, using the same name again, "the little bedding doll…"
Anastasia gulped, stepping closer to the toll booth when the worker beckoned.
Hissing, humming, rumbled from his throat as the chair creaked. The worker was getting up, and his boots were clacking the hard metal of the booth and solid magnetic asphalt of the roads.
"It's time for a pat down," he chuckled, "I'm sure that you and I both will enjoy it…"
Stay calm…
A pair of soldiers walked up to the Assassin Queen, rubbing their hands together and engaging in banter with the elderly Zudrian.
Anastasia could have killed them for what they did.
But she let the Zudrians pat her down.
She needed to get in.
No matter how invasive, they would get their due later.
"You're free to go, sweetheart," the toll worker said to her, releasing his hands from her waist, "have fun at the party… and remember to satisfy that lucky fucker…"
She'd satisfy him, alright.