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Luckily Tobi's line of work always has openings, and her new Master gets to watch what horrible things being a killer means. \n\nA commission for [iconname]DogWhistle[/iconname]. You can find stories like this and more over on my [url=https://www.patreon.com/c/Ralanrwrites]Patreon[/url] and/or [url=https://subscribestar.adult/ralanr]Subscribestar[/url]. Support is greatly appreciated. \n\nEnjoy!", "description_bbcode_parsed": "For a series about a kobold assassin, there haven't been many assassinations. Luckily Tobi's line of work always has openings, and her new Master gets to watch what horrible things being a killer means.

A commission for \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDogWhistle\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t		\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDogWhistle\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
. You can find stories like this and more over on my Patreon and/or Subscribestar. Support is greatly appreciated.

Enjoy!", "writing": "Another mission, another extended leash. Tobi awoke in her pod with the details streamed into her mind, writhing and squirming in the liquid just to feel her body move of her own accord. Waking up was the hardest part. Dreams in cyberspace weren’t so unreal that she could slip out of them without issue. After all, she didn’t need to breathe in virtual reality. \n\n\nThere were several ways she would be transported from her cell. Depending on the mission she’d be taken out to dress, or removed to be latched in bindings like any kobold whore she was disguised as. This time Tobi felt her tank contents swirl around her, pulling the kobold down a drain into a latex bag that compressed her tight. Perfect for fitting her inside luggage like a suitcase. Her knees tucked into her chest, her arms curled around, and the air seeped to make the feeling skintight. Her internal oxygen tanks nearly switched on before a hole ripped open for her mouth, fitting a gasmask over her attached to an oxygen tank. \n\n\nKobolds could not roam freely in the city above. Even ones who rose above their second-class status were harassed by law enforcement for proof of ID when walking alone. Her old master and future target would compress her down and hand her off to a handler. The handler would then hand her off to another party, then another, creating levels of plausible deniability that, if need be, were sealed with the life of the last holder. \n\n\nConscious enough, Tobi looked over the details of her assignment. Or at least she tried to. Half a second in was enough to lose interest. By now it was second nature. She’d be dropped off, given the signal, then break out of her casing and kill everyone who put themselves between her and her target. Sometimes she was meant to not leave survivors, but a glance revealed survivors were optional for this mission. \n\n\nGood for her. She had tension to release.\n\n\nHer target, whom she looked up just to be sure, was an up-and-coming mob boss of no significant importance to her. He had a name, a birthday, a blood type, and an impact in the underworld, but none of these things mattered personally. They were text. Data she skimmed for the most worthwhile information. The only thing useless that caught her eye was that he primarily employed kobolds for his work. \n\n\nEmployed. If Tobi’s eyes were open they’d have rolled over at the word. Kobolds were not employed. They were enslaved, whether in her case or by debt. Whoever this mob boss was, she assumed he figured kobolds were an excellent source of loyal and free labor. Loyalty was coded in kobold DNA, and whether through fear or compliance one could get an army if smart or ruthless enough. She wondered if that was why Kobolds were second-class citizens who couldn’t buy voting tickets even if they had the funds. Too easily swayed. Perhaps, she considered. That or just racism. Or was that speciesism? She put the thought aside, slipping back into her subconscious to run routine inspections for her augmentations.\n\n\n“Cornelius Franx? Curious?” Sand said. \n\n\nHer mind sped up. Tobi’s attention shifted to her inner mind, a subconscious emphasized by a black void and a red-tiled floor with a black throne. Clad in white leather gear was Sand, her master, idly swiping through the same information she’d been given whilst his boot bobbed off a crossed leg. Tobi for her part was already kneeling. It felt so right to be under her new master. She longed to do it in person one day, but until then she would make do with data constructs. \n\n\nSand did not speak again until all the files had been read. Words were not needed to give command, as the subtle ‘come-hither’ motion from his boot urged Tobi to crawl over. Her lips braced his toe tip with fervent glee, licking the sole as though she were scraping off any filth from the clean white boots. \n\n\n“Do you normally target upstart mob bosses?” Sand asked.\n\n\n“Upstart, established, or retired, doesn’t matter. A target is a target.” She remembered enough mobsters in her past missions to fit every criterion. “Are you concerned for me, master?” She craned her head and fluttered her eyes, “Worried your beloved pet may get hurt?”\n\n\n“I don’t think you can get hurt. I’ve seen your specs.” Sand opened up another holo screen, this one streaming data too fast for her to read on a glimpse. “Kobolds. Curious. I suppose your old boss is trying to stop competition.”\n\n\n“Does it matter? A job is a job. A kill is a kill.” \n\n\n“Knowledge is power, ignorance is slavery. The more I know, the better I can use it.”\n\n\nShe grinned. “Then I will remain ignorant, as befitting your slave.”\n\n\nDespite his visible eye roll, she spotted a small smirk on his lips. “I think I’ll accompany you on this mission. If you don’t mind.”\n\n\n“I’ll never mind your company, master. Though I may need you to be less…provocative. It’s a distraction.” \n\n\nSand peered over his outfit. “I suppose it is. Shame, I look good in it.” The dark-skinned blonde stood up and snapped his fingers. His white-leather-domme attire vanished, replaced by pink hotpants and a matching crop top. “How’s this?” \n\n\n“Good, but still distracting.” Tobi eyed the soft bulge in his crotch as she spoke. “Very distracting. Do you have something else? Maybe a more abstract avatar? Like your sandy form.”\n\n\n“I like my avatar because it’s modeled off of me.” Slowly Sand’s body degraded into grains of sand, swirling in a localized vortex until what was once her master had become a dune. A hand of sand rose out, pulling him from the pile to form the grainy body she’d first met him under. “How is this?”\n\n\nShe nodded. It was perfect. “You model your avatar after yourself? Isn’t that dangerous? You could be identified.” \n\n\n“Oh, I have several layers of encryption running over my avatar at all times. You see my truest form, but others see, well, this,” he brushed over the dune that was his lower body, “I actually had to restrict your access to bring this form back out. Think of it as a mask on top of a mask.”\n\n\n“Are there more masks I don’t know about?” Tobi asked, immediately regretting her presumptuous nature with a bow of her head. “My apologies, master. I don’t mean to ask what I don’t need to know.”\n\n\nThe avatar smiled softly. A grainy hand tilted her face up to him. “It’s alright, my pet. I encourage questions. But answers are a privilege. Does that make sense?”\n\n\nIn some ways it did. In most, it did not. Tobi decided to keep herself silent with a nod. “Excellent. So, tell me, how do you normally do missions like these? If my scans are right we’re entering a dangerous district and you don’t seem to have any weapons packed with you.” He paused, opening another screen to check something. “From your internal weapons I’m guessing you plan on infiltrating with seduction, but if that’s the case then why the suitcase? Wouldn’t it make more sense to flirt your way in with the kobold guards?”\n\n\nThe pink kobold felt a small wave of satisfaction in knowing she had the upper hand over her master in this task. “I think it’s best you simply watch me work, master. You’ll understand why I don’t need weapons for a simple gang.” \n\n\nBack in real space, Tobi felt her body grow weightless. Echolocation on a frequency impossible for unaugmented ears revealed she was being carried off, then dropped amongst a group of boxes for delivery to her target’s house. A group of scrawny kobolds picked up her an hour later, dragging her inside with the rest and down into a basement.\n\n\n“Do you plan on sneaking through vents?” Sand asked. “Your size and weight should make that possible, but you won’t be quiet. It’s impossible to be quiet in them. They’re also incredibly dusty.”\n\n\n“Master. Please just watch.” \n\n\nTobi opened the suitcase once she was alone. It whirred and hissed, and for a second she took a moment to take one breath of open air. It carried a hint of rust and mold that stung her throat. Scans confirmed the building wasn’t up to code. Given the nature of the neighborhood, none of it would be. \n\n\n“Building codes change to whatever suits the company,” Sand commented, seeing the same data she did. “It speeds up the process of demolishing old neighborhoods in favor of highrises or entertainment districts. I’m surprised this neighborhood hasn’t suffered the same fate yet.”\n\n\n“Bribes.” Tobi said internally to Sand, “Crime families with deep enough pockets bribe to keep low-class places open.”\n\n\n“Oh? How charitable.”\n\n\n“Desperate people cling to what’s cheap. Crime families recruit the desperate. A lucky few get to experience the sweet life beyond here.”\n\n\n“And the unlucky ones?” \n\n\n“Get replaced. I’ve killed plenty of both to know.” Tobi stretched her limbs in silence and surveyed the storage room. Weeks of supplies were bundled haphazardly in the corner as if their filing system was akin to putting everything in a pile. Lazy, inefficient, and prone to rot. The flies and cockroaches verified the third point.\n\n\n“With that many insects, you could fudge paperwork as a wildlife sanctuary,” Sand’s voice buzzed in her head like a thought. Before today Tobi never realized how distracting it could be. She shook it off, heading to a red metal door with a rusted open locking mechanism. “Do they have no sense of maintenance?” Her master commented again. He might as well be watching someone play a video game. She wasn’t aware if they called them that in this world and made a mental note to ask Sand.\n\n\n“They do.” Sand said. \n\n\n“Can you not read my thoughts?” She said internally, “I actually do need to think on my approach.”\n\n\n“I’ll try my best.”\n\n\nThanks to a sliver in the door she could echolocate the next room before entering. There stood one guard. With screeching hinges, she left the packages behind to face the sole occupant in the next room. It was a kobold, one with brown scales reminiscent of campground dirt. His eyes went wide underneath the visor of his cap. He opened his mouth to say something. Tobi closed the distance and clamped his maw shut before he could utter a word. His neck cracked under her mechanical precision.\n\n\n“W-What did you just do?!” Sand shouted in her head. Tobi let the limp body down carefully behind the desk. Their clothes were ragged and dirty as if they were the only pair, stitched together horribly with whatever string and twine could be found. One tear even used a shoelace to close the gap. He carried a light pistol at his hip. From experience, she knew the caliber had poor stopping power against anything with body armor or dermal plating. Given his post, it was unlikely he’d meet those targets. \n\n\n“Tobi!” Sand shouted. She ignored her master in favor of stripping the dead kobold’s attire for herself. “You killed him for clothes? Couldn’t you have knocked him out?” \n\n\n“It’s not that kind of assassination, master.” She checked the clip of the gun and then locked it back in with a click. It would suffice. \n\n\n“Not that kind…what? Was the kobold another target?” \n\n\n“No. But I need to kill plenty of them to send a message.”\n\n\n“Kill kobolds. Tobi, these are your people.” \n\n\nForgetting he was in her head Tobi turned to give a blank stare at space. She sighed. “Master, with all due respect, these kobolds are not my people. Remember I was turned into a kobold.”\n\n\n“And what’s to say that guy you killed wasn’t?”\n\n\n“You. You mentioned kobold transformation is unusual from what my old master did. So I assume that means kobolds always existed in this world. Am I wrong?”\n\n\nAfter a pause, Sand said, “You didn’t have to kill him. It’s not like dirty clothes will hide your appearance.”\n\n\nAt that, Tobi smiled. “I thought you saw all of my schematics. Or did you only look for specifics?” With but a thought her pigment began to change. Her shade of pink darkened and shifted, finishing to match the campground dirt color of the dead kobold. “It’s not perfect. Kobolds have other ways of noticing imposters. But it gets me close enough.”\n\n\n“You talk like you’ve killed kobolds before,” Sand said. Tobi’s answer came with the cocking of her new gun. \n\n\nHer talons scraped over cracked cement floors as Tobi moved up from the basement. The building was far older than she expected, having just two sub-levels instead of an entire community of them. She’d killed plenty who ascended their towers to privilege, but there were thousands born in artificial light who’d never seen the sun in the city. Little arcologies of the desperate who’s only knowledge of the outside world were through the net. Yet they, in their reliance on generators, lived better lives than kobolds in the slums.\n\n\nThe ones she came across were ragged. Some leaned against walls dressed like street workers, exposing their thin and malnutritioned frames with crop tops and stockings. Others carried scars and hardened expressions, casting a side glance to Tobi as she passed. \n\n\n“There’s so many of them,” Sand said, bewildered. “I knew kobolds could be stacked closely, but this doesn’t feel like an apartment complex. It’s like a small city.”\n\n\n“It is,” Tobi said internally. She’d been to one before. The apartment space would be shared amongst ten to twenty kobolds. The expensive ones gave each kobold a small booth for an apartment. They had enough space for a single bed and whatever they could adorn their walls. \n\n\n“That would be illegal,” Sand said, scanning her thoughts again without permission. “Coffin domiciles are built with that intention in mind and all owned by R&R Inc. You can’t refit an older building into it. The building owner would get sued.” \n\n\n“Once bribes stop coming this place will be demolished. Suing the owner just risks bringing the kobold situation to light. People would rather they scurry off into the dark corners of the night than pay them any mind.” She stopped, watching a pair of young kobolds chase each other. The first, with yellow scales, carried a makeshift doll by its arm and laughed as the other, with red scales, chased and shouted angrily to have their toy back. “Welcome to the corners, master.”\n\n\n“I knew things were bad for kobolds, but I never expected it to be this bad.” Sand’s avatar appeared next to her. Given that none of the kobolds reacted she assumed he only appeared in her vision. Grains of sand tumbled to nothing and then appeared over his desert form appearance as he kneeled over one kobold tweaking in the hall. “This is deplorable. And your target is abusing them?”\n\n\n“They’re under his employ. It doesn’t matter though.”\n\n\n“You don’t feel angry at all?”\n\n\nTobi felt more annoyed than furious but she kept that to herself. Sand stayed quiet this time, vanishing back into her head to avoid looking at the decay of second-class citizens. \n\n\nEach floor was blocked off by a pair of guards. Kobolds with brandished weapons and obvious body armor made of mismatched parts stitched together. For the first two floors, she sank into crowds to find a way through. Easy to do when the guards seemed disinterested in doing their job. By the third floor the crowds were smaller and the guards more alert. Beady-eyed sentries scanning for danger approaching. \n\n\n“Now are you going to try the vents?” Sand asked. Tobi resisted the urge to roll her eyes, more to keep herself incognito than anything else. \n\n\n“Hey!” One of the kobold guards pointed to Tobi. “You. Identification.” \n\n\n“Did the kobold you kill have a card?” Tobi ignored Sand’s question. The demanding kobold was taller than her. Bulkier too, with ridges on his head almost like a proper dragon. He even had little nubs of failed horns. If it weren’t for the mission and her lack of freedom, she might ask him for some alone time. \n\n\n“ID.” He repeated, hand on his sidearm. Tobi’s peripheral vision noticed another kobold lay a cautious hand on his shotgun’s trigger. Three other kobolds were present, two playing cards, and one kicked awake from a nap by the shotgun holder. Five targets. Sparse crowd. She set a timer. \n\n\nTobi closed the gap in seconds, planting the pistol against the first kobold’s chest. With three light pops he went limp. The crowd screamed. She motioned his body between her and the shotgun kobold, charging forward to take the brunt of it. The first shell shattered her shield’s back. The second went wide when she shot the kobold’s shoulder. She finished with a headshot and then tossed her gun into the face of one kobold playing cards. Catching the shotgun midair, she pumped the next three shells into each of them. \n\n\nSix seconds by her timer. She had anywhere from ten to thirty seconds before a response team arrived. Sand was shouting something but Tobi ignored him in favor of scrounging for ammunition and weapons, finding seven shotgun shells and a machine pistol. The pistol was empty. She scoffed, tossing it over her shoulder.\n\n\n“You could have avoided them.” \n\n\nTobi cycled the champers of a revolver, finding three bullets. \n\n\n“There was a ventilation shaft overhead. You could have snuck past them.”\n\n\n“This isn’t a movie.” \n\n\n“You just killed five people like it was.”\n\n\n“That’s what I’m built to do. You know that.” \n\n\n“You’re built to be a honey trap.”\n\n\nShe smiled. “One that lasts more than one mission.” \n\n\nHer environment shifted back to Sand’s dungeon. A white-heeled boot stomped her head to the ground. “Listen to me,” Sand growled, pulling a chain taut. “You can’t just go around killing people like this.”\n\n\nShe growled. How dare he sully the inner sanctum of pleasure with morals. “I’m an assassin, master. I kill people.”\n\n\n“You kill targets. You’re not a mass shooter. This is wholesale slaughter.” \n\n\n“It’s about sending a message.”\n\n\n“And what message is that?” Sand’s boot twisted against her scalp. “That if you work for people like your target you’ll be murdered? Do you think they have any more choice than you in this?” \n\n\n“I know they don’t!” Tobi snapped, pushing Sand off. “And I expect the same kind of ruthlessness when I’m on the other side of it. I’ve seen kobolds beat each other to death because some rich elitist wanted entertainment. You say we are second-hand citizens, but it’s worse than that. We are slaves. For fucks sake, I still happily call you master.” \n\n\n“Then as your master, I demand no more killing!” Sand snapped, stamping his foot down on the floor. It might as well have sent a shockwave through Tobi for how her heart skipped. Before now his orders were playful, arousing even. This was borne of something else. Something worse that ignited a fire to rebel.\n\n\nShe snuffed it out. “And what of my target, Master? It would raise suspicions if I didn’t kill Cornelius.”\n\n\nSand, uncomfortable with the question, crossed his arms as he looked away. “Follow your mission objective. Just don’t kill anyone else, alright?” \n\n\n“Understood, master.” Tobi bowed her head. Her internal clock told her barely a second passed in meatspace upon returning. Adjusting mission parameters, Tobi tossed the shotgun aside in favor of more pistol ammunition, then headed forward up the stairs to whatever crowd of guards awaited her. \n\n\nSecurity drones were common defenses. The rich and powerful could afford models customized to belong in the room or build internal drones in the foundation. Cornelius didn’t seem to be either of those things or at least not at that level. Tobi found herself wishing so upon the hoard of kobold guards flooding the stairwell. Some came with guns, others carried bats, knives, pipes, or even bricks. Plenty didn’t even look like guards with their ragged clothes and thin limbs. \n\n\nShe wondered if they were guards or just squatters. The difference mattered little when one came at her with a heavy roar and an overhead swing of his mallet. She kicked under his leg, hard enough to feel it snap, and sent him tumbling behind her, landing with an agonized scream. Another through furious but untrained jabs of a knife. She weaved through the first to keep him in a gunner’s line of sight, then shot his thigh and pushed him down. \n\n\nMore came. They pushed her back one step for every two she made. What started as one kobold at a time became sets of two then three. She moved through with robotic precision, breaking limbs and landing knockout blows in quick succession while dodging or parrying. Even her training and cybernetics had their limits, with her taking a blow for every two kobolds she put out of commission. The swing of a hammer against her dermal plating, panicked swipes cutting into her arm, and at least one kobold was able to wrap their arms around her waist in an attempted tackle. She pulled out one of his sockets and flung him over the railing. \n\n\n“What did I–” She cut Sand’s protest off. Pistol in hand she shot three kobolds keeping a line on her, then lost it to a broom bashing her grip. Tobi yanked the broom and used it to clear a path upward. \n\n\nIf she could use her implanted reflexes the crowd wouldn’t be an issue. Unfortunately, she had little control over her strength when the implant activated, meaning every kobold was liable to be killed and she’d see it all in slow motion. \n\n\nBruises and cuts caked her body. She turned her pain receptors down to keep focused. Sand asked why she didn’t turn them off but she didn’t have time to tell him as another kobold lunged at her. Her fist went numb upon collision with his jaw. She cursed. Sand turned her pain receptors off. \n\n\n“Turn them back on,” she told him internally.\n\n\n“Wouldn’t it be better to turn them off?”\n\n\nA wild bat clubbed her face. It felt like a pillow but she tasted blood. The impact knocked her off balance, every foothold acting as if she were walking in a ten-layered suit. \n\n\n“If I can’t feel I can’t fight. Turn it on!”\n\n\nPain shot up. Her face throbbed. She caught the kobold’s bat by its handle and snapped his fingers loose, then swung her newfound weapon to knock away another assailant. He weaved out of the way just far enough to see the wood shatter on the wall. \n\n\nEvery step hurt. Every breath burned. Tobi barreled through the nearest door and ran, looking for a place to hide. Directional markers pinged over her HUD to an abandoned closet in a decaying apartment. She barred the first door with old furniture before hunkering in the second. \n\n\n“Are you alright?” Sand asked.\n\n\nTobi did an internal scan. She knew Sand could too, so she assumed the question was rhetorical and didn’t answer. “Tobi.” He snapped his digital fingers, “Are you alright?”\n\n\n“I’m suffering from tier-two wounds across thirty percent of my body. My targeting software is unresponsive. I am not alright. And you have not been helpful, master.”\n\n\n“If you hadn’t blocked me off I could have–”\n\n\n“Distracted me.” Tobi slumped against the nearest wall. Physically exhaustion shouldn’t affect her. The kobold’s mind could keep separate from her body to push it past limits. Mentally, she didn’t want to move another step. “Your constant messages and back-seat driving makes it difficult to focus. Combined with your bleeding heart…it doesn’t look like I’ll reach my target.”\n\n\n“His office should be just above us,” Sand said. “The next floor I mean, not directly.”\n\n\n“Oh…wonderful.” She wondered why the combatants were getting deadlier. Stood to reason the better guards would be closer to the boss. “I’ll need to get up there.”\n\n\n“I think you should retreat.” Sand laid his grainy hand on her shoulder. “You’re too wounded to continue fighting. Better retreat and survive.”\n\n\n“Failure means death.”\n\n\n“You don’t need to return to your old master.”\n\n\n“I must if I’m to build your rebellion. If I return without completing my mission, I will be disposed of. I have seen it happen, master. I cannot allow myself to be terminated so easily. Cornelius needs to die and I need to send a message to let others know not to follow in his footsteps.” \n\n\n“Well, you’ve left a large enough trail of bodies for the message. If the dead aren’t enough, all those you spared will do the rest.” \n\n\nShe smiled. “I suppose so. Is there a way up that doesn’t use the stairs?” Tobi heard the front door rattle with fists and kicks. “I’d like one now, please.”\n\n\nSand pointed up to a ventilation shaft. Tobi groaned. “You can’t be serious.” \n\n\n“Do you have a better option?” \n\n\nFrom the sound of shattering wood and rushing footsteps, she did not. Tobi launched herself to the ceiling, hooking her claws in and wrenching the grate off. She crawled through with metal screeching and creaking under her weight. Layers of dust and grime coated the walls, with cobwebs plastering her face the further she went. \n\n\n“This is why the vents are a terrible option.” Tobi followed the directional markers Sand laid out in augmented reality. One up, two to the left, down, and so on. She didn’t quite feel like they were reaching the boss. “It’s dirty and makes so much noise. How does anyone think this is stealthy?” \n\n\n“Rats do it.”\n\n\n“If there are rats in your vents you need to call an–” A gunshot cut her off. Bullets riddled the ventilation shaft. She scrambled for cover but the vents offered none, leaving the kobold rushing through Sand’s directional markers. The one upside, if she could even call it that, was that her pursuers followed by room rather than wait for her. She could cross one room before the others arrived. \n\n\n“Just a few more floors,” Sand assured her.\n\n\nShe’d seen more down markers than up, “Where are you directing me?”\n\n\n“The sub-basement.”\n\n\nShe almost stopped but echoing gunfire kept her moving. “His office is on the top floor.”\n\n\n“His safe room is accessible through an elevator that enters a secret basement. There’s only one other entrance to it and that’ll be your escape route. He started descending the moment you killed the guards.” \n\n\n“Oh. Anything else you can tell me?” \n\n\n“He’s got two armed guards with him. Both have automatic weapons.” \n\n\n“Terrific.” Tobi held back her sigh. She’d dropped her light pistol in the ensuing chaos, leaving her with nothing but her augments. \n\n\n“Drop here.”\n\n\nTobi kicked the bars out underneath her. Gravity pulled her down onto a sofa cushion to silence her fall. She clamored around behind it before surveying her surroundings. The room was dark but she heard footsteps fast approaching. Subsonic echolocation painted the place as some kind of rec room, with a pool table and a bar. She grabbed a pool cue and snapped it in half. \n\n\nLights flicked on. She jumped out and chucked one of half of the cue like a spear. Expecting a kobold, she aimed for his jugular. Instead, she hit a human in the crotch, a place security guards never seemed to armor up. He screamed in pain and doubled over. Another human rushed into the room, uzi raised and firing in her direction. She flipped her internal switch, slowing the world down to a crawl. Bullets flew like they punched through gel. The guard’s mouth hung in an open roar twisting into a scream when Tobi rushed him through with her makeshift spear. She wrenched the gun from him as he fell dying, then went looking for Cornelius. \n\n\nIn her line of work, targets weren’t supposed to know she was coming. Exceptions existed and sometimes were on purpose. There were three ways a target reacted when death was close. \n\n\nOption one was to fight. A glorious yet desperate last stand to save their life. Option two was to run, hoping they could escape despite her tracking abilities. The third, and most common she was surprised to find, was the begging. Why anyone believed they could convince her not to take their life, especially after dispatching countless of their security, was something Tobi would never understand.\n\n\nAnd yet Cornelius begged. The man, the last person in the panic room, dropped to his knees the moment he saw her walk out without his bodyguards. A young man, likely no more than his mid-twenties or early thirties, he’d adorned himself in an ugly mix of colors from bright pinks and blues in his shirt, back pants with gold trimming that matched his shoes, and a puffy white furred coat that could have hidden body armor for all she knew. \n\n\nA rapid bang from the uzi splattered his head across the wall before he said a word. It slumped to the floor, crimson staining a tacky green carpet that reminded her more of moss. She took more time to consider if she’d ever seen moss as herself or her past life than she did pondering why her target did what he did. \n\n\n“That was…quick.” Sand spoke as if he had nothing to say but needed to fill the void. Tobi tossed the gun aside and sat down on a couch with the matching shade of blood. Perfect to hide her bleeding wounds. \n\n\n“I need an exit,” Tobi said aloud. Her jaw ached. She’d been hit in it so many times that it’d have broken without her reinforced body. “Now.”\n\n\n“Only way out is through the toilet.”Sand said. She looked at her master’s sandy avatar. He shrugged. “What? He still has a toilet connected to the sewer.” \n\n\n“Most safe rooms have a septic tank to avoid infiltration.” She stated. “I’m too wounded to go into the sewers without infection. What few parts of me I have left are more susceptible to it if I’m not careful.”\n\n\n“You have repair nanites for emergencies.”\n\n\nTobi chuckled dismissively. “They’re not meant to be active when I am. Whatever’s left of his goons will break in.”\n\n\n“Not through a foot-thick steel door with biometrics.” Sand pointed to the door in question. “The explosives needed to get through would take the building down. Since Cornelius is dead, no one’s ever getting back in this place.”\n\n\n“And if they do?\"\n\n\n“I’ll make sure they don’t,” Sand said. “I’ve already sent out proxy messages acting as Cornelius. Apparently, he likes to spend free time down here so no one is surprised he’ll prefer it.”\n\n\nTobi smiled, laid back against the bed, and closed her eyes. “Wake me up in ten minutes then, master. I should be ready for a swim by then.\"", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "Another mission, another extended leash. Tobi awoke in her pod with the details streamed into her mind, writhing and squirming in the liquid just to feel her body move of her own accord. Waking up was the hardest part. Dreams in cyberspace weren’t so unreal that she could slip out of them without issue. After all, she didn’t need to breathe in virtual reality.


There were several ways she would be transported from her cell. Depending on the mission she’d be taken out to dress, or removed to be latched in bindings like any kobold whore she was disguised as. This time Tobi felt her tank contents swirl around her, pulling the kobold down a drain into a latex bag that compressed her tight. Perfect for fitting her inside luggage like a suitcase. Her knees tucked into her chest, her arms curled around, and the air seeped to make the feeling skintight. Her internal oxygen tanks nearly switched on before a hole ripped open for her mouth, fitting a gasmask over her attached to an oxygen tank.


Kobolds could not roam freely in the city above. Even ones who rose above their second-class status were harassed by law enforcement for proof of ID when walking alone. Her old master and future target would compress her down and hand her off to a handler. The handler would then hand her off to another party, then another, creating levels of plausible deniability that, if need be, were sealed with the life of the last holder.


Conscious enough, Tobi looked over the details of her assignment. Or at least she tried to. Half a second in was enough to lose interest. By now it was second nature. She’d be dropped off, given the signal, then break out of her casing and kill everyone who put themselves between her and her target. Sometimes she was meant to not leave survivors, but a glance revealed survivors were optional for this mission.


Good for her. She had tension to release.


Her target, whom she looked up just to be sure, was an up-and-coming mob boss of no significant importance to her. He had a name, a birthday, a blood type, and an impact in the underworld, but none of these things mattered personally. They were text. Data she skimmed for the most worthwhile information. The only thing useless that caught her eye was that he primarily employed kobolds for his work.


Employed. If Tobi’s eyes were open they’d have rolled over at the word. Kobolds were not employed. They were enslaved, whether in her case or by debt. Whoever this mob boss was, she assumed he figured kobolds were an excellent source of loyal and free labor. Loyalty was coded in kobold DNA, and whether through fear or compliance one could get an army if smart or ruthless enough. She wondered if that was why Kobolds were second-class citizens who couldn’t buy voting tickets even if they had the funds. Too easily swayed. Perhaps, she considered. That or just racism. Or was that speciesism? She put the thought aside, slipping back into her subconscious to run routine inspections for her augmentations.


“Cornelius Franx? Curious?” Sand said.


Her mind sped up. Tobi’s attention shifted to her inner mind, a subconscious emphasized by a black void and a red-tiled floor with a black throne. Clad in white leather gear was Sand, her master, idly swiping through the same information she’d been given whilst his boot bobbed off a crossed leg. Tobi for her part was already kneeling. It felt so right to be under her new master. She longed to do it in person one day, but until then she would make do with data constructs.


Sand did not speak again until all the files had been read. Words were not needed to give command, as the subtle ‘come-hither’ motion from his boot urged Tobi to crawl over. Her lips braced his toe tip with fervent glee, licking the sole as though she were scraping off any filth from the clean white boots.


“Do you normally target upstart mob bosses?” Sand asked.


“Upstart, established, or retired, doesn’t matter. A target is a target.” She remembered enough mobsters in her past missions to fit every criterion. “Are you concerned for me, master?” She craned her head and fluttered her eyes, “Worried your beloved pet may get hurt?”


“I don’t think you can get hurt. I’ve seen your specs.” Sand opened up another holo screen, this one streaming data too fast for her to read on a glimpse. “Kobolds. Curious. I suppose your old boss is trying to stop competition.”


“Does it matter? A job is a job. A kill is a kill.”


“Knowledge is power, ignorance is slavery. The more I know, the better I can use it.”


She grinned. “Then I will remain ignorant, as befitting your slave.”


Despite his visible eye roll, she spotted a small smirk on his lips. “I think I’ll accompany you on this mission. If you don’t mind.”


“I’ll never mind your company, master. Though I may need you to be less…provocative. It’s a distraction.”


Sand peered over his outfit. “I suppose it is. Shame, I look good in it.” The dark-skinned blonde stood up and snapped his fingers. His white-leather-domme attire vanished, replaced by pink hotpants and a matching crop top. “How’s this?”


“Good, but still distracting.” Tobi eyed the soft bulge in his crotch as she spoke. “Very distracting. Do you have something else? Maybe a more abstract avatar? Like your sandy form.”


“I like my avatar because it’s modeled off of me.” Slowly Sand’s body degraded into grains of sand, swirling in a localized vortex until what was once her master had become a dune. A hand of sand rose out, pulling him from the pile to form the grainy body she’d first met him under. “How is this?”


She nodded. It was perfect. “You model your avatar after yourself? Isn’t that dangerous? You could be identified.”


“Oh, I have several layers of encryption running over my avatar at all times. You see my truest form, but others see, well, this,” he brushed over the dune that was his lower body, “I actually had to restrict your access to bring this form back out. Think of it as a mask on top of a mask.”


“Are there more masks I don’t know about?” Tobi asked, immediately regretting her presumptuous nature with a bow of her head. “My apologies, master. I don’t mean to ask what I don’t need to know.”


The avatar smiled softly. A grainy hand tilted her face up to him. “It’s alright, my pet. I encourage questions. But answers are a privilege. Does that make sense?”


In some ways it did. In most, it did not. Tobi decided to keep herself silent with a nod. “Excellent. So, tell me, how do you normally do missions like these? If my scans are right we’re entering a dangerous district and you don’t seem to have any weapons packed with you.” He paused, opening another screen to check something. “From your internal weapons I’m guessing you plan on infiltrating with seduction, but if that’s the case then why the suitcase? Wouldn’t it make more sense to flirt your way in with the kobold guards?”


The pink kobold felt a small wave of satisfaction in knowing she had the upper hand over her master in this task. “I think it’s best you simply watch me work, master. You’ll understand why I don’t need weapons for a simple gang.”


Back in real space, Tobi felt her body grow weightless. Echolocation on a frequency impossible for unaugmented ears revealed she was being carried off, then dropped amongst a group of boxes for delivery to her target’s house. A group of scrawny kobolds picked up her an hour later, dragging her inside with the rest and down into a basement.


“Do you plan on sneaking through vents?” Sand asked. “Your size and weight should make that possible, but you won’t be quiet. It’s impossible to be quiet in them. They’re also incredibly dusty.”


“Master. Please just watch.”


Tobi opened the suitcase once she was alone. It whirred and hissed, and for a second she took a moment to take one breath of open air. It carried a hint of rust and mold that stung her throat. Scans confirmed the building wasn’t up to code. Given the nature of the neighborhood, none of it would be.


“Building codes change to whatever suits the company,” Sand commented, seeing the same data she did. “It speeds up the process of demolishing old neighborhoods in favor of highrises or entertainment districts. I’m surprised this neighborhood hasn’t suffered the same fate yet.”


“Bribes.” Tobi said internally to Sand, “Crime families with deep enough pockets bribe to keep low-class places open.”


“Oh? How charitable.”


“Desperate people cling to what’s cheap. Crime families recruit the desperate. A lucky few get to experience the sweet life beyond here.”


“And the unlucky ones?”


“Get replaced. I’ve killed plenty of both to know.” Tobi stretched her limbs in silence and surveyed the storage room. Weeks of supplies were bundled haphazardly in the corner as if their filing system was akin to putting everything in a pile. Lazy, inefficient, and prone to rot. The flies and cockroaches verified the third point.


“With that many insects, you could fudge paperwork as a wildlife sanctuary,” Sand’s voice buzzed in her head like a thought. Before today Tobi never realized how distracting it could be. She shook it off, heading to a red metal door with a rusted open locking mechanism. “Do they have no sense of maintenance?” Her master commented again. He might as well be watching someone play a video game. She wasn’t aware if they called them that in this world and made a mental note to ask Sand.


“They do.” Sand said.


“Can you not read my thoughts?” She said internally, “I actually do need to think on my approach.”


“I’ll try my best.”


Thanks to a sliver in the door she could echolocate the next room before entering. There stood one guard. With screeching hinges, she left the packages behind to face the sole occupant in the next room. It was a kobold, one with brown scales reminiscent of campground dirt. His eyes went wide underneath the visor of his cap. He opened his mouth to say something. Tobi closed the distance and clamped his maw shut before he could utter a word. His neck cracked under her mechanical precision.


“W-What did you just do?!” Sand shouted in her head. Tobi let the limp body down carefully behind the desk. Their clothes were ragged and dirty as if they were the only pair, stitched together horribly with whatever string and twine could be found. One tear even used a shoelace to close the gap. He carried a light pistol at his hip. From experience, she knew the caliber had poor stopping power against anything with body armor or dermal plating. Given his post, it was unlikely he’d meet those targets.


“Tobi!” Sand shouted. She ignored her master in favor of stripping the dead kobold’s attire for herself. “You killed him for clothes? Couldn’t you have knocked him out?”


“It’s not that kind of assassination, master.” She checked the clip of the gun and then locked it back in with a click. It would suffice.


“Not that kind…what? Was the kobold another target?”


“No. But I need to kill plenty of them to send a message.”


“Kill kobolds. Tobi, these are your people.”


Forgetting he was in her head Tobi turned to give a blank stare at space. She sighed. “Master, with all due respect, these kobolds are not my people. Remember I was turned into a kobold.”


“And what’s to say that guy you killed wasn’t?”


“You. You mentioned kobold transformation is unusual from what my old master did. So I assume that means kobolds always existed in this world. Am I wrong?”


After a pause, Sand said, “You didn’t have to kill him. It’s not like dirty clothes will hide your appearance.”


At that, Tobi smiled. “I thought you saw all of my schematics. Or did you only look for specifics?” With but a thought her pigment began to change. Her shade of pink darkened and shifted, finishing to match the campground dirt color of the dead kobold. “It’s not perfect. Kobolds have other ways of noticing imposters. But it gets me close enough.”


“You talk like you’ve killed kobolds before,” Sand said. Tobi’s answer came with the cocking of her new gun.


Her talons scraped over cracked cement floors as Tobi moved up from the basement. The building was far older than she expected, having just two sub-levels instead of an entire community of them. She’d killed plenty who ascended their towers to privilege, but there were thousands born in artificial light who’d never seen the sun in the city. Little arcologies of the desperate who’s only knowledge of the outside world were through the net. Yet they, in their reliance on generators, lived better lives than kobolds in the slums.


The ones she came across were ragged. Some leaned against walls dressed like street workers, exposing their thin and malnutritioned frames with crop tops and stockings. Others carried scars and hardened expressions, casting a side glance to Tobi as she passed.


“There’s so many of them,” Sand said, bewildered. “I knew kobolds could be stacked closely, but this doesn’t feel like an apartment complex. It’s like a small city.”


“It is,” Tobi said internally. She’d been to one before. The apartment space would be shared amongst ten to twenty kobolds. The expensive ones gave each kobold a small booth for an apartment. They had enough space for a single bed and whatever they could adorn their walls.


“That would be illegal,” Sand said, scanning her thoughts again without permission. “Coffin domiciles are built with that intention in mind and all owned by R&R Inc. You can’t refit an older building into it. The building owner would get sued.”


“Once bribes stop coming this place will be demolished. Suing the owner just risks bringing the kobold situation to light. People would rather they scurry off into the dark corners of the night than pay them any mind.” She stopped, watching a pair of young kobolds chase each other. The first, with yellow scales, carried a makeshift doll by its arm and laughed as the other, with red scales, chased and shouted angrily to have their toy back. “Welcome to the corners, master.”


“I knew things were bad for kobolds, but I never expected it to be this bad.” Sand’s avatar appeared next to her. Given that none of the kobolds reacted she assumed he only appeared in her vision. Grains of sand tumbled to nothing and then appeared over his desert form appearance as he kneeled over one kobold tweaking in the hall. “This is deplorable. And your target is abusing them?”


“They’re under his employ. It doesn’t matter though.”


“You don’t feel angry at all?”


Tobi felt more annoyed than furious but she kept that to herself. Sand stayed quiet this time, vanishing back into her head to avoid looking at the decay of second-class citizens.


Each floor was blocked off by a pair of guards. Kobolds with brandished weapons and obvious body armor made of mismatched parts stitched together. For the first two floors, she sank into crowds to find a way through. Easy to do when the guards seemed disinterested in doing their job. By the third floor the crowds were smaller and the guards more alert. Beady-eyed sentries scanning for danger approaching.


“Now are you going to try the vents?” Sand asked. Tobi resisted the urge to roll her eyes, more to keep herself incognito than anything else.


“Hey!” One of the kobold guards pointed to Tobi. “You. Identification.”


“Did the kobold you kill have a card?” Tobi ignored Sand’s question. The demanding kobold was taller than her. Bulkier too, with ridges on his head almost like a proper dragon. He even had little nubs of failed horns. If it weren’t for the mission and her lack of freedom, she might ask him for some alone time.


“ID.” He repeated, hand on his sidearm. Tobi’s peripheral vision noticed another kobold lay a cautious hand on his shotgun’s trigger. Three other kobolds were present, two playing cards, and one kicked awake from a nap by the shotgun holder. Five targets. Sparse crowd. She set a timer.


Tobi closed the gap in seconds, planting the pistol against the first kobold’s chest. With three light pops he went limp. The crowd screamed. She motioned his body between her and the shotgun kobold, charging forward to take the brunt of it. The first shell shattered her shield’s back. The second went wide when she shot the kobold’s shoulder. She finished with a headshot and then tossed her gun into the face of one kobold playing cards. Catching the shotgun midair, she pumped the next three shells into each of them.


Six seconds by her timer. She had anywhere from ten to thirty seconds before a response team arrived. Sand was shouting something but Tobi ignored him in favor of scrounging for ammunition and weapons, finding seven shotgun shells and a machine pistol. The pistol was empty. She scoffed, tossing it over her shoulder.


“You could have avoided them.”


Tobi cycled the champers of a revolver, finding three bullets.


“There was a ventilation shaft overhead. You could have snuck past them.”


“This isn’t a movie.”


“You just killed five people like it was.”


“That’s what I’m built to do. You know that.”


“You’re built to be a honey trap.”


She smiled. “One that lasts more than one mission.”


Her environment shifted back to Sand’s dungeon. A white-heeled boot stomped her head to the ground. “Listen to me,” Sand growled, pulling a chain taut. “You can’t just go around killing people like this.”


She growled. How dare he sully the inner sanctum of pleasure with morals. “I’m an assassin, master. I kill people.”


“You kill targets. You’re not a mass shooter. This is wholesale slaughter.”


“It’s about sending a message.”


“And what message is that?” Sand’s boot twisted against her scalp. “That if you work for people like your target you’ll be murdered? Do you think they have any more choice than you in this?”


“I know they don’t!” Tobi snapped, pushing Sand off. “And I expect the same kind of ruthlessness when I’m on the other side of it. I’ve seen kobolds beat each other to death because some rich elitist wanted entertainment. You say we are second-hand citizens, but it’s worse than that. We are slaves. For fucks sake, I still happily call you master.”


“Then as your master, I demand no more killing!” Sand snapped, stamping his foot down on the floor. It might as well have sent a shockwave through Tobi for how her heart skipped. Before now his orders were playful, arousing even. This was borne of something else. Something worse that ignited a fire to rebel.


She snuffed it out. “And what of my target, Master? It would raise suspicions if I didn’t kill Cornelius.”


Sand, uncomfortable with the question, crossed his arms as he looked away. “Follow your mission objective. Just don’t kill anyone else, alright?”


“Understood, master.” Tobi bowed her head. Her internal clock told her barely a second passed in meatspace upon returning. Adjusting mission parameters, Tobi tossed the shotgun aside in favor of more pistol ammunition, then headed forward up the stairs to whatever crowd of guards awaited her.


Security drones were common defenses. The rich and powerful could afford models customized to belong in the room or build internal drones in the foundation. Cornelius didn’t seem to be either of those things or at least not at that level. Tobi found herself wishing so upon the hoard of kobold guards flooding the stairwell. Some came with guns, others carried bats, knives, pipes, or even bricks. Plenty didn’t even look like guards with their ragged clothes and thin limbs.


She wondered if they were guards or just squatters. The difference mattered little when one came at her with a heavy roar and an overhead swing of his mallet. She kicked under his leg, hard enough to feel it snap, and sent him tumbling behind her, landing with an agonized scream. Another through furious but untrained jabs of a knife. She weaved through the first to keep him in a gunner’s line of sight, then shot his thigh and pushed him down.


More came. They pushed her back one step for every two she made. What started as one kobold at a time became sets of two then three. She moved through with robotic precision, breaking limbs and landing knockout blows in quick succession while dodging or parrying. Even her training and cybernetics had their limits, with her taking a blow for every two kobolds she put out of commission. The swing of a hammer against her dermal plating, panicked swipes cutting into her arm, and at least one kobold was able to wrap their arms around her waist in an attempted tackle. She pulled out one of his sockets and flung him over the railing.


“What did I–” She cut Sand’s protest off. Pistol in hand she shot three kobolds keeping a line on her, then lost it to a broom bashing her grip. Tobi yanked the broom and used it to clear a path upward.


If she could use her implanted reflexes the crowd wouldn’t be an issue. Unfortunately, she had little control over her strength when the implant activated, meaning every kobold was liable to be killed and she’d see it all in slow motion.


Bruises and cuts caked her body. She turned her pain receptors down to keep focused. Sand asked why she didn’t turn them off but she didn’t have time to tell him as another kobold lunged at her. Her fist went numb upon collision with his jaw. She cursed. Sand turned her pain receptors off.


“Turn them back on,” she told him internally.


“Wouldn’t it be better to turn them off?”


A wild bat clubbed her face. It felt like a pillow but she tasted blood. The impact knocked her off balance, every foothold acting as if she were walking in a ten-layered suit.


“If I can’t feel I can’t fight. Turn it on!”


Pain shot up. Her face throbbed. She caught the kobold’s bat by its handle and snapped his fingers loose, then swung her newfound weapon to knock away another assailant. He weaved out of the way just far enough to see the wood shatter on the wall.


Every step hurt. Every breath burned. Tobi barreled through the nearest door and ran, looking for a place to hide. Directional markers pinged over her HUD to an abandoned closet in a decaying apartment. She barred the first door with old furniture before hunkering in the second.


“Are you alright?” Sand asked.


Tobi did an internal scan. She knew Sand could too, so she assumed the question was rhetorical and didn’t answer. “Tobi.” He snapped his digital fingers, “Are you alright?”


“I’m suffering from tier-two wounds across thirty percent of my body. My targeting software is unresponsive. I am not alright. And you have not been helpful, master.”


“If you hadn’t blocked me off I could have–”


“Distracted me.” Tobi slumped against the nearest wall. Physically exhaustion shouldn’t affect her. The kobold’s mind could keep separate from her body to push it past limits. Mentally, she didn’t want to move another step. “Your constant messages and back-seat driving makes it difficult to focus. Combined with your bleeding heart…it doesn’t look like I’ll reach my target.”


“His office should be just above us,” Sand said. “The next floor I mean, not directly.”


“Oh…wonderful.” She wondered why the combatants were getting deadlier. Stood to reason the better guards would be closer to the boss. “I’ll need to get up there.”


“I think you should retreat.” Sand laid his grainy hand on her shoulder. “You’re too wounded to continue fighting. Better retreat and survive.”


“Failure means death.”


“You don’t need to return to your old master.”


“I must if I’m to build your rebellion. If I return without completing my mission, I will be disposed of. I have seen it happen, master. I cannot allow myself to be terminated so easily. Cornelius needs to die and I need to send a message to let others know not to follow in his footsteps.”


“Well, you’ve left a large enough trail of bodies for the message. If the dead aren’t enough, all those you spared will do the rest.”


She smiled. “I suppose so. Is there a way up that doesn’t use the stairs?” Tobi heard the front door rattle with fists and kicks. “I’d like one now, please.”


Sand pointed up to a ventilation shaft. Tobi groaned. “You can’t be serious.”


“Do you have a better option?”


From the sound of shattering wood and rushing footsteps, she did not. Tobi launched herself to the ceiling, hooking her claws in and wrenching the grate off. She crawled through with metal screeching and creaking under her weight. Layers of dust and grime coated the walls, with cobwebs plastering her face the further she went.


“This is why the vents are a terrible option.” Tobi followed the directional markers Sand laid out in augmented reality. One up, two to the left, down, and so on. She didn’t quite feel like they were reaching the boss. “It’s dirty and makes so much noise. How does anyone think this is stealthy?”


“Rats do it.”


“If there are rats in your vents you need to call an–” A gunshot cut her off. Bullets riddled the ventilation shaft. She scrambled for cover but the vents offered none, leaving the kobold rushing through Sand’s directional markers. The one upside, if she could even call it that, was that her pursuers followed by room rather than wait for her. She could cross one room before the others arrived.


“Just a few more floors,” Sand assured her.


She’d seen more down markers than up, “Where are you directing me?”


“The sub-basement.”


She almost stopped but echoing gunfire kept her moving. “His office is on the top floor.”


“His safe room is accessible through an elevator that enters a secret basement. There’s only one other entrance to it and that’ll be your escape route. He started descending the moment you killed the guards.”


“Oh. Anything else you can tell me?”


“He’s got two armed guards with him. Both have automatic weapons.”


“Terrific.” Tobi held back her sigh. She’d dropped her light pistol in the ensuing chaos, leaving her with nothing but her augments.


“Drop here.”


Tobi kicked the bars out underneath her. Gravity pulled her down onto a sofa cushion to silence her fall. She clamored around behind it before surveying her surroundings. The room was dark but she heard footsteps fast approaching. Subsonic echolocation painted the place as some kind of rec room, with a pool table and a bar. She grabbed a pool cue and snapped it in half.


Lights flicked on. She jumped out and chucked one of half of the cue like a spear. Expecting a kobold, she aimed for his jugular. Instead, she hit a human in the crotch, a place security guards never seemed to armor up. He screamed in pain and doubled over. Another human rushed into the room, uzi raised and firing in her direction. She flipped her internal switch, slowing the world down to a crawl. Bullets flew like they punched through gel. The guard’s mouth hung in an open roar twisting into a scream when Tobi rushed him through with her makeshift spear. She wrenched the gun from him as he fell dying, then went looking for Cornelius.


In her line of work, targets weren’t supposed to know she was coming. Exceptions existed and sometimes were on purpose. There were three ways a target reacted when death was close.


Option one was to fight. A glorious yet desperate last stand to save their life. Option two was to run, hoping they could escape despite her tracking abilities. The third, and most common she was surprised to find, was the begging. Why anyone believed they could convince her not to take their life, especially after dispatching countless of their security, was something Tobi would never understand.


And yet Cornelius begged. The man, the last person in the panic room, dropped to his knees the moment he saw her walk out without his bodyguards. A young man, likely no more than his mid-twenties or early thirties, he’d adorned himself in an ugly mix of colors from bright pinks and blues in his shirt, back pants with gold trimming that matched his shoes, and a puffy white furred coat that could have hidden body armor for all she knew.


A rapid bang from the uzi splattered his head across the wall before he said a word. It slumped to the floor, crimson staining a tacky green carpet that reminded her more of moss. She took more time to consider if she’d ever seen moss as herself or her past life than she did pondering why her target did what he did.


“That was…quick.” Sand spoke as if he had nothing to say but needed to fill the void. Tobi tossed the gun aside and sat down on a couch with the matching shade of blood. Perfect to hide her bleeding wounds.


“I need an exit,” Tobi said aloud. Her jaw ached. She’d been hit in it so many times that it’d have broken without her reinforced body. “Now.”


“Only way out is through the toilet.”Sand said. She looked at her master’s sandy avatar. He shrugged. “What? He still has a toilet connected to the sewer.”


“Most safe rooms have a septic tank to avoid infiltration.” She stated. “I’m too wounded to go into the sewers without infection. What few parts of me I have left are more susceptible to it if I’m not careful.”


“You have repair nanites for emergencies.”


Tobi chuckled dismissively. “They’re not meant to be active when I am. Whatever’s left of his goons will break in.”


“Not through a foot-thick steel door with biometrics.” Sand pointed to the door in question. “The explosives needed to get through would take the building down. Since Cornelius is dead, no one’s ever getting back in this place.”


“And if they do?"


“I’ll make sure they don’t,” Sand said. “I’ve already sent out proxy messages acting as Cornelius. Apparently, he likes to spend free time down here so no one is surprised he’ll prefer it.”


Tobi smiled, laid back against the bed, and closed her eyes. “Wake me up in ten minutes then, master. I should be ready for a swim by then."", "pools_count": 1, "title": "Kobold Assassin Part 4 (Commission)", "deleted": "f", "public": "t", "mimetype": "text/plain", "pagecount": "1", "rating_id": "2", "rating_name": "Adult", "ratings": [ { "content_tag_id": "5", "name": "Strong Violence", "description": "Strong violence, blood, serious injury or death", "rating_id": "2" } ], "submission_type_id": "12", "type_name": "Writing - Document", "guest_block": "t", "friends_only": "f", "comments_count": "0", "views": "238" }