// EPISODE ONE //
Push out from the slime enclosure, snap the tendrils that circle the arm. Ignore the heat, the swampy stench of gizzard grease, of shaven bone. "Everything rots down here," Namiko says to herself.
The chamber is damp from the bile, damp from the remains of those who have come before. And perished gruesomely. Namiko has faced worse, but where's her blade, her razor wire, her cybernetic implants?
Her eyes scan the chamber. Star-shaped holes in the wall emit dark pink splotches. She brushes the slime off her school uniform, wipes a splatter of slime off her bare stomach, buttons her shirt, and pulls up her socks. She adjusts her skirt. Moments ago, stuck to the wall by the force of the slime-tentacles, she thought she'd surely die. They had begun creeping up under her bra, up higher to encircle her throat. But she had done her nails the day before, had crafted them sharp and clean, tight at the tip like razorclaws. And when she entered the space craft to retrieve her client's cell phone (her mission for the day... at least that's what she thought), she knew she was stepping straight into danger. She always felt danger tickle the back of her neck.
But Namiko Yamami knows danger. She breathes it in smooth draws. The mangled corpses of four hundred slain dead shall vouch. And now, uniform straightened, she pushes her hair behind her ear and takes off toward a peculiar belching sound that emanates from the right, from somewhere far down in the bowels of this sick chamber.
"Bllllaaaaaarrrrgggghhhhhh," the sound sputters.
"Gross," Namiko says. "Don't tell me I'm gonna have to actually fight one of these slime demons. I should've wore a hazmat."
But where's Yuko? Where's Maki? Both are gone, dead she fears -- though she could just be hungry. The life of a rogue assassin is never easy, especially when your clients include mutant crab-slugs, ninja warlords with parapsychic powers, elite military units hellbent on destruction, or slime-drenched alien demons from the void that want nothing more than to molest and malign the flesh of supple uniformed girls like herself.
"I wouldn't have it any other way," she mutters to herself as she bends to scoop up an scabbard with a black leather hilt.
Namiko rounds a corner, swoops down and scoops up a long-sword with a shocking pink hilt with a tiny unicorn horn-nub on the bottom. "Mine now," she says, laughing to herself. "Hold on Yuko and Maki! If you're alive, I'm coming for you!" But no one replies and the chamber seems to be sloshing downward. The floor is slippery, too. Namiko's sleek combat boots have excellent grip, but suddenly she slips and plops down on her bottom. And slides, gripping the sword.
She steadies herself as she rockets down the chamber, that sword ready to plunge into the chest of whatever slime demon rears its purple tentacles her way. The chamber dips down. An awful screaming sound rages into Namiko's ears. "Yuko?! Maki?" It could be. It has to be. But another sound, more menacing and wet like a sloppy trough of sludge bellows out: "Namiko! I've been waiting for you." And Namiko narrows her brow, focuses and stills her mind, gripping the sword. She knows that voice -- THE DEMON LORD!"
