“Why are we even discussing this?” Phon chastised them. “If we just use any single one of our Curses, we can get in there, get the junk, and move on.”

  “Sure it would be easy, but we have a great opportunity here,” Drim argued.

  “If it’s easy, then that’s obviously the best way!” his sister rebutted.

  “Yes, but then it’s not fun at all!” the brother yelled back.

  Kada and Xard watched in awe at a truly rare sight. The Drazah siblings were actually having a tense and heated argument.

  “Look, this is a great chance to work on our stealth and have some fun while we’re at it,” Drim continued his case.

  “Yes, but we’re low on time, remember? We’ve only been at this for three days, can we really afford getting side tracked like this?” Phon made some valid points, but her brother still refused to give up.

  “I know stealth isn’t normally your thing, Phon, but I remember your disappointment back at the Cotagerie Museum. You wanted to try being a spy, so this is the perfect chance! We’ll put it to a vote. Who wants to do it the awesome, fun way, and not the boring, easy way?” Drim, Kada and Xard all immediately raised their hands. A few seconds later, Phon hesitantly raised her hand to join them.

  This argument had taken place in a shallow cave along the north-eastern coastline of the continent. The Fiends were standing in front of an extravagant, but time-worn door, locked by an ancient mechanism. Behind it, held the hopes and dreams of an entire country, wanting to end their lives of oppression.

  ◆◆◆

  The Fiends had been traveling for three days and had successfully infiltrated a little over a hundred banks with no issue. When they got to a town or city, they would usually split up into pairs to cover all of the banks listed on their app. They could track the other team's progress as well, so they wouldn’t overlap. The composition of each team didn’t matter too much, as long as Kada and Phon were divided. Having two Curses together that allowed for silent infiltration was redundant.

  They hadn’t come across too many big cities so far, and the average number of banks in small towns and villages was one or two. If there were two or more, they’d split up the banks and take care of them. However, in larger cities where there were at least five or more, the speed of their Curses really began to show. On average, Phon and her partner would usually take care of about 80% of the overall amount of banks. Kada’s Curse was just as effective at getting the job done, albeit a lot slower.

  A few hours into their trip, Phon had set up a proximity tracker on the job list. If a job posting originated from within a hundred lages of them, they’d get a ping. So far, nothing had been worth stopping for or going out of their way to do. However, they had completed one job accidentally. An Elesloth, a combination of an elephant and a sloth, had been sleeping in the middle of the road in a ravine. It would have been more effort to go around it, so they just went through instead.

  They took this opportunity to test out The Tourist’s fire power. The guns on it managed to take out the Elesloth in seconds. After activating the plow, Kada drove forward. It split the monster in two, and pushed the decaying remains to either side of the road. During the process, Drim had realized it was a job request, and leaned out the window to take a picture. When they reached the town the request originated from, the leader went to claim the reward while the others went off to take care of the banks.

  On the second day, however, shortly after passing over the border to the country of Anoint, their mobile devices started beeping like crazy. They had received nearly a thousand job requests in total, all with the same title, ‘Please Help Us’. The request had been from around thirty different people, submitting it over and over through both the website and over the phone. They all claimed to be members of a resistance group.

  It didn’t take the Fiends long to find the rebel army’s base of operations, just beneath a warehouse in the port district along the coast. However, they hadn’t rushed to get there. They still took care of any banks along their way and didn’t really alter their course. Political affairs weren’t exactly high priority at the moment, and they even stopped for a nice meal near the port while Phon scouted the requesters with her Curse. Ultimately, the Fiends For Hire decided that they’d at least hear them out.

  When they got there, the shocked and delighted rebels fed them a classic tale of woe that could be heard countless times throughout history: the government was oppressing its people. It was all pretty standard; high poverty rates, discrimination, and a rule just shy of totalitarian. The Fiends didn’t really find any of it surprising, however this nation was a part of the Central Peace, even one of its founders.

  Apparently, Anoint wasn’t even considered when trying to form the CP, but the ruler had begged to join. And when the nation’s government was discussed, it led to something Drim couldn't ignore. One of the current rulers was the governor that the Drazahs had put in charge to rule the country in their stead. As soon as the Drazah Empire collapsed, he immediately flipped sides. Now the nation didn’t have only a single ruler, but was controlled by four nobles. It was meant to balance out the power, but since the former governor with no loyalties had chosen them, they were all corrupt.

  Nobility is such a pain. Thankfully the majority of countries don’t have it anymore. Maybe in the future I should make a plan to get rid of that as well, Drim thought to himself as the briefing continued. Apparently, the alleged corruption was under investigation by the CP, but since this country was as far away from CP headquarters as geographically possible, the team was quite small. So far, they had been unable to turn up even a single piece of evidence of the nobles' wrongdoing.

  To the rebels' credit, they had apparently found out where all of the convicting evidence was held, or at least where they believed it to be. Based on its description, even if it didn’t have what the rebel army was looking for, it would still be interesting to investigate. The cave was immediately suspicious when they arrived, since two armed guards were manning the entrance. Phon teleported herself and Xard behind them, each kicking a guard into the sea.

  “Aww that looked like fun, I wanna do it too!” Kada whined that she missed out. Even Drim had a longing gaze, so Phon teleported the guards back up so that the two of them could get a turn. Endless obscenities were yelled at the Fiends while they headed deeper into the cave. Drim recognized the door immediately, since it had been in their parents’ notes. Eleen had discovered it during her conquest, and used it as a weapons cache. Unfortunately, she was still asleep, so he couldn’t ask her about it, but he remembered all that was written.

  The door was locked by a diamond-shaped key, which consisted of four smaller also-diamond-shaped pieces. It became immediately obvious how it was divided: four nobles, four key fragments. “This sounds just like a quest in the game I’m playing,” Kada laughed at the situation since it seemed so archaic.

  “Well, fiction has to be based on reality sometimes, I suppose,” Xard suggested.

  After Drim and Phon’s argument on how to handle the situation, they headed back to the rebel base. The Fiends spent the rest of the night coming up with a plan. Drim dug through the resistance group’s records on the nobles while Xard looked them up online. Once they had at least their locations figured out, Phon charted out a course to optimize their bank robbing along the way. Kada had ducked out early to go to bed, since she’d have to drive early in the morning.

  ◆◆◆

  While it was still pitch black out, at a very early [175], the Fiends clambered into The Tourist. Kada drove them to their first destination while the others slept. Mallea had handmade the seats herself, making it rather easy to nod off. They soon arrived at their first destination, a manor belonging to one of the nobles. According to the information they had dug up, this noble wore her key piece as a pendant around her neck.

  Since there were four nobles and four Fiends, the group would take turns stealing each piece, and the others would only intervene if something went wrong. Kada was chosen for this first noble mostly because she was the one most awake. Drim stopped her before she could set off.

  “There’s something I want to try out, and I think this would be the perfect opportunity,” the boy pulled a tiara-like device out of his bag. “I had Nathym make this on a whim. It’s a neural transmitter, similar to the one used to control those tanks. However, the idea for this one is to try and tap into Phon’s mind.”

  “Err, I’m not sure about that,” his sister hesitated. “It’s probably for the best that certain things in there aren’t seen.”

  “No, I mean this should show us what you see with your Curse,” her brother elaborated. “It will then transmit those images to our mobile devices. Then we could track each person doing the heist. They wouldn’t be allowed to use it themselves, though, since it would make it too easy.”

  “Oh, that’s fine then, I don’t mind that,” Phon conceded and grabbed the tiara. She lifted the brim of her cap slightly and slipped it onto her forehead. The headwear synced automatically with everyone’s devices, and the boys clicked on the prompt that appeared. Through their screens, they could now see the black and white, and semi-transparent world that normally was limited to The Vixen’s vision. However, it was displayed only when Phon had her eyes closed. If she opened them, a notification would pop up saying 『Connection Lost』.

  “Oh wow, we can move the perspective around in this.” Xard was excited as he constantly changed his point of view. They could move the image around as if they were cameras floating in Phon’s field-of-view.

  “Huh, so that’s what our auras are like,” Drim commented after seeing themselves for the first time with colored light swirling around them. “Ugh, why is mine so much brighter than everyone else’s? It doesn’t suit me.” They could also see several dim lights off in the distance marking the guards and staff in the manor. “And once again I’m justified in my opinion that your Curse is simply just cheating.”

  Phon couldn’t deny the boy’s claim, and Kada was getting ready to head out. “You know, now that I’m aware I’ll be watched, I’m actually way more nervous,” The Mermaid shivered from the pressure.

  “You’ll do fine,” The Artillery started pushing her in the direction of the manor. “Now go steal the piece already. And remember, if you fail, we’ll judge you harshly and won’t let you live it down for months.”

  With Xard’s ‘supportive’ words, Kada snuck around to the back of the mansion. The entirety of the grounds was surrounded by a large metal fence with spikes on top, but the burglar just walked right through it. Once she determined that no guards would spot her, she dashed to the manor and melted herself into the wall. Thankfully, the building was built with a lot of space between the walls, so The Mermaid could wander around without being noticed. She just had to melt anything that got in her way without accidentally poking her body out the sides.

  The intruder wandered around the first floor and scouted out each room by poking the top of her face out of the wall. When she did this, she displaced the liquid wall off to the sides on her end so it wouldn’t drip and alert someone. As she peeked into the main foyer, she heard talking in her earpiece. “Hey Kada move your face up and to the right a bit.” The girl was poking her face through a wall at the moment, so she figured they must be seeing something amusing.

  After a few more adjustments, laughter blasted through the earpiece. By shifting her eyes, Kada was able to figure out that her face was currently in a painting, but couldn’t really make out how it was presented. Due to the outburst though, she could guess her face had lined up somewhere funny. Then she started to panic. A butler had walked into the foyer. So the woman went stone faced and did her best not to move at all.

  The butler walked around for a bit, doing some light housework, but Kada didn’t dare move and risk drawing attention. Then it happened, the butler glanced at the painting. He looked away after a second but then his eyes doubled-back. The girl was about to start sweating as his gaze pierced her. But then the butler shrugged it off, and went about his business. Those observing the situation had stifled their amusement when the man had entered, but now that they were gone, their uproarious laughter was louder than ever before.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  It didn’t die down until Kada was well into scouting the second floor. Eventually, she stumbled upon the noble’s bedroom, and the maiden of the house was sleeping soundly on her bed. The Mermaid crept over to examine but immediately recoiled from what she found. The lady of the house was old and wrinkled, and hideous in every right. Kada hadn’t been there when the others researched information on the nobles, so she hadn’t been forewarned about this ghoul’s woman’s looks.

  Her appearance wasn’t what made the Fiend jump, however. The ancient woman was wearing a scantily-clad, see-through nightgown that clung to her bony flesh. Kada tripped over herself when she saw the horrid sight and fell into the nearby vanity, tipping over the attached mirror which then crashed into the floor. This caused The Mermaid to panic once again, but the decrepit creature barely stirred.

  Now feeling emboldened, Kada strolled back over to the bed. Since the initial shock had worn off, she could tolerate looking at the woman, and the burglar found that the pendant they were after was indeed dangling around her neck as the others had told her. She prepared to grab it, but decided that it would end the heist too early. So instead, she decided to take some pictures.

  The Mermaid laid in the bed with the woman while doing all sorts of poses, even adjusting the elder’s posture a bit. After a closeup picture of the two with Kada’s arm wrapped around her, she was satisfied. In their base state, the pictures would be too grating on the mind to show anyone, but with some editing, black bars, and light rays, she could make them safe to view.

  While thinking of the best way to escape, Kada grabbed the pendant. Immediately, the ancient woman erupted from her slumber, and grabbed the thief’s arm. In surprise, Ther Mermaid jerked her arm back to try and get free, but it seemed she put too much force behind it. There was a cringe-inducing crack as the old woman’s fragile arm broke in several places. Kada took this as her cue to high-tail it out of there, and started running at full sprint towards the window.

  Just before she leapt, she activated her Curse and melted right through the glass. It seemed she would clear the entire estate in a single bound and make it over the fence, but the farther she flew, the more distraught she got. The flying Fiend was descending too fast, and would definitely end up impaled on the spikes of the fence. Luckily, her Curse let her avoid such a gruesome fate, submerging into the ground once she landed. And then she swam far away without resurfacing so none of the guards would spot her.

  “C for stealth, A for entertainment though,” Drim graded her once she regrouped with everyone. Phon studied the stolen pendant while Xard showed Kada the screenshots they took of her break-in.

  Meanwhile, the leader was still fooling around with his tablet. Phon’s connection to it had been cut off, but there was another button that was sneakily tucked away in the corner, and he couldn’t help pressing it. ‘Switching to Inner-Mind. Confirm?” a prompt appeared before him. He hit yes, and his tablet then displayed a black void with only one thing in the space: a bed. Sleeping on it was a miniature version of Phon, which Drim had to assume was the being that the girl had dubbed as Phonscience.

  “Hrm, my head’s all tingly. What are you doing over there, Drim?” his sister questioned, taking a look at his screen. “Oh, huh, I guess she exists even when I’m not using her. Maybe we really are separate entities. This is the first time I’m actually seeing her, though. Normally it’s a first-person perspective.”

  There was stirring in the sheets and the tiny Phon sat up and rubbed her eyes. Both siblings were surprised since they caught a glimpse of Phonscience’s attire. She was wearing a rather girly and innocent looking set of pajamas, something the real woman would never be caught dead wearing. Perhaps their individual personalities were unique as well.

  A few more seconds passed while the mind entity slowly woke up, and eventually her gaze wandered.The girl’s eyes widened as it appeared she was looking directly at Drim and Phon. It seemed she could see them as well. Phonscience immediately hid under her covers which started to shake in fear. “Guess she’s shy,” Drim deduced as he closed out of the app to let the frightened thing have her privacy.

  ◆◆◆

  Phon was chosen for the next infiltration entirely because she would be the only one capable of entering the location in the first place since Kada had already used up her turn. It was an underground lab, no doubt researching something nefarious. The noble in question for this facility was merely the owner, and only visited on occasion for inspections. However, there was a trend of him performing surprise visits right before a meeting with the other nobles. This meant it was likely that his key piece was stored there, which was logical due to the high security.

  The Vixen teleported deep underground, just outside the elevator which led out of the lab. From there on, as a restriction for the challenge, she wouldn’t be allowed to teleport unless it was an absolute emergency. She could still use her vision, and was also still wearing the tiara so the rest could observe her. Phon walked down the hallway and ran into her first problem, every door required a keycard.

  She did a scan with her vision which revealed that most of these doors were for storage with a couple offices, but no one was in them since it was still early morning. At the end of the hallway, opposite of the elevator, was a door that led into the main area, and someone was sitting at a desk behind it. Phon figured out her plan. She had to get the receptionist, or security guard, whatever they were, to come in, steal their keycard, and get past them unseen.

  The infiltrator grabbed one of the many fire extinguishers that adorned the walls and headed to the back door. She climbed above the door frame, and balanced herself by spreading her legs between the walls. After angling the fire extinguisher away from herself, she chopped off the nozzle and the tank went flying. It started ricocheting off every wall, leaving dents in them as it bounced down the hallway before crashing into the elevator door.

  Within seconds, the door beneath The Vixen was opened, and a tired woman ran out to inspect what had happened. Must be near the end of her shift, Phon thought to herself. The woman began muttering to herself, complaining that she didn’t have the energy for this, and that she just wanted to go home. She seems stressed out enough, guess I won’t harm her if I can. But if I have to, I’ll make sure she gets knocked out for a nice long sleep.

  With endless sighs, the worker started walking towards the elevator to inspect the extinguisher that was rapidly leaking foam everywhere. The burglar slowly slid down the door and crouched when she reached the floor. She crept up behind the woman and snipped the keycard off of her waist using the pocket knife she always carried around. The worker looked like she was about to start sobbing from having to clean the mess up, and then Phon panicked for a moment, realizing that the woman would need her card to get into the janitorial closet and would notice its absence soon.

  To prevent this, the burglar opened the door to the closet and propped it open with a broom handle, then slipped into the main facility all without the woman noticing. Stealth normally wasn’t Phon’s go-to tactic, but she did have experience. Back when she was first turned into a Fiend, she had to resort to pickpocketing before delving into bounty hunting. Her Curse let her find where wallets were kept on people, and a general approximation of what was inside them. This made picking marks to rob a simple task.

  The Vixen immediately headed to the noble’s office and slumped down into his comfy chair. She hooked her phone up to his computer and set it to extract data. There was no particular need for this, but having extra intel never hurt. She then began searching the room, trying to find the key piece.

  It wasn’t anywhere. The girl checked every nook and cranny—not in any of the desk drawers or even in the safe behind the man’s ugly self portrait. It only had a gun, a fair amount of cash that Phon stuffed her pockets with, and a vintage erotic magazine in a protective sleeve.

  Now groaning since the heist would require more effort, the woman laid back in the chair and closed her eyes. A second of scanning later, her eyes leapt open as she jumped up in the chair. “There’s lasers!” she excitedly exclaimed, then clasped a hand to her mouth. After a quick check, the receptionist/guard was mopping up the foam and didn’t seem to notice.

  Phon strolled over to where the lasers were and found them guarding a large vault door. “Welp, that’s obviously where the key piece is,” she murmured to herself. “Oh darn, I guess since I can’t teleport, then I’ll have to navigate this treacherous ordeal.” She couldn’t stop grinning as whispered her excitement aloud. The Vixen took the first step over a laser and endorphins ran through her, filling her with joy.

  She began skipping through them, ducking under others, gliding, twisting as if she was a ballet dancer. Midway through navigating the lasers, she began to hear a lot of surprised gasps and awes come through her earpiece. That’s right plebeians, gaze upon my splendor, she praised herself. It didn’t take her long at all to reach the vault door—saddened that it ended so soon.

  After placing her keycard in the slot to open the vault door, she was dismayed once again. A new panel appeared, “Ehhh, a retinal scanner?” Phon groaned. “Man, whatever they’re making here must be super important.” She slumped down against the wall and began scanning through the data she grabbed earlier, looking for a workaround. It was highly unlikely the now-demoted-to-cleaning-woman’s eye would be sufficient. “Sorry guys, may have to give up on this and teleport. Doesn’t seem like I can get in any other way.”

  “I think your problem may be solved, you’ve got incoming,” her brother warned her over the earpiece. The girl closed her eyes and saw the noble coming down the elevator.

  Oh how foolish of you to come alone, Phon smirked. The noble looked barely awake. He was in suit pants but still wearing a pajama top. It appeared that he had just recently got out of bed and came here in a hurry. Daylight was barely breaking, so there was only one reason this man would come to the lab at this hour. I see. That living fossil must have called you to warn you about us. Now you want to grab your key piece and relocate it. How fortunate for me.

  The Vixen immediately hid behind a crevice to obstruct her view. She wouldn’t have minded going back through the lasers again, but didn’t want to risk getting caught before she could make it through. So she stayed put and observed the noble as he exited the elevator. His employee seemed surprised when the doors opened and the disheveled man stepped out into the hall. He barely took a single glance at her before yelling something and rushing into the lab.

  His worker chased after him and started operating her computer. Shortly after, the laser grid went down—the order he must have yelled. With nothing more to slow him down, the noble rushed to the vault door, and opened it in a hurry, closing again the moment after it sensed the man step into the room. He immediately rushed over to a lockbox and opened it, picking up the key piece from inside.

  “Now, where to hide this?” the noble grumbled. “It has to be somewhere good. From the sound of it, the old woman had a run in with a Fiend. Hmm, maybe there is good. Those women would definitely hide it for me. I’m their best customer after all. Hehe, Letricia I’m coming to see you. Will you give me a special service, I wonder.” The man's perverted ramblings ended when he collapsed to the floor.

  Phon was standing behind him with a disgusted look on her face, her hand still raised from having chopped the side of his neck. This technique had proved invaluable when she first started out as a bounty hunter, but she quickly abandoned it once she decided to just kill everyone. “Welp, I guess I’ve got what I came here for,” she pulled the key piece from his grubby hands. “Now then, before I go, let’s see what they’re up to. If it’s something useful, I’ll steal it for our own use.”

  The burglar began browsing the shelves. They were full of vials, some containing liquid, and others had pills. Must be drugs then, but what kind? She looked around for anything useful. Everything was labeled, but it was all gibberish to her. Eventually, she found a memo: ‘The Herbal Supplements and Essential Oils marketing is a success! We’ll rob those idiots blind with their faith! But don’t let anyone else figure out our recipes. We must dominate the market as long as we can.’

  You’ve got to be kidding me, this whole place is for making scam products?! This place needs to burn, the thief was annoyed beyond belief. “Oi, Drim,” she called into her ear piece. “I know Kada snuck a few bombs with her, tell her to get one ready.” Phon looked around and smashed anything marked as flammable with her yoyo. Liquid started draining out from the various containers as she took her leave.

  There was now one final problem in her way. Leaving the vault required a retinal scan too. Phon grabbed the unconscious noble by the back of his head and slammed it into the scanner, but there was no response. Ugh so annoying, I just want to get out of this festering hole already. She pried the noble's eyelid open resulting in a successful scan.

  Dragging the unconscious body with her by the scruff of his neck, The Vixen entered the main area. She didn’t know the quality of his evil, so there was a chance her brother might get upset if she left him there to die. The woman at the desk immediately jumped, and shakily pulled a gun on the intruder.

  Phon didn’t even break stride and kept walking towards the exit. However, she at least yelled back towards the woman. “This place will be destroyed as soon as I reach the top of the elevator. If you don’t want to die, I suggest you come with me.” Without a word, the woman immediately followed.

  Kada was waiting happily back above ground, bouncing in place with excitement. “Can I really blow it up?! Can I?! Can I?!” She pestered Phon as soon as the elevator door opened.

  “Yeah, one bomb should do it,” the co-leader answered. “Just shoot it down the shaft. I left a trail of flammable stuff leading to the main supply.”

  “I humbly receive this gift,” The Mermaid bowed before walking into the elevator.

  Wanting to flee the scene, the worker ran ahead, but didn’t go far after seeing the other Fiends standing there. Phon tossed the noble at her and sent the duo on their way. The woman got in the noble’s car after loading him in the back and sped out of sight.

  Behind the group, Kada had melted a hole in the bottom of the elevator. She had switched her anchor to cannon mode with a bomb loaded. After firing, it didn’t take long for the explosive to travel down the shaft and their ears to be filled with the sound of an eruption. It even managed to shake the ground a little.

  Discord, , and Amazon Release (Pending), can be found on the Fiends For Hire .