A Dish Best Served Cold

-Phoenix Mountains, nightfall-

Sitting in the lower branches of a tree that overlooked a route frequented by merchant caravans, Stiletto was here on behalf of a Daggercorp client who wanted revenge for the death of a childhood friend and their family, a client with some dark connections and a need for revenge. The client's friend owned a tailor's shop in Hargeon Town and a gang of toughs had robbed it. Not satisfied with stealing the tailor's Jewels and selected wares the gang's female hanger-on wanted for herself, the gang then killed the tailor and his family just because they could. The gang then demonstrated the questionable intelligence and very poor taste to go to a tavern in another town and brag about the crime in earshot of another friend of the client's. The client wanted the gang exterminated and they did not care how that objective was completed so long as the gang was dead by sunrise.

Stiletto was wearing the company armor and was concealed in shadow. The falling snow had long since obliterated any footprints the assassin might have left behind while getting into position, so her only concern now was to wait for the targets to hit one of the merchant caravans that traveled through here. According to the briefing, the gang had a penchant for robbing and killing anyone who traveled through "their" territory. The Rune Knights were occupied elsewhere and were thus unable to apprehend the gang, but Stiletto had a bigger concern than encountering the poster boys for law enforcement. She had heard reports that a particularly powerful wind mage and Wizard Saint lived in the mountains of this region.

Stiletto was not terribly concerned about the mage intervening tonight. They would die just like anyone else if shot in the head enough times, but what the assassin was concerned about was the backlash from killing a Wizard Saint. While accomplishing the feat of killing one of the Magic Council's chosen pets would give Stiletto major "street cred" among Hidden Blades and the Dark Guilds, the backlash would be swift and overwhelming. The Rune Knights would get involved and leave no stone unturned in their search for the killer; their two most powerful mages would be on the case and the Rune Knight named "Mythal" was just as powerful as the Wizard Saint. There was also the possibility that the Wizard Saint might somehow come back to life and endeavor to take revenge on their would-be killer; Stiletto had not lasted this long by drawing unnecessary attention to herself and she would not purposely draw attention to herself now.

Stiletto pushed that thought out of her mind and focused on the task at hand, which was to find and kill the bandit gang. She would not have to wait too long and search too hard because a quintet of people laden with bags of Jewels and some well-made female clothing walked past the trail and were making noise all the while. Stiletto brought out Silent Hunter and peered through the scope at her targets to see who she would be taking out.

The gang consisted of four men with different weapons and a woman who was unarmed. Three men wore clothing in various states of disintegration, one man wore something resembling a decent outfit, and the woman wore much better clothing than her colleagues... not that that was saying a whole lot. The five were loudly trading wisecracks about the tailor they had killed and how he would need to be fitted for a grave. The woman quickly made a joke about fitting the tailor's two children for coffins, a joke which was met with laughter. That cruel joke made any reluctance to wipe out the gang immediately disappear.

Stiletto remained silent and let the group of hooligans lead her straight to their hideout, which was a small cave set in a hill that overlooked the trade route. It was partially concealed by trees, but no amount of trees could hide them from her now that she knew where they lived. She let them joke and let them swagger into their cave thinking they had gotten away with their crime, but death would come knocking very soon. Stiletto would see to it that none of the "Copycat Gang" lived to see sunrise.

[Word Count: 730]
[Total Word Count: 730/1,500]

-Phoenix Mountains, two hours later-

Stiletto was still sitting in her tree perch and had Silent Hunter aimed at the cave the entire time, waiting for one of the Copycat Gang to pop their head out. She watched and listened as a three-wagon caravan loaded with cloth and silk noisily creaked along the trail and their thirty hired guards on horseback armed with rifles and shotguns scanned the terrain for signs of trouble. The well-dressed blond man took a single look at the caravan and its guards and slowly sunk back into the cave, taking a man holding two knives with him. He was going to let this caravan pass because the risk of dealing with the guards would be far more trouble than the cargo was worth.

The gang leader was smarter than he looked. Stiletto eased her finger away from the trigger and resumed her silent vigil as the caravan creaked away and out of sight. The time to kill the gang had not yet come. The lone female loudly disagreed with the leader's sensible idea not to attack the wagons.

"ZAAAAACH, we coulda used that silk and cloth! We coulda sold it for who knows how many Jewels!" The red-haired woman protested, the noise of the argument reaching Stiletto's ears thanks to it being carried on the wind and the argument happening just inside the mouth of the cave.

"Kim, did you see how many guards that caravan had? How long would we last against thirty men with guns?" Zach asked rhetorically.

"But you're a wind mage! You've got super magical powers and stuff! You coulda killed them all in the time it takes to blink!" Kim continued her protest, seemingly oblivious to the point Zach was trying to make. Zach sighed.

"I might be a wind mage, but I'm not that strong. Not strong enough to go up against thirty armed men and stand a chance. We'll hit the next merchant wagon that comes through." Zach told Kim. Kim let out a disgusted sigh.

"FINE, but it'd better not be furniture again." Kim reluctantly agreed to Zach's plan. The man with two knives sauntered up and jumped into the conversation.

"You don't do a whole lotta work anyway, so quit yer bitchin'. Zach's right." The man with two knives and a brown bowl cut said to Kim. Kim stomped her foot.

"SHUT UP, TOBY! You can't even handle your knives properly! Zach had to kill the tailor because you were too busy twirling them around in your hands and trying to look cool!" Kim screamed at the third gang member.

"Let's just get inside before someone hears us." Zach suggested, his voice full of suffering. He was exasperated from trying to handle a hanger-on and the rest of the people he called a criminal organization. Stiletto would end his pain very soon.

-One hour later-

Stiletto listened to the sounds of celebration as poorly played instrumental music that was being wrung from a cello floated from the cave. The hapless Toby was standing watch outside the cave and was juggling the knives he carried to amuse himself during the thankless task. The sound of cart wheels rolling on snow drifted toward Stiletto. Toby must have heard them too because he caught the knives by the handles and ran inside the cave to alert Zach and the rest. Stiletto stayed in her perch and waited for the bandits to emerge from their shelter so that she could complete the contract. She did not have very long to wait... the music stopped, the gang massed at the mouth of the cave and was eying the single cart of silk with a small four-man escort that was rolling through.

Stiletto knew that she had to act so that the cart would not be overrun by the gang, but if she fired now the caravan would be alerted to her presence and that would bring complications that she really did not need. The gang all left the cave and started to take positions behind trees next to the path. Suddenly the snowfall increased and the wind picked up to form a miniature blizzard. The cart's driver turned the cart around and headed back down the mountain and the gang was beside themselves about what to do. She could see the frustration on Zach's face as the cart of goods went back down the mountain and she could see Kim punch Zach in the shoulder and glare at him.

[Word Count: 775]
[Total Word Count: 1,505/1,500]

The gang began to break cover in disappointment and filter back to their cave. They were traveling in single-file, which gave the patient huntress a golden opportunity to get rid of them all while they were out in the open. Stiletto could not let this opportunity go to waste.

Stiletto aimed Silent Hunter at the back of the head of a poorly dressed gang member with a wooden club. The wind and snow picked up, so she switched to Night Vision and kept her aim. She fired just when the wind howled the loudest and the hapless gang member dropped face-first to the snow with a bullet hole in the back of his head. She adjusted her aim and aimed at the back of another gang member's head... this one was slightly better dressed and wielded a steel hammer. The wind howled again and a Full Metal Jacket shot ended the life of the hammer-wielding man.

The remaining three gang members continued to trudge through the blizzard without even knowing that two of their fellows were lying dead on the snow. Stiletto took advantage of that ignorance to aim at Toby's head and fire a Full Metal Jacket round. His head snapped forward, the two knives fell from his hands, and he pitched onto the snow and lay motionless. Kim and Zach still trudged to the cave and were arguing about the wagon that had just gotten away because she could hear snippets of it.

Stiletto adjusted her aim and aimed for the back of Kim's head. She waited for the wind to pick up before firing. When the shot connected, she was rewarded with the sight of Kim's head snapping forward and her falling inelegantly to the snow; her body rolled down the slight incline to a stop and her left arm fell over Toby's body in a grim parody of an embrace. Stiletto was surprised that she managed to hit the girl's brain... the assassin thought that the shot would miss because of all the empty space in her skull.

Zach must have heard the tumbling because he turned around and saw the lifeless bodies of his gang sprawled on the snow. Stiletto aimed for his forehead and settled the crosshairs on the point. His blue eyes looked in her direction and they widened just before she squeezed the trigger and put a hole in his head, ending his criminal career in a spray of pink mist. The job had been completed. Now it was time to get out of here before another caravan rolled through and spotted the bodies... or spotted her making her getaway.

Stiletto carefully viewed the bodies through her scope to make sure they were really dead. She switched to Infrared mode to check for heat signatures coming from the bodies of her targets, but all the bodies were cold. Stiletto dispelled Silent Hunter and carefully climbed down the tree, then carefully made her way for a clump of woods away from the trail to make good her escape. She ducked into the woods and blended with the shadows, making it next to impossible for her to be spotted.

No one had seen her in action and she had left nothing to trace her by: no fingerprints, no footprints, no fiber threads from clothing. The snow and wind would fill in her footprints by the time investigators arrived to search for evidence. By the time they got here Stiletto would be gone without a trace. She had completed another contract killing, but she could live with taking this job because she did the world a favor in removing the Copycat Gang from existence.

[Word Count: 620]
[Total Word Count: 2,125/1,500]