★ Hit Piece Gone Wrong ★

Night had flooded over Crocus many hours ago. In the darkness of the wee hours of the morning, very few beings stirred beyond the rats that darted through alleyways. Dawn was still a few hours out. In downtown Crocus, street lights illuminated the paths between the large buildings. Some reached high into the air, seeming to touch the starry blanket of the sky. One such building was the home of a popular food and drink gossip magazine called the Insider Sip.

Inside, all the lights were off. The custodian had left just an hour ago after finishing her duties. On her way out, she had stopped by one of the bullpen offices and waved goodbye to the only other employee left in the building. He had waved lazily without looking over his shoulder, to which the lady looked crestfallen. Quickly she retreated and left the building, still stinging from the cold interaction.

The final employee was a chubby young man who sat at a desk covered in papers and empty coffee mugs. A few pens and pencils were scattered over the space. He was hunched over, staring feverishly at his lacrima computer screen, which reflected on his thick-lensed glasses. The device provided the only light in the room, a dim blue glow that gave little life to the grim filing cabinets and the pathetic water cooler by the door. The man had a cerulean tone himself. The only sound in the room was the constant tapping of fingers against the keyboard.

He was working desperately to finish a juicy gossip story before the morning. Just a day ago, there had been a mishap by a well-loved whiskey company. Hellfire Distillery was one of the leading brands of all kinds of whiskey. It was a household name, so common that even the elderly had fond memories of it in their younger years. Their most popular liquor was their cinnamon whiskey. It was the beloved drink of teens and young adults due to the spicy burn it left in their throats and stomachs.

The famed cinnamon whiskey was the center of the report this focused man was writing. In one of their recent batches, Hellfire had accidentally let some of their distillery cleaning supplies fall into a vat of their best drink. It was mostly caught before distribution, but some bottles still got out. Several young men and women had been hospitalized from consuming the contaminated liquor. The company had done their best to ease the damage done by compensating the hospital bills for the victims and issuing an apology to the families. So far, the anger around the situation had started to die down.

That wouldn’t be the case if this reporter was allowed to finish and publish his piece. There had been rumors around Crocus that there was a magazine that was going to expose the company for all their wrongdoings. Despite its popularity, such a hit piece could have an impact on sales for Hellfire. Loss in profits was unacceptable to them. Thus, they had reached out quietly for help. Postings had been put up requesting that the reporter be stopped before he could harm Hellfire’s reputation. Whoever took it needed to either silence the man’s work or kill him. However, it had to look like an accident. There couldn’t be any suspicion roused around the situation.

Aeluri had seen the listing at the Hidden Blades headquarters and was immediately enraged. Hellfire was her favorite brand of any kind of whiskey, especially cinnamon. That had been the first liquor she tried at the ripe age of 14. The taste was unique and she had spent a massive amount of money on their drinks over the years. Anyone trying to ruin the company was immediately her enemy as well. Hellfire couldn’t be taken down, the notion was incomprehensible. Unacceptable.

So here the dark mage was, staring at her target from the darkness of the bullpen room. She’d been sitting quietly in the rafters in the corner of the room for a while. The black Hidden Blades outfit she donned helped mask her form in the darkness. This employee would need some sort of night vision to pick out her hooded form near the ceiling. Aeluri greatly appreciated how comfortably the outfit blended in and allowed for stealth. Entering the building was a breeze. The custodian had been listening to music on full blast while she worked, so the assassin was able to slip by unnoticed. She considered killing the lesser employee too, but she was dancing the night away as she cleaned. The awful dance moves amused Aeluri slightly, so she opted for mercy this time.

Aeluri wrinkled her nose in disgust as she observed the reporter below. He was a disgusting excuse for a human, not just because of what he was writing. The man had gotten up to go grab a snack and take a break from his work. When he had returned, he was carrying a bowl of spinach. Raw spinach. He sat down and began munching on it as he re-read what he had written so far. What kind of person just ate spinach raw?!

Not only that, but he had put his grimy shoes up on the desk. His pant legs had scrunched up to reveal patterned socks. The garments had the figures of naked cartoon women woven into them. Each one had breasts unnecessarily large for their forms and had vibrant red blushing cheeks. Upon seeing these, Aeluri was abhorred. Not only was this nasty dude writing a smear campaign against her favorite company, but he was eating raw spinach and fetishising cartoon women on his socks. Simply disgusting.

Aeluri had had enough. It was time to complete the task she had come here for. With a silent leap, she descended from the rafters, her feet landing with only the quietest of sounds. The cloaked assassin approached the desk with a predatory stalk, where the degenerate had begun to work on his piece again. It seemed he had added the final touch, as he exclaimed to himself. “Yes! It’s done! Rose is gonna be so happy with this one.”

“Not so fast,” Aeluri purred, grabbing up the man roughly by his hair. Her other hand went to his throat, where long feline claws extended from her glove and pricked at the skin. The man gasped and struggled for a second before realizing that his life was at the tips of her claws. He turned and tried to see who it was that had attacked him, but was met with a blank, indistinguishable masked face.

“W-who are you?!” he squeaked, his voice cracking from fear. “What do you want?” Frantic hands gripped the arms of the chair tightly. Aeluri could feel his pulse going a mile a minute under her claws.

“It’s simple,” she hissed, pulling on his hair a bit. The victim whimpered. “What you’re going to do is delete everything you just wrote. Such blasphemy will never be allowed to reach print. Then, you’re going to write an apology that will be printed in its stead. Understood?”

“Okay! Okay. Please, d-don’t hurt me,” he agreed hastily, begging for his life. “We’ll see about that,” the assassin said wolfishly. In a heartbeat she released his hair and shoved him towards the computer. Unprepared, he tipped forward and hit his forehead on the edge of the desk. Blood began to drip from the cut, which he hastily wiped away. The red liquid coated his keyboard as his hands moved shakily across it.

Aeluri sat on the edge of the desk, tapping her claws ominously against the desk in slow repetition. The sound resembled the ticking of a clock, counting down to the reporter’s fate. She wasn’t in any hurry, but seeing the increasing nervousness of her target was delicious. Smelling his fear mixed with the coagulation of blood on his face left her hungry for more. The thrill of being a predator with prey at her fingertips to toy with reminded her of why she took jobs like this.

Once all the words had been deleted, the panicked reporter quickly wrote out an apology. It didn’t take up nearly the amount of space on the document as the hit piece had, but it was thorough. After a half hour, he sat back with a sigh of relief. “It’s done,” he told his captor, who rose from her seat on the desk. “Perfect,” Aeluri purred, “Now let me make sure you wrote it correctly.”

As she leaned over to look at the screen, the man suddenly gave her a shove and scrambled from his chair. Staggered steps took him towards the door, but Aeluri was too quick for him. Her hand extended and she snapped her fingers once. From the shadows near the exit, the large form of Linnea leapt. The two-headed white cat used one massive paw to bat the reporter to the ground as if he were but a mere leaf touched by a gust of wind.

He collided with the ground with the muffled sound of bone on carpet. Linnea stepped closed and sat down, holding the prey down with one paw. The two heads leaned over, leering at him with horrifying grinning mouths. His whimpers of delicious, delicious fear echoed around the room.

“Oh dear!” Aeluri crowed in exaggerated woe. “It looks like we’ll have to do this the hard way. What a shame.” After taking a quick glance over the apology letter, she added a sentence at the end. ‘Due to my unethical actions against Hellfire Distilling, I have decided to take my own life. Such behavior as a reporter is unacceptable, and I deeply regret it. Goodbye…’

“Now on to the fun part,” she said with a smirk that the reporter couldn’t see. The haunting sound of slow steps was all that sounded in the room beyond the breathing of the three beings. He looked up and saw his doom approaching in the form of a masked woman. The look of terror on her victim’s face was unforgettable. Aeluri leaned down, peering at him through her mask. All he would see was an eerily expressionless covering of black material.

“Mmm,” the dark mage nearly moaned, enticed by the terror in his eyes. “I’ve got a fun game for you! It’s one player only.” With that, she reached into her robes and withdrew a simple magic pistol. The silvery-blue light from the lacrima computer gave it a menacing sheen. Aeluri flipped it around in her hand with a toss so that she was holding the barrel. A gloved hand extended it to the man at her feet.

“Now, don’t try any funny business. My pet and I are protected.” The truth was, they weren’t. Aeluri didn’t have any shields or defensive magic up at the moment, but the reporter was a magicless human so there was no way for him to tell. It wasn’t too unbelievable that she would be protected, but it was a risk. Teetering on the edge of mortal danger was just another way to titillate herself.

“This is how the game is going to go!” Aeluri stood up straight with a clap of her hands. “I’m going to give you five minutes and you get to make a very important decision. You have two options. First, you can use this handy gun to end your own life. Bang bang! It’s easy.” She paused for a moment as the words sunk in. The reporter had a mortified expression on his face. “Your second option,” the assassin added, walking in slow circles around him, “is to hand me back the gun.” He let out a sigh of relief. “Ah-ah! I’m not done,” she chastised. “If you choose that option, I’ll simply take the gun to 2367 Sakura Circle and use it on the inhabitants there.” The address was his own, and the inhabitants were his family: a wife and a teenage son.

“Isn’t this such an exciting game?” Aeluri asked, her sickeningly sweet voice mocking him. Her prey began to sob. “What the fuck is wrong with you?!” he screamed among the tears. “Oh, some things,” Aeluri replied with a laugh, “but that’s not important right now. Take your five minutes to think about it. I’ll be over here!~” She and Linnea retreated to the side of the room near the door.

Sobs and sniffling resounded for a few minutes. Every time she thought the sound died down, it started up again with a fervor. Aeluri ran her hands over the white cat’s fur, waiting to see the choice he would make. A little timepiece sewn into her Hidden Blades armor told her how much had passed since her proposal. When it neared 4 minutes and 30 seconds, one eyebrow raised. Would he really wait out the time? That wouldn’t end well for him.

BANG!

Without looking over her shoulder, Aeluri stepped towards the door. “Let’s go,” she instructed Linnea, who purred in response. The two snuck out of the building, leaving the bloody mess for the company to find in the morning. White and blue light shone on the permanently quiet form of the reporter. Blood began percolating through the carpet, soaking down into the wood. It would be very hard to clean.



The next day, the news blew up. Articles in every paper and magazine covered the tragedy. ‘Insider Sip Employee Ends Own Life over Hellfire Scandal!’ Every channel on the lacrima-vision network was covering the story. People left flowers at the door to the magazine’s office. Rune Knights came to investigate the death and keep curious people out of the building. While there were a few skeptics, the police didn’t find any leads on any other explanation. Most civilians viewed this as a tragedy for both Hellfire and Insider Sip. The liquor company reached out and gave their condolences, stating that it was a loss for everyone involved. They offered to pay for the funeral. In the end, that cost would be much less than the sales they would have lost from the hit piece.

Aeluri sat on a nearby bench, dressed in her own normal clothes, and watched the people mill around the Insider Sip building. The chaos she had caused was entertaining. People looked like panicked ants on a freshly stomped anthill. After a while of observing, she rose and headed back to the Hidden Blades headquarters. The dark mage was satisfied with her work.

A few days later, a package arrived in her P.O. box, forwarded from her guild. Aeluri brought it back to her room in the base, where she tore it open excitedly. Inside was a large bottle of cinnamon whiskey accompanied by a note of appreciation typed out and printed on a paper with a golden sheen. There was no way to tell it was from Hellfire Distillery exactly, but Aeluri knew. Excitedly she popped the glass stopper from the top and poured herself some. The smell of cinnamon filled her quarters and the woman sighed contently.