Mai lost count of the number of bodies she passed as she ran through the command centre labyrinth. From the way they lay, she could tell that the attacker had started killing them as soon as the command staff was ensconced in the centre.

Nearly every corpse had wounds in the back, very few had known that the attacker was in their midst before they died. Some were piled over each other as if they’d fallen asleep whilst hugging.

Most of the kills were clean. Single shots to the back or the head. Others showed signs of a struggle. Large, gaping wounds indicated that the urbexer was using claws of some kind. Much like Mai they’d paired a firearm with a close combat bladed weapon.

Nostrils flaring at the stench of death, Mai fought to control her emotions, tears running down her cheeks. She’d discovered the sergeant-at-arms, head neatly severed from its shoulders, a crate of bio-boost laying at his feet. Not knowing how many bottles he’d had, she couldn’t tell if any were missing, but she doubted that the assassin would pass up the chance to take at least one.

She did the same, chugging down the liquid until her bio-mass reached one hundred and seventy five per cent, the maximum anyone could reach. That she knew of. Could the assassin go higher? They were a player after all, and she was just an NPC.

“Could you move any slower? I’m booored,” the same emotionless voice commed to her. “Make sure you don’t slip, the footing’s a bit treacherous, corridors filled with useless trash.”

Gritting her teeth, Mai didn’t respond. Doing so risked carrying her voice down the carpet-less corridor, giving away her position. She lowered the volume on her comm so that she could still hear the assassin, but not have them distract her too much, or prevent her from hearing any noise that they might make.

“What, cat got your tongue? Please hurry up, I promise I haven’t left you any surprises. I like killing my bounties face-to-face.”

Like I’m going to trust you, Mai thought as there was a ripple of explosions outside. A fourth detonated at the entrance, the blast filling the corridor with dust and debris.

“Oops,” the assassin taunted, “seems like you won’t be getting any reinforcements. I want it to be just you and me.”

Mai prayed that she hadn’t lost any of her people to that explosion, feeling guilty that she would put them before the local rebels. But they were her people. Pushing on, she closed her mind to the bodies littering the corridor.

Rounding the final bend, she paused to collect her wits. The bodies were piled in heaps where panicked rebels had tried to escape the killer in their midst. All had died horribly, the kills nowhere near as clean and clinical as the ones she’d seen on the approach to the command centre.

Some still twitched, the odd moan filling the room. All were too badly injured to actually scream. Forcing down bile, she slowly crouched and reached up to palm the door to the command centre open.

“Finally,” commed the assassin as the door opened. “Come in, come in, I promise I won’t kill you until we’re formally introduced.”

Swapping her blade for a shield, Mai rested the tri-barrel on it and entered the command centre, ready to spring into action at the slightest provocation. Mai had never been to a butcher’s, but the room resembled what she imagined the waste room to be. Pieces of what had once been the rebel council were plastered over the walls and ceiling. She couldn’t identify one body from another. Nothing could be pieced together. Only DNA tests would be able to identify what went where.

“Oh dear,” mocked the assassin as Mai vomited. “Don’t you like how I decorated the room?”

“Bastard!” Mai spat. “You didn’t have to kill them all!” The assassin shimmered before her, some sort of masking on their suit making it hard for Mai to focus. Shooting would be difficult, if she was going to be sure of a kill, it would have to be up close and personal. Which suited her perfectly fine.

“Oh, I know that darling, but they would have made things so much more difficult. And besides, it was fun. So. Much. Fun. Good to see you again by the way.”

“Wait, what? Do we know each other?”

“Oh most definitely. You killed my friends. Even killed their dog. Back in the sewers.”

Mai’s mind raced as she cast it back to before the culling when she had been indentured in the sewers. She’d been working on a fat berg with her friends when a group of urbexers had tried to rob them. They’d been wearing a mish-mash of armour, and had clearly been low level. She’d lost good friends in that fight, but they’d killed every one of the urbexers bar one. That one had worn a recon suit and had escaped at some point during the battle.

“You’re the one that got away. The recon suit?”

“Bravo,” clapped the assassin. “Bravo. Yes, I escaped whilst my friends died. Realised it was pointless dying in that filth. Even entered the culling. Was doing quite well too. And then I learned that you were in the culling. Tried to find you. Lost you at the supply drop. Marvellous idea, sending them down on parachutes.”

All the time they spoke the assassin moved, never stopping in one place, their suit shimmering all the time. It was as if they were phasing in and out of existence. They weren’t but the hologram causing the effect was impressive, nonetheless. Mai had the feeling that if the assassin was to run, that working out precisely where they would be nigh-on impossible.

Regardless, Mai kept her weapon up and trained on where she thought she could be certain of a hit, and her shield high.

“And then you heard there was a bounty on mine and thought you’d come and claim it?”

“Most certainly. And killing you will work towards my culling score. I’ve already claimed another five culls whilst down here. Might be worth you hunting down the other cullers still in Nether City. Not that you’re going to live.”

Mai was bored with the pantomime, this was the chattiest assassin she’d ever come across. The first assassin if she was totally honest, but still far too chatty. She fired, sweeping the lasers across where she thought the assassin truly was.

HIT! 2%

“Bitch!” screamed the assassin, their amplified voice causing Mai’s suit to dampen her ears. There was a blur of movement and then the assassin slammed into her shield.

DAMAGE 1%

STAGGERED

Mai didn’t need to be told that she’d been staggered as she flew across the chamber. The assassin’s body weighed far more than she had expected. Perhaps if she’d had the chance to plant her feet it would have had less effect, but the assassin’s suit made timing hard to judge.

She fired blindly, more to keep the assassin away from her whilst she tried to regain her balance than to do any damage. A blade struck her shield, sparking off the rim.

DAMAGE! SOAK 1%

It was a glancing blow, but still had power. She absorbed the tri-ball, swapping it for a tomahawk, her personal favourite. She held it mid-handle, giving her the option of switching for either a long strike, or dropping it down so that her hand was by the head and allowing her to go for a short range chop.

Blurring, the assassin stepped to the outside of Mai’s weapon hand. She pivoted her feet, switching her lead foot so that it was behind, swinging the shield round to meet the blow intended to disarm her.

DAMAGE! SOAK 2%

They’re fast, damned fast, Mai could feel herself tiring already. The power of the blows was making her shield arm ache and trying to concentrate on the position of the assassin was taking up all of her attention, she was permanently on the back foot, literally, and unable to switch from defence to offence, the only way she could win this fight.

A blade flicked out, she flinched away, dropping her weapon hand.

DAMAGE! 2%

BLEED @0.5%

“First blood to me,” taunted the assassin, dancing away from Mai’s clumsy counter-swing. “That shield looks heavy.”

Blow after blow rained down on the shield, Mai tried to raise her arm every time it was knocked down by the power of her attacker’s strikes. Chest heaving, she blinked the sweat out of her eyes.

Her skills flashed, all of them having finally reset. SPOT HIDDEN was the first she reactivated, followed by STEALTH, UNARMED COMBAT, DIRTY BOXING, and USE TOMAHAWK.

Immediately she was able to see the assassin better. They were still blurred, but the effect was dampened somewhat. Her eyes were able to focus better and didn’t dance around like before.

Snarling, Mai launched an overhead chop at the assassin, stamping forward as she did. Midway through the chop, she turned the tomahawk into a knife, shortening the length of the weapon significantly, altering her attack into a thrust.

HIT! 5%

BLEED @1% PER SECOND

Screaming in rage, the first emotion that Mai had heard from them, the assassin danced back, standing still just long enough for her form to settle.

“Bitch! You utter fucking NPC bitch!” Mai was glad at that moment that none of the rebels in the chamber were in any state to hear the assassin curse. It was the first time she’d ever heard a player refer to an NPC as such. “I’m going to fucking end you!”

They followed their words with a chop and a thrust of their own, both hands shaped into blades. Mai blocked one with her shield and parried the other, changing her knife into a sword, activating USE SWORD at the same time.

DAMAGE – SOAK 2%

Whilst she was tempted to give her arm a rest and get rid of the shield, it was more than proving its worth as it took attacks she knew would get through her body armour. There wasn’t room for her to choose anything heavier, and she had the feeling it would take all the bio-boost she had to defeat the assassin.

Jamming her shield forward, she tried to ram the edge of the shield into the assassin’s face. Whilst the shield went high, her blade went low. Straight into the assassin’s foot.

HIT! 10%

BLEED @2% PER SECOND

INTIMIDATED

The tide of battle had turned. Now the assassin was on the back foot, seriously injured, hobbling, trying to clear a space. But all that did was open up the distance, allowing Mai to flick her blade up, cutting into the assassin’s stomach.

CRITICAL HIT! 15%

BLEED @5% PER SECOND

Her attacker needed to act fast. They’d already suffered twenty-five per cent damage and had a cumulative bleed of seven per cent per second, meaning in the time it took for them to register the cut to their stomach, they were thirty-two per cent down, a third of their health bar a not-so-healthy black. Soon they’d be forty-nine per cent. In nine seconds they’d be dead if they didn’t kill her first and heal themselves.

“Cat got your tongue?” Mai taunted the assassin with their own words as she pressed forward, blade flicking at the assassin’s face. They managed to bat it away but doing so wasted another second.

What happened next was totally unexpected. One minute the assassin was standing, the next they dove straight at Mai’s feet, wrapping their arms around her leg and slamming her into the ground.

DAMAGE 1%

WINDED

Stars exploded before her eyes and all the air in her lungs left with a large *whoof*. Clawing their way up her body, the assassin rained punches down into her face, a large knuckle duster smashing her cheekbones with ease.

DAMAGE - CRITICAL HIT! 35%

STUNNED

BLINDED – LEFT EYE

Too close for sword work, head rocking as the assassin punched again, Mai absorbed her sword and punched back, aiming for the assassin’s side. She felt warmth, felt the cut she’d made previously. Snarling, teeth bared, good eyes wide open she pressed her hand into the wound, forcing it wider.

Reaching up with her other hand, she pulled the assassin in tight, controlling the back of her head, forcing her off balance as she pushed her hand further and further into the wound.

Screaming, the assassin tried to pull back, but couldn’t escape the grip on her head. Mai’s arm was far stronger than the neck, and where the head went, the body failed.

CRITICAL HIT! 20%

PANIC

Backing the assassin drove their forehead into Mai’s already broken face.

DAMAGE! 10%

STUNNED

As the room started to darken, Mai felt her fingers brush against something. Grasping it, she ripped her hand back out of the wound. There was a loud *schlurp* as she pulled the assassin’s guts out of their body, flinging the entrails away.

INSTAKILL!

NEW TITLE – EVISCERATOR!

YOU KNOW JUST HOW TO GET TO THE GUTS OF THE MATTER. LITERALLY. CAUGHT RED-HAND TAKES ON A WHOLE NEW MEANING.

Panting, Mai rolled the dead weight of the assassin off her. With a last remaining effort she activated her HEAL SERIOUS injuries, then let the darkness take her.