The Novel’s Extra’s Extra

While Cristopher took the civilians out of the place. Roger went further towards the north, finding his teammates who were currently fighting against a group of enemies who were right in front of us.

A few corpses could be seen standing behind them, as it seems they took control of the zone before regrouping.

The captain quickly went towards his team and crouched down close to them, taking cover behind a few improvised barricades, shooting at the enemies in front.

“Report.” He said while changing to his assault rifle, an HK416.

“15 enemies in front. None left behind. What about the civilians, sir?” Gabrielle answered, while quickly taking cover.

“Out of danger. Let’s take care of them quickly.” He shortly spoke, and the five of them started to move while taking out any enemy that tried to attack them.

The fight was short, shorter than he thought it would be. But with all the enemies out of the way, they started to look around for any information.

Soon, they found what they were looking for in one of the biggest houses, documents, and files, as well as some records. Given that they were basically in the middle of nowhere, they couldn’t bring a lot of technology, so at most, they were using some laptops and printers, along with generators to keep them on.

“Okay, guys. Pick everything you can, we’re taking all this home. Rick, Eric. Pick those laptops and everything you can carry along.”

“Yes, sir.” They both answered and quickly went to pick up the laptops. But right as Erick was about to pick the laptop, a bullet entered the house and pierced his arm.

“ARGH! FUCK! WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!” He shouted while clutching his arm.

“Take cover!” At Roger’s shout. They all crouched down behind any cover they could find. Bullets were coming in from everywhere, meaning that they were covered.

“Where the hell did these guys came from!?” Gabrielle shouted.

“Erick! Crawl here! Quick!” While Scott was calling for him to check up on his injury, after all, he was the medic of the team.

“Fuck! They’re shooting from everywhere! If we go out, we’re dead!” Rick was down, close to the wall trying to shoot back blindly.

“No shit! Sherlock!” Gabrielle retorted back, trying to shoot at whoever was shooting at them. “But did you forget? That if we stay here, we all die too!?”

“Captain! What are your orders!?” Scott asked while bandaging Eric’s arm.

“Shut up! Let me think for a moment.” Roger said, trying to find a way out, but from the direction the bullets were coming, they were probably surrounded. What’s more, they were shooting only to stop us from standing, which means that they’re only suppressing us until they can make their way here to capture us alive. “Fuck.”

After letting out a deep sigh. He turned to look at them.

“I’m sorry, guys. But it seems we don’t have a way out of this.”

“Huh?”

“*sigh…* Fuck…” Gabrielle lamented.

“Shit. I knew this was too easy!” Scott yelled.

“Hey! Cristopher’s still out there! Maybe he can help us!”

“Oh really!? That’s literally bringing him here to die! We don’t even know how many are outside!” Eric shouted.

“No. We can’t involve him too. He needs to take the hostages out of here, safe. They might have some info on these guys.” Roger said.

They all were trying their best to shoot back, but being blinded by their own protection wasn’t helping with that, and ammo was slowly running short.

It was then, that the radio sounded.

[Cristopher here. What’s happening? I’m hearing a lot of shots from here.]

“Listen. We are under attack. They’re using suppressing fire right now, but from the looks of it, we’re totally surrounded. I need you to take the hostages out of here. Quick. Before they find you.”

Roger said, but there wasn’t an answer.

“Cristopher? I repeat. I need you to take the hostages out of here, they may have important information! Understood?”

What the captain didn’t know was, that right now, Cristopher was pondering. He was making a choice that would as well decide the fate of the team.

***

Back at the reuniting point, Cristopher was waiting alongside the hostages. He was deeply in thought.

He was sure that he could help. From all he knew, he could as well fight an entire army by himself and get out of it alive, of course, with a bit of help of guerrilla tactics.

But that would depend, on whether he wants to show even more of his abilities or not. Until now, he’s been keeping what he was able to do like a really good secret. Mostly using the excuse to go trekking to learn to control his powers in places out of the reach of humans.

He even went out of his country a lot, taking those chances not only as a way to make money but also to train even more in rural places.

A few years ago, he even started to make some kind of vigilante’s work. Attacking criminal organizations that he knew were kidnaping people.

He didn’t get pay for that work, but he sure took care of picking up any money the criminals may have on their hideouts, which pocketed enough money from the greedy assholes.

Still, this didn’t showcase much of his powers, barely the ability to “dodge” bullets, quite good movement skillsets, speed, and an insane physical ability, which were the reasons he was contacted for this mission in the first place, alongside his training in the forest firefighters to search for valuable targets for rescue, which could also be translated to search for targets to eliminate.

He had a lot more to show. And he knew that it could bring a lot of problems to his life if he were to show them, even more, if it was in this setting when the ones he was thinking about saving were militaries from one of the dominant powers in the world.

At this moment, he had two roads to chose from, either go in and save them, risking the United States to find more about him, or leave them to die while running away with the civilians.

[Cristopher? I repeat. I need you to take the hostages out of here, they may have important information! Understood!?]

At the captain’s words, Cristopher let out a deep sigh.

{Fuck it. I still can do it even if I don’t show all of my cards.} He thought for a moment, before turning to the civilians.

“Listen. I’m going in to save my teammates. I need you all to wait here for us to come back. Don’t move anywhere, this place may be surrounded by the ones that kidnapped you.”

“C-Can’t w-we… J-Just g-go?” The woman who was the only one to speak English here asked. She listened to the radio and knew what his actual orders were. “T-They t-told you, to take us out of here…”

“Stop it. You all better stay here. I’m going in to save them.” Cristopher said.

They were not real comrades, from all he knew, they weren’t that trusting of him, probably not even liked him. But even then, he felt that he couldn’t leave them alone, after all, they have been working together, so it would leave a very bad taste in his mouth if they were to die on his first mission.

[Cristopher! Goddamn it! Answer!] Roger’s voice came again, and this time, he took the radio.

“Cristopher here. Take cover and hold on as much as you can. Help is on the way.” He shortly said, before turning off the radio and running towards the camp.

Unconsciously, his blood started to boil once again, he was afraid to show what he could do, but at the same time, there was an excitement in helping them. After all, who doesn’t like to play the hero who saves the day?

***

Back at the enemy’s camp. Roger was shouting at the radio.

“What the fuck do you mean!? Cristopher!? CRISTOPHER!? GODDAMMIT!” Roger shouted before throwing the radio to the wall.

“Sir!? What’s happening!? What does he mean by help?”

“Maybe he’s trying to come by himself…?” Rick muttered.

“Are you crazy!? Who would be mad enough to enter into this warzone by himself!?” Gabrielle, who was covering her head once a bullet pierced through the wood just over her, shouted.

“She’s right. There’s no way someone is going to enter this hell by themselves.” Scott said, taking out a cigarette. “After all, the only reason they’ve not killed us is probably that they want to catch us alive. Isn’t that right, Captain?” He said before lighting the cigarette.

“*sigh…* You’re right Scott. They’re not shooting to kill. They want us alive.”

“Fuck…” Rick retorted, before looking up again. “But who knows? Maybe he somehow got some help.”

“Pfft… Right! From who? North Korea’s army? As if! Remember that this is an undercover!” Gabrielle shouted.

“Well, the leader of the country did help us come in, so why wouldn’t he send some help?” Rick glared at her.

“Idiot! Did you forget that the reason we’re here is to find the ones that are supporting the idiots that are trying to break the treaty between our countries?”

“So?” Rick tilted his head.

“It means that there’s no way they would involve the army on this, Rick.” Roger said before letting out a big sigh.

“See? Genius?” Gabrielle shot him a glare, with a slight smirk.

“Shut up.” Rick rolled his eyes. “Why the hell did they sent a five-man team to this hell hole!?”

“Because we can’t just bring a whole army here, or they would be on alert.” Scott said after letting out a big cloud of smoke.

“Hey… Isn’t it weird?” Eric, who hasn’t spoken for a while, suddenly said.

“Huh? What?” Gabrielle turned to him.

“The bullets…”

“Yeah so? We’ve been hearing them for a while! It’s what you hear when you’re under fire.” She growled at him.

“That’s the problem…” He said, looking around, something that caught Rick’s attention.

“You’re right…” He muttered, looking around.

“What the hell are you two playing at?” Gabrielle asked with a frown.

“Those bullets.” Roger suddenly spoke. “Are not coming here.”

“Huh!?”

“What the heck…”

Both Gabrielle and Scott finally understood what they meant. After all, even with the constant shooting noise, no bullet came to this place. This means they weren’t shooting here.

“Fuck…” Roger let out a deep sigh while covering his face with both hands. “That idiot came.”

“Shouldn’t we help?” Eric suddenly asked.

“Of course.” Roger said, taking his HK416 and crouching close to a window, looking out to see the enemies, who were distracting while shooting somewhere at the south of the place, but instead of shooting in a straight line, they were shooting up.

{Why are they pointing their guns up?} He thought for a moment, but couldn’t find a quick answer, so he decided to attack too.

This marked the start of round two. But soon, the team noticed something, and that was the fact that it didn’t matter how much they attacked the horde of enemies outside. They didn’t turn to look at them as if there was something more pressing outside.

“What the hell are they shooting at!?” Gabrielle asked after taking down one enemy and getting to cover. “It’s not possible for Cristopher to be the only one out there!”

“They’re just dying by the second. I’ve counted three of them dying in an instant, probably more!” Scott spoke while peeking out of the window.

“Just what the hell is happening…” Rick muttered to himself.

“If you have time to talk, you have time to shoot!” Roger suddenly shouted at them, while shotting at one passing enemy that was walking in front of his window.

“Need ammo!” Eric also shouted after discharging his round of bullets.

“There you go!” Scott threw him an extra magazine.

“Sir! I’m seeing something!” Rick, who was the one that was shooting to the front, suddenly spoke.

“What!?” Roger asked after shooting a faraway enemy that started targeting the team.

“Um…” Rick said before he quickly crouched down.

A flying enemy crashed on the floor after going through the window.

“Hiik!” Everyone was scared by this.

“What the fuck!?” Even Roger got quite a surprise.

“Is that an enemy?” Gabrielle asked, clutching her chest, trying to calm down.

“It seems so…” Eric, who was also trying to calm down, spoke.

“What the fuck is he doing-” Scott was about to ask, but right then the door was busted open with enough strength to sent it flying down to the middle of the room, with two men over it.

One of them was an enemy, while the other one was Cristopher.

“Holy shit…” Gabrielle could only mutter with her eyes wide open.

“What are you guys doing!” Cristopher shouted at them, with a long blade stabbed in the chest of the enemy, it looked more like a short sword than a knife. “Take cover!”

“What…?” Eric didn’t understand, and probably not the rest of the team, except maybe for the captain, who also shouted.

“GET DOWN!” At his shot, everyone dropped on the floor, just in time for a barrage of bullets to pierce the entire building, leaving the place looking like a beehive. “Cristopher! How many enemies!?”

“30 left!” Cristopher answered the captain’s words. “Need ammo!”

“There you go!” Rick threw one magazine, which Cristopher quickly picked up, recharging his HK416.

“Thanks.” Crouching up, he quickly shot somewhere without even considering the direction, or at least that’s what it looked like to the rest of the team. Again, and again, he went shooting his weapon around.

“What the fuck are you doing!? You’re wasting ammo!” Scott shouted.

“Are you an idiot!? That’s why you asked ammo for!?” Gabrielle also shouted.

But he didn’t care. He knew what he was doing, and so. He kept shooting, and while he had a good aim, Dynamic Visual Acuity, quick movement speed, and the ability to sense the enemies outside, he still failed to hit them all, even when using his Magic Power coating to let the bullets have more power and reach the enemies faster.

“*tch…*” Cristopher clicked his tongue, before changing his HK416 for his pistol that still had a few bullets. “Come on! We need to get out of here!”

“Are you insane!? We can’t go out with 30 enemies targeting our asses!” Gabrielle shouted.

“There’s only 8 left! Come on!” He shouted. “They’re covering themselves right now! We can move fast.” He said, before taking out the short sword from the enemy and putting it on the sheathe that rested horizontally under his backpack.

“Are you sure?” Roger stood up and asked with a serious face.

“Sir! You can’t trust that! He only shot randomly! How could he even kill them in the first place!? And so many of them!?” Scott said.

“Look. You either move your asses and help me clear this, or I’m leaving.” Cristopher said with an exasperated face, before turning to the captain. “I’m saying the truth. Only 8 of them are left and are covering themselves right now.”

“Okay. Everyone, move!” The captain shouted, and with reluctance, everyone stood up and started to move out behind him. “If you’re lying, I’m putting a bullet in your head myself.”

With the parting words from the captain to him, they all rushed outside. And to everyone’s surprise. Cristopher quickly ran forwards, somehow ran three steps on a wall before jumping, aiming down towards a crate, and shot twice, falling behind the crate, only to roll and crouch up to fire somewhere behind the building.

“Two less.” He mouthed, before signaling them to come.

Everyone ran towards his position, and passing the crate, they could see a man dead, leaning on the crate with two bullets on his head and chest.

“How did you do that?” Scott whispered, surprised.

“Not now, Scott.” Roger spoke, before turning to Cristopher “Where now? Where’s the enemy?”

Noticing that maybe the captain discovered something, Cristopher signaled towards the north gate.

“They’re over there. All six of them. They’re using those few buildings as cover.” He answered.

“Okay. You heard that now. Move!” At his command. The team quickly moved to surround the remaining enemy. “Can you do something to get their attention?”

Cristopher nodded at the captain’s words, before waiting for a moment, looking at the team. Once he noticed that they were getting there, he rushed towards the enemy, using the same buildings where they were taking cover as a way for the enemy not to notice him.

Seconds before getting at the building, he dropped the gun and took the short sword, diving right into the hole-like window, before rolling on the floor, standing up and running towards the wall beside the door, and with enough strength, he pierced the wood to kill the soldier at the other side of it.

“ARGH!” At his scream, the others turned to shoot at him, giving the rest of the team the perfect distraction to eliminate them.

After they ended up with the group that originally attacked them, they all went back to what appeared to be the main building. Sitting down on the floor to rest.

“We shouldn’t wait that much here. Who knows if they have more people coming…?” Cristopher said to them with an awkward smile. “Also, the civilians are still waiting for us back in the meeting point.”

“True.” Roger nodded with a serious face. “Everyone, move, pick everything that’s still useful for us. We’re leaving fast.”

At his words, everyone started to pick up things, some of the documents were damaged, the same with some laptops, but they still picked them up hoping that their hard disks were still intact. They sent a few glances at Cristopher, but deciding not to say anything.

While the others looked through anything useful, Roger moved towards Cristopher, who stood up.

“Why did you disobey the order I gave you?” Roger frowned at him.

“Honestly, sir, it would leave a bad aftertaste for me to go back alone.” Cristopher said with a serious tone too. “Also, I took into consideration the fact that I’m not exactly inside the army. So, I didn’t want to test what would happen to me if I were to go back without any of you.”

“…” Roger looked at him for a moment in contemplation, before nodding. “We’ll talk about that later. For now…”

“What was that dude!?” Eric asked suddenly, interrupting the captain, not holding back his curiosity.

“Eric. You better don’t interrupt me again.” Roger glared at him.

“Come on, captain. We all want to know, and knowing you, it was probably the same question.” This time, it was Scott who intervened.

“He’s right, captain.” Gabrielle said, without her usual aggressive personality. “How did he do all that?”

“Fine…” Roger accepted, before letting out a big sigh and turning to Cristopher. “What you did wasn’t normal at all. Shooting from a blind spot and eliminating targets through the wall?”

“Would you believe me if I told you that I used wall-hack?” Cristopher tilted his head.

“Wall-hack…?” Roger looked confused.

“Pfft… Hahahaha what are you? Some kind of cyborg with hacks installed!?” Rick was the one to laugh at his comment.

“Well, not exactly, but let’s say that’s the best way to describe it. I just ‘saw’ them, and shot.” Cristopher said with quotation marks. “After all, most of these walls are built with wood, so it’s quite easy to shoot through them.” He shrugged.

“Wow…” Eric’s mouth hanged low.

“Are you saying that you shot them all through the walls because you could see them?” Gabrielle asked incredulously.

“Exactly.” To which he nodded. “Add to that my abnormally good aim, and well, things just happened.”

“Why didn’t you tell us that before!?” She got close to him and grabbed him from his upper vest. “That could be insanely helpful! And we wouldn’t be in this situation from the start!”

“Well…” Scratching the back of his head, he turned to look at the captain, who let out a deep sigh.

“Let him go, Gabrielle. Orders are orders. His orders never were to be with us. From the start, he was only in charge of taking us here, getting us inside the camp, and wait outside. Which he did, and he even took the civilians with him.”

“But, captain! If he told us before, we could be able to-” She tried to protest, but it was Scott who stopped her this time.

“And would you believe him?” He asked with a lifted eyebrow. “I mean, think about it. Looking through walls as if there was nothing obstructing his view? Would you believe that before he showed it?”

“But!” She again tried to protest, but stayed silent, letting him go. “*sigh…* Fine. It’s true. I wouldn’t believe him at all. I would have probably said he was some sort of lunatic.”

“See?” Scott shook his head.

“And don’t forget that we weren’t the most accepting comrades.” Eric said with a shrug. “Right?”

“Well...” Cristopher, now free, scratched the back of his head. “Let’s say that you were quite the difficult coworkers to have.”

“Pfft… True.” Rick nodded.

“I guess that’s how you always infiltrated in dangerous places so easily.” Roger commented.

“Yeah, add to it my physicals abilities, and you have a cheat to infiltration and rescue works.” Cristopher only shrugged.

“Oh, right… You infiltrated back in some Cartels back in Chicago.” Gabrielle nodded as if remembering something.

“Well, that was a good chat. But we better move. We have to leave.” Roger finally said, and with everyone ready. They started to move towards the civilians.

From there, they called Headquarters, from where Alisson tried to convince their superiors to contact North Korea so they could go and rescue their citizens. But the order was quite surprising, as they asked them to bring the civilians back with them.

For one, that way they wouldn’t be able to alert those in the upper echelons that were antagonizing the leader from North Korea, and two, as Roger said to Cristopher, those civilians may contain important information, so it was better to take them back to the US.

Of course, it wasn’t like there wasn’t any protest from part of the hostages, being traumatized because of their previous experience, they weren’t that willing to change from one kidnapper to another.

Luckily, thanks to the woman who could speak English, they quickly reached an agreement, and they were quite happy to be taken out of there to a safer place, with the promise that they would be completely free after they got the info they wanted.

The woman even asked if there was a way for her to stay in the United States. But there was no way for them to actually answer her question, as they were merely doing their mission.

After some days of moving through North Korea, they finally made it to the extraction point, where a small and old truck would take them to a deserted piece of land that faced the sea, and from there, they would take a boat back to China’s borders, where they would finally depart using another boat that would take them to Japan, and from there, it was an easy way back home.

***

New York, USA. November 3^rd, 2026. 8:45 PM.

After the long travel back home, all the team was given a couple of free days until they had to report again. Apart from Cristopher, the rest of the team either lived in New York or had someone from there that could take them in for a couple of days, so it was quite an obvious choice to go there once the mission ended.

In the case of Cristopher, he was offered a room in a hotel, which he quickly accepted, after all, he always had a thing for this city, being one of his favorite places in all the world. And that’s coming from someone who traveled around the world to train.

 

{Honestly, I quite like rural places, mountains and forests are really beautiful places, and they somehow make me feel at home. But still… There’s something about a big city like this that you just can’t stop loving.} I thought to myself while looking through the windows of a bar close to the famous 5^th Avenue, as usual, having free time meant either exploring around, training or drinking.

Today, I chose to make two of those. After a lengthy talk to those back home, I finally found the time to go out and walk through the city at night, one of the best moments to explore this beautiful city.

{I guess I’ll have a lot of explaining to do once I go back.} I let out a deep sigh before sipping on my drink.

During our way back, I explained a little bit what I showed to the team, which was obviously accounted to the superiors beforehand Roger, including Alisson who was in charge of our team.

After all, there’s no way for them to leave what happened out. It would be a really bad idea to hide that they were completely surrounded by the enemy, and from there, they obviously had to explain how they escaped from that hell hole alive and with only an injured one.

“Oh well, the risk was there the moment I chose to work for the military…” I muttered to myself.

Truthfully, I wasn’t exactly that worried about it. Yes, I was worried that they would try to dissect me or something, but seeing as they didn’t immediately act against me gave me some hope. Alisson also told me not to worry about, that if anything, it would give me points among the upper echelons of the army.

Also, I only showed a small portion of my power, nothing that would go excessively out of the explainable spectrum.

{Thankfully I didn’t go crazy and started raining fire on the enemy. That would be a hell to explain.}

I took a sip from my drink, and that’s when I noticed someone coming closer. Curiously, it was Gabrielle.

“Mm? What’s she doing here?” I muttered to myself.

I knew they were all here in New York, but for us to be exactly at the same place and at the same time? That’s quite a weird coincidence.

{And she’s the one that was the most opposed to me being in the team…} I thought with an awkward smile while she entered the bar.

I tried to blend with the background, just to not be seen by her, but that was just my wishful thinking, it seems.

Soon, after almost reaching the bar, she coincidentally turned to look at where I was, and alas, my hair color wasn’t precisely that common.

{Ha… Let’s hope she just goes do whatever she came to do and leaves.} I thought to myself.

But once again, reality turned to be totally different.

“Hey.” A calm soft voice came from behind me.

“Oh, hey. Such a coincidence.” I smiled at her after turning around.

“I know, right?” She smiled awkwardly. “So… What are you doing here?”

“Nothing much, I was just taking a night walk through the city, and well, I fancied a drink, so here I am.” I said while showing her my Long Island Ice Tea.

“Ho… Really? Quite the coincidence, huh? I was doing the same. Oh well, now I’m just killing time until I meet some friends.” She said, before looking towards the bar. “Well, let me grab a drink and I’ll be back.”

“Sure.” I just nodded to her. {Guess it’s time for some trust-building between comrades.} I thought with an awkward smile, while Gabrielle went back to pick her drink.

After a little while, she came back, and we started chatting, mostly talking about our mission in a really low voice. Though, honestly, the place was quite empty for some reason, so we didn’t have any problem evading any prying ear.

“So…” She suddenly turned serious, staying silent for a little while.

“Um? Is there a problem?” I tilted my head.

“Look…” It was then that she gave me this apologetic smile. “I wanted to apologize; I didn’t act professionally back there… With how I treated you and all that.”

“Oh, that? Don’t worry, I guess it can be hard to accept someone who was forcefully put inside the team.”

“Right…” She slowly nodded, before sipping on her drink. “Still, I shouldn’t have acted like that, it’s not like you’re guilty of our superiors’ decisions, right?”

“That’s true. I just accepted some offer they gave me, not really knowing what I was going into.” I shrugged before sipping on my drink.

“Yeah…” She nodded. “But still, that doesn’t justify me acting that way. I guess I’m just a little bit aggressive when I’m on missions.”

“Pfft…” I almost chuckled at her, but I stopped and smirked at her. “A little bit only? Really?”

“Fine.” She rolled her eyes. “I am quite aggressive during missions.”

“That sounds more like it.” I smiled.

“Haha… Sorry. But either way, you have to accept that it’s easy to lose one’s head during a mission. After all, our lives are hanging on a threat there, I can’t just stay calm when there’s this new guy with the weird hair that we know nothing about.”

“Hey. My hair’s not that weird, and I doubt it has anything to do with my ability to complete the mission.” I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah, right. Keep saying that until you believe it hahaha.” She chuckled. “Whatever, what I want to say is, that it was a really dangerous mission, and to have this new guy that just had two months or so of military training being suddenly put in our team, that’s like receiving a death sentence.”

She let out a deep sigh.

“I know where you are coming from. If it happened to me, I would also be on edge, so you don’t have to be sorry about what happened, what’s important is that we made it out of there safe.” I shrugged before sipping on my drink.

“Thanks.” She smiled.

“For what?” I tilted my head.

“For understanding…” She sighed. “It’s probably not going to be our last mission together, so I didn’t want to have a bad relationship between us.”

“Oh, right. About that, well, I wouldn’t be too sure. After all, I still don’t know what’s the verdict when it comes to my abilities.”

“What are you talking about?” She frowned.

“I mean, I did lie about that, and they said that they had to think about it.”

“Pfft… Are you really worried about that? Hell, they’re probably thanking God or something that they found you, imagine having someone with your abilities in enemy lines. It would be hell for us. But at least now, we got you here.”

“Hahaha… Yeah, I guess it could be said that you’re all lucky in that sense.” I chuckled. “But still, wouldn’t they want to, like, dissect me or something?”

“Huh? Are you an alien or something?”

“Not that I know of, I mean, both my parents were born here on Earth, but who knows? Maybe there was some kind of artificial insemination going on?” I said with a serious face.

“Ha, ha, what a lame joke.” She rolled her eyes.

“Pfft, oh, come on. I deserve better for that joke.” I chuckled before sipping on my drink.

“Relax, they’re not going to do anything to you. They may not be trustful sometimes, but they’re not going to let such a promising asset go away easily. They’ll even try to enlist you for real now.”

“Hahaha… I don’t know if I’ll accept that kind of offer. After all, I do love my freedom. But I won’t hate to do a mission once in a while.” I sipped from my drink.

“As if they’ll let such a wildcard go and come as he pleases hahaha. They’ll probably give you a really good offer or something.” She shrugged.

“My family and friends are back in Venezuela. I don’t think I’ll be able to leave them all behind.”

“Oh, that’s right…” She nodded.

“Though it’s quite a good dream to try and bring them all here.” I finished my drink. “Either way, I’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

“True. Still, don’t worry.” She suddenly smiled at me brightly. “I’m sure you will work something out. After all, you managed to save us from that place by yourself.”

“…” I looked at her seriously.

“What?” Which made her frown.

“Nothing, I was just thinking that you’re totally different when you’re not on a mission.” I smirked.

“Pfft… You’re such an idiot haha.” She said while punching my arm, before finishing her drink and standing up. “Come on! Let’s go have some fun!”

“Um? But what about your friends?” I tilted my head. “Weren’t you waiting for them?”

“They’ll surely take their time, so meanwhile, we can go dance or something.” She smiled. “They can catch up later. I've heard that Latino guys are quite good dancers”

“Okay.” I smiled and stood up. "But, let me warn you beforehand, of my incredibly bad ability to dance."

She laughed while we went out of the bar.

The rest of the night was quite an experience, after all, the previous times I came to New York I did so alone, with no friends close for me to hang out with. So having Gabrielle beside me made things quite enjoyable.

It reminded me of the times I went out with my friends back in Venezuela, the fun to have someone to laugh with, chat, joke, and just do stupid things.

After a while, their friends caught up to us in this dancing club, they were three girls, so it was quite a mismatched experience, so we, or well, Gabrielle called the rest of the team, and Scott, Rick, and Eric appeared soon enough. It seems the captain was occupied with his family, so he couldn’t make it.

The night suddenly evolved into something else, with all of us drinking, shouting, dancing, and laughing. It was one of the best experiences I've had so far under the lights of New York.

{This isn’t so bad…} I thought to myself in the middle of the night, when the party was in full swing. {Having this kind of adventure from time to time isn’t bad at all.}

***

After a few days, Cristopher and the rest of the team went back to the base. And just as Gabrielle said, their superiors wanted Cristopher to keep working with them, stating that he should fully join their army as a full-time soldier.

Cristopher rejected the idea but said that he still wanted to help with the missions that would keep going.

After some negotiations, they made an agreement, and they were going to keep him as a wildcard in case a mission where he would be needed appeared.

With that said, he would mostly be with Delta teams, so strict training would be necessary, and not just those two months of preparation he had before.

Agreeing to it, he was swiftly put under training, while they all waited for their next mission. For the moment, he would still be with Roger’s team, as they still have to be deployed once the army finished its analysis on the documents they brought back from North Korea.

This was his first time going on this kind of mission, but it surely wouldn’t be his last.