Surgeon General's Warning: Contains 200% less than daily recommend dose of laughs

Mercury Black

From the Top Down

How do you build an assassin?

What a fucked-up question for you to ask. But hey, I've got time, so let's do this.

You're going to get all sorts of ideas on where to start. People are going to tell you that you've got to start with the best training, some crazy high-tech weapons, or maybe some kind of innate skill. All of those are pretty good answers. They're also all fucking wrong. No, you want to build an assassin? There's only one real way to do it.

From the top down.

You see, you're going to spend the majority of your time on the head, the mind. You've got to start young, that's key. After all, that's when you can do the most damage. You start by working on the senses, sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.

You've got to show the kid what he's going to be doing as early as possible, letting them watch an interrogation or dozen. Let them really drink all the colors in, the reds, the whites, the browns. Now, they're probably not going to want to watch, but that's why you use the ears. You tell them that if they don't watch, you're going to deal with them next. If you've been doing your job right, they'll remember the taste of blood in their mouth. They might retch a bit when the burning smell kicks in, but hey, feel free to use touch to show them what you think about that.

Now, don't you get lazy on me! This is a 24/7 kind of job. You've got to whisper in that kid's ears when he's falling asleep on the cold, stone floor. Telling him that if you knock him down during tomorrow's beat- I mean, sparring session, that you're going to start again with another son. You got the sprinkle a little bit of Dust in his food in the morning, make sure he gets used to the taste. You've got to leave pictures of your latest and greatest kills around the house to make that stomach strong. You don't want him to grow up soft, do you?

Keep this up for a few years and you'll be ready to move on down the body. And you're in luck, cause we can start working on the heart and the stomach at the same time. How you ask? Well, hunger is a hell of motivator. Start off small, doing things like cutting off meals unless it's something that they killed themselves. Anything will do really, deer, birds, etc. But I found that other peoples' pets work best, really turns the knife in the ole heart. Oh, don't forget to make them watch you while you eat on the days that they fail to find anything. Gotta remind them who's the boss.

I'll admit though, the heart is a little bit more complex than that. You're going to have to them move on from animals pretty fast. The other thing about the heart is that it likes to think its special. You've gotta stomp that shit out fast. Small things help, like forgetting their name, reminding them that they're not your first attempt, stealing their Semblance. You know, whatever works for you.

Now and only now that we've done the prep-work can you move on to the really sexy stuff. Take their legs out from under them. And I do mean that literally. Don't be too quick on the draw to replace them either. Let them crawl around on the ground for a bit, reminding them that as far as they've come, you can take it all away in an instant. Cause you see, when you're put those excruciating metal implants in, you're not actually making a weapon. You're just loading it.

And that, my friend, is how you build an assassin.

From the top down.

But as my dear departed dad would warn you…

Careful that he's not better at it than you.