"There are better ways of committing suicide, you know..." a voice whispered gravely, coming from a bush deep in a forest. The sun was setting into the distance behind the trees, casting an orange glow over the terrain. The golden leaves rustled slightly.
"Would you shut up?" another answered, both obviously female and both obviously irritated.
"Why? Just because I care about our lives?" the first voice hissed angrily as though offended. The second just sighed and two camouflaged bodies came out of the brush of the woods, brown and black paint on their faces and bodies, black tank tops hugging their slender torsos tightly, their hair tucked under green helmets and army-issued, baggy forest pants on. They were hardly noticeable against their surroundings, which was the point for the moment, of course. One of them had a staff and the other was clutching two black pistols in her fist.
"A mission is a mission, Sally... you and I both know that." Elizabeth sighed, crawling on her belly across the forest floor and not looking over at her partner, who was growing more annoying by the second. WHY was I put with her? HER of all people?
"How do we even know there's a base here…? I mean dispatching two of us to come check it out all, hundreds of miles from any backup, on account of some rumor is a little much don't you think? Especially for you... we all know how valuable YOU are to the Garden, Miss. Andros." Sally whispered sarcastically in reply. Elizabeth kept moving, crawling on her elbows to avoid being seen and licking at some of the paint that was on her lips. It tasted bad and she spit it into the grass around them.
"Look... if the base is here, this is where the missiles are. Our job is to find those missiles no matter what... and if Squall thinks it's here then... so be it." Liz explained to her gruffly, starting to pant with the effort of moving across the rough ground. Sally just sighed and kept moving, her polished fingers strumming idly on her staff. After a few moments, Liz spoke again, her voice quieter. "Judging by the coordinates that they gave me it should be around here somewh-"
"Why would they put a Galbadian Missile Base in the middle of an old chocobo forest...?" Sally's high-pitched voice got louder. "Squall has lost his mind... I mean, we've been crawling for miles and we've seen no trace of anyth- SHIT!" a gunshot rang through the air, piercing the silence and her words. A bullet barely missed Liz's hand, firing straight into the ground by her wrist. Rolling over onto her back, she aimed and fired at the source and a Galbadian fell from the tree right above them like a rotten fruit. For a moment, both of them were silent as they waited to see if there were more soldiers staked around them. In this time, Andros' dark brown eyes darted around from her position on her back and studied what seemed like every leaf in the canopy of the forest, fingers stroking the triggers of her pistols. After about thirty seconds, they both let out a sigh as though they had been holding their breath the whole time.
"There will be more on guard the closer we get; assuming no one heard the gunshots, of course..." Liz said, standing up. "Might as well walk. If they're looking for us then hiding under a bush won't save us." Sally stood up as well, quite ruffled that her cohort had been correct; there WAS a base in this forest somewhere.
Elizabeth had specifically ordered that the bright blond haired girl beside her was to stand watch and give her updates on who was going in and leaving the place and that Elizabeth be the one to search the Galbadian command center. The young woman couldn't tell if it bothered Sally that she was getting most of the action, nor did she care all that much; although she did hear soft grumblings from her partner on the boat about how she wasn't trained to be a stupid 'lookout'.
A few strands of the gunner's dark copper hair fell out from under her helmet, sticking on her dark face paint and itching bad. Liz longed to brush it aside but didn't want to smear the paint on her face. It was cold, and chill bumps prickled on her pale skin since she was only in a tank top to allow better movement should she need to run.
Both of them were dressed so alike that the only way to really tell them apart was by their weapons. On both of their belts were various assortments of knives, ammo, lock picks, flashlights, and tiny digital cameras to take photos if needed. Of course, Elizabeth thought all of this was a waste of time. Her style of invasion was simple, go in, shoot like crazy, kill a mess load of people and come out victorious. She had never been caught in her years working under Cid, and at Balamb, she was considered one of the best at infiltrating enemy bases and buildings. Andros had everything needed: the stealth for hiding, the speed to outrun, the nimble fingers to steal documents or weapons and if needed, the accurate eyes to kill enemies at over three hundred yards. It was painfully obvious she knew she was the best by her carriage. So obvious, in fact, that Sally was disgusted by her cockiness. Then again, Elizabeth was disgusted by Sally's promiscuity.
After about another hour of walking the sun went down, and it was no longer possible to see very far in front of them. Sally made sure that Liz was aware of this fact. "We could be walking right into the damn building and not know it, Andros."
"The darker it is, the easier it is to hide, right?" she snarled in reply.
"I don't hide from anything!" the voice shot back.
"Then shut up." Liz commanded quietly.
"Who made YOU commander of this mission!" Sally half yelled, startling the darkness and the woods around them. In an instant, she was grabbed by the scruff of the neck with one of Liz's rough hands and slammed against a tree, boots barely touching the ground. She had tested Elizabeth's patience to its edge and the next second she had the end of a pistol into her temple.
"My trigger finger, you annoying excuse for a SeeD..." Liz whispered, half to shut her up, half to intimidate her. Sally choked on her breath since the fingers around her neck were squeezing rather tightly, but Liz let her go and she fell into a heap onto the ground. "I don't have time for this... go back to the Garden if you want..." she hissed as Sally picked herself up off the ground and huffed angrily.
"You... you... bitch!" she sputtered. Liz stopped dead in her tracks and turned around, her face unhurt by the comment and a deceptively pleasant smile gracing her lips.
"The one and only. You going or staying?"
"Fine... deal with the Galbadians on your own! I'll laugh when we get reports that you've been beheaded or something."
"You'd better go before I behead YOU." Liz shot back and with that, the girl was lost in the darkness and out of her hair. Savoring the silence, she holstered her gun and kept walking deeper into the night. The loss of her only aide didn't seem to bother her too much. In fact, she seemed rather relieved to be by herself. Liz worked better without partners anyway... or so she thought. Jasmine was one of the few exceptions, but she was dead, wasn't she?
Liz never had been one to have many friends, her stubbornness and unwillingness to cooperate was the main reason of this. But still, she had never fought with a fellow SeeD before, especially over a mission. Oh well... it's about time she learned her place, and it's far under me.
Hardly a half hour later, she heard voices in the distance and dropping silently to all fours, she felt a decline in the ground as she crawled towards the source. Traveling until she was near them, near enough to understand the words coming from the voices, she hid behind some bushes and saw that there was a large valley cutting straight into the cliff face and right in the middle of it was a square, metal building gleaming in the moonlight. The Galbadian base. A delicious chicken just waiting for her expert fingers to pluck. A smile dawned on her lips, as she remained well hidden in the darkness.
As always before starting her mission, she laid out her plan one more time and recited in her mind the orders that had come from Squall himself.
"You have to take out that base, or else we're sitting ducks. You must succeed; all of Garden is counting on you. Be careful. Dismissed."
Liz chuckled lightly. Careful wasn't in her vocabulary. She didn't need the word.
Following the edge of canyon surrounding the base, she found the back of the boxlike building and surveyed her surroundings. There were snipers on the roof and soldiers on the ground. Sneaking in looked impossible. For most people, anyway. She was confident in her camouflage that it would protect her well, plus the moon was in such a position that shadows covered the landscape between her and the target of her mission.
Her dark silhouette slipped quietly out of the forest, her pistols holstered and her finger searching her belt to withdraw a silver switchblade as her back hit the side of the building softly. Making her way to a corner, she peered around and saw a Galbadian Grunt patrolling the perimeter. When he turned his back she turned the corner and snuck up on him silently, knees bent and suddenly threw her hand over his mouth and with the switchblade, slashed his throat.
A sickening gargle came from his lips and she released him to collapse by her feet. She wiped the blood off of her blade on her pants quickly and knelt down to take off the man's dog tags, not even bothering to read the name. Why should she? Casualties were of no consequence to her. Liz put the two identical necklaces around her neck and quickly changed into the now deceased soldier's uniform. Now the Galbadians would recognize her as one of them so long as no one got close enough to see the soldier's name.
She slipped the helmet on her head, tucking her coppery hair under the helmet and frowned at the lack of visibility. Yes, it WAS helpful that she had infrared, UV, and light amplification equipment built right into her helmet, but it also cut her off from her own dark as coal eyes, the sense which she relied on the most
Dew was starting to sparkle in the silver moonlight as she hid the dead body and took his place patrolling. She marched along the perimeter of the building until finding the entrance of it, and then she calmly slipped inside, nodding a friendly greeting to the soldiers stationed to guard the automatic doors. Inside all that she saw was a long, narrow, dark hallway. The walls were all made of steel and the only lights were hanging high on the wall every dozen feet or so and glowing a menacing red. A few privates walked lazily up and down the corridor and she could see that it forked a few times farther down.
The hardest part was using her helmet's optics to scan the surroundings without actually appearing to search and look suspicious. She relaxed herself to fit in as much as possible until she could find the room she needed to continue with her mission. Elizabeth walked, talked, looked, acted, and felt like a Galbadian.
Liz realized one very small problem with her plan at this point. She passed by a Galbadian female soldier who was wearing a half jacket, camisole and the shortest shorts she had ever seen, which hid very little from the hungry eyes of the men on base. She briefly considered killing the female soldier she passed, but with other soldiers around, it would be too dangerous, she would have to play a male.
Her lips curved into a very tight smile. It was hard to decide: was she a hen in a fox's cave, or was she a fox in the hen house?