James Fallwards never considered himself very good at running. His job only ever needed him to keep to a single building and work at a cubicle in front of a computer throughout the entire week, month, and year.

It wasn't exactly the BEST job, not to mention exhausting and draining on his mental health. It didn't help that his grandpa, who had single-handedly raised him, had died by a shooting at a bank a couple of months ago.

When he heard the information that one of the last people on the planet had died from crime, he became... foolish. He wanted to see the people who had done this, why, and to see justice served. Yet, the strange thing was that when he tried to search for the bank robbery online, nothing came up.

No names of the perpetrators, not the place, nor the victims of the crime, and as far as he knew, seemed to only be his grandpa.

It confused him. He thought that PATRIOT would at least cover this or at least the local news. There was nothing. Everyone around him seemed to not notice or care.

He spent countless nights on his computer scrolling through news articles and forums. He even checked the daily news for that week in hopes of finding anything about it.

It was as if the incident had been scrubbed from existence. The more he delved, the more disconnected he felt, and the more his mind began coming up with theories was when he began to hate PATRIOT.

Who else would be powerful enough to erase something like this, especially in this area? His theories began to feel more plausible when he went to the local police station. He was only met with passive-aggressive and polite resistance.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Fallwards, but there is simply no record of any such incident." They would say with a smile in a mannerly tone while having their eye squinted as well as tilting their head. "Are you sure you have the right information?"

They had left him with no other option. (He had some other options left but decided to just jump the gun immediately.)

He needed to hack into PATRIOT's network and see what was going on. Which was easier said than done. He didn't have any skills in hacking at all.

He had to contact an old online acquaintance of his that he met in a chatroom a year ago called "Saboteur68." They had managed to somehow hack into his computer and send him a constant flux of ad pop-ups. It took him days to fix before, much to their surprise, he reached out to them again. It's just that despite what they did, they were fun to chat with. They chatted every now and again over random things, which would mostly be brought up by them first when they decided to randomly check up on him for some reason through messages.

After being the one to contact them this time, he asked how to hack things like they had managed to do with his computer and no doubt plenty others. It probably confused his online associate as they asked why. Which he decided to respond to truthfully since there was no point in hiding it if they could just hack into his computer and see his search history.

When they heard he wanted to hack into PATRIOT's network, they seemed to readily agree. He didn't question this; after all, they were the ones who would be teaching him, and they could refuse if he asked why.

It took a couple of weeks with him spending most of his time hunched over his desk trying to learn everything he possibly could about hacking from them. He also quit his job to spend more time developing his skills; he already had enough money for the next couple of months.

Who seemed to be surprisingly patient for someone who probably had a reputation of terrorizing people, stealing info, and creating computer viruses. Or maybe that does take time, so it would be obvious that they would be patient.

Each time he made a mistake or crashed his system, they simply walked him through what he did wrong while tossing in a joke or two, which helped him from spiralling into frustration.

Saboteur68: "Try the backdoor key again, but this time don't forget the root access command... again. :/"

James rubbed his eyes while yawning due to it being pretty late at night at this point as he typed in a reply.

DuckAndClover: "Yeah, yeah. I get it."

On the other side, the person snorted, trying to suppress a laugh while covering their face with their hand since they were on a train and didn't want to seem like a complete lunatic laughing out of nowhere for no discernable reason. They had just thought up a pretty funny joke as they quickly typed and sent it to their acquaintance.

Saboteur68: "You better. Otherwise, PATRIOT might just trace your location right before inviting themselves over a cup of LIBER-TEA. ;)"

Once he read this message, he couldn't help but snicker; it wasn't that the joke was that funny, but he was quite fatigued at that point, and the message was unexpected. He hadn't laughed in quite a bit of time, but their odd sense of humour seemed to make the experience, as well as learning how to hack, all the more bearable.

It's not like he really had any other choice; well, he did since Saboteur68 had offered him they would hack into PATRIOT for him in exchange for a favour, but he declined since he didn't want to be in debt to anyone just in case. He just needed answers to his questions. Plus, hacking is a good skill to come in handy.

A few months passed, and he had improved immensely. He had learnt how to navigate around firewalls, bypass security systems, cover up his tracks, and create security of his own (which Saboteur68 would hack over and over until it took about a minute for them to finish hacking, at which point they said that they were pretty good in that department now).

With every passing second, his confidence in his abilities only grew, driven by his need to know the truth. The day eventually came as Saboteur68 contacted them one last time; after this, they would cut the connection and erase any trace of them ever talking, just in case PATRIOT succeeded in tracing them.

Saboteu68r: "Well, you're ready as you'll ever be. Just remember that PATRIOT is quite a dangerous thing to hack since it's a counter-terrorist agency under the government. Be careful."

Seeing this message only made him want to reconsider, but his resolution wasn't going to be shaken.

DuckAndClover: "No need to worry for me. I know the risks."

They stumbled reading before puffing up their right cheek before deciding to respond in the best way possible and downplay any possible worry they might have.

Saboteur68: "Pffft. I'm not worried about you. I'm just worried that this conversation could get traced."

He laughed slightly reading that as it was pretty honest, but he decided to mess with them a little bit.

DuckAndClover: "Right. Whatever makes you happy. ;)"

Saboteur68: "You know it! B)
Saboteur68: Oh, and babe. Break a leg. Or PATRIOT's. Preferably both of PATRIOT's."

With that, the window closed along with the entire chat history as well as all the contact with Saboteur68. After a couple moments of silence, he let out a dry laugh. He felt a bit abandoned after all those months of back and forth, but he understood that they were just looking out for their safety.

After taking a deep breath and steadying himself, he cracked his knuckles before he began his final preparations before he hacked into their base. This wasn't just so he could see justice get served; this was also so he could know why this crime was covered up and why PATRIOT seemed to let it disappear.

The first thing he did was mask his IP address. From there he began creating numerous walls of security before injecting the program he'd developed to avoid PATRIOT's initial detection. His mind raced as his chest pounded from the risk of discovery. Every moment that passed only increased the chance of him being detected.

Even with that, his hands were steady as the screen flickered as he made it past the first firewall and then the second. His program made its way carefully through PATRIOT's network and passed any digital tripwires created by their cybersecurity team. They had finally made it to the central database where all their classified records were stored. Now the hard part began.

James took a small glance at his physical clock on the wall that read 8:32 pm. Time felt both slow and fast at the same time as he muttered to himself to focus as he began to type commands for root access, bypassing layers of encryption in order to find what he needed.

Lines of code scrolled down the screen quickly as he eventually found what he needed. A file folder labelled "Closed Cases." He navigated through the subfolders as he scanned each one trying to find it. It wasn't going to be as simple as finding a folder labelled as "Grandfather's death." He typed in a search query with two simple words: "Bank" and "Victims."

... Many folders popped up. His eyes narrowed as he felt exhausted just by looking at it. It would take forever to get through all of these. He just needed to search harder and get more specific.

After nearly hitting dead ends and sifting through more files, he eventually came across a file marked under "Incident Report 36-A-NothernPS" of a long list, with it being the latest entry. He clicked on it as it opened up. None of it was redacted since it wasn't as important and also since PATRIOT didn't believe a single person would ever be able to get this far, especially for something like this. His eyes widened as he read the information. There it was, it told who died, his grandfather was under it alongside five other people with six more injured.

The more he read of the document, the more confused he felt. It told him that it was caused by three masked individuals under the suspected work of an evil organization headed by someone named "Emma."

That name sounded familiar somehow... Something about John Steele?

Well, it didn't matter; this person was going to pay… 10-fold. He presumed it was an evil genius just like the ones from 20 years ago.

No wonder.

He read more to see that the reason why they buried this information was to make sure no panic got out of an evil genius coming out once again and made a media suppression that was in full effect.

He was... unsure how to react to this news. On one hand he saw this as dumb; on the other, he saw their reasoning. Exiting out of the folder, he decided it was about time he left. There was nothing else for him to see or gain. He got a reason, a truth, and who to blame.

That was until his eye was caught by a file while he was exiting. A file called "Managed Eagle." He clicked on it and was taken aback by what he saw. It was moves in order to keep PATRIOT in power, ranging from keeping politicians in power by doing illegal re-election activities to bribery, espionage, and even orchestrations of "controlled crisis," all in order to keep a high public perception.

He felt sick, and his stomach turned inwards. How many people were involved in this? Was it just the higher-ups? Was it the entirety of PATRIOT? He felt his hand shake slightly as he tried to look for a USB to copy this all down.

The public needed to know. That was until he looked back up as a window popped up. It was an alert message.

Unauthorized access has been detected. Trace Initiated.

"Shit!" He let out quickly as he dropped the USB and quickly went to work. His hands flew over the keyboard at an incredibly fast pace as he began executing the escape protocols.

He would come back for that information later. The priority right now was to get out and wipe his presence as if he was never there. He closed connections, erased any backdoors he might have created, and masked all his activities.

Beads of sweat went down his forehead as the window of escape closed, becoming thinner and thinner as he made it to the final stretch as he quickly exited.

Connection Terminated.

He let out a breath as his mind spiralled trying to understand everything. There is an evil genius who has an organization on the loose, and PATRIOT is covering it up along with being corrupt.

Thinking he was in the clear, he leaned back in his chair as he gathered his thoughts while looking up at the ceiling of his apartment.

Suddenly, his cellphone buzzed as he picked it up, seeing that it showed an unknown number. He was hesitant but picked it up nonetheless.

An unknown voice began to talk from his cellphone. "Get out now."

He blinked a bit bewildered by the sudden order from this random number. "Wai—Wha-"

"You need to get out of your apartment and run. PATRIOT is currently tracing your location. They will be there soon." They quickly replied; he could tell she seemed to be in a bit of a panic.

This was all happening too soon. Who was this? "I'm sorry, who is th-."

"You know who this is. Run. Right. Now. I'll buy you some time." The other line quickly cut the call.

James stared at the phone as the feeling of being suffocated returned. He needed to run, and fast! He immediately grabbed his bag and began to fill it up with his phone, charger, books, laptop, flashlight, wallet, and a few clothes, all of which were put in haphazardly since he was panicking.

After he finished packing, he felt a bite at the back of his head, feeling like he was missing something as he looked at his computer as he realized what he was forgetting.

He quickly got out a USB before jamming it into the computer's port. With a couple of quick keystrokes, everything on the computer was erased as it was replaced with a labyrinth of digital walls, which would hopefully slow PATRIOT down for a bit.

Once it finished its download, he quickly yanked out the USB before spinning to the door and running out of his apartment.

This leads to the present, where he was currently getting chased by agents in a van behind his car. He realised that they were tracking him by his cellphone, so he had to discard it as well.

Eventually, once the van got close enough in the city chase, they shot his car's tires as he made a turn to the corner, and his car almost crashed into the wall as he hit the brakes. He quickly unbuckled his seat belt before running out the door with his bag on foot. He spotted an alleyway as he ran towards and into it to hide.

The problem was that the agents saw where he ran into as they parked the black van right outside the alleyway before stepping out.

"Target has hidden themselves inside an alleyway." One of the agents said to their earpiece as another looked around the alley, not seeing him yet.

He was currently hiding himself behind garbage and boxes. The last one stepped out of the car before speaking with a calm tone. "Look around. He couldn't have gotten far. He is probably hiding." They began searching for him as they stepped into the alleyway.

Should he just turn himself in? It's not like he really had anything to lose...

No.

If he learnt anything... this world was unfair, and his life could get a lot worse.

James saw that there was a metal pipe on the ground as he chuckled slightly at what he was about to do. It was stupid. He knew it. But he would be damned if he didn't go out swinging. He picked up the metal pipe as he swung it over his shoulders while putting his other hand on his side as he stood up before walking forward and turning to face the direction of the agents.

He was about to speak, but before he knew it, one of the agents took out a gun and shot him in the arm, making him drop the metal pipe as he gripped his arm. He watched his arm go limp as he wanted to scream, but the only thing that came out of his mouth when he opened it was nothing as he bit his tongue. The pain was excruciating, but he didn't want to scream since it would be useless, plus they might shoot him again in the head so no one can hear.

The agent who thought chuckled. "Heh. What do you think this is? A movie? You know it would have been much smarter to hide until we at least got close before coming out. Wait… were you about to monologue?"

After saying that, all of them burst out into laughter because of how stupid that was, as James only glared at them while wanting to scream in pain at the same time. One of them wiped a tear that formed as they finally got a little serious since they would need to wrap this up now. "Alright. You guys know what to do. Put a bag over hi-"

Before the agent could finish or react, he was bonked over the head with a baseball bat. The other agents turned to see what happened after hearing a loud BONK only to be met with a bat to the face. James watched on with shock as all three agents were knocked out. The same three agents that had been chasing him for days on end.

He looked to see who was holding the bat to see a male with black hair and pitch-black eyes dressed in an orange t-shirt with jeans. He seemed to have broad shoulders and was quite muscular from what he could tell from looking at his arms as he seemed to be talking to someone that was outside of his range. Who in the world was this, and why did they—?

His thought process was interrupted by the sharp pain brought about by the pain of his wound as he clutched it to stop any more bleeding since the bullet had fallen out. He gripped his wound before walking over towards them as quickly as they could, stumbling slightly.

"Hey! A little help?"

The black-haired anime-looking protagonist turned to face him while raising an eyebrow as another guy, who was slightly taller than the other along with being more lanky, leaned over to look at him as his eyes met with baby blue.

"Oh, hi." The white-haired stranger said in a strangely friendly voice before stating the most obvious thing that made him want to facepalm if his arm wasn't in pain. "It appears that you are bleeding out."

Ice and Johnathan POV:

After finishing the first half of Jonathan's training, they had arrived in the nearest city that just so happened to be only around 20 miles away. The next part of his training (that Ice made up) involved sneaking up on people.

He was doing pretty well with him sneaking on civilians and no one seeming to notice his presence as he made not a single sound until he appeared right behind them (safe to say, he only received nine calls from the police from other people). This was thanks to another weeklong training session after the break involving him stealing food from the table while Ice ate. Safe to say, only one wall broke during that entire training session.

Now they were walking down a path with both of them bored since Jonathan had passed, which meant his training was finally complete. All that was left was for him to keep training by himself to improve. Although Ice could teach him how to become a saboteur in order to cause damage to a base's generators. Maybe later, when he felt a little less lazy.

Johnathan held his hands at the back of his head with not much care in the world as Ice drank a chocolate milkshake from a place. Ice felt full, so he decided to put it in the "Infrost".

A device that made Johnathan question his reality since, unlike those devices used by worker minions that could only place one building at a time before zapping it back out with the device becoming somewhat heavy from the compressed mass, this device allowed the user to store in a small box, which could store anything until all 100x100m was filled up. Not only that, but the device didn't get any heavier and remained the same amount of weight no matter what, and when he took stuff out, they didn't regain their full weight until they were fully out of the box.

'What kind of cartoon bullshit was that!?' Was his first thought after witnessing a car come out of the box with Ice lifting it out with one hand that they used to drive here?

The question finally broke out of him. "Alright. How does the box work?"

"What?" He raised an eyebrow, slightly confused.

"Isaac. I am talking about that box. The "Infrost"." Or whatever he named that box. He also used Ice's fake name that he gave to him before leaving the safe home since he didn't want Ice to be used in public. He had picked it for no reason. He just liked the name for no reason. It just felt right. It wasn't his real name, although a small part of him thinks that Ice forgot his real name and just made up the name "Isaac Frost" to replace his original.

Isaac just looked at him for a couple of moments before he asked, "Do you really want to know? It's... pretty boring and long."

Jonathan narrowed his eyes at him. "Really? Boring? You took out an entire car out of a pocket-sized box. How in the world can THAT be boring?"

He was only met with a short laugh from Isaac (or Ice), who proceeded to give him a sidelong glance while smirking. "Alright. Don't say I didn't warn you. The Infrost relies on a principle that's called 'spatial compression via localized entropy dampening.' Basically, it fol-"

Isaac was interrupted by the sound of a car from behind them on the street rushing forward as the sounds of gunfire were heard as they quickly turned around to see a blue car racing past them and around the corner as the back wheels were deflated as the car passed the corner right before they heard a small crash.

A black van came as well, right after the blue car, as it turned the corner as well.

Isaac and Jonathan looked at each other before they ran forward as they poked their heads around the corner to see what was happening.

Agents of PATRIOT just got out of the van that was parked just outside as three stepped out, and the one that seemed to be the leader of the squad said, "The target has hidden themselves inside an alleyway." Into an earpiece on the ear that was barely visible from this distance.

"Should we... intervene?" Jonathan asked, unsure of the situation. For all he knew, this might just be a robber they might be chasing down.

Isaac thought about it before shrugging while taking out a wooden baseball bat from infrost and handing it to Jonathan. "Why not? Even if it's a criminal that they were chasing down, we can just knock them out and tie them up as well. Plus, this is a good time to test your sneaking skills on agents."

Jonathan wasn't sure how to feel about beating his former colleagues with a bat. All he could do was... enjoy it (?).

He slowly walked down the street as his feet made no sound as they seemed to have gone a bit into the alley as he heard gunfire, causing him to blitz forward a bit as he turned his head to peek in the alley just behind the agents.

What he saw was a short, brown-haired, skinny, bleeding man clutching his arm that was just fired at. The one that fired made a joke about how it wasn't a movie as all of them laughed as the man just glared at them. It reminded him too much of his... former college, PATRIOT. Stupidly pompous… well, not all of them, but now he was definitely going to enjoy this.

He rounded the corner without alerting them, as one of them was in the middle of talking. "Alright. You guys know what to do. Put a bag over hi-" He proceeded to bash him over the head with the bat. The other two quickly turned their heads and guns only to be met with a bat in the face as they met the same fate of being knocked out without knowing who attacked them.

Standing over the bodies of PATRIOT's members gave him a strange sense of pride. He had managed to outwit... well... no, he just jumped them, but they didn't see him, so he'll take this as a win.

Walking from behind was Isaac as he whistled while looking at the passed-out forms of the agents. "Nice. Guess this proves you pass sneaking corpses now. Good job."

Jonathan felt a smile creep up on him as he grinned while scratching his chin, "Oh, uhh, thanks?" It was strange having someone compliment him for once. Suddenly, both of their attentions were drawn away as they heard a call in front of them. "H-hey! Who are you!?"

'Oh yeah, the bleeding guy.' He felt like slapping his head; how did he forget about him? He raised an eyebrow as it appeared like Jonathan was slowly turning pale due to losing blood. They really needed to get patched up soon for that bullet wound.

Ice (Isaac) seemed to beat them to the punch as he gave him a friendly welcome... in the best way he could by pointing out the obvious. "Oh, hi. It appears that you are bleeding out."

Jonathan had to hold back his thoughts as he craned his head to look at his teacher while giving him the look. 'Yeah, no shit sherlock!'

The way he nonchalantly pointed out the injury as if he thought James couldn't tell he was injured didn't help. He felt both exasperated and amused as he gave him a blank look for that casual delivery of a hello.

James was still injured as he gritted his teeth seeing these two talking casually as he bled out. He could see the edges of his vision beginning to blur as he felt incredibly tired as he pushed through. He had to know who they were. 'NOT THE BEST THING TO DO WHEN YOU'RE LITERALLY BLEEDING OUT!' He felt his mind scream at him; the blood loss probably didn't help his thought process. "Who are you guys?" He repeated again even as his arm felt like it was on fire.

They both turned to look at him as their eyes widened, seeing as James was even paler than before.

"You look like you're about to pass out; sit down; you need to be wrapped up." Jonathan asked with concern while dropping the bat to the ground. This was a bullet wound after all; he really should have taken this more seriously, as the guy seemed like he was about to die.

Ice sighed while looking at him as he decided to help as he took out a first medical kit from his box, making James think he had lost too much blood and was starting to hallucinate as Ice began speaking. "Look, we just so happen to be passing by; now do you have any place we could pat-." He was interrupted as James quickly spoke almost in a panic. "NO! I can't. I ran and saw PATRIOT files... and..." James's eyes began to close as he collapsed, only for Jonathan to rush forward and quickly catch him.

Ice's eyes widen seeing this as he quickly rushes to Jonathan's and the man's side as he quickly begins to work on patching him up as Jonathan slowly lowers them down. He brought out more supplies from the box as he began by taking out the bullet, quickly stitching up the wound before cleaning it and applying a bandage over it.

Jonathan watched quite nervously seeing how much blood he had already lost. "Is he going to be alright?"

Ice chuckled as he slowly let out a breath while telling his condition. "No worries, he's alive, but we got to take him back with us, fast." He looked back at the knocked-out agents as his eyes narrowed slightly. "We can't exactly stay here since they will eventually wake up. Let's not also take into account if what he said was true, and he did look at Patriot's files; then more are probably on the way here soon."

Jonathan nodded. Made enough sense for him. "Back to the safe house I guess." He helped Ice lift the unconscious man as they walked out the alleyway.

...

He turned over in his bed slightly only to be met with discomfort in his right arm as he moved for some reason while he tried to go back to sleep. It's not like he had work... today?

A pause. His memory began to come back to him as he remembered what happened. The files, his job, the chase, and... them? He slowly opened his eyes only for it to be blurred and foggy, making him have to blink a couple of times until it cleared up a bit for him to realize he was staring at a wooden wall in front of him. It wasn't the usual blue paint that met his day when he was turned on his left.

This wasn't his house.

Where was he?

His body felt heavy as he turned over, facing the ceiling of the house; he now found himself wondering if he should run or not. He was in an unknown building with unknown people who could possibly have taken him here to harvest his organs or worse.

His mind tried to fill in the blanks of where he, as a theory, hit him.

'Wait... what if it was them?' The people that saved him-... help-... knocked out the people who were chasing him before arguing and watching him bleed out… although maybe he wasn't in the right state of mind there.

The drowsiness had begun to finally fade as some pain had begun to come to replace the numbness. He winced a bit as he took a look at where it was coming from. His arm, the place he was shot. His eyes raised a bit, he took a good look at where he was shot. The strange part was that it had been bandaged up, which made him pause before looking around more while taking the white blanket that was on him off.

He looked around as the door suddenly opened, making him tense as he watched as that white-haired guy from before came in.

They seemed to not notice him staring at them until they locked eyes, making him blink.

"Oh... you're awake." Their eyes seemed to dart to the side for a second as if he was looking at something but immediately looked back at him as he gave a kind smile, making his eyes look at where he was looking at only to see a wall as he stared back at him.

There was a silence until they broke it. "Is your arm alright?"

He hesitated, not sure if he should say it, but for some reason, that smile seemed to calm his nerves for some reason. "Yeah? It hurts to move still, but... Uhh… " He looks back at him. "Who are you?"

Hearing this question seemed to make them pause right before answering with a wink. "My name is Isaac, but you can just call me Ice. Agent Ice."

His eyes squinted. "Agent... Ice?"

"Yes." "Ice" nodded, agreeing with what was just said. 'His name is Isaac… well, his codename is and his real name was Isaac... hold on, why would he reveal his real name so sudde-... unless it isn't his real name!'

There was no way someone, especially an agent, would reveal their name immediately. It didn't help that he had never heard of this "Agent Ice" before either. He was obviously not a super or top agent. Hell, why should he believe he was even an agent? He and the other guy KNOCKED OUT AGENTS!

Then again, they did save him by knocking out said agents...

Hmm...

Agent Ice POV:

'All right, he is looking at me funny.' Ice noted while looking at the suspicious man they had just saved.

It was obvious they didn't trust him because of many, many reasons. That's going to be a problem if he was going to follow along with a plan he decided to create after "saving" him.

Ice decided to switch the tables around on him.

"Tell me, why were you getting chased by PATRIOT agents?" This made him stop his thought process while flinching back slightly before quickly firming himself back up quickly so Ice wouldn't notice.

Yet, Ice did, and that's all he needed to see.

Ice walked over before sitting on the side of the bed as he began to speak. "Actually, you don't need to tell me. After all, you already did." He looked at him out of the corner of his eye to observe them for any reactions to his next words. "PATRIOT files, was it?"

There was a silence as he simply continued not responding to his silence, taking it as a yes. "It seems I am correct. Also, if you wanted to know, you were passed out for half a day now."

"Of course. I am going to guess that PATRIOT is now targeting you for something you saw that you weren't supposed to in those files?"

Again, no answer, yet his silence said it all, not to mention the narrowing of his gaze.

Ice nodded to this silence. "Yes..." He closed his eyes while waiting a few seconds before turning to face him before giving him a warm smile. "You don't need to tell me, by the way."

His eyes seemed to widen for a moment as Ice quickly added on. "Oh, I just realized I never got your name. What is it?" He asked in a somewhat upbeat and cheerful manner.

"It's... Johnathan." Johnathan said slowly, unsure of himself.

"Well, Johnathan, I am here to offer you a deal. You see, I have this plan. To take down the Evil Geniuses in the world along with all the corruption in the Forces of Justice. In order to do that, I am building up a team while taking down criminals along the way." He extends his hand out to him.

Ice shrugs while also saying. "It's alright if you refuse, although I am not sure what PATRIOT would do to you or where you would go." He needed to make it feel like this was an option so he was more inclined to join while also reminding him of what will happen otherwise.

He knew what he was doing was… bad, but he needed as many people as possible right now since SYNDICATE had either abandoned him or put a hit on him, and there aren't many options like this around. Plus, if this guy somehow saw PATRIOT files, then he must have some sort of skill that could be useful to them.

Jonathan seemed to be in thought for a moment. He was wondering if Ice was a crazy person since those were two equally impossible tasks, and they wondered who exactly they were to even go about such a task. A moment longer, then they finally spoke. "Alright... but promise me this."

"Sure. What is it?" Ice agreed without hesitation. After all, whatever he asked, it couldn't be that hard to complete.

He seemed to hold back what he said for a moment before finally saying, "I need you to help me find a certain evil genius. I have some questions I need to ask them. Also, If I join you, you promise me that we won't stop until the truth about everything comes out. The Forces of Justice, the Evil Geniuses and any cover ups. If I join you, I want to see the truth and hold everyone responsible for whatever they have done. No cover ups and no half measures."

'Oh, that's certainly... interesting.'

A playful smirk crossed his face while considering the words.

He was going to take down all of the Evil Geniuses anyway, so why not. It was probably because they did something to ruin his life, and he wants justification as to why even though they probably don't even know him. Not only that but this guy seemed to have a very passionate fire in his heart as well as resolve Ice always tended to admire. With this he finally gave his answer.

"Alright, but you need to do something first."

His eye narrowed seeing how Ice readily agreed to his request and declaration. "What is it?"

"Oh, just some training."