Leaning against the cold wall of my cell, I looked through the metal bars that had been a near constant in my life, but not after today. The sound of a guard's footsteps echoed down the hall towards my cell. Opportunity.

“You ready?” I asked my friend, tapping it out in Morse code.

“Yeah, " he replied out loud, ignoring my attempt at being discreet. The guard was too far away to hear us and was wearing earphones, but the protocol was to be cautious; she seemed new and was trying to stay calm, which is why today was the day.

I disappeared.

The guard walked past the few cells before getting to mine, stopping to look over them a few seconds longer than she needed. They were empty. She took a deep breath— whispering 'ok' to herself—and looked into the cell labelled Night Strike, readying herself to see me. She didn’t. She double-checked her list to make sure this was the right cell or if I was meant to be on a mission.

I wasn’t.

“Subject Night Strike is not in its cell; sound the alarm!” the guard shouted before unlocking the cell to check for signs of escape.

Mistake.

After I heard the click of the lock mechanism opening the cell door, I moved, knocking the guard out and swiping the keys out of their pocket. To an outside onlooker, it appeared she was being hit by a ghost, which wasn’t that far from the truth — though I am far more effective than a ghost, I must say. I unlocked my friend’s cell. His was labelled Kill Streak.

“You took your time! Three seconds; you’re slacking,” he said, mocking me.

Thinking about it, this was the first time I had been out of my cell without direct orders to assassinate some head of state or a Mythic who had gone power crazy. To make sure they disappear into the shadows like they were never there. To make all traces of them evaporate into thin air. You’d be surprised how easy it is.

I motioned him towards the weapon room so we could get our weapons. I disappeared. My invisibility was useful for entering places discreetly, but it was not without its flaws. A familiar darkness overtook my vision as my Legacy activated, light no longer affecting me and a new realm of vision being needed. When I entered the room, I sensed that there were several guards arming themselves with knives and guns, willing to shoot if they noticed anything wrong. They didn’t get the chance. I knew where they were because I could sense their fear, hear their heartbeat and feel their body heat. It took seconds.

I retrieved my S-class Sniper Sword and passed my friend his Scythe Minigun. He caught it and slung it behind his back with disturbing grace. He reached next to where his weapon had been previously and picked up a round of ammunition, attaching it to his belt for later.

We were made for killing. Certain problems could be solved by the right bullet going through the right person’s head. We were made and are used so that no Shade gets too close or Mythic gets too powerful. We had to kill or be killed and were used as tools. We didn't like that.

Killstreak took a flask from one of the guards that I had just taken out and took a swig out of it. ”I don’t know what’s in this, but I like it!” He exclaimed, pocketing it for later.

Grimacing in mild disgust, I signalled for him to stop messing around; I could hear some more guards responding to a silent alarm. We needed to move. Now.

We disappeared, the only proof that we were there being the missing weapons and the bodies littering the floor. The guards opened the door into the room, expecting a fight but only to be met with dead bodies and confusion. Seconds later, they found themselves on the floor with them.

“That should give us at least five minutes to give a visit to an old friend, right Night?” asked Killstreak, smiling a bloody smile at the thought, “I wonder if he has ever eaten bullets before? I’ve heard lead tastes sweet.”

We moved into a long corridor lined with doors and stopped at the third on the right. It was locked. With ease, Killstreak shot the lock, and the door swung open, revealing a crowd of security guards facing right at us. The smell of steel and lead overwhelmed any other. They had us at 80:1.

There was no point in staying invisible, so I reappeared into sight. The room was absolutely packed with guards pointing all sorts of weapons at us. I could see a small amount of panic in their eyes. Cute.

“Did you enjoy your little stroll outside your cell?” the man in the middle snarled like a chihuahua; he looked so small and sat at his desk with his feet up. “Did you really think I was dumb enough not to take precautions to this exact problem?” The man we had come to see, who only referred to himself as The Director.

I ignored him as I focused on working out how to get us out of this room. Killstreak was already twitching to kill the guards. The Director was trying to make us give in, but he forgot that we were literally trained for situations like this. I nodded.

All hell broke loose. The guards shot wildly as we mowed them down with our weapons, killing them one by one. I took a shot to the shoulder, nothing I could not shrug off, though the guard soon regretted his fire. Killstreak was living up to his name; he had wiped out all the people who even came close to him, killing multiple people at a time. He felled them like he was harvesting wheat or barley, laughing though in a distinctly un-farmer-ish way.

The fight ended soon after it started, and the only people left standing were The Director, Kill, and me. The former’s face was noticeably less colourful than at the start of our encounter.

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“So, when do the precautions come in?” Killstreak mocked, wiping blood off his hands and onto his clothes. “I think we may have missed them.”

“How did you–how did you defeat them? It doesn’t matter; I have another trick up my sleeve,” The Director stuttered, pulling out a switch. “I had hoped I would not have to resort to this, but I knew it was inevitable that you may turn against your dear old Director. There are tetrodotoxin pills located in your neck which will kill you near instantly when I flick this switch; I would say ‘nice knowing you’ but I’d be lying, I’ll enjoy seeing your corpses. Goodbye.”

He flipped the switch, grinning as he did so. Nothing happened. There was a second before the Director flipped the switch again, frowning. He flipped it again and again and again; after the eleventh time, he gave up. He looked back at us, searching for an answer, his confidence deteriorating by the second. Kill shrugged.

“We had nothing to do. I was bored. I found a slight bump in my neck and cut it out.” Killstreak stated, showing a scar on the left side of his neck. “I think Night did the same.”

I nodded, revealing my scar to them in the same place.

“Though I would love to make your death slow and painful, I really cannot be bothered. I would say it was nice knowing you, but it wasn’t,” Kill mocked. “I want to get out of here; this place is leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Night, would you do the honours?”

I aimed my sword at him. Given the amount of fear radiating from him, I could have aimed at him with my eyes closed. He was a shining beacon to any Shades in the area.

“Hey, hey, hey, I’m not, like, the main guy, you know. I’m only the guy who made you, not, you know, the top guy, not the guy in charge. You’ll need me, you know if you actually want to get back at who actually, you know, did this to…” the Director tried to say before I pulled the trigger. For some reason, he couldn’t finish his sentence without the top of his head.

The side wall exploded. There was someone shouting orders, but that stopped abruptly when the dust settled. Three new people were staring at us and the bodies with a look of confusion.

Then the person, who I assume was the leader, stated, “We’re from the Dark Flame. We were meant to be breaking you guys out.”

Kill started screaming with laughter. After a while, the group still staring in confusion, he managed to regain his upright stance, wiping his eyes and shooting them a cocky grin.

“I’d say you were a little late for that.”

***

The group explained to us the flaws in our escape plan; essentially, where we were located was nowhere near anything on foot. No matter how good we were at killing, we wouldn’t survive out there indefinitely. Even if we somehow miraculously managed to steal an airship, neither of us could fly it. Plus, wilderness survival isn’t as comfortable a lifestyle than what they would offer us. I looked over at Kill, and I could clearly see him weighing the fun of killing a load of Shades with the effort of building a shelter or actually preparing food.

Eh, they’re probably less effort.

“You lot have a point. We should get these suckers to wait on us hand and foot, plus they probably have a reason to try and break us out. If they’re lying, I could probably kill them anyway and steal their transport.” Kill smiled at me, “Kidding… Probably.”

The leader gave a slight nervous chuckle, “Well I’d be glad to have you on our side, my name is Sam.”

Sam looked like someone who had seen battle but had not directly seen death. He had a handle on his emotions slightly better than his team, but they weren’t completely obscured.

They took us to their airship and asked questions like, “What are our powers?” and “How exactly did we escape the facility keeping us?” It got really boring after a while. Kill managed to entertain himself by giving vague answers that didn’t tell them anything.

We arrived at a far-off, secluded facility. It was in a clearing of a jungle between two mountains, with Shades lurking between the trees. Occasionally, one of the brave Shades would appear in the clearing, only to be immediately killed by the people patrolling the area.

The base itself looked like a stately home—pristine. I wouldn’t have been surprised if someone told me they teleported it from the centre of one of the kingdoms five minutes ago, as there were no signs of weathering from the surroundings.

“This place is cosy, just the right amount of Shades and not knowing where the fuck we are!” Kill stated as we landed. “I’m not answering any questions before you tell us where the hell we are and why you want our help? It's been an hour or something; I would have expected you to tell us by now.” Kill lazily stretched as he continued, “I would have asked earlier, but I was trying to give off a silent but deadly feel. Now it's getting boring. Plus, you’ve stopped flinching at my every movement. We could be in Wruikreria’s main kingdom by now but, no, we’re helping you with something we know nothing about. So where are we, and why do you want us?”

“We are in the Dark Flame’s main base of operations in the Amazon rainforest. We are the only people who are able to survive in such a Shade populated place,” answered Sam professionally. “As for what we need you for, I don’t know. My team and I were only tasked to help you escape,” He paused for a moment before continuing in a slightly sarcastic tone, “which you were clearly in need of, might I add, and to bring you here. You will need to ask the Chairman. I’ll bring you to him.”

The base was larger than I expected. It seemed to have only one main entrance but multiple windows that I could fit through. The rooms were labelled, and the corridors branched out from the centre, some leading to dark ends. Sam led us down a specific hallway, stopped outside a room, and knocked on the door. Shortly after, a voice was heard, allowing us to enter.

A man who looked to be in his twenties was sitting at a desk in the middle of a cream-coloured room, drinking a hot brown liquid out of a mug with an emblem of a black fire printed onto it. I believe that the liquid is referred to as coffee, which is quite popular with a lot of leaders. The man had brown hair and orange eyes. I could sense a large amount of power coming from him and could tell he was expecting us.

“Hello there, Samuel. I see our guests arrived safe and sound. Hopefully, it was no trouble. Am I correct in assuming that they would like to know why we have brought them here?” he guessed in a friendly tone. “You can call me Ark. I already know your names.”

Ark offered his hand for us to shake. No one accepted it. After a few moments, he put his hand down.

“You are here because we need your help in trying to overthrow the main powers of the kingdoms. We believe they have too much control over their respective lands, giving them the resources to make more powerful armies, weapons, and to upgrade their Mythics beyond their usual limits with technology. There is also a rumour that Shadow's End has developed a robot with a soul, though the scientist believes it to be his second son, as I’m told and refuses to reveal his method.” Ark announced all this in a very formal manner.

“Where do we come in?” Kill asked, annoyed at the indirect answer. “Stop dancing around the truth and tell us. I’m sure if we tried hard enough, me and Night could survive on our own. So, tell us now, or we will be on our way.”

Ark smiled.

“We need you to make an impression.”