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Tommy snickered as he dodged another spell, his ‘distraction’ better be enough for Purpled, though he wouldn’t mind even if it wasn’t. He was having the time of his life. He jumped over a fallen pillar, where that had come from he wasn’t too sure.
“ Alright, Ash get out of there. ” Purpled’s voice came over the com link and Tommy smiled viciously as he jumped up. He turned mid jump and let the fire shoot from his hands, small fire balls flying around before shooting forward and Tommy disappeared in the chaos.
“Aye Aye Frost.” Tommy cackled to himself as Purpled sighed over the com link, purposely letting Tommy hear him. He ducked under a nearby bridge as he waited. Purpled would be by soon, and then they could go and get their money. Though they would need to pay for property damage, Tommy thought with a wince.
“I can feel your self-loathing from here, Ash, ” Purpled sighed, and Tommy rolled his eyes as he leaned back against the brick wall.
“I will pull the list of nicknames back out again, don’t test me Frost.”
“ You wouldn’t. ” Purpled sounded threatening, but Tommy knew that the other wouldn’t do anything to him.
“Elsa.” Tommy snickered quietly to himself.
“ Ash. ” Purpled warned, his voice darkening slightly.
“Blizzard.”
“ That one’s not so bad and you know it. ” Tommy wondered if Purpled was rolling his eyes. He tended to have that effect on people.
“Frozone.” Tommy yelped as ice crept up his leg, leaving him a shivering mess as Purpled appeared with an annoyed look on his face. “H-hey fro-frost.” Tommy hated how easily he got cold, or how easily he was reduced to stutters and stumbles over his speech.
If his mentor was here he’d surely be getting smacked. Purpled stopped reapplying the ice when Tommy pleaded mercy and let the other warm up as he counted out their share of the money. Luckily the person did not care about property damage, this time, but really did not want to meet a fire user so Purpled had made a detour to get the money himself.
“Okay, forty gold coins for you, and forty for me.” Tommy nodded as he grabbed his coins, flinched slightly as they were freezing, and dropped them in his own money pouch.
Tommy danced around the ballroom, a small gracious smile on his face as he talked with one of the donors to the event. Their target was the highest bidder, and Tommy’s job was to find out who exactly that was.
People did not make it easy, especially not for him since he still appeared to be 17.
He hated his youthful appearance sometimes.
“ The person on your left has been staring at you for almost three minutes, Ash. ” Tommy winced as a speaker went off nearby to them, following the cover story that Tommy, or Eric as he was going by, hated loud noises.
It worked for them because by technicality everywhere had a loud noise. Tommy glanced over and found a boy, who looked maybe 15, staring at him curiously. Tommy looked away as he finished talking to the donor.
“ Okay, I got a name. ” Tommy hoped that Purpled would give him said name so that he could just poison the target, but apparently that would be too easy. “ A… huh… ” Purpled sounded confused, and Tommy knew that nothing good came of Purpled sounding confused.
“ His… His name is Clay? ” Purpled almost sounded like he was asking. “ Why do I know that name? ”
He knew that name because he no longer went by that name, Clay had become Dream to all but those who he targeted, and was an Assassin who had been sent to infiltrate the charity event.
Their mission was not to kill, but to capture and alert the guards. They did that, though Dream put up an amazing fight and gave Tommy a nasty cut to the eyebrow and eye on the left side and Purpled a concussion.
Tommy was very happy with his 100 gold joins that he got, as was Purpled.
Tommy sighed as he felt a fireball in his hands, a small frown on his face as he watched Purpled take on the guards. He hated feeling useless like this, but if he fought these guards then all he would do was power them up.
Fighting fire with fire, was not in fact a good thing to do. In fact, it typically only ever made things worse.
He stretched as he rolled onto his back and stared up at the sky, the frown on his face becoming deeper. Most of the money this time would go to Purpled, even if the other would try to split it fairly. Though Tommy would feel guilty and despite wanting a new journal to draw in, would push most of his money over to Purpled.
“A dragon…” Tommy blinked at the sign which was offering 500 gold coins for someone to go and kill a dragon. A dragon tooth necessary to collect payment. Beside him, Purpled snorted in amusement, and most likely about to skip over that assignment…
Until he caught sight of the reward money. He may be strong, but he crumpled to the thought of having extra money for once. They could actually begin to save up if they had that kind of cash.
He sighed as he grabbed the paper and the two turned to go take on a dragon.
Which was harder than they expected… Purpled got burned in nine places and Tommy found out that he was not immune to passing out from the heat… He wondered if the money was worth it… But taking a glance at Purpled who was leaning over a journal writing down notes and muttering quietly about savings he knew that it was, in fact, worth it.
But he did beg to take on smaller jobs for a while.
Tommy rolled his eyes as he followed Purpled into a guild, unsure as to why they were there, especially since most guilds sort of hated the two mercenaries.
“We want to join.” Purpled declared, and Tommy choked on his spit as he turned to face the purple wearing teen. Tommy had no idea that this is what Purpled had in mind. He wanted to just fall and let himself be swallowed up by the ground… or turn into his name sake and just become ash, but that was too much to ask for.
So instead he stared at his friend in shock.
“Why should we let you in?”
“You’ve got jobs people keep disappearing on, and we have a habit of not dying.” Tommy snorted at Purpled’s explanation. Their ‘habit of not dying’ was more like a ‘habit of not staying dead’ because they could die… They just usually came back.
“And that should have let you in because?” The man asked, “you two are the most hated and loved of the country.”
“Because we are kids?” Tommy asked, and the man hesitated. “I mean, we are only 16.” He shrugged, and the man held out the stamp that would essentially brand them.
The mark was now on his upper left arm, Purpled’s being on his upper right arm.