Battle Two - Nadya vs Irina
The moment Irina hit the ground, the garden stopped feeling like a battlefield and started feeling like a grudge match years in the making.
But first, the past - the pieces that brought them here were stitched into every strike.
They had met as teenagers in a covert Russian military program that operated under a name no one was allowed to speak.
They were trained to be the sharpest blades in the dark: assassinations that never happened, espionage missions denied before paperwork could even be written, sabotage blamed on accidents.
The three of them - Sven, Nadya, and Irina - were a nightmare trinity.
Their teamwork was suffocating, seamless, brutal. They trusted each other's footfalls more than orders.
Sven specialised in infiltration - quiet, charming, infuriatingly smug, and always the first through a locked door.
Nadya was combat incarnate - loud, direct, violent in the way a wildfire was violent.
