Agh! You've caught me! Here it is! This is the start of something I've been planning since February, and a large part of all the delays that's been happening with "The Plague." After I wrote this huge backstory, I realized I didn't have a good way to deliver it how I wanted. Initially, I though of exposition, but you guys know how much I hate that. I mean, I've barely told you anything about anyone! What I really wanted to do was tell this in story format, but because of the way "The Plague" is structured, I wasn't able to work it in properly. So now it's its own story! Anyway, this follows the story of Project Emissary, which may have been a huge initial part of Leo's journey, even if he doesn't know it. This takes place in the world of "The Plague" approximately 2-3 years before the start of the initial story. It can be read on its own without knowledge of "The Plague" and "The Plague" can be read without ever knowing this exists, but reading both will grant a lot more depth to both stories. Unlike "The Plague," almost every aspect of this story has been planned out and has a definite end and a set number of chapters to get there. Chapters will be released as I feel like it, but I'll do my best to get out at least one chapter of either "The Plague" or "Project Emissary" a week. So read, enjoy, and see if you can catch some of the hints about how this has already connected to the regular story (there are plenty, both subtle and not-so-subtle). And, yes, all the characters are named after emotions/ideals. This is explained in the next chapter.
For those of you getting into this story late and not sure when to start, the latest released chapter of "The Plague" is Chapter 18.
…
"Seriously?"
"I just want to take a quick look," Trust pleaded. "I won't be more than a minute. Two minutes, at most. Or three, if they have anything by Relo-"
"No," came the firm reply. "We're here for a reason, and it's not to go shopping for music boxes."
"Aw, come on. You can't expect me to just ignore the place, Joy." He gave her a winning smile. "You don't find these places every day. Can't you imagine it? Walking into the old base with some rockin' Blaze-"
"I said no," she answered. "I didn't even know you were into these things."
Trust shrugged. "Well, not especially. Somewhat. Okay, mostwhat. It's really mostly for Mills. She adores the things."
Joy shook her head and crossed her arms. "You can pick something up for her on the way back. We're not failing this one."
Trust stretched out his arms, smiling. "Oh, please, Joy. When have I ever caused you to fail anything?"
"Twenty-three."
"Twenty-three?" Trust lowered his arms, slightly confused. Then recognition spread over his face. "Oh, yeah. That was the one with the old guy and the potatoes."
Joy nodded in affirmation, then cracked a slight smile of amusement.
"What?"
"Oh, nothing. It's just how strange that would sound to anybody who didn't see it go down."
Trust shrugged again. "Well, if you think about it, pretty much all of them can be summed up in those weird ways. Forty-two, the one with the magic pony and the evil vulture. Twelve, the one with the crazed dinosaur and the diabolical slime emperor."
Joy smirked for a moment, then turned back around and continued walking. "Hurry up. We're going to miss our ride."
Trust sped up slightly and fell into step behind her. "Fifty-nine. The one with the master math teacher who sold magical manly macaroni."
Joy held up her hand. "Let's not run it into the ground, please."
"Thirty-one. The one with the fairy who hates Chinese food."
Joy sighed. "You're going to be doing this all day, now, aren't you?"
Trust smiled. "Probably."
"I never should have mentioned it."
"Probably not."
…
"Fourteen. The one that was eerily reminiscent of Peter Pan."
Joy had, for the most part, blocked out Trust's ramblings for the past fifteen minutes or however long it had taken them to get to this street, but this one caught her attention. "How did that have anything to do with Peter Pan?"
Trust grinned. "All you need is faith and trust… and just a little bit of pixie dust," he quoted.
Joy sighed. "One idiot thinking he could fly does not make it Peter Pan."
"But he said it was the power of belief that helped him fly, which is pretty much the same thing as faith! That's, like, one third of the recipe! And I was there, too, so there's two/thirds!"
"Oh? Let's humor that idea for a second. Where's the pixie dust?"
This gave Trust pause. "Every theory has holes."
"How about the theory that I'll punch your face in if you keep talking?"
Trust, surprisingly, shut his mouth. For six seconds, at least, and then he asked "Why do all of our conversations end with that same threat?"
"Because," Joy answered coolly, "They're never actual conversations. It's just you pretending I'm listening until I get sick of it."
"Fair enough. But, then, why di-"
Joy clapped her hand over his mouth and rose her other hand's index finger to her lips. "Here it is," she whispered. "You'd have seen it if you weren't flapping your lips so much."
Trust shoved her hand off his mouth and turned to properly look at their location. Directly in front of them was…a totally normal-looking general store. Trust blinked once, and grabbed a map out of his back pocket just to make sure they were in the right place. Yes, they were exactly where they were supposed to be. Evidently it was just hidden quite well inside this store.
"Think it's a real place?" he whispered to Joy.
"No duh. Of course it is. I'm just wondering if it's a front for a larger operation underground or if it's just the storage location."
Trust bit his cheek. "Only one way to find out." He trotted up to the store doors before Joy could stop him and knocked. A few seconds later, the door was opened up by a middle-aged merchant who looked him over quizzically.
"You know," the merchant told him dryly, "you don't have to knock. It's an open store with a glass door."
Trust threw his arms out and began speaking as if he were in the middle of a play. "Of course I didn't have to! But, tell me this, sir, have you ever felt the sharp pang of glass against skin? It leaves no room for alternatives. Once it claims you, you are its forever, and will never be satisfied to simply open a door again!"
The merchant blinked. "So…are you going to buy anything or not?"
"That depends," Trust replied with over-exaggerated slyness. "on what it is you have for sale. Any 'specials' if you know what I mean."
"I…don't."
"Yes, you do. Preferably something in the jewelry department."
"I honestly don't really know what you're going on about."
Trust paused for but a second. "How about a certain something of untold value that would make for a lovely gift to a lady?"
Joy cringed at how purposefully bad his cover was. This needed to be fixed. She walked up to join him.
"Don't mind him," she assured the incredibly confused merchant. "He's…not exactly a people person. We just want to look around."
Still eyeing Trust warily, the merchant seemed to accept this and moved out of the way. "So long as you buy something."
Joy smiled politely and moved inside, dragging Trust with her.
As soon as they were hidden inside one of the aisles, she slapped him. "That was the most retarded thing you've ever done! What if he actually did know what you were talking about? Our cover would be blown and we'd have to escape with a hundred men after us. As it is, it didn't do anything helpful. Why the heck did you think that making so many blatant references was anything but a bad idea?!"
Trust almost looked offended. "Hey, I was just having a little bit of fun."
"Fun that could have killed us!"
"And it didn't."
Joy peeked past his shoulder and watched the merchant pick up a phone. "That's still up in the air. Let's just find it and get out of here. The sooner the better."
Trust nodded. "Fine. Are you ready?"
Joy sighed. "Of course. Just do it quickly. You know I won't be able to keep it up for very long."
Trust clapped his hands and Joy winced at the noise. "Let's do this, then."
Joy agreed. She clenched her hands quietly and began to breathe slowly. In, out. In, out. Focus.
She kept breathing as her hair slowly started to change color, until it was a dark grey instead of light brown. Grabbing Trust's hand, she closed her eyes and felt her energy begin to drain as she unleashed it. When she opened her eyes, time had crawled to a near-stop for everything except her and Trust.
She grit her teeth. "I can make it last longer if I stay still. You look."
Trust smiled, cracked his knuckles by moving his fingers, and vanished.
Moments later, he appeared again, just to check on how she was holding up, then vanished again. When she was concentrating so much, the normal time flow could regain control at any moment, which is why they had agreed to a mandatory check every few seconds while he explored.
Right now, Trust was teleporting all over the building, searching suspicious places and throwing things off the shelves in search of any one thing that could lead them to what they wanted.
Joy just concentrated on keeping time halted. She had, maybe, five minutes before she passed out. Whether or not time regained control before then was up to her.
Trust found it surprisingly quickly. Suddenly, he was right next to her, whispering in her ear that there was a trapdoor in the men's bathroom. She nodded, and replied in a half-whisper. "I can't move, or I'm going to break my concentration. I need you to teleport me in there."
Trust shrugged and laid a hand on her shoulder. Moments later, they were both on a staircase leading down to a pitch-black hallway.
With a sigh of relief, Joy let go of her hold on time, and felt things begin to speed up as her hair turned back to its normal color. She was still dizzy with much of her energy gone, though, and one step nearly sent her tumbling down the stairs. Luckily, Trust caught her arm right before she fell.
"Think you need the bracelet?" he questioned.
Joy shook her head, even though he couldn't see it in the dark. "No. Let's save that for something important. Can we get a little light, please?"
Trust raised his left hand and a fireball appeared over it, showing the hallway in front of them in full light. "Okay. Let's teleport."
"Is that necessary? Why don't we just walk down the stairs?"
"Because," Trust replied, "I happen to be one of the finest gentlemen on the planet-"
Joy snorted.
"-and would never take the chance of a wonderful gray-haired old lady like yourself tripping down these rather difficult stairs, and tumbling loudly enough to give us away. The alternative is us holding hands all the way down, but something tells me you'd like to be teleported."
Joy rolled her eyes. "Then do it."
Clapping his hand on her shoulder, Trust brought them to the bottom of the stairs in the blink of an eye.
"I'll be honest," he declared, "I feel really bad for everyone who can't teleport. It's so much easier and way more fun than walking."
"Yeah, thanks for raising my self-esteem," Joy muttered.
Trust raised an eyebrow. "Jealous, are we?"
Joy didn't dignify that statement with a response. "Let's get through this door."
Trust vanished.
Joy leaned against the wall of the suddenly-dark hallway, pursing her lips and waiting for him to realize he'd forgotten her.
It took about twenty seconds for light to fill the room again. "Whoops," Trust announced in such a way that made Joy wonder if he didn't do it on purpose. This time, she put her hand on his shoulder, just to make sure she wouldn't be left again.
Past the door, there were an assortment of odd pieces of technology, mostly large computers that probably shouldn't exist yet, but only one thing in the room interested either of them: a glowing glass case off to one side. Both walked over to it slowly, carefully, as if it could reach out and attack them at any moment. Due to Joy's spent energy, Trust made it first. He lowered him face until it was almost touching the glass before announcing "This is it, all right."
Joy hurried as best as she could for the last few steps and looked into the case.
There, positioned like any normal piece of jewelry, was a sliver necklace with a locket attached, the locket being in the shape of a crescent moon.
"You know what I think is in it?" Trust announced. "An ancient demon bent on world domination."
"Or information," Joy countered.
"Well, yeah, but evil demon sounds more interesting."
Joy shook her head. "Whatever the case, we need to find some way to quietly get it out first-"
Trust snapped his fingers, and suddenly the necklace was around Joy's neck.
He smiled charmingly. "Looks good on you."
Joy raised an eyebrow. "You realize how risky that was?"
Trust tilted his head. "Well, yeah, but, to be honest, I don't really care. Alarms would only make the mission somewhat entertaining."
"You're going to kill me one day."
"Yeah, probably," Trust answered nonchalantly. "Now, let's get out of here." He grabbed her shoulder and teleported them directly outside of the store.
Shaking off a slight wave of nausea from all the teleportation, Joy scolded Trust again. "That was even more dangerous. What if somebody, anybody, had been on this street?"
Trust stuck his tongue in his cheek. "Okay, gonna be honest; didn't think of that."
Joy shoved his hand off her shoulder. "Yeah, that's why you're supposed to tell me before you go teleporting around."
"Well, what else were we going to do? Teleport into the store and almost guarantee being seen by the merchant?"
"We could've left the old-fashioned way. You know, by walking."
"With both of us coming out of the boy's bathroom?"
"It'd raise less suspicion than teleportation would."
"Well, nobody saw us, so it's fine ."
"That's not the point. The point is-"
"The point is nobody saw us when we arrived, but somebody might see us arguing about it and ruin everything if we keep going on about it. Let's just be thankful everything wasn't screwed up and move on, okay?"
Joy was stopped in her place by Trust's sudden grasp on things and sensible reasoning. It caught her off guard. "Oh, uh, okay."
They started walked quickly back to the pick-up point.
"We're stopping by that Music Box place on the way home," Trust announced.
"If we fail because of a stupid Music Box, I will kill you."
Trust chuckled as they turned a corner. "You'll have to- UGH!"
He was suddenly launched across the street by a stone fist and smashed into the side of a building.
Instantly Joy dropped to the ground and flipped underneath the next launching fist. She raised her head to get an eye of what was attacking them.
Oh, crap.
"Trust, we may need backup for this one."
Trust tore himself out of the rubble and groaned. "No kidding. Is that-"
Joy launched herself to the side, dodging another punch. "Yep."
"But how-"
"Just shut up and call in for help! I'll see if I can keep it distracted!"
Gritting his teeth, Trust reached over and tapped a clear-looking bracelet on his left wrist. Instantly a messaging board popped up in holographic form. Trust immediately put a call in to the HQ.
It rang.
And rang.
Cursing, Trust decided he couldn't wait for them to answer while Joy was almost dying every three seconds. He teleported into the midst of the fight.
He began to regret it almost immediately as he looked into the almost-robotic head of his attacker residing several stories above. He swallowed. This wasn't right at all. How could they have access to this thing?
"Trust, you better have put that call in!" Joy shouted at him.
"Still ringing." Trust decided to put his misgivings aside for now. He spread out his hands, unleashing torrents of flames from both of them, coating the giant stone creature in fire.
Through the flames, seemingly unaffected, the creature's fist came flying towards him. Unblinking, he immediately teleported directly off to the right, causing the attack to miss. Stretching out his hand, he summoned a ghost scythe, which he used immediately on the hand that had been aiming for him. It smashed into ghostly pieces and vanished the instant it hit the rocky hand.
Okay, Trust reasoned, it's tough. But I've probably faced tougher. He cast a quick invisibility spell over himself. It wouldn't last long, but it would have to be long enough. He moved his hand to his belt underneath his brown cloak and brought out his personal favorite wand. This ought to help him out somewhat. He began summoning ice and fire constantly, hitting the creature wherever he could while constantly dodging attacks and teleporting. None of them appeared to affect the stone tower before him at all. He teleported onto the creature's back and summoned several ghost daggers to his side, throwing them at the head, but, just like the scythe, they shattered on impact. Throwing out his wand to one side, he lifted a chunk of a nearby building telekinetically and dropped it on the stone head, but it didn't even act like it noticed. Most of its attention was still on Joy.
So, Trust thought, I can't do anything to it because it's too durable, and it can't do anything to me because I can teleport. Maybe if-
He was suddenly thrown off the stone giant's back and onto the ground. As soon as he landed, the creature stepped back, pressing him down into the street, with only his emergency wards saving him from death.
As soon as it lifted its foot, he tried to teleport away, but most of his mana was spent, and he accidentally ended up teleporting directly in front of the giant. Its massive head was instantly looking at him, and, without warning, a massive laser blast shot out of its eyes aimed directly for him. He wouldn't be able to get away in time.
Then Joy was in front of him, hair a blazing red, with a translucent shield held out in front out her outstretched arm that blocked the blast. She helped him up with her other hand. "We may need our bracelets."
"Yeah, I'd think so."
"Cover me."
Trust held out his wand, casting a small force field around them as Joy dropped her shield. She immediately tapped her own bracelet, and activated one of the options that popped up. Through use of magic and teleportation mechanics, a very light, though dense, cloth began to unfold from the bracelet and around her arm. It traveled upward, running alongside her forearm, then across her torso and around the other arm. In less than a minute, a full mythril set had materialized around her.
"The field can't take much more, Joy!" Trust yelled, rather unnecessarily, it seemed to Joy, as she was right next to him.
The hood materialized in her hand and she threw it on over her head, then inhaled sharply as her energy began to quickly replenish itself.
"Okay," she announced, "I can take the shield. Get your armor ready."
"I can't while I'm still calling!"
Joy whirled around. "You mean they haven't picked up yet?!"
Trust grimaced. "I'll be fine for a little while. We'll give them one more shot. See if you can distract it from me."
Joy rolled her eyes. "Fine. Drop the shield…now!"
Trust didn't have to. The shield took one more laser and shattered. Both of them instantly dived for cover, Trust landing on his stomach and Joy landing on one hand, cartwheeling off of it to plant her feet firmly on the ground. She ended up firmly on her face half a second later, however, when the giant slammed his fist into her and knocked her back by several feet.
Trust rose his wand, ready to cast a healing spell on her, though his mana was dropping very quickly, when suddenly he heard a voice in his ear.
"You've reached Bob's Hotspot for Hot Dogs. Our specialty today: Corn Dogs for only $99.99!"
"HQ! What took- wait, is this Life?"
"Why, do you feel it calling you?" Trust could almost feel the wink on the other side.
"First, that one made no sense-"
"Since when has Life ever made sense?" Another wink.
"-and second, WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?"
"Actually, I was on call duty, but I wasn't feeling-"
"You took a nap."
"A pretty good one."
Trust rubbed his forehead, exasperated. "Listen, Life, they have a Golem."
He waited for a shout of surprise or a mutterment of shock, but all Life said was "Uh-huh."
"It's kicking our butts. We need reinforcements."
"Hey, I could always head down there. Watch the carnage, maybe beat it up. Could be fun."
"Yeah, no. We need people who won't fall asleep in the middle of the fight. Who else is up there?"
"Not too many people, but I think I can get Sanity and Disgust there in a few minutes. They're working on something kinda nearby."
Trust glanced at the Golem raining blow after blow on Joy's weakening shield. "We don't have that long. Get them here as fast as possible."
"Sure."
"And stop answering the phone with that corn dog line!"
"Hey, but you know the saying: When Life give you corn dogs-"
Trust hung up and activated his armor.
Through the same mechanisms that had unfurled Joy's myrthril armor, he soon had a full purple robe and leggings on made of reinforced material, along with a masked hood, which he slipped on instantly. As soon as his entire spectral set was together, he felt his mana refilling. With a sigh of relief, he teleported next to Joy and brought up his own force field.
"Sanity and Disgust will be here soon, but not soon enough. We need to destroy this thing ourselves."
Joy's eyes narrowed as her shield dropped. "I have an idea."
"Of course you do."
Joy pulled in her lips. "See if you can get some damage into that head. I'll be attacking from the back. Make sure it can't hit both of us at the same time."
Trust nodded. "Can do." He dropped the shield and both of them rolled out of the way of the instantaneous laser blast.
Trust raised his wand to the sky, summoning dozens of icy shards to rain into the Golem's head, causing it to make some kind of rumbling angry noise and focus on swatting the shards above it while Joy move quickly and carefully behind it. Trust switched attacks and summoned flaming skulls to be launched at the towering rock giant, who swatted them like flies.
Joy's hair began to glow, and she unleashed a torrent of lightning at the Golem's back, forcing it to turn and attack her instead. Trust threw out razor-sharp typhoon circles, slicing through the Golem's head without too much of a visible effect, but still evidently angering it. The instant it had turned, though, Joy threw out several lasers that bounced off the giants back. She retrieved her personal Phantasm Bow, shooting out what appeared to be hundreds of arrows through use of a personal magic pool. Though the arrows each bounced off, they were like mosquito bites to the Golem, who immediately decided to ignore Trust and unleash his fury on Joy. He released dozens of fireballs, each of which was shot down and dissipated by well-placed lasers. Trust summoned dozens of phantom bats, each of which immediately homed in on the Golem's head, scratching, biting, and trying to pry it apart, makings sure the Golem had to pay attention to him.
This went on for a short while. Whenever one was in danger, the other would attack from the opposite side, so the Golem was never able to focus on just one of them and, in fact, rarely was able to launch his own attacks. The downside was, even with the power assistance of their armor sets, both of their energy reserves were going down rapidly. Joy was the first to recognize that they wouldn't last much longer, and raced over to the side, shooting Trust a look that told him everything he needed to know. Instantly, he dove over to his left, dodging a blast of fire, and then ran to catch up to Joy. They met by the Golem's side, and, without hesitation, Trust grabbed Joy's shirt and, after casting a quick strength-increasing spell on himself, launched her at the Golem's back. Right before she hit the Golem, he cast a Featherfalling spell on her, negating any damage the high-seed impact could have had. She grabbed onto the one of the many rocks lining up on the giant's back, and lifted herself up to stand on to of the creature. She ran as best as she could while balancing carefully all the way to the towering neck, where she unleashed huge waves of lasers at the connecting area, hoping to knock the head off. It cost her most of her energy, but, with a mighty thunk, the head toppled off. Trust, wasting no time, took hold of what was left of his mana and manipulated the earth around the head, causing it to fracture and open up around the head. The head fell into the hole and the earth closed up around it.
Joy jumped off the disabled back and landed next to him slowly, the Featherfalling spell still affecting her. "Well, that was something."
Trust was about to reply, but then he saw the body beginning to rise out of the corner of his eye. Turning to his right to face it, he muttered an exasperated "Aw, come on."
Instantly, Joy's hair went red, and she cast up a force field in front of them once more, just in time to block an incoming punch. "It's still alive?!"
Trust paused. "How long can you hold this?"
Beads of sweat were already showing up on Joy's forehead, but she wasn't immediately going to admit to weakness. "How long do you need?"
Trust eyed the store. "Give me thirty seconds."
"You have twenty."
"Done." He vanished.
He appeared inside the store they had just been in. The merchant was cowering behind the counter, which, seeing as the entire fight was viewable from his window, Trust wasn't surprised. He moved over to the merchant anyway, and, grabbing his shirt and raising him off the ground, demanded "Where are the potions?!"
The merchant meekly pointed to one end of the store. Trust tossed him to the ground again and teleported over to the corner he had pointed at. The selection of potions were pitifully few, but he didn't need anything elaborate. He immediately filled and downed a mana potion, and took an energy potion before vanishing again.
He appeared next to Joy and put up his own force field. "Drink this," he told her, handing her the potion with one hand.
She dropped her shield and eyed it skeptically. "Trust, you know we shouldn't drink potions, especially in the field. It messes with our-"
"Let Mercy worry about that. We're out of options."
She didn't raise any further complaints. She lifted the potion to her lips and drank the entire thing in one go.
As soon as she was done, she stood up. "Lower the field."
"You can handle it?"
She nodded as her hair turned into a blueish-green color. "You know what to do."
Trust chewed on his lower lip. "Yep."
Trust lowered the field right after the next punch, and Joy sped toward the Golem, suddenly moving at incredible speeds many Terrarians couldn't even dream of. In this form, Trust reasoned, she could probably race a bullet.
Joy launched herself into the air and delivered a powerful kick to the Golem's chest, knocking it almost off balance. Instantly, she was right behind it, jumping up and doing the same thing to its back. Unable to handle the sudden change in momentum, the Golem toppled over.
"Now!"
Knowing that the Golem would rise again in just a few seconds, Trust took the opportunity to charge up his final attack. He opened his hands and shoved his arms outward, right next to each other.
Particles of dust were drawn in.
The air grew colder.
And then, right as the Golem was beginning to get up, a massive wave of blue energy, frost magic, was released, engulfing the Golem.
Recognizing the threat, the Golem immediately got up and started moving. It threw a massive punch that might have ended Trust's life.
But it froze before it was anywhere near him.
If the Golem could have, it would have screamed as it slowly froze. When the blue energy had dissipated, the entire creature had been turned to ice.
Joy, still using her speed boost, ran, kicked off a wall, and aimed a kick directly for the center of the Golem's back. "Trust!"
Trust had almost no mana left. That last attack had taken it all out of him. But he did have just enough left to cast one last Titan spell on Joy as she flew toward the frozen Golem.
Joy's foot hit the Golem ice statue's back, and, thanks to the huge amount of momentum behind the kick and the Titan buff, the entire structure shattered.
Joy landed on the ground softly as all spells that had been cast on her wore off. Energy spent, she deactivated her armor, it all quickly folding back into the bracelet and the hood vanishing. She sat down against a wall, gasping for air.
Trust did the same and sat down next to her.
After a pause, she posed a question: "Did we just kill a god?"
Trust shrugged. "I think so."
They didn't say anything for a moment. Then, out of nowhere, Trust laughed.
"What's so funny?" Joy asked, though she was somewhat afraid to know.
"Oh, nothing. Just your hair."
"What's wrong with my hair?"
"Nothing. That's what's so funny. After all of that, not a single strand is out of place."
"Well, of course not," Joy declared, seemingly offended. "I'm a Stylist, and I'd have to be a terrible one not to keep my hair in place."
"Yeah, that's what makes it funny."
Before Joy could reply to this nonsensical statement, she heard a voice coming from nearby.
"Huh. Guess we were late to the party," Sanity declared.
Trust waved. "Hey, Leo."
Sanity held up a finger and winked. "Codenames, remember? You aren't even supposed to know that."
"Yeah, whatever." Trust waved this off. "Where's Disgust?"
"Grumbling. He's going to be quite upset when he finds out you were able to take care of this yourselves. Speaking of which, congratulations."
"Let me guess," Joy drawled. "You fought these things in basic training?"
"Oh, of course not. Our Golems were much tougher."
"Hah, hah," Joy muttered sarcastically.
"Well," Sanity changed the subject, "Tell me you did retrieve the objective?"
Trust nodded, and Joy brought the necklace out from under her shirt. "Right here."
Sanity nodded. "Great. Let's get back to HQ, then."
Both of them rose from the ground, with Trust suddenly pausing halfway and stating "First, though, I need to visit a certain store. There's something I want to get."
Sanity raised an eyebrow. "Couldn't we just get whatever it is later?"
Joy held up a hand. "No, he's right. We need this now."
Sanity tilted his head slightly. "Well, okay, then."
Trust leaned over and whispered in Joy's ear. "Thanks."
She punched him lightly. "You're buying one for me."
