I crept forward through the branches under the blanket of the night, taking utmost care to avoid rustling noises. Outfitted with military-grade gear, the squad of three in front of me approached our target.

The mission was simple; infiltrate, secure our target and eliminate all hindrances.

We were hidden behind the final span of trees, beyond which was a graveyard of stumps spanning fifteen meters in every direction from our target. Several floodlights pierced through the darkness, scanning sporadically in a set pattern.

“Now.”

Eagle hushed into his comms and we started advancing, mindful of the floodlights should they suddenly veer into our direction. He was the best sniper alive and currently tasked with watching our back as we progressed inside. Positioned atop a tree with a ghillie suit, he surveyed the place for several days without motion. The enemy’s patterns, shifts, rotations, everything was memorized by him.

‘Man did he not want to do it…’

********

I strolled through the countless hallways towards the room reserved for us. Given charge with completing the mission, I assembled a small squad of four of the most reliable people I knew. All of which should be waiting for me inside the briefing room.

The location of this base was as remote as it could be, but the lack of natural lighting really ruined it for me. Should something go south, there were limited escape options and in situations where those get blocked off, I would be trapped underground.

The interior was the equivalent as all the other locations. Bright, gray, metallic walls lined the sides, with pillars installed every so often to support the weight. The only source of light were fluorescent tubes spanning the ceiling.

Yet despite the simplicity, the walls were packed with sensors, hidden cameras and turrets that would appear at a moment’s notice.

Room thirty-four was the next one on my right. Pressing my thumb against the glass panel, an artificial voice rang out,

[Cato R. Access Granted.]

The doors slid open and I promptly walked into the cigarette-filled room to see Braun and James having an arm-wrestling match. I took my pen out and whipped it straight at Braun, the likely cause of this scene. James leapt out of his chair and swiped the pen from the air. His chair went crashing to the ground.

“Come now Cato, let them finish.”

I let out a deep sigh and paced myself to the front of the room.

‘Best or not, they are still a bunch of fools.’

At least Eagle was busy reading a book thick enough to bludgeon someone to death with. It was also about some quan-astro-physi-science thingy I couldn’t even pronounce. Picking up a small remote I started the lecture,

“Alright, our objective is of the simpler kind. Infiltrate a building, capture the leader and wipe out his group. Clean sweep, no witnesses, no mess, a simple job.”

The fools stared attentively once I spoke up. The hologram flickered and started looping a segment of a certain recording our scout team had acquired.

“The people there are all inexperienced with mediocre weaponry and abilities, a bunch of hired goons. Overall this mission is a joke. However, the fact persists that they acquired weaponry of unknown origin and hid its existence from the Organisation.”

Everyone had a mixture of confusion on their face as they watched the replay. It flipped between a man instantaneously combusting, and another being encapsulated in ice.

“As such, we were tasked with the mission to complete it without fail. Eagle, you will observe the enemy for two days prior to our advance. We will begin at ‘o-two hundred’ sharp, any questions?”

Only Braun lifted his hand,

“Yes Braun?” I asked.

“What about the layout of the building, location, and other info?”

“All synced to your accounts, because of the place being a backwater washup, not much is known. But anything of importance was provided to us. Anything else?”

I scanned around the room but just one was waving his hand energetically.

“Good, dismissed. Eagle you can begin immediately.”

“Hey wait...you! Why are you ignoring me for?” Eagle rebutted.

“You know there is no need for me to sit in a tree for that long when the enemy is so incompetent!” He slammed the desk.

“You’ll do it because I said so.”

Eagle narrowed his eyes,

“Why... you-”

“There must be no chance of us failing the mission, and there is no one more skilled at sniping or analyzing the enemy other than you. You should know that well.”

I watched as Eagle crossed his arms and dejectedly replied,

“...Fine.”

********

Despite being a low building filled with inexperienced people, they had access to a strange form of weaponry the Organisation was not aware of. As such, our group was tasked with the mission. We took all the normal precautions knowing the price we may pay otherwise.

‘Ten meters left.’

I motioned my hand and the other three got close together, we needed to make ourselves as small of a target as possible. We advanced several more steps-

“Stop.”

All of us halted at Eagle’s command, no questions asked. I looked over at the roof, one of the sentries appeared over the railing and glanced in our direction. His outline was clearly visible against the moonlight behind him. Tensing my muscles, I prepared to sprint to the building if he had noticed us.

We held our breath... the sentry disappeared from sight. Still there was no command from Eagle. A few more minutes dragged on, a single floodlight came threateningly close to us. We would have been lit up brighter than a Christmas tree had we kept going.

“All clear.”

With a light sigh, I resumed command and led us closer to the side of the metal-sheeted building.

‘Ten meters.’

‘Five meters.’

‘We’re here.’

We made it to the side of the rectangular building. Moreover, this place was a blindspot for the sentries and floodlights. Coupled with a particularly large window above, it made for the perfect point of entry.

Without uttering a word, James took out his hook and threw it upwards which landed in the centre of the windowsill. A quiet drilling sound came as it burrowed into the metal. Unless someone was intentionally listening for it, they wouldn’t notice anything.

He gave the rope a quick tug and started climbing, followed by Charlie and James then me.

[I scanned the window and the room, no signs of traps or electricity. Seems like their security is far more lax than we thought.]

James spoke across the ear-comm. I smacked him across the head, motioned for him to shut up and proceed forward. From what the building’s blueprints told us, the place was constructed of two floors, each had a central hallway running from one side to the other, from which smaller hallways branched off. These had rooms on either side of them.

The only way up or down were three staircases, one in the middle and one each on the far ends. James and I would sweep through the second floor while Braum and Charlie took the bottom one. Since we entered from the side of the building, the west staircase was one door from our location.

There weren’t any guards or patrols in our vicinity and with a single thumbs up, we splitted. The layout offered little cover, we could be spotted from the other side of the main hallway, blowing stealth out of the water.

As such, we proceeded clearing small packets of rooms with caution - one at a time. James would open the door and I stepped inside first, pistol on top and knife under it at the ready. The first couple were empty, but the fourth one had a single room with two people in it.

It was one of the few that was locked, nothing that a specialized drill couldn’t get through. The two guys inside slept through the silent whizzing noise, a sign of unskilled mercenaries or whatever they were. Without making a single sound, nor even breathing, James and I took out one each, covered their mouths and slit their throats. The blood stained their sheets but we were long gone before their bodies even began cooling down.

From the activity Eagle observed over the two days, there is always about about ten people inside this building, which was confirmed to be the case today from the thermal camera. If we ignore the two on sentry duty, then there should be two more people on this floor, assuming they are evenly distributed.

I turned my ear-comm on and off twice to signify the two kills we made for Charlie and Braun. We covered half of the top floor when my ear-comm went off and on twice. Charlie and Braun must have found two more sleeping.

That left about-

Footsteps.

James and I were stalking down both sides of the central hallway and were just about to clear the two hallways branching off when we heard someone’s footsteps. I readied my gun.

The person drew closer and one of his feet emerged from around the corner. I kicked it upwards with my own foot, breaking his balance and sending him falling on his back. However, before he could hit the ground I cleared the corner, pushed my hand on his mouth and plunged my knife into his throat. Not wanting to take out my knife and leave a giant blood trail, I snapped the man’s neck.

The takedown was silent. No noise of a body collapsing and my pistol’s fall was stopped by James as he caught it mid-air. He cleared one of the rooms from the hallway the man came from and I hid the body there.

Only once the body was out of sight did I retrieve my knife. Wiping it on the victim’s clothes, I turned the comms on then off to signify another kill.

“Ten minutes.”

Eagle’s voice came across a minute later, warning how much longer we have before sentry duty was switched. Seeing the ease of the mission James and I picked up our pace. We encountered one more person who was too far to reach by knife. Having no other option I drew out my pistol and let out a single shot, the recoil was dispersed by flexing my arms. A dull pop sound came but due to the fixed silencer and the lack of any sensors, no alarm went off.

Anyone on the floor directly below the body might have heard the noise, I turned on the comm.

“Body fell.”

That would be enough to warn Charlie and Braun to proceed with caution. While I did so, James went ahead and dragged the body into a hallway, a slight trail of red was left behind, but it mattered little as we had a quarter of the path left.

The two of us checked the remaining hallways and as we were opening the last room, chk, chk. The ear-comm was toggled two times.

“Bottom floor cleared, heading up eastern stairs.”

Charlie’s voice came from the ear-comm.

“Got it, clearing the last room.”

I responded while James opened a door for me once more. Storming inside, there was no one there.

“Eagle, feel free to take out the sentries now, there’s only the boss left.”

I notified him, his ear-piece was still turned on,

Bap...Bap

“Sorry, forgot to turn it off.”

‘Yeah right.’ The guy left his comm on while shooting on purpose.

‘Why even bother?’

Being about five meters from the eastern stairs, I heard the door creak open and raised my gun.

It was Charlie and Braun. The four of us grouped up and stood before the final room, where an entire hallway should be. Out of habit, James tried to twist the knob and found it unlocked. With a quick side-to-side motion we split up once more and stood two on each side of the door.

James leaned over and nudged it open without exposing himself. No sooner had the door opened halfway than a giant fireball came flying out. Expecting something of the sort we threw in two flashbangs, the first to mask the second.

After the second explosion went off we stormed the room. Inside was a single man seated behind a black, metallic desk. He was clutching some sort of stone in his left hand while panting.

“You better put that stone down and put your hands on your head!”

Braun shouted at the man dressed in casual jeans and blue-striped t-shirt. Scanning the room we advanced forward with caution, Braun never took his gun off him.

Finding nothing,

“Eagle you can come inside. Target secured.”

I transmitted across the ear-comm.

“Already am, coming up the stairs as we speak!”

He shouted back.

“Why did you abandon post!?”

“Please, we both know nothing else will happen.”

I turned off the ear-piece and faced the man,

“You speak English?”

A curt nod came.

“Good, then why don’t you tell me how you just shot that fireball?”

The man’s pupils went wide and brow grew covered in sweat.

“I-I-’m not sure. One day I find this stone in forest, it look odd so I picked it up. After carry it for one day, I pass out. A-a friend find me asleep in the forest and bring me to his house. A man you probably killed earlier.”

I punched him in the face with a bit of force.

“You did not answer my question.”

I replied with a calm voice, waiting for the man to get up.

“Hey Cato, see you got started already. What’s with the rock?”

“Don’t know, this guy says it has something to do with... what you called mahgik or something.”

I didn’t turn to look at Eagle who came flying through the door.

“Don’t mind if I do a bit of experimenting on it then!”

He replied in the cheerful tone that he uses whenever something catches his attention. Despite his fanatics he knows better than to cause any damage outside a designated laboratory.

I glanced over at the shaking target,

“Well, you going to talk or not?”

“I-I dunno! After I wake I saw my friend cook something on a fire. At that moment something clicked inside my head, I...I focused some energy inside my hand and a small fireball came out.”

I walked around the table, grabbed him by the collar and lifted him off his feet.

“Really? So you just focused some energy, did you?”

“I s-swear! That’s all I know. Let go! Please!”

The darker skinned man wriggled against my grasp and flailed around. I slammed him against the table, picked him up by the neck, and smashed his face against the wall. A loud bang rang across the room from the impact. Small chance he didn’t just get a concussion and a broken rib or two.

“Hey captain, I connected the wires to my laptop but need you to give me permission, so that in case I break it you take the blame.”

I looked over at Eagle,

“And will it?”

Eagle jerked his head to the side,

“Well no, but-”

“Then go ahead.”

As soon as Eagle pressed a single button my vision was filled with a white light.

Right away my body started burning, freezing, screaming in protest to the pain flowing through every inch of my skin.

I tried to look at it but couldn’t see anything through the white veil - as if I was staring at a whiteout.