[IC] 【 Spy High 】

[Hitman]

𝟸𝟸:𝟻𝟸
𝙾𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝙲𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛, 𝙿𝚛𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚊𝚍𝚎
𝙼𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚊𝚛𝚍 𝙵𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝙷𝚒𝚐𝚑 𝚂𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚘𝚕, 𝚂𝚠𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚘𝚗 𝚃𝚇
𝟿/𝟸𝟿/𝟸0𝟸𝟷

Nadia Sokolova was pissed.

This was not an uncommon occurrence. Nadia Sokolova did in fact have a tendency to be angry. The cheer squad could attest to their instructors' high standards, low patience levels, and general aura of irritation. Nadia was the type of person that simply did not enjoy smiling, simply put. She was always a frosty, callous, blunt, and often irritated person. Right now, however, Nadia was even more pissed than usual. She was extremely annoyed. Extremely. Her face was stony and her fists clenched as she walked down the hallway of Millard Fillmore High School. It was late at night, and so the building was almost entirely empty. Or at least, so everybody thought.

Nadia made her way over to a broom closet, gripping the doorknob tightly before swinging it open. She nearly ripped the door clean off the hinges, a creaking sound coming from the dilapidated closet as she angrily opened it up. She looked left, and then right, before stepping into the closet. She swung the door shut behind her before wrapping her hand around a mop standing perched nearby. She pulled it down like a lever, the entire closet immediately filling with a gentle blue glow. A robotic-sounding posh British voice echoed through the small room. "Good evening. Please complete the retinal scan to proceed."

Nadia nodded stiffly, looking over at one of the shelves in the closet. She pushed a few bottles of cleaning solutions out of the way, pulling forward a dusty old bronze bust of Millard Fillmore. She leaned in, staring directly into the statuette's eyes. A red laser glow pulsed from each of the bust's eyes, scanning for a few moments before giving a happy ding. "Scan complete. Welcome. Director Sokolova. To what floor will you be heading?"

Nadia folded her arms, grunting. "Command Center. Now."

"Can do. Heading towards the Command Center now." The floor underneath Nadia rumbled, before a small square platform, right around where Nadia was standing, began to slowly sink. Nadia descended into the ground as the mini-elevator slowly moved downwards. Nadia impatiently stared at the wall, her arms still folded, tapping her foot impatiently on the ground. A few moments later, the elevator stopped, and a pair of glass doors slid open, revealing a spacious room. It meshed the colors of cyan and silver nicely, with a massive conference table in the center of the room, multiple massive screens plastered on the walls. The screens were currently showing a live feed of some desert area. Several well-dressed men and women were dotted around the room, some standing in front of the screens, some sitting at the table, some having a meltdown in the corner of the room. Nadia stepped into the room as a man ran over towards her. He was tall and intimidating, standing at nearly 6'4" with an impressive build to match. He was balding, his hairline having retreated significantly, with the hair that he had left being wispy gray and combed back. He was wearing a tuxedo and was clutching a folder full of papers under his arm. "Director Sokolova. Glad you finally got here."

"Good evening, Agent Stanley. Apologies for the delay, I had a personal conflict I had to deal with." By personal conflict, Nadia actually meant cheer competition. As a professional spy, she did find it somewhat embarrassing that she was skipping out on her duties as Promenade Director to go work with cheerleaders of all things, but when you were leading a two-time state champion team that was in a good place to take a third trophy, you had to make sure you showed up to competitions. Nadia had already negotiated a major raise with Principal Donoghue already and anticipated another one with a third win. If Nadia was going to have to work as a teacher during the day, she might as well be a well-paid one. Sokolova looked around the generally chaotic room. "It seems like a zoo in here. What's going on?"

"We had a very interesting encounter," Agent Stanley said gruffly, walking over to the conference table and taking a seat. "Very interesting indeed."

Sokolova followed him, sitting herself down in a comfy leather chair. "Fill me in. Now."

Agent Stanley laid his files out on the table, spreading several dossiers and photographs out across the area. He gave a quick cough to clear his throat before speaking. "As you know, the team is on the first major mission of the school year right now. They were warped into Mali to stop a group of antique robbers from stealing some ancient manuscripts from Timbuktu."

Nadia glared at the agent, snapping her fingers impatiently. "I know, I know. I briefed them on this mission. Warp in, catch the guy, incapacitate them, warp out. They should've been back by now. What happened? What went wrong?"

Stanley coughed again, blinking nervously. Nadia had that effect on people. Even a trained spy like Agent Stanley, who had worked for MI6 for 17 years before coming to Promenade as a handler, was still somewhat intimidated by the woman. She was scary. "Well, how do I say this...alright, everything. Everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong. Turns out the guys they were after planted some bombs in the university. The kids, they’re totally stumped by this and freeze up, blow their cover entirely. Total failure in that department. Then, there's this massive shootout. Massive. Imagine how the civilians must have felt, with a bunch of teenagers duking it out with a gang of African looters. Anyway, thankfully, none of the kids got really hurt. Maybe a sprained ankle or something, but nothing serious. They manage to take down a couple of the looters, but most of them escape with the manuscripts. On top of that, a bunch of the bombs went off and turned a good part of Timbuktu’s historic district to rubble. And to top it off, one of the criminals had a contact in the Malian government, so now these kids are being chased across the desert by the military...you want a water, Director Sokolova?"

Nadia was glowering. Her lips were so tightly pursed that her face was paling, all in pure rage. Her fists were curled up in tight balls. "I would love a water," she said stiffly, staring at one of the screens. Two rickety hummers were rolling through the desert, followed by a large number of military vehicles in hot pursuit. Occasionally, there were bangs of gunfire that echoed through the conference room from the speakers. Nadia grumbled something in Russian as Agent Stanley handed her a cup of water. She downed the entire cup in an instant, slamming it back roughly on the table, a sharp bang echoing throughout the room. "Scratch that. Get me a vodka," Nadia said, her teeth clenched. She released a heated sigh through her teeth, resting her elbows on the table and her head in her palms, running her hands through her hair. This had ended in a trainwreck. There would be inquiries, and damages, and lots of mind wipes necessary. This is what happened when you worked with amateur kids. They were extremely gifted and bright, but equally as inexperienced and prone to be being flustered. They lacked the ability to keep a cool head most of the time. That was why this Timbuktu incident had become such a massive disaster, that inability to react on the fly. Nadia shook her head, trying to dismiss these negative thoughts from her mind. It was better to think about the future, and how that would be addressed.

Lessons plans were something that Nadia had never imagined herself devising before she came to the States, but here she was. She had to somehow find a way to teach high school students- in essence, a bunch of chimpanzees- how to engage in spur-of-the-moment, advanced spy techniques. She massaged her temples for a few moments, staring directly at the table. What did high schoolers like? Sex? Drugs? TikTok? Those weren’t exactly options. Sports? That wouldn’t work, would it?

Nadia thought for a moment, before she removed a notepad from her pocket and grabbed a pen from the table. She stared at the blank page for a second before bringing pen to paper, and she began to plan. "Stanley! Do you know any places in Swindon that are abandoned? I'm getting the beginnings of an idea."

---

---

𝟽:0𝟷
𝟷𝟽00 𝙲𝚘𝚘𝚕𝚒𝚍𝚐𝚎 𝚁𝚘𝚊𝚍
𝚂𝚠𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚘𝚗, 𝚃𝚎𝚡𝚊𝚜
𝟷0/5/𝟸0𝟸𝟷

”Fuck…”

Benjamin James McBride was awoken that Saturday morning by his alarm. That was extremely unusual. Ben was definitely a hard worker, but he was not one to set an alarm for 7 in the morning on a Saturday after a long week of school and a foreign assignment. Something was going on here. Ben grasped at his phone from his bedside, but found that it wasn’t the source of the noise either. Ben grasped blindly a few more times at his nightstand, grabbing the actual source of sound. He looked over. It was his AP-Watch. What the hell was going on?

Still lying in bed, Ben dangled the watch in front of his eyes. The word “Emergency” was emblazoned on the face of the watch, in thick, bright orange letters, pulsing over and over again in rhythm with a constant beeping sound from the watch. He blinked, the gravity of the situation slowly dawning upon him. ”Woah, emergency!” Ben said urgently, slapping the watch onto his wrist and jumping out of bed. He got changed in a split second, throwing on a sea-green t-shirt and a pair of khakis and shoes. He grabbed his earpiece- a perfectly transparent device that was easily missed if one was unobservant- and hooked it into his right ear. ”Hiram. What’s the situation? What’s going on?”

There was a momentary delay and some static, before a pre-recorded message in HIRAM’s obnoxiously posh British voice flicked on. "Good morning, agent. Mandatory training exercise at 1700 Coolidge Road in Swindon in exactly 27 minutes. Failure to attend will result in significant consequences." With those ominous words, the message ended. Ben glared at the watch. Well, there went his Saturday morning. Still, training was very enjoyable, even if it was early in the morning. Ben grabbed a rucksack from his closet and looked around his bedroom. It looked less like a room that belonged to a teenage boy and more like a room that belonged to a gang leader or hitman. There were guns everywhere. Shotguns, pistols, machine guns, snipers, hunting rifles, antiques, everything. Ben stuffed a sawed-off shotgun and handgun into the bag, along with some other gear, before quickly running out of the room. He left a note for his parents on the kitchen counter before lacing up his boots and taking off.

Swindon was not a place that could be easily traveled across without a car, but luckily, Ben’s house was only a hop and a skip away from the address that HIRAM had told him. 1700 Coolidge Road was a few blocks away, and it was a condemned office building that once held a DMV. Slinging the backpack over his shoulder, Ben took off into a brisk job down the sidewalk. The sooner he could make it, the better.

A few moments later, he had arrived, approaching a tall metal fence with a cautious sign on it. Ben charged forwards, running at the fence, and then jumped at it, scuttling up and over like a squirrel. He landed with a thump on the other side, looking back. He had totally missed the door. Oh, well. Jumping the fence was much cooler. Ben walked towards the old building. It was in bad shape. Entire walls of the building were absent, showing to the world the building's dilapidated interiors, with rows of empty cubicles lining the interior of the rubble-filled structure. Several cranes were parked outside of the building, though it seemed as though construction had been paused for that day, or perhaps the construction workers weren't there yet. Outside of the building was a parked white van, and leaning against the van was Nadia, wearing a black suit and a pair of shades. Ben gave a meek salute. ”Morning, Director,” he said, looking up at the beautiful, yet intimidating, lady. The last time Ben had seen Nadia was a few days prior, when he had just gotten back from Timbuktu. That was a memory that Ben would like nothing better than to wipe from his memory. Talk about humiliating. There couldn't have been a worse way to start the year.

Nadia nodded. "Yes, good morning," she said in a thick Russian accent. As a spy, Nadia could speak a number of languages in practically any accent she wanted, but she preferred speaking with her native Russian brogue. She thought it was much more intimidating. She wasn't wrong. "Welcome. Go inside, grab some items." She reached aside, opening the van's back doors. Inside, Ben saw a massive supply of weapons. All sorts of new-looking guns (pistols, snipers, shotguns, rifles, and even two bazookas), along with what appeared to be grenades and other explosives, and a bunch of what appeared to be nightsticks, though all of the said batons had what appeared to be a rainbow-colored tip, like some sort of deadly-looking paintbrush. "As they say, early bird gets worm. You are first, so you have the choice of weapon." Nadia looked into the van. "They are all paint. Paint grenades, paintball guns, paint batons. We are doing a training exercise. Make sure you take a vest, too. It won't make it hurt too much less, but it will at least keep your clothes safe," Nadia said dryly as Ben dropped off his more lethal bag and picked up a (paintball) hunting rifle, which he slung over his back, and two paintball pistols, which he clipped to his belt. He then put on a vest and hopped out of the vehicle. He unholstered a pistol, spinning it around his finger effortlessly as other agents began to show up.

Nadia repeated the same instructions over and over again like a drone, looking down at her watch in increments. "Alright. Welcome to our training exercise. It became apparent after the horrendous disaster that was Timbuktu that you all need a lot more training. A lot." As Ben winced in embarrassment, Nadia grabbed three small backpacks from the front seat of the truck. "In order to get this important information through your thick skulls, I will be doing this drill in the form of...a competitive game." She stared coolly at them. "There will be two teams. One, the so-called terrorists. The other, the response team. The terrorists will be given three of these devices." Nadia held up the backpacks. "These devices are designed by Professor MacMahon. They can rapidly synthesize 200 liters of paint and fountains them out the top. The 'terrorists' of this training operation will be given a head start to plant the paint weapons in the abandoned facility and defend them as they so please. The response team will then be given time to disarm the weapons. If the response team disarms all the bombs in time, they win." Nadia tossed the backpacks to Emily, Binx, and Honey. "You can use any of the weapons here as you see fit, along with any of your own, provided, of course, that they are non-lethal. Any questions?"

Ben raised his hand. ”What happens if we get shot?”

Nadia raised an eyebrow. "That is a stupid question. You get shot."

Ben's cheeks turned pink in embarrassment. ”Yeah, but, like, are you out or something? Like in paintball?" Ben was very good at paintball, being very good with guns in general.

"Oh, I see...allow me to demonstrate." Nadia reached into her waistband. In a single swift move, she drew out a pistol, aimed at Ben's chest, and fired. A ball of red paint swiveled through the air, hitting Ben in the sternum. He yelped very loudly as he was thrown off his feet, falling with a thump to the ground. "AUGH! Ow, ow, owie owie ow ow ow...” Ben moaned, as he rolled around on the floor, clutching his chest, the expression of pain clearly on his face as Nadia holstered her weapon. "There are no 'eliminations.' If you are downed, then you are downed. Though some of you are assuredly much, well, larger than Agent Kingfisher, I will also inform you now that it will likely still hurt just as much." She reached into her breast pocket, removing two pieces of paper, and used a magnet to pin them to the side of the van. "I took the liberty of creating two teams. The terrorists will have a few minutes to prepare. I have cut off the opposing side from your earpieces, so feel free to use those in peace. Ground rules, no leaving the premises, and...that's it. Oh, and try to show some mercy. If your opponent is lying on the floor, crying like a little girl, I would advise you not shoot them again. But I suppose that is up to you." Nadia looked them over. "I almost forgot. If the terrorists win, the responders will have to clean up all the paint in the facility." She paused. "With a toothbrush." A menacing smile grew on her lips. "If the responders win, however, they will have 3 minutes to pour as much paint as possible in the facility, at which point the terrorists will have to all the paint in the facility. With a toothbrush." Nadia looked at her watch. "Well, without further adieu, let's begin. Good luck. Your time starts now."

Teams

RESPONDERS
Wahrheit
Kingfisher
Nox
Babel
Static

TERRORISTS
Rocket
Bug
Nightstalker
Hemlock
Aster

As some of the agents ran for the hills, Ben struggled to his feet. He gasped as he made his way over to his group, his arm still wrapped around his chest, a red dot emblazoned on his vest. "Let me just say...that shit hurts,” he complained as he stood up straight. "Anyway...let's think about how we're going to go about this,” he said, grabbing his pistol from his holster again and twirling it effortlessly in his palm. Playing with guns was definitely a very bad habit of his, but he did it so easily that it was almost hard not to. The weapons were quite literally second nature to him. "We should probably move in groups; we'll cover more ground that way and we'll find where they're hiding faster and disarm the weapons sooner. Any ideas how we should splinter up? If at all? If we all go in one group, we'll have better odds of taking the other side down...but we do lose valuable time...” Ben pondered, tossing his pistol up in the air and catching it. The plan was the most important part of an operation for Ben- a good plan meant a good execution, which meant a flawless victory (and no clean-up job for him.) "Any ideas, y'all? I really don't want to have to spend Saturday cleaning up paint, for Christ's sake.”

---

---

[Blizz]

Nightstalker

Interacts With: Agent Rocket

<sub>Beep

Beeeep

Beeeeeeep</sub>

It was Saturday, Alice wasn't awake because of that, but clearly she forgot to turn off the alarm...The girl rolled around in her bed- nearly falling off- trying to sleepily grab whatever was making that noise; Beep beep beep, where are you...The curtains were drawn shut, and Alice's eyes were already half closed from being woken up. Wait, that wasn't her alarm...That was her watch...Probably just Hiram telling her to get to school on time...

Wait.

It's Saturday!

That's Hiram telling them about an emergency. She finally found her watch stuffed under her pillow, glowing orange letters spelling out the word EMERGENCY in all caps telling her to get to a certain location fast. Damn. The more Alice thought about it, the more she figured this had something to do with Mali, and how they blundered like no tomorrow, so naturally Nadia's gonna be there. Alice promptly swung out of bed and hopped to the ground, pulling out a large cardboard box that looked intentionally dusty; her spy box. She grabbed the clunky thing and yanked it out where she could grab things, while also stammering around getting changed into outdoor stuff, in what felt like five minutes. The room was still a tad dim from the curtains being closed, and behind Alice, hung on the wall was a bow that she had when she was 13, she rarely used it these days, instead making use of a highly sophisticated combat bow. She grabbed a t-shirt and some jeans, throwing on the clunky grappling hooks and all her usual gear. The visor she used was currently turned off, so it looked like little more than a fancy bike helmet that shouldn't even be called a visor. At the bottom of the box was her bow, folded in on itself and sitting on a quiver of steel colored arrows, she grabbed them and then grabbed her usual longcoat, that went down to her knees, and was gone out the door before her parents could tell her it was a Saturday. 10 minutes.

The sun was up, and cool air breezed past Alice, aka Agent Nightstalker, the street was thankfully quiet, this Coolidge place was a while away by foot, and Alice didn't have car; taking a few turns off the sidewalk into less housed areas, she hung her folded-up bow by her hip in her coat as she held her arms out, the sleeves were a little loose, so the gauntlets she had on were rather concealable, a little flexing of the neurons and a whoosh resulted in two steel cables flying out, the gauntlets were grappling hooks. She swung from building to building with what may have been upwards of 70mph, and rolled and tumbled along the ground- hopefully out of sight- until she made it. Unsurprisingly, she was right about Nadia and Mali. She choked like she inhaled Honey's side projects on that mission. They failed too, hearing the instructions and the teams was at least some relief. The terrorist team was all danger, and the other team was, well...they had Babel on their team. The goal was simple, hide some bombs, and make sure they aren't diffused; She grabbed a vest and pulled all her arrows out inside the van, replacing them with arrows that had thick but undoubtedly light balls of paint on them, swapping them and placing her much more life-ending ones in the other quiver as she hopped out in time to see who had the payloads. Rocket had one of them, that girl knew where bombs were meant to be put, so that would be safe to leave up to her. Carmen was the least combative person on the enemy team, Erik was good with guns, Ben was great with damn near everything they had in that van. She ran up to her teammate, Rocket, and pulled out her bow, with a snap of her wrist it made a large clacking noise as it unfolded into a seamless compound bow. "Hey...I think we should drop Babel first, she's the weakest link. I guess you’re gonna start blowing things up. Anyway, I'm going in to get a view of the place while it's fresh. Here-" She reached into her pocket and tossed a brick-shaped object to Binx. "If you find Bug in there, plug that in and you'll see what I see. Don't get shot." With that she made a run for it in through a broken window, watching where the other team went and who had what planned. She was cozied up next to a mess of rubble, hiding by the door to spy. It got dimmer and dimmer, but it was still possible to see.

[KZOMBI3]

𝕥𝕚𝕔𝕜 𝕥𝕚𝕔𝕜 𝕓𝕠𝕠𝕞

_{ʀᴏᴄᴋᴇᴛ ᴛɪᴍᴇ}

ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ɢᴏᴇꜱ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴇᴇᴋᴇɴᴅ

---

Time seemed to fly out the window as soon as Binx stepped foot back into the RND lab after that botched mission in Mali. Having situated herself at the workstation she aptly dubbed as her own, complete with stickers and labels informing anyone otherwise, digging herself in and not planning to resurface to the main world for anything. Agent Stanley, her own personal guardian and handler had other plans and kicked her out three days into her work, only for her to return a few days later.

The disturbing flashes and beeps emanating from the watch she was forced to wear, pulled her from her work related revere. After acknowledging the '𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐘' and promptly ignoring it did she catch a glance at the time. With a roll of her eyes, Binx was grabbing her jacket off the back of the lab chair she had been swiveling around in in the RND department and shoveling the prototypes she had been working on into her bag she was headed out the door, throwing a "See ya," over her shoulders back towards Professor MacMahon.

It wasn't long before Binx found herself standing among the others, hardly paying attention until Ben got shot. Something about an exercise to get them to perform better than they did in Mali — which was a complete shit show in it's own right. When everyone was dismissed Binx checked the package thrown to her inspecting the bomb for a make and model. Clearly not something she created herself. Specifically picked out for this exercise. A roll of her eyes and a hand through her messy hair she looked to the others. Nightstalker already dipped out of there after throwing something to Honey.

"I should be back in the lab fine tuning a shrapnel discharge, instead I'm here playin' sitter," there was no hiding the annoyance in her tone and she made no notion to conceal her volume level. Glancing around at her teammates, the ones that were still present at least, she took note that none were the leadership type and sighed. They were just gonna mess everything up. Another roll of her eyes and she stalked up to the lot of 'em slinging the package over her shoulder with ease and cocking a hip out to distribute the weight. "Aiight, looky here. Comms are live, 'Stalker listen in too." At the attention she gained she delved into a plan that should work should everyone listen and do their parts correctly.

"I ain't about to spend the rest of my Saturday cleaning up paint out the cracks of fuckin' stick on tile. Y'all follow through with the plan and shit goes smoothly. If somethin' comes along and fucks up the plan, wing it til they're on the ground askin' for mercy," Binx barked through the comms as she resituated the bags on her back. This was not how the Texan saw how her Saturday going as she climbed up the staircase of the interior, vaulting over small piles of debris left in the wake of evacuation of the building so long ago. Scanning the area provided her with a number of hiding spots to place the package, however they would be left open and vulnerable to deactivation. Not the best for her and her limited CQC. Unsure of exactly how much time was given to them to she went the safer route and assumed it was around five minutes. In that time she was able to place some modified paint claymore in the ventilation systems to counter any and all agents who decided it was best to sneak around above the rooms. Even placed some at the entrances of each stairwell as well as the entry into the building itself. All levels she could counter, she did. The best course of action for her now, was to establish a funnel and have them come to her. So, with the remaining time left Binx set to work blocking off any entry points into the center room on the second floor kitchen. Tiled walls provided a bit more stability than sheetrock alone and she was able to overturn the tables to act as additional barricades.

Stepping back wiping the sweat from her brow she admired the handiwork. It was no bunker, but it would do for now. Pulling the shotgun she snatched from the back of the van she situated herself between the wall and the fridge, pressing into the earpiece she wore in order to relay information to the team, "Hunkered down, second floor kitchen. Got discharges placed throughout the floors so, mind your step." A laugh escaped her at the thought of them setting 'em off. The comms were extremely quiet, something that irked her. Well, she did her part. Now all she had to do was wait.

_{𝙻𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝚑𝚘𝚠 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚜 𝚠𝚊𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐.}

[Jumbus]

---

Friday night had been a good one. A tournament was coming up for AoE2 and he had been practicing to get competition ready. The practice was going well, in fact, he suspected he might have stumbled across a new strat that could take the tournament by surprise. He of course needed to play a bit more to see if it actually improved anything. It was difficult and rare to find anything new in such an old game.

Anyway all of this was to say that this had taken him into the early hours of the morning before he went to sleep. So you can imagine just how painful his headache was when he was woken up only 3 hours later. It was a Saturday! What could even be trying to wake him up? That is when his brain registered that familiar beeping noise and he realized that ignoring it wasn't optional. Lame.

Ollie was kind of expecting it though. After that disaster in Timbuktu he expected they would all be reprimanded in some way. But he didn't expect the cruelty of Director Nadia to extend to sleep deprivation, even though he should have. Stumbling out of bed with all the finesse and grace of an elephant seal, Ollie rose to his feet and let out a big yawn. Beginning the day was a slow lazy journey of putting on his clothes then grabbing an apple to snack on. He then shuffled over to his closet and set his clothes outside removing the fake wall in the back.

Now one may think about a secret compartment of a spy and think of some futuristic cabinet with a bunch of blue or white light emitting from inside for whatever reason. Well not Ollie, that wasn't his style at all. His 'secret compartment' was literally just the inner wall, wooden framing and all. In fact, the wooden framing made for nice shelves. Ollie was able to grab a bunch of EMP grenades and a few comms jammers, slotting them in his backpack.

Grabbing his skateboard on the way out it was off to 1700 Coolridge road. On his journey there he reflected on his own failures at Timbuktu. Binx and himself had been bickering again, same as the usual missions. But this time when it went to shit, it really went to shit. Whether it was really the cause of failure or not, he really couldn't get the idea out of his mind that it might have been a success if not for them butting heads yet again. But he didn't blame Binx. He blamed himself. It was just not in her nature to follow orders often, it should have been something he accounted for. But he didn't, and now he is skateboarding half asleep in the early morning because of it.

---

Ollie arrived at an appropriate time and tried not to yawn during Nadia's briefing. He didn't want to end up getting pelted with a paint ball like Ben. He just... had to... not... yawn. Letting out a big yawn, Ollie was quickly interrupted by a paint ball gut shot. Which woke him up well enough, but that meant the pain was setting in faster. "Shiiiiiiiit!" Ollie went to his knees and bent over as if he was going to vomit. He didn't bother looking up before speaking. "Jesus christ, I'm awake I'm awake."

It took a bit for Ollie to regain composure and return to his feet. He had been listening to Nadia's brief though. An agent vs agent scenario was a cool concept to him. Often Ollie greatly benefitted from an enemy not knowing what he had up his sleeve. Going up against someone who did would be a good challenge. Plus his team sounded great. Outside of it being necessary to have a rookie on the team, it would be a dream team. Even still Carmen was the preferable rookie in Ollie's eyes. But more important than that, everyone was a team player. Maybe, if it went well, it could lighten his spirits about Timbuktu.

And then there was the punishment. Ollie could see the need for incentive to go all out, but this was beyond excessive. Obviously you want your agents who lose to spend the entire day, if not longer, doing something that won't help them improve in anyway. How dumb was all that? Of course, if he did happen to lose, Ollie would just cheat the clean up process. Actually put some of his agent skills to work to hide it from the director. It sucked that half the people here would have to do that and probably the people who showed up late too. So he meant it whole heartedly when he said "good luck" to the other team before heading off with his group.

"Any ideas, y'all? I really don't want to have to spend Saturday cleaning up paint, for Christ's sake.”

"Well it would probably take more than a day to paint it. But I get the point and I have some ideas."

"So looking at the opposite team I'll give them fives second before any sense of plan or structure is gone. Actually I'll be generous and give them ten seconds. Does this mean that we can go in willy nilly? Hell no. If we don't keep some structure, we will be destroyed. In fact, I'm starting to think Binx and Bug feed of the chaos of it all." He had a small chuckle to himself before continuing. "Frankly we lose if we take them head on. So we a have to be a bit more crafty about this."

"So my idea is myself, Agent Babel, and Agent Kingfisher go in directly. We will serve as a distraction. At a set later time we will detonate of a number of EMPs to disable a good portion of the cams. Agent Nox will use another EMPs at the same to secure her entry undetected. Because multiple cams went down, they shouldn't be much the wiser. Agent Nox will proceed to look for the bomb under cover of her own abilities and our distraction. She will stay close to windows in case she gets into trouble. In which case, Agent Wahrheit will dispatch of obstacles using sniper fire. Nox will then diffuse the bomb."

Ollie rolled two EMPs over to Vanessa. "One is for entry, the other is if you can't take the time to diffuse for whatever reason. Just EMP the bomb and kick the wires out. Its risky, but a good last resort."

"Well, thoughts anyone? Agent Wahrheit, I'm sure you've psychoanalyzed all of us by now. So you probably know the enemy best. I trust you can point out holes in my plan if they're present."

[sly13]

Erik let out a sigh as he gazed at his own reflection in the mirror. Even though it was a saturday he had a habit of waking up early, something that was both a gift and a curse in his opinion. He felt fine and awake but the dark circles under his eyes gave a different story. It had been a long week since the last mission that failed in spectacular fashion. He wasn't even sure who’s fault it was that the mission had gone so south so quickly. One minute the mission had been going smoothly and the next they were in the middle of a massive fire fight in the streets and being chased across the desert. As he continued to think about the mission his gazed looked towards his left arm where he had been grazed by a stray shot. It wasn't deep or really even noticeable but it still made him mad knowing he was careless enough to let himself be hit.

“Beep, Beep, Beep”

Erik's eyes moved across his room to see a small watch that he always left on his nightstand flashing the words emergency across its small screen. That combined with the high pitch sound meant only one thing, the director was calling. Letting out one last sigh Erik ran a towel over his face before leaving the small bathroom shutting off the light in the process. “Vell zis should be interesting” he said to himself as he grabbed prom backpack and began down the stairs of his house. Reaching the door he waved in the direction of his living room offering a goodbye to his mother who was enjoying one of the ew days off she had, “Tschüss Mama liebt dich”.

As his car pulled into the dirt lot that was or used to be a parking lot Erik saw most of the other agents standing around with the director and a van as the centerpiece. Like the others Erik listened intently to the exploitation of the team based game as well as what should be the punishment for those who failed this mission. He had to admit this was rather surprising to him. Erik knew there would be some form of consequence for messing up the mission but a game was not what he had in mind. That was until he saw Ben get knocked to the floor but a single shot from one of the “paintball” guns. This immediately made him look to his own weapon that he had selected. It was a basic long range rifle, perfectly suited to his style of combat, that obviously was going to hit hard if the pistol was any preview. Of course the other agents also seemed to have their own form of preferred weapon meaning everyone would be at the best, or as close as you could get in a simulation.

The teams that were described to him however were interesting to say the least. As soon as the list had been given Eriks mind was already racing with ideas as to how they were going to pull this off with the lesser team in terms of pure combative skills. Looking over the enemy team he began analyzing them forming plans and weaknesses in his head. Aster was probably the strongest one in this mission but was reckless at times. Bug wouldn't be much of a threat in combat but he figured she was already connected to any form of camera in the building that was still semi operational. Nightstalker would be tricky, the building would give her cover to sneak around and pick off his team mates if they weren't careful. And finally Binx, she was probably the one that concerned him the most. That warhorse was going to be littered with traps and explosives by the time the others got in there to look for the actual bombs. And unfortunately for him she knew more than anyone present not to stay in a place where his scope could see.

Hopefully though he and Static were right in thinking the others would be too busy bickering to actually work together as a team. Looking over the building Eriks' eyes settled on an old crain resting just outside the building. “The plan works for me, I'll be your eyes from up Zere.” he said pointing at the outstretched arm of the crane. “Take it slow vould you, no senses in rushing zese zings.” as he finished his statement Erik began to walk towards what was going to be his home for the next hour or so. “And try no to let zat happen again vould you.” He called over his shoulder towards his two teammates who had already been shot by their instructor.

[banjoanjo]

YUTO SHITANAGA - Shitanaga Home -> 1700 Coolidge Road, Swindon, TX
Saturday, 10/5/2021 - 7:00 am
Interacting with: Director Sokolova @Hitman

---

Yuto woke with his bedside accessories blaring something vicious. He could feel thin rays of warmth squeezing into his room.

“Hiram,” he grimaced, eyes still closed, “This better be bad.”

“Good morning, agent. You have a mandatory training exercise at 1700 Coolid—”

“Tell Sokolova I’m not- my apologies. Finish what you were saying.”

“Mandatory training exercise at 1700 Coolidge Road in twenty-six – twenty-five now – minutes. Failure to attend will result in significant consequences.”

“Thank you, Hiram. You can let the Director know I won’t be participating.”

What was the saying - better to ask for forgiveness than permission? Though Yuto suspected that the esteemed Director would be miserly with both, it was worth at least taking a shot. It mattered little either way. Better to take it on the chin than suffer through trust exercises with the little twats – pardon him, ‘fellow agents’ – that had brought this punishment upon the cohort in the first place. He saw no reason to be dragged along with the real failures in the team.

Yuto eyed the clock. There was some time to kill. Muffling a yawn, went through the motions – bathroom, wardrobe, weapon, papers, keys. Once his belongings were in place, he made his way downstairs. Uncle Hirose was already at the dining table, placed in front him a bowl flooded with grain. Granola. It was always granola. He looked away from the morning television and waved.

“Mornin’, Yuto.”

“Good morning,” the teen replied. He searched through the fridge for two dark bottles.

“You drink coffee now?”

“Not the American kind.” The bottles made a clinking noise as they went into his shoulder bag. “I may be busy all day today. Take Kevin to the recital if I’m not home by two, if you would.”

“Hmmmmm?” Hirose scratched his chin, a hint of a smirk on his lips. “Sou da rou? You were home late too. Got a special little lady you’re seeing, kiddo?”

Yuto heard a reflexive ‘tch’ leave his mouth but he managed a shrug. “If that’s what you want. Goodbye.”

It was a less than five-minute drive. Entirely possible to arrive on time, even earlier if he wanted. Instead, he parked a block away and scrolled through his news feed. Viral farm animals. No leads on mystery shootout in Timbuktu. Burberry with a new line of coats. So on and so forth.

Ten minutes passed and he exited the car. He made sure to approach with one of the bottles visible in hand.

“Director,” he greeted her with a nod. “My uncle got a new batch of his imported cold brew; would you be interested? It’s an early morning.”

The woman’s gaze remained cold as ever. She barely gave him a glance. Not ideal. He briefly entertained the idea of an apology, a practiced and insincere apology, but refrained. False platitudes would only worsen her mood. The offer of a gift should be sufficient, if his instructors were to be believed.

Yuto simply sighed and stood a distance away, deciding not to try his luck with any more words.

[Rabidporcupine]

10/5/2021, Saturday
6:41 AM

---

It wasn't especially rare for Adam to be up and on the streets early in the morning, saturday or not. Indeed, a morning walk was part of his general morning routine. However, from the look in his eyes to the downright unsettling smile on his face, anyone who might have recognized the boy would see that something was different than usual. He was excited.

He'd gotten the message the night before. 'Got what you asked for. Meet in the alley by the corner of Coolidge and Moore. 6:45 AM.'

Exciting shit indeed. He'd asked for this stuff months ago, but he was willing to put up with the long wait considering how much cheaper it'd be to get it from this guy than through other methods. About a minute later, he made it to the meeting place, pleasantly surprised to see that the guy was already there waiting.

"Jeez, took you long enough!"

"Shut it, it ain't even the time you said yet! Anyway, whatever, you got the stuff right?"

"Hell yeah I did!" The other teen said, removing his backpack and pulling out a smaller paper bag. "You wouldn't believe how tough it was to get it. Even harder sneaking it past Mom. Don't even wanna know how she'd react if she knew I was doing this."

He shuddered at that last part, and despite himself, Adam almost felt some empathy for the poor idiot. On the other hand though, he needed to quit screwing around, seal the deal and get this stuff home before anyone saw him with it.

"Yeah yeah, quit wastin' time an' let me get a look at it already." He said, reaching out to grab it only for the guy to dodge away.

"Whoa pal, you remember how expensive this stuff is right?" He asked, staring at Adam like he was an idiot. "How about you give me the money first, then you can see the goods. I'm not about to just let you run off with both, you know?"

"Oh yeah? An' how the hell am I supposed to trust you not to do the same?!"

"Dude, I've seen the way you move at school. You really think I'm going to outrun you?"

Adam paused for a moment, lost in thought.

"Yeah, fair. Fine, here ya go. Solid hundred." He said, handing the other teen a pair of fifty dollar notes. Weirdly enough, he seemed almost disappointed when he saw them.

"Damn, I was kinda hoping it'd be a big wad like in the movies..."

"Dunno what to tell ya man, didn't wanna count it out wrong, an' this seemed like the easiest way."

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Oh well, deals a deal. Here."

Immediately upon taking the bag, Adam stuck his hand inside to check. Just from feel alone, he could tell the difference between this and the normal stuff. It was insane.

"Holy shit, you actually got it..." He said, although the sheer awe he was feeling made it come out barely above a whisper.

"Told you I would, didn't I? Straight from the Andes! Well, with a few stops, so I guess not 'straight' straight from the-... whatever, you get the idea!"

"Damn..." He whispered, feeling something almost approaching respect for the idiot in front of him as he looked from him back to the bag, reaching back in and pulling the contents out to get a closer look.

It was a skein of blue wool. One of three.

"Damn..." He mumbled again, examining the skein like it was pure gold. Considering the normal price of this particular wool, it might as well have been. He was pretty sure Vicuna wool was some of the most expensive in the world. The fact that he was getting this much for just a hundred dollars was more than a bargain, it was actually sort of insane.

"So... what're you planning to do with it anyway?"

"Oho, I got some plans..." He said, more to himself, before his eyes widened and he turned to his classmate.

Joseph Hannigan. Son of the owner of the largest textile shop in town. Sort of an idiot, but the one of the few people Adam didn't consistently tell to piss off, mostly because he was also one of the few people who had found out about his love of knitting and sewing, having served him enough inside the store to eventually see through his disguise. Thankfully, they'd managed to work out an agreement on that particular subject.

"Hey, don't forget tha-"

"I know, I know... Anyone hears about this, they'll never find my body. Don't worry, I remember."

"Damn straight... an' thanks..."

Although the last part was said under his breath, apparently Joe somehow managed to catch it.

"Well well, what was that? Was that actually a th-" He started, before seeing the expression on Adam's face. "-hhhhunder? Thunder? Think I heard some in the distance. Might be rain on the way, unless I'm somehow hearing you glare at me. I'll see you at the shop I guess?"

"Sure." Adam responded, rolling his eyes at Joe's desperate redirection of the conversation and stuffed the wool into his backpack. "Wanna get home and start this thing anywway."

And it was then, as he was starting to get hyped for all the stuff he wanted to make, that his watch started screaming at him. Realising that this as probably something important, he refrained from shouting back for the moment, instead simply checking to see what might be wrong. Seeing the word EMERGENCY blinking at him did little to calm him down, and he growled to himself as he started digging around in his pockets for that damned earpiece, sticking it in his ear.

"Alright robot, the hell is going on?"

"Good morning, agent. Mandatory training exercise at 1700 Coolidge Road in Swindon in exactly 27 minutes. Failure to attend will result in significant consequences."

For a moment, Adam just stood there, glaring at nothing in particular and wishing Hiram had a face to punch. Eventually, he settled on an empty trash can sitting nearby.

"An' just how the hell is that a goddamn emergency?!" He shouted, kicking the trash can hard enough to send it tumbling out of the alley.

Oh yeah no, this was just awesome. Just goddamn perfect. Not only did he not have to worry about anything stupid like enjoying himself, or actually working on something productive, but he would also get to spend some good old quality time with Nadia Solokova, who definitely wasn't the most terrifying living creature he'd ever encountered. He'd been doing his absolute best to avoid running into her since the goddamn disaster that was Timbuktu, but no, apparantly turning the other cheek and walking away wasn't the way to deal with your problems. Solid piece of advice, Jesus! Totally hadn't just majorly screwed him!

Shit, and this call had probably gone out to all those other assholes too, and god only knew what they'd have to say about his performance. He'd tried to play nice, go along with what the big kids told him to do, and how the hell did that work out? Not friggin good, that's how.

By this point, he'd made it to the building. Place as a shithole, because of course it was, and it looked like he was early enough that it was just him, that one guy with the guns, and Solokova present right now, because of course it was. Trying not to let it show how terrified he was right now, he nodded to Solokova.

"Boss." He said briefly, deciding not to go any further out of fear that he might start stuttering or something.

Upon receiving the same instructions as Gun Guy, he enterd the building, and begrudgingly picked took a couple of pistols of his own after realising he didn't have his bolas on him, being too hard to explain away if he got his bag checked, which was regular enough for him to just not risk it most of the time. Thankfully though, he still had his gauntlets, and he also took a pair of batons to round off his knew arsenal.

From there, he waited for the other agents to show up, listening in growing horror as Sokolova described their training, though that was more aimed at the punishment for losing really. He did cheer up a bit when Gun Gu-BEN! That was his name! Anyway yeah, he did find himself grinning a little when Sokolova shot Ben, but it was quickly drowned back out by the thought of cleaning all the paint out of this abandoned building. He had shit to do, damn it!

By the time the exercise actually started, he was back to scowling again.

"Fine, I guess we're doin' this." He grumbled into his earpiece as he entered the building. "Bomb Girl, you're makin' the plan right? Got anywhere specific ya want me to be, or am I just wanderin' the halls beatin' the shit out of anyone I run into?"

@Hitman@KZOMBI3

[canaryrose]

This alarm business was depraved cruelty, even for PROM.

Horrendous beeping awoke Carmen from her three hours of sleep. “Nooo…” she groaned, a long and pained sound. She had absolutely not set an alarm for 7:00 AM on a Saturday morning, so why oh why was one going off? She had studied nearly all night, and was so tired. Sluggishly, and with her head still buried in her pillow, Carmen pawed around her nightstand for the source of the horrible, horrible sound. Her hand closed around her phone, but that wasn’t it! Weird. She didn’t own anything else that beeped, unless…

Yup, it was her AP Watch. Carmen’s hand closed around the offending device and drew it onto the bed. It had only been three months since her tenure with PROM had begun, so she hadn’t really gotten used to the device yet. It was like an Apple Watch, but… better? Hers was pastel blue and came with an advanced translation app. Was this something it did? Was there anything important? Carmen drew herself up to investigate and squinted at the bright orange lettering.

It read “EMERGENCY”. Carmen gasped, her lethargy suddenly gone, and scrambled up from her bed to her wardrobe. She wasn’t entirely sure what was emergency appropriate wear, so she wrestled herself into a pair of boot-cut jeans, a green-blue graphic tee with a small, white turtle sewn into a pocket near the upper left neckline, and tennis shoes. Once she was what she thought was appropriately dressed, she scoured her backpack for her earpiece and clipped it into her ear.

“What’s wrong, Hiram?” she whispered, careful not to wake any of her sleeping family members. She played with her hands, anxious.

A pre-recorded message sounded, and Carmen waited with ramping up anxiety through static. "Good morning, agent. Mandatory training exercise at 1700 Coolidge Road in Swindon in exactly 27 minutes. Failure to attend will result in significant consequences."

Her anxious expression turned into a peeved frown. “That’s it?!” So much for an emergency. Hopefully this wasn't a waste of a morning. She groaned, picked up her backpack, and looked around her bedroom for anything she might need. Carmen’s room was an organizer’s paradise. Her desk, nightstand, and dresser didn’t have much clutter. Her desk had a laptop, some (normal) pastel pens all lined up in a row, and countless boxes of flashcards piled up on it. There was a small bookshelf right next to it, which had plenty of foreign literature stacked in it. Her one concession to a break in her aesthetic was the terrarium. It sat in the back corner of her room, in which a heat lamp shone onto two large red-eared slider turtles. Carmen cooed at her turtles as she went over to grab her phone from her nightstand. On a normal day, she would’ve made her bed, but she had only 25 minutes to get coffee and get to Coolidge Road. Wherever that was. Her bed was twin-sized, with a pink quilt bedspread and a mass of stuffed animals spread over it. It was a lot of stuffed animals for a teenage girl, certainly, but they brought Carmen joy.

Carmen wasn’t entirely sure what to bring for a surprise training exercise at 7 AM, so she just dropped her phone, a water bottle (it was purple!), a white scrunchie, and a case of her special pens into a mini backpack. Was she supposed to bring other things? Was there some sort of unwritten rule as to what to do in this situation? Would everybody laugh at her for doing something wrong? Oh God, she hoped she wasn’t doing something wrong. Carmen slung her mini backpack onto her back and rushed to the kitchen to pour herself a travel mug of black coffee. Only her mother was awake, watching telenovelas in the living room, but Carmen just offered a short explanation about having to go to the park for a club meeting. And then, once she hopped onto her bicycle, she was off.

At this time of the morning, the sun hadn’t quite yet risen. The sky was a dusky grey, but the sun could be seen barely peeking out from over the horizon. It was also quite chilly- or what Carmen would just call cold. Maybe she should’ve brought a jacket. Carmen pumped her bike pedals with urgency. According to Google Maps, it would take her 25 minutes to get there on a bike. But being late would only incur the wrath of Mrs. Sokolova, which never ended well, so she should definitely go fast. The suburb where Carmen lived flew by on her bike, and then she was riding along the main street.

Exactly 18 minutes and 46 seconds after she had left her house, Carmen pulled up in front of the construction site with a squeal as she pumped the brakes. She got off her bike, opened the gate (was this where she was supposed to go in?), parked her bike on the inside, and then headed to where she saw everybody else. She wasn’t last to arrive, thank God. It was never a good idea to be late- it just drew attention to yourself.

Although she had about a million things on her mind, Carmen tried to keep her mouth shut as she approached everyone else. “Morning, ma’am,” she said to Nadia, who just gave her a curt nod and gave her the same directions she had given everyone else.

Oh no. This is a combat exercise?!. Carmen gulped and felt her eyes widen. The last time she had had to engage in combat… well, that was in Timbuktu, and she shot a car with a bullet instead of her target. No one had gotten hurt, but it had set off a car alarm! Well… practice is perfect. A resigned sigh. She picked a pistol and a nightstick out of the bin, fastened one of the vests onto herself, and went to join the group.

Director Sokolova was, as Carmen had learned in some arduous ways over the past year, well-known to be a hardass. So, despite the mass of questions were brewing in her head, she elected to remain silent as Nadia explained the exercise. It was better to not have your questions answered than have an irritable ex-KGB Russian woman with a paintball gun be mad at you. But this exercise did leave a lot of questions to be answered, and against her better judgment, Carmen found herself raising her hand… right before Ben got shot. Ow. Her hand went right back down to her side in a hurry not to be noticed. That must’ve hurt. Poor Ben.

Once Nadia was done explaining the exercise, Carmen went to go join the rest of the responders' team. As she plodded over, she thought. Erik, Ben, Oliver, Vanessa, and her, hm… it wasn’t a horrible mix. She hadn’t looked into most of her teammates’ strengths and weaknesses, but she knew the basics. A plan started to formulate in her head.

While they were walking over to the group, Carmen glanced at Ben and jammed her hands in her pockets. “Are you alright?” she asked, low enough to not let anyone else hear. He had become a fast friend to Carmen in the past few months, and friends checked on each other when one of them was in pain.

Carmen had opened her mouth to start talking just before Oliver did, but closed it shut when he started speaking. She listened along to his plan and nodded along. That was pretty much what she was going to suggest but in far fewer words. “That’s a good plan, Oli- I-I mean, Agent Static.” She really needed to stop calling people their real names. “I was thinking along the same lines, but you definitely know everyone way better than I do! I manage okay in combat, but I’m probably better as a distraction. I don’t have any suggestions. I don’t really want to spend my Saturday cleaning paint with a toothbrush, though. I have studying to do.”

Well, that was a lame finish, Carmen! Couldn’t have picked something cooler? She winced and pulled her hair up into a ponytail with her scrunchie. She waved a goodbye to Erik and kept an eye on the building.

It looked like she was getting shot today.

[Legion02]

Bug

“How was I supposed to know that they would work with something so ancient down there?” Emily said while she was focusing on her three screens in her darkened room. An echo-device with most of its electronics hanging out gently glowed with the light greenish color that HIRAM used to simply acknowledge her. Her room was a mess of half-gutted computers, several HDDs connected but otherwise sprawled on the floor, and other electronics. To the untrained eye, it would be chaos in its purest form. To Emily, there was a pattern with specific paths through the mess she could walk through without issue. With her rant to HIRAM over, she refocused on the code in front of her. On the screen, to her left, an AIM chatroom was bursting with activity but she ignored it. It didn’t feel as if she was just typing code like one typed a story. In her eyes she was creating a machine in her mind. Complete with cogs, gears, and conveyors. She didn’t know how much time paced. When she was in the zone she never did. It was very hard to draw her out.

"Good morning, agent. Mandatory training exercise at 1700 Coolidge Road in Swindon in exactly 29 minutes. Failure to attend will result in significant consequences."

Emily literally screamed when she heard HIRAM’s voice from the Echo device. Then she slapped it. Hard. The electronics jiggled a bit, but nothing stopped working. “HIRAM you scared me!” She yelled at him. “You know you can’t just- Oh wait you said mandatory?” Emily never turned off her computer. Instead, she just grabbed her tablet and bag containing her drones and toolbox that laid in the corner of her room. Then she rushed through the house. Which was a mess to say the least. Long CAT cables ran from her room downstairs. The 3D printer she had setup in her parents room was grinding away. Schoolbooks and letters laid as fallen towers around the living. From the fridge she grabbed a can or energy drink. It didn’t contain much in the likes of healthy food.

Some twenty-five minutes later she arrived at 1700 Coolidge Road, Swindow. Her hair was a mess and with the dark rings underneath her eyes she could pass for a badger from a distance. Yet she didn’t look even remotely tired. With her bag strapped to her back she quickly rushed over. Right in time to hear Nadia’s explanation. For the most part she ignored the admonishment for the Timbuktu operation. It wasn’t her fault after all. Then the subject switched to the training itself and Bug started paying a lot more attention. A slight smirk grew on her lips. She even snickered when Ben got shot in the chest. It looked like it would hurt. Well she wasn’t planning on getting hit. No, they’d never reach her.

When the briefing was over Bug quickly grabbed one of the bags holding a bomb and ran into the building. Inside she wasn’t about to rush through the building though. Instead she read HIRAM’s briefing of the area first. And then shot Static a quick message:

“Don’t die too quickly ;).”

With a smirk she send the message when she arrived at the IT room with a smaller generator already in tow. Of course she would be holing up in there. But knowing where she’d be and taking her out were two vastly different things. Inside she got to work. She wrestled with cables, managed to get the generator humming, had her fingers dance over her own keyboard and that of the Mac, screwed some antennas in and managed to get the cams up and running. In the end the IT room looked worse than when she got in. Wires laid sprawled around. In three corners laid the gutted remnants of a switch. Though each had their twin antennas up in the air. In the middle of all that Bug sat. As if she was the one connected to the cables she was sitting cross-legged on.

“I’ve got cams-“ She said through the comms. All around the building, the small box-cameras turned on with blinking red lights that made them far too easy to be seen. The antennas in the corners were her real trump card though. With pings and some triangulation, anything that could send a wireless signal could be tracked. As it happened, phones were particularly easy. “-and I’ll have them tracked the moment they walk into this building.” She followed up. Then with a smirk, she watched through the eyes of her little Beholder drones. Who sat motionless underneath chairs or in some dark corner on the ceiling of the third floor. Motionless and quiet. “Come on. Come inside. Step into my web you little-“ Bug’s self-hyping stopped when she noted an unfamiliar signal in the vicinity. It was a phone but with a hotspot on it.

Jackpot! “Get me in baby. I know you can.” She said while tapping her tablet. On it several snooping programs started running. Probing the digital defenses of Nadia’s phone. She just had to get in so she could send a message out. Just one message, that was all it would take. Just one port that was open. She’d fine it. She was sure of it!

[Akayaofthemoon]

---

---

║ ▷ ║

The soft sound of ceramic gently gliding against smooth granite was instantly followed by the unflattering noise of metal clanking and being discarded with little to no care. Wooden cabinets repeatedly opened and closed loudly, no one else around to complain about the matter as the single occupant fluttered through the kitchen. Dark eyes finally glittered with excitement as her small hands curled around the object of her desire, only a thin bit of cardboard and plastic to keep her from it now. The hider had done a fantastic job of trying to keep her away from these sugary items but no more. A grin tugged at her lips as Vanessa carefully jumped off of the stovetop, brightly patterned socks and all with a box of cereal in hand. Sophie had been on a bit of a health kick again, trying to make sure that everyone in the house kept up well behaved habits or whatever new spiel she was on.

Honestly, she could care less about the healthy option. Who wanted something like plain eggs or flaxseed oatmeal for a Saturday breakfast? Well, probably many people but she sure as hell didn’t. Just a quick rustle of plastic, the tinkling of cereal dropping into her bowl, and splash of milk was all she needed to prepare for the perfect morning. Vanessa found herself with a bowl in one hand and an overly sugary coffee in the other as she made her way up to her room. The television was already set up with Saturday morning cartoons, a tray out so she could enjoy her breakfast in front of it. She found it both a blessing and a curse that her internal clock seemed to wake her up at 6:00 each morning. It gave her time to wake and prepare for the day whether it be a lazy one like this or if it was before a day of school, perhaps even a mission.

That thought pulled a frown from her, feeling a bubble of irritation as she placed each item down before plopping onto her bed and sitting Indian style. The last mission had been a shit show in so many ways. She couldn’t even begin on who did what to start the domino effect that had created the perfect environment for hell but it had happened nonetheless and she would bet money that they hadn’t heard the last of it yet. They hadn’t been flogged which meant something worse was in the works, it was just a matter of when. She shook her head gently, tossing the braided tresses back and forth as she did. That was a problem for another day, right now, it was time to enough herself and relax. With a scoop of her spoon, she positioned herself to take her first bite when the ear splitting and grating alarm of the AP watch echoed out causing her to drop the spoon with a splash. ”For the love of….”, Vaness hissed, trying to hold back a string of curses as she looked at the mess before reaching back to grab the watch off her nightstand.
The glowing wordhad a chill running down her spine.

Vanessa instantly worked to find out the situation. ”HIRAM, what’s happening? Details and status update please.”

”𝙶𝚘𝚘𝚍 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝙰𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚝. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚊𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢 𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚎𝚡𝚎𝚛𝚌𝚒𝚜𝚎 𝚊𝚝 𝟷𝟽𝟶𝟶 𝙲𝚘𝚘𝚕𝚒𝚍𝚐𝚎 𝚁𝚘𝚊𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝚂𝚠𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚘𝚗 𝚒𝚗 𝚎𝚡𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚕𝚢 𝟸𝟽 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚞𝚝𝚎𝚜. 𝙵𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚞𝚕𝚝 𝚒𝚗 𝚜𝚒𝚐𝚗𝚒𝚏𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚎𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚜.”

It took her a moment to process, a sigh of frustration settling in as she rubbed her face. ”You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Fantastic, just what I wanted to sign up for today. So much for breakfast...”, she stated before getting to change out her boxer shorts for some jeans and deciding that the band shirt she had worn the night before was good enough. She was already going to be pushing it time wise as she wasn’t the closest to that location. She made sure to grab her gear from the attic space in her closet and headed out at first chance, grabbing her skateboard on the way out of the house. As predicted, she was one of the last few in attendance and barely got to hear an explanation of what they would be doing and who her teammates were. It wasn’t a bad group and she did think they had a chance at least but if her horrible morning was anything to go by, today was not her lucky day. Vanessa had to hope they could turn it around but it meant relying on her team which was not her strong point.

She let someone else play the leadership role, listening to the plans and nodding softly when one was presented by Static. It was a solid idea, especially since they were lacking on the combat side. She could do a decent job in a pinch but not if it was against someone like Aster. Stealth would definitely be the better option here. She didn’t want to have to rely on Wahrheit to be her eyes on the sky or backup but it would be stupid to go at this alone even if she preferred it. She would just have to hope that Static’s plan didn’t blow up in their faces, literally. ”Sounds like as good a plan as any.”, she replied before turning her attention to Wahrheit and glancing at the maps, trying to judge the best location for her to enter the building according to his angle so he could spot her at all times. ”Just make sure to keep your eyes out and let me know the moment you lose sight of me, Wahrheit. Everyone else, watch out for traps and don’t get shot while trying to draw attention. More people down means more of a chance at failure. I have a love for paint but that doesn’t mean I want to spend my weekend scrubbing it.”

[Hitman]

Ben listened to Olly lay out the plan for their training excursion. It was not a terrible plan. He had to admit, he would've much rather have been the person on the crane than inside the building, but overall, it was a thought-out plan. Olly was right- this was not a group that they would win against if they charged at each other full-on. Binx was a menace with her explosives. Alice was crafty and dangerous with an advantage. Adam was practically a troll from Lord of the Rings. And Bug...Emily was somehow scarier than the rest. If there was anything inside that building that had a drop of voltage in it, it would all be over. Still, Ben was quite confident in his team. They were, for the most part, the listeners and rational thinkers of the group. That was probably why they were the defusers and the others were the bomb planters, anyway. ”Sounds like a plan. Let's just all be very careful, alright? Outside of the paint cleaning, it hurts like hell. Don't want any of y'all to go through that. Hurts like a bitch.”

He looked at the group of so-called "distractors." Olly was pretty good at distracting, with his skillset and all, and he was a decent shot on top of that. Carmen...was pretty much useless here. Not to say she was useless in general! She was definitely not at all. But, for this particular combat exercise, she was rather useless. Ben had seen Carmen in the practice range at the HQ...truth be told, he was more worried for his teammates being hit by stray paintballs than he was for the opposition. Still, Ben put on his confident smile as he approached them. ”Alright, let's get ready. Olly, you might want to head for that IT room. I'd be damn surprised if Em isn't holed up in there...” Ben noted, looking down at his AP-Watch and speeding through the small report HIRAM had compiled for them. ”Keep her busy. I'll distract the others. Carm...you should probably come with me.” Ben gave a (somewhat forced) kind smile. ”Don't want you getting caught out by one of them and getting shot. Erik, don't miss, or I kick your ass!” Ben added, calling out to the crane, before re-adjusting his focus on the building.

Nadia, who had been looking at her watch for the past few minutes, looked up at them. "That is time. Move in. Best of luck," she said, before looking down at her phone to check something out.

Ben moved forwards quickly, one of his chosen pistols holstered at his waist and still spinning around his finger. He tightened his grip on the weapon as he crept over to the building. Most of the windows were either shattered or removed, which was a good sign for the group's sniper. Still, there were a few glass panes and other walls to block Erik's shot. Ben took a mental note to avoid standing near them as he carefully crept through an open window, landing quietly inside the building. The first floor, as the report had noted, looked fairly abandoned. Mostly pillars and the like. Ben's eyes swept the vicinity, searching for any signs of life, as he shimmied behind a concrete column. He pressed a finger to his earpiece. ”Kingfisher here. No signs of life where I'm at.” He peered around his cover again, noticing something. A blinking red dot in the distance. Not good. ”They got the cameras online. Be careful,” he noted, aiming his pistol out from behind the pillar, and fired a round. A gentle "pop" sounded out, not too loud but not silent for sure, and hit the security camera square on the lens, covering the aperture in pink paint. Ben retracted the gun, turning and firing again. Another camera was splattered in paint soon after. ”Knocked two down. Keep your eyes out,” Ben said as he stepped out, cautiously moving forwards.

He positioned himself behind another stone pillar at the stairwell. ”Binx left us some presents,” Ben said into the comms, picking up a pebble from the ground and tossing it at the bomb. A volcano of paint quickly erupted from the modified explosive, sending a myriad of rainbows splattering all across the stairwell, as the sound of the explosion echoed through the building. It was fairly loud. ”Nice try, Binx,” Ben whispered to himself as he quickly crept over to the staircase, hopping up two at a time. There would be paint on his shoes, and there would probably be questions, but that wasn't the prime concern right now. If they lost, there would be a lot more paint everywhere.

Ben knew that, odds are, there would be angry people with paintball guns heading their way shortly, so as soon as he got up the stairs he quickly sought cover, and he found it. A nice cubicle up against the wall. Ben quickly moved inside the cubicle, pressing his back against the cubicle wall, until he saw something perfect. ”Air vent!” he said quietly but excitedly as he hopped onto the desk, reaching up to the ceiling-mounted vent. He had to stand on his tip-toes, but he managed to reach the grate, giving it a wiggle. It came off without a hitch, nails popping right out, and Ben slowly lowered it, being careful not to drop it, before hopping down to the ground himself. ”Carm, this is perfect...you can climb right in and head around the whole floor from above!” Ben said excitedly. ”Just watch out for any rats or loose screws.”

Ben's face quickly scrunched up with guilt, however, as he shoved a hand into his pocket. ”I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to. Just an idea. I mean, I can go, it's just, you know, Nadia made me go through air vents all the time on missions. Because of the height thing,” Ben said uncomfortably. ”But I don't want to volunteer you, y'know...I'll do it, actually,” Ben said quickly, starting to step onto the desk and head into the vents. ”Keep an eye out for traps, I guess.”

---

---

Meanwhile, Nadia was glaring at her phone "The audacity..." she muttered under her breath as she typed furiously on her mobile device. Kem ona sebya vozomnila? Neveroyatno... she added in Russian. "Hiram, get her off my phone. I leave my hotspot on for one second, and she tries to leap her way into classified intel! Shut her down, immediately," she commanded, and the robot helper obliged.

Back inside the building, Bug's computer screen would flash blue, as Hiram's voice (very loudly) filled the entire room and then some, blaring out of the speakers at full blast. "I'm terribly sorry, agent, but I'm afraid I can't allow you to access the Director's phone," HIRAM said apologetically. "If you continue trying to access the Internet, I will have to shut you down. Again, sorry about all that! But rules are rules. No Internet for you. Oh, dear, I'm not giving away your location, am I?"

Nadia, meanwhile, looked up from her phone to see another agent arrive. Yuto Shitnaga, fashionably late. What a surprise. Luckily for him, Nadia hadn't put him in the assignment. In part because, as the driver, she couldn't fault him too heavily for the failure of the Timbuktu mission. Also, in part, because she knew that the Japanese agent could not aim a weapon to save his life, and that forcing him into the assignment would only be bad for him, his team, and for Nadia to watch. Nadia instead just glared at the agent silently, before accepting the bottle of iced coffee. She removed a switchblade from her jacket pocket and flicked out the knife, using the blade to pop the top of the bottle. She took a long gulp, before shaking her head. "Not dark enough," she noted, flicking the blade away and stuffing it back in its spot. "You are free to watch," she added after a moment of somewhat awkward silence, tapping a button on her phone. An image of all the security cameras (most of them; some were covered in paint) appeared on a TV screen Nadia had wheeled out from the van. "I have a feeling things are about to get...interesting. In a good and bad way."

[Jumbus]

---

Ollie was pleasantly surprised, everyone agreed to the plan and was going about executing it. One may think that, in an organisation of elite spies, it would be the expected norm. But not even close. This was a very rare moment and knowing his own plan had that effect was satisfying. "Yeah I'll be looking to b line it to the IT room after I secure Agent Nox's entry. Ben, I assume you and Carmen will take the front door approach? Just skip the basement, the bomb isn't down there. Well, unless the opposing team wants the rats to do the job for us."

"That is time. Move in. Best of luck."

"Off to it then"

As the group disbanded toward their duties and no one was looking, Ollie had a small fist bump and close lipped smile as if to say yes! Then quickly returned to standard 'professional' look before anyone noticed.

Ollie noticed that his phone had gotten a notification. He had forgotten to turn it off, so that was a good reminder to do so before Bug went to town on it. But first things first, lets see that notification. Speak of the devil, it was Bug.

“Don’t die too quickly ;)”

“Wouldn't give ya the satisfaction”

“Enjoy the power while it lasts :)”

And then like that his phone was off. Although knowing her, she probably already downloaded a good deal of his files. Like the FBI agent meme but ten times as terrifying because its a teenage girl. Still it was nice of her to send her 'best wishes'. How thoughtful. Ollie couldn't hide a grin as he placed his phone back in his pocket.

“Alright, Nox, lets go to the wall around there so Wahrheit can see our pretty faces.” The two around to the side to the right of the entrance where Carmen and Ben entered. The weren't any standard entry was but plenty of windows, most were smashed ones at that. This meant quiet entry and clean sniper shots. “I'll climb those bins there and get onto the second floor. You get up to the third floor then wait on my signal to throw the EMP in and enter. If we can I would like it to be like the Alps. But lets treat that as lightning in a bottle and make sure to use Wahrheit's expertise.”

The Alps mission

This was a mission performed by Agents Static, Nox, and Lancer. The objective was to steal vital records on various criminal activities. The mission went extremely well and gathered 0 casualties or combat engagements. Out of curiosity, Static left a camera behind. It took them 5 days to notice they were gone.

“The code word for when to enter is: party.”

---

After climbing the garbage bin, Ollie went to quick work. He had noticed a few of Binx's claymores around but made a note to avoid them. He vaulted over the windowsill and went to stand in front of the nearest security camera. He was a good 3 metres away, enough to give Bug a good look at him. Ollie threw two EMP grenades, both down separate corridors. Then he held a third in his hand and a detonator for them in his other.

"Where are you all at? I'm here to party."

The line came out lame, it came out super lame. It sounded so good in Ollie's head. But in practice, it just sucked. Either way it was too late to change it now. He pushed the detonator. That would have taken down at least 4 security cameras, assuming Vanessa had successfully thrown it in on time and entered. It would give it away if he checked in on her though. Ollie just had to put his faith in her. But he has enough faith in her to know it was successful.

One last thing before Bug got those cams back online, which would take about 20 - 30 seconds. Ollie moved closer to the camera so that he was right up to it. Once Bug got them operational, all she would see from that cam would be Ollie's dumb fucking face. Hopefully it would give her a fright. Ollie prepared to gun it once the camera's come back online though. He had more than revealed his location, and he was making it even easier for them just to try and scare Bug. Ollie wouldn't have it any other way.

Talks to: Bug @Legion02 Nox @Akayaofthemoon

[canaryrose]

Before Carmen knew it, everyone was heading to their respective places, and the start of the exercise was nigh. A look of panic briefly flashed over her face. She was useless, and she had no idea where she should go. Maybe she could enter through a broken window? Sneak around until she managed to distract someone? It was the best she could come up with. Carmen knew her own limits, and she knew that she was smacking right up against one with this exercise. She was made for going undercover, not… whatever this was! Useless, useless, useless.

Ben started to speak, and Carmen only half-listened before he said her name. She jumped and turned to look at him. Carm...you should probably come with me.” Ben smiled at her, and a slight blush tinged Carmen’s cheeks. ”Don't want you getting caught out by one of them and getting shot.”

“O-oh! Okay!” She smiled back at him, not picking up on how forced his was. She hadn’t been expecting that, but she supposed she should have. After all, Ben was so nice! Hopefully, she wouldn’t bring him down much. He was arguably one of the most useful on their team at the moment, and she wouldn’t want to cost them the win.

Once Nadia told them they could go, Carmen followed Ben into the building. Although not good with guns, she was not terrible at stealth, so she made no sounds. She gazed around the first floor. It looked abandoned like they thought it would. If she was right, there wouldn’t be anyone down here- it was a vulnerable area. But they still needed to be careful. She crept after Ben, holding her nightstick rather than her pistol. With her mouth shut, she watched him shoot out the cameras. “Impressive,” she whispered, although she was sure he already knew how impressive that move had been. She nodded at him when he spoke again.

There was a loud, almost deafening sound when the paint bomb went off. Carmen jumped, startled. Thank God she hadn’t walked into that thing! She followed Ben up the stairs and into the dilapidated cubicle and glanced up at the air vent.

Ben seemed to have the same thought as her. ”Carm, this is perfect...you can climb right in and head around the whole floor from above! Just watch out for any rats or loose screws.”

“You want me to... get in there?” Carmen considered the vent for a long moment. She was certainly small enough to fit, and it wasn’t like Ben was asking her to snipe anyone from the vent. She should probably get in.

But then, Ben seemed to have a second thought. He climbed up on the desk and started to jimmy open the vent. ”I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to. Just an idea. I mean, I can go, it's just, you know, Nadia made me go through air vents all the time on missions. Because of the height thing,” Ben said. ”But I don't want to volunteer you, y'know...I'll do it, actually,” Ben said quickly, starting to step onto the desk and head into the vents.

Carmen’s heart stuttered in her chest. She didn’t want to be left down here alone! Especially if the other team was hunting them. Plus… well, she knew she would lose in a fight. This was the only way she could be useful, damnit! “Wait!” She tugged on his jean leg with force, stopping him from entering the vent. “I didn’t disagree, did I? I’ll go. It’s a good idea, and… well, I am shorter than you,” she joked. “You’ll be better down here than I will.” Then, she practically yanked him off of the desk and stood on it herself.

It wasn’t hard to get into the vent. It took a bit of wiggling, but Carmen fit her shoulders into the vent (it was so dark), and then her butt, and then her feet. Once she was fully in, she started to wiggle down the little path. It was dark and claustrophobic, and she definitely heard a couple of scurrying sounds, but… she was in! “I’m in the vents,” she whispered into her radio. “I’ll report back in once I’ve seen something. Babel out.” She squinted as she saw light ahead. Could that be an opening, maybe?

[Blizz]

@Hitman

Nightstalker

Nightstalker stayed by the window she jumped through. Stay low and slow on the ground to wait for the other team to pass, her own team was already setting to work; Binx dropped charges everywhere, Bug probably went to find a computer room, and the enemy was on the move. "I'm going in." She took off in a slow moving sprint, quiet enough to be near silent and fast enough to beat someone who might be walking a little more cautiously to spot cameras. The inner workings of the building were damaged, broken pillars and dusty old cubicles dotted the place. It was good cover, a lot of places she could hide, but Nightstalker didn't need to hide just yet, she needed to get out in front of her team to relay information to the ones behind her. The girl took to "back street" maneuvers as best as she could; running around buildings, behind pillars, and occasionally ducking to scan for the others, if someone did walk out into the open, she'd be in a good position to flank them and bring them down. Nightstalker hopped from one office cubicle to the next, as the light pouring in from outside got a little dimmer, but not enough such that one couldn't see. It was quiet, and hopefully Binx hadn't been spotted yet, she was the demolitionist on this team, meaning she could take out the most enemies with the least attacks, and she had the observer camera so see through her visor, that shouldn't fall to the enemy's hands. Finally the girl came to a halt underneath a desk in one of the cubicles, roughly a third of the way through the building to collect herself.

It was dead silent currently, Nightstalker listened outwards for anything that could give her a clue as to where the enemy team was; footsteps, clothes rubbing against each other, someone loading a gun. Nothing. Warheit wouldn't be this close, he was probably outside- best to stay away from the windows. While she was there, she took a second to flip through the info Hiram gave them. The pitch black basement stood out to her the most, Nightstalker was the only one capable of seeing in the dark, maybe she could drag someone down there and leave them blind, maybe an exit strategy, maybe a bomb can be moved there if their locations are compromised. "This is Nightstalker, I'm out ahead of you guys," She said through the comms in a low voice, "I'm scouting, I don't see any sign of them yet, wait-" Suddenly a couple of distant thuds rang out, gunshots. One after another, but no one in pain. "I hear something now..." Nightstalker drew an arrow and readied her bow, poking her head barely out of cover. Nothing. She eyed a pathway forward between the cubicles, seeing no one overhead of them, and she almost put the arrow away until the very large whoosh that followed them. Someone found a bomb.

"One of the bombs is down..." She radioed to her team. That wasn't very far from her location, so maybe Nightstalker could put someone out for the day. Okay, think...It can't be Erik, he's a sniper usually, Nox...Ben, Carmen... only one way to find out. "I'm going to investigate." And with that she was gone. Alice quietly skulked down the hallway for a bit, listening for signs of enemy activity, she could faintly hear some kind of metallic noise, and someone speaking. Alice pulled the bow string back as she neared whoever was talking, two people- Ben and Carmen. Easy targets. She finally stopped right outside of Ben's field of view, Carmen was climbing into a vent. She was safe from her, but Ben was out in the open with his attention elsewhere, perfect...

Nightstalker readied her bow up to eye level as she crouched down behind cover, the arrow sliding backwards into a fully drawn position, as she aimed at Ben. Square in the chest. She held her shot on him for a moment, contemplating aiming somewhere else to immobilize him, or even hospitalize him. It wouldn't matter, Ben was scrawny, small, he likely wouldn't get back up unless she underestimated Agent Shortstack. She let go of the arrow, which zoomed through the air almost too fast to acknowledge. Ben was victim to an ambush.

[KZOMBI3]

ｓｐｌａｔｔｅｒ

_{ʀᴏᴄᴋᴇᴛ ᴛɪᴍᴇ}

ᴛᴀʟᴋ ᴅɪʀᴛʏ ᴛᴏ ᴍᴇ

---

_{"One of the bombs is down. I'm going to investigate...}

Binx had to mentally curse about one of her charges being disposed of, however it gave them knowledge to someone's location. A trade-off in her book. Listening for any other sounds going on around her Binx came to find that there was none. Strange in it of itself. There should be at least Adam thunder-footing around somewhere but she couldn't even hear him. Something seemed off. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled in anticipation. There was a slight change to the atmosphere around her that wasn't attributed to the environment she found herself in. Someone was going to come crawling through vents. It was only smart seeing as they had two, three if Kingfisher was included, who could easily traverse above the rooms without being spotted. And if Binx was honest, it would be difficult to place their exact locations with how silent they could be. Though with the amount of charges placed in the vent systems it would be difficult for them to diffuse them without them going off. Hairpin triggers make for better messes.

There was too much radio silence for Binx' liking, opting to provide some commentary to her teammates, all of which just included her making random noises and complaining about how bored she was. Nothing of true substance. Nothing of importance. But it was enough to cut the edge that they were all undoubtedly experiencing. Seeing as how no one took her advice about funneling the enemy towards them and instead felt the need to go off on their own. She rolled her eyes so hard she gave herself a headache. _{'This is why we fucked up last mission... does anyone wanna listen to me? Nooooooo. What does bomb girl know. Imma senior for a fuckin' reason...'} Looking over to her left she spotted the observer cam passed to her by Nightstalker, "Best put it on, won't do no harm." Once it was in place and on, the gear made a soft whirring noise as it kicked on. Anyone with some EMPs would easily take out the hardware and that would leave their own sniper at a disadvantage. Binx shrugged at the thought. It wasn't gonna do the opposition any good anyways. If everything went according to plan then they would have enough time to get the bomb to detonate without issues.

Speaking of which, as she sat and waited the Texan had had enough time to go through and observe the package they had been given. No doubt as soon as she armed it it would announce her presence to the others. Enemy and friendly alike. That was fine. She had enough charges to provide a buffer before the others could come and regroup. Just need to detonate one. Upon opening the bag she took notice of all the contents. Instructions be damned as they were in German, her mind drifting over to Erik - probably in a perch - a smug grin on his face taunting her about her lack of his language. "Well, HAH, jokes on you dude..." the mutterings of a woman at work passed under her breath as she dug around the contents, glancing at the hardware before connecting wires she pulled from her bag from the timer to the choke and lever. Once satisfied it was as simple as fiddling with the lever and choke before beeps went off, signalling it was now live. As she pulled the black lever back up, "I speak bomb."

---

_{mentions @Blizz}

[Hitman]

Ben was just about to crawl into the vents when heard Carmen yell “Wait!” and felt a tug at his pant leg. He looked down at Carmen, lowering his hands from the vent as he listened. “I didn’t disagree, did I? I’ll go. It’s a good idea, and… well, I am shorter than you,” she joked. Ben gave a small nod as Carmen continued, “You’ll be better down here than I will.” And with that, Carmen yanked Ben off the desk. Ben teetered at the edge of the desk before hopping off, landing on the carpet. He shrugged. ”Alright, alright. Be careful up there,” he said to her. He watched the Colombian girl slither into the vent. He stood there quietly for a few moments, before he suddenly realized he was staring. Oh, God. His face turned a bright scarlet and he quickly looked away, diverting his attention towards a nice speck of dust on the floor instead. It was this puberty stuff kicking into high gear again.

Ben ignored the fluttering feeling in his chest as he brought a finger to his earpiece. ”Gotcha, Carm-...Agent Babel. See if you can find any info on where any of the other team is at,” he said into the earpiece as he turned around, only to realize he was staring down Alice, who was aiming an arrow directly at him. ”Oh, fuck,” he said, his voice still transmitting to the rest of his team, as the arrow launched through the air. Ben was fast on his feet, very much so, but he was not fast enough to dodge a speeding arrow. It hit him squarely in the chest, sending multicolored paint all over his vest, pant legs, and leaving a few splatters on his face, while also throwing him back into the wall with a loud thunk. His head collided with the drywall, leaving a nice dent there. His earpiece was launched from his ear, falling a few feet away from him, nearly invisible on the carpet. Ben slid onto his butt as his feet gave way. His eyes were bolted shut, his head rested against the wall. That hurt.

Ben was not the type to give up easily, and it seemed as though he wouldn't go down without a fight. His eyes still shut, he patted at his belt, trying to grab his weapon and take this ambushing woman down with him. His fingers loosely grabbed the holster of his pistol, but they didn't form a grip. If he pulled his weapon, Alice could hit him with another arrow, and if she aimed anywhere outside of his chest, she could probably do even more damage. Ben's face heated up, his cheeks hot and bright red, humiliation clear on his expression, but he didn't fight back, instead just teetering over, laying his head down on the carpet. ”Fuckin' cheater...” he gasped quietly, but outside of that, Kingfisher remained mostly passive, though the embarrassment at being taken out so easily was clear on his face. He wiped some green paint from his face as he grimaced at the thought of it all. He had let his team down, that was for sure. Hopefully, they would forgive him for falling prey so easily...

---

---

Meanwhile, in the vents, only shortly after Ben disconnected from the communications, a small red dot began to pulse deep in the vent, about 4 or 5 meters ahead of Carmen. The dot was on top of a Claymore-like explosive, a black box sitting in the middle of the vent, facing Carmen. As Carmen got just an inch closer, the bomb detected the girl and promptly exploded with a loud bang that resonated throughout the facility. Tiny balls of condensed paint were blasted out from the bomb, covering Carmen in a hefty coating of paint as the entire vent shook uncertainly. Thankfully, it did not collapse, but Carmen's hopes of moving through the vents unnoticed had most definitely imploded.

[canaryrose]

Carmen wasn’t far into the dark, musty vents when she heard something alarming from her comms. “Oh, fuck,” It was Ben? Had something happened so soon? “Kingfisher? she whispered into her earpiece, a concerned tone in her voice.. “Kingfisher, come through. Status update?” There was only silence on the other end. No no no... If Ben wasn’t responding, that meant something had happened. She really didn’t want to be cleaning up paint after thi-

Fuck. Carmen only had a single moment to widen her eyes in shock as she took notice of the beeping red dot right in front of her. Oh. OH. That was bad. “Guys, I think they put a bomb in the v-”

The bomb went off with a deafening, paint-filled explosion. Carmen absolutely wouldn’t admit this later, but she screamed like a ten-year-old girl. The vent shook violently, and the force of the claymore and the exploding paint slammed her body against the metal walls of the vent. It also dislodged her earpiece. “Ow… she groaned. Her head spun, her body ached something fierce, and she could feel that she was covered in wet paint. She laid there for a moment, eyes closed, breathing in paint fumes and trying to regain her bearings.

Carmen considered laying there for the rest of the exercise- that was how much that had hurt- but she remembered from an article she had read that breathing in paint fumes caused headaches, dizziness, and nausea. Not good. She didn’t even bother to find her earpiece again. So she crawled back to her elbows and scooted along, looking miserable until she found a vent going up. With shaking hands, she yanked the vent down and crawled up.

Bug, who was in the room above, would see a miserable-looking, paint-drenched Carmen haul herself out of the air vent, only to lay down on the ground and moan loudly. “Hey, Bug. Please don't shoot me. I think I have a concussion,” she groused, face fully in the ground. She didn’t particularly care about being found out anymore- she was in no shape to fight, anyway. In a normal mission, that would have killed her.

Honestly, she would've rather taken dying over the humiliation of being immediately blown up.

[KZOMBI3]

ｄｏｎ＇ｔ ｐａｎｉｃ

_{ʀᴏᴄᴋᴇᴛ ᴀɴᴅ ꜱᴛᴀᴛɪᴄ}

ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ꜰᴜᴄᴋ ᴀʀᴇ ꜰᴇᴇʟɪɴɢꜱ

---

After such a dramatic entrance, Ollie was expecting a lot more trouble to come his way. He was surprised to find that it was awfully quiet. Well that was just a bit awkward wasn’t it. Had they found Vanessa already? No it couldn’t be, after such great lengths to get her in undetected it was impossible. Maybe Ben and Carmen were doing their job well. Either way Ollie looked to his left and right, making sure no one was after him. He blinked a bit in surprise but he had to move sometime. Stepping back from the camera, Ollie gave a confused smile to Bug then waved goodbye as he went to case out the rest of the second floor.

The floor was a maze with the occasional claymore trap around the corner. Ollie was grateful that he had studied Binx’s previous placements because he was now able to avoid activating them effectively. While the corridor was generally pretty quiet, he could hear a voice and was slowly approaching it. Ollie was now just a wall over, putting his ear up to the wall he could hear who was talking.

"Well, HAH, jokes on you dude..."

Well that was definitely Binx, but he had to see what she had in the room. Using a tunnel cam Ollie got a visual on the area. Binx, a few claymores, and… the bomb!? Had they really placed the bomb smack bang in the middle of the second floor? Ollie had thought it would be higher and had sent Vanessa too far up. The real target was so close to the entrance all along. He thought about saying it over the comms, but stopped himself. Against his better judgment he wanted to take on Binx himself.

Ollie threw his final EMP grenade hoping to fry the claymores inside. Better yet, maybe trigger them and take out Binx.

Not only had Binx successfully armed the package, but she was able to make slight adjustments in the timer department speeding up the process to a nice and tight time frame of no longer than five minutes. Atop of it all, one of the vent claymores went off, alerting her to the enemies presence. However, with her having been a little too focused she was completely vulnerable to the surprise EMP being tossed into the room. All that hard work. Gone. Fuck.

In one swift movement she was able to grab hold of the fridge handle and pull the door open, using it as a shield, protecting herself from any and all debris that came as an effect of whoever threw the grenade into her cove.

The bomb had not exploded, that was good. Some bombs once activated will also detonate on power loss. It was good that Nadia hadn’t been so unforgiving on that end. Some of the claymores Binx had set up went off as a result of the EMP’s trajectory, the rest had their circuitry fried as the result of its detonation. There didn’t appear to be camera coverage in this room, but he may have just not seen them. Either way, they wouldn’t take long to come back online and when hearing a beeping come back, neither did the bomb apparently. Nadia didn’t make it too easy for him.

From her hiding spot Binx caught a glimpse of a mess of curly locks, "Ollie! You fucker!" She chucked the visor from Nightstalker directly at the male's face peeking partially around the homemade barricade.

While Ollie doubted that Binx had been taken out by her own explosives triggering, curiosity got the better of him and he snuck a peak… Only to have some visor apparatus chucked at his head. Quickly taking cover again behind the doorway wall, Ollie responded in the most endearing way possible “yeah fuck you too Binx.” He let out a chuckle and couldn’t get the smile off his face.

Ollie wasn’t one to miss an opportunity or advantage however, his hands were already at work setting up the comms jammer just outside the room. While doing so he thought about telling the others about the bomb’s location but decided against it. Sure Nox and Wahrheit would be great with the information, but he wasn’t certain that Ben or Carmen could keep that information when subject to ‘convincing’. Quite simply, Ollie couldn’t risk communicating it over comms. Because if the other team knew that they knew where the bomb was, it would mean losing.

The comms jammer was now up and a harsh static noise will both be received and transmitted by Binx and teammates in the immediate area. This effectively made communication to her team impossible for Binx.

“Your bombs are gone and now you can’t let the others know what's happening. What's your next move Binx? You knew I was able to do this, did you let the others know? Was there any plan at all for this?” Ollie genuinely felt mean for what he was saying. But he had to throw Binx off balance like that or else he had zero chance of coming out of it the winner. So he doubled down on the taunt. “I’ve still got plenty of EMPs and have back up on the way.” The last part was a lie of course, he was completely out of EMP grenades and there was no one coming to back him up.

Cursing under her breath, more so at the fact that no one else was here as the original plan called for. Ollie would be setting up a jammer, and as if on cue he announced that he had. Welp. Hopefully Nightstalker was able to take a peek with the visor cam before it fried and maybe, just maybe, assistance was on the way. Highly unlikely. Just as it was highly unlikely that Wahrheit was on his way. ‘He wouldn’t risk giving away his perched position yet.’ And there was no reason for her to concern herself with Nox.

“Aiight, I’mma call your bluff, Ollie. Ya weren’t ever the best of liars.” She called up and over the barricade towards him. Still sitting on her person was all the weapons and gadgets she needed. It wouldn’t take her too long to come up with something, so she set to work. Making sure to chat it up with her friend, now enemy.

“I don’t think you got as many EMPs left as you think you do. Also you know I don’t ever have a plan in mind when I do shit. I’mma bit hurt at that, Ol. You should know me better than that.” The false hurt in her voice made it clear of her sarcastic intentions. As quiet as she could be, with the natural noises going on around them, she was able to lead a wire from the bomb to a levered switch in hand.

Binx hoped with her own well placed taunt she could get him to come out. At least to show his face. Besides, even with her manual, mechanical updates to a fried system, it was still going to take a minute or so. Might as well make it enjoyable. “C’mon Ol, ain’t you gonna show me that pretty face of yours?”

Fuck. Binx was right. She had called his entire bluff. There were no more tricks he could pull. He simply loaded his paint shotgun and watched the feed from his burrow cams. Binx was tinkering around with the main bomb. He would stop it if he were able but the shotgun still needed loading. Still the point remained that she was looking to use the bomb to win this fight.

“You know Binx, you could take me out with that bomb pretty easily. But I don’t imagine that it would be worth the wrath of Nadia for setting it off early.”

“You were right about the bluff by the way, I don’t have anything and I didn’t call for backup. That makes two of us. How about let's not go for the nuclear option and settle this another way. Sounds good?”

_{‘Setting it off early? Psht.’} There weren’t any stipulations on how or when the bomb went off. Any normal person would have let it slide. Water off a duck’s back an all. Binx was no normal person and she definitely wasn't going to just let the little jab slide. Quickly scanning the area around her, the fridge door still agape - on the off chance he would move in - for something to catch her eye.

Knowing Ollie, he would be monitoring her with some kinda cam, burrow or otherwise. If she could pinpoint where the camera was and block it’s feed, she would then be able to take him out. At least that’s the idea. Otherwise she blows them both up. A move she’s sure he isn’t willing to indulge in. “Oh? What way is that,” anything to buy time as she continued to scour the dim kitchen she holed up in.

Ollie could see Binx’s movements quicken a bit. She was looking around and it was more than likely she was trying to scout the camera. There were a few times she looked past it but it was only a matter of time before it was covered in paint.

“Alright Binx, I’m out.” Ollie moved into the doorway with his shotgun pointed. While he could fire, it would be extremely bad if Binx pulled the trigger on the bomb. “Just put down the detonator slowly. It would mean a loss and some bad times if you pulled it.” He started lowering his shotgun and was approaching. He just needed to disconnect the bomb’s wire, then it was time to fire.

With a quirked brow she peeked around at him, “What’s the catch, Ol?” Again something was up. Something was wrong. Of course there was. This was a simulation, there was supposed to be something wrong. But knowing her opponent, as he crept up on her like a caged beast, where the hairs along her arms and back of neck stood at attention, a telltale sign that something is amiss, Binx couldn’t help but feel the blood boil.

She had hoped that people wouldn’t think her unintelligent just because of her brash nature. Hell, she’s proved time and time again that she isn’t; but in moments like this with a near death grip on the switch Binx was once again forced to retreat into that stubborn shell of hers.

“What makes you think I’mma listen? You ever known me to be reasonable?” In an instant she was coming around from her cover, her own shotgun tossed somewhere in a corner and the lever thrown to the side, that wasn’t going to do her any good. Instead she lunged at his approaching figure and tackled him to the ground as quickly as she could. Binx thought that if could subdue him long enough it would buy her just enough time to get to the lever and detonate the bomb.

Ollie prided himself on knowing what people would do before they do it. It was a habit of his and he enjoyed doing it immensely. However, one concept that arises when attempting it is chaos factor. This is someone's tendency to be unpredictable and volatile in their approach. Ultimately, no matter how much you know someone you can never truly know what they will do exactly. Some parts are just a coin flip and it has to be accepted. Most of the time that chaos factor can be more than accounted for, while broad stroke action is predictable. Not against Binx. First the bomb and now this tackle. Ollie is continuously surprised by Binx’s actions. If you were to ask him, she is someone who is entirely made of this chaos factor and foolishly Ollie assumes different. She cannot be predicted.

Ollie was knocked on his ass with that tackle. Hand to hand was neither of their specialties and he was only just able to turn a one sided pin into a wrestle, but sure as hell Binx had the upper hand for multiple reasons. She took him by surprise, she had gotten close enough to where he couldn’t read her moves, and… well, he was flustered. He hadn’t fought hand to hand with a girl before, much less being pinned down by one. His cheeks started going a bit red and he couldn’t keep eye contact with her. “Get off me Binx.” While that was said in earnest, Ollie could only feel a little bit of shame for letting that out. He was just going to ask Binx to get off of him, in a training exercise. Stupid.

The tackle was completely spur of the moment, but it seemed to have paid off as she sat atop him, his cheeks tinged with blush no doubt matching her own. Though Binx was able to recover a little quicker than him. "Aw, what's the matter Ollie~ embarrassed?" Who was she to pass up the opportunity to tease the shit outta him. Instead of removing herself from straddling him, Binx pinned him further to the ground, nudging his weapon further from his grip.

Ollie was embarrassed but he had to try his hardest not to look it. “No I’m not embarrassed, fuck you Binx.” The way this was delivered showed anyone who was watching that he was embarrassed. The way it had come out in itself was embarrassing. His only hope is that he was right about this room having no cameras. If Bug was watching, she could and she would share the footage with everyone. That would be devastating.

All he had to do was grab the shotgun but that was proving harder to achieve by the second. Seemingly with every movement toward the gun, Binx would counter with nudging it further out of his reach. The energy was slowly leaving his body with every failed attempt. If he was going to make a move he had to make it now, otherwise Binx would have enough bragging rights to make this next year a nightmare. Gathering all his energy he made a final lunge for the shotgun, only to have it thrust out of his grip in a fumble. But he was able to pull the trigger, even if he couldn’t aim it.

Whether Ollie had actually hit Binx or if the blast had just startled her, he felt the tide of the fight turn in his favor. Taking the opportunity he rolled the two of them and took Binx into a pin. “Hah, what do you have to say now Bi…” While he said the first part with confidence and a cocky smile, then immediately faded as he had made eye contact with Binx for the first time during the fight. He gulped. Now on that he was on top of Binx, that embarrassment was taken to new heights. “Uh, so, yeah, you’re pinned so, umm, just surrender.” But that wasn’t all, what was initially a strong pin had faded in the same way his confidence did, immediate. Binx would be fully able to move against him because of it.

To say she was surprised was an understatement. Binx didn’t think he would be in the right frame of mind to flip her and turn the situation against her. But that’s what she gets for underestimating his keen strategic mindset.

As soon as her back hit the flooring beneath her she looked up and made eye contact. It was very… different to be on this end of a pin. Binx can honestly say she hasn’t been here that many times but for some reason this was different. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it was definitely a new experience. It could be the fact that she could feel her face heating up under his gaze, or feel him pressing down on her. Either way, it wasn’t a terrible feeling. “What’re you gonna do to me if I refuse~,” even with her thrown into this new experience, there was no way she was going to pass up the opportunity to tease him.

“Uuuuuuhhhh.” Ollie was truly speechless for one of the first times in his life. Binx had found ways to surprise him but this was something else. He felt nervous, tense, and a wide range of other emotions. Usually a wave of unexpected feeling like this would be a bad thing, but he didn’t feel bad. The moment just sat there for a good few seconds, his pin loosening with every moment. Ollie had to shake his head to clear his mind, he had to focus on the mission. “Ok Binx, you can stop playing around now. I have you pinned, that means you’re out.” Even through saying that he tried and failed to keep eye contact. The force on the pin was still loose.

"Oh?" The taunt was thickly laced in her voice, "It doesn't feel like I'm out," taking the slacked grip on her, Binx was able to wrap her legs around him as best she could and flip them, once more landing atop of him. Leaning lower she placed a quick kiss to his already reddening cheeks before sitting back up to full height, "Ya know, I'm really starting to enjoy this position, Ol. Looks good on ya." Using whatever remaining moments she had left of his distorted state Binx pulled out some zip ties from her back pocket and tied his wrists together and then to a cabinet handle for extra measures before moving off of him.

"Sit back and relax, the show's gonna kick off soon~”

The whole thing had gone by in a blur for Ollie the flip, the kiss, and then before he knew it he was cable tied to a cabinet. Usually an undebatable loss like this would make him feel bad, but a release of that tension had just made him laugh. In his mind, because he had lost he could chalk up what Binx had done as being actions to win. In some regard he couldn’t quite wrap his head around there being more to the interaction. “That was a good one Binx. You caught me out with all that teasing, you have the win.” Still something was digging at the back of his mind, he knew the kiss on his cheek wasn’t necessary to win.

“Binx, I have a favour to ask.” Ollie mouthed the words ‘comms off’ and waited for Binx to comply. “Now that Nadia can’t be listening in I can talk about it. The punishment is some bullshit isn’t it? ‘Oh yeah we are going to punish the weaker spies by making them do non-spy stuff.’ That makes no sense. I think my team is going to lose, could you sneak us over some tools so we can get the job done quicker. And if by some miracle that my team wins, I’ll do the same for you. We got a deal?”

Placing a finger to her chin she thought on the offer. ”Yeah, alright. It only seems fair, can't believe she expects us to clean up all the fuckin' paint. Seriously..." There was no denying that even though the interaction between them had dissolved into something more friendly, as if the training session were over, there was still a form of tension that resided between them. _{What was she thinking? What was the kiss for? Just to tease him, yeah? Yeah. That’s totally what it was for.}

Checking her wrist watch for the time, she wondered aloud how much longer this little experiment was going to take before a clear winner was decided. In the short amount of time that had passed, which felt like eons, Binx found herself constantly dragging her gaze back towards him, though never quite meeting his gaze directly. Too nervous as to what kinda emotions would be pulled from her if she did.

Unlike Binx, Ollie seemed more or less unphased from the previous events on the surface. Binx had just done all that stuff to beat him right? And sure, it sucked that he got taken out. There was no weirdness between them right? But seeing how Binx was acting, Ollie also began to grow more awkward about it as well. Maybe it wasn’t as simple as he thought.

But something else quickly took over his mind. A certain dread that made his heart sink into his shoes. How could he have not noticed it earlier? Was it out of his view? “Hey, uh, Binx. You wouldn’t happen to have any dirt on Bug would you?” He nodded over toward where the previously unseen security camera was. While it had some paint on it, it was still quite likely that Bug could have seen that whole thing. “Cause we are going to need some serious blackmail soon.” The embarrassment had returned.

_{collab with @Jumbus | mentions: Bug@Legion02}

[Legion02]

Bug

“Eh, no worries. It’s not like it was hard to guess where I would hide.” Bug told HIRAM as she booted off the virtual machine she used to hack Nadia. It was worth a shot. Though something in the back of her lizard brain now wanted to know more than ever what was on Nadia’s phone. Top secret intel? Please, Bug could access some grandfather Congressman’s laptop and get all the classified intel she wanted. Perhaps not on Promenade itself directly but its affiliations. So what was Nadia trying to hide just now? Maybe it was something better… like selfies! Maybe Nadia didn’t want her selfies to be discovered! Or the fact that she’s using some dating app? Wait, maybe she didn’t want the texts to her husband found? There were so many possibilities. She just had to find out.

And then she heard a very loud bang coming from somewhere downstairs. She just grinned as she looked up. Bombs were fun to feel from a distance. It was even more fun to know that someone had tripped them. Though with Binx you could never know how powerful they were. It could’ve been a fairly strong one in the vents or the equivalent of a MOAB on the first floor. The only thing you could be sure of was that the explosives expert just didn’t do 'proportional'. Or at least so Bug thought.

She got an answer to that question soon enough when Carmen crawled out of the vents. The girl was drenched in paint. “Oh no! Carmen what happened?” Bug instantly said as she put her pad down next to her. But not before she pressed her special record button. If anything moved on a camera her tablet would detect it and record it. So she could watch it back and catch up again while she tended to Carmen.

“Binx got you good I see.” Bug said as she squatted next to Babel and tried to clean some of the paint off of her with some nearby cloth she found. Then curiosity got the better of her. She quickly felt in both of Babel’s paint-covered ears to feel for the earpiece. She found nothing though. “Oh, damn that’s a shame.” Bug said as she felt no earpiece. If she could hack into their comms the old-fashioned way she could’ve lured Warheit inside as well perhaps. Maybe in a second, she could look into the vents.

“So… I don’t actually have any zip ties.” Bug then said, realizing she was short on that particular equipment. “So… I’m sorry for this.” With a CAT5 cable she bound Carmen’s arms to her back. Though she left plenty of room so her prisoner wouldn’t be too uncomfortable. With that work done she grabbed the old Mac that was already booted up and put it in front of Carmen. “You want to practice some languages? I can set something up for you if you want to?” Meanwhile the tablet, turned away from both of them, showed many of the cameras Bug had taken over. One particular one, half-covered with paint, still managed to capture and record Binx and Ollie's interactions.

_{Interacting with: Carmen (@canaryrose)}

[sly13]

Erik steadied his breath as he peered into the lens of his sniper overlooking the building. The walkway he was on was rather sketchy if he was being honest. Most of it was rusted into oblivion with holes already having been formed from the lack of use. He was probably the first person to ever step foot on this damn thing in years. Regardless he steadied his breath as he looked over the portions of the building that were visible to him. He hoped that one of his opponents would forget that he was present for the exercise and would poke their head out but alas it seemed like no one would be daring or stupid enough to try.

“Oh, fuck,”

Erik moved his head a bit at the loud sound coming through the earpiece of what he could only assume was his teammates being eliminated from the exercise. Letting out an aggravated sigh knowing this meant that it was down to him and two other teammates to finish the mission against 5. As he began repelling down from the crane arm he called over the radio “Be advised overwatch no longer in effect, moving in to assist in the defusion.” As soon as his finger left the switch that opened up the channel he spoke to himself rather irritated “Ich muss alles machen.” As he neared the building Erik slowed to a deliberate walk knowing every step could very well lead to a bomb detonating on him. “die Jagd beginnt”

As the old door to the building slowly creaked open the masked face Erik slowly peered through it with pistol drawn making sure to check the ceiling for any pesky cameras that he was sure Bug had already claimed as hers. Doing his best to keep his body low and close to the wall Erik watched for any signs of movement or sounds of commotion. By his guess, he was at least down two teammates and since the others had not responded yet he had to assume the worse. Looking up from his crouched position Erik stared straight into the lens of a camera elevated about halfway up the wall. After staring at the camera for a moment the masked form of Erik slowly lifted his pistol firing a few pellets covering the camera in paint.

Not wasting any more time than was necessary Erik continued on his route through the building doing his best to find the bombs scattered in this massive building. “Moving deeper into ze building, any contact?” Erik continued down the tight hallway awaiting a confirmation from his team that never came. “Nutzlos”. As Erik continued down the hall he could hear what sounded like talking coming from a room just ahead of him. As he drew closer to the entrance into the room he recognized the voices as both Binx and Static.