I am extremely sorry for the long wait. School has been killing me the past few months. But exams are on the way so I'll have more time at home, which means more time to write ;) To make it up, I've decided to write a longer oneShot. So here it goes, I hope you enjoy it!!
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It's seven in the morning, and Ludmila is in desperate need for a coffee.
"So, you've been assigned to this flank, eh?" Fabio says. He's a gangly man who has the mind of a genius, always the one who comes up with the battle strategy. "That side is definitely the most guarded. You need an expert who can get through."
"That's why they asked me to do it," Ludmila says with a yawn. The room is blinding with streaks of light coming to the windows. She blinks sleepily, unable to think about anything but her daily caffeination.
He shifts forward in his seat and flicks away a strand of perfectly gelled hair. "Are you sure you're ready for the task? Even though our ally is sending their top agent doesn't mean -"
Ludmila snaps awake to hear his skeptical comments, and rolls her eyes in annoyance. "It means that she and I can handle it."
"Actually, it's a he. His name is Federico Granera."
She gives a half-hearted shrug, too drowsy to process the information. "Same difference. Just tell me what we have to do."
He swivels around in his chair to retrieve a tablet, and the screen flickers with images. "First, what you have to do is get past their first line. This one's going to be a doozy, so we're sending in others to take the brunt while you two sneak past. Only fire if necessary. Their second wave is going to be weak, getting past them will be child's play."
Ludmila finds herself falling asleep once more, and the thought of a mocha latte flits tantalizingly through her mind. She wills herself to focus.
"First wave, don't fire; second wave, free-for-all," she mutters to herself groggily.
"The orders will be relayed from the command center," he says. "The third and fourth waves are the thickest of all, and although their weapons are inferior, they can kill you."
"That's what weapons do," she mumbles. He glares at her.
"Finally, you'll have to disable the land mines. This is the trickiest part. After you're done with that, the rest should be easy. You run into the headquarters, and since the entire command center is probably weak like me, you should be able to destroy the disk. Should."
Ludmila frowns. "So this is what it's all about? A disk?"
"A disk that holds the personal information of everyone in the world. It used to belong to us, but they've installed some kind of virus into it. What you need to do is burn it, drop it on a landmine, destroy it."
"Dang. Sure, okay."
"The mission starts in a week. Training starts in, hmm, thirty minutes?"
Ludmila groans. She really needs that coffee.
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She actually gets to the gymnasium on time; the clock reads seven forty-five, exactly thirty minutes from when her meeting ended. The instructor ushers her off to do shooting, and so far, she's getting the hang of it, hitting the exact center almost every time. This is her first time handling a real gun, she realizes, not the plastic ones. And she's getting good.
About fifteen minutes later, when she's hit the bull's eye at least twenty times in a row, she can hear the pounding of footsteps outside in the hallways. She turns around to look just as the door bursts open, and a man steps out. He looks about her age, only much taller. He has brown hair and these chocolate brown eyes and Ludmila can only think, damn he's hot. He's holding papers and gasping for breath, as if he ran all the way from the lobby, which is pretty far away. He glances at everyone in the gym (Ludmila, the bewildered instructor, and a lone trainee) and announces, "Sorry I'm late."
The instructor takes his papers and leads him over the weights, and when he starts, Ludmila can't take her eyes off his arms. Those things were a work of art, the way they flexed. She forces herself to go back to shooting, though she's so disoriented that the plastic bullet hits the very edge of the target. Get your game on, Ferro.
Finally, after twenty minutes of immense concentration, she can see him from her peripheral vision get up from the weights and saunter over to the guns. He grabs a pistol from the back table and blindfolds himself. He then fires at all the targets, and the bullets stick in the middle of each. He is actually vain enough to shout to all in the gym, "Hold the applause!"
"Shameless," she thinks out loud, making a face. She hopes he doesn't hear her remark.
He hears her remark.
"You saw that shot, right? It was noteworthy." The way he says it is so confident, Ludmila almost punches him in the face, but she doesn't. She knows he's just being cocky as a joke.
"Yeah. The way you show off is pretty noteworthy too," she jabs, and he grabs his heart as if he were hurt. He's still smiling though.
"Touché," he replies. "Let's see how you shoot, assuming you're going to look at the target, not my arms."
"Very funny, you," Ludmila says back, fighting a blush. The nerve of him is implausible. She goes to the back of the area and launches herself into a somersault, shooting multiple bullets at the same time. When she gets up, she examines her work: Four bullets making a perfect little ring around the center. Ludmila mentally applauses herself - it's good shooting. No, fantastic shooting.
The guy whistles lowly. "Damn." He holds out his hand to her. "Federico Granera."
"Ludmila Ferro," she says, shaking it. She vaguely remembers the name...
Oh.
It was going to be one hell of a mission.
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I hope you enjoyed it. Stay tuned for part 2!!!
Keep requesting.
Lots of Love,
Emily
xoxo
