Raven's voice cuts through the earpieces, calm but sharp.
"Like I was saying, Tony Sparrow is retired. He's sixty-five now, a family man who wants nothing more to do with the battlefield. That's where the mission comes in. The mystery candidate knows he has no chance if Tony runs—especially after his recent speech, which proved just how much influence the man still has.
The job is simple: make sure Tony doesn't run. We don't touch him, not physically. That might cause unwanted chaos. Instead, we go for everything else around him to get him to drop out on his own terms."
Leon's fingers tighten on the binoculars.
"Then what the hell are we supposed to do to make him drop out?" he asks, his voice shaking.
"Think about it," Raven says with a hint of excitement. "If we can't break him physically, we break him mentally. I've studied Tony for days. He has two priorities in life: his family—and his country. He's the kind of man who drops everything if his family needs him, even abandoning duty. And his sense of duty is ironclad. Those two things—together—are what make him strong. So? We target them. His wife and grandson are inside that base you're looking at. When they're gone, Tony's mind collapses. He won't trust himself to run the country. He'll quit the race before he can even start."
Leon's teeth grind.
"That's… disgusting," he growls. "Destroying a man's family just to keep him from running? What if the next president is worse? You sound proud of this."
"Of course I'm proud. It took me days to come up with this plan," Raven responds bluntly.
"Newbie," Roxie snaps, voice sharp as a blade. "You clearly didn't listen to Axel when he explained the Three Fs: Fuck love. Fuck humanity. Finish the mission. Lock in already. If the captain were here, he'd have done this without hesitation. No questions, no whining. You've got no right to second-guess a mission. And let's be real—you're German. Why should you care what happens to America?."
She throws the binoculars back at him and adjusts her gloves. "All we have to do is get in there and take out the targets. Easy."
Leon catches the binoculars, glaring silently.
She's suddenly dead serious. Not even a hint of the drunk idiot I saw three days ago.
***
"Alright, newbie," Roxie says. "This mission doubles as your training. First lesson?"
She crouches low, a wicked grin flashing across her face.
"Stamina. Stealth. Speed."
Before Leon can respond, she leaps off the hill. The wind whips her hair as she bolts for the base.
"Wait—WHAT?!" Leon shouts.
"Keep up," Raven's voice explains in his ear, perfectly calm. "Roxie is peak human. Speed, strength, technique. She works best alone. She just told you—meet her at the front of the base. Start running."
Leon's jaw drops as he watches her close the distance like a ghost.
"That means I have to cross that huge field full of guards?!"
"That's correct," Raven says, completely unfazed. "Avoid the guards. Avoid the lasers. If they catch you, alarms will go off. And that would be… troublesome."
"Fuuuuuck!" Leon yells as he scrambles down the hill.
***
At the gate, Roxie doesn't even pause. She flips backward over the tall fence, lands on one hand, rolls, and slides behind a small storage building as a red laser sweeps over the ground.
"This base is light," she mutters.
In seconds, she's back on her feet, vaulting onto a rooftop, and silently hopping from one building to the next. Not a single sound escapes her steps.
***
Behind her, Leon is trying to climb the gate.
"Why the hell is this thing so tall?! How did she even backflip over it like it was nothing?" he whispers.
He slips, crashes onto his back, and barely catches himself before a grunt escapes.
"Ahhh—fick my bac—!"
He slaps both hands over his mouth and ducks behind a boulder as a guard strolls by.
"Leon," Raven's voice hisses in his ear. "I highly suggest you shut up. Failing this early would be… disappointing."
"Yeah, yeah," Leon mutters. "Wouldn't want to mess up this heartless-ass mission."
He peeks around the boulder. Roxie's already a blur halfway across the compound, her feet barely touching the ground.
"Wait—she's not even making a sound when she lands," he whispers.
"One of Roxie's skills is Silent Touch," Raven explains. "No matter the fall, she lands like a cat. Makes her impossible to track."
"Freaky," Leon mutters. "You Americans are all freaks."
***
Taking a deep breath, Leon scrambles out of cover and attacks the fence again. After a full minute of struggling, he finally hauls himself over and falls onto the other side, stumbling forward on shaky legs.
"Ouch! My knees are going to snap in half if I keep landing like this," he groans.
Just as he steadies himself, a red beam sweeps across his chest.
"Oh crap—the alarm!" Leon freezes, heart hammering.
He stands there for five full seconds, bracing for sirens. Nothing happens.
"Uh… Raven? Explain?"
"Leon," Raven says flatly. "Did you really think I'd leave the alarms on for a rookie? I hacked the system the second you set foot on the premises. I didn't tell you because I wanted the pressure to feel real."
Leon blinks. "Wow. Thanks for the fake heart attack."
"Keep moving," Raven orders, tone icy. "Avoid the guards."
***
Ten exhausting minutes later, Leon finally reaches the front of the base. Sweat is dripping down his forehead.
"Where the hell is Roxie?" he pants.
"I'm right here."
He spins around just in time to see her drop silently from a rooftop, landing right behind him.
"You… you've been here waiting?"
"You move like a snail," Roxie says, hands on her hips. "You need to fix that. In a real mission, no one's coming to save you when you trip and get shot."
"Uhh… dark. But okay," Leon says, swallowing hard. "So… how do we get inside? Kick the door down?"
Roxie smirks and points to a vent high on the wall, half-hidden in shadow.
"Nope. That's the beauty of government bases—they love their air vents."