(Blackout AU with my OCs. Minor tweaks, major changes, all that good jazz. I wasn't a part of the actual thing, so I had to use videos and the wiki as a guide. As such, some things are inaccurate to canon on accident instead of on purpose. Just… think of those as part of the AU. Takes place sorta half in rewritten, half in the OG. I sorta just took bits and bobs from each. The director does less directing, they're pretty much left to suffer on their own. I have it called Operation Angstfest on the document i'm writing it on for a good reason, trust me. I swear to god I'm going to try not to crash you straight into Darkness Induced Audience Apathy, but if I do let me know and I'll try to steer myself on course.)

The coffee shop was near-empty. All except a pair of penguins. Emily and Sleet—best friends since years ago. Since the two had been nothing more than an apathetic teen and an overenthusiastic puffle owner. A lofi playlist played off of Emily's MP3 player, connected to a speaker with an adapter. Unfortunately, despite the high tech nature of her EPF phone, it was still incapable of playing MP3s.

She let out a quiet sigh, brushing her blonde bangs out of her eyes. "I really hope we manage to find G… We've looked everywhere, I swear..." Gary had been missing since Wednesday. The EPF had even asked civilians to help with the search. No luck. Not a word from him, not with texts, calls, nothing at all. Before he had left, he had at least managed to send a message through the Field Ops—although with the contents, it didn't sound good. Short, but definitely not sweet. He'd had to type fast, dropping his usual perfect grammar for complete lack of spellcheck or capital letters.

something is very wrong i hear them smeones in my lab i think its no no skdfgb,a./

-G

That was where it'd cut off. By the looks of things, he'd barely managed to finish it before he, well, disappeared. Before he was gone, lost even to his own best friends. Not a soul had seen him ever since the message was sent. Nobody.

"Same here. Should we place our bets now? I'm betting Herbert was involved." Sleet said in a tone that was less deadpan than her usual attempts at dry, sarcastic humor. She took a sip of her coffee as Emily gave a silent nod of agreement. The coffee shop was a nice place to hang out. Especially since her and Emily could talk there anytime, not just when she was off/decided to skip work. Especially on slow days like this. They could talk freely, about the EPF or bad exes or whatever. Nobody would listen.

It wasn't that they couldn't talk about the EPF around others—it wasn't exactly a secret. The problem was that a lot of the information was. The fact they were agents at all, for one. They'd decided that keeping their private lives away from their agent lives was important. It caused a lot of attention to go their way, and who knows what could happen. If they weren't careful, their family and friends could get into a lot of danger.

Sleet fell silent after that. She tried to pretend to be unfazed, but really she was just as stressed and worried as the rest of the agents. Gary had been around since the PSA days. Since she was a child, lying about her age to protect the island and do things 12 year olds really shouldn't do. He was a friend—in her mind, the two were practically like family. Even when he used her as a living crash test dummy. It was nerve-wracking. She'd texted him around 5 times today alone. She was sure the rest had tried reaching out too. Where could he possibly be?

"Do you think he might be…" Emily asked, fading out near the end. Her tone was shaky and nervous, and Sleet could tell exactly the word that was meant to fill the empty silence Emily had left.

"He couldn't have. He couldn't be. Right?" The concept of Gary dying just felt wrong as it went through her mind. Listening to her head, she knew it was a very, VERY real possibility. It could very well be true—his last message was ambiguous at best. She knew that fact very well, but just couldn't seem to wrap her head around it. The mere thought made her feel like she was closing up inside. Emily came in for a hug after noticing faint tears beginning to build up in the corners of her eyes.

"You're probably right. He's Gary. I'm sure he'll be fine. He's a smart guy, he could figure something out!"

The two hugged in silence for a moment. "Thank you…" Sleet could feel little tears well up in the corners of her eyes. Breaking away, she blinked the tears away before Emily would notice. She knew something like this would happen eventually. They had powerful enemies, bad things were bound to occur. This though, wasn't the usual flavor of 'find a new base' bad. There was no new Gary.

"I'm gonna head back to the EPF to see if there are any updates on the whole situation. I'll see you later." Sleet said. She knew there wasn't—someone would've sent a text over to her phone. She ignored the common sense part of her brain though. She just hoped for something. Anything. That maybe the rest had figured out what happened, that they knew what to do to get him to come back safe and sound. That everything was under control.

"Good idea. I'll catch you after work. Here's to hoping we find where he is."

The two went their separate ways. Emily walked over to the counter, and Sleet left to headquarters. She could've teleported, but a penguin had walked in just as she was about to pull out her phone. Oh well, it wasn't too far of a walk anyways. 20 minutes, tops. She tried to turn her mind away from Gary. For the last couple of days, he was all she could think about. All she needed was some confirmation—was he dead? Alive? Kidnapped? Trapped in the box dimension? Something else? If he was truly, honestly dead, she wanted to know. Get the grieving over and done. Being stuck in suspense like this just left constant anxiety.

After waddling past crowds of penguins going about business as usual, she stepped into the Everyday Phoning Facility. Thank goodness she was alone. Being near a civilian would severely complicate things. The phone booth turned quickly into a screen. She remembered when she first saw it doing that, back when all of the PSA was still vibrant in her memory, instead of becoming blurred and distorted like it was now. She was probably the most impressed she'd ever been that day. When she saw that Welcome Agent message greeting her, and then went down the elevator to a headquarters full of lights and colors…

Now it was just an average part of living. She saw it nearly every day. It didn't unfold if there was a non-agent around, though, so it made good confirmation that she was indeed alone. When she didn't just teleport, she always checked for it. Just a passing glance, just to be sure. The one time she forgot, Emily had come crashing in. While that turned out to be a good thing in her case, not everybody was like Emily. So now, she always remembered. Just as soon as the bright blue glow entered the room, she was already in the elevator. It was overly sleek and shiny, and Sleet was amazed no visible flipper-prints were on it. It slid down the shaft about as expected for an elevator, spitting her out at the true EPF—the Elite Penguin Force.

A green penguin with a propeller hat greeted her, giving her a little wave. He seemed less enthusiastic than usual. Everyone was bummed out about this, to the point where even the brightest smiles seemed to dim a little. She matched the wave, giving a faint, gentle smile.

"Any news, Rook?"

He knew exactly what she meant by that, but gave nothing but a shrug and a shake of his head. "No luck. That message is all we have. I hope he's okay, though."

"Yeah. Same." She hoped heading here would ease the fear. Instead it'd just built onto it. She decided to check the field ops, one last time. Same message as it had been for days. It was to be expected, yet a part of her still felt disappointed. It was engraved into her mind. She could imagine the panic Gary was going through in those last moments. It sent shivers up her spine.

Where the hell was he?