"Job." Fiora muttered quietly as she slipped the file containing their next mission over to Jason. He sighed as she left and headed to her own room. No doubt to begin her preparations. Well, she was the more responsible one of the pair, so there was little wonder why she was usually handed the files and information first. The moment Jason opened the file, however, he lost his taste for the drink he was nursing. Their target was an Asylum. Or a pair of them, to be exact. The fact that there were two targets meant they hadn't succumbed to insanaddiction... yet. A.M.R.O. sending them to eliminate both of them was... disquieting. It wasn't news to him that the people he worked for had some really inelegant ways of conducting their business, nor the fact that he and Fiora were just weapons to be pointed at the enemy. This was actually the first time they had been sent after one of their own. "Sensory and Fear manipulation... Boy this is going to be tough." He murmured to himself. He considered himself a master of illusions, but their specialties would make them more aware of his trickery. Subtlety and deception were not going to work well. Especially not when one of them had additional arms to fight with. --- It took all of half an hour for them to be ready, and Fiora was waiting at the airport with Jason. They had settled into this comfortable act of pretending to be newlyweds going on a honeymoon - she would rest his head on his shoulder, pretending to nap while he absent-mindedly played with his phone in one hand whle the other was wrapped around hers. The anyone watching them, they seemed to be simply waiting for the plane but in reality, the two were using their link to communicate silently. [i][b]Ominous.[/i][/b] [i]Well, we both knew we'd have to do something like this sooner or later.[/i] [b][i]Disgusting.[/b][/i] [i]It's not like we can say no, the only other choice we had was for them to give our files to someone else and wait for them to come knocking.[/i] [b][i]Nervous.[/b][/i] [i]You always say that when I'm the bait. Look, I've counted three times you've managed to kill a target while I was in your line of fire and the only injury I've sustained is a few lost hairs. If I had to gamble with my life, I'd much rather bet it on your skill.[/i] [b]Flatterer[/b] Jason could have sworn Fiora blushed. [i]Not like I have a choice. I can get rid of you as easily as I could reach my ass and pull my tongue out.[/i] [b]Alchemy[/b] [i]You're missing the point.[/i] The banter went on for a few minutes, but they finalized the plan and got on the plane. At least their intel told them the brothers were separated - two separate two-on-one engagements were more likely to succeed than a two-on-two. The problem was they couldn't kill them separately with the connection between the two of them. They'd have to incapacitate the first and kill them both simultaneously. --- The battlefield was a sight to behold, and Jason immediately knew why they had been sent after these two Asylums. It was obvious some forbidden alchemy had taken place there, and there were signs of multiple combatants. It meant they weren't the only ones hunting Asylums. There was no way there was this much destruction involved otherwise. [b]Bad.[/b] [i]That about sums it up.[/i] That was when Jason felt a chill running down his spine, and a sense of dread wash over him as he noticed Fiora laying in a pool of her own blood. He walked a bit further and there was his mother, being eaten alive by a colony of ants. He tried to shut it all off, knowing it was all the fear manipulator at work. After all, if one was always working with illusions, one became a master at telling reality from fiction. "Help me!" "Help me!" Save me, Jason!" The voices of Fiora, and his family called out to him as they died in different ways while he continued to scan the area for their target. The fact that Mikhail had not attacked yet meant he wasn't stupid enough to believe Jason came alone. Perfect. --- Fiora was looking down the scope of her sniper rifle when she felt a presence behind her. She immediately ignited the sigil below her, turning the ground intangible as she jumped out of the way and let her attacker sink into the ground below. She turned around as planned to put first an anti-alchemy round into him before sedating him, but what faced her was a wall of swords coming right at her. Fiora panicked and backed away, trying to place some distance between herself an the wall. She cried out as she felt the first blade pierce her and then blacked out. When she came to, she had her head in Jasno's lap while a blanket was wrapped around her. "Sorry about that," he apologised. "He managed to cast before you could get him and you started freaking out, so I had to knock you out." "Unpleasant." She groaned as she sat up, shaking off the throbbing headache. "How long?" "Ten minutes." He replied almost immediately. "We have another hour and fifty minutes to get the other one before he wakes up. --- Gregor was the problem. He was currently in some bunker, and while Fiora's talents meant they didn't have to worry about walls, the two of them could simply just drop in through the ceiling and just kill an Asylum without everyone else in the vicinity trying to kill them shortly after the fact. They would have to isolate him first. Fiora hummed a song quietly while she worked. Jason was keeping track of where Gregor was using a thermal imaging device, while she set up the phase field they would use to grab their target and pull him up to their level and engage him. He was currently listening to someone speak, and a man with tendrils attached to his back was a very conspicuous target. "Done." "Here comes the hard part." Jason sighed as he fired a grappling hook into the ceiling and tested its hold in the concrete. Satisfied it wouldn't give way, he prepared to make the grab. The move was quick and fast - gravity pulled the illusionist through the floor and he descended with a sharp blow to Gregor's head before grabbing the man around the neck and engaging the reel on the wire. Before the occupants of the room could react, Jason was back up through the ceiling with his prey in hand. To Gregor's credit, the blow didn't disorient him as much as it should have and he was soon retaliating almost immediately. Jason grunted as he was thrown off the giant of a man with a headbutt. Almost immediately Gregor seemed to be everywhere at once. Jason knew how the brothers worked, but seeing it first hand was something else. He knew he couldn't stay still and he definitely didn't want to get cut up by Gregor's attack. "Two can play at this game." He murmured as he dropped a smoke pellet and enshrouded himself in a cloud of smoke, while his eye flashed green as he engaged his own alchemy. Once the smoke cleared, Jason was seeing Gregor everywhere and his opponent was seeing him everywhere as well. Several copies of him were spread through the room, illusions of himself meant to throw off his opponent. A battle between Asylums and their prey often came down to who made the first mistake. Team Midnight had already made their plan of attack, but both were well aware plans never survived past first contact with the enemy or a guy people liked to call Murphy. Jason hadn't accounted for how fast Gregor could slice through his illusions. The tendrils came dangerously close a few times, but he managed to evade and deflect them with his sword baton. Attached together with the blades on both ends, he was whirling them about as fast as possible in order to Gregor from hitting him, all the while trying to determine if the one before his eyes was the real one. Eventually, however, he was pressed back into a corner. "Well, at least this way I know he's in front of me." Jason snarked as he broke the baton apart into two separate swords. He needed the flexibility if he was fighting in a corner. Just as Gregor attacked, Jason felt himself falling backwards. He heard the sound of concrete being smashed apart, and opened his eyes to see Fiora standing over him. "Careless." She chided him in a monotone before drawing her blade and plunging it back through the wall. "Now we need to see if you got him..." Jason pulled out a card and carved a sigil on it, before nodding to Fiora. She pulled her sword back and noted the tip was stained with blood, but did not stop there. She placed her hands against the wall and casted again, before Jason threw his card through the intangible wall and heard an explosion rock the room opposite as Fiora removed her hands just in time to ensure the shrapnel wasn't going to phase through the wall and hit them both. The pair moved further down the wall, making sure they would still appear in the same room before Fiora casted again and they both phased through the wall at a run. What greeted them defied belief. Gregor was still alive. He was bloodied with a gash from where Fiora's blade had struck, but very much still breathing. The girl wasted no time at all in whipping out her pistols and emptying both magazines into the target. Each shot hit center mass, and right in his chest, blood spraying from the wounds as the bullets ripped through cloth and flesh. The last round, she put in his head. Jason always forgot that Fiora chose to fight beside him because she wanted to make doubly sure they had killed their target. He had seen her work with a sniper rifle and it would have been all too easy for him to just guide the targets into her crosshairs, but his partner was one who got the job done. "One left." Fiora muttered, reloading her pistols and dragging the tied up Mikhail into the room. Jason fired a bolt into his head and stabbed his heart to make doubly sure like Fiora did. He watched as Fiora phased the two bodies into the floor and kept them there. A rushed burial for fellow Asylums they were sent to kill. A last mercy. "Sorry." She muttered under her breath and Jason placed a hand on her head. "Orders are orders, Fee." He whispered. It was easy to ignore the distaste in the heat of battle, but like a hangover it came with a vengeance once the fight was over. "I bet more Asylums will be here to execute the other targets soon, if the group here is involved in this... Let's stay out of their way, hmm?" He did not mention the nagging feeling in his mind that they might have a target painted on their backs as well...