Shifters

Joana

"-and watch out for any discrepancies in the framework," warned a seemingly distant voice from her side, "and remember to check your equipment before we head in."

"Joana!' the voice erupted in perhaps the loudest hushed tone she'd ever heard, "Are you even listening to me?"

"Huh," Joana answered, slowly coming out of her stupor, "Oh sorry Mitch, I sort of drifted off for a minute there."

"Drifted off?" Mitch asked in an annoyed tone, "Are you kidding me right now? This isn't the time to be spacing out especially since we're about to enter the facility in a few minutes," he continued, getting even more worked up as he went on, "There's no telling what we'll encounter inside there so you need to get yourself in order!"

"You both need to lower your voices and get down," a feminine voice chastised from behind, "otherwise you'll get all of us found out before we even begin."

Whirling around, Mitch spotted a figure crouching behind a semi-dense shrub clad in a fully camouflaged cloak, "I'll let it go for now, but only cause you asked me to Celene."

"Ughh," Celene muttered to herself with a sigh, "I don't even know why he chose those two for this mission. It feels like I got stuck with a babysitting gig instead of a high risk task."

"Mitch," she called out in a loud whisper, "Stop nitpicking and Joana, stay alert," she continued, "He may have been a jerk about it but he does have a point. This isn't just any facility we're about to raid. As we all know, this is one of the chief outposts monitored by The Order. I can't emphasize it enough, be on guard for anything," she paused, taking a breath before resuming, "It was hard enough to slip past their dimensional barrier without being discovered so it'd be foolish to get caught now due to your childish complacency, wouldn't you say?"

"Works for me," Joana replied in an equally low tone, "however, it doesn't shake the bad feeling I've been having since we arrived. Are we sure this is safe?"

"This is anything but safe," Celene replied, "however, if our intel is to be trusted, The Order's security at this facility has relaxed drastically in the past six months, so now's definitely the best time to strike ," the woman said, gesturing at their would be entrance, "Our hired help, Rica and Sara will flank the guards at the door securing our entry point Well follow along right after they complete their task leaving Leo to cover our rear."

"Alright, we got it," Mitch cut in, "can we go now? I'd rather not spend too much time in this...this place."

"At least-" Celene began, breaking off as a dim light briefly lit up on her fingertips, "that's our cue!"

Maintaining her crouch as she adjusted her hiding spot behind a withered, low-hanging branch she observed the guards who remained unaware of their fast-approaching demise. Mimicking her actions both Joana and Mitch followed suit as they to repositioned themselves into place. Holding their breaths as the seconds ticked on, their patience was soon rewarded with the ghost-like movements of two silhouettes who effortlessly closed the gap between them and their targets. Before the two unalert men could even react to the sudden appearance of the camouflaged figures, they were instantaneously dispatched with quick and precise downward slashes from the pair. Joana, who'd glued her eyes to their movements, glanced sideways as she heard an involuntary gulp erupt from Mitch.

'I can't blame him,' Joana thought to herself, 'Those two aren't one of the very few, top rated assassins for nothing.'

Using their downfall as the ultimate cue, Joana jumped from her hiding spot, making her way towards the entrance as fast as she could manage. Both Celene and Mitch fell into step behind her ensuring to make as little noise as possible. On reaching their destination, the trio crouched on either side of the doorway, averting their eyes away from the fresh corpses that littered their path.