"Renee!"
The woman standing alone by the traffic signal looks up, spying the man that sits next to her in class. Her lips curl into a smile as she greets him. "Hello there, Connor."
Conner stops once in front of her, bending over and panting. "Whew, I haven't run so fast in a while."
Renee glances at the traffic signal, which still has a dozen seconds left on it. "It's not like it was any great rush."
Conner straightens up and puts his usual dopey grin on his face. "Of course it was! Every second away from you is one too many!"
Renee's eye twitches slightly, but she keeps the smile on her face. "I see. The light is about to turn, we should get going."
Connor straightens up, tugging on his bag strap to hike the bag up a little higher. "So, what do you think the class is going to cover today? I bet we're going to be talking about the fourier transform."
"That is the next item on the agenda." Renee nods along with him as they walk across the street, an eye peeled for any traffic not paying quite enough attention. "Though, I'm not sure I quite grasp the Legendre polynomials yet, so I hope we're still going to cover them for at least one more class."
Connor barks out a laugh. "Right, and if you're having trouble the rest of the class has no chance! C'mon, it'll be fine."
Renee appears to ponder this for a second. "I suppose."
Conner's smile dims and he starts to drum his fingers in the air as he walks, lips pursed in concentration. "S-say, Renee, would you be up for-"
"Hey sis."
Renee looks away from the boy to see her sister is standing in the shadows, her bright pink dyed hair in stark contrast to her hostile expression. "Oh, good morning Phoebe."
Phoebe eyes Connor for a second before stepping closer to Renee. "We've got new orders."
Renee's smile completely leaves her face. "Seriously?"
"Yeah. HQ is gonna send us a message later." Phoebe leans back and crosses her arms. "So yeah, dinner's at eight."
"Thanks for telling me." Renee nods, smile back in place. "Well, I'll see you then!"
Phoebe turns away and disappears back into the shop she had been lurking in.
"I didn't know you had a sister." Conner stares after Phoebe, even as Renee continues walking down the street.
"I have a few sisters, actually." Renee carefully keeps her face neutral.
"Oh? Do they all go to college here?"
"...Not all of them." Renee looks away, hoping that for once Connor will get the hint.
Unfortunately, it's not in the cards today. "Dang, I was hoping to meet them."
"I'm fairly sure you wouldn't get along with them. I'm the most sociable, as it turned out."
"Huh." Conner once more purses his lips in thought.
Renee's eyes carefully slide over to watch his face. He's not going to try to ask her out again, is he? They've just arrived at the classroom, and she really doesn't want to have to deal with his advances right now.
"Well…" Connor deflates slightly. "I guess we'll have to talk later?"
"I suppose." Renee nods.
Class is boring, the professor going over math so banal Renee could probably complete it in sleep mode. Math, not even particularly difficult math, and the loser sitting beside her in a vain attempt to get close to her is struggling already.
Renee almost actually dozes off before the lecture ends, and only stops doodling when Conner turns to her.
She bolts to her feet, grabbing her stuff. "I-I'm sorry! I have something to do!"
Connor blinks, hand still outstretched even as she exits the room in a hurry.
Renee's sharp hearing catches one of Connor's friends snorting in laughter. "Damn bro, you might want to learn to take a hint!"
If only. He's been a sore on her side since the semester started, trying to get closer to her.
"College isn't a dating sim." She grumbles under her breath as she steps into the sunlit outdoors, stretching her arms out to catch a few moments of warmth before she moves on to another building, hopefully without Connor noticing.
Before she can find a decent destination, a pair of unfamiliar faces turn to look at her.
The two, a pair of silver-haired sisters, glance at each other once before the taller one waves and calls out.
"Hallo!"
German. Renee sighs internally. Germans are always a pain in the-
"Wo befindet sich der Bahnhof?"
Where is the train station? They must be tourists… right?
Renee smiles once more. "Es ist die Straße runter." She points down the street.
"Danke." The tall one bows her head politely.
"Bitte." Renee turns away, only to have the younger sister grab her jacket and tug on it a few times.
Renee looks down at the child with a questioning look, only to find a stroopwafel is being offered. She takes it gingerly, the beaming smile of the young girl revealed as the treat is accepted.
The two gather their belongings quickly and disappear down the road, quickly getting lost in the crowd as Renee tries to track them.
Funny, they don't get many foreign visitors here at the Kryuger school of Rossness. It's not a particularly well known place, nor has it got anything particularly special going on.
Renee's eyes narrow unconsciously. Well, nothing really for normal people.
She decides on the library as her new spot to avoid Connor, resolving to open her textbook for once.
Eight PM. A pretentious person would write it down as "2000" to look smart, only to make a fool of himself.
Renee scribbles in her notebook a bit, flipping back and forth between the military standard she assumes is more appropriate for reports and what is clearly the better format.
"Renee, you seriously need to calm down."
She looks up to see her sister, Phoebe, is looking down the sight of her rifle. An AR-15 carefully zeroed to rival some sniper rifles, she continues to test the wind and check humidity to mentall calculate her shot.
There's only going to be one chance for this to work.
"Yeah, we're gonna be up here for hours." Candice rolls around on the spare mattress that the last owner of the house had so graciously left behind. "If Renee's on edge the entire time I might pull all of my hair out!"
"It'd get rid of your awful bleach job." Phoebe snaps back.
"Hey!" Candice bolts upright. "I thought you liked it! You said it looks good!"
"I said that your boyfriend would like it. Need I remind you of his taste in art?"
Renee sighs. "Candice, your hair is fine. Phoebe, please just concentrate?"
"There's nothing to do." Phoebe fixes her glare on Renee. "I've gotten everything checked a few times over. Now we just have to wait for the right time."
"When is that?" Candice rummages around in her backpack to find a snack, withdrawing a bag of cookies.
"Didn't you pay attention to the briefing?" Renee eyes her older sister. As the youngest, you'd expect her to be the most easy going, but she has found herself in charge more often than not nowadays.
"Nope!"
"It's… we've got to kill the scientist who's about to go onstage. He's about to reveal the existence of a very secret document and if we let him, who knows how much harm he'll do to the world."
"And we haven't just planted a bomb, because…?" Candice rolls over again, coming dangerously close to the edge of the bed.
"Too many civs in the blast zone. I know you don't care, but some of my friends are humans and I'd like to see them in class tomorrow." Phoebe once more lies down behind her rifle and sights in on the open air stage that the scientist would shortly be ascending.
"Feh. If they can't survive a few grenades, who needs them?" Candice crosses her arms.
Quietly, Renee wonders who her boyfriend is if not a human. Maybe she should figure out a bit more about her sister's life sometime soon.
There's a knock on the door and Renee grabs her own weapon, an RO 635, and walks over to the door.
"Password?"
"Rain goes upwards in the steam."
Renee opens the door to let her last sister inside.
Jenny sets two bags of chinese food on the table. "I brought food!"
Candice springs to her feet. "Oh boy!"
"Uh, the show is starting." Phoebe calls out as her sisters get distracted.
"Mmm." Renee turns back and starts watching the stage. Indeed, the professor has walked on stage and is currently being applauded.
She offers the pink-haired sister the box of sweet-and-sour chickens she had picked up, and Phoebetakes one, pops it in her mouth and continues to adjust the sight.
"Got a shot?"
"Yep. 'Wait until he's in the middle of his speech, and fire at him then,' yeah?"
"You got it."
Candice once more flops down into the bed, this time with chopsticks and a box of lo mein in her hands. "So fuckin' boring!"
"For now." Jenny's voice is, as usual, quiet. "I like it peaceful."
"Thirty seconds." Phoebe announces.
Renee closes up the box she's holding, lies down beside her sister and picks up the binoculars before confirming the range and windage of the target.
"Jenny, Candice, be prepared to intercept."
Candice perks up. "Okay!"
"Let's hope it doesn't come to that." Jenny taps her gun case unconsciously.
"Fifteen."
Renee focuses her binoculars on the target, but her eyes wander around slightly. The crowd is as rowdy as usual, but something is up. It's clawing at her mind, but-
There.
Her eyes snap to two individuals in the crowd, a pair of women that are similar enough to be twins. They wear their hair differently from each other, but even at this distance she can see they have strikingly similar features.
They're nowhere near each other in the crowd, and are both pushing forward with practiced coordination.
"We've got trouble."
"Just take the shot." Jenny's gentle voice hardens.
Beside Renee, Phoebe takes a breath and holds it in.
Then her rifle jerks, a loud cough emanates from the end of the gun, and the bullet is on its way.
The round cuts through the air, straight and true-
At the last moment, a knife flies through the air and intercepts the bullet, knocking the small metal projectile just off course enough for the bullet to bury itself in the floor past the target instead of his temple.
For a moment, Renee has to sit there and replay the events in her mind, attempting to figure out what just happened.
Phoebe exhales sharply before puffing herself back up for a second shot.
The rifle reports, and this round is blocked by a suitcase, likely made of bulletproof fabric, being shoved into view at the last second.
Renee continues to watch through the binoculars as the twins run up and stage, say something to the professor, and start escorting him off stage.
Phoebe curses and prepares a third shot, but Renee holds out a hand to stop her.
One of the twins is glancing around at the stage they are rapidly evacuating from, eyes flicking this way and that. Eventually, they stop on a target.
This room.
"We need to go." Renee practically jumps to her feet. "They know where we are."
Candice's eyes go wide. "TIme to rip and tear?!"
"No, time to scatter." Jenny tosses all of the food back into the back. The less evidence left behind the better. "Meet back up at location Delta in five."
"Roger!"
The next day, having successfully dodged the twins, Renee is trying to calmly enjoy an apple before class starts. The skin of the apple is tough, a product of a poor harvest this year, and she has to consciously chew it small enough to imitate the humans around her.
Still, her mind is elsewhere, her first botched job weighing heavily on her mind. Up until recently, they hadn't had any trouble…
She hates to admit it even to herself, but the group hadn't been the same since Jackie left.
"Good morning, class." The teacher calls out, drawing attention to the front. "I've got a surprise for you! We've got a woman transferring to your class today. She doesn't speak much English, but I hope you will be accommodating. She's also brought her sister along."
Renee's internal warning bells go off as she watches the teacher walk to the classroom door and open it, revealing…
Oh, those silver-haired people from yesterday.
Renee relaxes slightly.
The teacher looks around and gestures to the seat beside Renee. "Why don't you take that seat? I'm sure Renee can teach you what you missed so far."
The older woman nods and gracefully walks up to Renee. "T… Tank you for yesturday." She makes out. "Look forward to talking."
Her broken english is actually pretty cute, to be honest.
"...Likewise." Renee put on her best customer smile. "Let's get along." She offers her hand, and the other girl shakes it.
The younger sister walks up as well, but ignores the rest of the world, folds her arms, and goes to sleep on the long desk.
Renee watches this all with mild amusement.
Class proceeds roughly as normal but Renee has to assist this new girl who introduced herself as Petra a few times, making the day slightly different. By the end of class, they had developed a rudimentary form of communication between each other, and Renee was almost enjoying herself.
A harsh wake up call came just after leaving the room, as Petra decided to ask Renee to follow her, and when Renee complied she was led out of the building and straight towards a set of face she really didn't want to see.
The twins from last night.
One of them looks over, eyes lighting up in recognition as Renee's face escapes her careful control for a split second.
Petra and the twin talk to each other in German, much too fast for Renee to properly follow, before the twin turns to face Renee.
"So, it looks like I've found a new friend!" She calls out, skipping over and throwing her arm around Renee's neck. "I can't wait to talk about all kinds of stuff!"
She leans in, her voice lowering to a whisper. "Like, who the fuck you think you are."
"I could ask you the same thing." Renee growls.
"Mmm… Yes, but I asked first."
Renee feels the arm around her neck starting to tighten, and decided that avoiding conflict is probably best while she doesn't have backup. "I'm Renee. Nice to mett you, Ms…?
"Just call me Ingrid." The twin smirks. "Also, I have a present for you."
"You do?" Renee braces to fight her way out.
"Mmhmm! Check Cypress hall, room 409, and you'll find your target. We're done with him, so have fun~!"
Renee blinks, but Ingrid has released her hold and seems to be completely ignoring the others. Once she rendezvous with her friends, they all wander away once more talking in German.
Later that night, the two women break into the room indicated by Ingrid. Renee and Phoebe carefully sneak up the staircase and into the fourth floor.
Renee hadn't been sure what to find, but fairly far down the list was what she eventually found.
Their target had been stripped naked, hung from the ceiling by his wrists, and whipped hard. He's missing several teeth, and one of his eyes is pure black and swollen shut.
He's unconscious when they find him.
"...we're too late." Phoebe moans. "You said that German chick got to him?"
"Yes."
"Well then, they probably got everything out of him already."
"...Probably."
"Well, nothing for it." Phoebe draws her gun once more. "We'll put him out of his misery, and we'll have to hope he didn't say anything about it."
"Mmm."
Renee sits back on her heels as Phoebe lines up a shot and ends the hanging man's life, ending his existence with hardly a thought.
"Let's go." Phoebe packs up her AR-15. "What are you waiting for?"
"...Nothing." Renee straightens herself up and they walk out the door.
Tomorrow, there will be news about an esteemed professor's death.
In the coming months, it would become just another footnote in the history books.