"Status report, Alex." A figure suited in futuristic armor askes another armored figure. They both have a Grey Circle on their uniform.
"Year, 2015 New World years." Alex reports. "Day, 20 days after the year begins."
"I said status report, dipshit." The figure berates Alex.
"Okay then, Ben." Alex says in an offended tone. "Everything is going to plan. Except for the asshole 12 O' clock of me."
Ben looks behind him as Alex laughs to herself. To Alex's surprise, a high ranking member was behind Ben.
"SIR- or MA'AM." Ben stands up straight and salutes. "I'm sorry about this pleb insult you, I will make sure to dispatch them im-"
"Ah yes." The High Ranking Member fakes a voice. "Please do so, I have a meeting with Darron Mary."
"Who's Darron Mary?" Alex asks. "I don't know them."
"Our glorious leader!" The High Ranking Member sweats. "Darron Mary."
"We are led by Eric Aaron." Ben squints. "Or am I forgetting things?"
The High Ranking Member lets out an awkward laugh as the two stare at him. "You know what? Fuck it." The High Ranking Member takes off his mask and pulls out a GATE radio. "We're going in loud, over."
The fake high ranking member shoves a rifle that Ben was going to use to shoot him up Ben's chin. Alex tries to shoot the faker, but he punches her, which is followed up with an explosion.
"That's how you do it!" The Faker shouts as alarms go off and people scramble. He starts to blow up the walls around him as he runs down a hall.
"This is London, do not engage." A voice from the radio responds. "I repeat, Do. Not. Engage. Over."
"This is DCW," The Faker slows down and takes back out his radio. "And we have no reason to be stealthy, over."
"Washington, we want to use as little resources as we can." London tries to reason with him. "Doing this will cause us to lose more than we would in a stealth mission. Also, you promised!"
"I didn't promise you shit!" Washington mocks London. "Now, let us do our thing."
"I hate yo-" London tries to say before the radio is knocked out of Washington's hands.
"HEY!" One of the armed people shouted at another one. "Eric wants him alive, stupid! He wants US to capture HIM. What part about that is hard to understand!?"
"Why?" The Armed Person asks. "Why can't the Grey Circle just... you know... kill our enemies?"
"I think it has something to do with some old world stuff." The other "Grey Circle" grunt tells them.
"Ahem." Washington get's the grunts' attention. "Are you done?"
One of the grunts goes in for a tackle, but Washington steps to the side and uses a spell to take off their helmet. Washington shoots the grunt in the head with a piston he had on his hip.
The other grunt starts to fire at Washington, but the armor he stole to appear like he was part of the Grey Circle was too strong. Right before Washington could reach the grunt, an arm covered in red and black armor breaks through the wall and breaks the grunt's neck.
"Identify yourself, soldier." Washington demands the arm, which is now feeling the wall it broke through.
"Uh, Cincinnati sir." A muffled voice comes from behind the wall. "Washington, I-I'm a bit stuck."
Washington touches the wall and it blows up. As the smoke clears, Washington sees a man in a futuristic set of armor that has red, yellow, and black stripes with the words GATE on it.
"On your feet, Cin." Washington laughs as a bunch of other people in the same armor run past him. One of them smacks Washington up the head with the butt of their rifle, then runs.
"Ha!" Cincinnati laughs as he brushes off some debris from the wall. "One thing's for sure. That bitch on the topic floor isn't gonna survive us!"
"Yeah." Washington looks at the soldier that smacked him up the head and flips them off. "His name is Eric. He sounds like a bitch. Now let's move."
As the group goes up some stairs, Washington spots an untouched elevator and brings Cincinnati with him into it.
"What floor?" Cincinnati asks.
"I think it's the floor that says 'not the boss's room here'." Washington points to a big red elevator button.
Cincinnati pushes the button and the elevator starts to move.
"Damn," Cincinnati admires the room. "Why don't we have elevators?"
"It takes too much teamwork." Washington makes up.
"Yeah..." Cincinnati responds. "You know, London is gonna be pissed."
"She already is." Washington confirms. "But she has as much power as me, so I'm not worried about it."
"Yeah, but what if she gets M-" Cincinnati says before being spooked by a noise the elevator made to notify them that they are at their destination.
The elevator doors open to 10 Grey Circle grunts awaiting them with the same rifles that don't work on either of their armors. One does have wizard ropes on top of their armor. Behind them is a man sitting in a seat, looking annoyed.
"Why, hello-" Washington tries to greet himself.
"Fire." The man quietly says.
They fire their bullets that do nothing to the men in the elevator. Washington points in front of himself, signaling Cincinnati to attack.
As Cincinnati charges at the screaming grunts, Washington marches toward the man, pushing anyone who tries to attack him out of the way.
"Alright Mall, you ready to teleport me out of here." The man talks to the person in wizarding robes. "Everything's gone to shit."
"Mall?!" The assumed wizard states in confusion. "Uh, yeah. I-I'm definitely Mall, 100%. I know magic... uh yeah."
"WAIT A MINUTE!" A Grey Circle grunt turns around. "My name is Mall and I know mag-"
That grunt got jabbed in the face by Cincinnati before they could finish talking. "Well hi, Mall." He mockingly says to the grunt.
"Hey cunt." The grunt grabs Cincinnati's leg. "Fuck you."
Suddenly, a bunch of bright yellow small beams of light engulf the two and they seemingly disappear.
"Cincinnati?" Washington turns around. "Talk about deadweight."
"Wait, that looks like teleportation." The man turns to the roped grunt. "If that was Mall, who would you be?"
"Gull." The grunt tells him.
All the color that was in the man's face gets drained as the rest of the GATE soldiers pant going up the last flight of stairs.
"Take care of the participaters," Washington tells the group. "I've got Eric."
"Sir," One of the soldiers interrupts. "we were told to shoot him on sigh-"
"I thought your name was Philadelphia, not Liverpool." Washington tells the soldier. "You follow my orders, not her's."
As the GATE members clear out the room, Washington slowly approaches the man, who is Eric Aaron. Eric tries to stumble away from Washington, but he can't.
Washington lifts Eric onto his feet. "Relax, Mr. Aaron." Washington tries to reassure the trembling man. "I'm not gonna kill you."
"R-r-really?" Eric studders.
"No, you fucking degenerate." Washington starts to threaten Eric. "What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get my men to slowly sink an axe into each limb off yours day by day, inch by inch. Then, we'll do the same with your neck. We'll burn you alive while we do it. After your head has been decapitated, I will use it as a glory hole and a toilet. Your Legacy won't live on if my fat dick is in your dead mouth in public. You will be seen for what you are, a puny little fucking fascist with my dick in your mouth. I will be seen for what I am, the greatest GATE capital leader this world has ever seen. The greatest fucking magic users from the new world and the old world. I was named after the old world explosion wizards of Freedonia for a reason, dickhead who's gonna have my dick in your head-"
An explosion comes from a wall behind Eric. Eric is gleeful at first, thinking he can finally escape, but a woman in a red and black outfit walks up to him and shoots him in the face with a handgun. A bunch of other GATE troops burst from the blown up wall.
"Kill anyone in this building that isn't involved with GATE." The woman, London, tells the troops. "Now Washington, we need to have a talk."
"Hey!" Washington drops Eric's body. "I was going to use that."
London shoots Eric in the head again. "No, you weren't. Now tell me, what part of 'Do it Quietly' do you not understand?"
"Look okay," Washington justifies. "I suck at talking to low level enemy grunts without insulting them."
"Well you almost cost us your entire brigade and..." London looks behind Washington's shoulder "is that.... Yorkshire?"
Yorkshire walks up to the two. "I'm sorry ma'am," He apologizes to London, "I just heard the orders to go and I-"
"Shut the fuck up." London tells off Yorkshire. "I don't have the time for you, Yorkshite. Go help the other troops terminate any witnesses."
Yorkshire does a solute and then runs off.
"This is the 12th time you did this shit, Columbia." London goes back to ridiculing Washington. "And I'm getting sick and tired of it."
"13, actually." Washington corrects her. "And I'm sorry you don't like it when I embrace the beauty of anarchy."
"Anarchy is for outside of our job, you choose this job to protect it by being the only completely organized group allowed. If you keep doing this, the fascist nation starting fuckers are going to get ahead of us." London spits in Washington's face. "Where is Cincinnati?"
"None of your, uh, business." Washington replies. "You worry about your troops, I'll worry about mine."
"Just because Moscow and Beijing aren't here doesn't mean I can't eject your ass from the capital leaders," London threatens him. "maybe even GATE in general."
"What are you gonna do?" Washington laughs. "Are you gonna get Dublin to help you? Oh, maybe Paris will rise from the dead to call you a bitch!"
"I have some news about Paris." London announces.
"Wait," Washington stops laughing. "did you actually find a necromancer?"
"No," London answers. "I fucking hated to old Paris."
"OLD?!" Washington says in shock. "YOU GOT A REPLACEMENT."
"Yep." London smugly says. "PARIS! COME OUT HERE!"
A woman a bit shorter than both Washington and London awkwardly stumbled up to the two.
"Oui?" She looks around. London lightly nudges her and she speaks again. "Oh. Ahem. Je suis le nouveau Paris." She turns and whispers to London. "Did I say that right?"
"I only know latin." London tells Paris.
"Oh la la." Washington replies to Paris.
"You can kill him after he inevitably fails his mission." London semi-jokes to Paris. "SPEAKING OF WHICH! Paris, would you like to inform Washington about his mission we talked about earlier."
"I don't get a break?" Washington groans.
"Of course you don't." London snaps at him. "Because fuck you."
"Alright, Mr. Washington." Paris pulls out a piece of paper "Me and London, well, really just London have decided to put you on a simple mission that, if you fail, will result in you being replaced."
"Or will just result in him being killed." London adds.
"Sure..." Paris squints. "The first thing you should know is that you don't have to worry about finding Cincinnati."
"Because I didn't lose him." Washington crosses his arms as he lies.
"Do you know what a Qlicker is?" Paris asks Washington.
"The little bird things with cameras for eyes?" Washington assumes. "Oh wait... shit."
"Yeah, we all saw Cincinnati teleport." Paris confirms. "I can assure you that your boyfriend can handle the Grey Circle grunt. Petersburg will look in the north, Kyoto will look in the east, Dublin will look in the south-"
Dublin waves at the group from a far.
"And Montreal will look in the west." Paris finishes.
Washington was going to ask "Did you just say Cincinnati was my boyfri-", but he got cut off.
"Pay attention." Paris ridiculed Washington, looking toward London for approval. "We have found a potential fascist in the north coast that we need you to take care of. You will take the fight from here to the Museum Islands, to the north coast."
"I'm pretty sure I'm banned from the Museum Islands." Washington finds excuses.
"I made you a new card." London tosses a card to Washington. It says England with a crudely drawn, red "new" on the top left of it. The photograph is of Washington with a mustache and a monocle drawn with the same pen on him.
"They're too smart to fall-" Washington complains before being smacked in the face by London.
"JUST TAKE THE DAMN CARD!" London shouts.
After a bit of silence, Paris finishes up what she was saying. "If you don't finish this project within this year, your position as Washington will be given to someone else." Paris says in a bit of a deeper tone. "You won't be allowed to return until you finish, got it?"
"Trust me," Washington tries to flirt. "I already finished."
"Okay, bud." London grabs the collar of Washington's armor and starts to drag him away. "If you get banned again from the Museum islands, I'll give Moscow your desk."
As Washington gets dragged away, kicking and cursing, Paris squints at him, and then walks away.
Washington gets dragged to one of the only authorized ports and waits for his boat to take him to the islands.