Up In Arms

Chapter 14

"I hate undercover missions." Silvershot grumbled, and I playfully poked her in the side without looking away from the road.

"But now you have me to torture!" I joked, earning an annoyed glare from her as she turned to look out of my car's tinted windows.

I learnt that, while every group consists of highly trained assassins, not all of them deal strictly with assassinations. Every group has a specialty, but they are all able to perform the five main types of missions with varying degrees of expert skill. Other than assassins, they can be hired as bodyguards, intelligence gatherers, rescue teams, or private investigators.

Tenpin's partner – Jadelock – was part of an intelligence gathering/private investigating group and had forwarded the mission onto us – the only other group in this entire country – due to her group being stuck in the middle of... Something.

The mission was an undercover defensive job at a local university, the target we have to protect being some rich politician's daughter.

Glancing over to my soulmate at a red light, I noticed she was still pouting and poked her side again. "At least the classes are paid for, right? Free college, Silv!"

"Silv?" She echoed questioningly, unimpressed with the shortening of her name.

I smiled and parked, not saying anything else as we picked up our bags and headed towards the meeting location deep in the forest belonging to the conservation that bordered the campus. With light disguises, we looked like a group of college kids from varying cliques.

"Everybody remember their fake names?" Lockheed asked, rubbing his hands together with obvious excitement.

His hair had been dyed completely black to cover up his steely-grey undertones and he wore simple clothes: jeans, a light grey zip-up parka, beat-up off-white sneakers, and a weathered yet sturdy black backpack. His t-shirt had a depiction the galaxy with a red 'you are here' marker on one of the starry arms. He looked like an 'average college student', except for the part where he caused stuff to blow up or catch on fire when he got excited.

Thunderclap rolled her eyes. "Of course, Martin Lockheed." She sassed, and I resisted the urge to groan at the dumb name.

Her hair was out of its neat bun, a graceful gradient from near-white platinum blonde to her usual light blue, and her eyes were a matching light blue. A simple knee-length white dress accented her curves with the help of a silver belt, while her light denim cropped jacket and white gladiator sandals made the words 'badass ice princess' echo in my mind. Her theme-matching messenger bag was casually hanging from her shoulder, the small sword-like charm on one of the zippers not going unnoticed.

"Don't sass me, Leizi Dianmu." Lockheed shot back, and the two of them proceeded to strike overly sassy poses and fake-glare at each other.

From experience, I knew that they would remain like that until one of them cracked or they got distracted, so I looked over everyone else's outfits.

Winterfall had re-adorned the nerdy glasses she had used on a few of her previous missions, this time pairing them with a baggy sweater, comfortable jeans, converse shoes, and a faded green backpack. Her hair had a slightly brown overtone to it, muting her fiery copper so that it wouldn't catch the eye as easily. Without any makeup she looked young and nerdy, smart enough to be in college at her supposed age.

"What name are you going by?" I asked, and she smirked at me.

"Literally Winter – space – Fall. I'm going with the excuse that my parents weren't that creative and that if I had siblings, their names would be Spring and Summer." She replied, a mischievous smile hinting that there was more to that line than I knew. "And I'm the sassiest nerd you've ever had the pleasure of meeting."

"I don't doubt it!" Tenpin laughed before addressing me. "Osten Alpin."

Tenpin had a black unbuttoned button-up over a simple green 'US Army' t-shirt. With reasonably well-fitting jeans, running shoes, a black beanie, and a nondescript messenger bag, he looked like someone you'd expect to find working out in the weight room or running laps on the football field, his more muscular frame adding to the 'semi-jock' impression.

When in this group, Silvershot and I looked like a badass biker couple.

I was wearing my usual attire, dark clothes with combat boots and another leather jacket. My hair was the almost-black brown and I kept my eye color the same, with the hazel flecks near my pupils that Silvershot kept on staring at when she thought I was focused on something else.

She was wearing a light grey t-shirt with dark wash jeans that hugged the curves of her legs and ended beneath her own black leather boots. Her matching leather moto jacket was well broken-in, and I wondered if she was avoiding the coat because of my recent affinity for the dark material.

She had asked me to do her hair in a brown-blonde ombré, and she had pulled it back in a simple low ponytail, a few shorter strands framing her face while her crimson eyes were disguised as a cinnamon brown.

"And you, Silv?" I asked, the nickname earning me another small glare from her as well as curious glances from Thunderclap and Lockheed.

"Silver Brosok." She replied curtly, narrowing her eyes at me. "And don't call me 'Silv'."

I smiled but didn't make any promises. I had no intention of dropping the nickname. "I guess I'm Roman Thanatos. Makes it easy for me to remember."

Silvershot almost face-palmed, but instead she shook her head with a small sigh.

"The target hasn't decided on her degree yet, so we need to spread out to cover all her classes. We've got a contact who can get us there, but we need to have related majors for some of the classes to seem legit." Lockheed pulled out a paper and unfolded it, revealing a marked-up schedule. "I'm going for Mechanical Engineering."

Winterfall – just Winter, I corrected myself – glanced at the schedule before smirking. "Put me down in Nursing. I could use a first aid refresher course."

"Chemistry." Thund- Leizi flipped a bit of hair over her shoulder. "For obvious reasons."

"I'll cover her Psych class." Osten offered, reading over the schedule curiously.

"Physics." Silver stated, and I scanned the schedule to see that they had a single class left over.

"Did you all plan for me to take Drama?" I asked, looking around to see the mixed expressions before I shrugged. "With my history, Drama will be a piece of cake."

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