Knowing Your Target

Knowing your target is important to any assassin, but getting contacted through circumspect means is arguably more important.

Some of you may be asking how I went from being Roseluck to The Black Rose, I will tell you how. It comes from how I am contacted, a client brings in a dossier of their target, sometimes it is just a name other times it is a full work up. They come to the shop Daisy and I own and buy one of my Golden Celestial roses, my own hybrid, and place it in the vase on the counter with the file underneath. If I accept the job I will switch it to a white rose indicating that the job is underway. When the job is complete I switch it to a Night Blooming Lunar rose, again my own strain, and the client meets at a predetermined place with an agent of my choosing to deliver payment.

Why all the complexity you might ask? It comes down to trust and disguises. Daisy knows very well who I am and what I do on my nights off, she is my lover and go between for clients, so I trust her implicitly. I do not however trust anyone else, which brings me to this nights tale.

I was contracted to deal with a pesky politician, who was making trouble for my clients interests. They came in with a full work up, schedule, guards, even a full travel itinerary. Now you may think that whenever I get this kind of information golden hoofed to me that I would be thankful, truth is it just made me nervous. This job was no different. What made it even more of an issue for me is that neither Daisy nor I saw the client when it was dropped off, but the pay was more than double my standard fee.

I switched the roses and while nibbling on the Golden Celestial I began my usual ritual, studying every facet of my mark so that I knew them and their schedule better than they did. I had three days to make the kill and it was a two day trip to Manehatten where he would be for a political conference. It was vital that I take him out before he spoke that night.

Name: Mathias Crimsonblood

Race: Minotaur

Occupation: politician and suspected high shaman (confirmed)

Guards: one dragon young-ling named Draklekar (Elite Dragon blood line, has wings at 15, exercise caution)

The rest of the file was full of schedules and pictures of Mathias, this was almost too well put together. I contacted my favorite street rat Scootaloo, and left her a note to find out what she could about anyone seen coming into or out of my shop that day and began packing my gear for the trip.

In my loft above the shop that I shared with Daisy I opened the secret compartment in our closet floor and dragged out my leathers and weapons, buttery soft and oiled to wonderful silence my leathers were a story unto themselves, they still bore the mark of the hide that it was made from. A cue stick and an eight ball, ah memories, they had a spider harness built into the framework of the armor which allowed me to scale walls easily and had straps to secure all manner of tools of the trade, pouches for various smoke and effect bombs, hardened cases on the chest to hold vials of poison and other drugs. My leathers were in a word, perfect.

I laced on my boots, the only part of the armor that I could wear without drawing suspicion, and checked the spring blades in the heel and then shimmied into a stylish dress for the train ride while the rest of my gear went into a large travel bag. The train ride was boring so I will not belabor the point that I made it to Manehatten without incident. I spent this time studying my mark further committing it all to memory.

Once in my room a floor below Mathias' rooms, he had rented the entire floor citing security issues, I slipped into my leathers and began searching through my weapons. The client was more worried about the job than the method so I was left to my own preferences here. I eventually settled on a set of special hoof blades that had been a gift from my trainers, they folded along my fetlocks so were almost invisible until deployed and had a reservoir for poisons should I choose to use them. I almost always did.

This time they were filled with Everfree spider venom, a concentrated hallucinogen, which would disorient and distract the mark while my blades did their bloody work. I have no illusions about what I do, I am an assassin, that means I kill living sentient beings for money. I never sugar coat what I do, not even to myself, that only cheapens what I have struggled so long for.

I finally applied the last of my gear to my armor, a shadow stone. Next to my leathers this was my most treasured possession, a heavily enchanted stone that allowed me to step through shadows to any other shadow I could see. With the last of my tools in place I waited until sundown and attached my harness to the outside of my window and began scaling the wall to position myself above the widow of the room Mathias was in. I say above because no one ever looks up for the big scary thing in the night, idiots.

As I watched the room from a shadowy alcove above the window I heard a gruff voice that could only come from the dragon

“Master Mathias, the room is clear of spells and personnel, you can safely enter.” Draklekar said in his gravely voice

What came next was a true surprise, while I knew that Mathias was on the lean side for a minotaur I never expected manners.

“Thank you, Draklekar, you may retire to your rooms until it is time.” Mathias said in a voice that could only be described as iron wrapped in silk. There was a confidence to it that belied any threat to his person.

The dragon, a truly fearsome specimen for his age, buck for any age, bowed out of the room wrapping his wings about him like a cloak.

Mathias walked to the window and spoke calmly. “I know you're there Rose you can come out I will not fight you.” again that maddeningly calm voice

Not wanting to lose my edge I activated the stone and stepped through to his own shadow so that I was right behind him, only to find he had turned around and was facing me with empty hands. I shot him a questioning look.

“You are a remarkable creature, my dear, and I have a proposition for you. You see, I hired you, I wanted to know if you were really good enough to slip past Draklekar's senses to get to me. I need you to kill me without killing me. I need to be in a state of near death so that no one but an Alicorn could tell the difference.” Once more I let the questioning look linger on my masked face.

“You see, my political machinations have caused me far more problems than I would like, so many that my... darker pursuits are threatening to come to light from the sheer publicity.” at my nod he sits in a chair facing me while I flush and switch the poisons in my blades and write him a small note.

“This will hurt like all of Tartarus is in your veins” I write while switching the poison in my blade to a liquid form of tetrodotoxin laced with a miniscule amount of curare.

At his nod I crumple the note and throw it in the fire and stab him just below his last rib with just enough upward angle to appear that I hit a lung. As the poisons take effect he further explains “My death will be blamed on a political rival, and all evidence has already been planted, though none will lead to your door.” I nod and step back through the shadows to the window and again through my own and hurriedly begin packing my gear.

Something had my senses tingling and, whenever I felt that the job had already gone pear shaped, I just hadn't figured out how yet. I checked out citing family emergency and left in a hurry contacting one of my local unicorn contacts, I bought a series of teleports back to Ponyville. Something told me that this job while not unusual, I had been hired to fake deaths before, was going to bite me on the flank sooner rather than later.

I got back to the shop just in time to see Daisy switch the roses and hand me a new file: Mathias Crimsonblood....

Author's Note

This one was fun to write and while not as dark it does have darker implications. you will see more of Mathias and Draklekar