"I can blow a hole through your head before you can even raise the rifle." The androgynous figure stated, "So I wouldn't reach for it if I were you."

  Mumei asked with fake nervousness, slowly moving her hand away from her rifle and into the air in an attempt to trick the assaint into fake security, "Who... who are you."

  "I'm Amy Louis."

  "You're the requestor!" Mumei excimed in shock as Ataraxia gasped under her mask.

  "So... I want you to y down your rifle over there." Amy pointed to a table in the corner of the room. "Same with your companion."

  With no other choice, Ataraxia lowered her knife and pistol, pcing them and the Ballista strapped to her back onto the table near the MCX Spear.

  "You're here for the request, right?" Amy asked.

  Seeing the two nod, Amy continued, "Well. I want you to rescue a girl from Harold Lar. This is a quiet operation. Mention it to anyone, and the bots on you detonate, understood? So keep quiet, ok? The hostage is a woman with bck hair and green eyes. She looks around 16 to 18. I'll hand you two a picture of her ter. And rex, we're not on opposite sides at the moment, so I won't be harming you."

  "And how are we supposed to believe that?" Mumei questioned.

  "Well... You don't. Just think of it as two groups with simir interests working together. After all, that's why your previous requestor, Jonathon over here, is in on the operation as well. Same with Lemal over there." Amy pointed to the woman wearing a hoodie and a white, full-face mask, "We all, at least I hope so, want to bring down the narcistic, backstabbing son of a bitch that is Harold Lar. Besides, I'm your requestor, not to mention the fact that I'm paying you to do this."

  'Backstabbing... Along with her musing about someone they..? were monitoring... My money's on them being a spy for someone important, likely Harold considering they called him a backstabbing bastard.' Ataraxia deduced.

  "Now, onto the details of the request. You have 12 days to save the hostage. Since you're likely an outnder," Amy nodded to Ataraxia, "You'll get more time than I was originally going to give you. I expect regur reports messaged to the phone number on the contract. The chat is securely encrypted thrice, so almost no chance of interception. That's all. Now begone."

  With the short ending to her speech, Ataraxia and Mumei were kicked out of the room, with Jonathon following them with their belongings and a picture of their target, along with some extra information about her.

  "H-hey... I'm sorry I pointed a gun at you. It's just that, Amy said we might not be able to trust the Contractor arriving and made us ambush you just in case." Jonathon apologised.

  #Why would we not be trustworthy?#

  "Because Harold Lar is a good person in the eyes of many, so the idea of 'rescuing someone' from his grasp seems more like kidnapping someone for no reason to many. He funds schools, clinics - even orphanages, not to mention his amazing work on keeping crime at bay." Jonathon expined. "Well... I have another appointment with Amy, so here's your weapons. More information about the target is on the back of the photo."

  Security Minister's Mansion... (Ataraxia's PoV)

  Parking in a car park from a decent distance away from Harold's mansion, Mumei and I started scouting with binocurs, pretending to be star gazing. The mansion was the typical mansion from the real world, rge open green areas in front of the mansion and an even rger back yard. There were guards patrolling the outside. There also seems to be some armoured CCTV cameras around the property as well.

  Flipping over the photo of the target Jonathon gave us, a huge wall of text that could easily be summarised into three words: Don't. Injure. Her.

  That's pretty much it, along with a theory of Amy's. One that I don't particurly like. One of the psyche.

  If her theory is true, Harold Lar is going six feet under today.

  Now, how do we break into this guy's building? He lives in the Security Minister's mansion. I have no doubt there's armed guards, CCTV and probably more Sci-Fi tech inside as well.

  "Now then... What's our pn of action?"

  #I don't know. Do you have any ideas?#

  "While you went for a break in the other world, I took the liberty of buying some scout drones, so we could try those." My assistant said, handing me a controller with a screen on it. "I doubt we'd be able to scout everything, since Harold probably has countermeasures for drones in pce, but we should be able to scout out a decent amount of the mansion."

  That's sound logic. I'm gd I have such a smart assistant.

  Looking from outside, the mansion seems to have two floors not including a potential basement.

  Good thing we have scout drones.

  #Time for the drones.#

  "Great. We have one problem though. Due to their small size, the drone controls are sensitive, and well, we don't have many."

  #That's fine.#

  "Good. I'll drive closer and deploy them. I'll be right back." Mumei said, tossing me my Ballista just in case and getting into our car.

  A few minutes ter, Mumei was back.

  *BZZT BZZT*

  With a bit of static as the transmission from the drone's camera just started coming through, the operation began.

  Ah, right.

  #If things go loud, we should bring in Xaiden, from the Phoenixes. I think he'd like some revenge.#

  "Good idea."

  Now, time to see what we're up against.