This time, the general did hear Val mention something, as well as the people beside him, frowned and looked at Val. Gen. Luis didn't want to let this go, as this is important information, for the second part of where he got these details, he will ask him the next time when they are both alone.
Gen. Luis said, "Valens, what do you mean Blovik Empire?"
He now remembered something during his stay at the orphanage. There were indeed some men dressed in black and had armbands worn with that symbol. He frowned when he remembered it, he didn't know that they had been operating for a few years in Clareo.
Val said seriously, "I...might or might not have remembered it. When I...when I was at the orphanage, a group of men had come to the orphanage at that time. I might or might not have heard them mention that some of the children inside were from the Blovik Empire."
Everyone stared at him, waiting for Val to continue, Gen. Luis urged him to. Val continued to half lie on the details, he couldn't really tell that it was from the shadow, but telling some truths behind it, which was based on the shadow's details. He continued, "Of course, the Head of the orphanage didn't exactly care about it so he let them choose some of the children inside. I might or might not have seen the armbands which are exactly the same in this video."
Everyone inside was silent, then Gen. Luis said, "Col. Hento, give me a complete report of the Blovik Empire and the men in black that visited the orphanage. I need it by tomorrow. That's it, you may leave.", both knew where the orphanage Val had mentioned as Exeo and Ember had mentioned it before when they found him.
'What's with the might or might not have nonsense this kid is saying', Col. Hento thought as he looked in Val's direction but answered with a 'Yes Sir' and walked out of the room.
The information provided by Val was not what they expected, and so, Gen. Luis held off giving this mission until the report comes in tomorrow. They were dismissed and decided to rest for the day.
A day later, before Gen. Luis would meet the team, he let Col. Hento meet first with the report.
Gen. Luis had been flipping the pages, and his frown got deeper and with a pronounced sigh when he read the details. He didn't expect that the team's first mission would be quite heavy. He estimated that this group had quite a lot of members, and in order to track them, they had to infiltrate, to spy before killing them. They could arrest them but it might cause a stir as the group's location is not within Clareo's jurisdiction, so it's risky, but they need to. Since the group had already stepped foot in Clareo. However, it might take months before the mission is finished.
He sighed, closing it and putting it on top of his table, he said, "Call the team when you go out.", Col. Hento nodded along with a 'Yes Sir' and walked out of the room.
After a few minutes, the Exeo's team has been called, and said in front of them, "It will not be an easy mission, but it can be done. It's just that, based on the details of this report, you might need to do some infiltration in order to nip the bud and stop them fully.", he grabbed the folder and gave it to Exeo, who accepted it.
Exeo frowned at the details and indeed, it is not an easy mission as their first, but he agreed, it can be done.
"I didn't make any copies of this as some information is confidential." and looked at the three Bellators, he knew that what he meant by confidential is the orphanage where Val had lived before. Exeo gave it back to Gen. Luis, and he grabbed it and burned it with his hand. Yes, Gen. Luis has fire ability and he can burn anything or control the fire at his will only.
Once the documents have been burnt, and only ashes were left, Gen. Luis said, "Once you arrive, you should observe and plan for your infiltration. It's up to you Exeo who you'll pick to observe, infiltrate and assassinate. It may take a while to see you all again here, but be safe.", he smiled at all of them and continued, changing his expression to a serious one, "Make sure no witnesses, that's an order. Dr. Lewis will be with you and has been debriefed."
The team nodded, answered with a 'Yes Sir', and walked out of the room.
'Hmm. They surely do not salute at all,' the General thought and sweatdropped, but sighed. 'Well, it's fine.' and soon got back to work on the paperwork in front of him.
They went back to their office with Dr. Lewis who was already waiting inside.
They are still wearing the new uniforms given to them by the General, and this time, even Dr. Lewis also had a new combat uniform similar to theirs. And so, they prepared everything, including their new combat uniforms and the cloaks in their own bags.
Everyone in the room was ready and so they went again to the secret path leading to the back of the building. This time, they will not be using a helicopter, but getting a flight to Uryo. They chose this transportation so as to not attract suspicion, and so, they'd do what normal citizens do.
A car is already waiting for them at the back of the building, with Gen. Luis's trusted driver.
Dr. Lewis, which is currently seated in front on the passenger's side, had given them different kinds of accessories, Exeo and Bo, sunglasses, Ember, a necklace, Val a ring, and Riggs, a bracelet. Dr. Lewis said, "Just inject a little bit of mana into those accessories and you should be able to change your appearance, even the clothes will change. Don't worry, the security at the airport for normal citizens is not strict, so they will not be able to detect those accessories. Remember, we are a family that is going to visit our parents in Uryo, and let's avoid getting too much attention."
Val, Bo, and Riggs said 'Oooh' at the same time when they accepted the accessories, their eyes sparkled and immediately changed their appearances.
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While the four adults, including the driver, just sighed, and thought at the same time, 'Kids...'. They have also been given in-ear pieces. When they arrived, everyone's appearance was changed.
The doctor, who intentionally had walked behind all of them, stared at their backs and thought, 'I just said to not get too much attention, I just jinxed myself.', he didn't know whether to laugh or cry at this.
All had brown colored hair and walked towards the airport, a slight difference is that, even though their appearances had changed, it caused quite a stir. As soon as they walked into the airport, most of the people would stare at them, and some would have whispers and giggle, 'Hey, are those some celebrities or something?', or 'Look! Look that guy on the left is so hot!', while some were squealing, mostly from ladies.
Even after they had checked in their bags, they were also getting attention from all the flight attendants. Although they noticed it, they just ignored it.
All their flights are booked in business class, so they went to their designated seats.
When they arrived at Uryo after an hour and a half-flight trip, the same thing happened when they walked out of the airport, all heads turned around when they walked out. Ember muttered with a slight annoyance on his face, and with a click on his tongue, he said, "This is getting too much attention", while walking, and grabbed his own sunglasses, which made some ladies squeal with Ember's actions.
Exeo and the rest just sweatdropped and thought, 'You are getting too much attention too.', and just walked with small conversations between each other, 'I'm hungry.' or, 'We'll book first at the hotel near here.'. When they were out of the airport, they decided to rent a car and made their way to book a hotel just a few blocks away from the rural area, which is their target location.
Once night time falls, they all had gathered in Exeo and Ember's room for a meeting. He had told them that it will be Bo and Val who'll do recon. And so, once it struck midnight, Bo and Val wore their black combat uniforms and the black-hoodied cloaks, pulling up the mask from their necks, revealing only their eyes.
They snuck from the window in their hotel rooms and jumped from roof to roof until they arrived just at the boundary of the rural area suspected.
They radioed in using the in-ear pieces that they arrived at. They jumped at one of the houses on the roof and decided to jump down. They are now in a narrow alleyway, Exeo spoke in their in-ear piece, "Be careful.", with answers 'Roger' can be heard.
Both slowly walked, with Val leading with Bo behind. The area was deathly silent, garbage bins full or overflowing with sorts of garbage, mixed in with some nasty smell of the murky sewer waters on the side. They frowned and Bo almost had to puke from the smell, which made him pinch his nose. Val just frowned while walking, and soon, they are now on the street. There's a slight mist covering the whole city, which makes it eerier.
They turned left and decided to walk on the main street. They didn't let their guard down and just kept looking around. Soon, they saw a building, which was still lit, the rest of the houses and buildings they have passed had no lights on. Bo reported, "There's a building still lit up, we'll check on this building."
"Roger that.", is what Exeo replied.
The two decided to jump up again at a house near that building on the roof and checked the other surroundings.
When they are now on the roof, the building is surrounded by a wall, around 5 meters tall, and at the top of it, electric barbed wires.
This time, it was Val who said, "Huh. I was expecting an ability user to support the walls, but it seems like it's a normal wall.", and looking down at the area, then his eyes roam around the property. There were at least two armed men in front, at the side, and at the back.
He leaned slightly towards Bo and said in a low voice, "Camo time Bo.", their in-ear pieces are always on, which means everything they talked about, the remaining members of the team in the hotel can hear it.
Bo just nodded, and he simply patted Val's shoulder and both had vanished on the roof. Bo's camouflage ability makes him and the person he intended to be invisible, can see each other, but not other people.
They jumped down silently, they didn't decide to cause a stir, they had to check the inside of the building first.
When they were now on the ground, they nodded at each other and decided to enter at the back. Although there were two guards, they just evaded them, and saw the backdoor was slightly ajar and decided to use this to sneak in.
Once they were inside, they were at the corner of the hallway. Val first peaked in the hallway to see if there were more guards but found none. Val signaled that it was safe and so, they walked in the hallway. There were several rooms in the hallway, each door had a door number on it.
They tried to eavesdrop by leaning on the door with their ears but seems like all rooms here are empty. So both continued to walk and reached the other end of the hallway. However, when they reached the end of the hallway, they noticed a stair leading down to their right. They glanced at each other and nodded, and slowly went downstairs which seems like it leads to a basement.
When they were going down the stairs, they can hear sounds, some would seem like cries or some shouting. They both frowned when they heard it and the more they go down, the louder the cries can be heard.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, they abruptly stopped, were both widened in shock, but were soon distracted by the strong pungent smell. It was a very nasty smell, nastier when they were at earlier in the alleyway.
They covered their noses, brows frowned deeply and slowly walked into what seemed like an underground prison.
They looked left and right and saw that each cell had at least 5-10 people inside, cramped up, of all ages. The people they saw were just thin, some of the people inside had dead bodies mixed in, seems like they had already died either due to hunger, pain, or both.
All of the people inside were horribly thin, some are on the verge of death, while there are some who seem like they were just recently kidnapped.
There were cries of 'Mommy! Mommy!', 'Please! Please let us go!', 'Kill me! Kill me! It hurts!', which they could hear.
Val clenched his jaw tightly, veins visible on his forehead, at the sight he is seeing, with clenched fists in his side. He muttered, "This is fucking unbelievable.", continued walking slowly to assess the area.
The sounds they heard, were also heard by the rest of the team with the in-ear pieces.
Val had the urge to just kill all the people responsible for this inside the building, his eyes are slowly glowing bright red, but then he felt Bo's pat on his shoulder.
He stopped walking, flinched, and turned sideways, he saw Bo shook his head. When he saw this, Val looked back at the sight and closed his eyes, and gritted his teeth. He knew they can't recklessly kill, or else, their lead would be gone.
He clenched both his fists then relaxed, and opened his eyes, he swiftly turned around, turning his expression in a cold gaze. He ingrained in his memory the sight tonight they've seen and promised himself they'd kill the people responsible for this unspeakable act.
When Val had turned around and decided to go back up the stairs, Bo, looked around momentarily and closed his eyes. He muttered, "We'll definitely free you from here. Please hold on a little longer.", and turned around following Val.
The rest of the team heard what Bo said, but no one had said anything. It was as if it has already been agreed that indeed they will free the people in there.
Everyone had the same thought, 'Please hold on a little longer.'