The next day was the longest day for all of us and it was only a half-day. We went through the motions and did everything a normal day held. We woke up, ate breakfast, sparred a little to train, ate lunch, hung out with some of the others, then took a short nap before the mission. Despite acting like it was a normal day everything just felt wrong. Nothing felt normal. We acted how we thought we were supposed to act, but everything just felt off. We were scared, we might have higher odds now that we added Quinn and Alastair, but everything is still so risky. There are too many what-ifs for me to be anything but scared of what is going to happen tonight.

Normally by now Levi would have said something and tried to snap me out of it, but he seemed to be in the same position. He tried to stay positive for my sake but I could tell he was just going through the motions too. We all were like walking zombies. Even Jean and Marco looked pretty out of it today. They came and took a nap in our room with us, but never said anything about their worries. They didn't have to. We could all tell none of us were sure of what was going to happen.

Now that we are awake and getting ready for the mission this just feels like a dream. None of this feels real like we are all in some horrible nightmare we can't seem to wake up from.

We headed out into the common area to meet the rest of the team. Hanji, Pixis, Shadis, Annie, and Mikasa were all standing there as backup in case things went wrong.

It was a lot earlier in the day than any of our other missions. Normally we would go in the dead of night, but the sun only went down like two hours ago. Most people probably haven't eaten dinner yet.

"Alright, have you guys decided how you are going into this?" Pixis asked. It wasn't like we could teleport into some random alley and make our way there. We had to teleport straight into the building.

"Yes, we talked about how we would do this," I said looking at Erwin giving him a nod to start. He nodded back and put his finger up to his lips letting everyone know to be quiet so he could start. He waited for everyone to nod before opening a single portal about the size of a dime. He looked around and opened another portal before looking around in that one. He kept going portal by portal.

The first portal is by the main entryway, the next is behind the desk towards the first hallway. The next one was down the hallway. He kept going until he had eyes on almost every room. He was looking for a place where we could open the portal and bring everyone through without anyone being the wiser.

"Problem," Pixis whispered, walking over to me. "They have cameras," he said and I felt my heart drop. Of course, they do.

"Is anyone in the security room?"

"One person in the room, two in the hallway right outside the room."

"So not the most ideal place to go in,"

"Not exactly."

"But we don't have much of a choice," I sighed.

"I looked around the room to see who would be the most capable of knocking the guy out without making any noise. My eyes landed on Alastair. His shadow manipulation power could work, but I don't know if he is comfortable with using it, especially right off the bat like this.

Before I could ask, Quinn beat me to it. "You're up," she nudged him.

He looked at me and smiled, "You want me to take him out?" he asked and I nodded. "I can do that."

I looked at Erwin and took a deep breath. "Open it."

He opened the portal behind the man sitting at the security desk and I looked at Alastair who nodded. I watched as his eyes turned black and the black veins went down his face. I looked through the portal and the man was getting choked out by his own shadow. He was pinned, unable to move as he was choked unconscious. Even after he was unconscious the shadow remained holding him there with his mouth covered.

"Even if he wakes up he won't be able to leave this room or draw attention to his situation, the shadow will keep him restrained until we leave," Alastair whispered to me making sure I knew what he was doing.

"Okay good." That definitely will help. The last thing we need is him coming to and sneaking up behind us.

"Alright, so what do you want us to do now?" Erwin asked, closing the portal behind us.

"Armin, I need you to recon the rest of the building. Where all the entrances are, how many people, the layout of the hallways."

"On it." Without another word he disappeared.

"Everyone else hold position," I said before looking at Levi. I couldn't be sure if I was making the right call. He gave me a nod and I felt a little better about my decision. His eyes flicked over to the monitors.

Right, we should probably break these, and erase the footage. I nudged Jean and he looked at me. "When I say so, break these and delete any footage," I said hesitating for a moment. I was going to have him break them now, but right now we can use these as our eyes. They don't know we are here and we can see some of what is happening in the building right now.

I couldn't see Armin on the camera's anywhere, which was a good sign. Everything in the building looked normal. No one seemed to know anything was happening. I could see a few people on the cameras. Surprisingly there were fewer people here than I thought there would be. I mean I guess it makes sense. They only have one more news broadcast planned for the night so they have the people here for that and probably the people on the streets preparing for their end of it.

I did see some guards near the entrances and exits on the cameras. I was surprised there weren't more of them. I could see 4 of them. Two near the front and two near the rear entrance. Armin will have to tell us if there are any more hiding in blind spots.

It took him a few more minutes before he reappeared in the room with us. "Alright, I counted 4 entrances, three doors, and a window, 6 armed guards, 27 civilians including the guy in here," he said listing that off first. He seemed a little out of breath. "The building is quite simple for most news stations.

He grabbed a piece of paper and started to draw out an outline as he spoke. "We have the main door that leads into the lobby. There are three people in the lobby. Two armed guards and the person behind the desk. The lobby has two doors aside from the entrance, one is just the bathrooms, which there were three people, two in the men's one in the women's. The other leads to a hallway."

"The hallway is right outside where we are. We are in the security room. There are two people talking in the hallway outside this room. The hallway then has a door to the left and that's where the main newsroom is. It branches off two directions on the right. The first hallway leads to two offices and a break room. Down that hall and in those rooms there are 4 civilians and one armed guard. The armed guard is by the window in the break room that opens."

"The next hallway has studio B, Studio C, sound effects room, and music rights room. At the end of the hallway, there is an exit with two guards. There are also two civilians down that hallway."

"Back to the main newsroom. There are 14 civilians, and three armed guards in that area. They are setting up the news broadcast at the moment which is why there are so many people in that area."

He said a little out of breath. I looked at his rough outline done on a piece of paper. This was our map, as crudely as it was drawn it will still be helpful.

"Alright, so we have two options," I said looking around, "we can charge now, and try and set up the broadcast ourselves, or we can wait until they set it up and then take over. The only problem with that is we will have to figure out how to take over the board cast without getting caught doing violent acts on live television. We don't want to set the wrong impression right off the bat. What do you think would be more logical?"

"We charge now, there is no way we can take over while on air without people thinking that we are doing something violent," Quinn finally answered after looking around.

"Then we better get going because they are going to start soon," Armin said.