Fated Destiny Book Three

by FatedWriter

In the year 2025 Chaldea Security Organization has completed the Second Grand Order postponing Humanities destruction yet again. With the second singularity completed, they still have more questions than answers. While new faces join Chaldea to bolster their cause, there are those among the organization who are plotting its downfall. Will the group uncover who is behind everything?

12. Chapter Twelve Alaskan Heist

Chapter Twelve

The Alaskan Heist

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Lying somewhere deep in the lush forests of Alaska, sat an all white building that blended in with the Alaskan blizzard currently raging. Nothing particularly interesting stood about said building, it was an ordinary looking building made out of white concrete with ordinary looking doors and small window slits not large enough for man nor woman to squeeze through. A boundary fence surrounded the property and upon close examination one could see the sparks occasionally jump from the bristling barb wire. The building was accompanied by a paved parking lot and small helipad used to ship in cargo. To the naked eye it look like an ordinary quiet building out in the middle of nowhere, albeit a bit strange, but nonetheless ordinary. While the building itself was nothing out of the ordinary, what it housed inside was far from ordinary however….

Reaching up, my fingers gripped the siding of the roof as I slowly pulled myself up the wall. All the while the below zero temperatures were nipping away at my face and frost was quite literally forming on my glasses. Even as I rested my elbow on the roof, I struggled to pull the rest of my body up, and it was then when I saw a gloved hand appear in front of my face as I looked forward. I looked up to see a smiling face of a young man looking down at me.

"Looks like you could use a hand brother." The man who was my brother said whilst somehow smiling in below freezing temperatures. I looked back down at his hand and reached out with my right hand grasping my brother's hand. A grunt escaped from my mouth as my brother pulled me up to my feet on top of the roof.

"Thank you Alex." I said as I pushed my glasses back up onto my nose before proceeding to dust the snow off of my jacket.

"No problem. Now let's get inside before my feet freeze to the ground." Alex aid as he rubbed his shoulders.

"I agree, but let's proceed with caution." I said nodding my head. "Breaching the perimeter was the easy part" I said as I walked past my brother and approached the skylights that looked down into the room below.

"You're always so serious Oliver." Alex said as I heard his footsteps approach from behind. "The client gave us the plans to this place so everything should go smooth so long as we stick to the plan." Alex said and paused for a moment. "However I suppose it pays to be cautious." Alex added as he knelt down next to me and peered through the skylight.

"What's being kept here is enough for security to shoot first and ask questions later. So of course it pays to be cautious." I said somewhat scolding my brother.

"Yeah, Yeah. You don't need to harp on me; I went over the plan at least a dozen times. I know what we're doing." Alex replied. "Everything's gonna be fine, your plans always go off without a hitch remember?" Alex said as he patted me on back before standing up and going around to the other side of the skylight.

"Yeah..."

I descended down the rope until my feet eventually touched down on the solid ground below; as soon as my feet touched the ground I looked around the room as my eyes slowly adjusted to the dark. Upon determining the coast was clear I gave the rope a tug, and a few moments passed by before my brother's silhouette descended down the rope and landed right next to me.

"See, I told you I could bypass the lock without setting off any alarms." Alex said with a grin on his face.

"I never doubted you couldn't in the first place." I replied.

"Uh huh." Alex replied. I looked up at the open skylight and firmly grasped the rope, giving it another strong tug where as the grapple came loose where it fell back down into my hand. Catching the grapple in my hand I secured the rope and grapple onto my waist for further use. All that was left now was to cover our tracks; I pulled on the secondary rope until I heard a click letting me know the skylight had locked back into place. With one final tug the loose rope came undone and fell to the ground at my feet where I picked it up and threw it into one of the dark corners of the room out of sight as it was no longer needed. I returned my attention back to my brother who was scanning the room cautiously.

"I don't see any signs of security, it seems pretty light." Alex said as his gaze returned back to me. "A little too light if I must say so myself, I was expecting like automated turrets or laser tripwires." Alex added.

"This is only the first floor, there are only few guards up front near the entrance." I said motioning my head towards the door leading towards the other room. "The real security is when we start going down." I said as I pointed at the ground.

"Yeah I know, too bad what we're looking for isn't in one of these boxes." Alex said with a nod of his head to the boxes and crates stacked in the middle of the room behind us.

"That would certainly make our job easy, however they wouldn't be paying us what they are if that was the case." I replied. "Now come on the next guard patrol coming through here should be happening any minute now." I said and my brother nodded his head.

With that the two of us rushed into the adjacent room stopping short of running straight into the middle of the room. My gaze scanned the room and saw much of the same that had been in the previous room. Boxes were stacked upon six shelves that lined the room. However what stood out in this room were the camera's adjacent of each other across the room. Each camera watched one side of the room so it was gonna be tricky trying to get past them. Luckily the shelves and boxes would work in our favor as they would block out the camera on the other side of the room. That still meant we had to deal with the camera facing the other direction, but it should be easy enough to slip past it. I turned to my brother and pointed towards the camera in the corner and he turned to face it before looking back at me with the nod of his head. With that my brother and I stood there for a moment peeking around the corner as we awaited and watched the camera do its sweep of the room. The seconds ticked by as we sat there and waited for the camera to turn, and as soon as the camera lens left our sight we rushed out from around the corner. I heard my brother's footsteps right behind me as I darted along the wall into the corner out of the camera's vision. As soon as I was in the safety of the corner I turned to see my brother crouching down right behind me. Or I should say I saw the outline of him and vaguely his face, since the both of us were dressed in all black gear.

"So what's the plan now Oliver, once the camera above us turns to face the direction we just came from we'll have to contend with the other camera once we move further down the room." Alex pointed out. I already knew that, but it was a valid point out nonetheless.

"Okay, the door to the elevator is on the other side of the room." I said pointing towards them. "But as I'm sure you recall from the plans there's a security room watching the entrance to the elevator and anyone who wants to go down that elevator is gonna need credentials and be subjected to a full scan." I said and my brother nodded his head.

"We'll they certainly aren't going to be letting a shady pair like us through, we don't fit the uptight professional look." Alex said with a chuckle. "Not to mention the turrets in that room would turn us into mince meat." Alex pointed out.

"Obviously." I said apathetic at the thought. "No we're not going to go through that way, and we can't break into the security room and take out the security, because the patrolling guard would find the body before we get what we came for." I said. "And as much as I hate to say it, I don't think that we'll be in and out fast enough before the guard woke up. So we can't take that risk." I added and my brother nodded in agreement.

"So we're going to go around right?" Alex added.

"Yes we're going to around, if you remember there's a ventilation shaft that leads around the security into the elevator shaft." I said pointing up ahead into the corner. "We should be able to squeeze through…" I added.

"What do you mean should be able to?" Alex inquired with a raised brow.

"Well unless of course you gained some weight that is." I said with a small smirk.

"Ha Ha very funny." Alex replied.

"Come on, let's get going." I said looking up at the camera above us. During the time we had been talking it had returned to facing the direction we needed to go. "Once the camera finishes its sweep and faces the other direction we make a break for it." I said as I looked back down at my brother who nodded his head in understanding. We sat there watching the camera slowly turn on its axis as the seconds ticked by….. The second the camera's field of vision finally left the area we needed to go, my brother and I sprinted out from the corner and scurried across the room along the shelf. It only took a few seconds before we had reached the end of the shelves and come to a stop. I peered out from behind the shelves to see the camera facing our direction, I pulled my back and looked to the corner where the air vent was supposed to be. In the place of where the vent was supposed to be stood a wooden crate. That would complicate things a little bit. I looked back over my shoulder to see the camera behind us slowly turning to face our way. Then I looked back at my brother who I could vaguely make out his eyes staring at me waiting for our next move. "There's a crate blocking the air vent."

"So what are we going to do?" Alex asked.

"The plans unchanged, but we're going to have to time this perfectly." I said in a calm manner. "We'll only have a split second before the camera's cone of vision is on us. In the split second that both cameras are facing away from the corner we need to make a dash for the corner. Once we get in the corner we need to start pushing the box out of the way and get inside the vent before the other camera turns towards the vent again." I relayed to my brother clearly.

"Got it." Alex said with a nod of his head.

"You watch the camera behind us and I'll watch this other camera." I said jerking my thumb back to the camera watching the vent. "The second the camera's vision leaves is away from us, I'm going to give you a pat on the shoulder. When that happens make a break for behind the box." I said and my brother once again nodded his head in acknowledgement. "The box and the shelves should keep us hidden from the camera behind us." I added as I placed my hand on my brother's shoulder. With that said we both proceeded to watch our respective cameras. I peered around the corner to see the camera already half way through its sweep of the area. I watched patiently as I waited for the camera to turn away from us. The seconds ticked by as I watched and I felt as a sweat drop rolled down my forehead before continuing on it's downward journey to Earth….. And then in that split second the camera was no longer facing us. I vigorously patted my brother on the shoulder before I brought myself forward out of cover and dashed straight for the corner. My feet carried me as fast they could and before I knew it I was at the corner. I ducked behind the box and turned around to face my brother who was right behind me, as my brother drew closer I reached out and pulled him into cover behind me. Wasting no time, I placed my shoulder against the box and the two of us started pushing the box forward inch by inch. It didn't take long before we pushed the box out of the way and revealed the air vent that had been hiding behind it. I gripped the bars on the vent cover and pulled on it. Much to my surprise it didn't budge and I looked down to see the air vent was bolted in place. I guess I shouldn't really be surprised though.

"Alex quick I need a screwdriver." I ordered as I turned to face my brother. My brother nodded his head and reached into his bag searching for what I had requested. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the camera beginning to turn this way. I held out my hand impatient and it was a second or two before Alex placed the screwdriver in my open palm. I quickly got to work as I reached down and begun to unscrew the screws keeping the cover in place. We didn't have much time before the camera was facing our way, so I needed to make this quick. Just as I finished that thought I had unscrewed the first screw and was already moving onto the second one. I twisted the screwdriver as fast as I could all the while I felt sweat rolling off my brows.

"Brother the camera…." Alex exclaimed before I cut him off with a raised hand.

"Yeah I know…. Just a second." I murmured. The clock was ticking as I moved onto the third screw and finally the fourth to last screw. As the sweat dripped off of my face the final screw plopped out and onto the ground. With that I gripped the bars of the vent for a second time and pulled on it. This time the vent pulled upwards revealing the dark and cramped ventilation shaft. "Got it, now come on and get inside!" I said as I stepped to the side. Alex brushed past me as he hurried inside with me bringing up the rear as I followed closely behind him. Once inside I spun around and pulled down the cover to the ventilation shaft just as I saw the camera turn to face our direction. We had barely gotten in on time; if we had taken even a second longer we would have been caught. With that challenge behind us I turned around and followed my brother further into the belly of the beast…

The vent was dark and cramped with only enough room for an average height female to crouch walk through it. Unfortunately for my brother neither one of us were average female height so we had to crawl on all fours through the metal vent. I followed behind my brother who was leading us through, with his headlamp illuminating the way forward. There wasn't much to be said as we crawled through the vent so I only followed him silently; eventually we reached a turn in the road. We rounded the corner and from what I could see it was a straight path forward until the next turn. Upon rounding the corner I was hit by a cool breeze from behind and I looked over my shoulder to see a fan blowing behind us. I cursed under my breath and gritted my teeth as I continued forward. "We were already in Alaska. I don't know why they had the fans running when it was already 30 below outside." I thought to myself as I continued crawling forward. It didn't help that the walls and floors of the vent were made out of metal so it was my hands and knees were getting frostbite. Eventually we reached the end of the corridor and turned left, as we rounded the corner we were greeted by a dim light at the end of the shaft. No doubt leading us out into the elevator shaft and out of this freezing cramped vent. Reaching the end of the shaft my brother spun his body around before putting his foot up to the vent cover. Alex gave the vent several heavy kicks before it came off of its screws and flew off. Alex climbed out of the vent and I followed soon afterwards. We came out onto a catwalk that lined the circular elevator shaft, the elevator sat still on this floor held up by the cables that were above. There was minimum lighting in the elevator shaft, but I guess that was better than no lighting at all.

"Looks like the blueprints we were given were accurate, this did lead into the elevator shaft." I said as I looked around. Just then I heard a whistle and I looked to my side to see my brother looking over the railings.

"That's quite the drop…." Alex said as he finished his whistling whilst looking down the elevator shaft.

"Just don't slip and you'll be fine." I said as I gave my brother a heavy pat on the back which gave him quite the scare as he tightly gripped railing. I turned around with a chuckle and reached out and grasped the ladder on the side of the elevator beginning to climb upwards.

"That's not funny; I really could have fell over the edge!" Alex exclaimed from behind.

"If you had, you would have been fine. Your thick skull would have cushioned the fall." I said with a chuckle. Just then as I was climbing up the ladder I felt my foot slip and my body slammed against the elevator with an oof. I dangled from the side of the ladder for a moment before regaining my footing.

"HA, that's karma for what you said brother." Alex exclaimed from behind.

"Don't be ridiculous, I just lost my footing that's all…" I murmured and continued my ascent up the ladder. "That was a little too close, had I lost my grip this mission might be over before it even began." I thought to myself. Eventually I reached the top of the elevator and carefully made my way around the cables over to the hatch. Behind me I heard my brother's footsteps as he climbed on top behind me. Whilst my brother made his way over to where I was, I reached down grasping the latch to the hatch and pulled down on it. With the latch pulled back, the hatch fell inwards. I peered inside the elevator to make sure the coast was clear before I dropped down. Once inside I observed my surroundings, the entire elevator was painted white with lights illuminating the inside of the cabin. The doors to the elevator were clear glass with a fancy LCD panel off to the side. I heard my brother drop down behind me and was then followed by a whistle.

"This elevator itself looks cleaner than most hospitals I've been too." Alex said as his eyes wandered around the elevator.

"When have you ever been to a hospital in the first place?" I asked looking over my shoulder at him inquisitively.

"All I'm saying is there sure like their cleanliness don't they? And I'll have you know I have been to one a few times." Alex replied and I narrowed my eyes at him. "Some chemical needs here and there along with the occasional outfits needed." Alex added.

"I don't even want to know…" I said as I returned my gaze forward. I made my over towards the LCD panel where a logo rotated on the screen. It disappeared once I tapped on the screen and was replaced by a keypad.

"Hey where else am I supposed to get some of the chemicals we need for our jobs!" Alex exclaimed.

"I said I don't want to know." I said with a raise of my hand cutting him off. I was searching through my bag for the code I was given. After a few moments I found what I was looking for, a small black book containing all my notes from over the years. It was then when I felt prying eyes looking over my shoulder.

"Are you sure these codes they gave us are going to even work?" Alex inquired before I could react. I glanced over my shoulder at him and then back at my notebook, where I proceeded to open it and flip through the pages.

"I don't see why not, so far everything they've given us has been accurate." I said as I finally flipped to the page containing the code to the elevator. I looked up at the keypad and proceeded to start punching the code into the keypad on the LCD.

"I'm just saying, this is one of the biggest jobs we've ever undertaken. It's just a little odd that our contractor has all of this inside information." Alex pointed out. "On top of the fact that this is the Mage Association's attack dog that we're dealing with, they aren't exactly the type who fucks around when it comes to the cutting edge technology." Alex added.

"It's not our job to question the contractor, just to do what they asked us to do. If they give us help I'm not one to say No, but if they don't we'll still do the job without it. Had they not given us this elevator code we would have just repelled down the elevator." I said just as I finished punching in the last digit on the screen. The screen turned green with a check mark letting me know the code was correct and I proceeded to tap the lower levels option on the screen. "See you're just being paranoid Brother." I said turning back to face him. A silent buzzing filled our ears as the elevator shifted down and began its descent.

"If you say so…." Alex murmured with the cross of his arms as the elevator descended…

A few minutes had passed as we rode the elevator to the bottom. I stood in the back of the elevator going over the floor plans in my head one more time; my thoughts were suddenly interrupted however by a gasp. My brother rushed to press his face against the glass as the elevator came out into the open of a massive white and grey room. What was laid before us was a room the size of a warehouse that stretched back at least half a football field. Aisles upon aisle of shelves lined the room, each one of them filled with boxes containing artifacts or magical items that would make a school girl at the Mage's Association scream with glee. Even up here one could also make the patrolling security guards by the lights beaming from their flashlights, and that was only the security visible to the naked eye. That didn't account for the cameras, turrets, lasers, and whatever magic had been set up.

"Man this place is even more massive than I imagined…." Alex murmured. "And we have to try and find something in that maze?" Alex added.

"What we came here for won't be out on the shelves, it will be locked behind one of the many vaults." I said as I crossed my arms unfazed by our daunting task.

"Yeah, but that still won't make it any easier…." Alex said. "Which is why it will be all the more exciting to break into one of their vaults and take one of their prized artifacts right from under their noses." Alex said with an amused grin as he looked back at me. My brother wasn't fazed by our task either, but I think he got a thrill out of these things. "But I worry that one of these days that excitement will get the better out of him…." I thought to myself as I gazed out across the room at the large black symbol opposing us….

The elevator began to slow its descent as we had finally reached the end of our journey. Here on out things would get more difficult, but so long as we stuck to the plan we should be out of here in under an hour. Then again not everything went to plan so we had to be prepared for that. I pulled back my sleeve to look at my watch to check the time, we were ten minutes into the operation. I looked up at my brother as he looked up from his watch and nodded his head as I backed up into the corner and looked upwards to see the inner elevator shaft slowly passing by as the elevator slowed down. I reached up and grasped the bars to the elevator hatch and pulled myself up bar by bar until I reached the top and was pulling myself up on top of the elevator. I turned around in my place to see my brother climbing up behind me. I offered him my hand; he looked up at me and accepted my helping hand. I pulled him up on top of the elevator and proceeded to then pull the hatch up and I pulled the latch back thus locking the hatch into place. My brother and I then sat there crouched as we tried to maintain our balance on top of the descending elevator until it finally came to a stand still. We sat there motionless for a few seconds before we heard a ding and the sound of the elevator doors sliding open.

"Huh?" The noise of someone making a confused sound was heard and then followed up by the sound of footsteps below us. "There's no one inside? That's odd." A Male voice said.

"Must have been a glitch in the system, log it and let's move on." Another male voice said.

"Right… That's odd though..." The first male voice said. A few moments passed by before the sounds of footsteps was heard and gradually got farther away until we could no longer hear them anymore. My brother and I climbed down the elevator until our feet touched down on the catwalk below us. I looked around until my eyes landed on another ventilation vent and I walked over to it where I crouched down. Once down on my knees I peered through the vents to see what was happening on the other side of the wall. The answer was: Not much. There was not much activity outside of the elevator, with the exception of two guards who had their back to the elevator looking out over the floor of the warehouse. "Not very smart if you ask me, to have your back to the one entry point into here. However I was not one to let others stupidity go to waste." I thought to myself. It was only a few moments before I had the vent cover off, and I lifted it carefully up and crouch walked forward with it in hand until I was out of the vent and once out I turned around to put it off to the side of the vent entrance. With that taken care of I ducked behind a crate looking around my surroundings. The area the elevator exited out into was a small room that opened out into the warehouse, the room itself was painted grey with a few lights illuminating it. There was an unattended desk and some sofas lined the walls with plants, it seemed like a reception area or lounge. Behind me I heard my brother exit the vent and it only took a moment before he was right next to me surveying the surroundings like I was. I ducked back behind the box and Alex followed suit right after as we prepared to make our move. My brother's brown eyes looking at me as he waited for my instructions.

"Okay there's two guards blocking our only way forward. So it looks like we'll have to take them out. We'll take them at the same time." I said and my brother nodded his head in acknowledgement.

"Understood." Alex replied. With both of us in understanding we crept out from behind the box and slowly made our way across the room moving from cover to cover until we finally were upon the two unsuspecting guards. I looked over to my brother and I signaled him with a nod of my head. My brother nodded his head in return and I faced forward at the guard in front of me. I stood up and looked at the back of the guards head before I wrapped my arms around the guard's mouth and neck putting him in a chokehold. The guard instinctively placed his hands on my arm and tried to pull my arms off of him. I pulled back on him and dragged him into the room behind me. The guard continues to struggle as his hand went behind his head and tried to grasp at me, but it was all to no avail as their strength faded and his body went limp in my arms. I pulled him back further into the room until my back hit the wall and I let go of the body letting it fall down behind the same crates we had used as cover moments earlier. Upon making sure the body was out of sight I stepped over the unconscious guard and made my way over to my brother, along the way there I spotted a pair of light switches and flipped down passing by, throwing the room into darkness. I made my way over to my brother who was dragging his unconscious guard back into the darkness. As I approached my brother he turned and looked at me.

"Have any problems?" I asked.

"No she went down pretty easy." Alex said as he turned the knocked out woman over and showed her to me. The woman had dark brown hair that was up in a ponytail and an average build. She was wearing a white uniform with black skirt and matching leggings and knee high black boots. "She's got a pretty nice rack on her don't ya think?" Alex said as he squeezed her modest sized breast with a sly smirk.

"D-Don't sexually harass a woman who you just knocked out! Put her down!" I exclaimed.

"Alright, Alright. I'll put her down." Alex said with a sigh as he let her go and her body hit the ground with a thud. "Not like the people who work here really deserve to be shown any respect." Alex then murmured under his breath.

"Tch that doesn't matter. It's improper to do that to a lady and you can't claim to be better than them when you go and do things like that!" I said in a hushed tone as I threw up my hand.

"I've never claimed to be better than them, but fine whatever you say brother I won't go sexually harassing any more girls tonight." Alex said. "Anyway look at this, this chick was an officer so she's got some pretty high level clearance on her." Alex said as he waved her ID card in front of my face. "Tch even though my brother was a pervert, at least he was useful…." I thought to myself annoyed as I scratched my head in frustration.

"Hmm that should prove useful." I said as I brought my hand down and rubbed my chin. "Hold onto that, it should prove of use to you in your part of the mission." I said and my brother nodded his head slipping the ID card into his vest pocket. "Speaking of which this is where you and I will be splitting up, you know the plan. I'll head to the security station while you try and find Vault Hades. Once you find the vault hopefully I'll be inside the security center by then and I can bring down the security measures and open the vault." I said.

"Got it." Alex said with a nod of his head. My brother turned around and was about to head off before I stopped him. I looked over his shoulder at me in surprise.

"Be careful alright?" I said. My brother only smirked and nodded his head.

"You don't have to worry about me, I'm always careful." Alex said and I let go of his arm and he ran off down the catwalk. "I'll see you at the rendezvous point!" Alex said with a wave of his hand over his shoulder.

"See you there." I murmured under my breath as I watched him run off…

It had been a few minutes now since my brother and I had split ways. While my brother made his way through the maze that was the warehouse floor, I had made my way along the upper cat walks and was now making my way towards the security station. A pair of guards passed me as I hid in the shadows of a cutaway section of the wall where two vending machines were placed. I peered out from behind the vending machines and watched as the two guards disappeared around a corner. The guards had only gotten more beefier the further in I went, most of the guards I had seen from this point onward were packing heavy weapons and armor. So taking them out was out of the question, unless of course I wanted to alert the whole place. It was also for the best if we went through here without as little conflict as possible, that way there would be less evidence of us ever being here in the first place. I looked up the hall to make sure the coast was clear before I emerged from the cutout in the wall. I scurried down the hall hugging the wall whilst crouching; all the while doing my best to muffle the sound of my footsteps so I was not heard. I made my way down the hallway cautiously until I came upon a doorway and peered inside, there was nothing worth of note inside the room, and it was just an empty conference room. "However finding a conference room was a good sign, it meant I was heading in the right direction towards where the security center might be." I thought. So with that in mind I continued down the hall keeping to the shadows until I eventually came to the end. Once I had reached the end of the hallway I pressed up against the wall and peered around the corner. Around the corner was another hallway with doors lining the left hand side along with more cameras and at the other end appeared to lead to a parallel hallway, so there was no point to go down this hall. Off to my right however was a staircase leading up to the next floor which is where I needed to go if my memory served me correctly. I peered around the corner once more to check which way the cameras were facing before moving on. After waiting for a few moments for the camera to look the other way I strode across the hall towards the stairs. Just I was going up the first steps however; I heard the sounds of footsteps. My head shot up to see the shadows of two individuals on the wall overhead. "Shit more guards!" I thought to myself and my mind raced what to do. Should I fall back to my original position? There was the risk I could be spotted on the way back by the camera or I might not get into cover before the guards came down the stairs. It was then when I looked down and saw through the stairs that there was an area behind the staircase. I scurried back down the stairs and rounded the corner heading into the area behind the staircase. I took cover, ducking behind some boxes before I raised my head to see what was happening. Above me I heard the weight of their footsteps and after a few short moments passed and I saw their black boots through slits in the staircase. Eventually the rest of their backside was revealed to me as they came down the stairs. They were another pair of heavily armored guards wearing urbanized clothing and black body armor and helmets with automatic rifles. As the guards reached the bottom of the stairs they looked around for a moment.

"You seen that new AR-16?" One of the guards asked the other turning to him.

"Yeah some of the other guys were telling me about." The other guard said as he turned to respond. Eventually the two guards carried on down the hall still chatting about that new gun whilst I crept out from behind the boxes and made my way towards the stairs. I reached the stairs and looked towards the guards going down the hall.

"It seemed pretty nice from what I saw, it had a nice pistol grip on it along with good iron sights…." The guards were still talking about that new gun so they were paying little attention to their surroundings. With that I made my way up the stairs in long strides leaving them behind me…

My hand traced the railing as I emerged at the top of the staircase. Upon reaching the top and rounding the corner I was greeted by a spanning hallway with glass windows lining the right hand side of the wall. I crept forward and looked out the window; it overlooked much of the warehouse floor in its entirety. Even with my glasses everything was still too small to make out anything of importance. Somewhere down there in that maze was my brother as he searched for the vault containing what we had come here for. He might already be there by now, so that means I should hurry up. I turned around facing the hall and saw there was only one door in the entire hall. I moved away from the window and crept along the wall until I reached the singular door. Painted across the metal door in black bold letters was the word Security. This was the place! All I had to do now was get inside and then I can get into their system from here. I looked down at the panel next to the door and saw it was a three part system. I furrowed my eyebrows looking at it; it certainly wouldn't be easy, but not impossible. I wish that I had taken that ID card instead, that would have made my job a little bit easier. I looked back and forth to see that the coast was still clear, with that in mind I pulled my phone out of my pocket along with a cord and jacked the cord into an outlet in the bottom of the panel. I raised my phone up to my face and navigated the menus of my phone until I reached the app I was looking for. With a few taps of my finger the program began running as I looked back and forth for a few moments. When I returned my gaze to my phone the screen had turned green with a check mark and looking up the panel had also turned green. My own little program I invented to help when it came to decrypting passcodes and passwords. I pulled the cord out of the panel and returned my phone to its pocket. Next I pulled out a blank plastic card that had the same dimensions as most Identification cards had, as most ID cards were bought from the same place. So hopefully they were using the same plastic cards as everyone else. I held the card in between the palm of my hand and my thumb before I proceeded to close my eyes and think back. I thought back to when my brother held the card out in front of my face, concentrating on every single detail of the card. I felt the magic circuits in my arm begin to work and after a few moments of concentration I opened my eyes to see the exact copy of the card printed out onto my blank card as the magic circuits in my arm now went dark as I had finished casting the spell. It was a perfect replica if I do say so myself. I pressed the card up to the scanner and there was a beep along with a green flash underneath meaning it had been a success. I slipped the card back into my pocket and now that I was done with it, all that was left was the eye scanner. I pulled the glasses off from my face as I pulled out a container and flipped it open. Inside was a pair of contacts that I dropped into the palm of my hand. I lifted the contacts up to my eyes, putting them into my eyes one by one before blinking rapidly as the woman's retinal were now printed onto the contacts. It helped when I had photographic memory for these types of things. I pressed my eyes up to the eye scanner and held it there for a few moments… For a moment I thought it hadn't worked, but then I heard a metallic click and beep letting me know the door was now unlocked. I pulled back my face and quickly removed my contacts from my face and put them back into their container. Once my contacts were safely back into my vest jacket I reached out and pulled down on the door handle….

Inside was a well lit room with monitors that lined the eternity of the walls letting one see everything going on in the warehouse. There were two stations that monitored the screens and handled the security by the looks of things, however only one of the stations appeared to be manned tonight as one person was sitting with his back to the door at the station on the opposite side of the room. I closed the door carefully as I entered, however there was a metallic click as the door locked behind me. "Tch it couldn't be helped I guess." I thought to myself and looked forward. Surprisingly the guard hadn't turned around to face me, either he was hard of hearing or had chose not to pay it any mind. I slowly walked forward taking light steps as I made my way across the room the guard from behind. The guard still not taking his eyes off of his station, and it wasn't until I was a few feet behind him that I came to a stop...

"Hey Jim it took you long enough to get here." The Guard said over his shoulders. "I've been waiting for you to relieve me for the past hour." The Guard added.

"Yeah I'll relieve you now…" I said as I rose my hand up and my mana flowed through my magical circuits causing them to light up.

"Wait what you're not…!" The Guard exclaimed as he turned around to try and react, but it was already too late as I brought my hand down and chopped him in the neck. "Guck!" The guard murmured as he slumped out of the chair and fell down to the ground. With the guard taken care of I turned around and made my way over to the door where I pulled down a nearby cabinet to block the entrance. There was a loud crash, but I'd rather not risk anyone catching me off guard. I figured even if anyone had heard it, I should be out of here in two minutes tops. I rushed over to the computer where I plopped in the seat and spun around to face the computer. My hands instinctively went to the keyboard and mouse as I navigated the computer searching the list of vaults, it was not hard to find with Vault Hades being at the top of the list. I clicked on the Vault Hades and a popup window popped up asking for a password. I raised my hand up to my ear and pressed down on one of the buttons on my Bluetooth.

"Alex, you there?" I said and awaited for his response. A few moments passed by without response and I was starting to worry….

"What took you so long!?" Alex exclaimed into my ear. "I've already found the vault and I've been hiding here waiting for you to contact me!" Alex added before I could even reply.

"Sorry it took a bit longer than expected, but I've reached the control room now." I replied as I lowered my hand back to the keyboard.

"Well I'm standing outside of the Vault door now. You should see me on the camera now." Alex said and I looked up at all the screens, having no idea which screen was showing Vault Hades. After scanning the screens for long enough I found where my brother was as he jumped up and down in front of the camera facing the Square vault door with Hades painted overhead, waving at the camera. "Alright I see you now, so you can stop jumping around before you get noticed." I said and redirected my attention back to the computer in front of me.

"Nobody is around anyway so I doubt it, but whatever you say brother." Alex replied shrugging off my scolding. "Now do you have confirmation on whether or not what we came here for is actually inside?" Alex asked.

"No, I don't think I'll be able to see inside until I get access to the Vault." I replied.

"Well hurry up, even if there hasn't been a patrol that has come through here yet. I don't want to be standing out here when a patrol does come by." Alex said in an urgent tone.

"You don't need to tell me that, but it will take a few minutes to get in." I said as I reached into one of my vest pockets and pulled a USB out of my pocket and pulled off the cover of the drive before jacking it into one of the ports. I opened up the file explorer and from there I accessed my USB drive where I found two programs. I clicked on the first executive and a window popped up with my only little logo. Once the logo faded I was presented with the choice of scanning the computer and I clicked on it. A search bar popped up asking for what I was looking for and I leaned forward typing in the location of the files for Vault Hades. Immediately the program had begun its intrusion onto the servers and scanning the entirety of the network. It will take a while before the program has finished scanning for the related search criteria. I leaned back in my chair tapping my finger against the table as I waited for the results. A minute or two passed by before the program finished carrying out what it was designed to do and then a scrambled word popped up on the screen. It was a Hash, since nobody in their right mind would ever have their passwords in plain text form. It would also appear as if they were using salting here, but luckily our client gave me the salting that they used here so I matched my wordlist with the salting they are using here. I highlighted the scrambled word and held down control and x at the same time cutting the word out before I closed the program. I proceeded to the next program and clicked on it opening it. My logo opened up like last time and I waited until a bar with a blinking dash appeared where I pasted the scrambled word into the bar and then proceeded to click on the execute button. Before my eyes the program began its execution as going through the wordlist looking for a match of the hashes. If all else failed I would have to use a brute force attack, but that would take even more time. Depending on the password it could even take hours, but I really hoped it didn't come to that. We didn't have hours to waste. Speaking of which it was mighty convenient that our client knew the salting that they used here, which could only mean one of two things: The client had an inside source or they themselves worked for this Organization. It was suspicious either way you looked at it, but with how much they were paying we couldn't possibly refuse this job….

"Hey Oliver, how are things going on your end?" Alex asked suddenly jerking me out of my thoughts.

"Uh I've gotten the hash for the vault, but it's going to take a few to try and match it using my program. If worse passes though I might have to try and crack it via brute force and that'll take longer…." I explained to him.

"You say that like it's a bother, you have a program doing it for you." Alex replied.

"Hey I wrote the programs, do you seriously expect me to crack it all by myself?" I exclaimed into my Bluetooth.

"No I don't want to be here till morning…." Alex replied.

"Then be quiet." I said and felt myself impatiently tapping away at the desk. There were a few moments of silence before Alex spoke up again.

"Hey have you heard anything from Sarah?" Alex asked.

"Yeah she sent me her report card recently, she got A's and B's as expected." I replied.

"She always was the smart one of the three of us." Alex said with a sigh.

"Yeah and she's making a lot of friends." I said and I heard my brother let out another sigh.

"Man I wish I could be going to an all girl private school…." Alex said letting out a whimper.

"You would only sexually harass everyone!" I exclaimed and Alex let out a quiet snicker.

"Not everyone, Sarah would be safe." Alex said.

"That's hardly comforting….." I murmured as I rubbed my eyes. "...Hopefully this job should be enough to pay for a few more years of her school and dorm." I added.

"Yeah, but I'd like to visit her one of these days…." Alex said.

"Maybe when she finishes with school, but we can't let our little sister be bothered by her troublesome older brothers. We promised we would shelter her from the life we had and give her the one she deserves….." I said.

"I know, I know. I just sometimes wished Mom hadn't died and Dad getting arrested. Maybe then we could have had a normal life..." Alex murmured.

"Perhaps, but I don't think I can share in your optimism" I replied bitterly and before my brother could reply the screen in front of me lit up green. I looked up at the screen to see that there had been a match and now the password was written out in plain text form! "I got the password! Stand by as I enter the password." I said as I quickly scratched down the password on a nearby sticky note. Closing the program I found the same window from earlier waiting for me to enter the password. I placed my fingers on the keyboard and plugged in the password while looking at the sticky note I had written for myself. After entering in the last letter all that was left now was to hit enter, my finger lifted off the letter it was on and made its way over to the enter button where it hovered there for a moment as I held my breath. Sweat rolled down my brow as my finger hovered there, and then I tapped the enter button….. The window closed and my mind started to panic for a moment before a new window opened up on the screen with a camera view inside the vault along side of the vault's controls. "Alright I'm in, the password worked." I said.

"Well?" Alex asked.

"Yeah hold on." I said as I looked at the screen showing inside the vault and sure enough there was an artifact sitting on a table inside the vault. "Yeah looks like it's there, by the looks of things there's also a laser grid online that you'll need to provide identification to turn it off unless of course you want set off the alarm. I'm opening the door right now." I said as I moved my mouse cursor over the door controls and clicked open. A window popped up that read Door Unlocked in Green letters. "Alright the Doors unlocked, everything else is in your hands now. Good Luck." I said.

"Thanks Oliver." Alex replied and I looked up and watched as he approached the vault door and began to turn the wheel on the vault door until it was opened and then proceeded to pull the door back. I then redirected my gaze back towards the computer screen where I watched him swipe the ID card he had taken off of the female officer, and a notification went off letting me know that the laser grid was offline.

"Alright Oliver, I'm retrieving the artifact now." Alex buzzed into my ear.

"Roger." I replied and I proceeded to wipe my brow along with a sigh of relief, all that was left to do now was to retrieve the artifact and get out of here. While my brother was retrieving the artifact I was gonna take a peek at the contents of the other vaults. I minimized the window and went back to the list of vaults. From what I remembered from the Floor plans there had been a total of nine vaults, with eight vaults lining the sides of the warehouse and a larger vault in the back of the warehouse, more specifically the vault door to that one should be two floors beneath me. I knew that we were here for one thing, but I couldn't help that my curiosity was getting the better of me. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity I had to see what else they were holding here. We only knew of what we came here for, however I was curious what else this warehouse was holding. More specifically I was curious what they were holding in the major vault, they must be holding something important I bet. I scrolled through the list of vaults until I found my way at the bottom of the vault list and I hovered over the name Ares and clicked on it. Immediately a pop up window appeared in my face that read: Higher Authorization required, Director Level Authorization only. I furrowed my eyebrows a little bit, not completely ready to give up yet. I pulled up the file explorer and began searching for whatever I could find on the Ares Vault; however everything I had found so far was locked behind the Director's Clearance wall from the manifest to access of the vault alongside of any documents or emails related to it. This was all beginning to make me a little bit excited as to what they were hiding inside. I continued digging deeper into the Ares vault finding little snippets of information, with several mentions to a weapon. So whatever was inside was a weapon or perhaps there were several weapons. As I dug up more and more there were words such as continent to planet level weapon. So were they storing a weapon in there that could bring about planetary destruction? It would seem as if there should be more security here if that was the case. I pulled up my program and began to run a search to for the Director's login and password. After a few moments it came back with nothing and I was left there scratching my head. Not willing to admit defeat quite yet I continued digging and after awhile I figured out that entry into the vault required identification from the Director and two other high level officers along with biometric and retinal scanners. So security wasn't quite as light as I expected, but I wondered if I searched their personal files if I could make copies of their faces using my other blank ID cards and as I was having these thoughts I was suddenly jerked back to reality at the sound of my brother's voice. "Alright, I've secured the artifact. I'm heading to the rendezvous point now." Alex's voice buzzed into my ear.

"Roger I'll be with you in a few. I shook my head and snapped out my of my thoughts, I needed to focus on what we were here for. Some things were probably best left behind closed doors….. But still I think I'll copy what I uncovered just incase I can sell the information to interested buyers. I closed out the windows for the logins and brought up my USB in the file explorer and just I was about to begin copying the files over to my USB….

A loud blaring siren rang in my ears suddenly as alarms went off throughout the facility suddenly. My head shot up as soon as they sounded off and I looked up at the cameras to see red lights flashing all over the facility and guards were rushing around. What the hell happened! Did they find the guys we knocked out or was it something else?!

"Intruders Detected on sublevel 1, Vault Hades. Security Team Charlie respond!" An Automated Female echoed over the intercom. My head shot up to see a squad of armed soldiers heading towards where my brother was.

"Oliver what's going on?! The alarms suddenly went off the vault door is closing!" Alex exclaimed just as loudly into my ear.

"I don't know! Did you touch something you weren't supposed to?" I exclaimed as I exited out of the folders and cancelling the download in the process.

"No! I didn't touch anything other than the artifact and it didn't look like it had any pressure plates or anything!" Alex snapped back at me. Eventually I reached the window for the Vault and it was there I found a shocking surprise. The Laser grid had reactivated, but how did that happen! I smacked my forehead in frustration. "Was the laser grid on a timer or did someone manually reactivate it…?" I thought to myself and ran my hand through my hair as I tried to think about what we could have done to get caught. We had covered all of our bases; this plan should have gone off without a hitch. "OLIVER! I'm trapped in here! I need help!" Alex exclaimed bringing me out of my thoughts. I shook my head and smacked my cheeks, how we caught didn't matter right now. Right now I needed to get my brother out of the vault and we needed to get the hell out of here!

"R-Right! It would seem like the laser grid reactivated!" I said still shaken up a little bit.

"How did that happen!?" Alex inquired.

"I don't quite know, but that's not important right now." I said. "Right now we need to get you out." I added.

"Okay, I've got faith in you bro." Alex said and with that I returned my attention back to the computer screen. This should be easy enough all I had to do was unlock the vault door again and then get out of here. I moved my mouse over to the unlock button and clicked down on it. However I was met with dread instead as another window popped up with red letters that read "Access Denied: Security Lockdown In Progress.". I didn't need this right now… and to make matters worse another notification popped up letting me know the system was kicking me out!

"Shit this isn't what I need right now!" I exclaimed as I smacked my forehead. Okay don't panic, I should be able to stop the system from locking me out. All I need to do is….

BAM BAM

My head swiveled around to see the entrance door buckle under the weight of someone as it hit up against the cabinet.

"Open up!" The Gruff male voice of a soldier yelled through the door as he banged against it. I returned my attention to the computer screen in front of me and raised my hand up to my Bluetooth.

"Shit, I've got soldiers trying to breach the security room right now!" I exclaimed.

"You're gonna get me out right?" Alex asked his voice suddenly filled with concern.

"Yeah of course I'm going to get you out, you're my brother." I said sternly hoping to reassure him. "I'm not about to leave you here, it should take a minute or two to get you out." I added reassuringly, but that was more for me than it was for him. "I just hope the door holds out for that long!" I thought to myself as I opened up the command prompt.

"Damn it, we're gonna need the ram." The Soldier exclaimed. "You go and get it!" The soldier behind the door shouted as he gave orders. This order was followed by the sound of footsteps rushing away from the door as no doubt they went to go grab a battering ram. Even though they were going to get a ram, the banging against the door continued. I only hoped the cabinet would hold out just a little longer until I was finished. My fingers typed furiously in the command prompt as I entered the correct language needed to access the boot menu. One eye watched the countdown window nervously as it counted down until I was locked out of the system; I had thirty seconds left at best. I clicked enter on the keyboard and the boot menu popped up on my screen. I quickly pulled up the window with my USB and clicked on the third file on my USB. A notepad of text and code appeared popped up on the computer screen and quickly selected all and copied it. Luckily I had come prepared for this situation incase my intrusion had been detected or if something had went wrong, which you could say it had at this point. I closed the windows and returned to the boot menu where I entered the preloaded code I had prepared ahead of time. My eyes scanned the code quickly as I checked to make sure it was all in order and my eyes proceeded to look at the lockout timer, I had 10 seconds left before the system locked me out. My hand made it's way over to the enter button and it hovered there for a moment nervously, if I had made a mistake it would likely be the last mistake I made as there wouldn't be enough time to reboot the system and my brother would be surrounded by then. I felt as if I was sweating buckets as I slowly lowered my finger to the enter button as the timer slowly counted down to zero…. and finally I clicked it wincing as I closed my eyes preparing for the worst. A moment passed before I opened my eyes to a pleasant surprise, the timer had stopped on two seconds and was no longer counting down. I let out a heavy sigh of relief as I wiped my forehead and sides before I proceeded to close out all the windows until all that was left was the window with the vault access. I looked at the camera screen to see my brother standing by the vault door anxiously with his black backpack now containing the artifact. I rose my hand up to my ear and contacted my brother. "Alex, I've reverted the lockout. Assuming I have access now, I'm about to unlock the door. So get ready." I said.

"Roger that I'm ready to get the hell out of here." Alex said giving the camera a thumbs up. Just then there was a loud bam on the door and I looked over my shoulder once again to see the door really buckle this time. They must have gotten the battering ram they were talking about a few minutes earlier; the door wouldn't last much longer under that thing. I turned my attention back to the computer monitor and hovered my mouse cursor over the unlock button on the door controls.

"Alright I'm unlocking the door now; I won't be able to help you after that I'm afraid." I said. "The soldiers are gonna knock my door down any second. I've got to bail on the security room." I added and I saw my brother give me a nod over the camera.

"Understood, I'll meet you at the rally point." Alex said.

"Right. Unlocking now." I said and I clicked on the unlock button, a window popped on the screen that read: "Access Granted: Unlocking Door." I sighed a mental sigh of relief, the past few minutes had been filled with many sighs of relief. "The doors unlocked now!" I exclaimed just as I heard another loud BAM behind me. I watched as my brother turned and twisted the wheel on the vault door before pushing it open and slipping through. There were several flashes and I could hear gunshots in the distance from behind. Before I could even check if he was alright there was a loud crash from behind and I jumped out of my seat to turn around. The cabinet had now been pushed back and it would only take one strike before that door came swinging open. I hadn't even given any thought as to how I was going to escape, my mind rushed as I looked for an escape route. There's no way I could escape through the front door, I'd be mowed down. I looked around the room, but the only way out I could see was the front door. It was then when I felt a breeze of cold air sweep my feet and I looked down and then scanned around the bottom of the room until I saw a small vent in the right hand corner of the room in between of a cabinet and potted plant. I rushed over to the vent and looked at it, it was pretty small, but I think I could fit thanks to my slender build. There was no time to pull out my tools so I grasped the slits of the vent and pulled with all of my might. My muscles bulged under the strain as I pulled with all my might and it was then when I heard another BAM and crash as the cabinet went sliding across the room. And at that same time the small vent cover came off of its screws and flew out of my hands and over my head. I quickly got down on my stomach and began crawling forward into the vent, just as two thirds of my body was in the vent I felt someone grabbed my leg and pull me back. I looked over my shoulder to see the guard I had knocked out was now pulling me back. "I thought he would have been out for longer, if he woke up this quickly then it's possible the guards we had knocked out at the elevator had woken up. Damn it, we should have tied them up and tapped their mouths." I thought to myself exasperated and kicked my other foot back hitting him directly in the face. The guard let out a surprised whelp and he let go of my leg as his hand went up to his face, and I quickly pressed forward crawling deeper into the dark vent as fast as I could. From behind me I heard a loud bang and there was a brief flash that illuminated the vent before dying out, it must have been a flashbang. There were rushed footsteps heard from behind as the soldiers entered the room.

"HE'S IN THE VENT! HE'S IN THE VENT!" I heard one of the Soldiers exclaimed. Quickly after there was several loud crackles that deafened my ears and just behind several shears as something ripped through the metal. I looked over my shoulder to see several bullet holes that had narrowly missed my legs. I returned my gaze forward and quickened my pace of crawling going deeper and deeper into the vent gritting my teeth as more bullets rattled the vent from behind me…

After several turns and what had felt like minutes, I think I could confidently say that I had put the guards behind me. I don't think they could fit in the vent with their armor or builds, so I should be good for the moment. Although I didn't quite know where I was heading, I could only keep following the vent until I reached an exit. So that's what I did I kept crawling forward until eventually….. The Ground beneath me disappeared! I was now falling straight down the shaft as my gravity pulled me down towards a light at the end of the shaft. In that moment there was nothing I could do except raise my arms up in front of my face to protect myself and braced for impact. A few moments passed by before I was hit by a sudden shock of pain went through my shoulders and my head. Just as I regained my senses I quickly found myself in an awkward position that a child might find themselves in when they tried to stand on top of their head. Before I could try and reposition my body and figure out what to do next in the vent, I found the ground disappear on me once again and my body falling through the air again. It didn't take long for the ground and I to get reacquainted with ourselves as I hit the ground with a loud crash. Pain shot through my entire body as soon as I hit the ground followed by the loud crash as I broke through something. I laid there crumpled up in the ruins of whatever I had landed on, it took me a few moments to regain my senses once again as I scratched my head and slowly pushed myself off of the ground. Everything was still a bit hazy, but eventually my vision returned to me and I looked around my surroundings. I found myself amongst the ruins of destroyed wooden crate on the floor, I looked up to see the vent I had fell out of above me with the air vent cover swinging back and forth on its remaining screws. I grasped my knees pushing myself up off the ground till I stood up straight before proceeding to dust myself off. Upon turning around I was greeted by bright lights as I saw that I was on the ground floor of the warehouse! The overhead lights had been turned on so there was now nowhere for one such as myself to hide! Well that was fine all I needed to do was sneak away to where I was supposed to meet my brother while they were still looking for me…

"Over there! There he is! Open fire!" The barking of a soldier exclaimed and my head swiveled around to where the voices had come from. I saw a pair of soldiers looking at me from over by shelves stacked with boxes. One of the soldiers was pointing at me while the other raised his rifle to fire at me.

"I can't catch a break!" I exclaimed annoyed. My ears ringed as gunshots went off and bullets zipped over my head narrowly missing me as I ducked. I reacted to it by throwing my arm across my chest and opening my palm out in the direction of their soldiers. A ball of flames formed in the palm of my hand before shooting out towards the soldiers. The soldiers ducked their heads as the fireball went over them before they returned their attention back towards me, however before they could return fire there was an explosion behind them and they looked over their shoulders.

"LOOK OUT!" One of the soldiers exclaimed as they tried to leap out of the way as the shelve was struck by the explosion of the fireball when it struck the bottom of the shelves. The shelve gave way and collapsed on top of the soldiers with a loud crash. Not wasting any time I turned around and ran off in the opposite direction as I could hear more footsteps coming my way, I needed to get out of here and fast!

I ran as fast as my legs would carry me down the nearest hallway I could find before reaching the end and rounding around a corner heading down another long stretch of narrow hallway. I took this opportunity to look over my shoulder to see if anyone was following me, luckily it seemed as if nobody was so it seemed like I was in the clear….

"Guck!" I exclaimed as I felt someone grab me back of my collar and pull me backwards into a room. There was a slam of a door and I was prepared to put up a fight as I turned around, but as soon as I saw who it was I lowered my guard.

"Alex you're alright!" I exclaimed as I panted from all the running I had been doing. Alex who had has ear up to the door listening to see if anyone was outside, turned to face me as I greeted him.

"Yeah of course I'm alright, why wouldn't I be?" Alex said confidently, never one to show any sign of weakness or exhaustion. "I should be the one asking you that, your face is red and you're sweating buckets. What happened?" Alex inquired.

"There was a vent, then I fell down at least one story and then at least another story after vent gave out, crashed into boxes, broke my fall, then got spotted by soldiers and shot at, brought a shelf down on them, ran away as fast as I could." I said in between of my pants. My brother gave me a look over with a concerned expression before looking back at the door.

"I see, sounds like you had fun." Alex said peeking through an open crack in the door. It was then when I heard several pair of footsteps outside and my whole body tensed up. The room fell into silence as we waited for them to pass, eventually they did pass and my brother closed the door as quietly as possible before turning to face me once again. "Well if it hadn't been for me, you would have ran straight into a squad of soldiers." Alex said to me, once again my brother had ended up saving me. I ran my hand through my hair a little annoyed at myself, but did my best not to show it to my brother.

"Thanks." I said and Alex nodded his head. "So you got the artifact?" I asked and my brother nodded his head as he twisted his body a little to show the backpack still on his back.

"Yeah of course I got it, I told you I did." Alex replied.

"I never doubted you, but I just wanted to make sure you didn't lose it by accident." I said as I turned around and looked around the room. The room we were in was dark, but I could still make some things out in the darkness. There were more shelves with boxes stacked on them, what looked like large garage doors lined the wall where the door was, and I could vaguely make out a small forklift. However the was something that caught my attention specifically.

"So what now?" Alex asked as I turned back to face my brother.

"Now we go up." I replied and my brother gave me a confused expression as I walked towards the middle of the room, his gaze following me as I walked up to four pillars in the middle of the room. I stepped onto the platform in the middle of four pillars and motioned my brother to join me. My brother rushed over to join me and stood next to me on the platform. I turned to face a panel raised up to be accessible to humans, and reaching up I pushed down on a button and a green light came on. There was a moment when nothing happened and then the ground beneath us shook followed by the sound of machinery. Soon we were lifting off the ground slowly, but surely.

"W-wait what? An elevator?!" Alex exclaimed.

"Of course this is a loading area idiot; hopefully this elevator will take us to the surface." I said as I pushed my glasses up onto my face confidently. "I knew exactly where I was going." I added.

"Oh? Really now? So why do you say hopefully this elevator will take us to the surface?" Alex inquired looking at me.

"I'm confident it will, it's only logical it will drop lead us to a loading area up on the surface." I said reassuringly and crossed my arms. Alex didn't say much after that and the elevator continued rising up and the loading soon disappeared as the elevator completely entered elevator shaft. The shaft being illuminated by the occasional red light. We stood there in silence as we waited for the elevator to reach the top, it wasn't until a minute or two passed that the silence was broken.

"So what happened?" Alex finally asked. I scratched my head as I looked down at the ground in annoyance.

"I don't know." I answered honestly.

"What do you mean you don't know?" Alex exclaimed.

"I said I don't know. The laser grid was down according to what it said up in the security room, when the alarms went off and I checked it had turned back on somehow." I explained. "Either it was on a timer or someone reactivated it, I don't know." I reiterated.

"Well why weren't you watching it!" Alex exclaimed and remembered back to what I was doing and rubbed my cheek in embarrassment.

"Well I sorta, kinda, got distracted. I got curious and started looking at what else they were holding." I replied.

"Seriously Oliver! Had you been paying attention, this would have never happened!" Alex snapped at me and I raised my hands up in mock surrender.

"Alright I admit it was partially my fault." I said. "But I did find out they're holding some sort of weapon in that large vault of theirs, some sort of continental level destruction." I exclaimed and this seemed to pique my brother's interest as he raised an eyebrow.

"Oh so you downloaded the files they had on it? I bet you someone would pay a lot of money for that information." Alex replied. I was about to reply

"No I got interrupted when the alarms went off and cancelled the download…" I muttered and my brother let out an annoyed sigh.

"Geez there went a chance to score big time….. Oh well. At least we got what we came for." Alex said as he crossed his arms. At that moment the elevator slowly grinded to a stop as we came up into another dark room and looked around where we had been dropped off on. This room didn't look all that different than the one from below, but this time the garage doors were on the other side of the room and there were empty shelves along with a raised area where two doors were on the left and ride side of the room. A pair of snowmobiles placed off to our right in front of the garage doors. I turned and faced my brother.

"Alex get on the snowmobile and get it ready! That's gonna be our ride out of here!" I said and my brother nodded his head. Whilst my brother hopped onto the snow mobile, I rushed over to the panel next to the garage door where I could see the cold fringes of the Alaskan snow outside. I smacked down on one of the two buttons on the panel and the sound of the garage door opening was heard as it lifted off the ground slowly. I walked up to snowmobile and my brother who was trying to mess with the wiring on it to try and get it to start, to no success. I looked up and scanned the room until my gaze landed on what looked like several pair of keys dangling from a board. Rushing over there I grabbed the keys and proceeded to make my way back to my brother where I handed him the keys.

"Thanks, that'll make things a bit easier." Alex said as he accepted the keys and put them into the slot in the front of the gages and handles. With the twist of the keys and a few strong yanks on the cord the snowmobile roared to life, and I let out a satisfying smile. Just then however there was a slam of a door slamming against the wall and my head shot up. There was a soldier wearing winter camouflage with matching vest and helmet and a black ski mask covering his face with goggles. There was several soldiers behind him. They got here sooner than expected.

"There they are!" The soldier exclaimed as he rose his sidearm and took aim at us. "Don't let them get away! Stop them!" The soldier barked orders at the others and they followed suit raising their weapons.

"Hurry and get on!" Alex exclaimed and I quickly hopped onto the back of the snowmobile and was almost thrown off as my brother pressed down on the pedal and we jerked forward. I ducked my head as the soldier from earlier shot his gun off barely missing my head, there were more bullets that followed soon after, fired by the soldiers surrounding him. Those shots missed their target as well, as we shot out of the garage into the outside cold…

Escaping from the facility was not the end of our worries as we still needed to leave the grounds. We had exited out into the parking lot of the facility near the rear and the only way out was through the front gate since I don't think the snowmobile was going to be taking down any fences anytime soon. We moved through the parking lot towards the front gate. Gliding across the parking lot we passed by all of the parked cars that were sitting in the snow, as we closed in on the exit a guard rushed out from a small building near the entrance gate and it appeared as if he was going to try and stop us. Oliver pressed his foot down on the pedal and the guard raised his rifle when it was clear we weren't going to stop. Gunpowder mixed with the cold in the air as the guard fired several shots from his rifle. The both of us ducked our heads as the bullet grazed over our heads and bullets grazed the windshield as the plastic cracked and a crack now scarred the plexiglass. Despite this we pressed forward and the guard had to jump out of the way to avoid getting run over by us as we shot through the open front gate into freedom. We sped down the road for less than a quarter of a mile before we saw the headlights of trucks in the distance coming towards us.

"Looks like we're going to have to go off road. Hold on!" Oliver exclaimed and the snowmobile suddenly swerved to the right. I grasped onto my brothers waist as we veered off the road and we headed into the forest.

Traversing through the forest was easy going for the snow mobile, the only real obstacle at this point was making sure we didn't hit any trees. I looked around as our surroundings passed by a blur, not to mention it was pitch black with the only source of light being the headlight of the snowmobile lighting our way forward. We had made pretty good ground so far as several minutes had passed and we must have at least traversed a mile or half a mile by now. I thought we would be in the clear by now….. Until I looked over my shoulder and saw several headlights behind us. I returned my gaze forward and patted my brother on the back.

"Alex we've got what looks like at least three snowmobiles following us." I said and Alex looked over my shoulder before quickly looking back up front.

"Well it was too be expected." Alex replied smoothly. "They wouldn't just let us get away with their stuff scot free." Alex added. I couldn't help but furrow my brows a little bit since we hadn't exactly got off scot free; we'd been shot at multiple times after having alerted the whole base. Although I still wasn't even quite sure how we had tripped the alarm, but that wasn't important. Right now we needed to lose the pursuing snowmobiles; we can worry about what happened later. "Hold on, things are about to get a little rough." Alex said and before I could even question what he meant, by body jerked to the side as we veered off to the side. It also felt as if we were going faster now as Alex stepped down on the gas, with everything now really a blur as we passed by. I winced as the cold wind gnawed at my face as we zipped through the forest. I looked over my shoulder again and sure enough the three snowmobiles were still hot on our tail.

"We're not losing them." I exclaimed looking forward.

"Just give it some time; one of them is bound to end up crashing." Alex said.

"OR WE'LL END UP CRASHING!" I exclaimed loudly. Just as I said that there was a loud thunderous pop. I looked over my shoulder to see that one of the three headlights had disappeared and it would appear as if one of them had indeed wound up hitting something. "I guess one of them hit something." I said.

"See I told you, you should stop doubting me so much Oliver." Alex said with a smirk and we sped forward. We continued swerving back and forth as we dodged trees and rocks. I could still hear the engines of the two snowmobiles chasing after us, but soon my ears were filled by another sound. The loud methodical bangs of automated gunfire as the people on the snowmobiles behind us started shooting at us. I ducked my head as bullets whizzed all around us. The swerving only intensified as Alex twisted our snowmobile left and right to try and avoid the gun fire. This continued for a few more minutes as we dodged gunfire, before my brother yelled something and I was jerked forward smacking my face into his back.

"Better hold on tight!" Alex exclaimed.

"Wait wha-?!" I exclaimed and before I knew it we were soaring through the air and we were out in the open. I looked around and saw we were flying over a small creek and before I knew it we hit the other side with a loud thud. I looked over my shoulder and saw the first snowmobile land right behind us, however I watched as the second one ended up falling flat and crashing into the creek.

"We lost the second one, now all that's left is one more." I said.

"Should be simple enough to lose him." Alex said and I looked back at the last snowmobile and squinted my eyes at the occupants of the snowmobiles. I couldn't make out much, but it looked as if there were two people on it. I couldn't make out anything other than that, but they were probably just more soldiers. It was then when the one on the reared his head and rose something. It didn't take long for me to figure out what as the bright flash and deafening ring that echoed through the forest let me know it was an automatic rifle. I ducked my head as more bullets whizzed over my head and we sped deeper in the forest hoping to lose them.

The song and dance of swerving in between trees and dodging gunfire continued on for what felt like five to ten minutes before we finally broke out of the tree lines and out onto a paved road. Oliver twisted the handles of the snowmobile and it also twisted as well as we came to a monetary stop in the middle of the road. We look out towards the forest to see if we had lost the pursuing snowmobile, however it didn't take long for us to find out. The loud rev of a snowmobile engine answered our questions as the snowmobile broke through the trees and came straight towards us. I was jerked forward as Alex pressed his foot down all the way on the peddle sending us shooting forward. I winced at the blistering cold gnawing at my face, it was even worse on the open road then it was in the forest. I looked back at the other snowmobiles to avoid getting hit by the blistering cold, but also a bit out of curiosity. These guys had managed to keep up with us, were they just proficient with a snowmobile or what?

"Damn these guys managed to follow us even through all of that." Oliver said looking over his shoulder at the pursuing snowmobile. To make matters worse there was now two extra pairs of headlights following behind the pursuing snowmobile. "Looks like they have friends. They probably were coordinating with the road units since trucks couldn't follow us through the forest." Alex added returning his gaze forward to focus on the road. As the pursuing trucks grew closer I made out boxy trucks that appeared to be Military grade armored trucks. However what was more concerning was the big guns mounted on the top of the trucks with goons manning them.

"Uh Alex those trucks have some pretty big guns!" I exclaimed.

"You're gonna need to take them out. Focus on the trucks and ignore the snowmobile for now." Alex said.

"The only way this could get worse is if they had an Attack Helicopter." I murmured.

"Heh don't go jinxing us brother." Alex said.

I turned my attention back to the trucks to see them speeding to catch up with us. Upon getting closer the muzzles of the guns on top of the trucks flashed as the gunners started opening fire on us. The loud thunderous noise of the heavy guns firing upon us echoed throughout the entire valley and I felt my body jerk to the left as my brother dodged the gunfire. I pushed my glasses up onto my face and my magic circuits lit up as I extended my hand. A fireball shot out from the palm of my hand towards one of the trucks. Before the truck could even react, the fireball hit the base of the vehicles and its wheel caught ablaze. The truck was able to carry on for a few more minutes before there was a loud pop and the truck slammed down to the ground on its rims.

"One down…!" I exclaimed as the truck shook violently at the loss of its front wheels and swerved left and right as it lost control before coming to a stop in the middle of the road. However that victory was short lived as loud boom filled my ears and the ground shook. The snowmobile passed through a black smoke field and I fell into a coughing fit until we had passed through it.

"A Grenade launcher!" I exclaimed as I finished letting out a cough. I redirected my attention to the snowmobile whose passenger appeared to be one arming another black weapon.

"Looks like they have some fun toys of their own." Alex said sounding like he was enjoying all of this. "Forget what I said, Focus on the snowmobile. He's a much larger threat!" Alex said and I nodded my head in agreement. I looked back and extended my arm out again. My magic circuits lit up as I shot another fireball out, this time aimed at the snowmobile. The snowmobile however swerved to the right dodging the fireball and it instead wound up hitting the front of the truck behind it. The truck either out of stun or damage wound up swerving off the road and crashing into snowbank.

"Well you took out the other truck, but you still need to deal with the snowmobile!" Alex exclaimed.

"I know!" I snapped back at him. We rounded around a hillside where it felt like we might flip over with how hard we took the turn and ended up going down a winding road before returning to a straight stretch. This brought with it more explosions as the snowmobile fired off several grenade rounds ahead of us to try and hit us. Alex did his best to try and dodge the explosions as he swerved from side to side on the road; however this made it much harder for me to try and hit the snowmobile as I hurled fireballs at the other snowmobile. This carried on for several moments, the road buckling from explosions of explosive rounds and fireballs. Had it not been the dead of winter and in Alaska, a rogue spark would have likely caught the forest on fire. I was starting to feel a little drained however as casting this many magic spells must be draining my mana supply. That was the benefit of a firearm, the user never got tired; they only ran out of ammo. I threw my hand across my chest in a desperate attempt and shot out several fireballs at once across the road….. And by a stroke of good luck one of the fireballs smacked straight into the snowmobile in a black cloud of smoke and the snowmobile came out of it with the front covered in flames.

"I got them!" I exclaimed proudly as I watched the flaming snowmobile swerve off the road into the snow and presumably crashing. I curled my fingers into a fist and pounded it into the air in excitement.

"Great now let's finally get back to base!" Alex exclaimed and with that the two of us sped down the highway finally getting away...

We pulled off the highway into a gas station off the road and drove up to the side of the gas station. The engine of the snowmobile sputtered and died as Alex pulled the key out of the ignition and we hopped off of the snowmobile and quickly pulled a tarp over it. With the snowmobile now hidden, we quickly head inside the gas station through the side door. Once inside I closed the door behind me before leaning back against it holding my chest as I breathed in and out heavily.

"Haha we did it." Alex said as he panted heavily and turned around to face me. His face was frost bitten and red from all the heavy snow and sub zero temperatures outside.

"Haha Yeah we pulled it off I said." I said as still held onto my chest breathing in. We took a few moments to catch our breath before high fiving each other gleefully. I looked around the dark room that soon became illuminated by light from a portable lamp my brother turned on. Empty shelves lined the walls of the abandoned gas station while in the middle several tables had been placed. Computers and other assorted equipment sat atop of the tables with portable battery powered lamps that my brother turned on one by one. There was also a pair of cots for us to sleep on. This was where my brother and I set up our base of operations for this job. It had been just the right distance from the facility while it was also on a road with little traffic. I made my way over towards the tables and opened up the laptop sitting on the table powering it on, I was gonna need to send a message to our client that we had successfully completed the job and was awaiting further instructions. More than likely they would send us a location where the exchange would go down, I was genuinely curious if the client would meet us themselves or if it would just be someone else sent in their place. There was a loud thud and I looked off to my right to see my brother drop the backpack down onto the table and begin to unzip it. I watched as he then pulled a black box out from the backpack and place it down in front of him. He then placed his hands on the top of the box and it looked like he was about to try and open it!

"What are you doing?" I asked as my hand quickly reacted grasping his wrist stopping him.

"Come on Oliver, you can't tell me that you aren't curious as to what's inside?" Alex asked in reply.

"No Alex! We were instructed not to open the box, only to retrieve it." I said sternly.

"Oh come on you can't tell me you're not in the least curious as to what it is exactly our client wanted us to get!" Alex said looking at me with a grin.

"NO ALEX!" I exclaimed once again more loudly. That was actually a lie, I did want to know what was inside. Our client didn't tell us what we were stealing only where it was and along with some additional instructions, which included specific instructions not to open it!

"It'll just be a little peek!" Alex said reassuringly. I scratched my head in frustration at his persistence.

"A little peak is still opening it." I snapped. "We risk upsetting the client and establishing a bad reputation about us, we must remain professional." I added as I wagged my finger at him.

"What's the fun in that! I bet they'll never even know we looked inside!" Alex said now sounding as if he was whining.

"No Alex!" I once again reiterated. Alex narrowed his eyes at me and I narrowed mine in return as we glared at each other appearing to be shooting daggers at one another…. But before we could continue this argument any further we were interrupted by the sounds of vehicle engines and tires. Our heads snapped towards the front window where we were almost blinded by several pairs of headlights. We saw the silhouettes of several SUVs stopping in front of the gas station, once the SUV's had stopped it was followed up by the sound of several doors opening and then slamming shut. The sounds of at least a dozen footsteps were heard shuffling outside of the building. No doubt they belonged to soldiers!

"Shit they found us!" I exclaimed.

"But how, I thought we lost them!" Alex exclaimed. I had thought so too, but apparently not.

"I don't know, but it doesn't matter!" I exclaimed. "Grab the artifact and torch everything else!" I said barking orders at my brother. Any tension from earlier had disappeared as my brother nodded his head and shoved the black box back into the backpack zipping it shut. I snapped the laptop shut as my brother rushed past me towards the back door, I walked away a few feet before turning around and raising my arm. I opened my hand out, and my magic circuits lit up as a ball of fire formed in the palm of my hand. The fireball then shot out and hit the ground, it was quickly consumed in flames. The flames would quickly spread and consume everything in the building, nothing we had brought with us wasn't quickly replaceable. We always needed to be ready to move out and relocate on a moments notice. However this was a first in awhile that we needed to relocate because our forward base was found out. "Everything in this mission so far just wasn't going our way, but the saving grace was we at least still had what the client wanted." I thought to myself as I watched the flames spread.

"Come on Oliver, we needed to get out of here!" I heard my brother call out from behind me. He was right; we needed to get out before this place was surrounded. I turned around and rushed after my brother. "We'll go out through back and then escape into the forest till we reach the backup location." Alex said as I caught up to him. Alex then proceeded to run towards the back door. I lagged behind as I tried to catch up with him and I watched as he waved me to come on before he opened the back door and I watched as he disappeared rushing outside… My ears suddenly rang violently as there was a loud bam that fell upon my ears and my head shot up. The sound of the gunshot felt like that of an adrenaline rush as I gave it my all and sprinted for the back door.

"ALEX!" I exclaimed as I barraged through the door to see if he was alright. I hadn't been thinking at all as soon as I barreled through the door I felt a pain shoot up my spine as I was struck in the back and fell down into the snow…

I watched as the kid hit the snow with a heavy crash as I struck him in the back with the butt of my rifle. I returned the rifle to my shoulder, taking aim at the kid lying on the ground, it didn't take long for him to turn himself over and look up at me. The kid had dark brown hair with matching eyes, and a fair skin tone. Like the other kid before him, he wore a black vest with a black jacket underneath, along with a pair of black pants and boots. As his gaze looked upon me, he narrowed his eyes at me through his glasses and gritted his teeth looking annoyed. I held my rifle firmly in my hands pointed at the kid, sending him a clear message that if he tired anything it would be the last thing he did. The kid apparently got the message as he remained motionless on the ground still gritting his teeth.

"You again, you're that soldier from the garage." The kid finally said in English breaking the long silence that had fallen upon us.

"Yup that's me. I bet you didn't expect we'd be seeing each other again so soon." I replied. "I'm surprised though." I added.

"Why is that?" The kid asked.

"I don't look any different than any of the other soldiers, so how do you know I'm the one from the garage." I inquired raising an eyebrow behind my mask and goggles.

"I recognize the insignia on your collar. You're the only one I've seen so far with one like that so far." The kid replied. It was something anyone could have figured out for sure, but it was a minor detail not usually worth remembering for most people. I couldn't help, but be a little impressed.

"Quite the memory you have there kid, but yeah that's me alright." I said calmly.

"I can assume then, that you're the Commander here?" The kid asked in reply.

"Right again, yeah I'm the highest ranking officer stationed here." I answered him truthfully.

"I don't know if I should be flattered or not that a High ranking officer of Chaldea Security Organization is personally apprehending me himself." The kid said.

"You can think whatever you want, it doesn't matter to me either way." I replied.

"So can I also assume that you were the one on the snowmobile that was chasing us down for the longest time?" The kid said next.

"Perhaps." I replied.

"I thought you went off road and crashed." The kid inquired with a raised brow.

"That was your mistake for assuming that. We merely went off road and followed you through the forest instead." I replied and the kid remained unfazed. The kid so far had been remarkably calm considering he had been caught and must know what was in store.

"Yes I suppose that was my mistake." The kid replied and then looked over his shoulder where a gasp was heard. It was there that the kid saw the sight of the other kid slumped up against the wall in a bloody mess as his knee caps had been blown out and now was a gory mess. The snow beneath him had been stained crimson with blood and it painted the walls behind him.

"Brother!" The Kid exclaimed as he scrambled through the snow on his knees over to his brother. Once he reached him he placed his hands on his brother's shoulder and shook him. "Brother, Brother! Are you okay?!" The kid exclaimed.

"Ah ha ha Oliver, I can't feel my legs." The brother said and Oliver looked down at the bone and blood gutting out from of his brothers kneecaps. Oliver placed his hands over the gunshot wounds in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

"Its gonna be alright Alex, I'm here. We'll somehow get through this! We always do!" Oliver said trying to reassure his brother. It was then when the sound of a gun cocking interrupted him and his head slowly looked up to see a woman standing only meters away with a Remington 870 shotgun held firmly in her hands with the ejection port back as she ejected the empty shell into the snow. The woman pumped the fore-end forward and loaded in a new shell into the chamber. The woman was also wearing white camouflaged clothing underneath of a black bulletproof vest. However unlike me she didn't have a mask on cover her face, only a helmet on. The woman looked down at the black box lying in the snow at her feet and reached down and picked the box up holding it in between her armpits. The blonde haired boy called Alex looked weakly up at her and it looked as if was squinting at her.

"H-Hey! I'd recognize that pair of breast from anywhere! You're that chick that we knocked out near the elevator!" Alex suddenly blurted out something absurd given the situation. I could only imagine it was taking every fiber of Raelin's being not to blast the kids head off right there and then, instead Raelin only narrowed her eyes in disgust at the blonde haired little brat in response. I could see however that her grip on the shotgun tightened. The kid named Oliver narrowed his eyes at Raelin before looking over at me.

"So are you just gonna shoot or us are you going to get my brother medical attention!? He's bleeding out!" Alex said to me in as calm a fashion as one could given the situation he was in.

"Depends…" I replied.

"Depends on whether or not I give you information or not, right?" Oliver stated.

"That certainly might help speed up the process." I replied.

"Fine, but let me ask you something first, were you the one who reset the laser grid that caused us to trigger the alarm?" He asked me. I stood there remaining silent for a moment before replying to him.

"Yeah, I might have had something to do with that." I replied ominously.

"I'll take that as a yes. So that would lead me to believe you were watching us since the start weren't you?" Oliver asked again.

"Of course we were, we were watching you since you stepped foot on the premise." I said truthfully this time. "You're not the first ones to have robbed a Chaldea Security Organization building in the past few months." I added.

"Huh what do you mean we're not the first?!" Oliver said looking genuinely surprised. That ruled out that they were part of a larger group if they didn't know.

"Yeah you're more like the third ones to have robbed a Chaldea Facility recently." I explained. "But you are the first ones to get caught so there's that at least." I added on a side note, more for my own amusement than anything else. Oliver raised his hands to his head and began to scratch his head furiously in frustration.

"Damn it! I knew we should have never taken this job!" Oliver bemoaned as he pounded his fist into the snow. I didn't do anything, just watched as he let out whatever pent up rage he had. Raelin and I remained silent as we just watched with our weapons raised, and eventually the kid looked up at us. "Fine I'll tell you what I know. Just get my brother an ambulance already!" Oliver exclaimed at us.

"Give us something important and we'll consider it." I replied not moving as I kept my gun pointed at him.

"Damn it, what they say about you people was right! You guys at Chaldea really are absolute garbage human beings." Oliver exclaimed.

"Coming from someone who steals for a living, that doesn't mean much. Now either or give us something we can work with or watch your brother bleed out in front of you."

"You'll also be joining him if you don't give us something." Raelin added.

"Alright fine. What do you want to know?" Oliver said.

"Who hired you?" I demanded.

"I don't know!" Oliver exclaimed and I narrowed my eyes at him obviously not convinced.

"That Ambulance isn't going to get here any faster with answers like that." I said.

"I'm telling you the truth; I don't know who hired me." Oliver once again reiterated. I couldn't help but get a little annoyed at the kid.

"Come on, don't bullshit us!" I exclaimed. "You can't tell us you don't know who the person who hired you is." I said letting some of irritation leak out in my voice.

"Listen I'm telling you the truth, we only have their email." Oliver said. "It's not uncommon for people to be hired by anonymous clients or through a middleman." Oliver went onto say.

"Then tell us exactly how you came to be hired." I said and Oliver let out a sigh.

"It was a few months ago that an acquaintance of mine forwarded me the job detailing along with how to get in contact with the client." Oliver explained. "My acquaintance told me that this job had been floating around the dark web and it looked like a job we might be interested in." Oliver added.

"This acquaintance of yours…" I inquired.

"Don't even bother, I don't even know his name. You'd be wasting your time trying to track him down even if I did give you his email." Oliver said cutting me off. "That's how things work on the dark web, nobody uses real names." Oliver added.

"Pretty sure that's just a rule in general when it comes to the internet." I said.

"Maybe before Facebook and Twitter, but nowadays idiots will put everything about themselves out there for people to see from Governments to Corporations." Oliver said.

"Well, would you be surprised if I told you I don't have any social media accounts?" I said.

"Well that's because you're not a complete idiot." Oliver replied.

"I'll take that as a compliment." I said with a nod of my head. "Now anyway, let's get back on topic. Tell us more about what happened after you contacted this client!" I said.

"I sent an email to the address I was given, including our proven record of success in our previous jobs, expertise, and other qualifications that they might want to know. Basically sending a resume for a job." Oliver explained.

"If resumes included illegal activities such as theft and robbery, sure." I said and Oliver only rolled his eyes in response.

"Well anyway it was a few weeks before we finally got a response. We ended up getting the job, obviously, and then details followed soon afterward." Oliver said. "So we spent the next following weeks plan and preparing up until now." Oliver added.

"What else was there, that sounds like you just gave me the ADHD version?" I said. "That ambulance isn't going to get here anytime soon unless you give me something to work with." I added as his brother continued to bleed out next to him. Oliver looked at his brother and then back at me.

"Fuck man, what else do you want? We didn't exactly have a pleasant conversation asking each other how the other's day was." Oliver exclaimed clearly angered. "The client told us the details of the job, what he wanted, where to get it, and our compensation." Alex said.

"How much were you being paid to do this job?" I inquired.

"The client was offering us two million dollars." Oliver said.

"Holy shit two million! I'd have to work my current job until I was in my fifties to make that much alone and that's without spending a single dollar of my paycheck!" I exclaimed.

"It's not uncommon for High Risk jobs like this one to dish out that much, usually they go much higher depending on who you're robbing." Oliver said.

"I'm not sure if I should be offended or not that Chaldea is not higher up there when it comes to risk." I said and Oliver only shrugged.

"Stealing anything from you guys isn't exactly a low risk job, but not many jobs to steal from you guys even pops up. Or so I thought anyways…." Oliver trailed off as he remembered he wasn't the first one to try and rob us. "Anyway the only reason why you're not higher is because places like Atlas and the Mage's Association exist." Oliver added. Which that was fair enough, anyone who tried to breaking in and steal anything from the Atlas Academy was a suicide mission. So it made sense we weren't higher up on the list…

"Fair enough I suppose." I said. "Now tell me why exactly your client wanted that particular artifact." I said motioning my rifle towards the black box held in between Raelin's armpits. Oliver's gaze went over to the box and then back at me.

"I don't know. They didn't even tell us what we were stealing, just where it was." Oliver said. "They told us they were a collector of rare artifacts and wanted it, so who was I to question them. You know how mages are with their rare and dangerous artifacts." Oliver went onto say.

"Nobody should know what we store in our warehouses, the manifest are classified." I said not sounding all too convinced.

"Apparently not, since they knew which vault it was exactly in." Oliver replied shrugging his shoulders.

"... Alright so these emails. You can show us to them right?" I inquired. "Maybe we can get something from them." I added.

"Sure they're in my email on my laptop." Oliver said.

"You mean the one in there?" I said motioning my rifle towards the doorway leading into the burning building. "The Laptop in the burning gas station." I said and Oliver nodded his head.

"Yeah it was on that computer, but that was just a burner laptop." Oliver said.

"Right, but you can still get into the email without the computer." I said narrowing my eyes.

"Sure, if you get me to a computer I can." Oliver replied. "But I think I've told you more than enough, and if you want me to let you see those emails you need to get my brother an ambulance right now!" Alex said boldly staring at me unflinching in his words. I stood there for a moment as I thought how I should respond, and eventually I answered him.

"Alright, I'll get a medical crew back here right away." I said finally as I rose my left hand up to my helmet. "6-1 get EMTs back here right away, we have a boy with gunshot wounds to the leg." I said and after receiving confirmation from the teams up front, I returned my attention back to Oliver. "Medical crews are on their way right now. Now then tell us anything else you might know." I said and Oliver let out a sigh of relief as his brother was finally gonna get medical attention.

"I've told you almost everything I can, but they gave us five hundred thousand dollars up front so maybe you can try and trace back the account they used." Oliver said. "However I'm sure it's an account under a different name or bounced all over the world." Oliver added.

"Alright thanks, what else." I said.

"Well I can tell you that our client also had a lot of information on you guy's facility." Oliver said and I raised an eyebrow. "They gave us detailed blueprints of your facility, security patrols and access codes…" Oliver went on.

"No wonder why you were able to take the elevator down and crack the password to the vault." I said as I rubbed my chin. "But only somebody who has high level security clearance would even have access to all of that….." I said and then I stood there for a moment. If I wasn't wearing a mask, the kid would have seen the dumbfounded look on my face.

"As I had originally suspected, you must have an employee at your company betraying you." Oliver said and I glanced at him and then back at Raelin who had been listening silently the entire time. I lowered my rifle and made my way over to Raelin, the sound of the snow crunching beneath my feet as I made my way over to her. I put my head close to her ears and raised my hand as I whispered into her ear.

"The kid is right, if what he says is true. We've got a traitor at Chaldea." I said in a hushed tone. Raelin turned and looked at me with furrowing eyebrows as if she was still trying to comprehend the situation.

"No shit Sherlock. I heard what he said, but what are we supposed to do?" Raelin whispered back. "We had suspected that it had just been just been some mages or perhaps a rogue Government, but if we have a traitor in our mix then everything we assumed was wrong." Raelin exclaimed in a hushed tone.

"We're going to have to tell Anderson and see what he has to say about this, more than likely he'll have to inform the Director of these findings." I said. "We'll have to see happens next after that…." I added and Raelin nodded her head in understanding.

"Alright…" Raelin murmured.

"Anyway, let's wrap things up…." I murmured into Raelin's ear before being cut off abruptly.

"Oliver… my legs….. I can't feel them…" The faint moan of one of the kids was heard behind us and we turned around to see the kid Raelin had shot moving his head back groggily. "... Everything is becoming a blur….." Alex murmured.

"Alex just hold on a little longer!" Oliver exclaimed as he gripped his brother's shoulder. I hurried over to the two kids and kneeled down in front of him. I looked the kid over, he had lost a lot of blood since then as the snow all around him was now soaked red in blood. Bone was jutting out from his legs and blood was still pouring out despite his brother's best efforts to stop the outpour. Further up his leg were further signs of gunshot wounds however, and it looked as if the shot had struck an artery in his legs as well.

"It appears as if an artery was struck as well." I said and Oliver's gaze shot up his brother's leg with horror and then back up at me.

"Isn't there anything you can do?" Oliver exclaimed.

"Other than try to start putting pressure to his arteries?" I said with a shrug. "Outside of basic medical care, I'm stepping out of my area of expertise." I added and Oliver grimaced.

"O-Oliver…. I'm scared..." Alex said and Oliver's attention returned to his brother.

"Don't worry Alex, I'm right here…." Oliver said trying to reassure his brother. Tears visibly swelling in his eyes as he tried to contain his emotions.

"...I…. don't wanna die…." Oliver said as his head still went from side to side. Then his head proceeded to come to a standstill and his eyes drooped before slowly closing. His head fell forward with the drop of his eyes and his chest quit rising up and down.

"Alex? Alex?! NO!" Oliver cried out and violently shook his brother who didn't respond to his shakes. Eventually Alex quit shaking his brother and I raised my hand up to his neck placing two fingers on it to confirm what I already knew. There were no vitals as I had expected and I retracted my hand back to my side and stood up looking down at the two kids. "Alex…." Oliver murmured as tears were now clearly running down his cheeks. Oliver rested his head against his deceased brother's head in mourning. I only could shake my head as I turned around taking a few steps before reaching up to the side of my helmet.

"Cancel that medical request, we're gonna need a body bag instead. We have one KIA." I said and received confirmation. I stood there looking around, figuring it was best to give Alex whatever peace he could have before probably getting put in a prison cell. Everything was silent from there on out as we waited for the medical officers to appear with the body bag…

"What am I going to tell Sarah now?" I heard Oliver murmur sadly from over my shoulder after a few minutes had passed.

"Sarah?" Raelin inquired.

"Our younger sister!" Oliver exclaimed. "What did you think? We were doing this for ourselves!" Oliver exclaimed angrily. "Our parents went off and died on us at a young age and we're the only family she has left! Every single dollar we make we've been using to send her to a private school so she can have a better life than we did! Not that you people would ever understand what it's like!" Oliver yelled at Raelin angrily. Raelin fell silent deciding not to say anything instead. "You don't even have anything to say!" Oliver however continued to yell angrily at her. "WHEN YOU'RE THE BITCH WHO KILLED MY BROTHER!" Oliver yelled and then the sound of snow crunching beneath someone's feet was heard. I turned around just in time to see Alex leap straight at Raelin. Raelin was taken completely aback as she dropped her shotgun and fell to the ground with Oliver on top of her. I rushed over to come to Raelin's assistance; Alex was beating down against Raelin's face who had her arms raised to protect herself. By the time I reached her Oliver had gotten a few punches in on Raelin's face as blood trickled down here forehead. I wasn't going to let him beat down on Raelin for a second longer however, and I grabbed Oliver pulling him off of her.

"Hey get off of her!" I said as I locked my arms under his armpits, grasping his shoulders and proceeded to pull him backwards away from her.

"Let go of me!" Oliver exclaimed angrily as he resisted against my grasp. I continued dragging him back through the snow for a few more feet before Alex threw his head back and smacked me in the forehead. A sharp pain shot across my face causing me to stagger backwards and letting go of him. As I was bringing my hand down from my face I saw Oliver facing me and was now reaching for me. My hands instinctively went for my rifle slung under my right arm, but before I could bring it to bear Oliver grabbed my rifle and threw it back against my chest. I firmly maintained my grip on my rifle as it was now in between of the two of us. "You pieces of shit can go to hell if you think I'll help you now after you killed my brother! I hope you and your entire organization burns to the ground!" Oliver exclaimed angrily. The two of us now gripping the black rifle in between of one another, now engaged in a tug of war as we pulled back and forth on the rifle while at the same time backing up further away from Raelin. Both of us trying to take the rifle from the other. Even though I had far more muscle and mass on the kid, however he either must be using magic to increase his strength or this was adrenaline kicking in. It seemed for a moment as if I was losing this tug of war and my rifle...

There was a loud bang that rang through my ears and all the strength from Oliver suddenly disappeared along with the dark brown eyes behind his glasses widening in surprise. Oliver's grip loosened on the rifle before finally letting go and I stepped back away from him just as his body fell to the ground at my feet. Standing behind several feet away was Raelin with her pistol raised, smoke was rising from the barrel of her handgun as she stood there with pained expression on her face and her breathing was ragged. Upon seeing that I was fine Raelin lowered her pistol before returning it to its holster. I looked down at the kid's now lifeless corpse to see the bullet hole in his chest where his heart was. The snow beneath his corpse was suddenly turning crimson as blood exited from the exit hole. Looking back up at Raelin she appeared to be fine except for the blood still trickling down the side of her forehead. Before I could say anything to her however, my ear was filled with radio chatter as the guys up front wanted to know if everything was alright. I raised my hand back up to the side of my helmet and twisted my head over to the direction over at the Gas station where I saw the guys waving over at us.

"Yeah everything's fine back here, but we're gonna need two body bags instead of one…." I said. There was a sigh heard and it was then followed up by a confirmation. I returned my gaze back at Raelin and saw that she had retrieved her shotgun and the black box. Raelin walked up to me and looked down at the corpse and then back up at me. "Well Shit, Anderson isn't going to be happy that our only leads are now corpses..." I said finally saying something to break the silence. I raised my hand up to my forehead and scratched it through my balaclava.

"Sorry, but I couldn't risk him getting ahold of your rifle." Raelin said.

"No you made the right call. I just don't know how I'm gonna explain this to Anderson. This was the first time we had actually caught the thieves. At least we managed to learn a little bit, and maybe we'll be able to recover something from the gas station." I said with a sigh and then looked down at the black box in between of Raelin's arms. "Well at least I'll be able to tell him that nothing was stolen. So the operation was a partial success…."

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Thank you for reading! I know this chapter was a really long one like the past few ones, but I hope you don't mind. If you enjoy the chapter, please consider leaving a favorite/like and be sure to follow Book III to keep up to date when the next chapter comes out. Or better yet hop onto the official Fated Destiny Discord where we talk about all things Fate, Post Salty FGO Rolls, and even talk about Girls Frontline and Azur Lane. Feel free to leave constructive feedback and reviews in the comments below or tell me what you think I need to improve on. Just a reminder that new chapters of Book Three release every two weeks on Friday or Saturday. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed and look forward to seeing you next time.

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