Chapter 2: Quinn and Jade

“One thousand feet tall?  Please tell me he’s joking Jade.” A man said.

“We wouldn’t have run 30 miles after barely surviving her attack to report to you, Commander, if the Intel wasn’t as important as is currently is.” Jade replied. She was out of breath, breathing heavily with each word. Jade was bent forward with her hands on her knees, barely able to keep a decent posture.

The commander stopped in his tracks and placed a hand over his mouth. He stood there, motionless for a long time.

                “Impossible. Our Intel is nearly 100% accurate and not a single piece of data even showed her growing past 300 feet! How in God’s name did she manage to grow an additional 700 fucking feet without us knowing her true potential? Answer me that, Jade.” The Commander barked. A deep sigh escaped from Quinn while Jade stared down the commander with a furious look.

                “Well look. You were NOT there when she attacked. You didn’t have to watch hundreds of your men get slaughtered by one fucking woman. I was there, Quinn was there, and we both nearly got stepped on. We’re the only ones who even got out alive, so it’s not like it’s a game of broken telephone. Besides, what else would leave a gigantic boot print in the ruins of our compounds wall?”

The commander let out a deep sigh. He watched both Quinn and Jade before placing an arm on both of them.

                “I’m sorry, you two. It’s….. We lost so many good men there. We have even had countless spies in their kingdom.  I just don’t understand how we could even miss such vital information. Look. I have an immensely important task for the both of you; something only the two of you can accomplish together. It can wait, so please rest and I will debrief you in the morning. Good work out there, you two.” He said. He gave a big, hearty smile, shaking hands with Quinn and ruffling Jades already messy hair.

                The two both walked in unison to the barracks, helping each other navigate their current home, exhausted and bruised from their last fight with Cait. This wasn’t the first time Quinn and Jade have had encounters with Cait. She has killed hundreds of Abstross’ men, witnessing a lot of their demises first hand. It was a wonder how they managed to escape Cait’s monstrous clutches. They have become quite famous in the kingdom of Phobos.  They eventually made it to their personal living quarters where the two both happily jumped onto their beds on either side of the room.

                “What kind of injuries do you got?” Quinn asked his sister.

                “Oh man. Broken leg, cracked rib, and my left ear is badly damaged. She stomped right next to me and the sound of the ground destroying fucked my ear drums. I couldn’t hear anything for at least 2 hours.  What about you?” Jade asked, clutching at her destroyed ribs.

                “Concussion. She kicked the Jeep that I was in. It went rolling for at least 10 seconds man, holy shit it hurt so much. Other than that, I just have scrapes all over from falling down too much. Dude, she’s so dangerous I don’t think we can kill her.  She literally didn’t take ANY damage from that fight. All she had was scraped shins from all the gunfire.” Quinn said. He ran his hand through his hair one time, wincing from the immediate pain his concussion was currently providing.

The two laid there in silence, enjoying moments of peace. All that could run through their mind was the slaughtered they witnessed at the base. They were making their daily run to all the bases, collecting and sharing Intel. Their latest Intel reported that Cait was still in Phobos, training her soldiers. Abstross thought they had enough time to interrogate her men, before executing them.

                “We have so many spies in that kingdom. How could we not be notified of this?” Jade asked.

She sat there for a moment, sitting in the absence of Quinn’s response. Soon enough, Jade’s eyes sprung open.

                “Unless, they know of our spies and have captured them. Oh God. We’ve been playing into their game for such a long time, Quinn. They know we’re watching so they’re consistently feeding us wrong Intel. Spineless Bastards. They rather live as hostages- no, slaves in that retched kingdom than be noble and tell us they’re compromised. They’re all too scared.” Jade said. She stood there, again, waiting for a response; nothing. Jade jumped out of her bed and slowly crept up to Quinn. Not much to her surprise, she found her brother, completely enveloped in his sheets, sleeping heavily. She scoffed and turned around, proceeding to do the same until the next day.

                10 hours later….

                “Rise and shine, cuties!” The commander shrieked. The two siblings jumped from their sleep, wide awake from the commander’s screeching voice.

                “Time to debrief you two. Come with me.”

The commander exclaimed. The two followed him to the briefing room, not even bothering to change out of their PJs. Jade and Quinn sat down, shooting a nervous look at each other. The commander stood at the end of the incredibly long table, his back to the two, steadily watching the giant computer monitor in front of them.

                “It’s time for what is probably your biggest mission, you two. Your task is simple, though immensely difficult. I need you two to infiltrate the kingdom of Phobos and steal their growth formulae. “

The two looked each other and had a hysterical laugh.  “You’re joking, right?!” The two yelled in unison.

                “I am as serious as I’ll ever be. Listen you’re the Snow twins. You’re literally the best assets Abstross could ever ask for. There’s a reason you’re the only ones in our covert ops unit, because you’re the only ones who could accomplish the tasks we need done. Please. You need to do this for our kingdom. Our scientists have no idea where to begin to replicate the growth formulae that Phobos has already created. If you find it and our scientists get a hand on it, we can create the fiercest giant super soldiers. We’d crush the entire kingdom in one night. “The commander said.

It took a long time to convince the two; 2 hours of constant debate to be exact, but the two finally agreed to take on the mission. It was a near impossible one; Quinn and Jade have to infiltrate the kingdom of Phobos and steal formulae that they literally have no location for. Not only that, but the duo are already well known in the kingdom.  To combat that, Abstross has outfitted Quinn and Jade with advanced stealth gear; more specifically: a mask that can change their face without any trace of it being on. The two suited up and headed for their car. It was a long, quiet drive. There is hundreds of miles of flat land with nothing built on it. It’s considered no man’s land because the area is too far from the respective kingdoms, so nothing is built there.

After countess hours of driving, the two finally made it to the first checkpoint into Phobos. Quinn and Jade must have waited 10 minutes before their car was next to drive up to the checkpoint booth.

                “Names.” The Lady barked.

                “Callum Nightly.” Quinn replied. Obviously his fake name. Jade couldn’t even recognize his voice; the mask had completely hidden it.

                “And yours, ma’am?” The lady asked. She didn’t bother to even take one glance at the twins. She was busy away typing at her computer.

                “Sasha Mayweather.” Jade replied. She gulped slightly and her voice sounded so guilty, but the woman didn’t seem to care.

                “state your reason for entering Phobos.” She asked, still glued to her computer screen.

                “We want to visit your Majesty Hope, and meet Cait as well. It’ll be our first time entering the kingdom.” Jade said. They could confirm that this Intel was clean because this was one of the first reports they ever received; millions upon millions of tourists come to visit Hope. Abstross and Phobos aren’t the only kingdoms residing in this land; we’re the only two who are currently at war.  Posing as a tourist was the easiest and safest option to take.  The lady didn’t respond to our answers for a bit, but she finally stopped typing on her computer. She swung her chair towards the two and gave them a long look.  Soon enough, the silence was broken.

                “you do realize the wait time for having an audience with Cait, let alone her Majesty?  We’re talking like over a handful of weeks’ worth of a wait.” She sighed.

                “Ah, whatever.” She rolled her eyes at this point. “I’m not going to stop you. Go on ahead, enjoy your stay in our kingdom.” She said. With one click of a button, the stoppers dropped and their car sped on ahead. It was such a big difference from a few hours ago. All the twins could see in their field of view was architecture.  Hundreds of thousands of uniquely shaped buildings littered our vision. Some made entirely of glass, some brick, others odd materials we couldn’t even describe. The kingdom of Phobos was beautiful. Vibrant colours all around. Everyone had a happy smile on their face like they didn’t have a care in the world, like nothing bad would ever happen to them. It was like night and day compared to Abstross; drab, dull colours, always seems like its night-time, perfect symmetry with buildings and architecture. Even the citizens of the land seemed like they didn’t even want to live another day. Jade thought to herself of having a life in Phobos but quickly shook it away; such insubordination could lead to death, even for someone of her status. The two finally parked the vehicle and walked around. They took in the sights of the lovely and lively kingdom. Soon enough, Quinn found a guards barracks and the two watched the building, carefully analyzing it while sustaining their hidden personas.

                “listen, we’ll walk around the back and try to capture one of their guards and take their uniform. That should work for a while until we get further into their kingdom.” Quinn said.

                “wait, why don’t we just stick to the tourist plan? We can literally get an audience with their queen and see Cait. She can probably even give a tour and we can probably see some stuff.” Jade replied.

                “Be reasonable Jade.  Seeing their queen yields no benefits and Cait is definitely not dumb enough to show random people important and most likely classified areas. We need to become one of them and get in there.” Quinn replied. The two watched each other with a blank face, both analyzing their decisions.

                “Fine. You raise a good point.” Jade replied.

The two leisurely walked to the guards barracks, before quickly running to the back of the building. The two hid behind a garbage bin, patiently waiting. Soon enough, a female guard appeared. Jade quickly grabbed the grunt and pulled her behind the bin, choking her out until she was unconscious.  A few minutes later, Jade was fully decked out in Phobos’ standard guard uniform. The two waited behind the bin, patiently until a new prey appeared. The two got ready to pounce but quickly ducked back behind cover after hearing multiple voices.

                “Hey, where’s Vicky?” A boy asked, inside the guard barracks.

                “She went outside for a smoke. Let’s get her.” Another said.

                “Shit.” Quinn said. “We need to run.”

                “There’s no time!” Jade quietly yelled. It was true; the gap to the street and the sound of the soldiers slowly encroaching left them barely any time to react.

                “Don’t worry. The commander hooked me up. You just need to remain calm, okay?” Jade asked, desperately.

                “Okay, sure. But what are you goi-” but before Quinn could finish his sentence, Jade quickly zapped him with a gun and his body instantly shrunk to a few inches. The unconscious grunt got shrunk down too. Before Quinn could react, Jade brought her foot down on the shrunken grunt, squashing her body underneath her stolen boot. Jade raised her foot to reveal a red splat, with no trace of a girl to be found. She scraped the gore off her boot against the garbage bin, before snatching up Quinn and shoving him into her jean pocket. She laid against the garbage bin until a group of 3 appeared out from the barracks’ door. They stopped dead in their tracks to Jade, obviously not knowing who she is.

                “Wait, what? Where’s Vicky?” One of them asked.  Jade didn’t talk. She only shrugged her shoulders and watched them back.

                The boy who talked earlier spoke once again. “Wait, who are you?”

                Jade remained silent for a moment. “Sasha. I’m sorry this is literally my first day so I have no idea who any of you are. They just dropped me off to these barracks without any further instruction.

The group watched Jade for a bit, looking a bit hostile but soon enough relaxed and welcomed her .

                “don’t worry. They always do that shit. Welcome aboard. We’ll get you started.” One of the girls said.

Jade smiled and walked with the group of 3. They all piled into the barracks. Jade followed behind, scraping off the last bit of Vicky off her boot. a bit of sadness flowed through her; she literally just squashed an innocent girl with her own boot. but Jade didn't have time to feel sorry for others. She had a kingdom to save.