The Mouse Will Choke You

Her body was a rigid pillar of self-control, poised mere inches from the grimy brickwork, her chin lifted with an air of inherent authority. With a slow, deliberate grace, her arms, corded and powerful, swept across the wall’s surface. Their passage disturbed a thick accumulation of filth, leaving behind the ghostly, ephemeral silhouette of an angel’s wings traced in the settled grime. The gesture was a silent, almost reverent homage to the profound negligence that had laid claim to this space—a testament to the decay that saturated every surface, every piece of derelict furniture, every forgotten shadow.

She and her fifty-two men had taken possession of an office within a warehouse that had long ago shed any memory of commerce or industry. The air here was a heavy concoction, thick with the metallic sharpness of rust and the damp, earthy perfume of stale concrete. It was another world, an entire universe removed from the sterile, climate-controlled corridors of power she had so recently and so violently subverted.

“Krysta.”

A voice, made coarse by a heavy, foreign accent, fractured the suffocating silence. She offered no reaction, not so much as a turn of her head or a flinch of a muscle. Her gaze remained transfixed, wholly consumed by a single, corroded bolt in the ceiling—a lone point of surprising cleanliness amid a sprawling landscape of deterioration. The elegant, taut arch of her spine, a physical expression of her formidable willpower, simply continued its languid stretch, each vertebra seeming to articulate in a display of flawless, fluid control.

The man, her de facto second-in-command, observed a respectful pause, permitting the echo of her name to dissipate into the stagnant air. “Howland is stirring up opposition,” he resumed, his tone low and urgent. “He speaks of battle, sowing discord among the ranks. His words are becoming a liability.”

With a predatory ease that was at once hypnotic and deeply unsettling, Krysta arched backward, her body sinking into a perfect, supple bridge, her eyes still locked on the bolt above. Then, with a contained surge of power, she kicked over. Her boots met the concrete floor without a whisper of sound in a single, seamless motion. She rose and, without a word, glided from the cramped office into the cavernous void of the main warehouse.

Her lieutenant followed, his own footsteps heavier, less assured on the fractured floor. As Krysta emerged into the sprawling central hall, a subtle but instantaneous transformation rippled through the assembled men. Jaws that had been slack with boredom were now set with purpose. Shoulders that had been slumped in repose were now squared in attention. It was a collective, unspoken acknowledgment of her presence—the arrival of their alpha.

Krysta’s gaze swept over her gathered forces in a slow, appraising inventory. A broad, raptor-like smile stretched her lips, appearing as a cold, white gash of predatory amusement on her otherwise grimy face.

“Howland,” she called, her voice a sharp command that ricocheted off the corrugated steel walls, a sound that did not request but demanded compliance. “Present yourself.”

From the assembled pack, a single man detached himself. His head was shaven, the pale, exposed scalp accentuating ears that seemed overlarge for his skull. He strode toward her with a manufactured bravado, but the slight, almost imperceptible tremor in his clenched fists betrayed the reality of his frayed nerves.

“Spar with me,” she instructed, and the smile vanished as if it were a mirage, her features instantly reverting to a mask of cold neutrality.

The other men watched, their faces impassive, their rough-hewn features nearly identical in the dim, ambient light. They were bound by a tacit understanding: Krysta, the woman who had usurped their former male leader, was an anomaly. Still, there was precedent for serving a queen on the old worlds they all called home, and they had learned that this one, in particular, held them to a standard as exacting as it was merciless.

Howland gave a curt, sharp nod of acceptance.

“A weapon,” Krysta commanded, extending a hand to the lieutenant who had delivered the report. He hesitated for only a fraction of a second before moving to obey. She paused, tapping a long, dirt-stained finger against her chin in contemplation. “No,” she murmured, more to herself than to the room, “I think it’s too early in the day for the flame lance.”

A moment later, her choice was made. Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “A dagger.” She then added, her eyes igniting with a primordial flicker, a hint of the agony she had long ago forged into terrifying strength, “And a switchblade.”

With that, she executed a series of swift, fluid cartwheels that carried her to the center of the concrete floor. As if directed by a singular consciousness, her men dissolved backward, their boots scuffing softly as they formed a wide, silent circle—a makeshift arena for the lesson about to be taught.

A muscle at the corner of Howland’s eye jumped, a nervous tic he could not control. Even so, his voice was laced with a desperate, swaggering arrogance. “And for me? What weapon am I afforded?”

“You will be unarmed,” Krysta stated, her voice toneless and utterly devoid of inflection. “And I will teach the lesson.”

The last vestige of defiance drained from Howland’s face, leaving in its place an unreadable mask of stoicism. This, too, was part of her training. She had conditioned them emotionally as well as physically, teaching them that a calm, inscrutable exterior was its own form of armor, its own kind of weapon.

“You profess a love for combat, do you not?” Krysta demanded, sinking into a low, prepared stance that was simultaneously defensive and coiled with violent potential.

Howland’s eyes widened with a sudden, dawning horror. He understood. The trap was not merely set; it was already closing.

“Yes, you see it now,” she hissed, her body twisting like a serpent poised to strike. “All battles are hunts. A dance between predator and prey. The only question is which you are. Can you repel me?” On the final word, she launched herself forward in a dizzying blur of motion.

Her speed was legendary among them; she was always the first to move, the first to land a blow. She knew Howland’s kind intimately: the braggart, the agitator, the one who calls loudest for action but is the last to comprehend its cost. Where was that arrogance now? It had sublimated, as all unproven convictions do when faced with immediate, tangible consequences.

“The mouse will suffocate you, little cat,” she growled, ironically inverting their roles as she annihilated the distance between them.

Her assault was a tempest of lethal elegance. To an untrained observer, her movements might have appeared frenetic, even chaotic, but every feint and every slash was a calculated point in a deadly geometry. Steel flashed in a complex, glittering web as the dagger and switchblade carved through the heavy air. Howland was thrown entirely onto the defensive, his eyes wide, pupils dilated with terror, able to focus only on the twin threats of the blades. His feet, made clumsy by panic, scrabbled for purchase on the filthy concrete in a frantic, desperate backpedal.

“What will you do when a real war finds you, Howland?” Krysta’s tone was almost conversational as she pursued him, her acrobatic lunges and pirouettes a stark, almost playful contrast to his desperate struggle for survival. “What will you do when the enemy does not announce himself?” She raised the dagger high, its polished steel catching the dim warehouse light, flaring for an instant like a fallen star.

From the periphery, the circle of men watched with an unwavering, unnerving focus. Their faces were masks of stone, their eyes burning every detail of the brutal pedagogy into their collective memory.

Howland heard none of her words, his consciousness narrowed by a primal, all-consuming fear. His world had shrunk to the flashing steel before him and the rapidly vanishing space behind him. His back struck the cold, unforgiving wall with a solid thud. A dead end.

His mind exploded in a desperate calculation: Sacrifice the hands. Block the blades. Better to live maimed than to die whole. It was a soldier’s bargain, a grim piece of battlefield arithmetic.

But in the final, heart-stopping second before Krysta’s killing blow could land, his fighter’s instincts screamed a different path.

He lunged forward, diving under the arc of the knife and driving the steel-reinforced toe of his boot deep into her midsection. The impact was solid, heavy, and it forced the air from her lungs in a sharp gasp. Pressing his momentary advantage, he threw his full weight against her, attempting to use his momentum to shatter her against the wall. It was like trying to shove a mountain. Krysta grunted, absorbing the force, the spiked soles of her own boots grinding into the concrete for leverage. In one powerful, fluid motion, she twisted, turning his own forward momentum against him, and hurled him to the ground.

In the space of a single heartbeat, Howland was on his back, the razor-sharp point of her dagger pressed firmly against the frantic pulse in his throat.

“Listen to me,” she said, her voice a low, mocking purr, “since I know you have not been. From this moment forward, you will learn the virtue of silence.”

To emphasize her point, she twisted him onto his stomach, pinning him with the full force of her body, her knee digging mercilessly into the base of his spine. With one savage, deliberate motion, she hooked her fingers into the collar of his shirt and ripped it open down his back.

A collective, sharp hiss of breath emanated from the assembled ranks. A few men, their faces ashen, turned their heads away. This was no longer a spar. This was a desecration.

Holding the switchblade like a scalpel between her thumb and forefinger, she began to carve. She was not merely cutting; she was writing, branding him with her name—first and last—across the broad canvas of his back.

“Did you know the Ignis Clan uses brands, Howland?” she whispered, her tone horrifyingly cheerful, a grotesque counterpoint to the act itself. Howland’s only response was a strangled, pain-filled grunt. “You’ve always wanted to make your mark, haven’t you? Well, how will you counter them? What do you possess? They have fire. You have an impatient ambition and a loud mouth. How do you prepare for them?” Her voice rose to a final, piercing shriek. “You train harder!”

She punctuated the final word by slamming his head against the concrete floor. He went limp beneath her.

As he twitched on the ground, she rose, her movements still unnervingly graceful. She cast a poisoned glance at her second-in-command. “When he regains consciousness,” she murmured, her voice returning to its customary icy calm, “remind him of the value of silence. Use your boot.”

She strode back toward her office, pointedly ignoring the new, uncertain looks that followed her. She paused at the threshold, turning slowly to face the room. Another of her men, Tomas, was already assisting the lieutenant in dragging Howland’s unconscious form away.

The chillingly bright, raptor’s smile returned to her face. “That ‘K’ might need stitching,” she announced to the silent room. “I believe my hand slipped.”

She held their gazes for one final, pregnant moment. “The rest of you, return to your duties.”

Without another word, she vanished back into her office, resuming her solitary exercises as if nothing of any consequence had transpired.

The remaining fifty men looked at one another, their eyes gloomy and inscrutable. A heavy silence descended, thick with unspoken questions and a fresh, potent fear. The lecture was over.