Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ichor was tired. He was reading a book when his hero radio turned on to tell him to go to a house in Manberg, the second richest district of L’Mamberg city.
It wasn’t an emergency, nor a fight. Just some investigations shits he had to attend. He would have loved not to go, but his fath-... he meant Phil, forced him to go with him.

The old man was currently driving the car to the said location, dressed in his usual hero gear: a large green coat, a hat with a veil connected to it that hid his face, an armored black shirt, and pretty simple black pants which the right side of was covered by a sort of long half skir of color green that complimented his suit well.

Techno himself was in his hero gear as well. His famous red cape on his shoulders gave him an almost royal look. The old-fashioned clothes under it didn’t help wash this aristocratic look off of him. He had a white shirt with frilly sleeves and details, dark brown pants, and high boots of the same color. He also wore padded gloves and some protection at his wrist, shoulders, abdomen, knees, and ankles, all made in armored leather. But the most iconic thing about him, except his sword and cape, was his mask. A mask in the form of a pig’s skull that scared more than one child. ‘Good riddance,’ He always thought. ‘Children are too noisy and clingy. ’

The car came to a halt, snapping him back to reality. “Are you ready?” Phil inquired. Technoblade nodded, “Let’s get this done quickly; I was just about to read Theseus fight the Minotaur.” The elderly blond man chuckled in response, “Haven't you read it four times already ?”

“And your point is…?” Technoblade retorted bluntly.

Before Daedalus could respond to that, an officer approached them, greeting them with respect and explaining the situation as well as the reason for their presence.

“As you know, the crime rate has been increasing lately. We have more and more murders on our hands, along with some thieves and destruction of property.”
Phil nods.“We are aware, yes. But it’s not the first time that the crime rate has increased in history. The times are hard lately with the growing taxes. It was bound to happen.”

The officer nods, “Yes, but the thing is it’s not just basic crimes done by some amateurs. We have reasons to believe that some of the latest crimes are due to professionals in the matter.”
Techno’s ears perked up at this. Perhaps the fight of Theseus could wait, and may God forgive him for that outrageous statement.

“Professionals? What leads you to that conclusion?" Daedalus inquired, his tone now more serious.

"Follow me."

They complied, entering the house behind the officer. As the door swung open, Techno’s senses heightened at the overpowering scent of iron that filled the air.

“It’s in the room behind the couch there”.

The house was perfectly clean, with no furniture on the ground or traces of any sort. “Not a burglary for sure,” the pink-haired man noted in his mind.
As they get closer to the door, the scent worsens more and more.

Blood for the Blood God !

Violence

Fight

Blood for our God.

Ichor’s breath picked a bit, but the feeling of his fathe-... colleague’s touch made him snap out of it. He shook his head and silently told the Chat to shut up. Thankfully, they did, which was of rare occurrence. His voices were known to be quite stubborn, especially at the scent of blood. If they shut up compliantly, something big was about to happen.

The officer opened the door, letting the view open to a corpse leaning over a desk. The dead man was pale, his body swimming in a puddle of red.

“This is Oxilac Pierre.” The officer announces. “A businessman known to the police for suspicion of embezzlement and drug dealing. Death got him faster than justice, I’m afraid.”
Both the heroes nod, waiting for the man to continue.

The officer clears his throat before carrying on. “As you may see, the stab is too clean to be anything but deliberate and planned by someone who knew perfectly how to kill a man fast, without spilling too much blood. A vital was touched, but not one that bleeds a lot. And all that in one perfectly aimed strike-”

“The person had experiences,” Ichor concluded.

“That’s what we think. And it’s not the first victim like that; several similar cases have been reported across the capital. Although it rarely touches a high district like Esempi.”
“So that’s what you meant earlier,” Daedalus said as he looked around the room. “Do we have any other clues or hints ?”

The officer shook his head. “That’s all, Sir.”

Technoblade sighed. He already felt that this case would be a huge headache in the future…

Chapter Text

“The future headache” was exhausted beyond reason. He wanted to hit his head against the table as his English teacher kept rambling about some chick, who wanted to fuck her stepson or something. First they learnt about a guy who fuck his mom and now this. He was starting to think Mr Soot was obsessed with incest.

“It’s just mythology, Tommy, it’s not Mr Soot who chose the program.” He remembered Tubbo saying when he brought up how gross learning about family members liking each other was one day.

'School sucks,' he thought to himself.

He leaned his head against the table as he felt the lack of hours of sleep getting back at him. It had been a busy month for Tommy. One he’d rather forget about to fall in the arms of Morpheass (or Morpheis ? whatever) instead.

He was starting to drift off; he could feel it, but a sudden hand on his shoulder woke him up immediately.
“Welcome back, Tommy. It’s good to know that Pheadra is a nice bedtime story for you. But I’m afraid I can’t let you sleep on your table like that during my class.”
Mr Soot, was standing next to him, hand on his shoulder, eyes on him. The blond swore he could see amusement on his brown haired teacher’s face.

“I wasn't sleeping !” Tommy retorted immediately, “I was just resting my head on this table to euuuh.. concentrate better ! Of course, I wouldn’t want to focus on anything else but a story about incest, Mr Soot” He said with a forced grin.

The English teacher didn’t look so convinced by Tommy's answer, letting out a heavy sigh before gathering himself. “Really ?”

“Of course, nothing is more important to me than listening to Phedra’s incest story.” He said with fake enthusiasm.

Mr Soot sighs once again. Tommy might beat a record on this one. “It’s Phaedra, not ‘Phedra’ Tommy, and there is more to this story than Phaedra's love for her stepson you know ? That’s what we've been working on for a week now, you should know this.”

“Well, sorry that I’m too focused on the fact that this Phe-something is a fucking creep.”

“Tommy, language.” The young boy had to bite his lips to not chuckle at that. He swears he could almost hear his boss in his teacher right now.

But he couldn’t focus on that as Mr Soot continued, “And why do you think people decided to make a polemic story like this ?”

The teenager thought for a second before shrugging. “Dunno, maybe because they were freaks who liked these kinds of shits ?”
He swore he could hear some chuckles from some of his fellow classmates as some just sent him judging or annoyed glares at his dumb answer. At the corner of his eye, he could see Tubbo, who was sitting next to him, hiding his face in his hands with a sigh like he was done with the young boy’s stupidity.

The teacher also looked done on Tommy as he pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head with disapproval. “No. Come on, Thomas, I know you’re more intelligent than that, think about it for real.”

And Tommy couldn’t lie and said he didn’t feel a warm feeling in his chest at the praise. His literature teacher was…odd. Not in a bad way, but he was more persevering with him than any other teacher. They had given up on Tommy a long time ago, but not Mr Soot. And it was enough for the young blond to put more effort into his class even if he hated the subject.

So he thought about the question, for real this time. He couldn’t see why someone would do a story like this. It’s so disgusting and unpog. Except if the goal was to make people vomit, it seemed pointless. But the teenager had to admit it would be a good way to make the story stick with people

"It’s to catch people better, isn’t it ?” He tries “Like, loving your stepson is gross, so if you hear a story like this, you’re more inclined to think about it and for it to stay in your head because, well, I dunno. It’s disgusting, so it stays in your head or something.”

Silence. His classmates looked at him weirdly while Mr Soot’s face lit up with an expression Tommy couldn’t recognize but looked close to pride. It would be dumb of the teen to assume it’s that, though.

“That’s great, Tommy. It’s not exactly that, but you got the main idea. See ? When you focus for once, you’re as capable as anyone else.”
And if the student was caught grinning at that, he would deny it to his grave.

“To answer better and for all the class to get it. The reason why, in myth, some characters are rather strange, uncommon, or ‘weird’ is to make a bigger impact. You have to remember that these myths were made to teach lessons and define rules. Making stories like Pheadra taught lessons and morals because stories spread fast and stayed in your head, even more so if there are moments with unusual or problematic behavior or situations. Your brain will remember it because it shocked you. Most of these lessons in the myth were about respecting the Gods and…”

Mr Soot went back into a speech about the story that Tommy focused on for 5 minutes before he wanted to hit his head on his table. But if class was a headache, it wasn’t worse than what Tommy’s post-school activity consisted of.

o0o

Like every other Monday, Tubbo had D&D, which made Tommy walk back home alone. Something he didn’t particularly enjoy since Pogtopia, the district where their apartment was, was full of assholes who wouldn’t hesitate to mug two teenagers, so one alone… Let’s just say he clung to his knife pocket whenever he was outside around here.

After the long 10 minutes of train and a 20-minute walk, he was finally home.

It was a small apartment with four rooms: a main room that housed the kitchen and living room, a bathroom, and two bedrooms. It wasn’t much, but it was acceptable. They had warm water, electricity, an internet connection, and, most importantly, the fridge was always well-stocked. A luxury for two underage teenagers in the second most crapy district, really.

Finding money in their situation was hard. No one wanted to hire minors, even less diplomaless ones coming from a poor background, except maybe owners of small coffee shops or convenience stores coming from the same district or lower. But they couldn’t afford to pay their employees much if they wanted to keep their business stable.
So even if the two teenagers were to work extra hours there, it wouldn’t be enough to cover half of their rich-ass fucker school fees. Thank you, class disparities.

Legal jobs out of the way, Tommy did what any person would do to sustain their needs: he became a mercenary.

Okay, maybe not everyone would do that… But everyone needs a job, don’t they ? It’s not because the teenager had a bit of blood on his hands and a huge criminal record that his work wasn’t valid. Politicians and Heroes do the same, and no one bats an eye.

If you asked Tommy’s opinion, they were just being discriminatory. Which wasn’t very pog of them by the way. Maybe he should go protest about that in the streets… But it might be hard to do so while keeping his secret identity.
Whatever.

It was time for work.

Chapter Text

Tommy’s suit was discreet.

His bodysuit was made with a padded fabric that made him look thicker than he really was. It was decorated with red details, such as a disc-like shape on his shoulders and on his belt, which contained close pockets where his knife and his communicator lay. But that wasn’t his only storage compartment in his suit, as he had one pocket on the external side of both of his legs, a sleeveless garnet red jacket that had inner and external pockets, and one more hidden one in his back under the red piece of clothe where he kept a lame able to cut through any ropes and even thin metal (just in case).

He was pretty proud of how identity-concealing his suit turned out to be, thanks to his boots that raised him enough for him to gain a few inches, but not enough to compromise his balance. And of course, also thanks to the black mask he had, going from his neck to his nose, which was fuking dope in his opinion, because not only did it hide his face, but it could also filter the air in case of a toxic gas. And it was padded so a hit in the face wouldn’t break his nose or hurt too badly.

He really didn’t understand why no one ever did that with their mask. Maybe he was a freaking genius. Even the members of his guild changed their masks to have the same properties as Tommy’s once they heard about it.

But that wasn’t all. He also had goggles and two hoods, one coming from his suit that clung to his head and a second, more loose, but attached at his neck, thanks to two buttons, coming from his sleeveless jacket, because only XD knows how easy it is for someone to just grab your hood and reveal your hair to the world. And even though it wasn’t as harmful as his face being revealed, he couldn’t risk anyone seeing any of his features. He couldn’t.

Some thought he was paranoid, and to that Tommy answered, “We’ll see whose ass is behind bars first.” Which, weirdly enough, didn’t bring nice reactions from his interlocutors.

Back to what he was doing, he just got hold of the asshole he needed to dispatch, a certain “Etoile Rayou” or something ? His name sounded French, so it was one more reason for Tommy to finish the job. But as he approached his knife to his target’s neck, a snarky voice behind him startled him.

“Am I interrupting ?”

In the doorway stood a man with brown curls, wearing a large dark blue coat that was golden at its extremities. The coat was closed at the top but open at the bottom, which contradicted the law of normal fucking coats. He also had a thick belt, which probably held potions and a pair of handcuffs if Tommy had to guess.
His trousers were black and large, and he had boots of the same color.

To conceal his identity, the man had a dark blindfold on his face, which Tommy couldn’t tell if it was of a very dark blue or black, just like he couldn’t comprehend how the fucker could see with that shit.

It wasn’t hard to recognize the top 4 hero that the boy could never remember the name of for some reason.

“Achlys, right ?” That snapped Tommy out of his inner inspecting session. “I imagined you more impressive.” The man approached casually while talking. His posture contrasted with his words, which held a heavy tone. “I mean, it’s not all the time that a new villain manages to beat the second-best hero without being completely wrecked. Dolos isn’t someone who loses easily, especially this badly.”

Achlys approached the knife to the man's throat while looking at the hero, who stopped approaching at that.

“Maybe he just sucks, and the other guys he fought sucked even more.”

“Hmm, Maybe.” He agreed in a tone Tommy couldn’t describe as anything but amusement. Which was strange coming from someone like him. Heroes usually had a stick in the ass.

After a bit of consideration, Achlys added: “And I’m not a villain.”

The hero looked at him, then looked at the terrified, soon-to-be-dead man in his grip. Even if he couldn’t clearly see the hero's face, he could sense he was raising his eyebrow.
“Hm hmm.. I can see that…”

The ironic tone started to piss him off, even if he could see his point, “I’m serious. I’m a mercenary, not a villain.”

The brown-haired man’s position suddenly shifted from casual to more careful. And that’s when Tommy realized he was holding his knife a bit too close to his target’s throat. He almost loosened his hold before the hero started talking again, this time with more placidity.

And how Achlys hated how he was acting like he was a time bomb, even if it was less confusing than his earlier act.

“Okay, Achlys.” He bends his knees to be at the mercenary’s height while holding out his hands like someone would do to appease a wild animal. “I don’t want to ruin your evening or anything, but I’d recommend you let go of that man.”

“No”

“What ?” the hero exclaimed, clearly not expecting the blunt answer. That gave back some confidence to Tommy..

“I said no. What are you gonna do about it, huh ?”

The hero looked at him with the most “duh” expressions ever while pointing at himself, “I’m the top 4 hero ?”

“Nuh uh”

The hero completely lost his composure after that. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'NUH UH' ?”

“I mean, nuh uh. What ? Do you want it in Spanish? Non on”

“That’s not even…” He sighs. “Whatever.” He slowly got out a spear, probably thinking he was sleek about it. “Let him go now.”

That’s when Achlys knew he was about to be fucked, so in an instant of urgency, he slashed the man’s throat, before the hero could move, cringing at how messy he did the job this time, and threw the corpse at the bitch (That he still couldn’t remember the name of for XD’s sake) and ran for his life.

The hero let out the least manliest scream known in history, which, honestly, if he wasn’t in direct danger of being arrested, he would have laughed his ass off cause the hero’s voice sounded so dumb.
But it was soon followed by a loud “FUCK” and the sounds of hurried stomps coming after him. That was less fun

He rushed faster than before, making as many turns as he could, but no matter where he went, the harsh stamp sounds never faded in the distance. And since life was a bitch who liked to spit on him, he came face to face with an unplanned obstacle, a dead end with only a window.
He could jump, but they were like 15 meters off the ground, and Tubbo would kill him if he came back in pieces. Oh fuck Tubbo was going to kill him if he finished on the news again.

And of course, before he could go back to find an exit, the hero appeared on the doorstep, blocking his way and breathing like air would be ripped away from him in 3 seconds.

“Here you are !” He breathed, “-surrender, and this will go smoothly.”

His voice’s tone didn’t convey that it would go smoothly for him if he surrendered, quite the opposite, actually, with how pissed and more serious than ever the hero looked. Too serious for Tommy’s tastes.

He looked through the window again, and yep, the ground was still very far away from here; that didn’t change. Shit.

“Don’t be dumb, Achlys. It’s over now.”

And how it shows this fucker really didn’t know shits about him, because Tommy had a very contradictory mind, so of course he would do the opposite as he’s told and be dumb, which is why before his survival instinct could interrupt him, he jumped.

“WHAT THE FUCK!”

And for once since a long time, Tommy agreed with a hero.