End of Days

The Plan

(19)

"Again." Right jab, left cross, right uppercut, kick knee, finishing right lab. "Again." Right jab, left cross, right uppercut, kick knee, finishing right lab. "Again." I glare up at Enzo as I try to catch my breath. We had done the same move over and over again for what feels like hours. As everyone else does another round of it I keep my eyes locked on his. Tensions have been on an all time high since we left Arcton. The council thought it would be best to have Enzo lead training since he had the most of it, and while this is logical it's also frustrating. "Again." Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right jab, left cross, right uppercut, kick knee, finishing right lab.

"Alright Enzo, I think that's enough for today." Nolan says between his pants. "Everyone should rest up, you know the drill by now, we leave at seven in the morning. Don't be late." I finally move my eyes from Enzo and onto Nolan as the rest of the council move toward him as well.

"Nine days and we are still no closer to being ready to face the Republic." Blake says as he reaches us. "We have to train longer, they might be more tired but it'll be worth it if it means they're ready." He says looking at everyone, reading their thoughts on his suggestion. I know it's what we need, but I can't take much more Enzo everyday.

"What they need is individual trainers, some are ready to move on and others still can't throw a proper punch." Enzo says, joining us. Our eyes meet but we both quickly look away. "Some of these people should just not go, plain and simple. You should start filtering out who actually has a chance at giving a soldier an actual challenge and who would be dead before they crossed the gate. Have you thought about your plan of attack? You say you want to negotiate with Church, but if you charge in and kill a bunch of her men that won't happen. Just something to think about." He says before walking out of the room to get food with the rest.

"He makes some good points." Sage says, "We need to figure out how we are going to do this and soon. We plan on attacking in what ten days? Some of these people wouldn't be ready even if it were ten months away."

"What so we weaken our army because some of them aren't natural born assassins?" Alec asks, crossing his arms.

"We are only as strong as our weakest member." Sage says, "Let's set aside their physical strength, some of these people aren't mentally strong enough for this. They could never pull the trigger and if they could it would haunt them forever."

"That's not even the biggest issue guys," Nolan interviens, "how are we doing this? We can't just kill them all and expect Church to listen to us. We have to find a way to get her out here, close to alone. We have to control the situation, the environment."

"Right and how do we do that?" I ask, a small smirk on my lips, "give her a note, 'Yeah uh we have President Westbrook, meet us at this address. Come alone.' Like she would go along with that. She'd bring twice as many men as there are in the compound itself. No we need to find a way to sneak in."

"Right, cause sneaking close to a hundred people in is a cakewalk. Even if we weeded out the weak ones, that'd leave us with still close to fifty people. There's no way we'd get in unseen." Blake says shaking his head, "we don't have a choice but to attack full force."

"I ran the numbers and initiating violence between us and the Republic ends in our death ninety-seven percent of the time. Two percent ends in us being held captive and one percent ends with at least one person reaching President Church and her killing them on the spot." Elijah says, looking around. "So not good odds."

"It has to be a small group that goes in then. What about just us six?" Sage suggests looking around. It would make sense, we'd be the ones talking to Church anyway. Why bring people in when they wouldn't even be the ones to talk to her? I look around at the others seeing some unsure faces, "oh come on, it's the most logical plan. We all bring something different to the table that can help us in there. Enzo said they have probably set up some sort of security locks on the doors, Elijah can get us through those. Blake is by far the best here in hand to hand combat. Alec I've heard you answering your little sisters questions, you're a fast thinker and can talk your way out of things. If we get caught we will need that. Nolan you're a natural born leader, if something's different in there than it is on paper you can think up a new plan like that. I'd say I'm a good marksman, and Mazy you can talk anyone into anything. Hell you got all of us together." I can see smiles making their way onto everyone's face as we all warm up to the idea.