Author Note: Huge thanks to thequillofdestiny, Hypothisos and Zoshi the Confused for the reviews! I love you guys, I was horribly nervous about posting this story and the comments helped no end. On to the warnings – um, not many in this chapter, but I am the High Priestess of Accent Butchering (meetings every Tuesday at seven, bring your own robes and ceremonial daggers), so I hope I haven't gone OTT. Reviews are greeted with big smiles and rampant excitement. And enjoy!

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Christophe had always known the route his life was supposed to go, had planned and prepared for it. Which was why he was so pissed off by the way things were.

He was a mercenary for crying out loud. He could kill a man in sixteen innovative ways using only a spoon; adding bullets, blades, bombs and blunt instruments only added to the possibilities. He was a master of covert operations, able to creep in and out of a location undetected in any number of ways. He had survivalist skills that meant should he be stranded in hostile territory, he should be able to survive for several days by finding himself water and shelter. He had nurtured a pitiless, cold streak that stopped him getting emotional over the things he had done, or freezing with moral indecision at the crucial moment. And he had no political agenda at all, meaning he could take the money from anyone willing to pay him an extortionate fee without any qualms about his actions.

So how was it, he wondered, that he had got to his early twenties to find himself still living in South Park, sharing a house with the two most annoying guys on the planet, able to call himself a mercenary only by the most energetic stretch of a willing imagination?

Although if he was honest with himself, the living arrangements weren't too bad. The bachelor pad certainly beat the shit out of living with his pious mother and the three of them made enough to afford a decent place, on the outskirts of town some distance from their nearest neighbours. Anyone who cared to consider the situation would find nothing strange about three single guys sharing a good-sized house and splitting the bills. They all had their own room and shared the living room, kitchen and bathroom. No lack of privacy should they require it, although they still occasionally got on each others nerves.

Kenny was a prime example. He was quiet enough most of the time, good company when he was around and spent several days each month dead and therefore out of the house (except on a couple of unfortunate occasions, but now they kept a good stock of air fresheners and bin bags). But he hoarded everything and refused to throw anything away, which drove Christophe crazy thanks to his own sparse way of living. Unwearable clothes (he might get around to mending them one day), old books (he might get around to reading them one day), computer parts (he was going to build an entire computer out of them one day) – the list was endless. Not so bad when the junk was confined to the man's room, but when it inevitably spread to the rest of the house, Christophe got annoyed and started throwing things away, which got Kenny annoyed.

Also, he continually ran out of cigarettes and stole Christophe's and never replaced them.

At least Kenny was predictable. Their third house mate, Craig, was anything but. Most of the time he was cool, joining the others for gamesphere or a movie. But on occasion he would get into minor or major depressions and become bitterly sarcastic. And he flipped everyone off, all the time. The tic had been explained to Christophe before he'd had very much to do with the other man, but it still made his hands itch to grab his shovel and swing it every time he was greeted with Craig's middle finger.

He too continually ran out of cigarettes, stole Christophe's and never replaced them.

For the most part though, living with the guys was okay. And there was the major bonus that he never had to lie about where he was when he was out, where he worked, why he occasionally returned to the house covered in blood, or smelling of gunpowder, or nursing bite marks whilst muttering about "fucking guard dogs". Over the past few years, they had all been recruited by the same organisation and due to need for secrecy and the nature of the work, they comprised three-fifths of the entire workforce.

At first, Christophe had baulked at the thought of working as part of a team. He was The Mole; he worked alone. Mercenaries sold their services to the highest bidder and he certainly didn't need other people taking a cut of the profits, didn't need anyone to look out for his interests. All he needed was word of mouth among a certain type of person and he was in business. No ties, no one else to worry about, no one to fuck things up.

But after a while, he discovered certain advantages to the arrangement. Many of the assignments he got involved him working alone and when the job required something more, the three of them made up for the weaknesses of the others. Kenny's even temper and Craig's stoicism made up for Christophe's irritability. Craig turned out to be excellent at surveillance and for some reason animals loved him, which went a long way in Christophe's estimation, considering his hatred of guard dogs (and it had probably saved their lives that time they invaded the house with the ninja squirrels. Cartoons lied; there was nothing cute about small fluffy animals wielding blades). And when a distraction was needed, Kenny could always provide something, whether it be attracting attention to himself, creating an explosion or suffering a spectacularly gory death.

There were only two problems with his job. The first was that there was very little actual mercenaryabout it. Christophe believed that being a mercenary meant fighting wars, assassinating dictators, creeping into countries with closed borders and doing dangerous, dirty jobs that no one else wanted or dared to do. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be much call for that kind of thing, or if there was, no one was rushing to hire him for the job. True, it wasn't as if he could advertise his services in the yellow pages, but surely someone would be in need of a mercenary in this day and age.

Instead, he reflected gloomily, their work was slowly moving away from disposal and further into protection. Admittedly, they lived in South Park and things were frequently screwy in this town, but when about fifty per cent of their work came after a frantic call from the Mayors office to deal with some major threat attacking the town, they were getting too far away from what they were supposed to be doing. There wasn't very much cold-blooded killing but there certainly was a lot of protecting and serving. They weren't mercenaries, they were Charlie's fucking Angels.

Or rather, Gregory's Angels.

And that was the main problem with the job. The person who gave the orders was Gregory, latterly of Yardale, currently residing in South Park and second to the top of Christophe's Things I Hate list. Guard dogs were still number one, with a bullet if he had enough to spare.

Christophe could deal with the work – it was the danger that he got off on, along with the minor satisfaction of knowing that in his own way, he'd done a good thing and there was plenty of danger on most of their assignments. And he got paid well, which was the most important thing of all. It wasn't his first choice and it was an irritation, but it wasn't the end of the world.

But Gregory threw him. Gregory showed up to meetings looking impeccable, usually smirking slightly, throwing around orders and strategies as if he were the one going on the job instead of them. Okay, admittedly he had been known to go into the field but even then, he came out of the event without a hair out of place (including the time when Kenny came out of the event with most of his guts out of place). It irked Christophe that he always seemed presentable, because he was the only person who could make the Frenchman feel unwashed and unkempt just by being in the same room.

And it annoyed Christophe that Gregory never lost his cool. Nothing any of them said ever ruffled him. None of the strange things that turned up in South Park fazed him even slightly. The time a reanimated velociraptor skeleton crashed through their window and bit Kenny in half, he'd only asked to borrow an AK-47. He even said please. It was like being around a robot or something, the Stepford Boss.

Christophe and Gregory had known each other for years, both of them being involved in similar exploits from their youth. The difference was that Christophe was materialistic, Gregory an idealist. He was political. He probably would have been a great hippy, if not for the fact he would actually act for his beliefs rather than hold endless bullshit sessions. Being involved with underground activists meant that their paths crossed on a semi-regular basis and when Gregory had decided to go into business rather than politics, the Mole had been the obvious person to call.

It wasn't Gregory's personality that Christophe disliked, had that been the case he would simply have declined to work with him at all, or been gone long before. He actually found the other man coolly amusing, knowledgeable and businesslike. No, it was the way that he felt near him, as if Gregory's proximity immediately highlighted Christophe's shortcomings, the ones he never noticed in the company of anyone else. It unnerved him and made him even more sullen and withdrawn than he usually was.

But Gregory hadn't been around for a couple of days and Christophe was as close to relaxed as he ever got. Sprawled on one of the two couches in the living room of their shared house, he had been playing a shooting game on the console against Kenny, right up until the man's phone had rung and he got up to take the call in the kitchen. Usually they would spend their free time between assignments preparing for the next one – being a mercenary meant being on the ball at all times – but both Kenny and Craig insisted that they spent at least some of their lives acting like normal young men. Christophe's concession to this was the shooting game. At least he could get some target practice in.

Or he would, once Kenny had finished his phone call.

Growing bored of waiting, he switched the game to one player, using the plastic gun to blast the computerised foes in his path, occasionally muttering, "Take zat, beetches." He was vaguely aware of Kenny talking in the kitchen but couldn't have heard the actual words even if he had been interested.

Kenny finally emerged from the kitchen, a distracted look on his face as he ran a hand through his uncombed and unruly blonde hair, grabbing his hoody from where he had thrown it the last time he took it off and pulling it on. "I gotta go out."

"Uh-huh," replied Christophe, mildly intrigued. Whoever had been on the phone had certainly given Kenny something to think about.

"Enjoy the game," added Kenny as he left the room. "I get the feeling it's the last time we'll be playing for a while."

That got Christophe's attention. It sounded to him as if something was about to go down in South Park and when that happened, usually they were the ones called in to sort it out. It might just be that one of the citizens had some advance information, but if that was the case, then why was Kenny not sharing the news? And just where was he going anyway?

He heard the front door open and assumed it was Kenny leaving, until he heard him speak. "Oh, uh, hi Craig!"

Craig grunted something too low for Christophe to hear and he wondered if the other man had picked up on the fake innocence in Kenny's voice.

"Nowhere, for a walk, to buy pizza, bye!" The door slammed and a few moments later, Craig walked into the living room, frowning slightly.

"What's up with Kenny?" he asked without preamble.

Christophe shrugged. "All I know is, 'e got some call and now 'e is jumpy. I think something is about to 'appen in town."

"Figures," said Craig with a sigh, dropping into Kenny's vacated chair and picking up the second player gun. "Probably Cartman giving him a heads-up."

Christophe snorted. Eric Cartman was the mayoral aide, one of the most influential men in town and probably the most manipulative bastard that he had ever met. Cartman knew a lot of the things they did simply because of who he worked with and mostly, the three men were happy to let Gregory deal with him. Still, the thought that he would be the next candidate for Mayor when McDaniels vacated the job made Christophe shudder.

Craig hated Cartman just as much as Christophe did, but Kenny had been friends with the fat boy since time out of mind and they still had some weird rapport going on, which meant that Kenny was frequently able to get information that the fat man would otherwise have withheld. It was strange in a relationship that seemed to consist of both parties trading insults, but useful when Cartman was feeding them misleading facts in order to further his own agenda.

It was a couple of hours later when Kenny returned, clearly not in a great mood. The other men had given up on the gamesphere and Christophe was checking over some of his extensive stash of weaponry while Craig downloaded pictures from his camera to his laptop.

"Where's the pizza?" asked Craig, not bothering to look up from his computer.

"There is none." Kenny headed into the kitchen and returned with three bottles of beer. "Gregory's coming over in an hour or so."

Christophe and Craig glanced up in surprise, accepting the beers as Kenny handed them out.

"New assignment." Kenny slouched into the seat next to Craig and pulled a battered packet of cigarettes from the pocket of his jeans. "He's getting the information now, I'll wait for him to tell you about it."

"But you know something," said Christophe, eyes firmly on the gun he was dismantling, his own cigarette sticking out of the corner of his mouth.

"A little," admitted Kenny, looking down at the floor and clearly not comfortable with the conversation.

Glancing up, Christophe caught Kenny giving him a look that clearly told him to get the hell out of the room for a while. With a sigh, he set his gun down on the table in pieces.

"I'm going to 'ave a wash," he said, examining the dirt on his hands that the gun had left. "Zat Gregory, 'e will probably 'ave a sheet-fit if 'e 'as to encounter dirt."

Craig sniggered as Christophe left the room, clearly having missed the silent exchange between him and Kenny. "The Mole prettying himself up for the boss. That is soooo funny."

Kenny wanted to seize on the distraction, but he figured he'd better just bite the bullet and get the conversation over with. The news would be better coming from him than from Gregory, although in honesty, probably not much better. "Um, you remember when we all got sent to Peru?"

"I had lots of therapy so I wouldn't remember going to Peru."

"You didn't get any therapy."

"I didn't get my hundred dollars back either."

Kenny sighed. "Kyle called me up earlier. Apparently, there's been a lot of digging going on at the site where we found those carvings of you and the guinea pigs and they've found more pictures."

Craig flipped him off, leaning back and closing his eyes wearily. "No. I'm not getting involved again. I'm staying right here in South Park, I don't care how much we're getting paid."

"You're not on the new carvings Craig."

"No way, I'm having nothing to do with this."

"It's someone else."

"I'm not listening."

"Kyle wants to hire us to find Tweek!"

Craig's eyes shot open and he sat up straight, staring at Kenny. "You're joking."

Kenny shook his head. "Gregory's getting all the details, but I thought I should tell you first. Kyle says there's a whole bunch of those markings further back in the cave we were in. We might have seen them if we hadn't been chasing after you," he added pointedly, but Craig ignored the criticism.

"Anyway, Kyle says the picture looks just like Tweek and seems to be some kind of prophecy. Just like the last one."

"Prophesying what?"

Kenny shrugged. "I don't know. That's what Gregory's finding out. But there's a research team heading on up to South Park and they're all set on finding where Tweek got to." Kenny hesitated for a moment. "You haven't any idea where he might be, do you?"

Craig snorted. "I haven't heard a word from him since – since he left town," he said, leaving out the details, not that it mattered. Kenny didn't know everything, but gossip travelled fast in a small town and what had happened to cause Tweek's parents to take their son and go had been big news at the time. He knew enough. "Token and Clyde haven't heard anything either."

Or they decided it was for the best not to tell you they had thought Kenny, making a mental note to call Token later on and see if he knew anything.

Craig lapsed into a moody silence and Kenny frowned. Had it been one of his other friends he might have offered a hug, but Craig was not the touchy-feely type and Kenny had the feeling that it would be a bad time for him to die. Instead, he struggled for a way to fill the silence.

"Have you ever gone looking for him?" Oh yeah, now he remembered why he tended not to speak in awkward situations; because his mouth blurted out the wrong thing without filtering it through his brain first.

"Thought about it," admitted Craig, resting his elbows on his knees. "But what's the point? He hauled ass outta here quickly enough and if he'd wanted to come back, he could have done. We're not seventeen any more. He probably just wanted to forget this shitty town. I know I would if I ever wised up and moved on."

Kenny wanted to point out a few flaws in this logic, but Christophe chose that moment to re-enter the room, glancing curiously at the pair. Kenny supposed he must know something was going on – Christophe didn't miss much and he knew them both well enough to realise something was up – but he didn't ask any questions. Instead, he noticed Kenny's mostly empty bottle and Craig's apparent stress and decided to ignore that his own drink was untouched. "Beer anyone?"

"Fuck the beer," muttered Craig, resting his head in his hands. "Pass the tequila."