Jack Revni looked upon the building in front of him with nervousness. In his defense, this was his first governmental job. His first job straight out of school no less. To say anyone in his shoes wouldn't be nervous would be a flat out lie.

Jack of course had just as many counterarguments against his nervousness as well though. First was the simple fact that his best friend's dad had a high ranking seat in the council. One of the largest and most important democratically elected governing bodies in the country.

So it was safe to say he had some pull on if the government fired him. Second, he was a deadly assassin.

Sure he was untrained but he definitely had the ability to kill people. So there was another point for him not being nervous.

But humans were if anything, prone to doing things against the most sound of logic. "Hey, are you gonna go in or what?" someone asked him from behind.

Looking behind him he saw Balbina Daisy. His best friend and the daughter of one of the most powerful and influential politicians of all time. She had bright yellow eye's along with purple-dyed hair. The only reason he didn't think she was Vat-Born was because of the lack of strange symbols engraved into her flesh.

Birthed, powerful, and natural beauty. Balbina had what it took to rise quickly in the realm of politics. So she of course chose to train on how to murder people in ten different ways.

Underwent the deadliest and most grueling military training of the entire empire. And graduated with the second-highest academic score of all time in the aptly named Roman School of Assassins. With the only person scoring higher being the school's founder Nobody.

"Hey, are you doing that inner description thing again? Do I need to get a doctor?" Balbina asked.

"No, I'm fine, just nervous," Jack said.

"You shouldn't be! With my skill and your ability to file paperwork, we'll be an unstoppable force!" Balbina shouted. And then promptly got glares from everybody in the surrounding area.

This was the head governmental building, not some tourist spot!

Jack swallowed the ever-increasing amount of spit in his throat before making his way inside. The building was a massive one, likely larger than many towns in the countryside. He also politely ignored the jab about his lees than stellar skills at the art of killing.

It always amazed him that the government could afford to make such breathtaking things and yet still struggle with the ever-increasing amount of poverty. But that was mainly only affecting Vat-Born so he could see why they were wary to spend their money on something like that.

Balbina swatted him in the head.

"What!?" Jack asked.

"Sorry, you just looked like you were thinking of something stupid."

"I wasn't," he said.

"Like I'll believe that," Balbina said softly.

As he and Balbina walked through the building, Jack noticed something strange, for one. He noticed a surprisingly little amount of yelling. Something politics had taught him was that it was rarely quiet. And second, was the number of guards in the building.

They were stopped seven times for documents and clearance. Something which Balbina hand waved away when she revealed her name and some handy proof.

Jack was starting to feel tenser and tenser as they continued to walk down the silent halls. What were supposed to be grand murals of long-forgotten artists inscribed into the walls soon became forgettable splashes of color as he and Babina moved closer and closer to the-wait. To what?

"Babina, where are we going exactly?" Jack asked.

"You seriously don't know?" Babina asked incredulously.

"Yeah" Jack admitted embarrassingly.

"I don't either."

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"Wait what?" Jack asked.

"I said I don't know where we're going, I only got the directions today morning when I was refreshing myself and suddenly I got these things," Babina said as she held up the piece of paper she was using as a map.

"Well, how much longer do we need to walk?" Jack asked.

"Just a few more minutes and we should arrive," Babina said.

"Can't we just take a break for a few minutes?" Jack asked.

Babina responded with a smile, or as Jack would call it. The thing her face does when she finds something new to torment him with.

"Oh, Jack. I didn't know you wanted to sit on the cold tile floor with nothing to eat instead of the soft fluffy couches that'll no doubt be in the room we visit. But that's okay, I was going to throw them out anyway."

Jack looked at Babina with horrified eyes. His pleading gaze meaning nothing to the cold witch in front of him.

"Fine," Jack said.

They arrived at the room almost twenty minutes later. Jack's legs lacked for some sort of relaxation, and when he saw the couches he flopped on to them. Babina just rolled her eyes at his antics. And went to the desk near the back room. On it was a small nightstand, a pencil holder, a stapler, and some other office necessities.

With a creak the door opened behind them, both Jack and Babina turned around immediately, finding a man with a pompous mustache, he wore a black suit with several golden buttons on it, two yellow loops on each of his cuffs. His pants were an elegant dark brown, something you wore when the sun was up on a workday.

His shoes looked uncomfortable, to say the least. That's what Babina would say, Jack thought it looked like a rainbow was barfed on a pair of shoes and then was given a gold medal.

The man looked at both for several seconds before speaking. "You both are uncountably late today! Do you know nothing about being punctual?"

"Sorry sir, we just had the room we were assigned to be changed and were a bit unprepared," Babina said.

"Are you two not agents? People tasked with being the right hand of the government? If you can't do something as easy as arriving on time even with a sudden schedule change, then you should've chosen a different job."

The man looked upon Jack and Babina with cold and cruel eyes. He then moved forward and sat in the chair of the desk Babina was inspecting.

"You should be ready for any situation, you ought to remember that for life in this world. On to topic, last week a gang backed by the Cult of Vulcan assaulted a random Vat-Born," the man began.

"Um, why is this important? It's just some random Vat-Born?" Jack asked.

"Interrupt me again and you lose your tongue. The reason this is huge is that the Vat-Born survived, not only that several of the perpetrators were caught by witnesses. Several more were spotted fleeing the scene after. The Cult of Vulcan can't be seen supporting such brutality, bad for PR and all."

"So they want us to eliminate the Vat-Born who survived?" Jack asked.

The man looked up and slowly began to draw his knife. Jack looked at it, and then pulled out a pistol. The man smiled.

"I like agents to have a backbone," he said. Before he threw his knife straight at the pillow beside Jack. The knife struck true, and suddenly Jack's world got a whole lot more feathers.

"Though I would like to remind you to not do anything stupid."

"Anyways, no. Such a murder might have worked in the past but with how much more intelligent the common man has gotten recently. The Cult can't risk it."

"So what do we do?" Babina asked.

"Simple, we frame him to have connections to the mob or Italy. Kill him then, and manipulate the media in our support."

"You really think that's gonna work?" Babina asked.

"The media wants a good story that gets attention, so a battle between the heroic government between evil Italy should work well, especially since the war just ended. Propaganda's still strong."

Jack and Babina looked at each other, Jack's eyes showed a hint, okay a lot of worries. This was their first mission, and they had to kill someone already?

Babina on the other hand was confident, this was what they had trained for, after all. And what could one little Vat-Born do to them?

Jack felt a bit reassured at Babina's confidence. So he swallowed his worries and looked at the man. "We'll do it."

"Strange to think you have any other choice, Mr.Revni."

"Well, now that you've chosen to follow the will of our government. Here are your masks." He said as he dropped two masks on the desk, both made of steel and wood. One was carefully sculpted, showing a grim smile with glowing crimson eyes. White paint covered the entire face, with only two lines of crimson red flowing from each of its eyes.

The other mask was just a straight-up horse. The mask was covered in a half golden half silver coat of paint. It was sloppy, with little to no effort seemingly having been put into it.

Babina quickly grabbed the first mask and shoved the second one into Jacks's hands. He looked at it with a frown. "Is this a joke?" He asked.

"That mask was something we scrounged up from the lost and found bin. Works just as fine as the other one, it was just thrown out due to the design. We strangely didn't have anyone willing to wear it." The man said.

"Strangely?" Jack asked.

"Despite what the media thinks we expect functionality more than fashion."

"Makes sense."

"Now that you have your assignment, you have two hours before your train to Muddenburg leaves. Oh and Mr.Revni?" The man asked.

"Next time you pull a gun, make sure your willing to pull the trigger. That and have the safety be off."

Augments, perhaps some of the oldest technology to grace this world. But certainly the most impacting. Augments were originally made to help support wounded or disabled folk. Often taking the form of prosthetic limbs and such. As we continued to advance, so did Augments. They quickly grew to encompass more and more effects, with a recent example being that of the Serbian Army making augments for their soldiers that doubled as weapons. It was during the final decade of the Great War that a removable Augment was made. Which happened to take the form of a silver and gold Duck that had been poorly painted.

- Augments and Us