Paranoid is the word to describe the authorities. Paranoid to the point of insanity.

When we were all brought to Cloud, we were immediately put into training. We all grew up together and became good enough at our skills to be sent on missions. At the start it was just simply 'escort this person' or 'look after this person', but then it became more serious.

When the serious missions started I was removed from the mobile team. So I stayed and continue to practice with my knives while all the others went off and assassinated the government's enemies. I was never fully alone. There was always one or two others who weren't on the particular mission, but they would still go anyway, the only person I never got to spend time with training was Voulge, as she was seen as the star of our show, and was always required for her skills in the field.

One day, every one of us was called into this big room, well it was massive for me, with a ceiling 10 metres above my head, but judging by the looks on everyone else's faces, this was totally normal, so I drew the conclusion that this was the place they went to receive missions.

The room had lovely soft chairs facing towards a tall table where a man sat behind a placard reading 'Espingarda' which, from my small knowledge of Portuguese, meant Gun. When we had all taken a seat, the man rose and stalked around the room.

"Pleased to meet you all, now there is a special assignment for you all," The man spoke with a deep voice, speaking clearly through his strong accent. "You are required to find and kill a man by the name of Archibald Stoll, dictator of Milona. He is in the most secure building in the world, called The Cube, you have two hours and then we are going to bomb it, with or without you out of it."

We were all hustled into a plane and flown to Milona's capital, Eujusa. We were dropped onto the top the building, which was designed as a giant cube. We made our way into the ceiling ducts and crept along it, remaining silent and never ceasing in our run towards the centre. While the others continued on towards Archibald, Sling, myself and Glaive, the only people with ranged weapons, took it upon ourselves to kill every guard in the vicinity. I used up all my knives, killing all of them, I never got anything less than a head shot, which killed them all instantly, not giving them any chance for them to cry out. The only thing that could give away that they were even dead was the blood that splattered out onto the diorite tiles which line the floor of the first floor. Once all of the guards were killed, all three of us collected our weapons and got into position.

Below sat Mr Stoll on his throne like seat, completely unaware of the death of the guards. As we all got into position, the vent at the end of the hall fell out, revealing Voulge followed by the others. They spanned out, making their way towards Archibald, making sure to tread carefully and scan their surroundings to check for hidden traps, which there were a couple of. They reached a point where lasers spanned out all over the room, making it impossible for them to pass. Sling quickly disabled the laser field so the others were able to progress. The next few seconds happened in a blur. Sling shot a rock, which hit a vase at the end of the hall, making Archibald stand up, about to walk towards it when Rapier stabbed him in the back, not enough to kill him but enough to make him stumble. Loch then attacked, striking him over the neck with his axe, cleaving the ruler's head clean off his shoulders, which rolled away from the slumped body.

The nine people present in that room immediately looked for the best exit out, turning towards the high ceiling. Each one of us picked a pillar and began scaling the pillars, using the elaborate carvings as handholds. We reached the top floor and ran through the closest doors to us. There were meetings in them but they were quickly dealt with. After collecting my knives out of everyone's bodies, I located the air vent. We only killed these people to get out, which I found a waste, but it is better than trying to climb up smooth walls of the ventilation shafts.

All of us emerged into the sun at approximately the same time. And the first thing we notice is the jet hovering above us. As soon as the last person exited, it opened fire.

We had no idea what was happening, but years of practice meant that all of us box-jumped behind the ducts which we had just come out of.

When they realized they couldn't get a good shot at us, the pilot steered the jet into a better position, which was when Katana and Raven struck. Sprinting straight at the jet's moving body, they jumped and landed in the open side doors, quickly neutralizing the machine gunner and then moving into the cockpit. The jet suddenly plummeted, but then it regained height, Katana came out and called, his voice barely being heard over the wind that was whipping up, cutting like ice through my clothes.

"Does anyone know how to fly this thing?"

Glaive being the knowledgeable person he is, raised his hand and sprinted towards the jet after getting approval from Voulge. He landed and rolled, almost off the other side, but kept hold on the wall and stood up, drawing the door on the far side closed to avoid anyone actually falling. He disappeared from view and then Raven appeared with Katana.

One by one we each jumped onto the jet. First went Sling, then Voulge, then Rapier. They were followed by Loch and Guisarme and the lastly me, making sure that we left no trace on the building that we had been there, which was a few pebbles with blood splattered over them.

Everyone was in the cockpit bye this point, listening to the radio coming over, which the pilot hadn't managed to terminate before his death.

What came over the speakers was fascinating.

"The Storm are dangerous mate, very dangerous. You guys are the only thing stopping them from coming back and murdering all of us, let's just hope you succeed, am I right?"

Voulge answered the question as sweet as a flower. "Hello, this is Voulge, head of The Storm, you had better start running, because we will be after you next." She then severed the line and asked Glaive to head back towards C.L.O.U.D.

We were greeted at the entrance to the building by a row of 10 officers, all carrying an assault rifle each. They never stood a chance.

Raven, manning the weapon's control system, locked two missile onto the group, and opened fire simultaneously through the lower guns, leaving nothing more than a giant crater in its wake. We landed and sprinted towards the door, talking 10 seconds to cross a 100 metre expanse.

We smashed through the glass doors and spanned out, killing anyone who tried to stop us, which was most of the building. Some attacked with weapons but were overcome through the lack of space and their lack of skill.

We reached the room where we had been given our assignment, to find 50 or so soldiers standing their, one or two held guns, but the rest held swords and other ancient style weapons

Sling was the first to react, with a couple simple flicks, all of the soldiers who had held ranged weapons were dead on the floor, with rocks jutting out of various parts of the body. Rapier took this opportunity to attack the nearest sword wielder, stabbing him in the stomach and then moving on. Katana slashed and stabbed and made many fall with a single strike. Raven and Glaive worked in tandem, the latter throwing his two weapons at any attacker, and then Raven covering him when he went to retrieve them. Loch and Guisarme spun back to back, moving faster than most mind could process. Voulge had made her way around the soldiers and was attacking Espingarda, who had drawn a khopesh and was dueling her. The first thing I managed to do was save Katana's life, who was too busy slashing to realize he had missed someone, but a knife through the soldier's right lung soon sorted that out.

Suddenly there was a crash, not enough to halt the action, but enough to turn my head, it wasn't good.

Voulge had been disarmed and was trying to dodge her opponent's sword strokes. No one else appeared to be noticing this slight detail, so I took matters into my own hands.

I sprinted at the nearest soldier and jumped onto his soldier, which sent him crashing to the ground under the sheer force, but by then I was already in the air again. Like a game of stepping stones I made my way towards the top. Other people noticed and took it upon themselves to kill the remaining soldiers, slowly driving their way towards the table.

I reached the end, and realized that it was almost too late. Espingarda had his sword raised, about to slash down at Voulge, who was on the ground, exhausted.

I threw my knives, the first hit his head, blade straight into the ear, too fast for him to react, the second hit the falling khopesh, hitting it off course and narrowly missing Voulge, who quickly retrieved her weapon and leant on it for support.

I retrieved my knives and looked back to see 51 dead bodies, and 8 exhausted ones.

"We need to get going, but we can grab supplies and restock weapons and then take one of the vehicles out the back," I suggested, not sure how to deal with the situation. Everyone nodded and filed into the room.

I grabbed food, water and 28 new knives, which I hid in various parts of my clothing. Then waited for the others to finish and then we made our way outside.

The only vehicle suitable for us was a truck, which just so happened to be completely devoid of any advertisements on the side. We all filed in the car with Katana getting in the driver's seat and with guidance from Sling, who sat shotgun, hot wired it.

The truck pulled out of the carpark and started down the road towards the main highway, which would be able to take us anywhere. Through a vent in between the two at the front and the rest of us, we worked out the best thing to do would be to cross the border out of here, as we didn't legally exist, so therefore didn't have passports.

We found paint and paint brushes in the back of the truck, as well as canvas, so set about painting a symbol for our 'rebel' group as Raven called it. We settled with a sword planted into a hill of weapons, but decided that we would keep our name as The Storm. After that there wasn't much else to do, we sat painstakingly long in the car, passing around the snacks and the water that we had grabbed on our departure, as well as swapping drivers.

We were all too young to be driving, but Loch printed out fake driver's licenses for everyone on an old printer that he had somehow hauled into the back of the truck. Just as well for that.

We reached a police blockade and at first we were frantic about how they must know who we are, but apparently all it was was a simple drug test, which Katana had no problem in participating in.

In the back we barely breathed, knowing that if these officers came around the back we would all be arrested, but fortunately they just waved Katana and Sling through and we continued on our way.

We found a place on a backstreet, hidden from view, and set about camouflaging our truck, all of us making a mental note to weave a camouflage net for the truck the next day.