First Blood

Dame Wasp flew into the bathroom, where she discovered Gloria seated on the edge of the tub, clad in her white bathrobe. Gloria had her head tilted sideways, revealing her beautiful neck and ear, as she dried her hair with a blow dryer. The sound of the blow dryer filled the small bathroom, echoing and amplifying in the confined space.

Looking at the defenseless Gloria drying her hair, unsuspecting of her surroundings, Ace's eyes shone with a cruel determination. He then informed Dame Wasp, 'Rose, this is a perfect chance. Use the sound of the blow dryer as a cover to charge into her ear with your fastest speed. At the moment of impact, muster all your strength and increase your size. If you get lodged into her ear canal or middle ear, shoot your strongest laser into her brain. We have one chance, so give it your all and make it count.'

'Leave to me, master. Watch me take this bitch down,' Dame Wasp declared confidently and added, 'Master, I will limit our 'sense share' to our thoughts because what is going to happen next will not be a pleasant experience.'

'Okay, go ahead and do that. I will wait for the news,' Ace did not reject Dame Wasp's proposal to limit the 'sense share' skill to their thoughts. This way, Ace would not have to witness the blood and gore but be prepared to use the 'kill switch' skill if required. It was just the last resort in case of something unexpected.

With her camouflage and the noise of the blow dryer, Dame Wasp believed she could infiltrate and navigate through Gloria's ear canal to reach her middle ear without getting noticed. Unlike her master, she had already used her knowledge of human anatomy to create a detailed and foolproof plan to assassinate Gloria without any complications.

As planned, Dame Wasp entered Gloria's ear in her 1/100 form and camouflage mode under the cover of the blow dryer's noise. Avoiding the ear wax and hairs, the natural protective mechanism of the ear, Dame Wasp navigated through the curves and narrow sections of the ear canal and made it to the middle ear, stopping in front of the eardrum.

At this point, feeling a sense of discomfort and irritation in her ear from the moment of wind created by Dame Wasp's flapping wings, Gloria stopped drying her hair and reflexively began to shake her head. She instinctively began to scratch and pick her ear with her pinky, believing water might have gotten into her ear. Unfortunately for her, that wasn't the case, and it was too late for her to do anything about it.

Ignoring the turbulence, Dame Wasp morphed her cyber braid into a laser point and shot her powerful laser beam at ear dram at an angle such that it burned through all the soft tissues and made it to Gloria's brain stem in a second.

The average distance from the human eardrum to the brainstem is approximately 3 to 4 centimeters (about 1.2 to 1.6 inches). Destroying it was child's play for Dame Wasp, compared to burning a hole in a 25-cm-long pure steel dumbbell shaft.

With a severely damaged brainstem, before she knew it, Gloria fell to the ground with a terrified look, conscious and aware but unable to move or communicate. Dame Wasp did not stop with Gloria's fall. She continued to shoot laser until a tunnel big enough for her to fit in formed. Then, entering it, Dame Wasp swiftly expanded her size. With a 5-inch action figure lodged in her brain, Gloria died with blood flowing from her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. Until the very end, she did not know what had transpired.

After making sure Gloria's heartbeat had stopped and showed no sign of revival, Dame Wasp was about to exit through Gloria's ear in her 1/100th form. But Gloria's corpse, with the blood and brain matter covering Dame Wasp, dissipated, forming a mass of curse energy, leaving behind a pair of stud diamond earrings.

'What happened?' Ace asked, lifting the limit on the 'sense share' skill, sensing shock and confusion from Dame Wasp.

'Master, I think those earrings are devouring Gloria's corpse by turning it into curse energy,' Dame Wasp speculated, pointing at the earrings at the center of the swirling curse energy, slowly entering it.

'That should be 'Charm Earrings,' Gloria's innate curse tool,' Ace muttered, not knowing how to feel about this. Though vivid, this eerie and unsettling scene felt like a realistic video game, especially with Gloria's corpse vanishing and dropping a cursed item.

'Master, don't dwell on it. Just remember those dear to you are safe now,' Dame Wasp reminded Ace to focus on the positive instead of dwelling on the negative.

'Thank you, Rose. If not for you, none of this would have been possible,' Ace sincerely thanked Dame Wasp. From uncovering Gloria's true intentions for him to assassinating her, were all only possible because of Dame Wasp. If not for her, Gloria's plan would gone without a hitch.

Ace felt that it was fate that Dame Wasp was his first animated toy and not the morphing bot Starstream he chose first. If he had animated some other toy, they would not have been able to achieve the results that Dame Wasp had accomplished today.

'It is my purpose to serve and protect you, Master. You can always count on me to do exactly that,' Dame Wasp replied, feeling a sense of fulfillment listening to her master's words of gratitude and appreciation.

As a toy summons animated by her master's prowess, the only purpose of Dame Wasp's being was to serve her master. She was willing to kill and die for Ace. As for her memories as Betty Rose/ Dame Wasp, to her, they were mere tools to help her better serve her master.

Soon, a string of text message notifications from Gloria's phone distributed the rare moment shared by Toymancer and his Toy summons.