The sound of the door slamming was followed by the patter of small feet, a noise that was familiarly followed by Neo tugging at Mercury's arm. Neo pointed to a table covered with markers and paper, leading her teammate over to admire her newest drawing.

Mercury gave a nervous laugh. "Oh, that's a very creative idea for torturing someone. Maybe a bit too creative, heh…"

She was so childlike. It was easy to forget she was in her mid-twenties.

Cinder watched them from her desk. She was pleased to see her subordinates forming a bond. To her, team dynamic was an important part of any plan. With Roman out on what he called "personal business," Neo and Mercury had been especially close as of late. Mercury studied sign language books, along with help from Roman, for weeks to communicate with his teammate, whose non-verbal grunts could only say so much.

Neo signed a few words, directed at Cinder.

"She wants to know if we're going out on a mission soon," Mercury translated.

Cinder nodded. "Tomorrow morning. Make sure you're mentally prepared. The two of you, along with Emerald, are going after a skilled regiment of Atlas's army."

"The 258th?"

"Yes. Special Operations Sustainment Brigade. These officers are not only skilled in battle, but in strategy. They're in charge of communication between branches and units."

Mercury pondered for a moment. "Including those who are in charge of overseeing the transportation of ground troops in airships, I take it?"

"Exactly. You're going to get on one of the airships and take it down. Scrambling communication can destroy the Atlesian military from the inside out."

Neo pointed to herself.

Cinder looked in her direction, a devious smile making its way across her face. "You? You're going to be working with Mercury on taking out the officers in charge. While he's going after the less skilled officers, I want you to go inside their base and take out the highest ranking soldiers you can find. I'm trusting your size and silence to get the job done quickly. You will then reconvene with Mercury and assist him with his part of the mission. Understood?"

Neo saluted her boss with a prideful look on her face. A tap on her shoulder from Mercury indicated it was time for them to go squeeze in some last-minute training. Mercury looked back at his boss while walking away. Something about that smile seemed…dishonest, as if Cinder was hiding something. That train of thought was interrupted by a physical reminder from Neo to walk faster, so Mercury shook off his negative feelings and focused his mind on what was to happen tomorrow.

######

With the feeling of skin breaking under a knife, Neo knew her part of the mission was almost finished. The officer's blood splattered out of his neck, and his body dropped to the floor with a thud. When she tried to walk away, however, a twinge of panic struck. Her foot was frozen to the ground. To the best of her ability, she turned to see who it was who attacked her.

The voice of her assailant was strong and commanding. "I don't care who you are," a second officer said, her voice beginning to tremble. "But I have already concluded that you don't deserve to live."

Neo used her spike to free herself from the ice, twirling around the officer to get behind her. Her opponent had caught her off guard once, but Neo wouldn't let the happen another time. A flash of white flew by her face; another flashed by her feet. Neo advanced through the attacks, and with a smooth maneuver, she thrust her spike into the officer's foot. A shout of pain reverberated around the room. One, two, three more stabs. Leg, stomach, shoulder. Another easy victory for Neo, all with that trademark arrogance on her face.

Or so she thought.

The officer found a second wind of strength, manifested a dozen spikes of ice, and hurled them at Neo. Her throws were sloppy and mostly avoidable. It seemed like another simple fight for Neo until she saw herself surrounded by summoned Grimm. She was attacked from all side, far too many for one person to handle, even someone like her. The hail of ice continued, and this time, there were some that landed sharply onto Neo. The worst hit was to the back of her head, throwing her off balance, her head smacking against a control panel and her hairband coming loose. Standing back up proved futile as another chunk of ice struck her in the face. Her jaw shattered.

Mercury had finished his task much earlier than he had anticipated. He went to cover for Neo. As he approached the door, he could hear the sounds of the fight. However, there was not a single scream to be heard. Neo was losing. Mercury kicked the door open as hard as he could.

Both Neo and the officer paused to look towards the door, giving Mercury enough time to assess the situation. The officer, throwing bullet-fast ice, was in complete control of the fight. Her aura had already healed her stab wounds. Neo was overwhelmed by her summons and helpless against her deadly-accurate long range attacks. She was looking around desperately for a chance to escape, but could never find an opening. Pink and brown hair was tinged red with blood, plastering to Neo's bruised face. Mercury caught glimpses of his teammate's eyes. Her irises were white and wrought with terror.

Another yell soon echoed around the room, this time coming from Mercury. It was a yell not of pain, but of pure outrage. Mercury kicked out a gust of wind, unsteadying the officer. He followed up with a brutal kick to the head. The officer thrust her sword into Mercury's leg as she fell to the ground. There was a hesitation in the fight. One look at the officer's face confirmed Mercury's worst fear: she figured out his legs weren't real.

Neo gathered her strength and ran towards the officer, who was readying more ice attacks. The distraction worked. The cold wind of the ice glyph shifted to face her. With a throw of her umbrella, the attack was deflected, the officer blinded for a split second. That second would be enough time for Neo to slide behind her opponent and trip her. The officer recovered quickly and jumped to the other side of the room.

Distance created silence.

'Retreat now,' Neo signed behind her back, taking advantage of the quiet.

The officer held up her rapier and stabbed it into the ground. A glowing pattern appeared.

'Retreat,' Neo repeated. 'Can't win.'

Mercury was still. "But what about Cinder," he whispered. "What will she—? Argh, it doesn't matter. Save yourself if you want. I'm stay-"

A blinding light burst from the officer, and the two teammates found themselves being encircled by white birds and trapped in ice: Neo, from the waist-down, hands included; Mercury, only up to his knees. The officer wordlessly walked up to Mercury and ripped him apart from his prosthetics, leaving his legs trapped in the blood-splattered ice. Almost immediately after, both teammates saw their worlds go dark.

######

"You probably should've teleported us out of there…"

Neo nodded in agreement.

They both had woken up far from the base they had invaded, soaked and freezing from rain. With no discernible landmarks in sight, there was little point in navigating through the brush of the field they found themselves in.

"Why didn't you save yourself, at least?" Mercury asked.

'You, maybe, die. Cinder, angry." You could have died. Cinder would be angered by that.

"That's true. Speaking of Cinder, we might as well call her."

Mercury dialed her number on his scroll. "Hey, Cinder, could you pick us up?"

There was silence.

"Boss? We don't know where we are, but I know you can track us. Could you pick us up?"

Cinder finally answered. "Did you kill all the officers?"
"We tried, but one got the better of us."

"…Which one?"

"She had white hair, tall, ice semblance."

"Winter!" Cinder hit her desk loud enough to be audible through the phone. "Winter Schnee! She was in charge of that unit! She was your main target! How could you let her get away?!"

"She had these summons and—"

There was a click.

"Cinder? Hey, Cinder?" Mercury threw his head back. "Ugh, she hung up."

'Airship, soon, maybe,' Neo signed.

"Maybe? Hopefully… I can't walk, and you can't carry me home, and we don't know where we are."

As if on cue, the distant sounds of an airship's engines became audible. The teammates waited a few minutes for the ship to approach them.

'Too, fast, land." It's going too fast to land.

"What do you mean it's going too fast? What's it doing?"

'Not our airship.' Neo grabbed Mercury by the arms and tried to run with him as fast as she could.

A whistle began to crescendo. Neo could vanish in a flash, but no amount of illusion could stop a bomb.

#####

'Dying.'

"We're not going to die."

'Hurts.'

Mercury coughed and reassured his partner that she would be fine. He knew it was a dirty lie, but there was no telling how Neo could handle losing an ally. His head was bleeding, an eye was damaged permanently, and he had even less of his legs than before. Neo was in better shape than he was. At least, physically.

She picked up the faint whir of an airship. Fearing the worst, she dragged herself over to her friend's side, resting her head on his shoulder.

Rather than drop another round of explosives, this airship came to a gentle landing. The passenger door opened. A shadowy figure from inside the ship took form as it walked into the light with a collected, prideful stride.

"Oh, Mercury," Cinder said condescendingly. "I was really looking forward to this mission being a success. Poor Neo, she did what she needed to, and you failed on your part. You failed her."

Mercury couldn't find the strength to look at Cinder. Instead, he looked up at the sky. "It won't happen again, Boss, I promise."

"Promises are meaningless. You should know that."

For a moment, the only sound that could be heard was the rain.

"Like when you promised you would never fail me," Cinder continued. "Come on, Neo. We're going home. Leave your useless teammate here."

Neo ignored orders and hung on to her friend.

"Neo, I order you to come with me."

Same response.

Neo turned her head as Mercury began to whisper to her. She nodded multiple times, tightening her hug as Mercury fell silent.

Cinder waited a minute to confirm what she assumed was happening. "Okay, Neo, he's dead. Now get up and—"

She was interrupted by a faint sob.

"Neo, enough," she ordered. She grabbed her subordinate and forcefully tore her away from the body of her teammate. Neo couldn't find the energy to fight back. There would be more missions ahead, a new teammate, another person to befriend and likely lose. It was too often she forgot that anyone she worked with was simply a pawn on Cinder's chessboard - A piece that had little value and would not be missed.